View from the Mountain

Sticking to your knitting

A few decades of experience in the business world has taught me the value of getting good at what you do. Depending on your skill level, the field you are tackling, and your ability to learn, becoming at expert can take months or even years.

Every time I changed jobs at Apple, I went through six months of extreme work to get to the top of my game.  In a highly competitive business environment, you cannot relax even when you really know your job, but you especially cannot relax when you are learning your job.

Often the challenge that is hardest to overcome is a manager unwilling to give you the time to master your job.  It is important to realize the distinction between a manager and a leader.  A leader is supportive in letting you learn your job but also is forgiving of the inevitable mistakes.  A manager will try to do your job for you and often try to embarrass you when mistakes are made.

You will go much farther with a leader than with a manager.  Unfortunately in today's business climate, leaders are in short supply because most businesses care more about their quarterly metrics than they do about establishing a business that will endure over the long term.

As an aside, you can find CEOs who act like managers.  Sometimes this causes a leadership vacuum below the CEO because anyone with skills that might challenge the CEO is driven off.  For an example of this you can ponder who is going to replace Steve Jobs at Apple.

So if sticking to your knitting is good why would someone go off and try something which requires them to struggle for six months in order to get good at what they are doing?  Is that not abandoning your knitting for something foreign?

First off sticking to your knitting is a broad term and can be taken to extremes.  If I had stayed in K-12 computer sales at Apple, I would never have become director of federal sales.  If I had stayed on the farm selling bulls and balers, I would have never made it to Apple.  While my transition to real estate has not been as financially successful as I would like, I am very good at the job now.  I learn something all the time, but that has consistent across my careers on the farm, in computers, and real estate.

If you want an excellent experience in finding a home with water access on the North Carolina coast, I can say with confidence that I can do that exceptionally well.

Second, we live in a world that is steadily changing.  If you had told me in 1982 that I would spend part of my career after Apple selling email, I would have looked at you with a blank stare.  I certainly did not know about email in 1982.  We have to change or one day we will wake up and find there is no market for buggy whips.

So to me sticking to my knitting is continuing to develop my skills at understanding the needs of my clients and learning how to better fulfill those needs no matter what service or product that I am selling.  Learning how to provide a customer with the right amount of information and interaction while sparking their interest in working with me has been consistent across all of my careers.

The challenge has been mixing the right amount of personal interaction with technology to keep the clients happy and allow me to make a living.  It is all about communication.

Where we are in the world real estate world is similar to many fields but probably real estate is a little more technology infused than most fields.

From web sites and social media to photos and virtual tours, real estate uses it all today.  Staying on top of all the technology is a huge challenge, but offers rich rewards to the clients who work with you.  Rarely are there questions that cannot be answered with stunning visual clarity or from online databases.

One of the nice things about real estate is that you do not have to worry about the manager and leader issues since to a large extent you are your own boss.

If you have a bad boss, you do not have to look very far to find the problem.

Experience has also taught me that it all looks better from the beach.

Managing yourself, the biggest challenge

Sometimes your goals can be as hard to find as the buoy in this picture. Often you cannot see your goal until you have gotten closer.  But as your own manager, you have the luxury of defining those goals yourself.  While it is a huge challenge being your own manager, the upside in positive energy and success is huge.

For the nearly twenty years that I worked for Apple, my managers were almost always hundreds if not thousands of miles away.  For only two of the twenty years did I work for a manager who lived within twenty miles of the office.

When I started for Apple, I worked in Halifax, Nova Scotia and my manager was located in Montreal over 700 miles away.  There were two of us in the office.  I was the one who lasted more than a year.  I survived because I managed myself.

What key differences did that self management create.  I was dedicated to my job, worked harder, and focused on getting what had to done. I often took the extra hours out of my personal life with no complaints.

The other person in the office was more interested in enjoying the perks of the job than mastering the job or even getting what needed doing done.  He was a Xerox trained sales person who knew little of computers.

I had just spent ten years building a successful cattle breeding operation and two years managing the sales people in a five store regional computer chain that sold Apple.

I understood what we were selling and why people were buying.  I did not need any fancy sales tricks to get people to buy computers.  I lived and breathed them.

I also had a commitment to the Apple brand. In 1984, when I went to work for Apple, I truly believed that Apple products were the best computers for a wide variety of people.  Apple was a company that I wanted to be far of for the foreseeable future.

It was at this time that I learned one of the most valuable lessons from Apple.  Your success was often in spite of your manager not because of your manager.

There were only two brief periods in my career at Apple when I had managers who actually helped me get my job done instead of throwing up roadblocks that I had to clear.

By the time that I became a manager in 1993, I had learned well that a manager's job is to do the blocking and tackling for his employees and to become a leader instead of a manager as soon as possible.

In building a team instead of a group of employees, I had to learn not to do their work for them.  I had to give them enough freedom to fail or to be successful.  I had to be there to pick them up when they failed or to make certain that their success did not go to their heads.

Considering the success my teams had at Apple, I believe that I became a top manager because of my own self management skills.  The many years I worked at Apple for either incompetent or toxic managers prepared me well for managing myself after Apple.

I learned the importance of a plan for yourself.  You cannot be successful without goals and without trying your best to make those goals.

Moving into a new field like I did when I became a Realtor® is especially challenging because you have very little opportunity for positive feedback.

It becomes nearly impossible to go spend a day with one of your old customers so you remember that you know how to do it right.

It such a situation, the conversations that you have with yourself are absolutely critical.  You have to evaluate everything that you are doing and make certain you are focusing on the right elements.

You need to explain what you are doing to experts and listen to their feedback.

Above all you need to maintain balance and stay close to those who believe in you.  I have always believed that the road to success is paved with the bodies of those who gave up too early. Along the way to success you will also pass those who tried to build their success on the bodies of others.

When you are managing yourself it is very easy to do what you want to do as opposed to what you need to do.  You cannot let yourself fall into that trap. Your day may have to be focused on doing things which you least enjoy but which are most important to your success.

I create a three to five year plan for myself.  When I measure myself against the plan, I make adjustments for the things that I cannot control, and I work hard at the things which I do control.

It is a tough job being your own manager, but it is far easier than having a toxic manager.  As long as you keep focused on what you need to do, and try to socialize only with people whose energy can help you succeed, you will make it.

My one rule is never let those who are not going to make it make you a part of their defeat.  Stick to your plan, focus on achieving your goals, and make sure you add value in whatever you do.

It is a good recipe for success.

The annual holiday party

Things certainly have changed over the years when it comes to holiday parties both in neighborhoods and at the office.

When I first joined Apple in the eighties, holiday parties tended to be black tie affairs that I avoided. Moving to Roanoke when our office was in Columbia, Maryland just made it easier to avoid the party.

Another benefit was that we had wonderful neighborhood parties that often involved caroling until lights would start going out along streets as we approached.

I think we hosted the second one in our neighborhood. Close to one hundred people showed up and the last person left at far too many hours into the early morning.

Our neighborhood got bigger, and eventually no one raised their hand for the party. December was too cold for a cul de sac party so people started having their own smaller parties often as potlucks.

Eventually I ended up in charge of the Reston, VA Apple office. It was great fortune to get to that point when Apple was at its lowest point. I can remember the first year, and there was no longer money for the $800 Christmas tree that someone had authorized for the previous few years. I donated an old artificial tree that we had gathering dust at home. It served us well for many years, and we had fun decorating it each year.

We did manage to get enough money out of Apple for a catered holiday lunch each year. I always took my team out for another lunch and came up with a gift for everyone. For as long as I was a manager at Apple, the gifts had to come out of your own pocket. Mine varied from beach towels to pocket leathermen. When you have over twenty employees and are spending close to $20 per person it can get very expensive quickly. Most of the later years, there was nothing from Apple in the way of a holiday gift or bonus.

I was with a start-up for a time, I attended one of their Christmas parties. It revolved around food, beer, and a good time. It was a young company, and there was certainly nothing wrong with that.

Last year our real estate firm had a very fancy party with lots of great catered food, a band. It was fun but not really my cup of tea.

This year since real estate is as bad as anyone has ever seen it, our party was a potluck brunch at a sales meeting with an anonymous $10 gift swap, trade, steal event.

The brunch went over very well, and we had a lot of fun with the present swap.

However, I have this nagging feeling that maybe we should have done something better with our ten dollars.

I think there were thirty-five presents so that was roughly $350. I wonder how many turkeys we could have purchased for that money. In these times I doubt we would have had much trouble finding a home for them.

I am going to try to remember to make that suggestion next year.

Taking stock, twenty years in Roanoke

Sometimes it is really hard to believe how fast time flies.  It seems like yesterday when we decided to move back to the states in 1987. 

I still check the Halifax, Nova Scotia weather almost every day.  It reminds me of how much I enjoyed living in Halifax.

We moved back to the states because we believed that opportunities for our kids would be better in the US.

For the most part that has turned out to be true.  There are things that I miss about Canada, and I even have a site where I occasionally post thoughts about missing Canada.

Still I believe coming back to the states was best for our family.

When we first came back to America, we lived in Columbia, MD.  It did not take us long to figure out that there might be a more fun place to raise our kids.

I was working for Apple and ended with the higher education territory for the state of Virginia.  I spent a year leaving Columbia on Monday and coming back on Friday.  There is nothing like a Friday afternoon traffic jam on the Washington beltway after you have already been in the car five hours to make you really appreciate staying at home.

Virginia Tech ended up being a really good Apple customer, and we decided to relocate to Roanoke in 1989.  Apple agreed since having my name on a room at what was then the Marriott in Blacksburg was not exactly cheap.

In four years, I became higher education manager for a good part of the southeast and ended up driving back to Reston, VA two to three weeks a month.  By that time, we knew Roanoke was the place to raise our family.  We had good neighbors, and the kids were doing well in their schools.  We had found a wonderful church in Covenant Presbyterian, and our location on the side of a mountain was a pretty good place to watch the world wake up.

Working in Reston, Virginia gave me something of the best of both worlds. Northern Virginia is a very wired place, and when I became director of federal sales for Apple, I got as much of a taste of national politics as I could stomach.  Roanoke remained the place with my roots, and the place from which I drew my strength.

Two of our grown children ended up in Northern Virginia.  That is not much of a surprise to anyone who has raised children in Roanoke.  Most of them go someplace, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, Atlanta, or Northern Virginia.  Only a small number can stay in Roanoke.

I spent so much time in Reston, that I now consider myself a former resident of Reston.  With part of the family in that area, we make a trip up there at least once a year if possible.

Sometime in 2002 we ended up owning our family home in Mount Airy, NC. It gave us a taste of being back in North Carolina.  We also ended up with our third young adult in school at UNC Charlotte and eventually settling in a subdivision on the shores of Lake Norman.

In 2003 for our 30th anniversary, I decided to take my wife to a really neat bed and breakfast in Beaufort, North Carolina.

We had a wonderful time, and the trip rekindled my love of the Carolina coast.  Over the years we had spent many wonderful vacations on the northern Outer Banks and a few really special ones on Bald Head Island near Southport.

I think it was after our coastal anniversary trip that I started thinking perhaps it was time to move on from Roanoke.  For years our mountain in Roanoke was a great refuge.  For over ten years we had a wonderful Labrador Retriever, Chester.  Chester helped me clear and maintain miles of trails on the mountains behind me.

Many Saturdays we spent working on the mountain.  Morning and night when at home, Chester and I would walk the mountain.  We could see the lights of Roanoke, but often the city sounds were drowned out by the mountain breezes.

In 2004 my mother and Chester both passed away.  The kids were all in different places, and we were on a mountain that was changing rapidly.  The land we had walked for years had been sold and someone was buildiing a home and a road in the middle of our trails.  I had tried unsuccessfully years earlier to interest Roanoke County in preserving that special 100 acres.

The summer of 2004 was my exit from Apple.  2005 was spent mostly working back up in DC.  Then in 2006 I worked in Blacksburg, Virginia for the first six months of the year with a small start-up.  It was then that I decided that I needed a new place to work, and we eventually settled on moving to the Carolina coast.

We decided to let what we wanted to enjoy rule our lives instead of finding a place a place where I could earn a lot of money.  It made moving to Cape Carteret an easy decision.

I still spend some time in the Roanoke area and also visit not only Charlotte, but Raleigh and Northern Virginia, I believe that I can step back and offer a balanced opinion of the Roanoke area.

In a certain sense it is hard to compare Roanoke to the other areas.  The growth that they have seen since we first moved to Roanoke is amazing.  Over the years I have had a number of theories as to why Roanoke can't seem to find a growth engine. I doubt my theories are any better than those of others so I will not repeat them.

However, here are my observations on the Roanoke area.

The thing that I notice the most in Roanoke is the lack of a strong market for successful executives.  I have seen the problem show up with a number of other friends who have moved to and from Roanoke.  If you are lucky enough to get a great job and be located in Roanoke, you have to pray that you do not lose it because likely it will be impossible to replace.

There are just not enough large companies working in the area to create a strong talent pool.  Given we are living in the days of over sized initiatives designed to attract large companies.   I doubt Virginia can afford to help Roanoke on that issue.

The next thing is the biggest change since we came to Roanoke.  Interstate 81 is no longer the strategic advantage it once was.  It has become a highway that I would rather avoid.  It needs to be six to eight lanes, but no one wants to pay for it so I do not expect that to change.  it will continue to get worse until few it gets in crisis mode.  As long as we are on transportation, It would not hurt to have a significant discount airline player in Roanoke either.  Rail travel to DC is probably a pipe dream but would be a huge asset.

I see more and more trucks on Interstate 81 every time I travel it.  With the trucks have come a haze which makes those beautiful sunrises a little rare these days.  The sunrises and sunsets I enjoyed so much take special weather to occur these days.

While I have known and worked with some great leaders in the Valley, I have also seen a lack of world class leadership in some of the small valley companies.  When compared to many of the other areas, the Roanoke Valley also falls short in having the will to find and follow the path to a growth engine for the Valley.

I believe Roanoke County's school system does a good job on students at least at the elementary and middle school levels. I wonder about the high schools, and  I think we lose too many of the best and the brightest after college because of the job situation.

The lack of consolidated government hurts the valley.  Duplicate services don't make a lot of sense when you can barely afford them.

Finally I continue to wonder if Roanoke's future lies in improved north-south transportation so that it can hook its star to the Piedmont area of North Carolina.  It's far closer than Northern Virginia or Richmond.

Roanoke is still a great place to raise a family and enjoy life surrounded by mountains.  It just does not have the reputation of a place where you can have a real career.

Perhaps that will change as new and more sophisticated small businesses move into the area.  Maybe one day the Valley will have an anchor business which will attract all the infrastructure and other businesses needed to get the Valley to critical mass.

I will be watching from the Southern Outer Banks.  And I might be back.  In the meantime, if you're interested in a second home or have made that retirement decision but haven't found the right place, call me.  I would like to see some more Roanoke people living along the coast.

One of things there is no shortage of in Roanoke is great people.

Polishing the chrome

Growing up in the South, I learned early to take care of important things, like washing your car which included polishing the chrome on it.

While cars seem to be getting away from chrome, boats have a great substitute, lots of stainless steel.

We got our skiff about fourteen months ago.  It has been a learning experience, but I have really enjoyed becoming a member of the boating community.  People who boat are extremely friendly and for the most part very helpful to other boaters.

I recently got a free safety inspection from a neighbor who is a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.   As we were going over the boat, I noticed that there were a few spots on the stainless steel.  Soon after passing the inspection, I hauled out the stuff to clean those spots away.

After cleaning the stainless steel, I found a nice soft cloth to polish everything.  The boat looked great with the sun reflecting on the bright surfaces.

One of the things you learn about a boat is that it takes far more cleaning than you would expect.  They can get pretty dirty sitting around doing nothing.

They get very dirty when you go fishing as we did last Monday.  Of course the time on the water in beautiful surroundings is worth every minute of the work.

Even then there is something very satisfying about making everything look shiny.  It is work you can plan to accomplish and usually meet your goal without any problems.  That is rare in modern life.

Having a boat has let me get to some places that I would never have seen.  It has also given something to polish.

These are slides from our latest trip and more from one earlier in the summer.