WordFood

WordFood - how we feed or starve our realtionships

- Julia Hubbel

Julia’s ability to get this group of type-A executives to engage in true networking was incredible. She is truly skilled at motivating the group to engage and interact with each other, and her openness and honesty really come through.

— Shelley Stewart, Jr.,
Senior Vice President of Operational Excellence and Chief Procurement Officer, Tyco

June 11, 2012

The Tongue We Trip Over

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 3:21 pm

I just had a day when I had to do some apologizing. I sent an email that wasn’t as carefully thought out as it should have been and it landed badly. I had to do offer some serious courteous WordFood to clean up with my client. Then I was on a conference call and said some things that were out of turn and had to send another apologetic email.

Ever have a day like that?

No matter how well intentioned you start out, somehow your tongue or your typing gets all tangled, your mind gets mangled, and what comes out just isn’t what you intended. Not long afterwards you find yourself working backwards trying to mop up the mess.

It happens to all of us. As a wordsmith, I want to think I’m not subject to this kind of entanglement but I fall victim to it like everyone else. Life has a way of showing us who we are in all our glory- clumsy and awkward, and prone to failures. This isn’t fun to look at. But as my coach Lari puts it, it’s important to see how I’m capable of “foot in mouth” disease and be sensitive to how that impacts people. I need to see that this part exists in me, that if I’m not careful, inappropriate stuff slips out.

People realize that we’re not perfect. An honest apology will usually be accepted especially if it’s offered right away. And when we feel genuine remorse for any hurt or inconvenience we’ve caused, we need to express it. That’s a true and important emotion. These failures and missteps are the everyday fodder of feedback about who we are in life.

The best answer to a clodhopper day is to brush off the dust and keep on going. Sweat it off at the gym, take a walk around the block. The great thing is that most people are quick to forgive. We need to forgive ourselves for our periodic verbal clumsiness. When our WordFood doesn’t feed others the way we think it should, that’s not the time to go toxic on ourselves. We are all doing our best with what we’ve got. And that’s saying a lot.

WordFood for Top Performers

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 10:25 am

Are you lucky enough to have great performers on your team? Are they highly independent, self-starting individuals? Are you glad that you can pretty much let them do their own thing and leave them alone?

Then you may be making a big mistake.

It’s very easy to assume that these top performers don’t need feedback or management oversight. Sure, they don’t want micromanagement- they are, after all, intrapreneurs. They might even tell you that they don’t need you to look in on them. But this is largely untrue.

Your top performers all have egos. And they want to know you’re paying attention to their work. That doesn’t mean looking over their shoulders all the time. What it does mean is that you do check in and acknowledge them. Notice their achievements. Ask them their opinions and involve them in the development of new people. Watch their numbers and express your appreciation.

Don’t be fooled by their independence. Our highest achievers want positive WordFood from you. They want to know you’re paying attention to what they do. If you don’t, they will find somewhere else to work where they will get that pat on the back.

All too often well meaning leaders make the assumption that their best people don’t need attention. The opposite is true. These are the people who deserve the most acknowledgement. This teaches your lowest performers that to get more of your support, they have to step it up.

Many a great employee has left because he or she got ignored. Make sure you are giving Energy Enhancer compliments to those who are making your company successful. Find out how they want to be valued: everyone is unique.

Feed your best performers rich WordFood and they will continue to reward you.

June 8, 2012

WordFood for the Tough Jobs

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 3:05 pm

This afternoon I was doing research for one of my WordFood leadership programs and was interviewing a manager at BNSF about her work. She has a demanding job that requires her to be pretty independent, and to take a lot of responsibility for her own results. I asked her, being as much as a self- starter as she is, how much she needs to hear that she’s doing a good job.

At first she said she didn’t need to hear much at all. “I really don’t need that kind of acknowledgement,” she explained. Then the more she thought about it, she added, “but you know, it would be nice to hear once in a while that people know it’s tough out here. Demanding and sometimes thankless. When we go over and above, it’s nice when that’s noticed. So, yes. It matters.”

When I turned the tables and inquired about how she took care of those who attended to her needs, it was a different story altogether. She shared one situation where she needed help from the IT department. She gave fair warning starting in January that she had a drop dead deadline on April 30th. Due to a series of circumstances, nothing was done and she ended up with a brand new IT person helping her at the last minute. This person had other, higher priorities, and often was dragged away. At key moments in this process my client would tell this overstressed IT person “You’re my hero today.”

This front line, brand new, overworked IT kid probably only heard this from my client but it was probably the best thing he heard all day. And he got the job done- at the last possible moment on April 31st, right at the drop dead last second.

While my client may not always think about her needs to be fed nutritious WordFood, she knows how to feed it to others, especially those who do the tough jobs on the bottom rungs. Sometimes we can forget the demands place on people in these positions, and get frustrated with them. Acknowledgement, thanks and recognition go a long way towards helping us meet our goals and making friends for future support.

Who does the tough jobs for you? How can you thank them today?

June 5, 2012

WordFood Character Fiber

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 7:59 pm

Some of the best sources of feedback we have come from our critics, and for those of us who pay people to give us this guidance, this can be very humbling.

Last year I wrote my third book, a big fat tome that I called “Exchange.” I whipped it out in a few months, very much in love with my own verbosity and eloquence, sure that this was going to be a world changer. My editor loved it too. I invested thousands in the editing and proudly handed it over to my coach, Orvel Ray Wilson.

He struggled through the first few chapters and called it a piece of crap. “Arch, arrogant, finger pointing and many more choice words,” he said. “It’s beneath you. You can do much better.”

I was deeply hurt and very offended. Or I should say, my ego was wounded. How dare he blast my masterpiece?

The truth is, he was right. I had gotten so swept away by my topic that I had failed to check in with him as I normally did to make sure my feet were square on the ground. They weren’t. Part of me knew it and the other part of me sulked.

I am regularly humbled by people smarter than I am. I’ve been wise enough to hire a few of those people to coach me. I’m not always smart enough to keep them close to my creative process so that I don’t give birth to a Frankenstein monster.

Those who offer us critiques (and possibly damage our oh-so-delicate egos) give us a chance to rethink, redirect and reconsider. As I take on the considerable task of rewriting Exchange to make it the humble, gracious book it was intended to be, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have a book coach who will tell me that what I write is junk. It is hard to hear but it is the simple truth. What he is entrusting me with is the courage to go back and do what he knows I am capable of doing: a much better job.

WordFood talks about Character Fiber, one of the key kinds of WordFood that we need from those we love every day. This is what gets us up and over the obstacles in work and life. Sometimes it can be bumpy for our self image, but those who support us and believe in us deliver the goods, and aren’t afraid to tell us the truth.

Our contributions in life demand it. Our little egos will recover. Here’s to those who provide us with the WordFood to do our best.

June 3, 2012

UnderCover Boss WordFood At Its Best

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 10:03 am

I’m a big fan of Undercover Boss, the CBS program where a CEO goes underground in his or her own company to work as a new employee. They learn the ropes and on the way, they are deeply humbled by the stories of their own people, their goodness and commitment. On rare occasions they see less than stellar behavior but by far and away they are blown away by the generosity of spirit, the personal stories and capacity for giving.

At the end of each program the CEO brings these employees back to headquarters. The employees think they’re going to assess the “newbie” they worked with but instead they meet with the CEO who ends up giving them wonderful WordFood about how they performed on the job. How hard they worked, their commitment to the job, how they give to the community, their generosity to their employees. Then, depending on the individual situation, the CEO may give a financial gift to help with education or a vacation.

The program has grown in popularity and has been moved to the prime Friday night slot. I believe that the reason Undercover Boss has become so popular is that we love those moments when the big boss compliments their people. We hunger for that from our own CEO or manager. We wish someone would recognize us that way. It’s not even about the $5000 vacation they’re giving away- we’d just like someone to notice how hard we work. The times we come in early. The hours we spend coaching younger workers. How dedicated we are to doing good work every day. We’d just like to be noticed. In fact, some of your best people are probably starving for attention.

Time and again the employees on Undercover Boss say the same thing: they never thought anyone would ever notice them. Leaders and managers, pay attention. If you want your people to be engaged, to be committed and truly put their hearts into their work, it doesn’t take much. It takes the WordFood of acknowledgement. Notice people doing things right. Watch people every day and tell them you appreciate their hard work.

UnderCover Boss is a study in how to make people feel like a million dollars. It’s a weekly lesson in how to treat your employees well. And it’s not about giving away money. It’s about how we talk to them every day. It’s the acknowledgement that’s most important. People want to know that what they do matters, that someone is paying attention.

If you haven’t seen Undercover Boss yet, start watching. It’s full of ideas on how to really treat your employees.

May 31, 2012

WordFood of Love

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 6:28 pm

My friend Lori is extremely busy. She left a demanding job as a partner with a tile company a few years ago to take a break and found herself even busier, taking on responsibilities working at a hospice, learning and then teaching Italian, getting and then training a dog to be a companion to those in need. Now she is deeply involved with animal rights issues.

Our friendship has spanned thirty years. As Lori has gotten older she has taken on bigger and more complex projects. Her time is more precious. We don’t talk very often and when I do call, I usually find her in a highly preoccupied state.

Today, I called and got the usual. “Hi honey, look I don’t have time to talk, my Italian student is late, I have a deadline to meet, she knows this drives me crazy, can we talk later?”
“Lori, I only called for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“To say I love you.”
“Oh. Thank you darling.”
“You’re welcome.”

We can get so in love with our busy-ness and our activities that we forget to make room for those we call our closest friends. Sometimes we need to just take a moment and breathe, and let someone love us.

When a child wants to hug you, are you too busy to take that extra few seconds to cuddle? When your mom wants to say something to you on the phone, are you in a hurry to hang up to get on to more important things? These ARE the important things.

When we look back on the times that were important, we think about the exchanges we had with those most precious to us. Not the big deals, the contracts won, the high fives with the guys at the office. It’s the WordFood of love that we were fed by our children, our parents, our beloved friends, our family members.

Who in your life needs five phone seconds from you? Who is so busy, so preoccupied, so busy in life that an “I Love You” message would be a bright spot in their day? My beloved friend Lori reminds me that I’m the one who needs to call her.

Whose life can you brighten today?

May 27, 2012

WordFood: Baby Boomer Destinies

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 6:37 pm

My friend Karen is about to take on a new job. At 61 she is ending a tough 12 year period where she tried being an entrepreneur in the Inland Pacific Northwest. It didn’t work out. She developed a considerable following for her regular essays which were very well written, a lively spiritual commentary on seeing things in new ways that eventually became a wonderful book. She led seminars and retreats, she was a very capable facilitator. But her business never took off. Ultimately she moved in with her mom and took on what she felt were very menial jobs for a few years, well below her dreams of helping people find their great purpose in life.

She wrote me today and said, “I’ve felt since I was little that I had some magnificent destiny to fulfill.” Now at 61 she was getting ready to take a job to make sure she had a secure future, far from the perhaps more glorious future she had imagined many years ago.

Are you at a point in your life where you’re railing at yourself for what you haven’t accomplished? Are you entering your last thirty years and unhappy that your grand destiny never showed up? Life showed up instead.  And here you are, perhaps not in the shape you’d like to be, a little grayer,  and this is just not what you had in mind. And you and the mirror aren’t getting along.

I told Karen that I finally realized that my destiny wasn’t arriving in some hazy far off future. Life wasn’t a dress rehearsal for a someday. It was happening every single day. The lives I wanted to impact were all around me. In the grocery stores and the airplanes and the street corners. In the buses I ride when I travel. They are in your children’s faces and in your friends. Destiny is life, and life gives us a chance to transform people with our kind words all the time. I had to let go of my big fat egotistical notion that I was meant for bigger and better things than what was going on around me. What was going on around me was my real work.

The great teachers: Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, all of them taught the common man. So many of their lessons were about how we talk to each other every day. Stories about them abound about how they treated everyday people. They taught by example and they transformed lives. That is destiny- in a life lived by example.

We need to stop telling ourselves that we must be measured by how famous, rich, publicized, popular we are. These things mean little. Our ticker tape parade is the joy that lives in a child’s eyes when we play with them. The pleasure on an old man’s face when we take the time to listen to a story. The smile on a friend’s face when we pay a gracious compliment. This is your destiny, your grand moment. Seek it. It awaits you.

May 25, 2012

WordFood from DiversityPlus

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 1:39 pm

This morning right after an important conference call with a client I was honored to get an email from DiversityPlus Magazine: CONGRATULATIONS!!! After careful consideration you were selected as one of the 2012 Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity and a profile of your accomplishments will be featured in the May/June Issue of DiversityPlus Magazine and distributed at the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) conference in June in Orlando, FL.

Now that’s WordFood of the highest order. I do work in this world and count myself fortunate to try to make a difference for folks who want to sell to big companies. I also train employees who are members of network groups in huge corporations. But as an entrepreneur you don’t expect to get noticed. The people who usually do are the Chief Diversity Officers of these huge corporations who have the budgets to do big things for a lot of people.

But here’s the real hero. It’s people like Paul Lachhu at Diversity Plus who work so hard to make sure others get noticed too- that there are people in the field doing good work in addition to these powerful corporations. Thanks to Paul for helping get my name in the mix but especially for all the very hard work he does all year to uplift the diverse companies and suppliers that he meets and admires and believes in. He’s the one that should be getting an award. My thanks to his magazine and to this wonderful man for all that he does in the diversity industry that has done so much for so many. Kudos to you for your dedication.

Women and WordFood

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 7:07 am

This week I was in New York City at a huge formal bash. It was a big black tie event put on by the National Minority Supplier Development Council and everyone was dressed to the nines. I had flown in from Denver, where we are pretty casual much of the time, and I was having a lot of fun being surrounded by all these women in flowing gowns and men in their sharp tuxedos.

About halfway through the evening I was working my way through the tables and came across a woman in a particularly stunning dress – it crisscrossed her body and made her look like a million bucks. She was facing away from me, and I touched her arm to get her attention. “You look absolutely amazing in that dress,” I told her. “You’re a complete knockout.” Her face lit up. “I really needed to hear that,” she said. She went on to tell me that she doesn’t hear that kind of thing enough- and that my compliment made her feel really good.

Women can sometimes be a little catty with each other, especially about appearances. “That dress is too tight,” “Her makeup is too theatrical,” comments that tear each other down behind our backs. What we all need from each other is support and love: outright support, acknowledgment face to face. I love to compliment women: on their clothing, their hair, their strong arms, everything about them. What their warm reactions teach me is how hungry we all are for acknowledgement. We want to be seen for how hard we work to be pretty or handsome or to do well.

Those seconds it took to give this lovely woman a kind word made ME feel like a million dollars that night. The gift was to me as much as to her for her graciousness. It’s a constant reminder of how powerful our WordFood can be.

May 22, 2012

Romantic WordFood

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Julia Hubbel @ 5:59 pm

My boyfriend once commented that couples that he knew had lost their spark. Something had gotten lost, the physical attraction was gone- along with other aspects of their relationship. We both wondered at this, because this isn’t a problem we have. We see each other about six times a year, and one of his sweetest characteristics is the wonderful WordFood he feeds me every time he sees me: compliments. He makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. And I try to give as good as I get. That results in high anticipation- we can’t wait to see each other. What happens though, when people end  up together, the years go by, and familiarity takes its toll? Is this just inevitable? I don’t think so.

Pat, a neighbor of mine, came by while I was weeding last Sunday. She’s been married for 55 years, and we were discussing this very thing. “It takes being willing to find the good about each other every day,” she said. “Looking for what’s right and not what’s wrong. Remembering why you married that wonderful man, and not thinking about the dirty socks on the floor or an open refrigerator door.” Sure, we all have our bad habits. But to keep the magic in our relationships we need to look past that and keep on valuing each other’s best parts, those aspects of us that shine.
In order to make it for the long run, and to make it magical, we need to continually find what is wonderful and good in each other and compliment it. Resist pointing out bad habits. We all know they’re there. If we want help with them we’ll ask. What we’re hungry for is kind words, to be seen as the Prince or Princess Charming we once were in your eyes.
When my guy does this for me, it keeps me at the gym, working hard. Dressing up in my best. It’s a powerful motivator.
The relationships that last are marked with kindness, respect and the romance of WordFood. Try it sometime.

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