This Thanksgiving: thankful to be learning.

Last month, I decided to enroll in a creative writing class at the professor’s invitation. My instructor, Anda Peterson, is also a member of my writing group. Our small team, affectionately known as the Prose Posse, consisted of accomplished academics and journalists. I was the only technical writer in the bunch–the odd man out.

Writing mostly for corporations, I have learned tasks I will never perform directly. Technical writers will tell you that some subjects stay in their heads long after the project ends. Like a YouTube kitten or snippet of music that loops mercilessly, pulling the memory through one ear with a wire hanger eventually seems like a good plan. I wish I could forget how to perform Upper Extremity Sonography so I could make room for the name of the craft beer I sampled yesterday and quickly forgot. It’s most likely hanging out with my lost wallet and my third grade teacher, whose name I cannot recall.


Technical writing and instructional design is also a highly structured and deliberate process. My inner editor is a style guide that screams line-by-line revisions and keeps me on a strict budget. Deliver key objectives in line one. Select images that reinforce performance. Use quizzes to verify comprehension.

In truth, that box we love to hate and long to think outside actually gives us something to work with - a canvas on which to express ourselves. As a friend once told me, "creativity is our ultimate expression within defined parameters." I love trying to be as creative as possible, even when working with corporate or regulated material. However, open-sky, unlimited vistas are another matter. That blank sheet of paper can be a daunting partner.

So, I was immediately humbled by the burgeoning talent in Anda's classroom. Students in pencil thin jeans cranked out prize-worthy prose mere hours before class. A volunteer would recite lyrical lines, revealing yet another captivating story. Earnest and callow hearts searching the evening stars for answers or diving into the abyss for dinner. I panicked. My first submission was due in two weeks. My creative vocabulary felt limited by comparison, reduced to words like “happy," and “really." Pulling dead weasels through a rusty pipe would have been easier and more entertaining.

Despite my trepidation, the class seemed to respect every submission. I discovered creative writing courses are possibly the most life affirming event beyond kindergarten. Everyone brought something to share and then applauded. I don’t remember ever clapping in accounting or project management classes. Charitably, my classmates withheld the withering criticism my work fully deserves, an act of kindness typically reserved for the disabled or elderly. Based on the stories they submitted, I wondered if one or two of them were receiving community service hours for listening to mine.

Last night, I shared my experiences with a neighbor and how I hoped to live long enough to read something published by my fellow students. In return, I owe them the favor of purchasing their first published work, as payment in kind for helping me learn.

Thanks Anda. And to my classmates - a very special thank you!

Creating an Atmosphere of Collaboration

Improv teaches us to work with anything we are given (a prop, a line, an opportunity, a rejection, a bad economy…). No matter what it is, your FIRST answer is always yes. I want to use television as a metaphor for work.

IMPROV:

Whose Line Is It Anyway is an improvisational television show - a great example of working with anything and having fun doing it. The performers respond affirmatively to anything shouted out by an audience member. They work with what they are given and make us laugh. The energy seems to grow and grow.

"REALITY"

Now think about the reverse situation. Reality TV is an emotional wasteland where participants scream at each other and argue constantly. Sure, it's a human train wreck, and fun to watch for fifteen minutes and a beer, but would you really want to live there, 24 hours a day? You can almost feel the energy draining out of the room...

Where would you rather work: at the IMPROV or the Jersey Shore? What kind of office environment have you created?

First Impressions Matter

One day, the banquet manager at a resort hotel at a very big theme park in Orlando took his crew of dishwashers to the banquet hall. Spread before them was an immense sea of tables, flowers and decorations for a lavish wedding dinner.

The manager asked his dishwashers to imagine the same scene, but only with dirty dishes. "It wouldn't matter if we spent all week on the decorations," he said. "If the bride's glass is dirty it will ruin her impression of this day forever. Imagine if this was your own daughter's wedding...?"

His point is simple: contact = impression = experience.

Sometimes almost everything can go right, and yet the most essential task taken for granted can ruin someone's impression of your service or product. (If my glass is dirty, then how clean is the kitchen...?)

BE "PASSIONATELY PRESENT"
by Kristine Forster


Is it just me, or do you have days when when the thought of  tackling all those emails and RSS feeds seems like an overwhelmingly daunting task?

Over my cup of coffee and slightly burnt cinnamon and brown sugar pop tart this morning (mmm - breakfast of champions), I energetically attacked said mountain of rss feeds that, I am remiss to say, I have allowed to start piling up – again.

I'm so glad I dug in to that pile this morning though because here's what I read from Brendan Burchard's, "Life's Golden Ticket eNewsletter":

"Are you showing up as "passionately present" as you can each day, and are you lighting up your co-workers with energy and passion and excitement for what you are doing together?"

Along with my pop tart, I savored the taste of that question; and as the coffee does to my energy level, I'm allowing that fine thought to bolster my thoughts and attitude today.

As leaders of your organization or team (or family at home) – there's no greater skill for a leader to possess than the ability to inspire others. Give yourself permission to wade through the sea of demands and expectations and responsibilities that surely await you and settle for a moment on the question above.

I know when I did this morning it made the sun shine a little brighter, my coffee a little heartier, my resolve a little stronger and my pop tart all the sweeter.

The fish rots from the head down.

My grandfather died when I was very young, yet I remember a handful of comments he made to me. I remember one in particular, as we left a store where a manager had been rude to us.

I must have said something about it because my grandfather's plain spoken response was: Son, the fish rots from the head down.

It sounded funny to me, so I remembered it. But now I understand what he meant: the quality of an organization's leadership is reflected in the actions and attitudes of its individual employees.

Ever walk into a store or office and immediate get a bad feeling, a bad vibe or whiff that something or several things just don't seem right? It could be a general sense of unease, an inability for employees to act with confidence, bad attitudes or a lack of attention to detail.

Whatever the symptom, that stinky smell means something is dead or dying at the top. No real passion for the business. No real commitment to employees. No respect for customers, beyond their ability to make leaders richer. Regardless, don't take it out on the employees, start by evaluating opportunities to re-engage, re-ignite and re-focus leadership.

Leading Change

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

— Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic," Paris, April 23, 1910

A truly authentic leader is going to stir things up by waving a flag in the face of mediocrity. She is not going to protect the status quo - that's the definition of a manager. He is going to be a catalyst that spurs people to action around a central vision - not just maintenance of a dusty concept. He will help his people proudly answer "why" they work and "why" their work matters. She will continuously plant the flag a little further along the trail than the day before...

Who is my city?
(with a nod to Richard Florida)

I have been working with leaders from my city, posing the same question during my conversations: how do we define this city? Personally, I'd like to think I live in the Creative Capital of Florida–a city characterized by working artists and creative industries–but that has yet to be determined.

On a recent trip to Scotland, my partner and I enjoyed a couple weeks in Edinburgh. A historic and ancient city, it also happens to be the capital of Scotland. The new parliament building sits at the foot of the Royal Mile, just steps from Holyrood Palace. So, one naturally concludes, this city is defined by it's role as capital of Scotland. Wrong.

Upon entering the city, you are greeted by official signs proclaiming "Edinburgh: The City of Festivals". Interesting, intriguing, compelling, right?

This city defines itself through its culture offerings to the world; it's a place where millions travel every year to enjoy festivals that celebrate reading, theatre, opera, music, comedy... I think by defining their city as such, Edinburgh plants a flag that continuously challenges residents and leaders to take actions that sustain, nurture and develop those festivals. Otherwise, it's just another old city with a collection of old buildings. But the people are what make it special, and those people throw one hell of a party (several, actually).

So, who are you, St. Petersburg?

How to hit "send" on your customer's button

During a visit to my local Publix, I counted 6 employees texting as they walked around the store, like zombies searching for brains online. Unbelievable. I came back with more than lettuce and bread. I brought home a lesson I learned from Disney, and other service giants.

Dear Publix: rows of neatly stacked containers do not make "shopping a pleasure", your people do that - or don't.

Dear Publix Service Employees, please:

1. Be fully aware of the people around you
   
2. Smile (at least try)
   
3. Always turn and face your guests
4. Extend an offer to help them
   
5. Ask their name, offer yours
   
6. Listen attentively, pay attention
   
7. Take immediate action on their requests
8. Thank them sincerely for their business
   

and... (an update even Walt could not have anticipated) please turn off your phone when you're serving customers, unless you're calling 911.

Why?

Why are some people and organizations more innovative than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their successes, over and over?

Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. Why is not money or profit-- those are always results. Why helps you define the reason you do everything you do, your mission and your vision.

WHY does your organization exist?
WHY does it do the things it does?
WHY do customers really buy from your company or another?
WHY are employees loyal to some leaders, but not others?

From "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action", by Simon Sinek

Authenticity

The solution to your next, big challenge might not be found within your organization, but within your community.

That's where we learn how a mother creates a healthy menu on limited funds, or a farmer makes more efficient use of solar cells, or a teenager designs a better shoe...

Our challenge? Finding those people. Defining the actions that make them different. Sharing the learning. Measuring the impact.

Warren Buffett: on the best advice he ever received

"The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean, you’re 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don’t feel like it — it’s not uncritical love; that’s a different animal — but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. 

That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it’s going to make for a better human being."

Buffett is in the process of donating 99 percent of his wealth to charity, and recently gave away about $2 billion. He has joined forces with Bill and Melinda Gates on an initiative to persuade the world's billionaires to donate half their fortunes to charity. (from an interview with Yahoo! News)

Social Learning: the human experience

I ran across this online and it immediately resonated with me: "An important facet of learning within a social context is social proof. Simply stated, when someone just like me does something, I’m more likely to try it myself."

The first person to deviate from the norm is a leader: someone doing something risky (yet positive) that eventually attracts another risk taker, then another, until ultimately many join in to create truly meaningful solutions or memorable experiences.

This You Tube clip illustrates the point. Watch what happens, and think about this in terms of a social learning process. Be patient. Reward your positive deviants. Some will follow right away, others will wait. Many will be inspired. Change happens.

source: www.positivedeviance.org

A Rising Demand for Emerging Leaders

The IBM Global Human Capital study surveyed over 400 companies in 40 countries across North America, Asia and Europe. The findings? A lack of focus on leadership development means companies are increasingly unable to plan for the skills needed to remain competitive.

As the baby boom leadership retires, many companies will discover a generation’s worth of experience and talent has walked out the door, and remaining emerging leaders ill-equipped to fill the void.

In the study, the transfer of experience and information from one generation to the next is still relatively isolated by department and geography. Within traditional organizations, there is also a reluctance to advertise individuals as expert talent or allow them to act as internal experts. This occurs despite the fact that organizations first recruit a person based upon their unique talents, abilities and experiences.

However, once inside the organization, many traditional leaders tend to ignore or downplay a person’s experiences – the very reasons they were hired!

Collaboration between leaders, departments and employees is critical for future organizational success. Despite the prevalence of technology that can easily enable this type of sharing, functional silos, misaligned performance measures and work constraints inhibit the practice.

Without effective collaboration, an organization’s ability to identify rising stars, track and reward service champions and chances for improving operational effectiveness are severely limited.

Our solution? Structure leadership development programs to clearly define the challenges emerging leaders are meant to solve (in partnership with customers and employees), let them work on these challenges soon after being hired, and measure that employee’s ability to perform and make decisions, all while providing significant incentives that reward the right behavior.

Flyer, Driver, Walker: what kind of leadership journey are you on?

It's summer, and I found myself thinking about life and leadership in terms of travel, along with some remarks I have heard over the years.

Flyers: Leading by Proxy

“We have seagull leadership – they fly into town, shit on our heads, then fly away.”

VP of market operations

Many people own stock. I do too. Every now and then, shareholders get a notice of an election or vote to be held, along with an invitation to send in a vote, by proxy. In this situation, my proxy stands in as my representative voice, my surrogate, the fake Russ.

Leadership by proxy isn't as helpful. It's fake leadership. It doesn't build the long-term health of the organization or its community, and besides, nobody likes pearls of wisdom dropped on their heads.

These flyers demonstrate very little commitment to community, the customer or employee experience. They fly into a meeting, then fly out, confident they have grasped the situation and set things straight, while a helicopter staff pops in every morning to deliver information and receive updates. Send them back to their home by the beach.

Riders: Leading by Observation

“Our CEO's understanding of the community? About as deep as the tread on his Lexus' tires.”

Manager, field sales

A majority of us experience life as a sequence of trips: we drive to the store, we drive to the office, we drive to our kid's school. Usually, we're only slightly aware of the communities we pass through to get to our destination. But how much can we really learn about customers when we zoom past their houses at 75 mph?

This type of leadership is mixed, at best. Yes, they see some community challenges firsthand, but they are still passengers: they come close to the community experience but they never fully engage in it. It's the average leadership experience. However, I think truly great leaders choose to walk instead…

Walkers: Leading by Experience

"Often I walked without any staff or supporters. As a result, I was able to see firsthand Florida's natural beauty, as well as its people and their challenges."

Lawton Chiles

In 1970, Lawton Chiles decided to run for a seat in the United States Senate. At the time, he was largely unknown outside his district, so he embarked on a 1,003-mile, 91-day walk across Florida, from Pensacola to Key West. He even worked at local businesses as he traveled. It made him a local legend and earned him the nickname "Walkin' Lawton".

I think of a “walker” as the kind of leader who remains close to their community, customers and employees. For them, developing, sustaining and improving the service experience is a daily discipline. Walkers do more than walk a mile in the customer’s shoes, they stand beside their customers and help deliver the experience, as any partner would.

Fly, drive or walk?

Flying around seems energetic and seductive, yet it disconnects leaders from their community.

Ray Bradbury once described the great majority of us as seeing life in a "blur", a general wash of images and color as we speed by. Yet driving through a community like a tourist just seems too passive. Not really the definition of leadership, is it?

I admire walkers like Lawton Chiles, leaders who take the time to lead through daily contact, a step-by-step journey that shapes them and the people they are trying to lead.

10 Questions to Ask Emerging Leaders

Gather your high-potential employees together–those employees you have identified as future and emerging leaders–and ask them what they need in order to succeed. Do it now, before they leave.

Here are some questions I might ask your emerging leaders:

1. How do you define success (visualize it five years from now...)?

2. What are the biggest challenges facing employees today?

3. What changes are occurring within your department, and what is needed to address them?

4. How are you improving employee performance and the customer experience?

5. Do you see your personal philosophy and the organization's as different or 100% aligned?

6. In five words or less, how would you describe this organization's leadership experience?

7. If you could work anywhere in the world (doing anything you want) would it be here?

8. What should an emerging leader be required to do, above and beyond any job description?

9. What do emerging leaders like you need from this organization?

10. Anything else...?

"A calling may be postponed, avoided, intermittently missed.

It may also possess you completely.

Whatever; eventually it will call you out. It makes its claim."

James Hillman

The Soul's Code

Many years ago, I moved to Tallahassee, Florida with every intention of becoming a lawyer. After two years working for a law firm and passing the LSAT, I had every desire not to be a lawyer. I went to school anyway and pursued an advanced degree in business, not quite certain how I would apply it.

Thankfully, my personal life was rocking with creativity during those five years.

I met incredibly talented people with vastly diverse backgrounds. I sucked down fresh bay oysters with politicians, movie stars and assorted locals. We dove into inky green-blue sink holes the size of a city block – and infinitely deeper. Friends and I bought a camper van and traveled the Rockies (surviving an up close inspection by an odiferous grizzly), we traveled across the globe to work and study, we held hands with dying friends, sang ballads loudly and poorly around campfires on St. George Island, learned public speaking tips from one of the best professional speakers in America, observed the culinary skills of a world-famous television chef, took walks with one of our nation’s leading thinkers and painters, and…so much more.

I experienced a veritable odyssey of wonderful, meaningful and soul-changing experiences that continue to reverberate inside me. They made me the person I am today. The Universe slapped a giant “YES!” on my forehead, in the form of people who cared enough to put up with me, long enough to deliver their message.

Then, I entered corporate America. I dutifully shoved all those great learning moments into a memory box so secure it would make Steelcase proud.

In 1998, a client asked me to create a series of educational programs to be delivered in twelve modules over a period of two years. That’s a long time to spend with a few hundred people – it was more than a gig, it was a relationship!

Miraculously, we (they and I) pulled it off. Nobody died. We struggled through the basics: we explored core skills and generally discussed how to be good worker bees. Then, I wrote one course specifically for them. I called it: Make the Moment.

The module I wrote was not directly related to any core job skills or traditional topics like communication, teamwork, or time management. MTM was a course that explored life as a series of moments – the way seemingly insignificant events have the power to change our lives forever, and how we have the opportunity to create and/or participate in these moments on a daily basis. That class became a touchstone for the group. It’s power and honestly surprised me as much as it surely surprised them.

At the end of our time together, we celebrated with an emotion-filled dinner, where many of my new friends shared (unrehearsed) their stories of change and personal growth with peers, administrators and elected officials.

It was a humbling experience. What had started out as a routine transaction (deliver core skills training to a group) had turned into a life-altering event for many of us. It was also my first step toward a more meaningful life.

A year later, a pair of researchers, Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore published their first book, The Experience Economy. It quantified and validated everything I had been teaching. Life is more than a series of impersonal transactions, and the organizations that stage their services through mass customization are creating experiences. These experiences are what drive us to repeat purchases, tell others and generally fell more fulfilled about our lives.

Up to that point I had safely disconnected my professional career from all those wonderful personal experiences. I firmly held tight to the belief that business people should keep those two aspects of their lives very separate.

Since then, I have enjoyed several side-trips, dead-ends, fast-forward breakneck developments, self-inflicted wounds, healing conversations, organizations that did not leverage my talent (and where I did not deliver my best possible work) and work that felt like second nature, as if I was born for that particular challenge or project.

Finally–slowly–I realized that every single one of my experiences – whether personal or professional, good, bad, boring, awesome or something in between – are the kind of events that make all of us uniquely qualified for life on this planet. It is the sum of my existence that makes me better.

Fast-forward about ten years. We–myself included–seem to be obsessed by the tools and applications that supplement our lives. As Marshall Mcluhan once stated:

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

The Internet is only a tool, yet one that is shaping us. Still what does this all mean for our flesh and blood existence?

At our core, we are all hard-wired for a fully engaged life with five amazing senses that allow us to learn through experience and reflection. I find the most engaging moments are created by interesting people, not their tools alone. The organizations with the most creative people are where I want to spend my spare time and dollars.

I sense a quiet evolution underway, led by a generation raised within this experience economy. They want a return to authenticity, free from manipulation and stagecraft. Those experiences have a profound impact on our work, business, and lives, whether online or face-to-face. Let's see what happens.

This is a loud cheer for anyone whose calling in life exceeds the technology and tools, those people who turn merely forgettable transactions into nearly magical moments simply by expressing their talent, purpose and ability. Thank you for showing the rest of us how to live more fully.

This is also an invitation of sorts, a time to say “yes” to our inner potential, to shut off the tools now and then (even if we use them well), and create great moments for our families, our co-workers, our clients, members, or customers…and of course, ourselves.

We Can’t Fake It Anymore

In business, staging or controlling an experience requires a storefront or website with a team of employees as the performers and leadership directing it all. The audience sits in breathless anticipation, waiting to be dazzled.

Cue: action! And…what happened? Where did everybody go?

Today, social media platforms are the latest stage. Fans, customers and audiences are no longer limited to your storefront or website as the source of their primary experience. Even more significant, the audience does not need a director or your cast of performers.

Consumers can write their own scripts, direct the action and complete sales and provide their own services - without your permission. They can also switch hats, assuming the role of critic, to judge the quality of their fellow users and performers. Armed with online rating tools, they can champion the best experiences and denigrate average or bad experiences.

Factoid: 70% of online consumers report taking advice from strangers. That means a fourteen year-old girl and her satirical video can have just as much influence as your million dollar ad campaign. Controlling information (the script) is a dead-end strategy, so why even bother?

Your audience wants an authentic experience–greater transparency, believable resources, and honest leaders, meaningful interactions with real people like themselves.

The opportunity now is not to simply stage another experience. An emerging, more dynamic choice is for organizations to let their audiences (employees too!) define, create and deliver the user experience, while you help draw attention and facilitate it.

• Let go, and facilitate
• Take down the curtain and demonstrate the process, transparently
• Find your audience and join them. Listen to what they are saying and add your thoughts
• Invite users to post to your site and rate your services, your employees
• Encourage your employees to become champions by supporting their interactions with customers and allowing them to be completely "real" with every customer interaction