Last week I dog sat for one of our neighbors. They have two corgis that are absolutely adorable. It was fun to take care of different dogs. They have such diverse personalties. Reese is kind of shy and as soon as she was done taking care of business she wanted to head back home. Levi on the other hand, is a total ham... He took off as if there was a race. They may have short legs but man, do they go fast. Most evenings I would come home from work, take Shackleton & Lilli for a walk and then go over to Reese & Levi's house, take them for a walk. Come back to my house for dinner and then go back to Reese & Levi's and hang out with them in the evening until their bedtime at 9:00.

 

On Friday, I left work a bit earlier than normal, rushed home, took care of the animals and then caught a train down to Quantico where Doug picked me up and we headed to our friends' the Sandstroms. There was a party for one of the former officers of 2/11, Battery G. It was a fun evening. Lot of stories and drinking and much merriment. Sandy made smoked "yard birds" that took forever but tasted mighty good. The guys drank 2/11 malt liquour (yuck) and told lots of stories. All it all, it was a fun evening. Saturday we took Shackleton to the dog park where he exhausted himself playing with the other dogs. After that we went to PetSmart to fill up on puppy & kitty supplies (speaking of which, there was an adoption fair going on and Doug and I saw the cutest little puppies. They were two brothers and they looked like mini Shackletons. I doubt they were much older than 8 weeks. I wanted to adopt them so bad but we have our hands full as it is). Then it was off to Denny's for breakfast and then Olde Towne School for Dogs to load up on the treats and toys we can't get at PetSmart. Shackleton also gets his nails trimmed there and its fun to bring him back so the trainers can see that he is still behaving himself ;)

 

On Sunday, I woke up with a cold and was quite miserable. I think I caught it from Doug but it might also just be allergies. Tis the season. I rallied enough to take a shower and get dressed to go with Doug to Baltimore. One of his classmates from Georgetown lives up there and had invited us up for a late lunch. We met at the harbor and then took a water taxi to a neighborhood known as Fells Point. We had a fantastic lunch and great conversation. Walter is pretty amazing. He just got accepted to law school and this will be his fifth masters' degree. Way to go Walter!! To soon, it was time to head back. Doug and I made it back where we parked and headed back home.

 

Not much got done around the house this weekend but hopefully we will catch up next weekend. Our neighbors with the beautiful rose garden are teasing us because we have to weed and I bought some flowers two weeks ago that I still haven't planted!!!! Yard work! yuck.

Tonight Shackleton passed his comprehensive exam and graduated from the Olde Towne School for Dogs http://www.otsfd.com/ .  Truthly, though after 6 weeks of training, (once a week Bethany met with a trainer and then practiced his "homework" on our walks) he's well on his way to becoming a well behaved dog.  He can do the following commands "Sit", "Down", "Over", "Stay", "Come", "Leave it" and his favorite "OK!" (denotes play time).  Considering he is almost 9 months old in people years ( I think Bethany mentioned he's a teenager) he's pretty smart for his age.  With Dog obedience he develops his self esteem and becomes better able to act responsible around other animals.

 

Anyways, I'm proud of him.  Good boy.

 

Well, I guess it's official - Shackleton is a teenager. He had some weird looking stuff on his chin and Doug took him to the vet on Friday morning. Turns out, he has zits!!! Combine that with the fact that he gets a little mouthy (sasses back when we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do - like sit or get in the car) and has started humping just about everything in sight and presto - teenage hormones running rampant... I didn't know dogs could get zits like humans... Our vet gave us some puppy clearasil to wipe on his chin twice a day. Doug also took him to see about this coughing thing he has been doing. It's like no other sound I can describe and is sometimes accompanied by him upchucking white foamy looking fluid. Apparently the sound he makes is called a reverse sneeze and has to do with allergies. So, the vet up'd his dosage of benadryl and also gave us some cough suppresent medicine. Go figure - we always get the weird things with our pets. Speaking of which, our dog walker apparently didn't latch the baby gate on Thursday and I think Lilli pulled the gate open enough for Shackleton to get out. When I got home Thursday night, both Shackleton and Lilli were waiting for me in the living room (during the day or whenver Doug and I aren't home, Shackleton is relegated to the kitchen where he can't do much damage). When Shackleton got out he apparently made a beeline for the lower level and proceeded to chew some choice dvd's and the phone... In Shackleton's defense, Doug pointed out that the phone looked earily familiar to a bone.....

 

Lilliputian is doing great. She is the best cat ever. The other day we were brushing Shackleton's teeth and thought we might as well brush Lilli's as well. I must have used to much toothpaste though for her because she started foaming at the mouth - it freaked me out at first but she was okay. Perhaps we might not brush her teeth for awhile though:) She's a pretty tolerant little thing. She won't eat anything but her dry cat food (and she likes to lick the cheese off Bob Evan's Mac n Cheese as well as salted butter) so when it comes to taking her heartworm medicine, we have to break up the chunk and force it down her throat. She doesn't like it, but she lets us do it. I don't know what I will do though when Doug deploys because it's really a two man job. That and nail clipping - Doug does her nails. I can't bring myself to do it as I'm positive I will get her quick.

 

Speaking of nails, we were at the Dog Park this morning and ran into Hound Dog. Amazingly enough, she's a hound... go figure. Anyways, her dad painted her nails hot pink. Quite interesting ;) We didn't see Mr. B or Bubbles today but we did meet a 10 month old Bull Mastiff named Susie Q. She just got over her first heat and must have still been throwing some scent off because Shackleton was on her like white on rice. Then Bailey showed up and they tag teamed each other wrestling.. I don't mind the wrestling but had to pull Shackleton off when he got amourous. Also, Coco was there (she is a poodle mix) and as they are all about the same age (Shackleton is the youngest at not quite nine months and Coco is the oldest at one year) and height, they had a blast running and chasing and wrestling. It was fun to watch. After some time had passed though it was time to go but before we did, the most beautiful red Dobie came in. His name was Samson and he was ten months old and absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to stay longer to play with him but Shackleton looked really tuckered out.

 

Doug wanted to stop off for some breakfast but then we remembered it was Mother's Day and all the restaurants would be packed so we skipped that and just came home and made breakfast.

 

Friday night was pretty fun. Doug had to work late but as soon as I got home, I took Lilli and Shackleton for a walk and watered the lawn. As I was setting the sprinkler out, one of our neighbors, Heath, asked if we wanted to come over for happy hour. So, off I went and got the lawn chairs and cooler of beer and hung out on the front lawn with Heath, Mo, Terry and Debbie. Doug eventually made his way home from work and we just hung out saying hey to passing neighbors. As it got later, each time one of us got up to stretch our legs, we brought some food out to nibble on. Around 10:00, Tao & Brian with Chewy stopped by and then Lorainne and Michael walked out with Toby and then Jackson's mom walked by as well so there was a little impromptu dog playing. I had Lilli outside with us and she just sat and ignored all the dogs. Eventually I took Lilli in the house and brought Shackleton out and then the wrestling began in earnest. It was fun to hang out with the neighbors and is one of the things we love best about where we live.

 

Saturday Doug had to work so the pets and I just hung out and vegged. For dinner we went up to a new restaurant by us and had drinks and appetizers. They have a really nice happy hour that goes until 9:00 - I've never seen that before. It was nice to get out of the house and hang out together like a date.

 

Anyways, it's Sunday night now and Doug and I are hanging out in the loft. Lilli is on her bed lounging away and Shackleton is on his bed chewing on his favorite twisty bone while Doug and I type on our computers.

Last week was another busy one but this weekend was fun. Friday night after taking Shackleton to the dog park, we hung out at home. Saturday morning we went out and I was surprised because I had forgotten that our neighborhood was having a yard sale. There were like a zillion people in the neighborhood and everyone had their dogs out. We had a little dog show off amongst the dogs who have gone to Old Town School for Dogs - sit, down, stay... etc.. . It's kind of funny. We had Lilli out in her stroller and she was completely immune to it all. We stopped at the art gallery in Old Town and picked up some of our stuff that we had framed. Doug was especially happy with my choice in framing our St. Barbara and Molly Pitcher awards. I've finally gotten my naked man back (it's a Flandrin print I got from the Louvre in 94) and lastly, I had them frame three cartoons that Doug has drawn highlighting our years together. After that, we took Shackleton to the dog park again and picked up some things at the hardware store. We wanted to replace all the insulation stuff around the doors. It was raining in the afternoon which lent itself to taking naps ;) So, we did. Saturday night we had tickets to the Kennedy Center. The National Symphony Orchestra was doing a tribute to Antonin Dvorak. It was pretty awesome. The first part was a biography of his life with brief snipets of his various musical pieces. During the intermission, we spoke with a couple behind us. She was married to a Marine who worked with Chesty Puller. She had asked Doug if he was a Marine - it's the haircut that gives him away ;) Her son was bringing her to the Kennedy Center from Baltimore where he works with troubled teens. We had a short conversation and then it was time for the second piece which was Symphony No. 8. It reminded me a bit of when I was in Prague during their music festival in May of 2004. My friend Jeanne and I caught the Prague Symphany Orchestra doing a tribute to Dvorak. I don't know what it is about certain pieces of his music but they are so beautiful, they make we want to cry sometimes from the beauty of it. Only certain pieces though. What was also interesting about the tribute at the Kennedy Center is that during the first half, they pointed Dvorak out as an example of an amazing artist who was successful while he was still alive and was not a tortured soul (unlike Mozart, Edgar Allan Poe, etc). I'd never really thought about him from that perspective. Not to say he had an easy life - I think he lost like four children in all but for the most part he was quite content with his life. All in all it was a great evening.

 

On Sunday we went to the dog park and grocery shopping but other than that we didn't do much - pretty much it was a slug weekend ;)

            About a month ago I was approached by Dr Michael Useem, Professor of Management at Wharton Business School (U Penn.)  He had been invited to be a key note speaker at Boston University’s “Executive Development Roundtable”  http://management.bu.edu/academics/centers/edrt/index.html .  Dr Useem’s topic was “experiential leadership” and the value of getting students outdoors to tie discussion into something the student or executive can recall.  He argued that events that one participates in are for more memorable than cases studies you might read. 

Due to my 2 ½ years of coordinating a form of experiential leadership for Wharton MBAs, Dr Useem wanted me to be there to help validate his best practices.  He also thought that I had some of my own observations that could add to the discussion.  I was also tasked to discuss how the Marine Corps evaluates for leadership potential and then grows our next generation of lieutenants.

I figured I had a minor role for the two days on Boston, but it turns out that I was part of several good discussions and was more of a guest lector than just fly on the wall.  The make up of the group was about 50/50 split between college professors (mostly in the field of organizational communication) and leadership development executives.  Over 80% of the group was a PHD or PHD candidate.  Despite the formal education of the group, my Executive Masters in Leadership from Georgetown http://msb.georgetown.edu/prospective/graduate/eml/  gave me not only the credentials, but also an understanding of the working language that was used in this group. 

The highlight was listening to Rodrigo Jordan and Aldo Boitano, world-class mountain climbers who not only have summated several of the world’s highest peaks (to include Mt Everest twice), but also spend time educating executives and the youth in Chile. Both are about as other centered and self-depreciating as you could get.  They gave great lessons in teamwork and priorities.  It was humbling to hear such accomplished human beings.

I was truly honored to be a guest on the panel as well as to meet all of these wonderful people.  Despite this being the reason I was in Boston, I adjusted my schedule so I could see my sister Denise and her kids (my nieces and nephews).    It had been about a year since “Uncle Doug” visited.  The highlights with the kids included going to the park and out to dinner.  Denise showed me the remodeling of her home-- she’s done a great job with her basement.  As an extra bonus, Denise took me on a “duck-boat” ride on a WWII era amphibious boat.  It was pretty cool.  After cruising around Boston Common, we splashed on the river and viewed M.I.T., which the tour-guide described as accepting only “real-wisenheimers who either graduates and makes lots of money or ride around Cambridge on a bicycle they made themselves.”  Perhaps it’s funnier with the Bahhhh-ston accent, but none the less it was a great finish to a great few days.

Leadership by drinking some one else’s coffee

          In a word of Instant Messaging, Blackberry Executives and nearly limitless access to data and information we have been able to do more things with greater accuracy more quickly.   Sharing this information is also easy.  With a “reply all” on an email your thoughts can be instantly shared with your key colleagues.  You can enclose complicated charts, databases or even picture files.  Isn’t this great?  I would say yes and no.  While we have gained the opportunity to share data, we have lost the skill of personalization of that message.  So how do we get that skill back?  We do it by drinking other people’s coffee.

  The genesis of a new a philosophy

            I had an opportunity to do a job that I was not specifically trained to do.  As the battalion logistics officer of a Marine Corps Artillery battalion, I was responsible for the supply, maintenance and support of trucks and weapons of a 500-man organization.  This included the fiscal oversight of managing the expenditures for said equipment.  My “money guy” was a bright young Ivy-league trained officer.  Mike had explained to me that on paper we were in the red, but in reality we were in the black.  We needed to be credited for orders that were cancelled, yet we were still charged for. 

           “I have the documentation, sir” Mike told me, “but they haven’t returned my emails.”

  Since my background was operations, I have never paid much attention to logistics and supply.  My attitude was “just get me what I need now.”  It always managed to show up, so I didn’t really think about how it got to me.  Now I was interacting with the dark underbelly of fiscal codes, legality of transactions and the importance of balanced books.  Mike expressed the urgency of needing to square our accounts, but wasn’t sure how to get the results.  I was in the habit of pushing buttons until I found one that opened the right door.  Together we came up with a philosophy I still use today.

  “How many emails have you sent, Mike?” I inquired.

  “At least 1 or 2 a week for the last month.” he said.

  “Have you called them?” was my next question

  “Occasionally” he responded, “but I don’t have a record of calls were as email gives me a record of what I say and how they respond.”

  Since I didn’t really understand the process I decided that Mike and I needed to get a closer look at this decision maker who doesn’t take action based on emails or phone calls.  “Mike, you and I are going on a short field trip.  Bring hard copies of all the documentation and bring a coffee cup.”

  “Why a coffee cup?” he wondered.

  “Because we are going to sit in that guy’s office and drink his coffee until we get resolution.  I’ll bet we get more done in a couple hours than your emails have been able to do for you in the last month.” As we headed out the door I could tell that Mike was skeptical.   While he knew the importance of records keeping, he had missed the human element portion.  Together we would figure it out.

  As we arrived at the Supply Management Unit (SMU) we asked to see the Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) that was responsible for making decisions on re-crediting our account.  “He’s busy right now” was the response.  “I’d be glad to take those documents for you.”

  “We’ll just wait here until he’s available,” I retorted, “besides, we’re in no hurry.  Do you have some coffee?”

  You could tell that the CWO’s personnel were used to running interference for him.  He was obviously a busy man, but since we knew he was difficult to access we just decided to wait for him until it was convenient.  You could tell that the young sergeant wasn’t comfortable as two strangers just sat in the office.  We had interrupted his comfort zone.  After a few minutes he told his staff sergeant that there were two officers that were waiting to see the CWO.  With the same enthusiasm to send us on our way we were asked “can I take those documents for you, sir, and ensure that the CWO gets them”

  My response was “No thank you, I’m not in a hurry.  I just want to make sure that I’m the one that briefs him.”

  A few minutes passed and you could tell that these Marines weren’t used to having people just camp out in the office.  We then met the next senior Marine, a Master Sergeant.  “Sir, the CWO is in a meeting, can I take care of this for you?”

  I thought about it.  “Do you have final authority over our discussion?”

  “No sir,” he said, “but the OIC (Officer in Charge) usually goes with my recommendation.”

  “Thank you Master Sergeant, I think we’ll just wait.  My lieutenant has worked hard for the last month to fix this and since it’s now my issue I’d rather leave here knowing the final outcome of the decision.”

  “That’s your call sir.  Let me know if you change your mind.”

  By now you could tell that Mike was getting restless.  “Sir, how long are we going to sit here?”

  “The whole time” was my answer.  “We leave when problem is solved.”

  When the SMU OIC (gotta love them acronyms!) finally returned he was met by a flurry of his staff telling them about this Captain and Lieutenant that were just sitting around drinking coffee.  Since his staff encouraged him to help us (so we’d leave) there was a sense of urgency to solving our problem.  The CWO was very anxious to address our concerns.  While he might be able to strong arm a freshly minted lieutenant, he wouldn’t be able to do the same thing to a captain.  We watched as he got his entire staff to quit what there were doing and put 100% of the effort into getting us taken care of.

  He apologized numerous times for the long wait.  The fact I didn’t have an appointment was some how missed, but my patience and congeniality won him over.  I easily could have demanded an instant response.  I could have used my authority to leverage others.  I didn’t.  As result we not only solved our problem but had a couple added bonuses:

• ·        I learned the wickets of the process.
• ·        Mike and I developed a new ally
• o                 We put a face to the name at the end of the email.
• o                The coffee was good, but the human contact was better
• o                 People want to help people they have a connection to
• ·        Mike learned that there were some things he had missed, and as result we were more in the black than he had realized.

So how do I apply this?

            The lesson learned here is that the creation of a human bond will facilitate collaborate decision making.  It’s easy to ignore an email.  It’s easy to tell your subordinates to take a message for you, but it is pretty hard to resist helping someone when they are sitting in your office drinking your coffee.  You’ll help them so you can turn to other things, but if the coffee drinker is cordial, you may even create a sense of trust with them. I’ve also found that making it a habit to visit people just to say hi (and drink their coffee) I’m not just seen as only visiting when I need something.  The first time it certainly was a passive aggressive move---and it worked.  But making regular time to just stop by and say hello also works.

            Send that email, make that phone call, but occasionally just swing by and drink their coffee.

So I just had to post a quick note - I was taking Shackleton and Lilli (in her stroller) for a walk after work the other day and as we headed down Belfield, all the little kids were out and came rushing over to see Lilli (I think they are intimidated by Shackleton because of his size). I couldn't believe how amazing she was. The kids were all over her and everyon wanted to hold her but couldn't quite manage 9 lbs so her butt was hanging down but she never protested. She just seemed to be incrediably tolerant. Shackleton on the other hand seemed to be quite jealous that no one was paying attention to him ;) Anyways, it was just so cute I had to write.