Over the years I’ve been approached by many individuals who are interested in how best to develop effective government affairs and advocacy programs and initiatives. Some want to advance legislation, others to build relationships with local, state, and federal elected officials and opinion leaders, while still others want to kick start a discussion that will eventually lead to positive policy change. Some represent organizations that are frequently targeted, negatively more-often-than-not, by legislators.
Building Successful Government Affairs and Community Outreach Programs
As someone who has operated in this space for some number of years, and who has both government affairs, policy, and advocacy successes and failures to look back on, you can imagine that I have opinions on the subject. My goal today is to share some of that insight to help you advance your efforts.
Here is what I’ve learned over the years: Successful government affairs program should NOT strike an even balance between proactive and reactive efforts. Rather, they need to be much MORE proactive than reactive.
Sometimes it is instructive to compare one industry to another to help illustrate the point. As someone who has a background in Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and who worked closely with fire departments for years, I look at it similarly to wildfires.
Much like policy or political challenges (and opportunities), major wildfires may only happen every number of years. When they do, they destroy large amounts of land and property, and, unfortunately, result in loss of life. They have the potential to completely upend communities. That is why our efforts to proactively clear bush, thin diseased forests, and create defensible space around important structures are important. Such efforts will inevitably lead to smaller or more manageable wildfires. Fires will always happen — nature and human beings will always start fires. But would you prefer that the fires be small, and the damage relatively less severe, or would you prefer to fight massive conflagration fires every few years? The choice is clear. Think 90% brush clearance, 10% firefighting.
Government affairs is similar. If you don’t clear the brush, you’ll spend your time fighting massive fires.
That means that you should spend most of your time building relationships, providing insight and information to current and emerging leaders, and building positive collaborations. Much like brush clearance is for firefighters, this is the less sexy part of the advocacy game for government affairs practitioners, but it is essential.
Reactive government affairs — usually occurring when you must respond to something negative like legislation targeting your industry (or organization) or occasionally try to capitalize on a potentially positive opportunity, say new legislation that could benefit your industry or a new government grant that could help one of your initiatives — should not be the only times that you are interacting with elected officials. Relationships should be built over months, years, and decades. You need to get to know elected officials before they are elected officials. Build authentic connections and help them understand who you are, what you stand for, and why your organization is important for the community. You should be giving, giving, and giving some more, and only asking for support or help occasionally, and almost begrudgingly.
“Look, I hate to even bring it up, but I’d be doing my organization and our community a disservice if I didn’t mention that (insert legislative title or number) will positively (or negatively) impact what we’re trying to do. Here’s why…”
What Does a Government Affairs Plan Include?
First and foremost, you need an underlying philosophy that is rooted in a value system. For me, that philosophy reads as follows:
“The foundation of great government affairs is amazing community engagement. Amazing community engagement comes from understanding and aligning what the community wants and needs, what your organization does well, and what you and your team are passionate about.”
In short, your number one priority should be amazing community outreach and engagement. Positive government affairs is a related endeavor that becomes much easier if you remain focused on priority one.
Let’s explore this further.
You must have a deep awareness and appreciation for what your community wants and needs. This can be achieved by diving into the quantitative and qualitative data available about your community, coupled with your understanding of different socioeconomic, cultural, and other realities in the region, as well as an appreciation for the individuals who are influential in that community. You also need to have a strong understanding of your organization’s own mission and capabilities. Not just the mission that appears in the strategic planning binder — the real mission that your organization seeks to achieve every day and the areas in which your organization has unique or excellent capabilities that have been proven over time. In short, what are you good at and what do you like doing, from an organizational perspective. And finally, what are the passions of the staff responsible for conducting your government affairs and community outreach? What would make them get up in the morning every day and pursue positive outcomes?
Identify those key understandings (we’ll refer to them as data and anec-data points) and create a Venn diagram that outlines that information. In doing so, you will start to notice areas of overlap where there is clear alignment between the three primary drivers (community, organization, and individuals/team).
Everything that falls in the middle of the Venn diagram is your target.
Make & Execute a Plan
Now you create an achievable plan with clear goals and tactics, identify and allocate appropriate resources based on a realistic budget, assign the correct people, and ensure that they have a commitment to seeing the project through to its end, and then execute with a ferocity that few can comprehend. That’s not to say that you should be mean. Far from it. It means that you should tackle this endeavor with intensity and sincerity.
When people see you being your authentic self in the pursuit of needed improvements in the community, and leveraging the unique capabilities of your organization, it clears a lot of brush, to revisit our wildfire analogy. Pursue it with vigor, because it’s the right thing to do and your fellow community members will benefit from it and share your successes (and challenges) with those in positions of influence (elected officials, business leaders, etc.). Bring them along on your journey.
Simultaneously, get to know those elected officials and emerging leaders. Understand their interests and goals – professional, personal, and political. Find alignments. Create opportunities for collaboration. Help inform and educate and grow them into the leader they want to be — and need to be. Bring them ideas, connect them with like-minded friends and colleagues. All the while, you should be tracking legislation that is important to your industry, organization, and initiatives, and study changes in the political and policy landscape. Develop a public policy agenda with well thought-out goals that clearly define what you want to support, and oppose, and why.
Recognize patterns of behavior. Learn who the power brokers and decision makers are. Who is disproportionately influential, and why are they so? Find out who likes who, and who doesn’t like who. Using all this information, try to predict the future, to the extent possible. How? If you want to know what people will do in the future, look at what they did in the past. Learn what has happened historically — by doing so, you will be able to manifest a sort-of crystal ball that will help you predict the future, or at least anticipate changes, to one degree or another.
Then, when the time comes and you need to take government affairs, advocacy, or policy action to advance your organizational, industry or initiative goals, you’ll be well positioned as a community-focused individual, representing a committed and known organization, who is a giver and who is only, somewhat begrudgingly, asking for support for a legislative/policy effort that isn’t self-serving, but community serving, and will be seen not as a “give me” by the legislative leader but rather as a natural progression of a long-standing collaborative effort.
That, my friends, is good government affairs.
Paul O’Neal: Memories of a Jedi Master
When I started my first full time job in politics in 2003 after leaving Emergency Medical Services, I was taken under the wing of a longtime, respected political staffer and lobbyist who would serve as my first mentor in the field. He knew which way was up, so to speak.
My first day on the job, he invited me to walk around the corner from the Senator’s district office in Carlsbad to grab lunch at a local tavern. We arrived before the noon rush and were the only customers in the place. A young waitress seated us and I picked up a menu.
His first lesson wasn’t overt; rather, I simply watched and learned how he talked to people. In this case, our waitress.
He complimented her, but not in a creepy way. More like the way a father would compliment his daughter. I don’t even remember precisely what words he said to her. It was the way he said it. It was like she was the only person in the world. As a result, even as more and more people entered the restaurant, it didn’t matter — we were her priority. If he wanted more ketchup, this waitress would have taken it from another paying customer and delivered it to him. He was her ONLY customer.
I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “My goodness, this guy is the Jedi Master of schmoozing.”
Thus began a 20 year mentoring relationship — he as a Jedi Master, and me as his Padawan.
We worked together for some time for the Senator, but eventually went our separate ways. However, we stayed close for many years as we both navigated our careers, albeit in different phases given that he had 35 years of work experience on me.
He became like a father to me, and I like a son to him. In fact, whenever I saw him or spoke with him, I’d acknowledge him by saying, “Father,” to which he would reply, “Son.”
I frequently sought him out for advice, and he frequently reached out to me with interesting ideas and opportunities.
In 2014, I created Hazel’s Army, an advocacy organization that helped launch a major legislative reform effort that bore fruit pretty quickly, successfully passing and signing into law 13 pieces of legislation at the state level and another four County policies to protect seniors in assisted living facilities. All were completed in a nine month span.
The next year I decided to follow up that effort by developing an education initiative called GreatGen 2.0 through which the offspring of amazing Greatest Generationers would go to schools and tell their grandparent’s incredible stories. The goal was to show the value of seniors and encourage youth to connect with seniors in their family and community, thereby expanding intergenerational education and respect.
To be sure, it’s not easy to pass legislation or create successful education efforts. It takes tremendous planning, forethought, effective communication, a great network of connections, good timing, and a lot of luck.
I built out the concept of this new education program, created the brand, and wrote the curriculum with the help of an amazing intern. I was ready to roll it out at schools, but thought that it would be helpful if I had endorsement of my program by someone prominent. But who?
Enter my mentor.
One day I’m at work and I get a call from him.
“I’m at the Catfish Club (prominent African American powerbroker club) meeting with Richard Dreyfuss.”
“The actor Richard Dreyfuss?” I clarified. I am a huge fan of the movie Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, What About Bob, and pretty much everything else he’s made.
“Yes, that one. He is working on a civics education initiative called the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative. It could dovetail with your project. Get down here right now and I’ll introduce you,” my mentor insisted.
So I sped down to the Hall of Champions in San Diego, where the Catfish Club regularly met, and walked in as Richard Dreyfuss was finishing his speech.
My mentor introduced me to Richard and we had a ten minute conversation about what I was working on.
“Hey, what are you doing right now?” Richard asked me. I thought for a moment, well, I should be getting back to work, but when Richard Dreyfuss asks you what you’re doing right now, you go with the flow.
“Nothing,” I replied. “What do you have in mind?”
“We’re going to go take a tour of the Automotive Museum, “ he said, gesturing to my mentor. “You want come with us?’
“Absolutely,” I said, without hesitation.
For the next two hours we walked around the Automotive Museum listening to fascinating stories about all of the luxury and exotic cars Richard used to own, many of which were in the museum. Very little more was said about civics education or my program. We just walked and talked.
As the tour came to a conclusion, Richard said, “Hey, would you like to be my VIP guest at a speech I’m giving tomorrow in La Jolla?”
“Absolutely,” I said. Clearly I couldn’t think of any words other than “absolutely.”
The next morning I drove down to La Jolla and joined Richard and my mentor at a public speech he was giving on the importance of civics education in public school. Richard was highly knowledgeable on the subject and spoke passionately.
When the speech was over, Richard asked, “Hey, would you like to join us for lunch?”
What do you think I said?
“Absolutely.” I said “absolutely,” again.
So we drove up to a Jewish deli that was not far from the speech, grabbed a booth, and ordered our food. For the next two hours Richard regaled us with stories of his childhood in New York, his Communist parents, his move to the west coast, and early days in show business.
Towards the end of the meeting, I broached the subject of my GreatGen 2.0 program. I explained what we had achieved the year before, legislatively, and provided an overview of my education program, the story I was going to tell in schools, and my goals. Richard agreed to endorse the program.
When the waitress came around to give the check, she placed it on the table in the middle of all three of us.
I looked at the check, then looked at my mentor. He was looking the other way.
I then looked to Richard, millionaire star of stage and screen. He looked straight up to the ceiling as if he was studying the tiles and light fixtures. This was clearly my bill to pay.
“Don’t worry, gentlemen, I’ll handle this one,” I said with a smile.
The endorsement of the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative really helped. We got into schools, providing entertaining, educational presentations for more than 7,000 students over the coming years.
And it wouldn’t have been possible without my mentor.
As the years went on, my career progressed and his began to take a different shape, so we saw less and less of each other. In recent years, we reconnected when I learned that he had suffered some health setbacks.
On March 15th of this year, I received a text message from him: “I will be quick to the point. I have stage 4 prostate cancer.” He continued, “To make matters worse, I also have stage 4 Parkinson’s.”
I immediately drove to where he was being cared for on hospice. “Father,” I said when I walked in the room. “Son,” he replied.
Despite not being able to walk and being bed bound, his handshake was still very firm and he was in good spirits. We talked for some time and he treated me as he did that waitress during our first lunch meeting — like I was his own offspring.
As I was preparing to leave, to lighten the mood I said, “Are you sure about this diagnosis? You’re the healthiest looking hospice patient I’ve ever seen.” He was a man who projected strength, even in his most difficult times.
I visited him several more times over the next two months. On my third visit, I brought him something.
In recognition of his tremendous efforts to elevate Hazel’s Army and GreatGen 2.0, I presented him with a mounted Distinguished Community Service Medal from Hazel’s Army. Only eight other people had ever received that honor. It was the least I could do.
On April 22nd I texted his ex-wife, who was serving as his caregiver, and asked, “How’s he doing?”
She wrote back, “(He) was just talking about you this morning and how proud he is of you.”
This evening as I was multitasking, preparing for a phone call for work, I received a text message from her informing me that he passed away peacefully this morning.
As I sit here writing this memorial, I can’t begin to express how much he impacted my life and the important role he played in my professional and personal development. He was more than a mentor. He was, in many ways, like my father, and I was like his son.
I teach classes on mentoring and for years have espoused the benefits that a protege receives from a good mentoring relationship: Knowledge and ideas. Personal development. Connections and networking. Relationship.
Of course, I learned this from my mentor, my Jedi Master: Paul O’Neal.
I will certainly miss Paul and our great conversations, but will always remember his sage advice, his calm and pleasant demeanor, his beaming smile, his strong grip, and his focused commitment and dedication to our mentoring relationship.
Rest now, my friend — we’ll take it from here.
How to Do Your Personal SWOT
(This is the second in a series of articles outlining the process I created to take myself from a 23-year-old from an impoverished childhood with limited professional prospects to a multi award-winning advocate and executive recognized as one of San Diego’s 500 Most Influential People. I hope you find this as useful as I did.)
On August 15th, I published an article titled How I Did My Career Pivot…and Changed My Life in which I outlined the first five steps in my Strategic Career Planning: A 10-Step Guide to Realizing Your Potential program.
As a reminder, those five steps were:
- Assessment
- Find Your Motivation
- It’s All About the Angles
- Find a Niche
- Consult a Trusted Friend
When we left off, we were ready to begin our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis, generally known by the acronym SWOT, to prepare for writing our personal Vision, Mission, and Values Statements.
Personal SWOT Analysis
For those who work in the business world, you will recognize SWOT as a tool that is frequently used in the strategic planning process for organizations. In the world of Strategic Career Planning, we apply the SWOT methodology to assess you as an individual at this moment.
Truth be told, when I began this process in 2001, I lacked formal education and business experience, so I didn’t even know what a SWOT was. I simply asked myself: What am I good at? What am I not good at? What opportunities exist for me if I were to make the right professional, educational, and personal decisions, and what threats exist that could prevent me from capitalizing on those opportunities? Years later I learned about the SWOT analysis and coopted the term.
Let’s begin with some definitions:
Strengths and weaknesses look at the internal environment (you):
Strengths – Internal positive aspects that are under your control and that you can capitalize on with the right decisions and action
Weaknesses – Internal negative aspects that are under your control and that you can mitigate or improve upon with some additional effort
Opportunities and threats look at the external environment:
Opportunities – Positive external conditions that you may not be able to control, but that you can use to your advantage through informed decisions
Threats – Negative external conditions that you may not be able to control, but that you can lessen or mitigate through informed decisions
In order to complete the SWOT, an honest self-assessment and introspection is key. Hint: This is not the moment to flatter yourself with an outsized opinion of your abilities that is disconnected from reality. Below you will find a basic SWOT diagram to help with this exercise.
STRENGTHS
You have strengths. What are they? If you are having a hard time, ask your mom, your spouse (current, not former), and certain good friends. Some people are genetically or temperamentally programmed to be always prepared to lift you up with compliments about your character and abilities.
Here are some examples of strengths that may appear on your list:
- Work experience
- Education, including value-added features such as minors or focus areas
- Strong technical knowledge within your field (e.g. in the computer space, you may have knowledge about hardware, software, programming languages)
- Specific transferable skills (e.g., communication, teamwork, leadership skills)
- Personal characteristics (e.g., strong work ethic, self-discipline, ability to work under pressure, creativity, optimism, or a high level of energy, street smarts)
- Good contacts/successful networking
- Interaction or membership with professional organizations
WEAKNESSES
You also have weaknesses. What are they? In contrast to our exploration of strengths, if you are having a hard time thinking of some, ask your dad or your “other” friends – you know the ones. Some people are genetically or temperamentally programmed to be immediately ready with a laundry list of criticisms. If you are married, spouses, especially those of the ex or former variety, are a particularly informed source who can provide a long list of your weaknesses. Heck, they may already have them written down somewhere! Don’t take offense – take them to heart.
Here are some examples of weaknesses that may appear on your list:
- Lack of work experience
- Lack of education/training, low GPA or wrong major
- Lack of goals, lack of self-knowledge, lack of specific job knowledge
- Weak technical knowledge
- Weak skills (leadership, interpersonal, communication, teamwork)
- Weak job-hunting skills
- Negative personal characteristics (e.g., poor work ethic, lack of discipline, lack of motivation, indecisiveness, procrastination, shyness, too emotional)
Now that we’ve looked at the internal environment (you), let’s consider your external environment.
OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunities exist for you in the world. Some opportunities may not be readily apparent, so this may require some additional research online. Here are some examples of opportunities that may appear on your list:
- Positive trends in your field that will create more jobs (e.g., growth, globalization, technological advances)
- Opportunities you could have in the field by enhancing your education
- Field is particularly in need of your set of skills
- Opportunities you could have through greater self-knowledge, more specific job goals
- Opportunities for advancement in your field
- Opportunities for professional development in your field
- Career path you’ve chosen provides unique opportunities
- Geography
- Strong personal or professional network
THREATS
There may also be threats in your external environment that could place obstacles in your way. Here are some examples of threats that may appear on your list:
- Negative trends in your field that diminish jobs (downsizing, obsolescence)
- Competition from your cohort of college graduates
- Competitors with superior skills, experience, or knowledge
- Competitors with better job-hunting skills than you
- Competitors who went to schools with better reputations
- Obstacles in your way (e.g., lack of the advanced education/training you need to take advantage of opportunities)
- Limited advancement in your field, advancement is cut-throat and competitive
- Limited professional development in your field, so it’s hard to stay marketable
- Companies are not hiring people with your major/degree
When I completed my SWOT analysis back in 2001, I used the first five steps of the program – assessment of personal experiences, motivations, perspectives, identification of a niche, and recommendations from my consultant (my grandfather, W.H. Mensching) – to complete it.
Here’s an abbreviated version of the results:
I had certain strengths that had emerged over the course of my life and my early professional career, including intelligence, work ethic, confidence, and leadership ability. But I also had some very clear weaknesses as well, like arrogance (still working on that – but when you got it, you got it, am I right?), trouble taking criticism, lack of study skills, and procrastination, to name but a few. Some of my weaknesses were only recognized by me after making countless errors.
When it came to recognizing opportunities, I knew I wanted to leave Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and saw a huge opportunity in health policy. I correctly predicted that it would come to a head in the 2008 presidential election based on the timeline for the aging of the Baby Boomer population. I also knew that there were threats ahead of me and that breaking into politics would be difficult given my lack of pedigree and numerous other challenges.
By completing a SWOT analysis, we become acutely aware of our starting point and allow ourselves to have ownership of our current position in life. It allows us to begin imagining the twists and turns that will be necessary to take ourselves from where we are to where we want to be.
Before we get into writing goals and the plans to achieve those goals, it’s important to clearly define who we will be in our future (our Vision), what we will do each and every day to get there (our Mission), and the deeply held qualities, traits, or rules that we will adhere to as we pursue this bright future (our Values).
Stay tuned for our next article in which we will learn how to write our Vision, Mission and Values Statements.
If you would like to be guided through this process individually or in a small group, please reach out to me at aaron@galvanizedstrategies.com or on LinkedIn.
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Elevating Your Resume Game
Prior to creating the Strategic Career Planning: A 10-Step Guide to Realizing Your Potential training program and becoming a prolific mentor, I primarily helped my friends and colleagues in their careers by writing and updating their resumes. Resume writing is challenging for most people. The difficulty lies in being able to capture the essence of what makes you stand out from other candidates (experience, education, accomplishments, etc.) and doing so in a way that makes it through the bureaucratic and often impersonal human resources vetting process.
As is often the case nowadays, there is no shortage of candidates for available jobs. The last time I advertised for an open position in my department, we received dozens and dozens of resumes. During a pandemic and worldwide economic downturn, the competition has grown even more. As such, the human resources department at many companies will use software to search resumes for key words as a means for whittling the many down to a manageable few. For those applying online, and who lack personal connections at a given company, playing the “key word” game with your resume is a must. If you don’t have the right key words in your resume, your resume will likely get round filed (moved to the virtual trash can). You will find those key words in the company’s job posting and description.
For my clients, I recommend staying away from the computerized, online application process as much as possible. We focus on three areas:
1) Networking, networking, networking. The best way to a hiring manager’s desk is through the recommendation of a well-regarded fellow employee within the company. You want your contact to forward your resume to the hiring manager, accompanied by a note of personal endorsement. This is why it is vitally important to generate and maintain a strong network of professional contacts. And by professional contacts, I do not mean someone you happened to meet at a mixer three years ago who handed you one of the 50 business cards they distributed that night. A professional contact should be someone with whom you have developed a professional relationship, who is aware of your particular skill set, the projects you have worked on, and why you would be a great addition to their company. Follow up on those mixer business cards with an email or a hand written note. Go to lunch with them and learn about their projects first. Find ways to help them achieve their goals. In the process they will learn about your work history, they will see your unique skill set, and they will feel a sense of ownership over your long-term success.
2) Format matters. I call my resume the “Holy Grail” because I believe it has the power to grant eternal employment. Whenever viewed, the clouds part, angels sing, and the reader is bathed in a warm, heavenly light. Actually, the format is just really eye catching. I don’t use colors or a picture of myself or anything like that. It is all about layout, fonts, and the use of bold to capture the attention of the reader. Luckily this format was bequeathed to me by a trusted friend who spent literally years perfecting it. He did so only after I took a blood oath to never give it to anyone else—at least not in Word format. Even if you saw it in PDF form (the only way I ever send it), there’s no way you could replicate the various fonts, line spacing, and margins. The reason it stands out so much is that most people make their resumes based on a template that they found on the internet or in a word processing program. This is fine as a starting point, but we must remember that pretty much everyone else is doing that as well. The trick is to develop a personalized format that looks different, catches the readers attention, highlights your most cherished accomplishments, and does so in a way that allows you to maximize the amount of information provided while not turning the reader off by appearing too verbose. If someone is going half blind looking through a stack of hundreds of resumes, you want to catch their eye and make them say “Ooh, look at this one! I’ll give this one an extra few seconds of my attention.” That is where content comes in.
3) Content is key. Recruiters, hiring managers, and—most importantly—prospective bosses, want to know what you’ve done. That doesn’t mean that they want a list of your duties at your previous jobs. They can generally assume those based on your previous job title. What they want to know is what added value you bring to your job. What impact did you make? The more quantifiable the better. Did you reduce costs or generate revenue? If so, how much? Did you grow the business by 25%, reach 1,000 customers, or improve customer satisfaction scores by 62%? Were you recognized for your achievements, either by the organization, a professional society, or the local media? My recommendation: A short paragraph describing the scope of your responsibilities, followed by bullet points outlining your key accomplishments. Keep it pithy, but don’t short change yourself by being too brief. Managing content and format is a delicate dance.
Do these three things correctly and you will have accomplished the goal of resume writing: Getting from the big stack to the little stack (those who will be granted an initial interview). Next, we’ll prepare for the interview…
In the mean time, if you need assistance with your resume, please reach out at aaron@galvanizedstrategies.com
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Vision Minus Execution Equals Hallucination
These were the opening words of an email I once received from one of my mentors. A simple but profound statement. As a matter of fact, it is an even simpler equation:
Vision – Execution = Hallucination
Everyone has a dream—a vision—of who they want to become. But they remain dreams for far too many people. No matter what your vision, the fact is that you must complete dozens if not hundreds of steps, some small, some large, on the way to becoming the person you desire to be.
Many folks get discouraged when they consider the scope of the undertaking. Excuses are plentiful.
“It will take too long.”
“It sounds too difficult.”
“I’d rather do X, Y, or Z.”
And yet they’re often surprised when time goes by and they have not yet achieved their goals.
Vision – Execution = Hallucination
As the creator and facilitator of the Strategic Career Planning (SCP): A 10-Step Guide to Realizing Your Potential training program, I help people develop their own vision, mission, and values statements, and write professional, educational, and personal goals, including the steps needed to achieve those goals. I help people discover how to best attack those seemingly insurmountable steps needed to achieve their vision and become the person they want to be.
Those who have graduated from my program, or know me personally, know that I am a big advocate of “Ferocious Execution.” This is what separates, as they say, the men from the boys, or the women from the girls.
Ferocious Execution begins with an internal drive to succeed. I help people find that spark and nurture the flame that results. With this illuminating fire at your core, you can attack every aspect of your assignments. Own it. Kill it. Rock it out, no matter how big or small the task. Success follows. You begin to make headway on your goals. Desire to achieve increases. Confidence grows. You gain tremendous experience and insight over a short period of time. As a result, your skills and abilities (and career) grow at an exponential rate. Confidence grows further. The ferocity of your execution increases. More success follows. This is a tremendously empowering cycle—and one that I wish everyone would experience.
But for too many of us, our vision of who we want to be in the future will remain simply a hallucination because we have failed to execute. If you can’t understand a simple equation like Vision – Execution = Hallucination, then how can you possibly understand and realize the concept of exponential growth?
If you are interested in learning the tools needed to achieve your vision, and the opportunity to experience tremendous growth in all of your endeavors, please feel free to contact me at any time at aaron@aarongalvanizedstrategies-com
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Reflections on Mentoring | Part I
(This is the first in a series of reflections on those mentors who have impacted my life in a profound way. The following is adapted from a blog post that was originally published in 2o13.)
Mentor: Kurt Williams (1958-2013)
It has been more than seven years since my good friend and mentor, Kurt Williams, a recognized national leader in the field of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), passed away suddenly. Like many others, I was shocked and saddened at the news of his unexpected death; but the gravity of the loss to the EMS and healthcare leadership community didn’t sink in completely until I attended his celebration of life. Surrounded by many of my former colleagues, I began to reflect on my relationship with Kurt, beginning when I was a twenty-year-old Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for American Medical Response (AMR).
I came into the field of EMS with a chip on my shoulders—a chip developed from what I saw as a lost childhood caused by the poor decisions made by drug addicted and alcoholic parents. Ours was a household of poverty, abuse, and—above all else—uncertainty. As an adult, I took great pride in being able to take care of myself, and of making the right decisions. More precisely, I took pride in being right. While many of the decisions I made in in my early EMS career turned out to be technically correct (by the letter of the protocol book), the manner in which I approached problems left much to be desired. “Aggressive” and “arrogant” could certainly be used to describe me at the time. I was, in a word, “raw.”
I never thought too far down the line, other than believing that I wanted to be a paramedic. I liked helping the sick and injured, loved being the guy who responded when you needed help, and the fringe benefits of driving an ambulance and wearing an EMT uniform didn’t hurt either (“Hello ladies”). Kurt Williams was the CEO of AMR San Diego at the time. I can’t even remember how our paths originally crossed. I do, however, vividly recall that Kurt recognized latent talent in me—in other words, untapped potential. It was Kurt who provided me a series of professional development opportunities that changed my life forever.
When I became interested in policy and politics, Kurt introduced me to Eric Burch, the Manager of Public Affairs for AMR San Diego at the time. Eric would soon become a mentor. Eric took me to my first political event—the Lincoln Reagan dinner in San Diego. It was at this event that Eric introduced me to former Attorney General Ed Meese. Eric would continue to take me to political events. At one political dinner, Eric taught me the proper way to use my eating utensils and where to put my napkin (over the back of the chair to save your seat). For an unrefined kid from a broken home, this is important—and completely foreign—stuff. Eric also took me to my first lobbying meeting at a congressional office. It was after that meeting that I put together a strategic career plan that completely change my future prospects, and my approach to work and life. It motivated me to pursue the formal education and gain the professional experience necessary to become influential in the development of sound health policy. Eric remains my good friend and mentor to this day.
In addition to introducing me to Eric, Kurt also gave me several opportunities to grow as a leader. First, Kurt appointed me as the EMT representative for the AMR strategic planning team. This was my first foray into the world of strategy. It forced me to look at decisions from a business perspective, and to weigh the multitude of challenges facing a modern healthcare/service organization. Years later, having successfully lead or participated in numerous strategic planning sessions, several of which resulted in the creation of national best practice worthy outcomes, I have to marvel at where it all began. It began with an offer of opportunity from Kurt. Kurt also put me through training in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and allowed me to build a Critical Incident Response Team at AMR San Diego. I led the team for over a year, working to assist first responders in the aftermath of their worst calls. Aside from my work as a Field Training Officer, this was my first opportunity to lead and manage a team of that size (8 individuals), including individuals with more years of experience.
While each of these opportunities contributed mightily to my development, there was one opportunity that, in my mind, stood out above the rest. At one point, I read an article in an industry magazine that discussed the positive impact that uniform badges had on the attitude and self-image of emergency personnel. I know, “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.” I heard it a hundred times from crews in the field. At that point, the EMTs and paramedics of AMR San Diego did not wear badges on their uniforms, but simply had sleeve patches on their shirts for agency identification. I discussed the idea of getting badges for our crews with Kurt, who encouraged me to draft a concept paper that outlined the idea, justification, cost and other logistical considerations. I put tremendous effort into that project. I submitted it to Kurt for his consideration, not expecting to receive a positive response. Within months, we were all wearing badges at AMR San Diego. To this day, I display that first badge in a frame on my office wall. It was my first experience with developing a concept based on a perceived community need, and then making a strong case for an intervention. Now, nearly two decades and many community projects later, I look back at “the badge proposal” with great nostalgia. It was the point where my confidence grew tremendously—with a clear delineation between confidence and arrogance. I realized that confidence is informed through experience and a keen understanding of one’s own true strengths and weaknesses, whereas arrogance or hubris is an overestimation of one’s own ability.
When I left EMS permanently in 2004, I maintained contact with Kurt. At the time, I wasn’t even consciously aware of the fact that he was my mentor. As the years passed, I consulted with Kurt on a regular basis. Job opportunity? Call Kurt. Work dilemma? Call Kurt. Need a contact? Call Kurt. Over that time, I went to college and worked, studied leadership and healthcare management, and focused on a more strategic approach to mentoring. I began identifying prospective mentors based on key traits that I wanted to develop—traits like communication, strategic thinking, leadership, networking, teaching, public speaking, etc. I was fearless in approaching prospective mentors and brokering formal mentoring relationships. But with Kurt, there was no formal relationship. It had developed organically over time. At one point I thought, boy I should ask Kurt to be my mentor. But what would he think if after all of these years I only then officially asked him to be my mentor? Is he my mentor? I guess he is, although we’ve never actually said so. I let it go, but continued to call and email Kurt regularly. He would contact me as well, with innovative ideas he was working on, or when looking for a connection to an industry leader.
In 2012, I was working on a project and needed to seek Kurt’s counsel. Despite dealing with a very difficult work schedule and two ill parents, Kurt made time for me. During one of our email exchanges, I asked him to introduce me to a key person in another county. Kurt sent an email to her, and copied me. In that email Kurt wrote:
“I have a protégé who worked for me as an EMT in San Diego…”
When I read that introductory line, in which he referred to me as his protégé, I couldn’t help but feel touched. This was a man at the top of his game and his field. Yet, he was taking the time to develop me, and had done so for literally years. The formalities of a mentor/protégé relationship were just that. He was my mentor, and I was his protégé.
In March of 2013, Kurt reached out to me and asked me to write a recommendation for him on his LinkedIn.com profile. I didn’t even hesitate—and I knew exactly what to write about. I penned a recommendation for Kurt that focused on his tremendous skills as an innovative leader, and as a mentor. He was very pleased with the words I wrote.
A month later, I reached out to Kurt to broker a meeting between his new venture, Evolution Health LLC, and my organization at the time, UC San Diego Health. His new venture dealt with deploying telemedicine in ambulances to create new opportunities for EMS personnel to be integrated more directly into the primary care arena, and to increase capabilities in EMS. I saw an alignment between his work and the trauma department at my hospital. We were all set to meet on April 18th to discuss this further. Unfortunately, one of our doctors wasn’t available so I cancelled the meeting. The last email I received from Kurt indicated that we would find another day to meet. Kurt passed away a few days later.
In the wake of his death, I tried to come to terms with my failures as a protégé. I probably didn’t contact him regularly enough. I was always respectful and profusely thankful for his help, insight and guidance. But was I profuse enough? Did I miss opportunities to work with him because I was so wrapped up in my own world? And most importantly, why did I cancel the meeting with him on April 18th? The folks from my team weren’t available, but I could have still gone forward with the meeting, if only to map out strategy. But I didn’t, and I missed a chance to see my friend and mentor one last time.
Despite my regrets and second-guessing, the lessons I take away from his death are positive. I must ensure that everyone I work with—mentor or protégé—understands the important role that they play in my life and how much I appreciate their time and dedication to my development. I am reminded that protégés contribute to our development as much as mentors. I am lucky enough to currently have a crew of formal mentors, numerous formal protégés, and several more informal ones. The lessons that Kurt taught me, and many other protégés, carry on, both in EMS and the world in general. We must continuously rededicate ourselves to Kurt’s philosophy of service and mentorship, with the goal of tapping into all of the unrealized potential in the world. By doing so, Kurt Williams will continue to innovate and mentor through us for decades to come.
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How I Did My Career Pivot…and Changed My Life
(This is the first in a series of articles outlining the process I created to take myself from a 23-year-old from an impoverished childhood with limited professional prospects to a multi award-winning advocate and executive recognized as one of San Diego’s 500 Most Influential People. I hope you find this as useful as I did.)
I’ve been teaching people how to effectively plan their professional, educational and personal pursuits for more than a decade and have had the pleasure of working with literally thousands of people from all walks of life—college students and wanna be college students, early career professionals, mid to senior career managers and executives, transitioning military members, individuals experiencing homelessness and the formerly incarcerated, to name a few.
Here’s what they all have in common: Each is looking for a straightforward method for making difficult decisions in their life.
What do I want to do with my life? Is there a profession out there that speaks to who I am? What type of educational or vocational training should I pursue? How do I make good decisions that will allow me to give my family opportunities that I didn’t have?
These questions often arise at moments of life transition. Starting school. Having a child. Getting passed up for a promotion. Turning 40. Getting laid off due to a worldwide pandemic and economic downturn. Hey, there’s something that may sound current and familiar.
We all know that the world economy is suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic and many people now find themselves underemployed or unemployed. As difficult as this moment may seem, it is the perfect time to reevaluate the path you’ve been on and to pivot if necessary.
Rather than jumping immediately into making decisions that could have far reaching effects—notably wasting precious time and money—I recommend that you start with a period of introspection. The first five steps in my Strategic Career Planning: A 10-Step Guide to Realizing Your Potential program will help you do just that.
Step 1: Assessment
Know where you are starting and never forget it. This requires an exploration of your personal history. What decisions got you to this point, either those made by you or for you by those around you? Complete an inventory of the knowledge, skills and training that you have accumulated so far. The most important characteristic of this assessment—it must be based on an honest understanding of yourself. This initial assessment will form the foundation for a personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) later in the process.
Step 2: Find Your Motivation
What is driving this change? Who are the people, experiences, topics or issues and ideas that are motivating this change? Are you motivated to prove something to a relative, or to yourself? Do you feel a disconnection from the path that you’ve been on? Have you failed to capitalize on a God-given talent or prior achievement? Have you perhaps made poor decisions in the past? Is there something that you’ve always been passionate about but have never pursued for (insert myriad reasons/excuses here)? Or do you never want to feel vulnerable again, as so many of us have during this sudden economic downturn?
Step 3: It’s All About the Angles
Do you have tunnel vision? Have you never stepped outside of yourself to assess your circumstances from a different point of view? It is important to look at your life and the challenges ahead of you from a new perspective or a variety of perspectives. New perspectives lead to new interests—and a better understanding of the issues. Use these new perspectives to envision a future of success and excellence.
Step 4: Find a Niche
What the heck is a niche? In short, a niche is something in which you can become a specialist. You might already be one and didn’t realize it. Most importantly, a niche is something that you can master, something with a future and something with flexibility. Ask yourself the following questions: What am I passionate about? Where do I have unique experience? What idea or job has a future?
Step 5: Consult a Trusted Friend
In the world of Strategic Career Planning: A 10-Step Guide to Realizing Your Potential, there are two levels of mentoring: Mentors and Consultants. We’ll talk about mentors at a later date. A consultant must possess certain characteristics. They must be successful. They absolutely have to be insightful, preferably about a number of subjects. And finally, it is imperative that they are pragmatic, sensible or realistic. When identifying a consultant, you must answer the following questions: Who gives me good advice? Who is honest and insightful? Who understands and listens to me? Who is my consultant and why would I choose them?
If you don’t currently have a consultant, do not hesitate to use me. I have mentored and served as a consultant for hundreds of people in your same position. I love doing it because I believe that each and every one has within us untapped potential that often just needs a little nudging to escape. Also, I believe in you.
I can be reached at aaron@galvanizedstrategies.com or on LinkedIn.
Stay tuned for our next article in which we will complete a personal SWOT analysis and learn how to write our Vision, Mission and Values Statements.
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