The power of words
A word after a word after a word is power.
Author: DJB
Not Your Summer Reading List
Summer reading lists can be fun. I’ve enjoyed compiling my annual list since I started this blog ten years ago. I also enjoy reading lists developed by others, as you often get insights into both great new books and the thoughts of the individual who passes along recommendations. My criteria for good summer reading lists include: they must be focused on a short period of time when the compiler is away (e.g., for an August vacation), and the reading can’t be too heavy, as there are 10 other months to read tomes about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. What follows is not a summer reading list. I’ve fallen so far behind in updating readers about the books I’ve found interesting, challenging, refreshing, and—yes—troublesome that I’ve decided to take a Twitter-like approach and provide two-four sentence summaries of everything I’ve read between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year. Since I can’t remember the order in which I read them, I’m listing them in alphabetical order (by author). Let me know …
Pacific Grove-by-God
For several years I’ve regularly traveled for work to Monterey, California, a small coastal city some two hours south of San Francisco. So when we went looking for a west coast destination for this year’s family vacation, I suggested we check out the Monterey Peninsula. Now that we’ve wrapped up a week-long visit to Pacific Grove—next-door neighbor to the city of Monterey—we’re just coming to realize how much we’ve seen and explored in this new (to us) part of the world. Let’s begin with the coastline, the attraction to visitors for thousands of years. I awoke every day shortly after 6 a.m. and went for walks of as much as two hours along the well-used (and well-loved) Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. Pacific Grove’s portion of this 18-mile trail, which follows the path of the old Southern Pacific Railroad train tracks, hews close to the water and rock-strewn coastline, while Monterey’s comes inland a bit to incorporate Cannery Row, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Fisherman’s Wharf. My walk often began before sunrise and was shrouded in …
Finding perspective
I recently asked my colleague Priya Chhaya to open a retreat with a reflection on changing perspectives. We were discussing a familiar theme, the future of the American city, in an unexpected place—in this particular case, under the night sky in the American west. For one of the readings, she chose the Sylvia Plath poem Stars Over Dordogne, calling out the second verse in particular: “Where I am at home, only the sparsest stars Arrive at twilight, and then after some effort. And they are wan, dulled by much travelling. The smaller and more timid never arrive at all But stay, sitting far out, in their own dust. They are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost. But tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble, They are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.” Priya noted that when in a city, which is home for many of us, you often only see what is right in front of you: the buildings, the roads, the cars, the noise, the obvious density. But a …
Plans vs. Planning
This is my season for strategic planning. Last week I spent a full day with our colleagues at the National Trust Historic Site Filoli for their strategic planning retreat. As you read this, I’m on a plane for another retreat with 20 team members designed to scale up one of our most important organizational initiatives. When I return, I have a half-day financial planning retreat set for early August. That’s a lot of planning! There are some who say that strategic plans are useless. They generally throw around the phrase “no plan survives contact with the enemy,” which is a popular adaptation of a phrase uttered by Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, also known as Moltke the Elder. He was a German Field Marshal who lived between 1800 and 1891 and is credited with creating a new approach to directing armies in the field. This entailed developing a series of options rather than simply a single plan. Note that he didn’t stop planning. He simply recognized that in changing environments, you need options and …
Baseball at (or just past) the break
NOTE: This was a post I meant to finish a week ago. Then life intervened. In the past three weeks I’ve checked two items off my baseball bucket list and saw the most amazing comeback in my 40+ years of watching this always fascinating sport. We’re now a little more than a week past the all-star break, the traditional midway point of the baseball season, so it seems appropriate to unleash a few thoughts on you, dear readers, in reverse chronological order to the way they happened. The All-Star Game is Great Fun: Washington hosted the 2018 MLB All-Star Game at Nationals Park earlier this month. Almost by a fluke Andrew and I scored great seats. A colleague — who is British — was given two tickets by a former colleague of his from National Geographic. (Remember that Nat Geo is now owned by FOX, which was televising the game.) Not caring a great deal for the American pastime, he offered them up to me. For free! Which is how Andrew and I landed in …
Collaboration moves at the speed of trust
Earlier this month I attended a conference where speaker after speaker inspired the attendees while addressing some of the key issues of our time. My notebook was filled with thoughts and information. However, one note — a Chris Thompson quote — stood out for me above all the rest. “Collaboration moves at the speed of trust.” This simple assertion has been playing around in my mind ever since. More than two decades ago, I recall sitting in a meeting where I asked a colleague why she was not engaging others in the organization on a particular project. Her response was, “I don’t trust them to do the job to the standard I want.” It struck me as a telling remark on a number of levels, but this long-ago exchange was one of the first thoughts that came into my mind when I heard Chris Thompson’s quote. This colleague — a wonderful person who now runs a successful one-person consulting firm — was upfront in admitting her lack of trust. And that lack of trust meant that she was not going to …
Resilience
There’s an old saying that goes, “The only constant in the world is change.” That may be hard for some in historic preservation to accept, but I’ve often said that our job as preservationists isn’t to block change, but instead to work to manage the type of future—and communities—we want. I was thinking recently about the concept of resilience when facing change. Author Kathleen Smith has suggested that “Many people spend a great deal of time and energy trying to avoid change, but it will inevitably catch up to them.” When building personal strategies for strengthening resilience, she begins with the Stephen Covey construct of the ”Circle of Concern/Circle of Influence”, urging us to focus on what we can control. She also encourages her readers to check their thought patterns. “In times of change, it’s easy for your mind to cut corners. You might see everything in black or white, or you assume the worst will occur. But if you take the time to examine your thought patterns and assess how rational they are, you …
Be present when serendipity strikes
You’ll never know that one of your guitar heroes is sitting in the seat next to you if you don’t take your head out of your phone or computer.
Freedom
Walking back from today’s July 4th parade in Takoma Park, I overheard two women — both wearing an “I Care Do U” sticker — talking about the diversity seen in this progressive enclave from the participants in this most all-American of holidays. There’s your medical marijuana advocates, Christian evangelicals, 9/11 truthers, Republican and Democratic candidates for county executive, the First Panamanian Marching Band of Maryland, Doggie Washerette, the MAGA (Mobsters are Governing America) PAC, all the public works vehicles (love the lawn mower guy spinning around in circles), Boy and Girl Scouts, the Intergalactic Female Motorcycle Federation, the Silver Spring Yacht Club, and the Takoma Park Lesbians and Gays all mixed together. And don’t forget about the Reel Mower Precision Drill Team. There’s a lot of chatter in the right wing entertainment universe these days about political correctness shutting down free speech. But today’s experience in Takoma Park shows that this narrative about the progressives not hearing from different voices isn’t necessarily true. Everyone had their say, everyone was treated with respect (if some were …
MORE TO COME... 