a cure for the common control freak

I'm that type of person who always gets worried when projects I start at work have to be put in others hands.  For whatever reason, I suppose I'm a bit of a control freak and would just as soon deal with things on my own because I know I can depend on me.  In my years of experiences before working for the YMCA, I think I must have gotten "burnt" on more than one occasion, which lead me to take this stance.  Or not.  Who knows.  

The refreshing thing since joining the YMCA is that I'm discovering some interesting things about how things can work and should work when the right people come together.  This week is National America on the Move Week and YMCAs across the country are trying to walking 10 billion steps.  The idea is that if we can encourage each other to walk 2,000 extra steps a day and eat 100 less calories a day we can start to move people toward an "energy balance" and make a dent in the obesity epidemic in our country. 

At our YMCA, we have a goal of 6 million steps.  We've planned a great week and the events have started, including some special classes like Zumba and fun programs for kids at our afterschool program, seminars for families and other great stuff for our members.  Our members have responded to the challenge with great excitement.  We have nearly 200 people signed up, which is more than I can ever recall being involved in a fitness challenge at our Y.  

So the deal is, I'm in an airport in Birmingham, just finishing up a conference as I write this.  I'm hundreds of miles away, completely not in control of the event.  I've left it in the hands of our Membership Director, our Health Enhancement Director, and our Youth Director, each of whom have only been in their positions for a matter of weeks.  Here's the cool part - it's going GREAT!  As of this morning, our YMCA had walked 3.8 million steps.  Our introductory fitness classes had great attendance.  Our seminars had really good attendance numbers.  The Afterschool Program has contributed almost 1 million steps.  The Health Enhancement Director just sent this great email out to the staff that was so well stated and encouraging, it made me so proud I wanted to cry (corny).  

It's so refreshing and invigorating to be working in a place where so many of my co-workers passionately believe in our mission.  It's eye-opening to know that I'm not alone working to achieve the goals we have in place.  You see, what I've realized is this - all those other times, I was in the wrong place.  The times I was let down, it wasn't a clear representation of what all people were like, only those around me at that moment.  In other words, when you can put together the right people, with the right set of beliefs and convictions, and similar drives and dedication, and they really are all working for the same reasons towards the same mission, what I've discovered you CAN trust them.  And that's what it's all about really.  We all want to surround ourselves with people we can trust, no matter what the setting.  It feels so right to be a part of the YMCA as a staff member, and it's my hope that our members can trust that we're trying to do the right things for our community each day.  I want you to be able to trust us too.

Special thanks to Darcy, Abby and Ryan.  You guys are rocking the YMCA world.  Great job!!  Thanks everything!  Till next time....

-G

"Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community."

--Anthony D'Angelo

Building a better world, one relationship at at time

I'm writing today from a conference in Birmingham, Alabama that is hosted by the software company we use at the YMCA and that several other YMCAs and JCCs use throughout the country. Each year I get to come to this conference and learn about the latest technologies offered by the company and how they might help us as a YMCA. I also get to catch up with and network with old YMCA friends from Y's all over the place. We have to the chance to talk about best practices and challenges that we each face and about ways to better serve our communities and deliver the mission of the YMCA. It really is a good conference and I always enjoy it.

This year, the hosting company, Daxko, took a step to bring in some great speakers to speak on some really interesting topics. One of the speakers was Shane Benson, of Chick-fil-a. He spent some time with us and talked about how his company has been so successful and what they do intentionally to find and keep great people who deliver such great service, and in turn, deliver their mission on a daily basis.

He talked about the basic desire that people have - one of wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I think this is a true statement in that we all work, whether consciously or unconsciously to be a part of a collective "thing" that is bigger than us, that makes a difference, that shapes and changes the world. He also talked about trust and how trust is really why people choose one company. It's that they trust that company just a little bit more than the others.

So the question he posed to us was: How do you establish a relationship of trust? Chick-fil-a does it by Connecting, Discovering and Responding. I've thought about this today and I really like this philosophy. The really interesting thing is that it's what we should be striving to do each day at our YMCA and even something that I want to strive to do each day as a person. Here's what he said to us:

Connect: Get to know people. Now for our discussion, he focused on customers and talked about not being afraid to begin a dialogue, a conversation. As I sit here right now, I'm wearing earphones and listening to iTunes (James Taylor if you're wondering). I find that more and more, the technologies that are designed to set us free are becoming roadblocks to the converstation Shane was talking about. We should talk more. And I don't mean debate, or argue, or try to impress. What I got from Shane is that we ought to talk, and find out about each other. That seemed to be what he was getting at with his second point.

Discover: Become someone's problem solver or promoter. We ought to focus daily on discovering what goes on in peoples lives. What challenges or issues or successes they're experiencing right now, and if we can, how we can help. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Again, for his purposes, he was relating these points to the business of Chick-fil-a and how they've worked for them, so he gave this great example of a store owner (called an operator) who approached some customers one evening and started a conversation as they had dinner. He discovered that this group of 3 young women were college students at the local community college and that they were there to celebrate one of the girls birthdays. It was her favorite restaurant. So - he'd connected to them simply by engaging them in conversation - not for any gain, but simply to Discover something about them. Now he wished her a happy birthday, but here's where his third point came into play and what I think really makes the chain such a success and what we can learn as an organization and what I can learn as a person from them.

Respond: Leverage your unique assests in a personal way that can impact that person. Once that operator had discovered that the girls had come to the restaurant for a birthday, he responded this way - he invited the girls to come back the following night to celebrate "on the house" and to invite as many people as they would like to the restaurant. I know, right? To most of us, that would be a pretty risky thing to do, considering how easily and quickly word can spread electronically these days. 55 people showed up the following night and they all ate and had shakes and brownies and danced and had photos made with the Chick-fil-a cow and had a great time. That owner/operator even passed out free sandwich coupons and had the kids promise to use the coupons to bring friends back to the restaurant.

He found out that of the 55 kids there, only 12 had ever been to the restaurant before. So the question was then posed to us: Do you think he earned any new customers that day?

Shane went on to tell more stories of employees and owners leveraging their unique assets to become someones problem solver, like the owner who discovered one of his customers was in financial troubles and her washing machine had quit. He got the money together to buy and deliver her a new one. That customer came to him in tears when she found out. That's huge and not only did it represent the company well, but it impacted someone's life on a level that is beyond a typical retail relationship.

I've always been impressed with Chick-fil-a's philosophy and stated purpose -"That we might glorify God by being a faithful steward in all that is entrusted to our care and that we might have a positvie influence on all the people that we might come in contact with." The insight I got today really revealed to me a couple of things. First, how they do it. How it's not something they take lightly or hope to do while selling a lot of chicken sandwiches, but how it's their purpose and how they try to put it first, and allow the rest to happen. Second, how the values they as a company have are very similar to those we strive for as an organization and those I view as admirable and worth striving for as a person. Wouldn't we all want to be a part of a group like that? One that we can believe in and be proud of? It gives me more to work for as a person and more to work for at our YMCA. Special thanks to Shane for sharing and prayers that we can use his lessons to make the world a better place. Until next time...

-G

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

--Addison Walker.