Let's Start At The Beginning...

A very good place to start

By Duncan Murphy

The first few words from The Sound of Music's “Do-Re-Mi” song is the theme of this article and my coming year as MHEDA President, as well as the reminder of how we need to do our jobs and run our businesses in 2009. I am writing on the heels of a stock market drop of historical proportions and just after the November elections. As you read this, who knows what other challenges we will face.

In light of this, what is reliable? You are! MHEDA is! This is the message for 2009. Successful entities make certain that fundamentals are deeply ingrained in everyone before complexity enters into the equation—ensure a foundation is in place before a structure is built. Top performers constantly refresh their fundamentals. Working on fundamentals is how one “starts at the very beginning.”

MHEDA'S Fundamentals
Your MHEDA Board, Executive Vice President Liz Richards and her staff sing “Do-Re-Mi” with the best (not actually singing because that might get ugly) by repeating the same strategic planning process every year. New Board Members join the existing team to first work on the fundamentals, and then plan MHEDA's direction and offerings for the coming year. Your responses to the recently completed Annual Member Survey are a critical part of the plan. The process provides continuity, and it works.

January brings with it ProMat 2009 to kick off our year. As always, MHEDA has a booth for members and prospective members to visit. There will also be a meeting room set aside for MHEDA-NET groups to enjoy a face-to-face meeting. After a year of conference calls, seeing the other members of your networking circle really cements relationships. By the way, there is always room for new MHEDA-NET members. It is much easier to fly with a formation of friends than struggling along on your own.

The Education Committee has crafted an outstanding training lineup for 2009. The MHEDA U Calendar has been sent to every member contact and is listed on page 146. Use it as a template for your entire company. Use it to plan not only for yourself, but also for those you are responsible for developing. The better they become, the more golf you can play!

Development is another buzzword for 2009. The keynote speaker at ProMat, Forrest Sawyer, will discuss the impending retirement of Baby Boomers and how the available pool of skilled workers will become thinner. I don't know how or when it happened, but my contemporaries and I got old. (Note for the young Turks: Boomers still feel your age in our heads; our bodies have just let us down.) Given this march of time, we have a responsibility to expose and engage all members of our companies to the benefits of MHEDA. One common excuse for not doing so is the lack of time. Well, we must make the time for the next generation, instilling in them the fundamentals it took years, and a few scars, for us to learn. The value of the MHEDA offerings is there. Take it.

I look forward to my year as President, following in the very able footprints of Jack Phelan and his predecessors. I am excited for the opportunity to see and meet as many of you as I can. Let's start at the very beginning and share the fundamentals with everyone we work with. By doing so, we step up to “Powerful Positioning,” which is the theme for Convention and my next article.

Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do!

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The MHEDA Journal • First Quarter 2009 • Volume 38, No. 1 • Contents are Copyright © Data Key Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved. • Nothing may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission of the publisher.