Glenn Beck on President Hinckley

Thanks to Brad Stoddard for pointing me to Glenn Beck's comments the day after President Hinckley's passing.

President Hinckley has passed away

President Hinckley passed away tonight at 7:00pm, MST.

I will miss his sense of humor, his energy, and his passion.

What a wonderful man.

Expressing your feelings

On December 15th of last year, Elder M. Russell Ballard, an apostle of the LDS Church, gave a talk to students of Brigham Young University in Hawaii. He encouraged the students to express their feelings and testimonies of the Church using new media (including the Internet).

Last week at Church, a young man talked about the efforts of some of the kids he knows to express themselves on the Internet.

If you search YouTube you will find plenty of videos which are negative about the Church. However there you will always see that members of the Church are starting to step up and express their testimonies, create montages, and even write and perform songs.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LdPT5oVtG9E

Brad's Testimony

Keep it up!

http://www.ldscio.org/2007/10/08/video-blog-experiment/

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/using-new-media-to-support-the-work-of-the-church

Book Club: The Culture Code

The Culture Code is an amazing read. I don't claim to agree with everything that Rapaille writes, but it's undeniably interesting. The author comes off as a little cocky and presumptuous. If you can get past that, then if part of what you do requires understanding a market then you would do well to read this book.

Wisdom and Intelligence

Washington Post article on the global LDS Church

Recently, Washington Post London burea chief Mary Jordan published this article on the expanding global nature of the Church.

It's a great article. It names the Internet as one of the tools that is allowing the Church to reach people who wouldn't have heard about the Church before.

We occasionally post links to articles like this on newsroom.

Bad systems or wrong people?

A key principle in one of my favorite books, Good to Great, is described metaphorically as "getting the right people on the bus." When a manager is trying to move toward a vision, the most important thing he can do to be successful, I believe, is to have great people along for the ride. You can cover an awful lot of organizational weakness by having great people. Some managers feel threatened by surrounding themselves with great people. I try to always hire people who are smarter and more capable than myself. It makes my job much easier and increases my organization's effectiveness.

Hiring great people isn't a panacea, however. It's easy to thwart even the most proficient employee by surrounding him with ineffectual or slow systems. By system, I mean interdependent process and tools--not just tools. Too many times I've hired someone who was very successful in one context, only to see her become frustrated and ineffectual with the context I hired her into.

When facing a situation where an employee seems not to be working out, first consider the system you've surrounded him with. Does she have the tools she needs to be successful? Is he clear on his role? Are you running interference for her? Does he have the time he needs to do his job or is he spending his time floundering in administrivia?

Good managers fix systems first and employees second. In the coming weeks, I'll talk about some of the systems an I.T. shop can focus on improving.