Last week, Horizon Point founder and president, Mary Ila Ward, was recognized with an ATHENA Leadership Award by the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber during their annual Women in Business Celebration. Her speech deeply resonated with so many women (and men) in attendance, so today we are sharing her words with all of you.—Thank you for this honor. I am humbled. Many of the women who have won this award are women I look up to and who have been instrumental in shaping a community I love through their servant leadership. Thank you to the Chamber and its staff. It is a
Productivity has always been one of our five operating values at Horizon Point. We tie it intimately to our value of passion, which looks something like this: Get stuff done. Get stuff done that is important and that we care about. We are adamant about protecting the fact that productivity doesn’t dictate how and where and when work’s done, but that it gets done and meets the need. This mindset hasn’t changed, but throughout 2024 our idea of what it means to be productive has grown and it is captured in our 2024 Book of the Year: Slow Productivity by
Over fall break, I had the chance to walk to the park with my five year old. On the first day, he decided he was going to search for “treasures” on our walk. He found flowers and rocks and leaves and sticks that he thought were “beautiful”. I couldn’t help but notice things I wasn’t noticing but he did. With every stop and examination he made, he did in fact find lots of beautiful things. On our walk the next day, he decided it was time to pick up the trash. He noticed some along the roadway when he was
I’m speaking today at AARC’s Annual Conference. We’ve had the privilege of speaking at this annual conference for the last several years. We love all of the Regional Council on Governments and Planning Commissions that partner with us across the state. As I speak on “Leading in the New Normal,” I’m reminded of all that has shaped this “new normal”. Shifts in the economy and technology, the pandemic, generational differences. Even Surgeon General’s warnings. But as I begin to unpack these influences imparting a new workplace paradigm, has leadership gotten easier or has it gotten harder? Most would say
As I take in my daily dose of news fed to me via email by the New York Times on Saturday, August 31, I’m surprised to see the title: Opinion: Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better. Saturday’s Times email blast usually features a more lighthearted piece, especially on a holiday weekend. But as I opened the article, I couldn’t help thinking, “No sh*t!” to what the Surgeon General was saying. You see, I have literally just cleaned up sh*t (Or wait, was it vomit?) off the floor of our bathroom as child number two