The annoying calls that I am writing about at the wonderful political calls that are robo called to us around election time. The cheap and easy way to reach out to voters. When do they normally happen? Around dinner time or slightly after.. You know the time that you are supposed to be spending family time together. Interrupt family time! The topic of discussion switches over to the call and the purpose of the call, but not in a good way (usually a simple no way am I voting for “that” person!). How can we get those added to that law? Wait, that would probably mean that those exact folks that approved the list for those sales calls – would have to put their own campaigns on the list. Let’s not hold our breathe waiting for that to happen.

For our household, we are a house divided. So, we get to get both parties lovely phone calls. After keeping track of who called, who called for whom and which party called.. The loser party with the most calls were the Republicans. Senate John McCain topped the overall list – his voice was on my answering machine three times. Since this is computerized – did you really have to call me three times? I have to seriously revisit the party that I follow. In an earlier post, I commented that I was not going to vote for anyone that called or had some call with their support on a candidate. I lived up to my promise. I did not vote for any of those folks.

When will some of our law-makers step up and put an end to that behavior?

This was not an easy decision for many reasons. I have been working for Intel for over 28 years. During that time, I have grown up, learned a lot, raised my family, traveled to places I know I would not have traveled to and have met some amazing people. I have put in 28 years at one company. Something that in today’s world, just does not happen that often. I was 22 years old when I started, just out of college and was looking for some stability for me and my new family. I guess I found it.

For entertainment value, I thought I would put in the stuff that I will not miss…

• Meetings, Meetings, Meetings and more meetings – I hate to count up the hours that were spent in meetings. Sometimes we had meetings to prep for meetings. Sometimes we had post meetings on the meetings. In order to get work done – you had to schedule a meeting with yourself on your calendar.
• Email! I don’t know what has happened over the years, but email had become the number one way to communicate. Yes, it beat out meetings. Why? Because you usually got one to five emails around the meeting. The email’s I will not miss – did you get my voice mail (now our voice mails go to our inbox), those that come from the person that sits in the cube next to me,  reply to all blasts – asking to be removed from the distribution list and my all time favorite ones – an email asking if we can talk!
• Processes… To say that I have seen an increase in processes over the years – that is an understatement. Some are completely necessary, I get that. Others, well let’s say some people have jobs because of them.

I will miss stuff as well, like:

• The people! There are some amazing people that I have met, worked with and helped out over the years. Without them, I know I would not have had as much fun as I had. Would not have gotten much done by myself. Would have hated to sit in my cube – waiting for the next meeting or email.
• Experiences and memories that I have. Even those that are not so good. They shape us into who we are.
• My usual parking spot… I started in 1982 in the Chandler CH2 building.. Looks like I will end my time in Chandler CH2 building (I have had stops almost in every building in Chandler and some in Oregon). I joked when I came back to CH2 about 5 years ago, I started parking in the same spot in 1982. Well, maybe Intel can put up a marker on my parking spot!

I am excited and nervous about the journey that I am about to take. I am not going to stop working.. I just will be doing it somewhere else.

Decision needs to be made (retire or stay)… Time to put in place my usual way of handling such life changing decisions. Here is what I do…

1. Pull out a tablet of paper – draw a line down the middle of the page. Left hand side – Pro’s (taking early retirement); Right hand side – Con’s.
2. Find a quiet, early morning spot to sit and write down everything that comes to my head for each.
3. After I have exhausted my thoughts. I asked my family to discuss this with me. As much as this is my decision, this is a family decision as well. My family is important to me and they are my number 1 supporters, their input is valuable.
4. Grab some more of that quiet time to reflect on my information, what my heart is saying and what my family has shared with me. A decision needs to be made, and will be made.
5. Communicate my decision to my family!
6. Make my decision completely available to my employer – this has to be done by the end of July.

Many are probably wondering what is going on with this? Well, step one, done and am filling in the Pro’s and Con’s. Is there something that you use differently? Please share…

Catherine's Palace just inside the gates

Public service announcement: here is your very brief general information to get things started. St. Petersburg is situated on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, some 400 miles from Moscow. Considered the most European of all the cities of Russia. City population is around 5 million and is the largest sea port in the country. It is built on a series of islands spread over a wide area. Founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great. In 1712, Peter transfered government from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Catherine the Great continued to build the City into a major European capital. She founded the Hermitage Museum, which today is pretty impressive still. There is much more, if you want to learn more – look it up on-line. One more add, the currency is the Ruble. There money is tightly controlled, so taking into or out of Russia is illegal.

When I think back to some of the places that I wanted to visit, Russia was always one of them. Why? Maybe it was the times that I grew up in; being a member of the US military; Russia was not really open to visitors or maybe all of them and more. I was so looking forward to my 2 day visit to Russia. When I booked the cruise, I was told that I would need a visa to go out and about and explore. Since I did not have enough time to get said visa – I had to do the cruise ship tours. Since we were going to spend 2 days there – I wanted to make sure that I covered as much as possible, we went on 2 tours.

The first on was the big 10 hour city highlights, Pushkin (Catherine’s Palace) and Peter and Paul Fortress. Armed with camera’s and some high expectations… I have waited for this moment for a long time. We set off from the port towards the city center – passing by many residential housing along the way. Some of them are new, some fairly new and some were not. One thing that was noticed right away is the number of housing units and the lack of planning for cars. Ouch, cars were parked almost 3 deep. Parking is tough most places. As we moved around St. Petersburg, you got the true sense of the traffic, navigating around the various islands (bridges everywhere) and the views.

As our luck was not already pretty good but here are some of the causes of the extra traffic and congestion:

• Economic Summit was scheduled for the 2 days we were there. This caused road closures – as the delegates never had to wait in traffic. Extra security was out.. Got to see plenty of SWAT folks.
• Was Wedding season – were must have seen 30+ couples (and their families) out and about taking pictures at the many historical sites (same places we were going to). In Russia, this is very good luck. When you see them, you are to make a wish and it is supposed to come true.
• That evening was a celebration for the end of the school year. Big concert and fireworks needed to be prepared for. Again, road closures or lane restrictions.

Back to our day on the tour. We must have circled St. Petersburg many times – as I started to get a very good sense of where I was on the bus. We headed out to Pushkin to visit Catherine’s Palace. Once there, we were treated to a walking tour of the Palace and the garden’s. I enjoyed every part of that tour. Our guide handed out receivers and headphones, so she could continue to tell us what all is going on – quietly (probably saying her voice from yelling). Once the morning was over, we drove back to St. Petersburg for the rest of the tour. Lunch was local cuisine at a hotel banquet hall (I would comment that it was not my favorite food, but okay). Back on the bus for more city highlights and then walking around Peter and Paul Fortress.

"Poppy Field" Claude Monet 1887

Day 2 of St. Petersburg was a 4 hour visit to the Hermitage Museum. Wow.. 4 hours was not enough, I felt like we were rushed to see as much as possible. The Hermitage is located on Palace Square, is one of the world’s greatest treasuries of fine and applied art with over 3 million exhibits. To say the least – impressive is right. We were able to get within inches of many of the greatest artist ever and their work was not behind glass. In fact, I was pretty shocked at how close you could get.

My overall impressions:

• Looking at much of what was done during the early years, you can see that the government tried very hard to keep up with Italy and other countries – but they did it on a cheaper scale. What was marble in Italy was painted in Russia. What was solid gold, is gold leaf. Pretty cool – keeping up with the Jones’ on a budget.
• Traffic – what a pain… I know this cost us some of our visit. We had less time in some places due to keeping to a schedule. We also missed out on visiting the Church of Spilled Blood (due to the economic summit street closures).
• Our guides did an amazing job – they knew their stuff and were pretty good with answer questions. English was not a problem. What people can not hide is their opinion of stuff. We heard their pride and the disappointment as they talked about certain periods. I truly enjoyed not having a watered down version.
• We had beautiful weather and got to see many of the celebrations. The wedding stuff was pretty cool. They drive around and take pictures before they are married. I was not even able to see the wedding dress ahead of time. The celebration for ending of school – military school, college and high school – all at once for everyone.
• Security at Palace and Hermitage (in the rooms) were pretty much older women – just watching what was going on – which was really back-up. As the cameras were everywhere.

I can now say that I have stepped on Russian soil in my lifetime. Who would have thought about that some 20 or 30 years ago? Times change and this was a very good experience.

Leading in an environment that is characterized by constrained resources, an uncertain and unpredictable economic environment and where competition is constantly increasing, is extremely challenging as there is no clear direction, not clear answers and the risk of failure is high. In these times, when decision making is difficult and change has become the order of the day, having the right leadership team in place is of utmost importance. This is why having a robust leadership strategy is key.

You many be asking yourself, what exactly is a leadership strategy and how will is help in times likes these? William Pasmore describes a leadership strategy as follows.. “A leadership strategy makes explicit how many leaders you need, what kind, where, with what skills, and behaving in what fashion individually and collectively to achieve the total success you seek.”

According to William, developing your organization’s leadership strategy require that you answer the following four questions:

1. What are the drivers of our business?
2. What kind of leadership do we need?
3. How am I myself leading?
4. Who are our leaders? 

This quote also made me think about change in general.Let’s look at the changes that are needed to happen when it comes to an area that is near and dear to most of our hearts, communication and collaboration. I have been hearing from many folks that are down at the work level (no offense to management and leaders) that today things are not working well. In fact, some folks have said it is broken. My first question is how are you doing with it today? Let me phrase the answer as – I do anything and everything that works for me. Within that – you can read between the lines – some would not meet security or IP protection, some are group(s) creative solutions (that if shared, others could benefit hugely) and others are just plain – we put in the ton of hours necessary to be success. As the company continues to spread out – communication and collaboration is stretched a lot. Every knows that when you stretch a rubber band too much – it does break. Well, we are doing just that – stretching. I wonder if leaders are listening to these cries for help? I know it is being heard in pockets – usually when it is so bad (emergencies or out of compliance) - that we jump into task force mode.

The groundswell has been going on for quite awhile. What made me think about the quote and this particular passion of mine – is that we are pretty good at throwing technically at problems. Hell, we are a technically company. The answer is not how much technically that we can change the way we operate. It takes leadership and a solid change management strategy to really transform. I think many of us have seen Field of Dreams – the movie that coined that phrase – “if you build it, they will come.” I think we have built plenty and have many items that just miss the complete mark – but we don’t help transform. When someone tells me – tools need to be intuitive and easy to use – I usually have problems. My first thought is – another tool that is going to be used the same old way. Transformation takes time and effort. From the top to the bottom.. The benefits will be realized, but over time. There is more than building it. There is more than letting grass roots efforts, just become reality. Time to lead the change in the manner necessary for true success.