All posts filed under: Monday Musings

Thoughts to start off the work week

Better Living Through (Better) Email

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Virtually everyone I know in the working world believes there are too many emails and too many meetings.  Yes, I know, this isn’t exactly breaking news. I’m fascinated by our love/hate relationship with emails.  We all get too many emails, and yet we inevitably send them out and contribute to the clogged up boxes of our colleagues. I’m exhibit A in that regard.  While I fume at times about the quality (or lack of quality) and the volume of emails, I send out an email to my colleagues like clockwork on Monday morning.* How can we use email more effectively to make our lives easier? First, to state the obvious the only effective email is one that is read.  Thankfully, the internet is full of great suggestions as to how to tailor your email messages to be effective. When I’m writing I try—but don’t always succeed—in getting to the point, in making good use of the subject line, and in trying not to overcommunicate.  I think how we write is important. But how we manage …

The important part of fishing

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For many years I’ve been fascinated by the prospect of fly fishing. Watching a perfect cast — with rod and line all moving in synchronized motion set in the midst of a swiftly moving river nestled among rugged mountains — encapsulates for me beauty, artfulness, peacefulness, and all that’s right with the world. Trying my hand at fly fishing has long been on my bucket list and last month I finally had the opportunity.  Were my casts perfect?  Far from it.  Did I catch any fish?  Nope, even though I had a bite or two.  Did I get to spend about 3 hours in one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever seen, experiencing moments of utter wonder and peacefulness?  Absolutely. Given the importance I place on our work to save Nashville’s Music Row, you won’t be surprised that I know of a country song that has a take on what’s important about fishing.  The first verse goes like this: “The important part of fishin’ ain’t the fish, but the fishing. The important part of …

Traffic School

He sows hurry and reaps indigestion

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Labor Day is seen by many as the start of a new year.  School begins for teachers and children. The summer break is over and schedules ramp up.  Everywhere we look we’re called upon to pick up the pace. In this day and age, work/life balance is a major theme of Harvard Business Review articles, TED Talks, HR seminars, and more.  We may think this is a new phenomenon, arising from the astonishing leaps in technology which work 24/7 even if we aren’t capable—as humans—of keeping up.  But the question has been around for a much longer period of time than just the 21st century.  A colleague and I were discussing the need for her direct reports—who have major responsibilities and work very hard at their jobs—to take time off.  She mentioned that one individual told her that he had not taken a vacation because “the place couldn’t run without me.”  I smiled and suggested that she pass along the advice I heard from my grandmother, who liked to say, “The graveyard is full of …

Finding perspective

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I recently asked my colleague Priya Chhaya to open a retreat with a reflection on changing perspectives.  We were discussing a familiar theme, the future of the American city, in an unexpected place—in this particular case, under the night sky in the American west.  For one of the readings, she chose the Sylvia Plath poem Stars Over Dordogne, calling out the second verse in particular: “Where I am at home, only the sparsest stars Arrive at twilight, and then after some effort. And they are wan, dulled by much travelling. The smaller and more timid never arrive at all But stay, sitting far out, in their own dust. They are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost. But tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble, They are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.” Priya noted that when in a city, which is home for many of us, you often only see what is right in front of you: the buildings, the roads, the cars, the noise, the obvious density. But a …

Plans vs. Planning

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This is my season for strategic planning.  Last week I spent a full day with our colleagues at the National Trust Historic Site Filoli for their strategic planning retreat.  As you read this, I’m on a plane for another retreat with 20 team members designed to scale up one of our most important organizational initiatives.  When I return, I have a half-day financial planning retreat set for early August. That’s a lot of planning! There are some who say that strategic plans are useless. They generally throw around the phrase “no plan survives contact with the enemy,” which is a popular adaptation of a phrase uttered by Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, also known as Moltke the Elder. He was a German Field Marshal who lived between 1800 and 1891 and is credited with creating a new approach to directing armies in the field. This entailed developing a series of options rather than simply a single plan.  Note that he didn’t stop planning.  He simply recognized that in changing environments, you need options and …

Collaboration moves at the speed of trust

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Earlier this month I attended a conference where speaker after speaker inspired the attendees while addressing some of the key issues of our time. My notebook was filled with thoughts and information. However, one note — a Chris Thompson quote — stood out for me above all the rest. “Collaboration moves at the speed of trust.” This simple assertion has been playing around in my mind ever since. More than two decades ago, I recall sitting in a meeting where I asked a colleague why she was not engaging others in the organization on a particular project. Her response was, “I don’t trust them to do the job to the standard I want.” It struck me as a telling remark on a number of levels, but this long-ago exchange was one of the first thoughts that came into my mind when I heard Chris Thompson’s quote. This colleague — a wonderful person who now runs a successful one-person consulting firm — was upfront in admitting her lack of trust. And that lack of trust meant that she was not going to …

Resilience

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There’s an old saying that goes, “The only constant in the world is change.”  That may be hard for some in historic preservation to accept, but I’ve often said that our job as preservationists isn’t to block change, but instead to work to manage the type of future—and communities—we want. I was thinking recently about the concept of resilience when facing change.  Author Kathleen Smith has suggested that “Many people spend a great deal of time and energy trying to avoid change, but it will inevitably catch up to them.”  When building personal strategies for strengthening resilience, she begins with the Stephen Covey construct of the ”Circle of Concern/Circle of Influence”, urging us to focus on what we can control.  She also encourages her readers to check their thought patterns. “In times of change, it’s easy for your mind to cut corners. You might see everything in black or white, or you assume the worst will occur. But if you take the time to examine your thought patterns and assess how rational they are, you …

The Value of Ritual

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Do you have a morning ritual? If you look at the Wikipedia entry on ritual, one might wonder why I’d ask the question.  Ritual is described as inflexible, where one is governed by rules, and the term is sometimes used by psychologists in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior that is seen as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorders. That’s not my experience with ritual.  Writing in Forbes, the author Alexandra Douwes encourages millennials to establish a morning ritual.  Her reasoning is aligned with mine. “Establishing a morning ritual, preferably one that does not involve a screen, can set the tone for your entire day. Whether your morning ritual takes place at home or in the office, it’s important to ease into your day, and do it on your own terms. Before you let external factors such as screaming children, urgent emails, and smartphone notifications send you into a state of anxiety, start the day by focusing on the things you can control. A consistent morning ritual will put you in a proactive versus reactive …