The Regenerate Web

I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the Executive Women in Government conference yesterday. There were about eight speakers - all powerful and inspiring leaders - and their messages seem to come together in a wonderful call to action. The post I did on Relevancy, Vibrancy, and Legacy shared the main points of my contribution. Here are a few of the more memorable bits of wisdom from the other speakers:

• We live in a new era of complexity and we need to face what we have to do. Our movements must change, too (referring to previous movements that catalyzed change).
• The importance of doing what you love. That we can all engage in unlocking the mysteries of the universe (or our communities, families, organizations).
• "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt
• We must all fight to reduce tunnel vision, fragmentation, and silo-ization in our organizations as this is what causes big problems and serious collapses.
• We need to consider the need to change the DNA of what we do on a daily basis.
• Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas wowed me when she said she still stays up at night thinking about how to ask the questions that will "get them" to share what they don't want to. At over 90 years old, she is still more proactive than many of us!!
• Leaders need to reconnect people with their purpose.
• We need to learn how to package stories so that people can learn from them (communicate so that our message is received as intended).
• If we don't set the bar high, we won't go anywhere.
• The next generation is HERE and deserves our support, coaching, mentorship.
• If we provide people with different experiences, we can change their perspective.
• It is always easier to break something down than it is to build it up.

And overall, I was energize to hear about all the great thinking and passion going on in the federal government. Washington DC has several sides. Many people only know the side they see on CNN and other news channels - the politics, the divisiveness, the 1000 page bills weighed down with hundreds of unrelated pet projects and promises, the bickering and name calling. Underneath this loud layer of partisan elected officials is a large infrastructure of dedicated, smart, and hard working career public professionals who are passionate about making the U.S. a better country for everyone. They have to zig and zag with each administration and after major legislative changes - and most do it without losing their faith, hope, and drive. Partnering with them are thousands of non-profit organizations and consulting firms who know it is worth getting through the inevitable red-tape to work with the government on projects and initiatives that make a difference. This is the vibrant D.C. that I really enjoy working with and around.

P.S. - I loved it when Cokey Roberts responded to a question about the challenge of finding balance and the downside of wanting to do it all. She basically blasted the notion that we can't try to be superwomen and supermen - and she invtied us all to get a bit tougher. Roberts writes about early women leaders in American history and says they had it much harder than we do now. She suggested we embrace "moments of balance." She also encouraged all leaders to do what it takes to make the workplace a more family friendly place. And these two ideas are NOT contradictory.

I am putting the finishing touches on a presentation for next week that is about how we can leave our legacy in today's crazy work world. It strikes me that there are three levels of contribution.

Relevancy - you keep learning and you stay up to date on how to best communicate and connect with others. You seek mentors and coaches in a variety of places and from people at all levels of the organization. Because you stay current, you can better manage across generations and cultures and you use these skills to help teams spend time well and get results. Relevancy requires openness.

Vibrancy - you bring energy to the workplace and utilize your talents in ways that give you meaning and satisfaction. Your engagement is contagious, too, and you help others tap into their interests and talents to benefit the organization. We all have down periods, but you recognize these lulls and do whatever it takes to climb out of them and get reengaged. Vibrancy requires intrinsic energy.

Legacy - you know that knowledge is not your legacy because knowledge is ubiquitous. Your legacy is as a role model for HOW to work. You are a beacon of possibility, you drive to make great things happen, and help teams work well together. You approach situations others avoid and demonstrate courage, perseverance, agility, and care. And you do these things while remaining real, humble, and approachable. Legacy requires presence and humility.

I was facilitating a training class this week and asked participants one thing they loved and hated about meetings. Meetings are SOOOO expensive and it is important that every meeting should help move things forward with top velocity. One participant said she hates it when people talk beyond the point of contribution. What a great way to phrase a common problem!!! I told her it would make a great blog post title and here it is.

Twitter is just 140 characters. The best blog posts are often short and saturated quickly get to the point. Should the same logic apply to meeting conversations?

Well, sort of. Yes, with a caveat. I am a proponent of great and deep conversation. That said, there is usually someone almost every most meetings has at least one over participator - someone who does not know how to make a clear and concise point at every meeting.

We have the "little book" from Strunk and White to help us learn how to write concisely. Where do we go to learn how to speak concisely? How does one best learn how to make a point and then STOP TALKING? It's not The Dale Carnegie Course or Toastmasters, these teach presentation more than conversation skills.

Perhaps we would get be better at talking right up to the point of highest contribution more effective if we wrote our thoughts down ahead of time. Those extra words and phrases (and circular thought patterns) are so much more obvious when you write, read, and then edit your messages. 

Give it a try. Write what you want to say and then cut, cut, cut until you can make your point with 50% fewer words. I could go on about going on, but that would be rather ironic, now wouldn't it? But be careful not to strikethrough the best parts, OK?

I got an email from my publisher that the new edition of my book about high impact middle management is available (they just did an email blast you can see it here). The new version has a slightly tweaked title: The High Impact Middle Manager. I am thrilled to have this book (a slightly revised version of my first book, High Impact Middle Management) back in publication and available.

If you are a middle manager, know and love a middle manager, or want to someday be a great middle manager, check it out. Amazon has it as available for preorder, but it should start shipping soon.

A bit of behind the scenes information: The Foreword is the same one as was included in the 2004 version of the book and was written by Ralph Stayer, CEO of Johnsonville Foods. Here's the thing - in the Foreword, Ralph compares me to TIGER WOODS! Ouch! My initiation reaction was, "Oh no!" But now I can chuckle about it and I think that people will figure out that he is referring to Tiger's positive attributes.

I am way overdue to give out a little link love. Here's what I do: I scan the posts in my aggregator and bookmark those that I think are super-cool and worthy of sharing. Then I go do other things - train, fly, speak, fly, write, fly, mentally crash, fly and then the week is done. Unless I remind myself, those blogger gems sit in limbo until I back to them. OK, time to give these great posts a little light of day. Here they are listed in chronological order:

From my pal Terry Starbucker: A Leader’s Guide to Making Luck (or, You Never Know When Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You)

From Renegade HR: Do Amazing Things in 2010

From pal Phil Gerbyshak: We Maintain Our Machines Better than we Maintain Our People

From pal Jeffrey Ford: Not Responding Can Cost You

This one is from pal Alexandra Levit: Lessons Learned from New Job, New You. I must admit that Alexandra sent me her new book (New Job, New You) a couple of weeks ago but my course development and book writing is massively demanding right now and I have not yet read it. Alexandra is a creative writer and expert who does interesting research. And this book is so timely, please do check it out. Also check out this post from Alexandra called How I Stay Happy (an interview with a happiness expert).

My pal Steve Roesler offers this post: Choosing Who Will Influence You.

Zen Habits offers this post: The Hidden Art of Achieving Creative Flow.

Pal Wayne Turmel - AKA the Cranky Middle Manager offers this podcast with Marshall Goldsmith about his new book, Mojo.

And last but not least, check out this lovely piece from pal Tanmay Vora over at QAspire called The Focus is on YOU.

Check out this 2004 Ted video featuring Malcolm Gladwell. Watch it and think about what it means for management. Two things to think about:

• Different kinds of _______ (management) that suits different kind of people.
• There is no one way, no perfect way.

I have not posted recently because I have been preoccupied by business travel problems - I have never had so many cancellations, reroutes, and travel delays. Sleep deprivation, bad food and missed meals, hours away from my computer, hotel rooms next to the landing strip. Nagging illnesses inflamed by my stress related lower immunity and exposure to thousands and fellow travelers. Mother Nature, please stop snowing!

I was eating breakfast at my hotel this morning while mentally going down my to-do list. I am behind on several things and like many of you, I can work myself into a victim conversation (see above for a great example of a victim conversation). When I whine about how much I need to get done, my husband is quick to suggest I read a book about how to focus. This is a friendly dig and reminder, because I wrote the book he is referring to (Focus Like a Laser Beam).

Yes, I need to follow my own advice. We all do, right? How many times have you caught yourself struggling with a topic about which you routinely give advice? Do as I say......

Back to focus. Back to victim conversations. Truth be told, I am very lucky and the fact that I have so much going on is a very good thing. The first step I need to take to improve my focus is to stop whining. Victim conversation are paralyzing. They divert precious mental energy AWAY from solving my challenges.

OK, I have defenestrated my victimitis. What's next?

The second thing I need to do to improve my focus is to adopt a more helpful perspective about the long list of things I need to get done. Instead of thinking about the VOLUME of things I need to do, I will focus on the POSSIBILITY that each project is affording me. I also need to change my mindset away from ME-ME-ME (I need to do it all) to thinking about these possibilities as tasks worthy of involvement and help from others.

With my head on straight and my perspective primed for action, the next step to improving my focus is carefully selected ACTION. How should I spend my time? How can I leverage my time to get things done? Which tasks can be modified to make them simpler to complete? Which commitments might need to be renegotiated? How might a little innovation help? How can I involved others and how might this become a win-win? How might making unreasonable requests help?

I will be back in my office this afternoon. I intend to blast through all the little things that are on my list today. These tiny tasks create a lot of mental garbage and it feels good to get them out of my mind. Then tomorrow and the weekend I can make good progress by using a technique I call chunking (see more about that here). Also this afternoon, I will come up with a list of at least five unreasonable requests that could make the greatest difference.

I think focus is most enhanced by a good mental game. Sure, organization techniques are helpful, but what most gets in our way is our own thinking. If you are struggling with feelings of overwhelm and being behind on your projects, give this process a try:

• Defenistrate victimitis.
• Change your perspective to a focus on possibility.
• Get into action (small stuff, best use of time, make requests, innovate, renegotiate, use chunking).
• Repeat as necessary.

The new show, Undercover Boss, debuted after the Super Bowl. I did not watch it because I am almost NEVER interested, intrigued, or impressed by so-called reality TV shows. But two bloggers who I respect offered their thoughts.

Check out Wally Bock's sharp-as-a-butcher-knife assessment in his post called, Undercover Boss: A Repellant Piece of Trash (come on, Wally, tell us what you really think).

And check out what the HR Capitalist has to say in his post called, Undercover Boss: You Wish That's All It Took to Change Your Business...

What drives me crazy about these programs is how they reinforce that management can be fake, contrived, and self-serving. The TV show's producers would likely respond that this is meant to be entertainment. Sure, that's fine, but it is entertainment that reinforces that our leaders are idiots and that employees are too stupid to figure that out. Wrong and wrong.

So what does this mean for us? We need to work harder to show our employees our real sides, our caring sides, our smarter sides. There is a lot of value to spending time learning what's going on in our organizations, but do it in ways that reinforce and improve relationships, trust, commitment, and connection.

Hey Hollywood - stick with sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, OK? 

I have the same overall repulsion for shows like The Apprentice, by the way.

Your thoughts?

OK, so the word "beauty" is not often paired with the words "your employees" unless you are having a difficult harassment-related conversation with your HR manager.... but that is not the type of beauty I am talking about.

And before I get into the main point of this post, let me throw out a few other words: love, fan, admiration, extraordinary.

I was training in Wash DC this week (got out just in time to avoid getting stuck!) and I noticed that whenever I talked about believing in employees, my training participants looked and acted differently.

(beauty in our back yard in Cincinnati)

We want to believe that our employees have the capacity to do amazing work. We want to see the beauty that lies within them - beauty that defines their desire to make a difference and to do great work. We want to feel a connection with our peers and employees that is deep (get your mind out of the gutter) and special.

But many managers don't seem to believe, don't seem to see, don't seem to feel, don't seem to connect. What has happened?

• Stress?
• Being too busy?
• Extrinsic rewards and reinforcement systems that has sucked the life out of us all?
• Lack of confidence?

Yes. All that. And yet, I am moved by the possibility that we can again believe, see, feel, and connect. Every time I talk to groups about this, I see their eyes shine and their hopes come alive again. Talking about it can reawaken what's inside and provide a beneficial nudge toward a better way of managing.

The Training Salon:

At the upcoming ASTD International conference in Chicago, I will be talking about using the Salon concept for training (I will also be talking about training middle managers in a second talk at the conference):

• According to wikipedia, "A salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation."
  

Salons are great vehicles for learning and perfect for developing managers and leaders. Salon-type conversations offer a deepness that can transform how we look at our work and each other and I think can be a great way enliven the best that is within each of us - our beauty.

The training I did last week was not a salon - per se - but the conversation had some qualities of a great salon experience.

When I was getting my MFA from Goddard College, we had 10-day residencies twice each year. My pals in the program and I started the practice of holding evening salons and it was wonderful. Anyone could come and anyone could participate, read, perform, share, provoke. Since then, I have enjoyed business-oriented salon type gatherings. 

Last week, I shared my travel schedule on this blog. Check it out again. I would love to get a few salon conversations going. Let me know if you want to participate. And give the training salon a try at your workplace (or start with several professional pals).

We need to do whatever it takes to catalyze the more compelling aspects of management and leadership - the aspects that demonstrate that being a manager is a privilege and an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those who work for and with us.