Everyone’s in Transition

 

When I roll through the mental rolodex that is our client list, it strikes me that everyone is in transition.

One of our first strategic planning clients was the Valentine Richmond History Center, and one of the key things we did during that process was explore some big trends – economic, technological, demographic and social.

Our research was basic, but it was revealing. Nothing is static right now. Everything is in flux.

In the past six months, we’ve done work with newspapers, health care organizations, symphonies, global development organizations, libraries, architects and more.

Every single organization is trying to read the tea leaves to better understand the ways in which reinvention should be happening in their professional space. There are lots of ideas, and plenty of best practice approaches, but there are very few clear, concrete answers.

In some ways, that is utterly terrifying – because it challenges each of our clients to discover their own best answers to big, systemic changes. In other ways, it is marvelously liberating – because it allows each of our clients to discover their own best answers.

In the end, our best clients explore the big plays, and develop plans that carefully move them into an ambitious – and new – future.

Building the Future with Architects

We started a strategic planning process this past weekend with the staff and board of The Virginia Society American Institute of Architects, and membersof the Virginia Center for Architecture. During our afternoon and morning together, we put the group through their visionary and aspirational paces before getting down to brass tacks – what does a strategic plan for VSAIA need to include?

Over the next three months, we’ll put that question to the board, the staff and to key stakeholders in more focused ways as we help the 99-year-old organization strengthen its alignment around its vision and mission – and the needs of the architecture industry, and the public.

Just Keep Going

On our second day with the global leadership team from ChildFund International, I watched as my facilitation design collapsed under its own weight.

This isn’t a new experience. Sarah and I often joke that we’re not doing our job if the agenda doesn’t get thrown in the trash by lunchtime.

For some reason, when the plan falls apart during an extended facilitation gigs – several days or more in a room with the same organization – it feels bigger.

I’ve found four important steps that help me bridge the chasm:

  • Name it. Better yet, let the participants name it. “How’s that experience work for you?” is an easy question to ask a room. The answers are not always the ones I want to hear, but they’re important to ask. The ChildFund team was pretty clear last week. When I asked, they answered. “Meh,” the said.
  • Share the ownership. We often tell clients that they own the room, and their own experience. It is in these broken moments that we all learn what exactly that means. I try to claim responsibility for the process and facilitation failures, but I also find value in asking the group how they might have engaged differently.
  • Keep moving. It’s easy to hit the brakes when a wheel falls off. Bad idea. Stubbornly charging ahead without adapting is an equally bad idea, but at the end of the day there is limited time to move the client group – wasted time typically not only wastes time, but it loses points with the client.
  • Be agile. The night the wheels came off, or started vibrating intensely, at ChildFund I was up past midnight redesigning the next day. The revised agenda looked dramatically different than the original agenda, and was built around the new needs of the group – which became more clear during a time of tension and frustration.

Believe me, I beat myself up all evening about the way the second day played out. It’s what I do. I felt anxious, frustrated and disappointed – primarily with myself. But I also know that I had a job to do for my client, and that I actually understood their needs fairly well – I just needed to let go of my own needs so the design could serve them well.

The Job of C

I’ve been watching – and rewatching – a TED talk from Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and co-author of one of my favorite books, “The Art of Possibility”.

In the talk, Zander explores Chopin as a vehicle for conversations about leadership, vision and engagement. Sitting at a piano, he deconstructs the piece a bit. In doing so, Zander notes that a B note is followed by a C note, and asks why.

“The job,” he says succinctly, “of the C is to make the B sad.”

I happened to be watching Zander’s talk during a week when I was asking a client group to engage in an uncomfortable, but important, process. It certainly wasn’t my job to make the group sad, but it was my job – as I saw it – to push them toward the inner edge of their discomfort in service to a good strategic plan.

It happens that our jobs with our clients are always a little different – nothing quite as cut-and-dry as simply making the B sad. But knowing what job each clients needs us to complete, the role each engagement needs us to play, sure makes our work flow better.

Playground Perspectives: Seeds of Change

We planted a garden a few weeks ago. Two gardens, actually.

On an early Saturday morning trip to Lowe's, a pink ceramic hippo caught Thea's attention. The hippo in question came with a small handful of grass seed, which grows into an amusing head of green hair in a matterof days. (When I was a young tyke, we did the same thing with half an eggshell.)

On the same day that Thea planted her hippo head of grass, she also helped Nikole and me plant the early spring garden. We planted long rows of seeds (peas, carrots, spinach and kale), along with a manda ted plot of strawberries.

With the right direction, our almost five-year-old was in her element, bringing a degree of precision and intention to the process that borders on the amusing. (She would get a slide rule for her birthday in April, if I didn't think it would just make her dangerous.)

We planted the outdoor garden on a cold and sunny day in February. It has stayed cloudy and cold ever since. We're still waiting for the seeds to emerge from the cold ground.

The hippo is another story entirely. It found a home on a sunny ledge in our warm house. By day three, the hippo was sporting a Marine quality head of green hair. By day five, it was a full-fledged early 90s punk rocker. Thea has cut his hair twice already.

You know where this is going, don't you?

"Dad! Why won't the garden grow?" Thea demanded the other day when we wandered into the backyard to check out the beds. "It's been like three seventy six thousand days!" Or eight days.

An impatient child -- who'd've thunk it?

I started thinking about her impatience during a recent conversation about strategy and organizational change. Driven not by budget, but by impatience, a prospective client kept pushing for a fast process that delivered fast results. We ultimately agreed, in the parlance of Star Wars, that we were not the droids they were looking for.

How often do we push for unrealistic harvests in our organizations, or in our lives? We know that change takes time and nurturing, that it is hard work. And yet, it's not surprising we get frustrated -- like Thea, most of us have never planted seeds in this particular garden. We don't know what to expect, and we don't like the results we're seeing!

There are general rules of thumb worth following in the world of change management (and probably gardening):

  • It takes at least five years to change an organizational culture.
  • Change is a rice paper floor. Plan to fall through it frequently.
  • The best change starts with you. Change that starts with conversations about "getting those people to change" is destined to fail.

As the last (and first) snowstorm of the winter looms, it seems odd to be thinking about gardening. And that may be the last, best change lesson: Prepare to be surprised. Always.

I suspect thoughts of gardening will be taking a back seat to the joys of sledding later this week.

March 2013: Letter from John

Next week, I wrap up an engagement supporting ChildFund International's executive team through a series of strategic conversations.

You may recall that our team spent a week last spring with their Global Sponsorship Team as they built alignment around a shared vision of work.I'll be doing something similar next week with another global team.

It's a bittersweet space for a guy who was one phone call away from a career with the Foreign Service back in the spring of 2001. (Short version: After an 18 month recruiting process, the State Department mad e me an offer -- my dream job in the Middle East. For the right reasons, I turned it down.)

Spending time with an organization of global travelers with a passion for making the world a better place is a reminder of the many ways each of us can make a contribution. It's also a reminder that even jobs with life-changing missions are, some days, just jobs.

Living your passion, or a piece of your passion, or your passion of the moment is important work. Holding onto a passion after it has served its purpose in your life is an invitation to sadness and regret.

I often talk to leaders about the ways in which our beliefs -- about ourselves, about others, about the world -- shape our decisions, and the ways in which we engage with others.

I share that our beliefs are shaped by our experiences, thousands upon thousands of large and small moments that help mold our thinking, our reactions, our views. When you reach a point in life where your beliefs are no longer serving a purpose, or are just flat out wrong, it's time to change them.

Because that's easy, right?

No, not so much. We change our beliefs by changing our experiences. We let go of old passions by embracing new ones. We replace old stories that box us in with new stories that liberate and inspire us.

The work of leadership is to create opportunities for those around us to engage in work that reflects their deepest, best beliefs -- and to recognize when beliefs and values and fears and ego drivers (more on those another time) are keeping those around us from living their passions most fully.

It sounds a little Pollyannaish, I know. But once we get past the motivating force of a paycheck, it's really all we -- as employers and leaders -- have left. In his book, Drive, Dan Pink talks about autonomy, mastery and purpose, about the role intrinsic motivators play in inspiring people to do great work.

It's a long leap from "I'll be hanging out at ChildFund next week" to "look for ways to engage people where it matters most to them." But isn't that the best work we can do in this life, whether we do it in Bangladesh or in Manhattan or in a brick office building off of Broad Street?

The best way to start? Look in the mirror. Uncover your own beliefs, and ask in what ways they are inhibiting you from doing or motivating you to do your best work in this life.

February 2013: Letter from John

Welcome to Floricane 2013. If last year was all about financial survival (it was), then this will be the year of stabilization, alignment and delight.

It's a tricky balance.

Even as I try to absorb some very important lessons about discipline and fiscal prudence, Floricane's business model pushes our team to constantly explore the edges of the envelope. And while our clients appreciate our ability to stretch the conversation and increase their discomfort in constructive ways, they also value constancy, effective planning and execution.

One of the hardest things to do as a business is to simultaneously give customers what they want, and to delight and surprise them in the process.

As I chew on the end of my pencil and reflect on my recent experiences as a customer, I'm hard-pressed to come up with truly great examples of a business that wows me in the process of meeting my needs. I mean ones that really, really wow me.

Earlier in the winter, Thea and I wandered into the new WPA Bakery in Church Hill to check it out, and get something for breakfast. It was warm, cozy, personal. The muffins were good. The staff was friendly.

And then Kendra, one of the owners, gave Thea a cup of buttermilk hot chocolate with a massive, homemade marshmallow floating in the steaming mug. The look of delighted surprise on Thea's face -- that's what I mean. It is so freakin' easy to deliver, and yet so hard.

I think it starts with the basics. You have to get the fundamentals right every time.

Then there's delivering on your brand promise. At each touch point in an interaction, customers should consistently experience the unique and distinct aspects of your business, especially the ones that you market and promote publicly.

The third element is built around relationships. Your business should feel personal. Your customers want to feel a connection with you and your employees that suggests they actually matter to you as something more than a transaction or receipt.

You have to land all three of these cornerstone elements. Only then can you delight a customer.

As Floricane hits 2013 at a hard sprint, we're taking time to work our way through our business approach. We're retooling our processes, the basics of our business. We're recommitting to ensuring each client touch point is aligned with our brand. We're redoubling our investment in our relationships -- with our past and current clients, our partners and our friends in the community.

And then we're going to make sure we deliver a massive, homemade marshmallow atop every interaction.