[Note: I've had this in draft form for a couple of days...I figure it's time to just go ahead and share it.]

Is there a more powerful word in the English dictionary than WONDER? I just returned from a long hike through the trails that surround my neighborhood and I found myself walking with a sense of wonder. Wonder is like super-charged curiosity. It’s deeper and more poetic in what it unleashes. 

Just start a sentence with "I wonder about…" and see where it takes you. I started looking at the clouds and finding all different types of formations. Interestingly enough, many of the clouds were looking like insects: a praying mantis, a couple of bees, maybe a large beetle with pointy jaws. Rather than thinking, "That’s weird," I had far more fun asking, "I wonder why?"

The act of wondering isn’t just something you can do while meandering through a forest path or sitting on a beach; it has a beneficial purpose in our workplaces. However, there needs to be a conducive climate for wondering to fully occur. If your workplace is buzzing with speed and franticness, then there’s little fertile ground to start. Wondering is an organizational skill that can be developed when we’re given the chance to slow down and see the bigger patterns. If you’re saying, "But Chris, I can’t slow down, there’s just too much to do and too little time," begin to wonder about the quality of your output. Are you just going from task-to-task? Are you accomplishing what’s really important to you and your work?

If you are in a go-go-go workplace that prides itself on high levels of action, it may take some courage to introduce reflective wondering. To an untrained eye, you might look lazy, uncommitted, and unproductive (three killer words that can be leveled at employees). On the contrary, you might notice that after allowing reflection and wondering into your daily routine, your productivity will actually rise. Have fun!

Ah, Mick, Keith, and the Stones may not have been spiritual gurus, but they sure got it right on this one. At the risk of not saying anything new or unique today, sometimes getting what we want from life can be to our own detriment. Maybe we want a new job, or a renewed relationship with a loved one, or just for things to stay exactly the same.

However, what happens when we don’t get what we want? How do we respond? Sadly, I’ve been known to shake my fist at the heavens and complain about the unfairness of it all. I’ve also been told that I can be a bit melodramatic at times, as well.

Just maybe there’s greater learning in not having our desires completely met. Okay, obviously. But, often getting to the core of that learning takes patience and an openness to considering other possibilities. Take time to slow down, get curious, and reflect on what’s there. Because you may not get what you want, but you do get what you need.

For the past few years, my wife Carrie has been a stay-at-home mom to our two girls. It’s been a good phase in her life as it’s given her time to consider what she really wants to do professionally. So with me in the middle of a career shift, she decided to give the restaurant scene a try and is now a server for a very nice, upscale seafood joint just a couple of minutes from the house. What’s interesting is that the roles have now flipped; she is now the one who gets to share work stories and observations on management. One  such story about generational differences took me back to an experience that I had as a manager.

The restaurant she works in is typical in that it employs plenty of young people. Most are in their early 20s and a couple are 18 and 19 years old. It’s also typical of upscale restaurants where the managers are older professionals. Carrie told me about a heated conversation she witnessed in the kitchen between one manager who is in his mid 40s (and just promoted from kitchen manager to front manager – a more prominent and visible position) and a server who is 18. Without getting too deep into the content of the discussion, the young server was upset with some logistical problems with how tables were assigned. The manager took this as her being insolent and told her that if she made one more snide comment, she might as well just go home. I asked Carrie if she thought the server was being snide and she replied that she didn’t get that impression; the server was simply standing up for herself.

Probing a little deeper, it became clear that there was an interesting dynamic going on here that can be a factor when older professionals supervise much younger employees: manager as parent. Carrie told me that the restaurant manager had children about the same age as the server. I discovered this same dynamic in one of the supervisors I managed in my previous job. She, too, had children about the same age as a few of her employees. In our weekly meetings, she would occasionally refer them as her kids and noted that they had some of the same characteristics (though they were rarely the positive characteristics). As I observed these employees and their interactions with the supervisor, it was obvious that some unhealthy attitudes and behaviors were being developed on both sides. By viewing her younger staff members in the same light as her kids, she
was unwittingly disrespecting them and stifling their potential. And
her staff felt like they had another maternal authority figure.

Over a period of meetings, I coached her to see them not as her children, but as colleagues and fellow professionals. We talked through some questions like:

• What does thinking about them as your kids get you?
• What kind of performance do you expect from all of your staff, even those closer to your own age?
• What positive traits do you see in your younger employees?

For her, the consequences of taking a more maternal frame of mind wasn’t readily apparent. When she became conscious of how much harder it actually was to be "Mom" rather than "Boss," she began the process of change. And the results were dramatic. The younger employees reported that they felt more free to take action, more open to engage in debate with their supervisor, and more adult. Who wants to go to work to feel like a kid, anyway?

In the end, employees will act in the way they are treated. Treat them like kids and they’ll behave that way. However, give them the space to be professionals (including screwing up like all of us have done when we started out) and they’ll likely respond in ways that exceed our expectations.

Blogging has taken a back seat this week to a much more important task: redeveloping my resume. My wish is that the resume wasn’t so important in order to open career doors, but in today’s game it is a key that’s worth shining up. You’ll find my online resume and downloadable Word document over in the right column (the place where it inconspicuously says: HIRE ME).

You might be asking this question: Why in the world are you doing this? My response: Why not? This blog is chock full of my philosophy toward work, organizations, leadership, and other assorted items. What you might not know is what I’ve actually accomplished. Heck, before I started to redraft my resume, I don’t think I truly knew how to articulate it (at least in terms of organizational development work). That’s the hard part of making a career transition: describing experience and skills in one profession in a way that successfully relates it to another. It’s a process I call connecting the dots.

I would like to thank a couple of people who didn’t exactly know they were being helpful in my resume redrafting:

• Louise Fletcher at Blue Sky Resumes who has an excellent downloadable Resume Writing Guide that offers step-by-step tips and format templates.
• Lisa Haneberg, who recently asked me to take a look at a chapter she’s writing on OD, gave me terrific ideas for how to frame my experiences and skills for an Organizational Development position.

The big shift for me in the process is that I am not an association management professional transitioning to be an OD specialist. Instead, I am an OD specialist. Honestly, I was an OD specialist in my last job, I just didn’t have that title.

So, if you are looking for someone who is passionate about helping your organization to thrive in these chaotic times and helping your people to connect more soulfully with their work, please contact me. I am uniquely tuned to this type of career. How many folks can say that?

The blogging crew at Worthwhile Mag have some excellent posts on careers that popped up on Sunday. Curt Rosengren’s post on Passion Myths is just the type of writing that reinvigorates my faith in going after my own soul work and encouraging others to do the same. He talks about certain myths being put out there by other folks, but sadly, I’ve heard these same lies inside my own head.

Here are some of my thoughts on these myths…
PURSUING YOUR PASSION IS SELFISH AND SELF-INDULGENT: I would say that it’s selfish in as far as practicing self-love is selfish. As a parent, what greater gift can we give to our children than modeling love for work and life? As a spouse or partner, what greater joy can we give our significant other than coming home from work energized and ready to play? As Curt points out, there’s even positive spillover into the lives of the strangers we meet.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW: I absolutely, positively love Curt’s unabridged version of this myth: "Do what you love, work really, really hard, be patient, be persistent,
be open, work really, really hard some more, and the money will follow." It’s easy to get caught up in the fast-food mentality of life. I will admit that not too long ago, I thought that passion was the big key to success. I thought to myself and figured that if I just go at it with heart that will be enough. Nope. Passion and committed vision are parts of it, but so is working hard. The true key is to work hard with soul and a love for what you are doing.

YOU HAVE TO BE "REALISTIC": Oh yes, we need to be careful of those well-meaning people who don’t want us to lose our head and get our heart broken or head toward the poorhouse by following a "crazy" dream. The internalization of this myth starts out, "Well, maybe they’re right…" I struggle with possible and realistic all the time and this may be the hardest myth to personally dispel. But I think Curt offers a fantastic way of thinking that cuts to the heart of the issue. It’s tough-minded optimism that says, "Okay, there are some challenges to doing what I love. What are some possible ways around them?"

THAT’S NOT THE WAY IT’S DONE: Doesn’t it suck when someone tells us this? And yet, it’s so easy to get caught up in this one, too. My internal dialogue usually hits me with the idea that it’s someone else’s game and I should play by their rules. They want a resume that looks like this and an interview candidate who acts like that. Who made them gamemaster? Right. Taking a page from my friend Donna’s playbook, we can change how we approach another person and dramatically shift the shared interconnection. Maybe they don’t like the game either and don’t realize there’s another way to play. It’s an act of loving leadership to show them another way.

Time for us to dispel some myths. What do you think?

Welcome to a wee bit less cranky post here at Alchemy. Yesterday, I was blessed to receive some terrific coaching (thanks Donna and Charlie). I can’t fully relate what’s going on now, but perhaps there will be a time in the near future. But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now.

Last night I fired up the grill for the first time this season for some delicious Hebrew National beef franks (the only hotdogs that are allowed in our house; not because we’re Jewish but because these are simply the most flavorful franks out there). As my dear wife and I sat on our deck enjoying the brisk evening air and a beer, she told me about a conversation she had with a friend earlier in the day. The friend was feeling lonely and frustrated with her husband who has a lot going on right now. At work, he’s busy with several large projects nearing their deadline, personnel issues, and a potential promotion. At home, he’s busy with managing the building of their new home and meeting his obligations as a dad. When he’s finished with all of this, my wife’s friend is left with what remains (in this case, a grumpy and tired guy).

Trust me, it’s hard not to divide ourselves among all the tasks and responsibilities of our lives. This is where I found myself the past few days. In my case, it wasn’t a division of roles, but a division of spirit. Unfortunately, this is the type of division that leaves a really unpleasant remainder for my wife and girls to deal with.

Ask yourself: Are you divided right now? Is there too much pulling you in disparate directions? Who in your life is getting the remainder?

As I was so caringly encouraged to do yesterday, get curious about what this division is in your life. Look at it as if you had never seen if before, with fresh eyes and unjudging heart. Consider how you can begin to reconnnect what you are doing and who you are being. Those who love you the most need more than the remainder.

Sunday’s Washington Post contained an article which I believe sums up one of the greatest problems facing our organizations right now. The article was titled Our Incredible Shrinking Curiosity and went on to lament the very strong possibility that NASA will stop funding the two Voyager spacecrafts that are currently at the outer edges of our solar system. While the writer points to a growing propensity in the U.S scientific community to squeeze out curiosity-driven research in favor of specific products, profits or outcomes, he might as well have been talking about businesses in general.

Does this sound like any companies or industries you know?

Crouched today in a defensive posture, we are suffering from a lack of
confidence and a shriveled sense of the optimism that once urged us to
reach boldly into the unknown. Equally important, we seem to have
forgotten that many good things come just from being open to them,
without a formed idea of what they are or how they should come out.

Organizations today are all about deliverables: the sure things with a finely-tuned, fixed outcome. Projects are judged by these sure things, an individual’s worth is based on how they executed the deliverable. Found something interesting along the way? Want to explore a better path? Put it all aside and forget it. It’s not part of the expected outcome.

From a hiring perspective (you just knew this was coming, right?), hiring managers are in love with deliverables and narrowly defined requirements. Look at job postings these days and you’ll find a litany of mandatory experience and skills. In their mind, the hiring manager has the ideal candidate already created who just happens to have been doing the work since they exited college. Problem is there’s little room for curiosity for that professional who is making a transition. Similar skill sets and transferable experience? A passion for this new work and career? Hmmm…too difficult to connect the dots when here’s a resume of someone who has done this same work before.

The reality is that the current system does not reward folks with a wide array of skills, experiences, talents. The default is complacency where deliverables trump curiosity. If you are hiring right now, take a second look at that person coming from left field. They might just be bringing something that will reinvigorate your department, project, company, industry. Your curiosity will undoubtedly be rewarded.

Folks, I’m pissed off. And I’m fulfilled. And I think there’s still an abundance of opportunity and purpose out there in this world. But, let’s focus on this thing that’s got me pissed off because it’s at the core of what a soulful career is all about.

There are a ton of books and gurus and websites and blogs (not unlike this one, but that’s likely to change…read on) that encourage us to pursue purposeful jobs. There are those of us who excite people to live their passions. We throw out lots of really thoughtful words and mantras that make it seem like the "perfect" career and workplace are so easy to achieve. All of this is done for what seems like the individual’s benefit. There’s just one problem with it all: the system in which each of us work is broken.

When it comes to hiring…organizations still insist on seeing meaningless resumes, conducting meaningless interviews, and contacting meaningless references.

When it comes to achieving…organizations still insist on handing out hollow titles and binding people with hollow position descriptions.

When it comes to treating people with respect…organizations still insist on not trusting their employees with the facts (usually in the form of silence, denial, and lying through their teeth) and not helping them grow as full people (they’re only concerned about them from the time they enter the office doors to when they exit).

Not your organization, you say? Consider yourself lucky. This is your invitation. You now have an obligation to spread the seeds of how an organization MUST work in today’s world. You have no other choice.

You may say this is a diatribe written in anger and frustration, but it is not. This is being written by someone who sees and understands that there will always be a problem with creating soulful work as long as organizations continue to operate with a "business as usual" mindset towards its most important asset: it’s people.

Talking about creating soulful work is fine, but insufficient. Demanding better ways from our companies is what we need to focus on. What we will achieve is a revolution in our organizations that fully recognizes and cultivates the soulful workplace. It will mean burning useless traditional structures to the ground and rebuilding in better ways. It will be radically rethinking what it is to bring people together for a common business cause. It will allow for the honoring of the individual soul in each action and thought.

See, pissed off is good. It’s complacency that’s at the heart of all that is destructive. I will be complacent no longer. The manifesto is coming…

Today, I’m heading back home to visit my parents and help them with a major life decision: they are selling the final piece of the family business. It all started with my grandfather back in the early 1950s who saw a brilliant opportunity in gasoline distribution. More and more individuals were able to afford automobiles and gas stations were popping up everywhere as a response to this trend. As a result, he became a very prosperous businessman who would later add to his modestly-sized gasoline bulk plant and build his own gas station (conveniently placed near a newly built interstate highway) in the early 1970s. In the mid-1980s, he built another service station not too far away.

My dad has been involved in managing the business since he graduated from college in the early 1970s. It started with delivering gas; I still remember riding with him in the big truck when I was just a little tyke. Over the years, my dad’s role naturally evolved. In the early 1990s, my grandfather decided to step aside leaving dad as the legal owner. However, this was about the same time that the business started to seriously decline. First sign was the decision to get out of bulk distribution as we were getting squeezed by much larger competitors. Then, the second (and newer) service station was starting to bleed money and was sold. All that’s left is the original gas station and now it is being sold.

The story behind the decline of the business is a familiar one to small business owners. As I reflect on what’s happened over the past 15 years that’s brought us to this moment, I see some cautionary patterns emerge. I doubt any of these will come as a great surprise to successful entrepreneurs.

Don’t piss off the gods. My grandfather has an irascible personality and has been known to tell people who get in his way to kiss his ass (compound this with my dad who tries to please everyone). Unfortunately, this includes folks who could make life easy or tough for an independent businessman. Naturally, they helped make it hard for him and Dad to sustain the business when times grew tough.

Don’t focus on a tree when Wal-Mart comes to bulldoze the forest. The writing of "your business is going down the toilet" was really on the wall when the giant moved in across the street. At first, it seemed like a good thing to have them: customers could have their cars serviced while they did their shopping. Then, Wal-Mart decided to sell gas. And then another discount gas retailer moved in next to them. So, while they duke it out with each other, the family business suffers the collateral damage.

Don’t start hacking off limbs to save the body. The time for innovation isn’t when the shit hits the fan. When it was apparent that the business was failing, my dad looked to anything that might give it a boost. After the first one didn’t quite work out, it was time to start hacking away things. First, it was hours of operation and downsizing; then, it was services, Now, there’s not much left but a bloody torso.

I don’t offer any of this as an indictment of my father’s business acumen. He’s always tried to do the best he could to manage the business he inherited. I always thought that he wished he could be doing something else, though. I guess this is what really drives me and my philosophy toward work and our career decisions. I’ve seen how unhappy my dad has been toiling at his work and how unfulfilled he’s been by his decision to enter the family business. For a while, I thought he was an isolated example, but when I started working I saw the familiar signs all around in co-workers.

So, I need to go and head for the hills. Perhaps I need the break, too. I’m still waiting to hear from a couple of companies about whether I’m the right candidate for them. Hopefully, one of them will see that I’m ready to get started, ready to contribute in fresh ways, ready to passionately bring myself to the work that I do. All I know is that I’m ready.

This post by Doug Manning of Proactive Living hit me hard. As a father of two girls (one on the cusp of hitting the pre-adolescent phase), I’m always mindful of how I’m doing as a dad. I immediately showed it to my wife and we both just took a deep sigh, which usually signifies a "whoa" moment for us. If you’re a parent, take a moment and read Doug’s entry on Proactive Parenting.

Thanks Doug for the reminder of how much good we can do as parents, as well as how much harm we can do when we hang on to our own dreams and illusions of how our kids should be.