I saw this Tweet from Tom Peters the other day and the first line struck me immediately. Being helpful is something I think about often and in fact train people to consider often in their work in supporting families through something called the Touchpoints approach.

Touchpoints

Dr. T. Berry Brazelton is a pediatrician and the Founder of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center in Boston. Dr. B’s approach to working with children and families (Touchpoints) is based on relationship and focusing on the strengths of the parent. As a practitioner working with families; a pediatrician, a nurse, home visitor, teacher or other family service professional, Touchpoints asks us to be mindful of the family system we are entering. It asks us to join collaboratively, rather than prescriptively.

Assumptions

In order to accomplish this, Touchpoints asks us to operate from certain Assumptions which for many in the field of early childhood education or family service might be challenging. The Touchpoints Assumptions are:

• The parent is the expert on his/her child
• All parents have strengths
• All parents want to do well by their child
• All parents have something critical to share at each developmental stage
• All parents have ambivalent feelings
• Parenting is a process built on trial and error

These Assumptions ask us to reflect on our own practice and imagine what a relationship with a family would look like if we truly operate from these Assumptions.

Strengths, Collaboration and Offering Advice

If we simply look at and think about operating from the Assumption “All Parents Have Strengths”, it begs us to discover what those are. The only way we can discover those strengths, is by engaging in a relationship with them. If we assume that this person ‘has strengths’ and, to go one step further, that they “have something critical to share” with us, all of a sudden, the relationship is less about what advice I have for you as a parent, but about discovering together what will be helpful to you based on your strengths, your own knowledge, your expertise.

So, when a parent says that their child is not sleeping through the night, I can either choose to launch into a prescriptive diatribe about what I think she should do, or I can begin by earnestly wondering with her about what those nights are like for her, or if it is even a concern for her. Based on what she initially told me I really don’t have any idea what would be helpful in this situation.

Being Helpful

If you haven’t guessed by now, I believe we can recast these Assumptions for our everyday relationships, in our organizations, in our business practices. What would happen if we look first for the strengths in others, if we seek to understand what they know and what is important to them? Maybe then we can begin to understand how we can be most helpful.

I’m off to read Ed Schein’s book.

Yesterday on a whim, I rented “The Great Debaters”, with Denzel Washington.  It is a story about a debate team from an all black college in the 1930’s who, after beating so many other small black colleges and one white college, are invited to debate at Harvard.  What I loved an appreciated were the many examples of bright minds, passionate about learning, knowledgeable about poetry, the Bible, mythology and literature and a lovely quote that summed the culture of one hard working family, “We do what we have to, so we can do what we want to”.

There were grim reminders of our country’s racist legacy, and oscillation between worlds that challenge the watcher to understand that the path these students were on was not just difficult because of racism.  It also flew in the face of leaving the comfort of a culture that they were part of, to exist in a culture where members of each believed they did not.

Aidan watched this.  At every reasonable interval we checked in with him to see if he was awake and whether he was “ok”.  His responses were groggy though not from being tired, but from the rapt attention he gave this movie.  At some of the more intense moments when we thought it might be confusing or overwhelming, he simply replied, “That’s so sad.”  What we knew from both his attention and response is what we have come to know and appreciate about Aidan.  That he understands humanity and is able to comprehend the context in which something is presented.

What happened last night was one of those moments when you are reminded that you are raising a person who, while needing the support and guidance of his parents, has gifts to give and a strong role in our family.

We talked for a short while afterward.  His mother and I discussed with him some of the language we heard.  He and I talked about the characters love for reading and his own passion for greek mythology, novels and more recently, poetry.

The epilogue of the movie demonstrates not how these events and characters changed the course of history, but how this experience changed lives of the characters.  This too is important.  For while it was wonderful, the experience of watching something like this with Aidan revealed far more for me than the story itself.

My mind immediately went to my own organization, but not in the same way.  I need to pull information together internally.  I need a better collection of the moments in time data of many moving parts of our organization.

It used to be easier

A few years ago within our previously small non-profit there were a few programs and listening and sharing were easier.  Getting information about the performance of our programs was often as simple as having a conversation with a teacher, therapist or director and asking for it.  It was softer, it was simpler, it was more personal and a couple of objectives could be achieved simultaneously:  connecting with staff and understanding how we were doing in each program.

What happened?

Having experienced some rather rapid growth (doubling the number of employees in 18 months through growth, not acquisition), I have noticed that the information I am needing and the speed at which I need it about our organization internally has changed.  We have over 20 financial departments that require reporting internally and externally.  We have dozens of revenue streams that must be managed, many of which are grants, all of which need reports.  Our customers/clients have grown and changed each one requires services that are as unique as each of them.

What I will be changing

Listening Internally

With Chris and Julien’s suggestion to create a dashboard of external listening, I came to the realization that my internal methods of listening were too scattered, inefficient and not as clearly rooted in the data to drive decision making as they should be.

Delegating

Again, the advice in Trust Agents is to delegate because your community needs you.  While I have enjoyed the collection of information process through connecting individually with staff, I have redirected the reporting responsibilities of programs (and adding/fine tuning a few), to my Executive Assistant to aggregate the important data.  She already receives and reports much of it externally to state agencies, foundations and the like, it just needed to be pulled together internally in order to listen to what it might be telling us.

Dashboard

All of this aggregation of data is being reported on an internal Dashboard.  The use of a dashboard is not a new concept, but I have used it as a reporting tool for our board and not necessarily as a listening tool for me.  It is my internal RSS feed albeit not as easily or neatly pulled together.  It will be one way in which I listen to some key indicators of our performance within the organization.

It wasn’t entirely untrue.  I didn’t “know” for sure. But was in fact unkind and lazy and did not show the care I promised to you.
I could have, I should have, gotten up and looked.  It wouldn’t have taken long because I just found them and thought of you and thought less of me for not having done so last night.

I am sure that things like this happen everyday in relationships.

The “lie” we tell seems quite harmless until we weigh it against the value we have stripped from the care and kindness we could have showed.
I’m sorry.

In the face of stress and disorganization I go silent to find strength, to give me some space.   I get quiet.  I get calm.  I am thinking about implications, about next steps, about actions, about relationships, about who I need in this moment, about what will support me, about what I can do and what I cannot, about what I should do and what I should not.  I am thinking and appear calm.  Please don’t mistake my calm for a lack of concern or passion or commitment.  It is how I gather my strength and I have an abundance it.

I was sitting in my office the other day and through my window saw a gentleman walking around outside our building.  He was in his late fifties and due to the fact that part of the building we are in is empty, he was wandering from door to locked door looking for an entrance.

I saw him approaching our back (locked) staff entrance and so I left my office and went to greet him at the door to see if I could help.

“Hi.  Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for work……I don’t even know what this place is.”

I immediately took everything in.  I looked in his eyes, at his rough, aged skin, his coat and gloves.  I felt the cold air and welcomed him inside. It was -2 degrees outside.  He’s walking from place to unknown place looking for work.

I explained what we did and he knew immediately it wasn’t for him but went on to say that he was really looking for the guy across the street because he had seen some “activity” over there and wondered if they needed help.

I shared what I knew about the business across the street.

“Oh” he said, “I know that place.”

Although it was clear that he didn’t know before I told him.

It was also clear as we talked that he was looking for manual labor of some sort, his rough hands belied the fact that he had relied upon them for years.  Only now…
There is a part of me that wants to write about job search skills and how ill equipped this man was to find gainful employment.

There is a part of me that could talk about learning first about whom you are approaching or proposing better methods than walking from door to locked door of warehouse style buildings looking for work, but I think you might understand that.  It’s not what this was about.

It is about vulnerability and this man’s polite and honest expression of his needs to a complete stranger.  It is about desire and self-reliance on skills that may not be efficient or by any other measure terribly effective.  It is about the idea that someone perhaps will appreciate this direct, honest approach and the expression of a willingness to do anything within his skill set (and I am guessing that it is broad and he, resourceful) to be employed.  Even though it was so far from our norm of inquiry, even though we don’t generally have opportunities that suit his skills at our agency,  I certainly appreciated this direct, honest approach.
I stood with him for a moment and rapidly searched my head for some sort of maintenance work that we may need done (oh, but we have him and him and her already).  I searched my head for names and other businesses to approach (I gave him what I could).

I’m still not sure about the technique, but oddly enough I feel that had I something for him, I would have hired him in a minute.

I’m coming up on my five year anniversary in my position as Executive Director of a social service non-profit in Maine which serves children and families.

Truth be told it’s a few months away, but I have a tendency towards nostalgia.
I don’t remember if the interview committee asked me about where I want to be in five years.  I don’t remember a lot of what they asked, but I do remember a sense of calm.  I remember things feeling right.  What I do know is that the kernels of where I wanted the agency to be, through an expansion of our ability to serve children and families, were there shortly after I arrived.  I just wasn’t sure how.

What I do know is that I had to spend time with this agency, I had to spend time with the people and understand the mission and the history.  It was crucial in my mind, to understand this history and build upon it’s strengths in order to grow and serve more children and families in new ways and at the same time honor the mission of this agency which was here long before me.  I think we’ve done that well.

In thinking about hitting the five year mark, I also realized that while I have been with other organizations longer than five years, I have never been in one position this long without moving “up the ladder”.  I was with one company for eight years, but in that time I held 6 positions with 5 different titles in 4 different locations.  I just kept moving to what was “next”.  After eight years when “next” wasn’t with that organization, I went to one that offered me “next” and within 6 months, I was promoted to “next” at that organization.
The funny thing is, when I think about what is next for me, it continues to be with this organization and it continues to be in this position.  Next is linked to so many possibilities for this agency, so many ways in which we can meet the needs of children and families, so many things that are not yet done and it makes me wonder what done even looks like.
I love this work more than I have loved any other “work” that I have done and I have always been fortunate to serve children and families.  However, I didn’t just arrive here five years ago, I felt led and that same sense of purpose keeps me right here.

For someone who has moved up so quickly and so often, it is an interesting feeling to see next this way.

Merriam-Webster defines Overachiever as: one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level especially at an early age.

This sounds only partially accurate to me, based on how the term seems to be used in our culture.
I was recently having a conversation with a friend who happened to be labelled an “overachiever” by his team mates.  Only the label didn’t feel like a recognition of his success but an accusation.  More than that, it sounded like an excuse.

Because of this I began to wonder if there is a sub-text for the way in which this word was used and often is used in our culture.  Perhaps it goes a little like this:
‘Well, you do all of this “extra” work because you’re an overachiever.’

Beyond that I wonder if we can also hear…

‘You do more work than I am willing to do, so I will call you an ‘overachiever’ so that I might find reason not to have to do the same amount of work that you do’

What about you?  Are you unwilling to do as much work as the successful person in the office next to you, or are you an overachiever?