Musings at Altitude

As I come out of the serenity of the Arctic Northwest of Alaska, I’ve been thinking about the things that create passion in me.  Here’s a quick list (soon on a plane, so not much time!):

(1) A quiet moment with someone I love

(2) A pursuit of something incredibly challenging that everyone else says can’t be done

(3) A commitment from the heart to help others when the brain says to run away fast

(4) A hug from a friend that’s unexpected

(5) A reference that yields incredible results to benefit others but yields no monetary results for me personally

(6) A kiss on the cheek from my daughter and a softly spoken “I love you, Dad”

(7) A pursuit of something that creates sleepless nights and focus beyond belief

(8) A totally collaborative team attacking a totally overwhelming problem

(9) A moment of serenity amidst the chaos of ordinary business life

(10) A long talk with a close friend with shared concern and shared conviction

(11) A smile at the end of a long pursuit or project

(12) A plane ticket home

(13) A word of encouragement and support during the heat of the business battle

So many more, but no time with the airplane soon departing.  But I’m desperately seeking moments of passion right now.

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In the serenity of Arctic Alaska, I’m continuing to ponder chaos.  I’ve mentioned previously six reasons why change is good, three of them fairly personal and three more that seem much more relevant to the organization than to me as a person.  But this time I want to talk about something very irritating when change is constant – the desire for folks across the organization to have opinions, to provide recommendations and to influence path or plan, even when they have no expertise, no relevant role, and no reason in the world to be part of the conversation.

When folks get engaged in the change process and change dialogue even when their roles and their aptitudes don’t warrant it, those people tend to muck things up more than contribute anything meaningful.  And in mucking things up, they end up slowing down the change process while folks across the organization end up responding to the insane or irrelevant recommendations and in responding to those inputs and opinions, those responsible for achieving change and optimizing the organization end up being marginalized themselves as they focus on the back chatter and inoportune insertions rather than paying attention to the critical details so important in a successful change environment.

Change takes courage.  It takes incredible resilience.  It takes a tenaciousness that allows those managing a change process to know they are right even when those initial indicators show otherwise and the pundits continue to “pundit” and position themselves for an “I told you so” deep into the project.  I have been part of no critical change process that didn’t have folks on the side wanting to engage when they shouldn’t and wanting to offer opinions when they don’t have the background or the expertise in the area of operations to be relevant.  I’ve also been part of no critical change process that didn’t spend more time focusing on external events rather than accomplishing the internal change.

That’s a big difference between managing change and project managing.  Project managing gives you some authority and responsibility, and in most cases, you have some form of control over cost, schedule and performance.  Change managing seems to always start with great promise and then gets deeply mired in politics (if the change is anything significant and broad in organizational context) as folks across the organization begin to offer their advice and recommendations during both the change planning process and in the change process itself.

My wife always tells me, “you just want to be in charge.”  That’s really not true.  I really don’t need to be in charge as much as I need to feel like have the ability to influence the direction and outcome without others trying to influence me or direct me without merit or without the background to add any value.  The more major programs I manage, the more I feel the burden cauded by those on the outside talking in, and only rarely do those people on the outside actually step inside to add value in their discussion and then join me on the blame line for the change process.

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I put in my last posting that there were three very good reasons for change – (1) age – I have a sense of urgency because I’m not a young man anymore; (2) stagnation – when things settle down to the point that the path is predictable (up, flat, or down), then change is good just to change the predictable path and outcome; (3) rejuvenation – change brings excitement, and excitement brings rejuvenation.

I’d like to add three more very good reasons for change now that I’ve had time to think about this at altitude and in a much more serene environment:

(4) Talent Optimization.  Over any period of time in an organization, teams change, responsibilities change, personalities change, and demands on individuals and stress on the organization can change.  When that occurs, it’s often times best to change roles and responsibilities just to optimize your talent, allowing those better capable or better motivated to do any particular task to go and do that particular task.  If folks show a particular passion for solving specific problems in an organization, maybe we ought to change in that fashion and let them go pursue.

(5) Maximizing Strength.  As the markets change and as the performance within any portfolio adjusts, rapidly adapting to the various indicators and nimbly redirecting great people against those rapidly emerging opportunities can maximize an organization’s strength against any high growth possibilities.  It’s so hard to do, but maybe the right thing is to greatly reduce the oversight of the poorest performing segments or companies to redirect that focus on the higher growth, higher potential and higher value contribution members of the portfolio.

(6) Ego Check.  Not all change needs to be upward or onward…some change should be downward and lateral in an organization.  Many times change can be a great ego check as folks have to dig deep inside to focus on what’s best for the organization rather than what’s best for that individual and any particular time.  Change creates uncertainty.  Change creates anxiety.  Change tests confidence.  Thus change is good.

I’m a big believer that comfort is a big enemy of success.  Once we get comfortable, we get complacent.  Once we get complacent, we risk being happy with the performance of today.  That’s not good enough.  Regardless of how great we’re doing, we should yearn to do better or to do more and we should yearn to change where needed to optimize the path and maximize the growth.  We need that sense of urgency and we need to embrace change as a tool to accelerate success.

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When I was in the Air Force, the one thing you could certainly count on was change.  Assignments would range from 1 year for school assignments, to 2 years for command assignments, to 3 or 4 years for your more routine assignments, and up to 5 or 6 years for certain special assignment.  Within those longer assignments, you could typically count on changing jobs or changing primary responsibilities within a job at least once or twice during the assignment.  I was in heaven regarding my desperate desire to constantly be changing, and even though in some cases I didn’t have a big say in the responsibilities I had, I certainly knew that the time I had to live with that job was limited and that at some point I’d be saved by the assignment office sending me orders and shipping me off to some knew location (fortunately, one that I preferred or facilitated the path towards).

When I left the active Air Force in 1997, that desperate desire to focus hard, achieve as much as possible in a short period of time, and then move on continued with me, many times from my own chosing and then a time or two from mutually agreed upon chosing between me and a boss or partner.  Since 1997, I have rarely had any single role for more than 2 years – in fact, with the exception of my reserve duty in Los Angeles, I’ve had no single role for more than 2 years. 

After my first couple of job changes (post military), I remember my Dad asking me if it was time for me to settle down and be stable for a while.  I laughed and said, “it’s not me”, and I still feel that way today.  I embrace change.  I need change.  In some cases, I so desperately desire change that I set the wheels in motion and start a slippery slope towards change that can rarely be stopped once the path down that slope has started.  I keep thinking that one day I’ll realize I’m not a young man anymore and the desire for change will go away, but I’m in my late 40’s now and in some ways I have a greater desire for more rapid change now than I’ve ever had in my life.  I’m not sure why the desire for change seems to be accelerating, but I have some theories:

(1) Age.  Since I am getting older, I realize that the opportunities for me to take on the really daring jobs with the most extreme challenges may be fleeting.  My entire life I’ve jumped at jobs or at projects where people said “you must be nuts!”  I just grinned and charged on and in every one of those jobs or projects I learned valuable lessons about myself, some with great success and others with much less than success.  Even in the failures I learned so much, and in fact, I probably learned more from those challenges that did not deliver the results that were originally expected.  As time goes by, I fully realize that the opportunities will diminish and the will to rapidly change everything will slowly fade away – but it hasn’t yet - and the desire to take on extreme challenge and create dramatic results still exists today.

(2) Stagnation.  Stagnation is defined as “to stop developing, growing, progressing or advancing” (www.dictionary.com).  Each of us has a point of stagnation, let’s call it a stagnation quotient – that point in our involvement in a company where our unique talents, at a unique time, in a unique situation end up driving a predictable outcome, which could be predictably up, predictably flat, or predictably falling.  When the outcome becomes too predictable, then it’s time for change, whether the outcome is predictably up, flat, or down.   I’m not sure what that point of stagnation is, and it probably varies with every unique team, at a unique time, in a unique situation.  But it almost certainly does occur.  For me, it seems like the point of stagnation is every 2 years, sometimes earlier, but never later.

(3) Rejuvenation.  I get excited with new challenges, new teams, and new scenarios.  In fact, I get rejuvenated when I sense a new challenge on the horizon and I begin engaging in that challenge long before any actual transition has occurred.  One of my great flaws/weaknesses though is that I “drop and run” when I get the hint of that new job and begin to focus almost exclusively on that new adventure, turning over the last adventure to others that desire (or maybe not) to stay on that journey that I’d be leaving.  But rejuvenation is critical to me and my ability to stay focused on the mission at hand is almost entirely based on the excitement I feel and the extreme challenge that exists.

Regardless of reason, change is good…change is needed…change is expected…and change is merited.  I’ve often times wondered how much better we could have done in past jobs if we’d changed earlier, before the roll offs had occurred.  I’m convinced that human nature encourages us to be comfortable with success and to ride those that allowed us to achieve for far to long, thus almost assuring some periods of less success till we take action that we probably should have taken long before the action was needed. 

I like doing my part in facilitating change long before the change may have been required.  It’s in my blood.  It’s who I am.  It rejuvenates me.

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I’ve been home for a few days now, and unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your disposition), I’ve had the chance now to watch the habits of my family and based on those habits come to one very important conclusion – life really isn’t fair.  Members of my family have been blessed with special gifts that they probably don’t even know they have, while I’ve been left to struggle with my own special challenges.

A prime example was at breakfast this morning.  I sat down to cherish my special bowl of raisin bran crunch which gives me the required amount of fiber and the perfect amount of vitamins and minerals that allows me to function somewhat effectively as a rapidly aging man.  A few minutes later, my 14 year old comes out and gives my still petite wife a big piece of cake for her breakfast, and then the 14 year old went and warmed up a big pile of homemade mash potatoes.  I was stunned, but evidently this isn’t necessarily abnormal behavior for the two of them.  There wasn’t much pizza left, after all, so instead of pizza they obviously had to have cake and mashed potatoes.  Their breakfast was somewhat topped a couple hours later when my son sat down to eat his breakfast and munched out on donuts and brownies.  Yum yum.  My son is another person that can eat whatever he wants with no consequence to his body, whereas whatever I eat shows up somewhere in an awkwardly looking way within minutes it seems of me smacking down that first bite.

So I sit here today with a body weight heading north of 220 pounds, and not a one of them tops 145 pounds today.  It’s really not fair.  They can eat cake, donuts, brownies, pizza, mashed potatoes, and mega meals for breakfast and I have to pack down fiber – and I have to watch how much fiber I pack down too because all fiber packing people know what fiber does to you.  What’s fair about that?

 

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If you read my previous blog, you’ll know how much I dreaded the “Do You Know Your Bride” test that my 14 year old was going to force me to take.  Unfortunately, she read the blog soon after it was done and she had a sense of urgency to get the test done before I hid the book or before I left on the trip.  So she sat down with my wife and got through the first 50 of the 100 question test, and then she cornered me for my answers.

Before I tell you my score on those first 50, realize that I’m not observant and anything that requires remembering further back than yesterday is probably an automatic “wrong”.  But I was pretty proud to get 28 out 50, so I’m sitting at 56%, which on their scale put me right below “scum” level.

I have one thing going for me though – I really believe I know my wife better than she knows herself.  Good grief.  Several of my answers were dead on for what I think about her, and she gave the wrong answer about herself.  Those make me smile because although I got them wrong on the test, I know I’m right in my heart.

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My wife, my 14 year old and I stopped off at the local bookstore this morning under the pretense of getting my 14 year old a book that was required reading for school.  We did do that, but as always, we visited our favorite sections of the bookstore too and spent our typical $100 on this month’s reading.

On the way in the store, I veered over to the “best sellers” book shelf, just to see what folks were reading right now.  I rarely look at and even more rarely buy fiction, so I peered through the non-fiction best sellers.  Number 1 was still “The Last Lecture” which I was glad to see.  Most of the others on the best seller shelf I had no interest in.  As I was peering at the titles though, I heard my wife calling me and she was holding up a book soon very relevant for her as she enters that phase of her life – “Menopause Sucks”.  I got a chuckle out of that one and though I was tempted to see what it said to get some pointers for handling it from the man side, I skirted that table and headed back to my favorite section, Management. 

I must profess, I’ve read more management books than I probably should.  I’ve shook my head in affirmation and understanding to everything they say in many of those books, and then I head right out into business in my leadership and management roles and blow it more times than I’d like to admit and violate most of the rules that they’ve ever written.  Fortunately, with lots of apologies and some significant support from others who have always protected me well, more often than not, things turn out good – but not because of the leadership or management approach I took – it was because of great people that have always seemed to pick me up and carry me across that successful finish line.  Today, I bought two books by David Cottrell – “Monday Morning Mentoring” and “Monday Morning Choices”.  I’m anxious to read both books and spend most of my reading saying “yup, know that” and “you got that right”, and then proceed right to my job and blow it.  I really do have a thick head, and I’ll spend the next few months reminding myself of what I read and then what I did different than what was suggested in the readings.

While I was in the Management section, my wife popped by, gave me a quick hug and kiss and headed off to her private world of reading pleasure – the romance section.  After picking my books, I walked over into her section with her, and she was telling me how last visit to the bookstore when she came to the romance section, two 80 year old guys were browsing the books too.  That made me chuckle.  Everyone needs a spark sometimes!  My wife picked her books, and we headed out to find my 14 year old.  [Editor’s Note: Notice I’m not spending any time on why my wife visits the romance section – somethings are best left unsaid!]

She was in the teen section, and after finding the required reading book (that was why we went to the bookstore after all), she was looking through the teen series books to find the perfect series for her to read next.  Of course when she says “series”, I see dollars, because these 10, 12, or even 14 book series get the kids locked in and thus keeps the parents credit card out…brilliant move on their part…reminiscent of my passion for the Bourne Series of books when I was a high schooler.

When we all had our books (yep, $100 worth), we stopped by the journal section in route to the cash register (by the way, why is it still called a cash register?).  While my wife and I looked at journals, my daughter found a book that as she read you could hear her chuckling – thus, she had to have it.  Here’s the book she was looking at: 

 

It’s 100 questions that tell you how well you know the significant woman in your life.  I immediately said “no” (since I was paying), and she said “I’ll pay for it”.  All I could see was embarrassment in my future, so I said “no” again.  She pleaded her case, and even though I will hate every single minute of this test, I caved.  So we now have this book at home.  For those of you who are wondering, the scoring goes like this:

— Above 900 – great performance

— 800 – 900 – very good for a couple just starting out

— 600 – 790 – pretty good, but should improve with time

— Under 600 – ask for help

My biggest fear is that after 25 years of marriage, I’ll do so poorly that my wife will use this against me for the rest of my life.  She already reminds me of my poor choice of restaurants for Mother’s Day decades ago (there was no line at Bob Evans), and the time I made her cry in a very expensive restaurant in Houston 15 years ago (I said I really didn’t know what love was when we were married but now I surely did – as politicians say all the time now, “I was taken out of context”), and the time I brought her home from the hospital after the birth of our first child (23 years ago) and immediately went off to play in a squash tournament (it was the finals of the base championships and I couldn’t possibly forfeit – besides I lost and that was punishment enough).  I can only imagine the ammunition she will have when I get 500 or less on this test – I am that unaware of things going on around me and definitely that clueless about what she likes and dislikes.  I don’t fear the score nearly as much as the answers that I miss…it could be brutal.

So, I’m thinking about hiding this book and hoping that my daughter doesn’t remember.  Unfortunately though, she’s got a mind like my wife and remembers everything.  My guess is the questions will start sometime today, and then the grading will start later this weekend.  I’m fortunately leaving on another trip on Sunday so with any luck at all I’ll be North of the Arctic Circle before too many of my answers are compared to my wife’s.  It will be nice to be out of phone and blackberry range when the full scope of my ignorance becomes known!

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Late last night my 14 year old came into our room and asked if we could go out to breakfast this morning.  My 23 year old very pregnant daughter had a doctor’s appointment this morning and didn’t want to go, and my wife was going with 23 year old to her appointment so she didn’t want to get up early and go either.  So I made my 14 year old beg a little bit and suffer with the thought of not going a little bit before I gave the inevitable, “Ok, I’ll take you”.

You need to know several things about my 14 year old:

(1) she has no problem waking up in the morning, and she’s as bouncy and perky in the morning as she is at any other time of the day all the way up to bed time

(2) she never is at a loss for words, so any adventure that includes the 14 year old also requires an enormous amount of attention or you can most certainly count on hearing the same conversation again when you will pay attention

(3) she always includes certain subjects in every single conversation – hockey and the latest news about the Avalanche; fashion and how her purse so perfectly matches her clothes and so efficiently carries all of her needed assundries; and summer plans and how I still need to make her reservations to complete her summer objectives by sending her back east to visit her friends that we left behind when we moved back to Colorado

So last night we agreed to leave the house at 7:00 am, and this morning at 6:50 am she was completely ready and tapping at the door wanting to make sure I was ready and wanting to ensure we left on time.  That’s another thing about my 14 year old – plans are plans and schedules are meant to be kept.  We left the house about 7:03 am, so I was already the target of her comments and criticism because I had said we would leave at 7:00 am and it was already 7:03.  As we got in the car, her choice was IHOP and her quest was cheesecake pancakes.  As expected, we talked about the first two of the in-every-conversation topics in route to IHOP, and we covered the third at the table.  One of the most amazing things to me about my 14 year old is how the conversation just flows – constantly – and so randomly – with no real purpose but so much intensity and so consistently on message and on topic (even though very random in sequence). 

As she talked, we ordered, and as always, she stunned me with her food selection:

My 14 year old is incredibly petite – a size 0 I believe – maybe a size 2 in pants right now, but when she sits down to eat, she’s anything but petite.  So as I watched her petitely pack down this mega meal from IHOP, she continued on her discussion thread and covered even more topics certainly relevant to her but not very memorable to me.  I was fortunately distracted as I packed down my healthy omelet that was only a fraction of the size of her not-nearly-as-healthy meal, and when I looked up just a few minutes later I saw this:

 

You can see from this picture how petite my daughter is with the plate actually wider and rounder than she is.  And you can also see that she packed away some food while she continued with her constant dialogue on life and her issues.  My guess is that she put down about 1200 calories and pushed out about 2400 words in a 15 minute period.  That’s about 2 words out for every calorie in.  Since I was on receive mode most of the time and eating healthy, my meal was probably about 600 calories and I pushed out about 200 words.  That gave me 1 word out for every 3 calories in. 

Now I don’t know what all this means, but she packs in 1200 calories and stays petite and I pack in 600 calories and look quite hefty.  I can only assume with the limited data that I have that it has something to do with the quantity of words and the animation in delivery.  She obviously has the clue that hands should fly, the body should be constantly shifting and moving, and the flow of words should be almost unrecognizable in order to achieve maximum burn and thus maintain that petite status.

Anyway, as always, the time spent with my 14 year old was both enlightening and rewarding.  I’m now up to speed on all things related to hockey again and I’m almost hip in understanding the fashion trends of the day.  I’m also aware of my ongoing “to do list” as she reminded me that I have to get her reservations for her summer trip which will be one of her last two summer objectives that she must achieve.

What a great way to start the day…all is now at peace though I’m the only one that left with a follow up item!

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When my wife got home today, she came into the house and told me that something was wrong with the van.  The internal lights in the rear of the van stayed on even after shutting the van off, and when you opened the door, even without the key in the ignition, the fast paced tone came on telling you the lights were on.  I immediately recognized my chance to do a manly thing and find out what the problem was with the car, so I quickly went outside, surveyed the situation, saw it was exactly as she had said, professed my utter confusion, and then went around the car and slammed every door just in case one of the doors wasn’t sealing right and thus leaving the sensor open and thus the lights on.  When that didn’t work, I pulled out the owner’s manual and then I did what every man does – opened the hood (called it the trunk first, but she knew what I meant when I asked her to open it).  I needed the owner’s manual because I didn’t know where the fuse box was – must have been a fuse if slamming the doors didn’t work.  When I opened the fuse box (I was really looking like I knew what the heck I was doing at this point), I scrutinized the fuse box lid looking for the fuse which controlled the interior lights, but lo and behold, no such fuse existed. 

After looking a bit harder, I shrugged my shoulders and went inside to call the Dodge dealer to ask them if they had any idea what it might be.  When I got on the phone with the service manager, he asked, “did you check the interior light switch” to which I said, “yep, it’s not that” and he then suggested it must be a problem with a door latch not registering as closed – exactly what I thought it might be when I went around and slammed each of the doors shut.  I was feeling very proud at that point.  Since the lights stayed on, we were worried about the battery so I asked if he could look at it immediately and he said not till the morning.  I asked if I could go ahead and drop it off because I was worried about the battery, and he said, “no problem, we’ll just jump it in the morning if the battery is dead.”  I quickly got on the road to take the van to the dealer over-night drop off entrance, and when I got there, I once again flipped switches to make sure it wasn’t something stupid and then I’d really look like a fool.  As I was flipping every switch on both sides of the steering wheel, I moved one spool wheel which I had no idea what it did and sure enough the lights went out.  I moved it back and the lights came on.  I immediately realized that the service manager must have meant that switch when he first asked me did I check the interior light switch which I was certainly sure that I had. 

When I called my wife, the first question she asked was “didn’t the service manager ask you that” and I said “of course not” because I really didn’t want to admit that I was that stupid.  But the more I think about it, the more I feel a sense of great relief that I didn’t leave the van and hear one of two things tomorrow morning when the service guy was done laughing at me:

(1) “are you really that stupid?”

(2) “we needed to replace all of the door sensors and it costs $600”

I have a great sense of “whew” right now realizing how lucky I am that others didn’t get the chance to see how really stupid I am.  Of course, when my wife reads this and realizes I said a little white lie about what the dealer asked to prevent her from laughing hysterically, then she’ll give me that “you’re such an idiot” look that I always deserve and probably laugh hysterically anyway. 

But, I did slam all the doors and look under the hood though…that counts for something doesn’t it?

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As a parent, I’ve come to the conclusion that kids know everything (at least they think they do), kids know things lots sooner than we do (at least it seems that way), and kids want to let us know they know things long before we would have known regardless of their relevance to anything significant that’s going on.  My 14 year old is no different…she thrives on getting the scoop and then quickly broadcasting that scoop to her mom, to me, to her sister, or to anyone else that will listen whether they care or not.

But I have to tell you, it sure is satisfying to me to scoop my 14 year old, especially on something so critically important to her life like the happenings during the off season of the Colorado Avalanche.  I scooped her today.

As usual, first thing this morning, she got up and went on the web to look at the news from the Avalanche.  As with most days, there was no news today, so no broadcast, or screaming down the stairs, or “Dad, guess what?” from her this morning.  As she was out shopping with her mom and her sister though, the Avalanche announced the re-signing of two of their key defensive players to multi-year deals.  I smiled in knowing that she hadn’t seen the news, so I had her scooped, and I was anxious for her to get home for me to say, “guess what?”

About an hour later, she called with a noticeable tinge of excitement in her voice, and she asked, “guess who the Avalanche signed today?”  I paused and said, “uhhh, let me guess, John-Michael Liles and Adam Foote?”  She said, “you already knew!”  Then she spent a couple minutes reliving how she checked the news this morning and there was none, but now there is, and now she’s happy because this is a good move for the Avalanche.

Unfortunately, scooping my 14 year old is a very rare event, and though it feels good at the moment, I’m sure I’ll be back to my typically uninformed and not-with-the-events-of-the-day state by tomorrow.  But I must admit that for the moment it feels good…really good…and maybe just for the moment my 14 year old will think I really care as much as she does about the Avs…which is impossible…and something I really don’t want to ever strive to achieve!

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