“I have an idea…”
Knowing Steve, and the “idea person” he is, I strapped on my imaginary helmet because whatever he was about to say, I knew it was gonna be good.
“I’d like to get together the alumni from the Seattle area and start a group where we can practice what we’ve learned at Influential U.”
“Well don’t tempt me with a good time….” I thought…
I immediately knew who to call. Michael Thomas. As one of the best-studied and hardest-working Influential U Consultants I knew, I knew that the opportunity to practice his chops and be the facilitator in an event like this would not only allow me the opportunity to study with our future valedictorian… #nopressure, but we could find a way to duplicate events like this around the world with other clients that I had.
We chatted a bit and he and Steve had met at a workshop that we had in Seattle and they both were in…
As we met, I mentioned that we would need to get really invitational and invite people… and that’s when I remembered that there was one other human that we needed involved… The only person I know that makes me look like a wallflower… Mathew Heggem.
He was a “yes” before I asked.
What followed was 3-4 months of planning. (Steve would express how annoying and slow it took at one point, and I agreed, but we all wanted to make sure we got it right.)
We pulled out our planning document (13-Step Document, if you’re an Influential U participant/alumni) and went to town, finding out one another’s aims, considering our resources, and plotting out how it was going to work.
Then we strategized – we refined our plan multiple times. We got a classy venue – Razzís Pizzería in Greenwood – and began sending out invitations.
Here was our final aim: (Refined multiple times…)
“To build quarterly opportunities for study within the Seattle Ecology while having low-cost, high-value, organic connections, made face-to-face.”
- In the first quarter, we would study “Health”.
- In the second quarter, we would study “Activity/Work”.
- In the third quarter, we would study “Money”.
- In the fourth quarter, we would study “Career”.
We set a goal for 25 people… and with our 11-page document in hand, we started to do the work and take the actions to make this idea a reality.
We learned SO MUCH along the way.
A couple of highlights include:
- We need a “Czar” who can simply focus on making people feel welcome
- it’s much better to draw a map and show people where to park for free than to make them pay for parking
- People don’t like talking about “Money”. (Shocker, right?)
- LinkedIn invitations/events don’t work anywhere near as well as picking up the phone and calling someone
All of that… and I never set foot in Seattle… I didn’t even attend a single session!
I would get the updates, see the photos from the event, and help coordinate their activities, but not actually be a part of the tactics or implementation… (And I have to tell you… I don’t know that I’d ever lead in that way.
So how’d it go?
- 32 Registered People for our Events over the whole year. (A 128% result of our goal… Smudged a bit… because our assumption was we could get 25 people to a single event… but had no clue how hard it would be to explain what we were creating… but that’s the beauty of seeing a plan through- you modify along the way.)
- 5 Updated Versions (so far) of Our Planning Document – This thing has changed and adjusted as we kept pressing as to what we were creating and how could we add more value/update it/update language that made sense. There was no way of knowing where it would evolve.
- 1 Big lesson in cooperation and strategic planning.
- 3 Friends for life.
The Ceremony of Completion
One day during a study with Michael Thomas, he said, “I like the idea of having a ceremony when we complete a thing – A Ceremony of Completion, if you will…”
As we all sat with each other, looking at our last year and a half of work, we re-aligned our aims and all agreed, that we weren’t really interested in working on “think:Seattle” anymore.
Aims change over time, we didn’t want to work quite so hard to promote something extra-curricular like this.
I started our “Assessment Meeting” by reading everyone’s aims for the project.
Josh: Gain more Referrals and find a template that I can use to share with other ecologies in other cities. I also want to travel to cities and be with the different ecologies so that I can be more valuable to clients.
Steve: Networking and speaking/practicing the Influential U Language – Keep it low cost/not hard work.
Mathew: Increase my social capital in the Seattle area. Relationshipping. Use my talents as a connector.
Michael: A template for IUC work that will lead to referrals at some point. A place to practice/grow fitness for IUC work.
We all sat with our aims for a moment, and that’s when Steve said something that I don’t know that I’ll forget.
“Josh, I may not have achieved my aims through think:Seattle, but I definitely achieved them through our meetings.”
“BUT STEVE!!!” I thought… “Weren’t you the one complaining about how many planning meetings we were having!!!” ::Insert Sarcastic Winky Face::
All of us agreed that we had indeed achieved our aims. Mathew used his talents and increased his social capital and became our “relationship czar”. Michael got to practice facilitating his Influential U Consultant work and increased tremendously in his skills.
While I didn’t get to travel to those cities, I did get a few referrals and just like Edison and his lightbulb quote- I did “come up with ways that didn’t work” for me… And I’m okay with that.
RE/think:Seattle
Now, I don’t know what’s next, but we did agree to all meet in November to come up with some ideas for what we could do together in the future… and I have a pretty good hunch as to what it may be.
Looking forward to your next idea, Steve… because that one, was a winner.