My First Accountant

I was fourteen when I first started working, and I quickly learned about the challenges of balancing my new earning power with the desire to just be a teenager and enjoy life. I felt slightly left out when the rest of the family would go to a movie or out to eat when I was working, but I also enjoyed being able to go out with friends and buy clothes or music that I wanted.

It was during this time, when I first started working, that I began to get an early glimpse into the principles of cost accounting. My mother volunteered herself, as mother's often do, to be my accountant and provide financial counseling, even though I hadn't hired her, or even asked her, to do so. I wanted to buy stuff and spend money as I got it, but she wanted me to save it over time to do something productive with it.

Of all the homespun advice she offered, some practical, some humorous, what I remember most is how she would analyze the true cost of things. I wanted to go to a week of camp one summer, so we talked about the cost. I thought I could afford the tuition for the week, but she said there was more to consider. If I rode with friends to the camp, I'd have to share the cost of gas, and I'd have to buy meals along the way. If I wanted a new ball glove for camp, or new hiking shoes, I'd have that cost to consider.

As the price tag mounted for my simple week of camp, my mom delivered the final blow. I was, after all, only a part-time employee, and I didn't get vacation time through work. If I wanted to take a week off work, then that would translate to lost wages for me. Had I thought about how much money I would be forfeiting by missing a week of work?

I'll leave it for you to guess whether I went to camp that summer or not, but the cost analysis my mother stepped me through has stuck with me. Very little in life costs only the sticker price. There is always the supplemental cost of upgrades or modifications, the ongoing cost of maintenance, and the opportunity cost of choices not made.

Even though my brother and I occasionally enjoy teasing mom about her labored analysis of our spending when we were growing up, the reality is that these principles of cost accounting are timeless, and they are good lessons for a teenager to learn. Looking back after all these years, I guess I have to admit that mom was pretty smart, after all.

Light it up...

Rob

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

I spent most of the day doing yard work at my mother-in-law's cabin up North, mowing what has got to be the steepest hill imaginable. The weather was beautiful at the lake, and the breeze was nice, but the only thing I could think about as I was mowing was, "I'm going to have to do this again...and again...and again, all summer long."

Despite my gloominess as I plodded along behind the mower, when it was finished, I felt a certain satisfaction of a job well done. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd be doing it all over again soon enough. It made me think of the common directions on a shampoo bottle - rinse, lather, repeat - only my reality was something even more mundane - mow, trim, repeat.

I remember reading an article several years ago about the guy that invented vertical blinds. This inventor was photographed in his warehouse full of junk where he imagined new ways to attack old problems. He had hundreds of patents to his name, but the one that made him the big bucks was vertical blinds.

What really struck me was a counter-intuitive statement he made about inventors. He said that the most basic requirement for an inventor is that they must be innately lazy. His reasoning was that the greatest inventions make the things we do easier in some way. In fact, vertical blinds were born out of laziness. He said he was dusting his traditional mini-blinds one day, regretting that he had to do the chore at all, when he realized that if he hung the blinds vertically, he might not have to dust them ever again!

I realize that innate laziness is just a little tongue-in-cheek. It was one of the greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, that said genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. As I perspired over the grass today, I was longing for just a little bit of inspiration. None came, but I'll still be looking for it.

As I look ahead to another summer of mow, trim, repeat, I'm convinced that there's got to be a better way around this whole ordeal. Perhaps it will come to me some scorching Saturday afternoon in August; in the meantime, maybe I'll have to check into a nice rock garden.

Light it up...

Rob

Uncertain Intangibles

I enjoy learning new words, digging into the etymology, and understanding the story behind them. Great words will stop me cold in the middle of a conversation, if only for a brief moment, as I savor the word and make a mental note to use it again some time soon. If I occasionally come across an unfamiliar word, I can usually deduce its meaning quickly enough, and soon find that this new friend, this word, begins to appear everywhere.

I came across a word today that fit none of my previous experience, and I've not yet decided if this word is a friend or a foe. My first reaction was one of humorous disbelief, followed by a reluctant realization that it was, in fact, a word that effectively conveyed a complete thought. More unnerving than anything, however, was when I realized that this word has been around for quite a while in marketing and knowledge management circles, but I only today stumbled across it.

The word is "mindshare". It is not yet common enough to be found in a standard desk reference dictionary, but it appears to be used quite liberally among marketing professionals. There is even a marketing company that uses this word as its name.

I discovered this word in a marketing blurb that referred to a company "moving mindshare" with a new product. My initial reaction was that this was merely corporate jargon for an intangible quality that can neither be proven nor refuted. Did they move mindshare because had a captive audience? Will they just as quickly lose that mindshare when their audience turns its attention to the next entry in the marketplace?

Does any of this truly translate to something certain and tangible, like sales, and ultimately, marketshare? That is the prime objective of taking mindshare, yet how often does it play out as planned? Kleenex may have a ton of mindshare among consumers, but when the consumer's Kleenex is really a box of Puffs, who wins?

I suspect that I will ultimately adopt "mindshare" into my linguistic arsenal, despite its uncertain intangibles, but I'll probably struggle with it for a while on principle simply because it sounds too much like corporate spin or business jargon. In the meantime, I'll probably try to poke some holes in the concept, at least until someone comes along and can offer a good way to quantify and capture mindshare in a very real way.

Light it up...

Rob

Apples and Ideas

I was reading an article on Innovation in the Gallup Management Journal when I came across (or rediscovered) a quote by George Bernard Shaw: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

I enjoy going to the apple orchard with my family in the fall. Our favorite orchard has hay rides, a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, and a big barn filled with apple processing equipment, apples for sale, and a cafe with some wonderful apple creations. They have samples of the standard varieties of apples, and every year they have the latest variety for everyone to try.

As we walk out of the apple orchard with a basket or bag full of apples each fall, I realize that it won't be long before all the apples are gone. It occurred to me that this experience lends itself well to extending Shaw's analogy. If you and I exchange apples, then we'll each still have only one apple. However, it won't be long before neither of us have an apple left. If we exchange ideas, however, we'll find them to be reusable, and neither of us will ever lack for an idea again.

This quote from Shaw is really what my blog is about. I love to find new ideas, especially innovative ideas, and to implement them and share them. Some days go by so fast that ideas come and go and I can never quite get my hands around them. However, I hope that by taking the time to share these ideas with you, we can capture more of them together and each claim them for our own.

Light it up...

Rob

11 Herbs and Spices

Many years ago, in a previous working 'life', I worked as a manager at KFC restaurants. I learned a lot in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, particularly from my first employer, an outstanding KFC franchisee that I would still call a friend. I learned a lot about myself, too, though mostly about my weaknesses, and how my greatest strengths had pretty much nothing to do with managing a restaurant.

When people learn that I worked at KFC, the one question almost everyone asks, even to this day, is whether I knew what the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices were. It's the funniest question, and yet, because it is a secret, everyone wants to know about it. Actually, we were told that even the vendors that produced the spices for KFC didn't know the formula because different vendors only produced part of the blend.

I've often wondered what 10 herbs and spices would have tasted like. Why did the Colonel need exactly 11? I thought about these questions recently as I've been doing coaching for my team at work (back to the present day in the Medical Device industry). We've been having everyone do Gallup's Strengths Finder survey, then I've been doing one-on-one coaching with each team member to develop an action plan to help them play to their strengths.

It occurred to me that the precise combination of strengths, weaknesses, personality, social style, beliefs and life experiences all work together to put a unique stamp, or fingerprint, on each individual. In this way, we are all like our own blend of 11 herbs and spices. For instance, two people in my group are both strong in the Restorative theme, which means that they love to solve problems and find solutions, but they both express this strength in different ways.

One of the individuals is also strong in the Activator theme, so she likes to identify a problem, quickly find a fix, and get on with the rest of the team's work. The other person, however, is also strong in the Connection theme, so he would prefer to spend time finding the root cause of a problem, seeking out each of the connections that came together to create the issue so that it could be prevented next time. Both are valuable pursuits, and their strengths complement each other on the team, but each is unique and expresses their common strengths in slightly different ways.

I may never know what 10 herbs and spices would taste like, but I do know that my strengths make me unique, and I am going to look for every opportunity to capitalize on them. It just probably won't be managing a fast food restaurant!

Light it up...

Rob

The Units of Work

I read a great quote this week by Ram Charan from an article entitled, "Conquering a Culture of Indecision" (Harvard Business Review, April 2001). Charan is the co-author of the business best-seller, "Execution: The Disciple of Getting Things Done". I am looking forward to adding his latest book to my library: "Know How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't".

In Charan's HBR article, he writes about the processes we use for making important decisions, and highlights the need for effective communication. Here is the quote: "Dialogue is the basic unit of work in an organization. The quality of the dialogue determines how people gather and process information, how they make decisions, and how they feel about one another and about the outcome of these decisions."

The concept of dialogue as a unit of work really struck a chord with me. Too many leaders attempt to lead with a monologue, disregarding, or not even thinking to consider, the feedback of the people often most affected by their decisions. Great decisions are made in the context of a quality dialogue, and great leaders know how to facilitate this dialogue. They can gain the trust of the key stakeholders in a decision, gather their input, and avoid countless pitfalls in the process.

I remember my freshman chemistry professor at university driving home the point every day that none of the calculations we were doing had any relevance unless we considered and included the appropriate units in our work. Charan's reference to the "basic unit of work" drives home this point for me: there is really little relevance to the decisions I attempt to implement at work unless I consider and include the appropriate units of my work - that is, quality dialogue to ensure quality decisions.

Light it up...

Rob

A Bigger Pie in the Sky

I was chatting today with a friend about one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a long time - electronic billboards. I'm sure many people disagree with me about how cool they are, especially since the City of St. Paul was recently discussing a moratorium against building additional electronic billboards in the city. Yet despite the complaints against these new signs, you can't deny that they are innovative.

I hadn't thought much about the billboard industry until I saw the first electronic billboard in my area a few months ago. What I have observed since then is that, prior to electronic billboards, there seemed to be only a linear growth potential for the outdoor sign market. As urban sprawl marched on, and suburbs expanded, new billboard sites came available, and as the surrounding area developed, the sites became more valuable.

The truly revolutionary thing about electronic billboards is that they instantly give the companies in this marketplace the potential for exponential growth. Every existing site in the system can now be utilized for 2, 3 or 4 signs, on a rotating basis. This means that companies can immediately grow their revenues even without taking market share, simply because the size of their market pie is now increasing.

The outdoor sign companies can even charge their clients a reduced fee for a rotating sign relative to a static sign. This is great for the advertisers because they can utilize outdoor advertising as part of a more cost effective marketing strategy. And this is great for the sign companies, because even though they might charge less for each client, the total revenues per site could double or triple.

Outdoor sign companies have had some success with rotating signs in some other cities, utilizing a mechanical rotation that puts the physical sign on a series of rotating surfaces, not unlike the letters in the Wheel of Fortune puzzle. Even though there is likely a higher maintenance cost with electronic billboards than with manual rotating signs, and a much higher capital expenditure up front, the ability to design, update and publish content to the electronic signs via a satellite link would be very appealing to both the outdoor sign companies and to their advertisers.

The major objection to electronic billboards is the "light pollution" that they introduce into neighborhoods. I won't deny that this is a legitimate concern for people whose homes nestle up next to a billboard site, and I don't know if there is an easy answer for this problem. This is the primary reason St. Paul was considering a moratorium on adding additional electronic billboards in the city.

Despite the objections, however, it seems inevitable that these electronic billboards will proliferate, since there is so much potential revenue at stake. What really fires me up, though, is not the potential revenue, but the essence of the idea itself. I hope my next major business initiative could have half the potential impact of an electronic billboard - it could give a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'light it up...'.

Light it up...

Rob

Old Theorems New

I've been amused at the recent, flash-in-the-pan popularity of the FOX game show, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" My kids think it is pretty funny, and on the few occasions we've watched the show together, they press me to guess the answers, hoping I'll get them wrong.

Much of the banter around the water cooler at work has focused on objections to the show. However, whether the contestants are tricked, or the kids are coached, the most fundamental observation explaining the poor performance of the adults on the show is that you tend to forget what you don't use.

This observation came to mind recently when I was reading a brief in a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review. The short article, written by Michael Schrage, a professor at MIT, caught my eye because it was under the heading of Knowledge Management. As the codirector of the Media Lab's e-Markets Initiative, Schrage described how many business are putting abstract mathematical theorems and algorithms to work in practical ways.

Advanced equations and algorithms that even 15 years ago were impractical because of their complexity, are now being gainfully employed with computing power unthinkable when they were created. Because of this trend, Schrage indicates that businesses are looking for new directions in old theorems.

It all made me wonder where my old Calculus books are (actually, they are on the bottom shelf of the second bookcase from the right in my library...) I may or may not be smarter than a 5th grade most days, but I'm sure I couldn't take my Calculus finals again and earn a passing grade. Considering the trends Schrage described in the HBR article, maybe it's time to dust of some of those old theorems again - I might just find the next big thing in business.

Light it up...

Rob

Sharpening My Saw

Two of my coworkers returned today from a three day course in Change Management. I attended this same course, with the same facilitator, about eight months ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed the class. I came back at that time full of energy and ideas, and ready to implement some positive changes in my department.

Then, work happened. The big ideas I had while at this Change Management course were still there, but they kept being pushed further and further back in my mind as more pressing issues came up. Deep in the recesses of my mind are several great ideas for positive change, but they have been lying dormant for several months now.

Some of these old ideas started to bubble up to the surface again today as my coworkers talked about their course. It was fun to see them talking about the concepts of the class, using a common language to describe big ideas. As I talked with them about their experiences, I had a twinge of regret that I hadn't been able to harness the passion I had coming out of my own class.

I suppose that is why I've never wanted to sell any of my college text books. Whether I'm taking classes at the University, or through Learning & Development at work, I always come away with two things: big ideas I can't wait to implement, and a strong sense that I haven't learned everything yet. So I hang on to my text books and manuals, thinking I'll get back to them some day soon. The problem is, the day will never come unless I plan for it to.

I think the real challenge for me is to prioritize my learning pursuits, and allocate proper follow-up time to actually implement some of the ideas I've wanted to pursue for so long. In one class I completed not long ago about coaching styles, the instructor said that we should schedule follow-up coaching sessions with our team within two weeks of the class. She said that research studies had shown that the probability of someone actually following-up on a class drops off rapidly at the two week mark.

Perhaps it isn't too late to harness the energy and ideas I've had from countless classes in my academic and business career. I just need to focus on one thing at a time, and block time off in my calendar to do it. As Stephen Covey would put it, it's time to sharpen my saw.

Light it up...

Rob

The Beginning of the End

I heard someone observe recently that businesses typically do a fabulous job at initiating work, and a terrible job at stopping the work when it is no longer relevant. Regular reporting seems to be prone to this, as do many recurring meetings.

Perhaps you've seen something like this play out in your workplace: someone has an idea for a perfect report, it is built and perhaps even lauded, then added to the multitude of reports. It is generated daily, or weekly, and someone arranges their schedule to ensure it is published on time. Then, at some point, people stop looking at the data, or worse yet, they spend time analyzing the data even though nothing actionable ever comes of it.

Or perhaps you've been part of a recurring meeting whose initial purpose has long since been forgotten. A smattering of people gather at the appointed time each week or month, some in a stale conference room, some by phone conference, and the talk commences around a standard agenda. Any updates? Any issues? Anything else?

Here is one of the more useful things I've learned to avoid the swirling vortex of make-work: give everything an end date. While some reports are critical to the core work of your department, too many others feed endless line items on a balanced scorecard that end up clouding the core focus of your work; cut them if they are no longer useful. When it comes to recurring meetings, the best practice I've picked up is to create potentially long-term meetings as a number of smaller series; I always avoid scheduling anything that lasts more than a quarter.

I enjoy playing the role of the innovator, the one who brings new ideas and new initiatives. The more difficult role, and the one that will ultimately determine my success, is making the hard decisions to drop ideas and initiatives, no matter how exciting or intriguing, if they are not relevant to the core of my work. If you find yourself in a similar place, perhaps it is time to start looking at the beginning of the end.

Light it up...

Rob

Weakened by the Good

Marcus Buckingham writes that the simplest and best definition of a strength is an activity that strengthens you. By contrast, the standard, yet incomplete, definition of a strength is an activity that you are good at. He points out that with the old definition, you were probably the least qualified person to evaluate your own strengths, because you'd either be too hard or too easy on yourself. With the simpler definition he proposes, you are actually the only one that is qualified to evaluate your strengths.

This has a practical application for your career. If you build your career around activities that strengthen you, you will become better and better at your job and have the potential to achieve a high degree of success. If you build your career around activities that you are good at, however, without considering whether they are strengths for you, then you run the risk of burning out in a job you may do well for a time, but which ultimately drains you.

As an introvert, I understand this very well. Over the years, I have developed some skill with communication and interpersonal skills, and I've regularly taught classes on social styles. However, as much as I enjoy framing ideas for others and clearly communicating a vision of the future, extended individual interactions with many people I don't know drains me quicker than many other activities.

Because of my interpersonal and communication skills, many people have a hard time believing that I am an introvert. However, introversion and extroversion have more to do with the way in which you derive your energy, and little to do with your skill level. In this way, this indicator is a kind of strength. I've had friends that will go to a social event all evening, and come home so wound up they can't go to sleep; I go to a social event and come home so drained I can't wait to hit the bed and sleep late the next day.

In your career, it's important to carefully select roles that allow you to play to your strengths, or as Marcus Buckingham would put it, those activities that strengthen you. Be careful not to let yourself get cornered into activities that may weaken you just because you are good at them. Developing meaningful relationships with others is important to me, so I continue to learn and improve my skills in this realm, but I am careful to balance my daily people interactions so that the majority of my time is spent doing the things that strengthen me. Don't let yourself be weakened by the good - play to your strengths and do what God designed you to do with excellence.

Light it up...

Rob

Elusive Words

I like to name things. When projects come up at work, or I build a tool in Excel, I enjoy the challenge of assigning memorable, descriptive names. Sometimes the names come quickly, but other times they are more elusive.

I started building a data management system in Access a year and half ago (I blogged about the new application recently) and I finally named it about four months into the project, but for the longest time everyone was calling it Rob's database. I think some people are more amused by my penchant for naming than they are impressed, but I much prefer a functional name to my own on my projects.

Some of my names describe a function or key process of a product, some indicate a purpose or outcome, and others try to capture a tone, emotion, or experience. Names are particularly difficult when trying to distinguish a product or tool from several similar or related products. Even with this blog, I struggled for weeks over what I would name it (the name comes from a story in the Bible, in Luke 16...check it out.)

When I find myself at a roadblock, grappling with several possibilities, but never being impressed by anything, I usually wind up at one of my favorite websites: www.visualthesaurus.com. Most of the people on my team used to joke about how often I would hit the Merriam Webster website (www.m-w.com), which I still frequent, but the Visual Thesaurus site is the most valuable resource I've found for writers.

I couldn't do the Visual Thesaurus site justice in a short blog post like this, but suffice it to say you will find countless articles to help improve your writing, stories about writers of all genres, word etymologies (cool stuff), and ideas to inspire you. The real meat of the site, though, is their visual style thesaurus engine. It presents word relationships in a dynamic, neural-network type diagram (you have to see it for yourself). This is one of the only sites that I actually subscribe to, and it's is worth the money for the thesaurus alone.

I showed the Visual Thesaurus site to my manager one day, and she said, "So, now I know your secret!" Now you know my secret, too - or at least one of them. Next time you find yourself searching for that elusive word, point your browser to www.visualthesaurus.com and give it a try. You might just find that perfect word, or the name for your next product.

Light it up...

Rob

Measure Twice, Cut Once

My grandfather (on my Dad's side) was a master carpenter and cabinet maker. When he retired, if you can call it that, he still worked a number of renovations and remodels, and he taught cabinet making at the local community college. I remember watching him in his wood shop in the garage when I was young, and helping him on projects as I got older.

One of the things that my grandfather did really well was planning his projects thoroughly in advance. One of his (many) favorite sayings was, "Measure twice, cut once." He had a funny related saying: "I've cut this board twice and it's still too short!" One of the truly legendary sayings was, "If if's and and's were pots and pans, we'd have a lot of cooking vessels!"

Before his "retirement", he was known as a master estimator. Many times, he would have to go to a job site and revise the estimates others had given. He knew that a proper estimate and thorough planning could make or break the profitability of the job.

I remember a time when I asked him to help me build some bookshelves. I was ready to get out to the garage and fire up the table saw and get started. Instead, he sat down at the table with a pencil and paper and began to sketch out what we were going to build. By the time he was done, we knew the exact dimensions of the bookshelf and the measurements of every cut we were going to make before we ever picked up a single piece of wood.

I am taking a class on Microsoft Project at work this week, and this is my first formal exposure to a lot of project management principles. The thing that struck me as I started to dive into this great software planning tool was how many of these principles were a natural part of the way my grandfather went about his work.

We have a tendency, I think, to dress up old ideas and package them as part of modern business management, when in reality, many of these ideas are timeless principles that characterized the work ethic of generations past. We simply have the benefit of some better tools to help us out. The next time I build a schedule in MS Project, I'll have to remember: "Measure twice, cut once."

Light it up...

Rob

I Want To Be Like Steve

Today was game 4 of the first round NBA playoffs match-up between the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Lakers. Steve Nash, whom many expect to win his 3rd consecutive MVP award in a few weeks, turned in a stellar performance, registering 23 assists to go along with 17 points in the Suns victory.

I've been a fan of Steve Nash since he was playing with Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas, and I love watching his games in Phoenix every chance I get. Watching Nash in the playoffs, you get a sense that you are watching history, and I relish it in the same way I did watching Michael Jordan hit a jumper from the top of the key after faking out his opponent.

To put Steve Nash's performance in perspective, his 23 assists missed a playoff record by only 1; plus, that's more than double the average assists per game for the greatest of all players in history of the league (Nash already claimed the assists title for the season with over 11 assists per game).

What is said about Nash was also said about Magic Johnson - he makes everyone around him better. It occurred to me that the same ought to be said about the great managers in the business world - they should make everyone around them better.

Too often, my tendency is to try to do too much myself. In today's playoff game, Steve Nash would have had to score 49 points on top of his 17 for the game if he were to replace all those assists. Instead, he took control of the game by passing the ball to the right player at the right time to score, and as a result, his team is one win away from eliminating the Lakers from the playoffs and advancing to the second round.

When Michael Jordan was in his prime, the ad campaigns used to say, "I want to be like Mike". When I go to work in the morning, I want to be like Steve. Give me 23 assists with my team, and we'll nail our quarterly objectives every time. That's what being a great manager is all about.

Light it up...

Rob

The Revolution Starts Now

The books arrived today, and I am very excited to get started! I recently got approval to do the Gallup Strengths Finder with our entire group, and I am expecting some very positive results. We did Strengths Finder with the management team back in January, just as our new team was forming, and I believe understanding our complementary strengths has helped make us more efficient in our work together.

Starting today, and over the next 8 weeks, we'll be giving each frontline team member a copy of Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath, and having them take the online Strengths Finder survey. In addition, I'll be providing 1:1 coaching with each person as they complete their Strengths Finder profile, and working with the other supervisors to start aligning them with their natural strength areas.

I introduced the Strengths Finder concept to our whole group on Wednesday, and showed a short video by Marcus Buckingham. I've had generally very positive feedback from the team, and several people are very anxious to get their book. I expect some will remain skeptical of the whole idea for a while, but I hope the positive changes in our team will win them over in time.

There is so much more to write about what Marcus Buckingham calls "the Strengths revolution", and I'll do that at length in other blog posts. For now, I am just ready to get rolling with this new initiative in our group. I've got 32 new books sitting in a box under my desk just waiting to enlighten an entire team, one person at a time.

Light it up...

Rob

The Play is the Thing

I've been reading a series of short stories to my children that I remember my dad reading to me when I was young. I have vivid images in my mind of the characters and scenes from these stories, and I hope my kids have similar memories. The kids love for me to read to them at bed-time, even though I don't get to as often as I would like. The stories that we share create a bond between us that will remain for years to come.

As much as we love stories in our childhood, I think they are no less meaningful for us as adults. Whether we're catching a movie with friends, keeping up with the latest episode of a favorite TV show, or reading a book by the fireplace, we are captivated by stories.

What is remarkable to me is how quickly we tend to lose our ability to tell stories when we move into the workplace. Certainly, some people are natural story tellers, and they are able to effectively employ stories to persuade their audience, make the sale, or motivate their staff. However, I think we have countless lost opportunities every day where a story could be the difference maker.

What really drove this home for me today was a presentation I was giving where one key story appeared to sway some of the skeptics in the audience. I was challenged on a main point to consider the possibility of an extreme negative example. I could have discounted the likelihood of such a possibility, or I could have dismissed the negative example as irrelevant; instead, I was able to share the story of an individual that had faced a very similar situation, yet was able to apply his strengths in such a way that he is now at this top of his profession. It was the story that made all the difference.

Remember the scene in Hamlet when he decides to use a play put on by a traveling group of actors to test the guilty conscience of the new king? I think the same concept holds true for us in the workforce. We can work to drive home the importance of performance metrics, or continually highlight the need for quality systems, audits, and error checking, and we might have some success. Or, we could simply tell the stories of the customers that benefit from our improved performance, or the stories of the customers whose plans were ruined by a product that failed at a critical time. Such stories could do more to motivate people than all spreadsheets and charts we could trow at them.

Still, it's so easy to forget the things that can make us the most successful. The next time I find myself buried in spreadsheets and procedures, project plans and reports, I need to remind myself to take a step back and find the storyline underneath it all, to make it real, to make it human - to tell a story.

Light it up...

Rob

The Relative North

I was looking at a map of a building site over the weekend, and it took me several moments to figure out the proper orientation of what I was viewing. It turns out that North was marked on this map as pointing to the left, rather than to the top. Once I understood where North was, I could immediately pick out the other landmarks on the map and make sense of the site being portrayed.

For centuries, sailors have used the North Star to navigate the seas. While I am sure I don't understand all the intricacies of navigation, or of the finer details of how exactly 'North' is defined, I can say with some certainty that North isn't occasionally found in the Southeast, or in the West.

I mention this because I came across two distinct references to North, or True North, in some of my reading this week. While I appreciate the intent and understand the meaning of both authors, I think that the real power of the concept of True North is so much more than is immediately apparent from the analogies they use.

I came across the first reference to the North in a book by Sally McGhee called, Take Back Your Life: Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized. I have been looking forward to working through this book, and I recently carved out some time to dedicate to it. In the book, Sally McGhee talks about a strategy that aligns activities around a few key Meaningful Objectives. She then goes on to explain that these meaningful objectives are "your North Star, your guiding light, and your reference point for success or failure".

The second reference is actually the fundamental theme of a new book by Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, and now a Harvard Business School professor. As a follow-up to his earlier book, Authentic Leadership, Bill George extends the idea of authenticity and highlights the example of countless authentic leaders in his latest book, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. I just picked up this book yesterday, so I am anxious to begin reading it, but the title concept intrigued me in it's own right.

In both of these cases, the authors talk about some guiding principles that will help define our activities, whether they are organizing or leading. To drive home the point that we need certain key principles influencing the core of our efforts, they both use the analogy of the North Star, or True North. While I readily agree that we will all be more affective at achieving our goals if we have clearly defined principles directing our efforts, I wonder if the analogy can be taken too far.

The reason I started this post talking about maps and navigation is to make the point that the value of the North Star is not simply that it is a guiding light for us to follow, but that it is immovable. It is, and will always be, True North, regardless of where you are. What the analogies in these books imply, however, is that your True North is different than my True North, since your objectives, or the things that make you authentic in your leadership, are different than my objectives, or my authentic leadership.

More accurately, I believe that the power of the analogy of True North is in finding the guiding principles that are outside of ourselves. From the standpoint of my organizational work, my meaningful objectives are only relevant if they support the objectives, or True North, of the business itself. From the standpoint of my authentic leadership style, my True North is not my personal style, nor the learning style of those I am leading, but rather the destination to which we are heading. Unless we are able to align our meaningful objectives or authentic leadership around a single set of guiding principles common to us all, we will all be left chasing our own 'relative' Norths, and little of lasting significance will be accomplished on our own.

I am actually expecting to learn a great deal from Bill George's book True North, and I'm already benefiting from Sally McGhee's Take Back Your Life. As I read and work through these books, however, I will be looking for ways to ensure I am aligned around goals bigger than myself so that I can accomplish more than I could have on my own.

Light it up...

Rob

A Community of Introverts

Have you taken a Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI)? Most people are at least aware of such personality profiles. Tools like MBTI are useful for understanding interpersonal dynamics in small groups, and I've seen such profiles used effectively for team development in work groups and in pre-marriage counseling for couples.

Since most people in a corporate environment have taken the MBTI at least once, it's not uncommon for members of relatively new groups to compare notes on their individual profiles. This has been a topic of discussion early on in the last several teams I've been on. Usually, however, the discussion doesn't go to far beyond, "oh...well, that's interesting".

Outside of these group discussions, however, I am amused to occasionally find MBTI profiles popping up in a wide variety of places. I've known a few people that have posted their profiles in their workspace for others to view. Others bring it up in more social settings. Some post their profiles on a website, or in a blog.

Earlier today, I came across a blogger who posted her MBTI profile, and it happened to be the same as mine (INTJ, for those of you that are interested). What was particularly interesting about her post, however, was that she apparently shared the same profile with her sister, who was also her roommate. She noted that it seemed odd that the two of them would share the same profile, when research shows our particular profile is shared by less than 2% of the population.

As I reflected on my MBTI profile, shared with two roommates somewhere in the Midwest, I felt an odd connection with them, even though I've never met them, and I likely never will. Part of that has to do with the need for acceptance that we all feel; it's human nature to seek others like ourselves. However, I wondered if there was something more significant in this connection.

In a rush of memories streaming through my head, I suddenly realized that every time I've had occasion to observe someone advertising their MBTI profile, every time I saw someone's profile posted on a cube wall, or written about in a blog, it was invariably the profile of an introvert! What an irony!

I guess all the extroverts in the world don't have much need to relate to each other on the basis of some abstract personality profile, since relating to others comes so naturally for them. But we introverts, on the other hand, need some kind of crutch to lean on as we tentatively share of ourselves. Or, better yet, why even talk to others when I can post my profile on the web, or on my wall, or in a blog?!

This has got to be the funniest insight I've had in a long time. The Internet seems to be custom-made for introverts, and I'm one of them! I guess we'll take our community wherever we can find it :-)

Light it up...

Rob

Hard Faces and First Impressions

My wife and I were walking through the park this weekend when we passed a group of neighborhood kids playing a game. After we were some distance away, my wife asked if I had noticed what hard faces the kids had. Glancing back, I understood what she was talking about; it was as if these kids had already lost their childhood innocence. It's not just that they weren't smiling, but that they seemed almost angry.

Seeing the hard faces of these kids made me wonder how I come across to others at work. Do I smile enough? Do I convey a positive image to those around me? Do I come across as approachable, or do I broadcast a "go away" message?

I read a brief article once in Fast Company magazine about a job called, "Director of First Impressions". I wasn't sure if the role was describing a receptionist position, or if this person played a specific role in Marketing or Customer Service (though I had the distinct impression the article could have been describing Kristen, the Administrative Assistant for one of the marketing groups at my company). However, what struck me is how directly applicable this concept is to me. Basically, I am the Director of First Impressions for brand me, and I am responsible for how people perceive me.

I sometimes have a tendency to become so absorbed in my work that I forget about the impression I am leaving with others. What I need to remember is that the work I do is ultimately wrapped up in the way I present it. I'm not talking about a formal presentation, but about the daily interactions I have with others. I can choose to ignore this and create an audience of skeptics, or I can choose to be intentional about how I interact with others, and reap the benefits of a simple smile.

Light it up...

Rob

Light it up...

When I started working in the Biotech industry several years ago, I began signing all of my emails with the line, "Light it up..." It's been interesting to me to see how many people ask what this means; even more interesting is to hear what they think it means, which is usually pretty funny.

I started using this phrase initially for two reasons. First, I wanted a way to distinguish myself in a large corporate environment so that people could easily remember me and my contributions. It's fun when others write an email and say something like, "As Rob says, Light it up!" Second, I had just started working at Guidant Corporation (now part of Boston Scientific), and I thought that the phrase, "Light it up...", tied in nicely with the Guidant brand, with an allusion to the "guiding light" of Guidant.

Over time, I have come to attribute more significance to the phrase, "Light it up..." For me, "Light it up..." is about my desire to inspire others to be their best and to give their best. In my role as a manager, I enjoy helping each person on my team identify what's unique about themselves and what they do well, and I work to help align their responsibilities with their natural talents. As an individual contributor to the success of my company, I love to tackle complex problems with no apparent solution, think about where we want to be in the future, inspire others with this vision of the future, and align everyone behind creative solutions that will get us there. As a coworker, I always look for ways to encourage everyone in their personal growth and career development, and will take every opportunity I can to build others up.

The other thing that motivates me and really typifies what I think of when I say, "Light it up...", is the power of ideas. Many people comment on the number of books in my personal library at work; I love to read and learn and find ways to apply new ideas. I started this blog to be able to share these ideas, these borrowed thoughts, that inspire and motivate me, with the hope that they will inspire and motivate you as well.

Light it up....

Rob