Month: August 2014

#811 seamless

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I recently did some consulting with a former colleague.  We haven’t worked together in 15 years, but jumped right back into the rhythm and flow as if we had been in the office together yesterday.  

A similar situation happened when a friend came to visit earlier this week.  We haven’t seen each other in a year, but it was as if the conversation had never been interrupted.  After a brief hello hug it was as if we saw each other all the time.  

Perhaps life in higher education has prepared me to foster seamless relationships in an environment that is disjointed.  Faculty and students leave for the summer and then they return.  We pick up our work and our connections as if they had never left.  It carries over to far-flung family and friends, even without the benefit of Facebook or often any interaction in the interval. 

How can you lead your life with a continuity that is unaffected by time or physical space?  Sure, the hair color may change and you may have exciting tales to tell, but it is a comfort to know that the core is unaltered and omnipresent.  If you remain authentic and surround yourself with people who do likewise, you’ll feel as if your support network is always with you — even if “present” involves a transcendent nature. 

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#810 lemons

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Today is National Lemonade Day.  It’s a day that is especially meaningful for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation — a charity that was established to help fight childhood cancer.

Alex Scott passed away at age 8, but before she did, she infused her positive attitude into everyone’s life.  She took to heart the motto “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, and thus the lemonade stand idea was born. In her life, she raised a million dollars through her lemonade stand. The foundation has continued and now raised $80 million more.

Can you take lessons from Alex?  If a kid with cancer can have such an outlook, can’t you adopt it too — even just for today?  If someone who is so sick can muster the energy to start a lemonade stand project, can’t you find the time to do a good deed today?

Ignore those minor petty differences and look at things in a more holistic perspective.  Don’t use time as an excuse.  Chances are that your life is pretty good.  For today, act like it is.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

To learn more about Alex’s Lemonade Stand or how Red Robin is supporting the Foundation today:  http://www.redrobin.com/ALSF
 

#809 manual

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My blog from yesterday elicited a host of comments from friends who were seemingly more excited about my new car than I was.  For me, it was a functional purchase.  I would have purchased a new version of the same model had it still been in production — because I liked it, but mostly to avoid car shopping!  Apparently others feel differently!

My friend who went to the dealership with me when I bought my last car 9 years ago reminded me about the experience.  The car I had previous to that came with a manual transmission, and I set out to get a stick shift again.  In fact, I really wanted a stick and only reluctantly ended up with an automatic in my car.  They mollified me with a “sequential sport shift” that allowed me to manually shift when the situation warranted. It was marketed as “the best of both worlds” and I fell for it. I think I used it once.

I did not think twice about getting an automatic with this purchase.  I have grown accustomed to the convenience and it now seems totally natural as to how it should be.  I didn’t even remember that I once wanted a manual until I was reminded.

What is the equivalent to a manual transmission in your world?  Is there something out there that you are reluctant to give up or change — but you haven’t really considered the alternative?  I think about software upgrades that I put off, but then can’t imagine what it was like before I had the enhanced features.  Or our receptionist’s beloved typewriter that I forced her to replace with a label machine that she now adores.  Or was there a time when a new hire seemed so slow but whose thinking revolutionized a process that you now take for granted?  

Maybe it’s time for you to shift your perspective and be open to new options.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#808 spare nothing

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I have been driving (and loving) my car for nine years, but over the weekend I took the plunge and bought a new vehicle.  A lot of things have changed on cars between the 2005 and 2015 models; I felt like I needed a computer programming course before I could drive my car home.  My friend said that the new car has “more technology than Neil Armstrong enjoyed” and it certainly felt like that was true.

But what surprised me the most was what the car didn’t have.  For one: a key.  It has this fancy new “fob” that just has to be in the vicinity of the car for it to operate.  But most interesting to me is that my new car does not have a spare tire.  Not a “donut” tire or a full sized one — none.  Instead, it has a fancy little compressor box with a fix-a-flat attached to it.  Let’s hope I never need it, because it, too, looks like a miniature computer that will require lessons to operate.

Ever since Henry Ford, keys and spare tires were standard operating equipment on nearly every car ever built.  Until now.  The dealer said that it was done in an effort to reduce weight, thus increase speed and fuel efficiency.  

Think about the assumptions you make in your organization. Instead of trying to make a smaller tire, could you eliminate tires all together?  Are there things you have had since forever that maybe you really don’t need anymore?  There is no longer anything out there that is a “must-have”.  Start your thinking with a truly blank slate and see what creative alternatives you can develop.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com


Standard issue 2015 trunk contents:


#807 that thing

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How many things are in your world that you know what they are, but do not know what they are officially called?  We develop functional language that is known to us and allows us to communicate well with intimate family and friends, but becomes baffling when we involve others.


Some examples:

> When you say “get the salt out of the cupboard” and your don’t mean the shaker, what do you mean?  What’s the official name for “the big thing of salt”?  Box?  Container?  Morten’s?

> I have a garment that is like a sweater, only silky and not knit.  I know it as “my black thing”.  What do you know it as?  A silky sweater?  A black wrap (even though it has sleeves)?  An unstructured jacket?   I bought a new one in blue and was trying to describe it to someone but had to give up.

> I recently purchased a desk accessory that is a tower of shelves to hold projects.  I think its official name is a five-slot in-bin, but I call it “the shelves”.  There are other literal shelves in my office, but people know what I mean when I refer to this.

Pay attention to your vocabulary for a few days.  To what have you given unique labels that work only for you?  Do you make it harder for visitors or a new colleague to become comfortable in your world?  

Jargon goes deeper than acronyms.  Be attentive to the ways you speak a private language instead of a universal one.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#806 you’re out

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The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about Major League Baseball’s “batty rule book”.  The official playbook of the MLB is 240 pages long, in part because of rules that are hard to believe actually are necessary.  Some examples:

> Rule 7.08i: You can’t steal first base.  Someone tried to go from second back to first (in an attempt to divert attention from a teammate’s steal of home).  It happened in 1911 and has been on the books to prevent a future occurrence ever since.

> Rule 4.03:  You have to have fielders except the catcher must be positioned in fair territory.  Again, this seems logical, but in 1870 infield grounders that were fair and rolled foul were still in play and MLB did not want fielders in the foul territory to make plays.

> Rule 3.13:  A home manager can make up his own ground rules if the visitor’s manager agrees.  This gem got on the books in 1903 when fans were allowed to occupy parts of the outfield and the teams had to agree on how to handle balls hit there.

Last year, MLB added three more rules; perhaps in a decade they will seem preposterous too.  Like many organizations, the focus is on adding rules — trying to codify something that should be common sense, but, in at least one instance, wasn’t.

What if the Wall Street Journal came to your organization and wrote a piece on your rule book?  Would someone be blogging about how crazy and out-of-date some of the regulations are?  Have you created such a monstrosity that no one even reads it to know what it contains?  

Think about the three-strikes-you’re-out way of expressing rules. There are some things that baseball did get right.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com


Baseball’s Batty Rule Book by Brian Costa, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2014, p. D6

#805 key

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There are many thoughts out there and even whole self-help sections in bookstores about how to get ahead.  

A faculty member I recently interviewed has boiled her philosophy down to four keys to success:

1.  Data
2.  Planning
3.  Execution
4.  Optimism

It is her theory that without all four, you will falter somewhere and not achieve your ultimate goal.  Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?

That is until you try to put it into action!  But try it anyway.  If she doesn’t have the magic key, she’s certainly close.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com


Source:  Deby Cassill, August 1, 2014


#804 pile of ideas

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On Monday, my colleague and I hit “send” to submit our 29-page report on the external assessment we conducted just nine days prior.  How we were able to write it so quickly stems in part from how we structured our work.  I use this process every time I need to organize a project or write anything of length:

1.  Write out each of your thoughts — ONE per index card or piece of scrap paper.  In the case of our assessment, throughout our visit we wrote out on sheets of notebook paper all of the points we wanted to make (in no order whatsoever), then literally cut them up into little strips of paper — ONE thought per strip.  You can write notes over a period of time — they don’t have to come to you all at once.

2.  Clear a table (or in our case, the hotel bed) and lay them out in piles according to topics.  Make a heading for the pile once a few cards gather in one spot.  (So our headings were things like Structure, Opportunities, Challenges, etc.)

3.  Then put your piles in order as you think they will flow linearly in your report, session, article, etc.

4.  Type up your pile of all the comments in that order.  Wa-la!  You have an outline, with not only the main headings but all the points you want to make underneath.

5.  Start writing from this.  If something doesn’t flow, you can always move it, but overall you have a structure that will a) get you started and b) provide sub-sections for you to complete and get that dopamine hit to keep you going.

We left the hotel with our outline in hand.  Because I didn’t have to stare at a blank piece of paper or blank computer screen, I started writing even on the plane ride home — just taking the points from my “strips” and turning them into sentences and stringing them together.

I have used this process hundreds of times — it’s how I organize retreats, workshops, articles, projects — and now even the class I will be teaching.  As soon as I know I have a big project, I start collecting notes into a pile as ideas come to me in the days, weeks, or months leading up to the moment I really dig in and start working on something.  It makes all the difference to start with “something” rather than starting from “nothing”, and I can begin without thinking about it.

Our brains don’t work in a linear fashion. Even with the miraculous cut-and-paste feature on computers, it is still hard to be random when starting on a document in Word.  Avoid all that frustration and try the “pile” method above.  I guarantee it to be foolproof!

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#803 drugged

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If you asked author Simon Sinek* where all my energy came from on Saturday, he would say that it wasn’t from getting started or getting in the zone, rather that it came from dopamine.  Dopamine is the biological chemical inherent in our bodies that releases when we achieve a goal.  Sinek calls it “an incentive for progress” or how the body is wired to keep us working toward tasks.  When each step of a project is completed, we get a “hit” of dopamine; when something difficult is accomplished, we get a noticeable physical reaction to the triumph.

So as the theory goes, you need to get started to get a chemical release to get you the energy and motivation to get finished.  It sounds like a vicious circle, but can actually function as a motivating cycle.  Even if you don’t feel like you can finish something — whether that be writing a report, running the last mile, losing ten pounds or saving for a cruise — you may, in fact, be able to do so if you factor in the additional boost that you’ll get from achieving incremental steps along the way.  It is the biology behind why self-help experts encourage you to write down your tasks and to break them into manageable, tangible mileposts.  Think of watering stations along a run; incremental action steps are like little dopamine-fix stations where you get an equivalent Dixie cup of energy to push you along.

So the next time you’re tempted to reach for a Mountain Dew or Red Bull, try letting Mother Nature add the boost — simply by starting what you need to finish anyway.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

*Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, 2014



#802 in the zone

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A week ago, I was out of town to do an assessment of a division at another university.  It was a case of somebody-knowing-somebody who knew me, and I was invited to come in and provide a fresh look at the structure and staffing that was in place.  Another colleague and I received a 24# box of materials in the mail prior to our visit, then we interviewed people in person for three days.  I left with a notebook full of notes and a head full of ideas.

Unfortunately, information in that format is not easily sharable.  So I spent most of Saturday trying to translate and type up comments, create an executive summary and compile appendices to somehow translate my observations into a meaningful format.  

About an hour after I reluctantly drug myself into my home office, I got immersed in my task.  It became a giant puzzle to assemble and a personal quest to finish the work that day.  Somewhere in there, I got lost in the zone.  I worked on it for hours, took a break for dinner, and willingly was back at it again. 

The screen saver on my computer says: “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”  It is good advice that I don’t always heed, but this weekend was validation that it is true.  Keep the mantra in mind the next time you are putting off a task that seems undesirable or daunting.  Just start, and more often than not, the energy will follow.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com