Refractions

Refractions

Refractive Communications  //  A matter of message perspective and customer communications.

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Feb 11 / 2:54pm

More Than Just Woodsmoke

If you’ve ever enjoyed ash-dusted pancakes, innocently inquired after a left-handed smoke bender, and deftly tied a hatchet knot, then you and I have something in common. The 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America started me thinking about the life skills I gained growing up in this intentional youth-building program.

Back then, I just understood Boy Scouting as a merry band of woodsmoke-soaked brothers taking on the wilderness. Little did I realize then that along the way I was being infused with marketable skills and values that serve me well today. Here are just a few, along with a couple of touchstone memories:

Leadership - Ready? Here’s your team of 8 boys, ages 11 to 17, some interested, some apathetic, some skilled, some intentionally ignorant, some fresh from the apron strings. Your task is to mold them into a competitive team, challenge them with stretch responsibilities, teach them new skills, push them to catch that second wind, assuage their bogeyman fears, build camaraderie, endure the “remember when” tent-drenching lightening storms, and encourage leadership. One other thing ... you’re a Patrol Member, not the Leader.

Perseverance - A compass-guided, backcountry orienteering course is a great way to carefully get lost. With a topographic map, compass coordinates and a compass in hand, my two compatriots and I, along with a lips-sealed adult leader, headed off on a deep woods bearing to track down the brightly-colored clues marking each point on the course. We plotted and measured and sighted and trail-blazed all over those woods, but kept at it. We had clearly defined goals, we had the skills (barely), and we knew there was a way to accomplish the task. And we did. Three hours late, but we did. Even more remarkable, the leader tramped silently along with us and let us work it out ourselves, responding only twice the entire outing. I try to remember that patient soul when working with engaged, but novice, team members and my children.

Creativity - Your backpack shoulder strap just broke 21 miles into a 50-miler hike; fasten a new strap of braided rope and a whittled peg to secure it on your packframe. Need to dry soaked clothing at nightfall; fashion drying rack from sturdy branch embedded upright fireside. Buddy forgot pans; cook beans in cans. Buddy forgot hamburger meat; savor beans and eat his portion of dessert. I expect on any given weekend in this country, domesticated, coddled boys learn they can count on themselves and their Scout campmates to come through with a great idea.

Perspective - After a long day of canoeing in pursuit of another coveted 50-miler patch, we finally arrived at our intended riverside campsite to discover an occupying force of cows bedded down for the night. Too tired to argue, we retreated to a small, tree-covered island a little further downstream, set up quick camp, ate a cold meal, sacked out, and woke up shortly after midnight with water creeping in our tents from the upstream dam unexpectedly opening its floodgates. We tossed our soggy gear into the floating, but tied, canoes and took to the branches. Our treed Scoutmaster framed it as another challenge that couldn’t beat us, and our night hanging from the trees became an exciting, memorable experience instead of a frustrating obstacle.

Discerning Palate - When camping, food was what you made it---literally: pot-charred chili, ash-dusted pancakes, soapy scrambled eggs. If I could discern it was edible, I ate it. Don’t sweat the small annoyances; they’re small and fleeting unless you nurture them. That doesn’t mean you helplessly suffer, though. I started bringing a Plan B stash of little Granny Smith apples for cinnamon campfire-baked apples. Delicious.

As a youth, my family moved every three years. And every three years I was welcomed into a new band of boys enjoying the Scouting program, testing themselves, and most ending up as capable young men. 

What a concept.

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Jan 26 / 10:39am

The Right Knot Improves Customer Service


I discovered a better way to serve my customers … all because I just learned how to tie my shoes.

This is in no way a poor reflection on my mother or maternal grandmother, who taught me as a young child how to tie the shoestring knot using a big ribbon around the neck of a 4-foot-long stuffed toy tiger. This is a reflection of a good-enough process providing sufficient results with easy-to-correct deviations. I never thought twice about tying my shoes … until a trustworthy source recently asked a fundamental question:

Are you tying your shoes the right way?

Of course, I am. Aren't I? My shoestring knot has two loops of near equal size, the shoestring ends (aglets) do not drag the ground, my shoes stay on my feet, and I only occasionally have to re-tie a loose knot.

Good enough.

But Runners World brings up the point that there is a right knot: it stays tight and many of us are tying the correct knot (a reef knot) on one shoe, but not the other. That’s me; how about you?

Now that I know the difference and I have bought-in to the benefit, basic though it may be, I’m relearning how to tie my left shoe (one of my 3 Words in action: Notebook). Six Sigma process improvement folks call this DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. I’m in the Improve stage and finding it surprisingly difficult to alter my habit, but now my deliberately tied shoestrings are matching examples of beauty and performance (not like the pre-insight image above).

This got me wondering about possible good-enough habits in the way I process work, in the way I work with others, and in how my team conducts business. I took a thoughtful look at the everyday things I never thought twice about, and found that I should. A tweak here and change there would achieve an even better experience for my customers and me.

Have you intentionally thought about the processes you initiate or manage: the way you manage your email interactions, engage in personal discussions, address challenging situations?

Many years ago my Psyc 101 professor started the year by wordlessly projecting this statement on the screen for 10 seconds, “You have every right to be who you are, but no right to stay that way.” Now I’m thinking about how that statement applies to how I do things.

I found ways to improve. What did you find?
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Jan 19 / 12:17pm

Solving the Wrought Iron Rat's Nest

I like puzzles. Especially, a “tavern puzzle” crafted of wrought iron twisted and bent upon itself, and then intertwined with another piece. The goal is simple: Extract the one piece from the other. It’s the “doing” that’s perceived as daunting and I’ve had friends wave off even trying to solve such a complicated-looking conundrum.

In just the same way, I’ve seen very capable managers dodge leadership and project challenges because the doing looks too tough, or too unusual, or too far afield from what they’ve done before. Or else they rattle the situation around a bit to see if it will solve itself and then, if it doesn’t, confirm the situation as intractable and cobble together a work-around.

The key to the puzzle is a position of perception: There is a solution.

For example, I KNOW this cantankerous, obstinate metal ring will untangle from this wrought iron rat’s nest. I know there is some way to get turf-sensitive Department A and belligerent Department B to cooperatively achieve this market-changing goal.

I just don’t know how … yet.

If you look closely at my tavern puzzles, you’ll notice shiny spots in the crooks and bends where I time and again slid that metal ring along the wrought iron trying one idea after another; winnowing down the possibilities. There is a solution, usually something unexpected, unusual and, before now, untried.

Did you notice, though, that once you solve the challenge, you can much more easily do so again and again and again, even where others still cannot? A career skill differentiator. What challenge have you solved into a skill?

In my tavern puzzle collection is one called “The Treble Clef.” I worked that puzzle for days, trying this and that to no avail, until I finally solved it. “Check.” I knew how to solve that puzzle … and now I’m told “Treble Clef” has two solutions. 

Interesting. 

I wonder what happens if I go around this way …
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Jan 4 / 8:21am

They Got It Wrong, Daddy

My youngest daughter sparked some thoughts on team management Sunday morning. She walked up to me in the dress she picked out and said, “They got it wrong, Daddy.”

Apparently after careful consideration, she intentionally put the dress on backwards. In her 8-year-old wisdom and opinion, she felt the dress looked better that way. It didn’t matter to her that a well-known brand, its century of experience, its bevy of educated designers and its well-established manufacturing processes clearly marked the back of the dress with the fancy tag now residing under her chin. She tried the dress on backwards, liked the result and came to me with her idea.

Can your team confidently come to you with your product on backwards in an off-label application that’s obviously not the way we do it around here? How would you respond if they did?

I like creative ideas. I encourage disruptive brainstorming. I’d rather back a crazy idea down to a brilliant idea than try to process-build up to one.

But do you, the leader, allow it? Have you given your team permission to generate wild ideas? Are you willing to consider them?

An open-door policy does little good with a closed mind sitting at the desk.

My daughter and I carefully considered her idea. We looked at how the dress fit, how it felt when she sat down and how the bows tied. After testing her idea, we agreed that the dress worked best with the tag in the back.

But, with what she knows now about testing her opinion, if I hear “They got it wrong, Daddy” again, I bet she walks out the front door wearing her dress backwards.

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