Deploying our “found insight” at Floricane

Sometimes you stumble across a phrase the makes the complicated simple.

Twitter introduced me to a recent post by VCU Brandcenter professor Mark Fenske about something he calls “found insight.”

Fenske was writing about what separates agencies that make ads from those that make great ads. It’s not the snappy office layout, or age, or the quality of their Keurig coffee.

It’s simpler than any of those things.

It’s whether the agency’s processes help to leverage and amplify found insight, or kills found insight.

“Found insight is what one gets once one has started on a project.

It is not the map with which one starts a reconnaissance of an area but the redrawn map one returns with from having been there to look and smell and measure.

Found insight is something you discover that you wish you’d known when you started.”

I think it’s a pretty beautiful concept. It’s also how the team at Floricane approaches our work.

This spring, I exploded several strategic plans mid-process simply because the shape of the plans (the content and structure of the written document) could not effectively hold the idea that was emerging from each plan. In both cases, the client breathed a sigh of relief when the dramatically revised plan emerged – because it felt more aligned with our shared found insights into their organization.

The longest portion of our strategic planning process is what we call discovery. (Or what we should start calling found insight.) It involves gathering anecdotes, chatting with key stakeholders, reading through white papers and old planning documents – and then synthesizing, and then re-synthesizing with the client, until strategic ideas begin to emerge, solidify and develop energy.

We can spend weeks in discovery, and it drives some clients to the point of despair – because they think they already know what the plan should look like! Truth be told, they probably do. But our shared knowledge is deeper, and the plan’s content is richer, after we engage in discovery together.

Integrating new ideas into existing constructs is what the human brain was designed to do. Found insight is simply inviting new perspective to have weight and impact. It’s allowing your strategic process to inform your strategic plan.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

A recent article in Forbes by leadership consultant Joseph Folkman recently caught my attention. Folkman observed that the vast majority of the thousands of leaders he’s worked with over the years do not value self-development. “Practicing self-development is the gateway for improving every competency, and it should not be ignored,” he writes. “Why do leaders avoid it? And why do they fail?”

His observation – which mirrors my own, albeit less experienced, take – that too many people (and not just leaders) too often put their own professional and personal development on the back burner is disconcerting. And not just because my business relies on people investing in themselves. 

Folkman identifies several reasons why people fail at self-development – they don’t know how to listen; they aren’t open to the ideas of others; they aren’t honest with themselves; they don’t take time to develop others; they don’t take the initiative.

I’ve seen all of these in action. I’ve probably exhibited each of them countless times in my own leadership journey. But I’ve also seen, and experienced, a deeper problem – leaders who simply lack the awareness that they represent the tip of a bigger development opportunity.

In our work at Floricane, we’re often brought into organizations with the best of intentions. Our clients see a real developmental need in the organization, and want us to work with senior leadership to make adjustments. Those adjustments usually involve other people.

Too often, I am reminded of Walt Kelly’s pointed cartoon strip Pogo of long ago – “We have met the enemy, and he is us!”

It’s sometimes painfully amusing to listen to leaders who talk a great talk about the importance of self-awareness and leadership development – for everyone below them. They believe that the fact that they’ve brought us into the organization for a serious engagement, that they’re making an investment in their people, is evidence that they’re good leaders. A mirror is one leadership tool remarkably absent from their professional toolkit.

“We’ve worked with dozens of consultants over the years,” groused one leader we met, “and nothing’s ever changed. Why should we think that you’ll be any different? 

My immediate thought was that he should expect exactly the same results. After all, he and his fellow leadership team members were the only common denominator across all of those engagements.

Before you can truly fail at self-development, you’ve got to engage in self-development. Once you engage in self-development, you can apply Folkman’s key behaviors:

·      Active listening for content, meaning and emotion in every conversation.

·      Being open to others’ ideas, and soliciting their input and feedback regularly.

·      Being honest with yourself, and regularly looking in the mirror for opportunities to improve.

·      Develop others, and model self-development through your own actions.

·      Take the initiative and get started.

Even GWAR wrestles with organizational change

They say you can’t go home again. Well, Thomas Wolfe said they said it. He was probably right – by the time you make it back, home has changed and you have changed. Or, as one of my favorite bands, Fugazi, asserts in song, “You can’t be what you were, so you’d better start being just what you are.”

That’s a long, meandering way of saying that I recently had coffee and talked organizational change with GWAR.

If you’re from Richmond, you may know GWAR as a schlock-metal performance band whose lead singer, Dave Brockie, died last year.

You probably didn't realize that GWAR is the performance arm of a thriving artistic collective known as Slave Pit Inc. Dozens of musicians, artists and performers have been employed by the organization over the years, including my college friend Bob Gorman.

The vast majority of my early college evenings were spent hanging out with Bob in the GWAR space on Laurel Street, where he first volunteered/apprenticed and then was employed creating costumes for the band. Twenty-five years later, Bob’s still making costumes and performing on stage – and has just completed a massive coffee table book chronicling the band’s sordid history.

It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to think a punk rock collective of artists and musicians might have organizational challenges. Particularly when the group is in the midst of major transition and change.

Which is what Bob and I discussed over coffee. We talked at length about ways organizations can both lose their orientation and develop a clearer sense of their future after a key leader moves on. In the case of GWAR, Brockie would probably be better described as a creative force of nature who often moved the band, and Slave Pit, by frantically out-thinking and out-working everyone around him. Hyperactivity is not the best leadership tool out there, but it seemed to work pretty well for Dave.

Like many organizations entering their second generation, GWAR struggles with reconciling its rich and messy legacy of creativity with the individual visions of key shareholders, the inevitable politics of an artist collective, and a shared commitment to a yet-undetermined vision of the future. As a bystander at GWAR’s birth, I can attest that the band was born of an era that needed the band’s raw, unfiltered take on the world – Brockie’s nimble evisceration of virtually every political and social construct is not applauded enough.

Listening to Bobby’s perspectives on the changes in his organization made me think about just how hard it is for organizations to reinvent themselves – especially creative organizations, ironically. It becomes even harder when your creativity is oriented in opposition to things that are no longer relevant.

While I might not have been able to “go home again” – relative to my punk rock roots – it sure was nice to reconnect with an amazing friend, and to see our lives once again intersect during a time of change and transition.

The view from week 3

Hello, I’m Julie and I’m new here.

Actually, I’m not just new here at Floricane, but new in a broader sense to the 9-5, vacation-taking, happy-hour attending world of full time employment. When I sat down for my first interview with Floricane a few weeks ago, I was working part time at both the VMFA and the Virginia Center for Architecture and interning at 1708 Gallery. The VMFA is where I unknowingly met John for the first time, about a week prior to my interview, when I had to ask him if he would “please keep a foot away from the paintings." Maybe the universe was trying to prep me for the thousand and one moments I would have to ask him for clarification in Floricane related tasks a few weeks later. Maybe I’m stretching it. Either way, it made for the most disarming interview I’ve ever been a part of.

After I recovered from the revelation that I had chastised my potential boss, I composed myself enough to answer the interview question that I’ve kept thinking back on during my first few weeks here at Floricane. Debra asked me what the top three things I was looking for in a job were. In what I’m sure was a rambling waterfall of words, I said that I was looking for an amiable, welcoming work environment, a job that challenged me and offered me a chance to gain new skills, and a company whose work I could believe in and rally behind.

Although I've only been at Floricane for a little over two weeks, all three of those qualifications have been met and surpassed. On my very first day Caroline and Lesley convinced me to leave my packed lunch in the fridge and head out to lunch. No one made fun of my music choices on the office stereo. I’m already getting all of Theran’s sarcastic texts. I have felt included, heard, and know that any help I need figuring out this whole young professional world is only a desk away.

Being a young professional (emphasis on the former), there is a lot to figure out. In my first day alone I think I downloaded 7 different kinds of office software and organizational apps. There are many moving parts to this job, and like everyone told me in the interview; there is no such thing as a “typical day” at Floricane. The opportunities to learn here are seemingly endless. I’ve got event calendars to finalize, marketing skills to hone, and a whole lot of fancy consulting lingo to catch up on (do people still say lingo?). The likelihood that I’ll get bored is hovering around zero percent.

The most exciting thing for me about working with Floricane is the chance to be a part of a team that truly cares about helping people grow and succeed. Everyone here is not only invested in their own clients, but in seeing the Richmond community thrive. That’s a passion that I share, which is good because all we ever really talk about is Richmond. If you’re reading this, you probably share our pride and borderline obsession with this little city and it’s potential to be great.  I hope to meet you and trade ideas at our next workshop soon.

The return to Petersburg

Floricane's first strategic planning client was The James House, a non-profit in the Tri-Cities (Hopewell, Petersburg, and Colonial Heights, along with Chesterfield, Dinwiddie and Prince George counties). We've followed that work up with engagements with a half-dozen Petersburg-area organizations. 

We spent a lot of time in recent years learning about the unique political, social and economic landscape of the Tri-Cities, and we've enjoyed getting to know Petersburg better. 

Last week, it felt like we relocated the business to Petersburg. As part of an engagement I've made with the Partnership for Nonprofit Excellence's Organizational Solutions arm and the Cameron Foundation, I've been interviewing for two organizational assessment projects in Petersburg. I brought our new consultant, Lesley Bruno, along for both meetings to listen and learn. 

Our first meeting found us meandering through the residential and commercial edges of Petersburg, as we found our way to the Crater District Planning Commission offices. Our second meeting took us into the heart of Old Town Petersburg, and to an old-time lunch at the veritable Dixie Diner. (I had the chicken-and-dumplings with collard greens, y'all.) 

We talked about the unique environmental, educational, political, workforce development, and health care challenges of the region with our two prospective clients. Along the way, I rediscovered some of the things that make the Tri-Cities so uniquely important to the larger identity of Central Virginia. 

It's a shame that more Richmonders don't spend time understanding and exploring this corner of our region. It's exciting to have the opportunity to deepen my own understanding once again. 

We're all about the integration

I spent some time on the phone recently with a prospective client in Washington, D.C.

Two things were interesting to me about our discussion – she was calling from a major, national association, and she was attracted to Floricane by what she perceived to be our integrated services.

I made a conscious choice way back in 2008 not to actively pursue work outside of Central Virginia. My daughter was eight-months-old, and I wanted to be active and present as she grew up. In fact, Floricane’s first three significant opportunities were in Tennessee and Wisconsin, and I turned them all down.

But it was the integrated services piece that really caught my attention.

Our team has spent the better part of a year discussing the evolution of our business, and of Floricane’s brand. And when we look at some of our bigger clients, and projects, we see the delivery of integrated services – strategic planning, organizational development, leadership development and coaching as one rich tapestry of organizational change. From Bon Secours to the Library of Virginia, from ChildFund to VCU, some of our best, big work is a blend of services, not simply a line of service.

Take coaching, as an example. Leadership coaching as a stand-alone activity has its merits. There are leaders in organizations who need, and benefit from, regular conversations about their challenges, opportunities and professional growth.

Sometimes, in our experience, such coaching engagements trigger real, significant and lasting change for the individual being coached. It’s good for the individual, and it sometimes benefits the organization. But is individual change, not systems change.

Leadership coaching integrated in larger change initiatives? That’s a different story with clearer, broader impacts. We’ve seen it with large clients, and we’ve seen it in smaller engagements such as the American Civil War Museum and Draper Aden Associates.

Identifying a strategic future state with and for an organization, and then investing time and energy into ensuring that change takes root, is where we engage best.

Floricane Has traded up

Floricane almost feels like a new business. Again.

This month, we brought on two new employees. They've already changed the way we do business. 

Julie Pence is replacing Caroline in a newly titled role. As experience coordinator for Floricane she's in charge of making sure that our collaborative space in the Times-Dispatch building, and the more than 100 discrete workshops and events we hold each year, reflects our brand -- and leaves every client feeling well-engaged. 

Lesley Bruno is coming on board as a consultant -- a new role for the former marketing all-star. Floricane has known Lesley for a long-time. She was at The Valentine when we did strategic planning for the museum way back in 2009, and a few years later I tipped her off to a job at the Greater Richmond Chamber. I let her stay there for four years before luring her to Floricane with Dan Pink's three keys to engagement -- a job with purpose, the opportunity to master new skills, and the autonomy to create a role that really works for where she is in her life. 

Last week, as our team -- five full-time employees, one departing employee, a dedicated contractor, and a new intern -- walked out of the building together for lunch I was a little overwhelmed. Almost seven years ago, I sat in a basement office with my new business' advisory team and said that my vision was to build a team of passionate, smart people who cared about changing our community and people's lives. And here they are.  

As we look ahead at Floricane to a future that is different from our past, I am most excited about my own growing edge -- which involves getting out of people's way. My role in the business continues to evolve and change. My new team relies on each other to deliver great work for our clients more than they rely on me, and that's a good thing. 

We tell our clients all of the time that they need to hire great people, clear a path, and let them run. Lesley and Julie are collectively three weeks into their new career marathon, and they've yet to hit their stride. This is going to be a fun race. 

Orange is the New Black

Hello, my name is Lesley, and by the time you read this I will have been at Floricane for three weeks. In what was no doubt an effort to get me out of his hair, John asked me to reflect on my short time here at the ‘Cane: what I’ve learned, what I’ve seen, how I feel, etc., and the following is my attempt at doing just that. 

My first thought is this: I’ve never been asked to share my thoughts on a new employer, for a new employer, as well as for all of its blog readers. Kind of daunting, but completely expected from a place like Floricane, which is all about relationships, self awareness, reflection and development. Joke’s on you, Bruno!  

Some background: After 12 years of promoting the fantastic work of a diverse mix of organizations as a “marketing & PR professional,”  I’ll now be helping local nonprofits find their true north and chart a way to get there via Floricane’s unique and people focused strategic planning process. Floricane serves all types of organizations, but I’ll be focusing primarily on nonprofits. 

Here’s why this appealed to me. I’ve been on the client side of this equation, both with Floricane and other consultants, and enjoyed it tremendously. For some reason, herding people into a room and asking them to consider the future of their organization and, by extension, themselves is fun! So, I took the leap. And as my friend Anedra says, it’s always handy to have marketing tools in your back pocket. 

As far as what I’ve learned and seen and done in the last few weeks, it’s been a lot of following John around, eating lunch and introducing myself to people. He knows a lot of people, and I’m eager to meet all of them. But the process of transforming from a marketing person to a strategic planning consultant is nascent at best, so I offer the following rudimentary observations of my time thus far and promise a more cerebral update in the coming months. In the meantime, I look forward to meeting all of you and possibly working together on something awesome. 

Lesley’s Thoughts on Her First Few Weeks at Floricane/in a New Career

• There are more nonprofits in this town than I had ever imagined.

• You can try all you want to leave the Marketing/PR world behind, but the urge to post things and rewrite websites will never ever go away. 

• Orange truly is the new black. 

• Working in a collaborative environment is a challenge for me but one that I’m eager to tackle, as soon as I learn how to tune out people. (JK JK JK, new teammates!). 

• Sometimes it’s okay to head over to the comfy chairs during business hours and read up on organizational development. 

• With the exception of the Vertical Horizon song that is playing currently, my coworkers have great taste in music.

• Almost everyone here has kids, so it’s fun to make the non-kid people uncomfortable with talk of unspeakable bodily functions. 

• Greens* can and do Get Things Done.

• As an ex-PR hack, I find it oddly thrilling to run into RTD newsroom staff in the cafeteria.  “Look, everyone, it’s Michael Martz. MICHAEL MARTZ!”

• These people will allow me to wear jeans to work, as long as they are high rise editions. It’s in my contract, and I’m okay with that.

• I still need a Diet Pepsi and a salty snack at 3pm each day. Some things don’t change. 

*What’s a Green you ask? Register yourself and 5 of your colleagues for our Insights workshop on June 11, and find out. It’ll change your life.