Most commented posts
- 4 – The Law of Navigation — 11 comments
- 12 – The Law of Empowerment — 10 comments
- 2 – The Law of Influence — 10 comments
- Laws of Leadership — 10 comments
- 8 – The Law of Intuition — 7 comments
Darryl Pendergrass
Author's posts
Feb 14
Support My Fight Against Brain Tumors
I am uniting with others to make a difference in the fight against brain tumors. I am passionate about this cause so I am taking action!
National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS) is a putting the search for a cure into overdrive. Progress is being made, but there is so much more to be done. Please support my efforts!
NBTS is fiercely committed to finding a cure for brain tumors. NBTS aggressively drives strategic research; advocates for public policies that meet the critical needs of the brain tumor community; and provides comprehensive patient, family, and caregiver resources.
Your support ensures this important work will continue.
Visit my page on the National Brain Tumor Society site to support this effort.
Read about my personal story at The Battle Against GBM.
Permanent link to this article: http://darrylpendergrass.com/Blog/support-my-fight-against-brain-tumors/
Nov 23
My NASCAR Experience as Driver at the Phoenix International Raceway
Ok, so for a little fun I registered for a NASCAR racing experience to complete a bucket list item. This Rusty Wallace Racing Experience was held at the Phoenix International Raceway where just one week earlier the professionals competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The experience was exhilarating except for a few bottlenecks caused by drivers a little uneasy about the acceleration and speed achieved by the cars during the race. While, I could mark the bucket list item as completed, I think I will leave this one open for another time in the near future.
As leaders, we need to address our fears and hone our focus. An experience, such as this helps to achieve both objectives.
Permanent link to this article: http://darrylpendergrass.com/Blog/my-nascar-experience-as-driver-at-the-phoenix-international-raceway/
Oct 04
16 – The Law of the Big Mo
Momentum is a Leaders Best Friend
In John C. Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (2007), John shares the law of buy-in.
So what happens when you have developed a compelling vision that you are passionate about and gathered the right people but you can not get the team moving in the right direction? You need to leverage the law of momentum. I used this law to my advantage before ever reading about the law in a formalized way like that by John Maxwell.
In 2003, I worked on a team that supported an enterprise-wide project management suite. Business teams often beat our team to the punch, delivering applications needed by the business. The business teams were unencumbered by information technology processes and focused only the needs of a specific business. Unfortunately, the business specific applications failed to satisfy the needs of other corporate businesses so duplication was the norm. We were faced with a challenge to deliver the ability to report on a specific business metric with charting capability using data stored in the project management system. I made a bold statement to my supervisor and department manager, “give me one business expert and one software developer and we will deliver the needed functionality in 30 days.”
Despite some doubt and apprehension, the management agreed to test my boast. The business expert interfaced with the businesses to understand their needs and the developer and I built the software components to deliver on those needs. We met frequently throughout each day to design just enough to begin software coding and to integrate developed code. Every Friday, we demonstrated our progress to business representatives to ensure we were meeting their reporting needs and used the feedback to make course corrections the following week. After a grueling month, the team delivered functional software that provided the most important features desired by the business representatives. The success and momentum of the first month proved the team could deliver as promised and garnered additional funding for three additional months to address emerging customer needs. A few months later we learned about a process called scrum that felt very similar to our process used in this project. I completed scrum master training and implemented the process within our extended team. Scrum is integral to our team’s development process even today.
When on a roll, everything seems to go just right, but when in a slump even the most simple tasks seem impossible. Leaders try to control momentum because momentum has such a great impact on success. Momentum changes the way people look at leaders. People tend to overlook small leadership issues, when overall the leader is on a roll. People desire to associate themselves with leaders that win. Leaders that build momentum in an organization discover that people find motivation and inspiration that drive them to higher levels of performance and achievement.
Gaining momentum is more difficult than maintaining momentum. Every leadership situation is different, but the leader must find ways to gain wins early, even if those wins are small. I have witnessed far too many projects waste opportunities in the early phases of the project to make the small wins that build momentum. Creating momentum takes a leader with vision and the ability to motivate other people. The leader’s passion, enthusiasm, and energy is motivational and leads to the small wins that build momentum.
I wish you well on your personal growth journey. I appreciate your additional insight, so feel free to comment to share your thoughts and experiences.
Links
Links to other posts in this discussion on the laws of leadership.
Mind map of the 21 laws of leadership.
Introduction to the leadership laws | 1 – The Law of the Lid | 2 – The Law of Influence | 3 – The Law of Process | 4 – The Law of Navigation | 5 – The Law of Addition | 6 – The Law of Solid Ground | 7 – The Law of Respect | 8 – The Law of Intuition | 9 – The Law of Magnetism | 10 – The Law of Connection | 11 – The Law of the Inner Circle | 12 – The Law of Empowerment | 13 – The Law of The Picture | 14 – The Law of Buy-in | 15 – The Law of Victory
Reference
Maxwell, John. (2007). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will follow you. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Permanent link to this article: http://darrylpendergrass.com/Blog/16-the-law-of-the-big-mo/
Sep 19
Protecting Your Electronic Personal Data
It’s hard to believe but my first computer relied on a cassette tape drive to store programs and data. I considered it a luxury, when I upgraded to a floppy drive a few months later. Four years after that, I moved to a PC with a 10MB hard drive. The data storage requirements were minimal, so backing up data to floppy disks was more than sufficient. Over time, I used a variety of technologies for securing the data generated at home. I used the IOmega ZIP and Jazz drives for a time. Like others, eventually I found myself with a collection of cartridges but no drives to use them with as the technology fell victim to new backup technologies. I also used CD and DVD for backing data.
Today, our home computers serve as a storage platform for more critical data because we use our computers for home banking, completing taxes, managing investments accounts and the like. We also store family history like digital pictures and home movies. A couple of years ago, I purchased a single drive Western Digital 1TB MyBook World to store our family photos and movies. When I installed the device, I began to think about the risk of a single drive unit and about backups of backups. I looked at redundant drives, but at the time the cost was more than I wanted to invest. Well, a few days ago I noticed that my operating system was losing the mapping to the MyBook. Yesterday, I realized that the unit is failing when operating for a while and turning the unit off to cool would restore functionality when powered back on. So I began the process of moving data to another location temporarily while I considered my options.
After reading a few reviews and comments of others, I settled on the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440. The device contains 4, 1TB drives and supports a variety of RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) configurations. RAID provides the ability to replicate data across multiple disks , therefore reducing the possibility of losing data due to the unlikelihood that two disks would fail at the same time. The BlackArmor supports hot swapping drives, so when a disk fails I can replace the drive without shutting down the unit. When the new disk is inserted, the RAID system rebuilds the data on the new drive using the replicated data from the other drives.
I have managed to avoid any loss of critical data during my computing experience spanning nearly 30 years, but I have heard horror stories from friends. As in the case with the MyBook, a simple flip of a coin may have resulted in non-recoverable loss of data and a horror story of my own. When the NAS arrives and gets installed, I’ll be able to rest a little easier knowing that the ever increasing amount data in our household is safe for a little while longer.
I would love to hear your story about how you manage computer data in your home and any horror stories you have to share because data was not backed up.
Permanent link to this article: http://darrylpendergrass.com/Blog/protecting-your-electronic-personal-data/
Sep 07
15 – The Law of Victory
"Leaders Find a Way for the Team to Win"
In John C. Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (2007), John shares the law of buy-in.
Most people prefer to win rather than lose. For any given leadership situation, a multitude of variables teeter the balance that influences whether a team wins or loses. Leaders that win often tend not to accept defeat as an option so they find ways to win rather than lose. The litmus test for a leader is found in a crisis — when the pressure is on. When under pressure, great leaders find a way for the team to win.
Great leaders understand that they are responsible for leading the team to victory. Great leaders shoulder the blame when things go wrong and do not seek out others to blame. Great leaders leverage their passion for the objective and their unwillingness to accept defeat to foster creative thinking among their team to identify solutions that allow the team to win.
Attaining victory hinges on three major components. First, a unity of vision among the team members is vital. The leader is responsible for creating the team’s mental model. Without the common mental model, team members form their personal agendas and contribute from that perspective. Despite the exceptional talent and potential of individual contributors, a team without a common mental model or vision rarely wins. I have said many times in the past that I prefer a team of above average performers with a common vision and good attitude to a team of star performers without a common vision and poor attitudes.
Second, the team members exhibit a diversity of skills. Some team members contribute vital skills while others contribute less vital skills but in most cases a variety of skills are necessary for teams to be successful. A key leadership skill is to staff the team with a diversity of skills. Another leadership skill is to appreciate and value every contribution whether from a vital or non-vital skill. At this point, I am compelled to add that thought diversity also adds to the team’s success. Most people are comfortable with like-minded people. However, a leader must develop comfortable relationships with others that think differently. The combination of ideas from a variety of perspectives normally leads to much better solutions when compared to those created by teams that missed key perspectives during development.
Third, the team needs a leader dedicated to victory and willing to mentor and guide team members to their full potential. Developing a vision and creating a unity among team members to work towards the vision does not happen by accident. The leader is responsible for molding the vision and communicating in such a way to create the unity or common mental model. The leader motivates, empowers, and provides the direction for the team to win.
As a leader, your responsibility for success must be a personal commitment to the task at hand. The leader needs to display unquestioned passion and dedication to the team’s success. If unable to meet those leadership goals, one must seek answers to ask some critical questions. Am I pursuing the correct vision? Am I in the wrong organization? Am I the right leader for this team or organization?
Ask your team about their purpose and mission. If the members do not agree on the purpose and mission, as a leader you need to define and communicate the vision to create unity. Discover the personal goals of your team members and strive to align those personal goals with the team’s vision, mission, and overriding goals.
I wish you well on your personal growth journey. I appreciate your additional insight, so feel free to comment to share your thoughts and experiences.
Links
Links to other posts in this discussion on the laws of leadership.
Mind map of the 21 laws of leadership.
Introduction to the leadership laws | 1 – The Law of the Lid | 2 – The Law of Influence | 3 – The Law of Process | 4 – The Law of Navigation | 5 – The Law of Addition | 6 – The Law of Solid Ground | 7 – The Law of Respect | 8 – The Law of Intuition | 9 – The Law of Magnetism | 10 – The Law of Connection | 11 – The Law of the Inner Circle | 12 – The Law of Empowerment | 13 – The Law of The Picture | 14 – The Law of Buy-in
Reference
Maxwell, John. (2007). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will follow you. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Permanent link to this article: http://darrylpendergrass.com/Blog/15-the-law-of-victory/
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