I really appreciate the opportunity that Rebecca Parsons gave us to come on and chat with her.

If you’d like to hear a replay of the podcast, check it out here.

Practice makes perfect (or at least much better). This week we won our game. We had no big secret to our success; we were simply a more practiced and experienced team. We knew how to communicate with each other better and how to better perform as individuals.

I like to call myself an extemporaneous speaker that doesn’t like to overprepare. I often present to clients and at events with a loose manner and conversational style. While I like to have conversations with my audience, the truth is that I often don’t have enough time to really practice a presentation the way I might like. I’ve developed my conversational style as a way to fill in gaps that may exist in the material.

This can be good and bad. I can get in front of a group and soft-shoe for an hour on almost anything. I can’t rely on this skill, however, to work in all situations. Time and effort spent planning and practicing really do pay off in the long run. The best free throw shooters in the world are the ones that stand at that line every day, visualizing the ball going through the hoop as the throw it over and over and over again.

I’m looking forward to our practices almost as much as our games at this point. During each one, I become more familiar with my teammates and more confident of how to move on the field.

We’re only two weeks into the season. I’m looking forward to learning more on and off the field in the coming weeks.

And there it was, the formal presentation, with presenter and spotlight on the business plan. The Underpants Gnomes. A three-point executive presentation that summarized the strategy and execution plan of the Underpants Gnomes. Point 1: Collect Underpants. Point 2: ? Point 3: profits. Brilliant!

The plan couldn’t be less clear and what is funny about it is that it is remarkable how often we rely on a plan that looks very much like this in the workplace. In class, I draw it on a whiteboard as a “miracle here” cloud – the point in the effort where we are just guessing at what comes next. We resign ourselves to not knowing, we accept it. We want the outcome, but we rely on things like luck, faith, and hope to drive it out.

Next time you find yourself in that situation, ask yourself: are we the Underpants Gnomes?

Now, talking with Brad about it, he had another perspective. He had recently been talking with some people about some business ideas that were a variation of the equation above – got an idea, something happens, then Profits! We need not only to watch for our teams becoming these  little critters (our internal view of the world) but also the external view as well, those that come at us with half-baked ideas that sound good but have little substance behind them.

So, beware the Underpants Gnomes! They have a plan and they want your buy-in; they just aren’t sure what the plan is.

This last Sunday, I played my first game of kickball in at least 25 years. I’m part of a team playing in the Northwest Arkansas Kickball league. That’s right. For those of you new to
this sport, there are teams of adults playing kickball in leagues all across the country. At first blush, this might seem like just another way for overworked professionals to reconnect to their youth.

Let me just say…adult kickball is no joke. I had the time of my life playing in that first game, but everyone there was playing to win. Pitches were curving across the kick zone, and infielders were gunning for double-plays. Runners were sliding into second and third to beat the throw, and coaches were contesting close calls made by the ump.

Unfortunately, we lost our first game. Up 3-0 for most of the game, we had a few unearned errors followed by a couple of solid kicks made by the other team to make the final score 3-4. When I thought about that game and how I could have played better, I also thought about what kickball can teach us about enjoying our weekly workdays and making them more productive. I came up with the following short list:

• Focus on the moment – When you worry about what happened in the past or what could happen in the future, you’ll miss out on your chance to catch the ball when it comes to you.
• Enjoy the little things – Even when we were behind, I was just happy to be on the field and playing a game on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
• Leave everything you have on the field – I could barely walk back to my car after the game. Fairly out of shape, I ran faster on Sunday than I have in years. It took me a couple of days to recover, but I’m fine now and stronger for having made the effort.

We play every Sunday for the next couple of months. Sports magically teach us things about ourselves through the experience of playing. I doubt I’ll have deeply personal revelations each week, but I know I’ll have a good time either way.

41% of us check our email next. Nothing like a jolt of stress and adrenaline first thing in the morning. From there we jump into the shower, into our clothes, grab some coffee and run out the door.

Think about what this routine does not only to your mental state, but to your body in general. We go from completely at rest to mind engaged work mode without any type of transitionary period. I have a lot of friends that say they love their afternoon commute because it allows them to de-stress from the workday before they spend time with their family. Without that buffer of time, they’ve said they’re prone to crankiness and generally unpleasant to be around for their first half-hour at home.

If a buffer is helpful fol us in the afternoon, why don’t more people think about putting one in their morning? I have the best of intentions to get up every morning and go for a run, walk or bike ride. I rarely do it because I go to bed too late the evening before and need the sleep more.

Even on the mornings I sleep later, I try to have a small buffer between resting-me and work-me. That buffer could be reading a few pages of a book, meditating, writing a blog post, or even playing Angry Birds on my phone. I try never to check email, but when that’s not practical I create a specific time in the morning for doing it to minimize the intrusiveness of the activity.

My own morning buffer is still a work in progress. As I mentioned I often go to bed too late at night. The one thing morning buffers require is time and time seems to be the one thing our culture values less every day. I promise you, though, if you make the time needed for yourself in the morning, the rest of your day will seem more in-focus and more manageable.

So turn off the TV earlier in the evening and get to bed. At the very least, you’ll feel better for sleeping more, and you’ll hopefully create enough space in your morning to properly prepare for the rest of your day.

At the recent monthly Project Management Institute (PMI) Tulsa Chapter meeting, we had the distinct pleasure of hearing from Mr. John Post about a project that answers all these questions. As when Mr. Post, the Assistant Principal Associate Director of the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science (NIF) program, was asked during Q&A about what lessons he learned and what would he do differently, he said: “I wouldn’t do a single thing differently.” How many of us can truly, deeply say that?

Mr. Post and his colleagues were responsible for implementing the largest “science project” ever completed by the Department of Energy. We are not talking about a tri-fold cardboard background with a “model volcano” sputtering in the middle. We are talking about an endeavor that lasted 19 years, from notion to completion, with billions of US dollars invested. The result of the program is literally a star born on Earth: Nuclear Fusion created in a tiny cylinder, 10 millimeters long.

During the early 1990’s when the concept for NIF began to surface, I sat in an astronomy class at the University of Arkansas planetarium. The domed screen loomed overhead as the professor showed a video, one of the first examples we would receive for just how small and insignificant we humans are. It is a classic video now, where a camera starts at street level in New York City, then begins ascension directly upward, its back to the sky and lenses to the ground, moving out rapidly into the farthest reaches of space.

While any six-year old can do this now with Google Earth, it was novel at the time. The scope and magnitude, the weightiness of space and time, precisely impresses how insignificant we are in the big scheme of things. How awe-inspiring is it that we little beings have the mental wherewithal to understand this? I was reminded of this moment as I listened to Mr. Post speak of the NIF initiative, its history and potential for impact on the world.

Mr. Post lead the presentation with a simple question: What is the purpose of a project? From his perspective you must have understanding of that purpose as the first step to success. In this case, the primary funding sources for the US government-led project would be related to National Security. There would be other benefits, but security was the primary focus. Mr. Post hit that slide, listed the purpose and moved on. I honestly didn’t give it much thought, excited as I was to hear the details of the project execution. It was a nice set-up for what would come later.

From ground-breaking celebration to operational completion 12 years later, the mission stayed the same (besides the brief detour of stumbling on a fossilized Woolly Mammoth that would delay the project for a couple of weeks). They were to design and construct a facility to enable the creation of energy simulating a star on earth, an objective never before achieved.

The challenges were mind-boggling. Do this with technologies that haven’t been invented yet. Build it on time and within budget for funding that hasn’t yet been secured. Deliver the project over a time-period of unprecedented globalization, turmoil, and change. Do all of this over the years through Administration changes, political dogma, and economy stability fluctuations. The role of risk would be paramount throughout the life of the project.

Mr. Post took us on a stroll through NIF, its history, technology, construction, and aspirations; I couldn’t help but think of weapons because of the National Security goal. Any weapon, at its core, is about energy – the exertion of energy at a desired point, causing a release of that energy in a controlled manner with the purpose of a target’s destruction. NIF, at its core, is about energy. And, as John talked through the presentation, the light bulb slowly came on for me. While driven by National Security as the principle objective, this was not about destruction.

The NIF project was funded with security in mind; however, those at the core of the project understood that central theme was energy. And as a result, the output of this project wasn’t destruction but creation. It was about creation of power, but not of the political persuasion.  Clean, efficient energy, that when used properly could create a future for our children that we cannot imagine. And, while the project may have opened and closed with politicians on the stage, the team in between made all the difference. They asked and answered a single question over time: What do we want our legacy to be with the result of this project? The answer: Value for stakeholders that have not yet been born.

I asked Mr. Post after the presentation, “When you opened the presentation and ran through the objectives of the program, the leading item was National Security; however, you closed the presentation with clean, nearly limitless energy as the over-arching objective – how do you reconcile those two?” He did not hesitate in his response, saying, “Well, they paid for it; but, the energy is the Peace Dividend.”

The Peace Dividend, a term originating after the Cold War as governments worked to reduce military spending. And just like that, we see it come together.

NIF quietly creates a dividend of historic proportion for us all. Very little fan-fare, a dedicated team of people, and a singular objective to achieve something only previously imagined. We would do well to approach our work the same way and rest easy in the knowledge that when we drive value to our stakeholders, monumental things can happen in very small spaces.

If you keep these things in mind, when you look back on your work – while there may be technical lessons learned – then you will have the same response as Mr. Post: “I wouldn’t do a single thing differently.”

Here are some thoughts / questions:

• What is the fundamental motivator for working today – to make money? Prestige? Power? Or, is it enjoyment or fulfillment? Maybe it is even service-oriented altruism? What motivates you?
• If the Millennial generation  joining our workforce now stays in their current job for only a year or so, then over time what job will they move into? I’m assuming, they either leave the company or get promoted here.
• Our networks survive our jobs – that is, a we are now in a technologically connected social system, a flat-world with line-of-sight connectivity to each member of our network. Does a company have any right to your network?
• With more frequent movement, it makes sense that longevity is going to mean less than aptitude. What happens to experience as a measure of capability in this new world? Have we reached a point where we will value people that have “learned how to learn” over depth of experience in a specialty?
• With all these factors in play, of which I’ve only alluded to a couple above, what will define a successful career in the future? Is it several sustained start-ups? Is it going to be diversity of industries worked?

I have opinions on these, but I’m searching for answers. Share your thoughts on these questions – am I off-base? Am I missing a big component? I’m open to ideas, thoughts and suggestions. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll bring it all together in a follow-up post.

The kids have been looking forward to this day for the last few weeks. Zoe missed seeing her friends on a regular basis. I think Finn honestly misses the classroom time to learn about science and dinosaurs. Sometime in mid-July, they both decided that even though summertime is great, they were ready to start the new school year.

I have hazy memories of my own first school days. The excitement of joining a new class, meeting a new teacher and cracking the spines of new-to-me textbooks. There’s something very magical in a ritual that allows one to remake and augment herself on a regular basis.

That’s what the first day of school was to me. Even though I sat in a class with a group of kids who know me, it wasn’t exactly the same group as last year. We hadn’t seen each other for several months. I had stories to tell that they hadn’t heard. I wanted to hear their stories, and we would all be creating new stories during the next 9 months together.

We need days like this at work. The closest analogue we have is starting the first day on a new job. That day holds promise and hope and even a little bit of magic. On that day, we believe we can become anything with enough hard work and persistence.

The most active job-hoppers among us will only experience this day a dozen or so times in our lives. And what can we do in the in-between-times to keep things interesting?

We should all take some time to think about who we want to be at work and away from work. Working the same job for years at a time doesn’t mean the end of new experiences. Each day, week or month can bring exciting new things into our lives. We just have to slow down enough to become aware of them.

I spent a couple of hours today catching up on emails from last week and putting a report together for tomorrow — just as I do many Sundays. It’s easy to get caught up in these day-to-day to-do items. Get caught up in them enough and they become who you are. We give ourselves a chance to grow when we take a moment, step back and breathe.

Our task lists never end. As soon as we finish one thing, another item pops up to take it’s place. Step back for a moment and think about your purpose at work. Who are you and what do you want to accomplish above and beyond that list? Ask yourself this question at the beginning of every month. You might be surprised by the answer, and you might just surprise those around you with your response.

Graffiti Wall in Joplin, MO - Photo courtesy of Jay Thornton

We all spend too much time working and not nearly enough time considering WHY we work. Rent/mortgages, bills, food and kid expenses all rush to mind when asking the question WHY, but those answers are insufficient. We all need to work, but why do each of us haul our asses out of bed when the alarm clock goes off every morning.

I think intrinsically that we all believe we can make a difference somehow each day. That difference may not have anything to do with your actual job title or function. I really enjoy helping the other people around my office succeed in their jobs. If I can teach someone a new PowerPoint trick or relate a professional crash-and-burn story that keeps them from making a similar mistake, I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

This last Wednesday, I had a chance to participate in a fantastic event and help thousands of other people. Elmer’s is a Collective Bias client, and they participated through Walmart in the Joplin School Supply Fair. They asked us to come along and help distribute supplies to kids in Joplin. Three months after the May 22 tornado, incredible need still exists in that community.

I wrote a full account of my experiences on the Collective Bias blog. That fair was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. While I can’t replicate the impact of my actions in Joplin every day, I will strive to make some kind of impact every day. It’s all too easy to get caught up in budget projections, copy edits and client presentations.

All those things drive our business just as your daily tasks drive your business. We can’t abandon any of those things, but I challenge you to find ways to postively affect another person during your day. It’s easier to accomplish than you may think. All you have to do is take a breath, look around and connect with those around you.

Check out my full story on the Joplin School Supply Fair.