Gently Blowing the Dust Off

When I lifted the book from my desk, I gently blew the dust off of the cover. It had rested there, untouched, since May. I had plans for that book. I had blog posts to write! Time flies when you’re… busy…

The book? The 2010 Chic-fil-A Leadercast Journal. On May 7th, I spent the day in a satellite simulcast location drinking in good teaching beamed in from outer space (or through buried fiber optic cables… The outer space piece sounds much more exotic…).

One of the first speakers was Jim Collins (Check out http://jimcollins.com). Collins outlined for us The Five Stages of Falling from Grace. That is, no good company goes out of business overnight. The stages are:

• Hubris born of success
• Undisciplined pursuit of more
• Denial of risk and peril
• Grasp for salvation
• Capitulation

Although Collins was speaking specifically about business, I think there are important lessons for us to learn about the way we live our lives. In subsequent posts I’ll be discussing these stages and how we can learn from them.

Tom

The early spring sunshine was bright and high in the sky as I laced up my shoes for an afternoon run. As I rounded the pine-tree-clustered first corner, I spotted another runner about 1/4 mile ahead of me. Motivation! I had to catch him.

Catching him wasn’t easy. As I slowly caught up to him I could see the steady, practiced cadence of a life-long runner. Probably 10 years my senior, this guy was not going to slow down. Before I got close enough for him to notice me, I matched his pace for a time–hoping to not be so out-of-breath from my chase when I spoke to him.

“Great day for a run,” I huffed as I pulled up next to him. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked him if I could run with him for a while. (Truth: I was tired!) I stuck out my hand as we ran and introduced myself. He told me his name was Tom.

For the next 20 minutes, Tom and I ran and talked. Tom is an economist for the National Forest Service. Yeah. I know. Who would have thought the Forest Service has economists on the payroll?!!? But Tom was real. A Forest Service Economist.

Tom’s job is about data. Intangible data at that. As an economist, Tom does things like quantify the value of Omstead State Park in Raleigh, NC. Not the value of the land. He looks at the value to the community of having access to the venues, events, and services the park offers.

Tom’s job isn’t limited to domestic parks. He told me that he recently worked to analyze the value of developing a relationship between the Forest Service and the country of Brazil. Brazil!

I was once again surprised by what I learned when I chose to Speak Up!

Manuel

It started early. Even as I showered the morning of my presentation at last month’s conference I could feel the nervousness building. I had to force myself to eat breakfast over a bit of a queasy stomach. I found myself distracted as I wandered from room to room attending the other sessions that morning. My sparse notes are evidence to the fact that I was thinking of other things.

Nervousness always comes. No matter how many presentations I make I think I will always be nervous right before I speak. The key is to have a strategy to deal with the nervousness.

My strategy for dealing with my nervousness at this conference was to attend the session that immediately preceded mine. This would give me a chance to:

1. Find the room well in advance of my time slot
2. Observe the room layout, sound setup, and so on
3. Learn from the way the previous presenter “used” the room

As I watched the previous session, I watched the sound man, dressed from head to toe in black, as he quietly, with few words, did his job. When it was my turn to be mic’ed, he strode toward me and asked, “Are you my next speaker?” I acknowledged my role and followed his instructions as we tested the equipment. After everything was hooked up, he looked up at my title slide emblazoned across the big screen at the front of the room. “Impromptu speaking, huh?” He asked, “Are you a Toastmaster?”

The man’s name was Manuel. He had a strong, smooth voice. He was a Toastmaster. In fact, he was in the process of forming a new club. We chatted for a few minutes about our shared connection through Toastmasters. I gave him a 30-second overview of my talk. I thanked him and began the last-minute preparation for my talk.

As the talk began, I noticed Manuel working the sound equipment. I could tell he was making live adjustments to the sound. When he was done, instead of leaving as he had done for the previous session, he walked to the back of the room and sat down. He granted me the honor of teaching him–Toastmaster to Toastmaster.

Manuel honored me with his words and with his presence. He encouraged me by just being my friend.

George

Computer bag slung over one shoulder, balancing two plates in one hand and a drink, napkins and silverware in the other, I turned from the conference dinner buffet and made my way to a table occupied by two other conference attenders. With their permission I joined them. I soon learned that these guys were end-users–customers, in fact, of my company. We’ll hear more about them in a future post. As I started to probe them about their applications and their experience, however, the subject of this post, George, approached. George was wearing a competitor’s logo on his shirt and, like me, was carrying way too much. Could he sit down? Of course!

George took over. He dominated the conversation. I attempted to steer the conversation back to the table’s original two occupants, but somehow George always took the floor back. George said kind things about my company’s products, but he said many amazing things about his company’s products. George bragged about his personal accomplishments working for the competitor. (At one point I remarked that with all those accomplishments I thought he should be CEO by now. He paused for a moment, gave me a very serious look, and said, “Yeah. I should!”) George went on to tell us about the restaurants and clubs in his home town, about how he’s a frequent customer at the same club where the local NBA team parties, and how he’s on a first-name basis with the club staff and several well-known NBA stars.

My table mates had become very quiet. They laughed on cue, but there was a lack of sincerity to their laughter. When George started talking about the girls at the club, claiming that he’d take us down there that evening if he didn’t already have another commitment, my new friends had heard enough. They seemed uncomfortable and started talking about how they were tired and needed to get up early the next morning.

My take on this is pretty simple. George was over-the-top. He was too much for his audience. He failed to follow the simple rule of tailoring your communication style to the people you are communicating with. George was so engaged in telling his story that he forgot all about us. He forgot all about his potential customers.

George Spoke Up, but he did so in a way that pushed people away instead of drawing them in. There’s an important lesson for all of us.

John

Airplanes are neither like conference sessions nor lunch hours. You aren’t sitting in front of a session speaker who consumes your attention. You aren’t looking for a place to sit and eat. No, you have an *assigned* seat (unless you’re on Southwest…). Yet, somehow, you can easily remain anonymous sitting 0.5 inches from the person next to you. That 0.5 inches is all the excuse I need to avoid contact!

But i was still thinking about my wife–the woman who never met a stranger and who enhanced our experiences by making friends wherever we go. I was flying Southwest, but I drew a B boarding pass. That meant that all the window and aisle seats were occupied by the time I made my way down the aisle. (Looking from the front of the plane all the open seats were in the middle. Why do people do that?) Picking a seat in this situation is weird. I don’t want to pick a seat between two women for fear of looking like I’m a flirt. Even choosing an open seat between a man and a woman could be incorrectly construed. My preference is to find an open seat between two men. I scanned the faces as I walked down the aisle toward the back. Fear struck. Would I get all the way to the back without making a choice? *That* would be embarrassing. A few rows beyond the exit rows, I spotted a couple of guys who didn’t look too settled in. I excused myself and asked for clearance to take the middle seat. Granted.

I have fast-forwarded to the plane ride home at the end of the conference. Both of my seat-mates immediately pulled out books to read. It seemed like it was going to be a quiet flight home. Safe at last!

I noticed that the man to my right, John, a middle-aged sales guy of medium height, short tousled hair, and broad shoulders, was reading a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. Being enamored with Gladwell’s previous work, Outliers is on my to-read list. I couldn’t help myself. I asked John about the book. He said:

My company is going through a lot of changes right now. I was told that this book might help us get through them.

I asked about the company, his job, and the changes. It turns out that John is the perfect bookend opposite Reggie the IT guy from a wine manufacturer. John told me that his company produces pallets–the portable platforms used for storing or moving cargo or freight. They have more than 70 million pallets out there. Yeah. Millions. Reggie’s company is one of their customers. Those million+ cases of wine go out on John’s pallets.The changes are innovation and technology. Business is good, and they are hoping changes will make it better.

Here’s the thing that intrigued me: The pallets are marked with RFID chips. These chips are used to track product and location information. John told me that these RFID chips are eventually going to mark the cases and the bottles such that they will know exactly when and where each bottle of wine is sold. They will be able to predict with amazing accuracy when the local grocery store will run out of wine and speed up or delay the next shipment.

Reggie’s 32 million daily transactions plus John’s 70 million RFID-enabled pallets mean lots and lots and lots of data.

People really can be quite fascinating.

Reggie

It was lunch time at the conference. Flying solo during the presentations is easy since everyone is preoccupied with the session speaker. Lunch is different. It’s not as easy for the interaction-averse (like me) to hide.

I filled my plate from the vendor-supplied buffet and looked for an open seat. I saw a man sitting alone at one of the small tables. I fought down my natural tendency to leave him–and everyone else–alone and approached, asking him if I could join him. Of course. He seemed happy to have me join him.

I introduced myself, shook his hand, and spotted his name and his company’s name on the badge hanging from his conference-supplied lanyard. Reggie, an IT guy for a major wine bottler. As we ate, I asked him many questions about his job and his company. What I learned is priceless.

Reggie told me that his company ships more than 1 million cases of wine per day. That’s cases. As in cases of 12 or 24 bottles. That is a bunch of product! Reggie’s worked for the company for 22 years–all of it in IT. He wrote their first inventory database. He wrote the database–still running on 1990′s vintage DEC hardware–that tracks the company’s brandy supply. He is also in charge of a database that takes in 32 million (yes, million) transactions per night. Each transaction details a single sale and includes where the wine was purchased, the age and sex of the purchaser, and what else was purchased on the receipt. The company uses this information to decide what, where, when, and how to advertise. They understand what’s selling and what’s not. They understand who is buying and who is not.

When I asked about the economy’s effect on his business, he said, “When times are good, people drink. When times are hard, people drink but they spend less on it.”

Sometimes speaking up yields an interesting story.

The People You Meet

When my wife and I went to Hawaii for our 20th wedding anniversary more than a decade ago, my natural tendency as a “loner” was taxed to it’s limits. While she has never met a stranger, my default stance is to assume that other people would rather be left alone. My wife proved that I was wrong by developing friendships–albeit brief friendships–with other travelers. In doing this she made our vacation even more enjoyable. I was, quite frankly, surprised.

Old habits die hard. This week I found myself at a conference without my lovely wife. Without her influence, I lapsed into my old habit of just leaving other people alone. For the most part. In a few cases I invited myself to sit with others during conference meals. The results were interesting and entertaining. Most people seem genuinely pleased to engage in conversation. I was, once again, surprised.

It would seem that my wife is right: It pays to Speak Up!

Stop the Music!

Recently, I went on a fast. You are familiar with the term, “fast,” right? No? Well, you’re not alone. Both Merriam-Webster online and dictionary.reference.com failed to list my intended meaning when I searched for “fast.” A search for “fasting” did yield the proper results:

fast [fast, fahst]

–verb (used without object)

1. to abstain from all food.

2. to eat only sparingly or of certain kinds of food, esp. as a religious observance.

–verb (used with object)

3. to cause to abstain entirely from or limit food; put on a fast: to fast a patient for a day before surgery.

–noun

4. an abstinence from food, or a limiting of one’s food, esp. when voluntary and as a religious observance; fasting.

5. a day or period of fasting. 

Origin: bef. 1000; ME fasten, OE fæstan; c. G fasten, Goth fastan, ON fasta

My fast was not from food. It was a fast from being late for meetings–especially those I host. I resolved to be like Ken. Ken, one my co-workers, is legendary for being prepared for meetings. He books conference rooms 15 minutes in advance. He arrives early to make sure the equipment is working. The conference phone line is always open several minutes prior to the advertised start time. Ken is an excellent role model for how we should use the communication technology at our disposal.

I tried it. I booked the rooms early. I arrived about 10 minutes before the advertised start times. I dialed into the conferencing number 5 minutes early and proceeded to set up the computers and projectors for showing video. It was great–except for the music! At first, I didn’t mind the music that plays when I’m the only one in the conference call. After 5 or 10 times I was ready to quit. Now I understand why I was always late: I subconsciously tried to avoid the music!

To my great relief, I recently discovered that hidden among the various secret button combinations is the * key. According to the Conferencing user’s guide the call leader can stop the music by pressing *. Ahhhhhhhh! That’s better!

The conferencing site also had these tips:

• #83 allows the leader to end the call to prevents others from hanging on after you hang up.
• You can update caller-announcement settings by calling in and pressing “4″ to access your personal settings. Because so many people dial in late, I turn off the audio announcement so that late callers only are announced as beeps. It makes for less of an interruption.
• #81 allows the leader to mute all participants. Got somebody on the call who won’t yield to your requests to mute? #81 forces them to mute. When you do so, you can instruct any participant who would like to speak or ask a question to press #5 to mute or unmute an individual line.

The numbers and key combinations on the conferencing system you use may be different. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to check out the user’s guide! Serious! Read the manual!

Use conference calls wisely for Speaking Up!

Gordon Fee in Context

Already I’m taking a break from our series in mastering communication technology. When something strikes my fancy, I often feel compelled to write about it…

Gordon Fee, in a series of lectures titled, “Reading and Studying the Bible for Life,” relates the story of one of his former students.

The student, a native of Australia, was attending university in the States. In the course of one particularly stirring lecture, the instructor used the words, “Four score and seven years ago,” to emphasize a point. After the lecture, the student asked some of his American friends, “What happened 87 years ago?” To this question his friends responded with blank stares. 87 years ago? Huh? When the Australian student repeated the words of the instructor verbatim, the light dawned for his classmates. “Oh, he was referring to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and how it relates to the subject of today’s lecture!”

Although the Australian student understood the words used by the lecturer, he lacked the cultural context to understand the meaning. Fee’s point in telling the story is that often we need to understand the context of the biblical passage to understand the meaning of the words used. In the same way, it is important for us as communicators to understand our audience and to use words that carry the correct meaning for them.

It doesn’t matter if we understand ourselves. (Well, it matters a little… ) The most important thing is that our audience gets the message.

Of having delivered a speech, one of my teachers said that there are 3 things in play:

• The speech you think you gave
• The speech you actually gave
• The speech your audience thinks you gave

Guess which one is the only one that matters?

Mastering the Technology of Communication

I am not a betting man, but if I were I’d give odds that almost all of us have experienced something like my experience earlier this week.

I was in a conference room, sitting around the table with eight other people. The speakerphone was off hook and connected via conference bridge to a number of other phones spread out across the corporation. In one of those far away rooms, someone asked a lengthy question. We couldn’t hear what the person said. Someone close to the phone in our room pressed the button to unmute and said, “We can’t hear the question.” The questioner began again, no doubt summarizing the question in a slightly more compact form the second time around, but we couldn’t hear him. Someone on his end was trying to help us by moving the phone closer to the speaker, but all we heard was the grumble-grank-thump of the phone sliding across the table. Oops.

This problem could have been avoided by taking a simple step toward mastering the technology we use in communication. Some possible solutions:

• When the speaker began, he could have announced his name and asked if folks on the phone could hear him clearly. This is important to do the first time a person speaks in a meeting where there is a speakerphone.
• The speaker could have waited until the phone stopped moving.
• The organizer of the meeting could have asked the speaker to wait or start again.

Simple steps that keep the audience on the phone in mind will help reduce miscommunication and excess repeats in our conference call situations.

My goal in this series of posts is to address a number of areas where using the technology of communication can be challenging. By sharing our experience and expertise with one another, I hope we can raise awareness and proficiency so that experiences like the one I described happen far less frequently.

Stay tuned and speak up!