Hitting Our Stride with VCU's Development and Alumni Relations Team

Part of the reason I love working for Floricane is because we have awesome clients who let us engage in really interesting work. And our current work with the Development and Alumni Relations staff at VCU is a prime example.

For the past six months we have been engaging with DAR staff across both campuses using Insights® Discovery, which is one of my favorite tools. What has been both exciting and rewarding is to see the folks at VCU really embrace what they are learning and put it into action with their teams. My conversations with the 21 different DAR teams have left me inspired and full of great ideas.

Currently, we are getting excited about our Summer Check-In with all of the DAR staff coming up in a few weeks. The agenda is a bit of a secret for the time being, but we have put together a really fun day with the incredible help of several VCU staff. It's going to be a great opportunity to get feedback on the work we have done and to kick-off our upcoming work, which includes small group leadership coaching and a focus on team effectiveness.

As we begin to discuss the next phase of our work, I am thrilled with the possibilities to create and deliver work that energizes me as much as it enhances our clients.

Right Place, Wrong Place

I stopped by Main Street Station earlier this month because the city’s Office of Economic Development was holding an information session on the Steps to Success Mentorship Program for minority small businesses. The room was full – about 50 small business owners turned out to learn more about the year-long mentoring program supported by Capital One.

I missed the part in the press release that said it was a program for minority-owned small businesses. Once I realized I wasn’t eligible, I decided to stay for the presentation. I’m glad I did.

In addition to seeing evidence of a city-led program designed to have a positive impact on the small business community, I had an opportunity to see some new faces in Richmond’s entrepreneurial landscape.

Contractors, web developers, architects, designers, bakers and a host of others filled the second floor of the station. Almost all of the faces in the room were black.

I mention this because I’m not reminded often enough that so many of the small business owners and entrepreneurs I know in Richmond are white – and that the majority of our city is not. It is too easy to get lost in relationships with people who are like us – similar ethnicity, or backgrounds, or geography. But it is sometimes hard to break free of those patterns – and connect with new communities.

In the end, this program will select 10 small business owners and pair them with mentors from Capital One. It’s a win/win, says Vicki Rivers, director of minority business development.

“If we can help you increase your revenue,” Rivers told the audience, “that’s good for you and for the City of Richmond. We collect more taxes to fix our roads, our schools, our amenities. If you increase your revenue, you hire more people. That lowers our unemployment.”

While the program is small, it is ambitious. And it seems to have mapped out a solid plan to help a group of Richmond businesses grow.

I came to the wrong meeting, and stayed long enough for it to become the right meeting. I left encouraged, and inspired.

The Leadership Circle: What is it?

This fall, Floricane will be launching a new program called the Leadership Circle. While we know there are a gazillion leadership programs in the marketplace, we think the Leadership Circle offers something unique. How is it unique? It's a confidential place for leaders to gather and discuss issues relevant to them. Topics will be generated by the participants in their first session.

The Leadership Circle will be a cohort group of leaders that come from all types of places such as: profit, non-profit, government and trade associations. Blending leaders from different situations was a specific request from the participants in our focus groups. They felt the varied backgrounds would enhance the discussion and enrich the path to solutions.

Floricane’s coaches, Anne and I, will be there to facilitate each monthly conversation. We will add our expertise as well as ask questions to keep the conversation on track.

Get more details about the Leadership Circle here!

Applications are due by August 8th, 2014.

A Close-up Look at 1E

Our team is pretty proud of 1E, the collaborative workspace in the Richmond Times-Dispatch building that houses the Floricane office. Most visitors comment on our brightly colored walls, our Steve Keene paintings, or our huge wooden work table. Few, however, get a chance to see the little details that make 1E feel like home. I thought I'd share a few photos! 

Learning on your feet

Oh, the things we can learn by listening to the stories of passionate people!

I spent a half-day of my vacation at the Martin Agency this week, engaged in a “Creative Practice at Work” workshop put together by The Alternative Speakers Bureau. The Bureau was founded by Richmond siblings Noah and Mica Scalin to introduce business leaders to creative thinkers, and approaches.

About 40 (mostly familiar) faces gathered downtown. After some post-breakfast sword swallowing, we quickly split into three groups. Each group was assigned a presenter. I landed, fabulously, in the tap dancing group!

Tap dancer Jenai West quickly dove into her own personal story of discovery, moving from Ohio to New York City and falling in love over several years with tap. As the English major with no dance experience developed basic taps skills, she found herself as a student-volunteer at an international tap convention – being shadowed by star Gregory Hines as she cleaned a convention room.

Her encounter with Hines is where she drew some major life lessons from her creative passion. As they began a tap “conversation “ – the dance master and the novice – Hines told her, “Don’t do what I do, do what you do!” Their brief “tap dialogue” inspired her to find her own voice in dance, and her decades-long dance career has given her a framework for life. Among her beliefs:

• Collaboration is a key aspect of dance, and of a creative life. In tap, Jenai says, there are two ways to collaborate. “You can trade,” she says, “which really is just having a conversation. You listen to what the first person has to say [in their dance] and then you respond in your own way.” Or, she continues, “you can steal. In tap dance, stealing is considered a compliment that can be done verbatim (as long as you give credit) or by putting your own spin on it.”

• Find freedom in limitations. This can be limitations that already exist, or limitations that you impose on yourself as a form of challenge or to force yourself to engage in new ways. “Create your own limitations to focus your voice, or to challenge yourself to find new ideas,” Janai says.

• Let go of preciousness, or the idea that you have to protect or hide your passions, or your dreams. “You never know how people will respond until you let go of preciousness and put it out there,” she concluded.

She then invited our small group to break into smaller teams and create our own rhythm – use beats to translate a familiar piece of music. (That was a lesson in itself for my partner and me!)

During the final hour, all of the groups reconvened as Noah and Caitlin Kilcoin of the Greater Richmond Chamber facilitated a debrief around lessons learned from all three workshops, and general lessons about creativity in the workplace.

Craft, discipline, passion and a willingness to invest yourself in tangible ways were all themes that threaded through the morning. And, I swear, my feet have been moving differently all day.

Coaching Corner: Staying in My Lane

In coaching our clients recently, role clarity is something that continues to pop up. Whether it's a result of external demands, a co-worker’s departure, new strategic direction for the company, increased responsibility – the list goes on and on it seems the need for clarity doesn’t stop. I suppose its something that is here to stay given the nature of work coming out of the latest recession.

Yet, we as humans need to feel some structure and some security – Millennials, Gen X’ers and Boomers all share this desire. It may show up differently for each generation, but the under-lying, human fundamental is the same.

A recent quote by Brené Brown sums it up nicely:

“I swim for many reasons but none more important than the constant reminder to stay in my own lane.” 

As I work with clients, I help them reach clarity about their lanes – what lives within their lane and what doesn’t. And, more importantly, we work on how they can be the best swimmer within their lane. How to recognize when they go out of bounds and the price they pay for it – both personally and professionally. 

Having lane clarity gives clients the chance to breathe and lean into their role. It helps create a rhythm for their day and their life that makes the stresses seem less overwhelming and a bit more manageable.