New Space: A Deluxe Apartment in the Sky…

When Richmond Times-Dispatch Publisher Tom Silvestri started a conversation with me last winter about his ideas for some real estate at 300 East Franklin Street, I was intrigued.

I’ve known Tom since my first career, which started at 300 East Grace Street. I was a young cub reporter – well, “City Desk intern” – at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and he was a business reporter. We reconnected while I was at Luck Stone – I was working on leadership and culture, and he was working on innovation and culture. We’ve since become friends, and collaborators.

I know Tom as a big thinker, eager and willing to stretch the conversation in new directions – even when he’s swimming upstream. Maybe especially when he’s swimming upstream.

Which is how an idea as unique as 1E (a temporary name, I promise) managed to get traction at a time when risk aversion was the coin of the realm at the TD’s then-parent company, Media General.

Yesterday, the Times-Dispatch announced the creation of a new collaborative workspace in their downtown building. The Floricane team will be working with Tom’s his team to take 4,000 square feet of space on the first floor of the building and create a dynamic community for 6-8 small businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s just Phase 1.

Our small team formally relocated this week, and we’ll be actively working with the Times-Dispatch to help them recruit and select another handful of businesses to fill out the space. On the Grace Street side of the building, we’ve carved out space for Floricane and other businesses, and wrapped it around 1,500 square feet of coworking space – big shared areas where the entrepreneurs and the Times-Dispatch can come together and work, connect and interact. We see it as a catalyzing space, and a social space – a space that is about collaboration and synergy.

It’s hard to live in Richmond and not have a love/hate relationship with the Times-Dispatch. In so many ways, the paper has been seen as emblematic of many of Richmond’s challenges. It’s also a mirror of what is right about Richmond, and its potential.

Last month’s sale of the Times-Dispatch from Media General to the new Berkshire Hathaway Media Group reframes the paper’s potential – and that of our community – on so many levels. And the creation of this new space for the business community reflects that.

It’s a big, fun surprise to be returning to the building that helped me find my voice as a writer 21 years ago. I’m looking forward to strengthening my voice in collaboration with other entrepreneurs and a team of journalists who are as committed to the #RVA community as Floricane.

One Planning Size Doesn’t Fit All

Artisanal planning. That’s going to be my new thing – designing strategic planning processes, or conversations, that really are home-spun, custom-fit and designed to meet the specific needs of the individual or organization in question.

Oh, wait. That’s what good strategic planning already is. Or should be.

I had coffee yesterday with a student from the strategic planning class I recently taught at Nonprofit Lear ning Point. Lynda is the relatively new executive director of a nonprofit serving local senior citizens, and her organization is small, living on a thread and pretty much driven by her force of will at the moment. While it has been around for a while, it has gone through multiple iterations, all of which have weakened it.

What Lynda, her small board and her struggling organization did not need right now was a six-month, complex process to strategically evaluate each aspect of the organization. There just isn’t the capacity for that depth of work right now.

What her organization needs is a stabilization plan. What Lynda needs are manageable goals that can quickly give her a motivating sense of progress. What her board needs is to grow.

Over coffee, we explored various options, even as we unspun some of the organization’s history and reoriented around what Linda really wanted and needed at this stage of her career and life. The idea of organizational stabilization and board growth became more attractive, because they had the potential to position the nonprofit – in the near-term – in a way that allowed Lynda to make a clearer personal choice about her commitment.

Lynda left with four or five specific action steps built around funding, partnerships, awareness building and client engagement. Each step felt manageable, and each was unique to where the organization currently finds itself.

Artisan planning, or good planning, simply means that every plan is built around the needs of your client. Cookie cutters, and big box approaches, may make your strategic shopping experience easier – they aren’t likely to make it more personal and satisfying. Not for you, and certainly not for your organization.

Just ask Lynda.

Details, Details

You want to know how to end a week on a bad note? Forget to sign the cover sheet of a Commonwealth of Virginia Request for Proposal (RFP) document. That’s what I did recently, and the state agency in question did exactly what they RFP said they would do – they eliminated us from the selection process.

The lesson was exactly the one I need as our team starts to reorient itself for growth – fast can be the enemy of good, and collaboration doesn't mean doing everything on your own.

Down several people this summer, I’m finding myself attempting to be everywhere at once, and to engage in business development, client and business management, and project management simultaneously. It’s challenging, and not an effective way to run a business. It’s also not the business our team has agreed to create – together.

The nice thing about the mistake – which would have equaled Floricane’s entire billings over the past four years – is that it was all mine. I’m the accountable person.

The other nice thing? We have a slam-dunk process in place to lead several thousand people through a values-based leadership program.

Interested? Give us a call. I promise to sign the cover sheet.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Solvency

A funny story.

I was at Luck Companies last week putting the wraps on the #RVA Leadership Lab that the Greater Richmond Chamber, Floricane and Luck Companies presented this year. I always get a little nervous visiting my old employer, but soon found myself standing at the bottom of a sweeping staircase reconnecting with old coworkers.

I was explaining to one how I’d been avoiding a phone call to Luck’s former Chief Financial Officer, who has been working with me this summer on Floricane’s financials and long-term business model.

“Pretty much I haven’t had the energy or the capacity the past few weeks to dig into the conversation Jim is going to make me have about the business,” I explained. Jim Parker, the retired CFO, is a no-nonsense, bottom-line guy. “So, I’ve been avoiding him as much as possible.”

Naturally, I turned mid-sentence – alerted by something in the eyes of my old coworker – to find Jim Parker standing right behind me. Like a Cylone.

The good news? Jim is leaving on an extended summer vacation and our next meeting happens in August. The bad news? No more putting him – or the serious work of running a business – off. Actually, that's good news, too.

Getting Settled into FIRST CHAIR

I had lunch the other day with Steven Smith, musical director of the Richmond Symphony. That’s organizational speak for conductor – or maestro.

Steven and I are partnering on a new Symphony/Floricane initiative called FIRST CHAIR. It essentially puts a team of people (anywhere from 40-80) on stage with the musicians from the Symphony for a two-hour exploration of leadership, culture and change. It is an intense and visceral experience for everyone involved, as Steven and I co-facilitate and conduct a three-way conversation between an organization, a group of musicians and Beethoven.

We did a session with a group of leaders from HCA’s Chippenham/Johnson-Willis campus earlier in the spring. Another half-dozen organizations are in active discussion to experience FIRST CHAIR themselves, which led to lunch.

In addition to continuing a debrief on our spring experience, we wanted to make sure we were on the same page going forward. Any lunch – especially at Perly’s – that includes passionate discussion about organizational democracy, the nature of music and the importance of authenticity and surprise is a good meal. That’s what we had at Perly’s last week.

It’s exciting enough to be inventing a new, game-changing series with the Symphony. It just gets better when I sit down with people like Steven who embrace the power of music and change, and discover that we’re singing the same tune.

It looks like we’ll be doing three offerings of FIRST CHAIR during the upcoming season for three extremely vibrant – and different – organizations. We’re going to have a blast.

A Little Health Care Innovation Goes A Long Way

My first honest strategic planning process happened at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992 when I was working in the University Relations Office, and then-President Eugene Trani pulled together a disparate group of faculty and staff to explore the future of the scrappy, urban institution. Vague memories of that session filtered into my head as our team spent time with VCU’s new Office of Health Innovation this past summer, helping a fast-growing, broadly focused team of health professionals identify a set of shared deliverables for the growth.

The office has a unique position as a provider and coordinator of care, and the creator of new approaches to care delivery and population management strategies – for VCU, and for the broader community. It also has responsibility for helping the university and VCU medical community plan for and respond to the ever-evolving Affordable Care Act.

VCU’s Office of Health Innovation is just one of several organizations we’ve worked with this year that continues to keep a close eye on the Affordable Care Act. (There’s something reassuring about groups that strategically work to adapt and adjust to an unpredictable world.)

Over eight weeks, Sarah, Cara and I worked closely with Sheryl Garland and her team – including two “old friends” from other engagements, Tammi Slovinksy and Aileen Harris – to identify and shape a shared vision, and a set of key strategies.

Join Our Summer of Self-Discovery

In just a week, we’re giving the Dog Days of August a face-lift with our enervating new self-discovery series using our favorite self-awareness tool, Insights Discovery®.

Our Summer of Self-Discovery series is built around three sessions designed to build a real foundation of learning in three key areas – how we can manage our own development, how we can contribute to the effectiveness of our teams, and how we can leverage our leadership capacity at work. Participants must have an Insights Discovery personal profile (and can sign up to complete one online during the registration process for the series). You can register online here.

Floricane has used Insights with dozens of organizations, and our team has facilitated well over 3,000 participants through the self-awareness profile.

The sessions will be held the evenings of August 2, 9 and 16; each workshop will start promptly at 6:00 p.m. Facilitated by Debra Saneda, Jim Johns and John Sarvay, the sessions will last about two hours and will be held at the spacious community room on the first floor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The focus and outcomes of each session are unique, but the expectation is that participants will have a highly interactive experience and leave with a deeper understanding of specific ways they can increase their effectiveness across three developmental areas – self, team and leadership effectiveness.

Find out more about the workshops, or about Insights Discovery, at our website – or register for one or more of the sessions now.

Don’t forget that you’ll need an Insights Discovery personal profile/assessment to participate!

Playground Perspective: Teaching A Girl To Fish

You probably know by now that Thea is  fortunate enough to have 1) a great grandfather who 2) lives in a beachfront house at the mouth of the RappahanockRiver. Pop Pop turned 90 this year, and while Thea describes him as “the oldest person I love” he is still living in his own home on the water.

It is one of Thea’s favorite destinations, and not just because she gets to have a Slurpee on the drive back to Richmond at the e nd of a high-energy day or weekend trip.

Pop Pop bought his waterfront home (actually four lots anchored on three sides by a navigable creek, the Rappahanock and the Chesapeake Bay) in the 1950s for a song and a dance. It is where Thea’s Grandpa Jay and her MeMa spent many of their younger years, and where her Uncle BJ and her mamma grew up, learned to boat and swim, and played and whiled away their own summers.

And it’s not far from the riverfront shacks on the Rappahanock and Piankatank rivers where I spent most of my childhood summers.

A typical day at the river for Thea – now that she’s four, and moving toward some fashion of independence – consists of sunrises on the beach with mom or dad; a drive into Deltaville for coffee with a visit to the boat museum and nature garden/trail; the constant acquisition of “beautiful” and “interesting” shells, pebbles, bits of sea glass and sun-bleached crab claws; minnow chasing with nets; fishing from the pier; collecting flowers; snuggling on the hammock; and, when Uncle BJ and his family are there, boat rides and nonstop action with her cousins Baker and Caroline.

Did I mention the incessant lure of the water? Yes, she is now at the age where frequent immersion in the water is a requirement. Swimming is now an essential element of a visit to Pop Pop’s.

All the activity aside, I think Thea loves Pop Pop’s for all of the right reasons – it is different, it is more outdoors than indoors, there is more freedom, and she feels more of our love. That’s right. All of us slow down when we’re at the river, and there are more cuddles, more hand-in-hand walks and more hammock time than Richmond tends to afford. Or, than we afford when we’re in Richmond, I should say.

The change of pace is subtle, and it comes at an investment of time, attention and energy. But what change doesn’t?

How do you slow down – at work, and at home – so the people who look to you for leadership and support can feel more of your love?