Building the Business, and a Family

RVANews' editor Ross Catrow asked me months ago to pen an article for the news sites' Founding Fathers series, which spotlights life with kids from the perspective of dad. Ross wanted me to focus on the challenges of starting a new business while raising a child.

Of course, I put it off for weeks -- I was busy running a business, and chasing after a three-year-old.

After repeated emails from Ross this week, I broke down and finished the story. It turned out pretty good. You can check it out right here on RVA News.

Culture Change at the Library of Virginia

We started our work with the Library of Virginia last fall by listening deeply. We believe that when you let a community talk – about their passions, their dreams, their frustrations, their concerns – good facilitators can help the group identify what matters most.

We got an earful of passion from the 140 or so employees of one of the Commonwealth's oldest agencies. They care about their work as librarians and archivists, about our shared history, about technology and change, and about each other. They cared enough to be very candid with our team about how they wanted the Library to change and transform – and then rolled their sleeves up for the second half of our engagement.

That’s when Floricane’s Debra Saneda worked with four project teams to reshape the Library’s Vision and Mission, and to identify key strategies to strengthen access, maximize the Library’s Broad Street location, and to develop a new generation of expert employees. More than 40 employees participated in the teams, and delivered several dozen recommendations to the Library’s leadership in March.

We recently closed this chapter of work with the Library team with a series of employee sessions that looked back at our work together, and looked ahead to the changes to come.

What started as an effort to bolster engagement and map out a few new strategies for the agency has turned into a full-fledged culture change initiative. There is nothing about the Library’s new Vision that feels musty and old.

“The Library of Virginia will inspire learning, ignite imagination, create possibilities, encourage understanding, and engage Virginia’s past to empower its future.”

If anything, the new Vision is a call for transformation – and many of the staff seem ready to run toward a different future.

We promised to come back in six months and see how much progress the Library employees make on their culture change. The rule of thumb is that it takes five to seven years to transform an organizational culture; the Library hopes to take a big leap forward this summer.

I can’t wait to see their progress in November.

New Work, New Business

Every time our team looks ahead and wonders what is going to fill some future block of time on the calendar, the phone rings. We’re wrapping up 10 strategic planning and facilitation projects during the month of May, and appear to be more than filling the pipeline with new initiatives during the early months of the summer.

We’re in the process of landing strategic planning and visioning work with the Library of Virginia, Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, Southside Community Partners and the Virginia Poverty Law Center. We’re also finishing facilitation engagements with Bon Secours Virginia, the Consumer Alliance of Virginia, the James House, the Medical College of Virginia, and the Virginia Poverty Law Center.

We’re moving ahead with new activities supporting Bon Secours Virginia, the Community Idea Stations, the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Credit Union – with more new client discussions in the works.

It’s pretty amazing for our team to look back and review at the work we’ve done with more than 70 nonprofit organizations and mid-sized companies in Central Virginia since 2009. We’d love to talk to you about ways in which the Floricane team can help your team bear new fruit – strategically, culturally and organizationally. Drop us a note.

Governent Works: Planning on the Piankatank

The Middle Peninsula, a rural stretch of river land easing from Tappahannock to Deltavillle, has always been a part of my life. My childhood summers were spent on the Rappahannock and Piankatank rivers, and my own daughter now spends long weekends with her great-grandfather at his home facing the Chesapeake Bay just outside of Deltaville.

Naturally, I leapt at the opportunity to work with the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission (MPPDC), an agency representing nine towns and counties in the area, in the development of a strategic plan.

The core of our interactions happened on a sunny day in March at the Piankatank Golf Club. Sarah, Cara and I spent the day with MPPDC staff and commissioners exploring new strategic approaches to the peninsula’s key issues.

Because the MPPDC was in the midst of major transition – its long-time executive director had left in February, and the organization’s finances had been hit by federal and state budget reductions – the goal was to identify high-impact, low-resource initiatives.

In the end, what made the entire process so rewarding for our team was seeing several dozen public officials engage in serious discussion about the future. We not only took the group through some blue sky thinking, but we also waded through some mind-numbing financial discussions; they stayed in the game throughout.

At a time when so many people appear to be cynical about the nature and role of government, it’s refreshing to see examples of political collaboration and long-range regional planning. It’s even more refreshing to be part of the conversation.

photo: Homes & Land (http://www.homesandland.com)

Team Dynamics (as Illuminated by 500 Balloons)

I recently followed up with a team of employees who had gone through several workshops focused on the Insights Discovery self-awareness instrument we use with teams. They wanted a engaging, fun and quick way to explore their team dynamics during a quarterly meeting. I think we delivered.

Overtime with U-TURN

We went into overtime with U-TURN Sports Performance Academy this year in an effort to land the best strategic plan possible; it's part of our commitment is to do whatever it takes to deliver the service our clients seek.

The real story here is U-TURN, an organization that combines sports training with community outreach and Christian ministry; the nonprofit was formally established by tennis player Paul Manning in 1996 – four years after he started his informal inner-city youth ministry.

Today, under the leadership of Robert Dortch, U-TURN is going full-bore with exciting plans to extend its community outreach work into a variety of neighborhoods in our community. I met Robert years ago – he was working for the Richmond Region 2007 initiative, and I was at Luck Stone – and he always has ranked high on my list of Richmonders worth knowing.

Robert and his team – including a newly engaged board – have big plans for its 150,000-square-foot facility, which existed in a previous life as Circuit City’s Thalbro store and offices. Part of our work in developing a long-range strategic plan was to align the best aspirations of U-TURN’s staff, board and community of parents and student athletes.

The plan heads to the Board of Directors for approval in April, but the U-TURN team has already started putting many of its key elements into motion. One of the more exciting ideas? U-TURN On-the-Go, which leverages existing relationships to bring sports programming into communities in need. (Two recent initiatives: football in the Calhoun/Gilpin neighborhoods, and volleyball in Louisa County.)

Better Acquainted with Southside

We’re having a blast getting even more acquainted with the Tri-Cities and Southside Virginia, as we get started with the development of a strategic plan with Southside Community Partners.

Southside Community Partners (SCP) formed more than a year ago with the merger of three organizations who had been working to meet the needs of the nonprofit community in Petersburg and the surrounding areas. A service of the Appomattox Regional Library System, SCP provides a resource center, the online Connect Southside information source, training classes and other support.

If you know anything about the communities that SCP serves, you might know that their challenges are more pronounced than most – and their opportunities to strengthen their services are only limited by their resources. Which makes SCP an essential service to the community.

Sarah, Tina and I have spent the past several weeks getting to know the SCP team, and meeting one-on-one with some of their key stakeholders, as we start the process of identifying their best opportunities to grow and serve. In April, we’ll work with the SCP team to identify strategic outcomes and then spend a day with the staff and Advisory Council to build the strategic plan framework.

We anticipate delivering a final strategic plan to the organization in May. Our relationship with the Petersburg/Southside area? We think it's just heating up.

Jumping into the Pool

Growing up, I spent my summers in Halifax, Virginia, with my grandparents. They belonged to the neighborhood pool; I practically lived there from sun-up to sun-down.

Every evening, one of them would walk to the pool to meet me before dinner – and to drag me home.

I can still remember my grandmother trying to teach me how to perfect my dive, standing at the deep end of the pool on the diving board in shorts. She leaned into the water with her hands in a perfect point demonstrating how to almost bend into the water. Then she tipped a bit too far and into the water she fell.

As an adult, I think back and remember a slight smile on her face – like she might have been able to stop herself but she figured that falling would help me the most. That gentle, deliberate nudge.

In my work as a strategic planner with Floricane I often assume the role of the nudger – pushing clients to lean a little further and go for it. John Sarvay calls it landing the plan. It is my favorite part of the process.

Regardless of its name, there is exquisite beauty in watching a group of passionate people wrestle with the possibilities of what can be and then dreaming it bigger and scarier as a group. There is always a moment with clients, that moment when you see them tip just so – and into the pool!

The best parts of the week are when I am able to help a client tip, and to land a few impossible dreams with a gentle, deliberate nudge.