Floricane's June Newsletter

Every month, we offer up an opportunity to catch up with the Floricane team, and the work we're doing with organizations throughout Virginia. We call it a newsletter. It's electronic, and has pictures, words and links.

This month, we're offering up a few choice gems:

  • The Letter From John takes on issues of velocity, and the ways in which too much speed can wreck team effectiveness over time.
  • Updates on client work with the Auditor of Public Accounts, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Smart Beginnings Virginia Peninsula, VCU's Injury and Violence Prevention Program, and the Virginia Society of Association Executives.
  • Words of wisdom on our Insights Explorations workshop series from Rick Jarvis of One South Realty Group and Ross Catrow of RVANews.
  • Plenty of new workshops and professional development opportunities.
  • A transition of sorts in the Playground Perspectives corner of the world.

Download the June 2016 newsletter here (or click the image above).

The Demise of RVANews, and Lessons Gained

There are three concurrent themes in this post. The first theme: Richmond has been, and remains, blessed with great small businesses. Second: Running a small business is hard work. The second theme: Richmond should be proud of its alternative news (recent) past.

Let's start in the middle. Running a small business is hard work.

The easiest way to discover this is to run your own small business. The next easiest way is to be married to a small business owner.

For most of my life, Richmond has been blessed with great small businesses. I used to work for one – a small, family-operated grocery store.

No, not that one. I’m talking about Lukhard’s Market. There were several in Richmond in the mid-1980s, and I was happily slogging away at the one in Bon Air when a Ukrop’s Supermarket opened three blocks away at the then-new Stony Point Shopping Center. The small team at Lukhard’s raged against the machine, but finally faded away. I took my shelf stocking, bag packing experience down the road, and spent the better part of eight years – most of high school and college – working at various Ukrop’s stores.

During high school, I bought my first punk rock record at Plan 9 in Carytown; waited restlessly in the back of Coppola’s Deli for my friend Adam to get off work before we hit a Good Guys’ show at Going Bananas; compulsively read Throttle magazine; and bought my beer without an I.D. at an unidentified Fan grocery store.

In college, Mongrel and World of Mirth (the tiki-inspired starter store) and Exile were my gift-shopping destinations of choice; the Village Café was a perpetual hangout; I bought questionable produce from the Fan Market to go with my ramen; and my first furniture came from La Diff (when it was less expensive, and on Patterson Avenue).

My two favorite post-college jobs were slinging coffee at one of Richmond’s first actual coffee houses, World Cup, and slinging alternative flicks (on VHS tapes, no less) at Video Fan. It wasn’t long before I found myself sucked into the corporate maw.

Fast forward with me to 2008. A local online news publication called RVANews was launched at the start of the recession. It was in good company. A slate of great small businesses were struggling successfully against the head winds – Elevation (advertising), The Hodges Partnership (public relations),  Blanchard’s Coffee (er, coffee). And a host of new companies were hitting the blocks – places like Lamplighter (more coffee), Floricane (my own strategy firm), Fraser Design, One South Realty Group (er, real estate).

Today, most of those businesses are still making a go of it. But RVA News is not. Not any longer. Today, it’s co-founder Ross Catrow – don’t forget his wife Valerie started in the RVANews trenches with him, as did business partner Scott Pharr – announced the small business is closing its doors. Stopping the presses.

In a city with fewer than a dozen or so solid news outlets, the loss of RVANews is real. You could feel it on Twitter as a generation of RVA denizens had a collective, “Holy shit!” moment. There was the gnashing of teeth. But more than that there was appreciation.

For a generation of Richmonders, RVANews has been a gift. The inherent goodness of Ross and Val, and the very community focused mission that drove their team, ensured that the gift almost always felt genuine. There was a real joy, and a sense of curiosity, behind RVANews.

Watching RVANews evolve its quirky sensibility, develop a voice, and deepen its connection to a new community of Richmonders was a genuine pleasure. Getting to know Ross and understand his own complex passions has been personally inspiring. The mere fact that I could watch someone else launch and build my dream job without feeling a stitch of envy tells you something about Ross Catrow.

Let’s backtrack again. Why should Richmond be so proud of its alternative news (recent) past? Because it broke the mold.

It was back in 2007 that some buzz started to be generated around town about the power of micro-blogging, or community news blogs. John Murden deserves so much of the credit – not just for Church Hill People’s News, but for his willingness to bike across town in the summer heat to help others set up sites, or just talk shop.

One of those summer nights found me, Murden, Ross Catrow and Scott Pharr (then of RVA Blogs, the aggregator that set our small worlds on fire), Jonah Holland (Near West End News), and a few others gathered above Uptown Copy to dream of a day when community news blogs ate daily newspapers for lunch.

Little did we know how quickly lunch would be served. Right there on the griddle, RVANews was born.

Rather than recount the story in relentless detail here, I’ll let the rest of Richmond’s media lay it out for us.

I don’t know how Valerie or Susan would have edited this post for clarity (not to mention fact checking my ass), but it felt important to put out a same-day reminder of a few important things that I still believe about this town:

  • We make it hard for entrepreneurs and small business owners to succeed in this town. There are not enough support systems to help entrepreneurs build solid business game plans, scale their successes, and learn to grow.
  • Despite that, we are rich with great entrepreneurial talent, and many businesses that continue to thrive.
  • Build alternatives to the status quo is a secret super power of Richmond. We should embrace that power.
  • Ross Catrow, Susan Howson and the rest of the RVANews team will move forward and do more amazing things. It’s inevitable.

The Mighty Green/Red Duo: Ross Catrow and Rick Jarvis Tackle Insights® Explorations!

Please welcome to the Floricane blog:  Ross Catrow, founder and publisher of RVANews, and Rick Jarvis, co-founder of One South Realty! Check out where Ross writes for RVANews, here; where he tweets, here; and what things he likes, here. Rick blogs constantly about Richmond here, here, and here. Rick and Ross have been big Insights® fans from the beginning (they have preferences for opposite Insights color energies), so we thought we'd ask them what they learned at our second Insights® Explorations workshop.

Ross

I love Insights®. Like, a lot. It's helped me better understand the people around me and given me an excellent vocabulary for discussing how those people behave and move through life. While I've spent a bunch of time (too much, maybe?) thinking about how my friends, family, and coworkers process information and make decisions, I haven't really put that kind of thought into what's going on with myself. How am I moving through life? Where am I going? I...don't know, but it certainly sounds like something I should figure out!

And this was just the point of the most recent Insights® Explorations session: creating a personal vision.

I've never had a written, specific personal vision, but the idea is really appealing to me. How useful would it be to have something you can use as a measuring stick when encountering new life situations or reevaluating existing ones? Something on hand to help you decide: "Hey, is this the right thing to spend my time on? Am I handling this situation the way I should be? Am I walking the right direction down the right path?"

Luckily, the folks in the room had spent a lot of time thinking about their personal visions and when asked about what words describe their own, a thousand Post-Its issued forth covered with words like "path," "dreams," and "self awareness." Piled together in thematic groups, it gave a good visual framework for what a vision should entail.

So at the end of the session, after consulting with the brilliant people at my table, here's what I ended up with:

I want to help folks do cool things that make Richmond a better place.

This is a start! But it's also pretty lacking in a bunch of important areas: family, health, spirituality.

So now that I've got a start, I need to put some serious time into thinking about those lacking areas and how to build them up and include them in my personal vision. I'll also be thinking about how my strengths and weaknesses (as defined by Insights®) play into this vision. How can I create a vision that encourages me to use my strengths (hanging out with people and listening to them talk about their super cool projects) and challenges my weaknesses (focusing on helping other people start new things, not starting all the new things myself)?

The next Insights® Exploration takes place on June 21st (come hang out!) and focuses on goals. Which is great, because by then I'll have my vision statement trimmed and tweaked. I'll know which direction I need to be pointed in, where I'm going, and what goals I need to make to get there.

I have a lot of work in front of me, which—as Floricane is known to do—has been assigned to me as homework to complete before the next session. Now it's time to figure this thing out!

Rick

Damn you, Floricane, you did it again.

Red, green, yellow and blue — the colors we all know so well — last month were turned upside down and scrambled by the introduction of the concepts of intuitive and sensory thinking to the Insights® wheel. So, I wondered where my surprise would lie when I walked into the colorful space that Floricane calls home for session 2 of 8 in the latest from Insights® Explorations.

The focus of the most recent workshop was that of ‘creating a Personal Vision.’ Sounds easy, right? Companies have them (masquerading as the Mission Statement) and all of the professional coaches seem to have them, too (think Bill Bellicheck’s ‘Do Your Job’ or John Wooden’s ‘Success Pyramid’). Having a framework seems to be prerequisite for success and since all of the groovy business gurus seem to have one, creating my own Personal Vision seemed like a great idea — I’m in.

So what would mine look like? Should it be measurable? Should it be in multiple parts or stated as one vision? Does it require a spreadsheet? Or Powerpoint? Creation of some type of overarching personal mission statement shouldn’t be hard for me — I am pretty red — and things like mission statements and company direction all seem to come pretty easily.

Or so I thought.

The session began simply enough — Kathy probing the group and asking us to come up with words that we thought might fit into our own version of ‘personal vision.’ The 20 or so of us started spewing words that you would expect — direction, guide, help, connect, learn, teach, provide, create, family — all pretty big picture words.

And guess what, Mr. Red here caught myself using words like ‘altruism, peace and why’ and not action words like ‘execute, measure, go, do and complete.’ They just came rushing out before I could stop them. Wait, what? What are these words I am using?!? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!? WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH RICK?!?!?

Oh, no. I’ve turned green. It's not easy being green!

By the time we were done discussing the basics of a Personal Vision, I realized that what I would have thought I wanted when I walked in was really not what what I wanted at all. And all of the things that I thought would have been important in Rick’s Personal Vision are really not what gets me out of bed each day.

As I now have to sift through my now perplexed mind and wonder how I can go from the preverbal ‘bull in a china shop’ to a future yoga instructor in less than 10 minutes, it makes me wonder what else I am capable of. And I think when I really break it down, that is probably my favorite thing about Insights (and Floricane) — its ability to challenge me to think, evolve and grow. And the creation of a personal vision is yet another part of the process.

I can’t wait for the next session — who knows, maybe they will make me yellow.

Four Things I’ve Learned about Board Retreats

 ...and Some Other Notes on the Last Few Weeks

It’s strategic planning crunch time here at Floricane, which means an exciting period of renewal for our clients as their fiscal years turn over and their leadership transitions. (I would insert a gardening metaphor here, but I’m still too waterlogged from two months of rain to discuss it.)

We’re attempting to land four simultaneous plans in the next few weeks and have been crisscrossing the state for some face time with our clients. Last week, the Floricane Strategic Planning Crew (John and I) did the following:

  • Traveled to Warrenton, Virginia, to facilitate our third Board retreat in as many weeks.
  • Tiptoed out of our respective homes while our families slept to spend the day in Newport News with the staff and Board of Smart Beginnings Virginia Peninsula.
  • Sat around a fire pit getting to know the fantastic and dedicated group of volunteers and staff who run the Virginia Society of Association Executives (VSAE).

The Saturday before, we huddled with the Board and staff from Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) to examine how their work can have an even greater impact on the state of fair and affordable housing in Virginia.

These many hours interacting with people, asking difficult questions, airing hopes and fears, pointing out elephants in rooms, celebrating alignment, and when necessary (twist my arm), enjoying a rare, rain-free evening around an outdoor fire, have taught me a few lessons:

  • No two Board retreats are alike. We always customize our agendas, but more often than not, we end up pivoting in the moment based on the tone, tenor and direction of the conversation.
  • Sometimes things click, and sometimes they don’t. All of these organizations are wrestling with important, complex issues. Often we have to wrap for the day knowing there is far more work to be done, and it’s easy to feel deflated when that happens.
  • Strategic planning can be a vulnerable time for an organization, particularly for staff and outgoing leadership. It’s often our responsibility to navigate the knowledge gap between Board members and the staff who run the day-to-day operations, and to make sure that bold ideas are both exciting and realistic. Staff on the other hand are inspired and supported best by Boards that take ownership of the plan and commit to championing its implementation.
  • If you’re going to spend 4-6 hours in a room with 20+ people, do it in a room with windows.       

I’m excited about the next few weeks. The strategies set forth in these plans will affect many, many people. The ripple effect of 12 people deciding to go in a certain direction, for example, could conceivably change the lives of hundreds of young children and families in Newport News and Hampton for the next few decades. The decisions made by the administrators of the Injury and Violence Prevention Program at VCU Medical Center will cascade out into the community in ways that will bring a new level of health, safety and quality of life to our region.

As soon as we land these plans, a few more are waiting on the tarmac for take-off. Here’s hoping the skies are clear and free of rain. 

An Insightful Morning with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity

Previously on the Floricane blog, I’ve joked about being like this guy.  Seriously, my Insights profile says, “when communicating with Kathy, do not get too emotional,” and do “gently remind her of the human dimension.” Unsurprisingly, I don’t think I am often (ever) described as acting “warm and fuzzy.” But, I sure felt like this warm and fuzzy guy last Monday, after meeting the team at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD).

It’s not just that LCLD’s mission to “creat[e] a truly diverse U.S. legal profession” is tailor made for my heart-strings (I used to work in the legal field, as a women’s rights project director). Beyond that shared passion, the people that do the hard work of making LCLD’s mission a reality touched me with their camaraderie and thoughtfulness as we spent the morning delving into Insights. Many of us know how inspiring it feels to be on a team that’s relational and supportive, and I could tell the LCLD team “clicks” like that. Watching (and helping) a team dive even deeper into figuring out who they are and how to relate even better to each other is incredibly inspiring, too.

Even before we started the session, a whole bunch of human dimension emotions flooded the room. A number of people nervously anticipated their Insights results. My favorite quote was, “I’m afraid the results will show I’m too bossy – or another b-word.” Two thoughts came to mind as I listened in:  One, I am someone who routinely sends brag texts to my friends after I check tasks off my to-do list – texts of endlessly repeating queen emojis. Needless to say, I hadn’t thought to worry about being seen as “bossy.” Two, Insights uses an online evaluator, testing word pairs to describe your style, and honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me that the word pairs alone – before even getting results -- would trigger worry.

The LCLD team’s warmth and harmonious dynamic helped to lift the worries in the room though, as teammates dug deep in to what makes their varying styles valuable. Personally, I am thankful that the LCLD team gave me the chance to step back from my usual style, put myself in their shoes, and practice how to more relationally convey one of the key take-aways of an Insights session: there is no right or wrong style, but an awareness of your preferences will help you become more adaptable.

Getting to Know the Team: Molly

We've got a little spider action in the office this summer! Richmond Spiders, that is. Our new Intern, Molly, comes to us from the Bonner Scholar Program at the University of Richmond by way of Massachusetts. We're excited to have Molly on the team to support the multitude of projects we've got coming up this summer, and to give her an inside peek into the world of Richmond non-profits and strategic planning! Read on to get to know her a little better, and keep an eye on the blog for more from her this summer!

Floricane Q&A

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

Can I say both?

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

I once read that Andrew Jackson once threw a party with a 1,500 lb wheel of cheese as the centerpiece, so I feel like drinks with him could be pretty great. Lincoln is my #1, though.

 

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

I would probably be waiting tables in my hometown (Barnstable, Massachusetts) and doing other odd jobs to add to my currently empty travel fund.

4.     Pie or Cake or Neither?

Cake. But if we are counting pizza as a pie, pizza over everything.

5.     Do you have a favorite Sharpie color?

I am partial to Cerulean.

6.     Your favorite place for dinner?

I have a long list of places to try, but my favorite so far is Stella’s.

7.     What do you most value in your friends?

Honesty, laughter, compassion, dependability, a sense of adventure. More than anything, I love people who are unapologetically kind.

8.     What is your idea of happiness?

Cape Cod summers. A tough hike to a beautiful lunch spot. A long flight to somewhere exciting. Anything involving family (including my dogs), friends, and/or the outdoors.

9.     Excluding your work a Floricane, who was your best boss, and why?

The summer after my sophomore year in high school I worked as a hostess at a local restaurant. My boss was an Ecuadorian immigrant, Cesar, who worked his way up from ‘bus-boy’ to manager of a successful Italian restaurant in a few short years. Cesar showed me the value of hard work. More importantly, he showed me the value of a positive attitude and a friendly smile.

10.  What is your go-to book, relative to the work you do with Floricane, and why?

Adam Grant’s Give and Take suggests that there is much more to success than passion, hard work, talent, and luck. Grant’s book illustrates the profound impact that positive personal interaction and ‘paying it forward’ can have on an individual’s success. While I have not yet had much work experience, I hope to carry this message with me as I find my place in the professional world.

11.  What are three things you love about Richmond?

Although I have gone to school in Richmond for the past three years, I have just begun exploring all that the city has to offer. While I have only scratched the surface, I love Richmond’s vibrant art community, its focus on outdoor living/activities, and of course, the food!

12.   What’s next for you?

Senior year baby!

13.   And lastly, what are the things that excite you most about Floricane, its clients and the community in 2015?

Though I have only been with Floricane for a week, it is clear that this experience will connect me with creative, passionate, and remarkable people from all walks of life. I am excited to learn more about the city of Richmond itself as well as those who call it home. 

 

Mismatched Boots, Buttercups and Generations at Work

Floricane's May newsletter has hit the streets, and has already gotten traction around John's monthly letter. This month's Letter from John is focused on the generational transfer of power currently taking place in our organizations -- as Boomers accelerate their way out of the workforce, and the Millennial generation (for the first time) makes up the majority of the labor force. Acknowledging the significant of the change, John has a simple message for managers and leaders:

“If you’re managing Boomer workers, sit down with them, one-on-one, and understand their skills, their passions, their motivations. If you’re managing Gen X workers, same thing. Millennials? Ditto. (And get ready for the post-Millennial generation. They’re already serving ice cream at Gelati Celesti.)

If you understand the personality and work style of each employee, and adapt your leadership style to their competence and commitment, you’re well in your way to creating a work environment that works for any generation.

The truth of the matter, you’re not managing generations. You’re managing individuals.”

Also in the May newsletter:

  • Insights Explorations returns in May with a focus on creating a personal vision
  • Strategic planning with Housing Opportunities Made Equal
  • Our May $10 Toolkit is on building a strong organizational climate
  • The Fall 2016 Leadership Circle is open for applications
  • Cowork Discovery Day returns to our collaborative workspace in the RTD Building. Join us on May 18...
  • The Playground Perspective has an adorable picture

 

Sensing New Knowledge with Insights Explorations

Please welcome to the Floricane blog; Rick Jarvis of One South Realty! He blogs constantly about Richmond here, here, and here. He's been a big Insights® fan from the beginning, so we thought we'd ask him what he learned at our first Insights® Explorations workshop. Turns out there are still things left to learn even after three public workshops!

 

I don't know what I don't know.

And I would like to thank Floricane and Insights® Discovery for reminding of me of that, AGAIN.

Background — I am kind of an Insights junkie. Last year, I was told (jokingly, I hope) by one of the Floricane team that I might not be allowed back to another Insights workshop since I had been to so many of them. Since I became a part of the cult … errr … program, back in early days, I figure that I had been to at least 4 or 5 workshops and had, on multiple occasions, brought several of the Floricane folks to our office to help train our agents. I was also lucky enough to be involved in all three of the Tilted small business un-conferences, where Insights was an integral part.

Needless to say, I had been exposed to the material quite a few times.

Now, while I was in no danger of being able to teach a class on Insights, I did feel that I knew the subject matter pretty well (at least well enough to write this) and would argue that I consciously used the Insights framework in my day-to-day dealings with colleagues, friends and family. So when Kathy Greenier, one of the newer folks to call Floricane home, called me to personally invite me to the next iteration of Insights, I was more than happy to accept as, in full candor, I love this stuff.

But what would make this version – Floricane’s new Insights Explorations program –  different than the last 8 times I went through the material, you ask? I wondered, too. I knew my colors and I knew my (many) blinds spots. I even knew how to recognize stress-based behaviors and what to do (or not to do) when things were going off the rail. Again, I thought I was pretty well versed.

Well, you don't know what you don't know.

The concepts of intuition and sensation – how we process and take in information – was introduced to the group. I think, to a person, we were all immediately crinkling our brow and trying to sort through another one of the subtleties of Insights. You know that moment in Insights where you have the ‘a ha’ moment? Yeah, that happened again … except times about 50.

In a nutshell, besides the tendencies we all have towards introversion or extroversion as well as the data or gut feel that drives our decisions, people also tend to fall into two basic camps when it comes to taking in and dealing with information. Are you more of a ‘what if?’ person or a ‘what now?’ type? Do you focus on what is coming or on what just happened? Is it known or is it possible?

The introduction of two new thought constructs that live on the wheel we are so familiar with just seems so obvious now. I get it. It makes so much sense. I can see it everywhere and in everyone. But again, it took Insights to make me realize how little I really know.

I can’t wait for the next one.

 

Rick Jarvis is the founder of One South Realty, and an official Insights aficionado. Check out Floricane’s new Insights Explorations series here!