50 Lessons on Leading

Earlier this year, Gordon Thomas, a close friend of Lilja Inc., told us about this fantastic book Steve Boehlke was writing, containing brief statements about leading and leadership. Shortly thereafter, we were able to connect Steve with another close friend of Lilja Inc., mod&co. And (not so) magically over the past few weeks, Steve’s words, mod&co’s designs, and our publishing expertise has yielded a great little book, 50 Lessons on Leading!

Check it out on Amazon. If you’re located in the Twin Cities, you also can find the book at a variety of gift and book stores. We’re proud of 50 Lessons, and think it’s a great conversation starter.

What lessons on leading have you learned along the way?

 -- Kadee Crottier

Holiday Sugar Without the Calories

I have a little trick for staying positive during the holidays that involves consuming sugar without calories. (No, it’s not diet soda.)

I record all of the television movies with the word “holiday” or “Christmas” in them. There’s Holiday . . . Affairs (original and remake), in Handcuffs, Inn, Switch, Wishes . . . and The Christmas . . . Card, Carol, Child, Chair (and that’s just the c’s), Gift, Proposal, Shoes, Story, Town, Visitor . . . you get the idea.

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I watch one. These simple stories are never about what anybody got, but what they gave, or found – a lost love, a reconciled family - someone or something that sets things right.

As always, it’s the simple things that matter most.

Have a wonderful holiday.

-- Mary Lilja

Remembering the Simplicity of Christmas

“Christmas is not only getting too commercial, it's getting too dangerous.”

Linus Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas

As the parent of two young children, I often wonder what Christmas will look like as the kids get older. As much as we stress that the holiday season is about more than just gifts and material possessions, most parents will agree that seeing your kids beam with excitement as they unwrap that one gift they wished for is a joy in and of itself.

So when my oldest daughter – who is two and a half – said to me that she wanted Santa to bring her Snow White for Christmas, I was amazed with the simplicity of her wish. Of course, I understand that she has no concept of how easily “Santa” could fulfill this wish as compared to, say, a pony.

It’s the simplicity of her wish that made me cherish this moment, knowing that as my children get older, the wishes will only get bigger and the importance of teaching the true meaning of Christmas will only become more important.

So for this year, at least, I am reminded to cherish the simple things that come with Christmas: time with family, food, lights, music and a few gifts sprinkled in for good measure.

-- Alex Cook

Bah Humbug or: How I Learned to Stop Hating Christmas and Love Frozen Appetizers.

When I was a kid, Christmas was full of whimsy and fun and extended breaks from school used for marathon sessions of watching Alf and eating cookies. In college, it was pretty much the same, only the breaks were longer and required round-trip airline ticket.

Somewhere around the time I purchased my first house, I grieved the loss of the Christmas I once knew. Suddenly tasked with putting up a tree, signing and addressing Christmas cards, sourcing wrapping paper I didn’t find tacky, and coming up with dishes to share at holiday parties that were easily transportable, the magic and carefree days were gone.

Now at the final stage of grieving, “Acceptance and Hope,” I’ve decided to do Christmas on my own terms. Among the most controversial of my choices is not putting up the plastic stick with green pointy things that was made in China, more commonly referred to as an Artificial Christmas Tree. If someone asks me why not, I’ll say it’s because my cat likes to climb up it and sway her 8-pound girth to tip it. Let’s just say that’s a half-truth.

I’ve also decided that, on occasion, it’s acceptable to procure a frozen appetizer and pretend it’s my own handiwork. I still enjoy cooking, but allowing myself to do this every now and then makes the times I do cook much more enjoyable.

The one issue I still grapple with is the Christmas Card. The thought of all the paper and postage just to send a pre-made design and message with my signature seems preposterous. But I feel I should return the favor to all who send me a card. Last year, I planned to send a card just to those relatives who didn’t have email, and do an e-card to the rest. But it snowballed and by the time I was done, everyone got a paper card.

I think most of us have little cheats like this we’ve created to cope with holiday stress, but we don’t talk about them, because we’re ashamed of what we’re feeling (no, I’m not talking about spiked eggnog). Maybe it’s nothing monumental, but it’s important to think about, peeling back the layers of this magnified holiday.

-- Alicia DeMatteo

Christmastime at the Crottiers

Sleigh bells ring! Are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening …

Even though my bedroom door is shut, I can hear the piano beckoning me. I try to play hard to get, but it only takes one more song before I follow the sound into the music room.

Mom asks me which one she should play next, and I pick out “Silver Bells.”

When Michelle wanders in, we decide to sing some trios.

We pull out “Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head,” and reminisce how the first time we sang it in church, Michelle pulled the microphone out of Mom’s hand and sang extra loud. I remind her, “You were only three years old!"

We sing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” This is my favorite, because I sing the lowest notes in the chord for the first two verses, then switch up to a high soprano descant. Aren’t I something?

“Why does Kadee always get the harmony? I’m sick of melody!”

“When we started this song, you were too young to sing harmony, Michelle. You can sing harmony on the next one.”

Gramma stops by, and soon she and Mom are playing piano duets. Sometimes I turn pages for them; sometimes Michelle does. “Sleigh Ride” is always fun; Michelle and I sing along at the top of our lungs.

Dad sticks his head in, announcing that popcorn, fruit, pop, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are waiting for us downstairs. Michelle and I race downstairs, gather our food and cuddle with the dog on the floor, while the adults take the chair and the couch.

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.

 -- Kadee Crottier

Some thoughts on Email and Col. Writingpen

In one of my writing classes in college, our final assignment was to write a paper summarizing and evaluating everything we had written over the course of the course. For a creative writing class, it seemed like a fairly dull assignment.

Thus, Col. Writingpen was created to guide my reader through the magical journey of my semester’s worth of papers. I always imagined him appearing out of thin air, like The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, only dressed more like Col. Sanders.

Now that a good portion of my job consists of writing, I rarely take the time to assess my writing’s progress over the course of a few months or year, or years, even. In fact, most of my written materials probably get consumed and discarded in about the same amount of time it took me to write it – I am, of course, referring to email.

What is email? Did we stop to ask ourselves this as it quickly took over the world and our workdays? It replaces all kinds of paper products we used to entrust to the U.S. Postal Service. It replaces those “what time is the conference call” phone calls. Heck, it even replaces the conference call sometimes!

An article in the Wall Street Journal has already proclaimed email dead, slaughtered by Twitter and Facebook and the like – essentially even smaller, quicker forms of communication, only rather than having to fill in those tedious email addresses, your note gets automatically blasted across the universe. For day to day projects, there are even project management tools that replace those “status update” types of emails.

Essentially, we have more communication tools to choose from than ever before. Select the right one, and technology is your best friend, making your daily tasks melt away like butter on hot mashed potatoes.

Select the wrong tool, and you might start to feel the wheels spinning in mud. We all know someone who does this. The person who picks up the phone for EVERYTHING. The person who says “email me your question” and then never responds. The person who posts their thoughts on paperclips and love of Fridays on Facebook. All these tools are rife for abuse!

We at Lilja probably think about these things much more than the average person, being communications professionals. It’s not uncommon for us to have a conversation debating what tool to use in a particular instance.

What do you think? Is email overused? Are there other, more effective tools that you use in place of email? What would Col. Writingpen say?

-- Alicia DeMatteo

Circular

Going through old files today at the office I came across a copy of a poem by Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things,” I’d tucked away years ago and then forgotten.

My choir, Calliope Women’s Chorus, sang a choral arrangement of this poem last year that brought tears to my eyes each time we sang it.

It’s an interesting reminder of how life is a circular event: we tuck away things of beauty, and they reappear years later in the form of a song, or return as we peruse an old file.

I saved “The Peace of Wild Things” because I loved it. It captures the way I sometimes feel about the state of the world: “When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the last sound in fear ….” And how I feel about the peace of wild places: “For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Here’s a copy of this beautiful poem:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

-- Mary Lilja

Pilgrimages, Storytelling and Silliness

My high school drama teacher, Ert “Herm” Jones-Hermerding, recently passed away unexpectedly. To honor him, I made a pilgrimage back to high school, along with more than 350 other former students.

We honored Herm in the best way we could: by telling stories.

For two and a half hours, people walked up to a microphone on stage and remembered him. How he gently reminded us that we could do better (“That was Crap! Garbage, Garbage, Crap!”). How he inspired prank wars between sections of his speech class (“I’m not saying you should do anything. But a class did once, and it was amazing.”). How he would laugh freely and loudly at the least thing. How he helped even the shiest give a speech or audition for a show. How he would whip the football team into a frenzy before a game.

When I was a freshman, I wanted to try out for the musical, but was feeling insecure. I had been singing solos for years, but wasn’t sure about that whole acting thing. I brought my concerns to Herm, who encouraged me to audition anyway. So I did.

I made up a monologue about getting a school rejection letter, and participated in some improv games. At one point, I had an eggbeater and was chasing someone around the stage with it. And I got into the chorus for the show.

Later, I asked him why he cast me. “Well, it certainly wasn’t your monologue,” he said, “because that was crap. But you really threw yourself into the improv exercise. I loved that you were fearless, and I knew I could work with that.”

Like so many of his students, Herm gave me a chance and encouraged me try anything. Especially if I looked silly doing it. I'm the silly looking one in the teal t-shirt right in the middle.

-- Kadee Crottier

Looking at the Fine Print

What do you think of when you hear the phrase, “the fine print”? For many, it’s the microscopic script at the bottom of the page that makes promises of a free cup of coffee or an all-expenses paid trip to the Bahamas “too good to be true.”

But I like to think there is another meaning beyond that. In fact, “the fine print” isn’t always a bad thing.

At Lilja Inc., we are storytellers for our clients. And in the case of Lilja LifeStories, we have quite literally earned this moniker.

As our founder Mary Lilja says, “When you take a seemingly ordinary story – turn it around in your hands and look at it closely – it can become quite remarkable.”

As we prepare a news release or pitch a story to a reporter, we often overlook the smaller details in favor of the “meat,” or the substance of a story. After all, to get your story placed, you have to be focused to garner a reporter’s attention.

So what happens to the “small stuff” that gets overlooked?

Well, that’s where the Lilja ink blog comes in.

We hope to capture these stories and tidbits – to elevate the “fine print” you may have otherwise missed. From a unique anecdote that a client has shared to a great personal story from a family looking at their history, no story is too “small.”

To that end, we challenge you to do the same and look beyond the surface of any story. You may find it will inspire you, make you laugh, or challenge your point of view.

-- Alex Cook

Introduction: Lilja ink

When I began this business back in 1988, I named it Lilja ink. I was leaving the corporate world to strike out on my own as a writer, and I liked the “ink” reference to the tools of the trade at that time.

So when we brainstormed names for our new blog, we returned to Lilja ink. Even though there is a lot less ink these days, we happen to believe that good communications is timeless – even though the tools and tactics might change (this blog isn't even written using real ink).

Lilja ink continues our tradition of storytelling, both as professional communicators, as well as personal observers and recorders of the world around us.

We hope this is a beginning of a conversation. We'd love to hear your thoughts in return.

Yours in writing,
Mary Lilja
Chief inkster *

*Also name of our early newsletter chronicling the life and times of Lilja Inc.