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.

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 2 Violet- My girl and my demon (6-17-15)

Last week we started with some lessons I have learned since becoming a dad and we talked about Alice (3 year old) and Eye Patch the Octopus. This week we will talk about Violet (1 year 5 months), my angel and my demon.

I know that I am biased, but I think my daughter is one of the sweetest little girls ever. With a smile like that you can’t help but imagine that when she speaks she sounds like angel trumpets and gentle winds. You can’t help but think about how her hugs are so warm and consuming that it melts your heart and turns your legs into jello. Those things are true.

While Violet is sweet, she also has a bad sad. I call her Legion, for her tantrums are many. You can see the wild eyed craziness and almost feel the demon rushing out of her mouth to consume you in anger, pain, and misery. You can imagine that her screams make banshees shudder. Her cries are the sound the horsemen make to call in the apocalypse. Those things are also true.

I love Violet, but I’ll also tell you there are times when she is a raving lunatic that I don’t like that much. However, there are a lot of parents in my life who like to pretend that their kids aren’t ever demons. It makes me wonder, if they can’t admit that their kids (especially little toddlers) aren’t perfect, how can I trust them to understand they aren’t perfect either?

What about you? I know that Violet is a small developing human who isn’t always perfect, and I’m just a bigger developing human who isn’t always perfect. Do you know this? Are you strong enough to show this? Throughout my career I’ve worked with and around too many people who didn’t know they were human. I’ve worked with too many people who couldn’t admit their mistakes, shortcomings, or failures. When that happens you can’t have honesty. You can’t have a relationship. You can’t have love.

Here’s to my little demon and my little angel. Here’s to being strong enough to be human.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 1 Alice, Eye Patch, and Creativity (6-10-15)

Over the next few weeks, I want to share a few more lessons I have learned since becoming a dad. This week’s story is about letting your imagination run a little wild. It’s a typical Sunday morning at the Embry house. I’m playing tag with Alice (3) and Eye Patch (her stuffed pirate octopus). I get close to tagging Alice, who is carrying Eye Patch, and Alice yells, “Ink! Eye Patch is squirting ink! You can’t see us! We are getting away!” I think to myself, “She’s pretty clever. Where did she learn that an octopus can squirt ink?” I wipe the ink from my eyes and keep chasing her. There are a couple of more ink blasts and then out of nowhere Alice yells, “Honey. Eye Patch is squirting honey! Now you’re all sticky and stuck!”

Now, I’m laughing. I stop the game and say, “Eye Patch can squirt honey?” With a straight face Alice responds, “Eye Patch can squirt ink, honey, and books for you to read!” At this point I just lose it laughing. I love the imagination and creativity. I’m glad that she hasn’t been taught to limit herself, and if I do my job her imagination will continue to run wild.

What does this have to do with us? As I mentioned, Alice had these ideas, because she hasn’t been taught to limit herself yet. When we are young kids we all have pretty active imaginations, but over time the world tells us to limit ourselves until dreaming big becomes difficult. As leaders, how are we helping people unlearn these limits? What are we doing to help them dream big?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Unplugged and being Present on Vacation (6-3-15)

If you remember, last week I was on vacation with my family and in-laws. It was a total of 10 of us all together, and we had a blast. This week’s blog is about one of my favorite things about vacation. The picture on the right is the view from our cabin in the mountains of Gatlinburg, TN. It’s awesome, but not my favorite thing.

My favorite thing about vacation was actually two things that we didn’t have: cell phone reception and internet. It was nice to be able to unplug. Two things that should have been annoying were actually two of my favorite things about the entire trip, because this made everyone be present with each other. Last year, we all went on vacation to Florida and at night everyone would be on their phones or iPads absorbed in their own little world. This year we couldn’t do those things, so instead we talked and more importantly we bonded. During vacation we saw some beautiful scenery, came within a few feet of a small bear, and did all kinds of other fun things, but what will stick with me is how we bonded when we were all together in that cabin.

Being present in a connected world is not easy. Whether you are a manager riding in a car or a person at HQ having 1 on 1 meetings, are you present or are you distracted somewhere in cyberspace? Being present is one of the most powerful ways to show that you care for someone. When I am present I am giving you two of my most valuable resources, my time and my attention. When I think of my favorite people to speak with, all of them are fully present when they are with me. That time and attention makes me feel valuable, and that does wonders for me throughout the rest of my day.

My challenge for all of us is, “Are you present when you are with people or are you trapped in distracting digital webs?”

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Translating Experiences into Lessons (5-6-15)

The past few entries have been focused on translating the messages we are sending. We are going to end this series thinking about translating the experiences we are absorbing every day as a way to learn and make us better.

There is an old adage that experience is the greatest teacher. While it is true that experience is a great teacher, it’s not very efficient on its own. Just because you experience something doesn’t mean you learn anything. This is why we have to translate these experiences we have on a daily basis in order to learn and grow. When I think about translating experiences there are two areas that come to mind.

Translating failure into knowledge that can make you better.

At a recent coaching forum a colleague made a comment along the lines of “We don’t do a good job connecting failure to learnings.” This struck me like a freight train. As I mentioned a few blogs ago, there have been times where I have made the same mistake over and over again, and it wasn’t until I translated that failure into a new way of acting that I was able to grow. Sound familiar to anyone? As a leader, am I setting up the right context and helping people translate their mistakes into something that can make them better? Am I translating my own mistakes into something that helps me grow?

Are you actively translating experiences into something that makes you better?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Translating, Building Context, and Pokémon (4-29-15)

Last week we talked about the need to translate initiatives and ideas for the individuals that you are leading and influencing. This week, we will dig a little deeper into that concept by looking at how translation is difficult because everyone is always building their own context.

A few years ago I performed a poem called “Who Protects the Pocket Monsters?” The phrase “pocket monster” is kind of an English translation of the word Pokémon. Pokémon are those creatures that you catch with the pokeballs and then you make them battle each other. The poem talks about capturing Pokémon and having them fight against each other. If you want to hear the poem, take 2 minutes and listen to the attachment.

You might be wondering why I’m sharing a story about a Pokémon poem. It’s because something really interesting happened after I performed the poem. People kept coming up to me after the poem to tell what they thought the poem meant. No one had the same answer, and no one mentioned Pokémon. Some people told me the poem was about protecting endangered animals. One guy told me it was about the cruelty of the whaling industry. Some folks told me it was a poem that exposed the horrors of war. Others told me it was a social commentary about Mike Vick and dog fighting. Some talked about how the poem was about reflecting the violence we broadcast in our society. The emcee of the event actually told the crowd that he thought the poem was about people’s souls being crushed by corporate America.

The thing is that they were all right in some degree. Everyone in that room had been building context their entire lives, so when they all heard the same poem they heard different messages. In this case, the fact that they all took away different messages didn’t matter, because I just wanted them all to connect to the poem. However, imagine how bad it would have been if I would have needed the crowd to take away the same message.

This made me think of translating as a leader. One of the biggest barriers to leading and keeping people on the same page is that everyone is always creating their own context. Their context causes them to view messages in ways unique to them. For example, Sue believes that change is a good thing and Darlene thinks change is scary. These attitudes will color anything a leader says about change. The challenge then becomes not only translating the message you want to communicate, but always restating and reframing the context to keep everyone on the same page.

When you communicate how often are you building context before you have a dialogue or share your message?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Leadership Lost in Translation (4-22-15)

Espero que lo estás haciendo bien . (I hope that you’re doing well). Esta semana vamos a pensar en la traducción de los mensajes e ideas (This week we are going to think about translating messages and ideas). Depending on your comfort with Spanish, you may or may not have needed me to translate the above sentences. Without my help some of you may have missed all of it, got some of it, or completely understood it. For the record, I used the Google translator to help me this week.

This idea of translating got me thinking about the role of a leader. Similar to decoding messages, a leader must be able to translate messages and concepts to others around them. In the example above I used Spanish to English. In the work we do every day it could be any initiative such as the culture, vision, practical application of Strategic Account Management, etc. and translating those concepts into things we can apply on a daily basis. The bottom line is that if you are a leader, then you also need to be a good translator. You need to be able to translate high level concepts all the way down to a tactical level.

In a perfect world, you’d be able to type the concept into the Google translator just like I did and it would tell you exactly what you had to say and do to make the concepts resonate with your team. Too bad it doesn’t work that way. It’s not that simple. In order to be a good translator you need to put in the time and effort to internalize the message yourself and figure out how to communicate that through your words and actions. This requires more skill and focus than we ever acknowledge. Take culture as an example. As a leader I have to understand what kind of culture we are trying to drive, figure out what behaviors we need to create this culture, communicate what behaviors we need to embrace to the team, and explain why we are going in this direction. I have to do this in a way that resonates with every individual. That’s tough!

If usted no have ese esfuerzo focus y energía, entonces el message se lost en la traducción. (If you don’t have that focused effort and energy then the message is lost in translation.) Are you putting in the effort to figure things out and translate for your teams?

陽気な良い一日を過ごす, (“Have a jolly good day,” in Japanese characters),

Andrew Embry

Decoder Rings and Communication (4-15-15)

Last week we finished thoughts on self-reflection, and this week we are going to look at decoding messages. When I was younger I remember opening cereal boxes and getting cool toys. One toy was the decoder ring. You used this to crack a code that was somewhere on the cereal box. Each number corresponded to a letter, and once you set up the ring it was easy to decode the message to see what it really said.

Sometimes I wish I had a decoder ring at work. At this point I’m sure you’re probably smiling or chuckling while saying, “Yeah, we could use that decoder ring to translate all of these crazy corporate acronyms.” That’s true. However, I would want to use the decoder ring on the buzzword phrases we use to help us understand what we actually mean. For example, we could use it on phrases like, “We need to be more creative,” “We need to put the customer at the center of all we do,” “We need to make faster decisions,” etc. We say these things, but do we really understand what we are saying?

When people say they want creativity, what they usually mean is that they want the output of creativity without any of the messiness. In actuality, when you say you want creativity, what you are really saying is that you want change. You want to disrupt the normal way of doing things. You are saying that you are okay with ideas that are muddy for a while until they are finally polished and revealed to be worth something. You want to do things that make people at least a little bit uncomfortable. That is what you are saying when you say you want creativity. If you don’t want those things, then you don’t want creativity.

Similarly, if you say you want to make faster decisions, what you are actually saying is that you are okay with taking on more risk. You are okay with making mistakes. It means that you are willing to give folks more power, which comes with responsibility and accountability. It means that you are willing to invest the time, effort, and resources to ensure the right people are capable of making the right decisions. If you don’t want those things, then you don’t want to make faster decisions.

Decode what you’re saying and ask yourself if that’s what you really want.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Holding up a Mirror (4-8-15)

Last week was about sharing your reflection. This week is about holding up a mirror to help people reflect. Overall, it’s a story about a mistake I made and how someone coached me to think about why I do what I do.

Imagine that we are working together and I’m doing pretty good work. Then, one day I send you something and say, “This is rough, but give me your thoughts.” You quickly see that it is complete garbage. You ask yourself, “How could he be so far off? I’ve never seen him do stuff that is so bad.” You give me a suggestion to go in another direction. Then I come back to you with something that’s really good. You’re left wondering, “Why did he go from sending me crap to sending me something really good? How does he miss so badly and then turn around and get it right?”

Fast forward. I’m sitting down with a co-worker and asking for some feedback. She highlights a few good things and then tells me the above story. Her fear is that I might do this with other folks, and they’ll be left asking themselves the same questions. A lesser coach would have just pointed it out and told me to fix it. Instead, she holds up a mirror to me and says, “Can you help me understand why you do this?”

I think and realize that I’m not communicating my intent well. What is happening in these situations is that I’m trying to figure out which of two problems I need to address. Problem 1 is that it is a good idea, but I’m having problems executing it. Problem 2 is that the idea isn’t good, so I need to change course altogether. The way I move forward really depends on what the problem is. Our email exchange told me I was dealing with Problem 2, so I switched to a different idea and that’s why the work was better. Now she knows my thought process and why I did what I did. She says that this makes sense, but without this rationale it just looks like I missed the boat by a mile and half.

Here’s the thing. I’ve made this mistake before. I’ve made it with peers and higher up folks including VPs. If she would have just pointed this out and told me to fix it, then nothing would have changed. I would have fixed it once, but probably made the same mistake over and over again. However, since she asked the question and held the mirror up to help me reflect, I am more cognizant of what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and how I can be better in the future.

Are you holding up a mirror to help others reflect or are you just pointing everything out?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Sharing your Reflection (4-1-15)

I don’t meant to brag, but I’m at least a 9.5 on a scale from 1 to 10 when it comes to attractiveness, because of my beard, beautiful hair, and a physique so chiseled people call me David (sculpture reference, what?) Luckily, I don’t really think of myself that way. As we’ve been talking about reflecting, it’s also important to take the time to share the way you see yourself with others to make sure that other people see a lion and not a kitten like the photo on the right.

Recently I set up time and talked to someone about how I’m perceived. We talked about strengths (my beard, which is the only thing we could come up with) and my improvement areas (knowing when to flex my style and pull back a little bit, coming across as brash/obnoxious/silly, etc.) After I shared I shut my mouth, listened, and only asked questions to better understand her perspective. I learned some important nuggets that day from her.

When it came to my strengths, she agreed with what I shared, but she also talked to me about other things I do well that I just took for granted. She helped me see how these are unique things I can leverage in the future. Without her help, I wouldn’t have realized that other people were seeing these things in me and how important those things I are for my current and future success.

When it came to areas of improvement, she told me that she found me annoying when we first worked together because we clashed, there was bad communication, and we were put in a difficult situation. I almost hugged her. Yes, you read that right. I wanted to hug her, because she cared enough about me to be that honest. By the way, I agree and totally saw how I came across that way. Anyway, she also told me about something I do that I wasn’t aware of. Sometimes when I’m working with folks and I have an idea or a question that’s a little different I’ll preface things with, “Weird comment/question for you…” The people who know me laugh, and chime in with something like, “Big surprise.” However, she explained that the people who don’t know me could take this as me apologizing for being different. It gives them an opportunity to hold the uniqueness against me. Instead of making the joke, I could just go in with, “I’m looking at this from a different perspective. Here’s my thought…” I walked away from that conversation after learning a few more things about myself and reaffirming that there is another person who cares enough about me to be really honest. You can imagine how much more I think of her now.

Anyway, since I’ve shared a bit of my reflection consider this an open invitation. If you ever have feedback for me you think I should know, send it my way. On the flip side, if you ever want to share your reflection with someone and gather feedback, I’ll be happy to do that too.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Yoga, Success, and Balance (3-25-15)

This week is also about self-reflection, but is more focused on maintaining success. This week’s blog is inspired by a colleague, her love of yoga, and some conversations we have had.

The reason I said maintaining success in the above paragraph is that anyone can achieve success once in a while. The key is to maintain a level of success. One thing that gets in the way of this is that people often talk about success like it is a final destination. We talk about success and reaching the next level. We talk about it like one day we will finish climbing a mountain or achieve something and shout to the stars, “I have arrived!” Then, since we are in the land of success we will stroll in a lush valley and life will remain like this forever. The problem is that it doesn’t work like that. We don’t maintain success by just arriving.

Actually, maintaining success is like doing yoga. Have you ever done yoga? I’m not going to lie. When I first started seeing people do that stuff, I thought, “How hard can doing stretches be? Look at those people just standing still in tree pose or whatever. That’s can’t be hard.” And then I tried it and now I consider surviving the workout a major accomplishment. I soon discovered that when you do a yoga pose you are not standing still. You are not stagnant. Instead, your body is constantly recalibrating in both large and small ways. I understand that being good at yoga requires a combination of strength, flexibility, and control. The result of exercising strength, flexibility, and control is balance. Balance is not a stagnant state of being. Balance is a state of constant movement and change. Likewise, maintaining success is not a stagnant state of being. Maintaining success is about consistently making adjustments.

Take a look in the mirror. Are you consistently making those adjustments?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry