Client Stories — Third Thought

Take the Dare

15th of May ~

I’ve been getting a little too comfortable. So, I recently took on a new challenge: a pro bono project in Bangladesh.

Three flights: 10.5 hours, 6.5 hours and 5.5 hours. That’s what it takes to get to Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is a city of 16 million, the 9th largest city in the world and, until last month, I couldn’t have found it on a map. All I knew of Bangladesh is that it’s shockingly poor and George Harrison did a concert for the country 40 years ago. I’ve learned that Bangladesh is a new country, formed in 1971 after a liberation war that cost more than 400,000 lives. Citizens are passionate about their country and Goldman Sachs named it one of the Next-Eleven economies. Still, Bangladesh is unfortunate in its geography. Floods and cyclones routinely devastate the country. The stunting rate of children under 5 is over 40% and it is the only country where the average height is getting lower. Before I left I was inoculated against polio and typhoid, diseases that are still alive there. My assignment was a large retreat for the entire team on the PROSHAR project, a food security program funded by USAID.

I arrived at 2:30 am at the Dhaka airport nattily dressed in my new shalwar cameez, a modest ensemble for a country that is 90% Muslim. I was kindly shuttled through purchasing a visa, then passport control, by an airport official. A rep from the hotel met me and, dazed and confused, I arrived at the Royal Park hotel. When I got out of the van my glasses fogged over–temperatures ran 85 to 99 degrees with humidity over 90%. All week my complexion was dewy and my hair had a newfound exuberance.

The next day I learned that the meeting was moved a day ahead because a hartal (general strike) had been called and travel would be impossible. As it was traffic was astonishingly chaotic. At one point carts drawn by water buffaloes joined the road.

Still everyone managed to arrive and nearly 100 of us gathered at the retreat site. I redesigned the agenda to adapt to the new schedule–a daily activity, usually done at dawn on 5 hours of sleep. The meeting was conducted in English but as there were only 3 native speakers (2 ex-pats and me) we often asked someone to interpret and much of the meeting was held in Bangla. I was confronted with novelty in all directions–new food, jet lag, electricity that popped out 5-6 times a day and the sheer size and complexity of the gathering. I haven’t worked that hard in years!

This has been the experience of a lifetime. I LOVED working with the creative, engaged team members.

They were playful and resilient–a hallmark of Bangladeshis. I have enormous respect for the work they are doing. I cherish the personal connections.

It’s not as though I climbed Mt. Everest but I do feel satisfaction in meeting the challenges. I come home with more appreciation for the basic rights we enjoy (safe tap water, relative stability, traffic laws, continuous electricity) as well as the luxuries (good coffee, soft mattresses). I value being stretched beyond my normal routine. I am enriched because I took a chance and said, “Yes” to an opportunity that scared me.

If you’ve been getting a little too comfortable I encourage you to do the same.

Goofy to Great

6th of March ~

Last week I gave a presentation to a group about Everyday Innovation. I think it’s a good idea to make innovation part of everyone’s job. The corollary is that ideas get a hearing. Not every idea will be God’s special snowflake but they at least deserve attention and a response.

And sometimes the wackiest ideas lead to really useful ideas. Here is my favorite story about an idea that went form Goofy to Great:

My first job as a baby consultant was for a large utility company. Some years prior they had convened a task force to solve the problem of heavy snow on the transmission lines in the middle of Wyoming and other sparsely populated areas of the country. Heavy snow occasionally caused lines to go down which knocked out power for a lot of people. The then-current practice was for human beings to walk the line with long vertical poles to knock the snow off. No, not a great method.

So the task force was developing alternative methods and generated some sensible ideas. But as the meeting went long they started to get a little punchy. One person suggested. “Let’s just train the bears to shake the poles.” “Yeah‘, said another, “we could put pots of honey on the top of the transmission towers and when they climb up to get the honey the snow will shake off!“. But how to get the pots of honey on top of the towers for the bears? “How about helicopters?” someone suggested. And they all enjoyed a chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

“Wait a minute,” said a woman who’d been a nurse in Viet Nam. Anyone who’s seen the opening credits of the TV show M.A.S.H. is familiar with the windy impact of the helicopter landing. So was this former nurse. “If we just fly the helicopter over the line, the snow will blow off.”

And that is how a goofy idea became a great idea.

(Dave Preston photo)

After my presentation two of my audience members informed me helicopters are also used to blow snow off the oil pipelines and off the stem depression of nearly ripe cherries so the rain won’t cause them to spoil.

The motto of the story: fear not the absurd.

How to Generate Energy for Change

13th of August ~

A few years ago I had the opportunity to work with a large unit in a state-wide government agency that was feeling completely downtrodden.

They had been confronted with numerous challenges including the adoption of new technology that had resulted in scandalous cost overruns and negative attention in the press. Through it all, the individual site managers had to try and maintain morale, implement a new system, train their employees on the new system and face an annoyed public. They were exhausted.

For their annual meeting we designed a gathering for over 100 managers. These were good men and women and they needed to reconnect to the larger work of the organization, to remember why they became managers and to locate new energy for the ongoing change. The agenda relied heavily on Appreciative Inquiry with lots of time given to interaction with their peers.

Over the day and half they realized that they were all in the same boat, all experiencing the same struggles. And by the end of the session they had renewed their commitment to making the changes–together. They determined new ways to support one another and left the meeting feeling renewed.

At the end of the day one participant told me, “Maggie, you give hope.” Certainly, a nice compliment for me but a real testament to the power of Appreciative Inquiry to generate energy for change.

How Do You Coach a Star Performer?

28th of April ~

Most senior leaders are extremely competent individuals. They know their business and they don’t require remedial coaching. When I am coaching senior leaders we are working on nuances that have little to do with the technical skills that got them in the door. In fact, research suggests that emotional intelligence skills that account for at least 80% of the differentiation between good leaders and great leaders.

A rising star at a technology company was receiving excellent 360-degree feedback and consistently strong performance reviews. But he didn’t feel he was having the impact he wanted. He was completely committed to his growth as a leader and sought out my advice. I had the opportunity to watch him interacting with his peers. He really just need a fine-tune adjustment. I suggested that he was relying almost too much on his excellent mediating and facilitating skills and urged him to watch a specific executive and how he behaved in a meeting. I encouraged him to experiment with a different style at the next staff meeting. After reflection and watching his role model he spoke less and came on stronger and with more confidence in his own voice. Others noticed a change but couldn’t quite put their finger on it.

This was a fascinating example of the impact of a small behavior change. And, happily, this star performer continues to grow as a leader and now occupies an even more senior position in the company.

Make the End User Part of Your Product Definition Team

12th of April ~

A few years ago I was invited to work with a group of engineers who were doing product definition for a new product. And they were stuck. The kind of stuck that comes from the team thinking the same way and approaching the problem from one angle. They were engineers who thought like engineers.

They were enchanted with the technological aspects and had gotten feedback that they were out-of-touch with the end-user perspective.

To help them explore more options I designed an Idea Lab to broaden their perspectives:

We recruited an actress, a musician and a teenager to diversify the thinking.
I provided a variety of activities and stimuli to trigger thinking. We went well beyond brainstorming using numerous exercises in rapid succession to explore and refine options.

The end result is that they came away with a much broader basket of options and an appreciation of the criticality of including the end-user perspective from the beginning.

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