Good day, team,

There are two ways for an organization to kill a good idea. One is with bad management. The other? Good management.

So writes the author Jane Linder in her new book, “Spiral Up.. and Other Management Secrets Behind Wildly Successful Initiatives.” We frequently see cases of bad management that kill great ideas boldly and blatantly. But we often don’t recognize how management teams can also kill a good idea, because they fear it won’t get approval, would be too hard or expensive to execute, or doesn’t fit an existing plan.

In fact, most innovative teams perform much better when they “fly under the radar,” meaning they escape scrutiny and get a lot done precisely because they don’t have to ask anyone else’s opinion or approval. Management’s role is to plan, budget and execute. The very functions that make for good management can kill a new idea before it ever gets off the drawing board.

The best ideas are explorations. Consider Lewis and Clark going before a management committee. “How long will it take?” “Don’t know.” “How will you get there?” “Don’t know.” “What will you find of value to the government of the United States?” “Don’t know.” They couldn’t even imagine what they would eat or how they would survive, and yet they persevered and became two of the greatest explorers who ever lived.

Years ago, I was asked by the vice president of a large corporation to design a coaching program for a new team of managers he had inherited in an acquisition. This was long before coaching was accepted by large corporations; when people asked me what I did for a living, and I said I was a coach, they would often reply, “Oh, of what, volleyball?” So this was quite an unusual step for an executive of a fairly conservative company to take. He encouraged me to be as innovative as I could to help his team move forward.

For the first year, we developed a program that included coaching the managers and supervisors and assisting them in becoming better coaches themselves. By drawing on each manager’s previous experience and strengths, we empowered them to design and train each other in their areas of expertise. This allowed us to save money and to maximize everyone’s abilities.

In the second year, other people in the organization began to take notice, and obstacles appeared where they had not previously. I was contacted by the human resources department in the company and asked, “How does this fit into our regular training program?” or “Whose budget does this fall under?” or “We’ll have to review what you’re doing and make sure that it’s OK for our team members.”

Certainly, these were appropriate and important questions for the human resources department to ask, and you can see how, once they became aware of the coaching program, they felt it was part of their job to make sure it was managed appropriately. However, as other people scrutinized the program or attempted to merge it into the larger plan for professional development, little by little, the coaching program was whittled away and eventually disappeared altogether.

Employee surveys done at the time proved how well the supervisors were managing their people and how successful the business was, so it was clear that the coaching program had significantly affected the people and the business. Not only were the ratings up for each individual manager, but attrition was down and customer satisfaction had risen.

Your challenge this week is to look at the more innovative ideas that are bubbling up from your team and let them be. Try not to fit them into a tidy plan, or a tight budget, or a well executed plan. Understand that all new ideas are highly subject to failure and allow some room within your organization for things to fail. Try working with the idea that you’ll figure it out as you go and try not to manage these things from above, but rather, allow them to self-manage along the way.

Maybe you need to encourage some of your team members to do some “skunk works,” that is, to work on their innovative ideas in a more secretive fashion rather than in broad daylight where others can scrutinize what they’re doing. Or maybe it’s just as simple as encouraging a team member to explore a new idea without exposing it to the overall team for awhile, so the experiment can be free to succeed or fail without a lot of intervention.

Whatever it is, remember that with all experiments and explorations, you have to take not knowing as a given. This may be scary at first, but you may just find that although you’re not sure how a new idea will work, in the end, you’ll manage!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from some thoughts on leadership that I read about in an MIT alumni magazine while visiting my father in Maine. People debate whether great leaders are born or made, and good evidence supports both sides of the argument.

Accordingly, some educational institutions have created programs and curriculum to build their own leaders. For example, the Leadership Center at MIT developed a Four Capabilities Leadership Model. These capabilities are sensemaking, relating, visioning and inventing.

Rather than teaching leadership, which everyone agrees is hard to do, the program teaches students to cultivate these four strengths: Using their common sense when making key decisions, creating strong relationships with others, making their vision a reality, and allowing themselves to be inventive (meaning not fearing to make mistakes or fail).

“Anyone has the potential for leadership, of course, but certain people have a greater set of skills and aptitude. Leadership starts with someone who wants to make a difference… . When people are truly motivated toward a goal or a vision, they will do it, even if they have to change themselves. In many ways, leadership starts with what’s important to you,” writes Professor Ancona of the Leadership Center at MIT.

Another course that has become part of the leadership program is improvisation. Daena Giardella, an executive coach and professional actor, writes about that aspect of the program.

“What we believe we are, or are not, limits how effective we can be as leaders. Improvisation forces you to break out of your habitual roles. You have to be ready to respond with dexterity to the moment… . You have to dare to make an impact in the scene without worrying about looking stupid or seeming silly. Improvisers learn how to manage the ‘inner critic’ voices that chatter in everyone’s head as we go through life. The inner critic might be saying, ‘Stay small, don’t get too big for your britches’ or ‘Give up, you can’t do this.’ Great improvisers and great leaders learn to play many roles and be adaptable scene to scene. In improvisation the goal is to make the other person look good and to bring out the best in the other person. An improvisation is destroyed if it’s all about me, me, me… and the same is true about leadership. Master leaders and master influencers know how to bring out the best in their teammates.”

Your challenge this week is to identify where you play the role of leader in your life and consider whether you need to improve your ability. Perhaps you’re excellent at creating a vision and translating that for others into realizable goals and objectives, but your relationship skills could use some work. Maybe you find that common sense comes quite easily to you and that you have a reputation for being street smart and pragmatic when making decisions. However, the practical aspect of your common sense may stand in the way of your ability to be innovative. What can you do to be more inventive in your approach?

More and more organizations are realizing that leadership is not just the domain of people at the top but of people at all levels. Our ability to lead has everything to do with how committed we are to our vision and to the people around us who will help us make it a reality. Don’t be afraid to examine how you lead others and what you’re prepared to do to achieve your goals. Leadership doesn’t just come naturally. It requires real work, and we all can stretch our ability to become better at it.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

While reading the newspaper this morning, I saw a quote from Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the founder of the Toyota Car Company. He said, “If I am going to be at the top of the car company, I want to be owner-chef: with knowledge not just of its vehicles but their ingredients. As such, I taste my car, and if it tastes good, I provide it to the customer.”

Mr. Toyoda is currently one of the possible candidates for the position of Toyota’s president. Just because he is the grandson of the founder doesn’t guarantee that he will get the position. He has to earn it. He’s already held many prestigious positions at Toyota, but he must also have an intimate knowledge of the company’s products. Part of the requirement for becoming president is 10 years of monthly, Toyota race-car training. Evidently, if you want to become the president of the world’s most successful car company, you have to drive the cars and understand on all levels what they feel like and how they perform.

The above-mentioned quote made me think about what it means to have first hand knowledge and experience with your product and its effect on your customer. How many companies actually require that their team members use the products or services they create? I once went to a bank to get a home equity line of credit. I asked the loan officer about customer service support to ensure that I would actually get to talk to a live person if I had a problem. I remember her saying, “Well, I don’t really know. I don’t bank here. I use my husband’s credit union because the service and rates there are much better.” Needless to say, that bank didn’t get my business.

Some of my clients are in the Internet business. Over the past few years, they have found themselves becoming more and more disillusioned by the type of work they’re doing. It used to be about designing the Web site for the user: making sure that whoever clicked into their site had the best possible experience. Nowadays, it’s about monetizing. That is, instead of focusing on the customer experience, companies try to maximize the number of ad impressions they can expose viewers to before driving them away. It makes me wonder if the people in the company who are concentrating on monetization actually go into the site and try to use it?

Your challenge this week is to take Mr. Toyoda’s advice and try to taste your business. If you’re in the service business, try using your service for a week. If you produce a product, try using the product. If you work in a company that has a production line, try working on the line for a day to see what your production team members actually experience. If you work at a call center, get on the phone with a customer and “taste” what you’re feeding the customer and also what the call representative is experiencing as well. It’s not enough to ask your customer what they’re experiencing; try having the experience yourself so you know first-hand what it feels like.

In the article, Mr. Toyoda also told one of his favorite stories, about three dentists. One advertised he was the best dentist in the world. The second dentist claimed to be the best in France, and the third dentist said only that he was the best in town.
“Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the customer doesn’t care about the world. They care if we are the best in town.” And when they buy a car, they care about whether this car, right here, right now, is the best for them.

This week, find out whether you’re the best in town by experiencing what you have to offer. Become your own customer and see what it tastes like.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

I was just reading about Brandon Roy from the Portland Trail Blazers, our local basketball team, in this morning’s paper. Brandon is a rookie who just became an NBA All-Star. This is not an easy honor to achieve and is only bestowed upon players whose performance is truly extraordinary. It’s even more difficult to achieve for someone who’s relatively new to the NBA.

This achievement reminded me of a challenge I wrote in November 2006, when Portland got a new coach, traded away some bad boys, hired some rookies and began to turn the team around. Today, we see the results. The Blazers are tied for first place in the their division, and players like Brandon are making it happen. Tickets to games are hard to get and Portlanders have a new sense of pride in their hometown team.

Take a look at the challenge I wrote 14 months ago. The message and the challenge are still the same for all of us:

The coach’s challenge this week is about playing on a winning team. Last evening, I was watching the Portland Trail Blazers play basketball on television. This is a rare occurrence since I don’t particularly like watching televised basketball, though it’s a great game in person. I also have no affection for the Trail Blazers, or at least I didn’t before last evening.

For those of you who don’t follow basketball and don’t live in Portland, I’ll include a brief description of our basketball team. Since I moved here in 1998, the Trail Blazers (or the Jail Blazers, as they are affectionately called) behaved like the biggest bunch of spoiled-brat losers I had ever seen. They were all paid outrageous salaries, they frequently made the front page of the newspaper for committing misdemeanors, and when I shyly said hi to one of them in the grocery store one day, he just frowned at me. How could life be so bad for someone who gets paid so much to play sports?

Last season, you couldn’t give away tickets to their basketball games. They were an embarrassment to all of us, and as the coaching staff continued to turn over rapidly, the city was rife with rumors that their wealthy owner was trying to sell both them and the arena in which they play.

But with a new coach and some rookies, much has changed since last year. What I saw last night amazed me. The rookies ran up and down the court as though their lives depended on it, trying to take every shot they could. In fact, the only guys who looked flat-footed were players who were holdovers from last year.

The arena was full, and the fans were shouting and jumping up and down with great enthusiasm. This was a team they could get behind. Here were some winners they could believe in. Maybe, just maybe, things had turned around, and the Blazers were back!

Clearly, being part of a winning team is the best. It’s great to be part of an endeavor in which people go beyond their normal limitations to win. It makes everyone feel good to see players who “have each other’s backs” work incredibly well together and support each other on every play. Even the coach didn’t sit down. He paced back and forth on the sidelines, gesturing for the ball to go in the basket, giving his players a high five when they came back to the bench, encouraging them to keep the energy up and not to slack off. And he didn’t shy away from letting the slackers know that they weren’t holding their own for the rest of the team.

This week, consider your team. Whether you’re the coach, or a player, or both, are you winning? Are you letting your team players know that each one of them plays a critical role and that their ability to work together is essential in winning? Does your coach give you all the support and encouragement you need to win? Are you putting out your maximum effort to be the best player on the team?

Your challenge this week is to do just that. Play as though your life depended on it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Have a winning week.

Kathleen

Good day, team,

On a recent weekend up at our ranch in the Columbia River Gorge, my husband and I observed one of nature’s most amazing phenomena, when, early one morning, we took a walk to the far north end of our property.

From the edge of a cliff we looked out over a spectacular sight: The Klickitat River running down in the valley below and emptying its cold, clear water into the Columbia River, after which it runs through the magnificent contours of the Gorge out to sea. There are sheer, sculpted rock walls, lined by waterfalls and cascades, that rush into the river. Below us, we could see the creek that runs through our property and pools in a shallow lagoon before it meets the Klickitat.

We scrambled down the hill, moved closer to the lagoon, and were rewarded for our efforts by the sight of large salmon spawning at the mouth of the creek. We sat to watch this ancient ritual, honored to witness the end of the salmon’s long journey up river to lay their eggs in a safe place and then die. Majestic birds sat in the surrounding trees—bald eagles, blue heron, and golden eagles—waiting patiently, knowing that when the salmon finally lay to rest on the lagoon floor, they could swoop down and feast on the remains.

I watched the large salmon use their powerful tails to groom the creek bottom before laying their eggs, exhausted but still energetic. I admired their fortitude, their dedication to ensure the survival of their species.

Why do these fish have such an arduous migratory pattern? They make their way out to sea to feed and gather strength, then have to swim all the way back upstream through many hazards—hydroelectric dams, pollution, fishing nets—to their birth place on a final mission to spawn and die.

Watching them reminded me of the many times in my life that I’ve had to struggle and persevere to achieve my goals in the face of great obstacles. Going with the flow is good advice in many cases. But there are times when we need to borrow some courage and strength from our salmon friends and swim upstream as hard as we can. Think about the times when, under extremely difficult circumstances, people have had to fight for their land, their freedom, their lives. Just like the salmon swimming against the current, we do what we have to do to survive.

Your challenge this week is to identify where you’re swimming upstream and recommit to achieving your goals. In the salmon’s case, their goal—to keep their species alive—means paying the ultimate price. In your case, perhaps you’re working with a team unable to achieve their objectives, forcing you to find new ways to re-energize them. Maybe you struggle to help a sick family member navigate through their health-care options. Or perhaps your boss is asking you to achieve a seemingly insurmountable task and you must nonetheless realign your priorities and push on.

Whatever the issue, take a lesson from the salmon, who courageously take on some of nature’s most powerful forces to reach their goal.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good morning, team,

Team collaboration continues to be an important topic for me in my coaching practice. In the course of my research, I recently read a study conducted jointly by the Concours Institute and the Cooperative Research Project of London Business School. They sent surveys to team members and leads, executives, and human resources leaders at a variety of companies in different industries. The results surprised me in some cases and in others confirmed many of my observations about effective team collaboration.

Many companies rely on large, diverse teams of highly educated specialists to complete major projects. These teams consist of people from diverse backgrounds, often from many different locations, who are brought together to meet an urgent need. They work together virtually, collaborating online and often over long distances.

However, in the above-mentioned study an interesting paradox became clear. Although teams that are large, virtual, diverse and composed of highly specialized professionals seem essential to major projects, these are exactly the factors that make it extremely hard to get anything done.

The study showed that once the team increases beyond 20 team members, the level of cooperation decreases substantially. Members are much less likely to share knowledge freely, to learn from one another, to shift workloads flexibly and to identify bottlenecks and help each other move through them. And, in my experience, sub-teams that are asked to work on a portion of a major initiative get folded into a much larger corporate team and often get lost in the shuffle.

The study further discussed how the strengths of a team can become its weaknesses. Diverse knowledge and views can spark new insights and innovation. However, the less people were familiar with others on the team (their background, history with the organization, views and behaviors), the less likely they were to share knowledge.

Virtual participation is a way of life in all companies these days. In the study, 40 percent of all the teams researched had members all in one place; the other 60 percent did not. The research shows that as a team becomes more virtual, collaboration declines. Unfortunately, the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" applies.

Highly educated people with a specific area of expertise do bring a lot to the table in terms of knowledge and experience. However, the greater the proportion of highly specialized people on the team, the more likely the team members were to argue from their sole viewpoint. In other words, if team members think they know it all, they’re often unwilling to learn from others or experiment with new ideas.

The study offered eight recommendations for successful collaboration:

• Invest in environments that encourage strong relationships, such as open floor plans that foster communication; increased travel budgets so people can interact face to face; and meeting spaces that encourage activities beyond just sitting around the table, so people can interact on many different levels. Anything that demonstrates a commitment to collaboration sends the right message.
• Model collaborative behavior. At companies where the senior executives demonstrated highly collaborative behavior, the rest of the team members did too.
• Create a "gift culture" rather than a "tit for tat culture," that is, a culture based on coaching and mentoring. Such a culture helps team members build networks across the organization that they can use to do their work. Daily coaching increases people’s level of cooperation, their ability to feel empowered and take ownership. The study demonstrated that in such an environment, team members were less likely to blame others when things didn’t get done and more willing to help them out when they needed it.
• Teach people relationship skills, such as appreciating others, being able to engage in purposeful conversations, resolving conflicts productively and creatively, and managing programs.
• Support a strong sense of community. When team members feel that they are part of a community, they feel more comfortable reaching out to others. When a situation is not emotionally safe, people are reluctant to participate.
• Assign team leaders who are good at getting tasks done and building relationships. The study found that focusing on task orientation at the beginning of the project and later focusing on relationships is most effective. Regardless of seniority, those team members who weren’t willing to take on tasks and deliver results were seen as untrustworthy.
• Build on the existing relationships within the team, that is, include a few people who already know each other. This sets up a model of behavior that new members can emulate.
• Be very clear about roles, responsibilities and tasks. The study showed that cooperation increased dramatically the more sharply defined these elements were for the team members.

This week, consider the size and effectiveness of your teams. Are you investing in their ability to relate and collaborate? How well are your team members exchanging ideas and being open to each other? Is everyone on the team aware of roles, responsibilities and ownership tasks? Do they feel safe working together?

Don’t assume that just because a bunch of people are assigned to work on a project that collaboration will occur automatically. Try using some of the above suggestions to help your team work more successfully together.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Next to champagne and fireworks on New Year’s Eve, one of the most revered rituals of the turn of the year is to set new goals. Maybe it’s the time off around the holidays that gives us a chance to stop, reflect and resolve to improve the things we ignore when we get too busy and stressed out.

Many people resolve to improve their physical health. If you already belong to a health club, you know the irritation that can result from the sudden on-rush of newly signed-up members hogging your favorite treadmill. (By April, they are usually gone, and you and the other regulars can get back to your old routines.)

But while hordes of people will resolve to improve themselves physically, most don’t give their emotional health a moment’s notice. And in setting new goals for our physical health, we can disturb our emotional well-being greatly. We all know what happens to us when we get too hungry—we become short-tempered and irritable. As of Jan. 1, how many of your co-workers are on a new diet? (Be careful in the break room—you may find someone salivating at the vending machine who snarls at you when you try to put a coin in). In our attempt to lose 10 pounds, we may also alienate a few friends, family members and co-workers.

Your challenge this week is to try improving your emotional health and well-being this year. Here are some suggestions:

1. Try to create a positive attitude each morning. One of the managers I work with says that, as she reaches for the door handle to go into her building each morning, she stops for a brief moment and resolves, "Today is a new day, and I’m going to try to make it as good as I can for myself and others. I’m leaving all my troubles and negative thoughts right here and not taking them into work with me."
2. Resolve to reach out to someone you are either avoiding or ignoring. Having direct, sincere conversations with others is never easy. However, when we avoid them, we only make initiating them more and more difficult. Be courageous and reach out to the other person.
3. Don’t engage in negative conversations with or about others. Gossip is destructive. And you’ll often find that the people you gossip with gossip about you when you’re not around.
4. Respect the people around you. Be willing to see someone in a new way through a different lens. The roots of the word re-spect actually mean "to look again" and when we spend alot of time around others it becomes harder to see them differently.
5. Breathe. When we’re under stress, our bodies tend to hold our energy in our upper chest and throat. Don’t forget to breathe, go for a walk, feel your feet, get up out of your chair, anything to move the energy around and distribute it more evenly through your body.
6. Be honest with yourself and stop making excuses. When you work as part of a team and make excuses about why you haven’t done your part, your fellow team members become resentful. Say what you’ll do and do what you say.
7. Become a good listener. Giving others your full attention is not only respectful but gives you the greatest benefit in your experience of them. Try reining yourself in when you notice you’re talking too much.
8. Go the extra mile when you are able to. Doing small, selfless acts for others is a great way to extend yourself beyond your daily routine.
9. Be grateful. We are surrounded by abundance each day. Tap into that wealth of gratefulness in your heart and let others know about it.
10. Be present. Try seeing what is, rather than believing the story you or someone else made up about a situation. Realizing that the present moment is actually all we have—since the past is gone and the future isn’t here yet—is incredibly empowering. If a half hour has gone by, and you can’t remember what you’ve been doing or where you’ve been, come back to the present moment. It’s your life and your moments: Don’t miss out on them.

New Year’s resolutions are tricky. I’ve noticed that I frequently bite off more than I can chew by setting my goals too high. Remember that it’s through small increments that we often get to the finish line.

Whatever resolutions you’ve made for 2008, don’t forget that physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health are all connected. Ignore one, and the others suffer as well. Try improving one of them and they all benefit.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Knowing that this is the last coach’s challenge of the year, I’ve spent the past week trying to think of what has helped me the most in my coaching practice and my life in 2007. When all is said and done, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz offer me the most guidance and continue to be my greatest challenge. Here they are:

Be Impeccable With Your Word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change form moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

I wish all of you peace and joy for the coming holidays and prosperity in the New Year!

Kathleen

Note: Stay tuned for upgrades to the coach’s challenge that will make it more user-friendly and for a better look and feel to my Web site. The folks at Cloud Four are helping me redesign, refresh and reinvigorate! Those of you who wish to be removed from this mailing list can reply to me with “no challenge” in the subject line, and I will delete your name.

Good day, team,

Many of my clients are going through organizational changes. Needless to say, it’s a difficult time of year for people to undergo changes that affect their jobs. However, many companies want to reposition themselves for the new year to increase their competitive advantage and revenue share. To do so, they institute structural changes that range from modifying reporting relationships to transferring people and establishing new departments and positions.

In the midst of these changes, our instinctive need to feel snug and secure in wintertime is often ignored, not to mention the added cost to finance holiday celebrations. (Sometimes I wish companies would factor the patterns of nature into their decision-making process. But that would require an awareness of how these patterns affect our behavior and how connected we are to the natural world; perhaps the next generation of leaders will take them into account.)

When companies go through numerous changes, their processes, reporting structures and ability to get things done become more and more complex. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, “Simplicity-Minded Managements,” Ron Ashkenas writes, “Complexity is actually the cumulative by-product of organizational changes, big and small, that over the years weave complications into the ways that work gets done. For example, at a major pharmaceutical company, the CEO realized that too many layers separated him from the frontline employees. When he challenged the leadership team to flatten the organization, many of the divisions were surprised to discover that there were more layers than they had realized—as many as 14 in one case. The organizational structure had taken on a life of its own.”

In many cases, employees end up spending most of their time navigating the labyrinth of complex structures and personalities within the organization. In the end, accountability is unclear, and decisions are muddy. Sooner or later, it becomes impossible to get anything done.

Your challenge this week is to consider ways to simplify or eliminate some of the complexity in the way you do business. Here are suggestions from the HBR article:

Make simplification a goal, not a virtue:

* Include simplicity as a theme of the organization’s structure
* Set specific targets for reducing complexity
* Create performance incentives that reward simplicity

Simplify the organizational structure:

* Reduce levels and layers
* Increase spans of control
* Consolidate similar functions

Prune and simplify products and services:

* Employ product portfolio strategy
* Eliminate, phase out or sell low-value products
* Counter feature creep

Discipline business and governance processes:

* Create well-defined decision structures
* Streamline operating processes (planning, budgeting, etc.)
* Involve employees at the grassroots level

Simplify personal patterns:

* Counter communication overload
* Manage meeting time
* Facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries

Engaging your team members in this simplification exercise can reap you large rewards. “At Nortel, employees generated 3,000 simplification and improvement ideas, implemented 900 and saved $14 million”, according to the HBR article.

In our desire to reorganize and function more efficiently, let’s not forget the useful reminder of K.I.S.S., or “Keep it simple, stupid.” A phrase that comes to my mind frequently for me is “Less is more.” Whatever reminder works best for you, make it a priority in the new year to simplify.

Have a great week!

Kathleen