Floricane LLC

Voiceless, and Paying A Different Attention

Those of you who know me will have some appreciation (or apprehension) of this little tidbit: I have been silent for more than 24 hours.

My throat ache began on Friday, and our family spent much of the weekend feeling varying degrees of feverish, miserable and fine. Thea mostly felt fine, which is exactly how you want your high-energy toddler to feel when the rest of the family is under the weather.

Tuesday morning, I had a series of highly talkative meetings. I knew going into my first meeting that I was going to lose my voice. I could feel it.

By the time I got to my last meeting of the day, I was flagging. My voice was breaking, kicking in and out.

This morning, I went to the doctor. Her orders: No talking, no whispering. Indefinitely. Apparently, I'll be able to tell when it's time to talk again -- which is interesting, because it took me 40 years to learn when to shut up.

But the lesson is this: Silence, even medically imposed silence, changes communication.

I don't think I'm listening differently, but I have been paying a lot more attention -- to people around me, to different ways I can connect and communicate without my voice.

Nikole left me alone with Thea for an hour this evening while she ran errands. I admittedly couldn't avoid speaking, even in strained whispers, but for most of that hour we played together quietly.

There was more, or more of a different, connection.

What if we all practiced periods of disconnection from our sense, forcing ourselves intentionally into spaces where we have to pay different attention?

Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws sure will be interesting.

Thankful for Something of My Own

During the season finale of "Mad Men," Don Draper blurted out, "I want to build something of my own. How do you not understand that?" By the end of the show, Don and a small crew from the ad firm had jumped ship and started a new firm.

That's not exactly how things went down last November, but a year ago this month wheels were set into motion that churned slowly and certainly into something called Floricane.

Oddly enough, the last thing that crossed my mind when I walked out of Luck Stone Corporation last November was starting my own business.

And, yet, here I am.

A year ago, I'm not sure I would have understood Don. Today, I do.

I've spent the better part of a year doing something I love -- building something of my own. But I didn't do it alone.

No, the pretty stellar thing about this past year has been -- quite simply -- how much of a case study in collaboration it has become.

I think that's the real beauty of venturing into new territory -- the very real possibility that you might discover something much more amazing than you originally anticipated.

I knew I would have fun building a business. I didn't realize how much fun it would be.

I knew I would learn a lot along the way. I didn't quite get how much there was to learn (and remains to be learned).

I suspected that there would be challenges. I didn't anticipate how difficult some of them would be to overcome.

I anticipated that I would meet new people. How could I ever have foreseen the number of new friends I would make?

Entering a busy Thanksgiving weekend -- one with more than a few hours set aside for business -- I am most thankful to have had this opportunity to build "something of my own" and for the help of so many phenomenal people along the way. Because without them, what I've managed to cobble together would be far less.

The James House Plan Approved; Lessons Learned

Last night, the board of The James House (TJH) officially approved the strategic plan we developed over the course of the past seven months.

But it's not the end of my journey with the Hopewell-based nonprofit focused on providing services to those affected by sexual or domestic violence; in fact, the hard work is yet to come.

Thanks to the forward-thinking (and generous) approach of The Cameron Foundation, which has funded my work with TJH since April, I'll spend the next year helping the board and staff of TJH implement the plan.

I could pretend that I designed and delivered the perfect strategic process for The James House, but the reality is that this was the first strategic process I have managed from start to finish. And while the board and I feel that the final strategic plan is a solid and ambitious road map for the organization, I stumbled a few times along the way, and I missed some important opportunities.

The good news is two-fold: The James House has a good plan to guide their growth over the next 2-5 years, and I learned a raft of lessons that are already helping me to implement better strategic processes for other Floricane clients.

The Plan

One of the most exciting aspects of the planning process for me was the willingness of The James House to take some time to step back and look at the big picture. The organization does important work in the human services arena and serves residents of eight cities and counties in south-central Virginia -- a region facing significant growth with the expansion of Fort Lee, and other demographic trends.

Three of the most important aspects of the plan involve the board of TJH, the organization's future development/fundraising needs, and the role of the staff in the plan's development and implementation.

The James House has been around for several decades, but it has just been in the last seven years or so that it has reached a level of service, stewardship and competency to be seen as a professional and reliable resource for individuals affected by the trauma of sexual or domestic violence. The board that helped move TJH forward in recent years has been committed to the mission, but in need of a strategic vision, clearer roles and expectations for its members, and new members. During the first six months of 2010, one of our primary strategic tasks will involve the creation of a larger board that is ready to take the lead on strategy, governance and fundraising.

But the board recognizes it can't do it alone.

Which is why we're also focusing in the near-term on funding, finding and hiring a new development director who can play an active role in supporting the board's fundraising work; strengthening relationships with key donors, businesses and community leaders across the eight service areas; and doubling up on the organization's already aggressive grant-writing efforts.

And it's why the staff has been involved in the process from the get-go. And why the staff will be partnering with the board as we work to implement key strategic outcomes.

A final, personal and and important note on the process: I didn't do it alone.

It wasn't just the staff and board of The James House who helped get this plan to the finish line.

One of the most important players in the process has been Kristen Kaplan, a Richmond-based consultant (and one of the founders of Hands On Greater Richmond). Kristen not only provided me with some much-needed guidance and confidence early on, but she provided great perspective throughout the planning process. Oh, she also pretty much single handedly research and wrote the development portion of the plan. I really would have struggled without her support and expertise.

The Lessons

Without going into great detail, the lessons I learned in this process have been significant. I'll bullet a few key learnings below:

• I don't do my best work alone. Former coworkers, pick yourselves off the floor. I get it for real now. Being a consultant is inherently lonely work. The smartest decision I made early on was to recruit smart people to partner with me where possible. I couldn't have found a better partner for this project than Kristen. In addition to everything described above, Kristen kept me accountable. And she served as an important reminder of what it feels like to work with someone I like, trust and respect.

• Pacing and scheduling are important. The smartest thing I did with The James House work was create a block of time I called the "discovery phase" of the project. It involved research, an assessment of board and staff perspectives, and one-on-one discussions with each board and staff member. But because we didn't schedule key blocks of work in advance, we lost a lot of ground when that process moved to its conclusion and we couldn't schedule the second phase. This stop/go process continued throughout the summer, and it was largely a result of my poor planning on the scheduling front.

• Research, research, research. Yes, Kristen did a ton of research. I should have done more, and I should have done it in the first month. Reading through existing documents, delving into demographic and other regional research, meeting with other external stakeholders -- all critical work that I didn't focus on soon enough. It didn't sandbag the process, but I think the plan would have been significantly better if I had spent more time on the front-end really learning the nuts-and-bolts of the organization and the communities it served.

That all said, the plan is done and implementation has started. I'll be meeting with a team from the board in a few weeks to matrix out a work plan for the strategic recommendations, and we'll get rolling.

The James House was my first long-term client under the Floricane banner, and I'm excited to continue building on a great working relationship.