Barbara V Evers

Maximum Effort.  That was the original Hollywood title for the 1949 movie, Twelve O'Clock High.  Even though the words "maximum effort" occur in the movie numerous times, the actual title only occurs once, and if you're not alert to the scene, you might miss it.  So why did they change the title?  Well, just read the two, and I think you can understand. How do I even know this?  Because the training program, Situational Leadership, uses this movie to teach and reinforce the leadership approach introduced during the first day of this course.  Every time I teach Situational Leadership, I get to share the movie with a new group of people.  I've taught it several times, so I know exactly when Gregory Peck says, "Twelve O'Clock High" -- an amazing in-flight battle scene, with our American bombers fighting Germany's quick agile fighter planes.  The battle scenes come from actual footage shot during World War II.  I can't watch those scenes withou...

I've been doing a lot of traveling lately for work which means that I'm seeing a lot of new people as well as some old friends.  Last week, one of my students told me during the first break of the training day that I looked just like her BFF (her words, I swear).  The funny thing was that I kept looking at certain people in my training classes trying to figure out exactly who they looked like. It took me a few hours to realize that the computer tech assigned to assist my students looked like Sean Astin, a point that I used on the second day when I needed someone to find him quickly.  They had no problem locating him once I told them to look for the man who resembled Frodo's friend, Sam, in The Lord of The Rings movies.  Later, I fessed up, but the guy just smiled knowingly and said, "Most people say I look like Rudy.  At least you didn't bring up the Goonies." There were two women in my second class who looked so familiar, I really thought I might know ...