The Turnaround....

Most of my content comes from my personal life.  This post is definitely personal.  Something happened this week that caused me to really reflect on several things.  First, the background.  I have massive ADD.  When I was growing up, we were just the wild kids.  ADD was not something that was diagnosed or medicated.  I remember struggling to keep my focus and manage impulses.  This caused my first two or three years of school to be a struggle.  Then like magic, in the fourth grade, I learned how to manage the focus.  I learned how to control the impulses.  I was a straight A student from that point forward.  As an adult, I feel much of my success is based on the fact that I can see, hear, and process a ton of information.  It is the way my brain is wired.  I can have a full conversation with someone and hear two other conversations going on and still be present with the person I am talking to.  It is hard to explain.  Distractions are a part of every day life and my brain can segment out what is and is not a distraction while I am focused on a task.  In the end, I feel that ADD is a blessing.  A recent article from Inc. shares the 8 superpowersthat people with ADHD have.

This is all leading up to my son.  He also has ADD.  In the age that we are bringing him up, it is a common diagnosis and almost immediately everyone wanted to put him on medication.  My wife and I discussed this at great length.  I think to medicate is an individual decision and the results certainly vary case by case.  So if you are reading this and did decide to medicate an ADD child, this is not to call you out nor is this a post to advocate one or the other.  This was a personal decision.  Understanding the struggle, I worked with my son and tried to teach him what was happening with me and how I was able to control my focus.  

Just like me, my son struggled in school.  This year especially.  I was called in by the 5th grade teachers after the first nine weeks.  They all suggested that we take Remo to a doctor and get him medicated.  He was constantly getting into trouble and coming home with pink slips.  Again, my wife and I struggled with the decision of what to do.  I kept working with him and establishing routines so that he could learn the appropriate times for his mind to wander and times that require focus.  Then, in the middle of the second nine weeks, things just clicked in his brain.  You could see the routines get executed consistently and his confidence growing.  We started seeing less pink slips and saw his grades improving to A's and B's.

On Wednesday, I received a call from his teachers.  The end of the year celebration was happening and Remo had said he didn't want to go.  His teachers begged me to bring him to the school.  I quickly took my son to the event.  At the event, they were giving out awards for MVP student, most improved, etc.  Each teacher presented the awards to their class.  There was one award that was the only award voted by all the teachers.  They called it the "Rising Star" award that was the most prestigious to the teachers.  It described a student that they all felt in the beginning of the year was going to be the problem child.  Through the year, they watched him improve every aspect of his behavior and turn into a leader in the classroom.  They gave the award to my son.  He was absolutely beaming.  It was one of the proudest moments in our relationship.  He connected the dots of effort and sincerity to the award.  I couldn't agree more.

I wear many hats.  Entrepreneur, project manager, business owner, radio show host, and more.  The proudest hat I wear and the one that will create the greatest impact is that of father.  I lost my dad at 19 and my world has never been the same.  I cherish each day and interaction with my kids and seeing Remo accept that award created many emotions inside of me.  There is no manual that comes with your kids.  Recently when my daughter was having a rough time, I started looking through all of my books.  She asked what I was doing and I told her, "I am searching for the manual that came with you when you were born."  She said, "you don't know how to solve this?  I thought dad's knew everything!"  My daughter is 17.  I laughed and told her no, in fact I would let her in on a secret.  I have been making it up as we go along!  There is no manual and every child is different.

The blessings they bestow upon me far outweigh any of the issues that I deal with.  

No Day But Today,

Rick

Belief....

One of the most powerful weapons in the battle for growth is belief.  Belief that you can make a difference.  Belief in the success of what you are doing.  Belief in you and the process that you are following.  Belief in the team that you have.  Belief compounds and builds momentum.  The greatest way to derail an effort is to show that you do not believe it will succeed.  John Maxwell states:

Belief encourages positive anticipation....

Anticipation creates intention....

Intention crystallizes focus....

Focus finds opportunity....

Opportunity calls for action....

Action stirs up passion....

Passion encourages belief....

Believing in your vision and your dream will create the necessary focus, opportunity, action, and passion required to carry it out.  At every step of the way, our brains are wired to introduce risk and doubt.  Belief is the greatest champion to outwit these naysayers and push through.  If you followed my previous post about Sisyphus and my constant challenge to push the rock up the mountain, then you know that belief is the power behind WANT and WILL.  Doubt leaves people wanting and yearning for their dreams while belief pushes people into willing their dreams into existence.

Do you believe in you?  Do you believe in where you are going?  Do you believe in the goals of the organization that you follow?  Do you believe that what you are doing today is plotting the path for where you want to be in the future?  It all starts with belief.

No Day But Today,

Rick

Modeling the Behavior - Part 2

I did a post earlier this week about modeling the behavior that you would want to see.  It is a great way to bring positive change to corporate cultures and a cornerstone of our practice.  I was at an event earlier today and making small talk and heard something that made me want to journal right away.  I was talking with a gentleman who was telling me that he manages a group of engineers and that when one of them would get too into the weeds in explanation, he would ring a bell on his desk to signify that the conversation was over.  He was proud of this.  He said he had his staff trained like Pavlov's dog so when the bell would go off, it was meant to let them know they were driving too far into the details for him and it was time to move on to the next point.  He was sharing this a sense of pride in the conversation.

I am a huge fan of modeling and understanding DISC profiles and communication techniques.  As a project manager, communicating with each other and our teams is one of the most important aspects of success.  I could quickly tell that this person was a high "D" or dominant personality and a strong leader role.  His engineers sounded to be of the high "C" variety who wanted to be into the details.  I asked a question of him that took him completely off guard.  I asked, "So when do the engineers get to ring the bell?"  He looked at me completely perplexed.  I went on, "So if you are on a topic or too far off for the engineers liking, do they get to ring the bell to signify it is time for you to move on, or is it just a one way device?"  By the look in his face, you could tell that the question has either rarely been asked or never been asked before.  He did not like it!  I told him that I didn't mean to offend him if I did, I was just curious on how the dynamic worked.  I tried to lighten the mood by telling him that in my role as a project manager, I rarely complete the tasks, my team does.  Their contribution and happiness on the project is my largest concern.  We awkwardly left the conversation.

At the end of the event, he caught up with me outside.  He told me that nobody had ever challenged the notion that the bell ring could be offensive or that it was a one-way device.  He said that he sat and thought about it through the program and couldn't get it off of his mind.  It was not the type of leader he wanted to be.  He said that he was going to throw the bell away when he got back to his office.  "Or," I said, "you could wait until the next staff meeting and let them know that you never meant to offend anyone with it, apologize if you are comfortable with that, and then throw it away."  He said that he liked that idea better.  He asked me how I thought of that.  I told him one of my favorite stories.

I was a young manager and could feel my team slipping away from me.  I had a planned vacation and asked them that while I was away, to write down everything that they didn't like about me and I would make that part of my personal development plan.  They could either present it to me directly or give it to my boss.  They presented it to me directly.  Almost everything that was presented was a small item that I could improve upon right away.  Small items that were bothering them that I was not aware that I was doing.  I was able to immediately act upon their feedback and strengthen the bond with the team again, it just took the courage to ask.  One of my favorite all time quotes comes from Carl Jung, "Unless you make the sub-conscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate."  Most of us have to be willing to understand our blind spots in order to improve them.  We have to model the behavior and be the change that we want to see.  Instead of pointing the finger and announcing what we do not like, we must point within and model what we do like.

No Day But Today,

Rick A. Morris

Model the Behavior

One of the questions I get most often is asking about my first PMO.  We were built to deliver 60% of our projects successfully.  This incredible team delivered 99% of the projects on time and on budget.  The thing I was most proud of was how they impacted the corporate culture of the organization.  It also helped me frame one of the biggest techniques I use today, modeling behavior.

How many times have you seen suggestions or change come out of failure?  How many times have you seen requests for change come out of complaint?  Now, how many times have you seen a request for change been modeled?  In round tables, we teach that small actions lead to great change.  We didn't know this at the time, but that is exactly what can occur. 

A common framework and an activity that I am not a fan of in project management is lessons learned.  The intent is good, the execution is why I am not a fan of the activity.  Rarely does anyone learn a lesson from that meeting.  The meeting is held because it was required by the process.  Several things are listed and then gathered on a shared drive or listed somewhere.  Are people really going out and studying these lessons and enacting them to great change?  We are pulling these from complaints and using suggestions for change.  However, most organizations then just settle back in to the next project without changing anything.

Modeling behavior is about changing something small.  You make a proactive change and then monitor the result.  The process is tweaked until it is perfected.  When the results are seen, others want to be a part of that success or feel the benefit of the change and will request it.  This drives more adoption and belief in the change.  Instead of the complaint and negative top-down driven change, this becomes a positive and bottom-up driven change.  It is empowering and contagious.  So instead of complaining that something needs to change, make the change on a small scale and model the behavior you desire.  See how that works and what those results will offer.  I can tell you with many stories the difference can be a completely different corporate culture!

No Day But Today,

Rick

Don't Lose Sight of the Dream

One of the greatest things about the profession of project management is that we get to make dreams come true.  You can attend one of my sessions or the Free Webinar to hear the elevator speech that every project manager MUST know!  As I was participating in a mastermind session this weekend, I heard Paul Martinelli speaking into many entrepreneurs saying, "Many people have a dream, create a plan, and then fall in love with the plan."  I really started to ponder that in terms of project management.  How many times have you seen that happen?  

A project gets created to accomplish something.  We get together and create a plan.  Then every meeting from there forward begins to discuss the plan.  We fall in love with the PLAN!  It is all about status of the plan, completion of the tasks on the plan, and the percent complete of the plan!  Many times, the project (or dream) morphs to the constraint of the arbitrary notion of the plan.  Once the plan has been created, we have limited ourselves to a date or a budget.  However, it is the dream that is driving the results, not the plan! 

When we modify our dream, that becomes difficult because we have to adjust the plan, budget, document the scope change, etc.  It becomes a rigid process that diminishes the value of the dream itself!  Now don't get me wrong, controls are great and necessary.  What I am talking about here is for you to sit back for a moment and think through your last 5 to 10 projects.  Once the project was presented and a plan was created, did we fall in love with the plan or fall in love with the dream?

This is one of the greatest examples of displaying one of my core concepts that changed the way that I saw projects forever.  When Rob Thomsett explained that projects fail because of context, not content, it created a fresh perspective of what activities are creating value and enhancing the dream, and which activities are setup just to avoid failure or to affix blame.  That perspective shift is one of the greatest shifts a project manager can embrace.  Understanding that enabling the value of dreams far outweighs the strict adherence to our first thought or first plan.  It is being open enough to be always considering alternatives and having the flexibility to work within the constraints where progress and success can be found.

For example, we were working with a client in an industry that was new to us.  They hired us to create a specific system.  At the first release, it was clear that the system was what they asked for, however, not what was going to be what they needed.  We recognized this quickly and opened up a design and idea session with the key stakeholders.  We tested a few ideas and created mock-ups and wireframe designs with all ideas being considered.  The energy in the room was contagious.  We landed on a new design and after re-scoping the project realized that we would still be able to deliver by the date requested with only a slight modification to budget.  The result of the collaboration was a patented algorithm that revolutionized an industry.  One that would have not have been found by that team had we stuck to the plan.

This isn't a calling to throw out all plans.  Plans and controls are necessary.  The call is to not be so attached to a plan that we lose sight of the dream.  We do not want to become so attached that if the plan is failing, we attribute it to the failure of the dream!  

No Day But Today,

Rick

Every Situation is an Assignment

I just recently became a Certified Human Behavior Consultant.  In the training Dr. Rohm shared a message that just hit home with me.  He said that every situation is an assignment.  When you find yourself saying, "I can't wait for this to be over, " or, "I will be happy when this situation ends," your attitude is incorrect.  The correct attitude is to step into the situation with the understanding of "What am I supposed to learn from this assignment?"  If you are trying to get through the situation as quickly as possible, you will try to speed the situation up and you will miss the lesson.  If you go too fast, you will miss what you are supposed to learn.

Life, your Creator, or whatever you believe assigns you situations.  These are not graded assignments like in school.  They are pass and fail.  If you fail to learn from the situation, you will most likely be given the assignment again.  This is why poor behavior seems to be repeated or you may feel like you continue to attract unwanted outcomes.  It is not that you are continuing to attract bad situations, it is that you failed the previous assignment.  No matter how painful the assignment, no matter how much it hurts, approach it with an attitude that you are seeking the lesson.  Find what you are supposed to learn and improve!  This is what a solution-oriented person does.  This is where growth happens.  Do not ignore the situation, embrace it!  It could lead you down the path of untold fortunes!

I have coupled this thought by looking at a timeline of my life.  I have gone back and looked at critical situations that still seem to crowd my conscious thoughts.  The things that creep into my mind and shout at the positive things to bring negativity.  Does that ever happen to you?  Do you ever feel the momentum shift?  When you start something positive or good things start to happen and then your mind seems to self-sabotage and bring up resistance thoughts?  I used to let those thoughts get me down.  I would listen to the negativity and allow that to hamper my positive momentum or my current growth.  What I do now is search for the lesson that I missed.  What did I fail to learn that I can apply to growth?  How can I turn that negative thought or negative situation into a positive story or a positive affirmation to create momentum?  Try it!  There is not a person on this planet whose mind isn't wired to tell them things that bring self doubt, self awareness, or pause.  The only difference between really positive and successful people and those who are not is the choice to filter out or not to listen to the negativity.  It can be as simple as a choice.  One of my favorite books was referred to me by Seth Godin called the "War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.  It is a beautiful book about Resistance and how to overcome it.  Check it out if you have time!

No Day But Today, 

Rick A. Morris

Sisyphus, you ready?

John Maxwell states it so beautifully, "everything worthwhile is uphill, yet most everyone has downhill habits." In my journey through self awareness so many quotes are flashing through my brain. Some of my favorites are bubbling to the top. John's, of course. Carl Jung's, "until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." Dr. Robert Rohm teaching me about my "I/D" personality and the understanding of how I start well and need the extra push to finish. All of these led me down the path to envision Sisyphus. Visualization sometimes is the art of learning. I visualize sometimes that my business and career is Sisyphus except that it isn't starting over every day. It just rolls back down hill if you stop for a day or even for a breath.

There are many moments throughout the day or week where distractions creep in. Each morning, I create a list of key things that I need to get done. That is my rock that I must get up the hill. Phone calls, e-mails, distractions, and the way my brain is wired is my mountain. Each time I cross something off the list, I am pushing. Each time a distraction wins, I have stopped for a breath and that rock is pushing me back down. I can feel the struggle with my own brain and thoughts to push through. Even in writing this e-mail, I thought, "wouldn't it be cool to have a Sisyphus desk ornament to remind you to stay focused?" That just cost me 15 minutes of searching on the Internet! Back to the post and the thought. We all have that thing inside of us. This is where my quote comes from: We all have the WANT to succeed, but do we have the WILL to succeed? I WILL finish this post, I WILL finish my list today. I WILL grow today. I WILL succeed. I WILL push this rock up that mountain. I know tomorrow, it will be there for me to push again. I welcome it. I welcome the challenge. Come what may, I hope the rock is bigger. I hope the mountain is steeper. I hope I grow tired sooner so I can become stronger. Let's do this. Sisyphus, you ready?

No Day But Today,

Rick

Radio Show - Jones Loflin - How to Reduce Decision Fatigue - 11/3/2016

The Work/Life Balance Friday at 2 PM Pacific November 04, 2016: How To Reduce Decision Fatigue - Jones Loflin According to research at Cornell University, Americans make over 226 decisions related to food each day. Combine those decisions with all the choices we make at work, in our relationships, and about our own personal well-being, and is it any wonder we don’t make the best choices about what really matters. In our segment today, Jones Loflin, co-author of Juggling Elephants and Getting to It, offers a number of simple ways you can make less decisions each day, thereby conserving your mental and emotional energy for making more important choices. Tune in Friday at 2 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Business Channel Featured Guest Jones Loflin Jones Loflin has made it his life’s work to deliver powerful ideas and practical solutions to individuals around the world so they can achieve more of what is most important to them. His books are described as “illuminating” and his presentations as “unforgettable.” In his 21 years as a speaker and trainer he has helped countless people regain confidence in their ability to achieve greater success in work and life. Jones’ “3P Approach” of Powerful Ideas connected to Practical Solutions delivered with a Personal Approach has attracted the attention of organizations around the world. His client list includes Federal Express, Wal-Mart, Choice Hotels, Volkswagon, Bridgestone, Saudi..... Share This Episode Connect with VoiceAmerica Download our mobile apps

Radio Show - 3/25 - What I Learned From John Maxwell

The Work/Life Balance Friday at 2 PM Pacific March 25, 2016: What I Learned from John Maxwell I just became certified as a Speaker, Coach, and Trainer by none other than the #1 Leadership Guru in the world, John Maxwell. Returning from the live event, I have had some time to reflect and have some introspective time to allow the impact of the training wash over me. Come listen to what I had the opportunity to experience, learn, and hear some of the life-altering lessons that I gained from the John Maxwell Team. You will not want to miss this episode! Tune in Friday at 2 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Business Channel Share This Episode Connect with VoiceAmerica Download our mobile apps