Author: Andrew Embry

If you mixed diet mountain dew, funk music, dragons, hip hop, superheroes, and lightning in a blender you’d end up with Andrew Embry. He is part wordsmith and part alchemist, able to use his Batman utility belt to turn anything and everything into a story worth telling that is equal parts insightful, memorable, inspiring, humorous, and entertaining. Andrew is comfortably creative in almost any setting, but especially when he is performing spoken word poetry. His enthusiasm for words comes from the way he loves people and the little nuances of life that make it worth living.

A Cooking Competition and Playing Your Role (9-5-18)

This week we are going to start a series inspired by food and cooking. We’ll start with me sharing some reflections from a cooking competition I was part of last week at a team builder. I’ll dedicate this week’s entry to my cooking challenge team aka The Maniacs: Kelly Frankel, Tori Brown, Ericka Hooper, and Charity Williams.

The competition was pretty straight forward. There were four teams given the same ingredients and whoever made the best food would win. If you know the ladies on my team you know 2 things. First, they wanted to win. Second, they knew their stuff. Before the cooking began, we had a few minutes to plan the meal. My teammates were discussing all kinds of flavor combos and drizzling sauces. Finally, Kelly looks at me and says, “You haven’t said anything.” This is quite the miracle, because rarely am I at a loss for words or ideas. I’m usually one of the first to jump in and volunteer, but not the case that day because I know I’m a hot mess when it comes to cooking (pun intended). There are many things in life I’m good at, but cooking is not one of them. I’m self-conscious about cooking and always worried that I’ll ruin the food. So after pausing for a moment I replied by saying, “Cooking isn’t my thing. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, but don’t expect me to have any good ideas.” The team says okay and continues on with their plan and who will do what.

The cooking contest begins. During each round I’m essentially the “go for” and an extra set of hands. I grab stuff for people and give it to them, clean work spaces, knead dough, and do anything else I’m asked to do. Meanwhile, the rest of the team is unlocking their culinary genius, blending spices and sauces, creating beautiful presentations, and perfectly grilling all of the food. My team made some delicious food and we won the competition.

You’re probably wondering how all of this connects to work. After the competition our team talked about the experience, and one of the things we discussed is how we all stepped into and embraced different roles on the team based on our strengths and abilities. Kelly became our head chef, guiding us the entire way. Ericka stepped up and crushed it as the grill master. Tori was the flavor combiner. Charity was the food finisher and plater. I knew cooking wasn’t my thing, so I stepped into the background doing small things that didn’t require me to be a good cook or flavor expert. If I would have tried to play a larger role, I know I would have burnt something or ruined it somehow.

As I reflected further, I began to realize what a cool experience this was. We had an entire team of people dedicated to a purpose larger than ourselves (creating great food). In order to accomplish this we all had to find and embrace our roles to make this happen. All of the roles on the team each played their part, and it’s okay that my part was small because I gave what I could give to help us reach our goal. Finally, I loved watching my teammates in their elements absolutely crushing it.

While everything I’ve said so far has been about a team and a cooking competition, it’s the exact same thing at work. In order to achieve greatness, every team needs to have all of their teammates working toward the same purpose. Each of these teammates fills a unique role, and people need to be willing to step into their role based on their abilities. Finally, all roles on the team are valuable, even if all of the roles aren’t as high flying and visible.

Challenge 1: What role(s) do you play on the teams you are on?

Challenge 2: Are you willing to play your role, even if it’s a smaller one?

Challenge 3: Thank someone today for the role they play on your team.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Preparing to Achieve Excellence (8-29-18)

This will be the last in the series focused on excellence. We began by focusing on setting the high bar for ourselves. From there, we thought about how you can unleash your own awesomeness to achieve excellence. We then revisited high jumping with a focus on the fundamentals. Last week, we reflected on taking the time to pause to appreciate how far you’ve come and to see how close you are to your mountain top. This week I want us to think about preparing for excellence.

Imagine for a moment that you’re watching some sporting event. You go to the stadium excited about watching a good game between the Red team and the Blue team. Very quickly you begin to realize something. The Blue team hasn’t practiced. They are on the field and they don’t know their plays. They are on the field, and you can tell they haven’t been training. They are on the field, and they are not performing. The Blue team has a few really great athletes, so every now and then they make a good play, but overall the Blue team isn’t effective. Meanwhile, you can tell the Red team has put in the time and effort to prepare, so when it comes game time they kick butt.

You might be wondering where this is going. In the above analogy I talk about preparing for games. Essentially, life is really just a series of games. It’s a series of challenges that you are either prepared for or not prepared for. If you look at work, being a leader is a game. Meetings are games. Making tough decisions is a game. Giving presentations is games. Having hard conversations is a game.

If life is a game would you rather be the Red team or the Blue team? Obviously, we’d all want to be the Red team. However, how often do we have Blue team behavior, where we show up for something that we haven’t really prepared for? For example, have you ever been in a meeting where people didn’t come in prepared, so it was a waste of time? Have you ever led one of those meetings? Have you ever been in a meeting where people read slides at you, and you thought, “If they would have sent this to me as a pre-read, we could have a better discussion”? Have you ever been so busy that you weren’t able to prepare for something, and the work suffered as a result? Have you ever had a deadline approaching and realized that you didn’t spell out the right milestones to hit your deadline? Have you ever went into a presentation saying, “I’ll just wing it” and then watched as it didn’t go over well causing confusion and problems you had to address later? Have you ever tried to have a challenging conversation with the team, and realized that you all have not built up enough trust to have this conversation? I answer a resounding, “Yes!” to all of those questions. I’d imagine you do too.

In the world we live in, it’s way too easy to get lost sprinting around and never really prepare for the challenge ahead. When we don’t prepare, we will be just like the Blue team, lost without strategy. Lost without knowing which actions to take. Sure, we might get lucky from time to time and have some success, but preparation has a way of often beating out luck. As an individual, it’s up to us to not only make the time to prepare, but to figure out how to best prepare. As leaders, it’s our job to help others prepare for challenge ahead.

The challenge: Are you preparing, so you can achieve excellence?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Surrounding yourself with people who bring the excellence out in you (8-22-18)

Last week was about excellence, mountain tops, and pausing to appreciate how far you’ve come. This post is about surrounding yourself with people who bring out the excellence in you.

Last week was the National Poetry Slam competition. While I wasn’t able to go, seeing the news on my Facebook feed brought back memories of going to Nationals with my team years ago. To this day that was one of my favorite experiences. It was so awesome to be on a team that was focused on creating art that moved people. It was amazing to be on a team where the members had talents far and above my own. It was incredible to be on a team that cared about each other and the art so much that we pushed ourselves to be better than we’ve ever been. Every draft of a poem, every practice, every performance, became an opportunity for us to help each other and encourage each other to hone our crafts so we could create something that connected with people. I can honestly say that being on that team completely changed my trajectory as a poet/writer/communicator. I’m the poet/writer/communicator I am because of that team and the way we brought out the best in each other. During our time together, I learned things about myself and pushed my writing and my imagination to go places where I had never gone before.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. Last week I had lunch with a colleague and the conversation began with her saying something like, “I love it when I’m the dumbest one in the room.” Initially this sounds like a pretty weird thing to say, but as she continued she explained that there is something about looking around and saying, “I’m surrounded by the A-team” and knowing you’re going to need to have your stuff together to hang with them and contribute. There’s something about being around people with high expectations, where you know you’ll become better just by being around them.

As I reflect on that conversation, I realize it’s the exact same way I felt about being on my poetry slam team. There is something special when a group is collectively driven by a mission and cares enough about each other to hold high standards and to raise those standards to push for excellence. As I reflect on the various jobs and roles I’ve had throughout my life I can say that there were times when I was surrounded by great people who pushed each other to be better, and being on those teams has had a lingering impact that influences me today. With that said, there have been other times when I wasn’t surrounded by people who raised the bar and brought out the best in each other. Often, the groups that didn’t push each other to be better were the ones focused on themselves vs. on the greater mission and striving to reach that mission.

What about you? Have you experienced teams that have brought out the best in you? Have you experienced teams that haven’t? What about the team you are currently on? Do you bring out the best in each other? Do you challenge each other to keep rising to the next challenge?

The challenges: Are you choosing to spend time with people who bring out the excellence in you? How are you raising the game of the people around you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Excellence, Progress, and Peaks (8-15-18)

Last week was about excellence and fundamentals. This week will be about excellence, progress, and peaks. Let’s say that you and I are climbing a mountain. How would you know when we were getting close to the top? Maybe you’d use a map or you could see that the peak was in reach. How would you know we arrived at the top? Pretty dumb question, right? We know we’d be at the top, because there wouldn’t be anything higher. We’d easily be able to look out and say, “We did it!” See corny mountain top picture to the right.

You’re probably wondering what the above examples have to do with anything. In the examples above, you’d have markers to show your progress. In life you don’t always have obvious markers. You don’t always have a map that says, “You are here. You only have 3 miles to go.” In life you don’t always have a moment where the clouds part and the world announces, “You have arrived!”

I don’t know about you, but I feel lost sometimes. I get lost in the grind of the day to day work, and while I know I’m working hard and doing my best I lose track of where I am in relation to the top of the mountain I’m climbing. If you’re anything like me, when you get this way and you don’t know where you are relative to the high bar you’ve set you automatically assume that the high bar must be miles away. A friend brilliantly summarized this feeling one day when they said, “If I make mistakes, those are pretty visible. If I’m doing good things, it’s like I’m just doing my job.” Have you ever felt that way? I have. I often feel that the mistakes I make tell me when I’ve fallen, but I often don’t see or overlook indicators that I’m soaring, so it becomes easy to feel discouraged. Does that make sense? (this is the part in my blog when my anxious negative inner voice says, “These people will think you’re crazy, because they never feel this.” Then the confident voice says, “Negative voice. Shut up.”)

What I’ve learned about myself is that when I’m feeling lost and that I don’t know where the mountain top is I need to do two things. First, I need to pause and look back. Sometimes, it takes looking back to see how far you’ve come. If I look back over the past year, I can see how I’ve grown as a husband, dad, employee, etc. Second, after I’ve looked back, I can look up to see how much further I need to go, because now I have perspective and appreciation for what I’ve been through and where I’m going. While I’m far from perfect, I can confidently say I’m closer to where I want to be than I was a year ago.

Two challenges for you. 1. Can you pause to appreciate how far you’ve come and how much closer you are to your mountaintop? 2. Can you let others know that you see they are close to the top of the mountain they have been climbing?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

High Jump Revisited- Excellence and Fundamentals (8-8-18)

Last week was about excellence and leveraging your awesomeness to reach rock star status. This week we will revisit high jumping with a focus on excellence and fundamentals. This entry is partially inspired by some comments Belinda Mulhern made on the first high jumping blog.

Let’s revisit high jumping. You and I are going to compete in a high jumping competition, and we’ve set the bar 😉 If we had to high jump right now, how do you think you’d do? I would be horrible, because I don’t have the fundamentals down. How you approach, the steps you take, your leap, the way you arch your back, everything matters in the high jump. I was talking to a colleague (Joseph Robele) who used to be a high jumper and he described the approach by saying, “At the very end you have to take a violent step that shifts your running momentum into a jump that goes straight up in the air while having enough forward momentum to carry you over the bar. As you go over the bar you have to constantly adjust your body, raising and lowering parts in the right sequence, to clear the bar.” I barely understand what those sentences mean. There’s no way I could physically do that.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. I’m guessing that the majority of you wouldn’t be ready to participate in a high jump competition. Overall, you’re incapable of doing the correct foundational things that would enable to succeed. You probably don’t have the important techniques down to be successful, and you probably haven’t spent any time developing those skills. In order to be successful, you’d have to change, learn, and grow. You’d have to work on all of those fundamental small things that would enable you to get over the bar.

Whenever we step into a new role or experience, we show up as the person we currently are with the skillsets we currently have. This current version of ourselves isn’t immediately ready for the challenge ahead. The current version of ourselves very rarely has an understanding of and ability to execute all of the fundamental enablers that lead to success. While I don’t have to worry about my approach, footsteps, and arching my back like a high jumper, I have had to learn and adapt as a market researcher. In my world fundamental enablers are things like learning how to better understand the business, leveraging marketing frameworks, leveraging different market research methodologies to best answer a business question, synthesizing all kinds of information, defining problems, etc. Some of these are areas where I already had skills, and some of these areas are places where I had to start from scratch. I still don’t have all of these fundamental enablers down cold, so I’m always continuing to learn and work on mastering various enablers in order to reach success.

As I mentioned, this blog was inspired by Belinda’s comments. Here is what she said. “In high jump, they work on all of the little enablers – how you approach, your arch, your steps. Do, we as coaches, always work on those things? I can talk about the bar, which is the goal. But the bar is not what you do.” I think she lays out a really good challenge. As an individual, are you focused on developing the key enablers that will help you be successful? As a leader/coach are you focused on helping others develop the key enablers that will lead to their success?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Excellence, Delicious Food, and your Unique Awesomeness (8-1-18)

Last week was about excellence and setting the high bar. This week is about finding your own way to get to that high bar and will reflect on great food and your unique awesomeness.

Take a second and think about delicious food. Think about the meals you love. Here is a list of some of my favorite foods: my grandma’s homemade beef and noodles, bone-in ribeye steak, bacon cheeseburgers, my mom’s pork chops with homemade bbq sauce, Culver’s Concrete Mixers, Nancy Woolf cookies, waffle fries, Bello brownies, honey crisp apples, and anything that Emily Borders makes. (The picture to the right is me daydreaming of food. We even have a similar hairline.) Now that you have some delicious foods in your head, ask yourself what makes each one of those foods uniquely special and delicious. For me, Bello brownies are always perfectly gooey in the middle. Ribeyes always have the perfect balance of meat and fat, which leads to great flavor and I am convinced the bone makes it taste better. Honey crisp apples have the perfect amount of snap in each bite. A Culver’s Concrete Mixers with Oreo and cookie dough is a delightful blend of smooth custard and crunchy cookies.

You’re probably wondering what delicious food has to do with work. When you thought about food, you thought about great tasting food. I’m assuming that the foods you thought of weren’t all the same. For example, frozen custard is not the same as a bone-in ribeye, but both are delicious. You probably noticed that the foods you thought of each had their own unique awesomeness that propelled them to greatness. This reminds me of a conversation I had when I first joined my current team.

When I first took my role on my current team, I had a conversation with my boss about what excellence looks like as a market researcher (trying to find the high bar<-Look at that connection to last week). We talked about some of the core skills you need to have to be successful like the ability to synthesize knowledge and define the problems we are trying to solve. Consider these foundational competencies needed for success. I then asked him what it would take to reach legendary rock star status as a researcher. I asked him who were the legendary market researchers and why were they awesome. The thought behind my question is that I would need to copy and be just like them to be great. He responded along the lines of, “Sally was a rock star because of her capacity to handle a lot of work streams at one time. Susie was a rock star researcher, because of her vast knowledge of the disease and business. Bob is a rock star, because of his understanding of different market research methodologies.” He then paused and said, “You aren’t them though. You have to decide what’s special about you, and how you can use that to get to rock star status.”

That last bit of advice in bold has stuck with me ever since that conversation. Over time, I’ve come to appreciate and realize that if I’m going to be a legendary market researcher (or husband/dad/friend/etc.) one day, then I won’t get there by directly copying everyone else. It’s true that there are foundational things I will need to get good that everyone needs in order to reach success. However, I will also have to identify my awesomeness and how I can use that awesomeness in a way to reach the high bar that has been set. I’m assuming all of you are in a similar boat. Whatever legendary status is for you, you won’t get there by being a direct copy of anyone else. You’ll have to be and do you.

The challenge: What is your awesomeness and how will you use it to help you reach rock star status?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Excellence, High Jump, and Setting the Bar (7-25-18)

This week I’d like to kick off a new series focused on excellence. We’ll start by thinking about excellence as it relates to high jumping and setting the bar.

Imagine for a moment that I challenged you to a high jump competition. After getting over your shock that a kind of out of shape stocky dude with a dad bod would throw out such a ludicrous idea, what would be the first thing you’d do? I’m assuming that you’d ask how high the bar is set. From there, assuming you accept the challenge, you’d think through how you were going to reach that bar and then train to ensure you could jump over it. In fact, you’d probably train so you could jump a little higher than where I told you the bar would start, because you know the bar could raise for the next round.

You might be wondering how this connects with work and life. Life is a lot like a high jump competition. Whether we are thinking of our role as an employee, a friend, a family member, a spouse, a dad, etc. we are always striving to do better. Every day is an opportunity for us to improve and reach the next level. Now, imagine having a high jump competition where you didn’t know how high you needed to jump. You’d never do that. You’d want to make sure you knew how high you needed to jump long before you got ready to actually leave the ground.

With all the above said, how often are we pursuing things or doing our jobs without knowing where the high bar is? Think about this for a moment. When was the last time you thought about your role at work and said, “In this role, excellence looks like ________,” and then measured yourself against that bar to see how you were doing? When is the last time you said, “When being a good friend/family member/dad/spouse/human/etc., excellence looks like _________,” and then checked to see if you were rising to the challenge?

I don’t know about you, but I can easily get lost in the day to day and lose sight of what I should be striving for. I lose sight of what the bar is, and I wait for other people (a boss, friend, spouse) to tell me where the bar is and how I’m doing versus me taking a proactive approach to define excellence and measuring myself and my progress. The only way we are ever going to do great things is if we aim for greatness, and we can’t do that without taking the time to figure out what excellence looks and feels like.

The challenge: Have you established high bars in the different aspects of your life?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 6 Violet and the Fight vs. Flight Response (7-18-18)

This will be the last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from being a dad. We started this series with Violet and persistence. From there we explored Alice and imagination, and then we moved to being jealous when your friend rides a bike before you. A couple weeks ago we discussed creating an environment for people to flourish, and last week was about band-aids, bumps, and mistakes. This week we will think about Violet and the fight vs. flight response.

I get home from work and I ask everyone how their day was. My wife tells me that Violet almost broke her nose. Here’s how. My wife thought it would be really funny to sneak up on Violet and try to scare her, so she did. The only problem with this is that while most people have the fight OR flight responses when they get scared, Violet only has fight. When Violet fights, she doesn’t throw jabs. Every punch she throws is a knockout punch. So when my wife scares her, Violet responds by throwing a haymaker that smashes into my wife’s face, almost breaking her nose. In reality, Violet wasn’t really being threatened, but her brain couldn’t recognize this in time to stop her from throwing a haymaker. If she would have taken a second to assess the situation, she wouldn’t have thrown punches like Rocky Balboa.

You might wonder what this has to do with anything. Much like Violet, we all have a default state that we fall into when we are threatened. We tend to either be more fight or more flight in any situation. When we are in these states we are irrational human beings incapable of logical thought or growth. The problem is that the feeling of being threatened is a delicate trigger. Feeling threatened isn’t just about being physically threatened. Often, feeling threatened can come from being challenged in some way, especially when it comes to somebody challenging your worldview. This is why it’s so hard for people to have conversations about politics, race, and religion. These are all deeply held beliefs, and many people equate these beliefs to who they are. The moment someone challenges you in one of those areas, it is kind of like they are trying to attack YOU, which triggers fight (defend your belief as hard as you can, argue without really seeking to understand, etc.) or flight (avoid the conversation). Neither of these options is particularly helpful, because in these instances we as humans are irrational and incapable of growing.

Besides things like politics, race, and religion, the fight or flight response kicks in during conversations at work. I don’t know about you, but sometimes people disagree with me or share viewpoints that I disagree with and my fight response kicks in. What could have been a productive conversation, then essentially becomes a battle to see who can be right, which isn’t helpful to anyone. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been the one who thought their ideas were attacked? Have you ever been the one attacking the other ideas? So much of what occurs during these conversations is a result of fight or flight kicking in.

Over time, what I’ve found is that I need to switch my default state. Rather than fight or flight, I have to find a way to default to being curious. I’ve found being curious eliminates the emotional baggage that fight or flight brings with it. Curiosity forces me to better understand the situation and the person. Curiosity allows me to stop and assess the situation. “What is going on in my body? Why am I feeling so strongly about this? What is this person truly saying? Why do they believe it? What do they value that would make them come to these conclusions? How could they prove what they are saying? Why might what they are saying be true? Why might it not be true?” Taking the time to breathe and process, helps me avoid my own fight or flight response, so I can have an actual conversation to address the “threat” that may or may not be real.

The challenges: Do you know when you go into fight or flight? How can you move to a different default state?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 5 Band-aids, Bumps, Bruises, and Mistakes (7-11-18)

I hope you had a wonderful holiday! Last week was about intentionally building an environment. This week is about bumps, bruises, cuts, and responding to minor injuries/mistakes.

One of the things that fascinates me about little kids is how often they hurt themselves. They are always running into something, falling off something, scraping an elbow or a knee, bumping their head, etc. Often what happens is that they do something that hurts them and it makes them scared. Being scared causes them to freak out more than necessary. Think about the kid who is wailing like she’s dying and you go over to realize she just has a knee scrape. That kid is my daughters.

When my daughters get hurt, I’ve found that I can’t just instantly brush away their pain. First, I acknowledge their pain, and then I assess the situation to determine how bad the injury is. I reassure them that they are fine, and I get them a Band-Aid or an ice pack if they need it. Then, I encourage them to go play again. 99% of the time, within 5 seconds of playing they forget about the bump/scratch/scrape and within a couple of days that spot has completely healed. (Their healing abilities are amazing. I swear kids are like little Wolverines. Bonus points if you get that joke. I personally thought it was “claw”esome. See what I did there?)

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. While we may not injure ourselves on a regular basis by falling off playground or anything, we do make mistakes sometimes. Mistakes can hurt. I don’t know about you, but I can be way too harsh on myself when I make mistakes, especially if my mistake impacts other people. If I screw up something that affects only me, I don’t care. The moment I feel it influences other people and their work, I feel horrible and those things eat me up for days.. Much like my girls overreacting to a scraped knee like they are dying, I overreact to my mistakes like they have somehow doomed the people I’m working with and my own career.

It’s during these times when I’m allowing a mistake to eat me up that I need perspective. Yes, making a mistake hurts and sucks, but just like my girls when they scrape their elbows, it’s not the end of the world. I need to get better at realizing that in 99% of cases, the mistakes I make will heal in a couple of days, and that I just need to slap a Band-Aid on and get back to work. Also, when I can’t find that perspective myself, sometimes I need a colleague to help me gain that perspective. During these times a simple, “Dude, yes you made a mistake. Does it kind of suck? Yes. In the grand scheme of things with everything you’ve done and the equity you’ve built up over time, does it matter? No. Nobody thinks you’re a moron. Nobody thinks you’re incompetent. Let go and move on,” can be the words I need to realize it’s just a scratch that will heal on its own..

The challenge: Are you keeping perspective when you make mistakes? Are you helping others keep perspective when they make mistakes?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 4 Art Supplies and Intentionally Creating an Environment (7-2-18)

This blog is coming early due to the 4^th of July holiday. Last week was about bicycles, training wheels, and jealousy. This week is about intentionally building a culture/environment. Let’s start by sharing some seemingly unrelated things.

During vacation we were eating at a Dave and Busters. Alice was building a sculpture using condiments, salt, pepper, and silverware. As she built the sculpture she put the salt upside down, spilling salt everywhere. I responded by saying, “We need to clean up the salt. Remember the salt comes out from the top, so you can’t put it upside down when you build.” Alice helped clean up the salt, and continued building.
We have a wall in our house where guests put their handprints, a wall covered in artwork, and art supplies always accessible.
At dinner we play the question game. It’s a metaphor game. “If your day was a ________. What would it be and why?” With my girls that blank is filled in with everything from colors, types of cats, body parts, Rescue Bot (Transformer character), sounds, food, or any other weird thing they can think of.

While these things may appear to be random, they are very much connected. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a parent is that my wife and I are in charge of creating the environment that will help our children flourish. It is our choices and actions that create this environment. Everything above is an example that shows how my wife and I value creative thinking and expression, so we make conscious efforts to create an environment where that can happen. That means, when Alice makes a mess in a restaurant when she’s building something, I don’t freak out about it. Instead, we clean up and get back to building. It means that we have art on the walls as a way to show we value it. It means that they always have access to art supplies and legos, so they can easily create. It means that we play the question game, which serves to encourage creative connection making. Doing all of these things creates an environment where creativity can flourish.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. Think about all the time we spend talking about culture. Now ask yourself. How often do we take the necessary actions to create an environment where that culture will flourish? For example, if we want to be fast, what are we doing to create an environment where we can move fast? In my experience, we often say we want to move fast, but then get upset when things are fast but not perfect. That immediately kills speed. Another example, we talk about wanting to have open and honest debate. How often is the environment conducive to this? I’ve found that many times it isn’t. Many times we don’t have the foundation of trust and respect to have meaningful disagreement. Maybe it’s because the highest ranking person quickly shuts down ideas that are not their own. Maybe it’s because people don’t do a good job listening to other points of view. The result is, the culture of dissent is never created.

It’s up to all of us to create the environment in which we want to work. It’s up to us to surround ourselves with art supplies (the right resources). It’s up to us to hang artwork on the wall (officially recognize what we say we value). It’s up to us to help clean up the salt from a restaurant sculpture and get back to building (instead of destroying the thing we are trying to create by responding with lots of undue negativity to a mistake or messiness). It’s up to us to set the tone that creates the environment that allows a culture and people to flourish.

The challenge: How are you creating the environment you want to work in? Have a great 4^th of July!

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry