Three Tips to Make You a Travel Role Model

As someone who travels a lot, I try to be respectful of individuals for whom it is not their regular routine.  Observing a healthy percentage of these folks over the Thanksgiving holiday caused me to think of a few simple principles we can all adopt to be Travel Role Models for others.

The Traveler • Eduardo Urcolo

Begin before the bins (your security prep, that is).

Things are much easier if your security preparation begins at home.  If you're going to have to take it off to get through security, don't put it on in the first place.  And yes that applies to the 49 lovely bracelets normally embracing both your arms.

For airports using the new scatter-ray machines, you can't have anything in your pockets.  Make your life easier by not putting anything in them as you dress.  In a Ziplock bag, I put my wallet, cash, lip balm, and other items I keep in my pockets and put that bag in the front pocket of my rollerbag.  I keep my driver's license separate with my boarding pass and then put them in my briefcase after my I.D. has been checked.  This expedites getting through x-ray much more quickly.

And you know what really gets you through X-ray more quickly?  Getting ready for it while you stand in that long line you complain about.  That's the time to take off your coat and empty your pockets if you didn't follow the previous advice.  Get that laptop and your liquids and gels ready to grab and put in a bin.   Speaking of bins, your bag doesn't need one.  Every day thousands of bins go through the x-ray for no reason because someone set their backpack, purse, or briefcase in them.  All of those bins take time to move through the system, they then stack up on the other end, and require extra time for TSA to restock them.  Be a better Bin Buddy.  Don't use them when you don't need to and do turn them horizontally so more of them fit on the belt.

Remember you are not flying on your private jet.

Wait.  You are? Call me; I'd like a ride.  It's shared space people.  I'm amazed at folks who haphazardly throw their bags and coats in a bin, consuming far more space than is required, and then get perturbed when other passengers move those items to make room for their own.   Place your rollerbag in lengthwise as close to other items as you can, then check to make sure the bin closes.

Do use the space underneath the seat in front of you for your smaller items.  I'm 6'6" tall and desperately need that space for my feet, particularly on regional jets.  But I always put my briefcase there because once we have taken off I can pull it out, put it behind my legs up next to my seat, and then stretch my legs.  Bins are needed for rollerbags and other big pieces of luggage.  If after everyone has boarded bin space is still available, then by all means move items up there if you want.

Please don't be a Reckless Recliner, the person who slams his seat bag at rocket velocity without any regard for the person behind him.  Recline very slowly and/or inform the person behind you that you are going to recline your seat and you want her to know in case she has a laptop on her tray table.

Be a conscientious hotel guest.

It's safe to assume your hotel room door will slam shut behind you, setting off earthquake tremors that wake everyone else on your floor.  Spare us the aftershocks by blocking the door with your bag when you arrive and then closing it manually.  Do the same when checking out.  When entering and exiting the room during your stay, keep a firm hold on the door and shut it yourself.  If you're really nice, you won't pull it shut in one quick move, but will go slowly at the very end since the locking mechanism almost always makes a lot of noise.  Oh, and if you plan on ironing at 4 a.m. for your morning flight, please open that darned screechy thing in the evening.

Help keep the house for the housekeepers.  I wouldn't leave opened packets of sugar and used coffee pods sitting out in my home, so there is no need to do so in my hotel room.  If we pick up a bit after ourselves, we make it easier for the people who have a very demanding job.  Tipping them daily should be our routine, but that doesn't mean we can't help make it easier for them to service our room.  Putting back the ironing board, throwing all used towels in the shower when checking out, putting trash and recycling into the right receptacles ... are all nice gestures.

What are other habits and principles you would suggest for anyone wanting to be a Terrific Traveler?

And if you'd like to go beyond just not having your towels changed, becoming a real partner in sustainability efforts, here are some previously published thoughts about how to be an Eco Guest.

Leadership Limerick: More than Just the Letter of the Law

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

For some the letter of the law is the test

But is that’s the standard that’s best?

What we value is the foundation of any rule

We should start there on our efforts to school

Or else no one will abide by the rest

The Penn State incident has once again brought to the forefront the potential differences between presumably meeting one's legal obligations and making principled ethical choices.  As a society, we obsess over enforcing rules without sufficiently inculcating people in the values upon which they are based.  Without doing the latter, rules can seem arbitrary and lead individuals to question why they should follow them.

Here's an everyday example.  The speed limit is not a law designed to aggravate you when you are running late for an appointment.  It is a rule embodying the value of human life and safety.  Think about that the next time you feel inconvenienced by the squad car on the side of the road aiming a radar gun at your car.  I doubt you get into your car thinking "Well if I have to kill someone in order to get to my meeting on time, so be it."

So the next time you find yourself in the role of the enforcer, it may be beneficial to focus your conversation not on the rule to be followed, but the value to be embraced and embodied in the choices individuals make.

What Game Are You Playing?

A recent round of Scrabble matches with my mother (we each won once) reminded me there are often options for any game we are playing.

In Scrabble, some people focus on their tiles, trying to build words and then find spots to place them on the board.

Other people focus on playing the board, zeroing in on the double and triple letter or word spaces and how they can use their tiles to build words in those spaces.

Challenges or opportunities in our personal and professional lives are similar.  We can inventory what resources we have and then try to play them in the open market, or we can look to the external opportunities that exist and then tap into our internal resources to take advantage of those areas.

Either approach can work, but having an awareness of one's strategy is helpful.  What game are you playing and do you know why?

Leadership Limerick: Time for Hybrid Highs

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

Some people like to learn online

For them, this medium is fine

Others best engage face-to-face
For them that’s the only place.

Mixing both is the future goldmine.

Increasingly effective conference design is not about face-to-face OR virtual, but about the AND.  Any virtual event might also benefit from an in-person option, and any face-to-face meeting should explore how to incorporate virtual participation.

As Harvard economist Ed Glaeser notes, "Communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper rather than substitutes like butter and margarine.”


Smart conference designers are thinking about the virtual and face-to-face components that complement their overall strategy and that their participants will compliment.

Five Lessons from the Road

During the past four weeks, I've had a chance to contribute to the learning line-up at some amazing conferences, as well as hear some provocative presentations from thought leaders I admire.  Here are five lessons I've learned from the road during those events.

At the California and Nevada Credit Union Leagues Annual Meeting, Charlene Li reminded participants that social media is about relationships.  Use of any new technology should be considered in light of the character of the relationship an organization (or individual) wants to have with their members, customers, and stakeholders and how to reflect that and their core values and personality in doing so with the new technology. And I was blown away by the amazing learning community being built at Singularity University that its executive director, Salim Ismael, talked about in his presentation.    I got to "bookend" this conference, making both opening and closing remarks as well as being the emcee and content weaver throughout the three-day event.  Doing so was a rich experience for me.

Doing the closing keynote at the HR Reinvention Experiment in Omaha allowed me to fully participate in the conference prior to making my remarks at day's end.  I loved how instead of an opening keynote presenter, the conference kicked off the day with a round of IGNITE talks led by peers.  These roughly 5-minute talks created a real sense of excitement and energy, and the diversity of topics and presenters was great.  Of the many takeaways from those talks, the one that still stays with me is Joe Gerstandt's reminder that we need to take better care of the language we use and the meaning we associate with it. When we get sloppy with words like strategy, vision, mission, diversity, and many others, we do a real disservice to the deep meaning and full potential they represent.  Too often, people feel compelled to move on to a new word, thus reinforcing the frustrating buzzword phenomenon and discarding the deep meaning a term once carried.

One of my favorite thinkers, Jane McGonigal, was the luncheon speaker at the Annual Conference of the Independent Schools Association of the Central States.  Author of the great book, Reality is Broken, and game designer extraordinaire, McGonigal artfully explained how gaming principles can be used to tackle the real challenges facing communities, countries, and organizations. This was brought home by the story of online gamers who in slightly more than 10 days cracked a challenge to decipher the enzyme of an AIDS-like virus, something the scientific community had been struggling to do for decades.  I led two breakout sessions (links to slides provided): the first focused on tools and techniques for enhancing creative, critical, and constructive thinking, and the other explored the everyday practices of innovative individuals.  Doing so reminded me again of the value participants find in engaging with simple tools and considering manageable habits they can adopt or adapt to improve their performance.

Designing and facilitating this past weekend's three-day Future Leaders Institute for the American Industrial Hygiene Association allowed me to once again be surrounded by some of the most passionate and committed young professionals in an individual organization.  Maintaining (and honoring) their energy and enthusiasm during the content-intensive experience required calibrating the sequence and flow of activities, using different learning environments each day to refresh the sense of space, and varying the teaching methodologies used.  Doing so is as much art as it is science, and it is something associations should focus on helping their volunteer subject matter experts learn more about. 

And the fifth lesson learned comes from canceled flights and a disappointing inability to make it to the Association of Fundraising Professionals Volunteer Leadership Academy in Montreal.  Presenters and conference planners nowadays almost need to plan for the likelihood of travel challenges and have a backup plan for using virtual technologies to ensure some sort of learning experience can occur.  Nothing is more infuriating than when weather or mechanical difficulties preclude the opportunity to fulfill a commitment.