Build Meaning Together

Oh, every sight and sound
Has meaning now!
- John Hall Wheelock, Song on Reaching Seventy¹

Explaining why whatever you’re presenting is valuable and saying less can be more impactful than saying too much.
 — Zac Gallagher, Quality Engineering Academy graduate²

As we gradually emerge from Covid, Slalom gave us all an extra day of PTO as an expression of gratitude. We are urged to use the day to reflect and rejuvenate. In Slalom Build the day has been dubbed “Rebuild Day.” I started to reflect as soon as the day was announced, and my thoughts immediately gravitated to our abiding purpose, to create a world where every person loves their work and life. I asked myself, “do you love your work and life?” I had to answer, “sometimes but not often.” What is the essence of those sometimes moments? They happen when life feels meaningful. When I feel connected to my environment, my past, present, future, the people around me. When my actions spring from connection. When I build meaning. But something is missing in “build meaning.” Upon further reflection the missing element in “build meaning” is “together.” As the first quote above insights, there is meaning in everything. I see meaning in everything if I step back and look; it is wondrous! But build meaning is different from see meaning. At work it means helping my client reach for and realize their vision. But there is more to it than that. At Slalom, collaboration is our secret sauce. It’s enshrined in our core values as “Drive connection and teamwork.”³ It’s one thing to see how meaningful everything is. It’s another to build new meanings, to learn, as an individual. But it’s something extraordinary, it’s love in action, to build meaning together.

I often think of my experience playing freshman football in high school. I was not the fastest player but I won all the races (others called them sprints) in practice, and I was elected co-captain. We practiced hard but magic happened in our games. As right guard on offense, I’ll never forget the “drive zero counter” play. Through misdirection, we coaxed the left defensive tackle to wander unblocked into our backfield. Then I creamed him while my teammate ran through the giant hole and scored a touchdown. I learned what it felt like to build meaning together as we went undefeated on the season. As one teammate reflected recently, “The tremendous value of teamwork, the depth of commitment, and everyone taking pride in the effort, made things so gratifying.”⁴ It’s always been my dream to recapture that feeling. Just recently I’ve discovered that feeling is the key to loving my work and life. And it is possible to recapture it regularly!

Fast forward to an incident in my consulting work at Slalom. I was conducting a User Acceptance Testing (UAT) walk through for our client product owner. This is similar to a “sprint demo” but hands on and interactive. Our client has many opinions, and each Slalom team member came to the discussion with clear messaging on our intent. Though initially there were some misunderstandings, we were able to work together to get on the same page with our client. We got useful feedback and set up our client for UAT on their own. Debriefing afterwards within our Slalom team, we shared perspectives on the session and decided how to handle the action items. Someone quoted the old meme, “teamwork makes the dreamwork.” This meeting might not sound as exciting as engineering a touchdown play in football, but it was to me. I loved it. We built meaning together with each other and our client. It was a good day. Many days like this all together culminated in a successful project.

When we build meaning together, we create value for our clients. Even more importantly, we love what we are doing. Each time it happens, like in the UAT session above, I recapture that freshman football feeling and so much more. The more I look for the opportunity to build meaning together, the more I find it. Seek out opportunities to build meaning together with the people in your work and life. “Seek and ye shall find.”⁵ This is the path to loving your work and life.

1. Wheelock, John Hall, Song on Reaching Seventy. In McCutcheon and Fowler, Songs of Experience (1991)
2. Gallagher, Zac, quoted in Allen, Q&A with Slalom Build’s Inaugural 2019 Quality Engineering Academy (2021)
3. Calow, Nick (2020) How a life on the open seas prepared me to live Slalom values.
4. Flynn, Dan (2021) Personal communication.
5. The Bible. Matthew 7:7–8

Thanks

• Jeff Averill
• Dan Flynn