Floricane LLC

Floricane's Getting A New Home

Since launching Floricane, I've been borrowing a desk from my friends at Zeigler/Dacus, a local marketing communications firm.

In June, Zeigler/Dacus is moving -- across the street -- and they've asked me to join them as an official tenant.

This summer, as you zoom down Cary Street headed downtown you'll see a small splash of orange against a soft yellow building front at 110 East Cary Street. That'll be the Floricane sign.

Take a look at the outside of 110 East Cary Street using Google Street View.

The First 10,000 Hours

I just started reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers," and only one section in have been struck by one trait Gladwell suggests is critical to success -- essentially, he notes, practice does make perfect. And timing, he adds, is everything.

In a nutshell, Gladwell says that getting in hours of practice at something -- or 10,000 hours -- appears to be the difference between being good and being great.

His new book argues that there is no such thing as a “self-made man”. Instead, the years spent intensively focused on their area of expertise place the world’s most successful people above their peers.

“What’s really interesting about this 10,000-hour rule is that it applies virtually everywhere,” Gladwell told a conference held by The New Yorker magazine. “You can’t become a chess grand master unless you spend 10,000 hours on practice.

“The tennis prodigy who starts playing at six is playing in Wimbledon at 16 or 17 [like] Boris Becker. The classical musician who starts playing the violin at four is debuting at Carnegie Hall at 15 or so.”

Gladwell’s observation makes me think about my immersion into the world of training and facilitation.

In 2000, I was primarily focused on internal communications and project management at Luck Stone Corporation, where I had been working for about four years. The organization launched a major training initiative—at least 40 hours of training a year for at least 80% of its 900 employees. That works out to a minimum of 28,800 hours of training—or 150 training days (with 24 people in an eight hour class).

We had a training team of two at the time, which meant that I was recruited in short order to help deliver training. In the span of three months, I delivered more than 40 days of training to hundreds of employees—which is perhaps 40 days more than I’d ever delivered in my life.

I went from nervous wreck to semi-competent in the span of three months, and spent the next several years delivering a few days of training a month.

Fast forward to 2003. Luck Stone went on another bender—the introduction of a set of core business values and a self-awareness instrument called Insights to more than 300 managers and key influencers. Smaller groups, faster pace. A team of five of us delivered five days of values training to groups of 24 employees over the span of a year—about half as many training hours (13,000 total training hours or 70 training days), but sitting atop the regular training curriculum.

The pace continued as we took pieces of that training out to employees in the field, developed an intensive leadership development program for groups of managers, and began doing one-on-one and small team coaching.

By my calculation, I’m only about 3,000 hours into a Gladwell-prescribed path toward facilitation expertise. But what a difference 3,000 hours makes.

Going Back To High School

I spent the morning with 120 seniors at Collegiate School, a private school in Henrico County. I was there to facilitate a series of conversations between the students and 10 people who are changing the way we engage in the Richmond region.

It was all part of Collegiate's Senior Seminar, which takes the students in small groups through a series of conversations and discussions about a variety of issues over the course of the year. Recently, they've been focused on the Richmond community.

I found the day to be slightly more challenging than I expected, but also refreshing.

The people joining me on the community side of the conversation represented an interesting swath of Richmond—sports, women, the environment, publishing, culture, community. Most people represented multiple perspectives.

Elaine Summerfield and Brenna Muller represented Hands On Greater Richmond, which partners volunteers with organizations looking for help. Tony Harris and Parker came from RVA Magazine, which is a growing force in Richmond’s cultural scene. Amanda Robinson and Kenny represented Gallery 5 and the Lucent Phoenix Community Resource Center. Angela Patton from Camp Diva and Larry Lindsey from Fire Contractors were also at the table.

We also had Paul Manning from U-TURN, which focuses on high-performance athletics, faith and kids, and Jon Davidow from the Back Porch Initiative, which is a catalyst for conversations about energy and environmental issues in town.

The conversation started in a large group.

The first question I asked was who were three interesting speakers they’d had visit. Someone mentioned a name, and I asked why he was so interesting. “Because he was a pompous ****,” came a reply from the room. After a few more questions, it was revealed that the speaker came across as self-important, and spoke down to the students.

Then I had the students form groups of 4-6 and briefly discuss a couple of questions—What have you learned about the Richmond region during seminar that is important? What do we need to do to make the day meaningful and interesting for them? What do we need to know about Collegiate or about them as a group that we might not know.

The last question elicited some great responses, which boiled down into one important message: Don’t put us into whatever box you carry around labeled “Collegiate.” Treat us like individuals, and look at us as human beings.

It made me wonder what sort of baggage we give students when we put them into boxes, and define them as something other than individual people.

The rest of the day involved small groups of students spending some time with each of the community guests. Essentially, each student got to hear from two community guests.

At the end of the session, all of the faculty in the room said that the energy and interaction with the students was the highest they’d seen in the seminars. Funny what happens when you lead with questions, and let the people in the room own some of it.

What If Our Bottom Line Was People?

My partnership with the Greater Richmond Chamber on the Next Steps Program for displaced workers in the Richmond region came to a close just over a week ago, although I've had lunches, phone conversations and email exchanges since then with many of the 40+ participants.

The program was designed out of a hallway chat that I had with Stephanie Kirksey, vice president for programs at the Chamber, way back in November.

It started, as most good initiatives do, with the belief that people -- people with purpose, and whose lives had purpose -- were among the region's greatest asset.

“I think the Chamber needs to be at the front of this unemployment wave,” Stephanie told me. “But I’m not sure we should replicate what other organizations are already offering.”

Within five minutes, we had a kernel of a program—one that would offer recently unemployed workers two things, a place to hit the pause button and reflect more intentionally on their “next steps” and a weekly community gathering to kick off their week. My own sense—having been recently let go by my own employer—was that it was second-nature for suddenly unemployed people to throw their resumes like spaghetti around town; to chase the same path they just left; and to wake up on Monday morning wondering what in the hell they were going to do all week.

Stephanie pitched it to the Chamber leadership. It became a pilot program in late December with Stephanie, the Chamber’s workforce champion, Rod Bradham, and myself at the helm.

The long and the short of it is that we spent five weeks (we gained an extra week thanks to a snowstorm) connecting with people who were all over the map in terms of what they needed and wanted from the program. Several had spouses who were unemployed. Some were challenged (in spite of legal protections) by their age—specifically, they were older. Some were utterly ready to dig deep and assess where their lives were pointed. Others just needed to pay their mortgage.

We did our best to help everyone take a next step or two.

In the process, we partnered with some astounding people—life coach Eleanor Rouse; web developer and social media guru Rick Whittington; three “experts” on making career changes, The Hodges Partnership’s Josh Dare, Stephanie’s developer-turned-pilot husband John, and former Circuit City exec Neal Lappe.

We tried, not entirely successfully, to balance between guiding people to a place of better awareness and providing very practical resources. And in the end, we received great feedback—ideas on how to improve the program, if it goes forward, and ideas on things participants would not want to change.

I learned a few things myself.

This four week program was one of my first facilitation forays outside of Luck Stone, and a sharp reminder that facilitating groups of strangers that are not a community or a work group or a team is going to require a new level of engagement on my part. It reminded me the importance of pace—of providing space for people to connect, to reflect, to share, to create community, and to do all of that even at the expense of content.

I learned—a little better—how to balance the tension between the head and the heart. Both mine and the participants.

It cost the Chamber time and space to offer this program to 40 or so unemployed workers in a region that has lost more than 10,000 jobs in the past year. To offer it again would cost a few hundreds of dollars. To scale it and move 1,000 people through it would set someone back about $40 per participant—or $10 a week per person.

There are two ways to decide whether or not to offer subsequent Next Steps sessions. One involves looking at the bottom line. Another involves looking at the lives that we touched.

Here are a few pieces of feedback that touched me, and reminded me why I want to do my best work with Floricane:

The weekly class provided my with motivation for the week.

I think you have put together a great program that cannot be measured in just number of people who have obtained full time employment.

I think it was a fantastic experience and hope the program was as successful for others as it was for me.

I wanted to send a personal “Thank You” to both of you for doing such a wonderful job with the pilot “Next Steps” program.  It was obvious that both of you spent a great deal of time working on content and the presentation was outstanding.  Well done!

It was a great thing you all envisioned and rolled out. I think you provided a huge service to many even much better than the very expensive outplacement service orgs. The tools that were provided were very thought provoking and I am still working to reprioritize what I value you with where I spend the majority of my time so thanks for that.

I’m not sure there’s any better work organizations can do than to touch people’s lives, to give them hope, and to help them discover their best direction.

How To Have A Conversation: Just Do It

I continue to be simultaneously impressed by the scale and quality of some public conversations in the Richmond region -- a Downtown Plan discussion that lasts 18 months, or the continued energy of the Times-Dispatch's Public Square events -- and dismayed by the conventional wisdom that keeps other such conversations from even hitting the public sphere.

By my count, there are at least a dozen major organizations engaged in some form of pondering, organizing or recuperating from some civic engagement activity -- a charrette, a visioning process, public discussions about big issues or ideas. Few of them seem to ever go anywhere.

This winter, frustrated by conversation after conversation with people whose jobs are to engage the public around civic matters, I sat across the table from one group of leaders and asked quite frankly, "Would one of you host a damned dinner party and invite the rest so that we can have one conversation about the Richmond region's future?"

After some interesting discussion, one of them turned back to me and said, "Why don't you do it?"

His rationale was that there are too many conferences, summits, visioning sessions and reports organized by the usual suspects—the same group of corporate and political leaders. “Wouldn’t it speak volumes if you, as a citizen of the region, simply invited a bunch of people together to talk about the future?” he added.

I told him that I was trying to start a business, not another nonprofit organization.

Two weeks ago, I hosted almost 150 people at a business launch party. The energy was high, and positive. Someone joked that I should hold launch parties every month—just so people could catch up with each other.

Last week, I got an email from a national organization called Conversaton Cafe, which organizes community conversations around the country. They invited me to organize a community conversation in Richmond as part of National Conversation Cafe Week, which kicks off March 23. Nothing like advance notice, I thought.

Well, two plus two tends to equal something other than four these days, and the next thing I knew I was scheduling space for two community conversations under the working title of “A Grassroots Conversation About Richmond’s Possibilities.”

The conversations are free and open to the public. Both are limited to 50 people each because of space constraints.

One conversation will happen the morning of March 25 in Innsbrook. (Details and registration here.)

The second will take place the evening of March 26 at the University of Richmond’s new downtown building. (Details and registration here.)

I can look at this convergence in one of two ways—as yet another conversation happening in a vacuum, or as a different conversation altogether.

I suppose it will all depend on how I facilitate. And who shows up.

Welcome To Our Newest Client -- The James House

One of the first emails I received after leaving Luck Stone -- and in the midst of pondering my next steps -- was a lead on a year-long capacity building "Request for Qualifications" bid issued by a non-profit in the Hopewell area.

The James House describes itself as being "the only accredited program helping people who have been affected by sexual and domestic violence in the Tri-Cities area—including the communities of Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Surry, Enon, and Matoaca, Virginia, as well as the soldiers and their families in Fort Lee." It's CEO, Chana Ramsey, has been a driving force in its success over the years and it is ready to take another step toward securing its future of serving one of Central Virginia's growing corners.

I didn't know what an RFQ was in November. I learned a lot over the past four months. This afternoon, I received word that The James House has awarded Floricane the contract to support it's future development.

Exciting news, right? From a lot of perspectives.

First off, the work itself. Nikole, my wife, spent a large swath of her professional career working in service to organizations focused on stopping sexual and domestic violence, and many of our friends work for nonprofits and governmental agencies doing this work. During my organizational development training at Georgetown, I partnered with a classmate to do work for Quin Rivers/Project Hope, which does similar work east of Richmond. My intention with Floricane has been to create space where the work we do enhances the health and civic fabric of our communities—business, nonprofit, cultural, social.

But I’m equally excited that I get to partner with two hugely talented individuals, who have agreed to sign onto the project. Anne Chamberlain is an executive coach and OD guru; I met Anne at Luck Stone, where she did some amazing work as a consultant for our human resource and information technology teams. She also helped Nikole make her own career transition several years ago. Kristen Kaplan is one of the founding partners behind what is now known as Hands On Greater Richmond, and has recently stepped out on her own—bringing her expertise in project management, nonprofit organizations and strategy to the broader world. Anne will be providing coaching support for the project, and Kristen and I intend to partner closely through the whole effort.

We’ll get started in earnest in early April with the Discovery phase of this project—meeting individually with board members, staff, community partners and hopefully some clients served by The James House.

In the meantime, I’m pleased to introduce the Floricane community to our newest partner, The James House.

Blog 16 Steps in the Business Launch Process

A friend emailed me last night. Here was our exchange:

She wrote: Here’s a question that I think I know the answer to… Did you do a business plan? And how did you know the steps to start your business?

I replied: I thought about it. Then I guessed as I moved forward.

And she asked: Where did you start?

It was a good question, and one I hadn't thought about until last night. Below is my 16-point reply to her very pertinent question.

My patented multi-step process:

  1. Got laid off.

  2. Spent a week interviewing for jobs. Determined I would lose significant ground—dollars and experience.

  3. Decided to start my own company.

  4. Convinced myself the market needed exactly what I offered.

  5. Went to the Chamber Small Business workshop and realized I already knew what they were telling me.

  6. Decided not to waste my time with a business plan, but to just start building.

  7. Found a really good accountant.

  8. Came up with a name.

  9. Had a designer create a logo/identity.

  10. Had a developer start work on a website.

  11. Networked my ass off and talked to hundreds of really smart people—to learn, to think out loud with, to frame and reframe my business concept, to feel better about my
incomeless time.

  12. Got a piece of paid work. Felt even better about myself. Until I realized I was essentially going to earn 4% in two months over the first two months of the previous year.

  13. Took three pro bono jobs because I realized I needed to exercise my muscles, mess up in front of audiences that weren’t Luck Stone, and learn by staying engaged not by thinking about staying engaged.

  14. Decided to throw a huge party and spend 40% of my business bank roll to create a gigantic networking/thank you space.

  15. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  16. Now moving into aggressive business development/sales mode.

Reviewing my list this morning, it seems like a pretty solid approach. Of course, if you’re my banker, you’re probably a little worried now.

The Right People Are in the Room

In about five hours, I will be welcoming more than 200 close friends, business colleagues and supporters to a launch party for Floricane.

I'm starting to get nervous.

Right off the bat this morning, I received emails from about a half dozen of my favorite people indicating that they were not going to be able to attend tonight for a variety of reasons. I spent about 30 minutes gnashing my teeth and questioning even throwing a party for a new business that has barely generated any revenue. I began to doubt myself, and in the process all of the other people who were going to attend.

And then I stopped.

I looked at the list of people who were attending—my wife and our daughter, my mother, people I’ve known all of my life and people I’ve only met once. I considered the vastness of my network and its links to the local weblog community, to the business and educational and nonprofit communities, to the arts and cultural spokes of Richmond.

I thought about a graphic facilitator I know and respect. Adore is probably not too strong of a word—for her skill, and perspective and openness. Gretchen once told me that whenever she pulled people together, she always reminded herself to focus on who was there—not on who was absent. “If you trust that the right people are in the room, you’ll do good work,” she said. “If you worry about who isn’t there, you’ll be less useful to those who are.”

And then I thought about the conversation Nikole and I had the Thursday before our wedding in the spring of 2005. We were having dinner, and I think she got a little nervous when I started the conversation with, “There are a few things we need to talk about.”

I shared with Nikole how nervous I was about the weekend, and how important it was for me to “show up” as genuinely, honestly and in-the-moment as possible. I asked for her support with three very specific things.

First, I said, it is very easy for me to worry about what isn’t happening or what is happening next. I could spend the entire weekend worrying about whether the caterer remembered to bring extra silverware, or that the flowers aren’t centered on the tables. Help me stay in-the-moment, to stay present with you as we go through the weekend together, I asked her.

Second, I said, it will be second nature for me to focus on what other people need and concern myself with making sure everyone is having a good time. I want people to enjoy themselves, and I trust that they will. This weekend, I said, it is important to me that I am focused on you, and on me, and on us. We are what matters.

Third, I told her, it is hard for me to accept that several hundred people are coming together for us, to celebrate us and our love and our marriage. It’s hard for me to accept love from others, and I usually spend my time dismissing it, or deflecting it, or reminding them how important they are. Help me this weekend simply accept the love and care and joy that everyone wants to give us, and to accept it without question or doubt.

We talked about what each of the three requests really meant, and how Nikole could help me stay attentive to my intentions for the weekend, and how we’d keep our connection to each other strong through our entire weekend celebration. Our focus was on the relationship, the emotion and the connection. It was a wonderful weekend.

That’s how I shifted my thinking about tonight.

It’s going to be a wonderful celebration—because the right people will be in the room, and because the focus will be on the relationships, the emotions and the connections. See you at 5:30.

Removing "How" from the Future

One of my favorite books focused on organizing ourselves in communities of people focused on future possibilities is "The Answer to How Is Yes" by Peter Block. Peter is a community organizer and one of the experts in the field of organizational development. I stumbled upon "The Answer to How Is Yes" a couple of years ago while working for an organization with strong engineering DNA, an organization that might sometimes be inclined to author its own book, "The Answer to How Is Stored in AutoCAD."

Peter's notion is that how is an important way to begin some important questions, but when we start our inquiry with those questions we doom ourselves to recreate the past.

How? is most urgent whenever we look for a change, whenever we pursue a dream, a vision, or determine that the future needs to be different from the past. By invoking a How? question, we define the debate about the changes we have in mind and thereby create a set of boundaries on how we approach a task. This, in turn, influences how we approach the future and determines the kind of institutions we create and inhabit. I want to first identify six questions that are always reasonable, but when asked too soon and taken too literally may actually postpone the future and keep us encased in our present way of thinking.

The six questions that Peter suggests we set aside are: How do you do it? How long will it take? How much does it cost? How do you get those people to change? How do we measure it? How have other people done it successfully?

When my former organization—with its heavy engineering culture—began to respool its DNA and recreate itself as an organization built around a new set of core values, one of the first stakes it put in the ground was a desire to be “the model of a values-driven enterprise.”

Not a model. The model.

It made the engineers (both the actual engineers, as well as the engineer portions of everyone else’s brain) nervous. So, we did what you do when the engineers get nervous. We set up a task force to define how we would know when we were “the model.”

The group came back and said that it had looked at different ways of measuring what a values-driven organization might be. And it had looked at metrics and scorecards and assessments. And, the group concluded, being the model of a values-based company was hard to measure.

But they handed the organization a set of three measurement tools that stood the culture in good stead for more than five years:

• When we are supporting the success of others.
• When we are enhancing, repairing or building relationships.
• When we are using our core values to make business decisions.

All in all, easy stuff. If you’re willing to stop asking yourself how you’re going to measure your work and start leading with your heart.

It begins, as most good work does, in the questions you choose to ask.