Expect More Than Others Think Is Possible

My last blog post included the following statements about success.

Care more than others think is wise.

Risk more than others think is safe

Dream more than others think is practical

Expect more than others think is possible

In my last blog post, I focused on different ways to show caring as a co-worker and as a manager.  As I read through this quote again, I was thinking about the next area to focus on.  I reflect on both my career in the IT and computer software industry, and my role as a soccer coach.  I realized that in both cases, I expect a lot more out of myself and others than most people.  It’s been one of the keys to my success.  As I’ve said in other blog posts, I haven’t always been the most gifted in my career, as an athlete, or even as a coach.  However, my success can be directly related to my work ethic and my ability to expect more of myself and of others.  When most people are willing to stop and say “that’s all I can do”, I push forward and say “how can I do more?”

When I was actively coaching youth soccer, one of the comments often made to me as a coach was “how do you get so much out of your players?”  Honestly, I didn’t have any magic formula to it.  I always felt that my ability to grow players was to expect more from them, and to teach them how to expect more from themselves.  Most youth players that I have worked with come with the “that’s all I can do” mindset.  The mind is a powerful thing, and you can very easily convince yourself “that’s all I can do”.  What’s harder is to reflect on how to grow beyond the mental barriers you have set for yourself.  One of my specialties, as a coach, was to help young players learn how to expect more of themselves.  It’s not always the physical limitations that get in your way, but rather the mental barriers you put up.

To take it a step further, my current manager and some co-workers sent me an inspirational quote:  “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”.  I think far too often that we limit ourselves because we think in terms of what we can do today.  We grow comfortable with the current state of things, and worry that if we do something different, we will lose what we have today.  That may be the case, but that thinking can also prevent us from growing and getting in a situation that is better than what we have today.  Life is a risk/reward proposition.  If you don’t take any risks, you maintain what you have today.  If you take risks, you can lose what you have, but more importantly, you can get more than what you have.  I think that far too often people let the worry of losing what they have get in the way of being better.  I’m not saying go out and risk everything all the time.  However, you need to be able to push your boundaries and comfort zone if you want to grow.

This all makes sense.  However, how do we get there?  What do we need to do?  I will use my soccer coaching background as an example, but I think this also applies to managers at work.  The translation is pretty simple.  The manager is the soccer coach.  The workers are your players.  Here are what I feel are the keys to success.

• ·      Communicate, communicate, communicate – Nothing else matters if you can’t establish a clear line of communication.  Also, communicate early and often.  As a coach, you want to make sure that your players are comfortable communicating with you no matter what the situation is.  You need to establish, up front, that you’re going to be open to sharing your thoughts with your players, and you’re also going to be open to hearing their thoughts.  Neither the coach nor the player is going to like everything they hear.  The hardest things I’ve ever had to do as a coach is deliver a message I know a player doesn’t want to hear.  I struggle with that because you worry about how a player will react, or if they will “hate” you.  That’s an extreme view, but I always worry about it.  So, when I have to deliver a tough message, I try to make sure I really think through what I want to say and how I want to say it.  I’m certainly not perfect with it every time.  The bottom line is this:  without open communication, nothing else matters.
• ·      Establish a “no penalties” policy – This is a tough one.  I think the best thing you can do as a coach is to let your players know that you want them to try new things, and that if they do and things don’t go as planned, you’re not going to penalize them.  Of course, you have to establish that there are limits to the risks you want them to take.  However, you want them taking chances and learning from mistakes.  The worst thing you can do as a coach is have a player take a risk, make a mistake, and then immediately substitute them out of the game because the risk didn’t pay off.  Part of it is teaching the player resilience.  What I mean by that is this.  After they take a risk and the outcome didn’t go as planned, you want them to work hard to make up for it.  I always tell my players that it’s not always about what happened, but how you react to what happened.  The one area I will “penalize” a player for is if they took a risk, it didn’t go as planned, and they give up.  At that point, I will substitute them out and the first thing we will talk about is how I expect them to react to a mistake.  I’d much rather have a player trying new things, making mistakes, and hustling to recover from those mistakes than have a player that plays the game trying to avoid making mistakes.  It’s VERY important for the players to know that they have the freedom to make mistakes.
• ·      Goal Setting – At the beginning of the season, I sit down with each player to set goals for what they want to accomplish.  Before the session, I ask them to write down what their goals are, and I write down the goals that I have for them.  Then, we sit down, and review the lists and come up with goals we mutually agree on.  It’s typically a blend of what’s on their list, and what’s on mine.  The goals have to be in two different areas.  First, they have to be what they want to accomplish as an individual.  Second, and more importantly, the goals have to be in the context of their role on the team.  Individual goals aren’t necessarily meaningful if they don’t fit into the larger context of the team.  Additionally, if a player is chasing individual goals that don’t fit in the context of the team, the overall team will not succeed.
• ·      Goal Visibility – I always encourage players to write the goals down, and post them somewhere that they will see them on a regular basis.  It’s not just enough to remember the goals.  The goals need to be visible where the player is regularly reminded of what they want to accomplish.  An odd, but very good place to place the goals are on the ceiling over your bed.  You wake up each morning, and the first things you see are your goals.  What’s nice is that it could be anything.  School, soccer, work, or any other type of goal.  There are other places to post goals, but the key is visibility where you see them each and every day.  It’s a great way to see where you want to go.
• ·      Goal Review – This is absolutely critical.  A huge mistake you can make is to help a player set goals, and then only review the goals at the end of the season.  The key is to have regular review sessions where you can work with the player to assess where they’re at with their goals, and whether any adjustments need to be made.  The worst thing you can do as a coach is to set goals, and get to the end of the season only to have the player realize that they missed all of the goals they set for themselves.

I think the most important part of the above list is that you have to make sure that when you’re setting goals and communicating that the goals involve some level of risk or force the player to get outside of their comfort zone.  But again, it needs to be in the right context.  Risks or goals that force a player outside of their comfort zone only work if the player is not afraid of punishment if the risk or goal did not go as they had planned.  They have to feel somewhat comfortable or safe that when things don’t go well that they have a support system in place to help them work through whatever happens.

The above example uses coaching athletes as the basis.  However, I feel the same applies for managers and employees.  Too often in the work place, we set goals annually or quarterly, and then we don’t go back to review them until after the year or quarter is over.  You look back at the goals you didn’t achieve, and think “gee, if I only reviewed the goal more often, I could have adjusted”.  Most organizations have a setup where managers meet with employees on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  The first part of the meeting should probably be used to review the goals and where things are at.  It doesn’t have to take a long time, but a quick review.  If things need to be adjusted, you don’t necessarily have to do it in the weekly or bi-weekly meeting, but rather have a follow up planning sessions specific to resetting goals and objectives.

As a final thought on this topic, I think the manager’s job is to come up with goals and objectives that force the employee to get outside of their comfort zone.  Obviously, it’s the manager’s job to understand how much risk each employee can tolerate, and then come up with stretch goals based on that.  However, you want to make sure that employees are pushing themselves to try to achieve something they’re not 100% certain they can achieve.  When a manager does this, great things can happen.  First, if an employee doesn’t achieve the goal, they learn a lot about themselves and what else they may need to do.  Second, when the employee does achieve the goal, it’s very rewarding for both the employee and the manager.

People can do great things in life.  However, they have to learn how to expect more from themselves and get outside of their comfort zone. 

Teamwork and Inspiring Others

I spend a lot of time thinking about teamwork, and how to motivate individuals to focus on the goals of the team rather than their own individual aspirations.  To me, the best functioning teams are when individuals put the team’s needs in front of their own wants or needs.  This is especially difficult with younger generations these days that seem to have grown up in a world where the most important things are what they need, not what the team needs.  Unfortunately, they have a pathetic set of roles models in the form of professional athletes where the concept of teamwork is pushed aside by stars searching for individual glory.

A month or so ago, I received a booklet from a collegiate soccer coach that contains a list of inspirational quotes.  The theme of the quotes center around motivation, individual determination, and things that inspire great people and great teams to do great things.  I keep this list handy at work, and I copy and paste one of the quotes outside of my cubicle at work each day.  The goal is to give people that walk by something to read and think about.  I do this in the hopes that people will read the quote, and use it as a way to motivate themselves, and encourage teamwork.

The quote below was one of the ones I posted at my cubicle this past Friday.  It really summarizes how I approach things in my life. 

Care more than others think is wise.

Risk more than others think is safe

Dream more than others think is practical

Expect more than others think is possible

The topic of this blog will focus on the first line of the quote, and focuses on caring when it comes to the work you do.  To me, there are a couple of different levels of caring when it comes to the workplace.  The obvious part of this is caring about the work you do and feeling that the work you do makes a difference.  Not everyone is going to like everything they have to do as part of their job.  However, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t care about what they do, and want to be good at doing it. 

More importantly, too often, I think management overlooks the fact that they are responsible for making sure their employees know that the work the employee does makes a difference.  It’s more than just acknowledging the employee’s effort and contribution on a project or task.  The manager also needs to share the broader impact of the employee’s work as it relates to the big picture of the organization.  As an employee, it’s always good to get feedback on your effort and contribution.  However, I find it even more rewarding when management can share with me how something I’ve done contributes to a broader impact on the organization.  It takes your mindset from the day to day task at hand to more of “how am I going to make a difference today?”

There is another aspect of caring that people often overlook in the workplace.  That’s the aspect of caring about your co-workers in your direct team, and teammates on the projects you are assigned to outside of your direct team beyond the tasks and assignments.  Many people don’t understand why you should care about your co-workers or teammates.  They approach work with a mindset that you go to work, do your job, try to get along with your co-workers for the sake of your job, and go home.  That is one approach for doing your job.  However, I don’t think it develops a deeper level of commitment to your co-workers or the organization.

I’ve always approached everything I do with a commitment to a deeper level of caring.  I can’t just go to work, do my job, and go home.  I want to understand the people I work with, what motivates them, and what I can do to make them feel that they are an important part of the team.  This involves a deeper level of caring than most people expect.  However, I have found that this level of caring builds deeper bonds between teammates, and will often cause co-workers to show a higher level of commitment to the organization than they otherwise would show.

To me, this is a difficult topic to explain, and the best way to explain it is through some examples of things I’ve done at work.  Some of the obvious examples are getting to know your co-workers in a more personal way.  Things like learning more about their family and interests outside of work, saying things like “good morning” or “hi” as you pass them in the hallway at work, or even stopping them to briefly chat about something you know is going on in their life like dealing with a sick child, asking about an event in their personal life they participated in, or something like that.  It’s very easy to get caught up in your own day to day activities at work and forget about your co-workers.  However, taking the time to make even the simplest gesture makes a difference.

Related to the above mentioned things, you can do little things for co-workers that make their day brighter.  This might include inviting them for a walk to get a cup of coffee, seeing if they want to join you for lunch or a snack, or even sending a co-worker a quick email wishing them a good day.  This also might include something like surprising them with a cup of coffee “just because you felt like it”.  I often find little impromptu surprises like this will brighten a co-worker’s day and make them feel special. 

There are other things that I like to do that make a difference for larger groups of people.  This involves organizing random events and inviting the entire team and/or organization.  These can often be difficult because you often have a diverse set of co-workers with different interests.  So, it’s important to mix the events up so that co-workers feel comfortable participating in them.  Here are some examples of things I’ve organized.

·      Going to a local bar or pub to socialize.  You can include drinkers and non-drinkers as the goal is to really just go and spend social time with your co-workers.

·      Hosting a breakfast where I’ve made waffles and asked people to bring their favorite waffle toppings to share with the group.  We use a room where people can stand or sit and socialize with their co-workers.

·      Hosing an ice cream sundae making event similar to the breakfast.

·      When I travel, I will often bring small gifts back to share with co-workers.  For example, I went to visit my parents in Lancaster, PA.  I brought back food to share with my co-workers as the food in that part of the country is not available where we work.  It allowed me to share a bit about myself and my history in unique way.

I think the most important aspect of these events are that they are not formally organized by management or the organization, but rather by co-workers.  If the events are organized by management, they often are too formal, and lose their impact.

There is one other aspect that I think is very important.  In today’s work environment, you are often working with co-workers that are in home offices or remote locations.  It’s very important that anything you do makes them feel included.  For example, when I hosted the ice cream sundae making event, I did it on a day that my co-workers from Spokane were going to be in town so that everyone felt included.  You can also use things like interoffice mail or even regular mail to send them things related to an event you are organizing.  In the case of bringing gifts from when I travel, I sent a package of gifts to my co-workers in Spokane similar to the gifts I brought back to share with my co-workers in Seattle.  I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to include remote co-workers in everything you plan to do.

As I said, not everyone believes that caring is an important aspect in work, but I have done these types of things everywhere I’ve worked, and it’s always made a big difference to my co-workers.  It’s about making a difference to people in ways they might not otherwise expect.  Plus, it’s just a lot of fun!

Transitioning From Achiever to Inspiring Others to Achieve

This past week, I took a week of vacation to attend a party in Lancaster, PA for my parents, who are coming up on their 50^th anniversary, which is quite an achievement.  This involves a long plane flight from the Seattle area to the Philadelphia area, which gives me a lot of time to think about where I’m at, how I feel, and where I want to go.  I don’t know why, but I’ve always found the airplane a great place to think.  It’s probably because I can simply put on my headphones, listen to music, and spend time thinking without the worry about being interrupted by the phone, email, or text messages.  In usual fashion, this trip has inspired some thoughts that I felt the need to write a blog about.

Over the last couples of weeks, I’ve had some positive developments at work.  I’m now more formally in a role that better suits my skills, I work for a boss that really understands how I “tick” (maybe she should worry about that…), and I work with people who want to make a difference, learn and grow.  Additionally, our team started filling out a survey (enneagram) that helps to identify your personality traits, and assigns a number to you.  I filled it out, and came out between a 2 and 3.  A 2 is identified with a pleaser, and a 3 is identified with an achiever.  I have to say that I can’t dispute either one.  While I look at those numbers, it makes me reflect on who I am.  I have always been someone who enjoys working with other people, and doing whatever I can to make them happy and comfortable.  Additionally, I look at both my personal and professional life, and find that I am the most motivated when I have a goal and am trying to achieve something.  I get bored and frustrated when I’m unable to achieve things, and feel that I am unable to please the people I care about.  I guess I could dig deeper into it, but on the surface, it really does describe me the best of any of these surveys I have taken in the past.

This has also caused me to think deeper about myself.  My career has largely been roles that could be described as “the hired gun” or “the human fire extinguisher”.  If there’s a challenge or a difficult situation, I’m going to step up and figure out how to accomplish the task at hand.  It’s arguably served me well as I have done well in my career.  In many respects, it has really fulfilled the two things that motivate me.  As an achiever, its very obvious how those roles played to my strengths.  Additionally, as a pleaser, I’ve been able to please people by achieving things.  In an odd sort of way, my career choices have mirrored my personality in a way I have never thought about before.  Go figure…after twenty six years in the computer industry, I finally figure myself out.

As I reflect, the career choices have been fun, but have often left me feeling lost or confused.  The initial excitement of achieving something or pleasing someone seems to fade quicker and quicker each time.  The after glow, if you will, just doesn’t seem to bring as much satisfaction as it used to.  I also look at the amount of stress I put myself through, and the number of health issues it has caused at times, and I often wonder how much longer I can do what I do.  Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t change a thing.  I’ve enjoyed what I do and who I am.  However, I find myself at a crossroads where I feel that there has to be more to it.

I also look at my “hobby” of coaching youth soccer, which I recently retired from.  It’s a completely different environment and skill set.  As a coach, I can’t simply step on the field and fix things by playing myself.  I have to rely on my ability to motivate a group of young soccer players to better themselves individually, and more importantly, as a unit on the field.  Again, I have arguably been successful as a soccer coach.  For the most part, I have been able to get through to young soccer players and motivate them to do more than they thought they could, and even motivated them to play as a unit on the field.  We haven’t always had success in the form of wins and losses, but we’ve always improved from where we started, which is all you can ask for as a coach. 

Occasionally, my work life and my hobby have crossed paths.  I will often give advice to co-workers on how to best work with other co-workers, and I often draw on my soccer coaching experiences to convey the information.  Additionally, I facilitate a lot of team building and bonding events.  This has all been great and been very much appreciated by management.  However, I have a confession to make.  I can do much, much better.  There is one area that I really need to work on, and I think other achievers will be able to relate to what I’m about to say.

When you function in your career as a “hired gun”, the ability to achieve something is usually in your own hands, or in the hands of yourself and a small team of people that you implicitly trust.  Those situations are somewhat easy to control so that you can achieve the desired outcome.  However, I have often fallen short when it involves larger groups of people with varying skill sets and motivation levels.  I’ve often felt that it’s impossible to motivate some people, or even that some people just don’t care enough to succeed.  Is that really true, or can I do more?  How do I grow this ability within larger groups of people with a more diverse set of motivations and skill sets?

There are tons of negative feelings and self-doubt when I explore this deeper within my own mind.  You run the gamut of emotions.  Am I making myself less valuable by making other people more valuable?  Will I become obsolete?  Can I be easily replaced by another achiever or pleaser?  Will I be less respected or liked by my co-workers?  In other words, if I succeed at growing other achievers and pleasers, do I make myself expendable?  It’s a difficult set of questions for me to face and ask myself.  My self-confidence hasn’t always been as strong as it should be for a lot of deep emotional reasons I won’t go into that started at an early age growing up.  This may sound ridiculous to many readers, but it’s always at the forefront of my mind.  Call it fear of failure…

Recently, with the help of my boss, I actually took a small group of people with varying levels of motivation and talent, and lead them through a task of accomplishing a somewhat aggressive goal at work.  We really hit a home run with what we did, and even though I felt a lot of pressure that we had to succeed, I didn’t just naturally jump in and take over when things appeared to be going off course.  I combined my soccer coaching skills and work skills to motivate individuals to be better and work together as a team to accomplish our objective.  The experience was motivating, and probably the first real experience I had in bringing my hobby into the workplace in a way that was beyond the typical team building activities I have done in the past.

It was a good feeling, but I still have doubts.  In my previous experiences as a “hired gun”, everything was pretty measurable, and your contribution to them was equally as measurable.  How do I measure my success at motivating others to accomplish the goal?  It’s a lot harder than measuring your own individual impact.  Yes, we accomplished the goal.  However, was I effective as a leader and motivator, or was it just luck?  Could I do it again if asked?  If so, how would I measure success?  For the achiever and pleaser in me, these are hard questions as I struggle with how to measure it and measure my contribution to it.  It’s very uncomfortable space for me right now.  Would I do it again if asked?  Absolutely.  Will I continue to struggle with how to measure myself and my value?  Absolutely.  Self-doubt is just a default behavior that I need to work on.

I am committed to this transition because in my current role, our organization can’t succeed if I don’t try to grow other people.  There’s just too much work to do and not enough time, even for a motivated achiever like me.  My career has always been defined as someone that achieves the impossible.  I will always need a component of that in my career.  However, I need to continue to build other people.  This will require more work and patience than I’ve had in the past, but it’s yet another way for me to grow.  Can I do it?  I don’t know, and that’s the answer that bothers me.  However, I have to try, and at the end of the day, I guess that’s all I can do…try…

In 10 Words Or Less, What Do You Believe Is The Purpose Of A Data Warehouse?

Through a lot of recent discussions, reading blog entries, and industry articles, I started to think about why there are so many differing opinions about data warehouse implementation best practices. When you look at it from an IT or vendor perspective, there are a lot of technology pieces to the puzzle. There are ETL tools, metadata tools, data model preferences, end user access tools, etc. Along with that, you have technology specialists in each of those areas. And, then to round out the picture, you have what roles known as architects, who are responsible for making sure all the pieces fit together. Too often, I feel the technology side of things takes a higher priority than what I feel the real purpose of the data warehouse is, which is my answer to the question: “to facilitate fast, flexible, accurate, and sustainable access to information”.

In my view, there are so many technical specialists in the data warehousing industry, I think the real purpose of the data warehouse, providing data to users, gets lost in the shuffle. I’m not suggesting that we should be sloppy about our technology choices and their implementation. However, elegant technical solutions in this space, which would be considered a success, often fail in the ability to make data easy to access and analyze for end users. Quite often, we as technologists get so focused on the mechanics of the data warehouse that we lose sight of the big picture.

Granted, any data warehouse implementation has a lot of complicated moving pieces. You have very complex source data, which requires complicated tools and methodologies to consolidate the data. You have different data model implementations that range anywhere from properly structuring diverse data together (i.e. normalized models), all the way through data models that facilitate high speed end user access (i.e. star schemas), and combinations of the two that land somewhere in the middle. Then, you have end user tools that each implement an end user access strategy ranging from static reports, through adhoc queries, all the way through dashboards. While many end user tools attempt to cover the gamut of end user access needs, none of them cover everything. As technologists, I admit it can be a lot of fun solving the difficult and complex technical problems associated with a data warehouse implementation. However, I often feel that gets in the way of what we really should be trying to do, which is facilitate access to information. We should always try to step back from the technical details, and look at the bigger picture.

When I built the original data warehouse solution, which was the genesis for the founding of DecisionPoint, the goal was to facilitate access and analysis to financial information within Sequent. We built an ETL and management infrastructure, had metadata components, and built out star schema data models. We stayed away from the end user tool space because Sequent already had investments in a set of tools that were being used in other areas of the business. I would not call our tools very sophisticated from a technical perspective. However, the users could access financial information in a very fast and flexible manner. We didn’t really build a lot of pre-defined reports or dashboards. We gave them adhoc query access to the data in a way that made sense to them. We also didn’t spend a lot of time protecting the users from the data or massaging the data so that it always made sense to them. We wanted them poking around at the data and exploring on their own. It allowed them to not only access the information they needed, but also give them the power to poke around at the data that to research anything that might look “odd” or not make sense from a business perspective. While the solution was not elegant, it accomplished the goal of providing access to data for the end users without a lot of IT support.

I did have to make one tough choice about technology because it would have been choosing technology for the sake of the technology, not for the benefit of the users. The original solution we developed was based on an Oracle database. At the time, Sequent was forming a strong partnership with a new database software company called Redbrick. It was a database product originally built on the principles of Ralph Kimball’s star schema data model design. I was asked to look into migrating our solution to Redbrick, and got a lot of pressure from Sequent management and marketing to use Redbrick. However, Redbrick was designed around the principle that users would ask specific questions and would get quick answers. The problem with that was that if the questions weren’t already known, Redbrick wasn’t a good answer as it had limited ability to scan large quantities of data quickly. Oracle was much better at that. So, even though Redbrick would have been the cool choice to make from a technology standpoint, it would have made the user environment much more difficult to use. I did have to put up with a lot of pressure from the highest levels of management in Sequent, but I resisted, and have no regrets about doing that. Anything that did not directly benefit end users was not something I was willing to add to the mix.

When DecisionPoint was officially started, one of the more controversial decisions that we made was to build our own end user query tool. We had worked with companies that provide tools in that space, and even looked into pre-integrating with some of them. However, no matter which tool we chose to go with, there was always a customer that wasn’t using that tool. And, there was no way we could possibly integrate with all of the tools out there. Additionally, we felt we were in a better position to provide a tool because we knew what our data structures were and we knew how people were accessing the data. The one thing we did do to make this decision a bit easier was to not charge a per seat fee for our tool. Customers could let as many users as they wanted to use the tool. We didn’t want to limit access to the information based on the cost of the tool. Our feeling was the more users that were able to look at the data, the more business value they could get from the data. What was interesting was that even customers that already had invested in an end user access tool would still implement our tool, and in a lot of cases, our tool became the most used tool, counting by the number of users using the tool, at many customer sites. The reason we had such high user counts using our tool was that the tool not only provided access to the data we were providing, but also did it in a way that helped the users navigate the data in a way that was easy and familiar to them. The tool is still part of the Decision Experts solution that Teradata sells, and it’s still, in my opinion, the only tool that truly understands both the data and how it is accessed. We implemented a unique and cool feature called “Drill Across” that is heavily used by the user community, but still not part of other tools on the market.

I guess this experience brings me back to my core philosophy. You can have the best technology components on the market to implement your data warehouse, and from a technology standpoint, the data warehouse would be considered a success. However, in my view, if the users can’t easily access the data in a performant way and be able to navigate that data, the data warehouse is a failure. Technology is cool, but it’s only as good as the business value it helps the users derive. In the end, the business value of any data warehouse implementation is directly related to the ability of users to access data, and their ability to use that data to guide the decisions they make that influence changes in the business. Once again, without any of that, nothing else matters.

So, when you ask yourself the same question I asked at the beginning of this blog entry, try putting it in the context of whether you think your answer makes it easier for business users to ask questions and get answers of the data warehouse. I would argue that if your answer doesn’t include the user component, your data warehouse implementation would not be viewed as a success by the business.

Why Do We Do What We Do? Because We’re Good At It? Because We’re Expected To Do It? OR Because We Enjoy It?

I was out with some friends after work on Friday, and the discussion got me to thinking about something I thought would make a good blog topic. We were out with someone who was leaving the organization, and when I asked her what her next career step was going to be, she mentioned that she was still trying to figure that out. She wasn’t sure what was next or what she wanted to do next, and was going to take some time to figure that out. Later in the evening, we were having other discussions about different definitions of success. Some felt success was about the amount of money you made while others felt success was defined by doing what you want to do and enjoying it. I got to thinking about how those two things were closely tied together.

As my wife and I were doing our weekly house cleaning chores, it gave me some time to think. I often think about things when I’m doing things like cleaning the house or doing yard work. It’s a good time to clear my head and think about things. I started to think about the conversations Friday night along with the choices I made in my own life and career. It led me to think about why I’ve done the things I’ve done in my life. Did I do the things I did because I was good at them, because I wanted to do them, or because it was expected of me?

Before I reflect on my own choices, some people will immediately say that I did things because I felt I had to, not because I wanted to. However, that’s not the case. Whether I regret former choices I made is not the point. What’s more important is why I make the choices I make, and why I continue to do so. Also, it could be argued whether I’m good at the things I choose to do or not. Again, that’s subjective, and not the point. Some would argue I was good at it while others would argue that I am not. Each person has their own opinion on that.

Before tying this to my experiences at DecisionPoint, I thought I’d talk about something else I do, coaching youth soccer. When I first started coaching youth soccer, I think the initial reason had to do with my son entering kindergarten and choosing recreational soccer as his first experience with organized sports. I thought it would be a good way to spend more time together, and it was. I continued to coach the following years, and even coached my daughter’s teams. As my kids decided to play competitive soccer, I chose not to coach their teams. My own experiences with my dad as my coach were not terribly positive, and I didn’t want to get into those same situations with my kids. However, I had some success working with the rec soccer players, and wanted to try my hand at coaching at the competitive level. I continue to coach competitive soccer, almost 12 years later.

When I look at it, I often ask myself why I do it. As I get older, dealing with today’s youth is much harder. While some players play competitive soccer because they’re good at it and want to get better, others think they want to, except when they have to work hard at it. There’s a mentality that you can play a competitive sport as long as you don’t have to work very hard. I often reflect on why I continue to coach. I have enjoyed it. However, do I enjoy doing it now or do I do it because I’m good at it, and it’s expected of me? It’s a tough question to ask yourself. You reflect on your reputation as a coach and whether people expect it of you because you’ve always done it. You reflect on whether you're still good at it, and as a result others expect you to do it. What also makes it difficult is that I often put the happiness of others over my own happiness. So, the fact that others expect it of me, I feel I will be disappointing them or letting them down if I don’t do it. I’m starting to think that I continue to do it because I’m good at it and it’s expected of me. I can’t say whether I enjoy it like I have in the past. It’s an especially tough situation because when you’re good at something, you often feel pressured to continue to do it well after you’re done enjoying it.

Now, I will reflect on my career starting DecisionPoint.

When DecisionPoint was initially spun out of Sequent Computer Systems, it was a hallmark moment in my career. I was doing something I really loved, which was building data warehousing software that could help businesses implement a data warehouse faster than they could before with the potential of significant positive impact on their ability to analyze financial information for improving the business. Also, I was pretty good at it. I was leading the engineering team and providing them guidance on how the product should evolve. Additionally, I was heavily involved in the sales and implementation aspects of the business where I was helping to convince companies to buy our software, and then helping them successfully implement our product. There was one area that I didn’t enjoy, which was helping customers implement the software. This involved a lot of travel and time away from my young family. In one case, I was back and forth from Portland, Oregon to Boston over the course of eight weeks. In that case, I did it because I was good at it, and it was expected of me. I endured this because I knew it would only be short term. I think the thing that I enjoyed most about that time in my career was the diversity in my role. There was a lot of variety in what I was doing.

As DecisionPoint grew, I continued to enjoy what I was doing, and continued to be pretty good at it. We were a young company with a small set of employees, who were working together towards success. We didn’t have a lot of politics or hierarchies. We knew what we had to do, and we went and did it. We weren’t sloppy, but we were nimble, and could do what needed to be done.

When I look back on my experience at DecisionPoint, I realize that I reached a point where it was no longer fun. We did go through four different management teams, and there were a lot of changes in direction with each management team change. It was messy, and highly political each time. We stopped doing things because they needed to be done, and started to do things because that’s what the management team wanted to do, whether we the employees felt it was right or wrong. Also, the sense of teamwork was disappearing. There were cliques and subgroups forming, and a lot of sniping between employees. While I realize that some of it was an inevitable factor of a growing company, it just wasn’t something I wanted to do any more.

While I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but I began to hit a phase at DecisionPoint where I was good at it, and I was expected to do it. The enjoyment was there every once in a while, but for the most part it was gone. As the founder of the company, I felt an obligation to stick it out. I felt that if I left, I would be letting too many people down. And, as I said before, I’m the type of person that’s pretty good at sacrificing my own needs for the needs of others. Not healthy at all, and I get that, but it’s a lot of pressure when you feel responsible for close to 100 employees.

I think the other thing that changed had to do with the philosophy change. I’ve said more than once that when I started DecisionPoint it was because I was passionate about what we could do. When I look back at what changed and caused me to like things less, I think it had to do with when we shifted to focus more on money. We hired some people that joined a startup because they thought it was a good way to build their resume, and hopefully make a lot of money eventually. Sure, that wasn’t everyone, but that element was starting to creep into the picture. Also, it was hard for me to accept that we were hiring people that weren’t as passionate about what we do as I was. In many cases, I again was doing it because I felt I had to do it. The enjoyment wasn’t completely gone, but it certainly wasn’t there most days I went to work.

We were struggling badly with sales of our software at DecisionPoint and started soliciting offers to buy the company. We attracted several potential acquiring companies that would benefit from our technology. One of the things that was re-motivating for me was the potential to enjoy what I was doing once again. No matter which company acquired us, we were looking at having to make significant changes to our product line. Also, the management team was not coming along to the acquiring company, so we were going to go back to the days where we were a core engineering team doing what needed to be done to convert our product to a new technology. That potential really appealed to me and motivated me.

It turns out that we were acquired by Teradata, and it was exactly as I had expected. Teradata was going to continue to sell our product, but the major focus was going to be on our effort to convert our product to support their technology. Teradata was a much larger organization, which might have been problematic. But, the way they handled it was absolutely brilliant. They gave us our direction as far as what we needed to do, and let us execute it. It was just like the early days of DecisionPoint. The core team working together to hit a target. We definitely had our struggles along the way, but I was back to a point where I was enjoying what I did, and I was good at it.

At the time of the acquisition, it was also nice because I was offered a “contract” to join Teradata. If I made a certain time commitment, I would get some rewards at the end of that time commitment. While that was very nice and flattering, that was less of a motivator for me. Money was always a good thing, especially when you have a family. However, having money and not enjoying what you do was not something I wanted to repeat.

Like DecisionPoint, after we finished our conversion of our product to work with Teradata (about two years later), we got more into the mainstream of the rest of the Teradata organization. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for our product, but was not necessarily something that was good for me. There were more people and politics to deal with, and more elements that influenced what we did or did not do with the product. Also, my job became less diverse. At first, within Teradata, I was leading the engineering team, but also doing a ton of work on the sales and marketing front helping people learn the value proposition of our product and how to sell it. It was a lot of fun. However, it was also slowly disappearing.

I fulfilled my commitment with Teradata, and continued to work there. However, I was again doing it more because I felt I had to do it and it was expected of me, not because I enjoyed it. My tenure at Teradata ended, and a couple of days after my last day, my daughter who had just graduated high school came to me and said “dad, I’ve never seen you this happy”. It hurt at first, because she was right. However, I realized her comment matched how I was feeling. I was working there because I was good at it, and felt I had to do it. I was too committed to other folks and the survival of the product. I really didn’t enjoy what I was doing any more.

When I started the job search after leaving Teradata, I was at a crossroads. I was making very good money at Teradata, but also realized I wasn’t doing what I loved to do. The challenge was to find something I enjoyed doing, but also being able to stay afloat from a financial perspective with two kids in college. My wife was very supportive, and we decided to use some of the money I had made from Teradata, and pay down our bills so that I didn’t have to take a job simply for the money. I had to enjoy what I was doing again. That was a must. I found that opportunity in Seattle, and we eventually moved from Portland to Seattle.

As I look at it today, I couldn’t have made a better decision. Generally speaking, I’m good at what I do, and I enjoy it. There are many days where I get frustrated and upset because the environment doesn’t move as quickly as I’d like. However, when I go to work and do the hands on work, I really enjoy what I’m doing. Sure, the money isn’t as good, but you can’t put a price on happiness. I know a lot of people hear that and think “yeah, right”, but it’s true. When I made the job change, I really did look for something I would be good at and be happy with. It has made a difference in my outlook. I do struggle at times with wondering whether I’m doing everything I’m good at, and whether I should be doing more because it’s expected. However, I always have to remind myself what happens when you start to do what’s expected even though you don’t enjoy it.

To round out this blog entry, it also factors into the definition of success. Many people feel that I wasn’t successful. I started a company that didn’t go public that was acquired by a larger company. I made some money, but not a lot. I don’t own multiple houses or “toys”. Many would feel that I should go back and do it again until I am successful, as defined by financial rewards. However, I would counter that argument with the fact that I wasn’t successful with DecisionPoint and Teradata because I wasn’t happy. Today, I don’t have as much power or authority as I used to have, and people would think I have to look for that again. However, I’m happy with what I’m doing, and I’m good at it. There are aspects of this job that I don’t enjoy, but the work is generally fun for me. I don’t need to be rich or famous. That’s not my definition of success. Sure, that doesn’t match a lot of how people view success. However, I have a job that I enjoy and a family that loves me, including two kids we are putting through college. So I leave you with this thought. What is the point of doing what others expect of you and something that you make a lot of money at if it makes the rest of your life miserable?

The Difference Between "Doesn't Know How" and "Doesn't Want To Know How"

Once again, a couple of recent events have inspired me to post another blog entry. This one is probably going to stir the pot a bit, and I'm sure there will be at least a few people that get upset with this post. However, it's something I think that needs to be said. I have heard a phrase that life isn't easy because it's not supposed to be easy. Each and every day we are tested by something new and different. It's a chance to help us learn and grow as individuals. It's not always fun, but some of my toughest life experiences are also the ones that I have learned the most from either about myself or about people I work with. In my personal email, I end every message with the quote "Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard". I absolutely believe this is true. I am a case study in what you can achieve when you work hard. I definitely haven't always been the most talented at things I've tried to do, but I've always dedicated myself to working hard no matter what I was asked to do or how I was asked to do it. To me, hard work is a critical component to success. I'd much rather have failed at something while working my hardest than getting a reward when I know I haven't given my best effort. There's an inner drive to everything I do that no matter what I am asked, I MUST do my best. Some people would call it OCD, and I'm ok with that.

Before I tie this back to my startup experience, bear with me for a bit of history...

Growing up, my mom's parents were farmers. When I was younger, it was a mix of animal and vegetable farming. As I got older, it was more vegetable farming. Both of my grandparents worked very, very hard their entire lives. They didn't make a lot of money, much like many farmers, but they were proud of what they did and their role in providing fresh meat and produce for others. They were both born and raised as farmers, and that's all they really knew. My mom and her sisters were also heavily involved on the farm growing up. It wasn't an easy life, but it's the one they knew, and all family members were committed to being the best at it that they possibly could. It was all about doing what was right for the family. They didn't like everything they had to do, but not doing it was never a choice. If animals needed to be cared for, or vegetables needed to be harvested, you had to do it. No one was going to come and do it for you. There really was no such thing as a day off when you're a farmer.

My sister, cousins, and I were also all expected to help on the farm when we were needed. The more hands we had doing the work, the less work each of us had to do. Probably my most vivid memories of the farm involved doing what we called "picking potatoes". This involved taking a plow, which sunk deep into the dirt and dug up long rows of potatoes. The plowing was the easy part. The hard part came after the plowing was over. After plowing, we had to get down on our hands and knees, pick up all the potatoes, and put them in a basket. After that, we had to move the dirt around to find any potatoes that were still covered, and put those in the basket also. When we filled the baskets, we put them in a wagon. When the wagon was full, we took the wagon to the house, and carried all of the baskets down to the basement of the house where they would stay until they were sold. It was something we did every August in temperatures between 90 and 100 degrees. We worked 8 to 10 hours a day for almost the whole month of August. People would ask why we didn't just use a machine. The reason was that using machines could damage the potatoes, which means that we couldn't get the most from the crop. Taking a day off was not an option because the potatoes needed to be harvested. No one was going to do it for us. It was just one example where I was "programmed", if you will, to do what needed to be done and do it my best no matter whether I wanted to or not. It's a trait that continues to run deep in my veins to this day.

Recently, in the local paper (Seattle Times), I was reading where there was a shortage in apple pickers and there was risk of losing some of the apple crop. They talked about how there was an attempt to take some of the unemployed in the area, and teach them how to pick apples so that they could make some money and provide for their families. The farmers that were interviewed admitted it was hard work. They also said that most people that tried it lasted less than a week because the work was so physically demanding. Even the people that tried it said it was the most physically demanding thing they had ever done. Even though they needed the money, people just quit because it was too hard. They weren't willing to do what needed to be done even though it was a way for them to make money and support their family. They would rather take it easy and take an unemployment check instead of trying to do what needed to be done. They were taking the easy way out, which I just don't understand. I haven't picked apples, but it did sound very similar to picking potatoes. Yeah, it's hard, but you do what you need to do. And...for the record...I wasn't paid to pick potatoes. It was just part of what was expected of you as a member of the family.

The reason I tell these stories is that they highlight something that is all to prevalent in our society these days. Not only did we run into this problem throughout our years in DecisionPoint, I also see it with people I have worked with since DecisionPoint. I hear some people say that they don't want to do something because it's hard or tedious. In some cases, if they don't know how to do it, they don't want to learn how to do it so that they don't have to keep doing it. They choose not to learn to do something because by not learning to do it, they won't be expected to do it. It's a simple way to avoid doing something you really don't want to do. This even includes things that are very simple to do, but are repetitive or tedious. We all have parts of our jobs that we don't like doing. That's just the way it goes. However, what I really don't like to see is someone that won't do something because they don't want to or don't want to learn how. As a society, we have become spoiled and pampered, and we are taught from an early age that if we don't like to do something, we don't have to. It's ok not to do it because someone else will eventually come along that will do it.

There were a number of times when I was working at DecisionPoint where people would not do something because they didn't want to, felt it was beneath them, or some other excuse. We had a lot of people that did what needed to be done regardless of the task. However, we also had a large number of people that would pick and choose what they wanted to do based on what they felt like doing or what they felt was worthy of their effort. It got really difficult to manage because eventually the "do whatever it takes" group looks at the "do what I want when I feel like it group", and they start to feel ripped off and resentful. Also, the HR rules and threats of lawsuits have become so overwhelming that it's nearly impossible to deal with the "do what I want when I feel like it group". As an employer, they feel you're expecting too much or being too unreasonable. For me, this situation generated the majority of my frustration at DecisionPoint. With my history growing up, it was just understood you did what needed to be done, and also understood that there were things you didn't want to do, but you did them because it needed to be done. I have termed this "situational effort" meaning that you're going to get someone's best effort based on the situation in front of them, and whether they're willing to do what needs to be done. I admit that I hated it and that it made getting something done very unpredictable, which can often spell death for a startup.

Over the years, I saw this type of behavior more and more. Even after DecisionPoint, I still see this behavior in coworkers. And, the older I get, the less patience I have for this. There are times that I think that I take it too seriously and let it get to me, but then I also think that we're letting people get off too easy these days. I believe that part of the cause of our current "great recession" is partially fueled by people that aren't willing to do what needs to be done because it's too hard or they don't feel like it. They do what they want when they want and the rest of society let's them off the hook because it's easier to accept it than try to correct it. When talking to people that I work with that share the same values and work ethic, I use a term for these types of people. I refer to them as "Generation Me". They are only interested in doing something or working hard when there's something in it for them. They don't have a concept of doing something for the greater good or because you have to do it.

I also see this in another aspect of my life, coaching youth soccer. In many circles, I am known as a coach that is tough, but fair. It's also well known that I expect a lot from my players. Not from a talent perspective, but from a work ethic perspective. I am far more accepting of a player that makes mistakes trying their hardest over a player that makes a mistake because they just didn't feel like trying or it wasn't worthy of their best effort. Players will tell me "hey, that's really hard...I don't think I can do it". The ones that try hard even though they're not sure what will happen are usually surprised that they can do it if they're willing to keep trying. I call this relentlessly trying. They're going to keep going and going until they're successful. The players that I have coached that show these traits not only become very successful in soccer, but more importantly, they become successful in life. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that the players that possess these traits are not the most physically gifted players. They've always had to work hard just to be able to keep up. Asking them to do a little more is no big deal because they're used to it. The more talented players will usually give up because they're not used to having to work so hard at something, and they don't understand why they should work hard. Part of being a good coach is setting goals for your players, teaching them how to work hard to achieve those goals, and then helping them celebrate when they've accomplished the goal.

This also carries over from the parents. The parents that I have had the best relationships with are the ones where the player has had the drive to work hard and has accomplished far more than anyone thought was possible. The parents I struggle with are the ones that think I push their player too hard and expect too much from them. Those parents would rather make an excuse so that their player doesn't have to work hard rather than expect the player to step up to do what is required. They are doing their children a great disservice when it comes to dealing with things in other aspects of their life.

By now, I'm sure this blog post hasn't been scrambled and hard to follow. It's a particular subject that I am passionate about and have some strong opinions about. In general, I think we have become a softer society because we have lowered our expectations of others rather than asking others to step up and meet higher expectations. They often say that people will only meet the expectations that are set for them. The best advice I have is for each person to learn to expect more from themselves. Try not to leave a trail of missed expectations and excuses that you may regret later in life.

It Shouldn't Be About The Money

It has been an interesting couple of weeks for me, which has prompted me to write a new post to this blog after taking a break. A couple of things have caused me to think deeper about my startup experience. First, the current political environment and the outrage towards the wealthy in our society. Second, there has been a lot of discussion amongst my former colleagues at Sequent where several are pondering how to get more traffic for their businesses. Third and last, the Sequent office in Weybridge (outside of London) closed down. This was the place I gave my last international class on the DecisionPoint Software. All of these events caused me to reflect on my experience starting DecisionPoint and what motivated me to start it versus the motivation I see these days.

I have stated several times in previous blog posts that I started DecisionPoint based on a passion. I was passionate about data warehousing, how people use data to have a positive impact on the business, and how we could take what was a traditionally a data warehouse market that was heavy in consulting and package that knowledge in software. The goal was to do something bigger and better in a way that had never been done before. In the back of my head, I knew there would be the opportunity to make money as we were getting started because the internet bubble was starting to grow. However, I couldn't look at it as just a way to make a lot of money. If it wasn't something I could get passionate about and throw all of my energy into, I couldn't see a reason to do it.

The reason I bring this up is that I see so many cases these days where people decide to try to start a company because they see something that's never been done before and want to be the first to do it so that they can "make a lot of money". I once heard a rumor from someone that said that the guy that built the iPhone flashlight app made over one million dollars from that simple invention. It was someone that was using as an example of how he might "get rich quick". Especially in the case of mobile computing, there are many examples of people that jump into something because they might be able to get rich quick without a lot of effort. Often, when you talk to these people about why they do it, there is really no passion behind their idea other than the potential of making a lot of money. The whole concept of building or doing something for the greater good is missing. Even the venture capital community facilitates this behavior. Venture capitalists want to invest in something that can make a huge return on their money, and do it as fast as possible to keep their investors happy.

There is a part of me that can see the motivation behind this. We are a society that is driven by money and social status. There is a lot of opportunity (both legal and illegal) to make a lot of money quickly depending on what you're willing to do or not do. You see it every day in a lot of different ways. There are companies and individuals that take investor money and rather than use it to better a company or group, put it in their own pockets for personal gain. There are internet ripoff schemes that take thousands of dollars from unsuspecting individuals. There are even individuals and groups that donate to political campaigns so that the politicians that get elected back their cause and influence rules and regulations to benefit their donor communities. When I look at this, I am saddened by how much we have become a society focused on money and power rather than a society that is passionate about what they are working on and trying to accomplish.

When I look at the team we formed when DecisionPoint was started, there was a lot of passion about what we were trying to accomplish. It was great because you knew the people you were working with would do almost anything to keep our dream alive. It wasn't about money. It was about doing something great that would benefit both companies and individuals within those companies. We couldn't just squander investor money and walk away from it. It was larger and more important than our individual goals and motivation. It was simply about doing something great we were all passionate about. It was so much fun working in that environment, and very stimulating.

The unfortunate thing that happened at DecisionPoint was that the last management team we brought on board started to focus on the money. We needed to make a profit, but several members of the management team were more interested in their own personal gain and reputation rather than doing the hard work to figure out how to move forward. It was easier for them to sell the company because they didn't have the same level of passion and commitment to the cause that the founding members had. For me personally, it was the beginning of the end. While I continued to work with some great people, they generally weren't as passionate about what we were doing as the founding members. In many ways, the passion was gone. I think that was more disappointing for me than the fact that the company was being sold to a larger organization. I did ok financially from the sale of DecisionPoint, but working for the larger organization was difficult because the same level of passion just wasn't available in the larger organization.

At the end of the day, I guess everyone gets involved in a startup organization for different reasons. However, it's my opinion that the highest quality organizations are started based on passion around a concept or idea. Something that the employees can rally around and commit to. If it's only about the money, people will only hang around long enough to see if the opportunity to make a lot of money is a reality or not. The commitment will only last as long as that opportunity exists. If the company is based on an idea that people are passionate about, the commitment to the organization will last as long as the passion exists.

I reflect on the non-work activities that I choose to participate in. The first is coaching competitive soccer, and the second is as a volunteer for the Congo Rescue Mission. Neither opportunity is one that I will ever make a lot of money at. However, I do it because I'm passionate about the cause. In the case of soccer coaching, I do it to help young soccer players grow to become better soccer players and individuals. It's about helping young people be the best they can be. In the case of the Congo Rescue Mission, it's about helping a close friend start an organization dedicated to helping others that are less fortunate and dealing with horrible living conditions. That friend did not start the organization to make money. He started the organization from a passion to help other people. Now that's something I can sign up for every time!!!

Life is not about the money I make. It's about the lives I've influenced and the people I've helped. That impact will last long after the money is gone.