Enjoy Every Sandwich - a powerful book

I just finished reading Dr. Lee Lipsenthal's book, "Enjoy Every Sandwich." Wow - what a book.  The author wrote this book to share his experiences and new-found perspective after he was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer in 2009, and it is a very powerful and touching book.

Lipsenthal takes you through some very touching realizations of the precious nature of our time here on earth, and provides guidance on how we can take better care of the relationships and truly important parts of our lives - whether we know we're near death or not.

For me, the most "connecting" parts of the book were when the author takes us through the journey of accepting the inevitability of death.  It was interesting to read how he dealt with his mortality, but even more interesting to learn how he took his family through the journey.  Dr. Lipsenthal's wife was truly his soul mate, and I recognized the relationship I have with my wife in this book.

Appreciate what you have

As some of you who've been with me since I've been blogging know, I had my own bout with cancer (I wrote a little about my experience here).  This was a very sobering experience, and it brought my wife and I closer.  Luckily, I made it through - I've been cancer-free for almost 13 years.  But I know the feeling of helplessness very well.

What I love about Dr. Lipsenthal's book and the journey he shares with us is that he's managed to translate his cancer journey into a set of concrete recommendations for all of us - and does it in a very inspiring way.  In this book, you'll appreciate the opportunities we have to share ourselves now with the ones we love.

Learn from the journey of others

If you find yourself in the midst of your own struggle with cancer, this book will help you, as well.  Not only will you gain some wisdom and ideas for how to make the most of your relationships during your struggle, you'll also find strength in the way Dr. Lipsenthal dealt with his cancer.  As a medical Doctor, I found his thoughts to be very powerful - both in what you can do for yourself, and what you can't.

I love this paragraph from the book:

"You get to choose the world you want to live in.  It can be a house of fear and constriction or a house of mystery and creativity.  Do you choose honor and compassion about your frailties and the frailties of others? In your world, will it be the fear of death, or the joy of life?  It is that simple."

This framing of your options, beliefs, and realities is your choice.  And Dr. Lipsenthal's reminder that we can all decide is very empowering.

You may be wondering how Dr. Lipsenthal fared in all of this.  Well, he lost his fight with cancer in Septemer 2011.  But in this book, I think he took full advantage of his "knowing" time to make sure the important people in his life felt his love for them.

This book is both sad and uplifting; about death and about life.  And it is an amazing legacy for Dr. Lipsenthal.  I highly recommend "Enjoy Every Sandwich."

Listen, don't just explain.

I've run into a bunch of situations recently (both work and personal) in which two people get more and more irritated at each other.  In each of these situations, both parties believed they were "right" and both parties went to great lengths to convince the other person.

This is "human nature 101" stuff, but why is it so hard for people to turn off their "explain" gene so they can listen to what the other person is saying?  It happens to us all, so what do you do about it?

If you can't turn off the urge to talk, sometimes it's useful to bring in someone to mediate.  I've found that in most of these cases, the viewpoints are not as far apart as they seem and a few tweaks can result in a solution both people can be happy with (or at least agree to live with).

What solutions have you found to this problem?  Are you a good mediator?  Please share your secrets.

Team up - business lessons learned from volleyball

I was watching one of my daughter's volleyball tournaments this weekend and I made a few observations that I think will apply to our work teams:

• Know (and play) your position:  In volleyball,  everyone expects that their teammates will play their position and know where they should be on the court.  When this doesn't happen, it results in a lot of dropped balls.  The same is true in our work teams - people expect you to know your position and not drop any of the balls you're responsible for.
• Talk to each other:  One of the key attributes of a successful volleyball team is that they are constantly talking to each other on the court.  If there is any doubt who should grab a ball, one of the players yells, "Mine!" and everyone else on the team backs off and lets them handle it.  At work, if there is any doubt about who owns what, someone needs to overtly take responsibility for the commitment in question and everyone else needs to back off and let them handle it.
• Celebrate the "aces":  When the server on the volleyball team serves the ball and the other team is unable to return it, the "ace" gets celebrated immediately.  And not just by the players on the field - the ones on the bench celebrate, too.  In our work teams, we should recognize wins as they happen and everyone on the team should have the chance to celebrate - even if they weren't directly involved in the win.
• Reassure and support each other:  When someone screws up, let them know it's OK and move on to the next point (if it's appropriate, tell them what they could've done differently in a constructive way).  In our work teams, the same concepts apply - remember, it shouldn't be personal - it should be about how to recover and learn from mistakes.
• Ask for help when you need it:  On a volleyball team, the setter works really hard - they have to move all over the court and their job is to set up the ball so the "hitters" can make a big play and get a point.  However, sometimes, they just can't get to the ball in time.  The moment they notice that this is the case, a good setter yells, "Help!" or something similar, signaling to their teammates that they need someone to cover their responsibility.  In a team, this kind of behavior is also necessary.  The moment you realize you can't meet your commitment, you need to ask for help - it's much better than a dropped ball with no warning.
• Don't let your attitude wreck the team's attitude:  I've seen huge performance variations between one game and the next in volleyball.  The pivotal difference is often the attitude or confidence of one or two girls on the team - if they are "on," they bring the team up; if they are "off," they bring the team down.  In work teams, never underestimate the impact your attitude and confidence have on the others on your team.  Don't let your negative outlook spoil the team's chances for success.

These are just some of the parallels I drew from watching volleyball.  Hopefully, they will get your juices flowing and help you be a better contributor to your team.

Who's on your "founders list'?

A friend of mine asked me an interesting question: If you were starting a new company, who would be on your "founders list"?  In other words, among the people you know, work with, etc.  who would you want with you if you started a new company?

An interesting twist on this question:  Which of the people in your current company or team would make the list?  Are you doing enough to let these people know you value them, and to keep them engaged?  More importantly, have you asked them to be part of your core team or "inner circle"?  These are the people who are likely making the most positive difference in terms of moving your business or mission forward - shouldn't you be spending more of your energy on them?

And another, more sobering, question:  Would any of these people want you on their "founders list"?  What can you do -- now -- to increase your value to the people you value?

Choices and forcing functions

I'm going through a strategic planning process right now.  It's very liberating - you can start to redraw the boundaries, constraints, and reassess the pre-existing conditions of your business.

One of the challenges is not trying to commit to doing too many things.  A long time ago, I realized something that seems counterintuitive, at first glance:

Sometimes you have to limit your choices to expand your opportunities.

What I mean is you need to force yourself to focus on fewer things so each one of your focus areas receives sufficient investment to allow it to succeed and thrive.  One of the mistakes I see companies make (lots of them, not just mine) is to spread themselves too thin.

We often think of a "shotgun" approach as hedging our bets.  In a way, that's true, but dividing your organization's attention across too many different initiatives more often results in frustration and failure.

So, what can you do?

Some techniques can help:

• Drive to your top 5. You have lots of options, and you probably have a group of people you need to get on board with your priorities and commitments.  Getting a group to agree on a short list is challenging, so your first step should be to try to get to reasonable alignment with five target areas.
• Get clear on your top 3. This will take a while, but if you can get the group to agree on the top 3 areas of focus, that is real progress.
• Drop the bottom 2. Now that you know your top 3, it's time to say "no" to everything below those.  It will be a test of your mettle, but it's important.
• Pick your #1. You've got a list of 3 important things - now, pick the one that is the most important.  It will be your cornerstone.
• Align your resources to your #1. Allocate at least 67% of your resources, time, etc. to your #1 priority (that's a minimum - allocating more to #1 is even better).  The remaining 1/3 of your resources can be budgeted to the remaining 2 items (the mix there is less important, as long as you don't ever allow your commitment to #1 to drop below 67%.
  • I realize you may not be able to make the shift all at once, but give yourself an aggressive deadline, then plan and execute to have the resource shift in place by the deadline.
• Hold the line. The old saying, "No pain, no gain," holds true here - it will be a difficult transition but well worth it in terms of focus and execution.

This transition can be a very liberating one, if you do it deliberately.  There is huge value in setting clear guidelines to drive decisions of what's in, and what's out - especially when it comes to how everyone in the organization spends their precious time and the company's precious money.

Anything to add or challenge from your experiences? I'd love to hear it.