Sometimes we find ourselves buried in the rubble of catastrophe before we can start digging. A crushing defeat will leave anyone reeling and all the more so when it takes you down with it.

Brian Bordainick felt like he’d been shot when he learned the crushing news about his ‘9th Ward Field of Dreams’ project.
–CNN.com

Full story here.

Bordainick is the high school athletic director in New Orleans who last year had pursued a crucial $200,000 grant from the National Football League to build a $2 million sports complex for young athletes in the Katrina-ravaged 9th Ward of New Orleans. Bordainick’s school, GW Carver High, is now mostly FEMA trailers, so the proposed facility was an amazing boost of opportunity for a community that hasn’t had much good news since the 2005 storm.

Then came the “shot.” The architect firm designing the facility had to pull out. And they had to pull out on the weekend before a Monday deadline to submit plans in order to qualify for the NFL grant.

Certainly we all have weekend deadlines and all-nighters, but few are $2 million make-or-break showdowns the likes of which Bordainick faced.

But this public school educator must have some serious resolve and entrepreneurial spirit, because he managed to dust himself off, bandage his battered spirit and do one of the hardest jobs in any business endeavor: cold call…on the weekend. Mind you, he was calling some of the most busy and sought-after architects in the area. But he got through to one who immediately demanded the best 30-second pitch he ever gave.

Bordainick’s goal line stand found the receiver—Steve Dumez, design director for Eskew+Dumez+Ripple—who agreed to take on the audacious task of delivering a design plan in a matter of hours.

It’s an incredible story in its simplicity and heroism and pluck. I’ll probably refer to Brian Bordainick in my keynote speeches because he demonstrated the ardor it takes to “keep digging” as described in The Ring in the Rubble.

Why not start digging on more manageable day-to-day rubble?

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You can support the 9thWard Field of Dreams here.

Workforce Management magazine features an excellent cover story on imminent change in NASA’s space shuttle program.

August 2009 issue of Workforce Management.

When we think of job security, “astronaut” (or any of the hundreds of supporting scientific, technical and administrative titles associated with this elite crew) sounds pretty stable, occasional zero gravity notwithstanding. But America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration is scheduled to end its space shuttle program in 2010, pending budgets and review by the Human Space Flight Plans Committee.

From the article:

NASA surveyed its civil service shuttle workforce of approximately 1,500 people in the last year to reveal employee concerns. Those include “losing the team they’re working with—especially the contractor members,” says Paul Cruz, the HR development representative for the shuttle program office at Johnson Space Center. “Some people want to know today what they’ll be doing in a year. Some people are worried that all the good jobs will be gone. They’re worried about the skills they’ll need. They fear the unknown.”

Sally Ride. First American woman to enter space.

Workforce Management reports that NASA is demonstrating proactive leadership in preparing its employees for the change, including acceptance of the intangible aspects of such transitions and offering grief counseling.

Life-changing economics are constant, but let’s concede that they’re more extensive in the current economy. And sometimes it’s helpful to realize that we’re all in this together.

If our next Neil Armstrong or Sally Ride have to divert their career trajectories—NASA is retraining personnel for different missions—maybe reevaluating our daily habits, interpersonal skills and leadership practices to respond to changing opportunities on Earth isn’t as hard as it seems.

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