I belong to the Cleveland City Club for moments like this.
To many who attend their Friday signature lunch speaker series, the Cleveland City Club is a short walk from their office. For me it is a 3-4 hour round trip event from door-to-door. The parking is the worst part of the trip!
So although I have belonged to the City Club for years, I only make it up maybe 8 times a year. When I saw that INDIANS Terry Francona and Mike Chernoff were coming for a TRIBEFEST Event, I must have been one of the first to sign up.
The City Club is truly one of the last citadels of free speech. This includes the question and answer period where audience members get to directly ask the speaker their question, uncensored. This is one of the main reasons I make the 3-4 trip. To ask my question.
In December I was able to ask former speaker of the house, John Boehner, my question. I was able to ask Terry Francona a question.
It wasn’t his answer to my question that gave me the most “gold”. I was seated really close to the podium. Really close. I was surprised by the casual dress of Manager Terry Francona. To say it was casual is probably a rap on casual. It would probably have to be a little newer and in better condition to be labeled casual in the workplace today.
I know there are those who would say it’s OK he is baseball, or they went to the World Series so that gives him a pass. In my rules of communication, the rule for the speaker is to dress one notch ABOVE the audience. He was still speaking to a business crowd in a respected venue of tradition.
When it was his turn to speak, I was thrilled that the very first item on his agenda was about his dress. He apologized and explained the miscommunication about his schedule that day. I was thrilled that he knew, and he chose to share with the crowd, his mistake. If dress is important the manager of a World Series team, do you really think it is not important to you?
My question, left unasked, was – since you live across the street from the City Club, did you think about changing once you realized the schedule hiccup?
