Monthly Archives: February 2008

Riding with the Devil (continued)

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A Kimchi Valentine

I don’t like Valentine’s Day.

In high school, when I first realized the day had social significance, it was a source of dread. Who (if anyone) would give me a card? Who should I give a card to?

Once I got a steady girlfriend I thought it would get easier, but alas, now I had to figure out what to get her. Would my gift be too cheap(1) or would it send the wrong message? Now, thirty-three-years-old and married, I still dread the day a little.

But this week, I found the solution: I’m moving to Korea!

Why? Because in Korea, the girls give the guys gifts for Valentine’s Day(2). No worrying about what to get my wife; she’s just got to get stuff for me. What’s not to like!

A Naked Soul

For both of my long term readers, you’ll remember I started this blog to chronicle my attempts to become a better person, in mind, body, soul and spirit. I’ve spend a lot of time writing about my attempts to improve physically, and spiritually. I’ve demonstrated how my twisted mind thinks (at least in a business setting).

But I’ve spent relatively little time being “naked” and transparent with respect to growing my soul. I consider the soul to be the part of me that wants to and needs to give back to the community, and I last wrote about it in my post titled Riding with the Devil. In that post I said:

I have to force myself to find more diversity in life … So once I finish up with the current charity commitments I have … I’d like to try something that forces me to get out more in the community, and meet people who are leading wholly different lives from me.

So in this post, I feel it’s time to report progress.

Thank You

First off, thanks to two friends who gave me explicit suggestions for how to follow up on the goal I stated. Jane pointed me to Volunteer Match, and Brigitte pointed me her friend Neil in New York who is very involved in the community here.

Through Volunteer Match I found an organization (The International Center) that caters to recent immigrants who are trying to learn English. And through Neil I found a great after-school program (the New Song Learning Partnership) in Harlem that needed mentors and tutors to help current and recent high-school students improve in their classes, apply to college, and get a job.

Starting in November I began a six-month commitment at the Internal Center where I spend two hours a week helping new immigrants practice their English through conversation. And in December I began spending two to three hours every Saturday helping at New Song.

Thoughts so Far

Have I gotten what I was looking for? The preliminary results are a resounding yes.

For example, I discovered the fact about Korea Valentine’s Day during a conversation I had with a young woman from Korea. For the past three months I’ve been chatting with her and another young man from Korea, and learning a lot about Korea’s culture and practices, about how difficult it is to be a student in the US who speaks very little English, the real importance of family when you’re in that situation, and how much church groups really stitch together some of the gaps in our society. I’ve learned how different Korea’s social mores can be, but yet how familiar they are as well. And I’ve learned that even though folks come from a different cultural background, they share the same types of hopes, dreams and fears we do.

The International Center has definitely helped me meet people who lead wholly different lives from me. That’s been fun.

But it’s been the Harlem after-school program that’s been the most eye opening. I’ve met some really smart and fun kids who come from a totally different background than I came from. And it’s been challenging; I’m struggling to connect with some of the students. I find it very difficult to relate to some of the issues they have, and I don’t always understand what they’re saying.

Now, here’s the fun thing. The main reason I’m having trouble connecting is not because the students are black, or because some of them come from a less-affluent background. As I wrote about in Riding with the Devil, that reaction is wrong.

No, I’m having trouble connecting with some of the students because they’re teenagers and I’m a nerdy 33-year-old.

It turns out that in the past 15 years new slang, new technology, new pastimes and new teaching methods have been invented (did you know there’s a new SAT test format, and that you now get points deducted for wrong answers on some sections… I didn’t until four weeks ago).

But the great news is I share the challenge with a bunch of the other motivated volunteers, of various races and backgrounds, who all are trying to figure out how to bridge the age-gap as well. It’s hard, but it’s been very rewarding as well, and slowly I’m learning how to engage with the students.

My big ah-hah(3) has been that human beings, no matter what our backgrounds, have far more in common with each other than we have as differences. Now, I always intellectually thought this, but getting involved with these two great organizations has really helped me to emotionally know this.

From Here

I’m just starting with this, and I hope to continue being able to at least make this relatively small time commitment (4-6 hours a week). It’s been harder than raising money (sorry folks, but sending e-mails is pretty easy), because donating money requires far less time. But it’s also been commensurately more personally fulfilling.

I’m not planning to write much more about this, mostly to respect the privacy of the folks I’m working with, but I wanted to come clean on where my progress was. By the way, if anyone is interested in getting involved with either organization, drop me a line at aclarke at abclarke.com and I’ll hook you up.

– Art

(1) I’m from Cavan County in Ireland, and the cheapness of Cavan Men is legendary there, as is their general lack of intelligence. Cavan Men are the butt of almost all Irish jokes. See here and here for examples.

(2) OK, turns out Korea has “White Day” on March 14th where the guys are supposed to return the favor, but I figure I can fly back from Korea by then.

(3) My second big ah-hah is that Harlem has some kick-ass food! There’s a bakery on St. Nicholas and 116th (whose name I can’t remember) that’s the best I’ve been to in the city; and I’ve been to a lot of bakeries!

Nude Numbers 32

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Nude Numbers are my weekly progress reports on my fitness goals. See About Running Naked for the philosophies involved.

Summary

Week 10 of the winter plan and, despite a minor cold, I’m still broadly on track.

Subjective Data

I continued to increase calories this week, although I found it harder than I expected. I’ve trained myself to not eat unless I’m hungry, and to eat small meals, wait 10 minutes, and then only eat if I still feel hungry. To hit 3,000+ a day calories I have to eat even when I’m not hungry. I did ok, but most days I only ate around 2,500 to 2,750 calories. It’s amazing how much of a habit light eating has become for me.

This week my swimming improved quite a bit. I’ve been getting aerobically exhausted really quickly while swimming, but on Thursday my coach watched me and suggested I try something odd – not expelling water in my mouth by blowing out. Instead, he said just leave my mouth open when I turn my head under water. Voila, the water just flows out, and I don’t waste oxygen expelling it. For some reason, this really seemed to help me control my breathing and increase the # of laps I need to take before resting.

On Thursday afternoon I finally caught a cold my wife had been incubating for a week. Getting the cold was annoying, but I was good and rested through it. That meant no Thursday run, no lifting on Friday, and no spin class on Saturday. I did sneak in a swim Saturday afternoon that I probably should have cut out, but I wanted to see if the breathing technique I found on Thursday still worked. The answer is yes 🙂

Objective Data

Blue lines == actuals; Gray areas == my target range for that week.

Assessment

This week, despite the cold, was another good week. And the cold symptoms were pretty mild and they’re gone now. I still feel broadly on track, and feel excited that my swimming is markedly better now.

Plan

I made a few adjustments to the plan moving forward this week. Next week is a HEAVY lifting week, and so I’m going to cut back on spinning during that week to focus on lifting instead. I’m going to try to do 5 lifting days of 45-minute sessions instead of 3 days of 90 minute sessions. I also pushed my running ramp-up out another 3 weeks; I don’t need to really ramp running until after March to be able to do the 10k tri-distance easily, and I have enough things going on right now between this and work to keep me more than busy. But apart from that, just another week to try to forge ahead with gaining weight, gaining strength, and increasing swimming endurance (i.e. the winter goals).

Reminders

I’m still undecided between running a marathon in New York (November 2) or in Dublin Ireland (October 27). If you’re interested in running either with me, let me know. I’m not going to decide until around April. Also, if anyone is interested in doing the Philly Triathlon (June 21) with me, you’re welcome to join the team!

Presentation Notes

These notes are always presented in SOAP Note format. Click here for all the Nude Numbers posts.

Thanks for reading.

– Art

Staying Sane: Lead, Don’t Manage

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(5e of 5 in The Rules of Naked Management)

Trying to stay sane as a manager? This is the final step in doing that. Warning: there is some profanity in this article.

The Shit

I’ve worked with some pretty smart people(1), and when thinking about this article one of them consistently came to mind.

This person, whom I’ll call Todd(2), was an extremely smart engineer. Not only that, Todd had a lot of personal integrity, had strong opinions he could persuasively argue about, could persevere through a lot, and could be, when times demanded it, quite charming. Todd had all the right talents for getting shit done, and so should have risen up high in the organization.

But he didn’t – instead the organization shat all over him!

He had risen to a mid-management level, but he wasn’t able to rise higher. And, he wanted to. He made clear to me many times how he desired to be seen as a leader by his peers, be given a title that reflected his leadership, and be afforded the respect that his clear talents warranted.

Yet constantly, the organization blocked him; his management would not give him the title and leadership position he knew he deserved. What’s worse, his prestige seemed to be waning. When hard problems came up, senior management turned more often to one of Todd’s co-workers, a guy named Bill(3). Bill’s opinion was solicited by others when making strategic decision, whereas Todd found he had to force himself into strategic conversations. Bill was approached for fun new projects first, whereas Todd had to explicitly ask to be involved. (Now, Todd had been at the company for a long time and so, given his seniority, was able to force his involvement, but he knew he was doing the forcing.)

Eventually Todd had enough of this shit and decided to leave that company to try his talents elsewhere.

Why Lead?

Which brings me to the topics I have for this final essay: why you should aspire to lead; and how to become a leader.

Todd wanted to be a leader, and it was easy to understand why. If an organization sees you as a leader, your ability to get shit done increases exponentially.

Why?

If you’re just managing people, you’re trying to convince them to do things they probably don’t want to do. But, if you’re leading people, they do what you need them to do because they want to do it.

The difference is night and day. When you’re leading, people go above and beyond what you ask them to do because they want to impress you and they don’t want to disappoint you. You spend less time having to track how others spend time, and you start getting almost double out of your team.

I’ve managed teams where I was just seen as a manager, and it was hard work and not fun. I felt I had to constantly watch over people’s shoulders to make sure things were on track. I had an upset stomach almost the entire time.

But I’ve also managed teams where people saw me as a leader, and wow, did we get a lot more shit done together then. And it was more fun to boot – I looked forward to coming to work, and felt a lot healthier as a result.

If you’re the type of person who likes to get shit done, who wouldn’t want to be a leader?

So given that, how do you become a leader?

How to Lead

That’s easy; it’s the simplest rule of all the Rules of Naked Management:

Stop aspiring to be a leader! Instead, start getting shit done.

Todd constantly talked about what a great leader he’d make. He made his case to lots of people by letting them know all the great stuff he would get done. And had he actually done the stuff he was talking about, the entire engineering organization would have followed him to the moon. But people didn’t follow him because frankly people don’t like to follow people just because they’re told to by titles, or positions, or reputations(4). Instead they aligned around Bill because Bill didn’t worry about being perceived as a leader; Bill worried about getting shit done, constantly got new shit done, and kept challenging himself to get even more shit done. And as a result people followed him.

Think about all the leaders you’ve followed in your career, and you’ll probably notice the common theme: none of them worry most about being seen as a leader; they worry about getting lots of different shit done. (Oh yes, sometimes they have to be seen as a leader to get some goals accomplished, but it’s the goals that are obviously motivating them, not the leadership position.)

And then ask yourself why you considered that person a leader?

  • Was it because they asked you to follow them and you agreed because you were asked? Nope
  • Was it because they demanded you respect them? Absolutely not.
  • Was it because he or she was a nice guy? Probably not.
  • Was it because other people saw them as a leader? Probably not.
  • Was it because you felt this person could get the right shit done consistently? Absolutely.

So, right now if you think you want to be seen as a leader, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Instead, focus on getting shit done! And be warned, once you start getting shit done, you’ll find that people will start asking for you to help, will start asking you to weigh on important issues, and will start following you.

Constantly get more and different shit done, and one day without even realizing it, someone will point out you’re a leader.

Getting Shit Done

And Getting the Right Shit Done is what this series of articles has been about. And, almost four months after I started what I thought was going to be a 4-week set of articles, this series is now done. Hopefully some of the techniques work for you.

I’d write more, but I’ve got a bunch of shit I need to be doing for Vlideshow right now, so I’m going back to that. By the way, if you happen to be a Flex & ActionScript or Flash & Actionscript genius and want to work at a cool company, drop me a line at aclarke at vlideshow.com.

By the way, next week I start a new series of articles. I don’t know what they’re about yet, so feel free to send me suggestions 🙂

– Art

(1) I like to be the person on any team who brings down the “smartness” average.

(2) Not his real name.

(3) Also not his real name.

(4) In a funny twist, all the members of the senior management team told me separately that they would love to give Todd the title he wanted, but first they wanted to see him do the job without the title for six months.