You can't do it that way!

 

I’ve been a musician most of my life. Whenever I mention that, people immediately ask what instrument I played. Throughout my professional musician life, I was a woodwind player (I played all of them except oboe), a percussionist, a keyboardist, and a writer. I don’t recall how, other than possibly that I could rent an instrument for very little, but I became a bassoonist the last few years of high school. I loved high school, by the way…best six years of my life! Anyways, I’m not sure I was a great bassoonist, but my strongest attribute was that I wasn’t afraid to play. In high school, college, and as a professional, I was always the designated soloist. I loved being so. 

 

I got to college, New Mexico State University, on a music scholarship. Full tuition. I guess I was pretty good. By then I was playing all of the woodwinds with an emphasis on bassoon. I remember a turning point in my playing (and leading) career when I was taking a bassoon lesson. My professor, who was a fine player, Eastman grad, and excellent teacher asked me, sincerely bumfoozled, “How did you do that?” as I played a particular passage. “Huh?!” I replied. “Just like this,” I said as I played the passage again to show my teacher what he’d just asked about. “You can’t do it that way!” he exclaimed. “Huh?” I thought to myself. I just did! He was an Old School kinda guy, so he believed that there was only one way to play that passage correctly, not interpreting the music, but mechanically. I’m double-jointed to some degree so I’d done something that he’d never seen done. And, evidently, was taboo to do that way. Up until that point, I’d never had a problem playing that lick. Now, I was apprehensive about doing so. I even avoided playing it.

 

You may be wondering what that has to do with leading, but it’s typical of how we, sometimes, treat our followers. Since we’re the “leader” we, obviously know how to do everything. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be the “leader,” right? Truth be known, no one knows everything. There’s always something to learn and a different, maybe even better, way to do things. An Effective Leader will be constantly looking for better ways. And, many times, that comes from the followers, who are actually doing it. Instead of telling them they can’t do it that way, ask them how and why they do it differently. You may learn something!

 

The best REAL leaders I ever worked for were those who continued searching for better ways and included me in that search. In fact, I searched more and harder because I was empowered to grow and to share what I learned.

 

Dr Ken Blanchard once said that “none of us is as good as all of us.” Instead of telling your followers not to do something a certain way, the Old School way, learn a new way. Who knows? You may find that it’s a better way! 

 

Until next tie, be GREAT! You ARE!

 

¡HEIRPOWER!

 

                         

                             bob vásquez

 

 

AHA! It must be two!

Ever have an “AHA!” moment? When did it occur to you? I’ve often heard that humans are creatures of habit. I’m almost convinced that we choose our habits and develop them within our lives so that those behaviors do actually become habitual. I say almost because I’m trying to figure out how it is that MY AHA moments occur to me at two o’clock in the morning! I don’t choose that! It just happens! All the time! Habitually! It happened this morning! Again! 

I’m sleeping soundly when, all of a sudden, I have the answer that I’ve been searching for for weeks. What’s the real objective of my class I teach at the university? AHA! There it is! I look up at the ceiling for the time. (I have a clock that projects the time on the ceiling so that I don’t have to turn to my side to look at the actual clock. Sorry, I know. I’m lazy. But I’m over it!) What a GREAT thought! What time is it? It’s two o’clock!

I can remember it until morning. Okay, maybe I won’t. Man, I’m tired. I don’t want to get up. But I must. If I don’t capture that thought somehow, I will lose it! I WON’T remember. Or I’ll stay up the rest of the morning trying to ensure that I DO remember. And by the time I actually get up, I’ll have forgotten it. Ever notice how much work it takes to remember something and how it can instantly disappear from your memory. I read a book once that taught me something profound. A thought is not real until you’ve written it down. That’s powerful. I write down every thought I can. Okay, I say it into my iPhone, and it remembers what I thought. My iPhone really IS my brain! 

I used to encourage people to keep a pad of paper and pencil on their nightstand just for this occasion. I even tried it! Have you ever tried to read your writing from a two-in-the-morning note? I know I wrote down what I thought, but I have no idea what the note said. Being a high-tech kind of guy, I went to the next level. I bought one of those little handheld digital recorders. That was before I had my iPhone. When that two o’clock in the morning thought came, I was ready! Okay, now think about this. How loudly can I speak into that thing without waking my lovely-bride-of-forty-five-wonderful-and-fulfilling-years, Deb? I had to whisper into it! It sounded more like heavy breathing than words. Although I did share it with Deb hoping that it would turn her on. It didn’t!

When my AHA moment occurred to me this morning, I did what I should. I got up, went downstairs, and TYPED my thought onto my iPad. Hey, I TOLD you I’m a high-tech kind of guy! This morning, when I got to my computer it was sitting there, smiling at me. You know, thoughts have a sense of humor. Or, at least, mine do. My thought was staring at me saying “thanks for waking up and making me real.”

Why is two in the morning the time for this? I had a mentor who was a genius. Too bad it didn’t rub off, huh? His name was Toto. He was from Peru. I once told him I had a prayer that I would see El Morro, in San Juan Puerto Rico, and Machu Pichu, in Peru, before I die. He’d been to Machu Pichu several times. He told me how spiritual it was. “Bob,” he said. “When you go there be at the top of the mountain at two o’clock in the morning.” Yeah, right. I had to ask him why. “I can’t tell you,” was his response. I don’t know if I’m connected with the spiritual world at two o’clock in the morning, or maybe Toto is speaking to me from wherever he may now be (he died a year after we met), but those AHA moments hit me at 2 a.m.!

Okay, I don’t want to freak you out. Here’s the lesson. When an AHA moment occurs to you, WRITE IT DOWN! You will not remember it long! Make it real! Then share it! That’s HEIRPOWER!

 

Until next time, be GREAT! You ARE!

                  ¡HEIRPOWER!

                                                     

                             bob vásquez

Sometimes, helping isn't helping

I don’t like admitting it, and, actually, I try to avoid it, but sometimes, okay, too many times, I’m impatient. Yeah, I know. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I get frustrated especially when I ask someone to do something that I know how to do and even have experience doing, and do it very well. I know that I’m probably the only one who has this issue, so, please, bear with me and let me vent a little bit.

 

I asked one of my followers to accomplish a task that I expected every one of my followers to know how to do. I mean, they got the training. Or at least I believed that they had. They went to the school, okay. There’s an assumption of gaining a certain knowledge when someone goes to a particular school, right? Well, although my follower tried to do what I’d ask, she couldn’t do it. WHAT?! You’re trained! You should be able to do it! My first inclination was to do it myself. Okay, that was my SECOND inclination. Give me that! Let me do it for you! It’ll be quicker and it’ll be done correctly. I’ve done it for twenty years. I know what I’m doing. Stand back! Well, that may get the job done, but is it effective?

 

Effectiveness has to do with continuously getting what you want to get. It’s pretty simple, really. The key word there is continuously. In the situation I just described, what I was creating, if I did do the job for my follower, was expediency, maybe efficiency, but it, surely, wasn’t effectiveness. Effectiveness would require that I teach that follower how to do the job so that it can get done without me being there. I can’t, after all, be there all of the time. If I were, I wouldn’t need that follower, now, would I? Sometimes helping isn’t helping. Sometimes, we, as leaders, have to let our follower fail, at least to the degree that they can learn from the failure, or let them suffer through the process a little.

 

Dr Ken Blanchard created a model, the Situational Leadership II Model, that I’ve always subscribed to and commend to your consideration when you’re leading. You can Google it to learn more about it. Basically, though, Dr Blanchard proposes that, depending on the maturity of the follower, you use different methods to help them empower themselves to get to the next level and to create effectiveness.

 

Sometimes, helping your followers, but not teaching or training them to do it themselves is not helpful, and it’s not effective. Sometimes, according to the model, you have to be more directive, sometimes less, depending on where the followers are in their maturity for accomplishing the job.

 

I’m an Opa. It’s what my grandkids call me. There have been so many times that my heart has broken because I can’t help my grands do something that I know how to do. I convince myself that if I do it for them, they won’t learn how to do it themselves. But I could save them the trouble! Yeah, but that could lead to bigger trouble.

 

Help your followers when you SHOULD. Not just when you CAN. And know HOW to help them. An Effective Leader helps her followers empower themselves to be their best. Don’t do it for them. Help them do it better.  

 

Until next time,

 

Be GREAT!

 

You ARE!

 

        ¡HEIRPOWER!

 

                bob vásquez!

Best if used by

 I was hungry, so I asked Deb if she’d bought microwave popcorn the last time she went grocery shopping. She replied that she hadn’t because there was still a rather large supply in the cupboard. As I moved toward the cupboard, she warned me to “check the date.”  She was referring to the “best if used by” date. The date on the particular bag I picked up was July 2023. This being April 2023, that gave the popcorn a little more than 90 days for it to be “best by.

That got me thinking…do we humans have a “best if used by” date invisibly stamped to us on some part of our bodies? What if I only have 90 days to be my best? What would I have to do to achieve that?

My good friend, and mentor, Dr Dave Levy, makes me feel great every time I’m with him because, after sharing all of my goals with him, which I do every time we’re together, he always brightens up and proclaims that I don’t just say things, I make them happen! Well, I’m not as industrious as he makes me sound, but I do try to do all I can with the limited time I have.

I happened to be cleaning out an external hard drive for my computer this weekend when I came across something I hadn’t seen in a while. It was my obituary. Okay, that’s freaky so let me tell you the entire story.

I was sitting at my desk at the office one evening when another friend and mentor, Lieutenant Colonel A J Scott appeared at my door. As I stood up to greet him, he gave me the once-over, looking at me from head to toe. It seemed odd for him to do that, so I asked him what was up. “Chief,” he said. “I just got a call from a friend who told me he’d read in the local paper that Bob Vásquez had died. I immediately came down the hall to make sure you’re not dead.”

Evidently, someone with my name had died, not me (although I’ve been in front of some audiences when I was obviously dying). Anyway, I went across to the library to find the newspaper to see what my obituary looked like. Interestingly, the Bob Vásquez who had died was my age, had two daughters, and other similarities. I scanned that obit and still have it.

You probably know that the purpose of that “best if used by” date is, according to the USDA (I Googled it!) is “to ensure that quality products are being served.” I, for one, am glad the USDA is looking out for me. Really.

That leads me back to my original question, do humans have a date by which the quality of our service will expire? You know, we’re all on the same road. Every day we get closer to that “best if used by” date. Doesn’t it make sense that we do our best every day? Just in case!

I don’t procrastinate, I just plan everything for the last minute. But what if my “best if used by” date comes due sooner than I think, or want? As hard as it may seem some days, I’m making a commitment, right now, to give all I have every day, to be my best on a daily basis. Remember that saying, “You can’t take it with you?” We usually refer to money when we say that. Maybe we should refer to our best instead? 

I’m going to make myself a tee shirt that says, “Best if used by today!”

Until next time, 

Be GREAT!

 

You ARE!

 

        ¡HEIRPOWER!

 

                bob vásquez!