When I was a young man, I hated practicing the piano. Beethoven. Haydn. Schumann. Boring. And truth be told, I was never a very good pianist, but I loved playing the piano. I would sit and play for hours, not any written music mind you, I was just exploring the keyboard, trying different combinations, listening to the various harmonies and dissonances that I could create. My mother tells horror stories of hours of the same 4 chords played with slight variation, over and over and over again and again and again until she would scream, “Don’t you have some MUSIC to practice?”
My piano teacher knew I was never going to be a great pianist, but in the fifth grade she made a deal with me. For every great masterwork I learned, I could create my own. From that moment on, I always played two pieces at each recital. One boring piece some dead white European guy (DWEG) wrote, and one brilliant original McClead composition.
Continue Reading Lessons from a Former Life #1
A man recently approached me during a break in a workshop I was running and said, “You ran innovation at a large global law firm, right?” No matter how it’s worded, this is always a tricky question. My title at the firm was Innovation Architect and I was tasked with finding innovative uses of technology to solve problems within the firm. But I had no direct reports, no budget, and as a ‘
For many years working in the realm of law firms I have been described as a Non – a non lawyer. It is a rather strange predicament to define yourself and your skills based on what you are not, rather than what you are. I remember when my husband first graduated from university and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, he took a series of jobs to try things out only to come to the conclusion a year later that he learned what he didn’t want to do. So he went back to school, twice, in pursuit of being a something. I on the other hand, graduated from grad school and shortly thereafter started on my almost two decade journey of being a Non.
Over the weekend, I had a nice conversation with some of my peers in other law firm departments (Marketing, IT, and other administration leaders), about the 