Ann Marie's Blog

Finding your Place

More than once during this graduation weekend at Whitman College, my parents commented that "this place was tailor-made for our Katie." This campus, these trees, this amazing rock-climbing gym, and this rigorous, casual learning environment, where professors and students alike come to class (and Commencement!) in Birkenstock and Chaco sandals. 

I remember thinking it was too small when we first visited four years ago, but our daughter didn't agree. From the moment she stepped onto the campus, Katie somehow knew it was perfect. It just felt right, and that feeling grew as we walked around and started meeting teachers, staff and other potential students.

She had found her place for the next four years. Her place to learn and grow up and make new, lifelong friends and climb trees and stay up all night discussing Philosophy. 

As Katie and her friends prepare to move on from this place that was so right for them, I am reminded how important it is to trust our instincts. To choose a place to live, to work, to study because we somehow just know it is right for us, so everything else can fall into place. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Soul of a Place

When I return to the Notre Dame campus, like I did this past weekend for a college reunion, it's easy for me to reconnect with the spirit of the place.  Simply taking a walk around one of the lakes, staring up at the iconic Golden Dome, or lighting a candle at the Grotto brings the memories flooding back. I feel centered and grounded and reminded of all the people and experiences that helped shape me into the person I am today.

There are some places like this for me in my hometown of Portland, Oregon too.

The top of Council Crest Park with views of the city and mountains and the valleys that stretch towards the Oregon Coast. The Eastside Esplanade where we can walk along the Willamette River and nearly touch the water and look across the river at the Portland skyline and parks and hills. And Pioneer Square, in the center of the city where we can always arrange to meet someone and count on finding an interesting event or gathering.

Traveling in unfamiliar cities I think I subconsciously search for places that offer these same types of feelings, of being centered and grounded and belonging there in some way. I don't really feel comfortable or settled without a place like this to go. It might be a square or piazza full of people, or a quiet spot to walk along a river, or an ancient cathedral with candles waiting to be lit in someone's memory. Finding these places in a new city quickly makes me feel oriented, and drawn back time and again.

When  my search fails, I feel like a drifter and am much less inclined to want to return or to recommend a visit to that city to someone else. 

I need to connect with the soul of the place.

 

 

 

When in doubt, Improvise!

"Expect the unexpected, and you'll be fine."

Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, this is one of the best pieces of advice I received from a more experienced colleague before moving to Holland nearly 20 years ago, to live and work in a European Headquarters role.

I didn't appreciate it because I was looking for more direction. Specific strategies and rules to follow to insure that I would succeed in my new position, and be accepted by my European colleagues and subordinates. I wanted a template, a structure or a road map, and a detailed list of things to do and things to avoid doing. 

I wanted to feel in control,  and this guy was telling me to "expect the unexpected."

Not very helpful, I thought.

Of course, he was right. I learned pretty quickly that one of the few things we could count on working in Europe was that things would likely not go as we had planned. We had to learn to be flexible, and to adapt and respond to what was actually happening, not what we had hoped or expected would happen in any given situation.

Since those days I've come to really appreciate the wisdom of those simple words, "expect the unexpected, and you'll be fine," and I find myself repeating them when someone asks for my advice.

But I take it a step further, because I know now that just "expecting the unexpected" isn't really enough. What do you actually do once you've adjusted your expectations? 

One of the best answers I've found came from an unexpected place---the world of improvisational theatre. I was searching for someone to help facilitate a creativity workshop with one of my clients a few years ago, and was lucky to be introduced to the talented team at On Your Feet in Portland, OR. They teach improv techniques  (among other things) to business people to help improve collaboration and communication, inspire creativity and generate ideas. 

Every time we work together I'm struck by how helpful the techniques and practices they teach would have been when I was trying to figure out what to do next in Europe, once I had accepted that it was necessary to "expect the unexpected."

In the introduction to his book, "Everything's an Offer,*" On Your Feet co-founder Robert Poynton describes the value of using improv techniques like this:

• "Improv doesn't give you a prescriptive plan, but gives you something to navigate by that helps you to make your own choices."
• "The method promotes adaptability, flexibility and creativity.
• "It comprises a small set of simple practices that can help you to communicate and build relationships or ideas, even when everything is in flux.

And my personal favorite:

• "Stuff happens and you can choose how to use it."

This is the kind of control I think I was looking for back in those early days in Holland, and I can see how the simple rules and practice of improv could have helped in so many ways.

Poynton notes that "the heart of this practice can be summed up in six words: let go, notice more, use everything.

Let go---how much more effective might I  have been in my job if I could have easily let go of preconceived ideas about how employees should be motivated, how customers want to be treated, and what managers should expect of me? If I could have let go of the need to be right, or in control, or even comfortable?

Notice more---what if I had been a better observer, a better listener, and simply noticed more about what people were actually doing and saying and how they responded to what I did and said, rather than what I would have liked or expected them to do and say?

Use everything---and what if I had been taught to view everything as "an offer,"  and to practice accepting and building on offers, rather than rejecting them. Might I have reacted more gracefully and productively in some challenging intercultural situations, and saved myself and my Dutch colleagues a lot of stress and misunderstanding?

These days my advice to someone preparing to live and work in a new culture would be more like this:

"Expect the unexpected and learn to improvise.  You'll be fine."

 

*Everything's an Offer: How to do more with less, by Robert Poynton, illustrated by Gary Hirsch. On Your Feet, 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always pack your running shoes

I took a little trip down memory lane this past weekend, to the University of Oregon campus in Eugene. More specifically, to Hayward Field and the historic track where we watched the NCAA Track and Field Championships and the U.S. Olympic Trials as college kids in the summer of 1980.

Some of my high school cross-country and track teammates competed at U. of O. and I followed their careers closely. I visited them in Eugene when I was home from college, and I loved being even peripherally connected with the magic of the center of the  "jogging" movement and the aura of Track Town USA. 

Before this weekend I hadn't realized how deeply my own cultural identity is rooted in the culture of Eugene: in the pride of being an Oregonian, the values of hard work, perseverance and determination that distance runners share, and in the love of nature and beautiful, muddy, green trails through the woods and along the river.

For many years when I traveled for work, the first thing I would do after arriving in a new city was to look for a place to go for a run, preferably in a natural setting, and colleagues to jog with.

We used those runs to explore our new surroundings and to recover from jet lag and late night meetings. We also got to know each other better, talked about tough business issues, and sometimes even made decisions before the official work day started. 

But maybe most importantly, I was able to bring an essential aspect of myself into almost any new culture, simply by remembering to pack my running shoes.