Too Much Loss

It's too much.  Too much loss.  One tragedy leaves the front page, and another arrives to replace it.  

 

In New York State, the recovery efforts from Hurricane Irene in 2011 hadn't even completed when Hurricane Sandy hit late this fall. 

 

Here in Saratoga County, local communities are still reeling from the loss on December 1st of two incredible teenagers, Deana Rivers and Christopher Stewart, from the Shenendehowa High School who died in a horrific car accident.  Matthew Hardy and Baily Wind survived the crash, and have gained national attention as they recover via the power of social media.  The outpouring of love and support for these families from the capital district has been truly inspiring.

 

And then we learn of the unspeakable violence less than a week later just a few hours away at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  I don't know those children, those incredible teachers, or the families who grieve for them.  Yet I mourn with them for this unfathomable loss.

 

Too much loss.

 

In late 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean created a devastating tsunamis that ravaged Southeast Asia.  A group of musical artists released Hands Across The Water in December 2005 to benefit the children who suffered from that natural disaster.  The second song on that album is called "Get Through It" (Allson Brown, Jon Randall, & Mairtin O'Connor). 

Here are the words from the chorus:

 

“You don’t get over it

You don’t get past it

Don’t get around it

Don’t outlast it.

You don’t fight it

You don’t lose it

You don’t believe it

But you don’t undo it.

You don’t get over it

You just get through it.”

 

The song deliver a powerful message of support to those looking for a way to move forward when the unthinkable happens. 

Whether the loss occurs right here in our local community or halfway across the world, in our homes or at work, we feel it.  It connects us in powerful ways, and people are moved to help in whatever way they can. 

Praying, supporting, taking action to bring about change.  We can't "get over it", but we can "get through it".  Together.

May your holiday season be one that brings you together with friends and family, and also with the larger community that connects us during both tragedy and celebration.

 





 

 

Telecommuters More Susceptible to "Sitting Disease"

If you telecommute, your manager - and your doctor - want to keep you on your toes.

There's nothing new about the message that people who work at a desk need to get up and move around throughout the day.  But as the number of people working from home continues to rise, it's becoming a renewed focus. 

Telecommuters spend more time sitting than their counterpoints in the office, making them even more susceptible to what health experts are calling "Sitting Disease".   

Here are just a few examples of why we sit longer when working from home:

•      All our meetings can take place by phone/computer from our chairs.
•      All conversation takes place by phone/computer rather than face-to-face - again, from our chairs.
•      We are more likely to eat at our desks when we don't have co-workers to stop by and invite us to join them in the cafeteria or at the local deli.

Throughout the day, telecommuters are missing out on those short walks that wake up the metabolism, stretch the muscles, and send serotonin to the brain.

Telecommuter Dos and Don'ts to counteract Sitting Disease:

• Don't take those calls sitting down.  Do stand, or better yet, pace while you're talking on the phone.  Become a team member who can "think on their feet".
• Don't limit yourself to traditional office furniture and equipment.  Do consider new standing workstations and exercise ball chairs.  Trade in the desktop for a laptop, add a headset to your phone that lets you move around.
• Don't eat lunch at your desk.  Do move to the kitchen, cook yourself a healthy meal, and eat it standing at your kitchen counter.  If your laptop needs to go with you, so be it, but put it on the counter, not the table (with the chair).
• Don't let preconceived notions about working from home limit your movement options.  Do short bouts of housework and outdoor activities like shoveling the walk and going to the mailbox.  "Short bouts" means the equivalent time as your peers in the office are taking when they walk from their desk to the conference room (including that conversation in the hall along the way, the stop to refill the coffee mug, and the trip to the restroom) - 5-10 minutes at a pop, separated by an hour or so of focused work effort.  Telecommuters who do a few minutes of laundry between the hours of 9-5 are not "stealing company time".  Balancing time spent at the desk/phone and time spent transitioning from one activity to the next is the same challenge, regardless of location - it's just the transition activities that differ.
• Don't be afraid to talk about it.  Do use one-on-one meeting time between manager and employee to be upfront about your concerns and ideas about telecommuting expectations.  Managers, worried your virtual team member is spending too much time away from their desk?  Telecommuters, sensing concern from your manager and team members about what you're "really" doing when you work from home?  You need a healthy conversation about how job performance is evaluated, how work productivity is measured, and a review of the team's communication expectations. 

Find more scary facts about our sedentary lives, as well as some helpful suggestions (for men and women) in this article by Women's Health Magazine.

Fact or Assumption?

Our first Halloween together, my husband and I stocked up on candy for the kids in the neighborhood.  I set the bowl by the front door a few days in advance, loaded up with a variety of chocolate bars - the good stuff.

The morning of the big day, there was a distinct drop in the level of candy in the bowl.  Considering it was a weekday, I assumed my husband must have been packing some of the candy in his lunch for work. 

Or at least I did, until he asked me, "Been hitting the candy pretty hard, haven't you?"  He had made the same assumption about me.

It was just the two of us living in the house at the time, plus the cat, who had no affinity for sweets.  Who was taking the candy?

Mighty Mouse, that's who.  We found the pile of wrappers and half eaten candy bars with tiny teeth marks behind the couch.  After informing the cat that he was falling down on the job, we put the rest of the candy in a safe place until the Trick-or-Treaters arrived.  Mighty Mouse was caught the next day and relocated to the great outdoors.

I'm reminded of this story today because it's Halloween, and mouse season, and because it's good to be mindful of our assumptions.

Assumptions come from a place of logic based on our past experiences, our general knowledge of the world around us, and the regular patterns of our everyday lives.  Our assumptions are wrong when we're missing key information or when emotion clouds logic.

Coaches working with people going through challenging transitions are especially mindful of assumptions.  Emotions are running high and the environment is changing, hitting on both risk factors for error.  A good coaching question to ask during this time is "How do you determine if that's a fact or an assumption?"

The question reminds us that we sometimes confuse assumption with fact, and that we have the ability to do the sleuth work to tell the one from the other.

Wishing you a happy, safe, and mouse-free Halloween.   

If Wishes Were Changes

"If wishes were changes
We'd all live in roses
And there wouldn't be children
Who cried in their sleep"
          "If Wishes Were Changes", Nanci Griffith, Storms

I caught myself wishing the other day and immediately started to chastise myself for such a fruitless exercise.  Wishing is for children's birthday candles, pennies tossed into the fountain, and shooting stars.  Right?

Yes.  And yet even as we leave behind our make-believe worlds, wishing is still a part of our vocabulary and our innermost thoughts. 

As adults, we know not to count on wishing alone to see change.  "I wish my boss would give me a raise."  "I wish my team member would stop stealing my ideas."  "I wish this employee would just quit so I didn't have to fire her."  These changes will take effort on our part.  So why the wishing? 

Because we don't want to make those efforts.  They're difficult and uncomfortable and risky.  "I don't like self promotion, so I don't want to talk salary with my boss.  What if she gets mad?"  "I don't like confrontation, so I don't want to talk with my team member about what they're doing.  What if he laughs at me?"  "I don't like to upset people, so I don't want to tell her she's not a fit for the job.  What if she starts crying?"

If you hear wishing in your vocabulary, it's a good sign that you have something that's unresolved and needs to be added to your to-do list.  It may be one action to drive one change, or it may be a series of actions that kick off an entire change initiative. 

And what about the wishes that we don't even say aloud, that we quickly dismiss and send back to whatever realm of the heart/soul/mind that they came from?

Those wishes are more than a to-do item.  They are powerful messages that bubble to the surface when we least expect it, deserving of a closer review.  Meaningful and sustainable changes happen when we make time to listen to that wish and all that it represents. 

I read an article written by an executive coach describing a meeting with one of his CEO clients who was wishing for higher profits.  After a series of questions about what higher profits would do for him, they arrived at a surprising answer:  higher profits would allow his company to give back to the community and make a difference.  That realization became the focus for all the actions and changes that followed. 

Wishes are not changes, but if we give them our attention, they can point us to the path for change. 

An Olympic Coaching Lesson for All of Us

I tried to watch it all, I really did, but I was just too tired.  NBC claimed they'd be showing the highlights during prime time, but they failed to note that prime time would be temporarily redefined to include late night.  I stuck with it for almost a week, but by week two, I only caught pieces of the early segments before I had to retire for the night.  

In catching up online with some of the highlights I had missed, I came across this page on the NBC Olympics site with the "Best quotes from the London Games".  They range from funny to revealing, from to hopeful to regretful. 

However, the best quote I heard during my late nights in front of the TV was not included in their list.  It came from Tim Daggett, Olympic gold medalist and gymnastics analyst during his coverage of the women's gymnastics team competition. 

As Aly Raisman was getting ready to perform her balance beam routine, Tim was filling time by sharing a conversation he once had with Aly about the pressures on her to perform, and how stressful that must be.  She replied that actually, it didn't feel like anxiety or stress for her, that she would describe it as a feeling of excitement.  Tim's reflection on this was that "I guess it's all in how you label it".

Now that's a great quote, profound actually.  It's all in how you label it.  "It" being our thoughts, our emotions, our experiences.

There were many inspiring and motivating stories to be heard over the course of the two weeks, but I would offer up Tim's insight as one that goes beyond these Olympic events and this particular athlete.  Be aware of your labels. 

• How are you labeling the events of your life as they unfold? 
• What names do you give to the stronger emotions you experience?
• How aware are you of the path your thoughts travel by pure habit and your ability to choose an alternate route?

Change the label and change your perspective.  An Olympic coaching lesson for all of us.

Olympic Pins Bring Cultures Together

This is my Olympic pin collection - all five of them.  It's small but memorable for me.  I picked these up as a teenager during the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY.  If you've never been to an Olympics, you may not be familiar with the pin trading craze that goes on between events, for athletes and spectators.  I read online (so it must be true) that pin trading started at the 1894 Athens Olympics, but didn't really become popular until the early 1900's.

I've written about my connection to the Olympics in an earlier blog, Chariots of Fire.   When the world's best winter athletes came to Lake Placid, I was just nine miles away in Saranac Lake. It was an incredibly exciting time to be in the Adirondacks. Many of us were hosting visitors from around the world in our homes, our churches, and our community centers.  Local kids like myself were frequently given pins by visitors to get us started on collecting and trading.

The Associated Press shares this YouTube video from the 2008 Olympics about pin trading.  I love the comment by the one woman about how this activity brings people together from around the globe.  The pins start the dialogue and connect people through their shared interest.  Those who travel regularly to the Olympics can share wonderful stories about the people they've met as a result of this hobby.  Even as the globe shrinks due to technology, there's still something special about meeting someone from another continent in person and interacting face-to-face.     

As people are now gathered in London for the 2012 Summer Games, I think about all the introductions that will be made possible because of pin trading.  People will work to communicate despite language barriers and cultural differences.  There will be lots of smiles and pointing, nodding of heads, shaking of hands, and laughter.  And yes, technology will help with translating devices.  What a wonderful way for the world to come together as one community, even as each person roots for their national team. 

I'll be cheering for Team USA and Communications World.

Why We Reinvent The Wheel

Reinventing the wheel - "As it has already been invented, and is not considered to have any operational flaws, an attempt to reinvent it would be pointless and add no value to the object, and would be a waste of time, diverting the investigator's resources from possibly more worthy goals which his or her skills could advance more substantially."  (Wikipedia)  

What happens within an organization that causes us to reinvent the wheel? 

Ignorance that the wheel already exists.  Per the definition, an individual is already aware of the wheel, yet proceeds to attempt a reinvention for no added value.  But what about the scenario where an individual thinks they are inventing the wheel, not reinventing it?  This is most prevalent in larger organizations with multiple divisions and locations.  Knowledge management is a challenge, a situation that can be improved with tools, technology, and process.  If an individual could easily research within the organization as to the existance of the wheel, they may find that they don't need to start from scratch. 

Lack of respect for others.  "Sure, their team has a prototype, but they don't know what they're doing.  I don't even have to look at it to know it won't work for our purposes.  My team will need to create it themselves."  Poor relationships and silos within the organization prevent even an initial exploration, resulting in potential duplicate of effort, and wasting time and resources. 

A culture that rewards innovation over efficiency.  Ideally, you have a balance of the two within an organization.  You may have product development focused on innovation and operations focused on efficiency.  Or, you may outlined both for one group, highlighting innovation for growth and efficiencies for maintenance.  But if all the accolades, reward, and promotion go to those who innovate, you are inadvertently shifting the balance. The resulting behavior is evident by an unwillingness to research existing solutions, to collaborate with other teams, or to share credit for work effort.  

It's clear that within an organization, "reinventing the wheel" is undesirable.  You don't reinvent that which you've already created.  But if this is something you need to address, be sure you've correctly identified the source of the problem before you implement a solution.