The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration website reports that there is an estimated 25 million lightning flashes in the United States each year (). Nearly all lightning occurs after the creation of a thunderstorm; a result of moisture along with atmospheric instability and motion. Once the thunderstorm becomes charged, it affects the charge of the ground or clouds around it. Lightning is the movement of charge either to or from the thunderstorm to an oppositely charged body.

Inspiration is like lightning. It only occurs amidst some of the most impossibly measured environmental conditions and yet, can occur frequently. As managers, we need to recognize when those things are happening and do the best we can to recreate those conditions.

Especially because we know very well that we alone cannot generate truly powerful results.

According to Williams, one lightning strike can be several hundred million volts! That鈥檚 serious power.

The innovative ideas that come from our people can have that same kind of power in our operations, if we harness it. I鈥檒l suggest this: as soon as it starts, it just keeps going and going. The lightning taking form in our organizations passes through conductor after conductor in the form of employees all building off the energy generated from just one small idea; one little strike.

This is chain lightning, and it happens when we 鈥渃harge鈥� our personnel into thinking beyond their office space.

It鈥檚 got the power to move some really BIG things.

Williams, E. R., The Electrification of Thunderstorms, Scientific American Nov 88, p88.

In weeks past I鈥檝e talked about trying to stay disconnected; to not affording too much access to our personal time so we don鈥檛 burn out.

If you are anything like me, you aren鈥檛 the greatest at doing that. As an admitted technology junkie, I have created a living environment that takes almost as much work to disconnect and shut down as it does to just go ahead and answer an email at 5 am on a Sunday.

This past week, my propensity to research and read and think and write and share and listen and wonder has made me sick. Physically sick. And of course, I was working amidst coughing fits and hot tea remedies.

Sadly, many people around me suffer the same consequence for just trying to make sure things get done, because at some point we decide our health and well-being is secondary to answering just one more question or solving just one more problem.

I鈥檓 also willing to bet that the people around you are suffering the same thing.

So here鈥檚 a question 鈥� do you wait to the absolute last minute to use your PTO, only to find that you鈥檙e working through it anyway?

Here鈥檚 a bigger one: What process do you have in place to assist your employees to use their time off before they are up against the deadline to 鈥渦se it or lose it?鈥� Is this really the most effective way to manage our vacation benefits? I doubt I have to go far on a limb to speculate that it really isn鈥檛 much of a vacation from anything, since those PTO deadlines seem to coincide with end of year goals and reporting!

Though I could never say that high school chemistry was my favorite class, even to this day I took some very valuable lessons from it because I saw even then how similar chemical compounds existing in nature were to relationships between people.

In my chemistry class we learned about ionic and covalent bonds. Ionic bonds occur when two oppositely charged atoms are attracted to each other and combine; when two atoms share electrons in order to create a stable compound it is known as a covalent bond.

Philosophically speaking, as a manager I want my entire team to be one large covalent bond 鈥� existing as a cohesive group sharing one mission or goal. If they all own a piece of it, then I find that they have defined themselves by that whole 鈥� a collective that is not easily broken apart.

I once had a colleague that liked to refer to her workgroup as 鈥渟alty.鈥� Like their namesake, they were separately and fundamentally very dissimilar in approach or “charge,” but together their work was unmistakable and they were focused and difficult to divide. They brought their flavor to every project table, and their impact was obvious and immediate in everything they became involved.

Ok, she was a chemical engineer, and she admitted it to be nerdy 鈥渆ngineer speak鈥� 鈥� but it鈥檚 pretty good, right?

What binds you, and your team? Mission, goals? Are you even bound at all?