Musings at Altitude

I had a wonderful experience a weekend ago when I was able to accompany a legion (not really that many, but certainly quite a few) of our family members up on a road trip to Denver to visit a 3-D ultrasound company that gave us another wonderful view of the beautiful life that is growing within our daughter right now and will burst into this world and I’m sure stun us all with her beauty and grace in August.

[Author’s Note:  OK, I’ll pause for just a minute and let you know that beauty and grace really don’t describe most new born babies…in fact, I thought my oldest daughter looked quite a bit like Yoda when she entered this world with her own special beauty and grace.  Now some would think Yoda was cute, and in a baby describing way, you are right.  That Yoda from then is the beautiful young woman of today that is incubating our soon to arrive granddaughter, and if every Yoda looking newly born baby came out over time as beautiful as my daughter of 23 years of life, the world would be an incredibly stunning place!  But I digress…back to the topic at hand.]

As the ultrasoundologiest moved her scope all over the belly of my daughter, we saw the wonderful 3-D image of our granddaughter, and we saw her all snuggled up in that oh so typical and obviously safe and comfortable fetal position.  I can imagine after seeing how long her legs seemed to be, that the fetal position was not only the most comfortable but quite frankly may have been the only possible position without sticking her feet out the side of my daughter for a big, long stretch.  I was stunned by the live imagery and awed by how technology gives us such a real life look at the little baby as she turns, stretches, moves, and even sleeps.  I’m including a picture of our granddaughter below…we couldn’t get a great picture of her face because she, almost knowingly, kept her face hidden and at one point even turned her back to us while we were trying to get a good picture.  But this picture shows so clearly the body and the snuggled up fetal position which she seems so comfortable to be in:

 

I am totally enjoying this journey we are on (even though as primarily spectators and support crew) as this new life grows in preparation for her grand entrance in August.  I realize I’m only the grandfather – and only one of them at that – but it sure is fun to watch the excitement that comes from the creation and then welcoming of new life!  It’s also so fun to watch the dynamics between our granddaughter’s mother and father, and the dynamics between the baby’s mother and her grandmother, my wife!  In a way, all of us get just a little bit out of character and a bit giddy as we make this journey…that’s also part of the fun and definitely part of the growing anticipation as my wife and I wait to spoil this new member of our family and the baby’s mother and father prepare to provide all that nurturing, mentoring, and worrying that comes with the territory as new parents!

This is so cool!

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I was so excited today – my 14 year old popped into my office and said, “Dad, let’s go for a walk.”  I was skeptical at first, not knowing her motives, but it really was just an attempt to go get some exercise with her Dad.  How cool is that.  I asked, “where are we going to walk to?”  She said, “to the Loaf & Jug and back”.  Then I got suspicious.  She quickly said, “I can get an ice cream or something while we’re there.”

Sure enough, we walked the long route to Loaf & Jug which was about two miles.  We talked the whole way about what she wanted to get done this summer, what I wanted to get done this summer, and what both of us were thinking about for our futures.  Then we got to Loaf & Jug.

At first, she tried to pick up a small container of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.  I drew the line at that one.  I just couldn’t imagine walking back home with her scooping out of an ice cream container.  So, we settled for this:

 

I must admit that I’m jealous that she can eat such high quality “snack food” and still be as thin as she is.  I’m also torn as to whether I’m a bad Dad for letting her eat such food (especially during exercising) or I’m a great Dad for walking the two miles with her so she could get it.  For those of you leaning on the “bad Dad” side, she did buy it herself…though I probably would have if she didn’t…she did after all ask me to go on a walk…and we did talk about things like school, and the future, and yep, even boys.

OK, so this may be nirvana.

 

 

 

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One of my favorite movies of all times is “The Replacements”, starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.  It has all the great themes:

• a group of misfits come together and achieve unbelievable success
• the failure as a player comes back and overcomes his past to be victorious in the end
• the tremendously talented bad guys lose in the end
• the winning quarterback gets the head cheerleader in the end
• the fired coach comes back to lead the team of misfits to victory
• before success comes learning through failure

After watching it again last night, I keyed in for some reason this time on several epiphanal points in the movie:

1. At the end of the first game using the replacement players, with only a few seconds left in the game and his team behind, the coach calls a pass play into the endzone and the quarterback audibles at the line to a run as he reacts to a perceived blitz; the runner ends up being tackled just one yard short of the end zone; the coach runs up to the quarterback and said he called pass and the quarterback said he read blitz; the coach said “you got scared”; the coach got the last word with “winners always want the ball”. 
2. That evening after the game, the team was having its post game blues washed away in a neighborhood bar when the professionals show up to poke fun at the loss and at them; a fight breaks out; the replacements end up in jail, not the professionals, and one of the guys asks why they are the only ones in jail; another guy on the team replies that it’s simple, they are winners; the jail scene ends with the coach bailing them out and saying if it ever happens again they won’t be playing on his team; then he says, “but I sure would have liked to see Martel’s [the pro quarterback] face when he got his ass kicked”; the team bonded after the loss
3. In the locker room the following day, the coach wanted to drill down on the collapse at the end of the game the previous night; he wanted to talk about fear; he asked the players what they fear and after a few joking comments about spiders and bees, the quarterback says “quicksand”; the team quickly agrees that quicksand is a bad thing, but the coach quickly tells them it’s not literal but figurative and asks the quarterback to explain; the quarterback talks about being in the game and one thing goes wrong…then another…then another…and the harder you fight the deeper you sink…like quicksand; the coach reminds all of the players that they’ve been given a second chance and when that chance ends they’ll be going back to their other jobs so they need to make the most of this chance and overcome their fears
4. And finally, in the final game of the regular season, the all pro quarterback crosses the picket line and the replacement quarterback is let go; during the first half of the game, the all pro yells at his team, demeans his team, and concludes during half time that “no one can win with these guys”; the replacement shows up at half time on a whim and says “I can”, and the coach fires the all pro and puts in the game the replacement quarterback; as you might expect, the revived team comes back and wins the game and finds the glory

Each of these four have so many parallels to business, and I could spend all morning now outlining each of them.  But I want to key on one area for each of the four epiphanal moments:

• Winner’s want the ball – I’ve been blessed with working for and with some awesome partners and team members over the years.  One thing stands out in my mind – when things get tough and the fires of business challenge are blazing, the very best always want to be in the fire – they always want the ball.  I’ve known leaders both above and under me that could not be found as a crisis erupted.  Those leaders lost respect of the entire team, because the folks in the fire fully realized that the leaders backed off rather than jumped in.  There is always risk of failure when jumping into the fire because often times even the best of folks can’t put out the flames or win the game.  I think it was Michael Jordan that talked about how many last shots he missed and thus lost the game.  But he’s remember for those shots he took and then won.  Winners always want the ball.
• Bonding follows loss – Not every business plan or every business decision turns out great; in fact, many if not most of them turn out very different than originally planned and thought.  I remember clearly one senior business leader in Europe telling me that he had 27 companies over the years and 26 of them were not successes; but that 1 that was made him a billionaire.  With every loss comes an opportunity for learning.  With every challenge comes an opportunity for bonding.  In every case though, a leader must emerge to facilitate the learning and the bonding.  I once said that “our greatest challenge was success”, because we had this really false sense of how good we were and how great our accomplishment were.  It’s the tough times that define the great teams, and it’s through failure that lifetime bonds are created and cemented.
• Quicksand – As I think back over my business career, I can’t think of a time where only one thing went wrong.  In fact, I can hear my wife’s counsel ringing in my ears that “bad news always comes in three’s”.  She’s pretty accurate with that statement.  When things start going wrong, they tend to keep going wrong.  In sports, coaches call a time out to change the momentum or to make adjustments.  In business, we need to do the same thing when things start going wrong – we need to take a step back, change the line up a little bit, make some offensive and defensive adjustments, and then get back in the business game.  I’ve seen “quicksand” suck down and destroy businesses.  I’ve seen the same for projects.  In all of those cases, the dogmatism of the company or the team and the desperate belief that they were doing things right and should just stick to it sank the company or the project.  The best solution to quicksand is that time out, that reaching out to others for help, and then the avoidance of the path that got you to that point in the first place.
• No one can win with these guys – I do believe that there are teams that face incredible odds to winning in specific situations.  In those cases, having a great coach or a great quarterback may decrease the losses, but probably won’t win a championship.  So many other factors must also be considered to have the championship team.  However, winning isn’t always based on the final score or the ultimate championship, because success can be defined in so many different ways.  I tell business leaders today that “your job is to give us options”.  Those options could be high levels of profitability or a tremendous return on investment or a company that could be consolidated within the family for greater strength and great market competitiveness.  All of those would be considered “wins”, but some of those wouldn’t be considered “the championship”.  Good leaders take the talent they are given and mold them into the best possible team to achieve the best possible results.  And it all starts with communications.  And it includes the bonding that comes from loss, and the climbing out of quicksand that comes from assessing and responding to our fears.  And it ends in winning, at some level, with great joy.

In sports, some are great individual performers and others are great team players.  It’s pretty easy to pick out the great athletes that struggle in a team environment, and it’s also very fun to watch the good but not great athletes that excel in a team environment.  We have so many examples of great teams that don’t seem to have the great individual players. 

Business is no different.  The business teams I enjoy the most are those that bring the passion and excitement of the quest to work with them every day, bond in ways that were unimaginable when they were first introduced, and overcome the numerous setbacks and quicksands that fill their journey…and through it all…they cherish and respect each other, embrace that vision, and achieve success.

That’s nirvana.

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 This is the first day of summer break for my 14 year old.  Several things happen on this day:

(1) With no school, no need to shower and get dressed

(2) Since school is over, it’s now time to plan what she’s going to do in almost every single day of the summer

(3) With the Stanley Cup Finals now occurring without her team in the finals, the countdown is on for the puck drop on next season – for those of you who care, there are 127 days till the start of the new hockey season

(4) With school out and Dad home, she can wander into my office at any time and try to occupy space and dominate my time

As I was trying to work today, she burst into my office proudly holding her pile of 179 Avalanche tickets.  I asked her what she’s going to do with them and she said she’s going to put them into a scrap book.  In fact, here’s page 1:

 

Now I’m pretty fanatical about some things, but I can’t ever imagine saving all of my old game tickets and then putting them in a scrap book.  That’s a bit much for me.  But to her, that’s what any good fan would and should do.

I’m very excited for her because this project gives her something to do for the next few days.  I’m very worried for me and her mom because when those next few days end and there are still 124 days or so till the season starts, she will drive us nuts seeking news or wanting to talk about the Avalanche.

After all, that’s what real fans do, isn’t it?

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When things slow down just a bit, I spend as much time as possible in introspection, thinking back on my actions and my attitudes.  Quite honestly, I don’t always like what I see in looking back.  Oftentimes in the heat of the business battle I get into what one good friend and colleague calls a “whiney and pissy” mood.  At those times, my good friends confront me with it in their own unique ways and hold me accountable for my not so helpful attitude.  That sometimes works, but sometimes doesn’t.  It really depends on how whiney and pissy I am and what caused both or either.  I typically though find something that revives my optimism within days of the bad attitude…sometimes within hours…every now and then though the attitude may last for a week or two…at those times, it’s typically because of a feeling of isolation and disconnection from others that should be in the business war with us and fighting the battle on a daily basis.  There’s nothing like feeling cut off on the business battlefield.

As I think back over my business life, I can clearly remember the times of isolation and distress.  There have been times where I’ve been sent in to explain to a client why something didn’t work or why we were so horribly behind schedule.  There have been other times where I’ve been sent in to replace fired managers or to recover from dramatically poor implementations.  In so many of these cases, my peers and chief executive would launch me in and hold back from any communications (knowingly or unknowingly), maybe to prevent any of the stink of the situation from getting on them or maybe out of some form of blind trust that somehow, some way that things would work out right.  Regardless of the rationale or the response, it was an incredibly lonely experience out in the heat of the battle.

As I think back over some recent times, I have been in a whiney and pissy mood, often caused by the actions or perceptions of actions or lack of actions of others, but whiney and pissy none the less.  From introspection, I can sense and see the debilitating effect that my attitude had on others around me, causing them to divert their attention from the critical mission at hand and focus for even just a moment on me.  That’s an unintended consequence of those moods – distracting others from a required focus when their attention really needs to be on the critical issues at hand. 

About a year ago in one of my whiney and pissy moods, I told a good friend that I was going to post JDYJ all over our office – JUST DO YOUR JOB – to remind people that they need to focus on what we were paying them for rather than focus on everyone else’s job.  I think in introspection that I needed a healthy dose of JDYJ myself in the recent past.  Maybe if I had focused intently on my own job and quit worrying about others and their jobs then maybe just maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into that mood that I got into and maybe just maybe I could have added enormous optimism to an otherwise incredibly challenging business environment.  JDYJ.  It applies to all of us.

Speaking of JDYJ, I got an email from a friend recently that asked me why I hadn’t communicated with another friend who I’d been in the heat of the business battle with in the past.  He had reached out to me several times over the last year as he was undergoing some job chaos and transition, and in the busy-ness of my current life, I had pushed off any response hoping to get to it later.  Since I didn’t connect back, he felt isolated and maybe a bit betrayed as he fought his own battles, as I would have too.  Not too different than what I’ve felt in the past when those I expected and needed communications from went silent on me – a uniquely lonely feeling.  My life isn’t just about business…it’s about friendship…and family.  JDYJ applies to all of these…and I need to follow my own mandate of JDYJ in business, in friendships and in family.

 I’m still learning in all phases of my life.  I have lots more graduating to do apparently.

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This time of year is packed full of graduations, at all levels of academic achievement, and the one that brings out the most people to watch and wonder is the Air Force Academy graduation.  It actually isn’t for a couple more days, but one of the big thrills is the Thunderbirds, and they always show up a couple days early for practice.  Today was practice, and we had spectacular views of the formations off our back deck.  Here’s one of the pictures:

 

On this Memorial Day, watching the Thunderbirds has even greater meaning as we honor those who have served and sacrificed for the freedoms that we share.  With our troops engaged in battle today and with the constant news of additional soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and to protect our way of life, I’m watching today with pride in their service and with prayers for their safety. 

For all who have served, thank you! 

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This weekend has been a weekend of recovery for me – mentally and physically.  I’ve been recovering from the stress of three tough weeks in a contract deployment environment and recovering physically by getting back in the groove with my put on hold exercise program.  At my age, the mental recovery is so much easier than the physical recovery!

But I wanted to give you just a quick taste of our weekend family life – maybe the modern family?  This evening, my wife and I were sitting in our room on our lounge chairs watching the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race – or I was watching the race – she was doing crossword puzzles.  We both had our legs up after a day of exercise, chores, and church and we just settled in for a bit of rest and relaxation.

As my wife worked on her crossword puzzle, she appears stumped by one particular clue and she reached down and grabbed her phone.  The text exchange between my wife and my 14 year old daughter who was just upstairs in the loft went something like this:

My wife: “what’s the capital of Latvia”

My 14 year old: “idk” [Editor’s Note: for those of you not in touch with the texting lingo, “idk” means “I don’t know”]

My wife: “find out”

My 14 year old: “Y”

My wife: “do it – don’t make me come up there”

My 14 year old: “fine”

After just a few seconds of anxious waiting:

My 14 year old: “Riga”

My wife: “thanks”

My 14 year old: “welcome”

And that’s a typical evening and typical exchange in our modern family environment.  I stand in awe of so many things in this exchange:

(1) My wife knew where to go get the answer – according to our kids, they know everything

(2) My 14 year old (as she always does) wanted to know the context of the question rather than just finding the answer; I think “why” is the most used word in her vocabulary today (of course, other than “Dad”, which starts every statement she make to me); I’m kind of proud of her for not blindly responding to anything she’s asked – just wish it wasn’t on absolutely everything she’s asked to do

(3) Our entire family now realizes you don’t have to leave the chair to get an answer to any question you may have; if you don’t have your laptop, then you text someone that does and get to the answer; if you do have your laptop and your just too lazy to look something up, you still text someone else and have them look it up for you; location doesn’t mean anything – anytime, anywhere access to answers to questions; by the way, it goes both ways too, it’s not just parents to the kids, but quite often its kids to the parents too

After getting the answer to the capital of Latvia (I’m so glad I know that now), both my wife and my 14 year old had to stop what they were doing because my 14 year old all the sudden wanted her nails painted.  And the world had to stop exactly at that moment and focus on her nails.  That broke my wife’s concentration on the crossword puzzle, and when that concentration is broken it’s real tough to get it back.  Of course my 14 year old has to move to dry her nails – and by move I mean run around the house – annoyingly so – interrupting and making totally random conversation – so concentration would have been impossible anyway.

As the annoying interruptions eased, we got back to focusing for no more than 5 minutes when my 14 year old comes walking into the room again with a new revelation – “I spilt the nail polish on the carpet in the loft”.  My wife immediately turned to crisis recovery mode heading upstairs to assess and resolve the problem (does anyone know how to get nail polish out of carpet?) – and as she’s lecturing my daughter on the errors of her ways, I hear this motherly point:

My wife: “if you’re going to do your toes, put them up on the desk so you can reach them”

Now I’m not a genius and I’m not even sure I heard that comment and the rest of that conversation right, but I’m pretty proud of the mentoring and on the job training that my wife was giving to my 14 year old at that time.

How’s that for a modern and yet not so modern family!

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Speaking of graduation, the events of this week have me thinking about the events of life in general.  In a sense, we’re graduating all the time from something.  We go to school all the time – not necessarily in a purely academic environment with lectures and listening – but definitely in taking on new challenges in life, watching others, learning from others, acting based on what we learned, and hopefully applying what we learned in a way that achieves some measure of success and provides our own individual contributions to some greater progress.  Some of us learn much quicker and graduate much earlier in any learning environment.  Others of us need to watch over and over again before we’re comfortable with taking what we learned and applying it.  And still others watch and learn but never feel comfortable applying what we learned in any challenging situation.  Yet, we are all still graduating from something most of the time.

As I think back on my life and dual careers (military and business), I can clearly see the points in my life where aggressive learning and constant graduation occurred.  In most of those situations, before I entered that phase of my life, someone counseled me against it, offering their wisdom that “if you chose that job, it’s the end of your career” or “if you go there, you can never come back”.  I smile when I think back on those comments because I always went where folks counseled me not to (that rebellious side of me) and I always learned so much more in the environments that others cautioned me to avoid.  I think back on 5 years I spent in Los Angeles, working 4 of those years for the most challenging boss I’ve ever had in my life, and I remember clearly several senior military officers telling me “don’t do it” and “it’s bad for your career”.  Those 5 years were a tipping point.  I am who I am today because of the somewhat defiant choice I made to go where others said don’t go.  I learned and then graduated constantly in those 5 years, taking on challenges that were deemed impossible, using the knowledge and resources of all our team and all of our organization, and contributing as much as I could and as often as I could to the mission of our organization.  The pace of learning was extreme.  The need to graduate constantly and apply the learning real time to tough situations was extreme.  The expectations were high.  The demands were enormous.  The support was endless, and the trust was beyond belief.  I owe a lot to that boss who created that environment and took a bunch of us with attitude and aptitude and turned us loose with enough learning to achieve success but not enough experience to achieve without challenge.  That’s really what graduation is all about I think…having just enough learning to achieve, but not enough learning to achieve without challenge.

The challenge is what makes life meaningful.  The graduation is just one of those special steps that says you’ve learned enough to take on the challenge.

I hope to keep graduating the rest of my life.  In honor of my daughter who graduated this week and will now jump into her own challenges, I’ll close with a quote from Florence Nightingale – “Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”  Let’s all keep graduating.

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My oldest daughter graduated this week – received her degree in nursing – completed the academic work for her chosen career path – now has to study for her certification – I think that’s what they call it – mission not complete just yet – soon though – no doubt she’ll pass that too and then excel throughout her life in helping others through nursing.  As she moves out of the college environment and into her profession, I have this incredible sense of awe for her because I know she’s going to be just a bit outside the box (always has been) and just a bit aggressive in her actions and her words (always has been).  I’m thinking and definitely hoping that she follows her heart and lives up to what Clara Barton long ago said – “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better.  It irritates me to be told how things have always been done.  I defy the tyranny of precedent.  I go for anything new that might improve the past.”  Clara Barton of course founded the American Red Cross.  She defied the precedent and improved the past.  What a great challenge for us all.  And what a great charge to my daughter as she now takes the years of learning and applies that learning to the betterment of all mankind.  I love you sweetie…defy the tyranny of precedent…believe in something better and make the world better for all of us!

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As we were driving back down I-25 toward home yesterday evening, the storm clouds were off to the East full of lightning and the mountains were off to the West.  I-25 is a North to South road at that point and you could fairly clearly see the demarcation between the storm and the clear skies to the South.  When we reached home, I sat out on the front porch and watched the lightning to the East as the darkness of night overtook us.  When I looked staight up though, I saw hundreds, no thousands of stars, and as I looked around the corner of the house to the West, I could see the outline of the mountains in the nightime horizon.

As I sat listening to the silence (the lightning was too far away to hear any rumble of the thunder), I began thinking about how that exact scenario mirrors business and life.  We’re heading down a path and may be in clear skies with some pretty good success at any given time, but off to the left of our path are the ominous storm clouds that always seem to be just off in the distance ready to create havoc over our lives or our business operations and off to the right is the treacherous terrain of the mountains which are the great barriers to progress that must be overcome in order to reach that next plateau of success.  With some great planning, some great market intelligence, and some great luck, that North-South drive under the stars of success in business may continue for quite some time, allowing us to put off the storm or to avoid the climb into the mountains for an extended period of business or personal peace.  But inevitably, the storm clouds will roll in or our path will force us to turn into those clouds.  We may veer right to avoid the storm though, and we may end up climbing into the mountains hoping we have the horsepower and the fuel to make it to the top and then over to the other side, but even that creates enormous new challenges that must be dealt with in order to get to the peak.

In my personal life, I’ve had extended periods of stars with times of big storms and other times of climbing huge mountains.  In business, because I thrive on high growth and start up environments, the periods of peace under the stars are comparatively short, and I always seem to be driving on the edge of the storm or in the foothills of the mountains…sometimes I’m in the midst of a business hurricane and other times near vertical trying to climb that mountain.

In both life and in business for me, I’ve sensed or seen the storm and through indecision or disbelief that the storm would move over my path, I’ve failed to prepare properly and thus suffered the consequences of the storm.  I’ve never turned willingly into the metaphorical storm, but I sure have seen the results of my lack of preparation or my slowness to decide. 

In both life and in business I have willingly turned into the mountains and charged upward, pumping more fuel and power into my life or into the business to maintain pace and to continue to climb.  In many cases we crested the mountain and gained pace on the other side, but every now and then, we couldn’t make it to the top and had to abandon the car or head back down to level ground.

As I sat on my porch, a song I learned in church kept coming to mind.  It’s called “Through It All”, and I kept singing it quietly and humming it to myself:

“I thank God for the mountains,

I thank God for the valleys,

I thank Him for the storms He brought me through.

For if I never had a problem,

I wouldn’t know that He could solve them,

I wouldn’t know what faith in God could do.”

It’s hard to appreciate the storms or the mountains when you’re facing both or either, but when those storms have abated or the mountains have been crested, I always find reasons to smile as I continue my path on the other side.

And one more thing…the storms are not nearly as ominous and the mountains are not nearly as treacherous if your partners and peers in that journey are folks that you love and respect and they provide support and encouragement through it all…that’s something very special.

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