RVA: A Home Run

Earlier this Spring I had the pleasure of attending that HYPE 804UM put on by the Richmond Greater Chamber of Commerce. It was held this year at the Science Museum of Virginia, already famous for enriching minds and inspiring all. I was excited as the day started, not knowing what to anticipate. The day would be filled with two breakout sessions that included speakers on platforms of Art, Culture and Community. Unwittingly, I gravitated towards the talks focusing on Community.

I have a small background with volunteering in the Richmond Community. I have spent my time assisting at the Richmond Area SPCA and at WRIR, Richmond’s local independent radio station, that is staffed, almost 100%, by local volunteers. Although I have done those activities in the past and could continue to do so well into my future, I still consider what else I can do for my immediate community. I not only want to be an active and engaged member but want to be able to make a difference, big or small.

Marc Cheatham runs and started a blog, The Cheats Movement, which informs about the Richmond Community at large. He covers everything from emerging artists to any positive action that is happening within the City of Richmond. He was the first speaker I joined. The discussion was started of how we can personally discover our place within the community. But first the word community had to be defined. It is a concept that is different and unique to each of us. For me, community is support from neighbors, friends and local government. Another definition I heard that day defined community as a network of relationships. Once you have the definition, the next step is finding your place within it. For me, my involvement with the Coalition Theater, a long-form improv theater, downtown connects me to members of the community I may not have had the chance to meet in my day-to-day work environment. I feel that by taking classes and working with others that are like-minded, I can inspire and reach others with comedy with the end goal of a sense of comic relief.

I feel at the theater we provide another pawn in the artistic landscape that is becoming downtown Richmond. We constantly do shows that invite our neighbors and friends to get up on stage with us. We have embraced our place as an alternative option to the casual food and bar scene always available throughout Richmond. But still there lies the question of the next step: How do we broaden our horizons now that everything else has come into place? Ryn Bruce of Batter Up would tell us that we need to connect with ourselves, to focus and simplify and most importantly, to get out of our comfort zone. It would be too easy to open a theatre and say, “Hi. We’re here. Whenever.” But it does not always go quite simply. We will need to promote not only the theatre but the house teams as well. I even consider branding DaVinci, the house team that I am a member of. We will need to continuously attend festivals to let others know what we are trying to do in Richmond, VA. Or maybe the next step is a program that can help others in serious need of laughter smile again. 

I am sure that the path we will take will align with the ideas offered by Mr. Cheatham and Ms. Bruce. We are in a constant motion of change and ideas and there is no short to the amount of creativity of possibilities that the Coalition Theatre or Richmond have at its grasp. Get out there, dig into the cooperative soil of Richmond and discover your place within the community while discovering yourself.

Finding Inspiration: Zoe Goes Running

"We run for the same reasons explorers once explored -- to discover ourselves, and the worlds of others."

So starts the trailer for "Zoe Goes Running", a powerful documentary that explores the journey of former University of Richmond student -- and TEDxRVA star speaker -- Zoe Romano as she becomes the first person to run the entire 2,000 mile Tour de France course.

The trailer is visually powerful and poetic, and thick with power and solitude, pain and joy, endurance and celebration. It's worth watching, several times.

"Sometimes the best things are the things we know nothing about..."

Leadership’s Many Colored Blanket

In our business culture, we lean heartily toward certain characteristics in our leaders. We want men and women who are decisive, have a clear vision, demonstrate an ability to achieve excellence and are filled with confidence. That’s nice, but it represents such a slim snapshot of the aspects of leadership I believe are required by effective leaders.

First off, I believe leadership lives at every level of an organization, and that each of us has powerful opportunities to lead and influence every day. How we choose to interact with our colleagues and coworkers has an essential impact on the tone and tenor of our work together. I’ve worked with mechanics and welders whose day-to-day interactions have had a more substantial impact on the bottom line than most vice presidents – and vice-versa.

At Floricane, we use a personality assessment tool called Insights Discovery® that provides a great starting place for growing self-awareness. Insights uses eight color energies to describe eight core personality types and how they work, communicate, interact with others and make decisions. Each of these 8 Types have important leadership characteristics, and strong leaders learn how to leverage each of them appropriately.

For instance, the Orange Motivator type brings a strong sense of vision and possibility that can motivate and inspire a team to tackle exciting new initiatives. The Green Supporter type draws on a deep set of values and beliefs to lead a team with consistency, integrity and fairness. The Purple Reformer type helps teams think through and effectively evaluate ideas, and to implement them to improve the business.

At our June 10 Insights Discovery Leadership Development workshop, we’ll identify to strengths (and limitations) of each personality type and help participants map out their leadership opportunities. This is our first offering of this exciting new workshop, and we’re looking forward to seeing it in action. Participants must have a Insights profile and have either attended an introductory Insights workshop or had their profile debriefed by a member of our team at attend.

Come build your own leadership rainbow – and transform the way you think about your leadership in action. Join us on June 10!

A New Day

It really is a new day at HCA – or at least at HCA’s John Randolph Medical Center (JRMC) with a relatively new CEO and more than a handful of senior leadership roles recently filled. In March, we spent a day with all of the hospitals leaders – managers and directors from every department – to talk about the ways in which the organization could strengthen its alignment.

It’s always helpful in our work to be supporting a leader with a clear vision. It’s even more helpful when that leader can articulate the vision, and is passionate about helping people be accountable to achieving it. We found such a leader in JRMC’s Suzanne B. Jackson.

Suzanne was willing (and able) to frame her vision for the team as we started our day together. She then stepped out of the way so her team could paint the canvas. Stepping out of the way didn’t mean being invisible, but rolling her own sleeves up and being a participant and a peer to the rest of her team.

Over the course of the day, Suzanne and her team celebrated their wins, identified their challenges and began to craft shared perspectives on the work that the team needed to do to be great. We have no doubt that they’ll make serious progress.

New Client: Richmond Public Library

Our team is excited to start work on a new long-term project. We’ll be spending the next nine months engaging the community in a series of surveys,discussions and conversations about the future of the city’s libraries.

As Richmond Public Library prepares to engage in long-range strategic planning, they felt it was essential to do some serious homework first. In the coming months, five big pieces of work will happen:

• A series of community conversations will be facilitated by the Library of Virginia
• Individual interviews will be conducted with key library stakeholders
• Demographic data will be gathered for each of the nine libraries
• Circulation data will be generated for each of the nine libraries
• Patrons will be asked to participate in an online or paper survey, or a face-to-face interview

In July, Floricane will bring all of the individuals handling each of these initiatives together with other library staff and board members. We’ll use the data gathered, and the collective wisdom of the group, to identify a set of strategic drivers important to the future of the library.

After we do some additional work in the summer, we’ll work with the library staff to convene and facilitate community conversations designed to build on the emerging strategic drivers. A final report will go to the library board in the fall, and set the stage for long-range planning in 2015.

Reconnections at VAFRE

Every year, the team at the Virginia Association of Fundraising Executives (VAFRE) hosts an awards luncheon to honor two outstanding fundraising professionals – a seasoned veteran and a younger “rising star”. This year, the entire Floricane team attended the event to connect with friends and support an amazing group of smart people.

The keynote was delivered by Secretary of Education Anne Holton, but the stars of the show were the award recipients – and hundreds of their peers and supporters. David Huffine of St. Joseph’s Villa and Shannon Hair of the Danville Community College Educational Foundation delivered personal and emotional comments as they received their awards.

The highlight of the afternoon for our team was bumping into friends of all stripes – including Aimee Koch (formerly of ART 180 and The New Community School, and now making beautiful photos in her new home in Portland, Maine).

The Doctor Is In

After we wrapped up our day with the leadership team at HCA’s John Randolph Medical Center, the team met with Tim McManus, CEO of Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Hospitals. I was curious about Tim, so I did what we do these days – I Googled him, and Idiscovered that Tim McManus has his own blog.

While most of his posts are focused on interesting things happening at HCA, the day I found his site he was writing about Carl Honore’s book, In Praise of Slowness. Tim’s emphasis was on the importance of slowing down and focusing on the relationships in our lives – a message that resonates with me!

According to Honore, we have moved from a world where the big eat the small to one where the fast eat the slow. Our obsession with speed has gone too far. It has turned into an addiction. 

(One example he shares: You want to produce more meat – grow the animal faster with steroids and endless corn. Today a 220-pound pig can be grown in six months. Two centuries ago, it took five years to grow a 130-pound pig.)

The evidence suggests we learn and build rapport better at a slower pace. While speed dating might be an interesting way to meet a lot of people in a short period of time – it is less likely to make a lasting connection than quality one-to-one time.So why do we need to slow down? By stopping to “smell the roses” we make better connections with our co-workers and, perhaps more importantly, with our patients. Think about one of your visits to the doctor. Did they go down a check-list to assess your physical symptoms and then grab the script pad to write a medication to fix your problem or did they really think about you holistically and consider your mental state of mind and all of the softer variables that might impact your physical health? Not everything can be solved instantly. Focusing on slowness often means better health, better work, better business, and better family life. Evidence shows that people who work 60 hours per week are twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who work 40 hours.

Good advice from the doctor’s CEO.

The Hole

Years ago, a therapist I knew shared a metaphor with me – about walking out the door and falling in a hole. The metaphor, which is really a short story, describes howhard it is for us to change – even when we keep falling into the same hole.

I’ve used variations of it with groups for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I tried to track down the origins. Who knew it was actually a poem?!

The poem is by Portia Nelson, and it& rsquo;s called There’s A Hole In My Sidewalk: Autobiography in five short chapters. (Here’s a link to the poem and a bit of a deconstruction of it.)

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost .... I am helpless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend that I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe I am in this same place.

But, it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in ... it's a habit ... but, my eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it. 

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

The poem alone was worth the exploration, but imagine my surprise to discover that Portia Nelson was a singer and actress – and that she played the cantankerous Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music. Who knew?

What I like about this metaphor is how well it describes the challenges any of us face as we try to rid ourselves of old habits, or engage in new behaviors.

We make the slow transition from awkward to mechanical to instinctive over a period of weeks and months, not minutes and days. And we stumble, take two steps backward. But if we persist, we can prevail.

We may have to do the laborious work of filling the hole. Or sometimes, it is as easy as walking down another street.