The Carrot

61-second minute

Maybe you've heard by now: New Year's Day 2006 is going to be delayed by a whole second to make up for changes in the Earth's rotation. The technicalities are explained in a Dec. 26 MSNBC article.

But I'm not interested in that.

Since I'm always dreaming of having more time, I've started thinking about what I might do with my extra second this year ...

• squeeze my daughter extra hard during a hug

• just one more scratch behind my dog's ear

• wave to a neighbor I've never met

• wink at the heavens

• go for 25:01 on the stair-stepper

• thank a co-worker for something before asking for something

Sure it's only a second. But isn't that all it really takes to be there for someone?

Teachers Seeking Oprah

Sometimes people will refer to the "Trojan FISH!" as a way to describe how the philosophy initially makes its way into one's life or one's organization because of its fun attitude and natural energy. But then one day, at a deeper more heart-felt level, people have this "WOW!-That-Felt-Great!" moment and there's no turning back.

At my daughter's hockey practice the other day, I met a parent who's written a new book that kind of works the same way. The book is titled Desperately Seeking Oprah Reservations. It's a zany story about how a group of teachers one-day decided that they wanted to see Oprah live in Chicago.

Now when I was a kid, I thought getting hockey tickets to see the Toronto Maple Leafs was tough. Evidently getting in to see Oprah is way harder!

But of course, that's only part of the story. What I got from the book and my conversation with the author, Sue Conley, was a deeper message about the magic of persistence – yes, about getting the tickets, but also about book publishing, launching her first blog and facing personal crossroads in our lives. (Sue's a litigation attorney by trade but has really got juiced about writing this book. Now what?)

I say "the magic of persistence" because often when I've pursued things I'm really passionate about, my compass goes haywire at some point. I lose sight of a clear, linear path. My surroundings seem totally foreign. And I'm struck with the realization that I can either turn back or just keep going. It's that moment of truth when I realize what I'm really working toward.

FISH! has inspired me on this journey before. I never knew a story about getting tickets to Oprah could do the same!

Give Us Wings

I'm involved in some volunteer work with an organization called Give Us Wings this holiday season, so I've been thinking a lot about what I learned as to why so many African aid programs aren't as successful as they could be:

"These efforts work when they're people-centered, not profit-centered," shared an African bishop with the founder of Give Us Wings.

Apparently many corporate donors, foundations and wealthy individuals merely prescribe solutions, throw money at quick-fixes, then move on to the next issue. This approach does help, but it often creates a community of people who become more dependent on the source of incoming cash vs. sustainable independence on themselves.

Remind you of anything else near & dear to our hearts – such as the best way to see FISH! flourish (invite people to learn about it, talk about it, own it and nurture its natural energy) vs. the quickest way to kill FISH! (mandate it based on lousy fourth-quarter earnings)?

In her book, Turning to One Another, Meg Wheatly dreams of the day when "people are seen as a blessing instead of the problem."

Just a few powerful ideas I'm reflecting on this holiday season – and how they relate to my family at home, at work and on the other side of the globe.

Wallace vs. Kersten

Who isn't deluged with December to-do lists?

My own first two weeks have been packed with a weekend hockey-tournament trip to Grand Forks, ND, holiday choir concerts at school and Mall of America, driving my mom shopping all over town, another weekend hockey tournament in Inver Grove, MN, re-stringing my holiday lights to get the right end to the power source and frantically trying to grab gifts and mail them to my Lithuanian relatives before the big 2-5.

Zany? sure. Magical? It can be. I do my best to stay in tune with the real meaning of the holiday season.

I even came across a wonderful line from poet Wallace Stevens that puts some wind in my sails for the next two weeks of December:

"Beneath every No, lays a passion for Yes that had never been broken."

(Just like that current of electricity you know is coursing through a string of holiday lights while you keep futzing with a section that doesn't want to light!)

Wow. Stopped me dead in my tracks quicker than a half-price sale sign at Sports Authority.

But so did this Despair, Inc catalog I just got in the mail. Front-cover headline reads: "No matter how luckluster you are, you have the potential to be so much less."

My cynical nature engaged, I smirked, flipped through the catalog, but just couldn't come all the way around to E.L. Kersten's motivational philosophy of inspiring people with "Demotivator" products.

Heck, I think he even likes FISH! In his book The Art of Demotivation, Kersten writes that FISH! "is a suitable complement to a comprehensive program of Radical Demotivation," though first you have to eliminate the principles of Play and Make Their Day.

I don't know: tongue & cheek stuff for folks with a great sense of humor or real fuel for the cynic's soul of coal?

I've got both types on my list and I've got figure out who gets what!

FISH! Scents

With so many pungent aromas in the air from a Thanksgiving holiday past and December holidays ahead, I couldn't help but think of what The FISH! Philosophy would smell like if you could visit the mall and buy all four principles in fragrance form.

Our sense of smell is a powerful trigger of past events, relationships, emotions and other memories.

Could it also help me to live the four FISH! principles more often? I wonder ...

What scent would help me remember to Be There more often for others during the day? Perhaps a warm, compassionate Vanilla Bean, for example.

And Play? For me, that might be something like Old Spice after shave. It was my dad's favorite and to this day, I remember wrestling matches that involved me, my dad and way too much of his favorite after shave!

Then there's Make Their Day. Wouldn't a lovely, soft rose scent be nice – a fragrance that would instantly conjure up visuals of huge, colorful Valentine Day rose bouquets received and given?

Choose Your Attitude? Considering how challenging this is can be for me, I'm thinking something direct, sharp, with no holds barred: like ammonium carbonate smelling salts that pro athletes use to snap their heads back into the game after a miserable play out on the field.

So what do you think: have we stumbled onto a new product line for next year's gift giving season?

If Jones Soda can put Thanksgiving in a bottle, maybe ChartHouse can put The FISH! Philosophy in a candle?

 

Do Lunch with a Pine Tree

Pretty amazing what you learn at camp when you're a kid, isn't it?

I just got back from the Audubon Center in Hinkley, MN after hanging out with a bunch of 6th graders during my daughter's learning retreat in the north woods. It was great to get out of the classroom and into the real world for a while. For her and for me.

Not only did I learn to carry a 9-volt battery and some steel wool every time I venture out into the forest from now on, I also got my often-too-tight perspective kicked open by kids who had recently moved to Minnesota from Florida, Togo and Laos.

"First time I've ever seen snow," said the kid from Florida.

"Why do you want to spend three hours outside in the cold?" asked the one from Togo.

"The refugee camps in Laos aren't like this one," said the girl from Laos.

And onwards they pressed. On the high ropes - learning to beat their PS2 addiction 20 feet above the ground. On the survivor trail – learning to use that 9-volt and steel wool to get a camp fire blazing. On the wolf trail – learning that the Alpha wolf is just as vital to the pack as the Omega wolf.

So many grew so much. And man, did they teach me a lot. Just like the many folks at ChartHouse who have camp-counselor backgrounds, including John Christensen himself, the creator of The FISH! Philosophy and several folks who helped create FISH! For Schools. No wonder the ChartHouse conference room is in fact a cozy, comfortable lodge complete with a fireplace for heartfelt conversations.

What I got on my trip was that life is like camp, isn't it? It just lasts way longer, with a larger community of people (mostly older!) and a ton more challenges  ... like facing stuff you don't want to do, people you don't want to talk to and ORT you do want to leave behind (ok, that last one's weird, but true!)

Henry David Thoreau figured it out in Walden:

"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch or an old acquaintance among the pines."

Now those are the appointments I've got to get on my calendar more often.

Blackberry Dip

I admit it, Being There for someone sitting across the table fondling their Blackberry is my personal acid test for living The FISH! Philosophy.

“I know work’s been tough for you lately Sue, so I wanted to share …”

DIP

“I found this book of …”

DIP

“It’s filled with great ideas about …”

DIP

“I just though it might help you …”

DIP

“Ahhh, forget it. Take the damn book and call me later.”

DIP

Ever experience the Blackberry Dip with someone – you know, the insincere smile, the inauthentic nod of acknowledgment, the hollow look in their eyes as someone pretends to be engaged with you while constantly dipping their chin to check email, voicemail or schedules on their Blackberry?

Sure you can ask them to put it away. But it’s almost worse. Symptoms I’ve witnessed when someone’s denied temporary access to their Blackberry are sporadic twitching, wild neck craning, uncontrollable eye-blinking and unconscious attempts to receive telepathic messages from a Blackberry buried in one’s purse, pocket or briefcase.

So how do you get present with a crackberry addict?

Deb Dinnocenzo nailed it in her book Dot Calm: “technology doesn’t make people work more hours; people make people work more hours.” 

Also check out the Aug/Sept ‘05 issue of Pink Magazine. “Blackberry in the Bedroom” is a hilarious, humiliating article that offers many ways to survive the Blackberry Dip including 10 Blackberry Commandments such as this one:

“Thou shalt remember that a Blackberry is not a body appendage. It is a device that belongs in your briefcase, on your desk and not in social settings.”

If FISH! can’t help, I’m afraid for the intimacy of rich, loving conversations between real human beings. Very afraid.

Empty-handed & Wholehearted

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

If you're a parent who likes buying trinkets for your kids on business trips, you know there's nothing worse than pulling into the driveway at home only to realize that you forgot to get them something!

It just happened to me. And the first voice I heard? "Go back to Chicago now and grab something quick!" How crazy is that?

Since I really didn't have a choice this time, I sat in the car thinking of excuses for not bringing them another keychain, magnet or stuffed toy from the Windy City. Then it hit me. Why not try something different this time? Bring them me.

So instead of walking in with an armful of souvenirs and a headful of distracting work issues from the trip, I decided to walk in empty-handed and wholehearted. What would that be like?

I gave it a shot.

I rushed my kids before they could rush me. I started jumping on our backyard trampoline before they could ask me. I dove into their backpacks eager to learn about their days and help with their homework before they could ask me. I let them stay up a little later watching Disney Channel before they could ask me.

And a miraculous thing happened ...

Not once did they ask for a gift from Chicago. Not once did they search my pockets for a little something. Not once did they ransack my bags looking for something hidden inside.

Empty-handed and wholehearted? In our September/05 edition of FISH! Net we wrote about the benefits of bringing more of our true selves to work.

As for bringing more of my authentic, engaged, creative self to my daughters, it's going to save me a bundle and keep in wonder.

Are We There Yet?

Wow. Just returned from an eye-popping, heart-opening, brain-enhancing, soul-piercing, possibility-propelling experience at Landmark Forum in Chicago. Someone I met at the Forum told me that a Chicago newspaper recently asked readers to share their most extraordinary real or imagined life experiences. A trip to the moon was #1. Landmark Forum was second.

I can see why. Their tagline is "Live a Life You Love" and they mean business. Barry, our leader for the weekend, never let any of us off the hook when we tried to make up excuses, reasons, stories, etc. to dodge our own personal responsibility to live a life we love. Not only was he a tough coach, he also showed up with just the right measure of George Carlin and a loveable 10th-grade math teacher who could make the most complex quadratic equation crystal clear with just a sentence or two.

In a recent Fast Company piece called The Frankenleader Fad to expose the inauthenticities of so many folks we dub "leaders," Marcus Buckingham writes that "the core characteristics of leadership are self-assurance and authenticity. The best way to achieve those qualities ... isn't by developing what you lack, but by amplifying the areas where you are most true to your best self."

And the way to be true to yourself according to Landmark? Confront your inauthenticities every chance you get and invent new possibilities from there.

By the end of my session, what became clear for me, was that as far as I believe I've come in my own life, in so many other ways, I haven't started the damn engine yet.

Driving back from Chicago to St. Paul, I saw these words appear on an empty page in my journal next to me:

Confined to our steel-belted, hemi-heavin’,
window-tinted, air-conditioned,
leather-appointed, GPS-positive,
Meaning-making machines,
We press on the gas,
Pull out to pass,
With the nerve to ask:
“Are we there yet?”

Are you kidding,
We haven’t even left yet.

And in that second,
We are free to embrace the velocity of now
With each turn of the tire at 80 miles an hour.

Tip if you go: Bring a well-padded seat cushion. Because probably like a trip to the moon, the ride gets bumpy in spots!

Tags: Landmark Leadership Management

Back to School in the Eye of the Storm

If you're an educator, you know exactly what you're working for right now.

In the aftermath of Katrina, a recent NY Times article describes what experts said could become "the largest student resettlement in the nation's history," the "twin challenges" of being there for displaced students while upholding the standards of No Child Left Behind and an unfolding K-12 situation "unprecedented in American education."

To help now, go to the Department of Education's special website, What Schools Need, created to drive private donations straight to the schools that need them the most.

Crazy times for educators already burdened with issues such as too much adminstrivia, challenging classroom management issues, standardized testing, not enough teaching time in the day, maintaining energy and perspective in the classroom, society's minimalist view of the teaching profession, and flat out not enough money to get the job done – school budget or take-home pay. Teacher morale is strained, to say the least. But it's often in such weird and worrisome times that one's calling is crystallized.

Of course Katrina has intensified these issues beyond belief for school districts directly impacted by this natural disaster. But when we take ChartHouse Learning's FISH! For Schools into so many and such different districts such as Brooklyn NY, Sumner WA, North Little Rock AR, New London OH, Hampton VA, Mission SD and Los Angeles CA, we hear teachers and students alike struggling with the same stormy issues:

"Mandates and standards are eating up real teaching time."

"I'm afraid of becoming an old lazy-fart teacher just doing the bare minimum."

"I want to have cool, interesting and meaningful relationships with all my students."

It's like our entire K-12 education system is caught in the eye of its own terrible hurricane.

Given that this is the most incredible start of the school year for so many, this quote by Nel Noddings reverberates with more power than ever:

"We should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement, and we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others."

Describing thousands of displaced students pouring into Texas schools, president of the Texas Counseling Association, Sadie Woodward, said, "These kiddos are going to need support for a very long time."

True enough. But let's also support the educators (bus drivers, cooks, custodians and other staff, too!) who are supporting the kids. Going way beyond the call of duty in times like these is probably the real reason so many of them got into teaching in the first place.

tags: teaching education curriculum

Calling out Human Resource Management

By now, even if you’re remotely related to human resource management – like say your third cousin from Croatia is in the business – you’ve probably read, been shoved into or have flat-out tried to ignore Keith Hammond’s scathing cover piece in the August issue of Fast Company, “Why We Hate HR.”

Hammond’s point is that great organizations and the great people in them need confident, creative, strategic human resource departments, “joined to business strategy at the hip.”

But Hammond hasn’t come across many of those. Rather, he describes most HR departments and the people in them as “a dark bureaucratic force,” performers of “stupid HR tricks“ and “a low-risk parking spot” for “exiles from the corporate mainstream.”

Our experience of human resource departments and the passion of the people in them has been a little different.

Championed by highly creative, empathetic and business-minded HR leaders and their teams, The FISH! Philosophy has recently delivered these kinds of bottom-line results in the workplace:

• INCREASED EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: Satisfaction working within the team increased from 25% to 75% at Missouri Baptist Hospital
• INCREASED CUSTOMER LOYALTY: Six-month 30% increase in Customer Satisfaction taking the dealership from worst to the top 10% in its region at Rochester Ford Toyota
• REDUCED EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: 35% overall decline in employee attrition at Verizon

In the article, Jay Jamrog, executive director of the Human Resource Institute, says that HR is stuck.

I think it’s more than that. I think most organizations are stuck: leaders, managers, HR and employees. All are yearning for more meaningful conversations about profit and passion at work.

When we see organizations improve their cultures and company morale with the help of FISH! and reach new levels of productivity, innovation, respect and effective teamwork, it’s always a result of all stakeholders stepping up and pulling together. Sure HR can lead that initiative, but everyone needs to get some skin in the game. Everyone needs to be accountable for their personal growth and the development of the organization.

We know it intuitively: Employee Engagement = Increased Profitability. In the same article, Anthony J. Rucci, executive vice president at Cardinal Health Inc., says "I don't know if our HR processes are having an impact, but I know absolutely that employee-engagement scores have an impact on our business," accounting for between 1% and 10% of earnings.

Truth is, great organizations are about great people and their individual contributions to the cause. So whatever our role or level, instead of blaming others, maybe we should take a good look in the mirror tomorrow morning and go from there.

tags: management business human resources

User-friendly Democracy

Remember getting just a little friendlier customer service last time you were in renewing your auto-license tabs?

Well, maybe, maybe not. But with the help of The FISH! Philosophy, government agencies throughout the country are trying to notch up their relationships with the public and among their own co-workers. Even the CIA's gotten into the act, "Though we're not authorized to reveal who's using FISH! and how they're doing it," jokes Sharon, a FISH! Sales Guide specializing in government agencies.

Recruiting good people for government jobs is also a challenge. Sure the bennies are great, but the pay's usually not on par with the private sector so a great working environment, effective teamwork and real opportunities for personal growth and development become crucial.

Enter FISH!

"Routine, regimen, policies and procedures put people to sleep," said FISH! keynote speaker Carr Hagerman as he presented the philosophy to a crowd of over 1,000 state legislators at NCSL in Seattle yesterday. "FISH! on the other hand, inspires conversations about passion and play at work that open up new possibilities."

Seems to be catching on. FISH! is now in some government agency throughout all 50 states, including offices of the Supreme Court, FBI, IRS, USPS, Federal Reserve and all branches of the military.

As one government official receiving a website award put it, "It's time to make democracy user-friendly."

Something to test next time you're audited by the IRS!

Tags: CRM Human Resource Government

Heyday of Play

In the spirit of mid-summer sun & fun, self-reflection and rejuvenation while soaking up some personal time away from work, I wanted to share this paragraph written by Dr. Seuss for The New York Times in 1952 about our heyday of play ... just might be an attitude to bring back to work along with all those other souvenirs!

"When you were a kid named Willy or Mary the one thing you did better than anything was laugh. The one thing you got more fun out of than anything else was laughing. Why, I don't know. Maybe it has to do with our juices. And when somebody knew how to stir those juices for you, you really rolled on the floor. Remember? Your sides almost really did split. Remember? You almost went crazy with the pain of having fun. You were a terrible blitz to your family. So what? Your juices were juicing. Your lava was seething. Your humor was spritzing. You were really living."

Tags: Motivation

Now Hiring Passion!

"The world needs more dreamers. But we're always defending logic," writes Amit Goswami.

So maybe that's what's tripping up our own leadership search right now.

We're searching for three leaders (aka, dreamers!) in our Sales, Solutions and Administrative groups. And we're having a heck of a time.

Just try finding a Sales Leader who's able to knit purpose and strategy together in a wholehearted way – someone who believes it's not only about the month-end sales figures.

Just try finding a Solutions Leader who has the personal discipline to balance global scalability with  the promise of FISH! also being infused through more intimate, personal, one-to-one relationships.

Just try finding an Administrative Leader who can temper their infatuation with financial spreadsheets and business processes to appreciate that our "people are the solution vs. being the problem" as Meg Wheatly so elegantly puts it.

Lofty ideals, to be sure. And the more folks we meet, the more often we seem to be wheeling back in our chairs after each interview to check in with one another: Are we asking the wrong questions or interviewing the wrong candidates?

Admittedly, we're a different bunch here at the home of The FISH! Philosophy. We pose weird questions of our job candidates: "So, are you more passionate about Worth or Worthwhile magazine?"

We're wide open to embracing folks who aren't "blinded by an insider's perspective about how our industry should work" as a recent Fast Company blog suggests. FISH! inspires us to bring our own gifts to work for the good of the overall community.

We believe in " ... getting rid of the managing mindset and letting the leaders out ..." as Sig "Thimgamy" writes. In short, FISH! is about lifting the lid on human potential and we need our leaders to genuinely inspire that.

During every interview, we also scan for subtleties to confirm that a candidate believes in how Jagdish Parikh describes leadership: "leadership is not a quality, strategy, or tactic, it's a way of life, a way of being." As a colleague recently reminded me, "FISH! isn't about the words you use, it's about the actions you take – day in and day out."

And of course, we always discuss our families, passions and dreams during interview conversations. We talk about what inspires our candidates, how they've inspired others, what they're passionate about, which of their gifts make them a great leader – no, a dreamer! – inside and outside our walls.

Then we get to the question, "So, what are you working for?"

When we hear people answer, "Big bucks and global market domination!" we keep looking.

Know anyone who would answer, "The purpose."

If so, tell them to contact us – quick!

Tags: Jobs

Vacation Stagnation

Now that we're in the heart of vacation season and I just returned from own family get-away to Montreal to visit my dad, these stats from a recent MotherJones' feature, "The Road to Nowhere" got me planning my next trip pronto!

• last year, Americans forfeited an average of 3 paid vacation days – 415 million days total – a 50% increase over 2003

• the value of unredeemed frequent-flyer miles is $700 billion, exceeding the value of U.S. dollars in circulation

• middle-aged men who skip vacation for five years increase their risk of heart attack by 30%

• the RAND Corporation in California now gives its employees a 5% bonus if they use all of their vacation days

I don't get it. Why is it so hard for so many of us to use all of our vacation days? We usually hold out for the best vacation package possible when we sign on. And I know there are many ways to answer the question "What are you working for?" but I thought a front-runner was always the reward that came from a restful, relaxing replenishment of mind, body and spirit?

Guess not. Again from MotherJones, here's what many of us do while we're out:

• 32% of paid vacation time is spent doing non-vacation activities

• 30% of employees do office-work during vacation

• 43% return feeling overwhelmed by the work they have to do

Yuk! Something seems terribly wrong here. Not that there's anything wrong with throwing yourself into the work you love, but hey, I don't think these stats reflect what Stephen Covey had in mind when he described his 7th Habit of taking time off to sharpen the saw!

I guess there's even this thing called "presenteeism," a term used to describe the lost productivity when up to 66% of U.S. workers "often" or "always" come to work when sick. And there's "lesiure sickness," a condition that affects 3% of people who have such a hard time leaving work that they develop flulike symptoms during weekends and holidays. 

What do you think?

Are we really a nation of workaholics?

Are we that insecure about our jobs or ourselves that we can't take a break when we deserve one?

Is there something wrong with our corporate vacation policies that they're poisoning our productivity and passion at work?

I look forward to your ideas – but please, whatever you do – don't share them until after you've enjoyed a nice, long July 4th weekend!

Tags: Motivation Vacation

Scissor-happy UK Hairdressers

What makes work fulfilling?

Ask your hairdresser next time you're in.

According to a recent UK survey conducted annually to track the satisfaction of the country's workforce, hairdressers were found to be the most content. Forty percent of them rated their happiness level at work as a "10 out of 10!" Close seconds were members of the clergy, chefs, beauticians and plumbers. At the bottom of the list was – well you guessed it – white-collar folks such as social workers, architects, civil servants, real estate agents, secretaries and lawyers!

What secrets can hairdressers whisper to us about job satisfaction next time we're in the chair?

The list is probably a long one, but here's my top six ...

1. Constant conversation
We often talk about how FISH! helps to "dissolve barriers and inspire conversations about what's possible" ... sounds like the essence of a typical hairdresser's day!

2. Creativity
Not to say that the few bristles of hair on my head give my barber much to work with, but imagine how fulfilling it must be to work your craft on each new customer who walks in, then be immediately rewarded upon completion by a large smile and a tip in your hand!

3. Authenticity
No faking it in this industry. One 22-year veteran hairdresser put it this way: "You have to be in a good mood – especially in a salon where there's a huge mirror in front of the client who can see the faces you're pulling behind them." (What a passion check! Imagine holding up a similar mirror to the faces we're pulling in our current jobs.)

4. Perspective
Considering all the stories hairdressers hear on a daily basis, their personal perspective on their own lives must be razor sharp!

5. Personal Contact
Kind of obvious, but kind of profound to me. Hairdressers and their customers actually co-create their product and service in real time. It's pure one-to-one. Total experience complete in less than a couple of hours on the high end. No email. No meetings. No process. No bureaucracy. Just you and the customer making magic together. Pretty powerful metaphor to me.

6. Play
You know where I'm coming from here ... but just listen to how one hairdresser put it: "I've been here for 13 years, but it doesn't feel anything like that long. If you love what you do, the time just goes by. Sometimes I wonder whether I do any work because I'm laughing all day!"

I also read that hairdressers work less overtime that any other UK profession and like other folks in vocational occupations, hairdressers enjoy a better social life that their office-bound counterparts!

Now before we all rush off to salon school, all this begs the question: is the situation the same in North America where so many of our hair salons and barbershops are merely cogs in big corporate machines?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

For inspiration, here are a few customer comments gleaned from a great BBC article on this whole topic:

"I have never met a miserable barber in my life."
- David

"Forget doctors, dentists, schools, friends – a good hairdresser is the key. I have one now. When I am at my lowest, two hours in her chair makes me feel like new – far cheaper than therapy."
- Jennifer

"I use a stylist every month who always remembers our last conversation ... there cannot be many other professions where this level of customer satisfaction is received. It's a refreshing change from the usual miserable types that 'serve' you."
- Jon

Tags: Self-Help Motivation Morale

New at ASTD: Screaming Rubber Chicken!

Thank goodness for the Screaming Rubber Chicken! Give it a squeeze, listen to its agonizing reverse squeal. Do it again. Laugh. Another squeeze. Toss it to someone. Laugh some more. Hey, so far, it's the funnest, most inspiring thing I've come across at the ASTD conference here in Orlando.

Bummer.

I came here looking for fresh, cool, innovative training and development ideas, and I'll keep looking. But I'm not thrilled at my prospects. Though not new to ASTD and going fast at $12, the Screaming Rubber Chicken could be it.

What's up with that? The number of exhibitors seems way down. There's a ton of convention bureau associations trying to distract us from our job at hand and lure us to other cities before our work is done here. There's e-learning mania of course. Energy on the expo floor seems low. And one couldn't help but wonder how alive and engaged the exhibitors themselves were in representing their own products and services. A simple "How's it going?" often elicited a deep sigh and a "One-more-day-to-go" response at best.

OK. So I do have another day to go and I'll keep looking for new ideas I can bring back to our own new product development process for The FISH! Philosophy, but I'm not optimistic.

Could be the heat: it is sweltering out here.

Could be the transition the whole T&D world is in: ROI pressures that dehumanize so much of our work, proving strategic value and the like.

Could be our industry is in a rut: we're supposed to be the strategic and conceptual leaders and implementers of fresh, engaging training and development approaches, but I'm just not seeing that kind of shine in the eyes of most people I've met so far.

Hugh McLeod recently wrote that "The market for something to believe in is infinite." In our business, that translates into new life-long learning approaches that inspire myself and others to believe in ourselves: personally and professionally.

I get the distinct feeling that our industry doesn't really believe in itself right now. Rather, it's tentatively tip-toeing around rather than taking a risk and plunging into passionate, personal development ideas and concepts that genuinely inspire all of us to more deeply believe in ourselves, our colleagues, our managers, our organizations and our customers.

OK. Like I said, It is muggy out here and my brain may be getting soggy.

But hey, I came here to get inspired, and dammit, I'm going to find a way to leave inspired. (Maybe that Screaming Rubber Chicken is working after all.)

When Harry met Delwar

So there we were, my colleague Harry and I, getting our bags lugged up to our hotel rooms in Beverly Hills after flying in from Minneapolis. You know the feeling ... long flight, tight center-row squeeze, chatty neighbors, nauseous cab ride ... once you get to the hotel, it's all you can do to take those few final steps into your hotel room and collapse on the bed.

Delwar was our bellhop and my colleague's room was first. To tell you the truth, I was getting somewhat annoyed at all the questions Harry was asking. "What's your name?" "How long have you worked here?" "Do you live nearby?" Like I said, all I could think of was crashing on that bed. So many questions, I thought. So little patience ...

The next morning, I saw Delwar in the lobby and decided to ask a few questions of my own. "Any movie stars stay here?" I inquired.

"Oh yeah," answered Delwar. "Bill Murray likes it here. Tom Cruise has been here. Julia Roberts. The American Idol people always stay here."

After a short pause – for Delwar to mentally scroll through all the stars he'd met, I assumed – he continued. "But you know something, sir, there's one person in particular that I remember the most."

"Who's that?" I asked excitedly, imagining any number of celebrities he might mention.

"Your friend, Harry." he responded. "Of all the famous people that come through here, Harry's the only one who ever asked me my name."

Bam. Right between the eyes. Thank you Delwar. Thank you Harry.

Once again, I was reminded about the power of presence – or in FISH! lingo, "Being There" for others. (Not to mention how much work I needed to do to live this principle more often!)

Zambonis to Avon Ladies

Simple, isn't it:

"If you don't enjoy your work, it's hard getting up in the morning, you know?"

That from Al Sobotka living his dream job (and maybe mine!) as a Zamboni driver for the Detroit Red Wings.

Looking for a little inspiration about your own Dream Job? Check out Salary.com's fun list of Dream Jobs that I first heard about from Curt Rosengren on his Passion Catalyst blog.

Salary.com has compiled a whimsical list of jobs that float the boat for a bunch of regular folks simply following their bliss. (Easy, isn't it!)

Once you select a Dream Job to read about, what's also fun (or depressing) is to compare the list of Dream Jobs on the left with the listing of Yahoo "Top Jobs" on the right. Far be it for me to judge, but I just can't help but wonder how many of the folks in those "Top Jobs" are as fulfilled as the folks featured in the Dream Jobs.

Eric McNulty, a blogger over at Worthwhile Magazine, shared an insightful comment by Dan Pink that sheds some light on the disconnect. Dan says, "You may know an accountant who goes home to a studio to paint, but I doubt you know a painter who goes home to do taxes as a hobby."

I think that's the key: to weave a little more "dream" into whatever day-to-day jobs we do have. Not all of us are lucky enough to have fallen into our perfect dream jobs yet. But we have to start somewhere and I also think we have a responsibility to bring our best gifts to work with us. For instance, why couldn't that accountant bring some of his art to work with him? Imagine the creativity of those spreadsheets!

I love writing, for example. So I'm having fun writing these blogs and expressing some of my ideas in The Carrot that I can't always express in my regular day-to-day office conversations. Works just fine for me.

What about you? Anything in the way of bringing more of what you love to work?

Honor thy carrot!

Ahhh, the proverbial carrot! Whether it’s dangled in front of you by someone else or contrived by yourself to keep you motivated, it’s not always as tangible, consistent and reliable as we’d like it to be.

That’s when the question pops for me: “What are you working for?” And the deeper I go exploring the answers, the more I learn about myself and the work environments and relationships I find myself in. Fascinating (and frustrating!) stuff.

Welcome to my first post!

If you know something about The FISH! Philosophy®, you know that FISH! is an invitation to re-awaken the self-trusting, creative spirit within all of us. To start new conversations about what’s possible. To develop new attitudes. To have more fun again. At work. At school. At home.

As a guy who works for ChartHouse Learning – the official home of The FISH! Philosophy – that’s my context for this blog. To get into the “crunchy conversations about passion, purpose and work inspired by FISH!”

By design, FISH! is the declarative. True to my nature, The Carrot is the interrogative.

So what about me?

I’m John Nielson and as I mentioned, I work for ChartHouse Learning which created The FISH! Philosophy. My job is to inspire how FISH! shows up in the world – in our marketing, new products and services and our brand growth strategies.

Personally, I’m on my own journey of deeper discovery and refinement of my passionate self. On this adventure, I’m constantly amazed at how hard it is to define the carrot that I’m really chasing and why. I’m not sure I’ll ever have a full and final answer to that, but of course, the journey itself is part of the answer.

Some of the answers that keep coming back at me are consistent with what the surveys usually reveal about what keeps people fulfilled at work, such as the recent 7th version of the Career Systems International survey which reports the following top three retention drivers:

1. Exciting Work and Challenge
2. Career Growth, Learning and Development
3. Working with Great People & Relationships

Of course there’s the cash, too! I for example have three ambitious, extra-curricular expensive, around-the-corner college-bound daughters that motivate me to do plenty of my best work! But when I ask myself the question “What are you working for?” other things resonate with me: to use my quirky creative gifts to be a thought leader at ChartHouse; to collaborate with “a collection of unruly, disciplined minds who will think the unthinkable,” as Derek Woodgate,   Futures Lab founder put it, and; to be part of a culture that isn’t afraid to have the real conversations about the alignment of authentic personal motivation with the organizational mission statement.

I love how Meg Wheatley puts it: “Determination, courage, genius and foolishness appear simultaneously when we care deeply about something.”

I’m personally in place in my life that’s idea-crazy and production-driven! ChartHouse gives me that professional opportunity because the pipeline’s flush with great new products, services and clients. And like a lot of us, I also have a list of personal projects that I fear may be longer than the time I have on this planet to complete them! My list includes children’s books co-created with my daughters, stories about my family in Lithuania, poems about my divorce – and many other tales demanding the light of day from within rusting coffee tins up high on the shelf!

So for me right now, my professional and personal creative plate is full! That’s good, because at the end of the day, I want to make certain that for my sake and for the sake of my daughters, I avoid Rilke’s prediction of those who don’t answer their calling:

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
And walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
Because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man who remains inside his own house,
Stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
So that his children have to go far out into the world,
Toward that same church, which he forgot.

O.K. then. How’s that for getting things started? (And here I thought I didn’t have much to say in my first blog!)

I look forward to your thoughts to get the crunchy conversations going …

So … what are you working for?