Month: October 2019

Come on guys, we are better than this!

Guys, I’m noticing a trend in men’s restrooms. It’s our inability to take a single second to properly throw away a paper towel after drying off our hands. This is no longer just a thing at the stadium during sporting events, but it’s in the workplace, at restaurants, and men’s restrooms everywhere.

I have some theories on the root causes:

  • A fear that there is something lurking in the trash can, prohibiting someone from properly pushing down the other paper towels to make room for their own.
  • A missed hook shot from someone that used the paper towel to open the door when leaving the bathroom.
  • Afraid that the paper towel will self-destruct if they take it with them and throw it away somewhere else.
  • The thrill of being mischievous since no one is looking and there are no cameras in a bathroom.
  • Just not giving a poop! (lol… kind of ironic though)

Well, there is a bit of good news. At least these guys are washing their hands.

So you may be wondering why I am bringing this up and why does it matter?

I’m a firm believer in the broken windows theory. Paraphrasing, the theory states that visible signs of crime create an environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. And that policing minor crimes helps create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes. Basically, fixing visible broken windows in a neighborhood helps to prevent other crimes.

I find myself now feeling like Jani-Tony, cleaning up men’s restrooms wherever I go. At first, it was annoying and sometimes weird. However, I started to realize that my initial instinct was to pick up the trash anyway. I would then quickly rationalize the thought away since the trash was not mine. I have just started picking it up, not caring who did it and putting it in the trash can. I feel better and I bet that the next person that comes in the bathroom will properly dispose of the paper towel vs. adding to the mess.

We applied this when I was on the alumni housing board for my college fraternity. When we made minor, yet very visible repairs or enhancements on our 75- year-old fraternity house, it translated into pride and the members taking much better care of the house.

To bring this closer to home, think about the dishes in the sink at your house. If there is a sink full of dishes, do you just add to the pile and walk away, or do you start doing all the dishes right then and there (even if they aren’t your dishes)?

I don’t want to claim to be a saint. In addition to being a culprit of the bad dish behavior above, my wife Katie likes to remind me of the time I was the designated driver at a training class with two colleagues that had flown in from Singapore. I was at a stoplight and spit out my gum on a grassy median. So I had just proven the point on why there was a chewing gum ban in Singapore, with two people from Singapore in the car! I tried to quickly make an excuse that a bird would use it for a nest. They didn’t buy it and I definitely never did it again.

So if we start with the restrooms, our streets, our parks, our waterways (see the guys in this American Family Insurance commercial featuring JJ Watt cleaning up their river), and communities and our planet will start looking better.

We can do better.
Whether someone is looking or not.
Whether it was ours or not.

So when you’re out walking your dog, hiking a trail, or walking to work, pick up that trash that you see and properly dispose of it (and for the love of god please don’t flick your cigarette butts out of car windows!)

The better our communities look, the better we will treat them.

Who’s teaching who? Lessons from kindergarten on showing up at work

This is Maggie’s first year in Kindergarten and Addie is attending preschool in the same building. Katie has to be at her own school in the morning and I get the awesome privilege to drop the girls off at school before heading out to work.

This was a bit stressful for me. First of all, I have been work-centered for so many years and tended to prioritize work commitments over everything else. So this is a big paradigm shift for this brain of mine. It’s also quite a commute to my client site from our neighborhood. So I show up later now than I used to, and it still feels a bit awkward. The morning is well underway by the time I get there and I don’t have the time to get settled and organized before all the meetings start for the day. I feel rushed and a little bit disheveled.

Dad’s first day of joint drop off

However, throughout the month of September, I found myself enjoying drop off more and more and owning up to it. I’m focusing less on the hustle and bustle of it all, especially how it is impacting me at work, and just taking it in with the family.

Katie, the girls, and their amazing teachers are demonstrating important lessons and providing insights every morning to help me be at my best. I took a step back and reflected on school drop off duty. I think that I can apply these lessons to help me show up better at work.

Here are a few of the insights I have learned so far:

Be Present and Keep Perspective: It’s not lost on me that there is a short window of time when the girls will want to ride to school singing about ‘who stole the cookie from the cookie jar’ and playing ‘eye spy’. I’m pretty sure that I’ll remember these moments a lot longer than I’ll remember whatever my response to that urgent e-mail will be sitting in my inbox. Today only happens once and it takes effort to keep perspective. Some people figure out what matters most through life-changing events. I just wish it didn’t always have to come from something like that.

Mindset Matters: I notice that the girls have a new attitude every day. They don’t carry things with them from the previous day and are very quick to let things go. They’re excited to learn and have an appreciation for their new school experience on a daily basis. What if I focused less on the everyday grind and more about the opportunity to learn something new? Get to know someone a layer deeper? Choose to bring a positive attitude to the office every morning? (I also can’t wait to read this in 10 years when they are teenagers to see if the paragraph above still resonates. It should, but…)

Waiting for the Pre-K door to open

Pre-plan the Night Before: First of all, this insight has the word ‘plan’ in it, so it clearly the one that Katie implemented, not me. It makes a big difference! Katie gets the girl’s clothes laid out and ready to go (sometimes after a pretty intense negotiation with Maggie on what she is going to wear), which saves us all-time in the morning. I’m also trying to apply this one in the workplace and close out the day with the plan for the next day. It helps me start with the highest priority the next morning. (at least some of the time… see the comment above about the urgent e-mail in the inbox).

Routines Rule: Successful school drop off relies on our morning routine and staying on schedule. We’ve figured out that leaving the house 2 minutes late is the difference from a steady stroll up to the classroom door vs. racing to the door before it is shut behind the teacher. (I still haven’t had to do a late check-in at the office, which is my ultimate measure of success. However, I have forgotten the lunch box and I am very thankful for the hot lunch option.) I’m sure there are more routines that I can implement in my work life to be more productive and help stay on schedule. Lord knows my boss would like that.

You Can Eat Breakfast Too: We ensure the girls have enough time to eat a good breakfast before heading to school. (Full disclosure, this doesn’t go perfectly every morning and yes, we sometimes have the containers in the car or something less desirable like a breakfast bar.) Anyway, for all of these years, why did I think it was ok to head out to work without breakfast? I’m noticing a big difference in how I feel throughout the day when I eat in the morning. A decent breakfast, not like the 430 calories in a grande white chocolate mocha. I went through that phase a few years back… one of those and I wasn’t hungry until 2:00.

How We Greet Each Other: The teachers come outside every morning smiling, with high energy, and are very welcoming. They are keenly aware that how they show up impacts how the kids respond. Of course, they have a ton going on in their own personal and professional lives, but the kids would never know it. They put the anxious ones at ease and get all of them excited for the day. This is why small talk has an important place in the workplace. This is where relationships start and build into a foundation. It’s not only about first impressions, but repeated daily interactions with those you work with the closest. It has me thinking about how I can bring more positivity into how I show up at work? How can I create a better environment for me and my co-workers?

Maggie was welcomed with open arms on her first day of school. She has been excited to go ever since.

Give Yourself a Break: Life is busy and stuff happens. Alarms don’t go off, clothes suddenly don’t fit, breakfast burns, the car is super low on gas, traffic is worse than normal, you spill your coffee on your white shirt, your phone is dead, you forget something, … We all have so much going on and we have a stack of ‘if only’s’. Take 3 breaths, think about something to be grateful for, don’t try and make excuses, and give yourself a break.

Overall, school drop off has been going pretty well. However, check-in with me in a couple of weeks. Katie is out of town for back-to-back conferences, so I’ll be flying solo and I am sure that I’ll learn some new lessons. She is the nucleus of our family and does an incredible job running our household. I’m pretty sure the girls will see the fear in my eyes and step up to help as well.

And this is just Kindergarten!