Someone recently asked me about my management style, and part of what I said is this: hire good people, coach them to become great, and then make it possible for them to excel at their roles. For me, a big piece of that has been knowing when to not give instructions. When to get out of the way and let people do their work.
It isn't rocket science, and I am not the first person to say it. It is, however, something that I learned not on the job, but off. Or rather, on my second job of co-managing our four person, one pet fish household.
Which is why I'm both cringing and laughing out loud reading this article about the lists that mothers make when they go out of town on business trips.
I have always shared primary care-giving responsibilities. JB is a musician and has a very flexible schedule. For the past number of years, day times have meant me in the office, JB mostly at home, and an incredible rotating group of free-lancers, students, artist and musician babysitters to fill in the many holes. Breakfast is my meal; dinner is his. I do the grocery shopping; he does the vacuuming. He washes the laundry; I fold the laundry. You get the gist.
All this to say - I've never written a list of instructions of how things have to be done when I am away from home. I have, however, received one or two. (And on the work front, I will admit to writing one too many vacation/maternity leave/transition memos).
JB and I have many times when we flip roles. Once or twice a year, he spends a couple of weeks or so on tour and I am the one who struggles to get dinner on the table every night. (Luckily, I learned early in parenthood that if you buy the hippy kind of mac and cheese and throw in some frozen veggies, it counts as a meal).
We have been able to share responsibilities because we have learned to trust each other. That doesn't mean that we do things the same way, however, and over the years we have learned to, for lack of a better phrase, deal with it. JB has to deal with the fact that the kids are not going to practice the violin as much when he is out of town. I have to deal with the fact that they might not put their napkins on their laps (or use napkins at all) when I am not at the dinner table. He might buy the "wrong" kind of bread. I might let the kids leave their legos out overnight.
Because we share responsibilities, more gets done. It might not get done "perfectly" in either of our eyes, but there are more homemade meals, more projects with the kids, more time for us both to pursue our passions, because we have learned to allow the other person to do things the way that they do them.
In my experience, same thing happens in the office. We might not love the way a Board President runs meetings, but it is his role, so we bite our tongues in the room, give gentle suggestions behind the scenes, and deal. And the meeting still runs. We might not like the way our staff person writes her to-do lists, but she gets the work done, so we deal. I might be a prepare-in-advance person; my colleagues might be last-minute. I might write everything down; they might keep everything in their heads.
If JB wasn't home with the kids most days, my career couldn't look like it does. If I didn't have a job that gave us health insurance, it would be harder for him to be freelance. We have to let other people do their work. Because if we don't, we can't do ours. But when we do - when we do our work and when others do theirs, things get done. Even if the house is messier (or, in my very lucky case), cleaner, than it would be if we were in charge.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Wines for the New Year
On this week's Splendid Table, Matt Kramer makes a distinction I can't stop thinking about. He talks about wines of fear and wines of conviction. Wines of fear, he says, are notable by what they don't have - tannins, oak, etc. Wines of conviction are notable by what they do have. (Matt also talks about how the connection between price and quality has been completely broken down, but that's another blog).
For the record, I'm not a oenophile. At all. In fact, I am fairly intimidated by the guy who staffs our neighborhood wine store. I can't talk about overtones and undernotes and this and that. I have just enough knowledge to usually choose a glass I like in a restaurant, or an under $12 bottle at the store.
What fascinated me was this: At one point in the podcast, the host, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, asks Matt Kramer how one can tell the difference between the two - the wines of fear and the wines of conviction. His response - you just know. Almost everyone who has had at least a glass or two of wine can tell. Wines of fear taste like they come from "nowhere". Wines of conviction taste like they come from "somewhere".
That makes sense to me. I probably can tell. Conviction tastes like distinction, complexity, authenticity. Whether it is an $8 bottle of Cava (which is the wine he is discussing) or a $300 fancy pants expense account bottle.
We know the same is true with people. Spend a few minutes with someone and most of us get a gut instinct - is this a person from nowhere or a person from somewhere? Sometimes we like that somewhere, sometimes we can't stand it, but we are never bored by it. The same is true for organizations. Is this an organization that puts a stake in the ground, that operates from conviction? On some level, we feel it. We recognize it when we see it. Those are the people, and the organizations, that I want in my sandbox. Even when they aren't quite so "easy drinking".
It's Elul, the Jewish month where we think about the year that has past and the year that is coming. For all of us, I hope the year that comes is a year of wines of conviction. I hope that we all surround ourselves with individuals, teams, and organizations defined by who they are, not who they aren't.
And let's all toast the new year with a glass of that $8 Cava, please. But I'll send JB in to pick mine up.
For the record, I'm not a oenophile. At all. In fact, I am fairly intimidated by the guy who staffs our neighborhood wine store. I can't talk about overtones and undernotes and this and that. I have just enough knowledge to usually choose a glass I like in a restaurant, or an under $12 bottle at the store.
What fascinated me was this: At one point in the podcast, the host, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, asks Matt Kramer how one can tell the difference between the two - the wines of fear and the wines of conviction. His response - you just know. Almost everyone who has had at least a glass or two of wine can tell. Wines of fear taste like they come from "nowhere". Wines of conviction taste like they come from "somewhere".
That makes sense to me. I probably can tell. Conviction tastes like distinction, complexity, authenticity. Whether it is an $8 bottle of Cava (which is the wine he is discussing) or a $300 fancy pants expense account bottle.
We know the same is true with people. Spend a few minutes with someone and most of us get a gut instinct - is this a person from nowhere or a person from somewhere? Sometimes we like that somewhere, sometimes we can't stand it, but we are never bored by it. The same is true for organizations. Is this an organization that puts a stake in the ground, that operates from conviction? On some level, we feel it. We recognize it when we see it. Those are the people, and the organizations, that I want in my sandbox. Even when they aren't quite so "easy drinking".
It's Elul, the Jewish month where we think about the year that has past and the year that is coming. For all of us, I hope the year that comes is a year of wines of conviction. I hope that we all surround ourselves with individuals, teams, and organizations defined by who they are, not who they aren't.
And let's all toast the new year with a glass of that $8 Cava, please. But I'll send JB in to pick mine up.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
My giant zucchini
My husband (to be known as JB here moving forward) came home last night from our CSA pickup with no melons, a weather-related crop update, and one giant zucchini.
For those of you who aren't familiar, a CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture share. Basically, you invest in a farm at the beginning of the growing season and receive regular products from that farm throughout the season. There are many reasons why CSA's are great for agriculture, our community, and our health.
In addition to our recent hurricane, and earthquake, we have had a month of record-setting rains on the East Coast, and have been wondering how those rains affected our farm. Turns out that we were relatively lucky. Our farmer is based in Pennsylvania, and while he did lose his entire crop of melons (much to my four year old melon monster's utter devastation), for the most part his farm was spared. He told JB that many of his friends and colleagues who farm in upstate NY had to cancel their CSA deliveries for the remainder of the season.
That's right - cancel. No produce at all, at the height of the season, for people who paid several hundred dollars months ago for that produce. And who aren't getting their money back. CSA's involve sharing risk. They are a real partnership between producer and consumer. The consumer reaps both the benefits and the losses of that risk. Last year's tomato blight = no tomatoes for CSA customers around the region. On the other hand, good weather last summer meant a double crop of corn for us and we were eating corn-on-the-cob well into the fall.
Invest in a business, reap the success, risk the loss. How many of us are courageous enough to do that with our dollars? How many Board members would really be ok with weathering immense losses at the opportunity of great success for nonprofit organizations? How many foundations want to hear real analysis and not just numbers massaged to convince them that they are meeting their objectives?
No answers today, just questions. Including this one: what on earth am I going to do with another giant zucchini?
For those of you who aren't familiar, a CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture share. Basically, you invest in a farm at the beginning of the growing season and receive regular products from that farm throughout the season. There are many reasons why CSA's are great for agriculture, our community, and our health.
In addition to our recent hurricane, and earthquake, we have had a month of record-setting rains on the East Coast, and have been wondering how those rains affected our farm. Turns out that we were relatively lucky. Our farmer is based in Pennsylvania, and while he did lose his entire crop of melons (much to my four year old melon monster's utter devastation), for the most part his farm was spared. He told JB that many of his friends and colleagues who farm in upstate NY had to cancel their CSA deliveries for the remainder of the season.
That's right - cancel. No produce at all, at the height of the season, for people who paid several hundred dollars months ago for that produce. And who aren't getting their money back. CSA's involve sharing risk. They are a real partnership between producer and consumer. The consumer reaps both the benefits and the losses of that risk. Last year's tomato blight = no tomatoes for CSA customers around the region. On the other hand, good weather last summer meant a double crop of corn for us and we were eating corn-on-the-cob well into the fall.
Invest in a business, reap the success, risk the loss. How many of us are courageous enough to do that with our dollars? How many Board members would really be ok with weathering immense losses at the opportunity of great success for nonprofit organizations? How many foundations want to hear real analysis and not just numbers massaged to convince them that they are meeting their objectives?
No answers today, just questions. Including this one: what on earth am I going to do with another giant zucchini?
Friday, September 2, 2011
Where's the Pandora for Charity?
Friday morning is Pandora morning for me. As the week winds down, I am trying to finish up any desk-based projects that I have on my plate, and a little music helps me through.
I have fairly predictable musical tastes, and Pandora understands me. Pandora almost always knows what I want to listen to - even when I don't. For instance, I would tell you I never want to listen to the Grateful Dead, but Pandora once knew that it was ok to slip in "Friend of the Devil." It gets my alt-country, gospel, hip-hop proclivities. And when it doesn't, I give the song the "thumbs down" and it goes away - forever.
My husband, a musician with much more extensive, sophisticated, and unusual tastes, has become obsessed with Spotify. Spotify has a simple musical model. (I'll leave the economics of both of the services, and what it means for musicians, to another blogger). Enter a song, hear the song. Pretty much any song. With Spotify, if you know what you want to listen to, you can hear it.
And the husband knows. He reads about music. His musician friends make recommendations. His world is music and when he hears about something, or remembers a song from the past, he knows what he wants to hear and is thrilled to be able to dial it up. I don't, though. I don't read the music press. I don't have friends who are constantly suggesting new albums. I might know what I want to listen to on my ipod, but for new music, I need someone to make recommendations for me. Which Pandora does.
Two different business models - two different consumers.
The same thing exists in the nonprofit world. Some donors know exactly what they want to buy, and some don't. There are many good internet models to support the "Spotify" group of those who know what they want to buy: Guidestar, Network for Good, Donors Choose, and several others.
Where's the Pandora for charity? Where's the website where I can type in a list of all the organizations I gave to last year and have it suggest others that I might be interested in? Where's the Facebook app that knows that many of my facebook friends live in Northern New England, that I like to ski, that my sister went to UVM, and suggests a post-hurricane donation to the Vermont Food Bank disaster relief efforts? Will Jumo serve this role?
What do you think? Do we need a Pandora for charity? Does it exist already?
I have fairly predictable musical tastes, and Pandora understands me. Pandora almost always knows what I want to listen to - even when I don't. For instance, I would tell you I never want to listen to the Grateful Dead, but Pandora once knew that it was ok to slip in "Friend of the Devil." It gets my alt-country, gospel, hip-hop proclivities. And when it doesn't, I give the song the "thumbs down" and it goes away - forever.
My husband, a musician with much more extensive, sophisticated, and unusual tastes, has become obsessed with Spotify. Spotify has a simple musical model. (I'll leave the economics of both of the services, and what it means for musicians, to another blogger). Enter a song, hear the song. Pretty much any song. With Spotify, if you know what you want to listen to, you can hear it.
And the husband knows. He reads about music. His musician friends make recommendations. His world is music and when he hears about something, or remembers a song from the past, he knows what he wants to hear and is thrilled to be able to dial it up. I don't, though. I don't read the music press. I don't have friends who are constantly suggesting new albums. I might know what I want to listen to on my ipod, but for new music, I need someone to make recommendations for me. Which Pandora does.
Two different business models - two different consumers.
The same thing exists in the nonprofit world. Some donors know exactly what they want to buy, and some don't. There are many good internet models to support the "Spotify" group of those who know what they want to buy: Guidestar, Network for Good, Donors Choose, and several others.
Where's the Pandora for charity? Where's the website where I can type in a list of all the organizations I gave to last year and have it suggest others that I might be interested in? Where's the Facebook app that knows that many of my facebook friends live in Northern New England, that I like to ski, that my sister went to UVM, and suggests a post-hurricane donation to the Vermont Food Bank disaster relief efforts? Will Jumo serve this role?
What do you think? Do we need a Pandora for charity? Does it exist already?
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