I was listening to a podcast this week where the guest responded to a question on his definition of success. Much of what mattered to him doesn’t to me so I thought it would be interesting to take a crack at my own definition. It’s a fun exercise.

My definition of success looks like…

• Maintaining high-quality relationships with your spouse, family, and friends;
• Having agency and a very high degree of control (within reason) over your schedule and how time is spent;
• Spending time pursuing physical and intellectual challenges that are rewarding to accomplish and in which the pursuit itself is gratifying regardless of the outcome;
• Feeling your professional time and efforts matter, can make a meaningful impact, and relate to a field you’re passionate about;
• Spending professional time working with people you enjoy working with;
• Continuously learning;
• Having sufficient wealth so a) money takes up a minimal amount of mental energy and plays a small role in most decisions, and b) affords you the ability to dine out as often as you’d like, and to order what you’d like without too much consideration for price; and
• Living an authentic life where you feel you show up both socially and professionally as your true self.

I didn’t spend too much time on this so I’m not certain it’s exhaustive, but these all came to mind quickly.

It will be fun to look back at this in a few years and see if anything changes.

If you live in Toronto or have visited at any point in the past five years, you almost certainly have engaged in the traffic discussion. I started traveling more seriously to and from Toronto a little over ten years ago and the route from my parent’s house, where I typically stay, to the airport typically takes me on the Allen to get to the 401. When they first broke ground on the Eglington line, I was excited about finally adding to the city’s insufficient public transit network. World class cities require extensive public infrastructure. Over ten years later and with no end in sight, the whole project has turned into a real “laugh / cry” situation and public embarrassment.

During my Secondment period at SIG Combibloc, I had the pleasure of visiting numerous SIG manufacturing facilities around the globe, including those in Germany, Switzerland, the US, China, and Brazil. Despite for the most part producing the same or similar goods and equipment, the variance across facilities was stark. What fascinated me most was how culturally different the attitudes were across the workforces. China stood out in terms of the employee’s dedication and commitment. I recall observing the shift supervisor address the floor workers before their shift began and seeing them sign off with a collective chant; it reminded me of a well-trained military. It was by far the most productive and efficient plant at that time. I reflect on that experience whenever I see videos of large-scale infrastructure rapidly being built in China (e.g., train stations in a day, hospitals in a week, etc.). It seems to me that China has a clear commitment to the “greater good” (e.g., building infrastructure) at the expense of the individual.

I was in Toronto recently and the radio was covering a story about a man who lives next to the site of a future Ontario line station in the East end. He was complaining to a sympathetic reporter about the non-stop noise and disruption he was suffering as they built out the station by his house and shared the effort he was putting into contacting his MP and Metrolinx to limit their working hours. I couldn’t help but think how a Chinese citizen complaining about the same situation would be received and what a distinct illustration of the value we ascribe to individual rights. For the sake of this one guy’s personal inconvenience, we might add months or years to a project that will support millions of people.

I’m an optimistic person but I have zero confidence in North America’s ability to build large scale infrastructure efficiently. We value the individual over the collective, which has many merits. But not when it comes to building public infrastructure. Hopefully I’ll be wrong.

I’m a big believer in delivering feedback early, and often. So, with Henry approaching his first birthday in June, I thought it was time to start putting in place a more structured feedback loop and delivered his first official performance review. It was different than other performance reviews, since he’s currently navigating a pre-verbal communication phase. Naturally, I had to leverage my training in Situational Leadership and adapt my style to his maturity and ability. Based on his current role level and life tenure, I decided to limit my focus to a few key takeaways.

I spoke with him about two key areas I’ve identified for improvement: trying to avoid shitting on one’s own private parts, and physically abusing the family canine, Frankie. I consider both to be serious subjects, so I was disappointed when he started to giggle as I raised these.

On the other hand, I commended him on his negotiation skills. Julia is a tough boss but I’ve noticed Henry escalate situations rapidly at times of disagreement through the use of physical force and vocal expression, almost always allowing him to achieve his desired outcome. I complimented him on his strategies and may try to leverage these learnings the next time I am dealing with a challenging client.

For his professional development plan, I’m hoping for enhanced mobility skills with an annual objective of independent bipedal movement without faceplants and refined mealtime execution, with a goal of 80% food-to-mouth. I offered up a stretch goal related to personal hygiene and diaper awareness, while acknowledging that may be ambitious at this stage.

He did not participate in a 360-degree review component for this cycle, but I am expecting a constant feedback stream for the rest of my life.

Overall rating: Good boy

Hope everyone has a good April 1^st tomorrow 😊