Endless Knots

Engage with Grace - Year 3

When this blog rally (now in its third year) began, I instantly decided to participate. In the array of things we have to think about, how we die is important. And, having had quite a few deaths (some here and here) among family and friends, I wanted to contribute in any small way to those facing end-of-life issues.

Little did I realize how soon its purpose would become manifest in our family. In the past few months, we've tackled all the questions on The One Slide below. And, thanks to the terrific "Art of Dying Conference" at Menla Mountain in early October, we've started into detailing the fine points. Friends, the kind of work that our family is engaged in is sad, difficult, and strangely wonderful. So much falls away at moments like these and the inner, often silent, parts of ourselves speak, sometimes in ways that make us laugh, others as nightmares.

Below, I'm reproducing the text that those of us in the rally all are posting. I can't recommend answering the questions on the slide at the Thanksgiving table but I do suggest that in your soon-to-come trytophan stupor you begin the conversation. In our experience, it will be easier for some people than others. Each of us has to answer the questions for ourselves eventually. Don't put it off until you're so consumed with sadness that you can't think clearly.

And, in the interest of levity, which has to be part of this, a photo I snapped recently at the hospital where we spend too much time these days.

 

Things we are grateful for this year

For three years running now, many of us bloggers have participated in what we’ve called a “blog rally” to promote Engage With Grace  – a movement aimed at making sure all of us understand , communicate, and have honored our end-of-life wishes.

The rally is timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these unbelievably important conversations – our closest friends and family.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation about end-of-life started. We’ve included them at the end of this post.  They’re not easy questions, but they are important – and believe it or not, most people find they actually enjoy discussing their answers with loved ones.  The key is having the conversation before it’s too late.

This past year has done so much to support our mission to get more and more people talking about their end-of-life wishes. We’ve heard stories with happy endings … and stories with endings that could’ve (and should’ve) been better. We’ve stared down political opposition.  We’ve supported each other’s efforts. And we’ve helped make this a topic of national importance.

So in the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend, we’d like to highlight some things for which we’re grateful.  

Thank you to Atul Gawande for writing such a fiercely intelligent and compelling piece on “Letting go” – it is a work of art, and a must read. 

Thank you to whomever perpetuated the myth of “death panels” for putting a fine point on all the things we don’t stand for, and in the process,  shining a light on the right we all have to live our lives with intent – right through to the end.

Thank you to TEDMED for letting us share our story and our vision. 

And of course, thank you to everyone who has taken this topic so seriously, and to all who have  done so much to spread the word, including sharing The One Slide.

Fessaging?

I'm not among the favored few who've seen it, my daily reminder of how low my cool rating really is.

The announcement yesterday that Facebook is smushing (tech term) all communication into one (in)coherent stream--Facebook Messaging--makes sense from a purely where-is-that perspective.

Case in point: a call yesterday from a potential client in regard to a possible speaking engagement. I always want to know how people got to us. Mary, the caller, knew instantly, having heard my radio interview on The American Entrepreneur show last summer. But I couldn't remember how the radio show had found me so, as you (at least I guiltily) do (multit-ing even as I warn people against it), I started searching while we were on the phone.

I was able to find all the follow-on conversation between the producer and me but not the original email. Perhaps it was in the NetAge catchall account, I thought, but that should have come through via forwards to me, if it really was directed at me. Maybe I deleted it inadvertently. Maybe it came through LinkedIn? Had it possibly come via Facebook? Or, most unlikely, had it come to my gmail account that no one, including me, uses except for online signups? Finally the answer dawns. The producer had, imagine, called me!

And the other quick example from yesterday: I polled M, J, P, and R on a pricing issue. Since my major mode of communication with two of them (M & J) is via text and I'm prone to text with the other two, I sent the same text to all four. (No, wait, I'm lying: I actually asked J via that really old fashioned method, face-to-face speech.) I had answers rather quickly from all of them. But each was in a different text and I had to "assemble" the results in that super old fashioned medium, my head.

Point is that unified communication, a lofty, long talked about goal, is a great idea. But, as the Washington Post's Melissa Bell notes this morning, echoing my very first reaction, is the privacy concern. Much as I use and love Facebook, sadly the brand is associated with privacy anxiety.

So, will I use it? Not until they invite me...

 

Can you count to three?

What kind of stupid question is that? Next time, try it with someone else, this way. I explain.

Went to a meeting on Friday with about 20 others. As an icebreaker, the facilitator suggested a cooperative game. Pair off in 2s. Count alternating between you: 1,2,3.

Seems simple enough. Well, try it. First time you mess up, shake it off, sort of like doing the hokey-pokey.

Next step: Clap each time you say 1. Harder.

Next: clap at 1, jump at 2. Er, pretty hard.

And then: clap at 1, jump at 2, touch your heel at 3. RRRREALLY HARD.

Good icebreaker. Noisy but good.

 

 

 

Networking for Dolphins

Thanks to my friend Lisa Kimball, a pointer to Virginia Morrell's article, "Networking for Dolphins," in ScienceNOW on what we can learn from the species Bucky Fuller said evolved from humans:

Like a marine mammal version of Facebook, male and female bottlenose dolphins spend their days courting friends and building alliances. Two new studies show just how important such friendships are to dolphins—and the role friends and alliances play in life's biggest game: the race to reproduce.

Male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) form tight bonds with friends and allies that are as intricate and devious as those of humans. Researchers already know, for example, that males team up as duos or trios—known as first-level alliances—so that they can mate with a female without her swimming away. (Females come into estrus only every 4 to 5 years and are thus a rare prize.) But rival males will often try to steal the female, causing the duo or trio to join forces with other duos and trios in what's known as a second-level alliance.

And then I said...

Manuela Zoninsein's "Keep it Personal: Technology certainly has its place when managing virtual teams, but it’s the relationships that truly count," in this month's PM Network, hits all the right notes about virtual working.

I did my interview via email; Zoninsein then picked quotes for the article. Thought you might enjoy seeing everything I said as this gives a bit of insight into how such pieces are constructed. For those new to being interviewed by the press, you'll get a view of how much you can say and how little actually makes it into print. This is not a complaint. I find it useful to do interviews for the simple reason that it helps me clarify my thinking. Here's my full response to the questions I received: 

Q: How do you define and then identify critical success factors while working with a remote team? How do you identify appropriate methods and metrics to evaluate success and results of a virtual organizational structure?

A: Teams need to think about four key areas when evaluating their success: Purpose—is it clear and does everyone define it in the same way; People—who’s involved and how clearly do they understand their roles and responsibilities; Links—how strong are the relationships among people and how well do they use the available technology; and Time—how aware is everyone of the obvious time differences when working across distance and cultures and how clear is everyone on where the work is in the project lifecycle. We’ve developed this model over 25 years of research into virtual and remote teams and have constructed a Virtual Team Assessment to measure individual and team performance.

Q: Are there technological tools you use that help with this process?

A: Research (54 teams in 26 companies in 15 sectors) that we conducted with two business school professors and which we published in Harvard Business Review, “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?,” indicates that successful virtual teams use two principal technologies: conference calls and shared workspaces. Email was regarded as a poor means of communication except for 1:1 communication. We anticipate video becoming a more useful tool as bandwidth issues improve but seeing people’s faces is probably less important than everyone having the same information to focus on during calls. Combining the two is a good solution but screen real estate is a real issue.

Q: Does integration of information systems pose a particular challenge?

A: Yes, it’s a huge challenge. After twenty years of “knowledge management,” organizations are still struggling to get the right information to the right people at the right time—and to find ways for people to seamlessly share what they have when others need it. One very important clue lies in teams using shared online workspaces that document their work as they do it rather than trying to capture information separately. That’s onerous and no one wants to take the time to do it.

Q: How are the following factors affected by remote working conditions:

• determine confidence levels amongst team members

A: Developing trust among team members is key from the beginning. Ongoing communication, shared small group activities, and pairing people with differing perspectives are a few ways that confidence develops quickly.

• identify schedule drivers

A: Understanding all elements connected with Time, as per above, is critical to the team achieving its objectives.

• determine contingency and risk response plns, and incorporate these changes into your projects

A: Likewise, thorough discussion of the team’s purpose and those elements that put it at risk are mandatory for team success.

Q: Are there technological tools that you have found help you resolve challenges amongst the aforementioned factors?

A: The principal technology “tool” is communication, in whatever form suits the team. Some teams are comfortable using IM on a regular basis; in other companies, it’s still banned. Others depend on some video while still others have not used it yet. The technology is not what’s important; it’s the depth of honest and ongoing communication that is.

Q: As per a KPMG survey of 252 organizations, technology is not the most critical factor. In fact, inadequate project management implementation constitutes 32% of project failures. Do you find this to be representative of what you’ve experienced in your own company and professional practices?

A: Our conclusion based on years of study is that success depends on 80% people factors and 20% technology. In our first edition of Virtual Teams, published in 1997, we said it was 90% people and 10% technology, but since then, technology has improved so much that we threw another 10% its way.

Q: Are there cases where team members have stepped up to the plate and taken on project or team leadership roles? Was that aided or hindered by working remotely? Were there technological tools which aided this process?

A: Shared, rotating leadership is key to these teams. Leadership shifts depending on the task at hand which means people also need to learn how to be better followers. Shared team sites that capture the People-Purpose-Links-Time elements make it much easier for people to move among roles.

Q: Have you ever worked with a coach, someone to oversee you as you manage different projects? How did that relationship evolve, if you based remotely? What tech tools did you use to enhance the relationship?

A: I’ve served as a coach in many cases, using the technologies mentioned above. Coaching requires continuous communication, which in the 1:1 relationship also benefits from use of email and person-to-person telephone calls (not group conference calls). Face-to-face is nice too but not mandatory.

Q: Do you feel you are conscious of the technological resources available to you? How do you keep up with innovations and developments in technological tools?

A: Yes. I read, talk with people, speak at conferences, and am constantly learning.

Q: Have you ever been in the need for synthesising different opinions of a group of disparately-located stakeholders in order to reach the best alternative for a decision making problem? What technological tools did you turn to?

A: Again, yes, and as per above. Technology helps but it’s the depth of honest communication that really matters.

Q: Have you felt an increasing tension between the role of the expert – you, the project manager – and the opinions of the masses, as in your staff unit? How do you balance the growing integration of “the masses” while moving projects forward in a timely, efficient, successful manner?

A: Talented project managers know how to help “the masses” own and grow their own expertise. The greatest attribute of a project manager is being able to celebrate the growth of the people on the team.

Not the Book Fair!

Boston area book lovers - and authors - have been going steady with one of the greatest book innovations ever for the past 50 or so years: New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton. Comes news today via the Boston Globe (see "Time to turn the page" - http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/11/05/newtons_iconic_mobile_book_fair_up_for_sale/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1&fb_ref=homepage) that the business (but not the building) is up for sale by the owners, the Strymish family.

I could throw in a lot of descriptors now in hopes of describing this remarkable establishment: 32,000 square feet of books; shelved by publisher; room after room; a remainder "section" the size of many bookstore; and a staff that is unfailingly helpful ... but none of that captures it. Go in for a book and come out with a tote bag because you can't resist picking up a couple of others; memories of "misplacing" children in the narrow aisles; climbing up to top shelves on ladders; and, for this author, putting up with Lou 's (co-founder with his wife, Beatrice) corny joke about our first book. "Do you have NETWORKING?" I said, all thrilled to be asking...to which he said, "You mean 'Not Working?'"

They've carried all our books; we've purchased hundreds of others...and I'm really sad that it might be gone soon. Store site: http://www.nebookfair.com/