May 6, 2015
Yesterday, we did our first off-site retreat since 2012. I was really looking forward to it. I wanted to show my team that it was a new day – not just with our words but also with our location and I wanted them to know how valued they are so I took them to the Madison Club, a private club with views of Lake Monona and stately conference rooms. The service would be impeccable. The atmosphere polished. Afterwards, we would enjoy a terrific lunch beautifully prepared by one of the best chefs in the city and then we would return to work. I didn’t have a tight agenda but the one goal was to walk out of the meeting with at least a discussion about what we believe to be true – the why behind what we do and why people do business with The Creative Company instead of some other company.
It’s interesting how what we believe can stir up quite a hornet’s nest.
On the day that we planned our first off site retreat, I spent the first two hours of my day working on a client problem. The problem was that there was a misunderstanding about the bill. I had it documented. He didn’t remember. He thought the hourly rate was 50% less than what we charged. It was documented – in October – but no, we hadn’t reminded him again in March when he needed our help. This is a client we built a $22,000 website for. He paid $7500. A couple of years ago, I sent an employee to the world class HOW Conference and she came back with this brilliant idea to do flat bids for web projects. We loved it! It would simplify everything. We did these for a year and we lost our asses on every single one of them. It’s a terrible idea. Don’t do it. And on this particularly day, I felt the sting again. It wasn’t just that he didn’t remember, it’s that I had already paid for the guy’s website. As a business owner with kids and bills to pay, this kind of thing isn’t just painful for a moment like a bruise, it stays with you like having your appendix ripped out. Pain can be good because you avoid it like the plague but nonetheless, it put me right back there where I was paying for this guy’s website because we didn’t understand at the time how many things can go off the rails on an e-commerce site.
It was also pouring rain.
But we pressed on.
I made a decision to walk into that room focused on one thing and one thing only – the future. And so we dove in to what we believe:
We believe the best brands are built from the inside out, that great ideas don’t come from big cities but between your ears, that businesses can do good and be good, that words have power, that people are the difference maker, that choosing our clients is the first step and that saying “no” to some things is more powerful then saying “yes” to everything.
And then it happened. One person brought up something ugly from the past. I would tell you what it was exactly but I honestly don’t remember because before they were done, I felt utterly defeated. The elephant in the room had come out of hiding and wanted to be set free. And guess who the ringmaster was? That’s right – me.
This is the reason you should hire a facilitator for your off site meetings. This is why people hire me. It’s because you’re just too close to it to keep enough of a distance so that people feel free to really work on the hard issues. So there we were – right in the middle of it all – and here’s the thing. There’s something that happens psychologically when we’re being attacked. Fight or flight? Kill or be killed? I decided to wait. I thought about running though. I honestly did. I felt like I was going to throw up. I was visibly deflated. The employee said, “I ruined our meeting.” We all had thought bubbles floating above our heads but no one said a word.
But, she didn’t ruin the meeting. I did my best to stay in there and think about what she was saying. Your brain literally stops working when you feel attacked so it took me a minute to get my head back together. Was it right for her to say it with so much emotion that it knocked me on my carcass? No. But, for the first time, I heard it.
She and I, while technically working for the same company, are not having the same experience. She is working for a company where things go wrong every day. In the web world, there are threats every single day to every single site. But that’s a problem that can sometimes be solved with better security – something clients don’t want to pay for or talk about and that’s the other problem. They still think its a brochure online so they don’t want to acknowledge the potential crisis choosing instead to live in blissful ignorance to the reality that their site may be attacked at any given moment. So sometimes we have to rescue them. And when we do, we send a bill and then they don’t want to pay the bill because they don’t understand. Rinse and repeat. It’s awful.
In 2009, we built a $5,000 website for a client. Since then, there have been a few minor updates – less than a grand’s worth but they turned down the maintenance and security agreement which would have protected them. And, their site is old. Not old by their terms but old by web standards. And then what we said could happen, happened. It was hacked – right before the end of the year when people are giving at record paces. (It’s a non-profit.) We rebuilt the whole thing in a matter of days during the holidays. We sent a bill. They paid it. But the point is, this is the world the head of web development at The Creative Company lives in. She’s in crisis management every day.
Meanwhile, we’re doing the cheese challenge in the PR and Social Media area for a hipster Co-op, talking to the media about the next Dr. Oz and in general, working on ideas and things that people mostly understand and want to pay for. We’re getting great press. We’re rocking the numbers for the client. We’re watching sales go up and to the right. We manage a crisis PR situation a few times a month but it’s not every day and there’s a team of us working on it. But she’s like the lone ranger in web. She has support but she knows more than everyone else here. So while we’re celebrating, she’s putting out another fire. She’s frustrated. She’s pissed off. If I was having that experience every day, I’d be angry too.
Sometimes you just need to get it all out on the table.
We’ve been making moves towards relieving some of the pressure for her and we’re continuing in that direction. We’ve tapped into several other web developers we will be working with so things were in motion BUT and this is important –
She just wanted to be understood.
She’s a super cool person, very artistic, hard-working, brainy and funny. She wears bright tennis shoes almost every day to work and she has a big laugh. People love her. But she thinks people hate her sometimes and that’s a problem. There must be a better way to help clients understand the world we live in and the intricacies of what’s happening in that space so that the end result isn’t frustration with the agency that’s trying to help them succeed in this world. So there was a meltdown of sorts right in the middle of this beautiful place in this great city at our fantastic retreat.
It was clearly time to take a break.
So we did what all smart people do at moments like this, we took a bathroom break. We talked about the bees on the wallpaper in the ladies room and one person said, that was normal during the Victorian era. We gave our brains a break.
And it worked. We came back for the last 15 minutes in the conference room and summarized what was discussed. But the mood was still tense and I started thinking, this is not going well.
Then again, sometimes people just need to be fed. So, we ordered food in the beautiful dining room from the attentive server and it came and we started to settle in. The conversation wasn’t where I wanted it though. We weren’t talking about what just happened and everyone was feeling a little nauseous actually. If you’ve ever been there, you know what I’m talking about. People start talking about “kids these days” and other things that are just benign and safe.
Not a great use of our time.
So I started it off by saying I think I figured out the problem and specifically, why it was so frustrating for our senior web developer. It wasn’t eloquent but it was out there.
And I looked at her and it was like she exhaled and all was right with the world. This woman who was so frustrated 30 minutes earlier reached across the table and grabbed my hand. We had a moment and everyone else breathed and then we ate like Kings. We made it to the other side. People usually forget that the Israelites spent 40 years wandering around in the desert before they made it to the promised land. This is real work that we’re doing here.
The point of my telling you all of this is to say that retreats are not always smooth sailing. There are going to be some rough and tumble times if you’re going to get to the truth of the matter. But the elephant needs to be set free and once she is free, she is free indeed.
In John P. Kotter’s book, Leading Change, he says complacency is the biggest killer of change. When companies are content with the status quo, they don’t talk about the hard issues.
Kudos to us. We were fearless. We did the hard thing.
And then the room lit up again. We talked about the future, the ideas and the new space. We talked about how we’re literally going from one side of Madison to the other – almost exactly 180 degrees. We’re 6 blocks from the Capitol now and we’ll be 6 blocks from the Capitol then. And the hashtag #180in120 was born.
It’s not for everyone but for those of you want to chart a new course before the year is over, this could be it. You decide. Not me. I’m just saying that since I started on this path we’ve become far more focused and I’m more energized then I’ve been in years. It’s a difference maker.
Plus, as iron sharpens iron….
Last but not least, when I thought about yesterday late last night, I was reminded of the scene from A Few Good Men where Colonel Nathan Jessep screams “You can’t handle the truth!” to the Lieutenant. And the truth is, most people can’t. It’s about ego. It’s about us. It’s about self-preservation. But in business, it’s all about them. It must be. Especially in a professional services firm. And if I really want to deliver the kind of service I know we’re capable of, then I need to get out of the way and really listen.
The truth sets us free. It wasn’t easy to get to and I’m a sucker for a pleasant conversation – I really am – but having the tough conversation actually freed us up to move forward. Bring out the microscope. Do the autopsy. Be fearless. Your team, your clients and your community will be better then ever because you had the courage to do it.
Stay tuned. This story is just getting started.
RESOURCES:
8 Step Process for Leading Change – http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/
Great Leaders Ask Why – Simon Sinek – http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en