Pete’s Blog

Are We Really Listening?

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

Are We Really Listening?We all have expectations for our children. Some might be happy if the kids just stay out of jail, but most people want them to grow up to make important contributions to our world. When my son, Stephen, was in second and third grade, I tried to help him as often as possible with his homework assignments. I was a college accounting professor at Ohio Dominican University at the time, so I had more flexibility with after-school availability than did my wife, whose position as general manager of a Macy’s department store was highly demanding.

Every day, I would battle with Stephen to get him to do his homework. I felt frustrated, because I was intent on helping him avoid the same mistakes that I had made. Each day was a struggle. I’d get on his case about reading, doing his math, etc., and he would respond by expressing how much he disliked doing any of it.

Finally, it got to the point where we were advised to see a counselor about it. Lo and behold, he had been dealing with ADHD along with a reading disorder all along – which explained his negativity in getting his homework done.

That experience taught me a lot. Not only had I realized I wasn’t listening to my child and what his concerns were, I was pushing my agenda on him – not allowing myself to see past my own expectations. What I learned was that this was a case of the parent needing to listen, not of the child needing to listen. As parents we tend to simply tell the kids what they must do—and that can lead to a variety of problems.

How often have we worked under someone like this, or been like this toward our team? Not allowing ourselves to be open to new possibilities or sensitive to the needs of those that we manage? The whole idea of improvisation in the workplace helps us learn to be aware, responsive and adaptive to our environments, all with a positive outlook and approach.

Learn more about how improvisation can help you be a more effective leader, team member, family member, etc. Tune into my podcast series Improv is No Joke! Available on iTunes and my website.

Improv + Business = BFFs

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

Improv+Business+BFFsI’ll be the first one to tell you improv isn’t all about comedy and making people laugh. However, my introduction to improv was a result of finding and using comedy as a coping mechanism to deal with a number of challenges life threw my way.

I’ve never truly fit in. Being adopted, I tended to feel that way. I was a Greek American living in Lexington, Kentucky, in the 1960s and 1970s. We celebrate Easter at a different time than other people each year – that’s kind of hard for a kid to explain to his friends. When I was in a fraternity in college, I told the others that I wouldn’t be moving back into the house the next year because I was going to work on my grades. They told me they would kick me out if I did that, and they did. I was always different.

What I realized though was the power of comedy and laughter. I found I was able to make people laugh, and that brought me great satisfaction. I don’t think this is an uncommon feeling amongst comedians – they somehow feel “different” than everyone else in some way and humor is a good way to bridge the gap. Even though I would become an accountant, I eventually realized that I could perhaps marry the two worlds. As a result, I have shared the power improvisation can have in all aspects of life, including business.

A major lesson that I got from improv is that it’s okay to make mistakes, learn from them, be myself and just keep moving forward. I have written a number of blogs that speak to specific improv techniques, but ultimately integrating improvisation into our lives fosters the following:

  • Communication
  • Awareness
  • Adaptability
  • Calm in Chaos
  • Positive Attitude
  • Humor

How can you go wrong with those attributes? Learn more about how improv principles can improve your career by tuning into my new podcast series Improv is No Joke!, available on iTunes and my website.

You Never Know Where It Might Lead…

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

You Never Know Where It Might LeadEvery day we come in contact with a number of different people. Some interactions are brief and others unexpectedly change the course of our lives. You never know what kind of chance opportunities you may come across when interacting with others. It’s like coming across the secret prize in the classic Cracker Jack boxes – it’s exciting! However, reaping the unexpected rewards of those interactions requires you to actually interact – or open the box and start eating.

But, I Don’t Wanna…

In today’s commercial airline industry, planes are rarely left with any seats available – meaning everyone is packed in like sardines. Depending on the duration of your flight, you are guaranteed to be sitting closely to at least one individual you don’t know for at least one hour. Oftentimes people go into the situation with headphones in ears, books or electronic devices out to make a clear point of “don’t bother me.” But, what if you decided to take opportunity to at least engage a bit? You could be sitting next to a famed athlete, a first-responder with amazing stories, a high profile chef that owns three restaurants in Las Vegas, a popular musician, or an elderly man/woman who can speak to events of the past…the possibilities are endless.

You just never know what might happen when you meet somebody. At times we turn away from such opportunities. “I don’t want to do that,” we tell ourselves. “I don’t want to go out there.” When I was chair of the executive board, I got a call from the Ohio Society staff asking me if I would take three speakers out to dinner who were in town to deliver a seminar the next day on international accounting and global standards.

My gut reaction was that I didn’t really want to do it. “I don’t know these guys,” I told myself, “but I might as well, because you never know.” I told my wife that the dinner was at 6:30 and I’d be home by 8:30 at the latest. However, what I didn’t expect happened: we had a great time. We didn’t know one another from Adam, and yet the comfort was immediate, as if we were old friends. The conversation gelled immediately. We laughed and shared stories until closing time.

It Will Always Pay Off

One of those gentlemen became a client of mine. A nice revenue stream opened. It never would have happened had I shirked away from putting myself out there and doing something not completely in my comfort zone. We all reach that point in time when we ask, “Do I have to go? Do I want to go?” We hem and haw (just like the two characters in Who Moved My Cheese) and risk missing out. I just know that I’m glad that I went to that dinner and met those gentlemen. Not only was it a good time, but it was time well spent.

The clear pathway to business may not always be there and that’s ok. You need to focus on building relationships. You need to step out there, into new territory, and get to know people. That’s what leads to friendships, which are important in themselves. And, of course, friendships often open the door to opportunities. When you shake a hand, start a conversation, you never know where it might lead.

Learn more about how you can more easily and comfortably seize these with the “yes, and…” approach and other improvisation principles in my book, Improv is No Joke.

More Than Facts

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

More Than FactsAccountants are very facts-oriented people. The common challenge is to get them to see that there’s more to their profession than just the facts and figures. Because, you really do need more than the facts. Creativity is such an integral part of business success – it’s what drives ingenuity and innovation. When creativity and facts combine, great things can happen.

It’s funny how many people count themselves out of being considered “creative.” I speak more to this in another article, which you can read here. But I reference IDEO CEO, David Kelley, speaking to this very idea: that we somehow believe that we aren’t creative, when in reality every single human being is creative – it’s in our nature.

I’ve seen this firsthand when I do a creativity workshops and ask those attending whether they think of themselves as creative, maybe one or two people will raise a hand. “You weren’t born and raised in this profession, were you?” I ask the group. “I bet you started out doing other things. You’re like me.” And they often agree. “I think I’m an Accidental Accountant™, too,” I regularly hear after my presentations. “I was a social worker before I got into this”—or some other career path that calls for people-oriented, right brain thinking. I show them ways that they can be creative.

Often their mindset is that they really do just want the facts, and they can be very introverted and reluctant to share their thoughts. That’s quite an impediment to creative thinking. Every time I’ve done a creativity workshop, whether it’s for an organization or accounting firm or as a general seminar, there’s a strange thing called laughter that happens. I see accountants having fun—while also coming up with ideas and solutions. I think they kind of amaze themselves.

In the end, a field like accounting involves a lot of numbers, yes, but those numbers represent someone’s life’s work and dreams and desires. You have to get those numbers right, and accuracy is essential, but you also need to know what those numbers stand for. Otherwise, they’re just digits in the ether. That’s what ties it all together, the fact that we’re human beings on a common journey, trying to accomplish something together. That’s why we need to let creative ideas bubble up where they will. If you keep bursting those bubbles, you lose so much opportunity.

Learn more about how improv principles can improve your career, plus hear from my expert guests on other leadership and marketing skills, by tuning into my new podcast series Improv is No Joke, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and my website.

Risky Behavior – The Good Kind

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

Risky Behavior - The Good KindThere’s risk in everything we do – and as they sometimes say, the greater the risk the greater the reward. While I’m not a proponent of extremely risky behavior – it is beneficial for us to wade waters of the unknown.

But, doing so is extremely uncomfortable you may be thinking! Improvisation involves the ability to take risks while understanding that some things won’t work out. You have to accept the fact that you will fail—but through failure, you grow. If we just take the easy path, we miss out on life – we don’t put ourselves out there to explore what we can really do.

I’m cautious about life-threatening risks, of course, but one must consider the ramifications of all risks. I’ve become much stronger in my ability to assess them. Being an accountant is challenging, especially when you have ADHD and a bit of dyslexia. It’s like hiring Robin Williams to do your taxes—“good mooorning, IRS!” But, it’s worked out and I’ve been successful despite the perceived “risks.”

Margie Warrell, a contributor to Forbes and author of Brave, outlined four reasons why we tend to be risk averse: we over-estimate the probability of something going wrong; we exaggerate the consequences of what might happen if it does go wrong; we under estimate our ability to handle the consequences or risk; and we discount or deny the cost of inaction, and sticking with the status quo.”

It’s hard to go out on a limb and reach the fruit sometimes – it can be terrifying. But, all successful people have something in common: they took a number of risks along the way, benefitting from not only the successes, but the failures of those risks and decisions.

So with that, here are some inspirational quotes from famous individuals that we all know took great risks and leaps of faith:

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller

 

“A ship is always safe at the shore – but that is not what it is built for.” – Some attribute this to Albert Einstein

 

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk…In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

 

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” – Both Henry Ford and Tony Robbins

 

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

 

“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” – Ellen DeGeneres

Feel motivated yet? Risks are important, they’re necessary to your success. Learn how to more comfortably take them with the application of improvisation. Take the Yes, And Challenge. Sign-up at www.petermargaritis.com and share your experience on Twitter and Facebook using #YesAndChallenge.