So class is over.

Wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t so good. Second day was harder to stay awake in for me. The stuff was really abstract though trying to appear grounded. We’d chat about our matrix organization and got into the pros/cons of it, but there’s no use of us really talking about it – cause we can’t change it. It was more a support group of how to cope with it.

It was kind of strange, how the consultants would stress accountability and “owning” things, while they “owned” very little. That’s why I’d prefer they were Yahoo! employees and that they were given the task of finding out what leaders within the company are struggling with, so they then could address the problems. Right now, as we bring up issues in class, they’d faux-empathize and then just go on with their routine. They have topics to cover after all.

Oh – the book was – Now, Discover Your Strengths. And he’s got some putting your strengths to work book that is going to turn into another class that we’ll be offered at work. I’m going to try and get an internal strengths coach to get my team through some of this – just to see what it’s like. Except that she hasn’t responded to my email yet.

The instructors did turn me on to the fact that Lencioni’s got a new book out – around miserable jobs. So that might be a good read.

In the end, it is another class down with a tidbit or two here and there that’ll sneak up on me in the days to come. The one that stands out is that people don’t quit their organizations. They might join because of an organization, but they don’t quit it. They quit, because of their manager. Most of the time. So, sure, part of that is to impact on the people in the class how much of a difference they actually make to everyone working for them, but part of it just points to how even though we’re a huge company, we’re still very human.

Plus I met some interesting co-workers who’ve got nothing to do with media, which is kind of fun.

The ironic twist between class and the day to day stuff: we did a little exercise about the rewards people would want – most went with cash and time off. A few went for the longer term investment of “lunch with Jerry” or your group’s SVP type reward. Then, today, I find out that Jason or Dave are having lunch with Jerry. Nice!