VMG = Velocity Made Good – The Holy Grail of sailing and business
As the year draws to a close and I seek to evaluate how I have done in my business this past year in relation to the goals I set for myself, I am called to share a great sailing term I was reminded of this past fall during the America’s Cup races. The acronym is VMG and it stands for Velocity Made Good. Simply put it is the speed toward the destination or mark, as it is called in sailboat racing.
A race course for sailboats is set up in a way that the marks are directly up wind or downwind, which sailboats can’t sail toward directly safely or efficiently. Thus the skill and strategy comes in the angles sailed toward the marks so that you go as fast as you can for as short a distance as possible. The challenge is that sailing faster generally takes you farther from the mark and sailing a more direct path slows the boat down. Thus the constant paradox of trading speed for distance is what makes VMG the Holy Grail of sailboat racing. This short video produced during the America’s Cup does an excellent job of explaining and demonstrating VMG further if you are interested in learning more.
How then does this sailing term relate to my or your yearend business review you ask? Well, my belief is that just like in sailing most business goals or initiatives have trade offs that have to be considered. It is never just a singular factor that drives results. Other dynamic factors force the concept of trade offs to be considered that require any business leader to play the two or three or even more variables against each other in real-time as they make progress toward the desired outcome.
The following are some concrete examples of VMG at play in business.
1. For my entrepreneurial business, it was the head winds of personal life events, (house move / remodel projects and the sickness / death of a family member) that forced me to slow the focus on the speed of my business.
2. A client chose to speed up their business by shifting the focus on external business development after a prolonged period of inward organizational development. The revenue generation helped to move the company forward even though there is still more organizational development to do.
3. Another client chose to slow the boat down to sail closer toward their goal of developing their own people to gain the skills and share identified best practices they needed to be successful in the long run. The opportunity cost may have been some lost business in the short run but over time there are now more people contributing to help drive new business.
4. A third client realized they could no longer sail directly toward the change they wanted because they were literally getting blown backwards. Instead they had to fall off and get the boat moving again and out of “Irons”. Another sailing term that takes place when the boat loses all forward momentum and therefore steering because it is stuck pointed directly into the wind.
If you are with me now on how the concept of VMG applies to business as it does to sail boat racing, then the question becomes how do you identify and track VMG if it is the Holy Grail measurement of both. The short answer, I believe, lies in these 5 steps:
1. Identify what the mark is – What is the target you are sailing toward? In sailing this is pretty easy to distinguish. In business identifying and agreeing on what the mark is does not come easily.
2. Identify the primary tradeoffs – What are the competing forces at work that need to be balanced? Again in sailing, it is the angle to the mark and the speed of the boat. The key is striking the right balance between the two. In business isolating just two competing forces is challenging.
3. Identify the secondary forces – What additional factors contribute to finding the optimal balance between the two previously identified primary forces? In the sailing video they talk about the steering, sail trim, boat balance and all the other factors lining up to achieve the optimal VMG so you sail the fastest and shortest course possible to the mark. This is just as much of an art in a business as it is on a racing sailboat because there is always much more complexity than just the two primary competing forces at work.
4. Make conscious choices about your VMG decisions along the way – Continually acknowledge the tradeoff you are making as you make it. “We are going to sail a little faster for a little longer distance.”
5. Accept that there is no perfect course to sail – The art is in getting to the mark as efficiently and effectively as you can by balancing the dynamic forces that are continually in play as you make steady progress toward the goal.
So as you reflect on your goal attainment this past year, I encourage you to consider not only whether you or did you not reach the mark, but also ask yourself what was your VMG along the way. More importantly as you set goals for next year, be sure you have your VMG instrumentation ready to go as you start toward your mark in 2014.
Gimbalage – A new word to live and lead by
New words are exciting because they can mean what you want them to mean. Kind of like a blank canvas, something just waiting to be created. Working with one of my clients was the genesis for the word gimbalage to emerge. This is always my favorite way to create something, spontaneously while collaborating with another in service of their success. Those ingredients led to a sudden a spark of creativity that I couldn’t have possibly done in isolation.
My company name, Gimbal Systems, has a lot of metaphorical meaning wrapped up in it. The result is that it is a lot to explain to people and for them to understand. Only a few put the pieces together and usually it is over time as we work together. The metaphor is subtle, sublime and some would argue probably too much, from a marketing perspective but it speaks to me and is connected to one of my greatest passions in life, being on the water.
The work with my client over time was to help develop their leadership skills. We were continually exploring how to be more successful at navigating the inevitable turmoil she faced. How could she be more effective in the midst of an onslaught of change, pressures and expectations? We worked on developing her emotional intelligence, communication and conflict skills, decision making, and team building. There was always more to explore and yet despite all the leadership development the waters never seemed to calm.
Our discussion one day led her to a place of recognition that there was no silver bullet that would solve everything. The reality was that life was always going to involve navigating rough seas. All the work in the world would not smooth out the ride and make it all alright. Especially given what she wants to accomplish and the places she is exerting herself.
If she wanted to be true to who she was and continually show up in the world as the leader she is, she was going to have to accept what came to her versus trying to stop, calm or avoid it. It was in that moment of recognition that the word gimbalage was born. It came out of the necessity of knowing that life and business were going to continually test her or anyone for that matter. If that was the case there better be something she could do to help her effectively absorb what was thrown at her.
Gimbalage is that skill. It is born out of acceptance of what is and what comes. We can try like crazy to control, influence and shape what happens, all of which requires a great deal of energy with limited ROI. So much like mindfulness with its concept of “just notice” and “being versus doing” gimbalage is similar in that it is a way of being that emphasizes greater awareness. Yet what it adds to mindfulness is a sense of the dynamic nature of life and the constant need to balance all that comes at you, literally and figuratively, with all the possible choices you have to react to it. It is in the consciousness and awareness of choice, and more importantly choices, that there is creativity and power to be effective regardless of what is thrown at us. In other words, the person with the most choices invariably wins rather than the unconscious leader that has fewer choices.
Gimbalage is a word that is a noun, adjective and intransitive verb. Much like Google has become synonymous for searching and has multiple meanings, gimbalage is the ability to be dynamic, to flex and adapt to use the forces that come at you like tai chi rather than fighting them. The result is a leader that can weather the storm in order to stay upright, balanced and directional toward what they want to achieve regardless of what comes at them.
When the world throws you into the perfect storm, a client doesn’t buy your product, a meeting with your team goes sideways, change is resisted or whatever else may be testing your patience, it is time for gimbalage. It is your choice to be overcome by what comes at you or to find your sea legs and embrace the challenge because gimbalage is a way of being and growing all at the same time through greater awareness. Similar to knowledge, gimbalage is acquired through experience and practice.
Next time you see someone successfully absorb and navigate a challenging situation you can tell them, “Nice Gimbalage.” Much like I do with my client now and her response is “Gimbalage, Baby, the key to my success” to which we both smile. A sense of humor is also a critical component to good gimbalage.
So there you have it folks, the launching of a new word to fill in the gap around gimbal, gimbaling and gimbaled. The canvas is covered now with a dynamic word with multiple meanings and usages that is intended to help with individual and collective effectiveness. Now it is time to share the vision and verbiage, which is what my work is all about. I look forward to what life gives me, so I can gimbalage (intransitive verb) my way through it and create unlimited degrees of freedom. I hope you will join me for the ride.
Center of Effort – Finding the Elusive Dynamic Balance
After exploring the terra firma metaphor of 4 by 4ing for a couple of posts, I thought I would return to the realm of boating that fuels my passion and is responsible for the name of my business. Much like when I learned more about Gimbal Systems, I recently came across another fantastic boating terminology that metaphorically represents what I’m seeking to help my clients achieve as productive leaders or members of effective teams that achieve the results they desire.
The phrase is called the center of effort. In sailboat design, specifically sail design, it is the point of origin in a sail where the six different aerodynamically (wind) forces come together to drive the boat forward. A slightly simpler way of putting it is the center of effort is where the sailboat with it’s multiple sails reaches it’s optimal balance point. To experience this is a design ideal that is not easily attained in practice as you can probably imagine.
The moment comes when you know you have found it is when at the helm of the boat you can let go of the tiller or wheel and the boat continues merrily on its path toward its destination. Athletes call this being in the zone, when all their preparation and training comes together at the right moment and suddenly they can’t miss. It is magic when it occurs and anyone that has experienced in any way will probably break out in a wide smile upon remembering what it felt like. Ofcourse, those moments are fleeting and the challenge is always to try and repeat them more often.
In life and business, just like sailing and athletics, there are many forces at work that are constantly interfering with our individual and collective ability to find and stay in our center of effort. In sailing the position of center of effort will vary with sail plan, sail trim or airfoil profile, boat trim and point of sail. Each sail on a boat has it’s own center of effort, so when there are two or more sails being used at the same time, that changes the combined center of effort as the visual below shows. Add the boat design, ocean and weather conditions to all of this it only gets more complex.
This is exactly the same for leaders and their teams. Each individual team member has their own center of effort that is unique to them and their design based upon their background and experience. Put a few individuals together and the combined center of effort shifts for the team as a result. Add to this the ever changing business landscape, team make up and desired outcomes and the result is a very dynamic and hard to pinpoint the center of effort for any team.
So the question becomes how to find that elusive sweet spot where everything comes together to create drive and lift to move the boat in the desired location with maximum efficiency and balance. Design schematics are one thing, making it happen in real time is the fun and challenging part of working with teams. This is what makes individual and collective effectiveness so challenging and yet so compelling. Finding and maintaining the optimal flow that is found in the center of effort is what we want to help leaders and their teams harness. It is something we will continue to explore and write about but the desired result looks and feels something like this image below.
Four-By-Four: Part Two = 4 Squared
Words and peoples various reactions and interpretations of them never cease to amaze me. Working in the field of effective communication for improved leadership, decision making and sales, this topic is a place of constant curiosity for me. Words matter and more importantly being curious about hearing what they mean to others matters more.
Another reaction to my year of 4-by-4ing, see previous post, sparked the description of creating a squared box with perfect right angles. Two triangles put together in a very structured way that is symmetrical and rigid. The picture described is the absolute antithesis to the endless ambiguity of off-roading, which creates an interesting paradox to explore.
The need to balance both structure and ambiguity is the art and science of leadership in my mind. Both are needed at different times for different reasons. The skill comes in finding the right times and situations to match with the appropriate perspective to achieve the desired outcome. Like with any paradox there are the two poles at either end and it is the dynamic balance in between that is interesting part.
So if I’m exploring the concept of ambiguity that comes with off-roading this year that is at one end of the paradoxical spectrum and I’m met by the concept of getting squared off with an image of a structured 4-by-4 box, how do we explore the middle ground?
The answer was both of us being curious about what is possible and what the other was thinking about. With a little more time we landed on the following three take-aways:
1. Inside a perfectly squared off 4 by 4 box there is an unlimited number of weird angles that also exist. The key is to get them aligned correctly.
2. Nothing is as it first appears; ala a pretty box does not necessarily bespeak a perfect gift inside.
3. True craftsmanship and leadership works with the flaws of any given situation.
Let me now ground these three points in the reality of life and business by expanding on them.
1. Alignment – My work with leaders and teams coupled with my own experience in business has cemented my belief that successful teams are always working on their alignment. The more diverse they are the better which makes the communication and commitment to alignment all the more important. In other words successful teams and leaders are continually 4 by 4ing to get squared up and aligned.
2. Change is constant – The pretty box that is perfectly square will not stay that way. Life and business is dynamic with countless forces at work continuously. So the pretty box today will not be pretty tomorrow unless it is broken apart and rebuilt based upon what is learned inside and outside the company. Good companies, especially the fast growing entrepreneurial ones are constantly changing and evolving. If they don’t they eventually dissolve, which is the natural order of life. So if the perfectly squared box isn’t being broken apart from the inside out in service of innovation and improvement, aka Kai Zen, it eventually will breakdown from the outside in.
3. True Craftsmen and Leaders work with the flaws – In the midst of a remodel I’m in the middle of the hardwood floor carpenter we are working with to restore the existing fir floors we found in our new house commented that there are some great “character boards”. I asked him what he meant by that and he said these are the boards with darker tannins that don’t quite match the others. I just love that phrase and have repeated it often. It is the character boards in any individual, team, organization or 4 by 4 squared box that give them character and make them unique. The key is to be able to recognize and work with the character boards. Take this concept a step further as a leader and it can develop into a desire to embrace and encourage risk taking and possible failures that may result but ultimately make us and our squared boxes all stronger as a result.
I encourage you and the people I work with to take the time to explore the difference of perspectives and the polarities of a paradox like this one to get to the learning it generates. The alternative answer or balance I find is always somewhere in between and comes from the ability to lean in toward the other with curiosity and a desire to learn from their perspective while further shaping your own. My belief is that those that make the time to explore the differences will be rewarded by what emerges because the picture is never as it appears when it comes to humans working together to achieve results while under duress that life and business inevitably produce. This is the truth about dynamic 4-by-4ing in the journey of life and business where we strive to be as effective as possible to achieve the results we want.
Four-by-four – A theme for the year
I clicked over another year back in April and was thinking about the numbers that I carry with me for the year. Life has been particularly bumpy and has continued to be so I declared the year to be about off-roading. Blazing a path toward a goal but not absolutely sure what I will encounter along the way.
When I told a friend that this was the year of four-by-fouring for me, he immediately responded by saying that there are 3 keys to successful off-roading:
1. Go Slow
2. Keep Moving
3. Relax and roll with the ride no matter how rough it gets
I was struck by how applicable those three things are for me to remind myself and my clients of in the ever-changing landscape of business.
Go Slow – Business these days is always about speed, how quickly can we go to market, launch a new product, adapt to the latest change, increase revenues, learn a new skill, etc. Going slow is usually not an option in today’s world of I wanted it done yesterday. Slowing down is not easy, popular or generally accepted as a good idea. Yet, too often in the rush to get things done, important information is missed or misinterpreted and the relational aspects of work that take time to resolve are glossed over. The result is often more time is spent in the long run repairing the damage that comes from going too fast.
Keep Moving – The key here is to keep the momentum moving forward. Coming to a complete stop and getting started again is very challenging and sometimes impossible. Finding the right balance between going slow, but not so slow that you stop is the art of off-roading. In other words, inertia is a powerful force that you want working in your favor versus against you. You also have to keep moving in the desired direction even if that means going slightly off-course in the short run rather than stopping because the obvious path is blocked.
Relax and enjoy the ride – Four-wheeling is never a smooth ride, so you have to get used to the invariable thrashing about that happens as you go. Trying to hold on tight, death gripping the steering wheel or door handle, is exhausting work. Trying to tense up and hold you head straight will be the end of you. It is natural to do as beginners invariably worry about their vehicles ability to absorb the terrain. But seasoned riders know that you have to let go and literally roll with what comes even if that means flailing about like a wet noodle.
There have been days when I and the leaders I work with have wanted to:
1. Stop and choose a different path ,
2. Go much faster than it seems like we are toward a goal
3. White knuckle the wheel because the ride is excruciating due to the obstacles that have appeared in the road of life and business that have to be negotiated.
Yet the reminder to do the opposite of what is intuitive and practice these three core off-roading skills has served me and my clients well in the first third of my four-by-four year. The practices have helped keep progress toward the destination and desired outcomes despite the inevitable obstacles that emerge. The result has been a greater appreciation for the journey along the way. So give them a try and let me know what you experience along the way. Happy trails!!
Blocks, Blockers and Blocking – Gratitude for knowing the differences
Thanksgiving is still a recent memory despite the onslaught of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I have been thinking that the holiday goes beyond just the time off from work, the time with family and friends, the good food and football. To me the holiday provides a chance to be grateful which Wikipedia describes as:
Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received.
That description is true for me when I reflect on the positive leadership I have experienced in my career that informs my work I’m doing now with executives to help them develop their own leadership and leaders. The leaders I’m grateful to encouraged me to see things in myself that I could not see for myself at just the right moments. These leaders work focused on my and others success before their own. It is this type of leadership I’m grateful to have experienced myself.
My observation from working with and for great leaders is that they are constantly open to and looking for where they were blocked themselves just as much as they are helping me with my own blocks that they were coaching me on at the time. In other words, they were simultaneously working on themselves while they helping me work on myself. They did this by seeking to identify the things they were doing, which they may not even know they were doing, that were getting in their way of being as successful as they would like to be.
As leaders move up or the organizations they start grow, they have to rely on others to help them be successful. The transition from an individual contributor or entrepreneur to a manager or leader of an organization requires the ability to let go, trust and mange results through others. It is exactly at these points of transition where most leaders own blocks typically start to appear and impact performance. It is also the exact same time most leaders stop looking hard at themselves because they believe they are past that.
Why am I talking about blocks, blockers and blocking you ask? I would be lying if I didn’t say that I did catch some football over the holiday. In football a pass, kick or field goal that is blocked is generally a negative event for the offense that prevents something from happening successfully. On the other hand, successful blocking usually goes unnoticed, but is critical for good plays (running or passing) to occur that lead to points being scored. Blocks, blocked, blockers and blocking are all words from the same root, with very different meanings and outcomes on the football field.
In terms of successful leadership that I’m grateful for, I would say the difference in outcomes with these words is just as significant as it is on the gridiron. Having a boss that has their own blocks and is not aware of them or willing to work on them can be very challenging to work for. In fact, just like in football if those blocks continue to be missed the result can often lead to a number of blocked outcomes despite everyone else’s best efforts. Funnily enough, these types of leaders that are blind to their own blocks often end up getting labeled as “blockers” for all the wrong reasons because of their inability to share the stage with others or give their direct reports opportunities for growth that may expose or challenge the leader’s own unidentified blocks.
Yet the leader that is open to learning, looks for feedback and is committed to growing themselves and all the people around them becomes the ultimate blocking machine in my experience. They are committed to identifying and removing both their own and other’s blocks as well as the larger organizational obstacles that present themselves. These blocking leaders focus on setting other people up for success and more often than not they are not acknowledged for it because they are not expecting it. This type of blocking leader is a true servant leader as Robert Greenleaf originally described in 1970.
For those of you who have had the good fortune to work for or with one of these blocking leaders I have described, I invite you to express your gratitude toward them during this extended season of giving thanks as they are not easy to find or come by. I myself am grateful to have had exposure to them along my professional journey so that I know what it feels like to work for them. The feeling I imagine must be similar to the experiences a running back has when a giant hole opens up in the defense to run through or a quarterback has with lots of time to scan the field from within a secure pocket that protects him. When that type of leadership blocking happens, good players become great and teams experience success.
So my hope with this post is that more people within organizations will have the same positive leadership experiences that I’m gratefully recognizing because my belief is that they all start with knowing the difference between blocks, blockers and blocking.
My Boss Loves Me – But do you love your boss?
I was struck by the billboard I passed recently on the Ballard Bridge that shouted out MY BOSS LOVES ME in bright lights and claimed a 97% employer satisfaction because of it.
Ballard Bridge Billboard
Clearly having a boss that appreciates you is a great thing but I would argue it does not guarantee satisfaction because the feeling is not always mutual.
In my career I have had bosses that showed all the signs of loving me and the work I did for them based upon the reviews and rewards I received. However, I will admit to the fact that I did not always love those bosses. They had their fair share of leadership short-comings and a lot of the time it was because they shied away from truly expressing and exploring love and joy in the work place with me.
I’m not suggesting that the manager – employee relationship should be inappropriate or an over the top love fest for obvious reasons, but I am talking about taking the time and making the effort to be more open to exploring what drives love in the workplace for each individual as a way to ensure it is reciprocal.
In most organizations I would argue there is not too much unconditional love flying around. Rather it needs to be earned. For the employee that generally means performing well, being a dependable and adaptable team player that goes the extra mile to get the results the manager wants and needs. Put that all together and you will most likely be loved by your boss like the Billboard says.
Gaining the love in the other direction, the employee loves their boss, is a little harder to achieve. Several well-known research studies like a Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor.
“People leave managers not companies…in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue,” Gallup wrote in its survey findings. The effect of poor management is widely felt. Gallup also determined that poorly managed work groups are on average 50 percent less productive and 44 percent less profitable than well-managed groups.
So if love in the workplace is unnatural to express in the first place, is conditional and is not necessarily reciprocal clearly we have our work cut out for us despite what this billboard is trying to get us to believe. Luckily right next to it was another billboard that screamed out GET YOUR DREAM ON.
Ballard Bridge Billboard #2
To me the dream is a workplace where:
1) Real emotions are part of the conversation rather than just part of employee survey score.
2) Emotional intelligence is valued and developed at all levels of an organization.
3) Employees are loved by and love their managers because both individuals are committed to:
A) Keeping the work fun, meaningful and manageable
B) Having open and honest communications despite the perceived risks in doing so
C) Learning in relationship together while achieving the results that matter.
So I say dream big because life is short and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said:
“DON’T BE PUSHED BY YOUR PROBLEMS, BE LED BY YOUR DREAMS.”
I’m curious what your Workplace Billboard Dreams are. Once you have them identified, go ahead and put them out there in bright lights, you might be surprised by what emerges if you do.
The story of the Olympics thus far, day two admittedly, is the drama surrounding the US women’s gymnastics team and ecstasy and agony that played out for the world to observe on Sunday. For those that may have missed it, here are the important pieces of the puzzle as I see them.
1) The US women’s team is loaded with talented individuals and may win only it’s second ever gold medal in the team competition.
2) The qualifying round determines which team’s advance to the medal round while simultaneously determining which gymnasts will compete for the all-around individual gold medal.
3) The Olympics only allow two people from each country to compete in the individual all-around competition.
4) Jordan Wieber, the reigning world champion in the all-around category made a couple of minor mistakes and was beaten out by two of her teammates Aly Raisman and Gabrielle Douglas for the two spots in the all-around competition.
5) All of this happened with the world watching as Raisman and Douglas celebrated and Wieber was crushed in absolute disbelief at what had happened and the end of her individual dream as she stood in tears directly behind the other two being interviewed.
6) The media, coaches, etc. are all asking why is the system set up this way when clearly 5 if not more of the world’s top female gymnasts are all on the same team and yet only two of them get to compete for the Olympic gold in the all-around.
7) The women’s combined competition starts on Tuesday and everyone is wondering whether Wieber will be able to shake her individual disappointment off and come back to lead the team to gold.
I’m struck by how much this reminds me of the classic review conundrum of a forced rank distribution curve philosophy of performance management in organizations. The same dynamic plays out all over the US and the world in large companies every six months to a year. Let me give you that story line because the pieces are exactly the same.
1) High performing teams with top talented individuals get the most work done on the most challenging projects typically.
2) The performance review cycle comes around and all of a sudden teammates become competitors and you start getting the kind of hugs you saw in the gym at the Olympics, stiff, forced and if I had a knife I just might stab you with it.
3) The HR team comes in and says we are going to have a calibration meeting to make sure everyone is clear on what 5 is on the scale, (5 top performer – 1 bottom performer) and that you can only have one 5 in your division because as it rolls up the org chart their can only be 10% top performers in the whole company to fit the forced rank distribution curve.
4) Then comes the fighting, positioning, selling and swapping to figure out who gets to award the 5 to someone on their team. The high performing team filled with individual rock stars is suddenly broken back down into parts where only one of the 5 or 6 high performers can actually be awarded that rating, because some far off underperforming business unit has to have their 5 too.
5) The damage is done, the review process is complete and yet somebody who is really a 5 has to be told they are a 3 or 4 because of the forced rank distribution curve approach to performance management. It sometimes works because there is a code of silence about it in organizations, which doesn’t really work but helps the managers sleep better at night hoping that no one will compare notes about their review scores.
The difference between the two stories is that with the Olympics, the score cards are publicized for everyone to see in real-time. The camera was following Wieber the entire time, just waiting for her to find out that she was a 4 instead of a 5. Raisman and Douglas were awarded the 5’s and the world is left to wonder why the system set up that way.
It seems so unfair doesn’t it? Well I say, welcome to the corporate world and a forced rank distribution curve performance management system for those of you who haven’t experienced it.
Now we all wait anxiously to see how the story unfolds. What will the 17 year old Wieber do in the team event? Will she shake off her individual disappointment and help the pull off history with the team or will she be so distraught that she will lose focus and be just mediocre like the qualifying system told her she was?
And so the audience suddenly can feel and appreciate the tension that any manager of a high performing team in a performance management system that doesn’t make any sense experiences immediately after going through the review process. Lucky for the viewers that the Olympics only happen every four years instead of every six to twelve months.
Wake – A leadership trifecta
I was in a meeting recently and used the analogy of a wake for the concept of a leadership transition. I was using the word as a way to articulate the sense I had for much of my life in relation to my father. With his passing now almost a year ago, there are moments when I’m still struck by the significance of his passing and the reverberations it continues to have on me as I now move through my passage of life without him.
My company name, Gimbal Systems, is all about finding balance and maintaining direction in an unstable environment. The common application for gimbal systems is on boats, so I’m constantly thinking about that metaphor and how it applies to life, business and leadership. The fact that the visual of a boat’s wake (defined as the track of waves left by a ship or other object moving through the water) came to me as I was describing my relationship to my father and my own leadership journey was very fitting.
The point I was trying to make with the analogy was that for a long time I followed in the wake of my father. He was a dynamic man with a passion for life and so as his namesake son it was easy to slip into the comfort of following his wake. The water was smoother back there and at times it was easier to follow than lead. The sweat spot in the wake of another boat is much like race cars or bikes that use the slipstream of the leading vehicle by drafting behind them. Yet in sailing, this concept back fires and creates what racers call “dirty air” which they actively seek to avoid in order to find “clean air.”
The challenge becomes getting out of the wake. You have to exert more energy and make your way through the rough waves the wake creates. Water-skiers, wake boarders and tubers love that transition zone; they seek it out to get big air. Most people are not thrill seekers or metaphorical wave jumpers, unless they are forced to be, as was the case for me with the passing of my father.
My time for following his wake is now over and the point I was making in the meeting is that it is not always easy to get out of another’s person path. The discussion I was a part of was about transitioning to leadership and how it requires a commitment and shift to get out of the comfort found in following another’s wake. The transition is bumpy and not always comfortable. It requires a commitment and fortitude to get out from behind in order to set your own path and wake.
All of this discussion focused on the secondary noun definition of the word wake. In looking more closely at the word, there are two other fascinating definitions for wake.
1) The primary noun definition of wake is a watch or vigil held over the body of a dead person during the night before burial. Admittedly this meaning was not the first thing that came to my mind, yet I found it fascinating that it was there especially considering I was using the word in relationship to my passed father. Yet as it relates to the concept of leadership and the transition toward it, my belief is that the individual has to let go of their old identity and step into a new one, which needs to be a conscious act, much like a ceremonial wake.
2) The primary verb definition of wake is to rouse or become roused from sleep and inactivity in order to gain consciousness and awareness. To me this is what life today is all about and the act of leadership (personal or professional) requires driving consciousness in the face of ever increasing challenges where the concept of “ignorance is bliss” is much more comfortable and preferred to awareness and authenticity.
So having looked more closely at the word WAKE, it is now my leadership trifecta for the following reason. It requires individuals to….
1) Get out from behind another’s wake even though it is hard
2) Let go of and bury your belief that says it is more comfortable to follow
3) WAKE up and speak your truth – It will set you free and others will follow your courageousness
My belief is that if you do these three things consistently, you too can become the leader that you already are and surf the wake rather than languish in it.
Stability Curve – Do you know your tipping point?
Today is my father’s birthday and unfortunately he is not here to celebrate it. I wrote about his passing in July of last year in previous postings and today is a very strong reminder of his absence. No singing happy birthday to him, no sending a card or present. Just the memories of the birthdays we did have and the sadness that there are not more.
A brutal day honestly, that is much like an intense weather system out at sea. With modern technology ocean goers can see these storms coming and can try to navigate around it. Much like I did with this day, knowing it was coming, seeing it on the calendar and sensing that it would be a challenging day. All that prep and knowledge only does so much because the now the storm has arrived and I’m in it.
The question then comes of how I and the metaphorical vessel I’m in stand up to the emotional storm’s onslaught that I find myself in today on my late father’s birthday. Navel architects call this a stability curve, which is a graphic presentation of a boats static stability. As the boat heels it develops righting moment which is the force created by the ballast and hull buoyancy that works to resist the heeling. The stability curve shows this righting arm (righting moment divided by displacement) as a function of heel angle. When the righting arm turns negative (at 123 degree for the Stability Curve Visual) the boat will no longer resist the heeling force and will capsize.
As someone that…
- loves interesting words, visuals and metaphors
- is passionate about boats
- has a company name (Gimbal Systems) that emphasizes balance and degrees of freedom
- works with individuals and teams on their emotional intelligence (EQ) when under stress
how could I not get all fired up by the concept of a stability curve and applying it to my own life today when honestly I’m struggling to remain upright. Who hasn’t had days like this for whatever the reason? So now you have a new way to think about those days where it seems like you are close to capsizing. Maybe you are just in the midst of testing and defining your own personal stability curve?
Now there is another important measurement on the righting curve and that is the relative areas under the positive and negative parts of the curve. In this curve the positive is 3.96 times greater than the negative. That means it takes 3.96 times as much energy to turn the boat from upright to capsize as from capsize to upright. The point where the curve goes from positive to negative is called the Limit of Positive Stability (LPS) or the Angle of Vanishing Stability (AVS).
In laymen terms, this is the tipping point and speaks to how easy it is for the boat to get back upright as compared to how hard it is to knock it over. The higher the ratio the better and the easier it is to recover from a capsize. In our EQ work this metaphorical concept is critical, because the reality is that we all get knocked down in times of high relational intensity, so we like to help our clients build their skills so they can recover quickly in order to be effective and keep going.
Now it should also be noted that the AVS (angle of vanishing stability) is a static measure of stability for a boat at rest in flat (calm) water. The angle alone is an incomplete assessment. The stability curve (a curve of righting moment vs. angle of heel) will show the relative stability of an upright hull vs. inverted. This can indicate a boats ability to recover from capsize. The dynamics of a boat in motion in a seaway have large effects on stability. Any proper evaluation of a boat’s suitability to offshore sailing in rough ocean conditions must account for more than just AVS.
In other words, life happens and this exercise is not perfect because when at sea in a squall there are all kinds of unpredictable variables that make this mathematical exercise imperfect. I would argue the same is true with us as human beings showing up in the world of business and life. Today is a perfect reminder of that hard truth for me. However, it helps to know I have my own stability curve that I’m putting to the test in real time.
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