Author: catherinewemette

Categories
On the Job

The Gift of Communications

I’ve had several conversations lately that have taken me back to my undergrad classroom. One of the most memorable lessons I have from college was from a communications course. Our professor talked about how we envision our own messages – wrapped up in beautiful packages and neatly presented to the other people in our conversation. We imagine they’ll open that box and see our message just as we intended. And more importantly, we imagine they’ll see it just as we see it, since that’s how we packed it and presented it.

But we all view what’s in the box differently. We can experience the same content, but we apply our own lenses of experience to that message. We assign intent and motive, and each message is colored by those that have come before it. Each message is received differently based on who’s opening that box. We may have similar lenses, but no two people will experience anything exactly the same.

It’s a powerful reminder that our words can carry a lot of weight, but the context of what’s around our words matters a great deal. How are you presenting your communication gifts?

 

 

Categories
Karen On the Job

When Companies Begin to Crumble

So, you want to grow your business?  Great! Whatever you do, pay attention to the internal workings of your company!

Overlooking your infrastructure is like biting into a rotten apple. Looks juicy and delicious on the outside, but on the inside, it’s decaying. This mustn’t happen.

Yes, I agree that cash flow is of utmost importance and keeps the neon ‘open for business’ sign left on, but why is it that very few companies ask on a regular basis: “Are we healthy?”

It doesn’t matter how much cash flow you’re experiencing right now – if you’re not a healthy business, you’re just like the rotten apple. The company eventually will not be sustainable, which means a time is coming where things will start falling through the cracks, sales will drop, problems will increase and you’ll start to worry about your profitability.

Then what?

Then reaction sets in: work harder, drive the team harder and push sales harder. You start to cut back on advertising or rewarding your employees or you cut corners on your product. Performance begins to wane and careless decision-making begins. What once was a place of celebration and an unstoppable energy is now a burden and a heavy yoke around your neck.

Two of the biggest problems I see effecting how a company operates are:  (1) neglect; and (2) dismissiveness.

I don’t mean dismiss as in ‘fire someone’.  The dismissiveness I’m referring to parallels neglect.

The New Oxford American Dictionary

Dismiss:

  • treat as unworthy of serious consideration
  • deliberately cease to think about

 Neglect:

  • fail to care for properly
  • to disregard

The biggest reason neglect and dismiss show up is because you don’t have time. Since you don’t have time, you convince yourself that everything is going well; and taking inventory of your organization’s health is soon not a priority.

Here are a few negative influencers that provoke dismissiveness and neglectfulness:

  1. YOU’RE OVERLY BUSY: You can’t shut your brain off, you have too much on your plate and stress levels are higher than usual
  2. YOU’RE PRE-OCCUPIED: You’re pre-occupied with ‘more important matters’ and, because you’re limited for time, you’re looking at the internal part of your company with ‘it’s fine the way it is’
  3. YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT SALES: You’re worried about sales being down and trying to figure how to increase numbers and, not only that, there seems to be a lack of accountability on company spending
  4. YOU’RE FRUSTRATED: You’re frustrated with unnecessary errors and wonder why decisions aren’t being more thought through
  5. YOU’RE NOT STRATEGIZING: You’re spending less time on strategy; risk management is ignored and ‘duct tape’ solutions are being implemented
  6. YOU’RE DISAPPOINTED: You’re noticing a lack of enthusiasm within the team and people don’t seem to love coming to work like they used to

Can you see how these reasons are easily fixable? More importantly, can you see how these reasons could slowly erode your wonderful company? You worked hard for your accomplishments! You put in a lot of sweat hours to get it to where it is today.

Make sure you have a healthy ‘apple-core’ business. Be confident knowing that if anyone bit into your ‘apple’ they’ll think it’s delicious. If the insides of the company don’t match the brand you are conveying to the public, then you’ve got some serious problems awaiting you.

Take an infrastructural audit!

What does that look like? Here are a few examples:

  1. Is your company financially healthy and are you seeing profits increase every year?
  2. Payroll is your greatest cost. Are the right people doing the right job and executing your outcomes with excellent results and great success?
  3. Are your procedures and systems efficient and is follow through happening within your set timelines?
  4. Are you conducting 360 degree reviews to have full understanding of how the departments are functioning, and does your team love their job and love what they do?
  5. Is production and manufacturing performing at your desired caliber and above your expectations?
  6. Are you ensuring your brand has the premier exposure amidst your competitors and, not only that, are you in the lead?
  7. Are you maintaining a competitive advantage and do customers choose you not because they’re satisfied but because they love you?

Please find out!

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com

 

 

Categories
On the Job

Sharing Our Experiences

There’s nothing like a little travel to provide a fantastic change in perspective – different cultures, unique landscapes and new daily adventures. And it’s fantastic to experience and even more fun to share – as long as you’re not holding people hostage with a thousand slides of the same Yellowstone buffalo taken at every angle. My husband and I enjoyed sharing our vacation over social media along the way and have hundreds more photos that we’ll have for ourselves to remember our trip to New Zealand and Australia. As we settled back into our daily routines, my husband was asked by someone he works with if he’d share some of his photos at their next all-staff meeting. It seemed like an innocent enough request, but it got us both thinking.

Of course we’re happy to share our trip, and admintidly, New Zealand and Australia are far enough away destinations that they’re not as common as some other adventures. However, my husband and I certainly aren’t the first people to travel and we won’t be the last, but no one else at his organization has ever shared their vacation pics at a staff meeting. We’re sensitive to the fact that we’re lucky we can travel – not everyone has the time or funds for a trip like we just took (and we definitely stretched on both fronts). We also don’t think that travel is the only thing worth sharing. We all do lots of things outside of work that are interesting and don’t want it to seem that some are any one thing is more important that any other.

There isn’t anything wrong with sharing a few vacation pics with your team, but I wonder what else we’re missing. I think it’s great my husband was asked to share his unique experience, and I hope it’s the beginning of much more sharing, of travel and beyond. I love the idea of sharing vacation photos, but also kids’ accomplishments, volunteer experiences, unique skills and hobbies and celebrating personal milestones. We’re the sum of many, many parts, and bringing all those parts to work helps us be better employees and colleagues. How are we as leaders encouraging our teams to share what’s important to them outside of work?

 

Sydney
Speaking of sharing, here’s a little Sydney love
Categories
Book Reports

The Author of Your Story

Several friends had recommended Cheryl Strayed’s Wild to me, despite my idea of a good outdoor adventure being a patio at my favorite winery. But I like a well-told story and Strayed delivers just that. The story is about her solo journey along the Pacific Crest Trail of the West Coast. She decides to make the trip after the death of her mother, the end of her marriage and a general feeling of being lost in her own life. It’s a great book if you’re into the outdoors or if you’re into a good human interest story. The latter is the one that captured my attention.

At the time of her hike, Strayer wasn’t aware of any other women hiking the train alone. She came across some solo men hikers, but the women were always part of a pair of group. Strayer had enough to fear from the wilderness that didn’t have anything to do with her gender, but she also has some unique concerns as a solo woman hiker. That said, fairly early on in her hike, she made a conscious choice about how she would handle her fear.

Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked.  – Cheryl Strayed

I love this quote for many reasons. First, she ties her emotions to the story she tells herself, which is something that resonates with me – facts and observations don’t upset or scare us. It’s the stories we tell ourselves about these facts and observations that lead us to feel something about them.  And secondly, that means Strayed decided for herself to buck what she’s been told as a woman and decide she would and could write the story of her choosing.

Sure, fear can keep us safe in a lot of situations. But fear can also hold us back if we let it be the sole author of our story. What’s writing your story?

Categories
Inside My Head

Teachable Travel

So our Good for the Soul Creative Community has been a little quiet recently and some of that was due to launching the pilot training I described. However, in addition to that, I’ve been getting ready for a long vacation in New Zealand (when it takes almost 30 hours to travel there, you want to make sure you’re there for a while!). I write this post in Franz Josef  while we wait for the skies to clear up a bit so we can go explore the nearby Fox Glacier.

In the spirit of Libby’s lists and what she learned from her vacation last year, I thought I’d create my own list of what I’ve experienced so far and how it relates to life outside of travel.

  1. Share your excitement with others – it’s contagious. Just before we were leaving (actually on the the way to the airport), I needed to stop by my doctor’s office for a quick cortisone injection to calm down an angry hip. In the course of trying to move things along so we could officially start vacation, I mentioned our trip and everyone wanted to talk about it. The nurse wanted to know where we were going, the physician’s assistant gave us some great recommendations from her visit to New Zealand last summer and the doctor wanted to know how much Lord of the Rings stuff we were doing (spoiler alert: none). It was really fun to share my excitement with them and watch their perk up in the middle of their work days.
  2. Plan to your own level of comfort. My husband and I approach vacation planning very differently. He’s satisfied once the itinerary is set to not worry about it again until he’s packing for the trip (which is typically the day of or the night before, but no earlier). I tend to be on the other side of the spectrum. While I don’t necessarily start physically packing until closer to departure, I begin packing several weeks out to make sure I’ll have what I need and can make the best of the trip, especially on a long trip that this where the temperatures will vary by more than 40 degrees as we travel around. I want to make sure I’m ready. We’ve traveled together enough now that we know this about each other and have learned not to force what makes us comfortable onto the other (well, most of the time, anyway…)
  3. It can be nice to unplug. For the longest leg of our trip (a 14+ hour flight from Houston to Auckland), we had no internet. I’ve always been a little hesitant to connect at 30,000 feet if for no other reason than it’s one of the last places where it was okay to be out of touch. Having said that, I’ve become accustomed to being connected. And while crammed into an airplane seat for that amount of time wasn’t the most fun part, it was nice to take a break from the rest of the world for a bit. I read, watched a couple movies, managed to get some sleep and started to focus on getting ready to be on vacation. It was a nice little buffer time.
  4. Recognize when you’re done (and it’s okay to be done!). When we arrived in Queenstown, we did out best to keep going so we could get over the jet lag and get on local time. We were doing pretty well until we went to grab an early dinner. By the time the food came out, my husband and I were snipping at each, apologizing for said snipping and really just trying to keep out heads off the table. We were exhausted and DONE. We scrapped our plans to explore Queenstown that night and just headed back to the hotel to crash. We realized everything would still be there in the morning. There’s nothing wrong with changing plans so you can fully enjoy them (and still be speaking to your travel partner after the first day). 😉

I’ll have more to share about our adventures, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with our view of Queenstown during our first day of exploring. Enjoy!

 

Queenstown, NZ
Hello, Queenstown!

 

Categories
Career Karen

I am a Guinea Pig

I can see why people choose not to make high-risk decisions: it’s unpredictable with no guarantees.

If I said to you (cyber invisible person), “Eat this roast beef dinner every day and you’ll lose 10 pounds.”

You would say, “How do you know?”

I would say, “I’m not 100% sure. Looks like all the ingredients for health might be there.  Let’s see if it works.”

Cyber invisible person says, “So in other words, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”  You then walk away and think I’m crazy.

Launching a business isn’t much different.

Do I know I’ll be successful?  No.

Do I want to find out?  Yes.

It’s not you that has to eat the roast beef dinner, it’s me that has to do it first, and find out if it works. Then I can say to you, “I can guarantee you, if you eat this roast beef dinner every day for 2 weeks you’ll lose 10 pounds.” Until I, myself, try it out, take the risk, enter into unpredictability and embrace the reality that there are no guarantees, I can’t offer you anything.

What people want are stories and testimonies of what works, what is successful, what is transformational, what is impactful, what is life-changing, what is guaranteed – they want to see results.

We are a skeptical bunch, us mammals. Even animals show skepticism. One will try it before the pack does. Once it’s tried and proven, then they start to fight over who gets to be next (except for lemmings…).

What do I conclude?

I’m a guinea pig.

I’m wired for experimentation.

I’m wired to risk. I’m wired to explore. I’m wired to try it first, and then decide if it’s a good idea.

I have a philosophy. “When I’m 96 years old, will I regret not doing this?” It is foundational in my decision-making. If I respond to the question with, “Yes. Absolutely, yes.” then I know I’m to proceed. If I say, “Mehhh, I can take it or leave it,” then I don’t proceed.

I am only interested in searching for the ‘absolutely yes’ residing in my heart.

I remember as a young girl spinning the globe, closing my eyes and stopping the spin with my finger. Wherever my finger landed I’d say, “I’m going here.” At a young age I already understood the concept of a “Bucket List.” I didn’t care where the globe stopped; it was the thrill of the unknown.

I remember my friends and I would roll a big tractor tire down knolls in the farm pasture.  You’d crawl inside and someone would launch you down the hill. One day we wanted to try a new, steeper hill. Who wants to be the guinea pig?  I raise my hand enthusiastically, “yes please!” Without question, I wanted to experiment the new hill. (Being our first attempt, I accidentally got significant airtime and was completely disoriented when they pulled me out of the tire.  I still smile with fondness, reminiscing about that moment.)

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s in my DNA. Since a little girl, I’ve had wide-eyed wonder when a new opportunity surfaced. If I knew I wouldn’t bore you with stories, I truly could write countless memories that repeat this conviction. Undoubtedly, it’s a conviction because it lives powerfully within me. It remains a current part of my lifestyle and stems all the way back to 4 years old.

It’s my normal.

What a profound realization I’m having this morning.

I am intricately designed to desire the unknown.

As I reflect and translate it into my professional world, I think that’s what separates entrepreneurs from other business leaders. We welcome those not-knowing moments.  We respect mystery.

Entrepreneurs believe the world is ours to explore. Behind every door is a wonder and a beautiful surprise. We believe we can overcome obstacles with determination and endurance. We can be seen as either relentlessly stubborn or unwaveringly committed. I choose the latter.

To all the entrepreneurs out there, wide-eyed wonder is your normal.

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com

 

 

 

Categories
On the Job

Learning is Invigorating…and Exhausting

I rolled out a new training program last week for a client. We tested a two-day version of our training with a pilot group of about 20 folks. I was a little wound up because this was a product I firmly believe in and wasn’t a small investment for the organization. I really wanted to make sure I wasn’t wasting anyone’s time or resources. Two days for training is a lot to ask of folks and that wasn’t lost on me.

Cut to the end, the training was a success and we received a lot of great feedback. The pilot group was enthusiastic and felt the training was a good use of their time. They actually found it to be a lot of content to digest in two days and recommended expanding it to three days so we could spend more time on the concepts. But what struck me was how tired we all were at the end of these two days. I was “on” for the two days and knew I’d be spent, but the fatigue was in my participants’ faces as well by the time we wrapped up day two. We tend not to think of training as a tiring activity – we’re not training for a marathon, after all. We’re seated in comfy chairs, have plenty of breaks and have delicious sustenance during our time together. It’s really not all that physically taxing.

That said, while we prepare ourselves for physical strain, we tend to forget about mental strain. Learning to think differently is incredibly hard work. Processing new information, applying it to your situation and adapting it to your own style requires a lot of mental gymnastics. Plus, you’re outside of your normal routine, so you’re also trying to keep up with work that keeps coming in, adjusting commuting patters and interacting with people who you don’t know all that well. These things all take energy, and more than we realize.

So the next time you find yourself exhausted after some intense learning, cut yourself some slack. Your brain is working hard to make you smarter, faster, better – that’s a lot of work.

Categories
Career Karen

4 Pillars Of Wisdom For Start Up Companies

If you’re going to start a business, here are four areas to keep track of and be diligent with:

  1.  Keep your personal living expenses at an all time low. You’re on a tight-string budget. Accept it. What you used to do, you can’t do – FOR NOW.  It will pass. Only buy discounted deals, go bargain shopping, drive a car that’s cost efficient or ride your bike, eat frugal meals and keep your personal costs low, low, low.
  2. Consider a part-time job. A non-stress, easy, no pressure job to bring in a bit of cash flow.  Entrepreneurs take big financial risks.  Even if it’s minimum wage for 20 hours a week.  That’s still $800+ a month going into your bank account.  You can use that money to pour back into your business.
  3. Ask your friends and family for help. Right at the start.They believe in you and want the best for you. They will help however they can. Don’t be afraid to ask. They may not help financially, but they can help with other resources: time, talent, network connections, skills, volunteer work, etc.
  4. Always be networking. Meet new people every week. Every week tell yourself you’ll meet 5 new people that correlate with your business. When they meet you, they will like you and your passion for what you’re doing. They will remember you and one day, if not immediately, they will want what you offer.

 

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com

Categories
Career

Boss Blind Spot

There seems to be something in the air. Several of my friends are on the job hunt, and they’re at various places on the spectrum of “seeing what’s out there” to “get me the hell out of here before I gouge my own eyes out.” And while their circumstances are all varied in terms of how long they’ve been there, what their next move might be or whether or not they’ve got families to support, they all have one thing in common. They’ve gotten new bosses within the past year and their work lives have become intolerable.

We’ve long known that people don’t leave jobs, but rather, leave bosses. But knowing that and seeing it in practice across organizations and professions is another matter. And while I don’t know the specific details with every situation, I know several of these bosses have lost people before. I also fully understand that I wouldn’t necessarily know if something was being done – corrective action shouldn’t be public, of course – but it’s hard when high turnover is the only piece of the puzzle people see. Employees know which bosses have high turnover. They see who leaves, how long they lasted and they end up usually watching the whole thing happen again before they know it. One of my friends who just left her job was the third person to leave her team in less than a year. And the team is only 5 people to begin with – including the boss that everyone keeps leaving, who has only been there two years himself.

Sure, there are always reasons people leave other than their boss. And people may often share reasons other than their boss because they’re afraid or don’t want to make trouble. But as leaders within our organizations, it’s critical to look at the common denominators. Other employees certainly will be, and if they’re even perceiving the boss as that main common denominator, it may be time to check your own blind spots.

Categories
Awesomeness in the World Karen

Confessions of a Woman: I like Aging

Hi my name is Karen and I like aging.

Why are we afraid to show our age? Why do we love to hear that we look 10 years younger? (I do, too!)

But does it really matter that much?

I have wrinkles. The crow’s feet around my eyes continue to increase every year. Perhaps it’s partly due to playing golf and being out in the sun for several hours at a time? Or is it?

I noticed something today as I stared into the mirror looking at the present Karen who stood before me. It was a reflective moment (no pun intended). What I noticed is the wrinkles only show when I’m smiling. If I stand still, they are somewhat invisible. But once I beam with joy, the wrinkles are front and center. Imagine how ridiculous I must have looked, staring at myself stoic and serious, then switching to a big bright smile. Smile. No smile. Smile. No Smile. Lines. No lines. Lines. No lines. And so on and so forth.

Here’s my conclusion: it’s not my golf games that caused these lines on my face – it’s joy.

If my wrinkles symbolize the joy journey of my life, then I welcome them. And, I love them.

I have joy lines. Not bitter, angry, jaded wrinkles. No, rather, I have happiness crinkles.

 

It’s taken me over 40 years to design this story that everyone can see. And I won’t cover it up.

Would you like to know who I am? I will smile for you and then tell me please, what do you see?

INVISIBLE CYBER VOICE: “Excuse me.”

KT: “Yes?”

ICV: “It’s clear to me that you are a joyful woman. Am I correct?”

KT: “Well yes, how did you know?”

ICV: “The lines around your eyes present that you are a woman of joy.”

May the aging lines of joy not be hidden. There is no shame in aging. The only wrinkles that should concern us are the ones of the heart. Make sure your heart never ages.

“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.” – Amon Bronson Alcott

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain

Here’s to joyful wrinkles and happy crinkles!

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com