This has become a ritual of mine each morning. After showering and getting dressed for work, I make my way down to the kitchen to boil some water for tea and have some breakfast. I check on my e-mail (usually empty) and recent news as the water boils. When the water is done, I usually have a cup of tea and sit on the couch in the sitting room to prepare myself for the day.

The morning tea selection is pretty diverse. If I’m feeling like peppermint today, then so it is. Another day may be chai, and another green tea. This morning is organic spice blend. Exotic, I know. I am in an exotic mood today – maybe that will help clear my mind.

I have been distracted the last week or so and a personnel issue at work that I will need to address first thing this morning has complicated things all the more. Sometimes working with kids is the easy part…its the adults that is the tough part! Hopefully I will be able to mediate it to the resolution I would like this morning, one I know the staff member should appreciate and recognize as a “second chance.” I am going to throw the good ol’ honesty is the best policy routine into my meeting this morning and see where that takes us.

Honesty. Huh, interesting concept. So it is with truth and trust, three values that not all people share and some may have different meanings and understanding for each. That’s the tough part. How can you have any or all of these three in a relationship, work or personal, if two people hold different understandings of what they mean and how they materialize in real life. If I hold true to being honest and open with someone and they, in return, only keep things from you or do things that could ultimately damage or ruin what you have together, operating under a “need to know” basis, then is that a healthy dynamic? Of course not. If someone is doing something that violates one or all of these three values and does not tell the other about it, is it no less wrong because it is not revealed? I suppose it just leaves one person feeling used as it has been one-sided from the start.

And once it is revealed, how is it addressed? Rationalized or admitted. Or is the blame shifted. Hmmm…

This is what I am thinking about. Why am I thinking so much about it? Well, decision making on these issues is not as easy as picking out what flavor tea I am going to be pampered by in the morning. This is a high stakes decision for all involved and as the decision maker I need to be assured that it has been well thought out. In a management course I could read case studies and confer with the class and brainstorm ideas, then move to the next chapter. In real life there is no class to confer with and the “next chapter” will ultimately be another big decision to be made. I really enjoy personnel management. Exciting. Frustrating. Challenging. Rewarding. Much like life and love!

What a great start to the morning, huh!

Luckily I have my morning tea.