Month: September 2020

In the 1960’s and early 1970’s my sister and I helped our mom paste the S&H Greenstamps she got with purchases into little paper booklets.  Every few months we’d have enough to go to a special store and redeem booklets for things like cake pans, a new toaster, or cheap jewelry. 

The pages in the book looked like this:

The point was to gradually save your stamps and cash ‘em in for the big prize! 

Greenstamping is a terrible strategy in relationships and for leadership.  Greenstamping is when you continuing collecting all the “little things” that have annoyed you, the small failures and shortcomings, saving them for the “big event” when you unload on the other person.  In organizational leadership greenstamping often occurs when someone is suddenly on the defensive, or competing in a zero-sum game for promotion or recognition.

It sounds like this:

“Oh yeah?  Well what about the four times I had to remind you to do X that you promised me you’d do, and the broken screen door, and when you forgot our anniversary until the last minute, that time you embarrassed my sister – argghh, she’s still mad about that – and your stupid TV program you just have to watch, and…. and…and… Huh? What about ALL THAT??!!”

(I exaggerate only slightly.)

In relationships and leadership situations, keep short accounts.  Overlook offenses, and be quick to forgive those you cannot overlook. Stay future focused.  Learn from mistakes.  

Our mom stopped collecting green stamps after a while.  “Everything you can get with them is at best shiny and cheaply made,” she said.  “Not worth the trouble.”  Likewise, everything you can gain by greenstamping in relationships will bitterly disappoint.

The Greeks believed that the source of all inspiration and creativity came from outside of you – the Muse. We get the English word ‘music’ from this Muse.

Your heart can hear that music all the time.
Your head can only hear this music when it is connected with your heart.

The problem for many leaders is that we are (with good reason!) afraid of the power and potential that comes from a connected heart and head. This is scary good, but not within our ability to completely control. It defies our comfortable ideas of being at the center of the universe. So we sever the connection between heart and head, at least much of the time.

Leadership maturity is about keeping heart and head working together appropriately. It’s always a danger to lead only with your heart or only your head. We must be humble enough to remember that both have led us wrongly in the past, and will again in the future. (My mother loved to remind me how absolutely convinced I was in 4th grade that Brenda Tucker was the only woman I would ever love.)

I haven’t left orthodox Christian thinking. I am convinced that the true Muse is the Holy Spirit. Not all my subscribers are Christians, of course, though I am not shy about expressing my faith in Christian terms.

The thing that I fear too many Christians miss is that the Holy Spirit speaks to all people, not just Christian believers. Likewise all Creation speaks and tells of the glory of God. Now, can all people hear the Holy Spirit? And does the Holy Spirit speak the same way to everyone? No to both questions. There are some things that only redeemed children of God will be told, or even be able to comprehend.

There is also a false Muse, which some people have sought. This is the voice that fuels much of the evil that men do. We study God’s Word, the Bible, to learn what the character of God’s voice sounds like, and learn to distinguish the Muses.

Here’s a useful test when you think you’ve heard a voice of command or suggestion: Would doing this make Satan happy or please God? I have multiple experiences where a thought pops to mind about doing this or that, or speaking to someone, and my initial reaction is “Uhm, no.” And then I apply the test, “Would Satan ask you to _?” Quite frequently the answer is No, and now… it’s down to my obedience.

Anyone wishing to lead or influence others must be a clear communicator. The bigger the audience, the bigger the opportunity, the more effort is needed to be clear.

I read a short biography of the man who wrote these words in our Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

His name was Gouverneur Morris (January 31, 1752 – November 6, 1816).

Remarkably different than today’s legislators, one of his primary tasks in the process of drafting the Constitution was to – get this – simplify and shorten it. The result had to be readable by the people.

The US Constitution contains 4,543 words, including the signatures. Adding the 27 amendments brings it to 7,591 words. I have a shirt-pocket sized booklet which contains the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which I sit down and reread every July 4th.

Maybe we should insist that all our laws are no longer than 7,591 words and could fit in your shirt pocket. The effort to do this would greatly enhance the clarity of the law!

What will come in your family lineage over the next 100 years? Consider Jonathan Edwards, one of the most intelligent men in the 18th century, a theologian, pastor, and prolific writer:

“An investigation was made of 1,394 known descendants of Jonathan Edwards of which 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, 3 United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, one a vice-president of the United States, 80 became public officials in other capacities, 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries.”

There are fallacious comparisons of Edwards descendants vs. the descendants of a man named Jukes — the Jukes side is terribly misrepresented and incorrect in most accounts. Still, the Edwards story is remarkable. Edwards married a remarkable woman, and many of the people marrying into the lineage were remarkable as well. The accounts usually gloss over the fact that the Vice President was Aaron Burr — an amazing man in many respects but mostly remembered as a traitor to the United States.

The leadership lesson here? Your life is not just about you. We’re influencing family members, neighbors, colleagues, even people we do not know or will not meet. Though there’s plenty of mumbo-jumbo said about the interrelationships of all of us and the universe, no one should doubt that connections exist.

I love books. Really, I do. I love searching the web for information. I’m wired to synthesize information from fire hoses of input.

Occasionally this gets me into trouble.

The other morning I felt I was getting nowhere while praying. Felt awful, constrained, artificial, perfunctory. Useless. Thought popped into my mind: “I should find a new book on prayer and read it.”

Later that day I was stuck in writing an article. My outline was right there in front of me and I couldn’t craft two decent sentences. Thought popped into my mind: “I should Google for articles about getting past writer’s block. Or install that new software I heard about from WriteorDie.com.”

Nope.

I am not missing information. I do not need additional distractions. It’s time to simply recommit to praying, and continuing to practice praying as conversation. I just need the self-discipline to quiet my inner critic, crank out a few sentences (no matter how blecky) and come back another time to edit.
I don’t have a ‘knowing’ problem, but a ‘doing’ problem.

The Internet has so much information that a dedicated individual could be self-taught on almost any subject or craft, at least enough to be employable. I have no plumbing or electrical skills – but there is so much on YouTube and home repair web sites that I could apply myself and learn the basics.

For free.

MIT has their entire engineering curriculum online. For free.

Khan Academy has outstanding math, science, and economics classes in short, consumable bites. For free.

World class professors teach classes online in many colleges and universities. Many of those are recorded, and freely available.

Here’s the kicker: how many people are actually taking advantage of this? Hardly anyone. The statistics from online-only college degree programs are underwhelming; relatively few students who begin actually finish.

Why? What does this tell us about ourselves, and our culture? Does this tell us anything about our expectations of institutional certification? I am still pondering this question. (What do you think?)

Two facts are clear:
(1) Going forward, there are few limits to self-education opportunities.
(2) We’re going to need those opportunities, given the fast-changing complexity of our world.

Some years ago I interviewed a young man without a college degree, from Pakistan. He had systematically studied all the MIT engineering class videos online, and felt he had the equivalent of a degree from MIT. I wonder how long before corporations are smart enough to hire this kind of young man? Or will they continue to risk competing against him as a start-up engineer/entrepreneur?

Here’s another line of thought. Historically socialists and communists have painted a picture where everyone would have access to the finest education, all for free, and live up to their full potential. In practical terms this level of education has become available via the Internet. What do the large majority of people use the Internet for? Streaming entertainment, gaming, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, porn. I think this experiment tells us that the reason why socialism won’t work is because people are not uniformly good and idealistic and self-disciplined enough to make that system work the way it aspires to.

Critical test: What percentage of a society will take advantage of all that is available to them and fulfill their potential? Historically it’s probably less than 5%.

I recommend this 4 min exercise:  Take your compensation sheet for last year, and calculate your average wage/hour.  (For example, Salary divided by [49 weeks * X hours/week].)
 
This number will probably be higher than you had thought.  Feel good about this. You present considerable future value to the organization.
 
The organization needs to get significant value from your average hourly wage, or else it becomes logical to find ways to get equal or better value from a lower wage, or non-human automation.  No coasting!  What “Good enough” in the past will fall short in the future.  
 
Not every hour is equal, of course. Applying a power law function, you would expect about 2 weeks of the year, perhaps 100 hours, as the base for more than half your delivered value.  Though it is difficult to consistently predict which 100 hours are best, you can focus on specific activities most likely to yield the highest value results.
 
Next time you think “it’s just 30 minutes” or “I can do that in a few days” do a recheck on your wages.  This may make it easier to decline meetings, suggest someone else do some work, find another solution, etc.  It’s also why solutions which provide lasting value and/or prevent problems in the future are worth your focused attention. 
 
Meetings need to be productive!  Ask “What’s worth this high number of salaried hours?”  Good communication is worth extra effort up front because it scales better and reduces problems later on.
 
You can calculate this for your direct reports, too.  This will help you consider their best assignments.  You can also translate x amount of work into a dollar figure.  I’ve been able to ask clients in the past, “Would you pay $10,000” for that solution?  Because that’s about what the developer salaries will add up to.”  You can have a good dialogue with better data.
 
All this is much easier to do when systems are working well, there is time/effort margin you can leverage, and relationships are healthy.  With systems that are built on wet sand, overloaded people, and bitterness in a team, you’ll find you are drawn into a downward spiral of focus on the less productive and less valuable work. 

We’re all hopeful for a vaccine against Covid-10.  Anti-vaccine sentiment is strong in segments of our populations, particularly in the prosperous West. An even larger segment of the population behaves as if life must be 100% risk free, and tradeoffs are unacceptable.  Vaccines are not 100% perfect, and there are some risks.  This is a situation of tradeoffs.   

An insight I picked up from an older man about the current “we insist on zero risk” mentality:  These people have no living memory of what everyday life was like before the big surge of vaccine availability in the 1940’s-1970’s, and antibiotics in the 1920’s.  Infant and childhood mortality was common.  Many people knew family members and neighbors who died or permanently scarred from scarlet fever, polio, the mumps, etc.  There were national conversations about how to build enough iron lungs to treat all the polio victims.  People living with that reality could reasonably consider the tradeoff value of sparing millions of people death and disfigurement vs. the reality that a very small fraction of people would be hurt by the vaccine.

The tradeoff risks were movingly illustrated in this clip from the HBO series “John Adams.”

Life is not risk-free.