Rising to the Thrill

Wanted: thrill seekers in the world of work

Last weekend, my children jumped out of an airplane to celebrate one of their birthdays.  Several years ago, two of them went up in a plane and jumped.  This year, they took their younger brother.  All three of my children jumped. The conservative finance major jumped.  Be still my heart.

The last birthday thrill jump was off a bridge in Oregon, with bungee cords tied to their bodies.

These faces look happy right?  They look like they are so glad they paid over $400 to jump off a bridge and plummet to the rocks and river below?  So glad that they would pay more to jump out of a 1959 Cessna aircraft for a parachute experience?  Yes, and yes they did.  Thrill seekers that they are.

Needless to say, I did not go watch this event.  I went the first time and it was all I could take as a mother.  To assuage my concern, I started thinking about thrill seekers and the applicability to work environments.  How would this scenario play out at work?

My environment is a combination of e-commerce, payments and government solutions.  Not the brave new world of Mars or the thrill seeking world of Indiana Jones. Quite the contrary, most of our world is secure, locked down, predictable, controlled.  My environment is full of people who rely on consistency and try to resolve inconsistency.  Problems with the website, problems with the payment, problems with up-time?  Radical change in the website?  New products on the fly?  None of these are good things for our people and they work hard to keep the outside from creeping on the inside.  Consistent, routine flowing processes are what we strive for.  Most of the time.

Challenging though it may be, even the staid, route, IT guy needs a thrill once in a while.  Even our banking and eCommerce, "let nothing happen today" people need a thrill once in a while.  But what does the "thrill" look like for them?  And how is it helpful to the employee and the organization?

This question is something I have pondered for a few weeks.  Ever since I heard that my children were jumping again, I wanted to mitigate my fear.  And they wanted to show off theirs.  In talking to them later, half of the learning was the bright new experience.  The finance major said never again, but check, I have done it.  He also said that he had to be twice as brave as thrill seeking is outside his wheelhouse.

WheelHouse

My point is, when looking at our workforce through this lens, you can see the "thrill seekers" and those who don't normally, but then do.  What does that mean for your organization?

It means you can develop a way to recognize those who make a bold move, but who won't do it again because it wasn't right or who wouldn't normally step out of their comfort zone. Sometimes it is about a supervisor that manages too tightly.  Sometimes it is just a shy person.   BUT, sometimes they make a bold move!  Check out the shy tech guy link to see what this can look like.  We should recognize and reward them.

It also means that we should keep an eye on our thrill seekers, and help them direct that energy in positive ways for the organization.  Could your finance person take a bold move and introduce a new way to show value?  Could your Service Desk Manager introduce a wild idea to integrate all managers into the data base?  Would that be a thrill?  Or a NightMare?

It is hard to allow the thrill seekers to go out on the edge in a work environment.  The dreamers are often confused with thrill seekers.  They are not the same by a long shot.  Even harder, keeping the thrill seeker from thinking this will be everyday. Thrills are not usual by definition.   Managers are responsible for balancing this in themselves and in their subordinates.  Leaders of the organization must learn to inspire thrill seeking in those who might, and to inspire confident idea presentation in those who will. There is a balance and truly healthy growing organizations need that balance.  Challenging the status quo from the inside is far better than challenge from the competition or worse the Board!

I assure you that my children will be doing something other than white water rafting, bungee jumping or skydiving for the next trip.  They are already talking about flyboarding.  I guess thrill seekers will never stop.  Just for the record: my oldest is in IT, middle in PhD pursuit and youngest in Finance.  Their father in law enforcement.  We have no idea where they got this!

Rising to the Occasion of Our Future

Today, I listened to Arianna Huffington deliver a speech to the 2013 Florida Leaders Summit. She was amazing.  The title of her speech was technology and journalism.  But the real meat of her speech for me, was on integrity, responsibility and vision.

She spoke of the speed of technological change, the balance of a meaningful life, and the inclusion of the elderly back into the family and not in far away congregate living.  She said that studies show the active giving person has less risk of Alzheimer's disease.  She spoke of education and her mother's sacrifice to educate her and her sisters.  Who knew she came from a lower income working family.

She is inspiring as a leader and as a woman of conviction for family, freedom and happiness.  I appreciated her coming to Florida, where the headlines always seem to be so unfavorable.

Her speech reminded me of the article in the WSJ A Full Life to the End article, where the daughter explains the mother's choice to not go to the hospital.  Not to go to extraordinary lengths.  Not to accept a prolonged death.  She chose instead to accept a lucid, shorter life.  She chose to be here fully, rather than be here longer in part.

And in a way, it parallels what Arianna said today.  Technology is fabulous and it is changing the world.  Soon, machines will do most, if not all of the menial labor.  Education on the net will be accessible to more than ever.  Travel and international interaction will increase more than ever.  But what happens to us as families and people?  Does making access to the internet or online education easier make it better?  Does the income gap increase or decrease?

As a mother of the Y generation, the spoiled and lazy generation, the smart and gifted generation, I think, do they care about this?  Can they see and hear what may be lost?  Will we end up with people sitting at computer screens instead of living life? And where will I be in this mix?

The theme is always: we compromise the good we know for the new and shiny.  We are Americans. We want new, fast, better, more, and more.  We go to MCDonalds, when we could make dinner.  We stress maximum participation in organized sports or activity, instead of individual freedom and discovery of the backyard; we use phone conversation instead of face to face dialog.  We are too connected; we check in too often, not allowing mistakes to happen and consequences to follow.  We drink water from bottles, when cups would do.  We make money doing anything and everything and we fall for trends.  We fall because we have no tradition.

America is young relatively speaking.  Growing up in the south, tradition is part of your upbringing.  Please and thank you and yes Ma'am (no ma'am was never something offered to me) /I have photos of funerals.  Old people talk about funerals.  Death is part of the life we live.  But, I find that the tradition is not the same for our youth. Old people don't live with the family.  They move to the extended care home.  My own mother in law and father in law decided to move to an end of life care facility, only to have my father in law die in a hospital.  Their best intention of not wanting to be a burden to the family, put them far away from us who want to see them and include them.  A different burden.  And while I don't want to say that all families should live together, I do think it is a good idea to have them close.

I think the past should be passed on, and the best way to do that is to have multi generational interactions.  The best way to do that is the old way of passing on tradition. Even if it is modified.  Why do Americans jump at new and cast away the old?  The spirit of the quest.  The new adventure. The go west young man mentality.

But we are better than that.  We can seize the moment and embrace the past.  We can accept technology, and include the physical environment.  We can be on line and and still actually touch each other.  So, I guess the end is the beginning, and I am suggesting that we listen to Arianna, and include our whole family, include the environment and the internet.

I am suggesting that America should set some traditions, and that the tradition should be to not throw away the past, while embracing the cowboy technology future.  And to thank a cowboy leader, Arianna gave out her email address : arianna@huffingtonpost.com

Thanks to Arianna and to Katy Butler.

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