I talk a lot about magic.  That’s what happens when your dad was a magician, and one of his favorite sayings was to remind me that “everyone has a magic show.”  Dad was a strictly strengths-based kind of person.  He usually looked past any potential weaknesses or flaws, choosing to see the best version of the people he worked with.  I talk about him a lot, including at work.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when our Human Resources department took up the magic theme to inspire our staff back to school launch.

Traditionally at Lincoln, we welcome our entire staff back with a breakfast and a morning of team building.  In 2020, in the midst of a job transition and completely virtual school, our welcome back was a series of introductions via a call on Microsoft Teams.  In 2021, my first year to welcome staff in-person, we added back the breakfast and my vision presentation, which I always refer to as the leadership summit.  It is designed to remind staff about our strategic priorities and build a shared vision around improvement for the coming year.  The whole experience lasted less than a full morning, but it was a fun way to kick off the year and remind everyone about the importance of our shared work.  

This year, we were able to put the entire experience back together for our team.  Our team building took the form of a full out magic show, integrated with insights into the power of team work.  At one point, I even had to put on the magicians cape and go on stage to help with one of the acts.  For a magician’s son, I’m quite pathetic at magic.  I have always loved watching magicians, including my dad, but I simply never had much interest in pursuing it myself.  Our magician to launch the school year, who was quite good, was in complete agreement that I had little to offer in the way of stage magic.  But it was still a lot of fun.  My dad always closed his show with the Chinese Linking Rings, so perhaps it was apropos that I was invited onstage to demonstrate my magic abilities with a rif on a metal ring trick.  

The event itself was an example of the very thing we were encouraging – “the magic of team work.”  My management practice is one that seeks to give authority and autonomy to my department leaders so that they can carry the vision and the work forward within their sphere of responsibility and influence.  That’s precisely what our human resources team was demonstrating, designing a morning full of good food, smiles, laughs, introspection, and reflection on the importance of the work we do as a team every day.