Letter from John: Sitting Still

The worst thing to do when you're running a new business is to sit still.

A story.

When I started Floricane in November of 2008, I had just joined a steady flow of newly unemployed Americans -- more than a million a month, you may recall -- looking for work. A convergenceof factors led Nikole and me to decide to throw the dice and join the entrepreneurial ranks.

As a planner and an organizer, my initial impulse was to spend three or four months mapping out a business strategy before fully committing. And then a little voice in my head said, "Run. Run like h ell."

I'd ignored that voice in the past. In 2008, I chose to listen to its urgent advice. I ran.

By the time my severance from my previous employer ran out in July of 2009, I had two paying projects. With blisters already forming on my entrepreneurial feet, I doubled down and continued the marathon. Two turned into four, turned into eight.

Three summers later, and the race has changed. My friends at The Hodges Partnership (who entered the race six years before I did) like to tell me that success doesn't erase worry. You just worry about different things as you move forward.

Like the worries I carried around this past summer.

It was 126 degrees in June, and getting hotter. The Floricane team began our summer with a lead consultant out on maternity leave, a project manager out on extended leave, a planned move stalled by corporate acquisition, and a major proposal nixed by a technicality. (Read: I dropped the ball. Think: Eggs in one basket.) Even our family summer vacation plans went awry. No, I was not such a relaxed camper as we rolled through the summer.

The nice thing about writing this monthly missive is having the opportunity to reflect on the challenges, opportunities and possibilities of running a business. Also, I get to skip the icky parts. Like all of July.

Because now that August has arrived, we're actually anticipating what comes next. We're at mile 20 of our fourth marathon/year, and not only is the finish line visible but we're making plans for our next race/year.

We've settled into our exciting new space at the heart of the Richmond Times-Dispatch's novel entrepreneurial business hub at 300 East Franklin Street, and our team has been spending some time anticipating what lies ahead for Floricane.

Even as we help the RTD team finalize the selection process for eight small businesses, and build a collaborative culture in this new community, we're going to be extra busy with a host of other collaborations.

We're partnering with the Richmond Symphony and Maestro Steven Smith to roll out their amazing FIRST CHAIR program. The creative team at PUNCH is busy blowing our minds with designs for a stellar new brochure and website. And we're going to be showing up all over town this fall -- on our way to Floricane's 4th anniversary celebration. (Keep your eyes peeled for an invite later in October!)

Best of all, we'll be running at a full sprint with our clients -- old and new, businesses and nonprofits, looking for strategic planning and organizational change support. If there's one thing we're not doing as we move into our fourth year of changing the world, it's sitting still.

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!