I'm back

Hi Everyone,

I have been away for a while and have returned to connect, share and generally keep you up to date with my comings and goings. I'm shifting my oeuvre for this blog, to being more holistic. Hang on it will be a fun ride!

I've been inspired lately by the things around me. I love making things. Lately I've bee making things from other things. Let me explain. My father showed me a beautiful old ski sweater of my mother's that had been shrunken and moth eaten. He wanted to know if I wanted it. I took it of course, and thought for a while before I started playing with it. I pulled it apart (at the seams) and cut it up to make a little sweater jacket for a my little grandson. He is the one modeling the sweater jacket. (It's still a little big.) It was fun and engaging as I had to really think how it was all going to come together.



Next post I will share another project of "upcycling". Share with me what you have been doing.

Integration

This week I was interviewed for a new job. Until recently I have usually secured employment through friends or acquaintances. And sometimes I have played out my "Little Red Hen" scenario, meaning, if you have forgotten her story, "I'll do it myself". Which when translated into work and a career means I have started several of my own entrepreneurial businesses.

I have not had a lot of practice going to interviews. It is a study in understanding who you are meeting and being firmly connected to who you are. Lately all over the web I have read that if you don't brand yourself others will. A very wise woman by the name of Mary Rosenbaum posted this recently "Living the authentic you in all you do is what personal branding is all about." I have taken this on as my mantra.

This week I went to an interview armed with my research into the company, and the people interviewing me with a sense of curiosity. Of course there is always the "will they like me?" niggling in the background, but foremost for me was how could I be of service to these people and this company. After the lunch and the goodbyes, I could not help but reflect on a particular issue that was brought up at lunch.

The issue was accountability. How does one garner accountability from others, and make it a safe place to explore, seeing it as an opportunity. Does one exemplify it oneself hoping that your example will be ample proof that it is something that is worthwhile? Or do you assign tasks with milestones and clear goals, leaving little room for the experience of choice? Maybe it’s all of these. I have not had success in making anyone "be" accountable, they either are or they are not. I have learned that being accountable is a wonderful opportunity, and yes I have had some spectacular belly flops, and on the other hand, some marvelous successes. I’ll take accountability any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Stealing stories

I have stories that I carry around and use when appropriate, like seasonings for conversations. Some of them I have over used like salt, and some are precious and stored akin to saffron. The other day I heard one of my precious stories used and told by a stranger. It felt like someone stole my story.

Now I started to wonder, why do I think that this is my story? Did it happen to me, or is it something I keep inside to treasure, and horde for possible future use? Can someone else tell your stories better than you? What really bothered me was that the tellers and the listeners were sharing it as if they had lived this story and it was theirs.

I have thought about this for some time now delaying this post to give myself the time needed to understand the distinction between what happened and what I was feeling. Where I have come to be that there are precious stories and there are common ones too. However all stories are by nature released out into the world once anyone tells it the first time.

So tell my stories and I will share yours. Tell me your most precious story if you dare!

Intuition or Impulse?

As a child I operated mostly on intuition. I felt my way through my early years. At a certain point in time, I started to doubt my inner voice and began to listen to the world around me. Over time, the outer world became louder and I stopped listening, except upon occasion to my intuition. Years passed and I got by, it seemed that listening to what others thought and being guided by that was what one should do.

I became impulsive and tried to push the invisible barrier between my outer world, my inner world and me. What I know now is that the louder one becomes the more silent and suppressed the inner voice becomes. I tried shock, surprise and impulsiveness to see how far I could go. I went a long way.

I lost my center. I became someone I did not recognize. I had mistaken impulsiveness and the thrill it brought for being in touch. So I started down the pathway determined to learn how to listen again.

Sometimes I think I am ADD, I can't concentrate for more than a few seconds, and the listening seems so foreign. Now with some practice and quiet, I can sometimes hear that inner voice. It is still very quiet and sometimes silent, but I do know the difference between impulse and intuition, between the outer and the inner. It’s not about one or the other it is about integration.

Father's Day

Dear Dad,

You have always been there for me whether I knew it or not. You always wanted the best for me whether I knew it or not. You watched me grow up, rebel, get married, have chidren of my own and eventually get divorced. You have watched me swallow some hard pills and do spectacular belly flops out in the world. And still you have never wavered from your view of me. When I am with you I feel that I can do anything, that you will listen to any story silly story or esaay I have written and you nod with wisdom when I have shared a heartbreak. And you have recently taken on the role of mother and father to us, your grown children since mom can no longer be that for us.

Of all the things you have taught me, it is through your actions that have been the biggest lesson. I see you as the embodiment of love in action; a promise given is not taken back because it is hard or frightening. You have shown me what integrity is, not by talking about it but by being it.

Thank you for the lessons you have given me, I have received them.

Your loving daughter,

A mother's Love

Most of us have had it, and most of us still want it. We give it to our own children if we have them, and to our animal friends and human friends too. How does one describe a Mothers Love? My mother ironed my shoelaces. And underwear, and baby blankets. You get the picture. This was how my mother expressed her love to me.

My mother was not a physically demonstrative person. In our family we didn't hug and cuddle each other. This is something I have not passed down to my own children. I cuddle with them; I touch them, even to their embarrassment. My own mother is in her twilight years this lack of physical closeness has affected me in an interesting way. I find that I want to keep my distance from her.

It is not that I am not there for her, I am, but in a more impersonal way. I make sure that she gets the best food, has flowers in the house and her house is kept clean. This in some ways is what she did for me; it is my version of ironing the shoelaces. I think that I am afraid to get too close, since she is leaving. My mother has dementia, and her mind is leaving this world, slowly gradually, but leaving and not coming back.

So do I take the risk and hug her and get close even though we all know what the end of the story looks like? Or shall I paly it safe like I always have? As a Project Manager I look at the risks and then make a pathway towards the goal. Being with my mother, and comforting her in these declining years is why I am here, I'm going to take the risk. I'll keep you posted.

Customer Service Anyone?

Recently I have been having trouble with my Uverse, at+t's newest offering. I live in a beautiful old house in a quiet neighborhood. I live near a large city and you would think that having troubles with your phone, Internet and TV would be a thing of the past. Not so.

I have documented over 30 calls to at+t and have had 16 specialty techs come over and try to find out what is happening. I have been told that maybe a squirrel ate through the wire. Really? Or that when there is rain it can jumble the lines. What does this mean? I have also been told that maybe we are in the shadow of a radio frequency that disturbs the fiber optics. What?

So about customer service. Every call I have made to at+t has been handled with courtesy and friendliness. They always apologize for the troubles I am having and sympathize with me. The techs are nice men and women who work hard and do their best to fix the problem. However the problem still exists, I still have dropped calls, frozen TV screens and no internet at odd times in the day. And although I am being "served" am I getting service?

Somehow at+t has separated these two, thinking that since I have been treated with kindness that I should be happy. At this point I just want the "service" to do its job with or without the nice "service agents". Were they there at 10:45 PM when I was watching Hawaii Five O last night, and the TV froze when they arrested the cute agent? No! I'm thinking of going back to the old system, forget the nice graphics and promises so I can watch a whole show or talk to my kids without having to apologize for the fact that my phone dropped their call again.
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Learning

How does one learn? I am studying Latin and am finding it very interesting and not because I can now read coats of arms or shields. What is so interesting is, understanding what part of my mind actually learns. Vocabulary has been relatively easy. Many words have cognates in English. Take "cognate" for example in Latin "to think" cognate in English means similar or comparable.

As I mentioned vocabulary has been fairly straightforward. Write it on a card read it every day for 2-4 weeks and its mine. What does not seem to stick well are the declensions, or noun varieties. I'll give you an example; the English words for this and these are hic, haec, and hoc. In Latin there are feminine nouns, masculine nouns and neuter nouns. Then there are plural of each of these. That would not be so bad, but there are six forms of each of these nouns, which end up being seventy-two if my math is correct. And most of them are unique. An example would be "that of yours” something that we English speakers don't even think about, ever.

The part of my brain that learns this type of information has had only a flicker of neural activity for years. As I wade my way through the class and attending tests, I have found that I have enlivened this area, but only by maybe three or four neurons to date. I'll keep you posted.

So what has happened by happy accident, is that my English grammar has become better, since learning Latin has forced me to learn my own language. How is that for irony? (Maybe that’s Latin too). Now before I publish my blog I always use spell check, and found that it disputed my grammar, oh well, I will keep up the study and one day will beat spell check!

Holidays and Vacations

Joshua Tree National Park, a holiday and a vacation, why distinguish the two? In Canada we say "holiday" and in the USA we say "vacation". Maybe a holiday comes from "holy days" when the only time taken off of work was on special holy days. The same does not apply in the US, to vacate means to leave or to leave empty, which has a completely different connotation.

Most of my more recent holiday/vacations have taken me to familiar places, like skiing in local mountains or going to the beach. This time I went to the high desert and found incomparable beauty and a delicate balance of nature I don't notice in the more familiar places.

Being in a new location also allowed my mind to refresh itself spontaneously. Even though the bed and breakfast (http://www.roughleymanor.com/) had all of the amenities, I occupied myself with the autobiography of the woman who had built the house we were staying in. I found peace, and quiet, ready and able to head back to work and my regular life.

Make sure you too take time even for a short while to slow down and refresh your mind and body. You will be more able to handle the challenges of work and home if you do.

Planning

I aim is to have my work life and personal life be in harmony with each other. It seems that I only notice when that harmony is not there. By my assessment when a project or my life is moving along and meeting its' milestones, keeping within scope, it is being successful. I have noticed that it is during these times of relative harmony that it is easy to become distracted or "take my foot off the gas".

When a correction is needed I am all over it coming in like a hero to save the day. I have been exploring this tendency, and am pretty sure that it is a common default. What would it be like to study, work or play fully all the time instead of waiting for the proverbial "break"?

So I have been playing full out, studying, working and what has been missing is play. Funny, my play has become my work, and so it does not feel like play any more. As my interests become a part of my routine they no longer have what I consider the essentials of play. So I guess I stopped playing.

What would life be like of you could bring play into ever aspect? Would this bring harmony into focus for you? I'm not speaking about stirring things up or creating a "fun" disturbance; I'm talking about bringing joy, spontaneity and a sense of adventure to the details, the minutiae of life. So I'm going to take a bubble bath, find something fun to put into it, and enjoy myself. How are you going to bring fun back to your life?

Trapped and freed through inquiry

I was trapped by a question I did not know I had. Has this ever happened to you? Imagine a conversation with someone at work or in your personal life. You say something, they say something and something that they say or perhaps do, sticks with you or even on you. This happened to me. The way it happened was through an action, not words, but words did follow it. Then there was a cover up, and it left me puzzled for a long time.

What I wondered was who am I that someone would do this to and take this action? And then, who am I that someone would then lie about it? These were the questions that I did not know I had until recently. Discovering that these questions were imbedded in my mind gave me freedom to let them go. It is kind of like finding words or events stuck in amber, fossilized, never to be released except through great heat.

So how did I release the questions? Where did the heat come from? The inquiry provided the heat and I have a drive to understand which makes me a great researcher, communicator and consultant, but those skills and that drive trapped me in having to know/understand. Ultimately I did get to the bottom of this issue and am on the lookout for what else I am trapped by. What are you trapped by? What gets under your skin?

Long term goals and short term successes

I have a lot of long-term goals that seem to keep being long-term goals. My short-term goals, like cleaning up my desktop and sending off important emails get done on a daily basis, kind of like homework. My long-term goals seem to stick around, so here's what I am wondering...maybe I don't want to do what I say I want. Huh?

So I'm opting for short-term gratification these days. I have been helping my mother and father clean out their old house. I recycled 500 lbs. of Christmas cards that had been saved. For me it was a short-term goal, to find the floor. For my mother I think she was trying to preserve memories, knowing that she had the beginnings of dementia. So we both had goals, hers to remember the kind people that had sent her the cards, and me to make sure that my parents home so not the next destination for a reality show about hording.

Maybe long-term goals are like dreams. WE can plan and scheme, but sometimes you just wake up and its not happening. Luckily I have a lot of dreams...like taking a business from the ground up and creating crazy success, or like going to Sweden where my grandmother was from and seeing the village where I have a genetic connection. What are your dreams? Share with me.

Teflon brain

Did you have a made up language when you were young? I did, it was with a childhood best friend, and we called it the "ib" language. It sounded crazy and we felt cool when we spoke it. Now I'm learning Latin and my brain does not seem to want to hold onto the whole language. I will spend time learning a declension, and then another and declension number one is gone! How does this happen?

Learning can happen all of the time. As I learn this new/old language I realize how much I edit out of my mind so I don't have to deal with being present. By allowing myself to unplug and use "Teflon brain" I am opting out of my life and work. When you are at work or conversing with colleagues do you listen to them? Or does Teflon brain come in to the picture and allow it all to slide off?

Teflon brain for me is a lazy way to live. Using the muscle of my brain that learns languages is helping me to see where else do I not have the muscle to listen and be present to what is going on. I'm looking forward to stretching the "being present muscle" and am committed to stop spraying virtual "Pam" in my mind. I am available and willing for life!

Is paint a miracle or just a cover up?

I am amazed at how a great paint job can make a run down house or building look well kept and loved. When the right color is chosen, and I'm a stckler for that, it can be an absolute transformation. As an example; most days I walk by an old run down Spanish style home. There are weeds growing in front, and for weeks there has been a rather large dumpster in the driveway.

The other day I walked by and the whole place was painted this lovely warm creamy color, with brown trim and suddenly this old house looked like it was truely loved and almost new. What was really different? A surface paint job was all. So it got me to thinking that the way we present ourselves, and our projects will either catch the eye of our colleagues and business partners or not.

Right now I am working on a project that needs a simple and elegant way to propose our future expenses. We need to balance this with expected revenues. I have looked through the usual materials and have not found anything suitable. Instead I am creating it with the intention that it provides our business partners with all the clear precise information needed and it looks really spiffy.

I do think that how something looks, its simplicity and elegance make a difference. When something is appealing to the eye, you have passed through the first hurdle of acceptance. You do however have to follow up with great content and excellent research, a good paint job can only cover so much.

TGIF or lets have a four day week

What would happen in your world if you got paid for results, not how much time it took to get those results? Would you be willing to play that game? Some results are easy to measure, like, “I will ensure that company XYZ will have an increase in sales by 10% if they use my methods”. What about the intangibles?

Today I went outside to dig in my little garden patch. It is under a large pine tree and the soil needs work in order to have the best results. So I have taken it upon myself to do the needed work, to get the results I am looking for.

The results will be measurable and immeasurable, as in many lines of work. The particular measurable results I am working towards will be as follows:
Delicious food from the garden direct to our plates this summer
Lower cost of food
Fewer shopping trips for veggies

The non-tangible results I am also expecting are in the area of personal sanity and well-being. How will I measure this? Will I be more tolerant of others? Will I have more restful sleeps? Will I be a better person?

In a work related project how do we calibrate these kinds of intangible quality of life benefits? Until now the traditional way to assess these results has been through less sick days, and improved employee retention. Is there another way? Bhutan, a small Himalayan country has embarked upon a novel idea, a GNH or Gross National Happiness quotient. Read this link on the left hand side of the blog and let me know what you think. Would this work in your work and home environment? Would you like to be paid for results or for putting your time in?

The gadget to the left is an old one, at least 50 if not more years old. It is a sifter.

A sifter is something a home baker uses to blend together dry ingredients before they are mixed with the wet ones. Although this sifter has considerable age it still works and has a brilliant design. On the top half you put all the unmixed dry ingredients. Then you press the button repeatedly on the handle and it will mix all the ingredients into a whole in the bottom half. You take it off and put into your bowl, no fuss, and no muss.

Why bring this antique kitchen item into a blog that is interested in mixing project management with all types of business, especially the arts? I think that one of the primary goals in any project is to be efficient, and do the work with as little mess and unnecessary waste as possible. Sometimes old designs carry this wisdom, I know that I often get seduced into thinking that new is better.

I could carry the sifting metaphor way too far, so what I am wondering is where in a project life cycle do old ideas get axed merely to try what is new? What old ideas still have staying power?

Can Integrity become a practice?

Integrity is a word that sends shivers down my back. It is one of those words that we often use in business especially in mission statements. But how to overcome my fear of bringing the word integrity into a meeting and develop it as a practice with my peers and supervisors?

I decided to look up the word in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to bolster my confidence, and found that its root is in Latin. The OED states that the word integrity comes from the Latin integritās wholeness, entireness, or completeness. The first definition is: The condition of having no part or element taken away or wanting; undivided or unbroken state; material wholeness, completeness, entirety.

I was disappointed, because my version of integrity is that one does what one says one will do, more or less like honesty. I scrolled down the OED website to see if I could find a definition that fit better with my personal views. And I found one…as the third and last definition: “3. a. Unimpaired moral state; freedom from moral corruption; innocence, sinlessness. Obs.” The Obs. here means obsolete! Oh no! Luckily the next definition 3 b. was what I was looking for “b. Soundness of moral principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue, esp. in relation to truth and fair dealing; uprightness, honesty, sincerity.”

Bringing integrity into the workplace as a living breathing entity is not the same as reading a concept from a dictionary or putting it into a mission statement. Putting integrity into practice takes looking at myself, and where I have not done what I said I would do. So the practice in the coming months and weeks will be to keep bringing integrity to my own life and engaging in conversations in the workplace to bring integrity in as a practice, something that is alive for the whole team, not a dry anachronism on a wall plaque.

Is Patience a Virtue?

What do you do when a project is stalled or delayed? I know what I do; I keep trying to find a way to make it to the next milestone or goal. I keep my head down and try to be creative. So my question, when is patience a virtue and when is it a way to avoid the truth of the matter?

Reassessing the timeline for a project and making the necessary changes is one way of working through delays, but on the other hand, am I just trying to get by? For me I am sometimes so committed to the "doing" of the project that I miss out on what the intention of the project is. Here is a simple example: I am helping my aged parents clean out a room that was used as an office. When I started this project, my stated goal was to provide space for my father to work in as well as a guest room for future nurses or relatives visiting. I thought it would take 2 weeks. My first milestone was completed yesterday, after one month of sorting. I have made it around the perimeter of the room in a first sweep. I have reassessed this project and have made room for the fact that this will take more time than previously allotted. I have altered the milestones, and have allowed time for issues that will come up that I am not currently aware of. I have however not changed the objectives.

In this case patience has been a virtue, and although I do not have unlimited time, I can extend the timeline. There are precious items hidden in and amongst the old Christmas cards and detritus in the room. There are family stories here. What if instead of this example I was working on a project where the timeline was so incredibly incorrect? What if I realized that the project was going to be a failure, based on these conditions? What if my job was on the line? For me part of every project that I participate in has my own criteria, and my own version of integrity. So despite the possibility that I may loose out personally I think it is important to call a spade a spade, state the breakdown and take it as an opportunity to re-invent the project or shut it down.

Creating space for Project Management in the Arts

Working with artists and bringing project management rigor to their work is like herding cats. Being a PM is like that anyway, but when you bring together a creative team dedicated to listening to their feelings and try to put it into a logical sequence so they can get to where they want to go...well you get the point.

One of the problems I have come across have been working with folks who don't want "the man" to undermine their artistic integrity. Conversely they have goals and dreams unachievable without some kind of structure. So how to create a balance? Really they have gotten to the place they are by listening to themselves using guts and intuition.

It is in the listening that a Project Manager brings to the artists. This is not just hearing what is being said, but really hearing sometimes underneath all the noise what is truly needed and wanted.