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.

Bodies, Preparation, and Performance (7-5-17)

Last week we looked at homeostasis, running, and gutting it out until you find your rhythm.  This week let’s think about our bodies, maintaining them, performance, and how that relates to teams.  Our bodies are amazing machines.  Our bodies are designed to perform at a high level on physical, mental, and emotional fronts.  Additionally, they are in a constant process of breaking down and replenishing themselves.  What I often fail to see or think about is how my actions can help or hinder this process and my body’s performance. 

Let me share an example.  Near the end of January I started training for a the Indy Mini half-marathon in May.  During this training period, overall, I made relatively healthy food choices, worked out on a regular basis, got enough sleep, etc.  I didn’t notice it while I was training, but my body was becoming better.  I was taking good care of myself and in turn I lost weight and inches, and gained some speed and strength.  When it came time to perform on the day of the race, I ran the half-marathon 2 minutes faster than I had the previous year, which is a big deal for a baby hippo.  After that race, things fell apart a little bit.  Work got hectic.  I went on vacation.  I came back from vacation and my aunt passed away after battling lung cancer for a couple of years.  I started stress eating, wasn’t sleeping that much, and didn’t take the time to exercise.  In short, I stopped taking good care of myself.  I didn’t notice it in the moment, but my body was becoming worse.  I wasn’t taking good care of myself, and I gained some weight, felt sluggish, felt just out of it, anxious, etc.  I wasn’t performing well on a physical, mental,  or emotional level.  I’m now trying to get back into the swing of things. 

My learning from this experience.  Bodies are designed to perform, and their performance hinges on all the day to day prep work you do or don’t do to maintain and improve.  I didn’t realize the impact of me taking or not taking care of myself during the day to day grind that is life.  I didn’t notice the difference until it became time to perform in some way.  I also continue to realize that there is never “extra” time to exercise and that healthy choices aren’t always the easiest ones to make.  If I don’t make the intentional effort to do the right things, they will never get done. 

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with work and teams.  I feel teams are like bodies.  In order to perform at their peak levels they require the right fuel and exercise in order to maintain them and make them stronger.  The problem is that everyone is always so busy and there is never extra time to make sure you are taking care of the team.  There’s never an abundance of time slotted for you to stop and check in to make sure people are aligned.  There’s never extra time for you to get a good pulse on the team to see if there is plenty of trust, good energy, clear roles, and that people have what they need to shine.  It’s easy to get lost in the day to day grind, because in the midst of the chaos you may not even notice a difference when it comes to the team’s health.  However, sooner or later your team will need to perform some kind of task, and at that point you’ll see whether you’ve done the right things to get the team ready to perform at that moment or not.  How well the team performs then will be a result of all of the prep and maintenance work they have put in leading up to this point.

The challenge: Are you making it a priority to take care of yourself and the folks around you?  What are you doing to help you and your team perform at their best?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Running and Homeostasis (6-28-17)

This week I’d like to kick off a series inspired by the miraculous wonder that is the human body.  Over the next few blog entries I’ll use my basic understanding of the way our bodies work to draw some parallels to life.  We’ll start this series by thinking about homeostasis and running.  Please don’t report my writings with medical.  They already know I’m not on their level 😉

I run.  Actually, I more or less trample across moderate distances.  My goal whenever I run is to survive the first 30 minutes.  If I can make it that long then I can usually get in a good 60 minutes without too much additional difficulty.  I believe the reason this happens is because the body is always trying to find a state of homeostasis, a balance or rhythm if you will.  When I run I introduce activities that disrupt the balance I had sitting on the couch.   This makes my body work really hard until it can get back into the rhythm of doing things.

Let me give you a play by play if my body could talk whenever I go out on a run.  First, I get ready and I do a walking warm-up.  My body is all like, “Wait a minute.  We were comfortable where we were.  We had everything figured out.  Now he’s on the move.  This isn’t too bad though.”  After a short warm-up walk I begin jogging and my body starts by saying, “Oh, this is funny.  He’s running.  He’s not serious about this, is he?  I mean, the dude runs like a baby hippo.  He can’t run for too long, right?”  After about 5 minutes my body is screaming at me, “What are you doing?  Are you an idiot?  Running sucks!  We were just fine hanging out before.  This takes effort.  This is ugly.”  Eventually my body decides that it’s actually going to run for a while, so then it starts barking orders like it’s a sinking ship under attack by pirates, “Release the adrenaline.  Raise the heart rate.  Get his legs more energy now!”    My body continues that cycle for the first 30 minutes and then all of a sudden my body says, “Hey, now we got the rhythm.  You’re good.  Just keep going.  You got this!”

You’re probably wondering how this connects to work.  At work I think we are always trying to maintain some kind of homeostasis, some kind of rhythm.  The problem is that this rhythm gets disrupted all the time.  I don’t know about you, but whenever I start work on anything new it’s ugly.  Maybe it’s a new role.  Maybe it’s a new project.  Maybe it’s a draft of a blog.  Whatever it is, it’s slow moving.  It’s clunky.  I feel uncoordinated and like I don’t know what I’m doing.  This is kind of like my first 30 minutes of running.  Before I started the project I was in a form of homeostasis and that got all messed up when I started stretching myself in new directions.  After a while, I begin to get into the flow of things and then things start to fall into place and become easier.  Sure it still requires effort, but by that time I’m at least in some kind of a rhythm.  Do you ever feel like this?  The main reason I bring this up is because if you’re in the beginning clunky phase it’s easy to get frustrated and think it will never get better.  It’s easy to want to stop, because you feel this ugly work isn’t going to go anywhere.  This is when we all need to take a deep breath and remember that in this phase we are in the first 30 minutes of our run, and if we can just gut it out for a little bit longer things will finally start to go smoother. 

The challenge: Can you gut it out for those “first 30 minutes”?  Here’s to us being okay with being a little clunky until we hit our stride 😉

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Poets Capture, Explore, and Share Moments (6-21-17)

This is the last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from performing poetry.  We’ve talked about finding your voice, performing your version of dope poems, emotionsmithing, walking in the shoes of other people with persona poems, and last week we talked about bombing and moving on.  I’d like us to finish by reflecting on what a poet does and how that connects to life and work.

If I asked you what an artist or a poet does, what would you say?  I’d argue that an artist captures thoughts, moments, emotions, insights, etc., explores them in different ways, and then shares them with others.  A poet captures, explores, and shares those things using words, rhythm, and literary devices as opposed to colors, musical notes, clay, etc.  This might sound really basic, but it’s had an impact on the way I live and experience life.  When I first started writing I always assumed I had to wait for the muse to give me secrets.  Over time, I’ve realized that there are emotions, moments, insights, etc. around every corner that are worth capturing, examining, and sharing.

Here are a few of those positive and negative things that are worth capturing, exploring, and sharing.  It’s the moment when you answer a phone, hear breathing, and know the next sentence is going to be bad news.  It’s the couple on their first date inside of a restaurant, their nervous energy seen in every flirtatious movement.  It’s the sun shining down reminding you that at least you have its rays for today to keep you warm.  It’s the dog smiling as it waits for a belly rub.  It’s the first time you know what love is. 

So what does this have to do with anything?  There are ways this connects to life and the way this connects to work.  On the work side of things, if you think about what we do we spend a bulk of our time trying to understand people the moment they become patients.  We capture these insights, look at them from different angles, and then share them between cross-functional teams so we can better help individuals.  We make medicines to change that moment of pain or fear into something different.  The challenge at work is how often do we really stop to capture and explore those moments, looking at them from a variety of angles and perspectives?  On the life side of things, how often do we truly pay attention and observe what is happening around us?  If you’re anything like me, I can get lost looking for huge signs, for the muse, and I miss the little things that are so impactful.  Just taking the time to witness and allow ourselves to truly feel these things, good and bad, makes a world of difference in how you experience life.  Life is so much richer once you experience its depths. 

The challenge: Are you capturing, exploring, and sharing these moments to make the world around you better?

Bonus Question: What are some of your favorite “small” moments you’ve witnessed at work?  Here are some of mine:

  • Opening up a handwritten note.
  • The first time you feel you are providing value in a new role.
  • Watching someone nail something that they were nervous about.
  • When a person you’ve always seen potential in has a second where they realize they are awesome.
  • When you’re presenting for a tough audience and someone gives you an encouraging smile.
  • When the person who is always a tough critic gives you a compliment.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Bombing on Stage and Moving Forward (6-14-17)

Last week was about persona poems and stepping into the shoes of another person.  This week is about when things don’t go as well as planned.  It’s a lesson in failure and moving forward that I learned from bombing on stage. 

As I started performing poetry, my biggest fear was always that I was going to bomb on stage one night.  The irrational part of my brain would equate bombing with public execution.  Screwing up would be the worst thing that could happen to me.  I no longer hold this belief, because I’ve absolutely bombed and lived to tell the tale.  Long story short I performed this poem about my love/lust for cookies that had went over really well in Madison.  The poem was filled with over the top humor and sarcasm, and Madison people loved it.  Since people loved it, I was excited to perform this poem in St. Paul.  Let’s just say, the majority of the St. Paul audience HATED it.  They didn’t get the sarcasm, so they turned a weird/funny poem about my lust for cookies into a political statement.  As I’m performing this poem, I can see and feel the negativity radiating off of the audience.  Talk about awkward.  The hatred was so intense that the emcee felt bad for me and tried to break the ice after my bombing by saying something like, “Man, you all are hating on him hard.  You must hate cookies.  You must all have diabetes.”

So the audience had basically just given me the feedback that I suck, and I was bummed.  Then, I came to a realization.  Sure, they had crushed something that I had crafted and was attached to, but I was still here and just fine.  I hadn’t died.  I hadn’t been booted out of performing poetry.  I was just a guy who had screwed up on one performance.  From there, I had to make a decision on what to do with the feedback, take action, and move on.  Essentially I had 3 choices: 1. Give up on the poem/idea/thing. 2. Tweak it. 3. Do something entirely different (perform different poems in the future or get a different hobby).  In this particular case, I still believe the poem is genius, but I now realize it’s not for everyone so I need to be selective on where I perform it.  Since this day, I’ve had more poems fail.  It’s just part of performing and trying to push your own boundaries.

How does this connect with work?  I don’t know about you, but there was a time when one of my biggest fears was making a mistake at work.  The irrational part of my brain would equate making a mistake with being ran over by a train.  I’d be lying if I said I never feel that way, but as I’ve continued to screw stuff up in my life I’ve realized that making mistakes isn’t as a big of deal as I think it is.  I’ve failed sometimes.  I’ve had horrible ideas, great ideas with bad framing, and times where my vibes just didn’t work with people.  I’ve received feedback on these mistakes, and just like after bombing on stage, I am still here and fine.  I didn’t wilt away like flower that had been poisoned.  I didn’t get kicked out of Lilly.  I was just another person who had messed something up, which is a pretty big club to be part of.  Just like with performing poetry, I had to take the feedback, understand it, make a choice on how to react, and move on.

The challenge: Are you letting your fear of failure control you?  How do you respond when you fail or make a mistake?

On an unrelated note, here is a cool poem for the week.  “59” or “A Love Poem for Lonely Prime Numbers” by Henry Baker. 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Persona Poems (6-7-17)

The last entry in this series of lessons I’ve learned from performing poetry was about emotionsmithing and ensuring that we think about what emotions we want to drive with our communications before getting very specific about word choices.  This week I want us to think about stepping into the shoes of another person and persona poems. 

Most of the time when I write poetry I write it from my perspective.  It could be about a wide range of topics, but it’s usually written from the perspective of how I view the world.  Every now and then, I’ll write something called a persona poem.  A persona poem is written from the point of view of another person or thing.  Sometimes these can be comical and light hearted.  I’ve heard poems written from the point of view of Simpson characters and even from Dracula telling Stephanie Meyer how much the Twilight books sucked.  Sometimes these can be heavy and emotional for a variety of reasons like these two poems “Her Name” a poem told from the point of view of someone with Alzheimer’s by Khary “6 is 9” Jackson or this one by Sierra DeMulder.  Fair warning, Sierra’s poem is like an episode of Criminal Minds.

In these situations poets go beyond just looking at the world in unique ways, and instead try to step into the shoes of another.  They think about what experiences that person is going through and how those experiences would impact them.  They step away from their own biases and try to see something new through fresh eyes.  They go beyond the surface and find true depth.  This is hard to do.

So you’re probably wondering what this has to do with anything.  I feel there are three connections. 

  • The first connection is about us taking the time to understand each other as we form and build relationships with each other.  The older I get, the more I realize my sliver of the world is so very small, and that the people I walk by everyday see and experience things in ways that I could never dream of.  How often am I trying to see the world as they do?
  • The second connection is our ability to take on the persona of the customers we serve.  I feel that we spend our days talking about customers, but how often do we really stop and try to step into their shoes?  How often do we shake off all of our bias and view the world from their eyes?  I know I don’t do it often enough. 
  • The final connection revolves around communicating with each other regarding work stuff.  As we share information, how often do we stop and say, “I wonder how they are piecing this together in their worldview?”  My best communication stories come from when I’ve put in the time thinking through things from other people’s perspective.  It’s about taking the time to say, “If I was Bob, how would I view this information?  If I was Susie, what questions would I ask?”  Whenever I’ve taken the time to do that I’ve been exponentially more effective.

The challenge: Are you dropping your biases and viewing the world from other people’s eyes on a routine basis?

Bonus: “Haiku from an Aging Lighthouse”

My old light flickers.

My eye shuts for the last time.

Night falls and boats crash.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Emotionsmithing vs. Wordsmithing (5-24-17)

Last week was about doing dope poems.  In order to be able to perform dope poems, you have to not only choose the right words, but you have to be able to hit on the right emotions.  I’m sure you’ve all heard the term wordsmithing, where you are focused on finding the right words for a given communication.  This week I want to challenge us to do more emotionsmithing (New word in the dictionary of Andrew).

A wordsmith is an expert in the use of words (Dictionary app).  Wordsmithing is the action of editing a document and trying to find the perfect word for a specific situation.  An emotionsmith is an expert with the ability to leverage emotions in order to get people to think, feel, or do something (Andrew dictionary).  Where a wordsmith would ask, “Is this the word we want?” an emotionsmith would ask,

“Does this communication drive the emotions we want to drive?”  When I write poems, I try to emotionsmith things first.  I ensure that the poem is evoking the emotions I want the audience to feel.  Only after I feel like I am clear on what emotions I’m trying to stir do I ever go back and wordsmith.  I’ve had to redo entire poems, not because the words were bad, but because the emotions weren’t right.  Likewise, I have written a lot of poems and told a lot of stories where the words weren’t particularly fancy, but the emotions were right on point.  The audience never cared that the words were basic.  The audience just cared that they felt an emotional connection. 

So what does this have to do with work?  I’m guessing we’ve all been involved in some wordsmithing where we painstakingly edit a powerpoint slide or Word document.  Now sometimes wordsmithing is important, but how often do we wordsmith and spend countless hours on something that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things?  Instead of always focusing on wordsmithing I wish we would spend more time emotionsmithing.  When you create any communication, either internally or for customers, are you clear on what emotion you’re trying to drive?

Embry example: I work in market research.  When I do readouts I don’t just think about data.  I think about the data and the story and the emotions these create.  I ask myself, how should my business partners feel about the results of this?  Should they be surprised?  Should they feel confident we are moving in the right direction?  Should they feel worried, because something is sneaking up on them?  Should they feel this is easy to implement?  Should they feel concerned, because there are significant hurdles?  I emotionsmith first, and then work on finding the right words to convey this idea.

The challenge: Are you emotionsmithing AND wordsmithing?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Just do Dope Poetry (5-17-17)

Last week was about finding your voice.  This week we will dive a little bit deeper into this this concept.  I want to share something I learned from a slam poetry mentor named Danez Smith.  His lesson is, “Just do dope poetry.”  If you want some poetry from Danez click one of these links “Principles” or “Dinosaurs in the Hood”.  (There is a little strong language at times.)

In case you didn’t know, here is how a poetry slam competition works.  Imagine someone performing poetry on stage while 5 random judges score that poem from 1 to 10.  You never know who the judges will be, what their knowledge of poetry will be like, and what personal tastes they might have.  This makes things extremely interesting, because I’ve had situations where I’ve performed the same poem in two different venues and received very different reactions.  The points aren’t the point of a poetry slam.  The point is to throw down some amazing poetry that moves the audience.

Our team was all together trying to brainstorm ideas for potential poems for Nationals and somewhere during the conversation we became obsessed with scoring.  We started saying things like, “I don’t know about doing a poem about ____, because I don’t know how it will score.”  We were limiting ourselves and ideas, when Danez steps up and says, “We’re talking a lot about scores.  We can either try to write poetry based on what we think will score well or we can make sure we perform dope poems.  It’s like teaching just to the test.  When I’ve been on teams that tried to cater to the random judges, the poetry wasn’t good, we didn’t advance, and we weren’t proud of what we put out there.  When I’ve been on teams focused on doing amazing, mind blowing stuff, then that’s when we’ve had success.”  We made a decision to just do dope poems.  We didn’t win Nationals, but we made it further than we had in years.  More importantly, everywhere I went that week I heard poets and audience members saying things like, “Did you hear that stuff from team Madison.  That was amazing!”

Now think about work and life.  I don’t know about you, but as I’ve gone through my career I’ve often felt the tension of doing things the way I think things are supposed to be done versus making sure I do my version of great work.  I get wrapped up thinking that if I don’t do X, Y, and Z like everyone else, then I’ll never be able to move anywhere in my career.  Do you ever feel this way?  How often do we spend our days trying to line up with the “test” that we think is in front of us versus doing our version of dope poems?  I recently was talking to a mentor/coach about how I could be the best market researcher I could be.  During our conversation he said something along the lines of, “You need to decide what it means and what it looks like for Andrew to be a legendary market researcher.  The way Andrew gets there will be different from the way Bob or Susie will get there.”  Essentially, he was telling me I need to perform my market research version of dope poetry.

The challenge: We can try to do things based on some invisible test or we can go be awesome, blow some minds, and let everything else sort itself out.  Are you trying to do something based on an invisible test or are you performing dope poems?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Finding my Voice (5-10-17)

This week I’d like to kick off a new series inspired by lessons I’ve learned from writing and performing poetry.  My goal each week is to share a lesson I’ve learned and also share some poetry from other people or myself, so if you have a few moments check the poetry out too.  This week is about finding your voice.   

I’m assuming that most of you know, but in case you don’t I perform spoken word poetry.  When I do this in competitions it is called slam poetry.  I’ve been doing this for years and when I lived in Wisconsin I won a few competitions and was even on a few national teams.  Since then, I’ve performed in a couple of places around Indy and done a few Lilly events.  Before you think I’m an arrogant loser for bragging, the reason I mention these things is because when I first started I was horrible.  That’s not me being humble.  I wasn’t good.

You’re probably wondering why I sucked so bad.  Part of it was skillset and learning something new.  However, the major reason is I hadn’t found my voice yet.  I hadn’t uncovered and embraced who I am at my core as a person and performer.  I was performing in Madison Wisconsin, where the majority of poets were political and very serious, so I tried to be just like them.  I tried on poems and concepts like they were masks.  It didn’t work.  The poetry wasn’t authentic.  That style just wasn’t me, it wasn’t Andrew Embry.  This resulted in crappy poetry.

This all changed with the help of a poetry mentor named Evy.  I would describe Evy as a “middle aged frumpy loving mama bear with sharp claws and nerdtastic tendencies.”  And now you’re probably like, “Dude, calling her frumpy isn’t cool!”  I’m calling her frumpy because she has an entire poem about how she is bringing frumpy back the same way Justin Timberlake brought sexy back.  That’s the kind of woman she is.  She is fiercely Evy.  When she does the “Bringing frumpy back” other people kind of wish they were frumpy on her level.  This works because she embraces herself, her voice, and her awesomeness.    On the mic she is always Evy.  Her poetry was always slightly offbeat, a little twisted, willing to go to some different places to find truth.  She had a way of pulling deep wisdom out of the most unusual places like Sesame Street, Voltron, and C-sections.  Her poetry could hit hard, it could hit softly with a nice twist.  Regardless what it was about, it was always her.  It was watching her and working with her that encouraged me to find my voice.  The moment I did that, everything changed.  Basically overnight my poetry went up a level, because it was truly MY poetry.  My happiness went up a level, and I’ve tried never to come back down again.  If you’re interested, here is a poem Evy did with Ali about love, the Road Runner, and Wile E Coyote.  Evy is the one on the left.  Click HERE.

So what does this have to do with work?  Have you found your voice?  What does it sound like?  What kind of stories does it tell?  Have you embraced your voice yet?  Much like great poetry, great people and great leadership can come in a variety of styles.  There are a lot of leaders I love, who I think are very effective, and I can’t quite do it like them.  It’s not me.  It works great for me, but me trying to copy them exactly just wouldn’t work.  I have to find and live my voice. 

If you’re wondering, I would describe my poet voice as real, unfiltered storyteller, truth, filled with so much energy it’s on the verge of exploding like a star, clever, playful, sometimes piercing, and appreciative of the small and unseen.  I think my work voice is something kind of like that.  If you’d have anything else you’d like to throw in to describe my voice I’d love to hear it and learn more.  Along those lines, if I can ever help you find and define your voice just let me know.

The challenge: Have you found and embraced your voice? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons Learned from being a Dad Part 7 Be Present (5-3-17)

This is going to be the last in our current series about lessons I’ve learned since becoming a dad.  We’ve talked about reinforcing “youness,” collaborating vs. competing, the value of a blanket, and finally how doing small things can make something special.  This week we are going to end with the most important lesson I’ve learned, the power of being present.

A little while ago, I went to my first ever daddy daughter dance with Alice.  Before going to the dance I took her out to eat at Dairy Queen, because she wanted ice cream for dinner.  After dinner we went to the dance, broke out some sweet dance moves, and played.  Alice was incredibly excited about the whole thing and told everyone how much fun she had.  She said that her favorite part was having time with me.  (Is your heart a puddle yet?  Mine totally melted when she said that.  The picture made my heart melt even more.  I’m biased, but look at that smile on her face plus that bald guy is gorgeous.)

Here’s the thing.  Even though we did some cool things, the best thing to her was that I was there.  I was fully present with her for the entire night.  No phone.  No distractions.  Just us.  Over my 5 years of being a dad I’ve realized that my kids want toys and things like any other normal kid, but the thing they want the most is someone to be there and present with them.  They want someone to enter their world, someone to play with, someone to give them love and attention. 

This is the part where I’m supposed to lie and say that I’m such an amazing parent that I’m always 100% present.  Not true.  I get distracted by everything pulling at me 24/7.  There’s always more work to be done, another email to answer, etc.  It’s easy to get lost in this, and in my case lose the precious time I have with my two little girls and my wife.  I don’t get this right every day, but I do try every day to do better. 

Work connection.  Similar to my kids, I think we all want people who are there and present with us.  We want colleagues, mentors, leaders, etc. who can sit down and truly be with us.  We understand that time is so valuable, and that the greatest gift someone can give us is their time and attention.  This isn’t easy though.  There are distractions at home and there are distractions in the office.  How many times have you been having a conversation with a person while they were answering emails and texts?  Sure, you might have been talking to them, but they weren’t really there.  How did that make you feel?  How many times are you the person who is doing the texting or distracted when people are talking to you?  How often are you truly 100% present?

The challenge: How can you be more present?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from being a Dad Part 6 Small Things Transform Moments (4-26-17)

Last week was about the different kinds of value a blanket can bring.  Here is one of my favorite responses to last week’s blog from one of my favorite folks here at Lilly, “Essentially being a blanket that the team needs, is a sign of great leadership.  Providing value in your role will be your baseline expectation.  Making an impact to the team will help to demonstrate the leader you’re capable of becoming.”  As you reflect on that tasty morsel we will stick with blankets this week and think about how we can turn a normal occurrence into something special by doing something small.

The picture is from Violet’s birthday.  Normally, we eat lunch at a table together, but it was Violet’s birthday and we wanted to do something a little different for lunch before her party.  She loves picnics, but it was too cold outside, so instead we decided to put down a blanket and put on her favorite cartoon and we instantly had a cartoon party picnic.  Pretty awesome right?  I can tell you wish you could have a cartoon party picnic at work. 

In the above instance we took an experience and made it even better by doing something small.  We took an old blanket, put it on the ground, and instantly transformed the living room into something more.   

How does this connect with work?  If you think about what we ultimately do, we create experiences for people.  We create experiences for the patients we serve and we also create experiences as we work with each other.  In both cases, it’s easy to think that the only way we can have an impact is through some large gesture.  Don’t get me wrong, large gestures are nice, but they aren’t always feasible or necessary.  Often, it’s the small things that can transform one thing into a much better experience. 

As you think of the patients we serve, what small things can you do to make their experience better?  Do they always need something with lots of bells and whistles?  Maybe they need something smaller and more practical.  Something as simple as going the extra step to make sure that the materials they receive are simple and easy to understand.  Maybe it’s something like the packaging or delivery device. 

As you think of working with each other, what small things can you do to make the experience better?  Maybe it’s as simple as sending a meme about being awesome vs. just sending a “great job” generic email.  Maybe it’s as simple as saying, “I saw this and it reminded me of you,” to let them know you care.  Maybe it’s just a kind word and a high five.  Maybe it’s a hand-written note (I actually keep all of the ones I receive and I even reread them when I have crappy days.  I know. Sappy.  But if you’ve ever given me a handwritten note know I’ve got more value out of it then you will ever realize.)

The challenge: Are you doing the small things that can make a big difference?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry