colleagues blogging (and not)

I’m pleased to see that my colleague Mike Jolkovski is back blogging again (about time Mike – where have you been?). Mike is a psychoanalyst who specialises in working with musicians and music groups. He has a great post here about How to work with a Prima Donna in which he describes said creature as

A classic Prima Donna is arrogant, vain, high-maintenance, demanding, petulant, and entitled. The entitlement can help them rationalize exploiting and manipulating others. This is especially destructive in bands. A prima donna is by definition not a team player, and will often unrealistically expect to live a lifestyle that hasn’t yet been earned. Alcohol and drugs tend to make all of this this much worse.

He then goes on to outline some strategies for working with Prima Donnas and on the off chance that any are actually reading his post he says

It’s a fantastic relief to be able to let go of that superior business — the world is a lot less lonely that way. Some perspective can help, as can a sense of humor about yourself. Maturity is not a bad thing. A competent psychoanalyst can help. I’m just saying.

Mike has another post called Who owns the band – all useful information for those of us who work with artists. Mike is currently doing research on conflict, power & ego in bands for an upcoming book and is interested in hearing your stories – you can email him yours at this address mj [at] workingthroughmusic [dot] com.
Elsewhere a new friend Bettina is writing about the relationship between religion, spirituality and work. She’s even coined a new phrase and goes on to apply it to fearless leadership

My current winning combination seems to be Quantum/Tolle/Chopra/Secret (which really is all one thing, isn’t it?! Let me call it Quan-To-Cho-Se for now and tell you about how some of the concepts and techniques really seem to work in challenging management and leadership situation

It’s great to see Omani back in the blogging saddle as well and I’m sad to see that Shane Hegarty at the Irish Times is hanging up his blogging boots for a while. Shane’s blog was consistently great reading and I’m sorry to see him go. But if there’s a day job and a book in the offing I guess something has to give?