Business Meetings

Well, we just finished the first day face-to-face meetings of the executive board this year. There are six executives including myself, and they all live up here near Seattle except for me. So it's up to me to come out here once a quarter for these meetings.

Today was the first of two days and ran from about 10 am to around 6 pm, then we went to dinner. We reviewed what we did well and not so well last year and then started looking at the actual numbers vs our budget. It's a good thing last year was a transition year for the company and I wasn't part of the 2004 budget process. Ouch.

It's interesting the different level of problems that come up on an executive level vs a department or division level. You get so tied up in the day-to-day department/division management stuff that it is real easy to forget about the big picture strategy stuff on the executive level. It's a real challenge for all of us, but fun too.

Luckily I work with a good group and I really feel like we have all the pieces to make this thing work. We just need to figure out how they go together. It's a good base.

Anyway, tomorrow's meeting starts at 8am and runs until about 2pm. Diving into some of the more tense subjects so I expect some conflict. So far most of that conflict is constructive conflict and is very good stuff, and I expect that tomorrow as well. Kinda looking forward to it now that I have a niche carved out for myself. Took a while to get there.

I should probably get some sleep.