In My Copious Free Time

Leavin' on an airplane

Inclusion: The BIG Idea

I'm at the Institute for Inclusion's Inclusion: The BIG Idea Conference, in my usual seat at a conference, in the back of the room so that I can take notes on my laptop with as little distraction to others as possible.

Right now I'm listening to a panel of leaders talk about 21st Century Leadership: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and the conversation going on right now is about values and how important values are to organizational success. A comment from the audience was made about measuring leadership performers on values and how many leaders began to get motivated to promote people values when they were dinged on their bonus eligibility based on not meeting those same requirements. Hal Yoh, chair and CEO of Day & Zimmermann responded:

We don't believe in 'bonus for values'; we believe in 'employment for values.'

What a strong statement about how living company values -- ALL of them -- are simply the table stakes and that you don't get a reward for doing the minimum expected.

More to come...

it's not just paper

Today Seth Godin talked about recognizing people and it made me smile. Where I work, we always put a sign up welcoming any visitor to our office or any new employee. The elevator doors open on our floor and they see this sign immediately. 99% of the time, people comment on it, saying it made them feel welcome and/or special. It can set the tone for a meeting. New employees shed the "new" while their welcome sign still hangs on the wall by their desk. People care about these things, and there's no good excuse not to do them. The signs take almost no time and are very low-tech, but it's amazing what positive energy you can create with a piece of flip chart paper and some Mr. Sketch markers.

Making it look easy

The pressure's on, but guess who ain't gon' crack? (laughs)
Pardon me, I had to laugh at that
.....
This ain't no tall order, this is nothin' to me
Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week

These are lyrics from Jay-Z's verse in the remix of Kanye West's "Diamonds are Forever." I love the way he laughs off the idea of pressure getting to him. I love the confidence in the words. More and more, this is the attitude that I've been working to cultivate. What is "difficult" or "impossible" has more to do with how I feel about my abilities than the actual task itself. I do the difficult every day, and many of the things I do often feel impossible, at least when I start them.

Recently someone asked me for some coaching on how to do X because I manage to do X very well. Keep in mind that X isn't a simple task -- it's a very complicated negotiation of competence, partnership, style and communication. It's something I haven't always done well, but I've gotten better and better at over the years. I still have my less-than-stellar moments, but they are blips on the radar of an otherwise successful process. But when this person asked me how I do it, I was taken aback.

How do I do it? I hadn't really given it much thought. It's like when someone comments on how I put together a particular outfit, or came up with an unexpected color combination that just works. How do the pieces add up to a whole that works? When I go shopping, what exactly am I looking for? How do I pull together a blouse from here, a skirt from there, some shoes and have someone look at it and say "that is so Tara"? I don't know. I just do it.

Or maybe it isn't that mysterious, at least when fashion isn't involved. One factor is easy to pin down: I work my ass off. I don't shy away from hard work or long hours. Do I love occasionally staying up til all hours (or up all night here or there)? Of course not. But do I love what I learn from the people I work with and what I learn about myself when we're all pushing together to do something new and better. Of course, that's why I'm in the game.

But hard work can't be the only reason. It isn't about the number of hours I put in. I think part of it is also that I don't shy away from getting involved. When it comes to work, I would rather look for connections to what others are doing to see how I can add value, what I can learn about what they're doing and how it might connect to or enhance what I'm doing. I like knowing what others are doing and working on because it gives me the fullest picture possible of what our work is, where we're headed (good and bad) and what needs to be done. This is also a reason I've grown and succeeded -- I more often than not will ask to be included or just include myself and add my thinking. Even when I was in a much more junior, more entry-level role, I was experimenting with where the boundaries were around adding my two cents.

Somewhat connected to getting involved is my firm belief in something that my boss talks about all the time, and that is the idea that my goal should be to make everything I touch better. So I'm almost always scanning the environment -- looking at what is out, listening to conversations -- with an ear and eye for "Are we being consistent? Is this our best thinking?" We produce a lot of materials for client events (books, articles, posters, etc.) and I always feel like people are ->this<- close to not putting the materials they're working on on the tables in the middle of the room because I so frequently just walk by and catch something that seems off or just plain wrong. When someone gives me something to read, I used to ask what I was reading for. Was I reading to make content changes and edits or just to catch typos? I don't ask that 9 times out of 10 now because I'm going to suggest what I think is right and it's up to the person working the project to figure out what to do with my input. What I WILL do is tell them what changes I have a strong stake around, what are merely my notions and what I would see as a next step (e.g., does the document need to go back to the originator for their approval of my change). More and more, I have opinions about things - and I'm working to add my thinking and defer to higher-ups less because I realize that 1) my thinking can actually influence them, 2) my thinking can sometimes mean they don't have to think about the issue as much or at all and they can spend their time thinking about other more important things and 3) how on earth am I supposed to grow if I keep pushing up the hard thinking to others? (Someone I work with recommended the book The Responsibility Virus, and I have a feeling based on her very short description that this is exactly the kind of thinking the book talks about, but I haven't gotten to that book yet.)

So...that's just a little of what's been on my mind lately about thinking, growing and high performance. Even posting this will be pushing myself, because so many of the messages women get involve modesty, and I'm sure a lot of people would consider a post like this as bragging. But I'm realizing that I need to be deliberate about identifying what my strengths are and what is going well. If I don't understand what I'm doing right, how I can repeat it? How can I coach others? If I don't call out my successes, what will I have to look to as affirmation that I really can do it and do better when I'm faltering or when I'm faced with something that feels big and scary and difficult?

And I guess that brings me back to where I started. Are some things difficult? Yes. Growing and changing and continuously improving is hard. Hell, staying awake to write this is hard. But I've taken the stance that I'm going to do the difficult as much as possible and not limit myself to what feels comfortable or known. And if adopting a little swagger is what helps me get there, then that's what I'm going to do.

(I often cook on things a long time and I'm not done with these ideas, but I started this post on 9 February, so I figured I better get something resembling a complete thought out of my head so that I could move the whole internal conversation to the next level. I actually finished this entry but then managed to lose it somehow when I tried to post it. I was really frustrated at the time, but now I'm glad, because whatever it was I said wasn't this and wasn't really done enough yet. And speaking of cooking on things for a long time, the next post I want to write is about some song lyrics and what they me -- lyrics I've been turning over in my head for about 15 or 16 years.)

It pays to clean out your drawers

I cleaned out a couple of drawers in my office this afternoon. No, I didn't find any money. (I did find a dollar in the pocket of my pants, but that's beside the point.) What I did find is something that wasn't really lost, only forgotten. Under the lint brush, envelope of boarding passes, three different colors of gift bag tissue, and user guide for my mobile phone was my little stash of nice notes. Over the years I've saved some of the nice things people have sent me. Some go on my bulletin boards, but some are slightly more private or personal, so I tuck them away in the drawer for days like today. We all have days like today -- a hectic morning, a horrible three-hour conference call with a client, no lunch until 4:00. In the stack are emails that I've printed, birthday wishes, etc. One note that stood out for me was from one of my favorite former coworkers on the occasion of my fourth anniversary with the firm: Way to go -- you rock! Your work vibe is sooooo contagious!

I've thought a lot lately about what it means to be a work-a-holic. I know some people have that image of me. Perhaps it's denial, but I don't really think I am. I love my work. I like doing a good job. I like making things happen. I like my coworkers. I'm willing to put in the time needed to get things done. And I like having a life. I love that moment when something is done and I can put the folder away and go out and enjoy the rest of the day or the weekend. I have no trouble not checking email while I'm on vacation. Despite a short infatuation with the Motorola Q, I don't want to be digitally tethered to work. I don't NEED to check in with the office and they somehow manage to survive without me when I'm gone. (Leslie, feel free not to mention the time someone tracked me down at your house.) I am able to create boundaries for myself that allow me to have a full life both at work and in the world.

So maybe other people think I'm a work-a-holic. And that's okay with me. I'm just gonna keep doing with I'm doing until what I'd doing doesn't work anymore. And then I'll do something different. If there's a better way to run a life than that, I sure as hell don't know what it is.

Bad ways to spend a day, #63

63.    In a small room filled with computers and coworkers, learning InDesign from 8:30-4:00. Particularly when it is 12:45am and I've just finished work for the day.

At the risk of repeating myself...

...I love my job.

This past week I wrote a 2-pager for a potential client outlining the work we suggested and soothing some of the principal's fears about how our methodology could be applied to his small company. (I won't say who until we have a contract, but let's just say they do cool shit for good causes.) Anyhow, as I was writing it, I felt like I was going out on a limb and that the CEO (who I'm partnering with on this client acquisition) was going to edit it extensively. Turns out I was wrong -- he thought it was great. I'd written it as if it was coming from him, but he had me revise it so that it was coming from me, something that I rarely do.

Anyhow, I sent it to the client and today the principal emailed me back saying "This is great -- thanks, Tara. Can we talk on Monday about next steps?" Whoo! So I forwarded that message to the CEO and he responded:

Hi Tara,

Thanks for all your work on this!!!!!!

Sometime in our work with them you get a trip to San Fran on the Firm/Client.

Double whoo! :)

Phew

Everyone always says that alcohol kills brain cells. What they don't tell you is that proposal writing kills them, too.

I finished draft of a proposal revision for a potential client today. It took me the better part of 3 days to complete, not including the half-day I spent with our CEO/Lead Client Strategist about our approach. I used to share proposal writing duties with another person, but then I took it over completely about 18 months ago and the other person later left the firm. Since taking over, my goal has been to make proposals more concise and less consultant doubletalk-y. The writing process often includes creation of specific details, such as how we would roll out a education strategy and supporting boilerplate, like our organizational assessment methodology. As time allows, I've been reworking the boilerplate pieces so they are fresher and shorter. Which means that I've rewritten only the most urgently needed pieces and there is much that still needs work.

On this proposal, I decided not to use any boilerplate, not even any of the new versions. It's a revision of an initial proposal, so it needed to be a lot more specific than its predecessor as we've learned a lot more about the project since then. And the project itself is complex and high-stakes: delivering a combination experiential education/facilitated action planning session in multiple countries for the top 500 leaders of a $50 billion+ organization, including some decidedly funky quirks in the roll-out process.

The result? A nine-page document that includes a cover letter, detailed curriculum outline, roll-out sequence, project plan, and a summary of team members and what languages they speak. Each part is a separate document, with some pages being far from full, so saying it is nine pages makes it sound longer than it actually is. It might have the highest time spent to words produced ratio of any proposal I've written. It was a total bear and it will continue to be until we send it out on Friday, but I'm pretty pleased with where it stands. My brain is fried, but all in the name of winning the client, right?

Now I need to wait for the CEO to make his comments, pass it on to my boss for her review, and make any changes they request. Oh, and whip up a budget that includes estimated expenses. Anyone want to project costs for business class travel to about a dozen international destinations plus a completely unknown number of US destinations for an undetermined number of people over the next 18 months? No? I didn't think so.

Edited to add the CEO's comments:

Great Job.

It looks good!!!!

Something to consider

My boss has a home-life coordinator. What's a home-life coordinator? Well, it's basically a nanny, but one that only cares for the children for short periods since they are all in school. The rest of her working hours are spent running errands, grocery shopping, being home for repairmen, etc. This is a perk of working here -- the firm pays her salary in order to make it possible for my boss to work like she does.

Tuesday night, my boss and I went out to dinner and she asked me if I wanted to use some of the home-life coordinator time each week. She has a few hours to spare (probably 3-4 per week) and could do things like buy groceries, pick up/drop off dry cleaning, etc. I have to figure out when and how I could use her, but I'm definitely taking her up on the offer.

Sensing a pattern

I am working with some people -- a team of people, actually -- and that team expressed a very strong desire to have weekly conference calls with me. I've had 4 calls scheduled with them (maybe 5?). The closest they've been to on time is 15 minutes late; the latest they've been is 45 minutes. Once they were a complete no-show, with no notification at all, only an apology when I emailed to say "what gives?" Our call today is supposed to be at 10:00 AM. It is 10:31 AM now. No call yet.