Collaboration

Is Good, Enough?

“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” ~ Annie Dillard

Surely, you’ve experienced it.

As you’re working out the details for a pending project — or maybe while you’re in the middle of a vexing complication — your client comes to the conclusion that maybe the problem is the bar Is just set too high.

“Maybe we should just settle for something more realistic.”

“I’m not sure we’re going to have the budget to make this baby a prize-winner. Maybe on the next one.”

“Sometimes good enough really is, don’t you think?”

When I ask, “What do you want to eliminate and still keep the outcome acceptable?”, the response is usually a reflection of the decision maker’s fears or lack of commitment to excellence rather than the actual constraints of the situation. Seldom do the extra resources required to make a project stand out really cost significantly more in terms of budget or effort.

GoodEnough_Blog_0305 — Will settling for ‘Good Enough’ be good enough to build your life on?

The more deeply I become aware of the impact of self-protection issues in the workplace, the more I realize that many people, even those in seemingly high positions in organizations, are often afraid of excellence. They don’t want their work to stand out in a way that raises the bar because their next project may be compared to what they’ve done and new expectations set.

Are there ever times when “good enough” is? Sure!

But I believe making that decision in the planning stage of the project – based on the desired impact – is the right choice, not as a rationalization or an excuse for lack of commitment in the middle of the process.

As the opening quote by Annie Dillard suggests, when you spend your life – day after day after yet another tedious day – settling for good enough, you may one day find out that it wasn’t.

Charles

Are You Burning Your Fuel Wisely?

“Do not fall in love with people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave, you will finally understand why storms are named after people.” ―Caitlyn Siehl, Literary Sexts: A Collection of Short & Sexy Love Poems

As I was reading this opening verse on “Art Parasites,” I was again reminded how much I want to allocate my “people time” to be with individuals that I care for so much that I feel pangs of hurt to be away from them. Friends that I ache to be apart from. Clients that I care about so much that I wonder how their business and personal lives are faring.

As part of my planning schedule, I’m trying to incorporate an “energy review” where I think about the kinds of people and events that either add to my reserves or draw them down. If people I’m spending my time and energy on are consuming my resources, I need to be assessing my return on investment from being with them.

Have you ever been around someone who had the ability to just light up a room – by leaving it? Or the flip-side — the people who make everything seem bright and possible when they’re around?

I wrote out my core business values several years ago after an experience of working with a client who was a drain on my immediate energy resources and my reserves. Up to that point, I hadn’t realized that my values were based on emotional energy. Energy generated by positive, collaborative relationships. Energy I needed to re-invest into doing great work.

I’ve had a habit for most of my life of using my energy the way most people use fossil fuels — with the thought that, even though the price may fluctuate for various reasons, there must be an unlimited quantity because it’s always there when I want it.

But no energy source is either infinite or without infrastructure costs.

Over time, I’ve realized that particular people have a particularly high cost of infrastructure maintenance. And upon reflection, because I wasn’t cognizant of how I burned my own emotional fuel, I’ve been higher maintenance for people around me than I ever should have asked them to tolerate.

As an introvert, I understand that “people time” taxes my energy reserves. Therefore, it’s critical for me to invest my time into being with people that I long to be with, that challenge me to grow into my best possible self. These are people that encourage me to jettison those parts of myself that are impeding my potential. People who will destroy me in the most beautiful way possible.

But to ask someone to be that source of encouragement for me, I have to develop the character traits that allow me to provide the same support to them.

Developing awareness may help you become cognizant of the times when you are a possible drain on others, but most importantly, it may be the first step towards making the changes needed to conserve energy for what matters most, your work.

Charles

Are You Willing to Ask?

How much do you want it?

Whatever ‘it’ is, how often have you wanted something so badly that you could taste it? But for whatever reason you were afraid to ask?

Even though I’ve known forever that if I want something, I’ve got to ask for it or else I’ll get either the standard fare or nothing, I still have difficulty asking.

Most of the time we don’t ask it’s because we fear rejection. That fear can manifest itself in living with the status quo or, as I often do, try to do something on my own that I really need help with because I don’t want to be told “I can’t help” or worse, be thought of as inadequate because I asked.

Either way, that fear is causing you and me to achieve less than we’re capable of and enjoying the process less than we should because of it.

I had the good fortune to hear Jia Jiang speak at a Storyline conference recently. It was Jiang’s quest to face rejection and move into the resistance that the fear generates that helped me decide to choose the word ‘ask’ as one of my guiding words for 2013. You can read about Jiang’s ‘100 Days of Rejection’ and watch his TED talk if you want to be challenged to face your own versions of rejection.

What I’ve come to realize in trying to grow beyond my current abilities to have an impact through my work is that I need other people.

I can’t do what I believe I need to do without learning more, unlocking the access to people and places that I don’t have keys to, and collaborating with folks who have skills that I lack but are critical to delivering the quality of service that I expect.

To take ownership of my vision and see it through I must face rejection. Because what I’ve discovered is worse – far worse – than rejection is missing a significant opportunity because of fear.

Jia Jiang states it well.

My rejection therapy taught me that “the worst they can say is no” is actually not true. In fact, the worst they can say is “you didn’t even ask”. It implies I said ‘no’ to myself before others could reject me. If I have a good reason, it is my duty to step out of my own comfort zone to ask, no matter how difficult and impossible the request is.

Although I’ve focused on the process of ‘asking’ throughout this year, I have yet to find that it comes easy to me. Every time I ask for something that I’m uncomfortable with, my stomach churns. Every. Time.

But I am learning to ask anyway. Discomfort is a modest investment to make to get the abundant returns that most ‘asking’ allows for.

Becoming more cognizant of my own fear has heightened my consciousness of others’ as well. It has made me acutely aware of the self-imposed limitations that many of my friends and business associates are living under. I’ve come to understand that I can nudge them to increase their boldness but I cannot force them to grow. Their boundaries are what they are.

Often, the fear we recognize in others is a reflection of our own angst. I’m trying to use the anxiety that I encounter as a mirror to reflect my own walls of comfort.

The discomfort of trying and the possible disappointment that threatens when we consider trying are great impediments to making the effort. But as Seth Godin pointed out in a recent post, “For many people, apparently, it’s better to not get what you want than it is to be disappointed. The resistance is powerful indeed.”

Indeed.

How are you facing resistance and asking for what you need to manifest your vision?

Charles

Giving Credit Where it’s Due

Credit is a funny thing. When someone reaches a high point of success, it seems anyone who may have been in the vicinity of the success wants a piece of it, and a large part of the credit. But often, the person who gets credit for the success at hand is rather parsimonious in sharing the glory with those who helped.

As I’ve looked back over the last couple of years, I need to acknowledge that every success, way-point or goal along the way to a success was made possible by someone else’s help. One recent example is a photo I’ve been wanting to create for over a year.

There is a country store I pass on a regular basis with an American flag painted on the side. Every time I passed it, I knew I wanted to make an image incorporating the flag but nothing seemed to gel in my mind. As I was passing it one night, enough of the elements came together to water the seed in my mind. As a customer was walking from his car to the store, another driver was backing out of a parking space, the headlights of his car illuminating the flag and silhouetting the customer walking by.

Having an idea is one thing; making an image out of it is yet another. I wrote out my thoughts and called my “go-to” buddy, Avery Clifton. Avery has been working with me on a number of projects this year and has a very good eye for details. I was in over-my-head conditions on a number of projects, but didn’t want to miss the opportunity to capture the image now stuck in my head. There was a particular Americana feel I wanted to capture, so finding the right models, wardrobe and classic truck were essential.

Although Avery had never taken on all of the production responsibilities for a shoot, he jumped into making phone calls and scouting. Within days, he had all the details in place and, with the exception of one rain delay, the shoot went off without a hitch. I absolutely know I could not have pulled off this production without his help.

And this is but one of several occasions where others have opened the door and held it, allowing me to glide through. As I look ahead, I am amazed and humbled at the opportunities to take on several future projects that are already being lined up. Two of the “rainmakers” who have recently been such an encouragement on many fronts are Bill Davis of Team Nimbus in Raleigh and Craig Mathews, the Chief Thinkologist at Big Think, Inc.

Probably the biggest change in my thinking over the past few years has been from a mind set of “with persistence and determination I can eventually get anything done,” to one of “with the right partners more of the right things can get accomplished and everyone wins!” It’s a seismic shift that’s still shaking my world.

So, what collaborations are out there waiting for you follow up on? Who do you owe credit to for helping accomplish your goals? How can you help others accomplish theirs?

Charles

Reward Collaboration

“The best reward is not to give money but to show a new connection toward the future.” ~ Dr. Coltaire Rapaille ‘Seven Secrets of Marketing’

Collaboration

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