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Happy 27th Month Wedding Anniversary!

It’s been twenty-seven months since my Sunshine and I got married.  I’m sure that she will tell you that it’s been a challenging journey being married to me.  More often than she thought I’m sure that she has wanted to wring my neck.  I hope that she realizes that it’s a long-term journey that we’re on to work upon the work within us that is perfecting us through our relationship with Christ, and I love her more than anything else.  I know that men have difficulties showing it!

I will be working on the next twenty-seven months to be much more interesting and bonding than the previous months.  I know that it’ll be a journey we’ll not forget!

MA U.S. Senator special election: We want a transparent government that encourages the hard-working Americans with values!

There is a tidal wave coming if the leaders of our nation don’t listen to what happened in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat held by liberal hero Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts.

Most Americans would like to be governed by the center, as an independent.  They don’t want to have the far right, thumping the chest don’t-do this or that forced down our throat laws, nor do we want unlimited government money spent on everything to stifle the façade of a free enterprise economy.  Most Americans want a transparent government when deals are not made behind closed doors.  This was the theme and message from the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama.  That was what the President promised during the campaign with the health care debate, to have a debate on C-SPAN, and still hasn’t followed-thru. 

For many of you who have known me, I have always stood up for the process of standards in any given situation.  The personality should be taken out of the process to be fair.  It’s the only way that bosses will not be accused of favoritism.  I know that saying that is hard because everyone has a tinge of interest in the lust for power, making a difference.

We, hard-working Americans, don’t want government to stand in the way of innovation, creativity and the entrepreneur spirit.  If I work hard, I would like to be rewarded for my hard work.  If I choose to invest my hard-working money in whatever I choose, however, it will just even out my earning among the masses—and goes to taxes to any government body--that don’t have the same work ethnic, why would I really want to do that?  If I choose to invest my money, I should choose where I should spend it!

It would be good if the government would support the teaching of what’s right and wrong.  To name a few: respect other people’s lives and property; treat others as you want to be treated in the same circumstances; and protect our society through the foundation of the U.S. Constitution.

This is all I’m asking for.  If our leaders don’t listen collectively to the American voice during the last year, and the special election in Massachusetts, if anyone else agrees, be counted.  Let the tidal wave continue onto the steps of the U.S. Capital and White House in Washington D.C!  Let your voice be known!  Once any federal government expenditure is enacted, it’s hard to repeal it.  Name one time it has.

Four months, a failed business model and forty million dollars!

It’s final. As I mentioned, there is no five-year business model plan. The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is ending. The Wall Street Journal is reporting in Tuesday’s edition that he’ll be paid off with a $40 million check. The Jay Leno Show started in September, however, it’s only four months and the network is willing to write a $40 million check to get rid lower ratings. There is no doubt that companies can’t wait as long for a business model to work out these days. I wish it worked out for me for about a million for a failed business model for me!

Communication lapses everywhere I work … Puzzled, am I missing something?

I noticed that the lines of communications necessary to operate a business is always lacking with excuses as there isn’t time to explain and inform colleagues what’s going on with everything.  Yet, I notice that many people just don’t have the energy to make the time to communicate with one another.  That seems really a real puzzle because of the technology out there.

The technology in generating necessary reports on the store levels have been a waste of productivity from my own experience.  That’s only because the upper leadership doesn’t like to give the store level control over generating reports.  Whatever report that is generated from the store level needs its input.  Why create a report that doesn’t improve the productivity of salaried managers?  It’s an ongoing process that we have that we continue to have to coach, train and follow up on employees behaviors during the shift, where we are needed on the floor—not in the office.

I am a little puzzled by what is said as excuses as to why we cannot communicate with one another.  In one of a published Franklin Covey studies, many employees in their individual work position say that they are not effective in their job.  And only fifteen percent of the employees actually know their businesses’ most important goals.  Could it be that there is not enough communication between the boss and the subordinate—all the way up the chain of command till you get to the CEO or owner of the business?  We still have company voice mails; and we now have individual e-mail addresses, which many people can use the cc: function; and now we even have the ability to text messages; and there’s still the usual face-to-face discussion.

So help me to understand why anyone in a leadership position would say that we are unable to communicate everything about what’s going on related to the business?  I’ve heard that excuse too many times in the positions I have had in the past.  When is it going to change for the success of businesses and our country?  It’s about communicating with one another; sometimes it requires over-communication.  It’s better than none at all, and where team members don’t know what's the important goals of the business is.  That will be and is a waste of our productivity and time at work.

Businesses: Where are the project managers who plan for five-year plans?

Businesses lately have really poor project managers on its team.  They don’t look ahead to what is needed as the growth and expansion happens.  I notice it a lot on freeway road work.  Of course leaving in Southern California has been my reference point.  They plan on widening a freeway.  By the time that they get the highway up and vehicles are on it, the growth of the cities around still causes bottlenecks around the area.

There is consideration in wireless companies who are looking to charge based upon how much bandwidth a customer uses to prevent the service slowdowns that the use of the AT&T network has experienced in New York and San Francisco.  Where is the planning on the ability to use the network as the advertisement promotes.  The wireless companies should have projected out that the usage with the technology it promoted.  With all the intelligent employees working in the company, no one knew this was coming?

I remembered when I was growing up, I heard that businesses had five year plans out to project profit-n-loss statements for the company.  From my own personal experience, companies now look at monthly results, not yearly financial plans.  What type of world do we live in right now where long-term is not what we give much thought to in our lives?

It’s a search deep inside ME! … Communication in MY marriage

I know it’s been a long time since I have posted a HomeBuilders series update.  It has a bumpy road getting it done, because of the eleven days straight closing, and the scheduled seven days opening which was changed at the last minute because of one of my colleague.  Plus, there is the challenge of executing what my plans are.  It’s a work in progress.

These are two questions that I had to search deep inside myself:

• How do the following passage relate to making your marriage and home a priority in your lives?

• What insight about communication in marriage have you gained from this session?

Do you understand how intense the inside, out look is?  How would you answer?

First ten days of the start of 2010!

It’s a little over half way through my seven consecutive with four days completed, and with three days to go!  We had warnings of less than one-inch of snow, but it was hardly that at all.  It’s been a cold start of the new year, with temperatures in the highs near freezing.  The only trip planned right now this 2010 year is to take a week’s vacation sometime this year in Orlando, Florida.  There is no date set.  We are waiting for the opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studio.  I will keep you posted on when that will be happening.

What will turn out to be the first self-portrait of 2010?  Only time will tell the tale of the TONO story.

Start of three general suggestions for businesses IF I was the CEO/Chairman of the Board

Working in multiple markets across the USA, reading many restaurant news and publications, many times I wonder why executives make the decisions that they do.  I have concluded on a few things that I would like to happen IF I owned my own business, mostly as it pertains to running a restaurant, because that is primarily where my experiences has been.  But I still believe that some of the observations here can be applied everywhere else.

• Communication is the key to any company’s success.  Accountability is the spark that moves any business forward from top, down.

• Use technology to the advantage of efficient productivity.  Many times in the companies that I have worked for, that hasn’t happened.  They make the communicative systems not work to the advantage of more productivity, but more work that distracts from the ingenuity and creativity of the leaders in the trenches—the managers on duty on a day-to-day basis dealing with the public.

• From what I’ve seen, the bosses are not consistent to the limits that they set forth as their expectations. I will resolve in 2010 to ensure that I am consistent with the guidelines of my superiors.

I thought that I would share these overarching general suggestions.  I thought that I would share a few observations and thoughts about the obstacles that make my job ever more challenging on a day-to-day basis, taking away from the quality of my life.