Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Six years ago, we decided that Floricane would honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with postcards. It is a small thing, but we found that having a little reminder of the man and his dreams for the rest of us clicked. Each January, we mailed about 500 postcards -- an image of Martin Luther King Jr. and a quote.

We found the postcards were a good reminder to us each year about the real purpose of our work -- to meet the challenge of bettering the organizations we work with, ourselves and our communities, and ultimately our world. Maybe that's a lofty goal for a little consulting company, but who gets anywhere without a dream?

We admire Martin Luther King Jr. for the same things that everyone does. His courage and tenacity. His authenticity and ability to dream. His vision for a better America, and a better world.

Last year, we moved from postcards to digital -- images you could save to your iPhone or iPad or desktop. This year we stuck with the idea of sharing these images digitally. They serve as daily reminders on the devices that travel with us, literally, everywhere.

““If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.””
— Martin Luther King Jr.

This year's quote captures a fact that we know all too well. Lasting, effective change is not easy.  We see this not only in our own work here at Floricane, but more importantly, in our world.

Download an image on one of your devices. And keep moving forward.

HOW TO SAVE

Desktop:
Right click and select "save image as..." 

Mobile devices:
Tap and hold, select "save image."
For iPhone/iPad, change your wallpaper under Settings-->Wallpaper.

Phone Wallpaper:

2.png

Desktop Wallpaper:

iPad Wallpaper:

HOW TO SAVE

DESKTOP:
RIGHT CLICK AND SELECT "SAVE IMAGE AS..." 

MOBILE DEVICES:
TAP AND HOLD, SELECT "SAVE IMAGE."
FOR IPHONE/IPAD, CHANGE YOUR WALLPAPER UNDER SETTINGS-->WALLPAPER.

Find Your Strengths at Our $10 Toolkit

 

This Wednesday, we kick off a brand new year of $10 Toolkit workshops at Floricane.

The idea is simple.  You want to learn new skills, but your time is valuable – and you don’t want to spend $1,000 for a full day of PowerPoint presentations that fill your brain with white noise.

Enter our $10 Toolkit. One hour of your time, and ten dollars of your money, get you one hour of content – a focused bit of learning on topics related to leadership, change, strategic planning or personal development.

This Wednesday at 4pm, Lesley Bruno will unpack the world of StrengthsFinder, out of which the Gallup Organization has identified 34 “talent themes” (or strengths) that help shape our effectiveness. The concept behind StrengthsFinder is that each of us areas of skill or focus where we are most naturally effective – and that we should work to leverage those strengths, and to make them stronger.

The 34 talent themes sit within four domains -- as shown in the above graphic. And as with anything that has domains, there's the obvious suggestion you should consider how this may impact the composition of your working teams.

Of course, our view is a bit more nuanced. We are absolute believers in the strengths-based approach, and the idea of positive psychology, as one aspect of personal growth. We also believe that you need to build awareness around those areas where you are less effective, and understand their impact. But that’s another workshop.

On the strengths front, here’s how Gallup puts it:

“All people have a unique combination of talents, knowledge, and skills — strengths — that they use in their daily lives to do their work, achieve their goals, and interact with others. Gallup has found that when people understand and apply their strengths, the effect on their lives and work is transformational. People who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged in their work and three times more likely to say they have an excellent quality of life.”

On Wednesday, Lesley will introduce you to the 34 talent themes, and take participants through an interactive exploration of how they shape our work. We’ll have a few handouts on the StrengthsFinder model, and a quick assessment you can use to get a feel for where your natural strengths may lie.

You can register in advance, or drop in –- we’ll be starting promptly at 4pm so you might want to meander by our offices in the Richmond Times-Dispatch building around 3:45 or so. We’ll have snacks.

More details, and registration information, can be snagged from the Floricane Events page.

 

 

We’re Not Getting Tilted

Click the image above to scroll through our favorite Tilted memories...

Four years ago, a group of small business owners decided to create an event for people like them – self-starting entrepreneurs who didn’t have the time or patience to sort the wheat from the chaff of local business networking.

The event was called Tilted, and for four years it drew about a hundred entrepreneurs together for a day of idea sharing, relationship building, and learning. Tilted was designed to be a little less ordinary, a little more relaxed, and – well, tilted a few degrees off from more traditional business conferences.

In fact, the organizers called it an “unconference.” And while it didn’t adhere strictly to the principles of unconference organizing – Yes, Virginia, there are such things as unconferences. – it tried to lean hard in that direction.

Here are a few things I valued about Tilted, as an organizer and participant:

  • Organizers worked to check their brands at the door. There were no sponsors. We tried to emphasize the people who helped make Tilted happen, not the businesses.

 

  • Participants provided most of the content. We approached the idea of crowd-sourced content a bit differently each year, but by-and-large the experts were in the room, and they were our peers.

 

  • Both time and design contributed to real relationship building. People actually got to know each other – and in some cases build lasting business relationships.

 

  • Each Tilted event had at least some of the unusual suspects. While there were always familiar faces from a core group of downtown, Twitter-savvy business people, there were always people I’d never met in the room.

 

  • It was an affordable, break-even event. We kept ticket costs low – between $25 and $40 for the day. And we kept our expenses low – mostly space rental and marketing. And we donated almost $2,000 to local nonprofits along the way.

On the flip side, Tilted came with its own set of very common challenges:

  • The faces felt too familiar. For a variety of reasons, we never managed to break the color barrier, and were hard-pressed to break the geography barrier. There were always a lot of young, white business owners from Richmond in the room – a smart lot with plenty of diversity of thought and business focus, but not entirely representative of the region.

 

  • It required a lot of heavy lifting. We deliberately limited the planning window each year to 45 days to keep from over-designing, but that meant 45 days of concentrated planning. That’s hard to do when you’re running a business!

 

  • Collaboration is hard! The organizers each year came together to generate great ideas, and everyone pitched in on the day of the event, but it was challenging to spread the work evenly.

As Floricane, which has historically initiated each Tilted event (and hosted in our home in the Times-Dispatch building), looked at a fifth round of Tilted this winter we balked. We’re starting what is shaping up to be the best year in our small company’s history with a mostly new team of consultants. Trying to manage the heavy lifting of Tilted V, and keeping the bar high, felt too daunting this time around.

The good news is that the Virginia Community Economic Network’s Conaway Haskins has expressed interest in resurrecting Tilted as a statewide event. I’ll be interested to see if that gains some traction and becomes a thing.

In the meantime, I’ll always have memories – and a great community of co-organizers who I have come to know and appreciate more fully because of our shared work on Tilted. Thanks to Caroline Moyer, Tina Pearlman, Carra Rose, Aaron Dotson, Jon Newman, Rick Jarvis, Deanna Lorianni, Meghan Codd Walker, Peter Fraser, Tiffany Jana, Matthew Freeman, Sarah Milston, Jacob Geiger, Jen Tompkins, Andreas Addison, Theran Fisher,  and all the other contributors along the way.

Get to Know the Team: Kathy!

Kathy is the newest addition to the Floricane team. Last week we shared what she will focus on as our Insights Community Specialist, and we promised to share her own gossip about her first two weeks at Floricane. Read on to learn more about Kathy!

Hi, Kathy here! I’m excited to tell you more about myself. I moved to Richmond from NYC almost exactly 5 years ago, right after graduating from law school. I moved for a dream job working at the ACLU of Virginia, directing the organization’s women’s rights and reproductive freedom programs. In past lives I’ve been a teacher, lobbyist, community organizer, project manager, policy analyst, and communications specialist, to name a few. In some ways working at Floricane is a big transition, but actually the organizational development field feels like coming home because I can incorporate a number of my passions, namely facilitating, connecting and developing people, and building community. I thrive on building new programs and new networks from the ground up, and helping people develop skills and achieve their dreams. The past two weeks I’ve observed and absorbed, skilling up to facilitate workshops and beginning to brainstorm what an "alumni program" might look like for those who have engaged Floricane’s Insights offerings.

Floricane Q&A

1. Do you want to rock n’ roll all night or party everyday?

Both. I want no sleep ‘til Brooklyn!

2. Which President would you most like to have a drink with, past or present?

I’d like to be first in line to have a drink with whoever becomes our first female President one day.

3. If you were not doing this job you’re doing now, what job would you be working?

This is hard if I’m constrained by reality, so I’ll say be Ina Garten and/or dominating a cross-continent karaoke awards show circuit. To be clear, in real life I can neither cook nor sing.

4. Pie or Cake or Neither?

Pie! Strawberry Rhubarb, to be precise.

5. Do you have a favorite Sharpie color?

Mint color sharpie, always and forever.

6. Your favorite place for dinner?

In an ideal world, I would never cook (see above). Seriously, I have a Chinese food delivery restaurant programmed in my phone’s favorites. The rapidly growing Richmond dining scene is awesome, so it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite place for dinner. Some new faves are Belle and James, Maple and Pine, and Pizza Tonight.

7. What do you most value in your friends?

 Sense of humor; boundless love; and a slight cynical streak that speaks to my New Englander nature.

8. What is your idea of happiness?

Jet-setting to exotic locales (with an itinerary I laboriously put together in a detailed, color coded Google Doc).

9. Who are your favorite writers?

Oof, this is hard. Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, John Irving, Alice Munro, and Barbara Kingsolver. I most recently finished Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng and openly cried throughout the ending, on a crowded train.

10. Excluding your work at Floricane, who was your best boss, and why?

A personable supervisor and professor in law school who trusted me to learn by doing, which ensured I had a sense of ownership over my projects.

11. What are three things you love about Richmond?  

The growing food scene. All of Church Hill. Wineries and breweries everywhere.

12. If we looked at your Facebook page, what might surprise us?

That one woman can post so many kitten pictures/videos and not actually have a cat.

13. And lastly, what are the things that excite you most about Floricane, its clients and the community as we approach 2016?

I’m excited to ask a million questions and listen to what our clients have enjoyed most about, and would like more from, our Insights offerings. I’m inspired by bringing together diverse clients in a way that creates a family who learns, creates, and problem-solves together.

Letter from John (December 2015 Newsletter)

Last month, I talked pretty bluntly about burning the candle at both ends, and the consequences of running too hard. But I don't just run. I also spend time rebuilding the candle.

As Floricane welcomes a new consultant to our ranks (see below), it feels like a good time to talk about the importance of quality candle making at work.

In our Manager Development Program, Debra and I refer frequently to the work of the Hay Group. Specifically, we talk about their research that shows the strong causal relationship between leadership, team climate and team performance(orresults).

Think about climate -- which encompasses elements like clarity, commitment, flexibility and rewards -- as the candle. When it burns too fast, people run out of steam. When the candle is poorly formed, the flame flickers. Well- constructed candles create strong, steady light.

At Floricane, our team looks to our periodic "work on the work weeks" as important candle making opportunities -- time together to build clarity and important candle making opportunities -- time together to build clarity and alignment, strengthen our relationships, put processes and systems in place, train and grow.

We value these planning periods as deliberate, concentrated time together without client interruptions to focus on our own business, to strengthen our candles.

This fall we modified our approach to #WotWW. Our team met for three days last week before the Thanksgiving break. We'll regroup just before New Year's Eve for three more days of planning time. That makes for 12 days of #WotWW time in 2015.

I recently did some napkin math on Floricane's assorted holidays, vacations, #WotWW, team meetings and professional development days. Over the course of the year, we spend 25% of our time off-line -- either recharging on a personal level, or planning and growing together as professionals. We're not engaged in client work for almost 60 of the 260 weekdays in a year.

The math can be staggering. For our five full-time employees, that's 300 non- billable days of work each year.

Of course, there's another way to look at it.

For the 1,000 days a year that the five of us are working directly with people, teams, and organizations focused on growth and change, we're more likely to be rested, engaged and fully charged. Our candles are more likely to burn strong.

Last week, four of us met for an abbreviated #WotWW to build on a deliberate reconstruction of our business that started in July. It looked something like this:

  • We agreed to dedicate a portion of our time in 2016 to building a stronger consulting practice, where all of us would be aligned around our philosophy of work and passion for community; develop or strengthen our consulting skills; and deepen our passion for working with individuals and organizations at the intersection of growth and change.
  • We mapped out business development, pricing and budgets for 2016. (Dull, a bit painful, but ultimately important work!)
  • We finalized our calendar of events and workshops for the upcoming year, and discussed the distinctive purpose and feel of each event.
  • We dove deeper into our new Client Engagement Map, and identified key activities and processes that will strengthen the experience our clients have with Floricane -- and build on our core values of Relationships, Authenticity, Challenging and Fun.

A couple of years ago, I thought that we'd have to tighten up on hours as the business grew. It's been reassuring to see, instead, a doubling down on the importance of planning, recharging and growing together as a team. As we move into winter, I can think of no better metaphor to embrace than that of brightly burning candles. Cheers! 

We Have A New Teammate!

We welcomed our newest employee to the team this week, and promptly overwhelmed her with a 60-day orientation schedule. Kathy Greenier is Floricane's fifth client-facing consultant, and her focus is on the development of an Insights® Discovery community. What does that mean? (Funny. She had the same question. We expect her to tell us somewhere between Day 28 and Day 61.)

In a nutshell, Kathy will skill up around Insights with an eye toward facilitating more of our public and client-focused workshops; work with our team to develop a stronger marketing approach for Insights; and help us create an "alumni program" for some of the 2,000-plus people who have received an Insights personal profile from Floricane since 2009.

She comes to us by way of the ACLU of Virginia, where she was most recently Director of the Reproductive Freedom Project. She was previously director of the Street Law Program and Civil Liberties Union at New York Law School, where she received her J.D. She lives in Church Hill, and has a full suite of mint and gold hued office accessories! We'll share more gossip as it surfaces -- and keep your eyes peeled for Kathy's own gossip about her first week at Floricane on our blog later this month. In the meantime, welcome her to the team! 

So Long, Farewell, Adieu Adieu Adieu!

Ephemerality is on my mind. With the turning of the leaves, I, too, am embarking on a new chapter—but not before finishing writing this one.

My time as Floricane’s intern is rapidly drawing to a close—much to my dismay—since it means I am leaving the people I’ve come to call my friends, this vibrant city, and of course the terrific atmosphere of my professional home. These past seven weeks have been filled with tremendous learning and lots of hard work, and I’d like to share that with you, in the form of the oft-disputed “listicle,” as suggested by John.

 

Top Ten Things I Learned Working at Floricane (in no particular order)

Or, My Little Nuggets of Wisdom I Picked Up Along the Way

1.      Insights is a really big deal around here! What color are you? How do you fit in with your team dynamic? “Oh Theran, you’re such a blue!” We as a team really did live up to our colors, I think, and it was exciting to learn why.

2.      On that note, I had to keep reminding myself to not pigeonhole myself or others into their Insights color descriptions, since humans are so much more than a singular color energy, or a four-letter combination, as in the Myers-Briggs test.

3.      A lot of client work requires the simple act of listening. Before that, it means asking the right questions. How applicable this is to our own daily relationships and interactions!

4.      Subsequently, most everything that a group wants or needs, is already there within the individual members. While sitting in on and observing client meetings, I noticed that John’s or Theran’s facilitation entailed eliciting solutions that may have been lying dormant or unnoticed in the corners of the clients’ own minds. Even reframing the problem and angling it differently could help to think about it in a better, more innovative way. Obviously, it’s not that simple (at all, sometimes!), but perspective matters.

5.      Floricane’s music tastes vary widely, and fluctuate wildly. One day it may be Julie’s indie-alternative mix, another—some of John’s punk anthems, or even Lesley and Sam’s favorites from twenty years ago. Musical education: augmented.

6.      Printers are evil and temperamental. I know they’re not sentient creatures, but after hours upon hours of troubleshooting, reading forums, restarting, asking Sam for help, and general despair, no dice. Mind you, this is after the first few weeks of working flawlessly. I’m on to you, printer elves.

7.      Workshops, like the Summer of Self Discovery Mindfulness series or the $10 Toolkits, are a phenomenal way to bring disparate members of the larger community together and make them a cohesive family, if only for an hour or two. While the presented topic is beneficial and stimulates neural activity, we can often learn just as much from each other’s thoughts and experiences in the space enabled by the workshop facilitators.

8.      There’s always money in the banana stand. Wait no, I meant candy in the candy drawer. Yup, chocolate is indisputably the best pick-me-up.

9.      Literature on leadership and organizational change is really interesting, for lack of a better word! While I’ve yet to delve into scientific or empirical articles, some other favorites include The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Ben Zander, and Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute. While this material helps to clarify my personal career goals, these books are applicable to anyone in any field!

10.  If you’ve ever met John, you’d be inclined to say he’s vibrant, expressive, engaging, and gregarious. Imagine my shock when he revealed that he used to be, and still is, a huge introvert. Whaaat?! Lessons to learn here: when given a task that forces you outside—opposite—your comfort zone, view it as a challenge and dive in with fervor. Fake it till you make it. Change is possible, oftentimes leading to wonderful results.

 

Well, it’s been one hell of a ride: fulfilling, magical, life-altering, truly. As I always say, peace out, Girl Scout; see you later, alligator; and in a while, crocodile. Richmond, I’ll be back for you!