“Back in the day” is a phrase commonly heard in coffee shops and bars across the country when friends get together to reminisce. But when was this mythical “day”?
I have heard twenty-five year-olds use the phrase and can only assume that, for them, it was circa 2001!

“Back in the day” indicates a hankering for things as they were – not as they are (or should be). A hankering for the familiar, the comfortable, the predictable – a hankering for something different from the harsh realities of 2009!

The “day” that organizations have to deal with, however, is today – and after today, tomorrow. To survive and prosper, organizational leaders can not focus on the past. They need to “live in the now” – another phrase that has gained currency in recent years (see Eckhart Tolle’s best seller- The Power of Now).

In these trying economic times, the challenge for organizational leaders is to look to the “power of now” within themselves and their organizations and to relegate the reminiscing to later when, as a country, we can afford the time to remember how good it was – “back in the day”

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Quote of the Day

Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present. ~ Rudy Giuliani