Month: April 2022

It concerns me when groups, companies, and political leaders insist we cater to the least mature people.  This is a Teflon-coated slope to a place we don’t want to be.

Should we rather reward maturity, indeed insist on it?  A culture that celebrates prolonged adolescence will be upheld by the shrinking number of mature individuals, until it collapses.  Companies which demean maturity will end up increasing their costs by coddling the immature, and likely see talented individuals leave.  Human groups always get more of what they celebrate and get better at what they practice.  Let’s not practice and celebrate immaturity!

Maturity is not the default.   Maturity comes from making the right choices for the moment AND the long term.  Maturity has a cost to attain, and a cost to maintain. Ogden Nash observed “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” Indefinite immaturity is phenomenally expensive.

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Mature people are authentic.  They bring out the parts of themselves which are appropriate in the right context.

Let’s examine the statement we hear business leaders say: “We want you to bring your whole self to work.”  Sometimes it’s said, “We want you to feel safe to bring your whole self to work.”

At best, this is sloppy thinking.  At worst, it’s intentionally disingenuous. I believe leaders saying “bring your whole self to work” are sincere but doubt they really want employees bringing their whole self. 

Here are key components of who I am:

• Religious convictions
• Political perspectives
• Opinions on history, literature, and art
• Sexual self
• Medical and psychological imperfections
• Relationship scars

These are all important but have no direct relevance to my current job.  They’re potentially divisive.  In our current state it’s not even “safe” to express some of my views because they’re “out of step” with what some say or imply is the only right way to think about something.

Being professional and fully engaged in a role means focusing on the work at hand, while being respectful with colleagues and customers.  You can be authentic and trustworthy as you leave the rest of yourself out it. 

You can work through the same logic for many settings – mature people bring out the appropriate parts of themselves.

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A friend and I were sharing our battles with our inner critic, the voice(s) which usually whisper and sometimes shout that we’re not good enough and we’re going to fail at what we are called to do.  It is a regular battle.  The critic wants to rule and write the “We’re safe, we never risked anything” story. 

Mature people honor the obligation to keep control of the pen and remain the author. 

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We’re remarkably good at lumping diversity into fewer buckets.  We say “Europe” as if it’s a monoculture, rather than more than 20 nations with a large range of history and culture.  We say “US” though even casual observers recognize immense differences in states and regions.  We say “White male” and “Black female” as if these are homogenous groups.  We say “Christian” and “Hindu” and “Muslim” and “Atheist” as if that small word encompasses the depth and richness of their variations.  We gleefully transform political and social labels as weapons to hurl at someone we disagree with.

Math wisdom tells us that all models are wrong, but some are useful.  In the same way, I now consider all labels wrong, but some have limited utility.  

Maturity means thinking and speaking better, holding labels more like a wounded bird than a spear.

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Mature people exercise their responsibility to lead people in their sphere of influence in a positive direction.  I once read what a political advisor told his client: “In politics you can eat well or sleep well, but you can’t do both, so take your pick.”  The reason we despise so many politicians is that they obviously choose to eat well.

There will always be difficult choices in your leadership adventures. Always.  Maturity is doing the hard right thing rather than the easy wrong thing.  Maturity thinks past the expediency of today.

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Mature people know – and it gets deeper in their bones as they gain maturity – that it’s not about you.  You’re always serving somebody.  Others are more important than you.  Humility keeps us in the right zone in our relationships.

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Mature people know how to live among and positively influence messy groups who are at all levels of maturity. 

Paul’s two letters to Timothy are a study in how to become mature and respond to others wisely.  For example, he writes:

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.  And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. (2 Timothy 2:22-25)

Controversies and quarrels are the sad currency of our day.  May we be a better example, like Timothy, even if we must patiently endure evil.

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You – yeah, you! – need to grow up. 

Me, too.

None of us are yet mature as we’re intended to be.  This is our aim, for the sake of those we serve.

The list of “Seven Deadly Sins” is not straight from the Bible, but instructive: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.  There is a tradition that each deadly sin is personified by a Prince in Hell.  Belphagor is the Prince of Sloth.  (He appears in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”)

Most people think of sloth as laziness, but sloth is more than laziness.  Sloth is a combination of apathy, dejection, self-absorbed pity, and half-heartedness. Sloth is going through the motions without caring about the outcome. Sloth relishes pouring energy and focus into irrelevant details rather than solving core problems. Sloth admires the ideas of “shortcuts” which promise big gains without study, thought, or work.  Sloth whispers shiny promises of “more with less” without delivering the more. Sloth is insidious and stealthy; Sloth avoids the light.

Sloth even knows how to be adorable. Eyeore, one of my favorite characters from the Pooh stories, is slothful.  Fortunately, Eyeore has friends who have a soft spot in their hearts for him.

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Once you recognize Belphagor’s modus operandi, you’ll see it frequently.  

• Sluggish organization work, relatively unproductive, with tremendous energy poured into appearances and slogans.  Let’s reorganize because it’s been 17 months since the last one!
• The lies we tell ourselves about what we accomplished this week.
• Continuing inefficient, ineffective processes and practices long after most acknowledge they’re no longer helpful. No one steps up to change the status quo because that would be more uncomfortable.
• Procrastination from doing our real work, especially creative work and caring relationships.  The latest Netflix series is much more fun.
• Massive media attention paid to the latest foolish thing someone somewhere said once upon a time, compared to that same energy applied to genuine challenges – teacher and nursing shortages, drug addiction and homelessness, failing education models, insufficient affordable housing, meeting energy demands responsibly, political corruption, and more. 

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There are three dangers in how we think about sloth:

“Oh, these ignorant people, there’s no such thing as evil and demons and hell.  We left all that behind when we developed modern psychology and neuroscience.”

“It’s not me, it’s just Belphagor controlling me!  I’m helpless and powerless, so you can’t hold me accountable.”

“Those behaviors are everywhere, and people get away with it just fine, so why should I work differently?” (This illustrates the reinforcing power of Sloth.)

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What do we do about Belphagor and our propensity to sloth?  As usual, the answer is simple and hard.

Recognizing sloth and accurately characterizing it is the first step.

Choose the wise and energetic focus, consistent with playing the long game.

In sum, don’t cooperate with Belphagor! 

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This requires tough, resilient leadership, beginning with self-leadership.

One of the costs of mentoring and coaching leaders is that you get a face-on view of the garbage behaviors inside organizations. Some of these situations are truly ugly. Pride and immaturity repeatedly squash love. People sincerely try to make healthy community work.  We have an apparently infinite capacity for sabotaging what should be beautiful and life-sustaining.  This is particularly painful in religious communities.

I see so much of it that some days I despair and simply prefer to isolate myself from church life and deep relationships.  (I suspect we’re commanded to gather together because we have seasons where we aren’t excited about it.)  Down deep I crave strong fellowship.  Experiences tend to feed my cynicism. 

Therefore, I must preach to myself:

All human fellowship dissembles apart from the work of God.  Remember what your granddad told you as a boy: “Don’t do things that make the Devil happy.”  The Devil applauds when you’re cynical about community and church fellowship.  And these leaders you see struggling with difficult situations?  God is with them in the fire. God will use a remnant of them to accomplish mighty things in the years ahead.

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Sometimes the best way to preach to yourself is to ask yourself questions rather than make statements.  Questions disarm our ego; our ego can’t bear reflection.  I’ll share some of my question to restore perspective and battle doubt, in hopes you also find them helpful:

“How many billions of people are having a worse day than you?  How many billions would trade for your problems in a heartbeat?”

“Did you forget that there will always be problems?  As Dad would say, “No problems, no pay.” 

“Which specific promise has God failed to keep?”

“Is God still enthroned? “Is God saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t see this coming’?”  What can’t God do (other than lie)?”

“What’s the length of eternity?”

“How many times do need reminding that your feelings are your feelings and yet they are untrustworthy measures of the truth?”

“When was the last time being [angry, irritated, stymied with overwhelm] helped you?”

“Is this the end of the story?”

“If this isn’t working, what pivot would be helpful?”

“Are you thinking about this in the best possible way?”

“When did you stop believing that God would help you obey His commands?”

“What would following Christ look like?”

“Who needs your help, since this isn’t about you?”

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Today’s opportunity: Don’t cooperate with Belphagor!

A friend confided in me that he hardly ever reads the Bible outside of Sunday worship and prays very little. “It’s just a heavy burden now,” he said. “I’m burned out on this stuff.”

This is a man who regularly leads small groups in his home. He occasionally preaches sermons in his church. He has remarkably eloquent prayers at dinners with friends.

“I’m faking it,” he admitted.

We talked for a time about spiritual burnout. I suggested he reframe his “why” for reading the Bible and praying privately. I recommended he embrace these as God’s gifts to him, rather than heavy duty. Read with a listening ear to hear God’s love and sustaining grace to carry him through difficult times. (His sister is in chemo treatment for stage 4 cancer.)  Pray as a means of unburdening his heavy heart.

He gave me permission to share this story, without using his name. “You’re right,” he told me recently, “these are gifts to me.”

I implore you to accept the loving gifts of God.

Ambition is a good thing.  Don’t squelch desires to improve skills and develop new capabilities.  This is bedrock for a high-performing organization. 

I’ve noticed that employees often believe myths about promotions and what it means if they get one (or don’t).   It’s an uncomfortable topic in large group meetings.  I want you to think clearly about them. 

Realities about promotions:

A promotion means doing a different job.  It might be similar to the previous job but would have measurable increases in scope and complexity.  Smart organizations make promotions a significant jump.

The organization needs people working in different roles, and there are relatively few levels compared to the number of roles.  There is not a promotion path in the org design for everyone.  This reality is a bigger limitation than the usual “budget” excuse, and less comfortable to discuss.

There are increasing expectations for every job level and within existing roles, apart from a promotion.  Doing more than you did 2 years ago in the same role is normative, and not necessarily a justification for promotion.  

You will (if you haven’t already) see people being promoted and think “Really?  Why them and not me?”  It won’t help to compare yourself to others.  There are many factors in the promotion cycle of organizations which you cannot control.  Do not let this reality discourage you from putting in your best work and making the case for a promotion as a larger responsibility that you can manage well. 

A younger colleague complained bitterly to me recently that he didn’t like the people in his team.  “We’ve got zero interests in common.  My boss is no fun.  I don’t like working with them at all.”  He said that he could only do his best work with people that he liked. 

Working professionally with others does not require that you like them and want to hang out socially with them all the time.  “Liking” is an unhelpful standard. “Professional respect” is the standard. Find the interests you have in common with the work that needs to be done.  Be respectful about decisions — offer your input, explain your recommendations, take feedback.  Take on more than your “fair share” of work without grumbling or considering yourself better than someone else.  Show up.  Make commitments and keep them.  Share credit appropriately.  Aim to be better than you were yesterday.   

If you have opportunities to move into roles working with people you like, great — and still be a consummate professional around them.

The world is full of people that you aren’t going always like.  And people aren’t always going to like you.  Navigate to success through professional respect — given and earned.  

Communication is one of the core crafts of leadership.  [A craft is a combination of learnable skills and art used to produce something beautiful and useful.]

Leaders need to communicate to groups.  I encourage you to shift your mindset from “I’m talking with a group” to “I’m talking with a series of individuals.”  You know how to talk with a single person, right?  Ok, do that!  Start with one person, then shift your attention to the next person, and so on.  The whole group hears your conversation as you’re going person to person.

Writing a message?  Same mindset – you’re writing to representative people in that distribution list. One of the reasons the typical corporate memo sounds bland is they’re writing to a faceless, non-person named “DL-BigGroupofPeopleIDon’tKnow1234.”

Make your communication to groups more personal and you’ll connect better.  We’re always communicating, so the question is whether you’re connecting.

Hedgehog and Fox is an old and useful concept for strategy and time/effort allocation.  

The first recorded instance is from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus:  “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.”  This cryptic comment inspired Erasmus’ “Adagia”, Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” and Jim Collins wrote a chapter about it in in his excellent book “Good to Great.”   

Most of our days naturally fit the fox model – many things, leaping from one to another, managing the unexpected and unplanned but necessary stuff of the day. 

The key is to plan for hedgehog days:  Intense focus on one big thing.  That kind of day doesn’t happen by default, it must be planned.  It must be guarded. 

Practical reality is that with all our obligations we’ll need to do more than just one thing during an entire day.  Don’t let that be your excuse. Go hedgehog on a 4-hour block of focused time and accomplish those big things!    

I have a working theory that complexity doesn’t disappear, but moves from one part of a system to another.  Analogous to the principle of the conservation of energy, I think of this as the conservation of complexity.   

I don’t know how to prove the theory but there is ample data to support the idea. 

• Amazon’s web interface lets you buy an item with one click and have it delivered the next day.  They’ve absorbed massive internal complexity to make that happen.  This is true for Uber, Google maps, and all the successful ecommerce applications.  Simplicity for the consumer, phenomenal logistics complexity for the provider.   

• HR and IT departments create elaborate self-serve transaction systems.  The responsibility and weight of work falls on employees more than the shrinking internal HR and IT departments.  Simpler for the departments, more complexity for employees.   

• Many process improvement efforts move the work “elsewhere,” unless they outright eliminate steps.  True reduction of work is uncommon. 

• Many of the labor-saving devices of the 20^th century reduced certain kinds of work, but came with increased expectations for getting more done.  The complexity moved from the labor of one task to the additional portfolio of work to be accomplished overall.   

• Plants and animals and microbes exhibit many simple behaviors, especially default responses to stimuli.  There are astounding levels of complexity below those responses.  

My suggestion is that leaders pay attention to where complexity is moving around, and be realistic about claims of simplicity on the far side of complexity.