This last week has been intense. I am not usually the guy out entertaining in our office furnishings company, but this week I had several evening events plus the usual deadlines to get to.
So, by Friday, I was ready for some down-time over the weekend. Winston Churchill said that it is not enough to just not do what you do all week to unwind. You need to DO something different. So I slept in, did mindless tasks around the house, took a yoga class with my wife, got some surf, wandered around Home Depot and Trader Joe’s, and came home to create dinner. For me, that is unwinding. I put the Food Network on in the background.
One of the TV chefs was contrasting the French way of creating a meal with the American. In France, you go to the market, find what is fresh, buy it and create something wonderful from it. In America, you start with a recipe, make a list, then go to the market and go crazy trying to find everything on the list so you can cook from the recipe.
This was one of those realizations. I mean you can do both, but look at the power that is released when you notice what is going on around you and use it to create something better. In management, I see a lot of frustration around things not turning out the way people want. To be successful, it should LOOK a certain way. We read books, copy other people’s recipes for corporate cultures and superimpose them on our culture at work. And then are frustrated when we don’t get the results we wanted. How much more powerful it is to mine the natural energy that is going on around us?
A manager I worked with once was deciding about whether to replace an assistant manager. While replacing the role might have been the obvious choice, any of us who have done that know the feeling of having to take on the extra work of that role while we are trying to interview, recruit and train a replacement. Add Murphy’s Law and a spike in business volume and you have a recipe for crazy. We talked about the pros and cons and looked at what the real need for the role was. What functions did the role perform? What are some other ways those functions could be done, using who was already in place? She came up with four names and some suggestions about what each could do, in the context of what they were already doing. Without any additional expense, she just divided up the workload and created a whole lot of new empowerment for four employees. Each one was delighted to rise to the challenge. Instead of the drain of trying to get it all done on her own, she found the thrill of having people come up with creative alternatives for their new responsibilities. A few weeks into it and people in the department and outside were noticing and commenting. There is a new energy.
Diana Vreeland said, “Don’t look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there’s a new idea waiting to be born.”
Rather than be frustrated by the demands of the recipe, she was inspired by what was right in front of her – and created something wonderful.
