Awards Assembly

On Wednesday, awards were given to the people that had made the largest contribution to the community and industry.  Initially, I expected this to be sort of a silly thing; recognition like what the Employee of the Month or the “top performer” has become at so many companies.  

 

I was wrong.

 

This was an almost touching retrospective view of the work, time, consideration, and intelligence this group of candidates had given to the state of this art and science.  It actually made me appreciate the whole conference a lot more. This group of people takes this work really seriously.  They have fun, of course – and you can laugh for large chunks of your day if you follow many of these people on twitter – but they really care and see value in what they are doing. I won’t use “passion” because I feel that is overused and kind of trite when you talk about something like work.  They are inspired, though, and they aspire to move an industry and to educate practitioners in this industry.

 

As I type this, I’m thinking “It still is work, right?” It is, but they are scientists, performing experiments. They are theorists and mathematicians developing new ways to look at algorithms; humorists and philosophers developing new ways to look at ideas; engineers and English majors identifying new ways to express ideas.

 

At midday, thirty minutes were devoted to Ignite-like presentations.  Each presenter talked for five minutes, supported by 20 slides that advanced automatically every 15 seconds.  The topics varied from a new way to show work on a kanban board to respecting people.  I tweeted (really? I don’t like that verb) that the presentation about respect was “…the best five minutes of the week so far.” It remained in the top minutes of the conference for me – and it wasn’t about the work.

 

My favorite moment, though, was when the recipient of the Community Award (roughly equivalent to the lifetime achievement award) gave a shocked, sincere, quick response of “I have a post-it on my monitor that reads <<Grow the soil, not the plants>> and I always try to follow that” and then he choked out a thanks and sat down.  I don’t know this person, other than attending a presentation he gave, but in that moment, I felt like I knew everything I needed to know.

 

The thought of “Grow the soil, not the plants” is rattling around my head. It helps me reframe what I’m trying to do as a parent, employee, friend, and husband. And gardener, I guess, but that feels a little too obvious.)  I’m still trying to figure out what it means and how I live that thought.  Who would have thought I’d get something like this out of a technical work conference?

 

Well, that and I can now explain Little’s Law.

Learning

I like learning new things. And, it appears that as I get older, I’m enjoying learning more things.

 

As mentioned yesterday, I’m at a conference about lean kanban, which is something I have a very shallow depth of knowledge about, but want to learn more. I’m still not going to discuss that today. Every day, I spend a portion of my day working on photography, French, or some other topic. My latest “other topic” is decision making. There are so many easy jokes for me to make about me studying decision making – maybe later.

 

In reverse order:

I’m reading a bunch about decision making. After the series of books I’m reading, I think I’ll focus on statistics and measurement. Then, maybe poetry?  

 

I’m a photographer, or at least I aspire to be a photographer. I take pictures and a lot of people seem to like them. Most of the walls in our house contain pictures I’ve taken that Jennifer has selected.  I still feel lucky when I get a picture that I like a lot. I barely understand all the things that my camera can do, but as I walk down the street, I see things that would make a good picture. I like thinking about what should be in the frame and out of the frame. I like the juxtaposition of new and old, serious and funny, drab and bright, and urban and nature.  I don’t study photography every day, but try to read or practice several times a week.  For the longest time, I took very few pictures and only read about others taking pictures. A friend suggested I should take some of my own to really learn what I’m doing and what my style is. 

Seth Godin wrote, “Until you confront the fear and discomfort of being in the world and saying, "here, I made this", it's impossible to understand anything at all about what it means to be an entrepreneur. Or an artist.”

 

The part about the artist is what stuck out to me.

 

I love the French language and thanks to a wonderful job, I’ve had the chance to travel to Bordeaux, France three times, with more trips planned in the future. I studied French in high school and some in college. I feel like “French” is a pretty big part of what I imagined my life would be when I was in school.  I didn’t aspire to live in France, or really even travel to France, but I studied it and somehow made it part of me. In retrospect, I find that hilarious – a kid from Iowa who feels like he has French heritage? Ha.   In 2011, when I first heard I would travel to France, I purchased Rosetta Stone and studied all the time… like every day [not really all the time, nor every day].  As the departure date drew near, I did start studying every day. The result was that I knew practically nothing when I went to France the first time.  I have a pretty good command of vocabulary, just not how to put all the words together. And definitely not how to understand it when someone speaks to me.  

 

The first trip was fun. I think I was that funny American who tried to speak French. I studied a ton – really – for the months leading up to my January 2013 trip. I started to learn the different tenses – future, imperfect, past tense – and got completely confused. My vocabulary was still growing and my grammar was improving. By the time we did our March 2013 trip, I was more realistic about what I knew. This was very helpful, I think. As a part of my job, I interview people about what they do. I tried to mix English and French, as the interview participant needed it. That seemed to help our communications. When at restaurants or en route (airports, planes), I tried to speak only in French.  This proved shocking or hilarious in some situations, like when I used a word that could mean kiss or <insert vulgar term for a very loving act> or when I ordered a potato (pomme de terre) tart instead of an apple (pomme) tart. 

 

I’m still studying French, but my daily study has fallen off a bit as I focus on other deadlines at work. I want to focus more on it, though. It’s such a lovely language, and I’m amazed at how different I think of things when I think in French.  For example, tonight during dinner, a couple sat at the table right next to me at the restaurant.  They were speaking English to the waiter and to each other, but after a minute or so, they switched to French.  I wasn’t really listening, nor did I understand much of their conversation. I picked up occasional words, the cadence, and the beauty of the language.   I texted my wife to see if she thought I should greet them and talk for a minute in French as I was leaving. Jennifer responded “Yes you should”. (She also helps me order food some times, even when I’m traveling…). So, after I paid, I leaned over and talked to them in French.  You know, just excuse me. Sorry to intrude. I’m trying to learn French and couldn’t help but notice that you were speaking it. I love hearing it and feel so grateful that you sat next to me. 

 

Only I was way more awkward.  They asked a few questions about where I was studying French and why. I answered and shuffled off.  I hope they didn’t feel as awkward as I felt. I do love the language and I do love learning.

 

Next up – figuring out this joke I saw on a t-shirt at the conference today – “There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.”  (kidding – I actually get this one!)

New ideas

I’m at a conference in Chicago. It’s the first time I’ve attended this conference, and I’ve been looking forward to it since registering. The topic is … Lean Kanban.  Yes, really.  I will explain more on that in a later post. I’m still trying to figure it out, actually.

 

The best part of the conference isn’t really the conference.

 

Like all conferences, there are good and bad presenters, fascinating and dull topics, and networking with some cool people. The part I’m enjoying most, though, is the time to think.  It’s unusual to have a week where I don’t have five nearly-full days of meetings, deadlines and conference calls.  Granted, I arrive at the conference at 7:45 and leave around 6, but it’s a different kind of demand.  For example, two sessions this afternoon weren’t interesting to me, so read some articles on my reading list. (Also, I skipped lunch and ran along the lakefront.)

 

Dinner was spent discussing a potential new model we could use for process improvement that isn’t based on process, but instead is based on supporting the needs people.  We spent a couple of hours talking about Maslow, Immelman, Parry, organization change, Kotter, culture, various survey techniques, research projects, kanban principles, CMMI and PeopleCMM, Human Resources, performance management and many other related topics.  The conversation and its potential outcome was interesting, even exciting, but the thoughts in my head on the way back to the hotel were more about the big-project-new-idea mindset that was reopening.  I used to do this a lot as a recent college graduate, as a new manager, as a grad student in a MBA program, but these muscles felt a little unused.  I miss it.  I miss the rush of reading FastCompany and wanting to experiment on some work project.  I’m not saying the sensation was felt for the first time tonight – I just really noticed the sensation and its newness. 

 

It’s a good feeling and a great way to end the day.

Blessings

Good people doing great things for wonderful people. I received a press releases this morning for one of my favorite organizations.

_____________________

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mary Ann Johnston  (Phone: 417-837-1500)

CoxHealth Foundation AWARDS THE KITCHEN CLINIC $58,000

As the Kitchen’s Medical Clinic prepares to reopen following renovation, another boost has been given to the project.
The CoxHealth Foundation board of directors voted this past week at their annual meeting to approve a community grant of $58,000 to the Clinic in support of the care provided to so many families, including the uninsured. "We consider the Kitchen Clinic a partner in providing quality care to our community. The Clinic meets the need of some 500 people per month who might not otherwise seek care if it were not for this service. If we can be a part of their accessing care and leading healthier lives, then we are also fulfilling our mission of service", says Lisa Alexander, President of the Foundation. In addition to client visits the Clinic fills approximately 3,000 prescriptions each month free of charge. The renovation of the Clinic was made possible primarily by a grant from the Missouri Foundation For Health. The grand opening will be held on October 6th and the public is invited to tour the facility on this date from 1:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
_____________________

Thank you, CoxHealth!

Interpretation

In a conversation today, we were trying to uncover effective ways to influence opinion leaders, communicate good information, interrupt incorrect information and evangelize an upcoming project. It made me think of something I read last night:

Cultivate the fringe by finding out who disagrees with current directions, constructively or not, and harvest the diversity of opinion.

So many times, we want to focus on the people that really like what we are doing. It is important, maybe more so, to hear the people that don't like what we are doing. It may make us see the error of our ways, identify a point of miscommunication or bring up a really cool enhancement -- at the very least, that person will feel like they had a voice. Even when things don't go my way, I feel better when someone takes my opinion seriously.

 

Immaturity

After that last post, I think I'm really not mature enough to be an Elder. Thoughts?

Homophones

I'm an Elder at my church. This past Sunday morning, the Deacons, Elders and Ministers were conversing in the office a few minutes before the service began. As is the custom, the Minister asked me (one of the Elders) to say a quick prayer before entering the sanctuary.

The normal prayer template is:

Thank you for ___, ___, and _____
Please be with all those in this room and help us to create a meaningful worship service.
Amen.

Well, I have this thing about public prayer. It frightens me. Not the prayer so much, but the activity of praying aloud in front of others. I actually do better in front of the entire congregation than in a small group setting. To me, prayer is a personal thing. Anyway, I was all ready to go with the standard and customary prayer template and then said...

Thank you for the sun of the morning after the rain of the week.

(internally) What was that? A flourish of creativity? Shoot. That sounded ridiculous. Who talks like that? And then, I thought… Wait, do you think people understood what I meant? Maybe they thought I said:

Thank you for the son of the mourning after the reign of the weak.

I just used four homophones that have religious connotations. And then I laughed out loud. And then said Amen.

No one said anything (also sort of a custom -- you are going in to church after all), but my friend looked at me as if to say, "What was that?!?"

Balance

I ran across these comments by Seth Godin:

We get to make a choice. And we can remake that choice each day. It's never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. It only takes a moment -- just one second -- to decide.

Before you finish reading this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that's to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the one question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?

Lately, I'm alternating between this kind of optimism (opportunity is right in front of us!) and a sense of overwhelming negativity (poverty, environmental concerns, illiteracy, war, terrorism, process adoption, PPQA staffing -- some of these things are obviously more important than others). 

I guess the idea is to keep moving forward; keep taking that next step toward solving the goal. It just takes a second to make the decision to be optimistic or pessimistic. 

Unusual

From time to time (okay, near-daily), I receive some pretty funny emails about things in or around the office. These emails are not really about the work, but more about the place where we work. I think I'll share them as they appear.  I know it goes against the theme of this blog to share the short story only, when there is probably a great (or at least tediously long) story behind it. I'm growing. Maybe.

Unusual 1: Will the owners of the red Chevy Tahoe and the dark green GMC Sonoma parked in front of the dunk tank, please move them.