Bettering Businesses (and Nonprofits) #205

Jula Sampson:

What can you do better to make whatever little piece of the pie you have either bigger or at least better for you?

Jan Kearce:

We have so much going for the state of Maine and so our organization helps to build the capacity of people to do their work even better. And we do it because, as the radio show says, we Love Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Lovemain radio show number 205, bettering businesses and Nonprofits airing for the first time on Sunday, August 16, 2015. Small businesses and nonprofits often have much to offer but may not have the resources or support they need. How do we help them maximize the work they are doing through mentoring and leadership programs, both of which are readily available in Maine today. We discuss these with Jula Sampson, a mentor with the Top Gun program, and Jan Kierce of Lyft360. Thank you for joining us. I always enjoy spending time with people that I have had a prior conversation, relationship, that sort of thing with. This is Jula Sampson that I'll be speaking with now. She owns A.E. sampson Son with her husband Paul. Jula is a mentor for young businesses through the Midcoast Top Gun program. She lives in Lincolnville with Paul and 250,000 bees. Thanks for coming in.

Jula Sampson:

Thank you Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we've known each other because we have a kind of a mid coast connection. I think the Camden International Film Festival is one place that we've connected over the years. You've been in Maine for quite a while?

Jula Sampson:

Yes, I summered here quite a bit when I was a child and then in the 80s I decided to move here here because of the lifestyle. I'd spent a year teaching in Chicago in the south side and I really enjoyed teaching and enjoyed Chicago. Great art, community. But I really missed. I had a rural background, grew up on a farm and Just missed it. And so I chose Camden and moved to Camden and really have never left.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it must be your farm background that has caused you to be in close contact with 250,000 bees.

Jula Sampson:

Yes. When I was growing up, we had chickens, goats, ducks, you know, hens, apple orchard, all, you know, those sorts of things. There was a cow farm down the road and always had animals, and bees are not quite like animals, but I'm really enjoying having them and taking care of them and harvesting the honey.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have an interesting business and it's one that I don't know that much about, but it's one that's quite in demand these days. A.E. sampson and Son works a lot with flooring and wood products. Tell me about that and how you got into that.

Jula Sampson:

Well, A.E. sampson and Son actually first started as a full architectural firm, meaning that we made doors and trim and flooring and way back cabinets. When I first started, my husband Paul and his father had the business back at the family farm and the business was expanding and at that time I was managing the Lord Camden Inn. And they really realized that they needed somebody to come in and sort of, you know, pull them together because they were really at odds with all the business they had, and they needed somebody to really to sort of do a production, manage the business for them. So I came in. I did not have a woodworking background, but the way I started is they did have me picking wood and running the machines and actually helping making all the products so I would understand the business. And then slowly I moved out of the shop and just did the sort of business sales. And now I order the wood and do all those parts and pieces. And as the business grew, it became important to focus the products down. So we got. Early on, we stopped making cabinets and then slowly we stopped making doors. And now it's really just focused on flooring. We'll do stair treads and trim, but it was just becoming more focused so that we could make a better product rather than being very scattered, making all these different products.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How long has A.E. sampson Son been in business?

Jula Sampson:

Over 30 years. So for a very long time. And Paul's father, that's what he did. Before Paul started the business with him, he worked with somebody else for another business doing cabinet making, but that was his career. And then Paul came on board and they started their own business.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what was that like for you to come into a family business as an outsider and learn about something you had never had any prior background in and then have to kind of turn it around? And manage it.

Jula Sampson:

Fortunately, I was young, so I didn't think too much about it. I just said, oh, okay, this will be fun. I did have a. I had a very scientific, artistic background. And woodworking has lots of math in it. And, you know, there really is an art part of it where you're looking at the wood and trying to figure out how it will best make the product that you want. So that part wasn't that difficult for me. And machinery, I actually like machinery. I've always been sort of one of those people that have taken things apart and putting them back together. So working with the machinery was actually fun. The interesting, the hard part, I think for me is I hadn't thought about it, that it was a very male based business, that the people that I would be dealing with, the contractors and architects, were mostly men in the 80s. And initially that was the most difficult part because people would come to the shop and they wouldn't want to speak to me. They would want to speak to Paul or Alan. And I was really the person they were supposed to speak with. So they had a learning curve and I had a learning curve on the best way to handle that. And I eventually learned that the best way for me and the business, the best way to handle that was to ask them to just give me a shot, just start talking to me and let me know what they were looking for, what were they going to ask Paul and Alan about. And at the point in time where I could no longer help them, I would go get Paul and Alan. And that worked. They would start and after a while they realized that I really did know what I was talking about. And we would work through the process of finding out what they wanted Paul or Alan to build for them or what they wanted piece of wood they were trying to get. And over many, many years, that became, in essence, not a problem. And nowadays I find most people would rather talk to me than Paul.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did this translate into your desire to give back? Through the Top Gun program.

Jula Sampson:

It actually started with, I think, my involvement with the Camden International Film Festival. I really started as a volunteer there and then I real from volunteering with it, that Ben and the program could possibly use some of my business experience in terms of, you know, manufacturing is like one big production and the film festival is one big production. So I approached Ben and some members on the board and, you know, said, I have some of these ideas. What do you think? And they were very open, very receptive to my helping them. And so it was a board member of SIF that Actually said, what do you think about mentoring with Topkin? And I said, I would love to do that because I really enjoy helping people get their business up off the ground. And some of the reason why I do enjoy that is Paul and I had a hard time getting our business up off the ground and went through many pitfalls and really learned the hard way and really had no support at all. And I see now that with just talking through to somebody about a business, you can be so much further ahead. You know, just networking or just sort of having that person with a business experience to bounce ideas off of and say, what do you think about this? How can I do this? Or what have you been through? Like this, that by having that person you as a business owner can then have your business grow much quicker than it might without somebody like that to bounce ideas off of who are going to give you advice or to hook you up with somebody else.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what types of businesses did you work with as a mentor?

Jula Sampson:

Quite a range. We worked with two fellows who are trying to develop a piece of medical equipment to help the medical profession. We worked with a company that is designing a dock to grow mussels on. A woman who has a dryer ball business, a wool dryer ball business, a woman who's trying to build temporary shelters for refugees around the world, A woman who wants to do fashion high end shoes in Maine, someone who wants to do an online business for hooking up galleries and artists so that they don't have to go through a different process of being there physically. Then there was a marine hardware business that was trying to grow. So it was really a huge range. The other one was a woman growing eels to market in Maine. That is a range, quite a range.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of the commonalities?

Jula Sampson:

The commonalities was everybody had a really, when you're in the top ground program, you are a little bit vetted before you can actually be in the program. You apply and the people that are accepted to be in the program have a business idea or an existing business

Jan Kearce:

that

Jula Sampson:

is felt can grow, has really good growth potential and a good idea. So the commonality was all these people were really energized, had great ideas, but kind of couldn't get to the next plateau. And for many different reasons and sometimes a variety of reasons. Financing was one, but that wasn't always it. Some of it was just resources, some of it was just not understanding how to tackle the next step. Like 3 of the business, or actually a lot of them, 4 or 5 were about manufacturing and they couldn't really embrace the square footage they needed to grow their business. And some of that was because they were piecemealing parts of the business out now. So they didn't have it in one space. Some of it was because they wanted to grow 10 times and they couldn't really picture how that space would be. And then some of them were shy, had difficulty speaking or doing sales pitches or writing. So even though their businesses were very diverse, they all had this shy. They had great ideas, but they were just shy. So it was amazing that when we were all in the room, a lot of the advice they needed from mentors or a lot of the programming they need was incredibly similar in just how to get your message out, how to approach people, where to find legal and financial help and then how to open. The other thing was how to grow your team. A lot of the businesses were only one person or two or three people. It was like, what's the next step? And that's very similar regardless of sort of what sort of business you have. And then, you know, what physical plant do you need? And it was amazing how similar that was too in some ways.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So as you're going through that process as a mentor for Top Gun, I don't know what the timing was exactly, but there was a downturn in the economy here in Maine which impacted your business and all construction related businesses and a lot of other businesses too. So what was that like? As you're trying to. You're mentoring other businesses and simultaneously trying to kind of figure out how to best move your business forward.

Jula Sampson:

It actually was very helpful because to be in a room with all this energy and it wasn't. There was a wide range of ages. So that actually was great too. It was very helpful for me in re energizing my business too because sometimes you need to hear how other people are in essence going to market their new business or how they're going to approach financing their new business, or how they're going to grow their team. To you look at what you've been doing for the past 30 years and saying some of this was pretty good while we were doing this, but some of it could use some improvement by looking at what they were doing and in essence mentoring them, helping them. It was much easier to look at what I was doing and saying this is what we need to do better, this is what we need to fix. Whereas I feel if I hadn't been helping the other businesses, I, I would not have had the energy to look at my own business or positive energy to look at my own business and make the corrections that I needed to make.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's interesting because there is the necessity of some objectivity. And yet when you're so invested in something, you've been doing it for such a long time, sometimes it's hard to be objective because it's personal.

Jula Sampson:

Yes. And sometimes you feel like you're doing everything right and that it's just. It's easy to blame the recession on why you're not doing well, which clearly has a lot to do with it. But what can you do better to make whatever little piece of the pie you have either bigger or at least better for you. And that gave me the energy to look at that and tackle that. It was also just great to be in a room of people who are excited about business, because sometimes I feel like people don't like to talk about businesses and the work of being a business, of, you know, having a business. One of the sessions we had was life and work. How do you manage that? And so it was great to be in a room with people who love the challenge of starting a business or being in business, but also recognized the challenges of that. And that provided a lot of support between all of us, but also, again, a lot of positive movement forward.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We interviewed the founder of Bixby and Co. The Bixby Barr woman.

Jula Sampson:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And she. She shared kind of a very interesting story about the creativity of business. And a lot of us think of businesses as very linear, very. I guess it would be left brained. But there is a creativity that goes along with managing and organizing and putting out a product. Did you find that this is so as well?

Jula Sampson:

I did. I'm not sure I could have probably said it as eloquently as she had, but it is a business is your whole life. And when we talked about, you know, life and work, I think if you own a business, it's never too far away from what you're doing. So you have to find some creativity in it, some joy in it, some happiness that you can bring with you all the time. And so for some people, you know, it's definitely the creativity of the business. For me, I think sometimes it's just the beauty. I mean, I find business sort of beautiful in that. Working with wood, it's just. I enjoy it in the rough, but then I enjoy it when it's a final product of the flooring. But then in the process, like I said, I like machines. I like what the machines and people can do to the wood to make it a product. So starting with Something rough and then making something beautiful out of it. I guess, like baking, you start with five different ingredients, and then you come out with one beautiful thing. So, yes, that's creative and beautiful. And there's an order to it. I like the order, I guess, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As you're talking, I'm thinking about the house that we've lived in for a year, and the wood that was used by the person who designed the house was an architect. And it's fur, so there's a very warm feel to it. And it really makes the experience, it makes the house. And yet that's not something that I think a lot of us really tap into when we're considering designing our houses.

Jula Sampson:

Right. I don't think most people do. We have a showroom with at least 50, 60 species in there, and I love it when people come into the showroom and the first thing is, well, I have to decide what wood I

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

want,

Jula Sampson:

but I want to make sure that I find the right wood for me and it'll work in my house. And so occasionally I go to people who seem really worked up about making this choice, like thinking they could make a mistake. I say, now look. Look at all these. In this. As you're standing in this room, look at these 50, 60 species. How do you feel about them all? And they're like, well, this room is beautiful. I love all of them. And I get to say to them, well, wood isn't like paint. You can't really go wrong with any different species. They all have a warmth to them. They all have a beauty to them. They're natural. So just sort of take a minute and relax and then find the one that you feel is the best match for you and your personality and how you're going to live in your house. But is there a right one or a wrong one? No, you'll be fine whichever one you decide. And you just see this huge weight that's lifted off people's shoulders. They then can look around and really embrace every species and make a choice on the one that really speaks to them. But know that there's no right or wrong, and whatever one they pick will work fine in their house. I've never walked into a house where you've said, oh, that piece of wood does not work here. You can do that with paint because in other materials, but generally, wood will work with whatever you want to put around it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm intrigued and really drawn to the word species, because as you're talking about this, it's a reminder that this is not a Static. It's not like metal, it's not like paint or glass. It's a living being, a living entity. Well, no longer living, but it once was.

Jula Sampson:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it has its own character because it once had its own living character.

Jula Sampson:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it's almost like you're inviting this character, this species into your house to live with you.

Jula Sampson:

Yes, it's definitely, you know, it's no longer living, but it still has properties of being a natural product in that, you know, wood can come and go a little bit, move and it just has a real warmth to it, like a living species. Wood.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is interesting in New England too, because we all, we aspire to live in the old farm. Well, many of us, I guess I will say I always aspired to live in the old farmhouse with the pumpkin pine board on the floor and the bead board paneling. And there's just this sense that there's something wooden that kind of needs to come with whatever your environment consists of.

Jula Sampson:

Yes. Well, I think wood of the. I think a lot of people dream of the old farmhouse and the wood because there's just this peacefulness to it. Well, wood has natural warmth and I think has a real calming effect for most people because of that natural warmth and the peace ness of it. And every single piece of wood is different. So it has a natural variety that I think people sort of embrace in terms of we're not all the same, people are not all the same. So every piece of wood is going to be different, but it all sort of flows together naturally. You never really see three or four boards together and sort of feel like that was a bad idea.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though one of the things that just needs to be present if your business will be successful is that one has to have the passion for whatever it is that they're putting out there. That your passion for wood and wood products and the manufacturing, manufacturing process and even the conversations with contractors and customers, you just have to really believe in what you do because otherwise it probably would get old pretty fast.

Jula Sampson:

Yeah, you do have to really believe in what you do and you have to really enjoy what you do because at the end of the day when you go home, what you're taking with you is whatever you've produced, made, and that's where you need to find the joy. So hopefully you really are passionate about what you're making and doing because that really is what you're all about.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And in your case, you live with your co owner, so you live with your husband, Paul, who is the son in A.E. sampson Son. So you both have to really feel passionate about what you're doing because it really is a family affair. Let's just say, yes, we do. And how did you find any of this in the Top Gun program or maybe even the Camden International Film Festival? Did you find any kind of similar family situations where people were trying to understand how to work with relationships that were close?

Jula Sampson:

Yes, I found that that was a skill that a lot of people came to me for as a mentor. And it maybe was less family, but it was very close relationships that people were starting businesses with and were, as they grew, were trying to figure out how to define those relationships. And so I did talk with. It was actually interesting. I talked with some of the businesses that I felt I had the least common with and I ended up working with them sometimes more than the businesses that I maybe thought I had more common with because they were having challenges with defining relationships as they grew. Because they may started out being a whole bunch of friends and then as you grow, you want to keep that friendship, but you're a much larger business and that becomes far more difficult to grow a business and a friendship at the same time. And generally for us, for my husband and I, the success has been defining. You know, basically writing job descriptions. And every two or three years we treat each other like employees of the business and review our job descriptions, like what are we both supposed to be doing? And make sure we have a double check with each other. The other thing is we've defined times when we will talk about business and then times when we won't talk about business. There are times when it won't come to the dinner table.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, this is good. And it's important to be reminded that especially in a state like Maine where there are so many small and medium sized businesses, so many of them that have families that founded them are still actively involved. It's lovely to believe that we can all separate church and state or home and business, but that's just not the reality, especially in Maine. So it's not just like, it's not, you go over here and I'll go over here. It's okay. We're both going to have to coexist in this, in our work and in our life. And how do we figure out how to do that?

Jula Sampson:

Right. And I actually think Maine is one of the better states to do that because there's so many businesses that are family businesses or strong relationships between business owners that there's a lot of support and a lot of recognition that that's how that business operates.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, Julia, this has been a fascinating conversation. I must say that, you know, in our conversations that we've had at the Camden International Film Festival when we're there supporting Ben Fowley and his group, it's hard to get into some of these layers that you and I have had a chance to talk about today. But but you've got some good stuff that you've been doing.

Jula Sampson:

Well, thank you, Lisa. It's been very nice to be here with you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Also, how do we find out more about A.E. sampson and Son?

Jula Sampson:

Well, we are online at www.aesampsonandson.com or you can stop by our shop on Route 90 in Warren.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Jula Sampson, who owns A.E. sampson and Son with her husband Paul. Jula is also a mentor for young businesses through the Midcoast Top Gun program. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Jula Sampson:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today in the studio we have with us Jan Kierce. Jan is the executive director of Lyft 360, a Portland based nonprofit that builds the capacity of leaders and organizations to achieve their goals. Jan lives in Falmouth. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Jan Kearce:

Thank you for the opportunity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I was enjoying my conversation with you and with John, our audio producer. About you used to live in Falmouth with apparently flying squirrels and bats and all sorts of wildlife and you're a nature lover.

Jan Kearce:

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's good. But this isn't you haven't always lived in Maine?

Jan Kearce:

No, I haven't. But I was born in Key west and made my way north slowly over time and found different opportunities that finally drew me to Maine. And it was all primarily connected originally to the outdoors and to the fantastic people I met here when I first came here on vacation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you probably had not flying squirrels and bats in Key west, but likely

Jan Kearce:

some equivalent well, like scorpions in my bed and things like that occasionally when I was a kid, and snakes, things like that. But yeah, no bats, flying squirrels. But I'm not going to complain about any of them. I'm very much a nature lover, as you said a moment ago. And I'll take all the flying squirrels and bats in my yard, just not in my bedroom with me now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You used to work for and with Outward Bound?

Jan Kearce:

I did with Hurricane Island, Outward Bound school up in the Rockland area. That's what drew me actually to I had been on vacation here and I loved Maine and I just knew that I'd come back on vacation again. But I came here searching for what I wanted to do next in my life. I worked in manufacturing for 20 years and I was doing good work, always building capacity of leaders and organizations, always still focused on that. But I wanted the end product to be something different than building materials. So I started looking for something that was more socially focused or environmentally focused. I interviewed with organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and others and learned about Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, which has this marvelous blend of putting people in the outdoors to learn the lessons that they need to learn about themselves, each other in life. And I was offered a job at Hurricane Island Outward Bound School as the human resources director at the time and just couldn't pass up the opportunity. Took a huge pay cut, said, this is where I want to be. This is the work I want to do. And the organization that I believe in at the time and still do now,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you're part of and the executive director of Lyft 360. So that's kind of interesting. And I love the name lift360. It's sort of this idea that you're moving people upward in a 360 degree manner. So you get to work with all kinds of nonprofits now.

Jan Kearce:

I do. And actually we work with all sectors. So not only do we work with nonprofits, we work with, with municipalities. We work with some of the biggest corporations in town. We provide leadership development to a broad cross section of organizations, to doctors and lawyers. And we do provide it to a lot of different people. And I am, we've been doing that for the last 22 years, not as lift360, but as the Institute for Civic Leadership. Last year, the Institute for Civic Leadership and Common Good Ventures merged to create lift 360 to create a more powerful, stronger organization with its own capacity to help lift communities, as you were talking about a few minutes ago. And in doing that, we believe that the nonprofit sector is vital, but equally vital is each of the other sectors. And so when we think about building strength of community, we do it by working with leaders from across all sectors. And we do most of our consulting work with nonprofits. And the nonprofits range from people that are working on issues of homelessness to domestic violence, to health care, to education. Big range.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The Institute for Civic Leadership has a great reputation for really helping people to gain skills that they might not otherwise gain in their workaday lives. And I don't know as much about Common Good Ventures, but it seems as though this has been a priority for a long, long time. So why do we care? Why do we want people to be civic leaders? Why do we want to lift people up? What's so important about this?

Jan Kearce:

Well, you have, as I understand it today, interviewed several hundred people as you have been engaged with this radio show. And I bet you you could answer this question really well as well. I'm going to answer and say because we have so much going for the state of Maine, when I talk with the people who are Working on the issues, who are looking at how they can contribute, either on solving issues of homelessness or working on a new business that helps to boost the economy. There are so many people out there who have that interest, passion, and those people need, want help of organizations like mine to build their capacity to do what they do best. Like, you may be passionate about radio shows or health or whatever it may be, I have my own passions, and I'm going to learn as much as I can about doing the work that I do. But there are times when we all need someone to come in and help us to do that work better. You know, how can we be more organized? How can we build stronger boards? How can we create a strategic plan that leads us in the direction that we really need to go? And so our organization helps to build the capacity of those people to do their work even better? And we do it because, you know, as the radio show says, we love Maine, and we think Maine has so much going for it. And we have a certain set of issues that we need to resolve that we read about in the newspaper, that we talk about in our social circles. The people that we work with are doing something about it. And for me, it's a way to give what I do best to what they do best. So in the long run, it serves our community, it serves their organizations, and it serves them as leaders.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Talk to me about the term building capacity.

Jan Kearce:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What does that mean?

Jan Kearce:

Yeah. Building capacity ranges from being a leadership coach. So if someone, one on one, wants to explore their own leadership and how they can be a better team leader or a better communicator or a better delegator, we work with people to do that on one end of the scale. On the other end of the scale, it's going into an organization doing an assessment, finding out where they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they can work with us to build their capacity to achieve their goals. So building capacity is really about strengthening people and organizations so they can do what they want to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did what you learned in manufacturing translate into what you did with, say, Outward Bound, Hurricane Island, Outward Bound, and now what you're doing with Lyft360.

Jan Kearce:

Right. You may think those are very different environments, but the common ingredient is it's all about people, people doing jobs, people wanting to be engaged in the work that they do in manufacturing. Ofttimes, as. As we read about and think of people doing manufacturing jobs, we think those are boring jobs. Or we could think they're boring jobs and don't have meaning. So in my work in manufacturing, it was all about engaging people at the front lines on the manufacturing floor and not only using their hands, but their hearts and their heads in service to the work. So they weren't left out of the big picture. They weren't left out of making the decisions. And when I think about how that all builds toward what I'm doing today, my passion has always been about how do I get that work, that team working together, how do I get that leader on track, how do I support them in achieving their goals? Because there have been people that I worked with in manufacturing that people thought they were kind of lost causes. You know, that person is never going to turn around, never going to contribute in a very positive way. And I beg to differ. And was successful in getting that person engaged, taking ownership, doing, really managing his part of the factory in a way that wasn't in his job description, but it was in his head and his heart and his capacity to do it. He just needed an opportunity. And so as I think about that and translated into Outward Bound and on into lift 360, Outward Bound is about building capacity. It's about that person, young or old, that comes to an Outward Bound course that is in that discovery mode. They're looking internal to self and saying, what can I do? What more can I do? And then they're looking external at the team that's working around them and say, how do we work together to do this? And in lift 360, it is about that individual leader, but it's also about the we. I mean, as an organization, we partner a lot. And as consultants and as teachers of leadership practices, we focus on collaboration, facilitation, adaptive leadership. How do we work together to achieve goals? There are far too many people trying to operate independently. And not that that's bad. I mean, people do have dreams and aspirations that they need to go after. But there are many times when the issues are bigger than you and me and have to be solved by a collective answer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm thinking about a conversation that I had this weekend as I was watching a soccer tournament. And it was about this strange thing that we expose our children to early on, which is that some people make the team and other people don't make the team. So the only people who make the team are the excellent people. And then the rest of the people, they just don't exist somehow. But in business and manufacturing and in life, you deal with whoever's on your team. There's not necessarily cuts. So when you discuss something like making the best out of a person that everybody thought was a lost cause. That's a reality. That. And collaborating with people that, that you don't necessarily understand, get along with. Like that is something that exists in real life.

Jan Kearce:

Yeah, absolutely. And it's a. We can, There are times we can choose our team. We do that. We people move in and out of organizations and in and off of teams. But you know, often we're looking for ourselves when we're assessing, when, when we're saying who do we want to be on our team? And we don't realize, oh, we need all of these differences. We need the person who is the introvert who is going to go off and contemplate, and we need the person who thinks out loud and we need the person who's organized and the person who's spontaneous. And as different as we all might be, we're all part of the mix, the ingredients that are necessary to make whatever it is work. But we. What I think is great about the work we do is that part of it is we introduce that whole concept of difference. And who are the different players who come to the table? Who are the stakeholders? And not just inviting the people that we know and like and love and who care about the same things we do, but the people who may be the roadblocks because they are the folks who have a different opinion. They're the people who could potentially down the road, undermine an initiative. So we want them at the table early on. So part of our work is thinking about how do we engage all of those differences to achieve a goal.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That must be an interesting challenge because there are so many different things that contribute to an individual. So their educational background, their learning style, their socio cultural background. I mean, every individual comes to the table with some different mixture of something. And it's not always entirely clear what it is that you're trying to help them with.

Jan Kearce:

No, it's not. And a piece of it. We worked with an organization last year who was going through an initiative to change some policies that would allow all different types of people, people to be part of the organization. We'll say it that way. Part of the work that this organization did was to help their staff to be more receptive to differences. Being receptive to differences doesn't mean that you have to like the difference, approve of the difference. It means that you treat people with respect and dignity, no matter who they are and what their difference is or what their ideology is. And that's a hard path to follow. And I've had this Conversation recently with another group of folks saying, wait a minute, that person believes this. Why do I have to respect that? So you don't have to believe it. You don't have to act on it as part of your life. But that is what they believe. That's the stance that they take. And what we and a community have to do is be able to parse all of that out and still move forward to achieve whatever goal we have set for ourselves. So it's extremely difficult to do if we jump into owning it all. But we don't have to own it all, right? We own our stuff and let that person own their way of being and respect that. That's their right, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And sometimes on the other side of it, if a person at least feels heard and respected, it can actually get you to a better place than if you only ever worked with people that you didn't have to understand, had to. Differences from you.

Jan Kearce:

Right, Right. And I think that part of what we teach people in our programs, when it comes to understanding differences, we put people in situations where it's all about listening. It's all about people having an opportunity to be heard. And so that creates an understanding. And while you may still not agree or you may not like it, you at least have an understanding of where the other individual is coming from.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Some of the most interesting and rewarding relationships I've ever developed with patients have been in situations or even with the radio show. Other aspects of my life have been in situations where I've really had to work through something that wasn't easy. You know, maybe if I went in with a patient and I'm thinking, this patient really doesn't like me, and yet I still have to be this person's doctor. And, you know, working through the process and really trying to wrap my head around whatever it is on the other side of it can feel really rewarding. It can feel like something was accomplished somehow. Is this something that you have experienced as you've done the work you're doing?

Jan Kearce:

We have. Actually, there's a client situation I'm thinking of right now. We went into a surgery center and worked with a number of nurses who had to work together day in, day and day out. And they each had a different set of responsibilities depending upon whether they were doing prep or surgery or aftercare, whatever it was. And I'm still working with them over a period of time. And they're spending a lot of time just getting to know each other. So a piece of it is them hearing this is the work that I Do hearing this is how people react to the way that they do their work. Actually switching roles and acting out each other's jobs and seeing how difficult they may be, what's different about it, and engaging in long term conversation. None of this happens overnight. So you have to practice it and you have to work on it. This organization that we're working with has committed a lot of time, energy, dollars, etc. Into building the relationship and creating stronger teams. But it takes that listening and making room for the other in that work relationship.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I often wonder if the way that we encourage kids to be excellent at a young age, where there are persistent pursuing goals, which I think is admirable, you know, and I have three kids, I want them to pursue goals. But if this sort of singularity towards one's own personal excellence leads away from an excellence in collaboration, and I don't want to blame any, I don't want to blame the educational system, there's not any blame. But I wonder if maybe there we could do a better job as a culture and encouraging collaboration at an earlier age.

Jan Kearce:

I think that's the time to start. I mean, if you read all about brain science and what's happening at zero to five in terms of children and their brains and how they learn to be collaborative or whether they get sucked into video games or whatever it is, I mean, that's the time to start. And actually, I think we are raised more in a competitive culture, so we don't tend to naturally collaborate like other societies and cultures do. So it takes some work to get people to start dropping some of those competitive ways of being in order for them to collaborate. Competition is not necessarily a bad thing because we all. It encourages us to excel. So how do we, how do we excel in a way that is complementary to other people's goals is how I look at it from the community perspective. So for example, one of the ways of working today is called collective impact. And organizations are looking at how they can work on homelessness or work on graduation rates or whatever it is collectively. And if you think about that from a big picture of community perspective, each organization has a way that's working on such an effort, has a way that they work on it, their expertise comes to bear, their energy comes to bear in a certain way on those initiatives. And so in that way, we want people to strive hard to achieve their individual goal as part of a collective effort. So I think that, that the more we can do to incorporate that in the way that we teach children or we raise children, the better off we'll be as we bring them into meaningful work roles in our society. And I think that's happening to some degree. I may be optimistic as people call me, but as I think about some of the schools that I've been talking with lately about the way they approach education, there's more and more of that that I see and hear about people being taught, little kids being taught systems thinking. Systems thinking as an 8 year old. And what does that mean? Oh, my behavior when I do this. Johnny feels this way, or Sally feels that way or whatever. How does it all fit together to create the environment that we want to be in? That's the kind of training and education that would be great for all of our youth to participate in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I agree with you. I do think it's getting better. And having had two kids graduate from high school and another one in high school now, I have seen this personally happening and I think a lot of people are spending time with that goal. But you're right, I think there is also the importance of being personally excellent. So to be. It's kind of a simultaneous. That we all need to individually strive for things, but also collectively strive and accept that other people's roles are complementary to ours. But that's a very high level and sometimes not always easy tightrope to walk on.

Jan Kearce:

No, I mean, because we, we are in a we want to win culture. And so it's a. And even in the work that we do, sometimes we see a lot of those kinds of power plays where people want to. They want to be the organization that comes out on top or particularly in the nonprofit world, there's a lot of competition for donors and grants and all of that. And people feel a little at times envious of another organization that gets the big grant or the big donors along with their cause or whatever it may be. So it's hard to be egalitarian, we'll put it that way. At times when you have a cause and you believe in your cause and you don't have all the resources that you potentially need to carry it out, what we do about that, we recognize our humanness, I suppose, and then we move on and say good for them. And we work on getting our next grant or our next dollar to do the good work that we do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I was interested in how you were gonna frame that so that we could bring it back to the positive. Because I think that that is exactly what happens. That at some point you just come to some place of peace with regard to that and then live your life again. And move forward.

Jan Kearce:

Right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But the humanness, I'm sure, is very interesting for you, given that you work with such a broad diversity of individuals

Jan Kearce:

and organizations, and that's what makes it interesting, I have to say. I also have a minor in psychology, so I'm always fascinated by the people that we work with. And often when we go into an organization and people are struggling in some way with their staff or their boards or or whatever it is, the personalities all come to play. But no one there is trying to do a bad job, right? They all believe in the cause or they wouldn't be there. It's just that their belief systems or their value systems or whatever their ways of being may come into conflict. And so a piece of what we do is try to get people on the same path. At least they don't have to be the same people for sure, but the same path so they can move forward together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jan, how can people find out about lift 360?

Jan Kearce:

Well, that's easy. It's just go to www.lift360.org.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I am fascinated by the work that you're doing. I love thinking about the systems theory and I just love this stuff. So it's been very exciting for me to talk to you and I'm hoping that lift360 continues to do amazing work for decades into the future. We've been speaking with Jan Kierce, who's the executive director of Lyft 360. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Jan Kearce:

You're welcome. It's been my pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Lovemain radio show number 205, bettering businesses and Nonprofits. Our guests have included Jula Sampson and Jan Kierce. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Love Maine Radio. Also, read about our guests in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. So please let us know what you think of Love Mean Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Bettering Businesses and Nonprofits show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.