Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

I may have posed this open-ended question before but find myself coming back to it regularly.  Here is how I respond to it today.

If we “suddenly” find blessings; love, an abundance of work, a major life milestone comes to a long-awaited close, a tax windfall, extraordinarily beautiful weather or a host of other things, we are quick to claim justification like “I worked hard for it…and therefore deserve it”.

However, if we encounter pain or suffering; anger, conflict, sickness or death, we tend to ask “Why is this happening to me?”

Are we lucky or unlucky?

Is it destiny?

Divine intervention?

I’ve traveled a fair amount during my career and when calling home at night, I heard the famous phrase, “This ALWAYS happens when you’re gone!”  Whether a flat tire, the furnace or A/C quits, a letter from the IRS or some other thing that makes your stomach tighten up and ask yourself … “Why?!”

In the scenario above, from my perspective, stuff IS always happening, not just when I’m gone.  It might be that many things get fixed when I’m at home and no one even knew it was found, fixed and forgotten rather than frantic, fretted over and flailing (like a partially broken toe nail).

Leadership includes how we react to things that come across our desk as well as the things we face proactively.

Why did something bad happen?

•Why did the stock market crash?

•Why did a bunch of employees leave?

•Why did a major client change course?

Sometimes, you don’t and won’t know.  But you might want to strengthen the found it fixed it and forgot it muscle because that’s what leaders do.  Don’t question why.  Be prepared to find solutions when things go wrong.

A final thought…when you look at a peer, someone you admire and are tempted to say, “Joanne has it easy.  Things are always going her way.”  It might be prudent to pause and recognize Joanne is facing the same stuff day in and day out, albeit her own version, but the appearance of everything going her way is likely the way in which she faces and responds to each thing.

Have a blessed weekend!

As my old pastor Jerry Carlson used to say, “As you go out into the world this week, remember, everyone is fighting a battle of some kind, so Be Gentle.”

Good morning, Team!  It’s (Good) Friday!

Have you ever spent time looking backward and wondering what things would have been like if…?

I read a recent post (forwarded from a close friend) that put it in terms that make it difficult to not get it.

When author Sue Hawkes writes “You can’t focus on what could’ve been and at the same time move toward what you intend to be.”

This is a universal reference, not just vocational.

It might be easy to assume I’m referring to the promotion, contract continuation or some other form of career-oriented missed opportunity.

How about financial?:  Didn’t get that house loan and now I’m stuck in this [less desirable domicile].

How about relational?:  My buddy took her on a date before I had the chance and now they’re married.  I guess I’ll just be a bachelor the rest of my life.

How about spiritual?:  I lost a loved one and I don’t get how God could allow that to happen, so I stopped believing.  I’m only going to trust the things I can see and on my own abilities.

Here’s a small exercise you might find value in.

•write down ten things you aspire to be as you look ahead.  Start each sentence with “I intend to be … (fill in the blank).”

Ex:

*I intend to be a better listener.

*I intend to show my loved ones more often how much they mean to me.

*I intend to be an extraordinarily inspirational leader.

•make them specific enough to be actionable

•review your list at least once daily and look at it each day for the following month.

Look ahead.  Leave the “could’ves” behind. No one has the capacity to carry all that old baggage while on your journey forward.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

I was chatting with my good friend Jim this week.  We were talking about some of life’s lessons that we stumbled across or maybe that we were steamrolled by and it’s less humiliating to say we stumbled across them…

I made some cocky remark about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, thinking I had gained a fair amount of “strength” when he said emphatically, No! It’s when you realize the big red “S” on your chest stands for Stupid, not Superman.  (If you can’t count on your friends to keep you in-line, who can you trust?)

So here is what that comment conjured up for me.

As an engineer and a fix-it person, I enjoy repairing broken stuff AND making it better.  Example-we’re selling our house right now and anything from replacing a light bulb in a hard to reach spot I didn’t want to pay someone else to do, replacing a 3-way switch, putting in longer screws on a kitchen cabinet hinge or darkening a ding on a wooden cabinet (that turned into a 4 hour job)… if it looks better, works better, IS better, it makes me proud to be associated with it.

When you start to think you may be “Super”, instead of simply part of the selected vessel to repair, replace, or rejuvenate something, you may lack humility or the basic understanding that much of the things in this broken world require attention, but it’s never an individual sport.

No one is leaping tall buildings with a single bound or stopping freight trains without an exceptional Team to make shhhtuff happen.  That big Red S you painted (virtually) on your chest isn’t for Super.

I had another close friend, no longer with us, explain the phenomena where you sacrifice so much you start to believe you are entitled to more…appreciation, recognition, compensation, adoration or [fill in your own descriptor].

Truth is we all make choices:

•How much time you spend at work.

•How much time you spend at home.

•How well you listen.

•How vulnerable you’re willing to make yourself.

•How you choose to see your accomplishments as compared to giving credit to whom it actually belongs.

Level Five leaders know that your Team and the extraordinary people who comprise your collective brand wear the virtual “S”.

Don’t be stupid.  Take a minute today to thank the people around you who make you feel good enough to think you are, or ever were, Super.

Have a blessed weekend!

I saw a sign last night when leaving a local establishment that read “work hard, play hard” and I think I resemble that message.  But if you only know hard and nothing exists to contrast it, what’s to say one man’s hard isn’t another man’s soft.  When referencing hard, are we talking difficult or rigid or complex?  Conversely, what connotation does soft have?  Easy, kind, weak, gentle, smooth?

Executive coach Damien Faughnan told me that the ‘soft stuff is the hard stuff.’  In the spirit of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, this is meant to challenge the way we might normally think. The soft stuff (kind, respectful, whispers, and assuming noble intent) can be hard (challenging) when we think we know the “truth” and we just want to get things accomplished.  We (and I mean ME when I say we) want others to immediately understand things to the same level that we do and beyond comprehension, share the same level of urgency to get things accomplished as soon as humanly practical.  A sign of this might be when you’ve explained something for the third time and you start talking to yourself… “[They] just don’t get it!  It’s clear as day.  I need [them] to just get it done or I’ll just do it myself.”

Here’s where soft (tone of voice, concern, fruits of the spirit-love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness – enter the equation) and when you have a demanding boss, board members, shareholders or other stakeholders full of anxiety and expectation, the natural reaction is to reflect that down to your Team.  But we all know, as Maya Angelou said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know…how much you care.”

I called out tone of voice above because mine is not soft (normally).  It has been my experience that a hard message spoken softly is better received than an easy message is, when delivered with the wrong tone.  How easy is it to maintain a calm demeanor and articulate a message when you’re being stepped on from multiple angles?  It’s not.

So…the soft stuff is the hard stuff.

Be gentle today.  Think about others needs before yours or maybe trust yours will be met when you meet others first.

Have a blessed weekend!

“The deeper the wound, the bigger the scar, the longer the heal.”

Mother Nature

Ever cut your knee wide open trying to be Evil Knievel jumping your bike on a ramp in the gravel alley where no sane person would pedal that fast traveling over a greasy chunk of plywood on top of cinder blocks with a “chopper” (three bike forks jammed together so the front wheel looked like it was going to fall off before you even started toward the ramp)?  Maybe that was just me.

Pushing the limits of our reality is common.

Risk/Reward is a formula that works in the United States better than most environments.

•If we’re talking capitalism, it’s the best test bed I know of.

•If we’re talking a specific work environment, I never knew how to sit still and do what I was told. (Neither did most people who preferred to stand out and were willing to pay whatever price came with taking the risks associated with the perceived reward).

•If we are talking matters of the heart…this may be where it all comes together.  Last week I presented the argument that emotion wins the most influence.  You are entitled to have a different opinion.  (Let me hear it through your comments.)  When someone is filled with drive, desire, passion…whether toward a career, a family or a higher cause…it is hard to dampen the enthusiasm using reason and logic.  A passionate soul is something to behold (and even more challenging to contend with).

I love many things in this broken world.  I have been told more than once that I “care too much”.  I think the best way to interpret that is to say, I’m purposely out of balance.  I have something to prove.  I want to make things better:

For my family

For my employer

For the industry I associate with

For my clients

For myself (since we’re being honest here)

What better place to start than areas requiring significant improvement?

As a young kid, I knew the chance to “fly”, if even for a scant second or two, would be amazing.  That same feeling of flying is extended infinitely longer in a meaningful career scenario.  Reward: successful and sustainable divisions, companies, and emerging leaders.

Risk: bumps in career path, sacrifice of time and life balance, perceived narcissism.

While I navigate the troubled waters with no life vest, no navigation equipment and a make shift oar, I’m looking at a wide-open ocean and it’s intimidating…and exhilarating.  I’ve convinced myself that prosperity is nothing more than a state of mind.  Willing to take the bull by the horns, once again, recognizing risks to avoid and driven by rewards, the acquired taste that is impossible to forget, I push past the crashing waves toward … the deep end.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

“Leadership is influence.”

John Maxwell

I’ve said more than once I’m a sucker for a well articulated thought or a collection of words that have specific meaning to me.

This phrase hit my ears last night and it struck me three ways simultaneously.

Number 1:

You’re a HUGE PAIN in my ass…

A severe inconvenience we choose to tolerate because we think it noble or necessary.

Last night I spoke with two different fellow executives who shared considerably different stories but ultimately can be categorized by their tolerating huge pains in their organizations.  The first is an entitled 3-month-in employee who genuinely felt he should have been consulted on how performance bonuses were distributed for the company. 😂

The second story was more disturbing as the big hurt has decades of leadership training but still behaves more like a mediocre mid-level manager, demanding respect through authority and steering communication hierarchy, overwhelming process and riding in on their high (white) horse 😡…when they should be educating, entrusting and empowering.

Number 2:

HUGE PAIN can be a level of intractable physical pain that words cannot describe and most people cannot comprehend.  I know this subject well but have been reminded by medical professionals and those who suffer from it that I know nothing if I can’t feel it.

One of the founders of the Minnesota medical marijuana distributors shared with me the story of the soldier in Afghanistan  who was badly injured with a bullet in the back and how good he felt on marijuana but is also a very law abiding citizen so returning to the states posed a conundrum.  Opioids are no long-term solution.  Finding relief proved to be a significant challenge with potentially fatal side effects.

Number 3:

A broken heart can cause HUGE PAIN.  Commonly described as an ache…but I’m here to tell you that any amateur who writes off a broken heart or a crushed soul as an ache hasn’t really been hurt, they were simply bruised.

We each have stories of pain and injustice, whether rooted in good intentions or a product of addiction or some other primary factor.

No matter the source or severity of your pain, there are solutions at your disposal.

*If employees, you can educate or exit.

*If intractable pain, there is mitigation through medication or meditation.

*If emotionally-based, there is time to help fade the memories and eventually allow for absolution.

Nothing is dire.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one already…  Guy walks into a bar, sits down and and starts talking with an educator, an accountant, a banker and a couple of engineers. (Belly laugh-that’s a doozie, judge)

{I apologize for the Caddy shack reference for those who missed that.}

I’m actually writing this on Friday morning (surprise) as my Thursday evening was filled with, as last evenings host put it, “maybe the most intellectual dinner… [he’d] ever been a part of.”  It was a tremendous discussion filled with civil discourse among other healthy exchanges.

What on earth, might you ask, does this have to do with leadership?

[whisper] He didn’t call it a saw sharpening thingamajig.  Maybe he scrapped this together and hit send before he meant to.

Allow me to complete the thought.

Leaders are many things, great communicators near the top of the list.  For the self-deprecating in the room last evening claiming a lack of social graces, each and every participant shared openly, articulately and demonstrated that their vocation did not define their leadership capacity.

This dinner brought together business owners in a social setting with the noble intent of supporting a good cause through silent auction, supporting a new business (the restaurant) and then getting to know each participant better at a social level.  Business dinners happen thousands of times a day across the globe but invariably, those conversations are dominated by one or two attendees with an agenda.

We were all a shade guilty of describing how we might be living vicariously through our remarkable children.  May each prosper in ways we could have only dreamed of and whatever our attempt at prepping them for adulthood looked like, we secretly hope it helped more than hindered.

Get to the message, Michel!

Money line:  what appeared to the naked eye or uninformed observer as a half dozen people enjoying amazing cuisine in a new restaurant was actually a room full of influencers who, at no stretch of the imagination, touch millions with their products and services.  No one taking a victory lap, just a curious group learning more about each other.

If what took place last night was an example of how other leaders recently in Hanoi or daily in D.C. could accomplish, this would be an entirely different world.

Encouragement:  When you communicate from this day forward, be more conscious of what you say.

•Remove any hidden agendas.

•Speak more from your heart than your head.

•As my old pastor Jerry used to say, As you go out into the world this week, remember, everyone is fighting a battle of some kind, so be gentle.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good Morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

It’s Engineers Week, 2019!

When asked what inspired me to become an engineer, my answer is simple, my Father.

A few universal truths that came together for me when I was growing up in a family business:

1. Necessity is the mother of invention.

2. We are shaped by our environment.

3. Always leave things better than you found them.

It was necessary to make enough money to eat and Dad seemed to never catch a break so he made due with what was in front of him.  Kind of an old school McGyver, we made a living and we shaped lives with the broken stuff no one else wanted or knew what to do with:

•Crushing concrete removed from the streets of Fargo when they separated storm sewer from sanitary sewer systems, converting it to aggregate used for commercial and industrial parking lots

•Hauling coal cinders from the local college-served as an effective binder with local soils spread as a layer under concrete mentioned above

•Repairing (or heating homes with) used wooden pallets from the old Steiger factory

•We drove and (constantly) repaired tired iron, the twice retired fleet vehicles people had given up on.  The cost of entry was within our range and most people had forgotten about them before we resurrected those vehicles from various shelter belts

•Even the house we lived in was moved into the neighborhood and the garage moved in later was an old storage building we sided and made pretty (or at least acceptable so the neighbors didn’t petition us to leave)

There is ALWAYS more value, untapped potential, a new way to look at the pile of confounding and complex issues right in front of you.

I am proud to say that my two sons have become successful engineers and I have been blessed to grow up in the engineering world designing, managing and leading projects, efforts, people, divisions and companies who apply the same three universal truths mentioned above.

Dad started in the mechanical engineering program at Notth Dakota State College but never finished the program because the pressure to provide for his family won over school.  His broken dreams have been recycled and turned into a legacy his grandsons keep alive today.

Have a blessed weekend!

published early because,