Friday Feature: Who's the Boss

As many challenges as there have been in the first six months in my new job, one consistent positive has been my role as a team leader. I've had the opportunity to hire, train and promote some really great people, and I'm reminded on a daily basis that the business will ebb and flow, but my impact on the people around me is more important to me than numbers on a page.

Even with the daily mantle of responsibility, though, I don't necessarily think of myself as "the boss." Combine that with my general inattention to the calendar and National Boss' Day snuck up on me. Until I walked into my office around 3:00 yesterday afternoon and found this on my desk:

There are a lot of days where I've questioned whether I'm making a difference, if I really have what it takes to transform this business. This was a nice reminder that making a difference isn't measured solely on the P&L. 

America the Beautiful: Camelback Mountain

This week saw my first business trip in my new job, heading out to Phoenix for a one day meeting. Travel from Northwest Arkansas is rarely quick and easy; getting from here to there required a layover both ways, and travel on Monday was a bit of a disaster. Which, as my sister reminded me, tends to be the status quo for me.

Long story short, after a multi-hour delay at my point of origin; a handwritten-gate-check-bag-tag; lost luggage; and a return to the Phoenix airport to retrieve my errant bag, it was a 21 hour day for me on Monday.

I was tired, but that had to be ignored: I had big plans for Tuesday morning.

I've been to Phoenix on business travel before, and did my typical morning run in the hot, dry air of the desert. Last trip, though, a friend mentioned that rather than doing his morning run, he had gone to Camelback Mountain, hiked to the top, and come back down again, all before that meeting had begun. I decided right then and there, if I could ever get back to Phoenix, that was going on the list of things to do.

With that in mind, and despite American Airlines' best efforts to thwart my plan, I had planned ahead and researched Camelback on TripAdvisor, bringing water bottles; a hat; sunscreen; and sturdy sneakers to manage the climb. I figured it would take me right around two hours to finish, so set my alarm accordingly (4:20AM) in order to be back in time for the 8:30 meeting start.

Given that The Weather Channel app on my phone said that sunrise was officially at 6:15, I brought my hat with the built in lights. I wasn't too worried about climbing in the dark; if Phoenix was anything like home, the first rays of dawn would light the sky well before the official sunrise time. Imagine my surprise, then, when I peeked out my hotel window at 5AM and it was already light enough to not need those lights. Apparently The Weather Channel app didn't get the word that Arizona has its own approach to Daylight Savings Time; sunrise was at 5:15AM, not 6:15. I felt behind schedule before I even started!

My sense of frustration was compounded when I neared the base of the mountain; the street parking clearly told a story of many others who knew sunrise was earlier and had been there to greet it. I hadn't planned on parking a half mile or more away from the trailhead, but I somewhat uncharacteristically took it in stride, flipping a quick u-turn in my rental car to get to the right side of the street, parked, and hustled up the sidewalk behind several other people heading the same place I was: the Cholla Trail.

Since this was exercise as much as sightseeing, I set out at a quick pace. The dry morning air felt great; a little warm, but certainly not as oppressively hot as the humidity of a Northwest Arkansas summer. I passed a few people already coming down, most of whom were wearing Camelbaks (which then of course led me to spend several minutes wondering if the mountain is the namesake or if it was a nod to the animal, as I'd always assumed); all of the reviews stress that the mountain is not to be taken lightly, and to carry more water than you think you should need. I passed a few folks making their way up, and was in turn passed by others going faster than me, but I had struck the right balance between exercise and sightseeing. I figured this might be my only hike up Camelback in my lifetime; I wanted to take it in as much as I wanted to burn a few calories.

My frustration at missing out on being at the mountain before official sunrise quickly dissipated; I had arrived at the perfect time to see this amazing sunrise:

The view didn't disappoint - there is a spectacular beauty about the desert, even with the sprawling city of Phoenix below you:

The first 2/3 of the hike was pretty straightforward; the trail was well marked and well maintained, so while it wasn't a walk in the neighborhood, it wasn't strenuous enough that I ever worried I wouldn't make it to the top. A little over a mile up, though, it got steeper; it got less well maintained; and the trail was harder to discern. It began looking more like this:

Of course, I didn't come to Camelback to *almost* make it to the top. Onward. Upward. Never quit.

I had set my alarm for 6:30AM as the deadline for making it to the top; being late for the meeting wasn't an option, so it gave me some incentive to push myself a bit. I made it to the top at 6:21, plenty of time to take some pictures, drink some water, and just enjoy the view.

It hit me as I looked back down the trail, though, that going down would be a bit tougher than going up, so I didn't linger long. Back down the mountain I went, punishing my knees and quads in some places, missing my step in others, but exhilarated by the accomplishment of achieving the peak of Camelback.

America is an unbelievably beautiful place. This was just a couple of hours of enjoying the desert vistas, but it has me counting down the days with even more fervor until our vacation out west in July.

A change will do you good

Now that it's been a full four weeks, I figure it's time to officially blog about my new job. My NEW JOB. After ten and a half years with Procter & Gamble, I have moved on to a company called Shopper Events as the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for their Sam's Club team.

Fancy, no?

A fancy new title deserves its own story. This is my story about knowing what you want and never knowing when people are watching.

I have long known what I wanted at P&G: to lead a team within our sales organization. West Point trained me to lead - to lead myself and my troops; to lead in thoughts, in words and in actions. Whether a platoon of soldiers, a corporate organization or a group of aspiring runners, I have always gotten the most satisfaction out of being the one who provides a vision, sets the direction, and leads the organization to its goal. I have known for a long time that I am at my best and my most professionally fulfilled when given the opportunity to be out front.

I have also known for a while that though P&G has opportunities to lead, it would be at minimum another ten to fifteen years before I could reasonably expect to be a sales team leader, and only then after another two, maybe three, relocations. I kept having the right conversations every year with my leadership, did my best to achieve and exceed goals, and networked where I needed to in an attempt to put my name and face out there with the decision makers. In a big machine with lots of cogs, though, there are only so many opportunities to get the attention of the right person at the the right time to accelerate a career.

And now the part of the story regarding never knowing when people are watching.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to attend the Network of Executive Women's national conference in California, and it was an exciting few days of speakers, classes and networking. In the large sessions, I frequently got up and spoke during the Q&A, as any well-trained West Point graduate could do. A life lesson I learned in uniform: never attend a speech with a senior leader without being prepared to ask a question, as it is uncomfortable and even disrespectful to leave the General on stage in silence during the Q&A. So a few times during the NEW conference, I approached the microphone, gave my name and company, and asked the speaker to elaborate on his or her topic for the group in some way.

Of course I knew the whole group was watching - but you never know who, specifically and individually, is watching.

It is a common occurrence here in Northwest Arkansas, where every Consumer Packaged Goods company in the world of any size has an office to serve the Walmart and Sam's Club businesses, to receive frequent phone calls from headhunters. I always took the calls, but usually ended them by declining interest in the proposed lateral move to a similar job at another company. I figured, if I was going to sell CPG widgets, then I should sell the best CPG widgets in the world at one of the best CPG companies in the world. I always told the recruiters that the exception would be a job that took me home to Texas, or if they had a team lead job, to please call me.

In January, I received a call from a recruiter who opened the conversation by telling me she had a job opportunity to share with me. In an unusual opening bit, she stated that technically and on paper, I might not be qualified for the job (always a humbling thing to hear) but while she was at the NEW Conference in the fall, she had seen and heard me ask questions of the speakers. She had been so impressed that, when this job came across her desk, she knew I was the right person for the job. You never know who's watching.

So there I was - I knew what I wanted and hadn't known she was watching, but the opportunity to accelerate my career by 10-15 years without leaving the area we've grown to love or the friends and schools my children know was right in front of me. The interview process was long and drawn out, as these things tend to be, but it was worth every moment, every deliberation, every pro and con that had to be weighed to determine my staying at P&G or moving on to Shopper Events.

I accepted the job and gave my notice to P&G in April, and officially assumed the title and responsibility of the Shopper Events Sam's Club Team VP on April 28th. It's been a life on fast-forward for four weeks now, exhilarating in its newness and challenge of setting direction for a group of talented people who have literally been without leadership for almost a year. I have moved from a traditional CPG sales role to leading an agency that manages the retail force that you may know as "Tastes & Tips" at Sam's Club. Free samples!! We deliver fun!! There is, of course, more to it than that, but for now, that's the easiest way to explain what I do - we develop, sell, and schedule programs for CPG Suppliers to bring their products to life inside of Sam's Club.

In seventeen years post-graduation, this is now my fourth employer. We got out of the Army all those years ago in part so we wouldn't have to keep moving around. Ironically, in just 10.5 years with P&G, we moved three times: Maryland to Massachusetts, to Ohio, and to Arkansas. In fact, we moved more with P&G than we did with the Army. As the kids got older, I could look ahead and see that the next move would be much more difficult, as they would be at an age where they would feel the pain of leaving friends, understand the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and deal with the low-level anxiety of trying to fit in.

This new job means no imminent move looming over us, and unexpectedly, it has given me a sense of being in control of my professional path instead of being at the mercy of the needs of the corporation. There may not be visits from ESPN personalities to our 75 person office; there may not be as many opportunities to visit big cities for meetings or enjoy free samples of amazing brands like Tide, Cover Girl and Bounty. But last Thursday, as I stood at the kitchen counter looking out the window into the backyard and stirring my coffee in my travel mug so I could head to work, I paused and thought, this could be my life for the next 15 years. And that was a really good feeling.