Posts by Alex Somos

Doing Good in the World

Founding Juice Inc. partner, Alex Somos, is on a mission trip this week in Baja, Mexico, helping to build a house for an impoverished family. Your support has allowed Alex, and Juice, to do good in the world. Thank you. We thought you’d enjoy some of these photos and reflections from his experience…

We are just getting ready to head out to the job site. Today we put on a rolled-asphalt roof, and then we tarred the seams. We need to hang the door and trim the exterior of the house and sheet the interior walls.  On the outside, we have to position the new outhouse and a new shower house. Hopefully, the main water container will arrive today and they can have an enclosed container for their water use. They don't have electricity so we are running all the tools off of a generator which makes for a noisy site! Our team is running really well, full of smiles and a willingness to try anything. No one stands apart or alone, and it is a beautiful picture of team work with a tremendous sense of flow. The experienced ones are supportive and they encourage the teens who are trying their hand at everything, with many doing things that stretch them well beyond their comfort zones…

Mexico 2011

Well we are done. Yesterday was early to late...dust, dirt, paint, tar, wood, glass, windows, screens, cement, noise, people, hard work, laughter, prayers, dedication, team, heart and tears...a week of our time and a families prayers answered...feels so good!

Day Three in Mexico - The Push

Today there was a big push to tar the roof and roll on the shingles. Yet again the youth stepped up and worked so hard. They tried their hand at everything and came out more confident after being challenged and experiencing their success. The interior wall went up and windows were cut to size, trimmed and framed.

Every morning prior to heading out to the building site, we gather in a circle and talk about the upcoming day. Yesterday we spoke about walls and I asked the team to think about what walls they would like to bring down. This morning I asked if anyone wanted to share about their reflections...One 14-year-old said she wanted to bring down the walls of control and worry and another talked about how to really trust God to be there for her. I would like to get better at leaving my judgements behind. Another dad in the group said he would like to shed fear. Our circle time has become powerful! 

This morning we talked about what it means to be content when we have much and when we have little. Tomorrow we will talk about that question, and specifically what grips their heart and prevents them from being content.

The sun is going down right now, the breeze is cool, birds sing their song of days end. A small group has just finished singing and are doing their
devotional. What a great day!

Mexico 2011 - Day 2

Once the packages were complete, we drove off-road passing a dump until we came to a migrant camp. The kids saw us first and started waving and hollering at us! They ran on ahead calling out to the others. Everyone played with the kids: soccer, ring-around-the-rosie and many piggy-back rides. The camp has no working toilets and water is delivered. Fences are made with whatever material they have or can be found and many houses have tarps covering their roofs. I am reminded that it makes a difference where you are born and it determines so much... We, have much to do, and much to be thankful for...

Mexico 2011 - Day 1

Juice Inc. president and partner, Alex Somos takes an annual trip to Mexico to help build houses for families there who go without the basic need of a roof over their head. This year, the goal is for he and his team to build two homes in a week, rather than one. Over the next few days we will provide you with some of his thoughts as he and his family offer their support to those in need. This is the first of his “Mexican Blogs”.

My day started with the call of roosters trying to outdo each other, and mourning doves filling in the spaces. It was sunny all day with a strong wind constantly at our backs. We laughed as we wiped our faces and saw how much dirt clung to our cloths.

When we got to the work site we were greeted by three children ages two up to six. It’s hard to tell how old they are because they are small due to poor nutrition. Their mom, Maria Carmen, came out to greet us with her baby wrapped in blankets. It just gave us so much joy to see their expectant, happy faces. They live in a patchwork building made of cardboard, discarded pieces of wood, hard board and plastic. The outhouse is in much-needed state of repair and doesn’t offer us gringos the comfort we are used to. We take bathroom runs back to the base to ease everybody’s cares and fears. Our group has 12 people of mostly teens, a great group of women (all of who are moms) and a couple of us veterans.

The team gathered in a circle on the top of a cement pad. I asked the group what they were standing on. After a number of different answers someone finally said, “A foundation?” I commented that we all have foundations, except ours are typically invisible. I encouraged the group to think about what beliefs make up their foundations and to use this time to reflect upon them and ask themselves if they need to address any.

Beliefs are foundational and they drive our behavior. Are yours serving you and your life purpose? Are there any you need to leave behind? After a little reflection time we reviewed the plans, organized our team and got busy. I can tell you the teens were enthusiastic, they were fun and they worked very diligently. I was so touched as they engaged with the kids - helping them hammer or move smaller pieces of wood. The day flew by... We managed to build the outer wall and roof panels. Tomorrow we paint (always fun with the kids, everyone helping), assemble the outer shell and put the roof on. Hopefully we will have it sheeted before day’s end. Maria Carmen picked a bright red for the exterior colour with white trim...

Loving Others More Meaningfully

I want to talk about love and share a truth that has had a profound effect on me, illustrating it with a story from my marriage.

I had been married for a number of years and loved to show my wife Mary how much I loved her and appreciated her. Being a romantic at heart, I would write her cards and bring flowers home for no other reason than to let her know how much she meant to me. She received them gratefully and with smiles, although one day she sat me down.  “Honey, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.  I love the cards you give me and I appreciate the flowers and kind words. However, if you want to show me you love me in a more meaningful way, then maybe you could do the dishes more often. That would be more meaningful to me.” You can imagine how that made me feel! My internal voice was in disbelief and I felt hurt. It took a while to settle my own feelings and to really hear what Mary was saying to me. As I reflected on her preference I realized that I had been demonstrating my love for her out of my own construct and how I believed she wanted to be loved. I realized that even though I had the right intent, the action was not having the intended impact. So often, we love others out of what we think is meaningful rather than loving them in a way that is meaningful to them.

A while after, I had a conversation with a friend about this experience, he shared with me how he applied this very principle to raising his kids. “As parents we go out of our way to let our kids know they are loved and accepted. We tell them often ‘I love you’ or ’you know I love you, right?’ But a question I have learned to ask my children that is way more powerful and scary is ’Do you feel loved?’  The distinction is important.  I have never forgotten that moment; it helped me become a better dad. At night after story time and later during the teenage years I found opportunities to ask my kids this question. In turn, their answers helped me love them in ways that made them feel loved – and helped me understand my kids in a more profound way. In the realm of those that are most important to us, we need to learn that if we really want to love someone we have to love them from their point of view and not from how we think we should love them or how we like to be loved.

The Feelings Economy and its Impact at Work

Feelings drive behavior. Marketers have been selling feelings for years. Watch any good television commercial and you will see that marketers constantly connect to people’s emotions, whether it’s selling coffee or cars. Good branding is  about evoking feelings and emotion in your audience. People have a short memory about facts, but they never forget how you make them feel.

When it comes to people you work with, how you make them feel makes a significant difference in their performance. Why? Because feelings create energy - much like gas in a car or food for the body. People’s emotional state affects their performance. If people are positively charged it enables them to tackle tough issues and they can access their knowledge and experience  faster because there is little or no interference from negative emotions. If people are negatively charged, motivation plummets and the ability to access knowledge or experience is compromised and ultimately productivity is affected.

If people forget what you say and remember how you make them feel, how can we practically make this happen in a real and authentic way that produces results? At Juice, we help people understand it is possible to create environments where it feels good to work and it is easier to get things done. You can apply this truth to how change is managed. If you approach people purely on the rational level, the likelihood of enabling change will have more to do with  pushing it on them and mandating it. In turn, this  creates friction, interference and resistance in the system even when it is the right thing to do. If you engage people at an emotional level and speak to their heart and mind,  people will be more open to your message and it enables them to act. John Kotter illustrates this truth beautifully in his book The Heart of Change.

My business partner, Brady Wilson goes further in his latest book, Love at Work, Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy and he makes a compelling case for the role of feelings in the workplace.

Humanizing the workplace is good for employees and good for organizations because humanizing the workplace gets results.

Belief.

A friend of ours died tragically in an accident this past week. He was in Africa teaching the poorest of the poor new ways to farm. He leaves behind a loving wife, three gorgeous and very young children and a legacy to us of courage, undeniable commitment and a deep belief that drove how he lived his life.

This is a blog post from September, 2010 that he wrote...

“Today we went to Edinburgh Castle. While the kids sat on cannons and climbed the ramparts I pursued the museum. At the top of the castle the Scot’s have turned the chapel into a war memorial. I decided I would hunt for my Uncle who was killed during WW2 a few days after D Day.

What I came upon startled me. In one of the many great volumes of names was my own. Even my initials...











D. Robert Hall.

It hit me….He died (my namesake), in a war because he loved his country, and I trust the cause. It is a somber thing to think he died, voluntarily, willingly. He at some point put his name on a piece of paper knowing full well he may die for having signed it.

I prayed that when and if I needed to do the same, I would have the same courage. I pray that I would have the conviction to put my name in on things that I believe to be right-even though I too may suffer.”

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the movie Braveheart “Everyman dies. Not everyone really lives.” Rob Hall really lived.

If you want to learn more about Rob go to http://www.danielroberthall.net/about/

If Culture Was a Brand, What Would Yours Be?

Brand & Culture

Most leaders understand their business well. They pay attention to market trends, forecasting, cash flow and product cycles. They understand their assets and try to capitalize on them to build long-term results and improve the bottom line. Sales, marketing, product development, manufacturing, and operations are all reviewed and tightly managed. What I don’t see very often are leaders who understand and appreciate the value of the culture in which they operate. Culture and the normative behaviours that come from it can have a profound impact on all of the other assets in an organization and can add significant long-term value if they invest in it wisely.

The by-products of cultures that work are innovation, teamwork, higher retention of corporate IP, on-boarding others and problem solving. It attracts talent, motivates, reduces costs and engages people at an emotional level. People feel it. Culture, without getting too heady, is the soul of an organization. And most leaders don’t know how to satisfy that truth.

Interestingly, leaders have the most profound impact on an organization’s culture. Here are some of the unspoken and damaging beliefs leaders have about organizational culture:

“Human Resource” is a thing;

We pay people to work, we don’t pay them to feel; Culture is what I say it is;

I don’t have time for that sort of thing, I want results;

I am the boss - people do what I tell them;

What your managers and leaders tell you is reality;

We have a mission, vision, values statement that is enough;

Culture is like a brand- it is an identity. And like it or not, your work culture really matters to employees. And like a brand, it needs to be designed, articulated, supported, believed and measured. If your culture was a brand, what would it be?

Hiring. People.

Today’s marketplace offers an abundance of tools to help make the hiring process more efficient and effective. We can scan resumes for key words, penetrate defenses and look for evidence of related experience with behavioral interviews, test for affect, personality and leadership styles, and check references through our connections using social media. All of this is designed to help us validate our conclusion and it is a helpful and prudent thing to do. However, with all of these tools, it is sometimes easy to overlook the human side of hiring people. I have had enough experience and bruising in hiring the right candidate to know that finding a good hire comes from these three techniques:

Humanize the Experience: Look for a mutual fit. Imagine enlisting the candidate in the process of seeing their hire as a one-way street with both of you walking in the same direction, toward the same destination. Be real and speak candidly about the positives and negatives of the job. Create an environment of openness and disclosure where you become vulnerable and lower their defenses all with the intent of making the right hiring decisions together. Speak gravely about the costs to all of making a misstep and draw out fears and assumptions that may be present. Demonstrate genuine interest in the person and their story because you are hiring a person - someone with hopes, feelings, aspirations, responsibilities and a desire to perform. This is a person, not just an asset or a pair of hands; they are unique, gifted and multidimensional.

Pay Attention to Chemistry: Chemistry, a key ingredient, when present, fosters the flow of ideas, allows people to initiate, and the higher good of the organization and the team to be served. There is a feeling when all the right things are in place that can best be described as hum. Positive energy is present, enabling people to overcome daunting challenges and obstacles to create truly outstanding performance. To access this chemistry, include your team in the interview process. I don’t mean a perfunctory interview to get to know them, I mean your team actually helps you make the decision. Include your top candidates in team meetings, invite them to job shadow, and take them out for lunch. Understanding the dynamic of chemistry will inevitably lead to superior hires and a great team.

Listen to Your Niggles:  Everyone has experienced a niggle, but not everyone knows what a niggle is. A niggle is a question, a feeling, or that something “inside” that you or your team may not be able to articulate but is present nonetheless. I can’t tell you how many missteps have been avoided by paying attention to my own or other’s niggles. They typically come from a place of tacit knowledge that is manifested in a feeling, or a dis- ease the person may or may not be able to put into words. You may feel something is off, but you’re not sure why. My rule is, follow the emotion to the reason much like you would follow smoke to a fire. It pays off.

What ideas do you have to help you find great candidates?

Helping People Change

Leading people who have the inability to follow simple advice or suggestions is frustrating. Why don’t people listen? And how often do I have to tell them to do something or not do something?

Helping people change is just not that simple.  It’s not as simple as telling them what to do or not do, and repeating the directive numerous time certainly doesn’t help. When we hit a spot where we need to change, we seem to give ourselves a lot of grace for our intent even if we don’t achieve our goal. But when others miss the mark, we are quick with judgment of the activity, and seldom take the time to understand their intent.  Here’s what I’ve learned in my 31 years as a leader:

Never underestimate the information morass that people are being flooded with.  People are swimming in information but starving for context and implication thinking. Repeat the same message but from different perspectives.

People have different frames of reference. Don’t settle for “I got it” or a nod of the head. Check their understanding of what you said. I used to doubt the value of taking the time and opportunity to check understanding. I soon learned that when things went sideways it was because people typically misunderstood my instructions because their frames of reference were different.  I am amazed at how often people reflect back what they have understood and discover it is not at all what I meant!

Take most of the responsibility for how your message is understood. I now believe that YOU are responsible for making sure another person understands what you are trying to convey because your responsibility to the person is not discharged until they do. How can people do what you have asked if they don’t really get what you have asked them to do? It’s your message; take the responsibility for making sure it’s understood.

What is the payoff? The paradox of doing the above with consistency is more speed, engagement, better results and  less stress and frustration for you and for people you work with.