Comfort Zones May 22, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Networking.Tags: Best Of 2009, Cliques, Comfort Zones, Networking, Relationships, Teams
2 comments
Last summer, I had the opportunity to watch a group of Boy Scouts go through a high-ropes team building exercise. Beyond the fun of watching boys climb 50 feet in the air with nothing more than a safety rope hooked to their waist, I learned a clever trick about comfort zones.
High-ropes courses are all about getting out of your comfort zone. I am very comfortable on the ground, enjoying the combination of gravity and my feet firmly planted on the earth. Climbing a 40-foot ladder comprised solely of five planks at eight-foot intervals took me way out of my zone, to the point of near-frozen, knee-shaking fear at the top. But I did it, and I’m better for it, if only to avoid embarrassment in front of 13-year-olds who scrambled to the top like monkeys.
There was a more subtle comfort zone that was shattered five minutes into the day. When we arrived, the instructors asked the boys to pair up. As you would expect, they found their best friends and quickly formed twosomes. She then asked them to each assume a character, either SpongeBob or Patrick (remember the audience here). They did so. She then gathered all the SpongeBobs into one group, and all the Patricks into another. One group headed to the ropes course, and the other to another exercise.
In one deft motion she separated every boy from his best friend! For the rest of the day, the boys worked without the comfort of their buddy, opening them to social opportunities they would never have had. They still had fun, accomplished things, and grew a bit. But they did it with a little more risk and became more open to partnering with others throughout the day.
I was so impressed by this trick that I asked the leader about it. She shared that they had choices for any number of groups. Need groups of three? Team them in trios and then ask them to become one of the Three Stooges. Foursomes? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And so forth. They had learned that boys know how to game the “count off” trick, positioning their best friends “n” people away to make sure they stayed together. The character game took them by surprise, before they could figure out how to thwart the leader’s intent.
As adults, we probably won’t be asked to become a cartoon character (I’d pick SpongeBob, FYI). But, boy, do we need to be broken up and moved out of our social comfort zones! How many times do you arrive at a networking event and look for the familiar faces? I’m guilty of this, and I really enjoy working a room and getting to meet new people. For the less gregarious among us, breaking out to meet strangers is a difficult exercise.
How many opportunities do we miss for fear of breaking away from our comfortable friends? There is such value in meeting new people, expanding our horizons, and finding ways to help others. Our reluctance to engage a stranger costs us so much. As adults, we are supposed to know better and not require outside intervention to make us do the right thing. Yet we still revert to old behaviors, rooted deep in our psyches.
We all own this problem. At your next event, acknowledge the familiar faces and turn away to meet the strangers. If your friends chase you down, gently aim them at others as well. You may have to write “SpongeBob” on your name tag to make your point, but it will be worth the effort.
What Can You Do? May 20, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.Tags: Leadership, Nicholas Winton, Relationships, Service
4 comments
I enjoy collecting and sharing inspirational quotes. I’ve arranged a few of my favorites on the Quotes page of this blog in the hope that others may garner similar inspiration from them. I know that there are thousands of these collections, far larger and more comprehensive than mine. Mine are, well, mine; they come from people that I admire for various reasons.
The newest addition to my collection comes from a relative unknown, Nicholas Winton:
I just saw what was going on and did what I could to help.
What did Nicholas do? In the waning days of 1939, he saw what was happening to the Jews in Czechoslovakia. He went to Prague, opened an office, and arranged to have 669 Jewish children sponsored and moved to Great Britain. An additional trainload of 250 children was to have left on September 3, 1939, but war was declared and the train was canceled. Those children were killed by the invading Germans.
Nicholas Winton turned 100 yesterday, on May 19, 2009. He is inordinately modest (he never even told his wife what he had done), and I certainly have not done his story justice. You can learn more about him here and here, and a 2002 movie tells his story as well.
It would be impossible to catalog the downstream good that Winton’s actions caused. How many subsequent good acts were undertaken by those he saved? And by their children, and in turn their children? How many people have benefited by some action of those saved by Winton, but have no idea that they could trace that act back to one man, doing what he could to help, in 1939?
Few of us, regrettably, will have the impact of Winton. But all of us can have some impact, in some way, every day. No act of good, no matter how small, is wasted. Most importantly, we can never know the true measure of any act of good. What seems small to us may be huge to someone else.
There is an apocryphal tale of a small boy walking on a beach covered with starfish washed up by the tide. As he walks, he picks up starfish and throws them back into the water. His father asks him “Why throw them back? You can’t save all the starfish. What difference does it make?” The boy picks up another starfish, throws it, and says “It made a difference to him.”
Today, in honor of Nicholas Winton, make a difference to someone. In each situation you encounter, ask yourself two simple questions:
What is going on?
What can I do to help?
Imagine a world where we all did that every day. Now stop imagining and go do it!
Good And Evil May 15, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Book Reviews.Tags: History, Leadership, Project Management
1 comment so far
The stakes were high for the 1892 World’s Fair. Dubbed the Colombian Exposition, the fair was intended to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the new world. Coming on the heels of the spectacular World Exposition in Paris in 1889, symbolized by the new Eiffel Tower, chances were not good that the Colombian Exposition could never, ever top what the French had pulled off.
Nonetheless, various US cities fought fiercely to host the event. After much politicking, Chicago won the rights to the fair in 1890, tasked to create an entire global event in less than two years. Other cities, most notably New York, were sure that Chicago would fail miserably, embarrassing the US in the eyes of the world.
The citizens of Chicago proved them wrong. Their herculean efforts to create the 1892 World’s Fair are chronicled in Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. His scrupulously researched book provides a glorious view not only into the vast project of the fair, but of daily life in 1890s Chicago. For those of us who manage large projects, there is definite sympathy for the team of architects and engineers who struggled against all odds to deliver, on time, the greatest fair in history, ultimately topping the French and cementing the US position in the eyes of the world.
Beyond the appeal to project managers, any fan of history will relish the endless number of things that originated with the 1892 fair. Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat cereal, AC power, and the Ferris Wheel? All debuted at the fair. A young draftsmen dismissed by the architects for refusing to adhere to their designs? That would be Frank Lloyd Wright. A carpenter who helped create the fantasy structures of the fair who later regaled his children, Roy and Walt, with tales of the project? That would be Roy and Walt Disney; each stroll down Main Street in DisneyWorld today is an echo of the same walk down the Midway of Chicago in 1892.
But what of the evil? With the fair as a backdrop, the most prolific serial killer in US history preyed on visitors to Chicago. H. H. Holmes came up with a clever idea: he built a hotel near the fair, offering rooms to the many young women who came to Chicago seeking a career amid the excitement of the fair. Charming and charismatic, Holmes wooed these arrivals to the city, who seemed to disappear at an alarming rate.
The hotel occupied the top floor of his building, with his personal residence and shops on the floors below. Few knew that the basement included a 3000° kiln and airtight rooms outfitted with gas jets. Holmes was a busy man; estimates of his handiwork range from 25 to 200 victims.
Erik Larson does a marvelous job of weaving these two stories together, contrasting the lofty aspirations of the White City of the fair with the dark evil lurking literally next door. The technology and social structure of the Gilded Age that made the fair a success also allowed Holmes to operate with impunity. Larson brings an immediacy to the book that makes it difficult to put down; his almost off-hand recounting of the present-day echoes of the fair is a delight.
This book is worth your time, if only to provide parallel views into worlds we will never inhabit: the fantasy of the fair, Chicago society in 1892, and the mind of a psychopathic killer. Both are fascinating and in their own ways remind us that things, good or bad, are never really what they seem.
A Quiet Place May 13, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Leadership, Management Skills, Planning
4 comments
Leaders get pulled in a thousand directions. No matter where you sit in the org chart, you are being pulled by those above and those below. From above, requests for status and things to do; from below, a need for guidance and clarification. There is little time to think; you need to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice, and you need to be right every time.
Truth be told, I thrive in this kind of world. I like the pull, the energy, the constant change, and the challenge of not dropping the ball. For an ADD mind like mine, constant change feeds my natural need for distraction. If the world did not present distractions, I’d have to create them.
Nonetheless, everyone needs to time to think. When that time comes, it can be almost impossible to stop the distractions (self-induced or externally imposed) and find an extended block of time for concentrated thought. For leaders, these blocks of time are crucial for pulling all the pieces together and thinking strategically. Tactical thinking thrives on distraction (solve this problem now!); strategic thinking thrives on solitude and focus (what will we be doing years from now?).
How do you find time to think? I cannot find the time at the office or even at home; there is always something, either self-inflicted or from someone else, that demands my attention and pulls me away from a quiet moment. Instead, I think best in the noisiest activity available to me: while I cut the grass.
The overwhelming cacophony of the mower shuts out everything else in the world. Coupled with the iPod plugged into my ears, I am absolutely oblivious to any outside stimulus, to the point that my wife often has to throw things at me to get my attention while I’m mowing. The simple repetitive act of going back and forth across the yard occupies a large part of my brain that would otherwise be engaged in ADD-related activity. The end result is that my mind is truly freed to engage in long-term thinking and problem-solving.
The other nice thing about lawn-mowing is that it has to happen every week, rain or shine. As a result, I get consistent thinking time on a regular basis. Were it not for the relentless growth of the grass, I know that I would never put so much time on my schedule just for thinking. In fact, I can feel the loss of that time in the winter, when I don’t get the chance to think as much.
I’m not recommending that everyone turn to lawn care as their preferred deep-thought environment. What I am suggesting is that we all need to find some way to create a deep-thinking place, and we need to go there on a regular basis.
It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day stuff and neglect our strategic focus. Successful leadership requires strategic thinking that can only occur in self-imposed solitude. How you find that solitude is up to you, depending on your personality and psyche. Finding that time, however, is not optional and is crucial to your success as a leader.
The Effective CIO 