July 4th: The year is halfway over. Take a break & get at it
John Laughlin, CTS
CEO and President CTI, YPO member, AIA CES provider for 15+years
July 4th isn't quite the halfway point of the year, it's a day or two past it, but Independence Day serves well as a halftime break for CTI and myself. We took advantage of the holiday to give our folks a four-day weekend. It's good to take a break, relax, and get ready for the second half of the year.?
And when that break is over, it's a good time to look at the balance sheets and see how they compare to our plans and goals for the year. We've got six months left. Are we ahead? Behind? Where do we need to make changes or adjustments? Are there any fires we need to put out? Are our goals still realistic? Do we need to change our plans to meet them?
Or, my personal favorite, we're going to blow those goals right out of the water.??
Taking a few days off before getting into those kinds of discussions is useful. Many of our associates take the whole week off. I'm good with that; I don't understand why companies are stingy with vacation days. I read a ton of business books and studies. I've yet to see one conclude that time off is bad for productivity or creativity. It's great for morale in the workplace and mental health in general.??
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I'm not kidding. Search for "vacation" on the Harvard Business Review website. You'll get 155 results with titles like "Thinking of Skipping Vacation? Don't!" and "Set These 5 Professional Boundaries Before You Go On Vacation" or "Don't work on Vacation. Seriously." I might occasionally be guilty of ignoring that last bit of advice, but I do love my job.
I hope you had a happy July 4th, had a chance to relax, and if you take that 'halftime pause' to see where you and your business are, you're in a great position to meet your goals. As always, if you have any AV or Live Events needs, please reach out to CTI .?
If you haven't seen the video yet, that flag at the top of this post is of the Sphere Entertainment Co. Sphere. Just an incredible piece of entertainment and engineering: 366 feet high, with 580,000 square feet of LED screen powered by 1.2 million LED pucks each packing 48 LEDs. The giant orb houses an 18,000-seat theater. Hats off to the team that built it!
Production and labor professional.
1 年Great post John. Unfortunately right now I can’t take a vacation as I’m 2 weeks away from finishing my scope at the Sphere. I’ve got 632 out of 635 cameras installed, 330 out of 339 card readers installed. This has been an incredible ride. After the crunch, I’m definitely taking time for myself, this last month has been stressful.
Project Manager at AVI Systems
1 年As a Former Employee of CTI I want to say that I always Appreciated John's view of PTO and Time away to regroup and recharge.
Design Consultant and Justice Specialist at CTI
1 年We thank you for this John!
Agree,,,studies have shown that people are more balanced and engaged when they utilize their vacation time. fact is that in todays highly connected world most employees do keep up with emails and are reachable in a pinch. The biggest challenge for companies in my experience and maybe why they are "stingy" is their ability to manage vacation time such that there is proper coverage.
TEDx Speaker; Triathlete; Creative Director: THE rAVe Agency; Professor: UNC Chapel Hill; 3-Time Award-Winning Speaker
1 年Perfectly written!