Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

In June, I'm going to try something different.  Each week, I'll choose a theme and try to blog every day ( Seth Godin style) on the theme of the week.  Weekly topics will be as follows: Week 1: Leadership & Management Week 2: Storytelling & Presenting Week 3: Business Strategy & Operations Week 4: Other (In honor of the circle under "race" that I always had to shade in with my #2 pencil when I was taking standardized tests)  Let's see what happens. 

It's easy to get comfortable in a miserable situation or environment.  Work environments draw no comparison to POW camps, maximum security prisons, or bad inner city neighborhoods, but I think that from a sociological perspective, people that are in these environments learn to deal and adapt.  People that are in terrible work environments make the best out of the situation and eventually fall into one of three categories. Depression with little to no hope of getting out Frustration and trying everything they can to get out Comfortable with a self-fulfilling prophecy that how it ends is how it ends The difference between a POW camp and a work environment is that you have a choice when it comes to work environments.  You may not think you do, but you do. And you have to seriously consider what limiting belief or fear is holding you back from saying, "f*ck it, I'm done." Is it a fear of what other people will think?  Is it the fear of losing your six figu...

Have we all become order takers?  Look at your inbox. More importantly, how much time do you spend in your inbox?  Is it a list of to-do items that someone else has set for you?  Look at what you are selling.  Are you selling a checklist or are you selling a story to a problem that matters?  How much time have you spent thinking about why you are doing something?  How much of your time is spent working on someone else's agenda based on his or her rules?  For a minute, offer up a point of view and see if it sticks. If you believe in it and it doesn't seem to stick, tweak it and try to get it to stick.   Eventually someone will listen. 

Consultants spend a lot of time giving advice to clients that don't listen.  Just because said client pays the bills doesn't mean that they will heed your advice.  Many times a client will already be set on a fixed set of assumptions and characteristics and your job as a consultant is to either 1.) Justify and rationalize your client's irrational assumptions; or 2.) Be the one to take orders and do the things that your client won't do or doesn't have the time to do.  Those two things alone are pretty lucrative. Stay in this kind of environment long enough and you will begin to feel all kinds of insecurities if you have a conscience.  Questions like -  "Is it my communication style that's not effective enough?; or  " Am I not smart enough and is he or she not respecting me?    9 out of 10 times you will think that it's your fault that the client is not listening to you.  It's why finding the right client is such a blessing....

"Your biggest problem is that you were honest and that isn't what they [leadership] wanted to hear." Of all the things that my replacement told me, these are the words that made an indelible impression. For those of you that have been unceremoniously thrown under the bus, remember that it's partially your fault even if you think none of it is your fault.  But given the fact that there are a fleet of buses and more than enough drivers in corporate America to begin with, the odds really aren't in your favor.  If you aspire to work in an environment that is organizationally healthy, here are a few things to look for: Responsiveness - How long does it take a leader, peer, or co-worker to respond to an email? And when they do respond, does it move your project, solution to a problem, or management of an issue forward?  If you have to follow up an email with a phone call with a text and an IM, you are probably not in a very responsive environment.  Timelin...

This past weekend one of my good friends got married and he had a big get together on the day of The Kentucky Derby. As part of the festivities, everyone could put in $5, draw a number from a hat, and get assigned a horse. If the horse wins, you're rich. If not, you're out 5 bucks.  There were two pots. I picked one number out of one pot.  My 4 year old son picked another number for the other pot.  We both picked Bolo . (Odds at the time of the race- 31 to 1) Odds of us picking the same horse -- obviously better than Bolo winning the race. For a lot of us, we may be working on projects that are like Bolo -- a long shot to come out a winner. However, for those of us in them, we have to believe that we'll win even though we're not set up for success.  In Bolo's case, the competition was just that much better.  In the case of project work, it's not necessarily the competition - it's a combination of biases in decision making, capability (or incapab...