Artie Isaac | Net Cotton Content

Time To Set Some Goals

To my Ohio State creativity students (and anyone using Carry Forth):

Maybe I haven't been asking the right question.

Each year, I ask my creativity students to list their goals. But, well, something isn't happening. The answers aren't answering the call.

So I'm going to ask it differently. Right here.

Why Am I Asking?
Anyone old enough to look back sees some missed opportunities.

I sure do.

I don't know where fully formed adults place the blame, but I place mine squarely on the person who never made goals for me. That, awkwardly, is: me.

Somehow, I slid through the Socratic hands of some of the best teachers this world has ever offered. But none of them asked me — at least, in a way that I actually heard — and answered — "What are your goals?"

So I feel obliged to ask you for your goals.
Because your college experience has to be more than education for the sake of enlightenment. It needs to be that and it needs to have some purpose.

You get to choose the purpose.

But I'm making sure that someone — right now, right here — asks you to consider: "For what am I investing all this time, money and effort? What is my goal?"

Are Goals That Important?
Having goals isn't everything. Living a rich, engaged life is more important. Loving others and being loved is more important.

But goals are also important. And they need to be written.

Writing your goals doesn't make them happen. But it's funny what happens when you write them.

If you abhor goals, you might consider jumping to this post. (I love this website.)

But if you want to work with me, you need to keep reading — and write your goals.

What Am I Asking For?
I'm asking for goals in four areas: business, community, family and personal. This is the top of the first page of Carry Forth.

How big a goal? Big enough that it's not easy to reach. Big enough that you might not reach it.

Big enough that it answers Ohio State's call to action: Do Something Great.

So What Goals Am I Receiving?
Without betraying any confidences, here is a complete rephrasing of some of the goals I'm receiving:

• Business: generates enough profit that I can afford the life I want.
• Community: respects and seeks me as a leader.
• Family: loves me and each other.
• Personal: ...I want to be happy and play golf.

Happy, shmappy.
Being rich, fertile, loved, and happy is important. I don't want my students to give up on these ideals.

But these aren't the goals I want them to list.

I'm looking for goals that are worthy of a headline. In The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times? Fine. The Columbus Dispatch? Fine. Field & Stream? Fine. Local suburban newspaper? Fine.

Just imagine the headline. Worthy is not newsworthy. It needs to be newsworthy. That's a good test for your goal. In fact, write your goals as if they are news headlines. (Think: obituary.)

If your goal isn't newsworthy, it might be nutritious, but not ambitious enough for this assignment.

Oh, and I've seen a student land his headline on the front page of The New York Times. No kidding. It was Jason Torpy.

Is Fame The Goal?
No. I wouldn't wish fame on anyone.

This isn't about fame. The world has enough celebrities.

This is about being worthy. Skip the fame, if you want.

I just ask you to have goals that, if achieved, would be worthy of fame.

What If You Fail To Reach A Goal?
I'm not going to hunt you down and slap you. (I'm not that good a teacher.)

But we can't let the fear of failure rob us of the thrill of ambition.

And if we don't have goals, we can't be surprised if we don't reach them.

What Else?
Without a plan, goals are just hopes. And dependent on luck for success.

So, for each goal, outline a five-year syllabus for personal creative development: the people you need to meet, the books you need to read, the places you need to go, and whatever else you need to learn so you can reach each goal.

Frequent Conversations
Most conversations with students include:

1. "Worthy" is different from "newsworthy" — this needs to be interesting enough for an editor to put it in the newspaper. 
2. Goals cannot rely too much on any other specific person (like a sibling). Don't claim your kid's Nobel Prize as your goal. 
3. Our personal life, distinct from our family life, is an often overlooked aspect of life.
4. Family goals and personal goals are sometimes the most difficult.
5. Most young people don't read newspapers, so a "headline in a newspaper" is a quaint and meaningless anachronism. Here is what they look like.

Sounds like a big deal?
It is. But if you don't do this for yourself, you are delegating your learning and life planning to your teachers.

And we simply aren't going to do it for you.

I'm too busy messing up my life to spend time messing up yours.

On Mentoring

Last week's Think Big conference in Dallas inspired this speech today to Columbus Rotary.

✍

On Mentoring

Before I start, a quick note about technology. 

Your smartphones, your iPads — I'd like you to turn them on. Not off. On.

You see: I come from the future.

It would be wonderful if you Facebooked and Tweeted and posted everything. It would be good for me, because I could go home and see what reached you. It would be good for those who are not here — another service from Rotary — because thousands could be touched through the Internet. And it would certainly be good for Rotary — because it would be another way, the most contemporary way, of Rotary saying, "It is Monday and we are here."

Hashtag: #ColumbusRotaryToday

✍

You have someone on your shoulder. Someone who rests there, whispering in your ear.

According to Warner Bros. on Saturday mornings, there is an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.  

The devil urges you to boastful self-importance. It whispers: "It is for you that the world was created." The other — the angel — argues to the contrary, begging for modesty and humility. The whisper: "You are nothing but dust in the wind." 

In business, we don't always have a cartoon devil and a cartoon angel. Maybe, a shark and Buddhist. Grasping for more — glad for what we have.

Maybe it's a doctor and a bartender. The doctor says: "That dessert? I wouldn't make a career out of it." The bartender asks: "Another round?"

The voices vary by the situation. "Come hither." "Better stay yonder."

Who are these voices? They are the loops of ethics, morals, and practical self-management — loops that play in our heads when familiar situations arise. Crossing the street, there is mother: "Look both ways. Danger."

Where did they come from? Experience. Teachers. Role Models. 

Mentors.

Ken Ackerman invited me to talk about mentoring. Thank you, Ken. Your invitation is another example of your mentorship. Here is that talk. 

I spent last week with more than 1,100 mentors in Dallas, Texas, including Ken Ackerman. We gathered from around the world at a bi-annual convention of Vistage International, the world's largest organization of CEOs. Vistage is what Ken calls "a laboratory of leadership."

It is that: a laboratory of leadership. It is also a mall of mentors. One can browse all day for the best mentor for the moment. Each person stands ready to mentor another.

The experience of the past week — and the past year, my first as a Vistage chair, have led me to contemplate and study mentorship. From that study, I have prepared a short, incomplete list of my mentors. I will describe four mentors, briefly, and summarize the skills each has demonstrated. Perhaps you will hear about one of these mentors, what he did, and consider applying the skills.  

First, a demographic note. These four mentors are all white men. I am aware of that. I have had mentors of various races and both genders. But these are the four primary mentors who come to mind for teaching me about mentorship. They happen to be white men.  

The first mentor...

  

1. David Trowbridge

David Trowbridge died recently. In 1973 and 1974, he was my eighth grade grammar teacher at Columbus Academy. His work in the classroom taught me the trade of a lifetime: I am a writer. When at my best, I employ the technique he taught: précis, brevity in prose. I owe him this sentence. In the classroom, he was my teacher. 

But it was during his office hours that he was my mentor. David Trowbridge was the first adult with whom I sat for conversations about nothing and everything. The subject matter didn't matter. What mattered was his demonstration of how to talk to young people.

Here is the first skill of the mentor: to treat the mentee as an adult. This might sound simple, but the mentoring relationship starts hierarchically, so it can become stilted. The mentor takes on airs, like the guru on the mount.

He was "Mr. Trowbridge" to me. But, to lift me into adulthood, he always called me "Mr. Isaac" in front of others. In the quiet of his office, he called me "Artie." In public, he called me formally, as he did all other students, as a show of respect. In private, he called me informally — again, as a show of respect. 

I would knock on his door and ask permission to enter. He would always — according to my memory — invite me in. "Sit down. What's on your mind?" He listened patiently. He always seemed genuinely interested in my opinions and observations. He inquired and responded. He laughed at the funny stuff. It was as if he wanted the conversation — it was neither a burden nor an interruption.

There was nothing complex, but now, nearly 40 years later, I remember these frequent conversations as magical. I remember them as the first conversations I had with an adult, beyond my parents, where the mentor saw me, not as a child, but as an adult.

This taught me the first rule of mentorship.

This first rule of mentorship — the Trowbridge Rule — applies to any conversation with a younger person. I have taught in many classrooms: from third grade, to seventh grade, to undergraduate, to graduate school, to business people, and I have found: no one likes to be talked down to. Everyone likes to be spoken to as an adult. 

What does it mean to speak to someone like an adult? To speak to them as if they were one year smarter than they are. Everyone — especially children — like to be spoken to as if they were one year smarter than they are.

The Trowbridge Rule: Speak as equals. Never patronize. 

A note: I visited Mr. Trowbridge not long before he died. I hadn't sat with him since eighth grade. We sat in his library and chatted, like adults. I expected to feel like I was 13 again. But he had added a year to my current age. He spoke to me as if I were an adult of 53 years, not a child of 52. 

The second mentor in today's list is...

 

2. Rob Emrich (his website)

Rob is a serial entrepreneur in California. He moved there — from here — a couple years ago. To be closer to the people who live and breathe high tech. Live and breathe — and fund. But he moved for more than money. He crossed the country for mentorship. He went where his high-tech mentors were to be more easily found.

Rob has taught me this, the Emrich Rule: if you want mentorship, acquire a mentor.

In Chaim Potok's classic The Chosen, young Reuven Malter is taught by his father that it is an obligation to — each year — "choose a friend and acquire a teacher." 

Rob and I met seven or eight years ago. It was an hourlong conversation in my office. Someone from the Jewish community had sent him over to me. Rob told me that he sought mentoring. He was acquiring a teacher. He asked many questions.

Years passed. 

Rob returned with a business idea and offered me a 50/50 deal to start a company. We did. It was a great experience. And, in the end, the money wasn't bad. By that I mean, we didn't lose too much.

As we worked, Rob was always transparent about how he spent his time. He would, once a week, perhaps every other week, ask me to listen to an update on his own time allocation: just five minutes of explanation. He always invited feedback on his time allocation. Does that sound insignificant? Not to Rob. Rob knows that how we spend our time is everything.

This is the underlying ethic of The Emrich Rule: every moment matters. 

Much of Rob Emrich's time management habits come from David Allen's book. Have you read it? Getting Things Done. It is the book I recommend most strongly. When you are hired by one of Rob's companies, this book is the first tool. It is given to you with the explanation: "Read this book. This is how we work." Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Time is everything, dispensed as pearls, not wasted. He likes to have fun and spends time in fun, too. But when he wants mentoring, there is a meeting and an agenda. When he has mentoring to offer, there is a meeting and an agenda. The meeting might be five minutes: always an agenda, presented in advance.

Years after we first met seven or eight years ago, when he first sought me out as a mentor, Rob sent me a transcript of that first conversation. He had, back then, when we first met, asked permission to record the conversation with a small audio recorder. Then he had gone home and transcribed the conversation. 

That might seem like a bad use of time, but Rob doesn't have mentoring conversations that aren't worth recording. When time matters, you pick mentors carefully. You ask questions that get to the heart of the challenge. You dig deep for the answers you need.

Every moment matters. Acquire a mentor and every moment matters.

Oh, right. I was supposed to be his mentor. That was his expectation. But that's not how it was. He was from the start — and is today — my mentor. 

A side note: Rob Emrich was my first mentor who is younger than I. Now, most of my mentors are younger than I. At first it was a humbling reminder of mortality. But, though it clearly says "second half of life," it also bodes well: if your mentors are younger than you, there is a continuously growing pool of mentor candidates.  

The third mentor...

 

3. Lee Lemke (his LinkedIn profile)

In 2008, the day the recession began, I sold my advertising agency and really didn't know what I was going to.

Lee Lemke called me from Huntington National Bank. He suggested that there was a creative challenge and I might be helpful. 

But that wasn't my business. That wasn't what I was doing. I told him so. I said something like, "I don't do that." Something like: "huh?"

He said, "I know. I think you would be really good at it. We need you to do this."

So I started. Every couple of months, Lee would call me and suggest a change in how I was being applied. He kept changing my job based on where we were and what the bank needed. I stopped saying things like "huh?" and just accepted his marching orders on the spot. 

Lee's approach to mentoring produced the Lemke Rule: focus on the talents.

He has a knack for management, for focusing on the talents at hand and applying them. Before I met Lee, I saw people as people. He saw me as a person, of course, but also as a peculiar set of ready skills and talents. 

And it was a great experience — and produced significant value for the Huntington.

The final mentor for today...

 

4. Adam Harris (his LinkedIn profile)

Adam lives in Nottingham, England, where he is a Vistage Chair.

Adam is a mentor to me, though he is much younger. He might be the youngest Vistage Chair.

Adam has taught me this: we must get to the root.

Issues — whether challenges or opportunities —  are rarely as simple as they seem. Think of a tree. The challenge or opportunity is easily seen: the leaves on the tree. But there are branches where they live, and a trunk of the tree, and as the mentor works, we eventually arrive at the root issue.

And the root issue is the only place the issue can be fully addressed. 

How does Adam get there? He asks questions.

And that is the Harris rule: mentoring is asking questions, not giving answers. Adam asks questions — and then questions the answers. That's because, when we go to our mentors, we already think we know the answers. Adam is where I turn to get my answers questioned. 

I find that every mentoring conversation ends only when I walk away. Because Adam always has another question. Just last week, he helped me through a sticky situation. But while the conversation ended with me saying, "Thank you. That was very helpful." — he was still standing there with a question on his face. "Do you really think we've gotten to the bottom of this?"

✍

Rather than summarizing now, I will post the entire presentation on the web this afternoon. I'll send the link to Scott Brown who can share it with you.

I would rather spend the remaining minutes this way. Before I entertain questions, I want you to — just for two minutes — split up into pairs at your table. Tell the other person only this: finish two sentences. "One of my favorite mentors was ___________" and "He or she was a great mentor because ___________________."

[After two minutes, ask for comments or questions.]

[If time permits, recite Billy Collins' The Straightener.]

Call to Action:
Now, at the end of January, the year is still new. What do you want to learn? Who is in a position to teach you? Might that person become your mentor? All you need to do is ask. 

Benediction:
I wish you a year of growth. May you have the mentor — and be the mentor — the world needs.

Organizing Documents

Maybe it's because I'm a recovering English major. 

But, if it's important, I write it down. Sometimes, it becomes important because it gets written down.

By "it," I mean "anything."

Bing! Bing! Bing!
So, as I look around the home office, I see that there are a variety of documents that form a figurative fence around my desk.

They are a collection of aspirations, projects, tasks, photographs, and guidelines. I naturally bounce like a pinball, so I created these flippers to keep me in play.

If you care to see some of them, I'll show you.

Starting with this one...

Top 5
Years in advertising and marketing — and several key ones with creative director Alan Bumpus — led to the creation of a marketing strategy statement which I call Top 5. It's been called lots of things like, "North Star," "Brand Message Strategy," and "overpriced."

Whatever it's called, it helps remove the guesswork from making messages.

Here is one now...

My Own Top 5
I have several Top 5 statements. One for my public speaking, one for my consulting, and — at right (click to enlarge) — one for my Vistage Columbus practice.    

Is this the message? No!
This is the strategy, not the ultimate message. I don't usually share the Top 5 statement with my target audience.

I share the strategy with the designers, copywriters, sales representatives, and receptionist. So they all know who we are trying to reach, what we want that person to do, based on what belief, motivated by what, and trusting us for what reason.

But the Top 5 is not the actual message. It's like the difference between:

• "You are the first. My last. My everything."

and

• "I will seduce this beautiful potential mate." 

Now you get it. Even Barry White couldn't win by crooning the latter. (To prove this, warm up by singing the first statement. Then try saying the second in Barry voice. Won't work, except when courting Coneheads.)

Should this be kept confidential?
For decades, I have recommended that clients keep their brand message strategy confidential. This is mainly because the statement doesn't have the words that are ready for the target audience.

When I owned an advertising agency, I always kept our brand message strategy confidential. Wouldn't let clients see it. 

Looking back, I wonder what I was hiding. I think I was hiding the truth and the process. Why would I hide that? Now it seems like a avoidance of authenticity.

If a prospect for my next Vistage group were to see my Top 5, we could talk about it. It's authentic.

Who needs it?

• Anyone who wants to keep communications consistent, especially among colleagues.
• Anyone who wants to take the subjectivity out of judging creative messages and marketing tools.  
• Anyone who wants to focus their message on key points.

First Step
You can read more about how I develop these statements here, but I recommend you just write one of your own.

That will save you money and me time. 

 

The Time of Your Life

In the long run, you will run out of time before you run out of money.

So why do we treat time cheaply, even when we are stingy with our money?

It's just a lack of mindful application of time. Why don't we spend some time thinking about time management?

I'm Certainly No Expert On Time Management.
My inefficiency is what bothers me the most. I fritter away most of my life. 

This self-assessment contradicts what many people think of me: they think I get a lot done. It sure doesn't feel that way in the mirror.

I'm constantly musing on it. And, boy o boy, that is sure a waste of time!

When successful local entrepreneur Mark Schuetz heard me describe my various methods in the struggle against wasting time, he invited me into his Replex Plastics in Mt. Vernon to speak with some of his staff about time management.

Figuring they must be smart people, I was glad to take the time to do that. (Mark is a member of my first Vistage group.)

The conversation scooted all over the place, but always back to one central theme: greater mindfulness can lead to the most effective application of our time.

During this and a few upcoming posts, I will share (with Mark's permission) parts of our discussion. I'll illuminate the clear notes and illustrations (first page at right) recorded during the meeting by Replex project engineer Kara Shell (with her permission, too).

But let's start with...

A True Authority
If you want the expert view on time management, read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.

Rob Emrich first showed me this book. It was required reading on Day One for anyone who works in his companies.

Frankly, I've never finished the book.
There's something pathetic about my having not finished a book called Getting Things Done, but don't blame author Allen. I learned so much in the first few chapters that I've not yet continued.

Part of what Allen taught me:

• Eliminate Multi-Tasking. The brain is a computer and, like the one on my desk, only one application can be running in the forefront at a time. It's best if I minimize the application that monitors what else I need to do, so I can focus on what I am doing right now. For that reason, I am to write down any interruption, so I am not spending precious RAM on trying to remember my tasks.
• Use leak-proof buckets. Losing notes is stupid. So I have a variety of places where I put my notes. When my father died decades ago, I inherited his sport coats. Each one had an index card and a stub of pencil in one of the outer pockets. My father clearly had a system — a great system — for trapping information so he didn't have to worry about remembering everything. These pockets were his leak-proof buckets.
• Be organization-minded. Whenever a piece of paper comes my way, I am first to ask, "What is it?" The answers are: trash (throw it away), delegable (send it to the delegate), reference (file it), a task that can be done in two minutes (do it), or a more substantial task (file it and put it on a list of projects). This triage is tremendously effective.
• Next action is everything. Every project on the project list needs to include: the name of the project and — this is key — the next action, however humble, to be taken toward completion of the project. Lists of projects are made much less daunting by identifying the next action for each. A project is scary; the next action is simply a step I can take.

There's much more to Allen's methods. But I wouldn't know.

If your project is "Improve Time Management," I recommend this next action: get Allen's book. (I think I will now finish the book.)

And watch Net Cotton Content for more on the topic.

Vacating of the Daily

The entrepreneur called with a curious question.

This was years ago. He was a young man, early in life: unmarried, no kids.

But, like being measured in dog years, he was much older in entrepreneur years. He was the first person I had ever heard use the self-definition, "serial entrepreneur." He had started several businesses, ramped them up, exited. Some exits were better than others, but he was no longer defined by the businesses, but rather by the art of entrepreneurship. And he had learned that there was a point in the life cycle of every business — after it is first scaled into a going concern — where he was bored with it and, therefore, ready to leave.

But this isn't about that.

This is about Saturday Morning.
Here is what he asked:

I have a peculiar question. I am very, very good at knowing what to do from Monday morning through Friday afternoon. I love my businesses and the workweek. I know how to spend my time.

But Saturday morning is completely different for me. When Saturday morning comes around, I don't know what to do with myself. I can afford to do anything — that's not the problem. The problem is: I don't know what I want to do.

Can you help me with that? 

A first world problem of the first order, to be sure, but a challenge nonetheless. And I didn't see it as a silly little complaint of a wealthy fellow.

It's An Existential Question.
What we choose to do with our discretionary time is how we define ourselves.

The workweek — for most of us — defines what we do. That's helpful for when someone, at a cocktail party or backyard bar-b-que, askes the quintessentially American question, "What do you do?"

What do I do? The answer usually starts with the unstated, "What I do from Monday through Friday is..."  

But the entrepreneur's insightful question sought a deeper answer. Because he already knew well what he did. And he knew that Saturday morning wasn't about "what he did" for a living.

Saturday Morning Is About Who I Am.
What you do on Saturday morning is more than "what you do," it is "who you are."

So those of us who are lucky enough to be well employed — especially if self-employed — Monday through Friday face a hard question: what shall we do on Saturday morning?

And the answer to that question defines not who you are when you are a human doing, but rather who you are when you are a human being, practicing the art of being human.

For me, on Saturday morning, I no longer seek to change the world. After six days of creative work, I stop that work for a day. And simply smile and breath. 

Time For Vacation.
This is much on my mind as I plan next week's vacation.

For vacation is a larger, multi-day Saturday morning. It is the intentional vacating of the daily.

I'm going hiking on the Appalachian Trail for a week. Carrying a tent and bag. Traveling with my son — though by "with" I know I mean "far behind him, trying to catch up to him before nightfall." (Yes, thank you, I am reading Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods.)

But all of that is next week's challenge.

This week's challenge is preparing to unplug.
Here are my steps:

1. Stop starting conversations. I am not sending emails that spark correspondence, because I won't be available with a timely response. This prevents me from working to the final bell.
2. Set the automatic phone and email reply. My voicemail and email will soon respond: "Thanks for calling/sending me an email. This is an automatic response, because I am living without telephone or computer until July 15. I hope to bump into you."
3. More difficult than those, I start to redefine where I seek stimuli. My focus moves to the physical realm to whatever is close enough to smell. I take moments with everything turned off, to wean myself from my binkies.

This is a small business challenge for many.
I especially appreciate Anne Field's "It Takes A Little Work To Take A Vacation," in the Small Business Guide in today's New York Times, which is close enough to smell.

I wish you some time away, some time to practice the art of being a human being.

Oh, California.

There's nothing like a trip to California to cause a refinement and readjustment of my beliefs and values.

Last weekend provided an opportunity to ask 28 other Vistage chairs to challenge gaps between my beliefs and my behaviors.

One of those gaps: spending too much time online, especially during the evenings. It's costing me incremental depth in my relationships here at home. So the computer has to be turned off at dinnertime.

But, wait. I'm online at night because I have real online work to do. And I have online work to do at night, because I am working out of the home all day.

Push has come to shove.
Something has to give. So I decided to trim my workday work load.

Right now. Before I change my mind.

So I have just quit a beloved teaching assignment.
This week, I asked Ohio State to remove me from the lineup starting in the autumn. That gives me one more academic quarter to try to get it right. (And, ethically, there are already students enrolled. I don't want to disappoint them.)

I told my current students about my decision. There was some argument that I should continue. But, mainly, we all agreed that I preach about (in the words of Pink Floyd) "exchanging cold comfort for change," so I should move on.

The Immediate Challenge
I cannot slow down — even on the job I've just quit.

Here's a note to the students:

To a Most Memorable Class Of Students:

Someday you will quit your job, like I have with Ohio State. (If you have missed a few classes, I've asked Ohio State to leave me out of the teaching lineup starting in the autumn. Maybe it's a final quitting. Maybe it's a few years off. I don't know.) 

If you have already quit a meaningful job, you know this: there's nothing like the old job.

By that, I mean: once you have quit a job, you are suddenly tempted to work less hard at it, preferring to coast toward the finish line. Your attention and passion are naturally drawn toward what's coming: the next job.

As a teacher, I need to serve as a role model on this issue. So I am committed to striving all the way through to the finish line. I will double my effort. I will double my accessibility. (Let me know if you want to meet with me during specially scheduled "office" hours.) I will work harder.

One Ball Dropped
I have loved, loved, loved teaching creativity at Ohio State. I have felt like the Liberal Arts Department of the Business School. 

I have thought that, in a world that teaches people how to be computers, I can be someone teaching them to be human. Pretty preposterous stuff. Ambitious. Somewhat successful, according to more than a few students.

Still, I can't juggle as many balls, because some of the balls are becoming heavier and taking on a more golden hue. So I had to put this ball down.

 

The Purpose of Management

I've spent the past several months having increasingly deeper conversations with entrepreneurs and business owners. It's been an enlightening, joyful honor for me.

Observing these businesspeople is humbling. Most of them have a highly defined sense of purpose.

Here's one way of describing what I am seeing.

Guess What? It's Lutheran.
I heard this first when I taught creativity to MBA candidates at the Capital University Graduate School of Management. (This was years ago, before I came to Ohio State.)

The dean of the business school, Lisa Dolin, informed me that Capital University was founded by Lutherans, based on Lutheran ideals. And, if memory serves, she described a fundamental Lutheran mission like this:

The Lutherans recognize that we are more effective in some roles than we are in others. Some people are best at making shoes. Some people are best at dancing in those shoes.

So it is the purpose of education to help each person find his or her most productive role. Because, if we are all at our most effective, doing the thing that we are most meant to do, doing the thing that we do the best, doing the most important work of our careers, then we will — as a human population — really be moving the world forward.

We will truly be completing the act of creation.

Is that really Lutheran?
So I'm told. But I think even the Lutherans would agree — with delight — that this is a universal ethic. It would be universally beneficial if universally applied. And where it is not applied, it ought to be.

I might have added that last sentence, about finishing the act of creation. (I always try to worm that idea in.) But, it's fair to say that this world — as we have it now — is surely not finished. One only needs to look at the front page of the newspaper to realize that.

So What Is Management?
Management is helping our employees — and customers and families — identify their most important roles. And then helping them to focus on that work. The work of their careers.

Everyone profits.

This is where Management intersects with The Meaning Of Life.

Heavy. 

Another Take On This Idea
My wise cousin Steve Weiler said to me — years ago, just when I needed to hear it — that he tries to focus his life on doing "only those things that only I can do."

I asked him, "Well, what are those things that only you can do?"

His answer — with a humble laugh — is like mine: "Not all that many things!"

There are relatively few things that only I can do. But one thing is certain: I know when I'm doing them. And I know when I'm doing something that someone else could do. And, frankly, in those moments, someone else could surely do it a lot better.

Easy To Focus? (No.)
So, with so few activities that only I can do, it should be easy to stay focused.

Sadly, no. I'm easily distracted. I often find myself doing work that would be better done by someone else. 

That's why I made this chart.

The Beginning In The End

The year's end affords rebirth.
Many people pooh-pooh New Year's Resolutions, but that's because so many resolutions are hopes and dreams — not true decisions.

(This morning, I wrote the subscribers to my irregular newsletter, Three Ideas To Spark Your Creativity. If you want that, sign up here. The following is one of the topics I mentioned to them.)

So Let's Make A Decision.
During the past 60 days, I've asked 100+ people who run businesses: "What's is the biggest decision you need to make before the end of the year? Write it down. Now, write down the next step toward making that decision. And note by when you will take that step."

Writing this is essential. Writing doesn't make the decision. But it's funny what happens when we write it down. On paper, a big decision looks real — and more digestible.

What is the most important decision facing you?
Write it down. (Feel free to send it to me.)

Do this now. It won't take more than 10 minutes. And if not now, when?  

Here's my biggest year end decision.
How will I spend my time? If that sounds vague, click the chart on the right.

I'm sorting and assessing my activities. I'm a juggler, so I think of my activities as balls I'm juggling.

As the year proceeds, some of the balls get heavier. Some feel smoother in my hand and look more graceful in the air. Some are turning a golden hue.

Which ones might I put down in the coming year?

(And what balls might I want to pick up for the first time?)

Pardon me, what about your balls?

Let us (re)start with "Why?"

A month on the road has forced some introspection. (The travel experiences were excellent. More to come. Soon.)

Now it's your turn.
Perhaps you have already seen this video from Simon Sinek? It is a great place to start. 

After viewing the video, ask yourself, "Why am I doing what I am doing?"

If you truly want to lead, you need to know the answer to this question. You need to know why.

During the past several months, I've had deep conversations with more than 100 entrepreneurs. I'm hearing why, but I'm not sure all of them have articulated — specifically, on paper — why they are doing what they are doing.

This is clear: it's not the money.
As Sinek warns, it's not the money; that's a result. (A happy result, to be sure.)

Why is a deeper, more meaningful belief. The Why is found here: "What do I believe that drives what I am doing?"

Give it a go. Right now.
Please take ten minutes to write it down.

Then look at it tomorrow. If it doesn't quite capture what your belief — your underlying belief that drives you — revise it.  

And look at it every day. 
And revise it when you can better articulate your belief — or when you find your belief evolving.

Agenda-Free Advice for the Perpelexed

Here's the draft of a sermon I plan to give tonight at Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio.

Agenda-Free Advice

(A Temple Israel Sermon)

Where were we? What was I saying last time I was up here? 

This is Shabbat Shuvah. Shuvah is about returning, so I'm trying to return to where we were when I was last on the bimah. 

Well, it was last year around this time. It appears that the rabbis are full up writing their High Holy Day sermons. So, if I offer to give a sermon at what might very well be — amid the rush of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — the least attended service in the history of Reform Judaism, I might be allowed to do it.

So I offered. And here I am. (I'm glad both of you could be here.)

So, where were we last time I was up here? Oh, I remember: I was boasting about how distracted I get during services. I tried to make the case for how daydreaming might be the most effective form of worship.

And I encouraged you to try to get lost in your worship. Stop stressing about keeping up. Fall behind everyone else. Go wherever the moment takes you.

That was either great advice, deepening the experience of the High Holy Days for you.

Or it was terrible advice, giving me a slight advantage over you in getting my prayers heard — while you were daydreaming.

In either event, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be giving religious advice.

And, that brings us to where I left off last year.

This sermon is about bad advice. And good advice. And what makes one different from the other.

***************

This sermon is about agenda-free advice.

During the past couple months I've been doing a lot of reading about the subject. By "a lot of reading" I mean "I've skimmed the better part of a book."

For me, that's a lot of scholarship.

That's the reason I'm not a rabbi. Because a real rabbi knows that reading half a book is not being a scholar.

Still, now I am an expert in agenda-free advice.

First, I will define it. Then I will tell you where you can find it. Then I will tell you how to give it.

Then I will sit down.

***************

What It Is
Agenda-free advice is advice given by someone — an "advisor" — who has no direct investment in the advice. The advisor won't be helped or hurt substantially by your decision to accept or reject the advice.

The advisor wants to help, so there is that agenda. But the advisor seeks Tikun — your healing, your advancement, your improvement. The agenda driving the advisor is your agenda, not the advisor's agenda.

What's the opposite of agenda-free advice? Let's call it: "agenda-rich advice."

What might be the advisor's agenda?
A mentor of mine says: "After a business meeting I want the other person to think three things: 1. That I'm smart. 2. That he or she likes me. And 3. That he or she feels vaguely uncomfortable because there is work to be done."

I love that description of agenda-rich advice. It's when the advisor wants to do more than help. The advisor wants to move you toward a mutual agenda.

Sometimes the agenda-rich advice is an attempt to make you more like the advisor.

That's not bad. It can be quite good.

But it isn't agenda-free advice.
Agenda-free advice doesn't want to make you into someone else. Agenda-free advice wants you to be more authentic. Like that midrash about Louie arriving in heaven and apologizing for not being more like Moses. The gatekeeper says, "But the goal was not for you to be more like Moses. The goal was for you to be more like Louie."

That's shuvah. Returning. Returning to authenticity. Returning to who you are.

Agenda-free advice is when the advisor has only your agenda in mind — and the advice is pure, purely in service to you. Then the advisor walks away, with no ownership in your next steps.

Where can you find agenda-free advice?
I have found it in only two places.