Coaching- Putting Effort into Giving Critical and Positive Feedback (2-6-19)

Last week was about showing yourself the same level of coaching compassion as you show others. This week’s entry is about putting in equal effort to providing positive and critical feedback to individuals.

I have two girls, Violet (5) and Alice (almost 7). As a parent I feel the majority of my job is coaching them in some way, shape, or form. When my kid does something small that’s wrong I usually respond with a quick, “Hey, are you supposed to be doing that?” When it is something more serious, I call them over to me. I crouch down to their level and look them right in the eyes as I talk with them. Then the conversation usually goes something like, “Violet, are you supposed to hit your sister with your ninja turtle sword? Why did you hit her? Why shouldn’t we hit each other? What will happen if you continue to behave in this way?” The reason why I call them over and then crouch down is because I want them to know I take them and their behavior very seriously, and you can see from the look on their faces that when I stop and do this the message usually sinks in..

I more or less do the same thing if they are exhibiting positive behavior. The small good things they do get a quick, “Good job!” and a high five. However, there are times when their positive behavior deserves more than a quick “good job!” and high five. When this occurs, I call them over, get down on their level, and talk to them. These conversations usually go like this, “Violet, I saw that you were getting frustrated, but you managed to calm down and then solve your problem. Good job being able to calm down. I know that’s incredibly hard, but look at how you were able to do it after you took time to breathe and calm down. You did so great, and I’m so proud of you. Keep it up.” Just like in the other example, slowing down, getting on their level, and having a deeper conversation helps the message sink in.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work and giving feedback. Do you give the same intention and effort into giving positive feedback that you put into giving critical feedback? In my experiences, most people don’t. In my experience, people are often apt to give critical feedback on a more regular basis and tend to have a little more thought behind it. However, when it comes to giving positive feedback it is often sparse and consists of a generic, “Good job!” Some positive feedback is better than never receiving positive feedback. However, putting a little extra time and effort into sitting down with someone and giving them more specific reasons on why something was good is more motivating and impactful than generic comments.

The challenge: Can you give the same intention and effort into giving critical and positive feedback?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Picky Eaters and Mindsets (10-3-18)

Last week was about cooking on instinct vs. following recipes. This week is about being a picky eater and mindsets.

My two girls are picky eaters. Alice (6) is growing out of it a bit, but Violet (4) is stuck in her stubborn picky ways (#punk). Here is how this plays out. We put something new in front of them. They come to the table knowing they aren’t going to like any food we put in front of them. They take a look at it and decide instantly that they don’t like it. We tell them that they haven’t even tried it, so they can’t judge it yet. They begin to poke the food with their forks and come up with reasons why they won’t like it before even tasting, so we make them try the food. Sometimes, they end up liking the meal. Sometimes, they don’t like it. It’s annoying that we go through this every time, when they could just try it without the hassle. Has anyone else out there experienced this with their kids?

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. I’d say that are three connections to be made. First, the way you experience life is often dictated by your mindset going into it. My girls enter new food situations with the mindset of, “I don’t like this,” so they often don’t like new foods. On the other hand, if they approached a new meal with, “This is going to be interesting,” then they’d be more open to trying new things and would probably enjoy them more. What mindset do you have as you approach new situations? How open is your mindset?

Another connection is that I’d argue that people are often picky “eaters”. It may not be with food, but we get stuck in our routines, our habits, our thought process, our beliefs, etc. and we convince ourselves that is the only thing we should support. This happens all the time at work, with politics, and with disagreements of any sort. How often have you shared an idea with someone and it got shut down right away, just because it wasn’t what they were used to? Now be honest with yourself. How often do you shut down other ideas without really giving them a try, because they aren’t what you are used to?

The third connection comes back to what you are comfortable “eating”. My girls love mac and cheese. That is their comfort zone. It’s not bad having mac and cheese every now and then, but if it were up to them it’s all they would eat. Eating the same stuff, especially that stuff, doesn’t give their body the variety it needs. It’s not healthy. Likewise, people become engrained in their thoughts and world views, not realizing that only consuming their worldview doesn’t give them the variety it needs. In fact, it’s unhealthy. Be honest with yourself. When was the last time you had a disagreement and tried to move beyond your comfort zone to understand the other side of the issue? How much time do you spend merely reinforcing your worldview vs. exploring worldviews held by other people?

The challenge: Are you being a “picky eater” or are you giving other “dishes” a fair taste test?

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

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 3 Bikes, Training Wheels, and Jealousy (6-27-18)

I’m back from vacation and I hope you all had a great week. Last time we talked about Alice, creative vision, and The Love Robot. This week is about bike riding and jealousy. Alice is great in a lot of different ways, but coordination is not her strong suit. She’s often anxious about riding her bike even with training wheels. A few weeks ago, her best friend began riding her bike without training wheels. When Alice saw this, she was devastated. She was angry, embarrassed, sad, and jealous. Alice kept saying things like “I’m the only one on the block who can’t ride a bike without training wheels. Everyone will think I’m stupid. Why can’t I do it? There are kids younger than me that can do it. Everyone will think I’m a baby. I’m such a loser! Everyone thinks I’m dumb!”

My wife and I tried to talk to her about this. We tried to explain that people learn things at different speeds. We talked about how everyone has strengths and weaknesses. We talked about how some people will always have it better than her and some will always have it worse than her. We talked about how she had a lot of things that made her special, but she was convinced those didn’t matter since she was unable to ride a bike without training wheels. It took a long time for Alice to get out of her emotional funk and begin to realize that jealousy wasn’t the answer and wasn’t helping. All Alice can do is try to be the best Alice she can be.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work and life. While I was in the middle of trying to talk about this with Alice, I realized that I often feel very similar. I look at people and decide that they have it “better” in some way, and I feel angry, embarrassed, sad, bitter, and jealous. Do you ever feel like this?

Here is how it often plays out in my mind.

“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I do X just like Susie? I bet if I did, I’d be better off. I’m good at Y, but nobody cares about Y.”
“Sally is so much smarter than I am. I’m an idiot.”
“Why can’t I be good enough to be in Y role like Bob? People probably look at me and say, ‘If he was any good he would already be doing ABC at this point in his career. He’s not reaching his potential.’ I’m such a failure.”
“I wish I had his life. He has a better ________ (house/car/life/situation he’s in).”

It’s easy for me to get trapped in these thought circles. It’s easy to get lost in these negative spirals that convince me I’m a loser. As I was talking Alice through her feelings and the reality of the situation I realized what I told her applies to me too. Things happen at different times for different people for different reasons. Some people will just have it better and some will have it worse. Some people are going to be more talented than I am. No matter what, I have my own strengths and things that make me special. At the end of the day, the jealousy, the pain, the bitterness doesn’t help. All I can do is try to be the best Andrew I can be.

The challenge: Are you getting lost in jealousy? How can you be the best you that you can be?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 2 Alice, Imagination, Vision, and the Love Robot (6-13-18)

Last week we kicked off a series on lessons I’ve learned from being a dad. We started with Violet, persistence, and her relentless quest for cookies. This week I want us to reflect on Alice, imagination, vision, and the creation of the Love Robot.

At my house we have an invention box. Essentially, the invention box contains stuff that could be recycled. My daughters rummage through the invention box from time to time to create things. Back in February, Alice needed to have a container for school that could hold valentines. She went over to the invention box. Most people would have seen a collection of junk. Most people would have seen an empty shoe box, caps to water bottles, leftover ribbon, and some cardboard. Alice saw those individual parts, but she also saw something greater. She saw potential. She took the time to pause and imagine until she had the vision to realize that with some paint and assembly those things could become the Love Robot. See the picture.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. The above story is about Alice having the creative vision to see and then bring to life potential. She was able to look at things in a different way and then use them to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Kids do stuff like this all the time, and the sad part is I feel that we often lose this as we get older.

Think about our work for a moment. We have so much more potential to leverage our imaginations and vision on the things we work on every day. We also have a huge opportunity to use our imagination and vision to see the best in each other, so we can build each other up to reach greatness. While we have these opportunities, we don’t always take advantage of them. I’m not sure why we lose this imaginative vision, but we do. Maybe it’s the projects we are working on. Maybe we get too busy and lose the ability to daydream. Maybe we keep looking at the problem from the same angle over and over and over again, so we miss seeing what we COULD do, if we were willing to trying something different. Maybe we get too tired from running into walls, so we give up on imagining what we COULD do, if we pushed a little harder. Maybe we look at the people around us in the same way so often that we lose sight of who they COULD be, if they only had a little nudge of support.

Here is to being more like Alice, to being able to see beauty and potential in all people and things. Here’s to having hands that make that imaginative vision a reality. The challenge: What do you see when you look at the work and the people around you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Lessons from Being a Dad Part 1 Violet, Persistence, and the Quest for Tasty Treats (6-6-18)

This week we will kick of a new series on lessons I’ve learned from being a dad. This week we will focus on persistence by looking at Violet’s quest for tasty treats.

Violet (4) is my tenacious negotiator. She doesn’t understand what the phrase “give up” means. I’ll share this story as an example. It was 7am on a Saturday and Violet asked if she could have a cookie. I told her no. That wouldn’t stop her. She climbs onto me, snuggles up as close as she can and says, “Daddy, I love you. Can I have a cookie please?” Now, grandparents would fall for this, especially my dad, because my girls have him wrapped around their fingers. However, I’ve learned to harden my heart. I tell her that we aren’t having cookies this early in the morning and she hasn’t even had breakfast. Violet then starts the negotiations, “I understand I need to eat breakfast to get strong muscles. After breakfast can I have a cookie?” I tell her no. This goes back and forth for a few minutes and then she decides to try a new tactic. She then asks, “How about some chocolate chips?” The answer is still no.

I think she’s finally given up, because she starts playing with Alice (6). They are throwing a surprise birthday party for BB-8 (Star Wars droid). All of a sudden, Violet runs up to me and says, “Daddy, there’s a problem. We’re planning a surprise birthday party for BB-8. He’s at the door now. We need a distraction, or he will come in and ruin the surprise.”

I respond with, “Really?” She shoots back, “I have a plan. Give me a cookie to give to him, so he doesn’t ruin the party.” I give her a an imaginary cookie. Without missing a beat Violet says, “Everyone knows that’s a fake cookie. That won’t work. I need a real one for the plan.” I look at her and say, “Violet, I know this game. If I give you the cookie you’re just going to eat it.” Violet says, “Yeah…” I then look at her and say, “You’re lucky I reward creativity and honesty,” and I give her part of a cookie. Violet struts away victorious. I’ll admit, she wore me down and I figure if someone is willing to work that hard to get a cookie they deserve something.

How does this connect to work? I don’t know about you, but I feel like there are barriers everywhere. There is always a road block, a kink in a process, a person saying, “No.” We hear some version of “No” so often that it becomes easy to become beaten down by this. It becomes easy to stop pressing forward. In Violet’s case, she has set her mind on getting a cookie. Once Violet sets her mind on something, she is relentless. She doesn’t accept no. Instead, she negotiates. When the initial negotiation fails, so she reassesses her tactics and tries again. She does this over and over and over again until she finally reaches her goals. I think we could learn a lot from her persistence, especially since our work is so much more noble than eating cookies.

The challenge: What do you do when you run into a barrier? Do you stop with the initial, “No,” or do you negotiate, renegotiate, search for different perspectives, look into different trade-offs, and find a way to reach your goal? (If you ever get too desperate you could throw a surprise birthday party for your imaginary friend as a diversion tactic. I hear that’s effective…)

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