ppp 04-23-07

Quote of the day: Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963),

speech prepared for delivery in Dallas the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963

Last week I promised a synopsis of the leadership lessons of the millionaire turned cocaine addict turned PhD theologian priest. He could give an enitre week on this. I was able to glean a few highlights. Fr. Caropi spelled out leadership in these terms:

L- Lead by example. If you don’t want your kids to smoke the quit. At work, be the type of employee that you want those in your charge to be.

E- Educate. The prime mission of parents is to educate their children. Teach your coworkers new skills and they will look to you as a leader.

A- Attitude. You have heard a lot about attitude from these pages. Be positive, stay positive and infect those around you with it.

D – Discipline. While it may be tempting to go off on a tangent or be distracted while at work or with the family develop the discipline to stay on task and in the moment.

E – Empower. Empower your people (your kids) by giving them responsibility with accountability. You will go crazy if you have to be responsible for every decision, every day. Give them some freedom and set yourself free.

R – Receive and Respect input. This does not mean that you let those you lead make all of the calls…. You still make the final decisions but the good ideas of others can help you. Even if the ideas are unworkable there may be a spark that ignites the blaze.

S – Sacrifice. No pain, no gain? Some things are worth it. If you expect others to give up something for the team then you should be willing to make sacrifices too.

H - Humility. Be sure to give credit to all those involved in your successes. If it wasn’t for the hard work, dedication and ideas of the team then there would be no cause for celebration.

I – Initiative, Good leaders take the initiative to make changes, start projects and make a difference.

P- Plan/Prepare/Practice/ and Pray (his is a priest after all) Everyone has the desire to win but winners have the desire to prepare to win.

Remember that you don't always lead from the top. You can manage up through your superiors. So get out there and lead….. and have some fun while you are at it!

pps. Occasionally, some of the links require FREE registration.... I'm sure you can handle THAT slight inconvenience.

The call goes up for an independent, non-governmental think tank to review, interpret, and even design drug studies on new chemical entities. While I may be from the shallow end of the gene pool, I'd love to jump into the deep end of this think tank!

Agency reports that the bill would not have saved and money and many in congress are leery of tampering with the PART-D as it is working and costing less than expected.

Government repot on the proposed standards for e-prescribing. Conform or be the Betamax in a Blue Ray world...

Teddy got his 45% higher "USER FEES" under the recently passed PUDUFA act as well as a 2 year ban on DTC advertising of new chemical entities out of committee. We will see if this passes the Senate (as well as the House) and survives conference committee and gets executive ink.

Is your dog upset when you leave him alone to go to work? Does he whine, bark or chew up the house? Now you may be able to give him a canine dose of Prozac called Reconcile. It come as a beef-flavored chewable tablet. They expect to treat 10 million dogs!

Study shows that, while patients who have had a heart attack SHOULD be taking aspirin EVERY DAY, only about 57% actually take the drug.

Many patients did not switch to lower cost generics; they simply stopped taking anything for their ailment. Some plans reduced drug expenditure by 62%. I think I'll try to dig into more of the details of this one.

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