The Creative Journey

A timeless path to discovery

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Check out my episode "Repurposing " from The Creative Journey podcast: https://anchor.fm/creativejourney/episodes/Repurposing-e14p1m

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I have a new podcast! You can hear it on Anchor or Apple Podcasts. 

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10 lessons from 100 days of meditation

Yesterday, I meditated for the 100th consecutive day. Much of that has been guided programs through the calm.com app, which has been enormously helpful to explain the process to me. I started with the basic 7 days of calm program, followed by guided meditations for creativity, focus, sleep, kindness, anxiety release, gratitude and more. Here is what I have learned so far.

If you think you can’t meditate, you probably need it more

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. — Blaise Pascal

People who are new to meditation think they can’t meditate because they can’t sit still and quiet their brain. I was like that too. My job is in social media — so I’m constantly connected and reaching for my phone and multitasking and going down my to-do list and thinking a zillion thoughts. But using that frenzied lifestyle for an excuse is like saying “I can’t eat healthy because I only eat junk food.”

You get better

Meditation is training your brain to slow down, be quiet and be aware. When you start, you’re going to suck at that because that’s not how our days are structured. It’s going to be messy and difficult. But research shows that your brain waves actually change and deepen from meditation. I started with 1 minute of meditation, and it was hard. I now sometimes do 20 or 25 minutes of meditation, and can feel like it passes faster than when I first started with 60 seconds. Like any other skill, you get better with practice.

When you fail you can start over

Do not fear mistakes. There are none. — Miles Davis

Last summer I set a goal for myself to meditate for 30 days straight. I made it to about 23 days before I missed a day. This may seem insignificant, but I was really discouraged. I was so close to my goal, and then had to start from the beginning. More than 3 weeks, down the drain! But there’s this simple phrase in meditation that got me back on track: “Begin again.” When you catch your mind wandering, that’s perfectly normal. It’s to be expected. No one’s perfect. Just… begin again.

Happiness is fleeting

Our nation is founded on “the pursuit of happiness.” But here’s a radical notion — stop trying to pursue happiness. Or at least stop trying so hard that it makes you miserable. You may be happy because it’s Friday or you have a vacation coming up or you get a promotion. But then you quickly return to normalcy. Happiness, like any emotion, is a temporary state. Recognizing this doesn’t make you less happy. Rather, it helps you stay in the moment and enjoy the wave, rather than trying desperately to catch the next wave of happiness.

Sadness, stress and fear are also fleeting

The flip side of knowing that happiness is fleeting is knowing that unpleasant emotions won’t last, either. I’ve been very stressed, busy and anxious at times in the last 100 days. But having a regular practice of meditation has helped me gain perspective that it’s OK not to be OK. That perspective has actually reduced my stress. There’s a saying that helps: “If you let go a little you a will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace. ”

You have time to meditate

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. — Sydney J. Harris

I get it, you’re busy. We’re all busy. I work full time, take grad school classes, teach a college course, try to be attentive to my wife and two kids, do consulting and freelance writing, and a few other things. But I can find 5 minutes in the morning or 10 minutes before bed or 15 minutes at lunch. I’ve meditated on the living room couch, a chapel, in bed and at my desk. (It doesn’t have to be on a mountaintop.) Some days it may only be 5 minutes or even 3. But the days I feel I’m most productive, creative, present and effective — instead of just spinning my wheels — are the days I can meditate at least 10 minutes twice a day.

Meditation is selfish

Am I being selfish if I take time for myself? Yes, I totally am. I’m OK with that. Meditation is selfish in that way that sleeping, eating or showering is selfish. You simply have to carve out time to take care of yourself. Once you do take some time to meditate, you realize how essential this space is and how you starve yourself if you don’t take regular “non-doing” time.

Meditation is the opposite of selfish

Meditation is also not about you. It’s about gaining perspective, getting outside your head and seeing your place in the universe, in all its significant and insignificant glory. We all have an internal monologue that can control us during the day. Often that monologue is about me, me, me. “I have to do better. I should have done that. I wish that I, I, I….” When you meditate, you can start to let go of that selfish ego. You can start to think about other people’s needs, see things from other perspectives, and hopefully become a bit more compassionate and understanding.

External factors affect your mood more than you realize

One of the mantras I learned through meditation is “You are more than your thoughts.” We let our thoughts pull our emotions throughout the day, and we usually don’t even realize it. Why do you feel the way you do right now? Is it because of a fight you had this morning? Your long to-do list? The weather? Your body language? Tension in your muscles? How you are breathing? Meditation helps put you in touch with what’s causing your thoughts and feelings. And once you can name them, you can do something about them — or just let them go.

I know nothing

Who are you, oh God, and who am I? — Saint Francis of Assisi

But seriously, who am I kidding? I know nothing, and neither do you. If 100 days of meditation has taught me one thing, it’s that I have a lot to learn. We’re all just comparing notes. As the Zen proverb says: To understand nothing takes time. Once you realize that, you can experience, enjoy and learn from the journey a little more deeply.

Let’s learn nothing together. Sign up for my weekly Tinyletter

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Proof that I teach social media workshops. Get in touch if you want to hire me! 

Thanks Laura White for the photo.  

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A picture is worth 1,881 words

PART 1 OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT 

The goal of this assignment is to use your journalistic powers of observation to cover a familiar subject (campus, in this case) in a new light that can be shared across social media. Capture them in a unique and different way than you normally notice them, if you normally notice them at all. Work alone. Take notes as needed. Then post them on a Tumblr blog of your own. 

1) A building named for someone

Who is it named for? Who were they? What is their story?

2) Inside a building you’ve never been inside

What building did you visit? What is its history?

3) A time capsule

Speculate on what you think is inside from the year it was placed in the ground.

4) A statue

Why is this on campus?

5) Plant or tree life

Marquette has a special native tree collection. Share why this is part of campus.

6) A hip shot

What is your technique for framing this shot? 

7) Students

Find out their names, colleges, year or any other relevant info.

8) A window

What is a fitting quote that can go with your subject matter?

9) Something unappreciated

What made you notice this?

10) A means of transportation

How does this compare with the rest of the campus culture?

11) A plaque or inscription

What did it teach you?

12) The oldest thing you can find

What is its history?

13) The newest thing you can find

When was it built or added? Why is it here?

14) A surprising juxtaposition

What surprised you about it?

15) The sky

How does it make you feel? 

When finished, send an unpublished link to someone in the class who you haven't worked with yet for their feedback and proofing help.

PART 2 OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT...

Coming on Wednesday... 

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You can pre-order my new book "Analytics to Action" on indiegogo http://igg.me/at/analytics-action 

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Robotic management

As I read about ousted Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli, I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for him. 

He was described as autocratic, inflexible, stubborn, arrogant and greedy. He doesn't seem like anyone would want as a boss. 

Apparently I'm not alone in this feeling, according to Business Week:  

As the news of his resignation on Jan. 3 shot through Home Depot's white-walled Atlanta headquarters and reached stores, some employees text-messaged each other with happy faces and exclamation points. 

In fact, he struck me as a bully. At one point enduring or confronting bullying almost seemed like a rite of passage in our culture, but that has shifted in the last few decades. It's not even tolerated in the NFL anymore. 

Seth Godin pointed out in his blog today that in the past bullying was accepted as long as the bully was on your side. "We often (for a while) view bullies as powerful or brave or important--as long as they are our bullies," he writes.  

But now even that model has outlived its usefulness as our culture becomes more collaborative, connected and social. You can't afford to alienate your employees or even your competition. Karma could come back to get you as a Glassdoor review or a Twitter war. 

But then I started feeling a little bad for Nardelli. Even bullies usually have a reason for turning into a bully.

Is there a place for someone with his "command and control" style in an increasingly touchy-feeling economy? Will he just have to learn to adapt? Or will the pendulum ultimately swing back to his form of management once again?  

I don't know what Nardelli is doing these days, but I think there will be plenty of opportunity for someone like him who thrives on objective, measurable systems. I think one former top Home Depot executive nailed it. 

"Bob Nardelli is a smart man, but he doesn't need to be in a high-profile business like retail. He needs to be in manufacturing, a business that does not have such consumer attention."

There you have it. Maybe his management style wasn't necessarily "wrong." It just wasn't the right cultural fit. 

Nardelli and his ilk should have new roles as automation continues to grow. In the long run, machines will replace the military-style jobs he's used to managing, and he can be as un-engaging as he wants to be as he analyzes and controls the systems. 

So maybe in the future there will be a place for an impersonal management style. It will just be with robots, not people. 

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Managing not to get pwned

Management gets a bad reputation.

It's saddled with terms like middle manager and micro-managing and you often hear how the best managers "get out of the way" of their employees. 

In contrast, you never hear how leaders "micro-lead" or are "middle-leaders." It seems like great leaders get all the glory and the best managers can do is hope to not mess it all up like a parody in a Dilbert comic. 

I have to admit I'm not immune to thinking these stereotypes. The connotation of "management" is telling people want to do. And I don't like being told what to do or given instructions. 

Don't cramp my style, man! I'm a creative type! I'm an ENFP and my intuition will tell me what to do! 

OK, I exaggerate for effect, sort of. 

But after reading "What Great Managers Do" by Marcus Buckingham, I fear I've had it all wrong. I have newfound respect for management duties. 

To hear Buckingham explain, it almost seems like leaders have the easy job and managers have the most difficult tasks. His analogy that leaders play checkers and managers play chess resonated with me.

In other words, managers have to pay attention to workers' unique strengths and multiply their effect. And then they need to make it all work so one person's strength complements another's weakness, and vice versa. 

As someone who occasionally manages others, this is exciting but also scary. It's empowering to know that a manager can unleash someone's potential by identifying and nurturing their best abilities. But it's also daunting to know that this is a complex task that continually needs re-evaluating as people grow and evolve. 

Ultimately, though, this model of management is appealing if you're interested in helping others innovate. This puts more emphasis on individuality, not just following the leader. 

Because if you just have a team of all pawns, you won't get very far. 

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The Syllabus in Beta

Post by Tim Cigelske:

The Syllabus in Beta

View Post on Quora

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How I use social media

Thanks hashtagvictor for giving me the opportunity to talk about how I use social media at marquetteu on his Marquette Radio show. We spoke last year (it aired recently) about how I arrived at my career after being a laid-off journalist along with more universal issues like whether social media makes us more or less connected to others. 

Some quick background: I met Victor when he was a freshman and he interviewed me for Marquette's student TV station. I was impressed with how much poise and presence he had for a freshman, and knew he would go far.

Today he's a senior, and when my wife heard him on this podcast, she immediately said he belongs on npr. I agree. You can learn more about Victor here. 

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Leadership and letting go

When Google announced it was developing a self-driving car, some people reacted with skepticism, disbelief or outright fear and disdain.

"Hands-free driving, cars that park themselves, an unmanned car driven by a search-engine company." a narrator says in a 2011 Dodge Charger Super Bowl commercial. "We've seen that movie. It ends with robots harvesting our bodies for energy." 

The narrator declares the car "leader of the human resistance" as commercial ends. The Charger roars its engine and leaves a plain-looking car in its dust, speeding through a Freudian tunnel to reveal its rear spoiler and dual exhaust. 

"No other car’s styling says, 'Don’t f*&! with me' with such eloquence," wrote Car and Driver.  

Meanwhile, Google continues to quietly criss-cross the country with a fleet of driverless Prius hybrids to perfect its model and statistically prove that self-driving vehicles are safer, more efficient and overall better for our mental and physical health.

So what does a robotic car have to do with leadership? I would say these two cars represent two models of leadership.

The former is swaggering, hyper-masculine, not very energy efficient and, as Car and Driver says, "angry." 

The Google car is innovative, backed by research and testing, shares the road in the most statistically optimal way, and delegates important responsibilities so the leader can focus on higher-level tasks.

But it's hard to relinquish control, especially over something as personal (and 'Merican!) as driving and leading a business. There's a lot of ego involved. 

As  Kreitner and Kinicki identify, barriers to delegation can include fear of being called lazy, fear of competition from those below you, and the fallacy that "if you want it done right, do it yourself." It boils down to trust. 

And there are real dangers to empowerment. It can be risky and unpredictable. You're on the hook for "letting" someone else make a mistake. If you dump others into a sink or swim situation, you're just going to make everyone frustrated.

But when done right, it leads to employees having intrinsic motivation, more job satisfaction and higher productivity. 

I admit I've had trouble with delegating and trusting others. Five years ago I started Marquette's social media marketing and treated it like my baby -- often acting like a helicopter parent. When others helped me, I've been guilty of meddling and micromanaging. 

But now I'm on paternity leave until January. (One baby replaced another.) I have to take a step back and trust others. 

Before I left, I created a spreadsheet of responsibilities, duties and timelines that I delegated. I trained interns and colleagues. But I also encouraged them to come up with their own new ways of doing things, which may be different than mine. 

Then I let them take over for two weeks while I was still in the office, so I could be on hand to answer any questions that may come up. Then one week ago today I left the office when my son was born. 

The result? It's only been a short time, but watching others take over for me and do my work in creative, surprising and (yes) ways I trained them on has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. 

Sometimes it's ok to let others take the wheel. 

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10 principles of good content from sarahvanelzen's talk at the PR + Social Media Summit at marquetteu. 

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Does social media make us anxious?

I was recently quoted in a Marquette Journal article entitled "Does social media make us anxious." I highlighted the section that was quoted. For additional context, here's the rest of the interview, which was conducted over email.  

1.) What is your role in social media for Marquette University? 

Director of Social Media. I oversee the management of Marquette's social media properties, which you can see at Marquette.edu/Social 

2.) Do you think it is becoming more common for students to feel anxious or a form of anxiety when separated from their social media outlets? What effects could surface because of that feeling?

This might be something you could talk to Dr. Scott D'Urso about. He did an experiment with his class to have them go completely tech free for 24 hours. You can read about some of the results here: http://go.mu.edu/TechFree 

3.) Do you think people and students are, in some ways, basing their self worth or importance based on how many "likes" they get or by how many followers they have? Do you think that could lead to them posting funnier, racier or more daring stuff in an attempt to increase their likes or followers?

Disclaimer: I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, but I am fascinated with theories in those fields. You may want to talk to real experts from our departments, but I can share my amateur opinions and observations. 

People are social animals, so we see ourselves partially through the feedback and eyes of others. Naturally, online interactions play a part in how we see ourselves just as offline interactions do. But I'd be hesitant to say people base their "self worth" on likes or followers, since that concept is much more complex and multi-faceted. That's sort of like asking if people base their self worth off getting an A on a test or having people laugh at a joke they told in class. It's important to keep some perspective.  

As for what people post to get a reaction, I think that depends on the personality types. Some people post funny stuff, some people post links to articles, some people post photos of themselves with friends. By the time you're 30, it will just be all baby photos. http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/post/59404697088/sarahlcomics-im-in-my-30s-now-so-all-i-see-is 

4.) What are some of benefits of social media on students? What positives does it bring?

In some ways, there is nothing new about social media. Human beings want to communicate in a variety of formats, which is why there are cave drawings and ancient hieroglyphics. Social media doesn't replace offline communication, it simply helps spread messages and create interactions in a way that offline communication can't always reach. One example is a tweet sent by Dr. Pamela Nettleton during finals week reminding students to "breathe" and that tests are "not your worth as a human being." (See No. 4.) I'm sure she told that to her class as well, but through Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook that positivity spread to a much broader audience. 

And speaking of positivity, studies have shown that "good news" stories tend to get shared more in social media. There are many organizations that harness this innate human desire to spread positivity. Take a look at Good.is and Upworthy, which use the viral nature of social media to make people think about real issues and what they can do to help. The New York Times called Upworthy "serious news built for a spreadable age" and Good.is calls itself "a gathering place and growing toolkit for pragmatic idealists." Social media can help connect the dots and spread the messages of people trying to improve the world. 

Check out http://www.upworthy.com/about and http://www.good.is/explore. 

5.)And then lastly, is their anything that you would like to add or think that I might have missed?

I think that's it for now. Let me know if you have any follow-ups. 

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My office space

Above: My daughter answers my phone at work. She's a straight shooter with upper management written all over her.  

Like anyone who's ever worked in a cubicle, I occasionally think it would be awesome to do all my work from home, a coffee shop or maybe in a cabin in the middle of the woods. 

Of course, I also actually lived that lifestyle when I was a freelance journalist. In reality, my days, nights and weekends often blended into each other. Work time would become difficult to distinguish from non-work time.  

There's something to be said for structure, even for someone like me with a distaste for rigidity. 

I was reminded of this while listening to In Search of the Perfect Office as well as the reading on organizational design, effectiveness and innovation. 

On one end of the spectrum there are virtual teams, horizontal designs and hollow organizations that don't have their workforce perform in the traditional 9-5 office with bosses giving orders to subordinates. I recently read The Year Without Pants, which is basically a book-length case study of how the website Wordpress uses a "distributed team" model. It's barely structured chaos - and it more or less works for them. 

On the other end of the spectrum are org charts, divisional structures and matrix designs. This may breed bureaucracy, yes, but it also creates accountability and more predictability. 

If there's one thing I've observed in my different roles over the years, it's that there's not a one-size fits all approach for organizations, departments or individuals. There may even be variations in how you design your work from day to day or hour to hour. 

For instance, in our office we have semi-private cubicles, an open collaborative space, and completely closed privacy rooms that anyone can take when they need them. 

In this way, you can use your cubicle for day-to-day projects and a place of your own, teams can gather in the open space or individuals can bring their laptop if they want to work in a more collaborative or social setting, and the privacy rooms can be used for personal phone calls or solitude for high-concentration tasks like writing.  

Our office was built three years ago, and I'm impressed with how the modern design seems to meet the needs of introverts, extraverts, teams and individuals. In other words, all of us at different times and for different projects. 

And it actually makes me look forward to being in the office. 

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Longreads

I'm the featured Longreader in this week's longreads newsletter. You can find the issue and subscribe here. 

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No, YOU'RE handling conflict wrong

When I was 16, I was filled with teenage rebellion of the nerdiest variety. 

I was a track and cross country geek, and I devoured books about running, training and coaching strategy. With just enough knowledge to be dangerous combined with youthful bravado, I decided my coaches were going about our practices all wrong.

Specifically, they weren't letting us taper enough before meets to allow for recovery, which undermined the whole point of training. Or so I thought.  

And I let them know. Loudly and publicly. I openly questioned the wisdom of certain workouts in front of others at practice.   

In what now seems obvious in retrospect, the coaches did not take well to a skinny, long-haired running punk telling them the way they had always done things was wrong. Especially the head coach, who was also a gruff shot put and football coach. 

My insistence on being right and their insistence on putting me in my place produced a less-than-fun sophomore year. Conflict was constant. My performances and relationships suffered along with our team. The equivalent of my job satisfaction and employee engagement was extremely low. 

All that changed my junior year. I'm not sure if it was maturity or if I just grew weary of conflict, but I decided not to fight or contradict anything they told me. I would be as agreeable and pleasant as I could. 

But whenever possible, I would quietly do things my way. I devised my own training and tapering schedule and race strategies. I just wouldn't tell them what I was doing and let them think I was following their plans.  

This conflict-avoidance strategy worked perfectly. My junior year, my times improved, my relationships became much more pleasant, and I even won the "Coach's Award" at the end of the season for my positive attitude. Cohesion and performance skyrocketed. 

Win win, right? Sort of. 

This strategy worked so well that I found myself relying on it during the early part of my career. As a journalist, if an editor assigned me a story I didn't want to do, I would simply ignore it whenever possible. I found this "pocket veto" was much more effective than directly explaining why I didn't think something was a good story idea. 

I thought I was being so clever, until one day my editor called me on it. 

"Tim doesn't tell you if he doesn't want to do something," she said. "He just doesn't do it." 

That stung because it was true. It may have been a good short-term strategy for me, but not a good long term one. Over time, my conflict avoidance could erode people's trust in me. Managers might stop giving me important responsibilities if they think I'll just ignore the ones I don't want to do.

I was reminded of this when reading about the Conflict Continuum. Teams are dysfunctional if they have too much or too little conflict.

A team that's always butting heads doesn't trust each other or get anything done. A team that never has people assert themselves don't realize their potential of pushing past comfort zones, and probably has a lot of simmering but unspoken discontent beneath the tranquil surface. 

As an ENFP, I naturally dislike conflict. But I've learned it's a necessary part of the creative and execution process, and I've learned to become comfortable and even initiate disagreements to a certain level. 

I've learned you can pick your battles but also take principled stands. 

But if you think I'm completely wrong, feel free to tell me.