Month: December 2021

I take notes on leaders who impress me.  One common skill is their ability to anticipate problems, reactions, scenarios.  They appear to be surprised far less often than weaker leaders.

Some of this comes from experience.  Their current situation is like past situations, so they can draw from a toolkit of what works, what to expect, what can be avoided. 

Some comes from imagination.  They’re playing chess, thinking 2-4 moves ahead, likely action-reaction combinations.  They’re fusing the timelines of workstreams and can recognize resource problems before they happen.  They think through what-if/and-then-what options.

Explicit planning helps.  Getting input from different perspectives helps.  Learning from the experiences of others helps.

Give some thought to how you can build anticipation power in your own leadership craft. 

You know the 80/20 principle says that 80% of the value comes from 20% of the effort.  (Unequal distributions like this are a pattern, not a law – sometimes it is 70/30 or 95/5.)

But which is the 20% that you should do, so you don’t “waste” your effort on the 80%?  Which is the critical few that merit your attention in a new-to-you situation? I can almost always spot the critical few in the rear view mirror, but only occasionally looking forward. In new-to-you situations, you must experiment and push forward and apply what you learn.  This is the price of adventures and meaningful work.

If you’re in a situation which feels familiar – either through personal experience or you’ve recognized it from the experiences shared by others – you have a better shot at identifying the critical few, and the levers to move.  You can avoid that which you know is ineffective, or a side-show.  This is the payoff from reflection, study, and applied imagination.

You might be familiar with DiSC assessment of your working style – Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance.  There are similar kinds of assessment tools with different names for the 4 basic types.  All these assessments have their origins in research Willian Moulton Marston published in 1928, and in the writings of Empodocles (Earth, Fire, Air, Water) in 444 B.C.  These are valuable assessments because you can learn about your default working styles and ways you prefer to interact with others. 

Important: The assessment tells you nothing about your maturity.  Pride and immaturity are at the root of most of the worst problems interacting with others. 

I encourage you know your DiSC profile.  Be willing to adapt your preferred style for the sake of the larger mission and for others.  Professionals don’t accept jerks (“He’s just a D and can’t help being arrogant”) or passivity when someone should be contributing (“He’s a C and is uncomfortable bringing his analysis forward unless invited”).  Let’s help one another.

A growing number of people expect to spend most of their time in completely virtual environments, rather than interact in “meat space.”  Plenty of popular sci-fi stories describe such a world.  In particular, the use of avatars and alternative characters is considered a popular feature.  You can be someone “completely different” in virtual interactions.  You can live via a comfortable lie.

This has profound implications for behavior.  Just as anonymity facilitates the worst in social media and the explosion of porn, anonymity minimizes all the incentives for wise and just behavior.  The earliest literature on this goes back to Plato’s Republic, in Book 2, written about 375BC.  Socrates and Glaucon discuss whether humans are intrinsically just.  They review the story of the shepherd Gyges who discovers a ring in an opening created by an earthquake.  The shepherd realizes that he is invisible when he puts on the ring [oh, you thought Tolkien came up with the idea of a ring that makes someone invisible? : -) ].  The shepherd rapidly exploits his invisibility to seduce the queen, kill the king, and take over the kingdom.  Humans are selfish and intrinsically unjust unless there are external forces which incentivize us to be just.

Can we construct virtual communities of anonymous avatars and retain incentives for acting justly?  Could be difficult while retaining liberty.  Liberty requires individual responsibility – which even for ‘righteous’ people is far easier when you can’t be anonymous and can’t evade accountability for doing wrong.  The externalities matter.

We have a growing body of anecdotes about individuals who spend much of their time online and have infantile interpersonal skills in the real world.  A cause-effect link appears likely. 

It’s a mistake to think that this “metaverse” is all future.  It’s here, albeit incompletely.  All technological advances follow William Gibson’s 1984 insight in his novel Neuromancer: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”  Gibson coined the terms cyberspace, netsurfing, jacking in, and neural implants.  

Avoid the technology options? Doubtful.  The human race has occasionally lost some technical capabilities (e.g., Roman cement) but to my knowledge we’ve never consciously and completely abandoned a technology.  Therefore, our path is likely learning how to live well with a technology, using it while minimizing how much we’re used by it in the process.  This calls for deep wisdom, rooted in moral identity formed in love and justice, and supported by helpful institutions.

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Self-discipline is an absolute essential factor for success in the rapidly evolving work of work.  Technological tools, org designs, and HR policies are no substitute for self-leadership.

Self-discipline in a domain only happens after we developed self-discipline in another domain.  It took me many years to realize this truth.

…

Review this insight as you ponder the metaverse:

“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Follow the money, follow the power. Who profits from the metaverse? How much power will some individuals have by owning/controlling the metaverse? How much of their ambitions depend on lies while fostering a world where lying is expected and normative?

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There will be positives in communication and education in a growing metaverse.  The world is not black and white, but spectrums of color.  When our kids were young they would plead to watch PG-13 movies, and then R movies as they got older.  “It’s only a little bit bad,” they reasoned.  We sometimes replied with this question: “Would you eat mom’s brownies if she mixed in just a little bit of dog poop?”

I don’t have easy answers.  I want people to think carefully about the costs and consequences of even inevitable technological advances.

We face many wicked problems in the world today – problems so extensive and intertangled and deep that every attempt to solve them seems to make them worse.  Cancer and dementia. Unimaginable national debts and propped-up currencies.  Authoritarianism.  Institutional trust evaporating.  Probably a half-billion people dying from addictions.  Extensive failures of father and mother role models. 

These are the ten characteristics of wicked problems:

• No clear definition
• “One shot” solutions have consequences
• No immediate or ultimate test for a solution
• No final end to solutions
• Unique
• Every problem is a symptom of another
• Solution space is limited by worldview
• No “right to be wrong”
• Solutions are not right/wrong but better/worse
• Can’t stop the problems to solve them

There is no lack of commentary on these problems.  There are endless rounds of proposed solutions.  The inherent flaws of human nature are the unique threads running through all wicked problems – especially selfishness and lies.   Another common thread:  the “Rubik’s Cube Solution” applies, meaning things will have to get much worse before they can be better, because wicked problems are always about systems of systems.

So what are you and I to do?  Not the mass of humanity, not “the government” or “the leadership,” but you and me?  I suggest a tripartite plan of action:

First, pursue what is necessary to constrain your weaknesses. 

Second, know your calling. It may take time to know this, and our calling evolves as we grow.  Your calling defines your lane.

Third, work on the problems in your lane.  Stay in your lane.  Work within your strengths and circle of influence. Trust that others will be called to tackle other areas.  

Maybe a fourth part of the plan is to resolve to put your trust where it belongs. 

There has been enormous emphasis on productivity and efficiency during my working career.

The future will focus more on resiliency as a means of profitable growth.

Resiliency has a specific definition in physics:  the degree to which an object returns to original shape after being deformed. 

People and organizations are not rubber balls.  Resiliency means coming back stronger or improved after an impact.  Returning to the original condition is not an option.

Resiliency looks like:

• Margin (time, energy, funds) for the unexpected
• Process improvements based on lessons learned from experience
• Redundancy in critical areas (including cross-training) and resources (supply chains, route to market)
• Designing so that substitute parts and services can be swapped in with minimal disruption
• Proactive changes in behaviors
• Leadership better tuned into external and internal factors
• Trust built by coming through a difficult time together (share stories which shape culture)

Resiliency is fostered by conscious design and reflecting on experiences.  Resilience doesn’t “just happen” naturally.  

The leadership issue here is to recognize the value of resiliency over the longer term, and optimize for resilience in the face of short-term pressures to optimize other ways.  This requires skillful communication with stakeholders, compelling vision, and significant courage.

“The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.” (St. Augustine of Hippo)

Leading others requires first leading yourself. 

This will be constant work. You’ve never arrived at a place where you don’t risk slipping backwards. Find ways to preach to yourself, to remind yourself of principles and truths, to encourage your own heart, to push through difficulties, to get up again after a fall, to begin again after a stall.

This is how a spark of motivation gets converted into discipline.

A few important “reminders to self” for you:

• All leadership of others begin with self-leadership, which the most difficult kind of leadership to do consistently well.
• You are precious and important and are also not the center of the universe.  This is true for everyone else, too.
• The reason you are easily fooled and misled is your well-honed power of self-rationalization and excuse-making.
• Your giftedness is to help others. Your ego is not your amigo.
• There is neither progress nor true joy when you park your butt in your comfort zone.  Do not confuse pleasure and joy.
• We live in an age of exponential technology advances, and people are still fundamentally people.
• History is biography.
• Cause and effect are rarely close in time or space.
• Lies are the foundation of evil.  Don’t lie, especially to yourself.  Don’t tolerate lies.
• The view out the windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror.
• “Sewage flows downhill and smoke rises” is commonly true in human organizations, so don’t be surprised.
• Compete with yourself and cheer on everyone else.
• One person with conviction can weigh as much as the majority.
• Riding a tiger is exciting.  The problem is the dismount.

A few aphorisms from my grandfather, who was worldly wise with only a 5^th grade education:

“You have a belly button, so you’re entitled to your opinion. That’s about all you’re entitled to.”

“The world is a small place. Remember that before you pee in somebody’s cornflakes.”

“Men trade far too much for a few minutes of pleasure with an extra zip at the end. A man does well to keep his pants on.”

“There are many clever bastards. Beware.”

“I’ve never been hurt by tipping generously.”

“Pair up working hard and thinking smart to go far.”

“Don’t worry about laughing loudly.”