Chicken Little - Story 🏊🚴🏻🙏🏻🏃🏻‍♀️

Hey… ✨💖

I’m glad you’re reading this … 

Yikes! The Sky is Falling!!! 

Chicken Little - Story

“It’s not me,

I didn’t do it.”

Chicken Little likes to walk in the woods. 

She likes to look at the trees. 

She likes to smell the flowers. 

She likes to listen to the birds singing. 

One day while she is walking an acorn falls from a tree, 

and hits the top of her little head. - 

My, oh, my, the sky is falling. 

I must run and tell the lion about it, - 

says Chicken Little and ...

Remember, training for an Ironman not only impacts physical wellbeing; IM training impacts ALL areas in life. This is why you will see stories beyond training for the ironman. Training for the ironman is a MENTAL game and in my book, it is almost 50% mental and the rest physical. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.  Enjoy...

Right now, it appears that society is preoccupied with debating many issues, for better or worse. This complicates things; but in a way, it helps me in my job. We will meet these challenges head-on; along with, changing needs of the American public, and I can make minor adjustments in my company.  

Now onto what matters to me and what I can change. There’s this guy at work, who thinks he “has the upper hand.” He believes that it’s okay to raise his voice at people, blame people and belittle people in meetings. In his eyes, it’s always someone else fault, never his. Sometimes, he even “Throws People Under the Bus” in front of the clients we serve. He has a way of “going around” to people’s backs, talks to their managers and connivingly discusses how he says “The people are doing things wrong.” Or “In the wrong.” Basically saying the people are “Bad people.” It’s demoralizing and humiliating. 

In the industry where I work, there is a lot of senior “Titles” to ensure authority. And typically, people who have been with the company 20+ years get a Senior Vice President title, just because. And there are many VP’s.  Well, this guy, whether he earned them or not, has a Senior VP title even though he is not a VP in his role in the work he does. 

In my current role, they continue to give me very challenging programs to run. Those that manage 3 or 4 external clients along with trying to achieve what the main client purchases from us, along with merging companies together where people are “let go” or quitting on a dimes notice.  So, there is a lot of shuffling and reshuffling around.

I am the type person who ends up getting pretty kicked around, because they give me the hardest programs/projects to manage. I don’t mind, because I’ve been through it all, in many states, companies, cultures! You name it, I probably was there working it. (Ha ha) 

This is how I describe my journey:

It’s like I’m in the middle of a hurricane, in other words “shit-storm,” where I boldly walk one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, while water, wind, chairs and other strange things are swirling around me. With one hand to hold my hair down on my head and out of my face; and the other hand slightly sheltering my eyes, so that I can see.  I stand tall, push hard through the wind, knowing I will get to the other side.

This is what I deal with every day in my job.  It’s VERY messy. 

In the end, when I come to the end; things are smoothed out. People are better for it, I’m a better person from it. 

The storm, subsides. 

The sun comes out, the birds sing.

And I walk merrily onward.

In this journey, where I am at right now, the situation gets quite tense. What’s good about it though, is that people are coming to rally around me as I work through the framework I setup. My framework(s) I put in place really work. (I should have a patent on them, ha-ha). And I design from my gutt, my 30 years of experience on the job, deciding which framework I will use. It depends on risk or chaotic environments, even companies merging; which, needs a very strong communication framework.  Sometimes frameworks don’t work, especially when you have managers playing against you like this. But, luckily, I have a supportive boss, who offered to “listen in” as a “silent partner” on calls, to see if anything out of the ordinary comes up.

Wouldn’t you have it, the first call I included my boss in, the manager raised his voice to one of my innocent team members. I tell you, it FEELS like such a slam when he does this. My hairs on the back of my neck stand up. 

I maintained professionalism and a positive voice, and the team took ownership of the items we talked about, even the manager took his item! And we moved forward.

After the call, the “damming manger” reached out to get “my advice” before he followed through his assignment from the meeting. I hesitated to have a call by myself with him, because he’s yelled at me and forced blame on me several times before. He proceeds to call me, saying, “I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but…. (Da da da etc.).” And he said, “It’s not your fault we are going through this, fill in the blank.” Strange thing is. I never thought of fault at all. Only in his mind. It’s interesting where people come from. My guess is my “Silent partner” had a word (or two) with him.

It’s sad that we have to deal with this type of person and his senior executives cannot acknowledge that this man is behaving bad and his  unprofessional behavior can be seen by other, even the client. His behavior has lasted far too long and no one seems to want to do anything about it. 

It just adds more stress, more work and a lot of anxiety. 

As you know, I like to write, so I document every scenario and place it in a confidential lessons learned folder. A lot of times this gives me time to reflect and see how I can approach things better. It also allows me to look at the situation through other people’s ‘eye’s’, from different people’s perspective. It’s like looking at it from the Senior Executives perspective, who cares about corporate business impact and growth. I do write from all angles. It helps in many ways.

That is what I’m dealing with at the moment.

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Home is where your story begins!! 

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