Month: March 2024

(Note: this is an excerpt from a draft section of a forthcoming book on friendship.  Feedback appreciated!)

Barnabas, the “Son of Encouragement,” is one of my favorite people in the Bible.  There is so much to learn from his admirable life.

We first meet him as a new believer in Jerusalem, shortly after Pentecost.  Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4:36-37)  Barnabas is from the lineage of priests and may have sojourned from the island of Cyprus to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday.  He probably took a 2-day boat trip from Cyprus to Lebanon, then traveled about 250 miles south to Jerusalem.  The fact that Barnabas owned a field near Jerusalem indicates his family had some historic wealth.   He surrendered the cash value to the apostles to support the new Jesus movement, a high level of commitment.  It may be that Barnabas had means enough to support himself and minister full-time.  We don’t have any indication that Barnabas was a family man.  

Barnabas, like each of us, did not know his future.   He could trust in the faithfulness of God to bring him through, but could not have imagined how much God would use him in the earliest days of the Christian movement through the Roman empire.  He could not have imagined the friendships that were ahead – Paul, the other apostles, and especially all the Gentiles. 

Barnabas was courageous.  He risked his tight relationship with his congregation to introduce Saul – who until recently had been zealously murdering Jesus followers – to the apostles: When [Saul] came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.  But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. (Acts 9:26-27)  Barnabas recognized Saul’s conversion, preaching skill, and passion. 

Barnabas impressed leaders with his godliness, devotion, and ability to teach.  He must have been an obvious choice to send to a new group of believers in Antioch, some of whom came from Cyprus where Barnabas was born:  Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.  The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.  News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.  (Acts 11:19-22)

This wasn’t a trivial trip – it’s about 400 miles, through rough terrain and less-than-friendly parts of the Roman Empire for a non-citizen.  How long would it take you to walk 400 miles to meet people you’ve never met? 

We learn something special about Barnabas’ character and insight about the Gospel from what happened at Antioch: When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. (Acts 11:23-24)

Barnabas sees the evidence of God’s grace at work.  He focuses people on the Lord, not himself.  These are Greek-speaking people, not Jews.  Barnabas doesn’t bring a manual from Jerusalem or the apostles about “how to do church like we do.”  He’s entirely focused on the essentials, not the precise forms.  Barnabas embraces them as brothers and sisters in a common faith.  Barnabas is clearly majoring on the majors and not letting minor issues create a division.

It doesn’t take long for Barnabas to realize this congregation needs more than what he can provide.  He could easily have set himself up as a ‘super apostle,’ but there’s no hint of this in the story.  He decides to get help for the Antioch congregation:  the converted Pharisee Saul, highly educated, articulate, able to teach and instruct:  Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. (Acts 11:25-26)  By the way, Tarsus is over 100 miles from Antioch, even further away from any land or peoples Barnabas would have known.  It’s not like Barnabas could call ahead and make plans based on a travelogue.

Barnabas and Saul are trusted to take money from Antioch back to Jerusalem to support the church in Judea (Acts 11:30), and return to Antioch.  Barnabas is listed as the first of the “prophets and teachers” there (Acts 13:1).  Barnabas is listed first, ahead of Paul, when God calls them to go on a missionary journey:  While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (Acts 13:2)

They take the young John Mark – who might have been related to Barnabas (see Colossians 4:10) — along as a helper.  Barnabas accompanies Paul through thick and thin in difficult evangelism among the Jews and Gentiles in Roman cities like Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia.  They establish churches, appoint elders, and encourage everyone.  We can only imagine how precious their friendship became.

Paul is usually listed first after this in the book of Acts.  Paul takes the prominent role as the effective evangelist. Barnabas is the companion, the encourager and supporter, the second-violin position in the orchestra.  There’s no evidence of bitterness that Paul ‘surpassed’ him. This too, speaks to Barnabas’ character.

Barnabas is directly involved in the primary conflict issue in the new Christian churches: Do Gentiles need to become Jewish and follow Jewish laws and customs to be Christians?  Barnabas accompanies Paul (see Galatians 2:9-10) on another trek to Jerusalem from Antioch (again, 400 miles!) and meets with the apostles.  The answer: No. Barnabas and Paul carry this good news back to Antioch.

Barnabas was not perfect.  When James and others joined Peter on a visit to Antioch, Barnabas was among the group of Jewish believers who minimized association with the uncircumcised Greeks.  We read about this event in Galatians 2:11-13.  But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.  The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.  From this story we learn about the power of friendship to pull people back from error, and maintain a deep relationship.

Paul wanted Barnabas to accompany him on another missionary journey.  They disagreed about taking John Mark (who apparently had left them on an earlier trip).  Paul instead chose Silas.  Did Barnabas quit ministry over this?  No.  He took John Mark to visit Cyprus (Acts 15:39).  

We don’t know much about the later life of Barnabas.  He was still alive and laboring in ministry about AD56 when Paul wrote to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 9:5-6).  Paul mentions that Barnabas is supporting himself.  Barnabas and Paul had clearly reconciled by this time, a key indicator of a strong friendship.   His concern and help to John Mark paid off – Mark later became a leader of the church in Rome. Tradition holds that Barnabas was stoned by a mob in Syria.  By all accounts, Barnabas ministered faithfully and fulfilled his name “Son of Encouragement” right to the end.

Recapping a few elements of Barnabas as a deep friend:

He was passionate about Jesus.  Encouragement was so central to his character that people didn’t refer to him by the name given him by his parents.  He courageously supported Paul before others recognized Paul’s ability. He was willing to travel extensively – nothing was convenient about travel in those days! – to be with people.  He focused on building people up in the Grace of God, not formulas or legal frameworks.  He was trustworthy and a leader among other leaders, yet He didn’t put himself first.  He cared enough about people to bring them help from others.  He never quit. 

What can you and I do to be friends like Barnabas?

A common source of anxiety is feeling like we’re not enough.

Every age and stage of life seems to be an opportunity to wrestle with our not-enoughness.  Babies, of course, are utterly dependent on others and not-enough to survive alone.  As young children we’re not-enough to wisely care for ourselves. All through high school our hearts ache as we struggle to understand ourselves and others, not-enough yet.  In our 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s we go through stage after stage of not-enough:  money, recognition, ambitions and frustrations, wisdom for parenting well, loneliness, maturity and self-control.  In our 50’s and 60’s we start to add physical not-enoughness again, and especially time.  Not-enoughness will be a wrestling partner throughout the rest of our lives, too. 

Not all of this not-enoughness is a result of the Fall, but sin makes it far worse (sin makes everything worse).  Not-enoughness is an element of life meant to pull us together, a universal centripetal force.  Not-enoughness propels us forward, too, because the status quo remains uncomfortable.  Not-enoughness forces us to confront our pride, arrogance, and complacency.  We as individuals are never enough.  I wrote in my little pocket notebook the other day, “Thank you God for my not-enoughness.”  The wrestling won’t end but I can understand it as a good thing.

Many people have developed a curriculum vitae or resume.  There’s a version of these documents I call an “About Me” file that is useful to share with people you’re going to be working with, or would like to work with in the future.  It’s different because you’re describing things about your upbringing, interests, and personal style which wouldn’t have a place in a CV or resume. 

Your “About Me” file can include these components:

• Title   I suggest you name it “About <your name>”
• A professional headshot photo, so people know what you look like
• A narrative about your upbringing, transitioning into important roles and projects you’ve done.  Write this as though someone asked you to tell your career story in 2 minutes, no more. 
• A section about your personal style, and what comes naturally to you, and professional interests.  
• Comments about family, hobbies, things ‘outside’ of work interests.
• Close with key philosophical beliefs and how you see the world.

The whole thing should be less than 1 printed page.  You might want two versions of this.  One is for internal to your company.  You can use acronyms and lingo that will make sense to insiders.  The other version is for a general audience, where you consciously excise jargon that won’t make sense.

Set a reminder for yourself to update this every 6 months, or when you have a major role change. 

Here is my current About Me file as an example you can follow:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

<Headshot goes here> About Glenn Brooke

I grew up just downriver from the DuPont Washington Works facility in Parkersburg, West Virginia.  I earned a B.S. in Biochemistry (CWRU in Cleveland), and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology (Northwestern University in Evanston) researching yeast DNA replication.  I ran a software development company focused on solutions for research scientists while I was in grad school.

I joined the Pioneer Research Information Management group in 1993 after a post-doc at Indiana University working on RNA splicing in nematodes. Those were the heady days of the first internet access for employees and bioinformatics was just hitting stride. I helped launch PRISM which integrated lab and field research data and expanded the support organization.  I began leading the DuPont Collaboration Center of Competency in October 2011. We finished the move from Lotus Notes to Office 365 and established SharePoint and the “Inside the Oval” intranet platform.  In 2015-2017 I led the Enterprise Technology Services Delivery group in Corporate IT, which provided run/maintain for servers, network, databases, data center operations, collaboration tools, ERP infrastructure, application integration, middleware, and device support. 

I held an interim assignment to support organizational change efforts for IT for the Corteva division of DowDuPont.  This was part of the larger effort to create a new agriculture company from the strengths of three companies coming together. 

Currently I am a Sr. Strategic Relationships Manager within Corteva R&D focused on using our world-class R&D capability and scale to drive stronger relationships with third parties – especially focusing on food companies — by solving difficult interdisciplinary problems with them.

Collaboration comes naturally to me and sometimes I’m puzzled about why people don’t share more readily.  I enjoy people and getting to know them better.  I see human organizations as gardens with diverse plantings, rather than machines with interchangeable parts.  I’m an avid reader and learner, and love to share what I’m learning.  I’m intrigued with molecular and cellular biology, systems biology, history, geopolitics, etymology of words, biographies, military strategy, leadership, marketing, and exponential technologies.  People will attest that I am a good teacher, use an encouragement style of leadership, and am candid about my failings.  I’m blessed with a wonderful wife, a son (34) and daughter (32).  I’ve published 22 books and information products on several topics and write regularly for multiple websites and LinkedIn.

One of my books is about these five questions, which reflect things I’ve learned from many mentors:

1. What problem are we trying to solve?  (Or, what problems do we prefer?)
2. What are we optimizing for?
3. What premium are we willing to pay to get a desired result?
4. How does this help our organization?
5. How does this help our customer?

Let’s talk ai and digital technology again.  Maybe I should write it ‘Ai’ because it’s all artificial and not intelligent.  Every one of you should be alert to what’s going on.  I’ve been reading, thinking, listening to some smart people. Here’s my advice for everyone, especially the “non-techy” among us.

Nobody can predict the direction of ai.  Let go of the idea that you’re going to figure out where this is all going.  That’s not your job.  Pay attention without being anxious.  Use ai where it’s helpful.  Experiment and evaluate.  If an ai assistant or tool can improve your work, use it to improve your work. Don’t automatically trust an ai.  “A chatbot is not an oracle. It’s a statistics engine that creates sentences that sound accurate.” (Neal Stephenson, brilliant sci-fi author)  Test everything, hold fast to what is good. 

I can confidently say that the idea of uploading your consciousness to ‘the cloud’ so you’ll live forever will not happen.  Why? No one has successfully defined consciousness in engineering terms that could be implemented.  Also, I’ve worked with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft cloud services –oh boy — I’d never trust them to manage the technology platform of my ‘consciousness.’  I’m not even sure how they would price such a service.

‘Uploading your consciousness’ is already happening in this way:  At least half our population seems to have abdicated their critical thinking to somebody or some service online.  A friend says I’m half-right, they’ve only outsourced their thinking, but I see a full-on abdication.  I observe people surrendering their creativity and curiosity to a “Great and Powerful Oz!”  I don’t want you to be in that group.

There are many roles and some jobs manipulating data and information which will be largely replaced by ai assistants.  Once again, we’ll go through business shifts which will forever alter what will be life-wage paying jobs.  Internet-based commerce obliterated travel agencies and newspapers. Yet travel and news consumption are at all-time highs.  Film cameras are a rare specialty item, yet people take more pictures than ever.  Algorithms replaced thousands of stock traders, banking employees, and financial advisors, but there’s more money movement than ever. We pack so many services into our glowing pocket screen devices that no one can sell old devices like a car GPS unit anymore.  [The component that makes GPS in your phone possible is about the size of a grain of rice.]  Internet-based commerce destroyed the marketing strategies of the TV age, and now ai will destroy most of the wage-paying roles in the digital marketing age.  I know a business owner who replaced his 5-person virtual digital marketing team with a collection of ai bots he created using a $20/month GPT4 subscription.  He’s no  tech wizard, either. Business and commerce will expand, but the jobs will dramatically shift for every role which is at least 60% digital.   Here is an interesting milestone:  Amazon’s Kindle submission process now requires you to state if you used ai to create your book. 

This is an era where people will figure out that they’re in a different business now.  We’ve seen emergent economic systems many times in history. The dominant passenger train businesses in the early 1900’s didn’t make the transition to cars and airplanes, because they saw themselves in the train business, not the people transportation business. These ai tools will trigger new transitions, and anyone clinging too tightly to their business model might find themselves holding a scrapbook of what once was.  Much of the initial profit will be made by people selling the ‘picks and shovels’ to the gold miners dreaming of the big strike. Then the business ecosystems accelerate and grow, and new profit sources become available.  

Maybe some people will have enough smarts with authority (few in authority have the smarts) to restrict or shape what happens with ai.  But for you and me?  Forget about stopping ai.  That’s not our job.  Our job is to figure out what we will do, as individuals, in our families and communities, in our businesses, next.

The history of technological advances is that we see the benefits quickly, and then it takes a much longer time to understand the downsides. The inevitable consequence of ai tools, like all technologies, will be more extreme 80/20 distributions.  Unequal distributions will continue.  I am not saying the bottom gets worse; on the contrary, technological change is a tide that lifts all boats, and is a dominant factor in why the poor today are economically richer than ever before in history.  I’m optimistic that ai tutors can democratize education opportunities for more people worldwide.  The unequal part is the top, growing faster than ever.  The evolving ai toolset amplifies the money, influence, power, and capability of some much more than others. 

[Small sidebar:  Are you teaching your children about 80/20 thinking and behaving?  We either master 80/20 or it masters us.]

You might think, “But these tools are buggy.  ChatGPT hallucinates.” Yep.  Do you remember what the first iPod and iPhone were like, before there was a universe of apps, with the first-generation camera?  Remember what open-source software was like in the 1990’s?  The Amazon of 1996 is a tiny speck of what Amazon is today, an organization so digitized that an employee directly interacting with a customer is a defect that must be fixed with a digital solution.  There is every economic incentive to make ai tools better. 

In general, the better the ai tools become, the more human we must become.  Let us continue to be savvy people using ai as tools lest 99% of us become tools for those exploiting ai.

We’re past a point where we must re-think privacy (again).  The metadata of everything we’re doing online continues to accumulate and will be exploited.  We can’t be foolish – don’t share information with an ai that you wouldn’t want known widely.  Tech platforms must be responsible actors.  I don’t like it, but it’s easier than ever for a bad actor to attack you, to make your life very difficult.  These technologies give statists enormous power.  This has significant implications with our laws and policies for cash. Since human beings are still fundamentally human beings, even in this age of exponential change, worry more about “who” is using ai and why, than trying to understand how it all works.  Perhaps the best way to live is to behave as if you’re always under observation.  There is nothing anonymous in this universe.  

Going forward, we must teach people about digital technology limits, rather than passively allowing bad messaging to dominate.  Here’s the starting point:  Use digital technologies to help you with analysis, pattern recognition, or simplifying a task.  Do not abdicate your human responsibility for discerning meaning and making moral judgments.  Digital technologies are neither sentient nor conscious, and whatever agency they appear to have has been programmed. 

We begin our humanity apprenticeship in our childhood.  Therefore, I am open to discussions about restrictions on smartphones and social media for children, just as we set age limits on alcohol and driving.  I’m not advocating prolonged adolescence – we have too much of this now.  I’m advocating to protect children and give them every opportunity to become their best.  

I’m encouraged by people responding to the crisis of meaning in their lives by asking spiritual questions.  Apparently, many people are using chatbots like a spiritual mentor or coach.  That’s unlikely to be fruitful, though this is evidence of hole-in-the-heart hunger that God will use to bring people to Himself.  God communicates with his creatures, not the tools his creatures create.  God loves his creatures, not their tools, and holds his creatures accountable. 

The most influential leaders in our future will be the most human, not the most machine-like.  They’ll be religious, because that will be appealing, and they’ll have a moral framework for making difficult decisions.  They’ll be savvy at using tools without being used by tools.  Being a good communicator is insufficient; they must be good at connecting with others.  We resonate with deep people, skilled and competent, but not with machines.  Some will be more like pastoral guides, and others more like special forces team leaders.

There’s a whole movement now discouraging teenagers from doing part-time, entry-level jobs at fast-food joints, retail shops, etc.  Some say these jobs are demeaning.  Some say that these teenagers are taking jobs from adults or shouldn’t be getting the same minimum-wage as needy adults.  Maybe, but that’s missing the big value proposition. I’m thinking about these typical entry jobs for teenagers another way:  this is the minor-leagues to prepare players for the big leagues.  These are the positions where a teenager learns to show up on time, work when you don’t feel like it, get along with other employees and a boss that you might not always like, learn how to interact with customers, solve problems as they come up, learn what it takes to make a sale, etc.  Those skills are incredibly valuable in an age of ai acceleration.  Those experiences aren’t going to be taught by an ai, nor fully replaced by an ai.

And for adults in a workforce?  Imagination.  Creativity.  Innovation and optimization leveraging knowledge and experience from other industries.  Negotiating deals, finding value propositions.  Physical craftsmanship.  Delighting customers.  Making moral judgments.  Developing the skills of others, especially the next generations.  Putting meaning into products and services.  Joy.  Artistry.  Personal connections. 

I’m hopeful despite the daunting changes fostered by ai and whatever tools we invent next.  Pessimism and abdication will not help us.

What does your heart tell you?

Just a periodic reminder that someone’s DiSC score tells you nothing about their maturity and self-control.  I find it helpful to think about a DiSC score as the default behavior pattern when a person is weary and lacks the wherewithal to fake anything.  But leaders always retain the ability to choose how we interact with others.  This is an ongoing opportunity and responsibility.

The challenging reality of this age is that most of our community life is… online.  Even some physical communities are strongly supported by their online connections. Some studies have been done showing how online communities collapse and flail:

• Negative comments about the choices of others (amped up by ‘anonymity’)
• Deviation from an accepted norm
• Echo chamber effects – some ideas or products are highly promoted, others disregarded. This creates an exclusion zone for individuals who have other preferences
• Self-appointed gatekeepers who control discussions about alternative views

What are the characteristics of successful online communities?

• Generosity.  Sharing far more than taking.  Supporting one another.
• A cultivated culture of collective experimenting and learning together.
• A few key principles, then tolerance for a wide range of non-core ideas.
• Acknowledging that sometimes we irritate or surprise one another, and we can still be in community together.
• Gratitude for being part of something useful and bigger than an individual.

Can you think of others?

These apply to in-person communities, and strong institutions as well.  Worth pondering if you’re an opportunity space to create and build up communities.

Minnesota’s “Land of 10,000 Lakes” has an important leadership communication lesson. 

Imagine this:  I throw a boulder into the center of one of those lakes, which raises a wave that reaches all the shoreline.  The impact of even the biggest boulder wouldn’t touch any other lake, even one separated by a few yards of land. 

Your organization is like this, full of independent lakes.  You’ll need to get to each lake to communicate with each effectively to create a change.  You might need to shape the context of your core messaging to be effective in different kinds of lakes – depth, shape, age, clarity of water, access points to others.

A common mistake in big organizations is to pull together a team of people representing each region or department.  Most of these are big enough that they have several ‘lakes’ – so one person is unlikely to be effective at reaching them all.  Organize sub-team members to cascade messaging and action plans, so that each lake is reached. A significant mistake many exec leaders make is to call a big department or whole company town hall and share their message.  Trust me when I say that your message didn’t reach everyone equally well.  Do necessary follow-up work. 

Christians are fond of the story of the thief crucified with Jesus, who believes in Jesus and is told, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Great story of salvation by grace!  Multitudes of people who did scummy things identify with this nameless guy.

We should also celebrate the story of Matthias in Acts 1.  Jesus didn’t select Matthias as one of his 12 Apostles. We’re told Matthias has been a faithful follower for years and is a witness of the resurrection.  He’s selected to replace Judas by roll of the dice over another equally qualified disciple named Justus. Matthias is never mentioned again in the New Testament.  There are different traditions (some conflicting) about him ministering in Ethiopia and Jerusalem. 

Here’s the story of a pretty good guy, JV team at best, who gets to be called one of the 12 Apostles.  We have his name.  That’s a great story, too, and easy for many to identify with.  I’d like to know more about Justus, too.