“Hey Teen Alan, Listen Up!”

When I cleaned out my parents’ house I discovered that my mother saved everything that had any significance to my growing up.  In 1998 my parents moved from assisted living to a nursing home and my sisters and I cleaned out the family home which my parents built themselves in 1952. We got the house ready for sale unloading or dividing up possessions and memorabilia.

My mom saved things related to all her children, but I noticed  there seemed to be more about me. “Of course! You were the BOY!” Said my sisters in unison. My special status as the youngest and only male child is something my sisters have given me grief about for now almost seventy-five years.  So there was more of my stuff, finger paintings, hand-made Mothers’ Day cards, report cards.

In a fifth grade report card the teacher had drawn in a separate evaluation category HOMEWORK complete with an “unsatisfactory” box that was checked. Below  it she wrote,

“Alan, seems to believe he is entitled to NEVER DO ANY HOMEWORK. His classwork is exemplary. He is very smart, but is developing a real problem with authority. If he doesn’t resolve this it will severely limit him in his life.”

You can imagine the fun my sisters had reading this out loud in my fifties.

I stumbled across this card today. (Apparently, my mother isn’t the only one who saves everything.) I showed it to my wife who laughed and said “Some things never change.”

I protested “I’m not as bad as I used to be.” She just smiled.

From time to time I see articles in various electronic and print media  “What I would tell my teenage self.” Some writer has interviewed celebrities who go on about what they wish they had learned earlier.. The writer always closes by turning the question to the reader, “What would you tell your teenage self?” Some readers answer. I don’t.

I always feel it would be a colossal waste of time. My teenage self would never listen to me. I couldn’t tell me anything.

But if I could . . .

I’d first have to get through that “problem with authority,” that finely developed need for power and control that sets my jaw, digs in my heels, and closes my ears to any wisdom that might come from anyone who lays claim to being older, smarter, more experienced or is otherwise more exalted than I am in any way.

If I could. . . I’d say. . . “OK, TEEN ALAN, LISTEN UP!”

A Chip on Your Shoulder Cuts Off Blood Flow To Your Brain

At my first job as a booking agent, I battled my boss and my friend Ed said to me, “Alan, you think that anyone, anyone who has the smallest amount of power over you is automatically an asshole, but maybe just maybe, sometimes you’re the asshole.” I laughed, and took pride in the accuracy of his assessment, but continued to battle my boss.

I had a career of boss battles for nine years in the speakers’ agent business and at five management consulting firms. I ended up spending twenty-three of my thirty-seven years as a consultant working for myself. When people asked me why I became independent, I joked,

“I found I’m a lot nicer to clients than I am to bosses.”

Along the way I learned a great deal, but almost always the hard way. So, teen Alan if you can open your ears, here are some other things I learned.

Capability and Connections are the Only “Secrets to Success”

Capability = competence + focused practice + habits and support systems

You have to be able to do something well to be successful. Yes, entrepreneurs and capitalists hire others to do stuff, but they become “capable” of knowing who, when, and for how much money, they must hire others.

Capability begins with competence; competence is the knowledge and skill required for a task. Competence is the base level. For competence to become a capability you have to add practice. The only way to get better at anything is to practice and not just time in the role. You must practice focusing on improvement.

Focused Practice: Focused improvement requires measuring where you begin, breaking a task down into component parts, measuring and practicing to improve each of those, and measuring where you got to. Then you must put it all together and then repeat that process.

I learned to do stand-up training. That required presenting, facilitating, and connecting with each member of the class. I measured presenting by staying on time and getting the message across. I measured facilitating by the engagement of each member of the training class. I measured connections by the conversations I had and by the post-class evaluation sheets. I got better because I prepared and I practiced.

Habits and support systems: My training and facilitation preparation included a special instructor note form, which divided materials into blocks with timing, opening statements or questions for each block and  three clear points.

I reviewed each day with notes about what went well and what should be improved next time and documented that for future review. If I was working with other people we developed a system of notes and preparation that we could e3ach learn from. Individual habits and job aids are needed to become information systems for larger teams and organizations.

Connections: Nobody succeeds entirely on their own

If I look at the ‘big breaks” in my consulting career they came because someone went out of their way to help me. A boss, who fired me, recommended me to a friend after I insisted on managing an orderly transition with my clients after I’d been fired. That new relationship produced the most exciting project of my career, British Airways, and a ten-year relationship with my most significant mentor.

A business partner, with whom I’d just broken up, recommended me to someone he met in an airport, which led to a ten-year client relationship.

I can also see missed opportunities that I just “blew off” A very well-known organization development professor wanted me in his PhD program; without understanding who he was I dismissed him because that OD stuff was” squishy.” A public television producer who later produced several extraordinarily successful series wanted to talk with me after I got my undergraduate degree in theatre; I dismissed him as a friend of my brother-in-law.

Arrogance and my “problem with authority” closed my eyes and ears” to opportunity on many occasions. Not everything happens because you “know someone,” but intention attracts help.

There is Not Only One Path and No Experience is Wasted

This is the last thing I would say to Teen Alan. Some would look at my work life and call it a series of failures. I studied to be an actor but never learned to support myself in acting. I became a booking agent for speakers for nine years and chucked it all to go to business school to become a consultant. I worked for five different consulting firms, for four to six years each, and was an independent consultant in four different structures.

But from then on, I started learning about human motivation, and the emotions that are often unspoken under interactions between people. From being a speaker agent I learned to sell, and learned that even celebrities are just people, who want to be listened to. These two earlier work adventures made me a good consultant who focused on helping clients. Those capabilities fed me for thirty-seven years and gave me the stories I am writing in my retirement.

So Teen Alan, do not be concerned that you have to pick the perfect career, pick something you love, or try a bunch of different stuff, but really do it.  Often being in the right place at the right time follows many times being in the wrong place or wrong time. Keep your eyes and ears open.

And for the love of Mike, get over your “problem with authority.”

What would you tell your teenage self if he or she would listen?