Parenting, Cleaning, and Adapting as a Leader (2-12-25)

Be stubborn about your goals and flexible about your methods. | Life ... This week we are going to kick off a series about lessons I’ve learned from being a dad. This week is about parenting, cleaning the house, and being flexible and adaptable when leading others.

When I was a kid and would help my family clean the house it would look like this. My mom would blast music (usually Prince, Rod Stewart or Alanis Morisette). With the music blaring we would all start jumping in and helping with little direction. When I initially tried this approach with my own kids, it didn’t go so well. In case I’ve never mentioned it, we have some neurodivergence in my house, so cleaning the way I did as a kid is EXTREMELY overwhelming for my kids. The loud music is overstimulating and the lack of clarity on what needs to be done is anxiety inducing. Trying to clean this way would result in everyone being overstimulated, grumpy, and the house not getting clean. #failure

After failing a few times, I needed to reevaluate the situation. At the end of the day, my goals are to get the house clean and to help my kids become more self-sufficient. I’ve learned to be flexible in HOW I achieve those goals. When I clean with my kids, we don’t play music to avoid overstimulation. Also, I create a list of the tasks and add some gamification, so there is clear direction. We don’t clean the house. We save Hyrule! (a nod to The Legend of Zelda video game series) My list might look like, “Beat the Water Temple aka Clean the Bathrooms for 50 points,” or “Straighten up Goron City aka The Kitchen for 20 points.” My kids then methodically work through the list, accomplishing tasks, and checking stuff off until the house is clean. It’s very different from the way I grew up cleaning, but it is still very effective.

Where exactly is this going? As a leader, it’s your job to enable the other people around you to be successful. Often, this means being strict about the goal, but being flexible in HOW to achieve that goal. Did my kids have to clean like I did in order to be successful? No. We found a way that works for them and enabled their success. Think about work. How often has a leader more or less forced you to do something their way, even though it wasn’t the only path to success? What were the consequences of that? When I’ve had those experiences, I’ve often felt disengaged and often saw how more value could have been provided if the leader would have just been a little more open to thinking differently.

The challenge: As a leader are you being adaptable and flexible enough to enable others to be successful?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Patio Furniture and NOT Overly Complicating Solutions (5-22-24)

Last week was about patio furniture and establishing decision criteria. This week is about patio furniture and not overly complicating solutions.

Especially in the spring and summer, my back patio becomes one of my favorite workspaces. As a result, when my wife and I first started talking about buying patio furniture she was concerned with us being able to buy something in the perfect set up to make it a great workspace. For example, it would need to be large enough to fit my laptop, keyboard, and mouse. Things would also need to be at the right height, so I wasn’t always staring down at a low screen. This was on top of the criteria that we had already decided was critical. I told my wife to ignore those things, and to stick to our key criteria because I would find a way to make it work. Check out the picture for my solution. #ergofriendly

You might wonder where this is going. I could have spent a lot of time, effort, and energy trying to find the perfect and elegant solution to set up my patio workspace. However, I embraced that I didn’t need perfection. I just needed something that worked. I found a cardboard box, flipped it on its side, and then added my laptop stand I have. My keyboard rests on my lap, and my mouse sits on the folio beside me on the couch. The box does the job, is easy to transport, and takes 1 second to set up. I use this cardboard box ALL THE TIME. It’s not pretty, but it solves my problem.

Now think about work for a minute. Have you ever overengineered a customer solution or a project deliverable? I know that I have. I’ve built things packed to the brim with features and benefits, when really the team just needed a “simple cardboard box”. Then, I would realize how much time and effort I wasted. Has that ever happened to you? As I’m further along in my career, I try to do a better job of understanding what the true need is and how to meet that need in the simplest way possible. By getting comfortable with the fact that most of the time I just need to deliver a “simple cardboard box” I can create the headspace and the time for when I need to deliver something with more features and benefits.

The challenge: How will you ensure you are not overly complicating the solutions you build and the outputs you deliver?

You get 278 bonus points if you read the message in the photo 😉

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Patio Furniture, Making Decisions, and Establishing Requirements (5-15-24)

Last week was about patio furniture and designing spaces to drive behaviors. This week is about patio furniture, making decisions, and establishing requirements.

Before purchasing the new patio furniture, my wife, kids, and I had a few conversations about what we wanted out of the furniture. We had talked about A LOT of different things. It began to feel a little overwhelming. Then, I sat down with my wife and we whiteboarded requirements. I’m dead serious. Few things are better than whiteboarding with a loved one 😉 We listed what were requirements vs nice to haves. The initial list of requirements was too long, so we ended up narrowing it down to 3-4 things that we absolutely needed to have. This level of clarity made the buying decision less overwhelming and so much easier. Now, we could look at all the options and say, “Out of all of them only X number meet our 3-4 requirements. If those meet our requirements there is no longer a wrong choice. Let’s just pick one and go.”

What does this have to do with anything? It’s easy for major projects or big decisions to feel daunting. It’s easy to become paralyzed by all the pressure that comes with these. I believe that most of the time when big projects or decisions are daunting, it’s because we are not clear enough on what success looks like. If we can clearly articulate the 3-4 things that would make us choose one option over another or if we can outline the 3-4 things that will make a project successful, then it’s so much easier to deliver.

The challenge- Have you identified the success requirements?

Bonus real world application– The other day I was talking to someone about skill development. They listed off about 10-15 topics that they could focus on. It was A LOT. They asked me which ones I thought we should invest in. Instead, I asked, “What is are the 2-3 things that these people need to be able to do.” They responded, “They need to be able to do X, Y, and Z.” My next question was, “Can they already do X, Y, and Z?” The person replied, “They can already more or less do Y and Z. X is the biggest gap.” This gave us clarity on our requirements. We didn’t need to tackle everything. We needed to create interventions that would drive the knowledge and enhance the skills, so people could do X. All of a sudden an overwhelming list of 10-15 things, turned into a much more manageable 3-4 things to do.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Patio Furniture and Designing Spaces (5-8-24)

This week we are going to start a series inspired by patio furniture. We will begin by thinking about patio furniture and designing spaces.

Back in March, my wife and I started talking about getting some different patio furniture. At the time we had this large and super heavy hexagon shaped table made of wood with built in benches. It had managed to make it through quite a few years, but now the wood was warping, and the table was starting to fall apart. While the table was super durable, it wasn’t exactly comfortable and inviting. My wife and I wanted a space where we would all hang out and enjoy reading books, playing games, or just chilling. We kept this in mind as we went furniture shopping and focused on things that felt cozy and comfy. We set up the new furniture in early April, and we’ve already spent more time outside on that furniture than we did all last year on the old wooden table. (Side note-I know what you’re thinking. “Dang! I wish I could look as cool as Andrew.” Be patient folks. It took me years to get here.)

What does this have to do with anything? In the above story, my wife and I wanted to drive a specific behavior (having the family hang out together outside). We knew that we wouldn’t do this just by saying we needed to spend more time outside. Instead, we had to alter the environment to make it easier to spend time together outside.

Think about your environment. Does your environment make it easier or harder to achieve your desired behaviors? Maybe you have a personal goal to be more active, how are you designing your environment to make that easier? For me, I’ve found that if I set out my running gear the night before, then it’s so much easier to go for a run in the morning. As you think about work, how does your environment enable the right behaviors? Maybe, there are changes in the physical environment you could make. Maybe, it’s about setting up the right culture, so the desired behaviors become easier and are rewarded, while the negative behaviors are discouraged. Maybe it’s about having better meeting hygiene, where clear objectives make it easier to accomplish things.

The challenge- How will you design your environment to help you be successful?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry