An awesome thought

I have recently started reading the book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership by Steven Sample, the President of the University of Southern California (USC). More about that when I've finished reading it, but for now, I was led to look him up on the USC website and found an interesting article that he wrote in 2003. What blew me away was the following paragraph:

[University leaders] must understand that the decisions they make today are made for the long term. In his book The Uses of the University, Clark Kerr observed that since the year 1520 only about 85 institutions have remained continuously in existence in recognizable forms. They include several Swiss cantons, the Roman Catholic Church, and the parliaments of the Isle of Man, Iceland, and Great Britain. But some 70 of the 85 institutions that have survived continuously for the past half-millennium are universities. So when [university leaders] consider their role, they should think in terms of centuries.

That's an interesting and challenging perspective to try to grasp for anyone who works in a university.

Still picnicking in the park!

("Picnicking" always looks misspelled to me!). Yup, it's Wednesday so I went along to the Farmer's Market Picnic-in-the-Park this evening (I seem to be settling into a routine of going there every other week). It was an absolutely beautiful autumn/fall evening: warm and sunny (I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt). I enjoyed a burrito (a tortilla filled with all manner of good things: chicken, beans, salsa, cheese, sour cream and guacamole in this case) while listening to the band (a very good all-woman group playing some nice blues and folk music — their multi-part vocal harmonies on the folk songs were superb).

After that I picked up some fruit — it's always nice to be able to sample the produce before buying. There are still strawberries and grapes available, but I suspect the offerings are going to start to get a bit thin as we get into the colder part of the year. Daylight-savings time comes to an end soon, which will mean it gets darker an hour earlier in the evening (a very unpleasant phenomenon when you're not used to it, as I discovered in the year I spent in Bristol) and I guess the picnic-in-the-park will become a rather less enticing way of spending Wednesday evenings then.

Hope Walks

Well, it was another good weekend with the Hobsons in Rocklin. The highlight was the Hope Walks event on Saturday morning. That is an annual fund-raising walk held at various venues all over the USA to support a number of charities. The Sacramento venue was the William Jessup University (a small, private university), which is right on Colin and Janet's doorstep.

The walk itself was only 1.6 miles, on paved paths around the university grounds, but was very good fun. It was a little overcast which made for rather pleasant walking conditions. We met up with some friends, Larry and Lori, and walked with them for most of the way (the finish line photo shows Janet coming in with Larry and Lori). The charities supported are mainly Christian organisations working in Africa (with AIDS orphans) and Cambodia (with child sex slaves — a huge problem in that area). The Sacramento walk had over 1000 walkers and reportedly raised about $35000, which is pretty good going. After the walk there was a chance to see some exhibitions on the work that the various charities are doing, including mock-ups of a "typical" African home and school.

After that we all went off to watch Erin's soccer match (even her brothers came this week!). That ended in a 2-all draw after a fairly evenly matched game. Thereafter I treated us all to some do-it-yourself frozen yoghurt at Big Spoon Yogurt. That was a rather interesting experience: you decant your choice of flavoured frozen yoghurt into a cup and can then add various sauces and toppings (from 75 choices!). After all that your cup is weighed and you pay for the total weight. After some in depth research, I can thoroughly recommend a generous serving of strawberry yoghurt, topped off with cherry sauce, mini cheesecake chunks and flaked almonds! (Decadent, but we had done all that walking earlier in the morning!).

The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell

I just finished reading The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (Oren Harari, McGraw-Hill, 2002). That's not my usual kind of reading matter — for some reason, I have never been attracted to biographies. However, this was recommended by Bill Hybels (of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit) when he interviewed Powell in 2007 on his approach to leadership. The interview was really good, and the book kind of hovered on my radar until I bought it recently (together with another leadership book based on Winston Churchill — as you can see, I'm trying to deal with my biography-phobia!).

Well, it turns out that the Powell book is really good! To be more accurate, it is not so much a biography as a leadership book based on the life and experience of Powell, who has had a remarkably successful career as a leader by any standards. In Harari's words: "The lessons in this book constitute a clear strategic, philosophical, value-based, and ethical blueprint by which Powell leads". Some of the discussion is (understandably) somewhat militaristic, but Harari does a good job of bringing the principles out.

A great quote from Powell himself, which sums up his leadership philosophy rather well: "Leadership is not rank, privilege, titles, or money. It is responsibility".

I think I sense another StaffDev series coming on!

Link to the book on Kalahari.net.

Apples, Apples, and More Apples!

Well, I had another great weekend with the Hobsons. We went to church on Saturday afternoon and then had dinner with some friends of theirs — a very pleasant evening. Then on Sunday we headed out to Apple Hill® (see more below). On Monday, Colin was headed down to the Bay Area for business, so I was able to get a lift back to Davis with him at a slightly more reasonable time than my usual 5:15am start to the week!

Getting back to the apples: Apple Hill® is a group of farms out to the East of Sacramento who have formed a tourist trap of note! There are about 50 farms (mostly apple farms, unsurprisingly) in the area who have organised various activities, events, etc. The drive out was very scenic as one starts to climb up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range (it's on the way up to Tahoe). We started off at High Hill Farm, which is one of the main spots. They had some delicious apple donuts we had been recommended to try, and various craft stalls (somewhat reminiscent of the Village Green at the Grahamstown Festival, although on a smaller scale), lots of fruit and apple products (juice, pies, the afore-mentioned donuts, etc.) for sale, a trout pond, etc., etc. All of this was set among a forest of beautiful pine trees. Right next to High Hill is the Fudge Factory Farm. No prizes for guessing what was on sale there, or that it was a great hit with the younger generation and a certain African tourist somewhat known for his sweet tooth! There was also a group fund-raising for a wolf shelter who had a wolf on display — a magnificent creature.

After browsing around there we moved along to El Dorado Orchards where we spent a fair amount of money on the crafts between us. Erin and a friend of hers who was with us for the day made candles at a stall there. There was a lot of fruit on sale there, and in hindsight we should have bought some apples there (yes, we did go to Apple Hill and come back without any apples!).

From El Dorado we moved along to the Jack Russell Farm Brewery where we had a late lunch (but, again, did not sample the speciality of the farm!). At all the farms we were struck by the number of people who had brought their dogs, and we did see a JR here (not the one the farm is named after, who is apparently 17 now and does not make too many public appearances). Lunch consisted of some delicious burgers.

Our final stop for the day was at Honey Bear Ranch, where we enjoyed some fudge or baked goods for desert (I had an delicious apple-berry crunch — like an apple crumble, but with berries mixed in with the apples). That place had a water wheel spinning lazily in a small pond area and the obligatory craft stalls.

All in all it was a very pleasant day-out, enjoying the warm autumn/fall weather.

Bikes

My mention in the previous posting about needing a lighter bike prompted me to write about the second-hand bike market here.

There is a strong market for "classic" bikes, which would be written off as junk in SA. For example, there is a 1970's Fuji bike (the one in the picture) for sale now for $300 (approx. R2400) and an old Schwinn going for $499 (R4000). Back home there is almost no market at all for older second-hand bikes and they certainly wouldn't be commanding prices like that.

That's a little frustrating when you're looking out for a cheap, but reasonably good condition second-hand bike, but much better than the throw-away mentality that says old bikes are worthless.

Anyway, it was a rather surprising and interesting observation for me.

There is also an amazing range of different bikes available (not just "mountain or road" — there are hybrids, cruisers, commuters, tourers and fixed-gear bikes, and that's before you get into the really way-out things like recumbents and tricycles!). There is a notably strong contingent of believers in single- and fixed-gear bikes (a more palatable option in the flat terrain here, I guess!). If you're interested, take a look at the range offered by Ken's Bike and Ski Shop (a local bike store in Davis) — just browse the menus (and sub-menus!) down the left side.

Well, that was an adventure!

It seems that I need a social security number here (for a number of reasons). The usual application process involves going to the nearest Social Security Administration (SSA) office in West Sacramento. Except that they come through to Davis once a year at the start of the new academic year to deal with all the foreigners arriving on campus for the first time. Well that seemed like a bargain to me, so I trotted along on 16 September and signed up!

Then, last week, I got a letter from them in the mail: they needed to see my passport before they could process my application! This despite the fact that they had checked my passport when I saw them in Davis in September. So much for avoiding the trip to Sacramento!

After several attempts to phone them and make an appointment I finally gave up and decided just to go through (fingers crossed that they would be able to help me out there and then). That meant weighing up the options for getting there. Without a car there are three main options: (1) hire a car; (2) take a bus; or (3) cycle. (1) is a little expensive for a simple visit to an office. (2) is rather complicated, involving taking a regional bus through to West Sac then a second local bus service to get to the SSA office. (3) is a good way to get some exercise and get there for free (appealing to both the cyclist and the Scot in me!). So, I set off this morning on my bike and had a relatively pleasant ride there, although it was a bit windy. It took just over an hour to get there (about 13 miles, or 20kms), with almost all of it bar the last 500m or so being on either bike paths or bike lanes (I love this country's attitude to cycling!).

Once I arrived at the SSA office a computer disgorged a ticket with a number and I settled down to wait. That didn't take too long (about 40 minutes) and the official who saw me was very friendly and helpful and tut-tutted that they hadn't checked the passport details when they were here. Apparently my card should be in the mail shortly.

I managed to avoid the temptation of shopping at Ikea, which is very close to the SSA offices, but did spend some time in the HUGE Walmart superstore there before hitting the bike trail back to Davis. Well, the trip back was "interesting". The "bit windy" conditions had turned into REALLY WINDY conditions (the weather bureau is reporting "37 km/h gusting to 58 km/h" — I guess the numbers are less wierd in mph!), and the journey back took rather longer and was a lot less pleasant than the ride there.

Anyway, I survived the adventure and got my exercise for the week! I really do need a lighter bike though!

Phil Wickham

As mentioned a few weeks ago (see the "Thriving Musicians" entry below), I was blown away by Phil Wickham when I heard him in concert. Well his two CDs that I had ordered had arrived last week (delivered to the Hobsons), and I've been listening to them since the weekend and am still thoroughly enjoying them. As I said after hearing him in concert, he has "some beautifully poetic lyrics (without being cheesy), and ... an incredible vocal range and style".

There are some short samples from his CDs available on the internet, if you're interested: (1) the first, self-titled album; (2) Cannons, his second album. One of my favourites is the title track from Cannons, and Mystery from the first album is great too.

True North

One of the things I did accomplish last week was to finish reading the book True North by Bill George (Jossey-Bass, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7879-8751-0). He was one of the speakers at the Global Leadership Summit in August this year, and is on the teaching staff at the Harvard Business School, after several decades of leadership, most notably as the head of Medtronic, one of the world's leading companies in the area of medical technology (such as pace-makers).

In the book, he expands on the idea of "authentic leadership", which he introduced in his previous book (called Authentic Leadership, strangely enough!). Essentially, this means that one needs to be true to one's own unique combination of personality, gifts, passions, etc. as a leader (rather than trying to emulate someone else's style or methods of leadership). I really enjoyed the book, as it developed a number of themes around finding your own integrated leadership path. One of the strengths of the book is its heavy use of anecdotes by a large number of leaders from all kinds of backgrounds to illustrate the principles of authentic leadership.

It's well-worth reading if you're interested in some of the recent trends in leadership development (or staying tuned for a possible StaffDev series!).

Link to the book on kalahari.net.

An update...

(Why do I keep titling these posts with ellipses? Talk about overusing a grammatical feature of the English language!).

Anyway, enough of my grammatical choices. It's been a few days since I last posted an update here, so I figured it was overdue. The rest of last week was relatively uneventful. I didn't get to the Farmers' Market last week, but I did manage to get out and ride the Davis Bike Loop. That is great fun as it avoids roads as much as possible (the ones it does use all have bike lanes) and uses the excellent network of bike paths, taking you through a whole bunch of lovely little neighbourhood parks, through green belts, etc. The map below might be a bit flakey because it relies on a third-party site for my bike route, but should show "home" (the blue point), UC Davis CS dept (the yellow point) and the Davis Bike Loop route in blue:


View Larger Map

The weekend was spent with the Hobsons in Rocklin again. On Sunday afternoon Colin and I went for a ride around one of the bike trails in their area. Again, a stunning set of purpose-built trails led us through the area around Bayside church along a little creek. I could get seriously used to cycling in the USA under these conditions, compared with the near-death experiences one has along African Street in Grahamstown!