The Things We Carry (to Morocco)

Takeoff to Casablanca is less than a week away, pre-work and training is nearly complete, and my attention is turning to packing my suitcase.  As I was making a packing list over the weekend, for some reason I could not stop thinking about a short story I read many years ago in school called “Things They Carried”.  Tim O’Brien’s most well-known work is about a platoon – his platoon, actually – of young men who found themselves comrades in arms in the midst of the U.S. Vietnam War.  He describes the things they carried with them 50 years ago on their field marches to paint a vivid picture of what it was like to be in their situation.  It’s sad and funny and poignant – and deeply relevant to today’s current events.  If, like me, you were forced to read this in school but haven’t read it since, get your hands on a copy and re-read it.  Trust me, it’s worth revisiting as an adult. 

The subject matter of the story is serious and sometimes gruesome; that war and the people who fought in it experienced some tremendously troubling things.  In that way, it could not be less relevant to this very exciting and positive mission on which the IBM CSC Morocco 6 team is about to embark.  But on the other hand, it’s about a small group of people who’ve never met coming together in a new place to set out on a mission.  In that way, it’s very topical.  One of the reasons American teenagers are asked to read the piece is because the writer’s storytelling mechanism is relevant to everyone.  The things we carry in our purses and briefcases on a day to day basis and the things we selectively pack into our suitcases for a month in Morocco say a lot about us. 

Here is a snapshot of my suitcase through the lens of Tim O’Brien’s storytelling:

“The things they carried were largely determined by necessity,” (p.2).  Clothes, my computer, medications, all of our logistical packets of information, and of course my passport.  

“What they carried was partly a function of rank, partly a function of field specialty,” (p.4).  I have a bunch of IBM “swag” sitting in my apartment which the folks in the corporate headquarters asked me to carry to Morocco for the team.  I have 9 ‘Big Thunder Tote Bags’, 9 rather ugly “IBM Rebus EYE BEE M” caps, 6 Jelly luggage tags, 6 LED Light Keychains, 6 Chroma Earbud sets, 6 Stylus & Cleaning Cloth sets, 2 USB drives, 2 Packs of post-it notes, and 1 ‘Element Pen’.  If the numbers seem bizarre for a team of 12, that’s because I’m sharing the load with teammate and fellow DC consultant Mr. Jordan Heichel.  (Because he was worried about space in his luggage, I agreed to take ¾ of all the big items.  I’m sure his silk cravats and shiny shoes will be all the better looking for the extra space in his bag… ;).   I also installed a bunch of software onto my computer I normally use on my client machines to help with the work now that I have an idea of what we’ll be doing.  Hopefully it was worth all the time it took to get the downloads approved.  This doesn’t have much to do with “rank” – but definitely is particular to my job skills and geography.

“What they carried varied by mission,” (p.6).  One of the tricky things about packing for this trip is how to balance items for the substantial professional parts of the trip with the personal parts of the trip.  How much professional attire vs. sightseeing attire?   Are there books or reference materials I have that might come in handy?  I honestly don’t know what our weekends will be like, but I’m hoping to take in as much of the country as possible while I’m there.  I’m also planning on packing my big DSLR camera.  This is probably un-intelligent; it’s large and takes up space, it’s also expensive and will be hard to replace if it’s lost or stolen.  But the experience promises to be so formative and exciting that I can’t convince myself to leave it behind.  I’m not a “great” photographer but one of the ways I like to experience new places is by taking pictures.  Additionally, part of our IBM CSC mission is to document the project… and that’s what I plan to do!   Pictures can be such an amazing window into an experience.

“The things they carried varied to some extent by superstition,” (p.9).  Mock me if you will, but I plan to bring a small stuffed ‘animal’ with me to Morocco.  Well…not so much an animal as a 6 inch stuffed likeness of an E.Coli bacteria, covered in fuzzy material and complete with flagella.  It was a gift from my husband, and it’s weirdly cute.  It also reminds me of him; it reminds me to have a sense of humor and take joy in my life, and it reminds me that it’s ok to be myself - nerdy and unique.

And finally, “…they carried themselves” (p.13).  We carry ourselves, our perspective and our previous experiences to Morocco to work and to learn; to give and receive; to experience and grow.  Hopefully we will carry ourselves with poise and an open mind – as good representatives of our best selves and of IBM's #ibmcsc morocco6 team. 

The Ties that Bind

Today is a "snow day" in Washington, D.C.  For regular folks, yesterday’s forecast for 6 inches of snow meant braving massive, panicked crowds at the grocery store to stock up on canned goods and other essentials in case the roads became unpassable (once, I saw a frantic woman empty an entire shelf of canned green beans into her shopping cart – she is probably still trying to eat or give away that mountain of cans).  For the Federal Government, the forecast was enough to close most offices in the city.  I’m from the state of Michigan, where it takes several feet of snow all at once to cause this kind of reaction, so winter behavior in D.C. has fascinated me ever since I moved here.  However, the occasional snow day can be very productive.  A little extra sleep, a little extra time to get caught up on critical thinking tasks which would inevitably have been interrupted in an office - and for me, time to get caught up on prep for my CSC adventure.

Which brings me to the real point of this post.  In addition to being a snow day, Today is February 17.  This means that I will be boarding my plane to Morocco in exactly 10 days.   Between reading through pages of material on Morocco in an attempt to be prepared to work in this foreign land and wondering how the prep time flew by so quickly, something occurred to me.  

We’ve been spending a lot of time in our pre-deployment phase focusing on what is going to be different in Morocco.  We studied our cultural and individual work style and compared it to how Moroccans approach their work.  We compared our work style to others on the team to see where the differences where.  We’ve talked about how to dress in this different environment and how to conduct ourselves in meetings.  We’ve talked about how our CSC roles are different from normal IBM work.  All of this is absolutely appropriate, but to be really prepared I think we should also be turning these ideas on their head and consider not only how we are different, but also how we are similar to Moroccans and to each other.

In working through some team building activities we’ve started talking about what individuals on our team have in common with one another – but we really haven’t broached the subject of how our collective experiences, personalities and skills are the same or similar to those of the folks we’ll be working with in Morocco.   

A program like CSC would not work if there were not significant things our team has in common with both each other and with Moroccans.  The common space is the foundation we will build on to understand our clients and help them identify solutions; it is also the lens through which we will be able to identify and understand our more significant and relevant differences.  It’s what enables IBM as a global company to do business effectively in every permanently inhabited continent on this earth.  

A snapshot of the things I think we have in common with our Moroccan clients and with each other – which I’m sure I’ll be able to improve as we actually get to work together in Casablanca:

• We are all highly motivated professionals looking for new work challenges and skills.
• We all recognize the value in collaboration with highly skilled partners to find innovative solutions.
• We are all experiencing some economic uncertainties in our home nations – globally, unemployment is high and markets are constantly shifting.
• We all want young people across the globe to have access to quality jobs, civil society, and stable social communities
• We are all mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, spouses, and friends to others in the places we call home – and we miss these people while we are away from them
• None of us are 100% representative of the country which we call home; there are different opinions, cultures and operating environments in every country and none of us can speak for them all because we are unique individuals
• We have all been in situations where we needed help to identify the best path forward in our professional lives and in our personal lives
• We have all been in situations where we helped someone else identify the best path forward in our professional lives and in our personal lives
• At one point or another, we’ve all had trouble communicating an idea at work
• We’ve all had some great ideas and some not so great ideas
• We all understand the importance of technology, communications, and innovative problem solving to make tomorrow an improvement over today
• We all hope that the work IBM’s CSC teams do in Morocco this March will make a lasting positive improvement on the Moroccan clients we are supporting and are willing to work hard to make that the case.

I’m not suggesting we stop preparing, stop researching, or stop taking the “newness” of this opportunity seriously.  But in thinking through this common ground - the ties that bind IBMers from across the world with their client counterparts in far-off Morocco - I think I’m recognizing why something so new can also be so effective. 

#ibmcsc morocco6

The "A" Team

I have a client who addresses every important email he sends my team to the ‘A-Team.’  

“A-Team:,” he wrote us last week to request our help.   “The subject…addresses a very large problem.  I will support your effort as this mission-critical capability is vitally important.”

My client is of course referencing the American television show from the 1980’s (and later, the 2010 movie) chronicling the explosive adventures of an ex special operations military team that solves crime after crime with their unmatched cunning and operational skill. Now, there are a lot of things about the A-Team franchise that should not be romanticized, the most obvious of which is its unapologetic reliance on sexist and racist stereotypes.  For example - Google ‘A-Team’ in America and at least 90% of the pictures that will pop onto your screen feature the team’s only black member shirtless and wearing an impressive amount of gold jewelry adorned with wild-looking colorful feathers.   Meet the inimitable Mr. T as Sergeant First Class “Bad Attitude” Baracas, who is the team’s mechanic and muscle.  The character – and his wardrobe choices – have not aged well. 

With that said - this particular client is a U.S. Army Veteran who was a young man when these shows were popular, and he is clearly using the ‘A-Team’ moniker as a huge compliment.  The A-Team was the best at what they did.  There was no case they couldn’t crack.  No bad guy they couldn’t bring down.   No obstacle they could not overcome.  No mission left unfinished.   The IBMers I work with on a daily basis are that team for my client.   We are his best, maybe his brightest – and almost certainly his hardest working support team.  If he needs something done, we will help him get it done well.  Period.

I’ve had the opportunity to be a member of so many outstanding teams of professionals at IBM.  One in particular that stands out in my mind is a team of about 10 IBM business consultants with whom I was sent to Afghanistan and to create a business incubation and investment platform for small and medium enterprises.  This group of relatively young IBMers stepped into a completely new environment and worked incredible hours to stand this organization up.  We had some finance and management types, some supply chain experts, some marketing/social media gurus, and some hyper-organized operations specialists.  We learned an incredible amount from each other and we learned as a group from the clients we were working with in a foreign landscape.  We also had one person become stir-crazy from being stuck too long in a square compound with the same small group of people.  He developed an alarming affinity for a red glass goblet he named "goblito" - but we sent him home shortly thereafter and we don’t talk about him too much (don’t worry…I’m mostly joking).

One of the things that made this team – and the “A-Team” so effective was that all of the members were unique and uniquely talented.  Each with their own skills but all in sync to achieve the same goal, they contributed something important and irreplaceable to the mission. 

The CSC team of 12 IBMers I’m about to head to Morocco with promises to be one of the most talented and diverse teams I’ve ever been part of, partially for this reason.    IBM looks for top contributors from all over the world in all job categories and at all stages in their career.  I’ve only gotten to know them a little bit and already I can’t wait to work more with them.   Take a look at this awesome collage my future teammate Kavya made from our profile pictures:  http://84degreeswest.wordpress.com/the-morocco-team/ . 

Kavya is actually not just a member of the CSC Morocco 6 team – she and I are on the same sub-team, supporting the same Moroccan client.  I got a chance to talk to her and our other sub-team member, Juani on the phone yesterday (here is Juani’s very funny blog:  https://juaniet.wordpress.com/).  We were all so excited to share our ideas that we couldn’t help from all talking at once – but in the end, we emerged with solid next steps and ideas to take with us on the trip.  It was just the thing to make me want to get on a plane tomorrow.

As good as most of my IBM teams have been, this CSC group are the IBM “A” list team in all the best senses of the phrase – diverse in skills and experience, dedicated to the mission, incredibly capable of getting things done.  The realm of things I stand to learn from this group of incredible individuals is astounding…and I am so proud to be part of this #ibmcsc morocco6 “A-Team”.

Two confessions

Confession:   

I’ve never written a blog before.  My track record with old-fashioned paper journals when I was a kid wasn’t that great, either.  So bear with me if you can, and let me know how I can get better.  

Confession:   

I am a nerd.  I’ve been intrigued in world economic growth since I can remember, and my particular interest in how the for-profit world affects the greater social good has been growing for time now.  So my brain is still caught up in the concept of “doing good” – what it means for me, what it means for IBM, and how Corporate Service Corps fits into all that.  On one hand, the Corporate Service Corps program represents a consulting project just like any other IBM Global Business Services would normally perform for a client.  We’ll engage with a customer, learn about their business, work with them to find a solution to a key problem or challenge they are experiencing.  But (in my humble opinion) there are a couple of particularly “good” aspects of this CSC project (apart from what’s already been chronicled by the likes of the Harvard Business Review, Mckinsey, and others…).

It will have a huge learning curve – both for us and for our clients.  Learning new things is a basic part of any consulting effort.  As a consultant, you can’t identify a problem and help clients find a solution if you aren’t willing to learn about the client first.  But I’ve been working with other consultants in the same client space for nearly 6 years at this point.  When I go to Morocco, I’m facing a new place, new teammates, and a new kind of client.  On the flip side, my new client will have at their disposal a team of IBMers from all over the world who normally function in very different jobs.  If we’re successful, we’ll all learn a lot from each other.

It will force us to rely on non-core skills.  For example:  apparently I may need to translate between French and English on behalf of my sub-team.  Sure, I spent a lot of time and effort learning French in school, but the last time I seriously attempted to communicate using that language was over 5 years ago.  Who knows what other forgotten experiences and skills I’ll need along the course of this little adventure?

It offers a break from the daily grind.  This is huge for me personally.  I won’t lie to you; there are some mornings (lately, a lot of mornings) that I wake up and do not want to come to work.  My commute is too long.  We’ve been trying to resolve an issue with our project for too long without real progress.  I have to deal with people I’d rather not deal with in the office.  You probably know the feeling. But then there are days when I come home feeling like the work I do is important and my team is making great progress on critical issues facing our clients.  CSC is presenting me with a new adventure with a huge learning curve in North Africa - a part of the world I’ve always wanted to visit (Lucky me!).  Perhaps more importantly, it’s forcing me to reflect on my every day job – the good and the bad - as I prepare to take a month-long break.  I find myself thinking that having a reason to reflect on how what we do on our day jobs affect the world around us is a huge (and lasting) benefit all on its own.

…and on top of all of that “good”, we received our sub-teams and client assignments yesterday.  Next task is to balance excitement with realism, and go search for my old French grammar books...!