Perspectives

Meeting after meeting, have you ever wondered how people can walk away with a different understanding of what the team goal is?  Or ever been to a training class where people walked away with a different understanding of the material presented?  It happens every day, every hour, if not every minute, and it’s called having a “perspective”.

Perspectives can be derived from a myriad of exposures (i.e. how and where we were raised, our religious beliefs, our political beliefs, and something as simple as our gender or race).  Because everyone has their own perspective, particularly in an organizational or team setting, it can either be exceptionally easy to work with others or exceptionally difficult if the members of the team do not see eye to eye.  What are others trying to get out of a meeting or a goal?  Are we all looking for the same thing?  Do we see all of the details or are we missing something?  A great example was the video of the basketball players.  The question at the beginning of the movie was to count the number of times the players in white passed the basketball.  So immediately my focus was on counting how many times they passed the basketball.  However, I missed an important detail – the dancing bear. 

When in meetings, conversations, trainings, and more, we as individuals focus on our perspectives and goals, and fail to try to even understand the needs and / or initiatives of others.  Another way to look at this is as a manager, I should seek to understand my employees’ strengths and weaknesses so that I can put them in positions where they can excel and develop.  Without this I am doing a disservice to my company as well as my team because I am not maximizing the potential of my group which in turn would potentially maximize profits for the company. 

Who Am I

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but raised for the majority of my life in Nesbit, Mississippi.  We did not have much, but we grew up with a strong sense of family and values.  I spent my undergraduate years at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame (South Bend), IN.  It was quite a culture shock being from Mississippi attending a school in Indiana, primarily because of the weather.  The first major adjustment was to the Winter!!!!  My freshman year was the first time ND had closed school due to the weather in over 10 years.  However, being there forced me to grow up and to gain more independence and responsibility.

Quentin and I

I have a 14 year old son named Quentin Champion, who is in the 9th grade at Riverwood International Charter School.   He is my most relished accomplishment and consumes a large portion of my free time with his activities!!  He plays a sport for every season (football, basketball, baseball, and track), and somehow seems to always find time for other activities along with the sports.

My favorite hobby / stress reliever is tennis.  It not only helps to clear my mind from a hectic day, but it also is great exercise, especially since I seem to avoid the gym like the plague.  I am also a people person, and tennis cultivates not only a team atmosphere, but also opportunities for networking.  I play ALTA, T2, LeagueTennis, and Ultimate Tennis.  I also like to play mixed as well as doubles tennis, but find that my joints are a little old / out of shape to play singles.   My women's ALTA team makes it to the play-offs every year.  However, we always lose in the second round of the play-offs.  Needless to say, we are looking to break that curse this season.

In the next 5 years, I am looking to grow my consulting company.  I currently have three clients, but due to time constraints, availability of resources, and lack of the entrepreneurial know-how, I have not reached the volume that I would like to have.  I am not looking to own the largest consulting company, but I want to establish a brand that speaks quality and customer service, which seems to be lacking from several existing vendors.  With that being said, I would like to become one of Microsoft's key female / minority owned consulting services firms in the Southeast within that time frame.