Happy Thursday!

Today I am going to switch gears. Our team is at Royal Air Force Base - Molesworth England. We spent the day interviewing different US military people about issues they may have with our processes. During this day we interviewed a person named Lisa. Lisa was a knowledgeable person who gave us a lot of insight. However, she has a professional weakness. She talks too much and has to dominate the conversation. This reflected poorly on her in the group we were with and we could tell it irritated her co-workers. Just to show an example, we all went out to lunch together. After 15 minutes of eating, we were done with our meal and her plate was still full. From a professional standpoint, what this comes down to is self-awareness. We should be consistantly monitoring how we are being perceived by those around us. From this monitoring, we can pick up non-verbal clues and act appropriately.

The BOTTOM Line: Effective communicators are sure to allow communication to happen equally throughout a group.

Beyond the bottom line:

Below are some pics from our first day in England. We ate at a pub and then went to Cambridge University. The pictures you see are of buildings at St. Johns College and the chapel at Kings College. The bridge is called the Mathematical Bridge. It is at Queens College - when originally built hundreds of years ago, it was completely constructed without bolts - an engineering marvel. Cambridge is composed of 33 colleges. It is quite amazing.

The last picture is in a town called Lavenham. Do you remember the line: "there was a crooked man who had a crooked house"? This is the town where the crooked houses were built....500 years ago! And they are crooked as can be. But inside they are beautifully finished. It was a neat place.

Happy 20th Birthday to my Katie!!