Carmine Coyote reflects on different approaches to entering a new year and coping with whatever it will bring us. It’s easy to take a simplistic view of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ attitudes to life, but nearly all of them can be logical in specific circumstances. Compassion is usually a better response than condemnation.

Let’s take a look back at 2008 and learn the lessons it has been teaching us in such a painful way. Given what they have produced, the decades of conventional, macho management ought to be over. But will those who prepare new managers learn the lessons in time; or accept that they have got it wrong on a massive scale?

Peter Vajda suggests meeting workplace challenges successfully can be likened to the way white-water rafters approach their sport. Beginners obsess about the rocks to avoid and the currents to circumvent. Experts focus on the ‘flow line’ where the currents guide them safely through the roughest areas with a minimum of mental and emotional stress.

Many people feel so uneasy if they’re not busy that they fill their time with ‘make work’ and things they would be far better off NOT doing. Even more want to fill every silence with chatter and sound. Yet silence and empty space are wonderful and necessary gifts. There’s no need to fill them with anything.

The saying, “People are our greatest asset” has to be one of the commonest lies in management. When times are tough and your organization is in trouble, would your immediate reaction be to throw away a significant part of ‘your greatest asset’? Surely not.

Nina Simosko reminds us all that learning never ceases and leaders know better than most that every day brings a new opportunity to enhance their knowledge. Lessons can come from anywhere. We’ve all learned things in our lives that came from unexpected sources.

Being yourself is more important than anything else; certainly more than the fear that traps people into conforming. Conformity has very little to recommend it. Trust yourself and trust others. Our world has so little trust today that even a little more is precious.