How to Make More Time for Creativity

Photo from blog.brika.com. Click through for the original blog post!

I'm a big fan of this blog post about how to make time for creative projects. Even if you're not an artist or designer, these are still useful tips for how to make time for your "passion projects."

Here's a tip that I found helpful: "Walk away from a project, come back, and make revisions." 

Looking at a project with new eyes is a great idea, and it's definitely something I need to do more at the office, not just with my creative projects. Getting up from my desk, grabbing a cup of coffee, and taking a mental break is usually really fruitful for me and the work I'm tackling at the moment. And yet, I usually forget to simply take some time to free my mind and walk around for a few minutes.

Goal for the Fall: take more strategic breaks at work, and leave some room for creativity to manifest!

Lucky for us, we have Monument City Coffee & Records super close to our office,  just across Grace Street.

Meet People Where They Are...

When things go wrong, it's human nature to place blame on anyone and anything other than ourselves. "So-and-so didn't do what they said they would." "I wasn't given the necessary resources." Etcetera.

That's why working with teams is both challenging and rewarding - it's hard to get folks to look at how their own actions impact teams, but when they do incredible changes can take place. I'm reminded of this often these days as we work with the Development and Alumni Relations (DAR) folks at VCU on Team Effectiveness.

“Meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.”

Like most of us, DAR staff work in a fast-paced environment and can find it difficult to slow down and reflect on how they are directly impacting their team members. And when they do reflect, no one wants to readily admit that they are hindering, rather than helping, their coworkers. Yet that is exactly what we are asking them to do.

One of our favorite quotes at Floricane is "Meet people where they are, not where you want them to be." It seems that the DAR staff at VCU is taking it to heart; and while their teams are not going to transform overnight, we anticipate great things to come.

A Colonial Retreat with CEOs

We've discovered the perfect recipe for a CEO retreat. It involves four inches of rain, tri-cornered hats and 40 association executives ready to wrestle with big questions.

Earlier this week, I spent two days with a small group of CEOs and leaders from some of Virginia's best associations -- as well as some private industry leaders -- at the Virginia Society of Association Executive's annual CEO Retreat at the Williamsburg Inn in Colonial Williamsburg. A steady, and sometimes torrential, rainfall kept everyone focused on the discussions at hand. And the colonial setting made conversations about revolution feel entirely appropriate.

The idea of blowing up small things -- governance structures, approaches to leadership, programs, membership dues -- came up throughout our time together.

Which made me wonder why so many organizations are reluctant to carve out time to analyze, deconstruct and rebuild key parts of what they do. Everyone in the room intuitively understood the organizational evolution from start-up to growth to maturity to decline -- and the critical importance of reevaluating and reviving before you hit the peak of the S-curve. (Or blowing things up and starting anew.) It's lighting the proverbial fuse that makes people nervous.

As conversations continued, I was heartened to hear a shift in thinking as the ideas began to move toward commitments:

• To explore dramatic reductions in the size of boards to increase organizational agility
• To eliminate oversized events and replace them with more topical and targeted programming
• To ignite new leadership opportunities for employees and members
• To focus on member value at both an emotional and practical level

It's not easy running an association in 2014. Technology, economics, demographics and other critical factors have made everyone's work a little more challenging. Associations have the added struggle of being seen as a "nice to have" for many individuals and organizations who didn't question the value of their membership a generation ago.

It puts the burden squarely on association executives to continue asking important questions about value and relevance -- and periodically getting out of the conversational vacuum to explore change with their peers. Or, heaven forbid, with their members.

FEED Me, SeyMORE.

Wednesday, August 27th I met at FeedMore in Richmond with other like-minded young professionals. HYPE (Helping Young Professionals Engage) sponsored a lunch time event where we listened as Douglas Pick, CEO of FeedMore Richmond, and Dominic Barrett, Director of Shalom Farms, discuss food, healthy food and how to get good, healthy food to those who need it. It was an enlightening event. 

First off, FeedMore Richmond is an all compassing group containing Meals on Wheels, the Food Bank, and the Community Kitchen, where they prepare all the meals in house. They provide food to thirty-five counties and five cities, all the way into North Carolina. Their goal is clear: empower lives and provide a healthy community through collaboration and leadership. This is very necessary. According to Barrett 75% of children need assisted lunch programs.

At Shalom Farms they work hard to battle local hunger. Through their volunteer farm, located in Goochland, they help produce food for the local food bank and work with Bon Secours on food prescription programs. Anyone can volunteer to help, with a friend or group. After the talk and tour I am motivated to volunteer to help the ongoing battle against hunger, but most of all I am brightened by the love, consideration, and passion that encapsulates everyone that knows the need and does not falter to help.

The FeedMore food bank that we toured.

Not an Oxymoron: Outgoing Introverts

Our friend Trey Hartt, Head Development Dude at local non-profit ART 180, recently shared a link to this article: "19 Struggles of Having an Outgoing Personality But Actually Being Introverted."

We love this for a couple of reasons: It accurately describes about half of the Floricane team (in my opinion, at least!), and it highlights the fact that a huge number of us feel like we fall somewhere in between extreme introversion and extreme extraversion. It's not all black and white, folks.

It's no secret we value self-awareness here at Floricane, which is why we offer Insights® Discovery introductory workshops every few months. It's definitely our most popular public workshop. Sign up for the September 11th full-day session, and see what the fuss is all about!

Our September Newsletter is Here

click here to read through our latest newsletter.

There's info about our new workshops, the Leadership Circle, our recent client work, and some messages from John-- accompanied with colorful photos, as always!