Newtown Shooting Recovery

I will deviate from the normal structure of my blogs to discuss the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last week. It has been the sole topic of discussion over the past couple of days and I suspect will be for days and weeks to come. This event has touched everyone across the world because of the age of the victims, and rightfully so. As such, everyone is grieving and this grieving will not stop magically the moment you step in the office today. How to deal with this grief is getting little attention and in some cases the advice is conflicting. For example, one of my good friends received a letter from his kids’ Principal instructing parents to avoid discussing the issue. Yet another Principal of another school encouraged parents to discuss it. Who is right?

Defensive or Offensive Career?

I had lunch recently with a friend in a career transition mode. I am no career coach and this topic was not the subject of our lunch, but my EQ instincts convinced me that irrespective of what the formal agenda was, his next career move was top of mind to him and nothing else we would discuss would really be of any substance. So I asked him what it is he wanted to do moving forward. He shared a very insightful point of view on his career.