Global Recycling

This is one of my least read posts but one I liked more than most. The re-post is a shameless attempt to see if giving it a new title (that is more appealing on search engines) will increase the readership. My apologies to those who now get to this page looking for info on a different type of recycling. I am always interested why some posts get 10X the number of hits as others.

Chain(s) of command

From early childhood, we learn the concept of chain of command - in our homes, in school and later in the workplace. Everyone has a boss.

In each culture the chain of command plays out differently but in the end, everyone is ultimately accountable to a higher power.  Anyone that begins to climb the proverbial corporate ladder needs to learn political survival skills and that success does not always depend on what you do but how you "manage up".

One of the joys of an ex-pat's life is that often the boss is several thousands miles away - distance and several time zones tend to give the person working overseas more freedom than their peers in the home country. This was certainly true in my case. After eleven years in Asia, I was not eager to return to the US. From a business perspective, my overseas assignment had been a success. Over 11 years, sales in Asia increased >8 times and profits ~10 times. I enjoyed the freedom and the company was happy with the results. The family loved the time overseas too so it was a good move all the way around.

Unfortunately I enjoyed being away from HQ so much that after a few years, I let many important relationships grow distant. In my case "out of sight" really became "out of mind". I made the naive assumption that "results speak for themselves".  If I had only stayed  overseas 3 years as my original ex-pat agreement suggested, there would have been no issue as all the same people in "high places" were still in the same roles back home. After 5 years, things changed - I moved from Japan to China and was dealing with a very different culture and ignoring that the company culture back home was changing too. New Division leadership, new values. The people who knew me for what I had accomplished and believed I could accomplish more were replaced with people who saw me as a name on an org chart and a large ex-pat cost center. The new thinking was that "the market in Asia was growing" and I might be "just riding the wave". While I knew the reality was quite different, I made the mistake of thinking that just continuing to do my job well would be enough to demonstrate my value to the new team. I should have been more active in managing perceptions on the US side.

Fortunately, in time, the new Division President began to appreciate to some extent what I was doing but the business had grown to the point where more and more people wanted to be involved. I was told I needed to be more "inclusive" of the increasing stream of three day visitors from the US. I began to sign as many visa "invitation letters" as I did sales contracts.  More time passed; the business and the local team continued to grow. More profits and more headcount attracted more attention.

After 10 years in Asia, I was told that I would be moving back to a "global position" but was given a year to "make a smooth transition". Of course, I always knew the day would  come when we would return. The timing was good -  my younger daughter was graduating from Shanghai American School and returning to the US for university.

Unfortunately for me, about the same time corporate management changed - a new CEO and a new "Vision".  More pressure on our growing Division. More "expert advice" from people unfamiliar with our the details of our business.

My years of experience with the "old regime" became a liability rather than an asset. When my new global position was announced, the CEO and a board member happened to be in town. At a reception the board member overheard me indicate to a colleague that I really would prefer to spend a little more time in Asia. He was furious that the company would give such an "ungrateful" person a more responsible position. The CEO, who had just met me the day before was not happy. The board member was new and did not know me either. Had I done a better job of staying linked in to the new org structure it is likely my overheard comment would have been taken for what it was - a statement that I had thoroughly enjoyed 11 years overseas.

I was told by my Division leadership to "lay low" and things "will improve in time". The best line was "you are critical to our Division's success" but it is best if the CEO doesn't "hear from you directly".......

Lesson learned - no matter you accomplish in your day to day work,  you always need to be sensitive to the environment you are in. Results are great but they are only part of the package.

"Back Again"

This morning as I pondered writing a blog post, I decided to write about throwing my back out just a few hours after having oral surgery on Wednesday. Due to the dentist’s work, I was sentenced to a liquid diet for three days and relegated to nothing more than “mushy foods” for ten days. After arriving home from the dentist - I opened the refrigerator, bent over to pick up a protein drink on a lower shelf and felt my muscles spasm. I knew what came next; I straightened up and felt the wind flow out of me like a Notre Dame running back being pummeled by an Alabama linebacker. Go Irish…..

I had expected pain for a few days after the dentist’s micro laser ravaged my upper gums in an attempt to prevent me from getting a bone infection that would ultimately cause me to lose a couple teeth. The fears of severe discomfort in my mouth after the pre-treatment pain killing shots wore off never materialized but the muscle revolt occurring in my lower back more than compensated for it. Unable to indulge in a much needed comfort food binge due to the aforementioned diet restrictions, I began to ponder whether single malt scotch met the criteria for the “liquid” phase of my diet.

The problem with my back has happened to me less than ten times in my life but this is the second time in 12 months. As I began to write about my current state, it occurred to me that I had already covered this topic. I went back to my blog history and found the prior installment. Seems I was lucky this time as I can actually sit up and write this. It also seems I didn’t take my own advice and begin a stretching routine after exercise and golf (no, I don’t consider golf “real” exercise). So, I will go back to applying Tiger Balm (a discovery from my first trip to Asia in 1995), drink a protein shake, and leave you with this……

“Back to Work” published 2/5/2012

For the past 18 years I have spent approximately 150 days a year traveling around the world. My travel pre and post ex-pat assignment has stayed quite consistent. In January, I spent a week in Japan, visited my daughter in LA, made a domestic trip to visit customers and took several people to Argentina for a week. I managed to play 4 rounds of golf on three continents. Business as usual... and then I threw my back out hitting practice balls on the driving range near my home. I am not prone to back problems and fully expected to take some Ibuprofen, skip a day of exercise and be fine the day after. No such luck. By the evening of my injury, I knew I would be working from home the next day since walking and to some extent breathing was difficult.

I stayed home a couple of days on my back - pecking out emails on my IPad because it was too hard to sit up and type on my laptop. I put heat on my back initially when I should have used ice. Fortunately my wife was kind enough to suggest that I "Google" how to treat my back - she already knew the right answer but also knew it was better for me to hear it from Google especially in the grumpy state the bad back put me in. My condition got worse on day 3 (I foolishly spent 35 minutes on an exercise bike and went to the office only to return in extreme pain). As a result, I spent a couple more days at home alternating ice packs, heat and ingesting more ibuprofen then the bottle recommends.

It has been a week since the full swing with a 4 iron reduced me to a teary, kneeling mess on the driving range but the experience has taught me many things besides stretching my aging body before hitting golf balls. The first thing is to appreciate my health. When it is hard to walk and draw a deep breath - little else matters. Fortunately, I had no travel planned for last week. I could still communicate with customers in Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo and New York as if nothing had happened but I kept coming back to the thought of how I had rarely missed a day of work in the prior 25 years. Like many, I took an occasional "mental health" day but as I lose about 15 to 20 weekends a year to travel, the "one off" mental health day still seemed like the company was getting the better end of the work bargain. From the back of mind came the thought - what if I got a permanent injury and could no longer live the type of life I live now?

As the painful days passed, I vowed to appreciate my health more and to try to do more to ensure I stay healthy. I have always exercised, sometimes probably as much for my head as my body. It was much harder for me not to exercise than not to go to work. Despite decades of daily exercise, I never took time for stretching, cooling down or slowing down when my body was telling me to take a day off.

Reflecting on what you would do if you lost your health leads to other questions - am I making the best use of the time I have? When you look in the mirror and the answer to that question is probably not - then it is time for more reflection.

Resolution

In the final days of 2012, my lovely bride asked me if I was making any New Year’s resolutions. My immediate reply was “no, how about you?”.  Although I have been on the planet more than half a century, I can only recall two times when I made New Year’s resolutions. In 1982, I actually wrote down my resolution/goal which was to run a marathon. By Thanksgiving of that year, I had run the 26.2 mile distance four times which I felt was a big accomplishment. On the other hand, I continued to view New Year’s resolutions as something that should be indulged in perhaps once every decade or two rather than on an annual basis.

As the clock approached midnight on 12/31, I pondered the reason for being asked the resolution question. My wife of 28 years is not given to asking questions without a reason or making idle statements. If she had decided to accomplish something or make a change in the coming year, it was important for me to know. There is potentially a “spillover effect” (on me, that is) like the time she decided to go “low carb” a few years ago while we were living in Shanghai.

Unaware of her decision - at first I thought that the Chinese government had made an overnight decision to ban and proactively confiscate carbohydrates. The Cheez-Its, that I stockpiled to keep at least one junk food link to the USA while living overseas, went missing. There were other signs of change, the green tea ice cream was another casualty but to counter balance, there was suddenly a generous inventory of beans, seeds and nuts in the house. Pondering the situation, I went for walk and saw a group of construction workers having a typical lunch of starchy rice and “mystery protein”. If there was a carbohydrate ban, clearly it was being unevenly enforced by the central government.  Later that day, I saw a paperback copy of the South Beach Diet on the kitchen counter. I asked about the book and my better half explained that she was a couple of days into “phase one”.  Linking the term “phase one” with the missing carbs didn’t paint a pretty mental picture of my at home dining future. I went to Google for some answers. Phase one sounded like a 14 day fast with a few calories mixed in to dull the pain. After a little more reading, for some yet unknown reason, I decided that “misery loves company”. I declared my second New Year’s resolution in a 24 year period. I was “all-in” for 3 months of the South Beach diet. Phase one sounded pretty bad – no carbs (at least no carbs that I wanted to eat), no alcohol, etc. but phase two seemed to allow enough flexibility to rationalize a reasonable meal and if I made it to phase three, I seemed home free.

The two weeks of phase one went by quickly. I intentionally didn’t travel so I was not confronted with pressure to eat stuff that wasn’t on the acceptable food list. I was several days into phase two before making a trip to Japan. Beer is still not allowed in phase two which presented a bit of an issue since almost every customer meal I have ever had in Japan started off with a beer and a ‘kanpai”. I thought I could finesse toasting and pretending to take a sip but I was not successful. “What is wrong, Lowry san?, you love beer”. “Kenko no tame ni (for my health)” was my reply. I explained the situation – that I was on a special diet for a few months “supporting my wife” who was on the same diet. I explained that I was allowed to have some wine but no beer, no Japanese French fries (the world’s best in my opinion) and no green tea ice cream.  They asked me how much weight I had lost. I said “5kg so far” and they responded “omedeto (congratulations) your diet should be over then, let’s drink beer”. I held my ground and explained that my diet would be over before my next trip. “But you are not so fat like most Americans and we know your wife is already skinny, what is the point?” Finally, the awkward “lost in translation” diet moment passed and I stayed the diet course with a large portion of edamame and sashimi.

By the time the three months was over I had lost 9kg (~20lbs) and weighed less than the day I graduated high school. I went 14 months between Cheez-Its and Pizza. Like the appearance of Haley's Comet, another more than year long fast from Cheez-Its and pizza is not likely to happen again in my life time.

Two successful New Year’s resolutions in 24 years. Perhaps skipping the annual resolution is a cop out but even if I count the years with no resolution as failures,  being 2 for 24 probably puts me at least at an average New Year’s resolution success rate.

If pressed for a 2013 resolution, I would have to say “maybe next year”.