I was in the last group of high school students who were taught to use slide rules because the TI 30 calculator became affordable and wildly popular about 1979.  My calculator battery died once while taking a physics exam in college. When I asked if I could leave to get a battery the proctor wordlessly handed me a log table. I used it successfully, but just barely.

I have two of my dad’s slide rules.  I treasure them in part because I can hold what he held.  My thumbs and fingers fit perfectly in the patina worn by his thumbs and fingers. The battered leather case with the belt loop speaks about his work as a chemist.  It’s a tangible connection to an important past. 

A side note about log tables and slide rules (which are based on logs): The tool gave you the digits, but you had to determine where to put the decimal place by estimating the answer.  Was the answer 0.54, 54, or 54,000?  One had to be mindful about the problem even as one trusted the tool.  We lost something there with the advent of calculators, and it carries over into non-mathematical decision-making, too.

Back to the slide rules.  I handle them regularly.  It’s a ritual to remind me to value what my dad valued.  It refreshes memories. I, too, will experience ups and downs and be just fine.  It’s a reminder that tools are an extension of the mind but I’m still responsible for the result.

I hope you have some tangible items like this in your collection. 

I’ve written about my frustration with the typical political conversation about electrifying transportation and getting off fossil fuels.  People generally imagine this will be done easily or quickly.  It’s truly a massive engineering problem, with deep social and political considerations.  I wrote a friend that I would love to see someone lay out a 30-year transition plan, with some details, so we could dialogue about solving these challenges. 

He wrote back, “Why don’t you do it?  What would a 30-year plan need to include?  You’re smart, so figure it out.” 

Challenge accepted.  I’ve read dozens of articles, looked up details where I can find them, and tried to map out the factors that would go into a good plan. 

Though I don’t have a finished plan, I thought it would be worth sharing what I’ve learned so far, and illustrate how you can approach a multidimensional challenge like this. 

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I decided to put boundaries on the project:

• US focus.  Meet needs of a sophisticated and 20% larger population.
• Plan for economic success through creating an abundance of cheap energy.
• Focus on private transportation and trucking
• Reduce air and water pollution.
• Reduce carbon emissions as a side benefit, not primary target
• Recognize that we will still use some fossil fuels for particular needs in 2052
• Plan is not a one-time solution but a new vector for continuing improvement
• Exclude use of fossil fuels for plastics, graphite, manufacturing (e.g., metalworking)
• Exclude plane fuel, railroads, ships
• Remain economically competitive in world commerce

Based on some preliminary estimates of energy requirements I created an ambitious list of objectives – all measurable:

• Create 30x more electricity than 2020 levels while reducing environmental impact (air, water, soil, landscape)
• Reduce fossil fuel use in private transportation to 5% of 2020 level
• Reduce fossil fuel use in heating, cooling, and all residential electrical demand to 15% of 20220 level
• Install a gen-5 electrical grid with resilience to solar flares and EMP weapons

To guide my thinking and research efforts I created a high-level mind map of issues, obstacles & limiting factors, and areas where I needed more facts.  I find this exercise helps me stay balanced across the effort.

We tend to overestimate what could be done in a few years and wildly underestimate what could be accomplished in 30 years.  A few critical points based on my work to date:

Fundamentally we would need to increase electricity production 30x over today, and replace 95-98% of our vehicles, while establishing a comprehensive battery and transmission grid. This is a massive engineering challenge.  Our digital capabilities help but only a little.  This is very much a physical engineering challenge.

I’m assuming that solar, wind, hydro, tidal contribute about 10% of overall electrical need.  That’s significant (though there are environmental tradeoffs).  I’m also assuming that biofuels only offset gas and diesel, so reduce dependence on gas and diesel fuel, but they don’t contribute to electrification. 

We can phase out existing coal and natural gas-powered plants as we replace their capacity with nuclear power. We can build the nuclear power plants (both big central plants and many self-contained mini reactors) to create the 30x electricity required.  There are reasonable engineering solutions, and the basic materials like thorium, uranium, and steel are available.  We primarily need the political will sustained for decades. 

However, there simply isn’t enough of the raw materials, with the way that we build batteries, transmission lines, generators, and electrical devices today, to electrify all US ground transportation by 2052.  My estimates: We need 12-18x more copper, 48-65x more lithium, 90x more cobalt, at least 40x more nickel, and multiples of rare earths than are mined each year globally today, all going into the US market.  This mining & refining is an ugly business that no one wants to live near.  We could get a fraction of the metals (copper, steel, aluminum) needed via recycling from motors and wires that we’re making obsolete. The US has abundant natural resources, but insufficient known supplies to build all this infrastructure. 

I’m mindful that technological breakthroughs can happen.  There were serious papers analyzing the unsolvable problem of accumulated horse poop in New York city in the years leading up to affordable automobiles and electric trolleys.  Perhaps we’ll see commercial fusion reactor capability within 30 years (like we confidently said in the 1970’s).  We need transformational technology in batteries and transmission systems which lose less electricity over distances. 

Engineers already know how to improve the electrical grid.  They know what would be required to minimize damage from solar flares to the transmission lines and electrical motors.  Multiple studies have been done on creating a more resilient grid (fail-overs from one sector to another).  We can employ algorithms to optimize electricity production and flow.  In this area, we only need funding and will.

My focus is on the US, but global factors are considerable. One of the biggest technology transformations is simply to address the fundamental issue that 1-2 billion people are still dependent on burning wood, dung, and grasses to fuel their life.  India and China are still building 4 to 7 coal-powered electrical plants every month, with plans to continue for many years.  (Fortunately, many of those are designed so that an alternative fuel source could be swapped in.)  All the major nations will be competing for raw materials. 

The US does not currently have the workforce required for this transition.  We would need many more people working in construction and manufacturing to build the required infrastructure and vehicles.  We’ll need a bottom-up solution to educate and skill these workers.  I’m optimistic that a combination of public/private investments can fund the necessary efforts.  I’m also optimistic that we can recruit and develop the necessary workforce if we recapture the American spirit of building things.

Skilled, trusted, and sustained political leadership will be required to engage the diverse people interests to achieve this kind of goal.  There were fewer political and social constraints in the era of building thousands of gas stations, early pipelines for fuel distribution, the interstate highway and state road systems, spread over about 80-100 years.  This 30-year plan will require political and social leadership unlike anything the US has experienced since 1941-1945.  Or maybe the “space race” in the 1960’s-70’s. Kennedy’s speech at Rice University exemplifies the kind of leadership which will be required: 

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.”

Project results are rarely linear with effort.  This electrification engineering challenge is the kind of project where the big payoffs happen later in the overall effort.  This reality will complicate the leadership challenge because there will be relatively few early wins – and those will go to certain people, not everyone.

One area I can’t reasonably address with this assessment:  What’s the cost?  We can’t rely solely on private enterprise because many components of the plan simply won’t be profitable for a very long time. There are massive build/transition/maintain costs to individuals, family, communities, businesses, and local/state/federal government.  Gasoline taxes are a primary means governments use to raise funds for road maintenance and more.  Other countries will be competing for the same raw materials – which will drive up prices. There are disposal costs for exiting fossil fuel production (won’t need as much), distribution infrastructure, and vehicles.  Even making electricity “too cheap to measure” doesn’t reduce build and transition costs very much, also it’s possible that once achieved the ongoing costs of electric would be lower than gasoline and diesel.  There are trillions of dollars associated with fuel and transportation infrastructure today — converting this will likely require trillions of dollars, too. 

Another area which will require more thought:  What constraints on political and economic liberty might shift as this transition goes forward?  Gasoline-powered transportation has a different autonomy profile than a massively electrified infrastructure.  There are unknowns here.  

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I haven’t created a workable 30-year plan.  I have a far better picture of the scope of the challenges.  Generating 30x more electricity is feasible.  We can create electricity abundance so that it’s incredibly cheap and thereby incentivize more electrification.  I don’t know where the get the raw materials in the quantities needed using existing technology for batteries and wires.  Transitions will be uneven and difficult to manage.  The overall program is deeply susceptible to sabotage, corruption, and failing political will. 

Hopefully sharing this much helps sharpen your thinking on this topic and gives you a model for how to tackle research on complex problems.

And…I would still like to hear political leaders outlining substantive, ambitious 30-year plans rather than implying instant solutions.

At Boy Scout camp in the 1970’s we would send naïve younger boys off to other troops in the area to ask for things like a left-handed smoke shifter or a cup of propane.  So many people were in on this kind of prank that some boys would visit two or three other troops before returning to say, “Nope, they don’t have one.”  (Yes, this happened to me my first year at camp.  I fell for the “disposable tree root extractor” errand.)  But once a victim of this prank you weren’t a victim again.  You were ‘in’ somehow through this rite of passage.   

Human beings are exquisitely sensitive to love.  Even young children can spot fakery.  We’re attracted to love, desperate for it.  If we can’t get love we seek substitutes.  

Harold Berry provided this functional definition of love: “Seeking another person’s highest good.”

Most people accurately sense if someone loves them this way – the deep sense that they are seeking my highest good.  We despise “corporate speak” and “political speech” partly because we sense a massive gap between the words and the amount of love there.  This gap fuels cynicism and resignation that “it’s just how it is.”

Mark Horstman correctly says that good people management is fundamentally about love – acting in ways that are congruent with wanting the best for them in the process of delivering results for the organization. 

We respect people who tell us the difficult truth if we also sense they are seeking our highest good.   Good parents, good sports coaches, and school teachers & administrators demonstrate love in this way.  Good neighbors demonstrate love in this way.

I’ve spoken to multiple atheists who argue that you can create a moral framework apart from the transcendent.  I’m not convinced.  Seeking another person’s highest good will not consistently happen in a world entirely driven by the material and selfish interest. Where you see it happening it’s a carryover effect of social and moral frameworks established by others. It truly matters where the source energy comes from for seeking another person’s highest good. The apostle Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5)

A related observation:  Political collectivists and some corporate leaders focus not on the individual’s highest good, but the good of the state, or the good of the corporation, or the good of the class.  It’s true that collective good can emerge from seeking the good of individuals.  It’s true to say, “It’s not about you; It’s not about me, either.”  Yet our experience is that optimizing for the good of an abstract collective at the expense of seeking an individual’s highest good always leads to corruption and evil.  Therefore, we should focus our energies on seeking the highest good for actual individual people, not faceless abstractions. 

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It’s perfectly rational to do whatever gives you the most of what you want, by whatever means you can, if your worldview is that nothing of consequence matters beyond the years you’re alive.  Lie, cheat, flip-flop when convenient for immediate gain, always act in your self-interest. 

If your worldview extends beyond your physical lifespan, if your moral framework is based on righteousness to an external standard and judge, then you will sometimes choose not to operate in your immediate self-interest.

Jesus summed up all the commands with these two: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) 

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The Beatles sang “All we need is love.”  Pay attention this week to how much of the behaviors of the people around you are oriented to love, and how “is this genuine love for me?” is the measuring stick for whom we believe, whom we follow, whom we sacrifice for.

Want to see improvements in the world?  Seek another person’s highest good. 

This will encompass justice, peace, reconciliation, and all the other things the world clambers for.  Seeking those things in any way other than seeking another person’s highest good is like sending a kid out to get a cup of propane.

Get insights into complex issues by asking:

“What is the foundation?”

“Who/what is driving formation?”

Human beings are complex adaptive creatures, meaning we are both shaped by our experiences and shape our existence. We have agency, we make choices.  Even the most powerful dynamic forces cannot dictate every bit of the outcomes. 

Our foundations and what formed us in the past is what brought us to the present, and creates the worldview/assumptions/lenses we use to assess the present and the past.  We’re steeped in this, even when we don’t understand or appreciate it.  This is true (to different degrees) for individuals and communities alike.

Formation is ongoing.  You’ve probably heard the pithy observation that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with – that’s formation at work.  Formation is not only experiences, but how you reflect upon and un/consciously learn from those experiences. 

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Foundations give you frameworks for understanding, and predictive power.  Your foundation was established from formation by your parents, your teachers, practical experiences where you needed to make decisions, the books/TV/music/movies you consumed, friends and enemies.  Your foundation may not be correct, or consistent, but it is strong.  Your foundation drives your default interpretations of the world and your default behaviors.

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If you listen to the talking heads, technocrats, and the people who write the ad copy, you’re likely to believer that scientists, medical doctors, and psychiatrists know EVERYTHING about biology, ecosystem dynamics, cancer, human development, evolution, and how the brain works.   

We don’t.  Frankly, what we know has little predictive power, and we don’t know fully what we don’t know.   

Physics and engineering have a foundation of math.  There’s no such foundation for any aspect of biology.  Our predictive ability is miniscule.  We’re faced with questions like “What does a cell know about itself?” because individual cells operate with agency.  Despite the “certainty” language some use about intelligence and cognition, we don’t know how to define these things.  

There is variation in the physical, non-biological world.  We’ve become quite good at reducing that variation (e.g., purifying metals from ores, creating standard sizes for boards and screws).  Manageable variation is key to our success with materials, construction, and use of tools.   

Variation is enormously larger in the biological space.  This variation compounds all our experimental approaches to finding cures and treatments for diseases.  There are billion-dollar-a-year drugs which only work in 35% of patients.  The variations are even greater in the mental health space – now you’re working with the biological, the experiential, and vagaries of self-perception and social interactions.   

The problem is not that we have failed to reduce biology to a predictable machine that we can control.  The problem is that people behave as if smart people have already done that.  We desperately want solutions to biological challenges, so we’re primed to believe their arrogance. 

I believe we’re meant to explore biology. The scientific method is a primary tool to keep us humbly oriented as we explore the factual, experimental world.  Biology is fundamentally different – life has agency, right down to the cellular level. Not long ago I was in a planning workshop to create a 10-year plant breeding program.  Everyone in the room was delighted with the plan.  Then a savvy scientist brought us back to realism by saying, “Of course, the plants will have to cooperate with our perfect plan.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  — Hamlet

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Philosophers and social commentators write long books on the ideas of foundation and formation.  I’ve only scratched them here.

Use the concepts of foundation and formation to assess complex situations.  The surface presentation is a small part of the deeper story.  Ask questions, and then ask more questions.  Be wary of people who would discourage you from exploring foundations and formation. In my experience, these people are generally untrustworthy and would prefer you stay in lock-step with their narratives about the world.  

Post-mortem.  After Action Review.  Hot Wash.  Debrief.

These are all terms for an intentional look-back to evaluate a past event with an eye towards lessons to apply to make a future event more successful.  Not a blame game.  Not punitive.  We can’t change the past, but we can work smarter and prepare better for next time – and there will be a next time.

People can be held accountable without acceding to the wishes of the mob and the insecure immature.  The key here is to manage emotions, use factual assessments, and grace-fully agree on how to move forward.  Aim to find answers to “What will we do so it’s better next time?”

This applies to something as small as a 5-minute presentation to the boss, and as large as global response to a pandemic.

You’re more likely to invest the energy needed to master skills when you deeply understand their true value.  Master these skills to better position you and others for highest value delivery:

Efficient communications practices (email, calendar, routine updates, etc)

 >> More time for thinking

Effective task and project management

>> Superior results with less inputs

Practices for deepening relationships

>> Greater trust and social capital

Learning plans and professional development

>> Be prepared for opportunities when they surface

Principles for decision-making, business practices 

>> Freely adjust tactics without sacrificing integrity

Managing your personal and team energy

>> Limit wasted time and effort, without missing critical issues 

Self-Assessment Guide – print a copy and tuck in your Bible for daily use

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.”  (1 Cor 16:13-14)

Be on your guard	Have I been on guard? What have I noticed?  Where do I need to pay more attention today?
Stand firm in the faith	Did I stand firm in the faith yesterday?  Where did my faith rub against the world?  What challenges can I anticipate for today, and how will I respond?
Be courageous	Did I make any courageous decisions yesterday?  To what extent did I just go along with things?  What courageous decision might I face today?  Have I imagined how I will respond in that moment?
Be strong	Where did I use my strength, and the strength of the Lord yesterday?  Where was I successful in self-control? What will I do today to increase my strength?
Do everything in agape love	Did I experience agape love yesterday, and share it?  Were there any times I was aware of God’s love for others around me?  What will I do today to be a better agape lover?

God has no confidence in you. He has perfect confidence in Himself working in and through you.  Put your trust in Him.  He loves you just as you are but is not content to leave you there. He is never far away.  He is always working.

I recently had a long conversation with an entrepreneur friend.   He’s a driven workaholic coming out of a fatherless upbringing. His body is rebelling (newest symptoms: intestinal pains and extensive eczema) and the more his relationships disintegrate the more he retreats to work.   

I passed on what my mentors have drilled into me: 

It’s not about “earning” the weekend or vacation. 

The weekend powers your week. 

The vacation powers your work. 

The Jewish day begins at sundown.  Evening is time for being with family, then a night of rest before the work day begins.  Deep wisdom here:  relationships and rest come before work.  But they had to be told this, it wasn’t a default behavior. 

Sharing in case you need this message, too.  Play the long game.  Rest has ROI.  

I advocate reading large portions of the Bible or the whole Bible relatively quickly. You can’t get clean by showering with a cupful of water a day. Why do we think we can develop a comprehensive understanding of the most important book in the world in small dollops? Try reading Luke and John in one morning. Read the Psalms in 3 days. Read Genesis on one Saturday.

I challenge you to read the whole Bible in 30-40 days. Look for themes, broad strokes, and relationships between characters. Don’t read for details, just read and absorb God’s story. Make this a separate activity from your personal devotions. It helps to partner with someone else doing this at the same time. It will take about 2-3 hours of reading time per day to do this, so go ahead and give up reading newspapers, magazines, and watching TV while you immerse yourself in Scripture. My usual warm-up is to read Psalm 119 each day for four days before beginning Genesis.

Here is a 30-day reading plan that you can follow or adapt to your schedule:

1: Genesis 1-39

2: Genesis 40 – Exodus 26

3: Exodus 27 – Leviticus 22

4: Leviticus 23 – Numbers 26

5: Numbers 27 – Deuteronomy 28

6: Deuteronomy 29 – Judges 5

7: Judges 6-1 – Samuel 16

8: 1 Samuel 17 – 2 Samuel 21

9: 2 Samuel 22 – 2 Kings 4

10: 2 Kings 5-1 – Chronicles 12

11: 1 Chronicles 13 – 2 Chronicles 24

12: 2 Chronicles 25 – Nehemiah 13

13: Esther 1 – Job 42

14: Psalms 1 – Psalm 73

15: Psalm 74 – Psalm 150

16: Proverbs 1 – Ecclesiastes 9

17: Ecclesiastes 10 – Isaiah 33

18: Isaiah 34 – Jeremiah 4

19: Jeremiah 5 – Jeremiah 37

20: Jeremiah 38 – Ezekiel 14

21: Ezekiel 15 – Ezekiel 48

22: Daniel 1 – Amos 9

23: Obadiah 1 – Malachi 4

24: Matthew 1 – Mark 5

25: Mark 6 – Luke 16

26: Luke 17 – John 21

27: Acts 1 – Romans 9

28: Romans 10 – Ephesians 6

29: Philippians 1 – 1 Peter 4

30: 1 Peter 5 – Revelations 22

Those who diligently apply themselves to reading the whole Bible in 30-40 days will be blessed through the experience. We learn about the tone and quality of God’s voice, and the “my ways are not your ways” nature of His working, as we seek the broad perspectives through His Word. These experiences help us fall in love with Christ and His Word all over again.

It’s common to hear “we don’t have enough resources for _____.”  You’ve probably said this yourself. 

A challenge question:  Is there truly a lack of resources, or is that the self-reinforcing narrative?  

In case you immediately became defensive:  It could be true.  You and your organization might lack something essential or helpful.

Critical insight for leaders: We believe the stories we consistently tell ourselves.  We too often end our story by repeating that we lack resources.   There is another way.

80/20 is fractal; the 20 has its own 80/20, and so on.  This leads to what some term the 5/67 principle: 

5% of your effort generates 67% of the value

5% of an issue is creating 67% of a problem

Knowing what is in the 5% is the trick, of course, but you must begin by assessing the unequal distributions of input and output.  It’s always there.

Many leaders have learned that cutting back effort 5% somewhere is eminently possible, and you can reallocate that effort elsewhere.  Note I say “effort” not money.  You can reduce effort by stopping some work, reducing scope, shortening time investment, or automating.  It may be that this 5% becomes the margin your team needs for long-term health.  Or you may decide to pick up new and better work.

Try converting the story that ends with “we don’t have enough” to a story that begins with “where could we recover 5% of our efforts for a better purpose?”  This will help you and your team stand out.