Happy April! This is the time of year when the light and air in the Northern Hemisphere change; when the renewal of hope touches the land and its people; and puts its wonderful sense of 'spring' into your step.

Both newsletters this spring borrow excerpts from Common Outlook's Business/People Change Workbook, and both look at how a Leader who changes an Attitude can change Corporate Culture.

May's Newsletter offers a unique opportunity: the chance to explore - via the download of a 20-point, thought-provoking, private query - your overall and specific Attitudes. The results?  Benchmarks of self-awareness; quiet revolutionary approaches to situations and people (particularly to the difficult ones); the on-going power to determine where you stand and what you see, and the opportunity to make dynamic choices.  

In this current (April's) issue, we have chosen "Ted's Travels Travails", a microcosm of a fellow sojourner's 'Reaction' to an abrupt unsettling event, and the realization that a change in Attitude is the only ticket to 'Response' ... that discerning, forward-thinking, purposeful action base. Once there, he and others like him, begin to see in themselves the kind of value-driven, trustworthy, steady Leaders anyone in a discontented culture will happily emulate.

I don't know if a work environment ever soured for you the way it did for Ted; but even if not, you have an idea of 'comeuppance', and will understand his struggles during his tenure as Vice-President of a benevolent fund eight years ago.

During Ted's vacation, his boss intentionally hired and slotted a whiz kid onto his team, saying Ted wouldn't have wanted someone else to snap her up. It was a ruse, for although Ted was a brilliant executive, a charismatic speaker and media darling; it fed an ego that intimidated his boss, co-workers and the workplace culture.  
"I'm going to form my own company," he told me a few days later. "I need time to plan and convert some holdings; so, for now, I'll stay put."

I expected him to talk about the venture as the days and weeks passed, but he harped-on about what his boss had done, or seethed about the newcomer's brazen attitude. One Friday, he finished a tale about the latest fracas by saying: "...the tirade ended when I shouted. She wasn't cowed; in fact, she looked smug!"

The following Monday, his boss, along with the HR Director, strode into his office and without preliminaries, enumerated incidents of Ted's 'bullying'. When his boss was done, he plunked an expulsion letter on the desk. One thing stuck out: the severance package was exceptional, and as Ted realized, designed to avert further contact. He signed it, silently gathered his things, and headed for the safety of home. 

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