Five Years of Communication Growth

Tags

blogs, communication, growth, writing

One of the recent blog assignments given to my students was to write about where they want their level of professional communications to be in five years.

Five years can bring about a large amount of change. For me, five years ago I was smack dab in the middle of a national recession where I was managing all forms of communications for a Fortune 500 company and its subsidiaries that were experiencing record downturns, high levels of instability and corporate-wide layoffs. Internally, it was a weird arena of controlled chaos. I was dealing with the Executive Team, employees and the media on a daily basis. Everything I said and wrote in my professional dealings were crafted with specific messages and endured a rigorous approval process.

Five years ago, I didn’t know what my exact situation would be at this point in time, but I know I would have expected that my communication abilities to continue to improve. As I always did, I would adapt my writing and speaking to the environment in which I was working. Each company and organization has its own unique style and voice, and I think that being a good communicator is to understand and know that voice, and then use it to further the company’s goals.

Today, I have a lot less stress and lot more leeway in how I communicate professionally. This doesn’t mean that I have lost articulation or the ability to construct messages; it just means I do it on a less frequent (and frenzied) basis. These days, I have the luxury of two weeks between weekend classes to construct my Powerpoint presentations, organize my notes and prepare my lesson agendas. This is a far cry (and a great relief) from the 30 minutes I may have been given to craft a news release that would be distributed globally, but first had to go through five levels of approval by people who didn’t know how to craft messages.  That was rarely a fun day.

I am so pleased to enjoy communications again. What continues to improve is I still enforce a high level of professionalism in both the written and oral word and continually challenge myself to build my strengths and turn any weaknesses into positives. Some things never change.

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100 Steps to Drop Your Pants

Tags

behavior, gym, health

The health club I attend is situated in the former site of a grocery store in a convenient location. It’s a great club and I love the energy and the amount of available equipment. I also love the fact that the scale doesn’t need to go as far to the right anymore and my clothes are fitting better, but that’s not the point of this (even though I’m happy as hell).

The entrance to the club is on the south side facing a side street and a good-sized parking lot, while the front of the club is along the eastern front, with a wall of windows facing the main highway and a smaller parking area that extends into a much larger lot as you continue north. The gym is located in a large strip mall, so you can imagine there are hundreds of spaces along the main highway.

The cardio area is set up in front of the windows, so no matter if I am on the treadmill, stairstepper or elliptical, I have a great view of the parking area on that side of the building.

Day after day, I am continually amazed at the people who troll through the parking lot, trying to find a spot closest to the door. Just this morning, I saw a women drive around the smaller parking area three times, and when she finally spotted someone sitting in his car, she waited in the aisle for at least three minutes, unaware he had pulled into the spot a minute before she arrived. I could see he was speaking on his phone. When he finally popped out of the car and headed into the club, she had to pull into a spot further down the row.

The other phenomenon I witness is that in the south parking lot, people will create their own, illegal spots at the top of the row and park where bright yellow-orange stripes have been painted diagonally across the ground. Obviously, those are not parking spots. I see this as I walk from the last row where I parked in a spot next to three other vacant spaces.

I’m pretty sure I’m at the health club. The sign on the door tells me so. My workout clothes and yoga mat also confirm I’m there. There are cardio areas, free weights, weight machines, an aerobics room, a pool and plenty of trainers running around in bright orange shirts that read “drop your pants” on the back. So, I’m at the health club. A health club where people are supposed to exercise and put forth that extra physical effort. However, the extra 100 steps one may have to walk to park at the end of a row apparently requires too much exertion for some.  Ah, those 100 steps. Sometimes it’s just too far to drop your pants.

Finding Miss America

Tags

miss america, miss wisconsin, pageant, scholarship, writing

This past weekend Wisconsin welcomed home its own (and only second in its history) Miss America. There were events, dinners, shows and pep rallies held throughout the state from Kenosha to Green Bay where crowds turned out to cheer on her accomplishments and meet the young woman who is given a national opportunity to affect lives by promoting her own personal platform, along with serving as a spokesperson for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

I had the opportunity to work with Miss America when she was Miss Wisconsin, and interestingly enough when I met her it came on the heels of me writing a book I titled, Finding Miss America. The story is that a local pageant director has cemented in his mind what a Miss America should embody, and then his perception is shattered and altered by the young woman who wins his local and shows him a new way. It seems kind of risky to write on this subject when I work closely with the Miss Wisconsin Organization and I know people will be looking into it closely to try and find resemblances, but I was only inspired by the pageants and am not using any one in particular. Except for my friend Becky, who was the inspiration for Lex Ann Rodgers, the Applewood choreographer from originally from Texas. I expect that with this personal connection to a Miss America, I stand a good chance of getting published.

The opportunity to present an enlightening viewpoint and insight to a program that many people think is outdated and antiquated is essential. I recently read an article in Entertainment Weekly, where in preparing for hosting the Oscars, Bill Crystal was asked if he thinks “the Oscars will ever become as irrelevant as Miss America?” My response is I hope the Oscars become even more irrelevant than Miss America, because what this program does is offer millions in scholarships to young women each year, as well as give them a venue in which to voice and promote their personal platform issues. I think that is extremely more relevant than a bunch of actors receiving golden statues.

So, if you know of an agent who is interested in a good story with topical relevance and strong writing, send him or her my way. Finding Miss America is just waiting to be published!

Me and Laura Kaeppeler, Miss Wisconsin 2011 and Miss America 2012

Improving Communications.

Last week a person very close to me said that he sometimes feels that I treat him like an employee. My first reaction was to apologize because it sounded like such an awful thing to say to something with whom you are in a personal relationship. And I did apologize, but then I got to thinking – how did I manage my employees and was that really a negative statement? Since I’m on a break from corporate employment, I decided to give this attention and review my management communication style so I can be better and smarter when I return to the office. So – how do I communicate as a manager?

Are my expectations high? Absolutely. Right off in initial interviews, I tell my prospective employees that I ask nothing from them that I wouldn’t do myself – and that’s the best possible job. This means being smart about everything, using your resources and always striving to do better so you can finish a job with pride. In marketing and communications, it’s also always about staying a step ahead of what is going on in the market and making the right decisions.

Do I communicate with my employees? I do so on a daily basis, and when I have a busy travel schedule, sometimes it doesn’t always happen but I am otherwise consistent. For those who in remote locations, they may receive a bit less attention than those down the hall from me, but I make every effort to make sure I know what’s going on in their world, and to keep them informed on what’s going on in mine.

Do I trust my employees? I will always stand by and defend them, with the expectation they are doing the right thing. I had a boss who treated me like this, and it was the best feeling in the world, knowing that he unconditionally supported and defended me, no matter the situation. Of course, this commitment stands only until the employee has breached that trust or done something amiss. Then, a continuous shadow of doubt will linger until the trust is established again, but the trust can be renewed.

Do I give enough positive feedback? Here I know I do not do a good enough job. I get wrapped up in making sure everything is being done, and getting done better and smarter than before, that I often fail to provide that positive acknowledgement. That’s definitely an area I’m going to work on for future assignments.

Interestingly enough, this introspective ties in to the communication assignments I give my students in my Advanced Writing Course. We’re reviewing and analyzing our communication styles – how we communicate with others and how others perceive our communication style.  I’ll have to report in next class that I also have areas for improvement – because another sign of a good leader is to demonstrate growth and change in order to set a good example.

Cassette Tape. Rewind.

Driving east along I-43 last week, the morning light reflected off a tangle of brown, shiny magnetic material wound into the branches of a hibernating bush. Drawn to it, I saw it was the remnants of an audio cassette tape. That was a sight I hadn’t seen in years. What possible situation could have led up to that tape being tossed/thrown/dropped out of a moving vehicle where it crashed on the pavement and exploded into hundreds of bits, setting the tape free to flap in the breeze?

When I purchased my vehicle nearly 10 years ago, a musician friend of mine noticed the sound system with its built in cassette tape player (along with a 6 CD-changer). He did a lot of oral note taking when composing music, and thought it was exceptionally cool that in a new vehicle you could still listen to cassettes.  Fast forward to present day and another friend laughed upon seeing it, wondering who would listen to cassette tapes anymore since CDs, ipods and other digital music devices are so prevalent. [1]

Audio cassettes – like vinyl records and even 8-tracks – evoke so many memories for me. I heard NWA and Jane’s Addiction on the same day for the first time (my boyfriend had eclectic tastes). I’ve listened to motivational and inspirational speeches. I’ve answered thousands of practice interview questions. I’ve listened to a tarot card reader lay out my future. I’ve logged thousands of hours (and hundreds of batteries) while working out and listening to my walkman.

I don’t know how that one cassette made it so long into this technology age only to be tossed along the side of a highway on a freezing Thursday morning. But it sure makes me nostalgic for a good mix tape.

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[1] For those unfamiliar with the ancient music-carrying device, a compact cassette consists of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. These spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. Two stereo pairs of tracks (four total) or two monaural analog audio tracks are available on the tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played or recorded when the tape is moving in one direction and the second pair when moving in the other direction. This reversal is achieved either by manually flipping the cassette or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement – my vehicle has the auto-reverse