I Could Do This Job

I saw this job posting in an email:

"Training/OD Manager, Denver, CO, 8 month contract assignment – client is looking for a project manager to help company with major initiative to expand the number of college hires and their integration into the company. Need someone to work with a fleet of consultants and inside subject matter experts to develop rotational training programs. Training and Organizational Development background required, oil and gas experience a plus. Ability to manage external consultants."

My first reaction was "I could do this job." I've done project management before, have done tons of interviewing and helped flesh out recruiting processes, and am comfortable working with different groups of stakeholders towards a shared goal. I manage third parties easily and know where the boundaries are. And I live in the Denver area.

I caught myself but it took several days of this email sitting in my inbox. It was the equivalent of the devil, tempting me to a path that seemed close to the one I'm currently on but in actuality, is a world apart. The posting is about competence and achievement. I can do this job and do it well. My life is about meaning and creative freedom. I stand in an uncomfortable place, in between a steady paycheck and freedom. In my weak moments, I dream about the steady paycheck. In my strong moments, I revel in the freedom.

Yesterday, I had a call with my writing coach. I talked about how writing had become difficult. I was writing good stuff but I was "squeaking by." After a few minutes of background, my coach said, "It sounds like you've got some rules you've made up and some of the rules are conflicting." This brought about a whole rush of emotion on rules that I used to live by in large corporations. Only now, I was the one who had created the rules and consequently, had put myself into a box. Damn. It's so much worse when I do it to myself. Then my coach said, "What I know about you is that your spirit won't let you get completely boxed in. You'll do something before you get to that point." Creative freedom. Yes, I could do the job. But why?

So my coach gave me the assignment of writing down the rules that have been stifling me. I called these Rules That Don't Apply. After I wrote what came to mind, I decided to create Rules To Write By. Here they are:

• Write to engage/entertain myself—so that I’d like to read it over again. If I am bored with my writing, others will be too.
• Write from my personal experience and what I learned from that experience
• Don’t take myself too seriously
• Respect the intelligence of the audience.
• Tell the story instead of stating the point.

I invite you to list your own Rules That Don't Apply and create your own Rules to [Live, Work, Play] By. And keep an eye out for the devil.....

Identity Theft

There's been alot written about identity theft--when someone assumes another's identity for the purpose of committing fraud. But what happens when we lose our identity, not because someone else has taken it away, but because it no longer fits? Who are you and who are you not?

There are many reasons why an identity may no longer fit. What’s clear to me is what it feels like.

I felt this while I was on vacation last week. My family and I were on a tour of an Anasazi ruin (Chimney Rock, CO). Chimney Rock is steeped in ancient astronomy practices—tracking the lunar cycles, the winter and summer solstice—using physical landmarks. At one point, the tour guide asked my son if he knew the definition of an equilateral triangle. When he answered “a triangle with three equal sides,” the tour guide replied, “Your dad must be an engineer.” To which my husband replied, “His mother is an engineer.” That gave me food for thought, as I identified myself as an engineer for so long and now I’m not an engineer (at least I don’t get paid for engineering work even though I might still use some of the skills. ) It was disconcerting to know that I had left my old identity behind and am still, after five years, in transition.

It's a big step when my identity becomes more than what I do for a living or who I am in relation to others. And even then, my identity is transforming, although less prone to the the earthquake of layoffs and divorces.

It struck me that I never stop shaping my identity. It’s just that at different points of life, my identity is more rooted in one image over another (e.g., entrepreneur, mother, newlywed, engineer). Over time, like a small boat drifting out to sea, I don't realize that I have left the shoreline until I am surrounded by endless water and sky. During these times in the open ocean, I struggle to look for familiar land, but there is none. In fact, there is nothing but the stars to guide me to my next destination. I can either celebrate the freedom that comes with so much space, or be terrified by it and hope that I don't drown.

This makes me think of my four-year old niece. My brother reported that on a recent vacation, they were enjoying swimming in a small Midwestern lake. My niece, life-preserver securely fastened, a summer of swimming lessons under her belt, had no fear of being surrounded by deep water in every direction. She reveled in the spaciousness, rather than worried about the risks. She had decided to celebrate her freedom.

There's lots more to write about making the journey to a new identity. I'll leave that for another posting. What I want to make note of is this:

Once I have reached my destination, in the deep waters of my unconscious, there is a false sense that I will never leave land again. But that's not true. What is true is that I will not drown when I lose sight of land and that I will find land again.

Treating the Workplace as Classroom

I'm just finishing the book, The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. It's a book that continues the theme started in Block's previous book, Stewardship, of taking individual responsibility to create the world you want, and not relying on the company you work for to be Mom and Dad. Block provides alot of good food for thought around how we behave in companies to undermine our own freedom. He has some great quotes about bosses:

"Your boss doesn't have what you want."

"Most people in organizations are afraid of their boss."

Think what you want about Block's statements--it certainly starts to shift my thinking.

The quote that got me really thinking is the following on treating the workplace as classroom:

"If your setting is a large organization, view it as a training laboratory, where people come for awhile and leave when the experiment is over. View every job this way. Be curious about it all. It is a great classroom and you can learn even if the boss is not interested in teaching. This also gives purpose to an organization and business. The workplace is an incubator for economic and emotional self-sufficiency."

No truer words were ever written. I worked in large companies for 19 years before starting my own business in 2003. Over the years, I learned what I needed to run my own business, some of it consciously but much of it unconsciously--project management, marketing, follow-through, planning, leveraging others' talents, developing relationships. In the process of being on teams that didn't work well together, working with others who were very different from me, and navigating the ups and downs of layoffs and reorganizations, I discovered my gifts and what I am passionate about. I shaped the core of me that can survive just about anything. After incubating for close to two decades, I had more than enough inside of me to strike out on my own.

What Block is pointing to is a different kind of relationship than what we have traditionally thought of as the employer/employee contract. The contract has been changing over time on the employer side with outsourcing, layoffs, and reduced benefits. Instead of feeling cheated, individuals would do better to see these changes as accelerating the process of becoming self-sufficient. I'm not advocating that everyone become an entrepreneur. (In my case, getting kicked out of the nest was a good thing because I was a closet entrepreneur--always starting up new projects at work.) What I am saying is that self-sufficiency should be a goal, whether you work for a company or own your own business. At 44, I wouldn't want an employer determining my destiny any more than I would want my mother to tell me what to eat to grow up to be big and strong.

How are you enabling and sabotaging self-sufficiency in your workplace?

The Look of a Satisfied Child

I am writing this post at 11pm. I have one child sleeping soundly in bed and another puttering in his room with Legos. Both are pretty happy campers.

We had dinner at an Italian buffet, called Cinzetti's. They tout 14 stations, each with a different kind of food--pasta, pizza, ice cream, salads, meats... you get the idea. While I had been to this buffet many times with colleagues for lunch (it's near my old workplace, Avaya), I had never taken my kids there. As an adult, I take for granted having lots of choices around things like food, clothes, activities. I forget that as a child, your choices are limited to what your parents give you access to--whether it's television shows or Game Boy games or who you can call to come over for a play date.

My kids were pleased to see the large menu of beverages. My 10-year-old proudly ordered a root beer. My 12-year-old pondered the wide range of choices before shyly asking the waitress for a Sprite. They both noticed that the beverage menu declared "Bottomless Supply of Drinks." My younger son, wanting to confirm his good luck, asked the waitress if this meant free refills. He was pleased to see her nod yes. I could see that both kids were beaming.

I gave the kids a tour of the 14 stations. They stopped at the pans of what appeared to be square-shaped hash browns. They usually have to wait for me to be in a good mood to fry up frozen hash browns at home. More delight at seeing mashed potatoes, bread sticks, and pizza. I have never seen my kids eat so much, so happily.

The boys marveled when the waitress brought refills of their drinks, *before* they had finished their drinks. Andy exclaimed, "Mom, I didn't even have to ask and she came with another drink!" This was almost too good to be true--the equivalent of me offering up extra Game Boy time when his daily ration wasn't even half gone.

The best part of the meal was dessert. We usually have dessert once a week, on Saturday night--a simple brownie or a bowl of ice cream. Here, at the buffet, dessert consisted of chocolate souffles, chocolate-dipped strawberries, bread pudding, cannoli, cream puffs, apple crisp and 8 different kinds of ice cream. And those were just the recognizable desserts. All you have to do is grab a plate and go for what appeals to your eyes and stomach. Andy, the greedier of the two kid eaters, put every possible topping on a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. It looked like a huge dirt mound but instead of being covered with dirt, the ice cream was covered with small chocolate chips, chocolate dusting, bits of oreo cookies, and some unrecognizable multi-colored dots. It actually looked disgusting to me but Andy was eyeing his creation with pure joy. Half-way through the ice cream, I could see Andy's eyes glaze over. He was getting full and he had only tried one dessert. He has an astonishingly large stomach for sweets, given how small he is, but even this was too much. He was starting to look like the guy in one of the Monty Python movies who is dining at a French restaurant and after an evening of gluttony, is encouraged by the waiter to have just "one more bon bon." It is both painful and hilarious to watch the ensuing carnage.

I am not so malicious as to try this out with my kids. Luckily, Andy took a break from what must have felt like Christmas morning and watched the rest of us eat. I could see the wave of relaxation come with digestion and then his determination to try a few more desserts. In the meantime, my older son was finishing off his fifth chocolate-dipped strawberry. Several more desserts later, both kids had the look of a satisfied child--knowing that they had gotten the experience of choosing and eating exactly what they wanted.

We should all be so lucky to know satisfaction so deeply and so simply.

Overheard on the Hiking Trail

I went for a hike this morning at a popular local trail. I usually like something a bit more secluded but this trail was just a few minutes from where I was dropping off the kids for a day camp. The parking spaces on the side of the road appeared to be all taken. I was lucky to arrive just as someone else was leaving. "Yes! The Universe loves me!"

Hiking is usually a great way to clear my mind so that I have room to be creative. This morning, however, there was a regular stream of fellow hikers, either passing me from behind or coming towards me from having reached the top of the trail. I couldn't help but overhear some of the conversations. As you would expect, the men were silent but the women were relating to each other with stories about their lives. Men hiking together bring dogs. Women hiking alone bring dogs. Women hiking together bring their stories.

And of course, women love to talk about their relationships. So it was no surprise when I heard the following:

"Yeah, he's finally come around in the relationship. It's what she's wanted all along."

It was a group of four twenty-something women, talking about a friend who was not with them.

"They made an offer on a house together. But it's not like they say they love each other."

A second woman chimed in:

"But they are more than just friends, aren't they?"

"Oh, yeah, that's how they started out, as friends. But it got strange when they had the baby."

Holy cow. Call me old fashioned, but how much more entangled can you get with another human being than putting down money on a house together and putting down your DNA to create a baby?

I didn't really clear my mind this morning like I thought I would. But I certainly came away with food for thought......