Staff Encouragement Quotes

It remains one of the great inequalities of the world that some children are born light years ahead of others. They may come from more stable homes, from wealthy homes, from homes with cleaners and domestic staff, cooks and tutors. Everything is easier, more streamlined, more conducive to educational and career success. Others will come from one-bedroom huts with no running water and no electricity, little chance of a good education, and little time to do anything besides work. The child born into a rich family will, no doubt, progress at a faster rate and develop the sort of self-assurance that comes from stability. This is the case wherever you’re from; it is as true of communist societies as it is of capitalist ones. I have travelled the world and seen these inequalities. I have witnessed the problems such different starting blocks can bring. But if I’ve learned anything, it is that success is possible, whatever your situation and however your life begins. I hope that this story, my story, will prove inspirational and that it will encourage others to dream big, take a plunge, use whatever resources are available. If a small poor boy fishing for prawns on a lake in Ningbo can do it, then so can you.

here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you.” He placed in Milo’s breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own. Then, with a last word of encouragement, he and the Dodecahedron (who was simultaneously sobbing, frowning, pining, and sighing from four of his saddest faces) made their farewells and watched as the three tiny figures disappeared into the forbidding Mountains of Ignorance.

Good attitudes are contagious; they inspire and encourage others. Bad attitudes are also contagious; they create a negative and hostile work environment and make others feel uncomfortable - like they have to walk on eggshells all the time.

Finally, pay attention to the orders themselves—their form as well as their substance. Vague orders are worthless. As they pass from person to person, they are hopelessly altered, and your staff comes to see them as symbolizing uncertainty and indecision. It is critical that you yourself be clear about what you want before issuing your orders. On the other hand, if your commands are too specific and too narrow, you will encourage people to behave like automatons and stop thinking for themselves—which they must do when the situation requires it. Erring in neither direction is an art.

He was a large, austere man, and I judge difficult of approach to his subordinates. To be extolled by the entire press of the South after every engagement, and by a portion of the press North with equal vehemence, was calculated to give him the entire confidence of his troops and to make him feared by his antagonists. It was not an uncommon thing for my staff-officers to hear from Eastern officers, “Well, Grant has never met Bobby Lee yet.” There were good and true officers who believe now that the Army of Northern Virginia was superior to the Army of the Potomac man to man. I do not believe so, except as the advantages spoken of above made them so. Before the end I believe the difference was the other way. The Army of Northern Virginia became despondent and saw the end. It did not please them. The National army saw the same thing, and were encouraged by

Charity staff also kept up the hospital routine despite the bizarre conditions. They kept patients in their rooms, continued to provide services like physical and occupational therapy, and encouraged workers to maintain shifts and a regular sleep schedule. This signaled that the situation was under some degree of control and kept panic to a minimum. There was an active effort to stem rumors. “You can only say it if you’ve seen it,” staff were told. Perhaps most important, Charity’s leaders avoided categorizing a group of patients as too ill to rescue. The sickest were taken out first instead of last.

can …’ As I listened, I looked up at the white clouds drifting past. Finally, they had opened – it had started to snow – snowflakes were falling outside. I opened the window and reached out my hand. I caught a snowflake. I watched it disappear, vanish from my fingertip. I smiled. And I went to catch another one. Acknowledgements I’m hugely indebted to my agent, Sam Copeland, for making all this happen. And I’m especially grateful to my editors – Ben Willis in the United Kingdom and Ryan Doherty in the United States – for making the book so much better. I also want to thank Hal Jensen and Ivàn Fernandez Soto for their invaluable comments; Kate White for years of showing me how good therapy works; the young people and staff at Northgate and everything they taught me; Diane Medak for letting me use her house as a writing retreat; Uma Thurman and James Haslam for making me a better writer. And for all their helpful suggestions, and encouragement, Emily Holt, Victoria Holt, Vanessa Holt, Nedie Antoniades, and Joe Adams. Author Biography Alex Michaelides read English at Cambridge University and screenwriting at the American Film Institute. He wrote the film Devil You Know starring Rosamund Pike, and co-wrote The Con is On. His debut novel, The Silent Patient, is also being developed into a major motion picture, and has been sold in thirty-nine territories worldwide. Born in Cyprus to a Greek-Cypriot father and English mother, Michaelides now lives in London, England.

Of course a degree of competence is needed, and few jobs are entirely brainless, but supposedly knowledge-intensive organisations are often crowded with people with limited emotional and practical intelligence. These smart people may avoid careful analytical processes and instead rely on fast and frugal mental rules of thumb to get the job done. What’s more, many firms actively encourage employees not to exert their intelligence overmuch. They push smart people into dumb jobs, swamp staff with information, enforce behavioural scripts that are followed mindlessly, encourage colleagues to avoid addressing tough questions, and incentivise experts and amateurs alike to be ignorant. As a result organisations can often help to encourage remarkably bright people to do stupid things.

Several recent studies (Bliss, 1980; Boon & Draijer, 1993a; Coons & Milstein, 1986; Coons, Bowman, & Milstein, 1988; Putnam et al., 1986; Ross et al., 1989b) are largely consistent in terms of the general trends that they demonstrate. At the time of diagnosis (prior to exploration) approximately two to four personalities are in evidence. In the course of treatment an average of 13 to 15 are encountered, but this figure is deceptive. The mode in virtually all series is three, and median number of alters is eight to ten. Complex cases, with 26 or more alters (described in Kluft, 1988), constitute 15-25% of such series and unduly inflate the mean. Series currently being studied in tertiary referral centers appear to be more complex still (Kluft, Fink, Brenner, & Fine, unpublished data). This is subject to a number of interpretations. It is likely that the complexity of the more difficult and demanding cases treated in such settings may be one aspect of what makes them require such specialized care. It is also possible that the staff of such centers is differentially sensitive to the need to probe for previously undiscovered complexity in their efforts to treat patients who have failed to improve elsewhere. However, it is also possible that patients unduly interested in their disorders and who generate factitious complexity enter such series differently, or that some factor in these units or in those who refer to them encourages such complexity or at least the subjective report thereof.

Obama’s father had studied in a missionary school and was working as a clerk in Nairobi. He was encouraged to come to America for further study by two missionary women, Helen Roberts and Elizabeth Mooney, who were living at the time in Kenya. In Obama’s Selma narrative, this was made possible by the Kennedy family. “What happened in Selma, Alabama, and Birmingham also, stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House,” he said. “The Kennedys decided we’re going to do an airlift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country.” Soon after that Obama got married and “Barack Obama Jr. was born.... So I’m here because somebody marched. I’m here because you all sacrificed for me.” Except that the Kennedys had nothing to do with Obama’s father coming to America. As Obama’s staff eventually acknowledged, Obama Sr. arrived here in 1959. John F. Kennedy was elected president the following year.1 The two American teachers who had encouraged Obama Sr. to make the trip paid his travel costs and the bulk of his expenses. There was an airlift, organized by the Kenyan labor leader Tom Mboya with financial support from a number of American philanthropists. It brought several dozen African students to America to study, but Barack Obama Sr. did not come on that plane. Rather, he came on his own and enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.2 Moreover, the march in Selma occurred in March 1965, while Obama Jr. was born in August 1961; Selma had nothing to do with the circumstances of Obama’s birth.

But perhaps the best and most memorable way to explain the conflict that arose between honoring traditional honor, and honoring one’s individual psyche, can be conveyed in a story from World War II. In 1943, coming off his dazzling victories in the Sicily campaign, George S. Patton stopped by a medical tent to visit with the wounded. He enjoyed these visits, and so did the soldiers and staff. He would hand out Purple Hearts, pump the men full of encouragement, and offer rousing speeches to the nurses, interns, and their patients that were so touching in nature they sometimes brought tears to many of the eyes in the room. On this particular occasion, as Patton entered the tent all the men jumped to attention except for one, Private Charles H. Kuhl, who sat slouched on a stool. Kuhl, who showed no outward injuries, was asked by Patton how he was wounded, to which the private replied, “I guess I just can’t take it.” Patton did not believe “battle fatigue” or “shell-shock” was a real condition nor an excuse to be given medical treatment, and had recently been told by one of the commanders of Kuhl’s division that, “The front lines seem to be thinning out. There seems to be a very large number of ‘malingerers’ at the hospitals, feigning illness in order to avoid combat duty.” He became livid. Patton slapped Kuhl across the face with his gloves, grabbed him by his collar, and led him outside the tent. Kicking him in the backside, Patton demanded that this “gutless bastard” not be admitted and instead be sent back to the front to fight. A week later, Patton slapped another soldier at a hospital, who, in tears, told the general he was there because of “his nerves,” and that he simply couldn’t “stand the shelling anymore.” Enraged, Patton brandished his white-handled, single-action Colt revolver and bellowed: Your nerves, Hell, you are just a goddamned coward, you yellow son of a bitch. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won’t have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying…You’re a disgrace to the Army and you’re going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed, but you’re going to fight. If you don’t I’ll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact I ought to shoot you myself, you God-damned whimpering coward.

Keep in mind that if God waited until we were perfect before He allowed us to be in His service, none of us could ever serve. We shouldn't use this truth as a cop-out to not change out improve, but to encourage us to keep striving when we're tempted to quit, remembering we've all got room to grow.

Have you adopted any new ideas or practices generated by your staff and lawyers? Yes. In the pricing area, our policy is that if you come up with a new way to price with the customer, then do it. The young people have come up with ways to use Twitter, for example, to keep up with customers. That comes from the younger people, not from my generation. Over the past fifteen years, we’ve had lots of contributions from staff to keep our model and practices up to date and responsive. Everyone takes this seriously. A couple years ago, someone on staff was talking about a late-night brief or a big project, and two to three other legal assistants stayed until midnight to help this person out. They coined the phrase, “The Summit team runs toward the fire.” If I’m doing something that requires a late-night effort, I don’t have to go to anyone to get permission for help and work and support from others. Another person who doesn’t have anything on the case will run to the project to help out. That happens every single day. The staff sees a problem someone else has, and they run to the problem to help out. This stuff just happens. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. Many years ago, someone sent an email thanking other people for helping. No one officially adopted the practice, but somebody did it, and it was rewarded, and now whenever someone does something they should be congratulated for, someone sends an email to everyone in the firm praising the efforts of that person to everyone else in the firm. Those emails fly around Summit on a daily basis. That has the impact of encouraging supportive behavior and making it part of the way Summit operates.

February 14 MORNING “And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.” — 2 Kings 25:30 JEHOIACHIN was not sent away from the king’s palace with a store to last him for months, but his provision was given him as a daily pension. Herein he well pictures the happy position of all the Lord’s people. A daily portion is all that a man really wants. We do not need tomorrow’s supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in the month of June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive we shall never know want. Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy. We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day’s supply of food and raiment; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveller, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden. Enough is not only as good as a feast, but is all that the veriest glutton can truly enjoy. This is all that we should expect; a craving for more than this is ungrateful. When our Father does not give us more, we should be content with his daily allowance. Jehoiachin’s case is ours, we have a sure portion, a portion given us of the king, a gracious portion, and a perpetual portion. Here is surely ground for thankfulness. Beloved Christian reader, in matters of grace you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength. Day by day must you seek help from above. It is a very sweet assurance that a daily portion is provided for you. In the word, through the ministry, by meditation, in prayer, and waiting upon God you shall receive renewed strength. In Jesus all needful things are laid up for you. Then enjoy your continual allowance. Never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.

February 4 MORNING “The love of the Lord.” — Hosea 3:1 BELIEVER, look back through all thine experience, and think of the way whereby the Lord thy God has led thee in the wilderness, and how He hath fed and clothed thee every day — how He hath borne with thine ill manners — how He hath put up with all thy murmurings, and all thy longings after the flesh-pots of Egypt — how He has opened the rock to supply thee, and fed thee with manna that came down from heaven. Think of how His grace has been sufficient for thee in all thy troubles — how His blood has been a pardon to thee in all thy sins — how His rod and His staff have comforted thee. When thou hast thus looked back upon the love of the Lord, then let faith survey His love in the future, for remember that Christ’s covenant and blood have something more in them than the past. He who has loved thee and pardoned thee, shall never cease to love and pardon. He is Alpha, and He shall be Omega also: He is first, and He shall be last. Therefore, bethink thee, when thou shalt pass through the valley of the shadow of death, thou needest fear no evil, for He is with thee. When thou shalt stand in the cold floods of Jordan, thou needest not fear, for death cannot separate thee from His love; and when thou shalt come into the mysteries of eternity thou needest not tremble, “For I am persuaded, that neither death; nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now, soul, is not thy love refreshed? Does not this make thee love Jesus? Doth not a flight through illimitable plains of the ether of love inflame thy heart and compel thee to delight thyself in the Lord thy God? Surely as we meditate on “the love of the Lord,” our hearts burn within us, and we long to love Him more.

Brain scans have shown that high-end brands evoke the same neural response as religious images; that, shocking and lamentable though it may be, an iPod has the same effect as Mother Teresa. Also, the windows displaying these material icons extend from floor to ceiling, completely exposing the bright interiors, and the entrances are wide and doorless, so the instinctive fear of entering an unfamiliar enclosed space is overcome. Inside, young, attractive sales staff approach, seeking eye contact with friendly encouraging smiles, creating the illusion of youth and attractiveness in the shopper. The loud soul music suggests a bar or club where mutual attraction can blossom but, unlike the brutally competitive bars and clubs, here there is no possibility of rejection. Spending money is the easiest orgasm. Open the wallet and flash the bright card.

Now it is customary for presidents to invite friends and donors to the White House. The Clintons, however, took this practice way beyond acceptable boundaries. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown frequently complained that he had become “a m*th*rf*ck*ng tour guide for Hillary” because foreign trade missions had become nothing more than payback trips for Clinton donors. The Clintons arranged for one fat-cat donor without any war experience to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.12 They essentially converted White House hospitality into a product that was for sale. They had unofficial tags on each perk, and essentially donors could decide how much to give by perusing the Clinton price list. In a revealing statement, Bill Clinton said on March 7, 1997, “I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”13 Here we see the business ethic of the man; he seems to think it perfectly acceptable to change policy as long as it is only partly because of a contribution. Remember Travelgate? In May 1993, the entire Travel Office of the White House was fired. The move came as a surprise because these people had been handling travel matters for a long time. The official word was that they were incompetent. But a General Accounting Office inquiry showed that the Clintons wanted to turn over the travel business to her friends the Thomasons. Once the scandal erupted, Hillary, in typical Clinton evasive style, claimed to know nothing about it. She said she had “no role in the decision to terminate the employments,” that she “did not know of the origin of the decision,” and that she did not “direct that any action be taken by anyone with regard to the travel office.” But then a memo surfaced that showed Hillary was telling her usual lies. Written by Clinton aide David Watkins to chief of staff Mack McClarty, the memo noted that five days before the firings, Hillary had told Watkins, “We need those people out—we need our people in—we need the slots.” Watkins wrote that everyone knew “there would be hell to pay” if they failed to take “swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”14 Independent counsel Richard Ray concluded after his investigation that Hillary had provided “factually false” testimony to the GAO, the Independent Counsel, and Congress. He decided, however, not to prosecute her. This would be the first, but not the last, time Hillary’s crimes would go unchecked by the long arm of the law. Just as Bill kept up his predatory behavior toward women because he was never arrested for it, Hillary kept up her moneymaking crime schemes because she was never indicted for any of them. In essence, the Clintons’ behavior was encouraged by lack of accountability.

Organizational cultures that encourage curiosity and questions help people develop themselves. People who ask questions have more self-confidence, as they see the people they question show appreciation and respect for the question and the questioner. When a nonthreatening environment for questions is a daily reality, people become ever more comfortable with themselves, know their strengths better, and are more self-assured. As leaders see their peers and their staff demonstrate greater capability and responsibility in responding to questions and taking more initiative, they can be more relaxed and flexible.

So here is a principal difference that I am offering between my understanding of what happens in organisations and many of the conventional books on management. I am suggesting that what happens between people every day at work, whether it is perceived to have gone well or badly, is more important for thinking about how to work better together than trying to develop a new tool or framework. I am encouraging managers and consultants to pay attention to the kinds of interaction in which they find themselves caught, including noticing the strong feelings that often get evoked at work including in themselves as managers, as a helpful way of thinking about how they might continue to participate. In doing so, they will be uncovering of some taken for granted ideas about the management of organisation as a means of opening them up to further questioning. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, this is a method to encourage managers and consultants to think about what they are doing, to become reflexive about how they interact with others. I am doing so in the belief that it offers an understanding and methods more appropriate for coming to terms with the complexity of situations that face managers and staff in the day-to-day practice of their work. In other words, instead of encouraging managers and consultants to think of an organisation as a thing that they can act upon and change from one state to another, rather they think of themselves as co-participants, perhaps powerful ones, in the ongoing web of relationships to which they are contributing. To reflect upon how they are contributing, and how their contribution is reflected back to them by the reactions of others, and what happens as a result is important data to take into account when deciding what to do next.

Church can be a huge consumer trap. We provide large, comfortable worship centers, encourage pastoral staff to give us everything we need spiritually, and, at the end of the day, we don't have any money or time left to extend blessing and resources toward mission.

Each of those visionary leaders created a brilliant loonshot nursery; they achieved Bush-Vail rule #1: phase separation. But they remained judge and jury of new ideas. Unlike Bush and Vail, who saw their role as gardeners tending to the touch and balance between loonshots and franchises, encouraging transfer and exchange, those three master P-type innovators saw themselves as Moses, raising their staffs, anointing the chosen loonshot.

My job as the XO is fire extinguisher. I solve the problems so that the captain doesn’t have to. But, paradoxically, I’m also a fire starter; I’m here to encourage people, get the sparks flying on dry wood, and build up the senior staff so they can do their jobs.

Encourage teams to organize internal “yak days,” where teams get together to work on technical debt. These are great events because technical debt is so rarely prioritized. Hold regular internal DevOps mini-conferences. We’ve seen organizations achieve success using the classic DevOpsDays format, which combines pre-prepared talks with “open spaces” where participants self-organize to propose and facilitate their own sessions. Give staff dedicated time, such as 20% time or several days after a release, to experiment with new tools and technologies. Allocate budget and infrastructure for special projects.

Ensure that existing resources are made available and accessible to everyone in the organization. Create space and opportunities for learning and improving. Establish a dedicated training budget and make sure people know about it. Also, give your staff the latitude to choose training that interests them. This training budget may include dedicated time during the day to make use of resources that already exist in the organization. Encourage staff to attend technical conferences at least once a year and summarize what they learned for the entire team. Set up internal hack days, where cross-functional teams can get together to work on a project.

Barr neglected to mention that the investigation that was under way when Trump took office took place because the Russian government engaged in a systematic attempt to help Trump win the election, which Trump and his staff encouraged.

You are not the problem solver, the giver of answers – you are part of the Solutions Team. When people come with problems encourage them to come up with the solutions, ask them what they think could be done, how it could be done, who else they could work with to solve this particular issue, and how they could apply the solution to other problems.  This can be difficult at first, especially if you have come into a culture where the senior staff solve things and fix things.

But Grant, despite all brutal evidence to the contrary, was convinced that white Southerners had adjusted well to losing the Civil War. If African Americans resisted and complained bitterly about the Black Codes, this meant only that the Freedmen’s Bureau was “encouraging unrealistic expectations among the former slaves.” Grant did not attribute the turmoil in the South to the incredible levels of violence unleashed on the newly freed or to the barbaric Black Codes to which they were now subject; General Howard’s staff, he felt, must be the source of the problem. Bureau and federal oversight were, in Grant’s mind, “unnecessary, even harmful.”59

I encouraged all my subordinate commanders and staff to feel free to argue with me. My guidance was simple: “Disagree with me, do it with feeling, try to convince me you are right and I am about to go down the wrong path. You owe that to me; that’s why you are here. But don’t be intimidated when I argue back. A moment will come when I have heard enough and I make a decision. At that very instant, I expect all of you to execute my decision as if it were your idea. Don’t damn the decision with faint praise, don’t mumble under your breath—we now all move out together to get the job done.

Simone Simmons Simone Simmons works as an energy healer, helping her patients through empowering them rather than creating a dependency on the healer. She specializes in absent healing, mainly with sufferers of cancer and AIDS. She met Diana four years before her death when the Princess came to her for healing, and they became close friends. In 2005, Simone wrote a book titled Diana: The Last Word. I realized Diana had been born with an extraordinary ability, which had only been waiting to be released. By 1996, when she was fully in control of her life for the first time, she was able to give a great deal of consolation and encouragement to so many people. She received scant attention for this at the time. Everyone seemed to concentrate on the negative aspects. Instead of seeing how genuinely caring she was, they accused her of doing it for the publicity. That was utterly untrue. I often joined her when she returned from a day’s work, and she would be so exhausted, she found relief in crying. She was anxious about what she had seen and experienced and was determined to find something she could do to help. Her late-night visits to hospitals were supposed to be private. She knew how frustrating it is to be alone in a hospital; the staff and patients were always very surprised and pleased to see her. She used to make light of it and say, “I just came round to see if anyone else couldn’t sleep!” Although Diana saw the benefits of the formal visits she also made, and she did get excited when money poured in for her charities, she much preferred these unofficial occasions. They allowed her to talk to people and find out more about their illness and how they were feeling about themselves, in a down-to-earth way without a horde of people noting her every word. She wasn’t trying to fill a void or to make herself feel better. To her, it was not a therapy to help other people: It was a commitment born of selflessness. Diana was forever on the lookout for new projects that might benefit from her involvement. Her attention was caught by child abuse and forced prostitution in Asia. We had both seen a television program showing how little children were being kidnapped and then forced to sell themselves for sex. Diana told me she wanted to do everything she could to eradicate this wicked exploitation taking place in India, Pakistan, and most prevalently in Thailand. As it turned out, it was one of her final wishes. She didn’t have any idea of exactly how she was going to do it, and hadn’t got as far as formulating a plan, but she would have found a way. When Diana put her mind to something, nothing was allowed to stand in her way. As she said, “Because I’ve been given the gift to shine a light into the dark corners of this world, and get the media to follow me there, I have to use it,” and use it she did--to draw attention to a problem and in a very practical way to apply her incredible healing gifts to the victims. In her fight against land mines, she did exactly that. If anyone ever doubted her heartfelt concern for the welfare of others, this cause must surely have dispelled it. It needed someone of her fame and celebrity to bring the matter to the world’s attention, and her work required an immense amount of personal bravery. She faced physical peril and endured public ridicule, but Diana would have seen the campaign to get land mines banned as her greatest legacy. Helping others was her calling in life--right to the very end.

Make a list of your key people and write down what you perceive as their primary value to the organization. Having done that, evaluate their job descriptions, asking yourself this question: “How can I free up more of their time to do the things that add the most value to this organization?” Encourage your staff to rewrite their current job descriptions with the goal of refocusing their time on the things they do best. Lead your key people through a discussion of the principles discussed in these three chapters. Create opportunities for your staff to discuss ways to better leverage their abilities.

I encourage my staff to do things on purpose. A checklist ensures exactly this. Everything on a checklist has to be done on purpose, every single time.

Celaena cocked her head as Nehemia emerged to stand along the sidelines of the large white circle. The princess met her stare and lifted her chin in encouragement. She wore a spectacular outfit: close-fitting pants, a layered tunic studded with whorls of iron, and knee-high boots; she carried her wooden staff, which stretched as high as her head. To honor her, Celaena realized, her eyes stinging. One fellow warrior acknowledging the other.

We have scanned many of the books housed in our Family Services Resource Room located in Villa Park, IL onto goodreads. This is a sample of the wonderful resources available for checkout by parents and staff at our centers. Instructions for Checking Out Books • Books may be signed out for 3 weeks • Please complete the card located in a pocket inside the front cover of the book and return the card to the front desk • Please return all books to the front desk Enjoy And please give us your feedback. There is a place for parent comments located inside the back cover of most of the books New books are added all the time and may not yet appear on this list. Our Naperville and Elgin centers also have small library collections with many of the same books available. Our expert resource staff encourage you to come on in, hang out, use the computer, look over the books, read a book to your child, ask a question or simply stop in and chat with a staff member - we are here for our families and are great listeners!

While on the staff of a large magazine a few years ago, I wanted to print the fact that four grams of niacinamide (Vitamin B-3) will abort most bad LSD trips. The editors rejected this because “it might encourage kids to think they can take acid without risks.” Now, that argument may be valid, but it reminds me of the old assertion that automobiles should not have safety belts because such protection would just encourage drivers to be more careless. People who are going to be damn fools probably can’t be stopped no matter what restrictions are placed on them, but those who want to minimize risks should have safety information available to them.

In the years since April 20, 1999, when the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered twelve of their classmates and one teacher, the country has been plagued by a string of these enormities, among them the massacres at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (which claimed thirty-two and seventeen lives, respectively). Though there is no gauging the relative awfulness of these crimes, the December 14, 2012, massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was particularly devastating, largely because of the age of the victims: twenty first-grade students (along with six adult staff members) were shot to death by Adam Lanza, a profoundly disturbed twenty-year-old misfit with a generalized abhorrence of humankind, an obsession with serial murder, and a gun-loving mother who encouraged his interest in high-powered weaponry (and was the first to die at his hands). The impact of this horror on the country at large was summed up in the next day’s New York Times: “Nation reels after gunman massacres 20 children at school in Connecticut.

These units were encouraged to adopt alignments (people, structure, and culture) appropriate for their key success factors and were headed by leaders chosen for their skills and willingness to challenge the status quo. He ensured further high-level integration by having the heads of the exploratory units attend his senior staff meetings. Bradley also crafted an overarching strategic intent (“Healthy Eyes for Life”) that legitimated the pursuit of the mature as well as the exploratory businesses.

In a math department that thrived on its collective intelligence—where members of the staff were encouraged to work on papers together rather than alone—this set him apart. But in some respects his solitude was interesting, too, for it had become a matter of some consideration at the Labs whether the key to invention was a matter of individual genius or collaboration. To those trying to routinize the process of innovation—the lifelong goal of Mervin Kelly, the Labs’ leader—there was evidence both for and against the primacy of the group. So many of the wartime and postwar breakthroughs—the Manhattan Project, radar, the transistor—were clearly group efforts, a compilation of the ideas and inventions of individuals bound together with common purposes and complementary talents.

Granted, employees are a very different type of customer, one that falls outside of the traditional definition. After all, instead of them paying you, you’re paying them. Yet regardless of the direction the money flows, one thing is clear: employees, just like other types of customers, want to derive value from their relationship with the organization. Not just monetary value, but experiential value, too: skill augmentation, career development, camaraderie, meaningful work, a sense of purpose, and so on. If a company or an individual leader fails to deliver the requisite value to an employee, then—just like a customer, they’ll defect. They’ll quit, driving up turnover, inflating recruiting/training expenses, undermining product/service quality, and creating a whole lot of unnecessary stress on the organization. So even though a company pays its employees, it should still provide them with a value-rich employment experience that cultivates loyalty. And that’s why it’s prudent to view both current and prospective employees as a type of customer. The argument goes beyond employee engagement, though. There’s a whole other reason why organizational leaders have a lot to gain by viewing their staff as a type of customer. That’s because, by doing so, they can personally model the customer-oriented behaviors that they seek to encourage among their workforce. How better to demonstrate what a great customer experience looks like than to deliver it to your own team? After all, how a leader serves their staff influences how the staff serves their customers. Want your team to be super-responsive to the people they serve? Show them what that looks like by being super-responsive to your team. Want them to communicate clearly with customers? Show them what that looks like by being crystal clear in your own written and verbal communications. There are innumerable ways for organizational leaders to model the customer experience behaviors they seek to promote among their staff. It has to start, however, by viewing those in your charge as a type of customer you’re trying to serve. Of course, viewing staff as customers doesn’t mean that leaders should cater to every employee whim or that they should consent to do whatever employees want. Leaders sometimes have to make tough decisions for the greater good. In those situations, effectively serving employees means showing respect for their concerns and interests, and thoughtfully explaining the rationale behind what might be an unpopular decision. The key point is simply this: with every interaction in the workplace, leaders have an opportunity to show their staff what a great customer experience looks like. Whether you’re a C-suite executive or a frontline supervisor, that opportunity must not be squandered.

Human Resources talk the talk about making sure staff take their allotted annual leave, but all they actually do is send you an email twice a year telling you how many days you have left and saying something encouraging about ‘wellness’ and ‘our holistic approach’ and ‘taking things offline to maximise your potential’.

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the strongest learning cultures exist in those organizations where directors not only support training but also participate alongside members of staff in learning opportunities. They understand what is being offered, understand that their presence encourages others to take training and learning seriously, and gain a perspective not available to those who are disengaged from what is happening within their organizations’ learning programs.

The trainer is there to create the exercises and to guide and encourage staff along the way, but the responsibility for learning is ultimately in the hands of the learner—where it should be. This self-directed approach to learning rather than training allows the learner to apply immediately what is learned in relation to the learner’s job or personal interests. This immediacy and this choice of how to apply what is being learned are what makes the learning stick.

It is always better to come forward and tell the truth as soon as possible, rather than wait for someone else to do so. I encourage the same thinking in the organisations I lead. We’re all human. I always assume that, at any given moment, someone is making an error, perhaps a big one. As I’ve said before, the problem is not the error itself, but rather hiding it. My only expectation is that they admit the mistake immediately and propose a solution. It is a philosophy that has worked well for me and for my staff.

Meanwhile, the chain cut back on a lot of what might have helped deter shoplifting. Lee Scott, Walmart’s chairman from 2000 to 2009—the years when the opiate addiction crisis was gathering force—came in to boost profits by cutting costs. Workers already weren’t paid a lot. Under Scott, Walmart stores cut staff on the floor and greeters at the entrances, all of which deterred crime. It seemed to me that their store design already encouraged shoplifting, with dimmer lights compared to other stores, no videos in restrooms or at blind corners. With automatic cashiers at the exits, shoppers could spend an entire outing at Walmart and not see an employee. In a good many towns, Walmart was the only store. In others, it was one of the few, coexisting with a supermarket, maybe a Big Lots or a JCPenney. Either way, I found, no chain had a reputation among drug users for being easier to rip off than Walmart. I heard this over and over. They avoided Target because of its wider aisles and brighter lights. Whatever the dealers wanted in exchange for their dope was usually available at Walmart. The chain offered an easy shopping experience—and an easy shoplifting experience, as well. “It was convenient,” said Monica Tucker, who runs a drug rehab center in eastern Tennessee but was a meth addict for seven years, and supported her habit at Walmart. “Anything you were requested to get [by the dealer], you could find it there. We stole lots of food. We weren’t eating because we were on meth, but everybody else was hungry at the dope dealer’s house.” With opioids, then later with meth, plentiful drug supply was paired with this easy source of goods to barter. Had there been the same vibrant Main Streets, ecosystems of the locally owned stores that were the lifeblood of many owners who lived in town and returned their profits to it, both the opioid crisis and the meth problem might have spread less quickly in many parts of the country.

before,” he said. I tilted my head and took a good look at the space. “Was it just like this? The layout, I mean. Did you have places to sit?” “There were two tables,” he said. I walked toward the curtained-off nook, thinking about the current placement of the bookshelves. There was a lot of wasted space. The building was sizable, and Joe had everything spread out. It did make it feel open and airy, but it wasn’t a very efficient use of the square footage. “What if we had more seating?” I asked. “Not just a couple of tables, put there as an afterthought, but a whole section. There’s room if we move things around.” I gestured toward the rear of the store. “And we’re using that whole area for storage, but couldn’t we put that stuff in the back room? It would free up a ton of space.” “Space for what?” “For people.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “What if this wasn’t just a bookstore? What if it was like… a gathering place? We need ways to encourage people to come in and shop here, instead of ordering online or going to one of the big chain stores.” “Well, sure,” he said. “That’s why we have our local authors section, and the staff recommendations. Those are popular with customers.” “Yeah, but is it enough?” I asked. “If you had places for people to sit, you could host some of those local authors. Invite them to do readings. Open it up to book

Our Dutch hostess—or rather, the woman we are hoping will host us once we show up on her doorstep—is known to everyone but me. And though I had been warned about Johanna Hoffman’s friendliness and large dogs, there is no way to be truly prepared for either. When the door to her canal house opens, three dogs that look as though they each weigh more than I do spill out, followed by a plump, bright-faced woman in a pink dress that matches the bows around each dog’s neck. When she sees Felicity, she screams. In spite of not having anything in her hands, I swear she somehow still drops a vase. She throws her arms around Felicity, squeezing her so hard she nearly lifts her off the ground. “Felicity Montague, I thought you were dead!” “Not dead,” Felicity says. One of the dogs tries to wedge itself between the two of them, tail wagging so furiously it makes a thumping drumbeat against the door frame. A second snuffles its nose against my palm, trying to flip my hand onto the top of its head in an encouragement to pet. “It’s been years. Years, Felicity, I haven’t heard from you in years.” She takes Felicity’s face in her hands and presses their foreheads together. “Hardly a word since you left! What on earth are you doing here? I can’t believe it!” She releases Felicity just long enough to turn to Monty and throw open her arms to him. “And Harold!” “Henry,” he corrects, the end coming out in a wheeze as she wraps him in a rib-crushing hug. The dog gives up nudging my hand and instead mashes its face into my thigh, leaving a trail of spittle on my trousers. “Of course, Henry!” She lets go of him, turns to me, and says with just as much enthusiasm, “And I don’t know who you are!” And then I too am being hugged. She smells of honey and lavender, which makes the embrace feel like being wrapped in a loaf of warm bread. “This is Adrian,” Felicity says. “Adrian!” Johanna cries. One of the dogs lets out a long woof in harmony and the others take up the call, an off-key, enthusiastic chorus. She releases me, then turns to Felicity again, but Felicity holds up a preemptive hand. “All right, that’s enough. No more hugs.” She brushes an astonishing amount of dog hair off the front of her skirt, then says brusquely, “It’s good to see you, Johanna.” In return, Johanna smacks her on the shoulder. “You tell me you’re going to Rabat with some scholar and then you never come back and I never hear a single word! Why didn’t you write? Come inside, come on, push the dogs out the way, they won’t bite.” As we follow her into the hallway and then the parlor, she’s speaking so fast I can hardly understand her. “Where are you staying? Wherever it is, cancel it; let me put you up here. Was your luggage sent somewhere? I can have one of my staff collect it. We have plenty of room, and I can make up the parlor for you, Harry—” “Henry,” Monty corrects, then corrects himself. “Monty, Jo, I’ve told you to call me Monty.” She waves that away. “I know but it always feels so terribly glib! You were nearly a lord! But I’m happy to set you up down here so you needn’t navigate the stairs on your leg—gosh, what have you done to it? Your lovely Percy isn’t here, is he? Though we’ll have to do something so the dogs don’t jump on you in the night. They usually sleep with Jan and me, but they get squirrely when we have company. One of Jan’s brokers from Antwerp stayed with us last week and he swears he locked the bedroom door, but somehow Seymour still jumped on top of him in the middle of the night. Poor man thought he was being murdered in his bed. Please sit down—the dogs will move if you crowd them.

In addition to preparing for a mass shooting, teachers, staff, and students are well placed to start preventing them. They do this by building warm and trusting environments that encourage reporting and by instituting crisis teams that can respond quickly and appropriately to a student at risk with care and compassion rather than punishment. This takes a shift in our thinking about what school violence prevention and public safety look like. It’s not metal detectors and bulletproof doors. It’s noticing when children and young people are struggling and then giving them what they need to thrive.

Greg Peters, who replaced Neil Hunt as chief product officer in 2017, is one example. Greg gets to work at the normal hour of 8:00 a.m. and leaves the office by 6:00 p.m. to be home for dinner with his children. Greg makes a point of taking big vacations, including visiting his wife’s family in Tokyo, and encourages his staff to do the same. “What we say as leaders is only half the equation,” Greg explains. “Our employees are also looking at what we do. If I say, ‘I want you to find a sustainable and healthy work-life balance,’ but I’m in the office twelve hours a day, people will imitate my actions, not follow my words.

After the epic Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989, the company set out to catch and investigate every screw-up, however small. It walked away from a large drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico because, unlike BP, it decided drilling there was too risky. Safety is now such a part of the corporate DNA that every buffet laid out for company events comes with signs warning not to consume the food after two hours. In its cafeterias, the kitchen staff monitor the temperature of their salad dressings. Every time an error occurs at an ExxonMobil facility, the first instinct of the company is to learn from it rather than punish those involved. Employees talk about the “gift” of the near miss. Glenn Murray, a staffer for nearly three decades, was part of the Valdez cleanup. Today, as head of safety at the company, he believes no blunder is too small to ignore. “Every near miss,” he says, “has something to teach us, if we just take the time to investigate it.” Like the RAF and Toyota, ExxonMobil encourages even the most junior employee to speak up when something goes wrong.

Now Larry encourages his own staff to take those calls from the recruiters: “But I also don’t wait for them to come to me. If I see someone could make more money somewhere else, I give them the raise right away.” To retain your top employees, it’s always better to give them the raise before they get the offers.

Exemplary followers present a consistent picture to both leaders and coworkers of being independent, innovative, and willing to stand up to superiors. They apply their talents for the benefit of the organization even when confronted with bureaucratic stumbling blocks or passive or pragmatist coworkers. Effective leaders appreciate the value of exemplary followers. When one of the authors was serving in a follower role in a staff position, he was introduced by his leader to a conference as “my favorite subordinate because he’s a loyal ‘No-Man’.” Exemplary followers—high on both critical dimensions of followership—are essential to organizational success. Leaders, therefore, would be well advised to select people who have these characteristics and, perhaps even more important, create the conditions that encourage these behaviors.

Influential educational school in Abu Dhabi: Reach British School Selecting schools that speak about the type of education you want to impart to your kid is an important decision. Like all other difficult decisions that parenthood brings with it, this one too cannot be decided based on one impulsive thought. School is an important part of any child's growth. They learn, they giggle, and grow into beautiful individuals. Thus, schools build them into responsible beings. However, finding the right school can be research-heavy and hectic. International education in the United Arab Emirates is not cheap, and this adds to an extra load of pressure on deciding parents. Yet, Abu Dhabi is known to host an excellent range of international schools that are somewhat budget-friendly. The British International School is one such example, they surely secure a place in the list of best schools in Abu Dhabi. Why choose Reach British School? Reading through different curriculums, and googling into millions of school websites is a part of this decision-making. You look for that spark, one that you look for in any relationship. Yes, choosing a school is the beginning of a life-long relationship, an important part of your child’s life. This article will push you towards decision making, as it lists the points on why you should choose Reach British School. The following reasons will convince you that it fits into the best schools in Abu Dhabi. English proficiency The staff is filled with native English-speaking teachers. Thus, they bring with them, years of experience in the language field and absolute English proficiency. Being native English speakers, they can showcase experience in the UK or other international schools. Excellent facilities Schooling is a part of a child's overall growth, and there is more to it than just academics. Being one of the best schools in Abu Dhabi, they support an exciting curriculum. It includes sports, arts, academic subjects, and a bunch of other extra-curricular activities. High Academic standards and behavioral expectations A child grows into a successful human being, who is also a responsible citizen. Thus, the school sets a strong focus on the academic depth and the behavioral patterns of the child. They ensure that your child reaches their fullest potential in a safe and secure environment. Student progress tracking You will get a chance to be deeply involved in your child's progress. The school will provide regular reports on your child's growth that will give you a fair idea about their needs, likes, and dislikes. Thus, you can take an active part in their academic progress, social and emotional well-being. Secondary scholarships The school funds a scholarship program to motivate students to achieve their dreams. The program attracts bright minds and pushes them to reach their potential in the fields they are passionate about. Amazing learning Not just the staff, but also the environment of the school will enable your child to go through an amazing learning experience. Your child will be motivated and encouraged to perform better as that is the base for amazing learning. Endnotes Reach British School wants to let your child shine, in the truest sense possible. Keeping the tag of being one of the best schools in Abu Dhabi, is difficult. Thus, they aspire to be better every day and sculpt new souls into responsible adults, while protecting their innocence and childhood.

In 2017, two former Planned Parenthood employees appeared in a Live Action video, revealing that the organziation imposes abortion quotas on its clinics and incentivizes workers to convince women to choose abortion.70 Sue Thayer, former manager of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Storm Lake, Iowa, told Live Action that executives would reward clinics with pizza parties or extra paid time off if they met their abortion targets. Clinics that didn’t offer abortions were given quotas for abortion referrals made to other Planned Parenthood facilities. “I trained my staff the way that I was trained, which was to really encourage women to choose abortion and to have it at Planned Parenthood because it counts towards our goal,” Thayer said.71 Former Planned Parenthood nurse Marianne Anderson told Live Action, “I felt like I was more of a salesman sometimes, to sell abortions. We were constantly told we have quotas to meet to stay open.”72

What is sensory integration therapy? This form of occupational therapy helps children and adults with SPD (sensory processing disorder) use all their senses together. These are the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Sensory integration therapy is claimed to help people with SPD respond to sensory inputs such as light, sound, touch, and others; and change challenging or repetitive behaviours. Someone in the family may have trouble receiving and responding to information through their senses. This is a condition called sensory processing disorder (SPD). These people are over-sensitive to things in their surroundings. This disorder is commonly identified in children and with conditions like autism spectrum disorder. The exact cause of sensory processing disorder is yet to be identified. However, previous studies have proven that over-sensitivity to light and sound has a strong genetic component. Other studies say that those with sensory processing conditions have abnormal brain activity when exposed simultaneously to light and sound. Treatment for sensory processing disorder in children and adults is called sensory integration therapy. Therapy sessions are play-oriented for children, so they should be fun and playful. This may include the use of swings, slides, and trampolines and may be able to calm an anxious child. In addition, children can make appropriate responses. They can also perform more normally. SPD can also affect adults Someone who struggles with SPD should consider receiving occupational therapy, which has an important role in identifying and treating sensory integration issues. Occupational therapists are health professionals using different therapeutic approaches so that people can do every work they need to do, inside and outside their homes. Through occupational therapy, affected individuals are helped to manage their immediate and long-term sensory symptoms. Sensory integration therapy for adults, especially for people living with dementia or Alzheimer's disease, may use everyday sounds, objects, foods, and other items to rouse their feelings and elicit positive responses. Suppose an adult is experiencing agitation or anxiety. In that case, soothing music can calm them, or smelling a scent familiar to them can help lessen their nervous excitement and encourage relaxation, as these things can stimulate their senses. Seniors with Alzheimer's/Dementia can regain their ability to connect with the world around them. This can help improve their well-being overall and quality of life. What Are The Benefits of Sensory Integration Therapy Sensory integration treatment offers several benefits to people with SPD: * efficient organisation of sensory information. These are the things the brain collects from one's senses - smell, touch, sight, etc. * Active involvement in an exploration of the environment. * Maximised ability to function in recreational and other daily activities. * Improved independence with daily living activities. * Improved performance in the home, school, and community. * self-regulations. Affected individuals get the ability to understand and manage their behaviours and understand their feelings about things that happen around them. * Sensory systems modulation. If you are searching for an occupational therapist to work with for a family with a sensory processing disorder, check out the Mission Walk Therapy & Rehabilitation Centre. The occupational therapy team of Mission Walk uses individualised care plans, along with the most advanced techniques, so that patients can perform games, school tasks, and other day-to-day activities with their best functional skills. Call Mission Walk today for more information or a free consultation on sensory integration therapy. Our customer service staff will be happy to help.

For evidence that social commitment works, you have only to look at our most popular and durable social institutions that help us behave as we aspire: marriage, religion, and education. To varying degrees, all involve a public display of commitment to that institution and its principles in return for some benefit along with social support and censure. While marriage and religion are not good models, I think we should treat exercise more like education. For children, we already do. Just as we compel children to attend school, we require them to exercise (although rarely enough). As with school, we try to make exercise fun by making it social. So why not do the same for adults by treating exercise like college? Going to college is essentially a highly social commitment contract for adults that includes carrots and sticks. Students in my university pay a fortune to have professors like me compel them to read, study, and work under penalty of getting bad grades or failing. My students compete for and agree to these conditions because they know they would not learn as much without the school’s nudges, shoves, and requirements. In return, they enjoy a social experience that is usually fun, involves support from fellow students and staff, and encourages them to participate in something larger than themselves. Can this kind of commitment contract model help promote exercise, especially among youth?

It’s not all sex work, of course. Any business of that size needs support and grounds staff—” “Gee, Mom.” Melanie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Can I get a summer job there? I’ll be the best jizz-mopper ever!” “Melanie!” Emma snapped. I quickly shoved a forkful of prawn in my mouth, trying to keep myself from laughing, but I couldn’t hold a straight face. Melanie grinned at me, sensing a kindred spirit at the table. “Language,” Caitlin told Melanie, then looked sidelong at me and muttered, “Don’t encourage her.

Implicit Communication The German organizational climate encouraged people to act, and to take the initiative, even during the terror and chaos of war. Within this climate, the principles of mutual trust and intuitive competence make much of implicit communication, as opposed to detailed, written instructions. The Germans felt they had no alternative. As the Chief of the Prussian General Staff in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, observed in the mid-1800s, the greater risk is the loss of time that comes from always trying to be explicit.61 Or as General Gaedcke commented about his unit in WW II, if he had tried to write everything down, “we would have been too late with every attack we ever attempted.”62

But why are those moments so essential? It's because laughter boosts productivity. It makes a task more manageable. It releases endorphins, forges emotional connections, and can encourage more honest communication. When your staff has fun at work, they work together more collaboratively. Every single day at work becomes a team-building activity.

Wishes I wish you sunshine on your path and storms to season your journey. I wish you peace—in the world in which you live and in the smallest corner of the heart where truth is kept. I wish you faith—to help define your living and your life. More I cannot wish you—except perhaps love—to make all the rest worthwhile. ROBERT A. WARD

to contain. At that thought, he wondered if any feeders had been brought to the Estate tonight, he‘d have to get Alexander to check.  They had two or three resident feeders; people who lived on the Estate and worked there or studied during the day and were available to Julius and his staff for feeding when necessary.  Julius encouraged his staff to go off the Estate and find donors in the clubs and bars of the City.  He enforced a strict code of conduct when it came to feeding; donors had to be willing, there was to be no violence in the act and the donor’s memories had to be cleared of anything to do with being bitten and fed on.  But occasionally someone needed blood urgently or didn’t have time to go ‘hunting’, and this was what the feeders were for.  He only allowed the feeders to stay for a few months at the most; they usually left with some memory about undertaking a medical experiment and a decent bank account, so it worked for all parties concerned.  Julius wasn’t sure what Gabi would make of that, but they did have to feed somehow, he was trying to do it in the most humane way he could.

It is not in vain that the strategic criterion of placing only short runs on the market prevails in order simultaneously to create a feeling of scarcity and avoid an appearance of uniformity, both of which encourage consumer demand. This is such a powerful criterion that it is not uncommon to discontinue production of a much-sought-after product, sometimes to the relative desperation of the shop staff, who were sure they could sell it.

For 'he [who overcomes] shall rule them [the nations] with an iron rod' -- by shepherding and feeding them with his shepherd's staff. 'Like the vessels of a potter, they [those of the nations who do not repent] shall be broken into pieces -- as I received from My Father. And I will give to him [who overcomes] the morning star.' True as it is that this promise will fully be realized only after the Final Judgment on the New Earth yet to come -- it is also apparent that it will in large measure first be realized prior to that time. For it will first be realized in this present World here and now -- as Christianity extends its victorious advance across the globe, culminating in the christianization of all nations. O Christian, let us too listen to what the Holy Spirit of God says to the Churches! Let us too work to subdue the Earth and to win all of its inhabitants to the glory of Christ! Let us enrich our impoverished spirits! Let us also discipline our few backsliders! Let us encourage, too, our industrious Christians! And let us advance on a broad front throughout the World -- until all nations bow down under the rod of the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ, and until the kingdoms of this World have in practice too become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall keep on reigning and keep on expanding that reign for ever and ever! So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Here at the new frontier of urban policy the chairman and his committee were in harmony: PCJD staff members were not timid bureaucrats but lively, self-styled “guerrillas.” Bobby matched their social science credentials with his zeal. Together they developed contrarian, almost radical, views. Two, as it turned out, were crucial: first, that insufficient opportunity was the root cause of poverty; and second, that the problem required “community action”—a vague notion but clearly something other than bureaucratic, top-down, federal largess. “We felt that you could spend $30 million in one city and not have any impact whatsoever,” Hackett explained later. The committee held that government must not impose solutions but empower the poor to develop their own. The PCJD financed and coordinated a dozen local initiatives on an experimental basis in cities like Cleveland, New Haven, and New York. The programs provided comprehensive services (education, employment, and job training) that encouraged self-sufficiency.

From a raw political standpoint, Trump’s decision to adopt a set of views that offended and alienated minority voters, ugly though it was, turned out well for him. He would soon go further, broadening his attacks to include illegal immigrants. Trump did so at precisely the moment when Republican leaders, led by party chairman Reince Priebus (Trump’s future chief of staff), released an “autopsy” of Mitt Romney’s defeat that included a detailed plan for how the party could recover. Its most important recommendation was that Republicans embrace comprehensive immigration reform in order to broaden their appeal to minority voters. In so many words, Republican leaders were telling their rank and file that they needed to be more like Trump during his Apprentice glory days—while Trump was arriving at the opposite conclusion and, with Bannon’s eager encouragement, doing everything he could to build a political movement around white identity politics. A wily

With this in mind, I’d started a leadership and mentoring program at the White House, inviting twenty sophomore and junior girls from high schools around Greater D.C. to join us for monthly get-togethers that included informal chats, field trips, and sessions on things like financial literacy and choosing a career. We kept the program largely behind closed doors, rather than thrusting these girls into the media fray. We paired each teen with a female mentor who would foster a personal relationship with her, sharing her resources and her life story. Valerie was a mentor. Cris Comerford, the White House’s first female executive chef, was a mentor. Jill Biden was, too, as were a number of senior women from both the East and the West Wing staffs. The students were nominated by their principals or guidance counselors and would stay with us until they graduated. We had girls from military families, girls from immigrant families, a teen mom, a girl who’d lived in a homeless shelter. They were smart, curious young women, all of them. No different from me. No different from my daughters. I watched over time as the girls formed friendships, finding a rapport with one another and with the adults around them. I spent hours talking with them in a big circle, munching popcorn and trading our thoughts about college applications, body image, and boys. No topic was off-limits. We ended up laughing a lot. More than anything, I hoped this was what they’d carry forward into the future—the ease, the sense of community, the encouragement to speak and be heard. My wish for them was the same one I had for Sasha and Malia—that in learning to feel comfortable at the White House, they’d go on to feel comfortable and confident in any room, sitting at any table, raising their voices inside any group.

The vampires gave a roar of delight, and word quickly spread that Kurda Smahlt was going into action against Arra Sails. Soon, a huge crowd had formed around the bars, most of them vampires who wanted to see Kurda end up flat on his back. "She hasn't been beaten on the bars in eleven years," I murmured to Kurda as he chose his staff. "I know," he groaned. "Try not to get too close to her," I advised him (speaking as though I was an expert, when in fact I'd only been on the bars once before). "The more you stay away, the longer you can drag it out." "I'll bear that in mind." "And be careful," I warned him. "She'll crack your head right open if you give her the chance." "Are you trying to encourage or discourage me?" he snapped. "Encourage, of course." I grinned. "Well, you're doing a lousy job of it!

So that’s what it takes to get Snape on probation. Not bullying Neville, not favoritism, but refusing to fight Harry Potter. Umbridge expected him to comply; unsurprisingly, Lucius Malfoy seems to have been bribing Umbridge, encouraging her to purge Harry’s allies from the staff, expecting fellow Death Eater Snape to cooperate from the inside.

I analysed the causes of delay in delivering justice, which are: 1) an inadequate number of courts; 2) an inadequate number of judicial officers; 3) the judicial officers are not fully equipped to tackle cases involving specialized knowledge; 4) the dilatory tactics followed by the litigants and their lawyers who seek frequent adjournments and delays in filing documents; and 5) the role of the administrative staff of the court. Based on my analysis, I suggested encouraging dispute resolution through the human touch; reinforcing the Lok Adalats; creating a National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission; ensuring alternative dispute redressal mechanisms such as arbitration; and providing fast-track courts. I also suggested several actions with particular reference to pendency in the high courts. These included the classification of cases on the basis of an age analysis, that is, identifying cases that are redundant because the subsequent generations are not interested in pursuing them. Primary among my recommendations was the e-judiciary initiative. As part of this, I recommended computerization of the active case files, taking into account the age analysis, which will surely reduce the number of cases that are still pending.

At the café chain Pret A Manger, for example, regular customers noticed that, every now and then, they’d be given something for free with their order. One service expert wrote, of getting free coffee, “It has happened a few times over the last few years, too often for it to be a coincidence, yet so infrequent that it is unexpected. This makes me feel valued as a customer, puts a smile on my face and encourages me to visit again.” These “spontaneous” gifts are only half-spontaneous, as it turns out. Pret A Manger employees are allowed to give away a certain number of hot drinks and food items every week. Pret CEO Clive Schlee said of his staffers, “They will decide ‘I like the person on the bicycle’ or ‘I like the guy in the tie’ or ‘I fancy that girl or that boy.’ It means 28% of people have had something free.” Think on that. Almost a third of customers have gotten something free at least once. (Probably more than once, if they have dimples.) Other retail chains provide discounts or freebies to customers who use loyalty cards, of course, but Schlee told the Standard newspaper he rejected that approach: “We looked at loyalty cards but we didn’t want to spend all that money building up some complicated Clubcard-style analysis.” This is ingenious. Pret A Manger has restored the surprise and humanity to perks that, in a loyalty card scheme, would have been systematized. Note that the giveaways are satisfying for the staff as well as the customers. In an industry where rules tend to govern every employee behavior, it’s a relief for employees to be given some discretion: Hey, every week, give away some stuff to whomever you like. It broke the script for them, too. In the service business, a good surprise is one that delights employees as well as customers.

Discounts within the school fee structure promote affordability and encourage positive behaviours, such as early enrolment and supports families with multiple children.

A marketing consultant I knew was hired by a family-owned agency because he was dating one of the family members. Clients were leaving the agency in droves and this person didn't understand his duties or how to execute them. The agency owner's solution was to encourage the consultant to spend more time with senior staff who were more experienced; hoping this exposure would give the consultant insight and dedication. This consultant did not change or grow so the agency owner asked several of us for input. I told the agency owner that until this employee was shown direct benefits and need to improve there was no motivation for him to do so. Until there is a perceived need for growth, there isn't likely to be actual growth.

Diana was on a conference call with the chairman of the board of an international professional association. She listened as he listed problem after problem: staff members are critical of each other and of members; there is little collaboration among staff and board members; no one is willing to go the extra mile; everyone complains about the cost of membership; members seldom volunteer to serve on committees or to write articles for the newsletter. The list of problems went on and on. Diana gently interrupted the habitual tirade: Diana: May I share my reflections and ask a question? Peter: Yes. Diana: I hear that you are very frustrated and feeling somewhat overwhelmed with all the problems people bring to you. Peter: Yes. Diana: I wonder what it is that you really want. You have described in detail what you do not want—all the problems. I am curious, what do you want for the association, its members, and the board and the staff? Peter: That is quite easy. I would like more members who are actively engaged. Diana: That is a clear and exciting image for the future. I suggest that you begin an inquiry into “Engaged Membership.” Ask members of the board, the staff, and the association to share stories of when they have been highly engaged as members of the association and/or as members of another organization, team, or community. Ask them who or what led them to be so engaged. What did they do and contribute? How did leadership encourage and support their engagement? How did it feel? What were the benefits to them and to others? What ideas do they have to enhance engaged membership in the association? Peter: That is a very different approach. Diana: Yes, when you flip problems and ask about what you really want, two things happen. One, people learn what it is that you stand for as a leader. They learn what you expect of them. In your case it is “Engaged Membership.” And two, you get more of want you want. When people know what is wanted and expected for success, they do it.