Big Fish Blog
September 17th, 2014
Last month marked the anniversary of Cole Consulting’s 20th year in business.
It was exactly that long ago that I stood, waist deep, in the crystal clear waters of Long Pond, on Cape Cod, and, thankfully, for the last time complained to my dear old childhood friend Bob that I just didn’t want to go back to work. Again. Work at that time meant managing teams in the energy services industry; aka building automation, computer controls, HVAC.
And I didn’t go back.
I went forward.
I took the leap, as entrepreneurs are prone to do, of opening not just a business but an expression of everything I hold near and dear. I had lots of help during those early years and I practiced the wisdom of my mentors: I trusted the dance. I persevered. I held on to the belief that ‘the customer is always right’.
And the right customers have consistently come to me, for which I am eternally grateful.
In my sixteen years in the energy services business I really liked the problem solving/energy saving/high tech cool stuff that came with the job. What I really loved was the team building and leadership/team development opportunities that my managerial positions afforded.
Over these past 20 years I have had the incredibly good fortune of working with some of the finest, most creative, dedicated, humble leaders anyone could hope for. I’ve learned as much as I’ve shared. I feel honored to be trusted by such an esteemed collection of inspirational leaders, movers and shakers, community-centric connectors, and just plain fun individuals to be around. On an almost continual basis my faith in our collective humanity is restored and reinvigorated.
I am extremely grateful to all of you, my clients and friends, who have allowed me into your lives and honored me through your courage, your insatiable appetite for learning and your willingness to try on new ways of being in the world.
Thank you for being part of my 20 years of right livlihood!
Here’s to the next 20…
June 25th, 2012
Sitting in one of those hard plastic, butt numbing chairs at the local police station (a room I had passed by on numerous occasions over the years on my way to City Council meetings, as part of my duties as a School Board member), I was suddenly taken by the irony of it all. 
Waiting for the police to bring my 15 year-old son in after he ran away from home it hit me like a Mac truck. How in the world could I have been so judgmental for so many years, thinking that other parents just didn’t have it together enough to know how to be good parents? Thinking that we were so much better, so much more together in our parenting approach, which (somehow) would translate into a free pass, a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, when it came to truly difficult parenting problems.
Boy I didn’t see that one coming! Not only did I not see it, I thought after twenty years into the whole parenting gig, we were out of the woods. Though when I looked back to my early parenting complaining years, there were certainly many assurances by our older friends, who had older kids (aka teenagers) that dealing with dirty diapers was a piece of cake compared to parenting teens. Once I realized how blind I had been I felt incredibly humbled by my hubris. And, I felt in awe of all of those tortured parents I had judged so harshly for so many years.
Going from Blind Spot to Paradigm Shift is not an easy thing to do. Sometimes we need to get hit over the head with an oversized 2×4. For some of us (myself included) a 2×4, even applied multiple times isn’t sufficient. Sometimes we need a Mac truck.
So how can we improve our odds of moving from a blind spot to a paradigm shift, before we hurt ourselves or others?
• Expand our view, and perspective, so we might better see our judgments and biases (i.e. talking/listening to my friends who also had teenagers while keeping an open mind that their experience might be more similar to my own than I might expect.)
• Seek and be open to receiving regular feedback, from as many different people as possible.
• Recognize that there may be some old family systems that we habitually keep repeating, blindly, even though they don’t serve us anymore. This can be a wealth of information for many of us as we look to be the kind of parent that takes the best of our parents parenting while leaving the ‘not so best’ behind. Please check out our resource section on Bowen Family Systems for some great additional reading.
Back to the uncomfortable Police Station chair. While it wasn’t painless, or seamless, or easy in any stretch of the imagination, we (and by “we” I mean the whole family, my wife and I and all three of our kids) made changes to our family systems, including a change in schools for our 15 year-old. We practiced limits with love, getting better at understanding the tipping point between compassion and co-dependence. We learned, and continue to learn, that life is lifey. It’s imperfect. It’s messy. But boy, it’s never dull or boring!
My shift occurred the way most significant change occurs… very gradually and then suddenly all at once. I suppose that there were years and years of learning that certain things just weren’t working. But I kept my guard up, often blamed others and remained confident in my unknowingness. And then, slam, bam, thank you ma’am. It was all so obvious. I had been judging others harshly, to a standard that is impossible to attain. Perfection.
We all do the best we can. And sometimes it’s just not enough. But it’s the best we can do. No judgments. No blame.
My son is 32 now and a successful sustainable food systems consultant. We love each other very much, and tell each other that on a regular basis, and, at the end of the day, that’s what matters most.
December 12th, 2011
Much has been written recently about the Women’s Movement – the accomplishments and failures of feminism in general and the relevance of some the movement’s leaders in particular. Growing up as a young kid in the 50’s I was right at home having a mom who would never have been referred to as a ‘stay at home mom’, though that is surely what she was. As a teenager in the 60’s, being the youngest of her three, it did seem that she was the ‘unusual’ mom when she went from volunteering at my elementary school library and started working part-time at the local Doubleday bookstore. The books may have been the same but the experience was totally different – all of a sudden I was a latch-key kid with all of the requisite perks and liabilities. And mom had the kind of self respect that comes from earning her own money outside of the home. She wasn’t earning as much money as her male counterparts (nor were any or her ‘female sisters’) but at least she was expanding her horizons and getting paid for it.
The Women’s Movement aimed at shattering sexism, specifically by breaking through the glass ceiling, among many other worthy targets. Women do earn more than they did pre-feminism. There are more women executives now than ever before. And yet, when you dig into the lives of women executives (or women in general I imagine) you find ample evidence that the glass ceiling is more secure, and more difficult to penetrate, than ever. For those of you looking for some good advice on how to pierce that barrier, I recommend “Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth.” Author Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe, takes an in-depth look at how women today achieve their deserved recognition and financial worth. As pointed out on Amazon (where you can go to buy the book) “it’s no secret that women have long been overlooked and under-compensated, and while great strides have made in recent decades, the value placed on women versus their male counterparts is still consistently unbalanced.”
Before we move to the point I want to make as hinted to by the title of this blog, let’s consider that while compensation is important, in oh-so-many ways (survival, recognition, self worth, organizational influence, etc.), it’s not what we’re going to hear eulogized at our funerals. If you are a working (outside the home) mom and you’re interested in that kind of fullfillment, and I’m hoping you are, take a look at “The Working Mother’s Manifesto: This is How We Do It”. This piece opens the door on the ‘less is more’ theory by recognizing that a) money not only isn’t everything, it’s not even close, and, b) when you’re willing to negotiate getting less money (for less time worked) you can get more of what you really want, time for yourself and time to spend with the people you love. This is where Carol Evans, the author, and CEO of Working Mother magazine, encourages working mothers (and fathers) to ask their organizations for what they need to attain a healthy balance between work and family.
So, that last parenthentical phrase “(and fathers)” is where I’m heading. Yes, we had a Women’s Movement, and much progress was made, certainly not as much as we’d have liked, especially when it comes to equity in compensation, but progress nontheless. What’s been missing is a movement of equal size and weight for men. About men. By men.
Now I’m going to say something that many of you will rail against. You may even curse, and moan, and some of you will want to throw things and some of you will definitely want to stop reading. Please don’t! Bear with me a minute. Here it comes…
Men are the oppressed gender. There, I’ve said it. Ok, please put down whatever it was you were about to toss in my direction. You may even want to take a deep breath. Let’s take a look. Together.
When it comes to what really, really matters in life, what are we talking about? Yes, money and the attending comfort and security that it brings are huge. But let’s face it, how many eulegies have you heard that focused on how much money that person had? Or that even mentioned money? I’m guessing none, or at least very, very few.
What we do hear, and not just at funerals but at retirement banquets, testimonial dinners, toasts at family events is how much love people had in their lives. How much love they gave and how much they were loved. It is in this category that men are culturally at a severe disadvantage. At least through my generation (Boomers) we were told not to cry (“be a big boy now”), not to be ‘weak’ (“suck it up”) or even talk about our feelings. We were expected to be the bread winners (at least that’s changed generationally) and though we could help change diapers and share in the household chores it was the rare man who elected to be a stay-at-home dad while mom brought home the bacon. Yes, many of us did break a few barriers, mostly through the requirements necessitated by being a dual income family. But in the end we were not encouraged to go the extra mile to ensure that we’d have the time and energy to secure the kind of deep, spiritually based connections with our kids, our friends, our families, our communities that women just naturally fall into.
I’m hoping that it’s not too late. For a Mens Movement or, better still, a Peoples Movement, where we all get to focus on the things that really matter. Time with our loved ones (and I’m not talking just a weeks vacation a year), time to reflect, time to connect, time to feel.
Happy Holidays!
April 4th, 2011
It was 1986. I just had to scratch the entrepreneurial itch again. I had helped start a parent-cooperative elementary school, The Schoolhouse, ten years earlier, and wanted to start something in my ‘new’ field, energy conservation / energy management, which I entered back in ’79 after six years as an educator. Bernie Sanders 
had been elected Mayor of Burlington by a 10 vote margin five years earlier and Burlington was just beginning to be a hotbed for progressive politics, food and business, my real passions.
I answered an ad in the Burlington Free Press titled “Wanted: General Manager/Entrepreneur” to start-up and head-up an employee-owned and managed energy services company, that was to be the for-profit part of Vermont Energy Investment Corp’s (VEIC) double business plan.
More →
January 31st, 2011
Talk about a tough job load! Yes, I know how hard many of our CEO’s have it, especially the women CEO’s and executives who not only have to juggle the demands of employees, customers, their Board, the Street and whatever current key stakeholder has their hooks into them at any given moment. But for a minute consider Moses… when God handed him the Ten Commandments and told him he had to both lead his people out of servitude, into the desert AND institute an whole new set of policies and procedures.
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October 27th, 2010
Don’t know if this is pc or not. Calling out what I just keep noticing over and over again, in all kinds of industries, in all types of positions, across the six different decades I’ve had the good fortune to work with/for others. Women make better leaders than men. Maybe not managers… but maybe that too. Definitely better leaders though.
I base my assertion on what appears to be a generally higher level of emotional intelligence, more intuitive decision making, more effective communicating and a cohort that is better able to motivate others through both personal and organizational connection.
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September 29th, 2010
Summer to fall, leaves dropping all around along with the temperature. A good time to check in with myself and take stock of all the things I’ve committed to over the past year, notice what’s grown, what’s gone fallow and what needs some attention.
Is it just me or do you notice too that we live in a culture that just doesn’t seem to value contemplation and reflection?
I’m not talking about the ‘stop and smell the roses’ kind either… though I sure do appreciate it when I take the time to do that. More of a ‘stop the presses’ kind of thing.
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September 3rd, 2010
How EI Competencies Lift the Bottom Line | Human Capital Institute.
July 16th, 2010
no way jose,
not in any way, shape, form, flow, or feeling…
no matter how you shape it, shake it, even bake it, it always comes back to 2009 was just an INSANE year…… on pretty much every level, though certainly not on every level. But so many of the big ones – close friend & neighbor dying after a feisty, fierce, sometimes funny but mostly heart wrenchingly Fellini film-like unfolding; workload going from best-ever to slower than molasses; blended family issues galore; and the list goes on and on. Really too bizarre to even remember them all much less take the precious time to write them down, and then maybe even share them far and wide, in the world-wide kinda way that blogging seems to be.
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March 27th, 2010
This particular line of reasoning was originally inspired by an educator, Parker Palmer (http://www.couragerenewal.org/), who wrote a few books on this theme, Courage to Teach and Courage to Lead. His hypothesis goes something like this…
Good teachers are good at two essential elements of teaching – they know their subject (content experts) and they know how to teach it (pedagogy). All well and good.
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