This is the story of an amazing little boy who is one of my son Clarke’s dearest friends. Between Griffin’s time in the hospital last winter and when we could see him again in the spring, Clarke renamed a stuffed animal “Griffin” and carried on conversations with his place-holder friend about dump trucks, trains and the usual things little boys talk about.
As you’ll see, Griffin is not your usual kid, though. He’s extraordinary. The fact his family chooses to live with joy and embrace each moment inspires us every day. I have a feeling his story, their story, will inspire you too.
Mr. Mason was a substitute teacher when I was in school. He spoke slowly and was shaped like the letter D. He was older than most of my teachers but he was charming, quick, and with a “look kids, I’ve seen it all and you won’t scare me, don’t even try” way. He spent more time telling stories than attempting to master and convey the subject of whichever teacher he was subbing for—and so of course I remember him vividly.
The story I’ve repeated to myself for over 20 years was undoubtedly in response to one of my classmates speaking out. Without lecturing the boy he probably began, “Charlie, that reminds me of a story.” Before we knew it, we had been whisked away to a giant symphony hall, where a great conductor (probably Leonard Slatkin, who was conductor of the St. Louis Symphony at the time) was performing a concerto that was getting louder and louder and then stop. A great silence was about to fill the hall, everyone heard one woman say to another, “I fry mine in butter.”
Without saying much, Mr. Mason spoke volumes about watching our words.
The story came back to me today while my young son and I attended a performance of mountain banjo and dulcimer music with Dinah Ansley at our local library, part of their monthly A Little Lunch Music series. Although Clarke had contained his enthusiasm to cheers at the end of songs, singing along to his favorite “You Are My Sunshine,” and adding animal noises to “Old McDonald,” during a soft sweet song he announced to me (and everyone else in the room) “I want those shoes for my birthday.” For a few moments, the shoes on the little boy beside us were more buttery than the music. Thankfully once he told us this, he went back to listening with full attention.
Thank you Mr. Mason. Thank you Staunton Public Library. Thank you Kurt Vonnegut (who I have since learned is the originator of the story, from his book Timequake). Thank you Bernard Sherman helping me find the story’s source.
Most of all, Thank you Dinah Ansley for a fabulous show, for a delightful sense of humor, and for extraordinary report with an audience of many ages.
New research suggests that memory lapses that occur with age might be a sign of a widening focus of attention.
When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit.
Health / Research Lotus Therapy
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: May 27, 2008
Mindfulness meditation has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach.
First person accounts, from adults, children and parents, about living with A.D.H.D. When is a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder viewed as good news? How does A.D.H.D. medication affect a child’s ability to create art? How do parents and children view attention deficit and hyperactivity problems differently?
AMERICANS may worry about heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but they downright dread Alzheimer’s disease, a recent survey found. Researchers are more optimistic than ever about the potential of the aging brain, because recent evidence has challenged long-held beliefs by demonstrating that the brain can grow new nerve cells.
A challenge for children is figuring out whom to believe, and a new study suggests that this process starts early and without prompting by adults.
Beware a puppet who tells you that a ball is a book, or that you tie your shoe with a spoon. That, at any rate, is the message of a study that looked at how 3- and 4-year-olds evaluate the trustworthiness of others.
Exaggeration, it seems, can be part of a plan for self-improvement.
Some tales are so tall that they trip over their own improbable feats, narrative cracks and melodrama. That one-on-one playground victory over Kobe Bryant back in the day; the 34 hours in labor without painkillers; the former girlfriend or boyfriend who spoke eight languages and was a secret agent besides.
A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth.
Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught (though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing).
This is the first time I’ve posted this sort of recap. Please let me know if this sort of posting proves helpful.
When people ask me to describe the best keynote I’ve ever experienced, I always refer back to one by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and co-author of The Art of the Possibility, who had over a thousand educators singing a song, in tune, in German, at a conference I attended a decade ago. He proved to us all that we each have the capacity to do even the seemingly impossible by simply tuning out the naysayers’ voices in our thoughts.
Although I often recommend people read his book (), I’ve longed for a way to show them what I saw and learned from him live. Now I can.
Zander was the closing keynote at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, captured now on YouTube. The clip runs nine minutes, and is well worth watching all the way through.
We each have an internal pace that reveals itself when we engage in learning with other people. Frequently these paces clash. Learn how to best adapt your style to get the most from any situation.
Halfway through a planning meeting I offhandedly commented that some people talk to think, while others think to talk. The group stopped its discussion and asked me to say more.
Just as some people move faster or slower, some react quicker while others speak up more slowly. If you talk to think, as you go along you talk about what you’re doing and learning. If you think to talk, you usually keep your thoughts under wraps until you have something specific to say, until you understand how to proceed, or possibly until the learning part of what you’re doing ends.
I asked everyone to reflect on their own style of engaging with people: “Do you talk to think or do you think to talk?” The CFO, an even-tempered accountant, was still thinking through his answer while his gregarious boss blurted out, “I talk.” His candid answer changed the nature of our meeting.
It had never dawned on most of the leaders in the room that their boss was frequently thinking out loud, saying things merely to generate ideas or learn from the dialogue. The realization that this might be the case prompted people to be more likely to ask the CEO questions in response to future suggestions or comments, and to learn more about how thoroughly their boss had considered his statement. In the long-term, this minor realization was instrumental in the improvement of all of their relationships and ultimately in how they ran their company.
Unfortunately, most learning opportunities—including formal meetings, classes, and informal lunch conversations—do very little for either group. Talk-to-thinkers often don’t have enough time to speak. Think-to-talkers rarely have enough time to reflect.
Are You a Talk-to-Think Learner?
If you’re a talk-to-think learner, I suspect you talk continuously while learning. You probably sound out ideas and say what’s on your mind. Because you rely on other people’s responses, you may prefer to work in a group or on a team. Even when you’re alone, you might catch yourself talking to yourself.
From childhood, you may recall school days when you responded to your teacher’s request by raising your hand quickly or blurting out answers. Even now, you probably grow impatient when you work with a person who takes their time before responding, and hear yourself interrupting or filling in gaps when someone speaks slowly.
Tips for Talk-to-Think Learners
Be transparent. Introduce statements with, “I’m just thinking aloud here,” and ask other people to point out (gently) when you’re talking too much.
Announce your intentions. If you tend to talk continually, people might not realize when you’re ready to move forward. Let them know when you’ve reached a conclusion versus when you’re just tossing ideas around.
Ask for comments. If you don’t receive an opinion or suggestion right away, be more specific in what you’re asking for. Some people need time to absorb what you’ve asked before they can reply. Your clear request might help them respond sooner.
Wait for a response. If you’re prone to spit out ideas faster than the people around you can, count to ten before offering your views. You might be surprised to hear someone else propose a similar idea and you may feel relief knowing other people think the same thing.
Make time to think. When you work with people in a group, you might have a tendency to start working on plans that the group hasn’t fully explored. Next time, work with the group to make a list of the pros and the cons before making a decision. You can add your thoughts quickly and others can see what’s already been thought through.
Are You a Think-to-Talk Learner? If you’re a think-to-talk learner, you probably wouldn’t dare say something before you think it well through. You might need additional quiet time formulating a response to what you’ve heard. You may prefer to work alone or in a pair and you might want to take your time when facing a challenge. I suspect you’ve learned you make better decisions when you reflect on all the aspects of the problem.
To others, though, it may seem like you’re not deliberating because you’re quiet. Remind people you’re willing to offer your thoughts once you’ve had time to think through what’s been said. Tell them the quality of your contribution usually improves when you have enough time to reflect. Consider, however, that if you don’t speak up or if you take too long to process and analyze a situation, you may lose your chance to have any say at all.
Tips for Think-to-Talk Learners
Request more time. Ask for the time you need to think everything through. Explain to people that if you have enough time, you will have a higher-quality response. The words, “Could you give me a minute to think through this?” may create the necessary pause in a group activity for everyone else to improve what they say, too.
Ask for help. When it’s important to make a decision faster than you’re comfortable with, ask for input from other people. Identify the less important parts of a decision first and then build toward making a final decision.
Practice sharing your thoughts. Verbalize your thoughts to a trusted friend—not so this person can scrutinize you, but to practice sharing your ideas. With some rehearsal, you can use your think-to-talk style to help other people to learn more.
Make time to analyze. If you’re a think-to-talk learner who works with other people in a group, you might find it challenging to keep up with the pace of conversation. Focus your energy, instead, on making a list of the pros and cons of any decisions under consideration so that you can share what you’ve thought about with the group. By tracking your thoughts, you can help the group make progress and make a wise choice.
If you seem to talk straight out of your head, or head straight into your thoughts, you bring vital perspective to any gathering. Try these tips and ask for others from people both with your style and the other one that probably up until now made little sense. If can find a way to appreciate and learn from how other’s approaches differ, you’re likely to consider more. Your understanding of your own style and your capacity to value the styles of those around you that will help you learn more.
Use job exchange programs to improve organizational productivity, improve your business culture, and help everyone learn.
A local government in Virginia had the same learning and talent challenges as any large organization. They faced leadership gaps, communication breakdowns, lack of succession planning, job burnout, too few qualified applicants and had an interest in keeping HR lean. Then the County Administrator, a county’s CEO, tried something radical. He removed policies making it difficult to change jobs and he actively encouraged employees to seek change.
A groundskeeper went to work in accounting. The purchasing director took a turn as budget manager during the peak budget season. The senior planner, who usually had the last word on other people’s projects, navigated a major renovation project through the very same system. What started as a part-time, short-term internship program evolved into a full range of real-time learning experiences giving people already in the door solid opportunity to discover their best work.
An endless combination of special projects, committee assignments, internships, job shadows and stair-step swaps provides people variety and broadens their professional experience. From these exchanges people gain insight larger than any single job offers. Upon return, they inevitably interject fresh views into their existing departments. Some people also find better jobs, giving someone else a chance to grow into the job they had.
These assignments don’t just happen in the trenches. They occur in every department. Assignments are often geared to strengthen the county’s leadership team, involve managing multimillion dollar capital improvement or construction projects, working with public officials, and serving on regional boards. The County Administrator strongly encourages rising leaders and their seconds to move around, learn, and stretch. Posts that cross departments usually get his personal attention as he helps determine placement and key project assignments.
Seventy percent of senior leaders have participated so far, and of the remaining 30 percent their seconds have participated. Assignments and cross-posts last six months and usually emerge during key cycles, during the busiest part of the year: October through April, when everyone is working on budgeting and people are guaranteed to learn (and help) the most.
How Does the Program Work? From the moment you join the organization, you’re encouraged to grow and develop. At new employee orientation, the County Administrator tells you the new employee that you have two responsibilities: to do your job and to develop to your fullest potential.
The county offers training sessions and resources such as a workshop called “Promoting Yourself” which includes mock interviews conducted by hiring supervisors. The practice bolsters confidence and regularly results in well-deserved promotions.
When there is a vacancy or an employee is on extended leave, the first question asked is “Is this a learning and developmental opportunity for one of our employees?”
Intra-department exchanges don’t require any outside assistance and now, managers know they have authority to make local changes as they see fit.
There is a proactive element from the county, too. Natural leaders are often busy doing their jobs, sometimes the last ones to think, “Perhaps I need a change.” As part of human resource planning, when a big project or critical job opens up, the people in HR get nosy. They go to managers and say, “Hmmm would this be a good opportunity to offer a special assignment or to stretch someone’s skills?”
The program has been formally going on for five years, and by all measures it’s a great success. Participants rate the experience as positive by every measure.
How Long Do Exchanges Last? What About Pay? Most exchanges are full-time and last six months. Employees don’t get a pay change unless they’re in the new role for more than six months (and then only the extension-pay adjusts). This is a development opportunity, but they also don’t want to take advantage of the situation or give the impression that participation in the job swap ensures a permanent move to the new role. It’s an exception for an assignment to go more than six months.
Who Does the Job Back Home? Sometimes people who take on assignments don’t have their current job backfilled. Other times someone else from the organization moves up (or over). For instance, in the Water and Sewer department, a manager took on a key assignment and two engineers from the department took over his key duties. The county offers to pay for a temp to fill in for the least skilled position vacated by a stair-step change, although so far no one has taken the offer.
In HR, after two employees stair stepped into new roles within the departments, someone from a less busy department moved over to fill some clerical duties and sharpen her computer skills. She also learned about the hiring process. When she went back she streamlined the hiring process in her existing parks and recreation departments’ after school programs.
Do All Assignments Lead to Promotions? About 30 percent of exchanges have led to promotions or permanent changes within the organization and about 10 percent have left their department for other opportunities. Most returned to their previous positions, in part, because of the limited number of executive vacancies. A change in position doesn’t always turn out as a person might expect: it might just be to help someone see their ideal job isn’t a good fit.
Logistics also play a big factor. With only eight executive positions, promotions at the top can be frustrating. The county hasn’t seen anyone get exasperated and leave, though. People still feel engaged and they can get big assignments. If not a new title, they gain confidence in themselves. What more can you ask for than employee engagement and retaining the best?
There are other benefits, too.
Walk a Mile, Gain Perspective Rarely does everyone appreciate the work done by those around them, not even those they work with closely. Swapping jobs with someone else gives people day-in day-out experience with another angle. This new perspective helps people fundamentally adjust their usual work to accommodate the larger view.
Take for instance an exchange in the police department. Before this program began, a uniformed officer discovered a crime and then turned it over to a police investigator. Acting independently, even in a single department, hampered investigations. Instead of creating laborious procedures not guaranteed to work, the police chiefs of the two divisions swapped their positions for a year.
By walking and driving miles in another’s shoes, crime investigating improved tenfold. Officers saw gaps in their working knowledge and surfaced unanticipated assumptions that had limited their capacity to learn. From the exchanges, everyone reported they saw their roles in new ways and were more effective at stopping crime.
Float It Elsewhere What happens in your organization when employees can’t find their groove? Maybe they won’t fit anywhere. More likely, their assets just don’t match job. Other open positions might allow them to soar.
Take the case of the custodian deemed to be doing a crappy job. In his evaluation, it was also noted he was great at talking with people. The department and HR discussed options to probation. His supervisor was thrilled to have a chance to, even temporarily, backfill his job with someone else and the custodian welcomed the chance to prove he was a good fit in another department. After six months he was moved permanently into social services where he began training to become a case-aide. Now he’s a successful, happy, and helpful social worker. All this from doing a poor job.
Dig for Talent Employees who hold low-level positions can find themselves bored, and a bored employee is more likely to under-perform, or even look for new work. A job swap can breathe new life into a person’s work day. Consider closing critical positions with people in other departments whose jobs wouldn’t be as tricky to backfill.
During a crucial budgeting season, the county couldn’t fill accounting jobs fast enough. The supervisor listed the foundation skills needed for the position and the HR team went to work seeing if they could find people in-house. Within a week, they found two qualified people voicing interest in an exchange. One was in grounds maintenance and the other was running after-school programs. Each was brought in for six months. One liked the new role and eventually took it full-time. The other hated the job, realizing he never wanted to work in accounting again. However, the people he worked with were impressed with his initiative to step outside his previous role and it eventually lead to a new job better suited for him.
If for No Other Reason Sometimes life events cause great employees to ask, “What else could I do?” Injury, illness, a move, needing to be home more with family, or any number of personal changes mean someone can no longer fulfill his or her job. The county is committed to their employees—after all, they are also their county citizens, and they have found the exchange program approach helps meet everyone’s needs. It’s now part of their culture, it’s how they work. They haven’t seen any decrease in productivity and they have seen a huge increase in retention rates.
Extensive surveys with departments and people involved in the exchange program show it far exceeds people’s expectations. No one seems to mind small disruptions in productivity when everyone has a chance to learn and grow. More than 90 percent rated the experience as positive also citing a strong interest in continuing to work for an employer committed to providing transformative opportunities.
Perhaps nothing illustrates the success of the program better though, than the experience of the County Administrator who was out of town during a Category I hurricane. Rather than return home immediately, he stayed put. He knew there was a cadre of people who could step in to fill his responsibilities and then people to fill theirs. They weren’t just acting like they knew what to do: they knew what to do because they’d done it before.
Shoshana Zuboff was the first person I saw delivering a satellite keynote. It was circa 1995 for the Information Technology Training Association’s annual conference. Through the camera on her desk, she made the point that her work at Harvard (and with clients worldwide) was more about sitting at her desk with her feet up while thinking than walking around doing or going nonstop. That point has guided much of my work in the subsequent years, not always with my feet up but always mindful of what being busy really means.
Today I had the good fortune to re-read some of the book Zuboff was promoting at the time, the now-classic In The Age of the Smart Machine (Basic Books, 1989).
While some parts feel a bit dated, and others more academic than I remember them when I first read this well over a decade ago, there were a few highlights I savored for both their clarity and because they are still so new in their message.
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From p 295: A new division of learning requires another vocabulary—one of colleagues and co-learners, of exploration, experimentation, and innovation. Jobs are comprehensive, tasks are abstractions that depend upon insight and synthesis, and power is a roving force that comes to rest as dictated by function and need. A new vocabulary cannot be invented all at once—it will emerge from the practical action of people struggling to make sense in a new “place” and drive to sever their ties with an industrial logic that has ruled the imaginative life of our century.
The informated organization is a learning institution, and one of its principle purposes is the expansion of knowledge—not knowledge for its own sake (as in academic pursuit), but knowledge that comes to reside at the core of what it means to be productive. Learning is no longer a separate activity that occurs either before one enters the workplace or in remote classroom settings. Nor is it an activity preserved for a managerial group. The behaviors that define learning and the behaviors that define being productive are one and the same. Learning is not something that requires time out from being engaged in productive activity; learning is the heart of productive activity. To put it simply, learning is the new form of labor.
From page 250: The classic managerial role has been that of handler, manipulator, dealer, and withholder of information. An issue that the technology is forcing us to face involves the loss of managerial control. That has a lot to do with the assumption of what the hell managers are. There is a legal definition that management is the steward for the owners of the enterprise. They are expected to not let the situation ever get out of control to the extent that things aren’t going to happen the way the owners might want them to happen. (Quoting a Sr. manager at American Paper Company).
Also from page 250: Persuasion, influence, education—these are not easily compatible with the beliefs necessary to maintain imperative control. Finally, managers acting as teachers creates the possibility of their own vulnerability. Teaching and learning lead to insights, doubts, and questions. There are likely to be questions that managers cannot answer. If that is the case, what gives them the right to manage?
From page 75-76: “Sitting in this room and just thinking has become part of my job. It’s the technology that lets me do these things.” The thinking this operator refers to is of a different quality from the thinking that attended the display of action-centered skills. It combines abstraction, explicit inference, and procedural reasoning. Taken together, these elements make possible a new set of competencies that I call intellective skills. As long as the new technology signals only deskilling—the diminished importance of action-centered skills-0there will be little probability of developing critical judgement at the data interface. To rekindle such judgement, though on a new, more abstract footing, a reskilling process is required. Mastery in a computer-mediated environment depends upon developing intellective skills.
From page 313: Authority [can be] defined as the spiritual dimension of power because it depends upon some reasonable degree of shared faith in the values that determine rank. This faith must be renewed in daily experience in order to heighten the probability that commands will elicit obedience. Effective authority required a continual effort to shape organizational experience in ways that replenish legitimacy.
Sometimes a book resonates with me so much I secretly wonder if someone filmed us for months. Today before naptime I witnessed my young son have that same experience for the first time in his life. He kept looking at me with this very curious expression as if to say, “How did the book KNOW?”
Joan Levine’s newly updated Topsy-Turvey Bedtime (illustrated masterfully by Tony Auth), released today, will feel joyfully familiar to anyone who knows the adventure of putting a three-, four-, or five-year old to bed.
It’s the story of Arathusela, a very little girl who has a history ploying her way to an exasperating bedtime.
The tables turn, however, when she attempts to help her parents get enough sleep one night, experiencing personally how frustrating the circuitously routed routine can be. The experience goes both ways, of course, as her parents also get a taste for what it feels like being denied their last snack.
My son especially liked seeing the ploys laid out in front of us, wondering how the book knew precisely the order of his tricks. I suspect the author’s son Josh Levine (one of our favorite musicians) shared these antics when he was young. No doubt her husband, Jim Levine—literary agent and author—in those bygone days thought, “I see a book opportunity here” as he did with my own Learn More Now.
Notwithstanding, the events in their house play very well in our house, and for that, I’m appreciative and looking forward to reading the book many many more times.
My very young son may be banned from the women’s locker room at the YMCA if he keeps staring at the half dressed old women. Every friend he has was breastfed so his gawking isn’t about what you might suspect. The last time we were in the locker room, almost half of the women who looked over 65 had tattoos. Elaborate, colorful, unexpected tattoos. Frankly, it was tough to hide my own wonderment. There was an assortment of roses and butterflies, and there was also an elaborate nature scenes, illustrations, and poems.
The Young at Heart Chorus is a group of senior citizens in Northampton Massachusetts who sing rock songs ranging from the Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere, I Will Survive to the somewhat predictable but totally unique Growing Years. The music is performed by some with years of musical experience, and others who simply had the right spirit for the job. Average age: 82.
This morning they were featured on the Today Show in a segment from Bob Dotson. If this doesn’t entice you to see the movie I’m unsure anything will. No better example of ageless learning anywhere.
If you live in a town that won’t be showing movie anytime soon (much to my delight, our local Visulite Cinemas will be showing it this spring), check out the CD entitled, “Almost Live” including some of their best tunes from the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and others. I have a feeling this is going to be BIG. May even see a new tattoo “Young @ Heart”.
What we do know is that autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the world. More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with diabetes, cancer, and AIDS combined. Autism affects as many as 1 in 150 children and 1 in 94 boys.
Several people in my life live on the autism spectrum (from full-blown autism portrayed by Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man to the far less recognized Asperger Syndrome of people we work with each day) so this awareness campaign has extra meaning for me.
Rather, I want to share a list of books we have found particularly helpful in understanding the world of autism.
I welcome hearing from you through email or in the comments section here about the books and other resources you have found most useful. And by all means, help increase awareness of those around you locally and throughout the globe.
Children’s books featuring characters with Asperger-like traits
Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes by Jennifer Elder, Marc Thomas (Illustrator) “Eight-year-old Quinn, a young boy with Asperger’s Syndrome, tells young readers about the achievements and characteristics of his autism heroes, from Albert Einstein, Dian Fossey and Wassily Kandinsky to Lewis Carroll, Benjamin Banneker and Julia Bowman Robinson, among others. All excel in different fields, but are united by the fact that they often found it difficult to fit in-just like Quinn.” For ages 8-12
What you see may be only a fraction of what’s there. To learn more, look beyond what you expect.
Each time Mal “Skip” Bowen sat on his favorite beach, he noticed people diving for abalone a short distance offshore. When he set out to find one himself he bought gear, headed back to the beach, and went into the water. No abalone. Not a single one. He wondered if the tide changed while he was gone or if someone else caught them all.
Just then a diver strolled by with a large catch. Skip tried again, returning empty handed. He wondered if he needed to wait until seagulls circled or waves reached a certain height when a diver who looked 100 years old, who was perhaps 42, walked by with even more abalone. Skip asked what he might be doing wrong.
The leathery-looking diver spit out a piece of kelp. “There’s something you should know about abalone.” He paused, nodding back toward the ocean. “Until you see your first abalone, you can’t see them at all. Once you see your first one, they’re everywhere.”
Skip grabbed his mask and fins, and headed toward the water. About an hour later, he saw his first abalone. He’s been seeing them everywhere since.
The human eye has a blind spot in its field of vision. The human mind has something similar. Sometimes you can’t “see” new information because you lack the mental framework, and are bound by filters, to make sense of what your eyes take in. People often see what they want to see and ignore information which doesn’t fit their preconceptions. We default to the shortcut of seeing things the same way. People seek stability and security so seeing thing in a way that confirms their beliefs gives them both.
Help yourself see more by looking past your beliefs.
See past categories.
To manage an overwhelming amount of data, you create mental category bins where you group similar items. “I don’t need to spend time discovering the nuances of this grub because I know enough about bugs to get by.” Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe explain in Managing the Unexpected, “Trouble starts when I fail to notice that I see only whatever confirms my categories and expectations but nothing else. The trouble deepens even further if I kid myself that seeing is believing. That’s wrong. It’s the other way around. You see what you expect to see. You see what you have the labels to see. You see what you have the skills to manage.” After all, that grub might need to go into a bucket labeled food if you’re hungry and lost in the woods.
See past jargon.
Few people feel comfortable pointing out they’re missing little details it seems everyone else knows. At the beginning of any class I teach, I ask everyone to fold a paper airplane and fly it forward if there is a term, acronym, or concept we talk about they’re unfamiliar with. We’re more likely to focus on the airborne plane, making sure to spend time clarifying recent topics, than considering who sent it. It signifies we need to pay more attention to the words we use so that they make sense to everyone and allows everyone to advocate for themselves in a non-threatening way. [At the end of the class, if no airplanes were thrown, we hold airplane races so everyone carries with them the image of clarity in flight.]
See past assumptions.
Assumptions are beliefs about how the world works. They include priorities, lists of what you value more than other things. Over time your assumptions work at an unconscious level, helping you work without constantly determining what you should or ought, or how to act. The cost for this efficiency is you may fail to notice new evidence contradicting your unsaid beliefs and missing opportunities to update your views of the world. The great philosopher Douglas Adams wrote, “A scientist must be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting.”
See past emptiness.
When introduced to a new concept, do you ever think, “Should I know how to use this or what to do next?” spinning in your thoughts without landing. This happens when you don’t have the structure for the new information to sit it down on. You don’t know how it connects to ideas you’re already familiar with, that you already rely on, or have previously made your own. To acquire necessary mental furniture seek associations, metaphors, illustrations, or stories so you can see how this new stuff works with what you know. This past week two different clients asked me to create an image showing all the steps we would take for their projects. The picture didn’t matter to their concrete styles of thinking as much as their newfound confidence we had a full-plan, allowing them to see we could proceed.
See past corners.
Like something straight out of a sci-fi book, people frequently see the same thing at the same time in completely different ways. We’ve all been to meetings that participants later describe in such different ways you wonder if you were there together. This happens because people see and hear through their personal filters, with their own assumptions, in their own language. When I work with groups, I always ask people to move to a different side of the room halfway through. This ensures each person see (and hears) things from at least one other point of view and when they compare notes and debrief, they have a wider perch to report from.
See past defenses.
Are you inclined to dismiss alternative perspectives or facts that don’t fit your case? When you can’t see what others see it’s easy to become defensive and send the signal to back off. While occasionally that’s required, if people around you aren’t listened to, they might stop offering. A former mentor used to say, “Default to curious, never defensive.” Sometimes leaning into new information helps you make sense of it all. Years ago I worked with new employees in the service department at a large company. At the end of their first week of work, armed with a list of answers to common issues, we had them answer live calls, many from irate customers. After only a few, the new employees quickly grasped how much they needed to learn. From then on, they were very receptive to advice, coaching, and lessons from coworkers and instructors on how to handle difficult situations. By releasing their defensiveness, they understood where to begin.
See past your circle.
In Naming Elephants, Sue Hammond and Andrea Mayfield write, “Ignorance and knowledge grow at the same rate because the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” If you ask for a wide range of views, especially from those beyond your usual circles, you increase your potential to see what you can’t see. The more connections you make with people, concepts, experiences, and the environment, the more pathways to learning you create.
It is said Winston Churchill developed this audit to help see the world more clearly:
Several times this week people have offered me their favorite parenting maxims in a good-hearted attempt to help me control my son. “You could get him to leave this wonderful play area more easily if he knew he’d get a 1-2-3 if he didn’t comply.” “A token plan would surely break him of his desire to play longer with his parents and go to bed right on time.”
The awkward thing is that simplified versions of these jewels come from some of my dearest friends, people who I would walk over hot coals for, whose children I adore, and who are offering this advice because they love me and want me to have an easier life. Given that I frequently offer them random insights into the ways I work with my son they have every right to share with me what works for them. I am a better person because they do.
The trouble is that I have been a parent for less than four years. I’ve worked in human development and how people learn for two decades. I have a far broader and deeper understanding of what these behavioristic approaches do long-term than an appreciation for what could ever be gained here and now.
Don’t get me wrong, we have our challenges. And at times, that appears dizzying to other people. In my son’s third year we’ve had a few struggles at the end of playtime at other people’s houses. Fact is, neither of us really wants to leave. And yes, bedtime wrap-up occasionally takes more than an hour. I don’t want to think about the day when boy-wonder learns how long it takes mom and dad to wind down. But I’m OK with these challenges.
My aim each day is to raise an adult, not a child.
Parents lay the tracks our children’s inner voice will repeat for a lifetime. What do you want that recording to say?
No wonder then I was delighted to read the following words as part of my bedtime routine last night. They come from Barbara Coloruso and appear early in her book, Kids are Worth It!
I share them here to remind myself again why I haven’t adopted a time-out or reward system… and in the event my friends read it here, they might get a glimpse into why I’ve politely listened but haven’t heeded their advice. Just on this, topic, though. On others, I welcome learning from them every day.
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The Golden Rule, as it is called, can serve us well when applied to our relations with our children. If we are not sure whether what we are doing with children is right, we need only put ourselves in their place and ask if we would want it done to us—not was it done to us, but would we want it done to us? If the answer is no, then we have to ask ourselves why we should ever want it done to our children.
If I wouldn’t want to be slapped across the face, why would I slap my son? If I wouldn’t want to be screamed at when I made a mistake, why would I scream at my daughter when she dropped the cake I had decorated for my mother-in-law? If I wouldn’t want to be ridiculed when I attempted to learn to roller-blade at forty three, why would I ridicule my daughter as she jerked the car out of first gear into second after being shown ten times how to do it smoothly? If I wouldn’t want my gardening skills to be compared with my neighbor’s, why would I compare my son’s math performance with his older sisters’ [or compare how and where he poops with his friends’ potty-time performance]?
We don’t have to look only at the here and now to see that it’s best not to treat kids in a way we wouldn’t want to be treated. If we use techniques today that control our children in an attempt to make them mind, we will be in trouble when we got old and this next generation has learned (because we spent years teaching them) how to control those weaker than themselves. I’ll guarantee you, when we are older, those weaker than them will be us. I won’t do to a child at seven something I wouldn’t want done to me at seventy.
It’s hard to imagine my grown child putting me on a sticker contract for getting out of bed, dressed, and to breakfast on time in the morning when I am seventy years old. “Come on, Mom. Remember, if you get up on the first call, get dressed by yourself, and show up for breakfast on time I will give you five stars. You can put those five stars on the chart we put up on your bedroom wall. If you get twenty-five stars by Friday, you can redeem those stars for a trip to the bingo hall with your friends.” It would be even harder to imagine being hit [or given a 1-2-3 now you need to sit in a room by yourself or on the naughty-mat] for speaking my own mind—in other words, for talking back—when I am seventy years old. It might appear to work, but it would not only be something that I would not want done to me, it would be at the expense of my sense of dignity and self-worth.
It is not enough merely to ask if I would want it done to me if I were in my child’s shoes. As good a check of parenting tool as that question is, we must go one step further and consider the consequences of our actions [in the larger scheme of things].
Just because a parenting tool works, or appears to work, that doesn’t make it a good one. An unintended consequence of using tools that control kids and makes them mind is that “good behavior” is purchased at a terrible cost—that is, at the expense of the dignity and self-worth of both the parent and the child.
If we want to raise children who have a strong sense of inner discipline, who don’t act merely to please someone or to avoid punishment but who behave in a responsible and compassionate way toward themselves and others because it is the right thing to do, then we must abandon some “tried and true” parenting tools of the past and reject some of the more recent alternatives.
What are the consequences to our children, our family, and our community if we raise children to “do to please,” to do what they are told to do, and to help others only if there is something it it for them?
I am not naive enough to believe that it will be simple to make the necessary changes. I also know that those of us committed to making a change must fight the demons from within, for we carry in our mental toolboxes destructive tools that are well-worn family heirlooms, passed on from generation to generation. [We need] to ask, “What is my goal in parenting—to influence and empower my children, or to control them and make them mind?”
If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you.
Get a feedback loop and listen to it!
Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it.
Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.
After about 8 minutes of introductions, he speaks from experience. He says, “I had several specific childhood dreams, and I’ve actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center, of helping many young people actually achieve their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how you can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.”
His lecture, which you can also read on-line in its entirety, moved me to tears and helped me jump-start the year. I include it here in place of my quotations this month because it may also inspire you to embrace (and overcome) your own brick walls, whether in your job, your community, your home or in your life.
A local friend of ours thinks she might be near a Trader Joe’s this coming weekend while she’s traveling to the Boston area. She’s never been in a Trader Joe’s before but she’s heard us go on and on and on.
We created this list of favorites she might consider purchasing for her own family and in the hopes that if she does stop, she’ll consider doing a little shopping for us too.
One of my favorite business books is Reengineering Management by James Champy, written over a decade ago but in some ways more relevant now than at the time it was written. If it didn’t have the now out-of-fashion term “reengineering” peppered throughout so liberally, you could believe this was written about today. I guess in some ways it was.
As I send my dog-eared copy to a friend (part of my ongoing effort to streamline my bookshelf) I wanted to capture some favorite passages.
1. Issue of purpose. Insistently, persistently, relentlessly, the new manager must ask, “What for?” What is it that we’re in this business for? What is this process for? This product? This task? This team? This job? What are we doing here, anyway?
2. Issues of culture. If successful reengineering requires a change in a company’s whole culture, as seems to be the case in many instances, how is it to be accomplished by the same management that did so well in the old culture? If it is true (and it is) that reengineering is unlikely to success where the corporate atmosphere is charged with fear (and its twin, mistrust), how do we generate another, better environment—one, say, of willingness and mutual confidence?
3. Issues of process and performance. How do we get the kind of processes we want? How do we get the performances we need from our people? How do we set norms and standards, or measure results—for worker performance, management performance, and the performance of the whole enterprise? Reengineering usually demands radical objectives, leadership, and political skills to realize. But how do we know whether we have the stuff? What does it take to be a good manager today?
4. Issues of people. Who do we want to work with? How can we find them from both inside and outside the company? How do we get them to want to work with us? How do we know whether they’re the kind of people we want?
Although these are hard questions to pose, they are harder to answer—and learning to live the answer is far harder still. As I look at the practice of business management today, I sometimes think of the exchange between Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The two wretches have been shuffling in silence, when suddenly Estragon groans, “I can’t stand it anymore.” To which Vladimir says, “Oh, yes, you can.” (pp 7-8)
We must dramatically improve business results, now, and do it while earning the hearts and minds of our people. To make things still more difficult, “now” has no traditions, no precedents, no time-tested formulas. Now has never been seen before.
Nothing is simple anymore. Nothing is stable. The business environment is changing before our eyes, rapidly, radically, perplexingly.
Now, whatever we do is not enough. Incremental change is what we’re used to: the kind we could manage gradually, with careful planning, broad consensus-building, and controlled execution. Now we must not only manage change, we must create change—big change—and fast. If we stop for a leisurely consideration of the issues, the situation will alter in front of our eyes and our careful judgments will not apply.
Everything is in question. The old ways of managing no longer work. The organization charts, the compensation schemes, the hierarchies, the vertical organization, the whole tool kit of command-and-control management techniques no longer work.
Everyone must change. The change will go deeper than technique. It touches not merely what managers do, but who they are. Not just their sense of the task, but their sense of themselves. Not just what they know, but how they think. Not just their way of seeing the world, but their way of living in the world.
These refrains will keep coming to you in this book. Nothing is simple. Whatever you do is not enough. Everything is in question. Everyone must change. (pp 9-10)
Questions in the middle of the day. And the middle of the night. How can I do this faster? How can I do it for less? What if I don’t do it at all? Are all successful companies doomed to extinction? What is this work for? What are we aiming at here? What is the market? Who is the customer? How can we work better, and better, and better? (p 23)
At the end of the journey they talk about the souvenirs they picked up along the way. We go back to packing and unpacking exercise, and people talk about what they discovered and how it compared to what they hoped for and expected. They find they have experienced the key elements of our culture, what we believe in, what the environment is like and have interacted with each other within that new framework.
Teaching should happen regularly, as part of a person’s work. It should be a chance for everyone, teachers and students alike, to renew their commitment to the company’s cultural values, as well as a way of monitoring how well those values are working in practice. (p 101)
Sometimes information teaching, done on an ad hoc basis, can be the best way to keep the weeds from growing. (p 102)
The first managerial revolution shifted power. The second will deliver our freedom.
It is very difficult for people—for managers themselves no less than for other workers and the public—to grasp the dimensions of the revolution going on in business today. Like the proverbial elephant, it’s too big for any one person to comprehend. (p 201)
We’re reading George and Martha One Fine Day by James Marshall. It has five short vignettes, each with clever writing and pictures. My personal favorite is the first story, The Tightrope because of its timeless lesson about the role of confidence in trying anything daring and new.
Here’s the story.
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One morning when George looked out his windows, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Martha was walking on a tightrope.
“My stars!” cried George. “II could never do that!”
“Why not?” said Martha. “It’s a ton of fun.”
“But it’s so high up,” said George.
“Yes,” said Martha.
“And it’s such a long way down,” said George.
“That’s very true,” said Martha.
“It would be quite a fall,” said George.
“I see what you mean,” said Martha.
Suddenly Martha felt uncomfortable. For some reason she had lost her confidence. She began to wobble.
George realized his mistake. Now he had to do some fast talking.
“Of course,” he said, “anyone can see you love walking the tightrope.”
“Oh yes?” said Martha.
“Certainly,” said George. “And if you love what you do, you’ll be very good at it too.”
Martha’s confidence was restored.
“Watch this!” she said. Martha did some fancy footwork on her tightrope.
We’ve been reading Ruth Krauss’ The Carrot Seed (pictures by Crockett Johnson). Although we’ve now read it some 15 times, each time I smile when we get to the end, reminded this offers a fundamental lesson for leadership and life. Sometimes you just need to believe: do the hard work and believe.
Here’s the story.
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A little boy planted a carrot seed.
His mother said, “I’m afraid it won’t come up.”
His father said, “I’m afraid it won’t come up.”
And his big brother said, “It won’t come up.”
Every day the little boy pulled up the weeds around the seed and sprinkled the ground with water.
But nothing came up.
And nothing came up.
Everyone kept saying it wouldn’t come up.
But he still pulled up the weeds around it every day and sprinkled the ground with water.
I’m not a good speller. Perhaps I should have told my father when I was young that something I couldn’t do when I grew up was to spell confidently without the assistance of spell-checkers and editors.
Lord knows I’ve tried. I never publish or send anything out without re-reading it at least three time. I keep a dictionary and the Bad Speller’s Dictionary on my desk. My senior year in high school, when English courses focused on Shakespeare and composition, I supplemented my day with an independent study course to examine spelling techniques.
No blame goes to the quality of my education, either. Mrs. Cushman did her job, drilling into me that I goes before E except after C. It’s just that I occasionally misuse the right spelling of a word so it becomes the wrong word.
When something looks wrong, I check immediately. My habits break down, however, when I am blind to the error or I convince myself the absence of a red-squiggly-line under a word means it’s the right word.
I don’t confess this with any sort of false modesty. My spelling poses an ongoing and usually ill-timed source of embarrassment.
Today I received a note from a gentle reader pointing out a big ‘ol typo in a my recent Fast Company blog post. I used eluded when I meant alluded.
The worst faux pa (faux spa?) came last month when I wrote “with excellent writing, presenting and fascination skills” on a resume rather than, “with excellent writing, presenting and facilitation skills.” Although I know a spell checker aided in that guffaw, I only realized my error after the resume had been circulated. It’s not the spell checker that looked like an ass. I can only hope the rest of my resume helped me come across as a fascinating ass.
If you have overcome your spelling woes, would you please tell me how you did it? I welcome all suggestions.
This year I ought to do more than allude to this problem. I aim to facilitate overcoming it forever.
Moments after posting Resolution: Create a Stronger, Smarter Organization about learning culture to the Fast Company expert blog, I received a reminder in email there are more important culture shifts than those focused on learning.
YES Magazine does a beautiful job of promoting both learning and peace. If you’re unfamiliar with the magazine, visit them online or consider subscribing. If you’re an educator, sign up for a free YES! teacher subscription).
Here’s a preview of some neat things on their web site now.
What happens when we throw off the invisible chains that keep us from realizing the world we want—when we, as they say in the global south, decolonize our minds? Step off the path and Live Free.
A fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.
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