Letter from John: February 2012

Exactly 12 years ago, I took my first, my second, and my third yoga class - one right after the other.

The first two classes were disasters, which said as much about me as the instructors; I had spent too much of my life moving to be still, and not enough time understanding the relationship between my mind, body and spirit.

And then I found Kelly Trask, and a home for my practice. Kelly taught me to slow down, and to connect with aspects of my self that had become invisible in the rush of day-to-day.

For six years, I was a weekly participant in Kelly's trave ling yoga classes as they moved through studio spaces in the Fan, Oregon Hill, Downtown and Shockoe Bottom. My practice centered me through divorce and death.

A new marriage, a tough pregnancy, an active baby, and a new business all colluded to push yoga to the bottom of my priorities.

Last month, I returned to my practice. I sat cross-legged on a mat in a Shockoe Bottom studio with my eyes closed, my spine extended.

As Kelly instructed the class to focus on our breath, to gently disengage from the day, and to explore the natural tension between our breathing and our posture, I realized how much I had missed my practice - and how similar our work at Floricane is to the practice of yoga.

That was reflected back to me two days later during a strategic planning session. Our clients were growing uncomfortable with ambiguity; they were hungry for concrete, actionable results. They told us as much.

"Notice what your body is telling you," Kelly says. "Breathe into the tension."

We listened. And we let the tension remain in the room, even as we quietly redirected our approach for the afternoon.

"Respect your body," Kelly says. "Adjust your posture and your practice in response."

During a break, two participants took me aside. "We were just talking about how valuable this process has been for this group," they said. "Taking time to slow down and step out of the game, to reflect on the long-term, is so important for us to do."

"Lengthen your spine," Kelly says. "Deepen your breathing, and let your thoughts slow and focus on the here and now."

Helping organizations slow down and listen deeply is an important part of our work at Floricane. But it's not the only part.

Like good yoga practice, our best work helps organizations slow and center, strengthen and stretch - it takes them into surprising, sometimes challenging, postures. In doing so, it often reminds them that our organizations, like our bodies, need our constant attention.

Fables of the Reconstruction

We’re rebuilding our approach to strategic planning. Call it our 37 Signals play – or just call it strategic.

The folks at 37 Signals, recently decided against upgrading their premiere web-based collaboration tool for a third time. They decided to rebuild it from the groundup.

“About a year ago, we began discussing how we might improve our best-selling product,” 37 Signals president Jason Fried wrote in a recent issue of Inc. “The more we talked, the more it became clear that the only way to significantly improve Basecamp was to start over.”

We’re not quite there, but John, Sarah and Tina are spending the next several months actively rebuilding our strategic planning process.

An influx of strategic plans over the winter has kept a portion of the Floricane team moving at a sprint. Between laps, we’ve discovered gaps in our process, and opportunities to better engage our clients in our work. In the past, we’d tinker and adjust. Not this year.

Polishing around the edges or procrastination aren’t part of our agenda for 2012. That serves no one’s interests – particularly not those of our next 30 strategic planning clients. We’d rather take one or two key lessons from our first 30 strategic plans, and reinvent.

And so during the first part of March, we’re sequestering ourselves away to do a little Strategic Replanning. We anticipate introducing a more robust strategic process this spring. It’s going to be more adaptable, and much more dynamic – and it will allow our team to be more effective using a process that allows our new clients more flexibility.

We think your organization is going to like it.

Letter from John: January 2012

Our team is alternately excited and astounded by the emerging landscape that stretches ahead of us in 2012. It's the 21st Century version of loading everything you own into a wagon and joining your neighbors on a westward migration.

Collaboration will be the appropriately overusedterm of the year at Floricane. There is almost nothing visible on our business horizon that doesn't involve a clear and exciting partnership with other organizations.

• We are at the beginning of a fascinating conversation with the Richmond Times-Dispatch about how to turn extra r eal estate into an active business laboratory that drives new ways of thinking and working downtown.
• Thanks to a willingness to engage in an exploration of possibility, the Richmond Symphony is actively working with us to develop a new concept at the intersection of music, composition and organizational culture. A large leadership group from HCA will be among the first to experience this new way of exploring organizational culture and change this spring.
•     A group of 20 pioneering young professionals, including our own Sarah Milston, are set to begin work in the Greater Richmond Chamber's new Leadership Lab, a collaborative venture with Luck Companies and Floricane. It's exciting to see Luck's decade-old investment in transformational leadership go public.
• We're getting the old band back together, and adding a horn section. One among many projects we're tackling in 2012 related to the I.e.* innovation effort: a forward-leaning series exploring the history of innovation and change in Richmond. Floricane will be joined by the Valentine Richmond History Center, the Library of Virginia and other leading history organizations to shape and deliver this cool program this spring.

Those are just four of a growing handful of collaborative spaces we're entering in the coming year. We're increasingly embracing the old-fashioned idea that many hands make light work, and responding in new ways to a continuously changing business landscape. It's what we've been preaching to our clients for three years running.

We're certainly not standing still. New clients, new projects and new teammates form the foundation for the new year, and all of those demand new approaches to our work.

If you are working with Floricane in 2012, I hope you will actively experience what we've been working toward for more than a year -- a genuine team approach to helping your organization bear new fruit. My challenge in this new space is to let a core group of exceptional performers move into position and apply their unique talents in our work. Scary, gratifying stuff -- and more of what we've been preaching for a while now!

So, welcome to 2012, where collaboration is the new black, and Floricane begins to actively operate like a new business. Here's where our strategy meets reality, and the journey begins anew.

Playground Perspectives: Teamwork (January 2012)

Driving home with Thea from the grocery store recently, we engaged in our typical playful banter.

"Who is going to help me carry these groceries inside?" I plead.

"Dad, I will carry my guys," she says, referring to her armful of stuffed animals. "You can get the rest."

"But they are so heavy," I complain.

"Then we will do teamwork," she says, not missing a beat. "I'll get one handle and you get the other, and you will be okay, alright?" 

Teamwork is a lesson I hope she learns faster than her dad.

My resistance to teams comes naturally - a collision of DNA, terrible youth sports experiences and my Generation X psyche.

I'm genuinely terrible at collaboratively working with others, and spend a lot of energy trying to rein in my instincts to go it alone - or solve the problem before I invite new perspectives.

As she nears her fourth birthday, I think I'm pretty lucky that she even slows down long enough to perceive that other people might benefit from her help. Those rare moments when she's not focused exclusively on her own immediate needs, or testing the law of "cause and effect" have started to increase in recent months.

Psychology aside, it is fascinating to watch Thea begin to reshape her own sense of the world, and understand that she can help shape it. Impulse remains a big driver, but she increasingly slips into these lovely moments of unintentional altruism - whispering sweet nothings into Nikole's ear at unexpected moments, gentle hugs on the playground, offering up teamwork when the groceries are too heavy.

In times of transition and uncertainty - say, moving toward a fourth birthday, or entering a fourth year of economic uncertainty - we all have opportunities to resist our impulses, and to explore the "we" in our work. A wise person in my life once told me that there can be no "we" without a "me" - that effective relationships require all parties to have a clear identity and strong self-awareness. That's true at work, and at home.

But the other thing an effective relationship requires is trust and acceptance of the identity and perspectives embraced by others in the relationship. In other words, meeting people where they are, not where you want them to be. Thea's not there yet. Too often, neither am I.

That, perhaps, is the gap between teamwork and collaboration. It's one thing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with someone holding back the tide, or carrying groceries. It's quite another to give your trust and respect into the care of another person with the belief that they will treat it gently, and return the favor.

Watching my daughter grow toward Grace is a reminder that my own journey is an important one, that the collaboration, trust, respect - and love - Nikole and I demonstrate on a daily basis shape everything. For now. At some point our lessons will carry much less weight, which makes it all the more important for me to be in the moment now - and to let my child help me carry the groceries.

What’s the Big Idea?

Calling all lovers of language, of competition, of mysteries: this Spring #RVA turns into a three dimensional fund-raising puzzle. 

This puzzle - named The Big Idea Challenge and benefiting the Community Idea Stations - pits teams of smart, provocative or just plain curious people against one another in five challenges: brain teasers, riddles and mysteries related to Arts and Culture, History and Heritage, Science and Discovery, Children’s Education, and News and Public Affairs.

During the Big Idea Challenge, teams will earn points for solving puzzles while fund-raising for the Community Idea Stations. The challenges won’t be easy, but you’ll get clues to help you solve the puzzles. You might find clues online–or discover them within the menu of a local restaurant, in the window of a favorite Carytown shop or even while watching or listening to your favorite shows.

The Big Idea Challenge will take place over five weeks, starting April 29 and concluding on June 2, 2012, when the top teams will vie for the Big Idea Challenge Cup.

It’s exactly the right time to consider sponsoring a clue AND recruiting your smartest and best-connected friends for your own Team DaVinci. Or Team Nancy Drew.

Letter from John: November 2011

My new favorite quote comes from a fellow entrepreneur and blogger, Tara Hunt.

"If nobody shares they are struggling, nobody will know anybody else is struggling. That results in a bunch of people feeling isolated and scared and like big, fat losers," she shared in the latest issue ofInc. magazine.

I think it's a particularly good thought for this post-recession generation of entrepreneurs and creators to keep in mind. If the past few years are an indication, starting a business is tough work!

I've done a lot of unusual things in my life. I& #39;ve backpacked Europe, explored slices of the Middle East and North Africa and slept in fields and train stations. I've hunted raccoons, gigged frogs and strung barbed wire. I've written poetry, tried to teach myself Arabic and started the hard work of raising a small child. But I've never really run a business.

That changed, of course, three years ago this month when I walked out of Luck Stone at the peak of the recession and decided to start my own consulting company.

People told me that the first and third (and second, fourth and fifth) years would be the hardest.

And yet the first year was easy, perhaps because we were perpetually broke. The second and third years got bumpy - our positive trajectory created a new set of challenges. I found myself grappling with foreign concepts like managing growth, managing cash flow, and forecasting. (Advice to new entrepreneurs: Hire a good accountant. Learn yoga. Don't look up.)

As our fledgling team looks toward 2012, we're doggedly optimistic. And as I meet with other new businesspeople - especially those just getting started on their own journey - I try to remind myself to bring a balance of encouragement, optimism and pragmatism. I throw in a few Floricane hard luck stories to keep it real.

I also remind them to be open with those who help them along the way - especially their families, friends and partners - and to let them know about both the peaks and the valleys. If they don't, no one will know they are struggling. And if no one knows you're struggling, no one knows how to help you move forward.

Teaching Nonprofits to Fundraise

I really enjoy speaking engagements and teaching. When Urmila Oberoi, Development Director at Virginia Poverty Law Center and a client of ours, asked that I give a presentation on Fundraising for Legal Aids across Virginia, I jumped at the chance. The Annual conference hosted by VPLC is offeredfree for legal aid attorneys and serves as their primary educational event for the year.

During introductions I learned that we had a moderately experienced fundraiser in the room but everyone else had only the very basic fundraising program in place. So I focused my talk on the basics – Asking, Thanking, Staffing, Evaluating.

I told the group that when setting up a development office it is important to focus not on events or grants but on individual fundraising. It is the most economical way to raise money. If you believe in your mission, just ask someone to fall in love with it too – they will want to give money.

At the end of the day, nonprofits must not let any opportunities to authentically and genuinely ask for money go by uncaptured.  Even more important, they must say thank you, more than once and in more than one way.  If nonprofits ask and thank – they are guaranteed to raise money. 

Keep checking the Floricane newsletter for information on where you can hear a Floricane staffer speak next.

Playground Perspectives: Daylight Savings Time (November 2011)

I have a Moleskine notebook with pages of scattered notes from conversations I had a few years ago with a consultant from Texas named Guy Clumpner. He taught me a few things along theway.

One page of notes is pretty straightforward. "Adaptability," they read, "equals flexibility plus versatility."

Flexibility, essentially, is being open-minded. Versatility is the ability to demonstrate other behaviors; it requires self-awareness and a commitment to change.

I've been talking a lot about this model with clients, even as I live it out at home. My daughter, Thea, is not particularly versatile. She's only three. And I periodically have lapses -- large, yawning gaps -- in my ability to be flexible or versatile. I'm a bit older than three.

The arrival of Daylight Savings Time is bad news for those of us with small children, cats or dogs. If it can't tell time, odds are it has little or no respect for artificial adjustments to arbitrary times.

For instance, our early riser rousted us at 4:40 a.m. under the new time regime. She was wide awake, ready to roll.

Guess who suffers toward the end of the day?

Right -- everyone. It's likely no coincidence that our flexibility and versatility suffer under stress, or from a lack of sleep.

Managing organizations during times of stress and change is the organizational equivalent of a family with no sleep.

Stressed organizations with low self-awareness are filled with people eager to make the problem about someone else -- it's management or the economy or those roustabouts in accounting. It's easier to make it about someone else when we hit those vast lapses of control (or good parenting or leadership).

Stressed organizations with high self-awareness have leaders who walk around with mirrors at the ready; they know that it's all about them -- their self-awareness, their leadership, their adaptability. There's a high willingness to be accountable, to make the changes necessary and to adapt to new conditions.

Thea's not ready to carry her own mirror. In fact, it's part of our job as parents to keep her from needing one for a while yet. So we help her manage her stress, her lack of sleep, as best we can -- managing the difficult rhythms, being more mindful of our own behavior, accepting that we can help her through this transition. And in doing so, understanding that we are helping ourselves through the transition as well, and strengthening our family's adaptability.

The other thing I learned from Guy Clumpner? The power of storytelling, and the effectiveness of using parenting as a leadership tool.