My Daughter's World

My Princess, Dressed for Soccer

My daughter is a princess.  In fact, it is one of my nicknames for her. A girly girl to a tee – she has not worn pants in nearly two years.  Will hardly touch anything that is not pink or purple but she isn’t delicate. She isn’t shy. She will take that girly girl ensemble and go straight into the sand and the dirt, the soccer field, the woods. She believes that she can be anything – often at the same time. She told me that she wanted to be a mom and a teacher and dentist and maybe a doctor. And she and I both believe that she can be anything she wants to be and that she can do that in a pink tutu.

The dialogue, the tone, the message on women has changed. You can be girly and strong and smart.  You can choose.

I shuffled to some old music this morning from the Angry Girl genre. At different points in my life, this music felt poignant and important and this morning it just sounded angry and a bit disconnected. Then, I was listening to NPR (not a regular occurrence but sort of like vegetables after too much pop culture candy). They had a segment on 15 year old girls in Afganistan. They were talking about what they wanted to be – brain surgeons, doctors, teachers. The reporter then talked about how hard it would be for these girls. There is only one college space for 5 interested in their country. That family pressure to get married at 18 will derail them.  But half way around the world, we are hearing their dreams. That is at least some progress.

At the end of the segment, they said that this was part of a series on 15 year old girls and that if you were a 15 year old girl or had been, join the conversation on twitter. I looked it up. #15girls has all these stories of girls in Afganistan, Brazil, El Salvador, and some closer to home. I just loved that feminism was a dialogue. I actually hesitated to use the word feminism here. That word conjures up the angry, irrational, polarizing images as compared to the quiet methodical dialogue that we have shifted to.

I heard Chelsea Clinton speak a few weeks ago. She talked about how 20 years ago her mother made a speech in China that was deamed controversial because she said that women’s rights were human rights. Chelsea had a wealth of stats on women around the world and their challenges.  The places where we have made progress and the places where there is still a ways to go.  Our discussion on this topic is not led by the extreme but by intelligent, methodical, compassionate and articulate women and men.

Our archtypes are approachable, sincere. It is everything from Malala to Hillary Clinton to Jennifer Lawrence. It is a mainstream everyday discussion and my daughter’s world will be a little different than mine. And mine has been pretty good. There have been some odd moments. At my first job, I was offered less money then my male counterparts by a female boss and then told it was "a raise for doing a good job" when it was corrected. I was once selected for a diversity program in one of the large corporations I worked for. Let's review - I'm a white, educated woman from the Northeast.  I don't know how that can be considered diversity. But still . . .

Our grandmothers fought for the right to go to college or to work. Our mothers faced the pressures of working in a world where childcare was not as readily available, accessible and affordable (The affordable is a topic for another day). And we have more choice. We have more support. Some of the brightest and most talented women I know get the right and freedom to make choices that work for them and for their families both by working and by opting out. Their husbands are also awarded the same freedom. We have made progress, from the loud and angry, to calm, methodical and deliberate.

Every once in a while it is amazing to realize the things that feel momentous that will just not be part of my children's world. My children will never know a world in which only white men can be President. My children will never know a world in which marriage is restricted, limited and qualified.  There will always be more to fight but I have to say - that is pretty amazing.

My princess can be both a princess and a warrior or a princess super hero as she often calls herself. Makes you want to lean in and out just a bit more.

Thanks for reading.

Postcards from Dorkland

I have a confession. I'm a dork, pretty much always have been. One of the amazing things about being a grown up is that this can be so joyfully embraced. I can "like" Excel and comment about Pivot Tables. And most of my life is joyfully spent in Dorkland with my brilliant co-workers and delightfully type-A friends. We can brainstorm product features for highly technical products and we can spreadsheet summer camps for our kids. 

I spent this week at a marketing conference which compared to the industry events I usually attend is like the cool-kid-table. There are celebrities, comedians, production value and just a general energy that you don't typically find at highly technical obscure industry events. It is awesome and inspiring and even as I write that I giggle to myself. I (along with 13,000 others) waited outside of sessions like groupies to catch technical leaders and marketing experts. And of the star studded events available, my favorites were ones that were tactical, technical and well - let's face it delightfully dorky! Perhaps, this is really just a different island of Dorkland!

And as a grown up and a professional, you find the space, the industry and the culture that matches who you are. For me, it tends to involve technology solving hard problems and the kinds of (fellow dorky) people that get a kick out that. But there's more. The teams that I have loved, flourished on, built amazing things with are made up of nice people who generally get along. And even as a grown up, that matters.

In post interview round-ups of people that we typically don't hire, occassionally the topic of whether a candidate can be successful at their job and add value to our company if we don't like them. Just someone that you wouldn't want to have a drink with, or that rubs some of us the wrong way, or not a culture fit. And without exception, despite being smart and capable, the answer is no.

We can all feel when people don't like us. It doesn't require words or actions. Everyone can be perfectly well behaved (though they hardly ever are) but if two people don't get along the whole room, the whole team can feel it. The converse is true as well - just liking someone is not enough. I have had a few co-workers over the years that I have liked tremendously, as humans, but for a variety of reasons, in the function they are in, it doesn't work.

The worst part of being a parent is that you can see these dynamics in your kids and their friends generally before they can. Before they can see nice vs. cool. Before they can see friendly vs. trouble. You can see it all. Before they can embrace what they love, who they are, what they enjoy despite what anyone thinks. Before smart and dorky becomes okay, it is just smart and dorky. 

And the best you can do is send them postcards from Dorkland and let them know that they are doing okay!

Thanks for reading!

The Planner and the Unplannable

I'm a planner. I like to know what comes next. I like to prepare and be prepared. I also was not raised to just accept things as they are. If you want something to be different, you make a plan, you practice, and you make it better.

Here's the frustrating part. This works pretty spectacularly for 80% of the problem, but then there's that other 20% that includes factors outside your control. You want to become a better soccer player to make the travel team. You put the work in. You, in fact, get better. But so do other players and sometimes that's enough and sometimes it isn't. There are things you can choose, the pieces you can control and the ones you can't.

A friend of mine, my running buddy's husband, says, "You can choose your race, but you can't choose your race day." And when she and I are protesting that it is cold, icy, raining, too hot (insert other excuses here), we hear him and we support/ encourage/ drag each other and we go. (most of the time)

You can't plan for everything. 

You can put the work in, you can practice. You can plan and then you have to deal with the unplanned tasks. In just about every project management tool, there is a mechanism for accounting for the

unplanned events.  That is a little crazy to me that a tool entirely built around planning seems to recognize that a critical feature is the ability to account for the unplanned.  This is actually true in most products.  In fact,  QA teams spend a tremendous amount of time trying to dream up the unplanned or off target ways that we will use their products and anticipate what should happen.  And they get most of them and so they release the product but there are always a few that slip through. One of my favorites was last winter on one of the truly miserable days, that I got myself out for a run, my iPhone failed.  It shut off due to a temperature error at under 10°F and the screen displayed a high temperature message. Oh so close!

Now, there are two approaches here - you can assume no unplanned tasks and you will be wrong 100% of the time. You can try and anticipate every pitfall, circumstance and you will have fewer unplanned tasks but you will be late. Or, you can do your best to find the balance and have a team that knows how to roll with it.

When my kids were little and we were trying to figure out if we would ever get to go to a restaurant again, a friend of mine said. "Absolutely. You just need to be prepared to abort at any time."

And we don't live in a vacuum

We can't help but compare ourselves to the world around us. In some ways, this is great. In others, it is pressure. My son is finishing kindergarten. He's had a fantastic year. We can see how much he has learned and developed. But one night, he was upset and was talking about how he wished he was a stronger reader so that he could read longer and more complex books. And me, the planner, got straight to work. This is solvable. We'll get a list. We'll read more. But, wait - I already know how to read. This isn't my plan. I need to help him, I need to support him, I need to not make him crazy or afraid to tell me things that are upsetting him. This is so much more work than just making a plan and fixing it!

Two runners, only 1 poncho!

It was so much easier when it was my plan to build and execute against.  As a mom, as a manager, I'm not always the do-er anymore.  I have to plan and support by proxy. I have to give them the tools and the structure and the framework but I can't just fix it for them. And so even with the best laid plans, you can pick your race, but you can't pick your race day. So this Sunday, when I woke up to the pouring rain I got up and met my running buddy for our race day. 

I Like Mommy's Version Better

Since my kids were born, we sing to them as part of their bedtime routine. A long standing favorite of mine has been

Lullabye by Billy Joel. When my son was young, I even practiced so that I could learn all the words. Recently, in the car, my husband was playing DJ and put on the Billy Joel version and jokingly asked:

"Do you like this version or Mommy's version better?" 
And my son in his amazing 6-year-old way, said, "Mommy's"

Both my husband and I chuckled a little and then it got me thinking. To my son, my slightly off-key version was all he knew. It is familiar, it is comfort, it is him and me. It is in the same category as his lovey, ragged and loved from years of snuggling but the most priceless of all his toys. I mean really, how can Billy Joel compete with that? One of the greatest voices and song writers of our generation, singing his own song.  

So, which is better?  Familiar or quality?

For a little kid, familiar almost always trumps better. I truly thought Papa Gino's was the best pizza for most of my childhood. But as a grown up, we have to distinguish between the value of familiar and the value of different.

Internal recruiting is one of the most effective practices companies have for bringing in good people. Top companies like Ernst & Young, Deloitte and others are hiring more than 40% of employees from employee referrals. People that they have worked with before. People whose skills they know and understand. People that they know how to work with. For the past 7 years, I have worked with derivations of the same team. Three different projects. Different combinations of people. Different industries and in each case there were things that worked and things that could have been better.  But, we liked working together. We made each other better. But could we have had a Billy Joel instead? Would we have been better off if instead of familiar we had sought out domain experience? Best in class? Maybe, maybe not.

It's spring sports season so we are now spending weekends and weeknights at the soccer and baseball fields. We are watching a wide variety in skill level as the teams learn the basics and start to work together. It is generally joyful chaos. If you haven't watched little kid soccer recently, it looks more like a swarm of bees and the kid with the most coordination pretty much controls the game for her team. As they get older and more coordinated,  one great player helps but two average players who are working together, can generally get more done and are certainly having more fun.

Where does this breakdown?

Doesn't it help to actually be an expert?

If I had a choice, should I hire a team of experts or a great team?  The truth is somewhere in the middle. In my past projects, there have been gaps. There have been areas where we would have been stronger with domain expertise. We could have moved faster if we had an expert that we could flank with a great team - a little kale or chicken apple sausage on that Papa Ginos pizza. But - only if we can figure out how work with the expert. Only if we believe in him and only if he trusts us.

And that expertise doesn't come cheap. Another book that I loved (also listened to in my car), is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He explored why some athletes, artists, and experts in their field were able to do more, take bigger leaps.  The resounding theme across music, sports, technology and the like, is practice.  In each case,  the expert had clocked more hours than those around them. The magic number according to Gladwell was 10,000 hours.  With this kind of expertise, you truly could be better, you have seen more iterations, you can anticipate how the crowd will react, you have the domain experience.  But, unless you are playing 4 year old soccer, that's not enough.

You need the best athletes 

Okay - another tidbit from Simon Sinek. He explored how some why's seem to have more power than others.  The best example here was Martin Luther King, Jr.  Sinek talked about how he was not the first with these incredible and important ideas.  He was an incredible and captivating speaker but here's why he was able to ignite a movement, make demands and changes that had long been recognized but couldn't mobilize - he had a mobilizer on his team.  He had a how guy who made the calls - told people not to ride the buses.  Who took the words, the passion,  the vision and turned it into action who.  A guy whose name I am literally unable to find. This is the dangerous part of listening to books . . . 

Meeting a Need

So, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. You don't need the best if you are meeting a need. BetaMax failed to an inferior better distributed product in VHS. If you are meeting a critical need well, then you don't have to be the best.  You just need to understand your audience.  My kids don't want fancy pizza.  They don't want better music. They just want us, with all our delightful imperfections.

Thanks for reading! 

"Feels Right" Decision Making

I'm an experienced traveller. After years of work trips, I have my packing list down pat.  I know how to navigate security, where to park and how none of that matters when we travel as a family, with 8 bags, 2 children, 2 loveys and a stroller.

Last week in the wake of Freddy Gray's death and the resulting riots, I travelled to Baltimore on business for a trade show. Unlike other work commitments, it was not readily movable and given the nature of my small company, my role at the show was not readily replaceable so I got up bright and early and flew down.  And while I could of cancelled and that certainly would have been understandable,  I thought (and was generally correct) that I was not putting myself in danger and that I could always go home if I got scared.

Streets of Downtown Baltimore last Tuesday 

The National Guard were visible on the drive into the city.  The businesses and schools were largely closed. The helicopters and sirens were a regular occurrence throughout the visit,  especially at  night. About a 1/3 of the attendees at the show cancelled.  And the strictly enforced 10 PM curfew made it crystal clear that, this was a city, which was struggling.

So why go? I could give a long explanation about why I felt I had to, why I thought it was safe but the truth is I felt I should and felt that I could.

But, the rules are different then they use to be. My decisions even when I'm traveling alone are not just about me anymore.

Risk & Responsibility

A friend told me a story about going on her roof this winter to try and address the ice dams that caused so much trouble.  She walked through her thought process of climbing up on to the roof:

"I'm capable.  I can take care of this."

And then, found herself standing on top of the icy roof, realizing that the stakes are higher than they used to be.

"It is not just me that I effect anymore.  If I fall off the roof, my kids will not have a mother."

It was easier to be risky, when it was just us.

6th Grade Science

So with all that is at stake - we are making decisions because they "feel" right? Is that crazy?  

Malcolm Glidwell spends most of Blink looking at examples and details to quantify the power of our gut -how split-second decision making is actually shockingly effective.  In some cases, more effective then the detailed and comprehensive analysis.  I like the hybrid, or the 6th grade science approach.  Here's what I mean:

In very early science classes, we're taught to form a hypothesis and then design an experiment to test it.  So - I take my initial "feels right" as my hypothesis and then look for some evidence to support or refute.  In the case of the Baltimore trip,  we looked at the map.  We read the reports from the city and  from the convention center.  The flights weren't cancelled, the convention wasn't cancelled.  So - seemed worth trying and I was prepared to abort at any time if that no longer seemed to be true.

Not perfect, but good enough.  A combo of art and science is generally how we roll.  And on teams that you trust, worked with for a long time,  really know each other - gut and "feels right" works.  For teams that don't know each other as well,  and/or trust each other, much more detailed analysis is necessary but in the world that I play in - the data isn't perfect.  It is a combination of customer comments, adjacent market research, internal observations and a fair amount of gut. 

Like my kids,  it's easier to be riskier when it's just me that effected.  When it's our team, our product line, our reputation, the stakes are higher.  

So, it goes!

Thanks for reading!

Outsmarting Traffic Together

If I have spoken with you about traffic in the last 18 months or so,  I have likely discussed my love affair with Waze.  What is Waze, you ask? Well, it is kind of amazing!

It is an app that takes into account traffic and user feedback to help determine the fastest route.  The beauty of it is that it is looking at all the spots on your route where you might hit traffic and finds the most efficient path.  It's actually less about getting you out of a traffic mess when you hit one and more about not hitting it in the first place.  Also, it sets expectations.  My office is 10 miles from my house.  That can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 minutes depending on the day/weather and when I'm trying to finish that last task and still get to pick up on time, I can check and see what the traffic universe has lined up for me.

There's two pieces to how it works - there's the facts - how fast am I going vs. the speed limit and how many other cars are reporting data at any given time but then there's also the observations - there's a cop, there's a pot hole.  Sort of like blinking your lights at on-coming traffic but digital!

So once you have this great tool in one part of your life, it gets you thinking.  (To be fair,  I felt this way about DVR as well!)  I would kind of like a Waze for life.  I can check the routes based on folks who are ahead of me, based on both the facts and the observations.  My Waze would pop up re-routing me around the giant temper tantrum or the predictable user error, avoid the delay and aggravation on both fronts. 

Looking Ahead

You know where you are trying to get to and the path should be reasonably clear but there are the unknowns along the way.  All of them are manageable but a little warning helps.  Some of this goes on today.  The secret items to keep in the diaper bag.  The distraction tactics for restaurants. Open source code. Best practices. 

Changing Course

Every once in a while,  my Waze will pop up and say "There's a better route" and it will change course.  It doesn't hesitate, or discuss. It is the swift definitive course correction that makes it so effective.  We've all been there.  You are on a path and you know that you should be doing things differently.  Right people in the wrong functions.  Wrong people in the right functions. Right team, wrong project. Occasionally,  a little un-biased algorithm to pop up and re-direct would be phenomenally useful.

Trust

I explain to people in my effusive recommendation of Waze that if you want to use it,  you need to give yourself over to it. You need to listen to whatever crazy sequence it sends you on.  You need to let it take you through neighborhoods you have never seen in ways that feel backwards.  Otherwise,  you are really still on your own.  You have to trust your team or you need to get a new team.  I don't know how to be a kindergarten teacher.  I need to believe that my kids' teachers know how to reach them and trust them even if the path is windy.

Soap Box Time

Come on Indiana - you didn't see this coming? Arizona was right up the road and they had reported that this wasn't going well.

Passionate Users

I am not paid by Waze.  I don't have stock options.  I don't actually get any benefit from recommending Waze but I get to share something I'm excited about. I get to feel smart and useful when others take advantage of it.  The value of passionate users can not be under-estimated and figuring out how to channel their voice to their circle.  With DVR and Netflix and everything else,  I rarely watch a commercial.  I actually only know about new movies or products or services because people I trust are talking about them (or they show up in my Facebook feed).  With my product hat on - I'm always trying to figure out how to ignite that passion around my products.  Last week, one of my customers told me her team was so excited about our product and that they were pushing her as to when they would get to use it and try it. 

There we go! Now - I'll just need to pass them the megaphone!

Thanks for reading!  

The Roadtrip

We took a road trip last weekend. We piled everyone and everything into the car. We had what we needed for a 3 hour ride, followed by a weekend away. We had snacks, entertainment, clothes and toys. We left before rush hour. The weather was good. This was going to be a great trip.  I even thought to myself as we hit the road around 2:30 PM,  we may just get to meet some family for dinner at 6 PM.

5+ hours later,  after 6 stops, with one carsick child and a load of pending laundry, we finally made it to our destination.

So What Happened?

Thinking back, it wasn't one thing. We didn't have car trouble. We didn't get lost. We weren't stuck in a blizzard. We weren't stuck behind an accident. Our trip simply got delayed in 5-10 minute increments.

• Grabbing one last thing
• A bathroom stop (or two)
• A gas stop
• A dinner stop
• Unexpected traffic

At no point in the trip did we mentally recalculate and say  - you know what  - we are not going to get in until after 8. We just quietly and steadily got later and later. How come? And if we had known when we started, that the trip would be so long, we might have packed/prepped differently.  We could make different arrangements and decisions.

Instead:

"How much longer until we get there?"
"Soon."
"I'm hungry"
"Can you wait?"
"How much longer?"
"Soon"

Some projects are like this too . . .

They slip in small intervals.  Nothing gigantic or catastrophic, just "Almost there" for way too long! Here too, the problem is not the delay - it is that by failing to re-set, acknowledge the delay we miss the opportunity to properly capitalize on that time and reset plans.

The Trouble You Can Expect vs. The Trouble You Don't Expect

I took this course years ago in business school on managerial decision making. The professor talked about framing the problem - limiting the scope of the things that you consider so that you can see clearly, make rapid and effective decisions. This means,  by definition, that you are excluding plausible but unlikely scenarios.  Considering all the scenarios, while more complete, slows the process down to such a degree that it can no longer be effective. This of course is a moving target.

So you can add some of this into your planning. It may have been a 3 hour drive with two adults and no traffic but with 2 small kids with some traffic - it is 4 hours, best case, which was our experience on the way home. We can expect some traffic, some stops,  some minor delays and we can build those in.

I could have packed more extra clothes. I could have packed laundry detergent. I could have packed plastic bags and paper towels.

Could of, should of, would of.

We made it and we re-set expectations on the way home.

Thanks for reading!

T-G-I-Monday

I am a good mom and I love my kids and I love spending time with my kids but yesterday during a particularly trying moment with my 4-year-old, I thought:

"At least tomorrow is Monday"

Woah, totally didn't see that coming. All those years of cherishing the weekend, relaxing and then there I was just wishing my Sunday away, but when you are on Day 2, Hour 4 of intense negotiations with a 4-year-old behaving in a completely-age-appropriate-yet-completely-infuriatingly fashion, I suppose that it is not surprising. I'm sure I'm not the first, but I think there are a few things that give me the freedom to long for Mondays.

There are No 4-Year-Olds At My Work

Now - this would seem like a given but I have worked with 4-year olds before. Here's what I mean.  

"We need to get in the car"

"No"

"We need to get in the car so we can get food."

"No"

"But we'll be hungry if we don't get food."

"No"

We're not talking. We're not communicating. One person is making a request and the other is shutting it down. We are not even getting to the task at hand because we are too busy discussing if we can do it. Now, have you worked with 4-year-olds?

I was having a few conversations in the past week about what makes functional teams and cultures and what makes toxic ones.  The output was that the functional teams skipped the painful foreplay of arguing about whether to solve the hard problem at hand, whose fault it was, whether it was actually a problem and just got to the work of solving it.

The key piece to this was banning one word:  "No" 

Here's what I mean - "No" - the answer so beautifully articulated by my 4-year-old shuts the conversation down. Now, we are negotiating, each of us has taken a stand and we have to battle to get back to the task at hand. In one of the most functional (and fun) teams I have ever had the privilege of working with, "No" was not part of the vocabulary. Instead we traded it for:

"Yes, but . . ."

"Maybe but only if we exclude . . ."

"We could try X. . ."

"I'm not sure about that but what about . . ."

"Let me think about it"

"Why?"

Not saying "No" didn't mean agreement, it meant that we were talking, that we were hearing each other and heading down a solution path and rarely did the original ask come to fruition as initially articulated but we got to the work of sorting that out right away. We got to do what we were good at doing and get the satisfaction of breaking down hard and interesting problems to get to a viable solution.

I have confidence in my kid's schools 

The other reason that I can feel okay about Mondays is that I feel good about my kid's schools. They are not perfect - nothing ever is. But, they are generally happy, safe, have made nice friends and I can feel confident that all will be well until their 6 PM pick-up.

I was chatting with a friend not long ago who did not feel the same.  She worried that the teachers weren't paying attention, that things were not clean, that they were not safe.  This is not a plan.

If I didn't trust and feel confident in where my kids were going,  then drop-off is painful, and my mind share occupied by the what-ifs all day.  

Monday Night

And here's the best part of Monday, at the end of the day, I go and pick up my kids, throw together some un-interesting and un-exciting dinner and spend the crazy, but generally amusing hours of 6-8 PM (okay - often 9) together.

Happy Monday everyone!  Thanks for reading!

It's the Little Things

If you do a good job and nobody notices,  then are you doing a good job?

We lost cable and more importantly internet on Saturday night.  We called Verizon who said they couldn't get someone out to us until Monday morning.  We sorted out the logistics of making that work and then went on with our day but low and behold - there was a Verizon tech already on our street.  So we asked . . . and this guy was amazing!  He called and took the ticket, did the work, under the careful supervision of 5 neighborhood kids.  He even showed these dutiful supervisors how to improve their spiral throws all while restoring our cable a day ahead of time. We thanked him and went on with our day.  Then, my husband said, "You know what, someone should know how great that tech was." He attempted to call Verizon to share this.

Verizon Tech teaching football

I'm fairly confident this has literally never happened to them before.  He was transferred three times over the course of 10 minutes and then he was disconnected.

Now, we weren't looking for this employee to get a promotion or a raise, but just to let him know that we noticed.  We thought he did a good job and wanted him to know that we appreciated it.   Mr. Verizon Tech could be reminded that he is not giving up his Sunday just to remove and replace controller boxes but to help people stay connected (maybe his Why).

An employee goes above and beyond and no one notices.  How long will he keep going above and beyond?  How long before he forgets his Why?

Now recognition is a tricky thing.   

Too much and too uniformly distributed and it is meaningless.  Too little or too late and may actually do more harm then good.  How do you strike a balance?

There was an article a few years back called "What Makes a Nightmare Sports Parent - And What Makes a Great One."  They surveyed collegiate athletes about what their parents said to them that boosted them up,  encouraged them and increased their love of the game.  The overwhelming response was simply being told, "I love to watch you play."

So, not a trophy or an awards ceremony or big grand gestures but small steady encouragement agnostic to performance? No cupcakes or giant celebration?  Pretty much just showing up and paying attention - really - that's it?

When we are at our kids games, often visiting with other parents,  we are all on guard, watching out of the corner of our eye so that we don't miss a basket or a kick or a goal.  So we can see them engage and try, commiserate with their disappointment and celebrate with their joy.  Just watching them play and letting them know that we love it. My husband read this article when it first came out, so he has been on this for a while.

Could the same be true for grown-ups?

Could a one sentence email sent acknowledging that your work was noticed and that it added value make a difference?  

Actually,  I think it could.

When I put on my first industry trade show a few years back,  I got a note from my boss which I very much appreciated telling me I did a great job.  I also got a note from a member of the R&D team who knew only that I worked for months getting ready and that it had gone smoothly, congratulating me on a job well done.  It makes a huge difference - it reminded me that even though we hadn't worked together on that project, we are on the same team, pulling towards the same goal and the work that I was doing mattered.

Somebody is watching me play! 
The bleachers are not empty and there is a game to played!  
There's the whistle.

Thanks for reading!

Start With Why

I read this great book. Okay, let's be serious - I listened to a great book in the car on my way to work.

It is called Start With Why by Simon Sinek.  Highly recommend!  He explores a lot about what makes some companies and teams work well (often against all odds) and why others fail (often with more resources and money, etc.).  My favorite vignette was about the invention of the airplane.  He talked about a man named Samuel Pierpont Langley, who no one has ever heard of.  I had to go look up his name for this post because in my head - he's just the guy who didn't invent the plane.

He had $50K from the War Department, the best minds of the time and even the New York Times following him around and he got beat.  He got beat by uneducated, penniless brothers from Dayton, Ohio.  Sinek's explanation was that to Langley this was a job.  He was motivated by the pressure.  He was motivated by his reputation.  He was motivated by the fear of failure.  The Wright Brothers wanted to fly. They were trying in between their day jobs, with a curiousity and ingenuity and passion (and just the right amount of crazy) to do something no one had ever done. And Sinek would say they were successful because they had a clear and well defined why. They wanted to fly.

Simon also goes on to say that the power of this why goes beyond the team that builds it (though that is important) and extends to the customers that buy it.  They don't buy your widget or your solution, they buy your why.

Okay - Awesome - What's My Why?

It should be clear, crisp, visceral.  It should be bigger than what I'm doing and how I'm doing it and gives both of those actions purpose.

Well - I always wanted to be part of making something (other than money).  I wanted it to be tangible but about halfway through my career to date,  I found I wanted more than that.  I wanted this product that I was making to be special,  to be different,  to make things better.

My Why is about bringing innovation to market.  Making things better than they have ever been - maybe better than those industries thought possible.  It's hard - of course it's hard - otherwise it's not interesting. It fails. A lot.  The Wright Brothers brought 5 sets of parts ever time they went out and after 5 crashes they went home for dinner.  That's a lot of broken parts on the way to flying.  But it doesn't make the crashes any less hard or disappointing.

When I sat down to think about this,  my Why felt clear but here's the part that feels tricky - I don't feel like that is what I do most days.  Some days for sure but not most.  And I suspect that is also true of my co-workers, maybe even my customers.  Right - okay, so we'll have to work on that!

Sometimes the Same Feels True at Home. 

My Why is to help my kids have amazing lives.  Not perfect, not pain-free but complete and fulfilling, generally happy, challenging, interesting - I could go on.  It seems like such a clear Why.  But what takes up mindshare is the how and the what of getting them from a perfect tiny blob to a whole person in one piece.

Who's doing pick up today?
"Don't run in the parking lot. Too scary."
What activities are scheduled?  
"Let me get dinner going and I'll come outside."
What bills are due? 
"We've got to get your homework done."
Are we saving enough for college?
"Who needs a lunch for tomorrow?"
Are we saving enough in general?
"Try not to get your shoes wet in the snow."
Do they make kids shoes that are truly indestructible?
"We are out of (blank). Put it on the list."
Can I order a new one online or do we have to go to the store?

But there are moments.  Well, we'll start with Why and go from there.

Thanks for reading!

The To Do List

I'm a working mom.  I want a career. I want my kids to be happy and healthy if perhaps slightly over-programmed.  I want to have friends and be part of a community.   I want to be healthy.  I want to occasionally get to hang out and talk to my husband. I want, as it turns out, a lot.

On my way into work this morning,  as I was plotting out my day with everything from a customer meeting and a presentation, to my son's baseball practice to the brisket I'm planning to make starting at 7:30 PM tonight , I giggled to myself that in the age of the lean in moms,  I think that I lean in (to my work, my career), lean out (to my kids) and a little bit to the left on most social and political items.

So - for my first post, a few thoughts.

The Compromises

The compromise I have made with myself is that I will make mistakes.  I will be late.  I will be disorganized.  I will get a B (maybe a B+) in all subjects.  No Ds but no As either. There will be typos in this blog.  I will run slower every year.  I will miss the signup for soccer and have to email the next day to  try and get my daughter in.  I will cobble together dinner but it will not be anything exciting. (frozen meatballs and pasta anyone?) I will have items on my ToDo list at work that will never bubble up from important to urgent and will linger for months.  I will have customer requests that are so compelling, but that can't be justified.  I will fail to notice which birthday parties don't want presents vs. which ones do.  I will nearly always have messy hair and unpolished fingernails.  I will do the best I can and that will be okay.  I'll keep saying that until I believe it!

The Worry of the Day

Yesterday, someone posted about asking if there are guns in the house before scheduling a playdate.  I felt almost shear terror because it had truly never occurred to me that anyone I knew would have a gun in their house.  (And for the Left leaning part of me) I truly find guns terrifying.  I had to quit riflery at summer camp because I found it so truly terrifying.  I tried to explain to my son why I don't want even play guns in my house.  Water guns are the one exception - no good reason.  And while I don't object to other people's right to have a gun,  I cannot imagine having a gun in your house.  Now - I live in a Boston suburb so maybe I'm right to think that this is not a pressing issue.  Maybe I'm naive.

The To-Do List

My schedule is not unique.  My challenges are not unique.  And all facets  -my work, my family, my community - feel important to me.  So largely for entertainment value - here's what's on deck today:

1. Get up and go running - Check! (Not very far, not very fast but hey - full credit)
2. Add the marinade to the Brisket for Saturday - Check! (Pan slightly to small - may have made a minor mess and the fridge smells like vinegar but okay)
3. Scrum call and software demo
4. Customer presentation
5. Post summer intern role
6. Pick up kids and get to baseball practice 
7. Figure out dinner
8. Cook the brisket (truly the riskiest activity today!)
9. Remove the humetz from the house for Passover (could do this tomorrow - or possibly Saturday - see compromises paragraph!)

Have a great day everyone! Thanks for reading my diatribe!