Rocks Are Hard

Everybody in the Pool!

There are so many things I love about running an agency -- this agency in particular.  Probably the biggest joy though through the day is seeing people we work with -- in the agency, at our clients, with our partners -- move forward towards their goals because we helped them.

While it might not feel this way at traditional firms, I think this is a universal truth: there is no incentive to NOT want your employees to succeed and achieve and advance. Truly. Advancement , when done well, means more throughput, more capacity, more good stuff, more opportunity for others. What's not to love about that?!

At the same time, just because we're incented for everyone to advance to where they want to be, does not mean that everyone gets there on the schedule they imagined.  Advancement is hard - and it doesn't usually happen within the confines of the work day. Business conditions may limit growth, but hello when flat is the new up, everyone puts on a different pair of glasses.

Remember when everyone with a pulse got a job or a promotion? Or when Sally came in with another offer, and you had to match it? Well...not that advancement left people high and dry when the dot com bubble burst and when the economy tanked in late 2008.  Social promotion -- what we get conditioned to throughout grade, middle, high school and college - does nobody any good.

What you need to be sure of is that you are in a place where real, earned advancement is valued. Because when it's earned you have lots of options. And when you have lots of options your career blossoms, even when you stay at the same company.

Everybody into the pool! Learn to swim, Don't let your colleagues drown, coach everyone to their edge and everyone wins.

Artificial Boundaries

For a while now the 4 guiding principles for selecting clients has been

1. is someone other than Lee interested in working with this company? (Based on the premise that you're more effective working on things that interest you)

2. Are we the right fit for a client? Service mix + style + ability to listen + expertise.

3. Can they pay us? Because we like to eat.

4. Are they good people? Or better said are we sure they're NOT assholes. Because who likes to be beat up everyday? This does NOT preclude, have high expectations which I think is mutual exclusive to the asshole who usually has impossible expectations.

Of course 2 and 3 will always be important -- because if you take on a client you're not a good fit for, that relationship is doomed from the start and you know you'll have to churn it soon (or it will churn you) and of course cash is king - getting paid allows us to pay our employees, etc.

1 and 4 though are TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL boundaries to the business. We've all worked on business we could care less about and we've all worked for assholes. By choosing to adhere to 1 and 4, we artifically constrict the business.

And there is value in that -- in very low employee turnover. In very low client turnover. In a pretty good deal in terms of work.

Imagine what we could do if we stretched just on number 1? I'm not sure I want to ever stretch on number 4 as an independent business.

mmmmmmm -- gets the wheels turning.

The Filter

People always ask -- what business/industry does Double Forte specialize in?

HA!

Well -- we specialize in each of our clients' businesses ... really.  We weren't coffee experts before we worked with Peet's, energy bars before CLIF, nano-technology before Nano-Tex, soap and cleaning agents before Woodward -- you get the idea. (The only thing that is not true is that are experts in videogames and ecommerce and toys.)

Here's what all of our clients have in common.

1. Their business is interesting to us.  Really. This is the first level of discernment when we evaluate new business opportunities.  Is this interesting? Will a team here be able to sink their teeth into the situation? Do we have passion for the opportunity.

2.  We can help them.  If we can't help them -- no matter how lucrative, no matter how sexy -- we need to walk away. Sometimes that means we don't have the right skill set. Sometimes that means they aren't helpable -- they won't listen or change their behaviors to change their outcomes.  Either way -- if we can't help them, we don't take their money.

3.  Are they solvent/Do they pay their bills on time.  Yes. Because we like to eat.

4.  Are they good people...or the corallary...Are they Assholes?  We only want to work with good people.  People who have high standards and expectations and who are fair. (OK truth be told, lower expectations would be nice.) People who always tell us the truth. People who treat us with the respect that we have for them.  Life if too short.  We're not saving the world from terrorists, or discovering the cure for cancer (and even if we were, we'd probably have the same rules), so it's not worth it to us to have to live with "bad" people -- or people who act bad. 

Part of having a career inside a life is articulating how that career will manifest itself -- and who will be in it with you.

So we're experts in a lot.  We know how to help good people we're interested in who we can help and can pay their bills communicate to drive their businesses.....

it just doesn't sound good as a tagline.

 

The Last Lecture - Lessons for the Living

In today's Wall Street Journal, Jeff Zaslow writes "A Beloved Professor Delivers the Lecture of a Lifetime" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119024238402033039.html?mod=home_personal_journal_left

THIS IS A MUST READ! Randy Pausch, a Carnegie-Mellon University professor gives his last lecture -- not because he is retiring after a long career but becuase he is dying.  At 46 - with 3 young kids -- he will die soon of Pancreatic Cancer.

What would you do if you knew?

What would you say?

What would your legacy be?

Encourage creativity. Encourage good work. Encourage helping others. Encourage Patience. Set goals and move towards them.

He said "helping others fulfill their dreams is even more fun than achieving your own."  I hope I am that person.

I read this right before a new client walked in -- and had to have one of our people do the distraction dance while I was cleaning up my face.

He's another Fred Rogers for me. This is going in my must read box.

The Best Thing That Could Happen

This week I met with a woman who is at a crossroads in her life. After a long and successful career at a high profile company she lost her job last year.  Now she's figuring out what to do next. I'm going to say that losing this job was the best thing that could happen to her -- hard? yes. Fair? no.  But still the best thing that could happen.

Now she has the forced opportunity to do what she wants -- scary? yes. But now is the time for her to start moving towards her dream -- a career that does not consumer her life -- a satisfying career doing something she has passion about but that does not command every moment. A work day that energizes her instead of dragging her down.

How to start?

How much money do you need to make so that you can save for the future?

What is your dream day? What do you WANT to do with your time?

What are you qualified to do now? What's the delta for qualification for what you WANT to do?

So what do you need to add in your asset column to be qualified?

What could you do NOW that would move you in that direction? Do you need to take a half-time job to get experience, while you make the money you need to live and save?

Make the list of EVERYONE you've worked with and know. Start crossing off people that you don't want to work with again -- for any reason. (No one has to see this list but you.) You will whittle that list down to less than 20 people.  Make the list of people who know who have connections to what you want to do? Do any of these cross over? Make the list of people who may not be fans of yours, but who will give you the straight scoop on your reputation.

Get on all of those people's radars now.

Don't do anything that doesn't serve a PURPOSE towards your goal.  Better to do that now than wake up in 3 years having not moved toward your goal. 

Once you've had a career -- and when you still need income -- you need to win the lottery or work towards the ultimate goal NOW.

Well, that's what came out of my mouth at least....still the best thing to happen to anyone who has a career that is their whole life is to lose that job and reevaluate. (better than having a personal health crisis and not have the time to adjust)......

Career in a Life or Life as Career

I've been thinking a lot lately about work -- and how it fits into life.

I have to work.  Well, if I want to eat and feed my kids and husband, and get them a great education, and dress them, and provide a safe, warm home for them, I have to work.

And I'm good at my work -- actually really good at my work.  But my work is not my life, and I don't want my life defined by my work.

At the same time, my work is in a continuum of a pretty good career --an evolution, maturation and development of a specific point of view and expertise that people will pay for -- pay to learn from (in the form of being employees) and pay for the execution of (in the form of clients or employers).

In the end however, my work is helping others achieve their goals -- business goals, personal goals, development & career goals.  Because when we do our job right, our clients succeed.

So a career spent in service to others for business advancement.

But I don't want my LIFE to be my CAREER.  So I CHOOSE work that allows me to provide by doing what I'm good at in a WAY that provides the FLEXIBILITY to not ONLY work.  So a career that serves my life.

This is not simple.  Someone's going to have to show me how to do this and not have to spend energy at work, because I don't see it. And frankly, you have to be pretty damn good at what you do to have a career that fits INTO a broader life and not a life that is driven only by a career.  And probably, if you have to bring home the bacon (and PS if I had the bacon my time would be spent in service elsewhere, but I don't have the money and that is another rocks are hard moment) you have to be good, be respected and be highly proficient and efficient to dictate this.

So in the end you have to have a successful career to be able to have a life that accommodates something beyond it.

And I find, I need to be consistently vigilant about the relationship between the two to be happy.

Because, water is wet, and nothing I do will change that.