Month: May 2021

It’s better to prevent problems than deal with crises, but all leaders must solve unexpected problems.  Here are a few things it took me 30 years to learn.

Some problems just never seem to get solved.  We talk about them repeatedly.  Another problem may hold our attention for a time, and then we circle back to the old problem. This is when you need to ask yourself this question: “Are we having the conversation we need to have, or the conversation we want to have?”

You’ll find that we often want to have conversations which by design can’t lead to a solution because:

·         We might be held accountable for a result

·         We don’t like the changes we ourselves would have to make

·         There is a long effort required before we would experience benefits

·         We would prefer to get the credit for a solution but don’t want to take any risks

·         It’s frankly more fun to complain about “them” or “that”

Stronger leaders move away from these “want to have” conversations to invest more time in “need to have” conversations.

A somewhat related theme is “Am I solving a problem or managing a tension?” Not everything is a problem that can be solved, especially when there are people involved and economic factors.  Instead, use the framework of managing a tension between different elements (methods, perspectives, modes). We get into serious trouble when we think that we are always solving a problem. 

Finally, a word when you are solving problems: Resist the temptation to create “big” solutions. Prefer to create solutions to a narrowly-defined problem. Poverty is a big problem. Finding more men willing to spend time with boys in struggling households in your immediate community is a narrowly-defined problem.

All your enemies want you distracted and unfocused.

The first step is learning to recognize what is a distraction, and what should be your focus.  A wise man told me years ago to change my language from “I’m too busy to ____” to “I’m not prioritizing ____ now.”  For example, “I’m too busy to finish my book on Anger” is actually “I’m not prioritizing my book on Anger now.”  This does two things for you.  First, it’s easier to identify what deserves focus and energy.  Second, you’ll recognize when you’re making excuses, and excuses are often lies we tell ourselves.

We’re quick to blame externals for distracting us. The uncomfortable truth is that we’re distracted because in the moment it is preferable to what we should be focusing on.  Being distracted begins with our unsettled emotional state.

Next, settle in your mind WHY you want to build strong powers of concentration.  Given enough time I can get a basketball through the hoop.  But can I do it in the crucial seconds of a basketball game, with a defender in my face?  The goal of practicing in ways which sharpen your focus and sustained concentration is the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.  We should want to be that mature man or woman.

Here are practices which begin with you:

Reading hard material – especially books – builds your focus muscles.  Distracting thoughts will surface. Keep a notepad handy to jot down an idea or question, then set it aside for follow-through later. 

Meditation focused on your breathing.  Apps like Headspace and Oak are a big help to develop this practice.

Memorize verses, poems, song lyrics, and paragraphs from books or speeches.  Successful memorization requires repetition and intensity which build focus power.

“Keep your butt in the chair.”  This was the best advice my major professor gave me in grad school when I was struggling to finish my dissertation.  Set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes (increase to 90 minutes as you’re able), put it where you can’t see it, and work until it goes off.  When you feel distracted or antsy, preach to yourself: “I am doing this now.”  Many people are successful using the Pomodoro technique to structure work and breaks.

Pick a game or sport or skill that’s hard but has a satisfying outcome.  As you practice it and get frustrated, resist-resist-resist the temptation to stop.  For example, a few months ago I started doing Sudoku puzzles.  I can do the medium and hard puzzles now but I must sustain my concentration for 20+ minutes.  They start out fine, then I will struggle for a while in the middle without making much progress.  This is a good struggle. I’m building my ability to concentrate through an uncomfortable stretch.

There are also opportunities to practice within the events of the day:

Dull meeting or presentation?  Intentionally focus on the content with the goal of being able to reproduce it yourself.  Or consciously decide how you would do it better, or build on what’s been shared.  Imagine yourself doing this with a group of people later.

Have only one window open (or at least only one visible) when working online.  You’re wired to be attracted by movement and changes in the adjacent spaces.  

Exercise without the help of music.  This enhances your ability to manage your own rhythms be more aware of your internals. Press forward through the “it hurts I want to stop” phase using your mental toughness. 

Waiting?  Work systematically through all your senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell – to be fully present in the moment.

I hope you find these helpful for building up your strength and maturity.

The primary definition of a vice is an immoral or degrading practice or habit.  Today I want to discuss the secondary definition: “a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhealthy habit.”

You’ll frequently hear language about strengths and weaknesses.  That’s appropriate for polite company.  You can find abundant advice about building on your strengths and mitigating weaknesses.

When you’re in serious self-talk, categorize them as vices – those habits which limit your growth & productivity, which are poor responses to fear or boredom. 

When you name them harshly, you’re more likely to take action to stop them. Be harder on yourself than others will be.

Isaac Newton exploited his quarantine from the 1665-1666 London plague to work on his magnum opus, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, in which he codified laws of motion.  His third law states:

“When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.”

This law is also true in a general way about human behavior.  When you raise your voice or vigorously push an idea, people naturally tend to raise their own voice, push back, raise defensive shields.  Returning like for like is rarely a long-term solution, and often escalates tensions.  This is why we have ancient wisdom such as the proverb, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

In processes, business models, even government models, if your mindset is “destroy” or “disrupt,” you’ve instantly stimulated an equal and opposite force.  People will be motivated to disrupt you back.  You will find yourself facing greater complexity than before.  You engender bitterness and resentment.

It’s healthier and more productive to adopt the mindset of “transform.”  All change is difficult. There will be resistance factors for all changes because the status quo has significant power.  Focus your transforming efforts to create value that others recognize – faster, cheaper, simpler, more effective. 

(Note: HT to Dan Sullivan and Perry Marshall who have published notes on this concept.)

What do you do when evidence surfaces that you were wrong, you believed something in error, you were fooled or conned?

The two most common behaviors:

• Double-down on the original belief. “I didn’t follow an unscrupulous leader, she’s a genius and most people simply can’t see that.”  “That threat wasn’t a hoax – our proactive steps meant it didn’t happen.”
• Rationalize that the blame lies entirely with others. “There’s no way I could have known that Nobel Prize winner in physics didn’t understand the gold market.”  “He is PMI certified, so it’s not my fault that he ran the project into the ground.”

The least common behavior?  Honest assessment based on facts, evidence, and outcomes – to purpose to be better next time.

I don’t have a consistent explanation for our frequent refusal to acknowledge we need to change something in ourselves.

Permission to be blunt?  Grow up.  Be the leader who acknowledges an error in judgment or being fooled.  Own your part. Learn from your experiences – there is always an adventure of learning and adapting if you’re willing to take it.  Model this for others.

The concept of balance is over-rated. I’m hard-pressed to imagine a single person who consistently lived a “balanced” life the way it’s described in the popular literature today: constant peace (meaning lack of internal conflict), equal amounts of action & rest, work & leisure, consumption & production. That’s a fantasy approaching utopia.

The biology of infants learning to walk is instructive here. All the sensing systems in our body are designed to report the degree of off-balance and the direction. Learning to walk is learning to use the appropriate muscles to push back in the opposite direction of that sensory input. We learn to match the “You’re falling towards the left” signal with the group of muscles to contract that will pull us back towards the right.

You can see a toddler wildly swinging from side to side. Or when someone is learning to ride a bike.  After some experience walking and bike riding become a nearly unconscious process of small movements. You and I are doing what the toddler was doing but it’s been decades since we noticed. Our muscles are making a thousand micro-adjustments an hour, all without conscious thought. As we approach our old age this “wobble” walk balance becomes a noticeable problem again.

Instead of “balance,” we need to think and evaluate ourselves on foundations and rhythms. What are your foundational principles and regular practices to keep you grounded? What are your rhythms of work and rest, creating and consuming, listening and speaking, being alone and being together? Pay attention to these matters rather than trying to measure “balance.”

There are many tragic “mob behavior” stories in history:

The Athenian implosion

Witch hunts in Europe in the 1300-1500’s

The Spanish Inquisition

Salem witch trials

Jacobin revolution in France

McCarthy anti-communist purge (Note: after the fall of the USSR, we learned that McCarthy was right – the US government was loaded with Communist spies and sympathizers)

Cultural Revolution in China

Khmer Rouge in Cambodia

How did these mob behaviors begin, and how did they end? It’s important to look for the patterns because these mob events happen again and again. (Today’s political correctness and ‘cancel culture’ have very similar elements – though not everyone agrees with me on this.) There is old wisdom which says that the divine spirit may occupy individuals, but the devil works in crowds.

Observable patterns:

1. Sincere ideas and concerns at the beginning – but very quickly becomes about identifying enemies and “purification.”
2. Weak leadership at the outset. No one stands up early and says, “We’re not doing this.”
3. They either exploit institutional legal processes or destroy them altogether.  Also, in several examples, revisionist history and changing the meaning of words became a core element.
4. The first to suffer are the marginal people with less status, family, means, and friends.
5. Momentum builds as people go along rather than stand up and be persecuted or killed themselves. Almost anyone will be accused. The movement often kills those who started the movement.
6. They end gradually. There is no final event. It’s as if the energy and momentum dissipate.

How can avoid mobs in the future? They must be stopped at the earliest possible time. This calls for mature leadership in the majority of adults who recognize the dangers at the first signs, and act. This takes courage.

Some problems just never seem to get solved.  We talk about them repeatedly.  Another problem may hold our attention for a time, and then we circle back to the old problem.

This is when you need to ask yourself this question: “Are we having the conversation we need to have, or the conversation we want to have?”

You’ll find that we often want to have conversations which by design can’t lead to a solution because:

• We might be held accountable for a result
• We don’t like the changes we ourselves would have to make
• There is a long effort required before we would experience benefits
• We would prefer to get the credit for a solution but don’t want to take any risks
• It’s frankly more fun to complain about “them” or “that”

Stronger leaders move away from these “want to have” conversations to invest more time in “need to have” conversations.

“Danger, Will Robinson!” was how the Robot would warn young Will Robinson in the original “Lost in Space” TV series.  The Robot was my favorite character in the show. 

We don’t have Robot around to warn us about every danger.  We must train ourselves to see dangers and respond accordingly.  Here are things you can learn to recognize:

• Naked Assertions: Claims presented without supporting evidence.  These are often phrased to sound authoritative and objective.  
• Catastrophism: Dramatic, existential threat, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it language. 
• Problem presented with single solution:  A problem is described alongside only one possible solution. A common presentation in the 24×7 news-tainment business is the automatic assumption that government or strong central control must be the source of solutions.
• Reductionism:  Presenting the complex and multifaceted as one-dimensional, easy to understand and solve.  The easiest form to recognize is when someone says, “It’s simple.”  Another form is when the words every, all, never, and always are extrapolated to be true of groups of people and complex systems.
• Assuming changing one thing changes nothing else in a system.  This shows up frequently in economic and process discussions.  All changes produce consequences, and some may not affect you directly and immediately.

I recommend you study biases and system errors, and hope but this starting set will serve as a guardrails for you.