Dorrier Underwood

I often hear from people on the leadership team of one client that their boss (call him “Fred”) is not very “transparent” with them.  Lack of transparency is easy to complain about when people feel like they don’t know what’s going on or they’re concerned that they are being left “out of the loop.” People expect and even demand transparency of others, and yet as leaders we can easily overlook our own tendency to be vague or even unintelligible with the people who depend on our leadership. Merriam Webster defines transparency as the quality or state of being transparent,  and then goes on to define the root word as:  free from pretense or deceit :   frank  easily detected or seen through :   obvious   readily understood  characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. I’ve made it a practice to have Fred open all of our team sessions, welcoming his people and confirming his co...

Doug came out in the hall from the lunch buffet at the fancy hotel where we were leading a program and said, “I have to tell you something.”  He had tears in his eyes.  He had been tearing up already while leading this program for “Acme Manufacturing” executives.  Before we met the participants, we thought they were big-dogs, but then we found out they were people. We always tear up when we start loving people, finding they are no longer strangers. “I need to tell you something. I want you to know that I have never been so taken care of:  lozenges, water, your getting the flip charts up on the wall, managing the hotel personnel. Susie wants to come talk theory on the breaks and instead of talking, you’re listening to what I need, leading from the back. I am so moved. I don’t have to be the only one watching out for my well-being.  You have my back.  I want all of our consultants to have this kind of support from the back of the room. I want ...

I have learned so much playing the World of Warcraft with my grandson, Davis, age 11. Davis wants to play with us, play with our work team, 3 of whom are in Australia, so we have to coordinate times when we are all awake at the same time, so we go back and forth on email until bingo we have a time we have all agreed to. It isn’t a time that we all wanted to play right now, right now like Davis wanted to at 8:30, now now now on a school night. Davis said as I tucked him in and he was pouting a little, could I help him get to Tenaris, the realm where we are playing the World of Warcraft and could I help him get to be at level 25 where we are so he would be ready to play with us and I said yes, yes, yes of course and we set up a time next Sunday when I will have landed at my desk after a week of work and play travel in Atlanta. We are asking his Dad, Stan to come to play too. He got quiet for a moment then promised that he would be able to play with the team, “I promise,” meaning that he ...

Do you know you don’t listen….? I have examples of times you asked about the very thing someone just said. And you interrupt! I always thought of myself as a good listener. People tell me that, and they also say I hear things most people don’t hear……..so what was Nancy trying to tell me? Have I been fooling myself? Have others been kissing up to me? WHAT WHAT?? That was my initial reaction to Nancy’s assessment. I could tell she was a bit uncertain how to say that to me. And I also know that if Nancy Dorrier is giving me input, I ought better listen. Not because I’ll be in trouble if I don’t (although that young conversation is in the mix), it’s just that if she is going to bring this up, there really is something for me to take on. She is my champion, the very one I asked for. And so I look. I know I have a short attention span at times. No wonder that one of my listening filters is “get to the point.” One of the ways I have dealt with that is to engage in the conversation ...

"You’re going to need a plate with that." He never would’ve said that, never gotten that far, if I hadn’t decided to turn things around. It was at the Qdoba Mexican food place in the Newark Airport food court. Not a garden spot by any means, just the place Nancy and I were stuck last Wednesday night. We weren’t stuck yet, didn’t know our flight would be cancelled and we’d end up driving 35 miles to Princeton at one a.m. to the nearest hotel room, didn’t know our rental car would be a red Toyota Corolla whose trunk smelled like dead fish. So I was spry and observant and I saw the whole thing. The woman at the front of the line took a while to make up her mind, and then while her taco was being constructed, it happened. A piece of meat touched the counter and the one making the taco put it back into the taco. You put it in there. What? A piece of meat. It touched the counter and you put it in there. The server looked incredulous, her face denying it. But the young...

Nancy Dorrier said, “Answer all my voice mail messages and emails, even if it’s to say you got the message and will respond at a certain time later.” I was so afraid of bothering her, wasting her time. She gets so many communications. Suddenly I remembered setting up rooms for events and experiencing the exhilaration of getting things handled, one after the other, whether I was on the set-up team or leading the team. There was not enough time to discuss the philosophical implications of anything or even to present options. We moved fast. “Set the chairs two center rows and two wings, three-foot aisles, 150 down and 20 stacked.” “Got it!” “Fill the water pitchers.” “Got it.” “Water pitchers complete!” “Empty the wastebaskets.” “Will do.” “Wastebaskets empty!” “150 chairs down and 20 stacked! What’s next?” It was as if the acknowledgments of messages received and jobs completed pulled the leader forward and with the leader the team, shooting for better and better results. There wa...

One of Dorrier Underwood’s tools for building relationships is to use creative writing as a path to discovery and authentic communication. We’ve long used the practice internally, and are happy to expand it to include blogging, as a way for us to share our exploration – and process of exploration - with you.  Nancy Dorrier, thought leader, co-founder, and president of Dorrier Underwood, starts us off with a reflection on creative alignment. What is it?  I listen to ourselves. Our intern used to say we interrupt a lot. She isn’t saying or not saying, Wow you guys listen a lot . She isn’t even being critical. “I am just saying.” Then I listen to a friend and his wife talk on top of each other and I don’t know which one to respond to. Trucking along in the conversation and here comes another voice. What is the value of 2 brains or 3 brains? Someone is thinking beyond, or at least other than the way I think, and the way you think. You and I can only think what we ...