Frank Leonard & Associates

Write down your Bucket List The emergency room surgeon said “we’re going to stop your heart and let it restart.”   I had two thoughts: one was a quote from Monty Python; and the other was that I still had things I wanted to do.   The IV went in; my brain heard my heart slow down – like the sound a record makes when the turntable is turned off – and then silence.   And then, restart and all is good...and I tell myself to write down my bucket list. Let me fill in some blanks.   On the medical front, I had the first episode with my heart in 2012.   I’d been battling another sinus infection but my heart rate increased so I went to the local clinic – booked in, waited my turn, and then told the Doctor my heart seemed fast and I was short of breath.   Boom – all hell broke loose.   Ambulances arrived and during trip to the hospital the paramedic kept reporting ahead for our arrival with ‘he’s the Mayor, and he’s 58.’ – Neither of which I thought w...

Want a Solution? Sometimes you have to get out of the room. My uncle managed retail operations and would tell me he’d respond to an employee with a problem by saying ‘that’s interesting; let me know how you work it out.’   In teaching small business management at university, I follow a similar theme with the ‘One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey’ – where problems are personified as monkeys and managers delegate while still maintaining oversight. As I’ve held various governance roles in the public and private sector I’ve adapted this approach to problem solving.   Other than issues with the CEO/CAO, most other problems belong to management.   A board or council role is not to create or find solutions but to choose and approve one.   I cringe when I hear that a local government council is going to hold a workshop to solve a problem – none have the expertise in the particular field – they have employees who do.   I believe their role is to hold those man...