The Longer View on Change

How long change does take! With starry eyes way back when Canada and I were younger, I envisioned progress as a given. My mother, Margie, a fighter for all things unfair, had infused me with hope and possibilities. Surely the only way was up. But not so fast!

Well, on the whole, we are making progress: more democracies worldwide, more educated women in developed countries, many communicable diseases long gone, lower crimes rates, an acceptance that we have something to do with global warming, an African-American U.S. President and growing cross-cultural understanding everywhere. Much to celebrate.

But, wait. In developed countries, although women outnumber men in university, men still are the majority in leadership positions and hold most of the wealth, as Michael Adams, President of Environics reports. Many studies contend that women still do the majority of household tasks (that could be a key reason for women not being in many boardrooms!). In urban Canada, multiculturalism reigns but the sea of leadership faces is still largely white (my observations). Vaclav Smil, author of Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next 50 Years, estimates that a global pandemic is a 100% certainty in the not too distant future. He also says that it will take about 50 years to wean ourselves off fossil fuels on a large scale. Even David Suzuki, Canada’s foremost environmental evangelist is resigned to the slow pace of change!

So, I get it: change is non-linear and takes far more time than we expect. As with climate change, weather is erratic yet we can detect patterns in the climate over long periods of time and plan accordingly. Being adept at adapting and monitoring how to adapt and shape some events are the aces up our sleeves. As long as we have patience: this may take 100 years or more!

I now know what the book What We Believe But Cannot Prove means. Our day-to-day beliefs come from established theories but what about beliefs based on theories in progress?

The "Tender Beast" in Stephen Harper---His "Big Shaggy"---Isn't Being Felt Much

You can’t understand twenty-first- century politics with an eighteenth century brain.

---George Lakoff, The Political Mind

Descartes’ theory of humans wasn’t quite right. We use emotion to reason and we can’t always be reasonable. How we emote and reason---about 98 per cent--- happens unconsciously. Seasoned political and non-political leaders know this well. But, it can backfire.

As a presenter at the 20th World Conference on Disaster Management on the interplay of charisma, character and confidence in defining a leader’s impact, I conducted an informal survey of my audience. I asked participants to rate on a scale of ten the charisma of ten well-known political leaders, six men and four women, eight of whom are still alive.

Although I flashed a PPT slide of Harper smiling and holding a cuddly kitten, he came in dead last with an almost unanimous rating of zero. Well a couple of people gave him a 1. All others were rated four or better no matter their political persuasion. What’s going on?

George Lakoff in The Political Mind argues that “conservatives” generally operate in a strict parent mode: obedience, authority, discipline and punishment. They value order and don’t like ambiguity. On the other hand, “progressives” on the whole appeal to the nurturing parent model: empathy, responsibility for oneself and empowerment to carry out those responsibilities. They don’t mind chaos and see complexity a lot. Of course there are many who are in-between too. Prime Minister Harper comes across more “conservative” than “progressive”. This despite having implemented what some believe on both sides to be “progressive” policies in certain areas.

In this “Contextual Age” in which we now live, as coined by Daniel Pink where collaboration reigns supreme out of necessity, Stephen Harper’s mindset and subsequent style appear to be out of synch. Sometimes, striking the fear of reprisal into the hearts of people is necessary, especially in an emergency. But, as a daily default, “Big Shaggy” style---not effective.

The participants, from a variety of disciplines, were adamant: Harper is rigid, cold, inflexible, controlling and so on. If charisma is about being “inspiring”, “passionate”, “visionary” and “having a cause”, Stephen Harper simple does not rate.

I don’t think he’s worried either. But, maybe he should be. The management literature is replete with failed leaders who did not connect with people on a positive emotional level. Like damaging the environment, in the long run, it is unsustainable.

Related resources and Blog:

David Brooks (June 7, 2010). “History for Dollars”, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/opinion/08brooks.html 

Daniel Pink (2005). A Whole New Mind.

Linda Pickard. (July 29, 2009). “The Jen Ratio: A More Nuanced View of Emotional Intelligence for Leaders”. http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/07/jen-ratio-more-nuanced-view-of.html

Southwest Airlines Lightened Weighty Issues

There’s no love from most airlines when it comes to slightly overweight luggage. The fees get slapped on even for a pound, unless the ticket agent takes pity. And that’s rare. Can you blame them with the price of oil, volcanic eruptions from Iceland and such? But, all airlines are not equal. Why is Southwest Airlines far more flexible than others?

Other airlines just don’t get customer loyalty the way Southwest Airlines does.

Our son’s “overweight” luggage fees in one month this year reached an all time high of almost $500.00 U.S. That’s not counting the cost of the tickets. Granted he’s a touring golf pro who criss-crosses the States with a bag of golf clubs plus his normal luggage in which he says he carries “his life”. But, no matter his efforts to economize, if a pound or three overweight he got “dinged”. Even when he was forced to stay overnight part way to his destination due to mechanical problems, the particular airline insisted on charging him. Again, this is not ten pounds overweight per piece of luggage but one to three pounds. You can imagine the customer experience at the ticket counter. Not much laughing going on.

Faced with the intractability of the airlines, our son vowed to re-examine every bit of his packing to get the weight down. He bought a bigger back pack (still within regulations) so that he could “carry on” his golf balls and shoes. He bought new luggage that “looked” lighter. He pared his clothes down and his toiletries. He weighed his luggage before going to the airport and thought he’d nailed it this time.

Despite his extensive travelling during his amateur golf years while at university and as a new pro, our son had never booked with Southwest Airlines. But, because of attractive prices and Southwest’s availability, he decided to give it a go. He was still almost a pound overweight for his golf clubs and his regular luggage. But SW waived overweight fees. Plus when he changed a flight a few days later, there were no change fees. Now that IS a new experience!

Customer loyalty is a deep experience of something not felt before.

The relief at having a reasonable ticket agent making sensible decisions was almost a shock. Customer loyalty? Our son is “in”. To seal his warm feelings for SW, he had David Holmes, a “rappin’ fight attendant, belting out the usually boring flight instructions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9lZV_828OA

Southwest Airlines excels at relationships.

Jody Hoffer Gittell, an assistant professor at Brandeis University studied Southwest Airlines in depth after 9/11. She wanted to better understand why it “has a consistent record of profitability and performance in a turbulent industry”. In her 2003 book, The Southwest Airlines Way, she explains that the differentiating factor between SW and other airlines is a focus on relationships: shared goals, shared knowledge, mutual respect, timely problem solving dialogue among employees and always “leaning toward the customer”. Other airlines have, for the most part, been unable to replicate this.

Quite frankly, I have expected the penny to drop since then and Southwest Airlines to succumb to the incessant turmoil and spiraling costs in the industry. SW hasn’t been without controversy, most recently when it booted out Kevin Smith, a filmmaker, because he was too fat for one seat. But, when Kevin, who has over a million followers tweeted his distress, the airline went overboard to fix matters with him through multiple tweets to him, an apologetic blog and some fence-mending on booking a flight.

How many customers did SW gain (versus lose) with the handling of this incident?

We are social beings and thrive or not on relationships. Southwest Airlines at the least understands this and strives to build bonds whenever it can. Individual employees at other airlines do so too. But they don’t quite have the strong culture supporting them as do employees at SW. In an imperfect world, focusing on relationships like teamwork and customized problem-solving on the front-line are not easy, especially when the bottom line is a constant worry (and some customers can be difficult).

Yet, ironically, the soft touch helps the bottom line.

Related blogs:


http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/12/michael-ignatieff-is-appealing-to-wrong.html

http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/08/canadian-consular-officials-in-kenya.html

Architecture of Talent: Myelin Makes Perfect

Skill is insulation that wraps around neural circuits and grows according to certain signals.


---Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code

Why do we admire talent?

Highly talented persons are awesome to behold. They fill our minds and bodies with joy, amazement, admiration, and quite often relief because they cracked the intractable problem we were facing for which we wanted their help. They make our lives easier, guide us through the jungle, entertain and uplift us with their prowess and often simplify the complex world in which we live. The superhighways in their brains sheathed in myelin, the insulator of nerve cells and facilitator of speedy transmission of impulses, enable their expertise to shine through unconsciously. This is not innate. They have built their skills step by step over many years through “deep practice” or “deliberate practice”, Anders Ericsson’s term for operating at the edges of our ability and reaching further through targeted practice.

Deep or deliberate practice which generates and sustains top talent is not yet in the “DNA” of organizations

We could do with more attention to “myelin-building” in organizations, especially in developing stronger managers and leaders or individual contributors who must participate in teams and relate well to customers and stakeholders. Most of us have experienced a “deep practice” world throughout our formal education. Through a succession of courses and multiple years of “training” our expertness in a particular professional or technical domain flourished. Thereafter, despite the continuing education requirements of our respective associations, a growing body of research indicates that we tend to plateau or deteriorate, unless the circumstances of our jobs enable the right kind of expertise development.

Scientists and educators have been tweaking the “deliberate practice” phenomenon for about 150 years

In the last ten years or so, a proliferation of popular press authors has brought academia out of the closet enriching our understanding of the nature versus nurture debate. They include Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers), Geoff Colvin (Talent is Overrated) and David Shenk (The Genius in All of Us) among others. It is now clear: we can “nurture” our talents if we attend to the process in a certain way. Our raw natural capabilities are much more malleable than hitherto believed in the 20th century.

It’s rather scary and exciting: the architecture of our brains is in our hands. The thoughts we choose and the practices we implement send signals to our “living brain”. Since nerves that fire together stay together, the more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes the circuit.

The “deep practice” technique is straightforward, but execution cannot be done in isolation

The “sweet spot”, as Daniel Coyle calls the “uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities where our reach exceeds our grasp”, can be developed with four easy steps:

1. Pick a target
   
2. Reach for it
   
3. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach
   
4. Return to step one.

Sounds simple, but what target? And, how can you truly evaluate what you are doing? The goal is always self-sufficiency and being your own coach. However, outside coaching is almost always necessary to “scaffold” a person to another deeper level of knowing and skill. Educators are well aware of impact of the “scaffolding” technique such that they routinely use it as a support structure to help their students master a task or concepts. In addition to educators, coaches of sports teams, elite musicians and artists, who intuitively “scaffold” their emerging prodigies, are soaking up the overflowing research on the “architecture of talent” and testing it in the playing field and the classroom. Thanks to the “bridge” writers between academia and the real world, the blueprint for expanding the talent pool is seeping into organizational life too. But, at a snail’s pace in comparison. Deliberate practice is a heavy investment in time and effort for any person. If you are a leader-manager, your commitment to “deep learning” can make a significant difference to your performance as a master coach and by association that of your team. To achieve such exceptional skill means terrible difficulties along the way. Are you ready for such a sacrifice? Related blogs: http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2008/04/where-leadership-and-golf-mastery-meet.html http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/12/stop-writing-notes-at-meetings-to.html http://nkleadership.blogspot.com/2009/09/candle-problems-for-dummies-not-apply.html

The New Tiger as Anti-Hero: The Fall of a Superman, the Rise of a Human

Virtue is not a necessary qualification for heroic status,


---Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Heroes: Saviors, Traitors and Supermen

George Bernard Shaw warned us long ago to “beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman”. His rationale: “It leads to an indiscriminate contempt for the Human”. Are we now in danger of vilifying Tiger Woods because he is only “human”? Or, are we ready to see a different kind of hero emerge, not in our eyes but in his?

Tiger’s fall has shaken the equilibrium of golf, the industry as a whole, the players within, the sponsors and anyone else with a stake in the business. When once we admired Tiger’s confidence and mastery at a game that drives most people to distraction, we now have to re-evaluate our “hero”. Yesterday’s metrics don’t apply.

The history of heroism is replete with scoundrels and truly good people who have risked life and limb to advance society. For both, their extraordinary gifts often raise their level of moral peril because of the bubble in which they live. As Aristotle once wrote, “There is no law which embraces men of that caliber. They are themselves the law”. Heroes must call on their moral instinct. Unfortunately in Tiger’s case it failed him.

When asked by a reporter in his first news conference since his demise in November 2009 and before the 2010 Masters if he really knew what he was doing, Tiger professed he did not. He was duping himself and duping everyone else. How could that be so?

In Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, Mark Hauser, professor of Psychology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, argues that we have evolved a moral instinct. It is more like growing a limb than being told by government or a religious institution or our parents what to do. It is a universal moral grammar that grows within each child to make rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong: not to kill, lie, steal or break promises. It is instinctive, innate and unconscious.

In Professor Hauser’s view, “the role of experience is to instruct the innate system, pruning the range of possible moral systems down to one distinctive moral signature”. So it is for Tiger, although painful, that he has done some pruning in recent months to reveal more clearly to himself what he stands for and how he wants to conduct his life.

Tiger now is conscious about his moral signature. He has awakened from a not knowing place. He speaks of returning to his Buddhist roots which quite likely have far greater meaning for him now. As someone who has practiced tens of thousands of hours mastering golf, he has only begun the practice of a new moral signature.

The famous physicist David Bohm viewed health and wholeness as one and the same. He also acknowledged that the journey to wholeness is not easy: “Man has sensed that wholeness of integrity is an absolute necessity to make life worth living. Yet, over the ages, he has generally lived in fragmentation”.

Tiger has had two selves. He is working on one. No superman anymore. But truly more Human.

Margie's Mad: Loblaws Has Dumped Too Much Labour on Her Shoulders

After paying $80.00 at the Loblaws Superstore checkout, Margie had to bag her own groceries. She was not in the 1 to 8 item so-called fast checkout line. Just a regular line where she expected regular service.


When Margie objected, she was told it was for efficiency’s sake, to get more customers through. Margie was downright enraged. First, she objected to doing work for Loblaws so that it could be more efficient after having handed over $80.00. Secondly, she suggested that having roving packers would be very efficient while customers are otherwise engaged keeping the process moving and paying the bill.

With other customers glaring at her for making such a fuss, she asked to see the manager. But she answered her demand at the same time as the cashier said out loud: “the manager is in a meeting”. Thought so. The stand-off ended with Margie being given a contact number for head office.

The customer service representative showed no sympathy. That’s the policy and that’s that! When Margie suggested that the Galen Weston Sr. and Mrs. Weston would never have to pack their own bags, the representative went bureaucratic chiding Margie for mentioning their names. No sense of humor there.

The only exception, Margie was told, was for seniors and the disabled. Now that really sent Margie into another tailspin as she feels quite strongly that neither of those groups should be singled out as “victims”.

Margie, as with the cashier, got nowhere with the customer service rep. Even when she said that will be the last time she will shop at the Superstore, it mattered not at all. The rep did not ask for her name or telephone number.

Over the years, Margie has likely spent tens of thousands of dollars at Loblaws in its various incarnations. No more. She has willingly supported the Loblaws’ labour force by being a loyal customer day in and day out. No more.

Margie is 83 years old and sharp as a tack. She may have another ten or so years to go. A lot of money walked out of Loblaws' door a few days ago. If you also count the people she talked to and who are equally unhappy about the downloading of labour to customers, that adds up to a considerable amount of money.

Avoiding the Slippery Slope of Negativity: Rebounding from What Life Throws at Us

During the Olympics, we lived in a surreal world. There were so many moments of joy and lots of disappointments too. Overall, the experience was uplifting as we celebrated the efforts of athletes to better their best. We were on a high, especially when Canada beat the US for hockey gold.


It was a welcome relief from the downbeat news that dominates our media. Positive experiences and messages have a hard time surviving among the weeds of travail and suffering. According to Tal Ben-Shahar, who lectures on positive psychology, articles about anger, anxiety and depression outnumber those on joy, happiness and satisfaction by a factor of 21:1!

Yet, to be creative and push the edges of our minds, inspiration partners better with perspiration than negativity. Inspiration opens us up to generating possibilities and seeing opportunities despite difficult circumstances. In evolutionary terms, it’s the only way to go for individual and group survival.

Imagine if each one of us were a little bit better at fending off the negative and cultivating the positive. It’s not easy as the reality of life is that failure, frustration and suffering abound. Nevertheless, if more of us can improve how we rebound, then maybe we will have more shared Olympic moments.

One way is to alter how we think about or evaluate our thoughts in response to an event. Cognitive scientists tell us that our thoughts drive emotions and emotions drive motion. It follows then that we have the power to change the meaning we attach to the event and thus our actions. We can cope up or down. Our choice.

The “3Ms” serve as a mirror for our unrealistic or realistic reactions to the unfolding of life’s events:

# 1: Magnifying the Failure. Avoid over-generalizing (“No one liked my idea therefore they won’t like any of my ideas.”)

# 2: Minimizing the Success: Avoid tunnel vision, focusing on the one thing that went wrong rather than the nine that went well (Giving undue attention to the one bored or disengaged person rather than the nine excited people).

# 3: Making Up Meanings: Avoid personalizing or blaming (beating yourself up instead of problem-solving your way out, taking charge).

The Olympic athletes are proof positive of the power of thoughts driving emotions and emotions driving motion. No reason why we can’t practice that too.