The Leadership Diaries

Hello, dear readers (friends, family, colleagues, and everyone in-between)! Welcome to the premiere issue of The Leadership Diaries – brought to you by F&T Management Solutions. This series is our way of introducing ourselves, and if you already know us (and many of you do), then this is an opportunity to reintroduce ourselves. So hi, hello, and welcome aboard.

A note about this series before we begin: it is the byproduct of two different minds: one chaotic/creative (that’s me, F&T COO Melissa Toscano) and one highly organized/disciplined (that’s F&T CEO Rachel Forde). The two of us and our cognitive dissonance invite you to join us in this space as we puzzle out life’s personal and professional mysteries. The tone is casual, but the lessons are real and universal, as we endeavor to show you.

Why are we publishing this series? We’re on this diverting side quest because it’s an opportunity to connect with readers. Who are these readers, you ask? Some are friends and family, or longtime supporters of me and Rachel (we see you and we thank you). Others are learning about us and about F&T Management Solutions for the first time (we value both readerships).

So, who are we? F&T Management Solutions is a new program and project management consultancy headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, with offices in Washington, DC and Texas. We are passionate about delivering business solutions and services to a diverse range of customers, including the federal and private sectors. For more information, please visit our website: https://ftmgmtsolutions.com.

So yes - we're doing this to connect with old friends and new readers. We’re doing this (releasing a series of what I hope to be coherent and well-written articles) because we’re eager to share our hard-won experiences. We’re telling our story through installments because we know that the best way to forge connections is to meet people where they are (in this case, LinkedIn) and to speak a language that everyone understands: the universal language of shared experience. (Note: We'll continue pulling that universal thread in the weeks to come.)

So, as you know, this is our inaugural issue; our first pass at making a connection with a broader audience (that’s you!). I want to make the best possible impression. That's why I'm bending over backwards to find the right language to describe us. Everything must be polished to a high shine. Everything must be perfect! But conversely, and in the interest of transparency, I must tell you about the article I planned on writing, because it differs from what you see before you.

At first, I wanted to focus only on the formative experiences that shaped F&T CEO Rachel Forde into who she is today. I wanted to capture something that’s uniquely Rachel; the pluck and grit and sticktoitiveness that define everything she does (those of you who know Rachel know what I mean by this). I wanted to write a brief biography that also touched on Rachel’s experience as an African American woman growing up in Texas.

I sought specificity of experience. I sought depth without breadth.

Rachel advised me to keep the micro/individual experience but connect it to the macro/universal human experience. This was sound writerly advice, so I modified this entry to do that (objectively, I’d give myself an “A” for effort and a “B” for execution). Hence, this week’s entry should resonate with readers regardless of race, gender, or geography. At least we hope that’s the case (let us know in the comments, and don’t be precious with our feelings).

Without further ado, please enjoy our first published edition of The Leadership Diaries…

The Leadership Diaries

Chapter One: F&T CEO Rachel Forde’s Thoughts on Resilience

Hello readers and welcome to the first installment of The Leadership Diaries, in which I ask F&T CEO Rachel Forde a bunch of leading questions on a topic of our mutual choosing.

This week we’d like to open with this quote from the amazing Maya Angelou about the power of resilience (and grit and determination) in our personal and professional lives:

“It is always about the work. In the latter years of your life, your happiness and your self-esteem will be determined by the mountains you surmounted, the valleys you climbed out of, and the life and/or career that you forged for yourself.” - Maya Angelou

Rachel and I love this quote because we love Maya Angelou, and because it spurs further questions on the topic of resilience. Namely, what role does it play in our day-to-day lives? Rachel has a lot to say on the subject, so let’s set the time machine to the 1990s, and dive right in.

Rachel’s San Antonio childhood provides framing for this story, and it informs why resilience was an essential quality for her to cultivate. Born to a white mother and an African American father, she recalls what it was like to be the only mixed kid on the block aside from her two younger sisters. This experience, and the ensuing isolation, was an early lesson in what it takes to operate in an environment where nobody looks like you.

“Mariah Carey was the only mixed-race person I could name at the time – and I loved her for that!” says Rachel with a chuckle. (For the record, she still loves Mariah Carey.) But it twisted her up inside to know that like Tigger, she was one-of-a-kind. A puzzle that other kids could never fully solve. A playmate who could only be partially understood.

“The message I received was you’re different and we’re not quite sure where you fit in, and where that left me was by myself a lot of the time.” says Rachel. She describes growing up in a white community where she was too dark for the white kids, and too light for her African American cohort.? Confusion escalated when she witnessed her mother being treated differently than her father. How should she be treated, if she was made up of equal parts white and Black?

This tugs at the heartstrings (I know it tugs at mine). No one should have to endure suffering and sadness in the interest of becoming a better person one day (surely there are less trying paths to personal growth). But that’s what happened. Solitude and defiance were galvanizing forces for Rachel - the kid who just wanted to fit in. She began focusing less on her own suffering and more on that of others; she began to volunteer. Thus started the life-long process of spinning straw into gold; a pursuit she continues to this day.

This author thinks Rachel makes spinning straw into gold look easy.

Some people reading this probably agree with me, as Rachel’s work ethic is legendary, and she never seems to run out of energy like an annoying Energizing Bunny with a passion for Microsoft Project and making schedules. Indeed, when I met her, I assumed she was drinking a magic elixir that enabled her to work long hours without losing her passion and sharpness. I wanted some of that elixir! But it doesn’t exist (you have no idea how disappointed I was to learn this).

You don’t get full credit for your efforts (be they personal, professional, or otherwise) when folks think you’re drinking a magic elixir. But then again, maybe you don’t want folks to know how furiously you’re paddling beneath the surface. Part of you thinks that maybe mystique is a good thing. Maybe we keep letting folks think this is easy. But that strategy has its downside, too. If you make it look easy, people just might believe that it is.

When discussing success, sacrifice, and achievement, Rachel points out the glossy patina of perfection that shines on achievers and doers. This shine is a blessing in some settings and a curse in others. Some people assume that performers are the byproduct of natural aptitude; that they are “destined” for success (indeed, that was her experience). But here’s a tie in to the “sweat, blood, and tears” that I mentioned in the introduction; natural aptitude is the minimum requirement for success. It gets you noticed – but the rest is up to you.

Rachel uses an illustrative example to expand on this. She tells me of spending her collegiate spring breaks selling shoes at an outlet mall (for lamentably little pay), to put herself through college. At the time, she had a clear vision of what she wanted to be (educated, independent, and successful), and that vision demanded sacrifice. It’s worth noting that the FOMO is palpable when she tells me this story (or maybe I’m projecting – more on that later). But a theme re-emerges: ambition exacts a toll. Sometimes chasing your dreams means missing out.

Let’s go back to the start of this article, where I promised you a meditation on the power of resilience in our personal and professional lives. Overall, Rachel made smart choices that set her up for success. But resilience was the knob that moved the dial. Resilience (natural or cultivated) kept her going when times were tough, and resilience (and elasticity) helped her recover from missteps. Her message is this: aptitude doesn’t count for much if you give up. So, make sure that your sacrifices are watering the garden of your dreams, and don’t leave the hose running.

Here, I’d like to share with you some further insight into how I wrote this article, and it’s for a good reason, but it will reframe your takeaways. While nearing the end of this assignment, I showed Rachel an early draft where I highlighted her resilience by emphasizing the sacrifices she made to get through school on her own. It was getting a bit Dickensian before she reminded me that some of these decisions didn’t feel like sacrifices at the time, although they appeared that way from the outside. They just felt like the right thing to do. In her words, if you have a vision, a mission, and a plan, sometimes the things you give up don’t hit so hard.

She reminds me of her relative outside status (an unexpected source of strength) when she says, “As a mixed kid, I was already being left out. I was already missing out on social opportunities. So, when I got to college, giving things up to focus on/pay for school didn’t feel like a sacrifice.”

But she wasn’t alone in the struggle, either. One could say that her husband Gene was her resilience multiplier. Rachel recalls the long ago sacrifices that he made to support her while she was putting herself through school. She remembers them living on Hamburger Helper because it’s all they could afford, and how he delayed his own college dreams to support hers (more on this in our installment on partnerships). The message? Two torchbearers are better than one.

Indeed, I could wax poetic a while longer on what it means to be resilient, and the ways in which resilient people show up for themselves and others when times are tough. But it’s time to “tie a bow” on this week’s installment (don’t worry – we'll be back). And what better place to end than the beginning, where I pompously promised you the secrets to the universe (don’t overpromise, folks). As such, I encourage readers to weigh the universal elements of Rachel’s story (ambition, otherness, and a struggle for belonging) that resonate regardless of race, gender, or geography. If these themes speak to you, then please drop us a comment down below.

Please join us again next time, when we discuss how good, old-fashioned empathy lays the foundation for successful professional and personal partnerships.

Sincerely, your friends at The Leadership Diaries.

Author’s Afterword:

I’d like to end by thanking Rachel and her husband Gene for opening the door to their metaphorical house so I could stomp around in muddy boots asking intrusive questions. It’s not easy to let somebody else tell your story, and I’m grateful for the grace that they showed me.

I hope this article leads to small things with great meaning for us all.

Contact Information:

F&T CEO Rachel Forde

Email:? [email protected]

F&T COO Melissa Toscano

Email: [email protected]

Learn More About F&T On Our Website:

Website: https://ftmgmtsolutions.com ?