Connecting Your Values and Your Creative Vision

As a poet, I don't officially catalogue myself as artist, but I'm married to an amazingly talented artist. And I know more artists than I can count – painters, craftspeople, cooks, singers and performers, writers.

Those countless relationships certainly don't qualify me to gather 15 people together on February 27 at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond to consider the relationship between our core values, our beliefs and the art we create – o r creative endeavor for which we have genuine passion.

But for the past decade, I have worked – sometimes instinctively, other times by design – to help individuals and groups create a stronger sense of alignment between their actions and the universe (or team or organization) that they want to co-create.

All of which is to say that the deadline for registering for my full-day workshop at the Visual Arts Center – "Climbing the Right Mountains: Create Your Personal Vision" – is fast approaching. The workshop runs from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 27. You can register here.

Here's how I describe the workshop at the Visual Arts website:

Are you climbing every mountain? Are you even climbing the right mountains? During this workshop, participants will chart out their own personal mountain ranges in a discussion centered on creating a creative life built around the things that matter most to you. Come prepared to explore how your personal values and your beliefs about yourself, others and the world can provide focus and energy for your creative work.

I'm probably more excited than you are about this workshop. Pieces of it feel very familiar to me, such as working with people to identify and explore the beliefs they hold about themselves, about others, about the world. Other aspects – specifically, helping people visualize their learning through some tactile and creative activities – is less familiar.

But what I do know, and what I experience almost every time I sit down to facilitate individuals and groups through work like this, is that the answers are in the room. The participants will take the space I help to create and redefine it in ways I simply can't envision in advance.

And that's what I am beginning to love about this new teaching space I am beginning to explore at the Visual Arts Center, through VCU's Nonprofit Learning Point, and with my own clients.

Number One Rule Is No Rules

I recently attended the first of four BizFit workshops organized by the Greater Richmond Chamber and presented by Alex DerHorvannessian (aka Alex D). Alex wrapped the hour discussion around a notion I've always found very appealing – "Breakingthe Rules, and Being Successful!"

Alex's first question – "What is one rule that is important to your organization or business" – brought to mind the lyrics of a hardcore/punk rock band I used to love, 7 Seconds.

"Number one rule, no rules.
Number two, they're not for you.
Number three, they're not for me.
Number four, don't be ignored.
Number five, to live our lives we must break down stagnant rules."

Keep in mind, those lyrics were screamed out at a rapid-fire clip with a pulsating guitar rhythm pushing them forward, but it's not surprising that I had a sudden realization last week that a great deal of my strategic planning and organizational development theory was born out of my love affair with the do-it-yourself, invent the rules ethos of early American hardcore punk music. I guess I should let my mom know that all those late nights booking shows at clubs in downtown Richmond and touring the East Coast as a roadie while I was in high school weren't wasted.

I think that now, more than ever, organizations and the people who believe in them, are looking for ways to rewrite the rules. Which makes my work more punk rock than I ever thought it could be.

SPOTLIGHT ON: Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau

Floricane Assists Diverse Partners with Regional Arts Calendar

The Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau (RMCVB) is the primary marketer of the Richmond Region to potential visitors. RMCVB was asked the take the lead on one of several dozen initiatives launched by the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan, an effort by local cultural organizations to boost alignment, collaboration and visibility.
 
By helping to bring the right people into the conversation, Floricane facilitated a series of brainstorming sessions to consolidate the region's arts and cultural activities into one calendar system.

download a PDF of the Regional Arts Calendar Case Study

Floricane Assists Diverse Partners with Regional Arts Calendar

The Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau (RMCVB) is the primary marketer of the Richmond Region to potential visitors. RMCVB was asked the take the lead on one of several dozen initiatives launched by the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan, an effort by local cultural organizations to boost alignment, collaboration and visibility.
 
By helping to bring the right people into the conversation, Floricane facilitated a series of brainstorming sessions to consolidate the region's arts and cultural activities into one calendar system.

download a PDF of the Regional Arts Calendar Case Study

Classroom: Connect Your Vision to Your Creativity

It's not too late to register for the one-day creativity workshop I'll be facilitating at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond! Here's how I framed it in a previous post:

At the end of February, I'll be teaching a workshop at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond focused on the alignment of your personal values, beliefs and creative endeavors. The six-hour session will help participants recenter their lives -- especially their creative lives -- around those things that matter most to them.

What excites me most about this workshop is that the space -- the Visual Arts Center -- demands a very different sort of instruction than most of the environments I find myself engaged as a teacher, trainer or facilitator. My goal will be to make the day as interactive, tactile and fun as possible, even as I push participants to dig deep to identify and define their core values and beliefs.

You can register here.

Kitchen Sink: When It Rains, It Snows. A Lot.

When it rains, it pours. Or snows, if you've been living in Richmond this winter.

The year started with a handful of strategic planning projects on the books, and the opportunities to help organizations improve their effectiveness, focus and cultures are keeping the Floricane team hopping.What follows is a quick overview of some of the amazing work we're doing for organizations throughout Central Virginia:

  • The Valentine Richmond History Center: After delivering the final draft of the museum's new strategic plan to its Board of Trustees toward the end of January, we're working with the project team to make a few revisions to the document. Since October, we've worked with the Richmond History Center to explore how it can position itself to engage proactively around the tsunami of change on the horizon in the areas of technology, regional demographics, culture and economics.
  • The James House: We worked hard last year to help the Hopewell-based nonprofit develop a strategic plan that positioned it to better support residents of Tri-Cities community impacted by sexual assault and domestic violence. We're now three months into implementation of that plan, working closely with the CEO and Board of Directors to increase its capacity, strengthen its leadership and streamline some of its processes.
  • The John Randolph Foundation: I spent an afternoon with the staff of the foundation created by Hopewell's John Randolph Medical Center discussing how team dynamics and personality styles can impact the team performance.
  • Virginia Society of CPAs: It was nice to return to the offices of my first client almost a year-to-the-day after our first engagement! Having facilitated the VSCPA team through a series of workshops on the Insights personality instrument, I returned in January to explain the tool to a new employee and answer her questions about it.
  • The Visual Arts Center of Richmond: I spent several hours in January facilitating board and staff members as they brainstormed future exhibitions for the organization's gallery spaces.
  • Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau: I'll be working with the marketing team of RMCVB later in February as part of their annual retreat. We'll spend the morning exploring a shared vision for the team, and developing action steps to help support a team climate that excites and engages the whole group. The afternoon -- a creative team activity currently being designed -- promises to make the day even more fun!
  • Morton's the Steakhouse: In a unique partnership with The Hodges Partnership and Richmond.com, we'll be facilitating a series of six community conversations at Morton's this year. The first one is slated for February 28 with a focus on how young professionals see and experience the Richmond region. Keep your eyes tuned to Richmond.com for more details!
  • Blue Sky Fund: Situated in the heart of Church Hill, this organization has a powerfully simple mission -- "To provide transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education." I'll be helping to facilitate a portion of their Board of Director's annual retreat this month.

I recently wrote about the work we're starting with Bon Secours Health Systems of Richmond, and we're engaged in another half-dozen conversations with area organizations interested in working with the Floricane team for strategic planning, facilitation and organizational development support. If this is what winter feels like, we can't wait for spring to get here!

Facilitation: Breaking out the Conversational Scrubs

It's always nice when you find a piece of work that connects your competencies and passions to an organization that actively practices its core values in its day-to-day business.

That's the intersection at which I find myself with one of the newer opportunities to cross my path this year -- helping a team at Bon Secours Richmond Health System design and facilitate a series of conversations with physicians about their relationship with, understanding of and questions about a local hospital.

I had lunch today with a friend from Bon Secours who works closely with their change management initiative, which is focused on creating a values-based, service-focused culture throughout the Bon Secours community in Richmond and Hampton Roads. We talked at length about some of the different filters through which a non-profit, community-oriented, faith-based medical organization sees the world -- in contrast, obviously, to profit-based companies. But we also talked about how the leadership at Bon Secours Richmond has catalyzed changes that just don't happen without direction, focus and measurement.

I told her that I was struck -- though I'm literally only ankle-deep into this project -- by the competency, energy and outcome-focus of the project team whose work I will support through my facilitation. Next week, I spend an afternoon touring and exploring the local hospital. Then we'll map out the outcomes for the physician discussions, design the questions that need to be asked, check in with hospital administration and get rolling.

I expect to learn volumes about the medical profession in general, but more specifically I am intrigued personally about the opportunity to better understand the relationship between a single hospital and the community of physicians and patients it serves. And I'm excited to experience a values-based organizational culture as it goes about the business of listening, asking questions and making strategic decisions that will enhance its relationships with its clients.

Strategic Planning: A New Vision for Children, Incorporated

Often described as one of Richmond's hidden gems, Children Incorporated has been in the business of connecting individuals to children in need for almost five decades. Their sponsorship model -- inviting people to contribute on a monthly basis to make a difference in the life of a single child --has been at the heart of the Richmond-based nonprofit's work from the get-go.

Floricane has been asked to work with Children Incorporated (CI) on the first phases of their year-long strategic planning process. During the next several months, we will engage the organization in a number of important conversations and begin to lay the foundation for a strategic plan with clear outcomes and measures -- and a plan that clearly repositions the organization in its work in the areas of child sponsorship and global fund development.

In addition to a comprehensive online assessment of the organization that seeks feedback from staff and board, donors and contributors, volunteers and community partners, we'll be meeting individually to interview key stakeholders in the organization about its strengths and opportunities. Simultaneously, a small team will research and benchmark best practices around the world in a handful of areas important to CI's future growth and success. All of this perspective and context will help frame a series of working sessions with CI stakeholders to revisit the organization's vision, mission and guiding principles.

In its 46 years of serving children, CI has remained committed and focused in its work. As it nears a milestone anniversary, it has an important opportunity to better align its work to a rapidly changing global environment.

Here's how CI describes its evolution on its website:

Children, Incorporated was founded in 1964 by Jeanne Clarke Wood. Compassion for needy children was bred in her, as her parents, Dr. and Mrs. J. Calvitt Clarke, were noted philanthropists during their lifetime. The beginning of Children, Incorporated was a modest one, and the first youngsters Mrs. Wood helped were from Guatemala. On a visit to Guatemala in 1964, she had photographed 95 poverty - stricken children and had written accounts of the miserable circumstances in which each child existed. Immediately upon her return to Richmond, Virginia, her hometown, Mrs. Wood began to seek help for the 95 little Guatemalans. She opened an office in her own home and by writing letters and through magazine advertisements she told of the children's plight.

In the spring of 1971, Mrs. Wood made a second trip to Guatemala. During the lapse of time between her two visits there - from 1964 to 1971, barely seven years - her program of help to children, begun on such a small scale, had flourished. So, from fewer than 100 children in three small projects, Children, Incorporated now has over 16,000 children in 300 projects in 24 countries around the world.

Today, more than two dozen employees manage thousands of contributions made annually by individual donors -- as well as larger bequests -- and works to keep sponsors connected to the children whose lives they touch.

I've been impressed over the past several weeks by the commitment of the senior staff I've met. There is a clarity of purpose that spans the organization's leadership, and a desire to make meaningful changes that can help CI continue to be successful in its work.

As we complete this first phase of work in May, I'll be interested in seeing how CI begins to evolve in its strategic direction. I'm pretty sure the organization's commitment to children will remain front-and-center.