Small Team. Big Work.

We get excited when we have an opportunity to work with young organizations. Nothing beats sitting down with smart, energized teams and savvy, hard-working leaders in those early months when the initial vision remains clear, commitment runs high and a passion for revolutionary change is palatable.

Enter Virginia Commonwealth University’s Office for Health Innovation, and its small team of 15 professionals focused on health care and community engagement. The Office’s team is charged with charting the VCU Health System’s course through the Affordable Care Act, and developing new approaches to care management, even as it coordinates the delivery of care to thousands of underserved individuals in our community.

It’s a small team. It’s not small work.

So it’s no wonder that during our first conversations with the team our attention shifted to the Vision and Mission of the organization. Finding clear, simple and inspirational language that frames the complicated work of health policy, health innovation and education, care delivery and health management is challenging!

Leave it to a smart, energized team to hammer it out in less than an hour.

After taking the team through some idea generating activities to help put words and shape to the strategic challenges that the Office for Health Innovation must address, Sarah Milston and I were impressed with the alignment within the group. This was a group that knew what it needed to do – and was eager to strengthen its own alignment and start building a game-changing strategy.

We ended our first session with a draft Vision and Mission, and an emerging set of strategic outcomes that will serve as cornerstones for the team’s new strategic plan. We’ll come back together later in June to begin to build that plan.

Designing the Roadmap

There are times when written strategic plans and PowerPoint presentations just don’t cut it.

One outcome of our week with ChildFund International’s global sponsorship team in February has been a continued need for the team – scattered across five continents – to communicate more frequently and stay focused on a set of key global strategies.

A small team at ChildFund has been working with me and designer Ben Dacus to create a poster that vividly captures the sponsorship team’s vision and goals. The teams wants a strong visual that clearly communicates a set of key messages to the team.

I’ve worked with Ben for more than 20 years – we were coworkers at VCU, and he did exceptional design work for me during my years at Circuit City and Luck Stone. He’s responsible for most of the brand identity work for Floricane.

We leveraged the metaphor of a river – a visual the global team first embraced in February. The illustration features strong colors, clear messaging and images that reinforce the importance of children, sponsors and strong connections in the work of ChildFund.

Over the course of several meetings, Ben has framed out a design that resonates. Over the coming weeks, we’ll fine-tune the look, feel and messaging. Later this summer, the posters will be hanging in ChildFund offices around the world.

New Fruit: Strategic Retreats Galore

Ah, summertime in Richmond. The humidity climbs, and the lightning bugs begin to swarm. Professional associations and nonprofit boards take a deep breath and lock themselves away for a day to think about the future. And Floricane's calendar begins to get very busy!

Over the next several weeks, we're fortunate enough to be in the room facilitating strategic sessions with several organizations that are focused on making a difference in Richmond, and across Virginia.

• Just today, Sarah and Debra spent time with the small board of the Free Clinic of Powhatan. The three-year old nonprofit is one of 62 free clinics serving underserved populations around the state, and we were pleased to help them reframe their strategic opportunities.

• Last week, Sarah and John spent a full day with the staff of the Virginia Poverty Law Center – the third staff retreat Floricane has facilitated for the team of 10. In the past, our conversations were strategic. This year, the staff wanted something a little different – and so we took them through a full-day workshop on Team Effectiveness using the Insights Discovery instrument.

• In June, we'll be working with the board of VAFRE, the Virginia Association of Fundraising Executives.

• In July, we have a day lined up with the board of the Richmond chapter of the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM). It's one of the largest chapters in the country, and we'll be helping them bring more focus and boldness to their game plan for the year ahead.

Those are just a few of the one-day strategic and team-focused sessions we have on the calendar for the summer. We're very excited about working with all four of these organizations.

New Fruit: Punch Gets Strategy, We Get Punch

We're really excited about one of our newest clients – we're swapping our strategy services with the creative team at PUNCH for a bit of their visual and brand talent. This summer, we'll be working with PUNCH to help them identify their best opportunities for growth across their key business areas. And while we have most of their employees tucked away in a room mapping strategic outcomes, tactics and deliverables, they'll be spending some time and energy reinvigorating our website and helping us design an amazing piece of collateral that tells the Floricane story in a visually powerful way.

In other words, we're going to get some PUNCH.

New Fruit: Designing A Roadmap for ChildFund

On the heels of an amazing week in February with the global Sponsorship Division of ChildFund International, we're back in the mix – and this time we've brought the design talent of our friend and partner Ben Dacus of Zeigler|Dacus Marketing to bear.

Over the next several weeks, we'll be supporting the sponsorship team with two initiatives. This Friday, Floricane will facilitate a strategic retreat for the division's management team as they work to build alignment and energy around their three-year plan to strengthen the relationship between ChildFund, its sponsors and the children they all serve. And over the coming weeks, I'll be working with Ben to design a Sponsorship Roadmap poster that graphically delivers a set of key messages to the global team's members.

The Leadership Journey: Decisions

Throughout our life we have millions of decisions to make. In fact each day we have 8,746 decisions. * So, which ones are we being intentional about?  Thiswas the beginning of day three of my RVALeadership Lab experience - a joint venture of Floricane, The Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce and Luckstone.  We have been gathering for several months to work through our leadership skills and abilities and develop adaptation tools. 

This session featured feedback examination and some coaching exercises, but ended with John Fernandez, a local business leader as the guest speaker.  Read more about him here (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-fernandez/5/9a1/9b8)  John lead us through several stories to drive home the point that we are in charge of our own success.  The part that resonated with me most strongly was all about decisions. 

"Time, talent, treasure. These are the assets that everyone has. Leadership comes in how you make decisions and choices that define who you are and define whether you are going to be happy or unhappy in your life." said Fernandez. 

That sounded like a pretty lofty ideal.  But of course, he had a tool to share.  Fernandez suggested we complete a time inventory.  Here are the steps:

1. Inventory your time for one week.

2. Write down everything you do and how long it takes to do it. 

3. Once it is done, review the list and label everything as I, C, E, or U.

    Incompetence - hate doing, suck at it

    competence - kinda okay at doing it

    Excellent - things I am great at

    Unique ability - You are excellent at this and you would do this tirelessly, you would even do it if you weren't getting paid.

His suggestion - spend 70-80 % of your time in your unique ability. Ignore and or delegate your incompetence and competence space.

I haven't done this inventory yet, but I've been thinking about it constantly over the past few days and looking at what I was doing and asking myself - is this my unique ability?  I have already started making decisions.

Guest Blogger: Simply Changing a Complex World (by Jim Johns)

It is easy for me to get caught up in the complexity of the world. There are schedules to juggle, shifting priorities and unexpected deadlines. And then there are peopleto deal with, all of whom are always different than me. (What’s up with that?)

Getting caught up in that complexity has always been a trap for me. It’s alluring to think that I can somehow control what happens at work, or in my house. But at the end of the day, all I can do infl uence those by actively participating in them. So my biggest opportunity to influence those complex situations and relationships is to simply work on me. Everything else -- especially other people -- is completely out of my control. 

One way that I have been able to better understand this complex world, and my complex co-habitants of this world, is a tool called Insights Discovery. By using it I am more aware of my personality, my strengths and weaknesses, and with that simple awareness I can make choices that allow me to be more effective at participating in and influencing my world.

In the past decade, I have seen role changes, several supervisors, multiple team strategies and visions, teammates coming and going, not to mention changing economic conditions, and the elimination of two corporate jobs.

The only thing that I could control during that time was myself. With the help of friends at work, I could remain centered and manage my personality so that I could add more value than I would have otherwise been able to in the midst of all that change.

Those skills -- the ability to flex different aspects of my personality -- come from tools like Insights Discovery being used inside organizations that emphasize employee development and empowerment. As someone who has worked in that environment, I can tell you it’s a powerful combination. I know my employer received more days of my best version, and less of my worst, because of that investment.

As my Floricane colleague Debra Saneda and I facilitate Insights Discovery workshops, I see more and more organizations making this commitment. Lawyers, project managers, IT professionals, librarians, accountants and journalists are coming through the workshops. It’s exciting to see so many organizations making that investment in their people. Those organizations are preparing their people to make a difference in a complex world, simply by knowing themselves.

--

Jim Johns is a freelance training and development coach. His years of experience partner impeccably with our own Debra Saneda to create a unique and informative InSights experience.

Thoughts on Continuing Partnerships

I’ve spent a significant slice of my time at Floricane having coffee or lunch with friends, community partners, prospects, clients and former clients. Conversations range from personal to professional, from celebration to complaint. I talk. I listen. I offer perspective, or advice.

It’s all just part of what I do. One time, I’ll pick up the tab, and the next time they will. Sometimes we simply split the bill.

Lately, something new has been happening. Old clients are actively reaching out to use me, or others on the Floricane team, as problem solvers, counselors and brainstorm generators. These one-off conversations, usually lasting one or two hours, seem to provide our partners with space to think aloud with a somewhat neutral, well-informed thought partner.

Recently, in these limited engagements, we’ve explored a wide range of issues and opportunities. We’ve thought aloud about different ways to restructure an organization; armed two client leaders with tips and techniques to make their summer staff retreats meaningful and fun; explored implementation approaches for another organization’s strategic plan.

Our clients benefit from the limited, low obligation engagement. We stay involved, and add value. It’s a space that serves everyone well.

Proof that I’m no businessman came over breakfast a few weeks ago. After an intense bout of problem solving and idea generating, my client said, “You are going to bill me for this, aren’t you?” I don’t exaggerate when I say I stared a bit blankly at him for half a second.

It took another staff member to remind me that three recent conversations paid our rent for the month.

My next move? Inviting a smart businessperson out for lunch, and paying her for some perspectives on how to run an increasingly complex organization. It might be time for a taste of my own medicine.