Life Story

One the things we were asked to do as "homework" ahead of the 2nd RLF session was to write our life story to share with the rest of the people in our group.

I've written a couple of drafts - and I may make a few other changes - but here's my story:

I was born in Bristol, an industrial town in the South West of England, in the mid-1960’s to parents who were already looking after a son of almost 4 and a daughter of almost 3. My mom had known something felt different about her pregnancy, but it wasn’t until 4 weeks before I was born that she insisted on an x-ray (ultrasounds still being a thing of the future…), and learned that she was having twins. My brother and I arrived, and my mom was now caring for four children under 4.

I remember very little of my early childhood in Bristol – a few snatched memories of me running through the school with huge boxes of chips stacked up on either side of the corridor, and the caretaker from the high school who used to mow the field that backed onto our garden and would hand us sweets through the fence (something for which he would probably be arrested now a days).

At age 4 our family moved to Amersham – a small commuter town 30 miles North West of London, in the rolling Chiltern hills of Buckinghamshire. Childhood was uneventful for the most part – I enjoyed school, I enjoyed living in the countryside, and I enjoyed being part of Scouts, where I learned to love the outdoors and outdoor activities such as hiking and camping – something which has remained to this day.

The one part of growing up that stands out as I was getting older was the gulf that there seemed to be between my older brother and me. Although only four years separated us it seemed much more. Richard didn’t find school easy, dropping out before he was 16 and starting work at the local hospital where my Dad worked. As was typical for many teenagers he also started drinking – I have vivid memories of waking up late at night hearing him arguing with Mum and Dad after arriving home from the pub drunk. My Dad was quite reserved, and I think found this hard to deal with. He was born in Germany in 1929, the only son of a middle class Jewish family. As Germany moved towards the 2^nd World War and the hostility towards Jews increased, his parents moved to London. Dad had to learn a new language and culture when he arrived in England, but completed High School and later qualified as a hospital Laboratory Technician and eventually became a Chief Medical Laboratory Scientific Officer, running his own hematology lab at the local hospital.

I guess it may be because of the conflict that existed between my older brother and my parents that I went out of my way to try and make life easy on them. One of the characteristics that many people have used to describe me is diplomatic, and I wonder to what extent that trait was formed through those early experiences.

Recently I read an article in Time magazine which said college students graduating now were likely to change career at least 4 times over the course of their lives. As I look back I think that’s pretty much how my career has developed.

I left school at 18, having decided when I was 16 that I wanted to follow my sister and Mum into nursing. I was accepted at University College Hospital and started my 3 ½ year training in 1984. I met my future wife, Rachel, in 1985 through a church we were both involved in. I was head over heels in love, and after dating for 6 months we got engaged, and were married 6 months later – when I was 20 and Rachel was 21. Living in central London and trying to rent a place to live whilst on a student nurses salary became untenable, and so I made one of the hardest decisions of my life, giving up nursing before completing my formal training. It was a decision that hurt my parents, particularly my Mum, and I don’t think I’ve had a worse conversation than the one I had when I told them I was leaving that job. I always find it amazing to think back on decisions that impact the rest of your life so dramatically – if I had continued my nurse training it is likely I would never have ended up working for Pfizer, would never have moved to the US, and wouldn’t be sharing my story with the RLF group in New York…

After leaving nursing I moved to the South East coastal town of Ramsgate where we had friends, and ended up working as a Financial Advisor for a real estate company. This in turn led me to apply for a place on a management training scheme with a UK bank, and so began the second phase of my career.

After successfully completing the management training program I was given responsibility for managing a retail bank branch in the historic city of Canterbury where the building we occupied dated from the 15^th Century and was within a stones throw of Canterbury Cathedral. Four years after starting work there I was offered the opportunity to join an initiative where the bank was looking at how to use technology to enable more efficient processes across its network of branches and mortgage processing centers. I joined as a Project Analyst and got my first taste of technology and project work and found that I loved both. After 2 years the group was relocated to Yorkshire in Northern England. I was offered the chance to move too but decided that with a young family it wasn’t the right time. This put a ceiling on my career in the bank so I looked for my next role (and career move number three) and a temporary job opened up at the European Headquarters of the Pharmaceutical company Pfizer, based just 6 miles from where I was living. I joined in 1997, becoming a permanent member of staff a year later, and have been with the company since.

My first role at Pfizer was helping establish and manage a Project Support Office, and then I moved into a Business Management role and eventually Project and Program Management. Following Pfizer’s acquisition of Pharmacia in 2003, there were large scale staff reductions in the UK, and I was offered a chance to relocate to Connecticut to join Pfizer’s Global R&D operations as a Project Manager supporting Human Resources. This time it was the right move for us to make and so with our two sons, who at that time were 12 and 8, we sold our house in the UK and began a new adventure relocating to the US.

Since moving here we have felt very much at home. Though fiercely proud of their English heritage, our sons wouldn’t want to move back to the UK, and we recently passed that strange milestone where our youngest son, Andrew, has now lived more of his life in the US than in the UK.

Since being part of the Scouts growing up in England, I have loved the outdoors – and so it was natural to get involved in the Scouts here especially as my older son, Matt, also seemed to really enjoy the outdoors. He has pursued this right into college where he will soon graduate with a BS in Recreation, Adventure Travel and Eco-Tourism. He wants to go into guiding for an expedition company and I am sure he will end up moving somewhere with more challenging terrain than Connecticut.

Andrew, is the polar opposite – quieter and more reserved, with great academic drive and no real desire to camp or hike anywhere. It always amazes me how two children, born to the same parents, and raised in the same way, can be so different – I guess that’s the beauty of uniqueness!

Looking ahead, I am wise enough not to say I know what the future holds. My wife is a qualified Yoga and Spin instructor and we both harbor the dream of opening a Bed and Breakfast business somewhere with a Yoga Studio along side it. When and where that will happen we’re not sure yet but I always love looking back and wondering how many of the things I’m doing now I could have predicted 15, 10 or even 5 years ago. It makes me excited to think about where we’ll be and what we’ll be doing 5, 10 or 15 years in the future.

For now I’m enjoying being where I am. I feel challenged at work and am looking forward to learning more about myself and my leadership style through the RLF. One of the challenges laid down for us when we started the program was to be honest, to be open, and to take a risk. I hope I have done this as I have shared my story, and I’m looking forward to what the next 9 months holds in store.

The Meaning of Life

I've just finished reading "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was arrested whilst working in Vienna during the 2nd World War and spent from 1942 to 1945 in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau.

Frankl's book is divided into two parts - the first recounts various experiences from his time in teh concentration camps, and the second part expands on his theory of "logotherapy" an approach which advocates the need for people to find meaning in their lives as a way of being able to deal with the things they go through.

The first section I found both challenging and inspiring - the brutality of what people can do to each other, but also the inspiration of the human spirit - as Frankl says:

"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." (p.66)

It was humbling how in the midst of so much suffering and hardship people still found a way to help each other, comfort each other, support each other.

Some other pieces that inspired me:

"Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." (p.72)

"Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may simply be required to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand." (p.72)

Frankl talks about an existential vacuum - that as many as 60% of American students feel their lives have little meaning - are bored. I look at Andrew sometimes and I can see that beginning to play out - hours spent on the PC or playing video games. In itself there's nothing wrong with that - and it's partly his way of being social as he plays with his friends, but there's also the part of him that says he's bored and there's nothing to do - when we live in a society and at a time when the possibilities of what to do are more extensive then they have probably been at any other time.

"As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning." (p.140).

The challenge is how to help Andrew, and others, access that freedom and help them to have something to live for.

As Frankl talks about the meaning of life, he doesn't identify a single thing that creates meaning, rather he says:

"What matters therefore is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." (p.108). Comparing it to the best move in chess, he says that there is no "best" move in chess, apart from in the context of the particular game one is playing. In the same way, the meaning of one's life can't be divorced from the context in which the question is being asked. The particular time, the particular circumstance.

It's an interesting thought - as when I was younger and more actively engaged in church life, I would have said that the meaning of my life was bound up in my faith and belief in God. Now I think it's not as clear as that, and I could identify with Frankl's comments regarding it being more situational than permanent. In contrast to Freudian theory, or other theories that place the emphasis on people being "happy", and at a basic level are therefore somewhat selfish, the basic premise of logotherapy is that "...man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life." (p.113).

Another quite that struck me was:

"An incurable psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo." (p.133) In other words, people have an inherent dignity and self worth and should not be seen as worth-less if they are unable to things which society deems as "useful" or "meaningful". In seeing people who are elderly, incapacitated, suffering from mental illness, society seems to assign these people to the scrap heap and I can see this happening more and more as the disparity between those who have and those who don't have grows. I want to challenge myself to look at the dignity beyond the "value" or "contribution" that a person can (or can't) make.

So where does this leave me...? What changes in me as a result of this book...?

I feel challenged to get more involved in giving myself away - in community service and other activities that focus me outwards. I recently helped at a Habitat For Humanity build day, and that's something I'd like to do again. Please challenge me and ask me how I'm doing...it's easy to want to change, it's a whole different thing to realize those changes.

More later.

The start of something new...SIM RLF - Session #1

I just attended the first session of the 2012 SIM (Society for Information Management) Regional Leadership Forum in New York.

Pfizer are a sponsor of the RLF and usually send about 10 people to the course. There are two of us from Groton attending the New York Metro (NYM) RLF, along with three or four other Pfizer colleagues from NY, NJ and PA.

The first session was excellent - there were 5 books we had to read in preparation. Reading is something i enjoy but don't do quickly, so I found it a challenge to get through all the books. The last one (Theft of The Spirit) I didn't finish until the day before, and probably rushed it, so I didn't really get that much out of it. I was talking to Chris C about it back in Groton and he said he had really enjoyed it - so perhaps it's one I should go back and read again in the future (when I get through the other 25 books I need to read...!).

Often I think the best things about these types of courses are the people you meet - and based on the first couple of days I think this is going to be the same. A really good mix of people - some interesting backgrounds and I am sure there will be lots of learn from people over the course of the year. The two facilitators also seemed really good - I'm looking forward to getting to know them and learning from them.

We had some alumni from last year's RLF talk to us on Monday. One of the things they stressed was about building trust and being open - the more you put in the more you get out etc. I'm hoping that's something I'll be able to do - and perhaps share that as part of this blog as well.

I'm hoping to keep the blog posts up this time as a way of getting down what I'm thinking about as I read and attend the program. I'm also keeping a journal whilst I'm at the course, so I don't want to duplicate that here - but I'm hoping that blogging will help me think through some of the concepts and areas we're learning about.

I just completed the Myers Briggs Personality Type assessment. It's been a few years since I've completed it so it will be interesting to see if anything's changed - 'm not really expecting it to change - and that's consistent with what the research says about it.

I also have to complete a biography before the next class in March...I guess a chance to see how open and honest I want to be...

Ok - that's it for now...back to reading (I've just started Man's Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl). So far it's very absorbing - quite shocking to realize again how brutal the Nazi concentration camps were.

More later.