Improving Our Time
I am reading the incredible book, A Man of Iron. The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland by Troy Senik right now. I am confident there will be many blog posts prompted by this book. This post is about a comment Senik made early in the book as he was describing Cleveland’s journey as a child and young man. He wrote, “If we want to become great in our future lives we must improve our time in school.” He also said, “We must improve our time as children.” This observation that we must improve our time really jumped out at me. As father of a son who graduates from college this spring it has been awesome to watch him grow, develop, and improve. It has also been my job to not be a main character, that’s his role, but a side character in this journey. It has been such an honor to be a supporting actor in his journey. Funny, I hadn’t really thought of it, but my wife and I’s job has been to provide the experiences for him to improve. Additionally, my son has done a great job of improving his time.
Back to “We must improve our time as children.” Whether as parents or educators, we must improve time by helping children learn new skills, pursue their interests, and develop healthy habits, so that they can become well-rounded and successful individuals later on. Furthermore, we need to focus on our education, social skills, and emotional growth during the formative years so that children can face the challenges of adulthood with confidence and resilience. Bottom-line: the time spent during childhood has an important impact on our future. Every path matters – so we have an obligation to do everything we can to help our our children navigate, both with guidance and providing experiences as supporting actors.
Keeping Our Minds Wide
In season nine (2021), episode 174 of Chicago PD, Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) said, “Let’s keep our minds wide” to the team. I loved this phrase. I believe he was telling the team to be receptive to lots of ideas, possible scenarios, arguments, data, evidence, and information. When we do this we become able to understand different patterns, ideas, and ways of thinking. It’s about expanding our worldview and listening. This reminds me of another old show I love to watch, Columbo. I even blogged about Columba’s ability to listen and expand his worldview in Listen and Look, Look and Listen. In that post I said that the term “look” means to direct your eyes in a certain direction. Then, “listen” means to pay attention to someone or something in order to hear what is being said, or sometimes what is not being said. “Listen” and “look” are actions usually thought of when we are paying attention.
Additionally, this is about expanding our thinking. The best I have witnessed at keeping their minds wide are able to think across multiple dimensions. They can use their past experiences to help bring clarity to the present. Furthermore, keeping our minds wide lets us think more strategically and understand the larger context of the situation. Finally, it is also about being open to the fact that our own ideas might not be right; or at least not entirely correct. This brings to mind a panoramic view, where I can see a lot of landscape or content in one picture.
Everyone Changes Everyone
I love the television show Chicago PD. Lots of twists and turns that make me think. I was watching season nine (2021), episode 173 last night and this interaction took place: FBI Agent Walker North (Alex Morf): “You know, I looked into your unit for months. Looked at every member, looked at you. I was so sure that you were the one. Kid from a rough home, mother he had to take care of who died a brutal death from cancer Decade in an army, multiple commendations for this job. I thought you’d be the one person, the one who knew exactly who he was, the one Voight wouldn’t be able to corrupt. I honestly didn’t think he could change you.”
Detective Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer): “Everyone changes everyone.”
North: “No, not if you don’t let them.”
Halstead: “So your brother didn’t change you?” The phrase “Everyone changes everyone” really jumped out at me. Sometimes we encounter people very briefly and others for longer periods of time and much more intimately. All, in some way, have an impact on us.
The relationships we form with others have the power to shape who we are and who we become. Others’ actions, words, or simple presence, can change the way we think, feel, and behave. And we have that same effect on those we encounter. This is why we need to value the encounters we have with others, but also recognize that those we come in contact with can have a negative effect on us. Who we hang out with matters. Take a moment and reflect on those that have had the biggest impact on your life so far and how have they have changed you.
Self Work
I came across the term “self-work” this week and it made me think about what that really meant and how does that differ from personal growth or professional growth. While the three it could be argued are interconnected, I believe self-work is much more focused on being introspective. As a very introspective and reflective person, I spend a lot of time examining my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, relationships and behaviors to understand myself better and get better at being me. This helps me be a contributing citizen in this global society we now live.
Professional and personal growth deal more with our identities. Such as, father, board member, leader, community member, partner, or all the other things we must continue to grow and become more effective. Self-work is more about self-awareness. The self-work we invest in ourselves enables us to become significant. Self-work is about owning our own failures and accepting and learning from criticism without just dismissing it as baseless. Self-work is about knowing ourselves. What are those things that will help make us who we want to become?
“Timidity Gains No Friends”
I consider myself to be humble leader. However, just because I am self-aware enough to talk openly about my blind spots and moments of weaknesses does not mean an inability to access my own wisdom to speak up and be courageous. A comment by Mark Twain in Volume 3 of his autobiography caused me to reflect on this. He said, “Timidity gains no friends.” The context when he said this was how some are timid when they start speeches. Twain argued this was never the way to start. It was hard to recover from this, according to Twain. Do not confuse this to say we should be arrogant or even worse, trying to fake it till you make it (my biggest pet peeve in the world). It means sticking to our strengths and playing to what we know.
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Developing strong communication skills and practicing active listening can help us assert ourselves without being arrogant. Taking a position of humble inquiry always allows us to learn and add to our knowledge/skill base. We all have our own personality and style that we should own and hone to continually build a confident and effective leadership presence.
Staying Liquid
I already blogged once about the newest episode (S6.E16) of S.W.A.T. this morning in Context Matters. Another thought provoking moment was when Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson (Shemar Moore), a Los Angeles S.W.A.T. lieutenant, said, “Let’s fill the gaps.” The rest of the team immediately said, “Stay liquid.” A pretty amazing team/leadership mantra. I love this, because on great teams there are clearly defined roles and responsibilities, but there are always gaps that arise. When every person knows their role, they are better able to become flexible, or liquid, to fill those caps. Also, when every team member has the proper technical training they are able to become fluid and fill in the gaps. This allows for situational and adaptive leadership at all levels.
Make no mistake, however, staying liquid is not possible without a culture of innovation and experimentation. Also, those clear roles and responsibilities I mentioned earlier enable having processes in place that allow for quick decision-making and rapid response to changing circumstances. Finally, having the necessary and appropriate resources and information in real-time can enable individuals, teams, and any organization to make informed decisions and fill the gaps quickly when necessary.
Context Matters
Having contextual information can help build trust and rapport between individuals, as they feel heard, understood, and validated in their experiences.When we have context, we can accurately assess challenges and opportunities to come up with potential solutions that will better address the underlying nuances and issues at play. Last night while watching a new episode (S6.E16) of S.W.A.T. I was reminded how important digging for context was. Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson (Shemar Moore), a Los Angeles S.W.A.T. lieutenant, reminded his Commander, Robert Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit) that, “I’m just reminding you. You don’t have all the context.” when Hicks was being hard on the son of a former colleague. Once the context was shared between the two, the relationship was shored up.
Then Hondo experienced his own context gathering situation. He had cleaned out his house for the arrival of his new baby girl. His father became very upset and Hondo could not understand why. He then realized he had given away a doll house that his father had built for Hondo’s sister and was planning to remodel for Hondo’s daughter. What Hondo thought was junk meant a lot to his father and he was looking forward to passing the doll house down to his granddaughter. Once Hondo figured it out, it was too late and the doll house couldn’t be found. In the end Hondo and his father decided to build a new one together. Taking the time to establish and consider context is an essential aspect of problem-solving and effective communication. In the absence of context, misunderstandings can arise, and solutions may be less effective or even counterproductive. Context matters!
To Learn Without Being Taught
Yesterday I made a comment in a meeting that I make quite often: “I am pretty sure none of our students took a TikTok course in their school.” So, how have they learned to be so proficient with this controversial social media? Easy. The kids were excited to learn it, so they learned without being taught. I actually did a post on this last year entitled, “The Real-World Inspires.” Today I want to go a little further and talk about the idea of to learn without being taught. We all do it. As a founder of a business I have had to learn all kinds of things without being taught in the traditional sense. Yesterday, what prompted the whole conversation was that a person apologized for being self taught on some communication strategies and workflows we were discussing. I asked, “Why are you apologizing? Clearly you are passionate about this and see the need and relevance for your organization.” Some of the most impactful learning involves learning through trial and error, exploration, experimentation, and through exposure to new situations or environments. We all develop new skills, ideas or perspectives by engaging in activities.
Also, think about all that children learn without formal lessons or instructions. We all learned how to walk, talk and interact with others through their own curious exploration and observation of the world around us. We need to create environments for our children, ourselves, and within our organizations for the curious exploration and learning to occur. And, I think you’ll agree that kind of learning is very fulfilling and rewarding; not to mention lasting.
Just 10 Minutes Of Your Time
This morning I am reflecting on another topic brought up in Rachel Pedersen’s great book, Unfiltered: Proven Strategies To Start And Grow Your Business By Not Following The Rules: Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that as “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you give yourself a week to complete a task, it will take a week, but if you give yourself a day, you will be able to complete it in a day. Rachel emphasized the importance of setting realistic, but aggressive deadlines up front. She also discussed limiting the amount of time spent on tasks to increase productivity and efficiency. I have been paying attention to this lately. In fact this week I had a client schedule a 15 minute meeting with me. Guess what? It took 13 minutes. So, another client asked for an hour. I suggested a 30 minute gap between other meetings. You guessed it; the meeting took 26 minutes. So, one of my big takeaways is to get away from the default time periods for meetings – 30 minutes or one hour. I’m even trying some 10 minute calls. Calendly really helps me with that kind of scheduling.
One thing I have learned is that setting a clear deadline, breaking the task down into smaller chunks, and limiting the time spent, I can accomplish more in less time and feel more satisfied with the progress. Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA, advocated for splitting our days into 10 minute increments. Then, trying to waste as few of those 10 minutes as possible. I tried it – I was amazed at how few I wasted. And…I didn’t get bored with any one thing. Now, will that work for everything? Nope, but one more tool in the toolbox. I love having tools in the toolbox. Instead of letting projects take on a life of their own, we need to design the scope up front, because otherwise those projects will take on a life if their own and take as long as we let them.
Happy Birthday Question
I got a great birthday wish last week from the awesome leader and author, Bob Tiede. Here is the message he sent me: “Happy Birthday Byron! When you reflect on your past year what might be the one thing you are most grateful for?” Bob is all about leading with questions. That’s what I love about him and why he is one of my role models from afar. Here was my answer: “Thank you for the birthday wishes, Bob. Also, I love the question. Here are my thoughts: I am grateful for loving relationships and the opportunities that have come my way. Reflecting on the positives always helps me have a mindset of gratitude and contentment.” It was hard to stop thinking about the question, though. Questions are so powerful.
Many of those relationships I was referring to in my answer to Bob’s question were related to those new relationships I have made and old relationships that have been strengthened in the first two years of founding my own company. As I reflect on the past year, I am struck by how lucky I am to have such fantastic clients that really are more like partners. Their feedback and encouragement have kept me motivated and inspired, and I am deeply grateful for their continued patronage. I am also grateful for the lessons learned through challenging experiences. Wow! All this reflection from Bob’s question. There is so much power in the question. What are you grateful for?
Byron's Babbles 
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