A floricane is the fruit-bearing vine of a blackberry bush.
At Floricane, we help individuals and organizations bear new fruit.
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LETTER FROM JOHN
I've been thinking about velocity lately, and my obsession with Olympic speed skater John Coyle's talk earlier this spring at the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce. It's pushing me to rethink the ways in which I am leading the Floricane team around work.
Coyle's success as a skater came when he realized that he was faster than anyone else in the world for the first five seconds of a race, and that he "was really good at suffering."
You have to be good at suffering when you are traveling 35mph at a deep crouch on ice for 45 seconds or more. Because of the velocity, Coyle says, "it's like skating with a 300 pound man on your back." Or as he framed it in a 2008 blog post from the Torino Olympics:
...with the friction of wind the comes with speeds approaching 40 mph, the skater is required to try and form a teardrop shape, with arms and legs bent in a greater than 90 degree angle...
Imagine squatting down -- all the way down, sitting on your heels. Then extend one leg straight out -- kind of a Russian dancer stance. Now imagine lifting the heel of the extended leg up off the ground. Finally try to stand up using only the completely bent leg's power: nearly impossible for anyone other than an acrobat, Russian dancer, or speedskater. Do that with double your weight and you have the pivotal moment of the sport. The compressed body position required by the aerodynamics of the sport demands high power from the legs in a full range of motion, with an extreme amount of coordination of balance and timing, and an alignment of weight and effort.
So, what does this have to do with me, or Floricane? I'm not sure, but there's a lesson somewhere here for me when I look at the velocity at which our team has operated this spring -- back-to-back strategic and facilitated engagements. It's where we have the potential do our best work, and to build resiliency, both of which we've done this spring. It's also where we risk hitting the wall and crashing. (That's why the fastest skaters don't always win. Sometimes they hit the wall, and simply wipe out.)
How to skate fast, bear the load and not hit the wall when you're skating three, four, five events a week? It's doable in short sprints, but your knees sure feel it. And it's probably not sustainable -- I've been watching my team's knees as we hit peak velocity at work week over recent week.
Every Friday, each of us scores our week on a scale of 1 (worst ever) to 10 (amazing) -- and describe why our score is what it is. It's a way for me to better understand what "worst" and "amazing" looks like to each person on the team, and for us (in periodic discussions) to plan for more amazing weeks, fewer worst ones.
This spring, it's been reassuring to see a lot of weekly scores hit 8 or 9 or 10. But we've also had conversations about needing more time, or more space to breath, or to collaborate, or to plan.
The consequences of velocity. It's exhilarating. It narrows your field of vision.
In a month, our team will get off the ice for two weeks. After a forced week of vacation over the Fourth of July holiday, we regroup for a week with no client work to reflect on our team, our work, our ability to live more fully into our vision of transforming people's lives, and changing our community.
If I'm going to ensure our team continues to deliver, and feel good, during the second half of a busy year, I owe it to them (and our clients) to work on our velocity. Not slowing down, necessarily. Just working on "the coordination of balance and timing, and an alignment of weight and effort.," as Coyle puts it. It's time for us to continue to build on our strengths (and our values) -- and to be more authentic, relational, challenging and fun -- even as we skate hard into the second half of 2016.
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JUNE 2016
UPCOMING EVENTS
Wednesday, June 15
Wednesday, June 15
Tuesday, June 21
Thursday, June 23
Starts September
registration now open
Starts September
applications now open
CURRENT CLIENTS
American Civil War Museum
American Council on Education
Auditor of Public Accounts
Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce
Draper Aden Associates
Chamber RVA
Homeward
Housing Opportunities Made Equal
LEAD Virginia
Leadership Council on Legal Diversity
Library of Virginia
Richmond Association of Realtors
Richmond Symphony
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Smart Beginnings Oral Health Initiative
Smart Beginnings Virginia Peninsula
United Methodist Church (Virginia)
Valentine Museum
VCU Development and Alumni Relations
VCU Injury/Violence Prevention Program
Virginia Bankers Association
Virginia Beer Wholesalers Association
Virginia Department of Taxation
Virginia Oral Health Coalition
Virginia Society of Association Executives
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Four Strategic Plans, Four Strategic Lessons
[BY LESLEY BRUNO] It's strategic planning crunch time here at Floricane, which means an exciting period of renewal for our clients as their fiscal years turn over and their leadership transitions. (I would insert a gardening metaphor here, but I'm still too waterlogged from two months of rain to discuss it.)
We're attempting to land four simultaneous plans [Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Smart Beginnings Virginia Peninsula, VCU's Injury and Violence Prevention Program and Virginia Society of Association Executives] in the next few weeks and have been crisscrossing the state for some face time with our clients.
These many hours interacting with people, asking difficult questions, airing hopes and fears, pointing out elephants in rooms, celebrating alignment, and when necessary (twist my arm), enjoying a rare, rain-free evening around an outdoor fire, have taught me a few lessons... [READ MORE ON THE BLOG]
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Turning Strategy into Culture with the Auditors
Last year, we worked with a team of managers at the Virginia's Auditor of Public Accounts to craft a strategic plan for the agency. The plan included a chapter on developing a strong culture. This wasn't new territory for the agency, which has been named one of the best places to work in Central Virginia for three years running. Late last month, we regrouped with the APA team -- the entire 130+ statewide team -- to work a bit more on a cornerstone of a healthy organizational culture -- self-awareness and individual accountability. The bulk of our day was spent introducing InsightsŪ Discovery to the group, and having individuals and small teams work through their personal profiles. The energy and enthusiasm of the group was contagious, and our entire team left feeling energized and ready for more by the end of the day.
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Two Perspectives on Our Latest Insights Explorations Workshop
 If you want to know what you missed last month at the second Insights Explorations workshop, don't look at us. Instead, listen to a few participants. We asked Red/Blue Reformer Rick Jarvis of One South Realty and Yellow/Green Helper Ross Catrow of RVA News to deconstruct their experiences delving into the Insights Explorations workshop on crafting a personal vision. You can read both of their perspectives in one blog post, but here's a snippet from each of them:
ROSS
I love InsightsŪ. Like, a lot. It's helped me better understand the people around me and given me an excellent vocabulary for discussing how those people behave and move through life. While I've spent a bunch of time (too much, maybe?) thinking about how my friends, family, and coworkers process information and make decisions, I haven't really put that kind of thought into what's going on with myself. How am I moving through life? Where am I going? I...don't know, but it certainly sounds like something I should figure out!
RICK
Damn you, Floricane, you did it again.
The 20 or so of us started spewing words that you would expect - direction, guide, help, connect, learn, teach, provide, create, family - all pretty big picture words. And guess what, Mr. Red here caught myself using words like 'altruism, peace and why' and not action words like 'execute, measure, go, do and complete.' They just came rushing out before I could stop them. Wait, what? What are these words I am using?!? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!? WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH RICK?!?!?
Make plans now to join us on June 21 from 3:00 until 5:00pm for a deep dive into Goal Setting with Insights. Learn more about the June session, and the next five Insights Explorations workshops scheduled for the year, and register today.
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Chapter sixty-three of parenting has something to do with every child being uniquely different. It's not so much that every child is different, but that everything is different with another child.
As Jack nears his end-of-summer 2nd birthday, I can't help the game of compare and contrast that dips in and out of my observations of his journey with our family. He has more hair than Thea did at this age. She was talking in sentences by age two, while he continues to gesture. She was obsessed with a straw farm hat. He's obsessed with mix-matched boots. And red cars.
One of the things that two-year-old Jack has that his sister lacked? An older sibling -- a human safety net, someone to chase and follow, a guide, a constant source of frustration. (He provides a similar set of services to his sister.)
My life is busier with Jack -- both busier because of his presence, and because there's more life lately to go around. Because it is busier, and both I and our family are different than the last time we had a toddler, the lessons come at me in different ways.
Some of the lessons are obvious. Jack is not Thea. Thea experiences our parenting differently because of Jack. Nikole parents Jack differently than she did Thea. I do, as well.
At the heart of it all, however, is the fact that Jack is different. He's the happiest human being in our household, which has made the past two years more delightful than I could have imagined. The boy laughs at everything, and has a perpetual glint in his eye. This could mean trouble down the road.
He's an organizer. Everything has its place in Jack's world, and he'll spend as long as necessary preparing for his moment of spontaneous play. Watching him with his small collection of cars, carefully lining him up on the edge of the sofa is a source of constant intrigue for me. When he wakes up in the morning, he goes immediately to the last place he left his red car, and then his white car. Until the cars are in hand, he is not ready for the day.
I suppose we all have our small rituals, the tiny touches on the edges of our lives that create meaning and consistency for us. These are, after all, the very things that give us each a unique story, or reinforce the more complex stories we acquire as we grow older.
Watching Jack at work with his cars has surfaced an awareness that I have allowed my own small rituals to drift away. There are plenty of rituals in our house -- reading The Hobbit to Thea before bed, giving Nikole space as I can to be in the garden, even ensuring that Rilo gets a periodic walk. Attending to my own seems somehow a luxury.
And yet, what do I have of my self without these tiny touches? A well-crafted blog post, a new poem wafting at the tip of my pen, a new recipe to test in the kitchen -- how easy it is to allow the curated corners that give our lives flavor to slip away into the night.
Finding space for something uniquely me to re-enter my life feels important, and challenging, for me to do this year. Starting at the edge of the couch with Jack, as the sun creeps above us to the east in the morning, seems like a good way to start.
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