Tomorrow is June 1 – my favorite month in our garden and around Southern Ontario. It’s also the month when seasonal change is sharpest with the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. This brings to mind the popular song, “To Everything There is a Season.” The song title is often abbreviated to, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” The lyrics are almost entirely from the Book of Ecclesiastes and were slightly adapted and put to music by Bob Seeger in 1959.
The lyrics are a timeless reminder of life’s rhythms and season:
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Tomorrow we publish the June issue of The Leader Letter compiling all my blog posts from May. Although I imagine all blog subscribers excitedly sitting in front of their computers waiting for the release of each of my blog posts — in case you missed a few — we start with change lessons from Dutch history, and how focusing on common goals can break through differences and conflict to bring us together.
Customer service is a perennial issue that shifts with the economic and competitive seasons. Now in the winter of his long and productive life, “the father of leadership,” Warren Bennis, shares his life story and leadership lessons in his highly engrossing memoirs. As technological change speeds up our world and provides new communication tools, we draw timely and timeless lessons from Harvard Business Review articles.
Take your blog or Leader Letter reading time to turn, turn, turn your attention to the growth — or death — of the skills, habits, and perspectives that will productively move you forward to your next season of personal, team, or organizational life.
For over 30 years, Jim Clemmer’s practical leadership approaches have been inspiring action and achieving results. He has delivered thousands of keynote presentations, workshops, and management team retreats to hundreds of organizations around the globe moving his audiences from inspiration to application. He’s listed in the World’s Top 30 Most Influential Leadership Gurus based on research with 22,000 global business people, consultants, academics and MBAs. His website is www.JimClemmer.com.
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