Musings at Altitude

I’ve spent a lot of time walking over the last 6 months.  Typically 3 or 4 miles.  45 minutes to an hour.  Outside preferred over inside.  Flat land preferred over hills.  Company preferred over walking solo.  Lately, 5 or 6 times a week.

I watch other people when I walk.  In fact, I stare at them until they look at me so I can wave hello!  It frustrates my wife.  But it’s who I am.

In watching others, I’ve noticed a couple of things. 

Some walk with their heads down, uninterested in the destination and intensely focused on each individual step.  Others though walk with their heads up, excitedly looking at the things ahead and yearning to reach that next landmark.

Some walk in an aggressive fashion, forcing the pace and ensuring others follow them.  Others walk a bit more passively, waiting for the pace to be set by someone else.

I constantly look ahead, sometimes oblivious to each individual step.

I also want to set the pace, anxious to reach the destination in the time I desire and frustrated at times when I have to slow down and walk at a different pace.

So my normal state is a visionary and a dreamer, and my natural desire is to be a pacesetter.

Is that good or bad, right or wrong?

For me it’s good and it’s right.

It’s who I am.

For others, it may be completely wrong.  They need to see each step and let others set the pace.

We certainly need both.

What are you?

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I mentioned earlier that my natural tendency is to rapidly rotate between jobs, with 2 years being a long time for me to commit to any one company or any one position.

With 2 years as the norm, what was my legacy?

Did I have enough time to positively impact those I worked with?

Did I (through my actions) show a level of commitment and a love for my team and clients that would be remembered for any period of time after my departure?

I hope so, but it certainly wasn’t long enough to demonstrate any kind of attachment or loyalty to those I worked with or those I served.

But it’s been 7 years this time.

6 different jobs in those 7 years, but all with the same company.

Hundreds of different people in those 6 jobs.

Countless different challenges in those 7 years.

What will be my legacy this time?

Here’s what I hope:

• he cared passionately for his team
• he sacrificed mightily to achieve dramatic results for the company
• he helped others achieve significantly more than they ever felt possible
• he loved others more than he loved himself
• he cherished his family and let them know how much he loved them
• he prayed constantly and shared his faith with others
• he gave constantly to others
• he created smiles in others through his actions and attitude
• he lived every minute for that next interaction with somebody else

If I could boil it down to a simple message:

He loved life, loved his family, loved those he worked with, loved his creator, and loved what was now and what might have been next so much more than he loved what was then.

I want my legacy to be love.

He loved and was loved.

He gave love and accepted love.

He lived love.

Short and sweet.

He loved life.

He lived love.

He gave love.

He was loved.

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Seven years ago tonight I was finishing my first full day of work in a new job, with a new but not unknown team, in an industry that I knew but I really didn’t know at all, with an ability to accelerate success that was unmatched in any other job I’d had prior to that point.

Seven years ago tonight I was smiling because the team that I joined was special – very special – uniquely special!

Seven years ago tonight I was anxiously planning my first trip to a remote part of this country, scripting my first discussion with my peers and my board, and wondering how I could quickly connect with as many people in my new company as possible.

Seven years ago tonight I was ecstatic about new opportunities, passionate about services we provided to very important customers, and incredibly optimistic about a yet to be defined path and plan.

It’s been a wild ride ever since!

Lucky seven.

Never happened before.

May never happen again.

But oh the stories I have to tell for this particular seven!

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It’s a blessing and a curse.

I’m inherently excitable.

I see promise in so many things.

I see potential in so many people.

It’s a blessing because the smiles abound when I hear new ideas or meet new people.

It’s a curse because each idea I hear and each person I meet can easily divert me from the fascinating thing I’m doing today to that even potentially more fascinating and exciting thing that I could be doing tomorrow.

Inherently excitable people like me struggle to focus.

In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say we can’t focus.

In any one day, I can easily follow threads for many different excitable things.

And not a one of them may have been on the schedule at the beginning of the day.

So how do you cure excitability?

You don’t!

You leverage it.

You lean on it.

You learn from it.

You love it!

And I do!

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How would you be doing if you were measuring yourself in 4 categories per day:

(1) Personal

(2) Professional

(3) Physical

(4) Physical

Personal is the family or friends or charities or community.

Professional is the work or the development in support of work.

Physical is the fitness.

Spiritual is awareness of a greater purpose or much higher calling than any of these first three.

I’ve been trying to measure my day by day actions against these 4 measurable areas recently.

As you might imagine, I rarely get measurable activity in all 4 areas.

But I always get something measurable in at least 2.

Most of the time I get it for 3.

And sometimes I get it for all 4.

I smile when I get it for all 4.

Not coincidentally, the days I get measurable activity in all 4 areas are the days I seem to feel the best.

I didn’t realize that till I started tracking all 4 areas.

Now it makes lots of sense.

And now, I focus hard on ensuring that all 4 areas get measurable activity every single day.

Today, I started with church, and then watched some of the race with my daughter, and then did my weekly report for work, and then did yard work, and then went on a 3.2 mile, fast paced walk with the wife, and then worked with my daughter on her Tivo, and then watched the games with my wife.

Personal – check.

Professional – check.

Physical – check.

Spiritual – check.

A good day indeed.

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I was sitting on my front porch this morning with my chair pulled over into that one spot of shade.  The sun was beating down on the east side of our house, and the temperature difference from the bright sun to the cool breeze in the shade had to be 10 or 15 degrees.

I let the dog roam the front yard as I comfortably looked up and down the street for any other dogs heading our way, and as I finished my north to south sweep, the dog took off across the yard.

I quickly looked back north and out from behind the shade providing pillar emerged a golden retriever on the opposite side of the street, yanking on his leash trying to get to our dog.

I rushed out to the street to make sure I provided a barrier between the two dogs just in case our dog got brave and darted towards the other side or the golden retriever broke free and came across.

Thankfully, all was well in the end.

As I sat back down, I realized how much of a blind spot that shade providing location really was.  I also realized that my natural tendency is to see the things that are in view and assume that anything that might be in one of those blind spots couldn’t possibly a threat.

That’s wrong.

I certainly know it.

We all know it.

And yet I’ll do it again tomorrow.

And I’ll scramble back out to the street again no different than today.

It’s risky to ignore blind spots with our aging dog.

It’s even riskier to ignore them in business or in life.

I need to account for or eliminate the blind spots.

The consequences are too great not to.

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I’m a big time fan of progress, and I get incredibly frustrated when unneeded or even needed processes slow things down to a painful crawl.  At the most extreme times, I’ve been known to accuse those who seem to enjoy limiting any momentum in the organization of favoring process over progress.

But last week, I was looking out over a golf course thinking about my time as an unpaid greens keeper when I was in my mid teens.  One of the first things we learned was to take the governor off of the golf carts so we could zip around the course late in the day at a much faster and highly unsafe speed.  The more I thought about that, the more I wondered how an organization can allow a few renegades to zip around the business frameworks and get things done at a much faster and even unsafe speed.  By removing the organizational governors from those renegades, dramatic leaps can be made where small baby steps may have otherwise been taken. 

There is a risk, of course.  As folks in the organization see the fun that is being had by those leaping to new levels and delivering against incredible odds, more and more folks may want to be “de-governored”.  That would be horrible to those who thrive on process and get there thrills from the mandated bureaucratic flows of the organization.

But boy would it be fun!

And even more importantly, wow would incredible things get done!

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I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about team lately.

I’ve seen a few great examples.

I’ve seen more that weren’t.

In all cases, what members of a team want seems very simple – purpose, communications, inclusion, appreciation.

It seems like what they want is exactly what they need.

Purpose is easy.  Everyone wants a clear and compelling reason for the work they are doing which should guide the day to day activities of the organization.

Communications seems easy too, but we know it’s not.  Every team member wants an intimate interchange of thoughts, which means both inbound to them and outbound from them.

Inclusion seems the easiest yet…involving each team member in assessing, planning, and responding to the issues that affect the company.  And yet it’s not.

And it’s all wrapped in appreciation.  It’s at the beginning with recognition of the potential contributions of each member of the team, and it’s at the end of every special moment with thanks for the part each team member played in reaching the success achieved.

Sadly, most leaders, even though all four of these seem so easy, will feel like they do just enough of all four to make it ok, even when they don’t.

Even more sadly, when leaders do recognize they come up short on any of the four, they don’t care enough to develop themselves in the areas they know they are weak or even just hire others to bolster the known weaknesses.

I wonder what leaders would do if every team member was able to rate the leader and that rating would then be used to determine total compensation. 

It works the other way around.  The leader gets to rate the team members and affect total compensation.

Maybe we should do both, or just switch for a year.

I wonder what would change.

I wonder if anything would change.

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I remember reading “Servant Leadership” over 2 decades ago, and I’m going to pull it out and read it again.  It sure seems its means as much if not more today. 

These are times of incredible change, but the one thing that shouldn’t change is a servant minded leadership from those who are being trusted to lead the change process.

But I’m not sure we’re seeing much evidence of that today.

We’re seeing a lot of numbers focused leadership and process focused leadership.

Undoubtedly, both can be critical in times of enormous external pressure when companies are fighting to get every nickel to the bottom line.

But, servant leadership isn’t incompatible with protecting the bottom line or optimizing the efficiency of a business.

In fact, I’d argue that servant leadership would accelerate your path to maturity and optimize business efficiency.

I bet there are lots of examples of just that thing out there.

I need to find them.

Then spread the word.

Serve.

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Is it ok to tell someone you LOVE them at work?

Is it ok to call your team together and tell them “I LOVE what you did” or “I LOVE you for what you did”?

Is it ok to say, “I LOVE this company”?

I think I’m guilty of all of these at one time or another.

So if it’s wrong, in the words of that old song, “I don’t want to be right.”

For me, LOVE anchors a team.  LOVE builds the team.  LOVE holds the team together during the toughest of times.  LOVE holds individuals in the company when attractive options may be luring them away.  LOVE opens the door for honesty and candor.  LOVE bridges the gap when communications is awkward.  LOVE allows patience when learning or growing has to occur.  LOVE provides the hug or the encouragement or the pick me up when so many other things drag anyone on the team or even the entire team down.  LOVE provides the space when it is desperately needed, and LOVE provides intimacy when a trusted ear or compassionate word is needed.

Is it ok to LOVE at work?

It better be.

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