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