Month: November 2015

What you see isn’t always reality…

Truth

We met a man one day in the garden outside of MD Anderson in Houston.  I had just been released from my first surgery and needed a walk outside.  This man was by himself and followed at a safe distance stopping to look at the trees, flowers, squirrels, etc.  and after a while we engaged in a conversation.  This man looked very healthy, had a stable gait, and a normal complexion (not always found with cancer patients).  He had spent the morning with his doctors and learned his cancer had spread to multiple parts of his body and had very few months to live.  He had been walking throughout the hospital watching patients as he thought of his diagnosis and came to the conclusion that because he did not look ill or feel ill, he really did not need to be there at the hospital for care.  There were many more people that looked more ill than he was.  You could see it in all of them – they looked ill – he did not.  The truth was he was much more worse off than many.  Just because you do not look or feel ill does not mean you are well.

In business transformation, we learn the same thing.  I had the opportunity to lead the sourcing and procurement transformation of a global industrial products company with about 97 separate business operations.  It was visibly obvious that some companies were not well (ill?).  For example first shift manufacturing operations at three plants in Europe were at a stand still – eerily quiet.  Plant managers were proud in the fact that when a order did come in, they could product the product quickly and with a very high level of quality. Another company had acquired a major business where government contracts were over 1/3 of their business.  The company was performing quite well.  What was not discovered in the due diligence of the acquisition was that the military contracts expired in less than two years.  In cancer terms this meant this business had less than two years to live.

One set of companies looked healthy, but had symptoms they were ill.  The course of treatment was a standard protocol for improvement and dealt with easily.  The second company looked healthy with no obvious symptoms, but had a sort time to live and required a different protocol for health.

People have different perspectives to diagnose the same business symptoms.  The lines between reality and perception are blurry at best.  As I continue my journey, I have learned (re-learned?) a few things for my personal and professional well being:

  • Slow down; walk slower, smell the flowers, watch the squirrels (now there’s a business context for you! HA!).
  • Listen – really listen; You don’t have to talk or respond every time; learn from what others have to say.
  • Take care of yourself; listen to your mind, body, and soul – it tells you a lot.
  • MOST IMPORTANT: pay attention to your loved ones.  You may have cancer.  And, yes, it is quite physically and emotionally difficult.  But what the doctors and hospitals do not focus on is that our family, loved ones, partner, support group, have no clue how to help you – but they want to.  Nobody wants to see you go through pain.  Just remember, they have their own pain, too.

Practice, practice, practice…

Ever wonder why doctors say they “practice” medicine?  Making Majic

Or they all have “medical practices”?  The same is true with consultants.  I know, because I have built and led some pretty awesome global consulting practices in my career.  I never quite understood in one of my prior executive roles, a combination of practices was called a “competency”.  It just did not make sense to me.  But, never did the true meaning of the concept of practices become clearer to me than when I was diagnosed with my first cancer in January of 2013.

You see, for the prior 2 1/2 years I had very visible symptoms. I had been seeing a practice of world-class doctors at one of Chicago’s top teaching hospitals.  There was a diagnosis that seemed to be reasonable to me as a non-medical person.  Over the years I had three doctors and several medical students check and re-check my body over the years – all had the same conclusion: gross hematuria.  It wasn’t until we moved from Chicago to Austin, Texas that I went to a new doctor who had different ideas.  (I am sure there will be a post on synchronicity in the near future.)

You see, it was a simple “pee in the cup” test that changed my life.  32 out of 200 cells were 100% cancerous.  Now we had to find it.

The lesson here is that doctors “practice” medicine.  Consultants “practice” consulting. Nobody has all of the answers.   They have experience. They have insight.  They have tests, processes, and tools.  But nobody can always get it right.

Not knowing anything about cancer, I started researching and reading.  My best resources were people I met that had cancer.  I learned to trust online resources from only trusted organizations.  You know them:  Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins, etc.  I learned that there is not a single persons journey that is the same.  You can have the same cancer, but yours is different.  It is never the same. You can look perfectly healthy, but inside you are not.  The same is true about running your business.  It may look the same.  It may operate the same.  But it is not.

The more the doctors “practice” the better they become.  The same is true for your business.  The key skill in successful doctors and business executives is to find a professional that has vision, experience, a passion for solving undefined problems, a relentless drive to attack something truly unique and achieve the best results for that specific person (or business) at that time.

In the end, my learning for both personal health and in business is:  Be Your Own Advocate.  Do your research.  Talk to people.  Trust your experience and insight.  Never stop learning.  Never stop practicing.