Valentine

This is an interesting day. All the way around.

After checking Wikipedia, as I thought this might be a thoroughly modern way to drive economics, I found that Valentine's Day, or the Feast of St Valentine has been celebrated since early times, with the holiday taking on its association with romantic love in the 14th century. But leave it to the capitalists and business owners to make this day really big.

Several years ago, I was invited to a Drake University event in Kansas City. I went because the person who invited me is someone I have a great deal of respect for. Don Adams  was my VP when I worked at Drake. It was a social/networking gathering, but the speaker was the CEO for Hallmark. Obviously, this is a big time of the year for them. I remember him telling us his Board of Directors was no different than the ones we were working with. They wanted a double digit net income growth year over year. That's all. The interesting thing is when you are talking about a company the size of Toybox Woodworking, a ten percent increase is easy to achieve. However, if you are talking about a multi-billion dollar company, ten percent feels different. And it is different. At that level it takes more people, more facilities, more everything.

At the level of my little venture, it takes one new project, a little more time. Now, the interesting thing is that the thought process is really not a great deal different. It still takes the leap where you say you are going to grow and change. Interestingly, I have one person I have a great deal of respect for and his first question in situations like this is always, "Are you sure growth is good?"  If you answer positively, you can be on your way to growth.

So if I set aside the look at economics, and just think about what this holiday, it strikes me that we should tell those we love and care about how we feel every day. It shouldn't take a day on the calendar to make the time to tell someone they are important. I know I try to make sure those in my life who are important to me know it, but I also know time is so fleeting. Sometimes it gets away from us and months or years go by without us saying anything. For that reason, Valentine's Day does serve a useful purpose. It is a stake in the ground telling us to let those we love know it. It is easy to get caught up in the consumerism of the day, but I need to let that cynical attitude go and concentrate on those important to me.

On a separate note,  a little over a month ago, I was responsible for hosting a meeting. We had the meeting at a restaurant in downtown Des Moines and part of the morning was a tour of American Dream Machines. If you haven't spent time on their website, I recommend you fix that.   We were fortunate enough to have a top to bottom, front to back, personal tour of the entire place and all of their inventory. I landed on the 1949 Chevrolet pickup like the one in the picture. I have never been a Chevy guy, in fact I have never owned a Chevy, but I have a memory of my Uncle Norm's pickup. It's a good memory.

Anyway, given the day, and the color of the truck, if any of you have hit the lottery, or had your money tree bloom, and you are looking for a tangible way to tell me how much you care, I will make a place in the garage for this truck.

Wow, in a few hundred words, I went from cynical non-commercial to the most self-serving person ever. Truly though, I had been looking for a way to show you this truck and the opportunity presented itself. If you are interested in muscle cars, particularly from the 1960s and 1970s, go check out the website.

On a final note today, I wanted to let you know that last Saturday one of the gentlemen who teaches the welding class I've been taking told me that at this point, I can weld. I can knock that one off the DIY list. This weekend I will start putting veneer and epoxy on the Teardrop trailer. We will see how that goes. Additionally, I have another project I am starting for YESS. I love doing things for them.

We traveled a long way today and talked about a lot of things. I hope you have enjoyed it. Drop me a note or comment if you did.

Lazy

I started my day today by reading something from Seth Godin called "Hard Work." Click on the link. You'll like the post. I found myself laughing out loud as I read it, thinking about my mother and her words to me about this same topic.

When I was young, I'd spend time thinking about the most efficient and effective way to accomplish tasks. My mom was always on me about this. She told me I was lazy. I remember a specific instance where I had figured out a way to lace and tie my work boots in about half the time it had taken me in the past. I was particularly proud of this accomplishment and I thought I should share the approach I had discovered. After showing mom, she clearly explained that I was lazy and should go back to lacing my boots the way everyone else did. She was quite pointed about this, but as some of you know, I can be a little obstinate. To this day, if I have boots that require lacing, I do it the same way, the way I discovered as more efficient.

Fast forward to about a month ago. I had someone ask me how many hours a week I worked. My answer was fifty to fifty-five. Then I was stunned by the follow-up admonition that I wasn't a work-aholic. I didn't respond, but my mom's voice came back to me loud and clear ... LAZY. It rocked me back on my heels. I thought I was past this, left way back in my childhood, but her words came roaring up again to raise the question. The fascinating thing for me was the fact someone could make a determination about my entire work ethic simply by hearing a number. There was no discussion of how effectively I worked, or how much I slacked off during the day. With one single number I was compartmentalized into a segment of the workforce. I call bullshit. I'd much rather have three folks working for me who are intelligent and thoughtful, bouncing ideas off each other to make the result better than ten employees who just plod ahead, doing things the same way they always have. Seth Godin would call them cogs. Give me the smart ones every time. I will win the battle with those folks.

As I contemplate this today, it makes me wonder two things. First, how many of these types of landmines did our parents plant in our lives with no real intention of doing so?  And second, as a parent how many of these have I landed on my kids, or my friends and acquaintances? The second question concerns me more than the first. As for the things my parents and grandparents saddled me with, honestly they are at this point mostly in my past, or are so clearly part of my life they will always be there. This "lazy" thing is obviously one of them for me. But in truth, at this point I have gotten past most of this and found a road forward. Regarding the second question, I'm not sure how to think about it, or how to change it going forward. When this person challenged my work ethic solely on the number of hours I work, and not on the quality of my work, it was enough to make me pause. But have I done the same thing to someone else?

It seems to me the learning here is about the way I carry a message and the way I receive a message. Lately this has come top of mind again, not solely through this exchange. The business and working world is transforming as the average age of those in the workforce continues to get further and further away from mine. (I think I found a really elegant way to say older.) I received an email from a vendor a couple of weeks back asking for feedback on a customer situation. I gave very clear, concise feedback and the next thing I knew I received a follow-up email asking why I was upset. I wasn't in the least upset. I had just given the requested feedback very quickly and succinctly. Apparently this had not been the manner my much-younger (millennial) vendor was prepared to receive the information.

Long and short, communication is the hardest thing we do. It is tough because of the history we have with family and others and it is hard because of where we are aligned in the ever forward march of history. It takes time and effort every day to get it right, and even then, we will only be so close to right. Tomorrow is another day to fight the good fight and try to be closer to understood. If we all try, we will begin to find middle ground.

Have a great day.