I have a dream!

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world." Joel Barker

Working as a leader in a multicultural environment is a challenge. On my team we have people from Russia, U.S.A, Ukraine, Philippines, Germany and different parts of Africa, so it is a mixture of everything. How to get people from different cultures to work for one goal as a team? That is the question I have been dealing in the last few weeks or actually I have been dealing the same problem in the last four years while working on Princess Cruises ships.

I have a dream. I do have a dream. My dream is to help these people and not only the people in Sierra Leone, the people here on the ship.

I have been working to get everybody together by being example and by being there for them. I listen and I am always available. I care.

You block your dream when you allow your fear grow bigger than your faith.

I work by them, and with them, as a team. I encourage them to get better and now we are about to start new training schedule which include different types of training for all. The objective is to give these people skills to handle all types of work no matter what it is.

We created a new group of petty officers. We picked up the most skillful people to lead, share their knowledge, and teach and to be an example.

I am really excited about all this. I feel really good about it, I have been getting good feed back.

Would we be able to get everybody to work as team and share our knowledge beyond the borders?

I belive we can!

I have lots to learn but I also have lots to give and I hope everybody feels the same.

Building a team takes time and effort but I know we on the right track now.

I just said to my team today that we not here just to help the people in Sierra Leone, we are here to help each others and we are here to help ourselves. It is important that we develop ourselves as a human being and also as a worker that we could get more out of lives and we could help others better. The better we are, the better we can help others.

What goes around comes around.

The biggest challenge is the get people motivated and that is my main focus. That is why I want to create different types of training for these people, different jobs. I want them to feel that is fun to work. I want them to feel that they are challenged on their work.  I will try to get them understand the benefits of hard work and the idea of that the better they are, more valuable they will be.

We have about 10 local guys working on our team on deck and on the café break we get together and it have been amazing listen these guys when they talk about the war. Stories bring people together.  Anyway we watched the movie blood diamond few days ago and that movie is about the war in Sierra Leone. On that movie the rebels cut people hands and it actually happened for real. I have seen few of those people here whose hands were cut…wow. Also one of my deck guys was forced to join the rebels when he was 6 years old and he spent 6 years with them.  Now he is about 20 years old.  

The war ended 2002.

So to get all these people together is a challenge.

Challenges bring happiness.