Cooking Breakfast and Being Enough (10-6-21)

Last week was about the struggle with leading in uncertainty. This week is about my mom cooking breakfast and being enough.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a vacation with my family and my parents to a cabin. The cabin has its own private lake and NO cell phone reception. It was awesome. We kayaked, fished, played games, and hung out. Anyway, my mom is a cooking beast, a one woman show, and she made breakfast for us. Breakfast included: sausage gravy, biscuits, bacon, breakfast potatoes, confetti pancakes, French toast, and scrambled eggs. It all came out delicious, hot, and on time. During the meal my mom talked about how she should have brought stuff down to make cinnamon rolls or how we could have cut up potatoes to have fried potatoes. My oldest daughter jokingly told her that doing those things would be a little too much, as if my mom making all that other food on her own wasn’t too much to begin with. Every other person in that room appreciated my mom for everything she was doing, and my mom was the one wondering if she should have done more.

What does this have to do with anything? I don’t know where you are mentally right now. There is a part of me that sometimes wonders if I’m enough and what I’m doing is enough. Maybe it’s because I’m tired after 1.5 years of being in a pandemic. Maybe it’s because I’m splitting my energy between different things going on. Maybe it’s because I’m still newish to my role. With all that said, I’m learning that feeling like I’m not enough doesn’t mean it’s true. In these situations, I might just be like my mom who was blind to how awesome and appreciated she was for making a great breakfast. In times where I feel I’m not enough, I need to step out of my own head and look at the evidence around me to determine if this is true. The fact is that I’m providing for my family and my kids know I love them. My wife appreciates me for helping hold things down with her. People at work have been telling me I’m doing a pretty good job so far, even though it’s still early. COULD I do more? Maybe. It’s likely that we could all do more if we recklessly threw ourselves into it. Do I NEED to do significantly more to be enough? Probably not. At the end of the day, I am enough and what I’m doing is enough.

The challenge: Will you embrace that you are enough the way you are? Will you embrace that you are doing enough?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Embracing Uncertainty AND Having Faith in Our People (9-29-21)

Last week we looked at self-doubt, being a good dad, and leadership. We are going to build on that by reflecting on embracing uncertainty AND the faith we have in our people to get through this.

As I mentioned last week, I want to be a great dad and leader for my family. This past 1.5 years have introduced a lot of uncertainty. In fact, it feels like this uncertainty is never ending. I so desperately want to have more control in this situation. I want to be able to look at my family and say, “Here is the situation. Here’s what it means. Here’s the game plan moving forward. Run the play and everything will be perfect.” I want to be able to provide this level of strength and stability, but I can’t. There are too many variables that keep changing for me to promise any kind of certainty. The best I’ve been able to muster is, “This is hard. This is unpredictable. I believe in you, because you are strong and tough. This sucks AND you are strong enough to get through it.”

What does this have to do with anything? As a parent, I kind of felt like I was weak and failing the family because I couldn’t guarantee a vision of blue skies and good times. I felt like I might be letting them down, because I wasn’t a bastion of rainbows and positivity. Eventually, I came to realize that promising those things would be lying. While I couldn’t promise those outcomes, I could reinforce the strength I see in all of the ladies in my house. As we look to work, we find ourselves in a similar situation to the one I’m in as a dad. We are working in an unstable world, and it doesn’t look like we will have stability anytime soon. As a leader, I want to promise that everything is okay and that everything will be sunshine and clear skies. I can’t do that though. It’s not true. As a leader, it’s not your job to paint overly positive pictures of things. At the same time, as leaders we can reinforce the strength and tenacity we see in our people. As leaders we can embrace tough truths while seeing the potential to overcome. As leaders we can say, “This is hard, AND I believe we will find a way to figure this out. This is a huge challenge, AND I believe you are the person who will figure out how to move forward. This sucks, AND I know you have the strength and talents to help us get through.”

The challenge: As a leader are you embracing the uncertainty of the future AND reinforcing the strength of your people to navigate through it?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Self-Doubt, Being a Good Dad, and Leadership (9-22-21)

I’d like to kick-off a series about things I’ve struggled with over the past year. I have two hopes with this series. First, if you have struggled with any of the things I discuss, I want you to know you’re not alone. Second, I want to share some of the insights that helped me move forward. Buckle up, bringing the vulnerability and all the feels. 😉 We’ll start this series by exploring my self-doubt about being a good dad and how that connects to being a leader.

I don’t know about you, but this has been another challenging year ranging from COVID to other things. I’ve spent a lot of time questioning and worrying about whether or not I’m making the right decisions as a dad. Am I doing the right things to keep us safe? Are my decisions the right ones for my family? I’m not sure how to handle what they are going though, so how do I proceed? Am I managing my stress well enough? Am I allowing my issues to have a negative impact on my family? How do I lead us through all of these difficult things to navigate? I’m doing the best I can. Is that enough? I don’t know if I’m good enough. Have any of you experienced something like this over the last year? Even if you aren’t a parent, there’s a good chance you’ve had some of these feelings and asked some of these questions.

You might be wondering where this is going. I’ve said before that being a parent is basically the same thing as being a leader. Over the past year I’ve come to recognize and appreciate that often in parenting and leadership situations there is NOT a clear right answer. Parenting/leading is hard. There is no easy way to navigate the complexities of our situations. I’ve come to realize that we are called, as leaders or parents, to use the data to make the best decision possible, evaluate that decision, and alter course as needed. As we do this, we need to recognize there is a fine line between questioning ourselves to learn from the decisions and questioning ourselves in a way to generate self-doubt and anxiety. Last but not least, if you are a leader and you find yourself asking questions about how well you are doing and if you’re appropriately taking care of the people around you, it means you care. It means you’re trying. So let’s give ourselves and each other a little grace as we all try to do what is right.

The challenge: How will you productively wrestle with how you are leading through these times of change?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Brave and Humble Enough to Ask for Help (9-15-21)

Last week I shared a lesson I learned from Professor Skinner about curiosity, and this week I want to share another lesson Professor Skinner taught me about being humble and asking for help.

It’s another day in Professor Skinner’s class and this time she tells us that she has a problem we need to solve as a team. She hands us a collection of pieces that we are supposed to put together to form another shape. It’s like the picture. You have triangles, squares, rectangles, etc. and it’s supposed to make something bigger. The deal is that as soon as you solve the problem you are free to go. She hands out the pieces and the teams begin to feverishly work to figure this out. Minutes go by and no one has figured it out. After 20 minutes or so, Professor Skinner says something like, “You can ask for help, but you’ll lose some points.” Everyone is stubborn, refuses her offer, and continues working on their own.

Finally, my group and a couple of the other groups ask for help. When they do Professor Skinner gives them an additional piece she had been withholding. That’s right. The entire time we had been working she had been withholding a piece of the puzzle. #theultimateSkinnerflex The lesson of the day was that you need to be humble enough to ask for help. Those points we “lost” didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, because asking for help enabled us to finish. Those points symbolized whether or not we could swallow our pride and be brave enough to ask for help.

Think about work for a moment. How often are you afraid to ask for help because you are afraid you’ll be penalized in some way? In the grand scheme of things would it be better to “lose” a couple of points and perform or do it all on your own and not achieve success?

The challenge: Be humble and brave enough to ask for help.

Bonus 1: This month marks 9 years of blogs. Thanks to all of you for reading and sharing. It means a lot to me.

Bonus 2: I feel I’ve turned asking for help into a superpower. One of my mantras is that someone smarter than me has already attacked this problem, so I should learn from them first. I can’t tell you how much asking for help early and often has helped me accelerate in my learning and performance. #thehumblehustle

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Curious and Exploring (9-8-21)

Last week was about the power of yet. This week we are going to jump to my college years and a lesson about being curious and searching for more than what is in front of me.

Professor Skinner was my marketing professor at Butler and one of my favorite professors of all time. Her class was about marketing, but more importantly it’s about how the world works and how you can have success in the real world. She held a high bar and elevated you to reach it. She also had a knack for teaching important lessons in simple and powerful ways. When I took her class she would often assign us articles to read as homework and then we would have a short quiz about the article during the next class. I had read the article and was taking the quiz when I realize there is a question about something I don’t remember seeing. This confused me, because I have a pretty good memory. I turn in the quiz to her and say something like, “That one question was tough. I didn’t remember reading anything about that in the article.” She smiles and says, “When you read the article it pointed you to go and learn more in one of the links The question is about that. I want you and others like you to be curious and go looking for more information.” I leave the class and I’m thinking, “That’s a punk move, Skinner!” but then I calm down and realize the genius of the lesson. We need to be curious enough to search for things and explore what’s in front of us.

How does this connect to work? Our jobs are to serve others. There is no simple article on this. When you get a new project there isn’t a 1 page synopsis that tells you everything you need to know. You might start with a little bit of information, but it’s up to you to go find the rest. When I think of the best work I’ve done, it’s because I was curious enough to go the extra step. I was curious enough to go talk to the one extra person, to read the one extra piece of research, to ask the one extra question, and to click on that link on the side of the page that will give me more information. 😉

The challenge: Are you limiting yourself to what’s on the “article” or are you being curious and hunting for more information?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

The Power of Yet and Having a Growth Mindset (9-1-21)

Last week was about first grade spelling, clear expectations, and grace. This week is about the power of yet and having a growth mindset.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I asked Alice what happened at school and she told us that she learned about the power of yet. She was pretty excited about it. I had no clue what she meant, so I asked her to explain. She more or less responded like this, “Instead of saying I can’t do something, I should say that I can’t do it… yet. Instead of saying I can’t figure out the math problem, I should say I can’t figure out the math problem… yet. The power of yet means, I may not be able to do it now, BUT I can figure out how to do it in the future.”

How does this connect with life? My wife and I loved that Alice learned about the power of yet during school that day. It is a perfect example of growth mindset. It’s about being humble enough to admit where you are currently struggling, while also being confident enough to know you can figure it out. This type of mindset encourage us to challenge ourselves to grow. That growth mindset is very different than the negative and fixed mindset I find myself in sometimes.It sounds like this, “I’m not good at this. I can’t figure this out. I can’t achieve that goal. I can’t contribute value to the team. I’m not competent at this.” Do you ever find yourself thinking these things? If so, maybe we could all benefit from the power of yet.

The challenge: How are you embracing the power of yet?

Bonus Application 1: A few months ago I started working out more. I couldn’t do pull-ups. I kept telling myself, “I can’t do them…yet!” I can now do 3 or 4 at a time. #pumpedforprogress

Bonus Application 2: Just started a new role I’m super pumped, but all of a sudden the competence and expertise I felt in my last role is gone as I start this new adventure. I’m trying not to let that intimidate me. I keep telling myself, “I’m not as competent as I want to be…yet. I’m not a wizard in this role…yet.” (Yes, feeling like a wizard is what I aim for in roles 😉 The goal is to perform while making things look so easy and smooth that it has to be done by sorcery. It’s an incredible feeling if you can get there. #I’mweird #You’reawizardHarry #I’maHufflepuff)

I stand in solidarity against injustice and in support of humanity.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

First Grade Spelling, Setting Expectations, and Offering Grace (8-25-21)

Last week was about school and creating the right environment. This week is about expectations and grace. It’s inspired by Alice’s first grade teacher from public school.

Alice hasn’t ever been the best speller. My wife and I talked about this with her first grade teacher during a parent teacher conference. The teacher told us that Alice was the middle of the pack, that we shouldn’t be too alarmed, and that we could keep working with her to help her sound out words. After that, the teacher dropped this nugget. “I always tell my students that when we are writing our stories there is no such thing as perfect spelling in first grade. They are going to misspell words, and that’s okay. As long as they start a sentence with a capital letter and end it with punctuation, it’s a beautiful sentence.”

You might be wondering what that has to do with expectations and grace. With that one nugget about misspelling words and making a beautiful sentence that teacher did two things. First, she set the expectation for what was important. She was trying to teach the kids about sentence structure, more specifically about capital letters and punctuation at the end of the sentence. The misspelled words didn’t matter, as long as they did the other parts right. Second, she taught the children about grace and mistakes. She told the kids that they were going to mess up and that was okay. Can you imagine the burden she took off the children’s shoulders when she gave them permission to not be perfect?

Overall, what the teacher did was great leadership. Reflect on your own leadership for a moment. How often do you communicate a clear vision about what is important and what we need to focus on (capital letters and punctuation)? How often do you give people grace to make mistakes along the way (it’s okay to misspell words)? I know I could do better in these areas.

The challenge: Can you set clear expectations while also extending grace?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Intentional about Creating Classrooms, Environments, and Cultures (8-18-21)

Since school is starting, this week we will kick off a series inspired by lessons we can learn from school. We will begin by reflecting on decorating a classroom, creating environments, and building cultures.

This is our second year homeschooling our girls. After we made the decision last year, my wife turned our playroom into a classroom. Each year, the classroom has a theme that the girls choose. Last year, the theme was big cats. This year the theme is space. My wife’s goal with decorating is to create an environment that feels fun, engaging, and makes the girls feel like they have ownership in the classroom. She takes great care in buying decorations, working with the kids to do paintings, and adding in other little touches to bring the theme to life. She even gets themed tshirts for the entire family every year, so the girls feel part of something larger than themselves. As a result, the girls love and are proud of their classroom, and it becomes a welcoming space for them to do school every day.

Let’s think about how this connects to work. My wife understands that building the right environment for the girls will lead them to being more excited and curious about learning new things. While her physical environment is a classroom, what she is really doing is using a theme to create a culture of learning. She is intentional with every decoration, every schedule she creates, every rule in the classroom, and every system for rewards to create a place where learning is encouraged and fun. While we may not all teach in classrooms, we are all individuals who participate in and add to the environments and culture around us. Similar to my wife, the environment and culture we create will influence the vibes and behaviors of the people around us. If we want to create a positive environment and culture, we need to be INTENTIONAL about what we are doing.

The challenge: What kind of environment do you want to create? How are you being INTENTIONAL about building environment and culture?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Sharpening Your Tools to Improve Your Craft (8-11-21)

Happy Wednesday,

This is the last in the series about mastering your craft. This week is about sharpening your tools and your skills.

One of the most important tools a chef can have is a great set of knives. The sharp blades lead to better slicing and dicing, and the sharper the blade the more precise a chef can cut with them. This precision leads to making a better meal. Over time, knives will eventually become dull as they are used over and over and over again. When this happens, a chef will take the time to sharpen them. Doing so restores the blade and its edge, helping the tool become a better asset to the chef using it.

What does this have to do with anything? In our crafts we don’t necessarily use knives, but we do leverage various skills, frameworks, and tools. How do you go about sharpening them? I primarily rely on feedback and reflection. First, I rely on feedback about my performance on a given task that helps me understand where I wasn’t as crisp as I wanted to be. This helps identify those areas I need to go back and work on. Second, I spend a lot of time reflecting. I reflect on books I’m reading, podcasts I’ve listened to, major projects I’m working on, and the small day to day stuff that sticks out to me. I reflect to initially capture lessons, and then I go back and revisit those lessons to continue to glean new insights. I especially do this whenever I’m doing a task I’ve done before. For example, when I do customer planning I’ll go back and look at my previous reflections on customer planning over the year to identify learnings to carry forward and watchouts to avoid. Doing this keeps me sharp, and helps me slice through things like a hot knife through butter (oh snap!)

The challenge: How will you sharpen your skills, frameworks, and tools?

I stand in solidarity against injustice and in support of humanity.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Your Craft and Having the Right Tools (8-4-21)

Last week was about focusing on one thing to improve your craft. This week we will build on that by reflecting on the tools we use in our craft.

Have you ever been over to someone’s house who really enjoys the craft of cooking? I’m not one of those people. I’m an okay cook, but I don’t have a desire to be great at it. One thing I’ve always noticed about people who enjoy the craft of cooking is that they have better tools than I do. Tools could mean pots, pans, and utensils. Tools could mean a better grill or smoker with better fuel. Tools could even mean higher quality of ingredients than I would normally think of purchasing. If I would ever hope to get to their level, not only would I have to practice more, but I would need to invest in better tools.

You might be wondering where this is going. Last week we reflected on being intentional about focusing on the right thing to improve. One of the aspects of getting better is making sure we are investing in the right tools, because having the right tools can make a big difference. For example, about a year ago I was doing some marketing planning for a brand and trying to figure out how to adjust approaches due to COVID and everything else going in the world. I had no idea how to go about thinking about this until a colleague introduced me to a framework. She has a background in futurist thinking, and since we were thinking about the future she introduced me to some tools that she learned in her training. Now that I had better tools, I was better equipped to attack the problem. This futurist thinking is now something I have in my toolbelt to help me with my craft of moving people. The challenge: What tools and frameworks are you picking up to help you master your craft?

Bonus- Below is a collection of frameworks/tools/questions I’ve picked up over the years that has taken my game to the next level.

Playing to Win– Book about key questions to leverage to think strategically
Radical Candor– Book about giving feedback.
Six Thinking Hats– A book about how to execute PRODUCTIVE team brainstorming.
Atomic Habits– One of the few things about habits that have helped things stick.
Secret Structure of Great Talks– A TED talk about the structure of communication. Helps me shape stories.
Flipboard- It’s an app that curates articles based on your personal preferences. I like to spend a few minutes on this each day seeing if I can find anything cool.
Karen Wurster’s Prioritization Grid- I initially used this to prioritize market research work, but have expanded and adapted it to prioritize any project. Check out this link.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry