In addition to hosting baseball, Yankee Stadium is also the home field for the New York City Football Club (soccer) even though the seasons overlap. As a result, the grounds crew at the stadium needs to convert the playing field from baseball to soccer and back as frequently as for one match.
On the day we were there, the crew was out laying new turf to cover the infield dirt and anchoring the soccer goal stands in the outfield. Later the pitcher’s mound will be leveled and the field restriped – all for one soccer meet before the Yankees return to baseball. This seems like the kind of transition that many would label as either impossible or not worth it, but obviously, the Yankees’ ownership feels that it is economically viable to do on a regular basis.
Are you limiting yourself or your organization too much by seeing yourself as only a single-service provider? If the stadium can make regular accommodations from one sport to another, perhaps you can expand your reach by exhibiting the same flexibility toward being a two-option organization. The grass could be greener if you adapt to where you place it.
One of my stops while in New York was a tour of Yankee Stadium, a place that is filled to the brim with history and legacy. Everywhere you go there is a reference to the 27 World Champions that the franchise has won – clearly impressive since second place is St. Louis which has only won 11.
I noticed that the last trophy that the Yankees brought home was in 2009, which made me wonder when their championship dynasty occurred. What I learned was that since 2000, 12 different teams have won the World Series, with the Yankees only winning twice in those 18 years. The Boston Red Sox and the San Francisco Giants have won three each in that time. The Yankees’ tour conveniently glosses over when the winning took place and instead focuses on the fact that it did.
For the Yankees, the enormity of their total championships clearly outweighs the recent gap in winning one. They do a great job of associating “Yankees” with “winners” in the public’s mind, even if the recent history would say otherwise.
There are many versions of any story and your job is to determine which chapter of your story to read aloud. In the Bronx, there is no doubt which pages those are.
One of the things that make Manhattan great is how the city is characterized by its districts: the financial district, meatpacking district, the jewelry district, etc. While I was there we stayed in the garment district, and while I am neither a sewer or fashion aficionado, the retail this area attracts was fascinating.
Blocks of stores carried the most unique fabric patterns, furs, laces, feathers and leathers. Entire buildings were dedicated to nothing but embellishments and garment accessories. If you wanted the exact button or closure, the Garment District is your place.
Having specialty districts, instead of just an aisle or individual store, also highlights the depth of the category and makes it apparent how little novices know or use compared to experts in the field.
Mood Designer Fabricsalone sells alpaca, boucle, cashmere, French terry, neoprene, stretch velvet, vinyl, beaded lace, brocade, spandex, and stretch mesh in addition to the usual cotton, denim and knits in every nuanced shade under the sun. They sell thread and trim, as all fabric stores do, but Mood has an entire floor dedicated to accessories. For those who work in the theater or fashion industries, having a centralized access point for the obscure and exclusive materials is essential. For the rest of us, a place like Mood is just a visual feast.
The districts of Manhattan have been established for generations but consider whether you could take a step toward creating a neighborhood or district of your own. Even if it is a loose allegiance, could you locate similar resources in relative proximity: a health food district, child-friendly entertainment district, or a pet services district? Depth attracts greater depth and expertise that makes it even more powerful.
I just returned from a fantastic trip to New York City, a place that could not be much more different from where I live. Everything about Manhattan screams energy and a frenetic pace – quite the contrast from life in small town Iowa.
When was in the Big Apple, I felt transported to another world not just a different city. “New York is a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there,” I said to my sister. It reminded me of the corollary that is often said about our state: “Iowa is a great place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit.” There is truth to both statements.
It is difficult to describe the environment and sensory stimulation that occurs in much of central NYC just as it is challenging to articulate what makes life on the banks of the Mississippi so amenable to those who live there. Both are their own cultures and different people will be more comfortable in each of them.
Your job is to as accurately and thoroughly as possible describe your organization’s culture to anyone who may aspire to work with you. Are you a New York, an Iowa or someplace entirely different? If you’re asking people to make it their workplace home, it needs to be a long-term lifestyle fit not just a short-term vacation adventure.
I
t used to be that there was a photo developer on every corner. Drug stores, department stores, drive up kiosks, separate one-hour photo stores – everyone had a substantial amount of space and equipment dedicated to processing pictures.
And then came the camera phone and sharing took place digitally instead of through print. Approximately 52 million photos are uploaded onto Instagram each day, and none of them need a developer for processing.
Some stores still offer photo developing, but I wonder how long they will continue to utilize prime retail space for such functions. Target, for example, has a large photo center in the front of one of its stores – it was virtually empty while I was waiting to meet someone. It seems that they could be more profitable by offering other goods or services instead of having a large, unused area showing signs of entropy. While I am sure these centers were quite profitable in their day, I believe their time has come to an end for most retailers.
Think of whether you have services in your organization that are past their prime and should be reimagined – in other words, how to capitalize on the growth in picture taking while acknowledging the decline in photo developing.
Are you dedicating space and assets toward something that once provided you with benefits but no longer does? Maybe it’s time to develop a new plan about how you picture your future.
I have a new neighbor – who is installing a new pool – which requires the installation of a new section of fence to replace my adjoining chain link with a regulation height barrier. The men who were here yesterday to do the job not only installed the new fence section but spent a considerable amount of time realigning the existing fencing so that it all was even.
Their company did not install the original fence, but they took the time to improve it. No one remembers who did the initial work, but the current contractor’s reputation is what would be tarnished if the new work looked shoddy for whatever reason. One section installed correctly becomes invisible if the surrounding sections are out of kilter -- so they did the entire fence as it should be done.
Do you have similar pride in your work or do you focus only on the piece that is “yours”? Take a lesson from the fence installers and embrace a larger view of your duties. Even if you technically only have responsibility for a section, your integrity is judged on the whole.
When people leave an organization those left behind bear the burden of the departure, but except in rare instances, the organization carries on despite the vacancies. I liken this to a Jenga tower.
Even with pieces (people) missing, the essence of the structure remains. The tower is resilient and can handle a few holes, but when this occurs all actions require significantly more time and effort to be executed. The more pieces missing, the higher the stress level.
Some pieces can be removed without impact, but others are key pieces that create great instability for what remains. Neither Jenga or an organization has unlimited capacity to absorb departures, and at a given point, the tower will fall. It’s much easier in the game than in reality to pick up the pieces and rebuild, but some organizational leaders act as if there is no distinction.
If you have staff vacancies, Jenga can be a useful analogy to help the continuing staff to put the departures into perspective. With a piece or two missing, the situation isn’t as dire as it may first seem. But Jenga can also help you as a leader to remember that the overall situation becomes more precarious with each piece that is removed.
One of the key functions of a successful person is their ability to manage the day-to-day while simultaneously thinking about tomorrow. It’s harder than it seems. There are so many demands on time at the moment that we often become engrossed in it and forget about what comes next.
For example:
>Entrepreneurs need to be thinking about who their next client is even when they are busy working for their current customer.
>Project managers need to plan ahead as to what supplies they will need before they go to reach for them.
>Supervisors must be developing strategy and acquiring resources long before their staff will need to implement the plans.
Consider the techniques that you can use to help yourself think longer term in the midst of short-term busyness. Maybe it’s a desk calendar that displays the following month or a multi-month calendar on your wall. Perhaps it is a Gantt chart or software display of future deadlines. It could be a journal that allows for dreaming, or a weekly planning meeting that shifts the focus to the coming weeks instead of today.
No matter your method, you need to follow the mantra of the West Wing’s President Jed Bartlet and ask yourself “what’s next?” – not just about what is in the next moment, but for the long-term moments after that. If you’re the leader (of yourself or your organization), your job description is the only one that includes thinking about tomorrow.
In a college bookstore, they had a shelf of mugs emblazoned with the school name and “Mom” or “Dad” or “Grandparent.” I’ll bet they have been selling this same style of mugs since the ivy first started growing on the side of the building.
Mom/Dad/Grandparent mugs are vestiges of a traditional school environment that is disappearing. Where are the mugs that say: Daughter, Step-Mom, Aunt or Husband in recognition of the non-traditional family and growing adult/graduate enrollment? Why isn’t the school courting Sister or Brother as a way to fuel their pipeline for future student populations? What about the mugs that use colloquial references to parents: Pops, Gramps, Nana or Momma? Or in languages that represent a large portion of their student body: Padre, Madre, Mare, Papi, Maman, Baba?
Today as we celebrate Father’s Day, think of all the dads who should be recognized, and also the other members of the family who support you. There may not be a mug for Step-Dad or Uncle, but for many people, those relationships have been invaluable. Raise whatever glass you have in a toast to them.
The breaking of a bone can be a traumatic experience for a child – or not.
One St. Louis pediatric orthopedist turned a broken bone into an adventure and had his 6-year old patient leave with a smile in addition to her cast. How did they do it?
>No plain, boring white casts. The patient was able not only to pick out her color but had the option to add sparkles to the plaster mix. Somehow, a sparkly pink cast doesn’t seem as medicinal or daunting as a boring white one.
>Since she’s a thumb sucker, they took special care to accommodate for that and left the thumb outside the cast.
>The cast came complete with a mini-Sharpie so the patient was immediately equipped to get autographs – thus making the cast personalized and cool.
As a pediatric orthopedist, his entire clientele consists of children with injuries. By turning the office visit into a fun experience for them, it has the effect of helping the visit go much more smoothly for him. How can you adopt some of these principles and help deliver glitter among the medicine you must serve?
Thanks, Brian!
I recently was at a Target Superstore on a summer Sunday and they were totally out of regular Coke cans. This would seem to me to be a staple item that you could count on to be there whenever you shopped, but there were none. Not on the shelves, not on the end caps, not on the display in front of the store.
If you looked at the space allocated for Coca-Cola branded beverages, it was substantial, but the square footage was taken up with Coke Zero, Caffeine Free Diet Coke, Cherry Coke Zero and other variations that did not sell. So many choices and flavors added to the complexity but detracted from the core.
Coke is the #1 selling pop and Diet Coke is #2* yet Target and Coca-Cola diverted their attention and lost (at least some) sales because they focused on niches at the exclusion of the main products.
Think about the offerings your organization provides. Are you making your version of Coke and Diet Coke as robust as they could be or are you pushing Cherry Coke Zero only to find it still sitting on the shelf? You may find that a narrow focus is more refreshing.
*Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42255151/ns/business-us_business/t/sweet-americas-top-brands-soda/#.WxL2ai-ZOqA
While we were at the beach, we came upon a sand castle that someone had obviously spent considerable time making. There were multiple layers and shapes and it was large enough to be visible from far down the shore.
By the time we left a few hours later, it had been washed into the ocean.
The builder of the sand castle knew that it would have a temporary existence but made the gift anyway. What can you do today to bring joy into the world even if it is only for one cycle of the tides?
P.S. Happy 6thanniversary to leadership dots!!
As part of the Universal Studios theme park, we were able to take a tour of the production lot. We drove through facades of different neighborhoods, felt tremors as if in an earthquake, were splashed by the rushing waters of a flood and saw the pond where the first mechanical shark from Jaws swam.
If you were familiar with the movie or television show, the props and effects had a much greater meaning. For example, a car is just a car, unless you watched Back to the Future or Knight Rider and then you could appreciate the sentimentality of those vehicles.
To help place the sets into context, the tram cars included television cameras that would show clips from movies that featured the sets we were seeing in person. It brought home how easy it is to fake things in the news or on the internet; the plane crash that we saw was totally staged yet appeared perfectly real on the screen.
The studio tour is one of the most popular attractions at the park. It reminded me that people, myself included, really like behind-the-scenes access. It helps us to have a deeper understanding and greater context for the world around us. It helps us to feel “in-the-know” and special. It gives added appreciation for what goes into achieving the end product.
Help your clients see your organization with a new lens by providing a behind-the-curtain look into some aspect of your work. You may not be able to show something as dramatic as replicating an earthquake, but those who know you will love you more if they get a peek at how you make your magic.
Dr. Temple Grandin is an internationally known expert in the field of autism. She has written a dozen books on the topic, speaks widely about the condition and has been featured in a film.
Just knowing those facts, guess what her “day job” is. Therapist? Psychologist? Doctor? Professor?
If you guessed professor, you would be right, but what I doubt you suspected is that she is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. In addition to being an expert on autism, she is also well known for her work in cattle handling!
You may think the two are unrelated, but Dr. Grandin has used her own autism to have insights about the environment in which livestock live. She has created protocols for reducing visual distractions and adding enrichments in the animal environment and championed many improvements for more humane livestock handling. Her autistic sensitivity has translated to how to improve conditions and animal behavior. On second glance, autism and animal science seem like a natural connection.
How can you pair a diverse set of interests or insights to shape the world in ways that others cannot fathom? Your unique combination could be just what is needed to see the world more humanely.
Source: Wikipedia Temple Grandin
Source: "Speaker: A little bit of autism gives you an advantage" by Bennet Goldstein, Telegraph Herald, April 27, 2018, p. 3A
People see things differently when they are an expert.
A masterful knitter can tell at a glance when a line of stitches is off. A professional carpenter can tell from across the room whether a row of cabinets will fit in the kitchen or not. A major league baseball player can judge the trajectory of a ball far better than a little leaguer. I can tell from looking at a pile of items whether or not it will fit into a suitcase or the car. I can see potential blogs where others are just going about their business without noticing the lesson or impact.
Everyone has an area where they have super-vision to see things in ways a novice can’t. Think about the part of the world that you see where others do not. How can you use this to your advantage?
My sister was just unexpectedly in the hospital and I found myself continually looking at my phone as it could give me minute-to-minute updates like it does for a sporting event. Even if there were no changes in her condition, I would have had more comfort in knowing that as opposed to being in the dark. It made me realize that I have come to expect that my “magic phone” (as I dubbed it when I first got a smartphone) knows everything.
I want to reach for my phone all the time to ask questions which have answers, but are unknown by Google: “how many people are at this event,” “who is that person I know from somewhere but can’t place,” “what size shirt does my brother wear,” or “when do the eggs in the refrigerator expire?” [It can be a fun icebreaker to ask people to share a question that has an answer that Google does not know.]
But I also sometimes wish that I could look up answers to questions to which there are no answers, important questions like: “should I pursue this line of work or that one”, “what is the best course of action to complete this project” or “what investment plan is the most beneficial to pursue?” These are things I do not know, and the phone cannot help me.
There are so many questions to which the phone has no answers. Maybe those are the big questions we should spend our time asking.
Puzzle pieces are a common analogy used when talking about fit – different shapes need to link together to form a whole, a missing piece is noticeable, everyone needs to work together to fulfill the vision, etc. But what about when the pieces are not standard shapes and challenge our perspective of what will fit together?
I thought of this when working on a puzzle that had the most non-traditional shaped pieces that I have seen. It stretched my imagination and ingenuity to blend these pieces into the picture, but, of course, they were necessary to complete it. The same can be true when talking about people instead of pieces.
Think about where you fit on the tolerance scale. Are you only comfortable with “differences” that are of the standard variety or are you able to embrace those which are outside your usual experiences? How can you intentionally seek out pieces that are more varied and come to appreciate the richness they bring to your puzzle? Can you learn to see puzzles as coming in a multitude of shapes and avoid the traditional/non-traditional labels?
It may not feel like it initially, but even shapes that you have not worked with before still fit side by side with your common variations and are the only way to make your picture complete.
Author Seth Godin has written extensively about “tribes” – gatherings of people with a common interest, no matter how narrow. The online community has proliferated tribes because of the ease of connecting with others, but it appears that gathering in-person still has its power.
In our small city in Iowa, I was surprised to see advertisements for the Psychic & Paranormal Expo. It seems like something that would occur in major cities or inspire an online-only community, but apparently, it is a larger draw than I realized. The Expo will take place in the convention center and host over 60 vendors, featuring merchandise, readings, reflexology and presentations. There will be information on ghost hunts, crystals, past lives, reiki and angels.
Recently, a friend and his family traveled to a Chicago suburb to experience a Gluten-Free Expo and learn about the foods their daughter can eat without incident. Hundreds of vendors were on hand to share recipes and samples to this subset of the population.
This summer, I am co-facilitating a workshop for new supervisors in student affairs in higher education. You would think that the topic would be too narrow to draw an audience, but both the material and interest is robust.
Think about the tribes to which you belong or to which your organization appeals. Take advantage of the opportunity to create great energy by gathering these like-minded souls in the same space (both virtual or physical).
You may have heard the old saying: “Once in a blue moon”, but, if you’re like me, you did not really know what that meant. A blue moon occurs when there are two full moons in the same month, and tonight is that blue moon – something that usually only occurs every two-and-a-half years.
Many people painstakingly plan each week or calendar goals over months or quarters but think about the things that you should do once in a blue moon. Should you schedule a full-garage organization in that interval? Is it a good time to have all the office upholstery sent out for cleaning? Maybe a blue moon can be a good reminder to have a full read-and-review of the employee manual?
Or think about making the next blue moon your target for your next big goal: learn another language, save enough to travel on a safari, or enter that marathon.
Once in a blue moon will come whether you make it a milestone or not. Take advantage of nature’s reminder to do those occasional tasks or start that long-term project.
(Next blue moon = October 31, 2020)
People generally want to be right. What makes it more difficult, even for open-minded folks, is to absorb the concept that while they may be right, others may be right, too.
This simple exercise can help illustrate the point.
If you look at the figure from this perspective, it is a 3:
From this side, the same shape is an M:
But from this way, it looks like a W:
And from the other direction, it appears to be an E:
Someone might see this drawing and report that it was an E, 3, M or W – and be correct.
The next time you hear a statement that differs from yours, think of this dot. Ask yourself whether they literally have a different point of viewing rather than a different point of view.
Thanks, Mike!
