token diversity (a pre-theory)

One of the first things I learned in college was that if somebody was talking about diversity then it probably meant diversity didn't exist.

I formulated this theory after comparing how the school discussed two types of diversity – gender and racial. My school was very white, around 90% or so, and we therefore talked all the time about racial diversity. The conversation always made it seem like the demographics were some kind of unfortunate mix-up, perhaps due to rounding error, and that with a little more conversation and a little less action, maybe, some new future of diversity was about to arrive on campus. It might even be the next day! This was the way it seemed to go every single time diversity was discussed during my four years on campus.

On the other hand, the gender demographics were pretty balanced, at least from the simplified perspective of comparing enrolled men and women. Since the numbers were pretty close to even, the topic of gender diversity was never discussed.

It’s possible that my theory needs a little adjustment. It might not be that discussions about diversity happen only if it doesn’t exist – perhaps they simply stop happening as soon as it does exist. Regardless of the exact way my theory should be worded, I think the point is that it is important to recognize the basic idea that if diversity is being discussed then it is almost a surefire signal that it doesn’t exist. And until it does exist, anyone in the ‘out’ group is certain to feel like a token representative of that group within a larger community that is struggling to live up to its stated ideals of inclusion, equality, and opportunity for all.

leftover #1: is materialism the only chess sin?

In this post, I wrote about how I thought materialism was the most urgent issue described in Jonathan Rowson’s Seven Deadly Chess Sins. Though each ‘chess sin’ overlapped with its counterparts in some ways, materialism seemed to be the only one that actually influenced all six.

Since Rowson’s framework is based on the concept of ‘the seven deadly sins’, I wondered if there was a deadly sin that influenced the others in the way materialism did (1). After having a look and thinking it over, I think I have a strong candidate – greed.

This deadly sin is essentially the insatiable urge to accumulate. It seems like the other six deadly sins all build on this concept until a healthy behavior becomes detrimental. The feature that links them all together is how there appears to be no end in sight for someone under the influence of a deadly sin.

Consider:

Greed – the sin of endless accumulation

Gluttony – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to consumption

Sloth – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to rest or idleness

Envy – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to social standing

Lust – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to sexual desire

Wrath – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to anger

Pride – the sin of endless accumulation as it relates to selfishness

Now, whether there is any actual substance to be the above is a question I leave to you, reader. For me, the exercise reveals my general sense about greed’s prominent role among negative qualities. When I think about the worst quality an otherwise normal person can have, I usually end up settling on greed (2). There is something fundamentally regrettable to me about greed. I think it is because greed feels like a manufactured product to me, almost like it wouldn't exist unless it was created by us humans, and I suspect that when I encounter a greedy person, I feel that we have collectively failed this person in the same way I feel when I walk past someone sleeping on the sidewalk.

What's the part about greed that feels manufactured to me? When I stack greed up against the other sins, it almost seems to stand alone in how it is not an example of an other otherwise healthy impulse or instinct gone wrong. We should all eat without reaching gluttony and we should all rest without becoming slothful. A person who can express him- or herself without anger is going to be emotionally healthy while those who can use success stories as inspirations rather than sources of jealousy will be vital components in any progressing society. Surely, we all agree that we must think about our own self-interest every once in a while. And might I point out that a little lust, handled with maturity and respect, goes a long way to the future of the species?

But greed… what positive quality or outcome is greed obscuring? Saving for a rainy day, maybe? I don't know, to me it just doesn’t seem to have any purpose at all. Perhaps another way to make this point is to suggest that of all the negative qualities, greed just doesn’t seem to come naturally to us at all. So why do we suggest it is some kind of natural impulse by placing it alongside these six other examples? Surely, we should think about greed in a different way - not as a forgivable example of poor self-control but rather as a symptom of the unfortunate disease invented and spread by our greatest collective achievement to date, civilization.

Footnotes / how closely related are materialism and greed?

1. The insatiable urge for… accumulation?

The link I make between materialism and greed through the common property of accumulation isn’t a cut and dried sort of connection. But I those who understand the real-world connotations of ‘materialism’ might tend to agree. In some ways, I think materialism is used as a synonym for greed. Where the two concepts diverge is in the commonly used quality-quantity duality – whereas materialism seems a preference for accumulating quality, greed is perhaps more oriented toward accumulating quantity.

2. Disclaimer…

There are far worse things to be than greedy. But for a normal person?

tales of two revisited: aim carefully...

12/21/2017
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (8:39 pm)
Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (8:56 pm)

Every once in a while, I’ll use a urinal that has a small drawing or image printed on the inside, just above the drain. The exact image varies. It isn’t uncommon to see a small bug but sometimes it’s a simple shape like a circle or a square. The placement makes it look almost like a target and that's how I treat it.

I’ve learned recently that these little urinal drawings are, indeed, meant to serve as targets. Apparently, someone studied urinals for a while and found that there was less cleanup around urinals with a small ‘target’ printed on the inside. I guess men just aim better when there are arbitrary markers to work with.

This ‘research’ came to mind on this Hubway ride in late December 2017. The Longfellow Bridge, the last leg of my ride home from Cambridge, has recently started renovating the Boston-bound side. The construction has required repainting along various points and, starting around one-third of the way across, the bike lane disappears into the generic darkness of new asphalt. And wouldn’t you know it, reader, but to my untrained eye, the cars just seem to drive a little closer to the bikes on this unmarked stretch of the bridge.

I don’t have many theories on this phenomenon, reader. My best guess is that a bike lane helps a driver ‘aim straight’ by defining a right-hand boundary. Of course, it could just as easily be on me, as well – perhaps I’m drifting into the driving path on this stretch of bridge where there is no line to help me 'aim'.

Either way, I think it’s an application of the same finding I see at certain urinals around town – if you help people aim, their aim will improve. Personally, I’d like to see it applied a little more widely to keep people safe on the streets, but, hey, having clean floors in public restrooms isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either.

i don’t care about who started climate change

I realized the other day that the discussion about how humans are causing climate change sometimes does more harm than good. This is because when discussions about climate change include expressions like ‘man-made’, it opens up an additional front for debate about the cause. The challenge has now moved from discussion about one thing – what to do about climate change – to a discussion about two things – what to do about climate change and whether collective human behavior is the cause of climate change. This strikes me as a distraction from determining what to do about climate change because it invites people to waste time, money, and energy worrying about ‘who started it’ instead of keeping a singular focus on what we will do about it.

Let’s try to think clearly about this for a moment, reader. One way to think about climate change is that it is a small but permanent change in how we will all experience weather in the future. It seems to me like the general consensus is that the weather will simply get worse for most of us in the future – more rain, more snow, more temperature variation, more wild storms, and so on – and all this will be because of climate change. When the weather is bad today, what do we do? We simply try to respond in the best way we can. If it rains, we grab umbrellas or head inside. If it snows, we put on mittens and start drinking wine at eleven AM rev up the snowblowers.

The point is, when bad weather happens we don’t worry about the cause – we worry about the effect. This is where the way we think about climate change seems to diverge from the way we think about bad weather. The thinking about climate change has bizarre elements of defensiveness and self-righteousness built into it – some seem to deny climate change is happening in order to justify continuing climate changing behaviors while others pat themselves on the back for doing irrelevant little things like reducing paper towel use.

I know at some level it is important to understand what individual behaviors contribute to climate change so that we can better adjust our behavior in the future. I also acknowledge that there is an importance to accountability which I'm more or less dismissing here. However, I am not taking these factors fully into account because I don't think we are at this point yet. I think we are currently at the point where the fire is burning and the hose has just been turned on. In that situation, the only thing to do is point the water at the flames and figure out how to put the fire out. The discussion about who caused the fire or what can be done next time to prevent the fire from starting can wait until after the fire is out.

The interesting thing about taking up a firefighting mentality is that this almost always brings everyone together. In the face of an obvious crisis, people usually forget their differences to band together and find a way to bring an obviously chaotic situation back under control. This doesn’t seem to be happening with climate change and I think the backward-looking elements of the discussion are partly to blame. Humanity isn't fully banding together to mitigate its effects because we spend so much time sorting ourselves into opposing sides defined by an irrelevant interest in pointing the finger at the right culprit. If the climate change issue is ever going to benefit from the togetherness required for solving big problems, it will first need to change the tone of the discussion so that the blame and finger-pointing elements are put away until the smoke is clearing and the embers are cooling.

leftovers: there’s always a better live version (a pre-theory)

There are some obvious problems with the math I presented in this post. The biggest problem is the built in assumption that every live performance has a chance (at the start of the song) of eventually being seen as the best version of a given tune. As I briefly alluded to in the post, this isn’t usually true – a studio version tends to have more investment in terms of production and this makes it more likely a studio version is better than any one live version picked at random.

However, the point of the argument isn’t to pick out one live version and compare it against the studio version. The point is to take the entire set of live versions and consider whether there is at least one song in the set that is better than the studio version. When you factor in considerations such as a band’s natural performance variation, the possibility of an artist becoming a better performer over time, or improvements in technology that make music sound better, it is apparent that the set of live versions will cover a wide range of performance levels. Surely, there is at least one performance in that set which is superior to the studio version, right? Given the immense popularity of concerts, I’m inclined to suggest that most people at least recognize the possibility that the live version might be better than the studio version. Otherwise, why would anyone go to a concert?

Of course, someone who firmly believes in one side or the other in this critical debate isn’t going to care all that much for the generalized arguments. This gets at the larger concept hidden in this post – what does an answer to this question say about a person’s worldview?

I think the person who rejects the premise of the ‘live version’ argument is the sort who demands details before making any firm determinations. This type of personality will want to listen to a few songs before making any decision but, if pressed, will side with the ‘studio version’ argument because the record label has already given it a stamp of approval. In general, this person looks for nuances or exceptions and prefers to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. If the process is unclear, this person will side with an established authority. Society has benefited greatly from the many daily contributions from this type of person. Undoubtedly, there are certain fields or functions that require such people in key positions of responsibility in order to fully benefit us all.

However, this type of person is not cut out for the problems demanding a statistical approach. I think a lot of people (perhaps a great majority) are not cut out for a statistical approach yet it seems like many try their hand at applying some of the tools of statistics in their workplaces, communities, or homes. Nothing beats a try, of course, but when it comes to thinking in terms of patterns, making decisions within generalized frameworks, and considering the impact of small adjustments on long-term outcomes, someone whose understanding requires first accounting for all the contingencies will always struggle to accept how the generalized attributes underlying an idea can sometimes render the little details of any one observation irrelevant.

is materialism the only sin?

As I reviewed Jonathan Rowson’s list of the ‘seven chess sins’, I noticed that materialism – the rigid focus on protecting or capturing pieces of the highest value – seemed to be slightly more involved than the others. To put it another way, each of the other six sins seemed afflicted in some way with an underlying case of materialism.

Consider…

Thinking is influenced by materialism because the idea that pieces always maintain a strict hierarchy of value is erroneous. The ‘thinking’ resulting from materialism is perhaps better described as ‘calculating’.

Blinking means missing something on the board or not noting an underlying pattern within the game. A player who assumes a knight is always equal to a bishop is more likely to blink – such a player will never know enough to notice an emerging pattern that will eventually make the knight a more powerful piece than the bishop.

Wanting leads to moves such as equal-value exchanges that appear to move a game toward a desired result (usually a draw). However, just because the pieces are identical in value does not mean the net change to the position’s value is zero. Materialism enables wanting in how it provides a clear but possibly misguided template for how to engineer a particular result through a series of exchanges.

Egoism stems from having a sense of superiority over the position. For most, a distinct material advantage is probably the first step toward this sin.

Perfectionism feels like the second cousin of materialism – trying to play a ‘perfect’ game will certainly include an ill-advised aversion to losing pieces or sacrificing material. A player who wants to attack the queenside will play differently than a perfectionist who wants to accomplish the same without losing any pieces in the process.

Looseness can stem from materialism if the player is content to retain a material edge rather than converting it into a more lasting advantage in the position or on the clock.

Some of the links to materialism are not as strong as the others. And each of these six sins have relationships with one another to some extent. They do all play their own specialized role in a defeat, reader (1).

This little exercise doesn’t automatically have a deeper meaning (especially in the context of chess). But understanding materialism does seem like the urgent message of the book. A reader who understands materialism should have a better starting point for addressing the issues attributed to the other six sins (2).

The most important lesson of materialism is the harmful nature of relying on comparisons to drive understanding. The player who equates a bishop and a knight will never understand the importance of each piece’s unique dynamism and mobility just as knowing a rook is worth than a knight does little to explain why a rook is more important than a knight. If a player understands that a rook can get to any spot on an entirely open board in just two moves while also knowing the knight is the only piece capable of attacking in a ‘circle’ of spaces around itself, then this player stands a better chance of identifying those rare moments when a knight is in fact preferred to a rook.

Footnotes / it’s hard to pair off a group of seven… / shameless plug

1. I guess this is a roundabout way to point out the unique nature of materialism…

But not all of these sins are closely linked. In fact, I think there are three pairs of opposing sins:

Thinking is the opposite of blinking… because thinking requires first acknowledging what is on the board before dismissing or explaining it away while blinking means the player never sees what is on the board.

Wanting is the opposite of egoism… because wanting leads to moves influenced by the desire for a specific result (usually a draw) while egoism has no concern for a result (because the result will be a win).

Perfectionism is the opposite of looseness… because perfectionism is another way of describing too much concentration on the game while looseness is the problem of deficient concentration.

2. I actually forgot what all the agreements were…

I think it works a lot like a thought I had about The Four Agreements. In this book of Toltec wisdom, author Miguel Ruiz describes four basic pillars for living a life free of self-limitation:

-Be Impeccable With Your Word

-Don't Take Anything Personally

-Don't Make Assumptions

-Always Do Your Best.

Of the four, I thought the most important one was – don't make assumptions. Like the case was for materialism, I wrote a few months ago that the other three pillars all contained a significant undercurrent of assumption. If a person stopped making assumptions, he or she would lessen the significance of the problems addressed more directly by the other pillars.

there’s always a better live version (a pre-theory)

I remember a regular debate I used to have with a friend during high school. This debate was about the song ‘Hotel California’. His position was that a particular live version of the song (in other words, a recording from a concert) was better than the studio version (the recording made for the album that was generally played on the radio). In these pointless debates, I usually took up the opposite position.

If this debate came up again today, I’m not sure I would take up the same side of the argument. This isn’t to admit defeat, of course, for I’m pretty sure I was right about the two versions of ‘Hotel California’ in question. But I think if a similar question came my way today, I would begrudgingly admit that the odds favored whoever advocated for the live version.

This isn’t due to some special understanding I’ve acquired about music in the last decade. Rather, it’s just math. A studio version is recorded once. Now, this recording might be meticulously prepared, impeccably performed, and carefully edited. But it’s still just one performance. The song will then be played over and over, perhaps hundreds of times, and in all these repeated performances I think the odds are pretty good that at least one of the performances will exceed the heights of the studio version (even if this happens purely by fluke).

Here’s the breakdown for you math nerds out there:

n = number of performances
p ( probability best version of a song is the one studio version ) = 1 / n
p ( probability best version of a song is the live version ) = ( n – 1 ) / n

I guess the question comes down to this – are you the kind who bets on 1 out of n... or n-1?

i read the seven deadly chess sins so you don't have to

The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Jonathan Rowson (January 2018)

Rowson is a Scottish grandmaster who is widely regarded as both a student and a teacher of chess. In this fascinating look into the game, Rowson determines the seven most common reasons top players lose matches and examines each with the attention and insight he has honed over a lifetime of hard work at the board.

In addition to being a great chess resource, The Seven Deadly Chess Sins is also a deeply engrossing analysis of the ways decision-making can go awry (1). The following ‘chess sin’ framework guides the reader through this analysis:

Thinking – unnecessary / erroneous
Blinking –missing opportunities / lack of resolution
Wanting – too much concern with the result of the game
Materialism – lack of attention to non-material factors
Egoism – insufficient awareness of the opponent and his ideas
Perfectionism – running short of time / trying too hard
Looseness – losing the plot / drifting / poor concentration

This was a very dense read – I believe I started reading it in January 2017. Unsurprisingly, a book with so much packed into it produced a lot of my own thinking, reflecting, and writing. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post a few of these thoughts. These will include the standard reading review, some extensions of this book’s lessons to broader applications, and the usual dash of utter nonsense (1).

Of course, I don’t want to leave you completely empty-handed today, reader, so I’ll share a couple of thoughts. First, I liked one of Rowson’s comments about organizing systems. He points out that self-organizing systems fail because their reliance on the order of arrival to determine storage method does not align with how others might seek out the stored contents later. A Google search, for example, would be of very little use if the results were returned in order of the link’s creation. To put the thought another way, the best storage systems must optimize for how others will interact with the system later instead of optimizing for the process of storing.

Another thought I liked dismissed the debate about subjectivity and objectivity. His basic point is that discarding subjectivity in order to be objective… is subjective! This was an interesting thought. I’ve noticed many struggle to finalize a decision simply because they believe they should be able to explain a decision before finalizing it. What nonsense is that? There is no doubt about the value of a good explanation, of course, but sometimes a decision is a gut call.

Finally, I thought Rowson had a great insight into playing from losing positions. For him, the key is to remain comfortable being worse-off for a few moves (2). The players who struggle in these positions are often guilty of trying to relieve the pressure with just one or two moves. It often helps to determine what is good about the position in these situations and try to take advantage of these strengths in ensuing moves.

Footnotes / FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY!

1. Or, you could just go play chess..

One thing I will not do is get into the details of chess. Those interested in the venerated game should simply read this book! Unusually, I have a copy of this book myself so if you have a hard time getting your hands on this one, reader, just get in touch and I’ll let you have mine.

2. We care…AND…we don’t care…

This thought reminded me of Al Davis’s advice to Bill Parcells when the latter was complaining about the various injuries, circumstances, and bad luck that had recently impacted his team. To paraphrase, it was along the lines of:

“Bill – no one cares, coach your team.”

if you know where the sentence is going you can stop, but if you have no clue then it makes more sense to

One of the strangest pieces of writing advice I’ve ever heard was about Ernest Hemingway. Apparently, he used to finish writing sessions by putting his pen down in the middle of a sentence (though probably not literally, as in, by placing the pen on the exact spot on the paper, although I guess I can't be 100% sure of that). This allowed him to come back the next day and pick up right where he left off (which would be easier if he'd left his pen on the page, but I digress).

This advice struck me as a little odd. Stop in the middle of a sentence? What if you don’t know where the sentence is going? The advice smells a little fishy, almost like a cousin of the ‘moderation’ theory (do this in moderation, do that in moderation, do anything in moderation, and so on). When a writer needs advice, it's because he or she doesn’t know what to write next just as the person struggling with excess indulgence needs help because it is literally impossible to stop indulging. Telling a struggling writer to stop writing in the middle of a sentence is like telling an addict to just say no when offered a hit.

While I'm on the topic of Hemingway, I'll rule out one explanation for why this advice is no good – Hemingway being too drunk to finish the sentence. He may have been a notable drinker, but as he himself is quoted as saying - have you ever heard of anyone drinking while he worked? As someone who has enjoyed a pop or two every now and then (and maybe occasionally at some odds hours) I consider it important to clarify this lest day drinking become the next bit of poor writing advice attributed to Hemingway.

finding your best

I once read an article about dementia caregiving as part of my hospice volunteer team’s annual training program. Initially, I thought it might be interesting to read the piece, take down a few notes, and share my thoughts here in a fashion similar to how I’ve done reading reviews for books.

However, as I read along with pen in hand, I realized this would not work very well. One reason is that the advice in the article wasn’t concrete enough to write specific recommendations about. In fact, in some cases the advice seemed to contradict itself due to the classic ‘do a little of this, but also do a little of that’ construction.

I recall one example that recommended paying close attention to what a dementia patient said in order to get clues about where the person was at the moment. Sentences later, the paragraph concluded with a reminder not to pay too close attention because sometimes a dementia patient will say things entirely disconnected from recent remarks. So, listen closely… except when you don’t (1)? Great advice, thanks!

I was also a little confused because a lot of the recommendations were fairly mundane. Ask questions, be clear, stay calm, and so on. All of these ideas made sense but I failed to see why an article was required just to state these recommendations. Stay calm?? Don’t we all try to do these things by default? Whenever I’m with others, I try to ask questions, be clear, and stay calm. These don’t sound like caregiving skills – they just sound like skills.

After reflecting on the piece for a few weeks, I think I started to understand the article a little better. I realized that a lot of advice existed merely to help a caregiver build confidence in a situation that offered little positive feedback. If caregivers see themselves reflected back in the article’s examples, it would surely boost their confidence and help them become better caregivers.

Another important aspect of the article was how it outlined the many options available in responding in a dynamic, difficult situation. When no obvious best option exists, a caregiver’s biggest asset is to know as many of the options as possible. This way, a caregiver can try a number of things until one option works better than the others. It’s not as important to get it right the first time so long as the willingness and perseverance to try another option remains intact.

However, the most important aspect of the article is the subtle message that what we need to help others is already within us. We are all well aware of the need to listen closely to each other – but we also know the importance of ignoring the corrosive word. We know to ask questions, express ourselves clearly, and remain calm whenever possible – having this reinforced as caregiver advice helps us face the challenge of the new responsibility with the wisdom of prior experience.

I’ve definitely learned one or two things as a volunteer, for sure, and there are some specific tips and skills that helped me in my early days. But for the most part, I’ve just simply shown up and tried my best. I’ve relied, in other words, on identifying my own skills, strengths, and abilities and finding ways to apply those to the situation on the day. The qualities I needed to do well in the hospice environment were basically in me all along. These qualities were bubbling at the surface in some cases and buried deep inside me in other instances but for the most part I’ve found that with a little hard work I could find a way to bring the quality out of me and use it to contribute in some way.

This idea reflects the larger lesson I’ve taken away from my hospice volunteering that I wrote about last month – it’s an easy role for those who already do what a volunteer does. In some cases, it doesn’t seem like I’m doing anything at all simply because I’m just doing what I normally do. I try to pass this lesson along anytime I train or mentor a new volunteer – it’s far easier to learn how to support a sick person outside of hospice and then apply the skill on a shift than it is to do the reverse.

That said, the reverse does apply in certain ways. One change I’ve noticed in myself since I started volunteering is how it has impacted how I live outside of my volunteer shift. I’ve found that the qualities I rely on in hospice cannot be simply tucked into my back pocket when my shift ends. The fusion of my volunteer role and the rest of my life has been a great gift and I find these two versions of myself become increasingly indistinguishable with each week that goes by.

The result of this coming together is that I find myself less tolerant of the way I adjust my personality to fit different environments. I once felt I had all kinds of versions of myself – at work, at home, with a group of friends, with one friend, with strangers, and so on. I don’t think this will ever be true again. Although there is a good argument for selectively compartmentalizing, these days I feel the chameleon approach to life is an exhausting approach. It might work to always change my colors based on a situation – it might even work for a very long time. But how can I ever be my best if I run myself ragged while trying to be really good versions of five different people? I think a better long-term approach is to focus on tackling the lifelong challenge of becoming my best self and developing the confidence to be that one self at all times.

The great gift of coming into an environment that requires I be my best self at all times is that I was forced to identify my best self. I found almost right away that this is a true full-time job – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There was simply no leftover time for being less than my best. I cannot think of why anyone would not benefit from finding a place that brings out the best self from within. Finding the best self should be one of the urgent tasks for any individual.

How might you do this? You might find it in a hospice-type environment like I did or you might not. The key is to think about where you’ve glimpsed yourself at your best and then find a way to go back. If you can do this, you'll soon realize that you have no choice but to be your best all the time.

Footnotes / ever notice how people who talk about moderation tend not to do so in moderation?

1. What I’m really saying is that ‘all things in moderation’ is arguably the worst advice in world history…

It’s a lot like a financial advisor saying ‘save money for sure, but make sure to splurge from time to time’ or the nutritionist saying ‘make sure to eat vegetables, but it is OK to indulge in cake from time to time’. Huh? Have we lost the plot? The whole POINT of getting expert advice is that this ‘moderation’ concept isn’t working!

the atm can learn from my fantasy football league

Every time I use an ATM, I marvel how I’ve never once seen the machine spit out the wrong amount of money. It seems inevitable, right? At the very least, you’d think every once in a while two twenties would get stuck together or something. But so far, my lifetime record at the ATM in terms of getting free extra money is 0-853 (approximately).

I’m surprised for another reason beyond my ‘something has to go wrong, eventually, if you do it a lot’ approach to life - I’m surprised because almost every time I use an ATM, I find some new aspect of its setup to complain about. Consider a recent trip I made to my bank’s ATM. After I put my card in, I was asked to enter my PIN. I punched in my top-secret password, 1234, and waited.

And waited...

And…

Finally, after standing there like a penniless dumbass for almost a minute, I realized I needed to hit ‘enter’ on the keypad. Did the screen that had prompted me to enter my card and prompted me to type in my four-digit number prompt me to hit enter? Of course not - after being directed on how to complete every step of using an ATM like a small child, for some reason the ATM decided I had to figure this one last little step out for myself.

But reader, you might be thinking - this isn't a huge issue. And I agree! All I had to do was think for myself - big deal, right? Well, reader, allow me to continue my tale of dough...

After I hit enter, I was asked to provide the details of my withdrawal. I hit $10000 because I’m a high roller. But… no chance to hit enter and confirm! The ATM simply accepted my input and the money came flying out of the f’ing thing like bees fleeing a burning hive!

You’d think, reader, that of the two steps I described above, the importance of hitting ‘enter’ would be emphasized in the step the ATM could know nothing about – the withdrawal amount! Instead, the bank that can’t wait to screw over their own customers with overdraft fees demands I hit enter to confirm the four-digit number - a fact the ATM is more than capable of determining as correct since my debit card is inside the machine the whole time!

This nonsense reminded me, of all things, about the smartest rule I ever came up with for my fantasy football league. It was back when we were transferring our league from the ancient ‘pen and paper’ setup to a fully online service. The benefit would be in the admin – the service would tally scores, track rosters, and allow league members to make changes that I had originally spent a lot of time writing down. The move was very promising and would greatly improve the experience for the league. However, in this transition, we agreed on one thing – we would never change our system due to something the online service provided ‘by default’. We would only use the online service to help us do what we were already doing – if there was a feature the online service didn’t support, we would continue to do that on our own offline.

My bank could learn from the spirit of this rule. If I walked into the main branch and asked to withdraw $100 instead of the $20 I’d intended, the teller wouldn’t hand me $100 just because I said the larger number first – if I spotted my error and corrected myself, I would get the revised amount. In fact, this is the very reason why most banks require in-person withdrawals to be written down on a piece of paper - it gives the teller the chance to confirm the transaction with the customer before proceeding.

And yet, despite how simple this setup is, the ATM insists on doing the opposite - when it comes to the dollar amount, no confirmation needed. The ATM is said to have replaced the teller in many ways but this isn’t fully accurate from my experience – I would say in the ATM has replaced the teller, but sometimes with a greedier version who is hell-bent on tricking customers into pointless overdraft charges.

only a perfect gentleman would fall in love with this stripper

I walked past a display window this morning, the same window I stroll past on most weekdays. However, for the first time, a product caught my eye. I did not immediately register what I saw and turned around to take a closer look.

'A kale stripper,' I muttered to myself as I pressed my nose to the glass.

Reader, no surprises coming - this product is exactly what it sounds like. It strips kale. Surely not, you ask? Surely so, I'm saddened to report.

Kale, like almost anything, is perfectly fine eaten whole. And like any leafy green, nature prepared it perfectly for manipulation and, dare I say, stripping by our weak fingers and thumbs. What this product does which a fairly dedicated amateur cook cannot accomplish in eleven seconds is beyond me. But hey, the holidays are coming, and if we need help with anything, it's finding some way to test your friends or family with a gift that, surely, no reasonable person could pretend to like.

volunteer fusion

Hi reader,

An infrequent but very rewarding aspect of my hospice volunteer role is my involvement in orientation for new volunteers. Orientation happens in two parts. First, there are initial training sessions with a group of new volunteers. Then, new volunteers join experienced volunteers for individual mentoring during hospice shifts (we call this ‘shadowing’).

I’ve participated in both parts of orientation and my teaching process tends to be similar no matter what the setting. First, I share my history as a volunteer and talk about some of my experiences. Then, I briefly describe some of the specific details about volunteer responsibilities in the hospice house. Finally, I make it clear that I’m willing to answer any questions.

The final part leads into my favorite aspect of the training role. I enjoy giving a good response to an honest, open question from someone who only wants to know the answer. As an experienced volunteer, I consider answering honest questions a very important responsibility. It allows me the chance to give back to a group that has been very good to me over the past couple of years by helping the team bring new members up to speed as quickly as possible.

However, I also enjoy this aspect of the role for purely selfish reasons. I often find that the process of giving a thoughtful response to an honest question is a great learning opportunity for me. As I consider the question and try to determine the right response, I open up unexpected places within me and find myself understanding a little more about what I’ve learned in my time as a volunteer (1).

The best such question I’ve ever been asked came from a new volunteer who was not sure if the role was the right fit. She asked me – how did I know I should volunteer? I had to think about that one for a short while. Finally, the answer came to me from within, out of nowhere – I knew I should volunteer because I was already doing it.

I explained my answer by pointing out how much of what I did as a volunteer – relating across differences, connecting with strangers, exhibiting endless patience, validating feelings, rejecting assumptions, and so on – were all the same things I tried to do in my life outside of hospice (2). I knew I should come to hospice because the way I wanted to live was a perfect template for the way I would volunteer.

I cut my answer off at this point because I felt I’d answered the question. However, as I think it over now, I realize there is a little more to the point. I think a lot of people who drop out of the hospice volunteer role struggle simply because they are suddenly trying to do something in a hospice environment that they do not regularly try to do outside the hospice environment. A volunteer who does not try to support suffering friends or family in the relatively familiar environment outside of hospice is going to have a very difficult time learning to support strangers and staff in the unfamiliar hospice setting. In short, hospice challenges volunteers to be their very best selves at all times, whether they are on a shift or not. This is an impossible challenge to meet for those who are not already trying to be their best self outside of hospice.

This understanding helps explain why my hospice volunteering is such a difficult idea for the people in my life to relate to. Society encourages us all to have many different versions of ourselves, to don many capes and wear many hats, so to speak. We have one persona for home and another for work. The rudeness we exhibit when behind the wheel or navigating public transit might be entirely unknown to those we interact with exclusively in work groups or living rooms.

There are valid and important reasons for all this compartmentalizing but I suspect our various situational personalities make identifying our best self a very challenging task. It certainly makes it difficult to be our best selves at all times because we are constantly switching from one self to another. How can we be at our best all the time if we aren’t always fully committed to being ourselves? It might be possible, I suppose, but I've learned over the past couple of years that it wouldn't work for me.

The ongoing fusion of self and volunteer has been one of the enriching results of the volunteer role. I’m finding now that after a couple of years as a volunteer, a lot of what I’ve learned at hospice is starting to influence how I live when I’m not on my shift. I think these days most people see the same me whether I’m in the hospice or not. That's just fine with me - the less I compartmentalize, the more time I'll have to work on becoming my best self.

Footnotes / Saturday afternoon

1. An honest question can only return an honest answer…

Another great example of how I learned from an honest question came during one of the first times I participated in a group training session. I had just finished explaining that sometimes the house could be very quiet and that it was possible to go an entire shift without interacting directly with anyone. A volunteer with a great understanding of herself then raised her hand. She explained to me that as a social person she would prefer a more active shift. What times did the house tend to have more reliable activity?

I had never thought about it before and considered all my experiences – even going as far back to when my mom was living in a hospice – before recommending midday Saturday. In the process of answering this question, I learned not just that I knew the answer but also that I’d avoided such shifts, had specifically offered my time before breakfast or in the evening, for reasons I needed to understand better if I was going to continue my growth as a volunteer.

2. And my nonconformity streak, I suppose…

The one thing I can’t quite figure out how to describe about hospice is its counter-cultural element. I didn’t consider signing up to volunteer as a counter-cultural act but the more I think about it, the more rebellious I feel for donating my time to a medical organization whose stated mission runs against the basic assumptions of the medical field.

i read the old man and the sea so you don't have to

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (June 2018)

Hemingway’s 1952 classic is one of those books I’ve read many times over the years. And yet, I never quite felt like I’d gotten the message after any of those readings. As I started reviewing my notes in preparation for writing about this most recent rereading, I came to a realization I’m allowing myself to have a little too often these days – what’s the point?

Reader, what’s the point of getting the message about this book? Whatever I might have to say about The Old Man and the Sea has likely been said, many times over, by all those who’ve come before me with pen (or laptop) in hand. So, why put myself through the misery of the writing process? Why bother to open a new Word document and stare at the blank screen, the single vertical bar blinking back at me, almost taunting me, as if it were saying – go ahead, try it one more time, hotshot, and see what you can pull out of me…

I’ve come to learn lately that what I feel at the start of the writing process is fear. This fear isn’t there for every form of writing – fear doesn’t grip me when I write an email to friends, for example, or when I’m preparing notes for a work project. The fear comes around only when I’m here on the couch as I try to conjure up something new for TOA. Why this is the case befuddled me for some time – writing is writing, right? – but these days I’m coming closer to understanding where this fear comes from.

I think the element of the unknown always brings out a sense of fear. The unknown is an infinite and invincible opponent. There isn’t a single time I’ve tried to create anything new in writing where I have not felt the shadowy presence of fear at some point – fear of letting an idea slip through my fingers, fear of coming up with nothing at all, fear of learning that there was never anything there to begin with. It takes great courage, I’ve learned, to face the unknown every morning knowing that at the end of the session I might have nothing worth keeping around for the next morning.

It’s helpful, I think, to wake up early and get to work as soon as possible. Like any great opponent, the endless blankness of the new page cannot be beaten, only convinced, but to convince is a time consuming and energy burning task. Each minute of the day that ticks by only saps my initiative to put my lines into the unknown and see what returns they can bring.

We all wake up a little earlier as we get older, I think, because we are all waging battles against one undefeated opponent or another. There is no better example than time, the greatest opponent of all. Like fear, time cannot be beaten, but with a careful and exact process it can be convinced to yield, to give in just a little bit at a time. As many have said, a person can spend an entire day looking for the hour lost in the morning – I can’t think of a better way to avoid embarking on such a futile search than to get up early and put an hour to use as quickly as possible.

On those rare days when a line pulls me further into the page, further than I’ve ever been before, it’s hard to tell if I was lucky or good. It doesn’t really matter, of course, if I fail to take advantage. All that matters in such a moment is whether I’ve been precise with my process. Those who are precise control what is within their power and find it easier to let go when they realize an outcome is out of their hands. Precision makes it possible to take advantage of any good fortune. With precision, it becomes possible for people to know themselves and, finally, overcome the greatest obstacle to creating anything new – worrying about what others think.

true, false, racist, or… not funny? (a pre-theory)

I was thinking the other day about how a sense of humor is perhaps the most universally admired quality. Some people want so much to be thought of as funny that they’ll say or do almost anything to get a laugh.

It led me to an insight about a problem I seem to encounter far too often these days – casual racism. My insight into casual racism is simple. I think most people who get caught up in these minor, completely unnecessary incidents of casual racism are not guilty of being bigoted – they are guilty of being unfunny.

I think this is explained partly by how we seem to be in general agreement that if something is really funny, it is OK to make the joke, and those offended need to just ‘lighten up’. I’m not here to agree or disagree with that idea, reader – I think I’ve ‘lightened up’ on plenty of occasions in my life (and sometimes I'm glad I did, but not every time).

I will instead add this caveat – though the above theory might be OK, I think very few people are actually funny enough to transcend the offensive nature of their jokes. So when I don’t laugh at something that is borderline offensive, I'd like to clarify that I probably didn't laugh because the comment wasn't funny.

And yet, this train seems to barrel on from station to station. It leads me to a theory, or maybe just a pre-theory for now as I work out the kinks – most people would rather be incorrectly considered racists than correctly considered not funny. If my theory is right – which I think it is (which means it probably is not) – then I think I can understand a little better how casual racism comes about: it is far easier for a good and decent person to clear up a misunderstanding about allegedly being a racist than it is for an unfunny person to change accurate perceptions about a poor sense of humor.

managerial game theory

In a recent series of posts, The Business Bro detailed the various signals a manager can receive from management or employees regarding an organization’s imminent decline. He then broke down the different responses in meticulous detail to come up with the best option for each case.

Here is a summary of those signals and the recommended options:

If management correctly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking long-term and play politics if you are thinking short-term

If management incorrectly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if your team is strong

If employees correctly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if the market is weak

If employees incorrectly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking short-term and play politics if you are thinking long-term

The thought process employed by The BB brought me back to a subject I hadn’t thought very much about since college – game theory. It was a welcome return, however, because game theory was my favorite economics class.

The thing I initially liked the most about game theory was how its great complexity could be simplified with meticulous care and effort. In the BB’s recent example, a very complex scenario involving multiple factors is resolved by asking a series of simple questions. Structurally, these questions are basically yes-no – for example, are market conditions favorable for the organization? – or – is the team performing well? There are also other questions that break down into simple categories – is your primary motivation short or long term? Once all these questions are answered, it becomes easy enough to make a flowchart or decision tree that helps lead to the right conclusion.

By the time I finished the course, I found that the subtler aspects of game theory were becoming the most appealing to me. One especially important lesson was how knowing that the presence of one factor can render other considerations irrelevant. In everyday terms, what his means is that if you select option A for one factor, it might mean your decision between option C or D for some other factor has no effect on the final outcome.

This subtlety is very difficult to grasp because it challenges the natural human impulse to think of everything linearly. To put it another way, it doesn’t help that the natural tendency is to reframe a non-linear concept into a linear pattern just to make it a little easier to understand. A person who points out, for example, that the component articles of clothing in an outfit can’t just be rearranged to go with every other part of a wardrobe will always encounter someone who points out that this is the same thing as saying if a certain shirt is selected, it eliminates all the pants that don’t go with it. This is a good point if you don’t think about clothing in terms of outfits but it isn’t getting at the right way of thinking at all if the only way you conceive of getting dressed is by thinking about outfits.

Another metaphorical way to think about this is to consider ways to order a pizza. Let’s say you love pepperoni and always prefer this as your topping of choice. However, if you go to a vegetarian restaurant, this lifelong commitment won’t matter – though you still abstractly choose pepperoni (because you always do) the choice to go to a vegetarian pizza place took pepperoni off the list of realistic final pizza outcomes. So, you end up with the same dish as someone who always abstractly chooses fried cauliflower (your backup choice) (1).

The problem with the analogy is that the structure of the decision is still linear – you go to the restaurant first, then you make a decision about a topping. The linearity implied by the ‘if-then’ structure is an illusion that masks preferences because even if some decisions are rendered irrelevant by other decisions it doesn't mean that people don't maintain their preferences. To put it another way, game theory encourages looking at decisions in a simultaneous rather than linear way whenever there are multiple factors that go into a decision. This way of thinking helped me see that a lot of 'if-then' decision making was a narrative that explained very little about how people actually make decisions.

I’m describing all of this game theory here because I think the manager role is very conducive to someone who thinks like this. A manager who makes decisions in a linear way says first I do A over B, then I'll wait a little while before choosing C or D. This is OK in game theory but can lead a manager away from sound principles because a manager in this mode of thinking is always open to changing course given a new detail. This is fine if done sparingly but a manager who regularly breaks his or her word will quickly lose the trust of the team and find it difficult to complete long-term projects.

A manager who makes decisions as independently as possible will say I choose A over B and also C over D. Then, the manager would think about the implications of A and C interacting together to understand the most likely outcome. This style of thinking helps managers separate the relevant from the trivial. As I noted above, sometimes it doesn't matter what one factor is if another is present. A manager who chooses A and C might know that if E suddenly becomes F, it doesn’t change the plan in any relevant way because the presence of both A and C have set the course of action in stone irrespective of how the choice between E and F is made. A manager who chose C based on E, however, might reevaluate the plan when E becomes F because this manager will not recognize that the interaction of A and C render the change from E to F irrelevant.

If this sounds complex, well, it should be – complexity is a trait common to both game theory and the manager role. We're talking about stuff that you only learn at universities and jobs people do after decades as functional adults - if you thought it was supposed to be easy, I sadly inform you that you are mistaken. Like game theory, the manager role has been subject to gross oversimplification. People who think linearly think of the manager role as setting goals, keeping teams busy, and responding to new details with the same urgency as a fire chief responds to a 911 call. In the same way, people who think linearly conceive of game theory as a series of decision trees where A leads to B, or possibly C, in which case D.

These oversimplifications are accurate in the sense that they are true for very simple examples that anyone can understand on day one. However, the reality of game theory is a lot like managing – actions matter far less than interactions. A manager who understands that choosing A over B has implication on future decisions is on the right track - the type of thinking required is not A, then C, but rather knowing how A impacts the feasibility of choosing C while considering how the two choices together might influence the eventual choice of E or F.

Footnotes / cold pizza…

0. One last analogy…

A nice metaphor for managing is that it is like juggling many balls where only a few are made of glass. The complexity comes in knowing which balls are made of glass and will therefore break if they fall. This is a helpful analogy but one that encourages the linear thinking I feel often hampers managers. A better analogy might be that sometimes the balls change from glass to rubber (and vice-versa) but unfortunately this version suffers from its non-resemblance to how juggling (or physics) actually works.

1. Technically speaking (technically, in the game theory sense)...

This metaphor is consistent with how a pooled equilibrium works. In a pooled equilibrium, people with difference preferences send the same signal and an observer is therefore unable to work out the true preferences based solely on reading the signal. In this example, two people might order fired cauliflower but for at least one person the true preference was pepperoni.

the escalator analogy

I was riding the escalator up to the front entrance of my office when I was struck by a sudden memory. The incident I recalled happened over ten years ago. I was getting a ride to a summer basketball game from one of my teammates. We were stopped at a red light behind a line of cars. As the light turned green, we watched the cars in front of us slowly start to move forward. One by one, the cars accelerated in sequence until the space in front of us was clear. We had only just started to move forward when the light in front of us turned yellow, then red. We stopped.

My teammate hit the top of the steering wheel in frustration.

“You know what would be great,” he said. “If everyone knew that when the light turned green, you would accelerate at the same time. That way, everyone would be moving at the same speed and no one would crash. And, more people would get through the green light in time.”

I don’t remember what I thought of the idea at the time – maybe I thought it sounded similar to the kind of humor Seinfeld became famous for. I do know what I think about it now, however – my former teammate would have no chance at a corporation. In a corporation, the sheer volume of employees creates an internal inertia that makes it hard for any individual to ever move at top speed. To put it another way, in a corporation a green light might mean having to wait for the seven thousand people in front of you to start driving before you are able to move.

I remember once reading an essay Paul Graham wrote about this idea. His analogy of choice was a galley ship. On the ship, everyone could row in synch and the boat would move at a steady clip. However, there would inevitably be people would could row faster than their colleagues. These rowers could never make the ship move faster, however, just by rowing harder – the boat would simply be too big. When people leave big companies to form their own smaller competitors, this is essentially what is going on – it would be like the ten best rowers deciding they could move faster if they were rowing as hard as they could on a smaller boat.

The escalator was the obvious place for me to think about this. The escalator into our office building is single file and therefore unable to accommodate multiple people entering the building at a time. As a result, usually a line forms at the foot of the escalator as my colleagues wait to get into the building. It creates a situation where everyone is moving as fast as possible at all times yet moving much slower than their actual top speed. It’s the perfect analogy for the start of my workday – we’re all going as fast as we can... wink wink... but in reality we know we aren’t really going very fast at all.

the power seat

One of the few films I watched this year was the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about Mike and the Mad Dog, the long-running WFAN radio program that became synonymous with the sound of the New York sports scene through the 1990’s and 2000’s. The movie looked at the history of the show and its two hosts, Mike Francesca and Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo, and examined the factors that contributed both to the show’s success as well as its ultimate unraveling.

I thought one scene did especially well to demonstrate why Francesca’s straight-ahead, no-BS style was so successful on NYC radio. There was a brief clip about ‘the power seat’, the name for the chair in the recording studio that was considered more important than the other. Among other things, ‘the power seat’ was generally reserved for the lead host. As documentaries tend to do, ‘the power seat’ dynamic was explained through a series of quick cuts to a number of people giving brief explanations about ‘the power seat’ - the power seat is where the lead guy sits, it's important who sits in the power seat, and so on.

All of these comments helped me understand ‘the power seat’ a little better. I suppose that was the point of including those clips with those comments. Of course, reader, you must be wondering, how did the star of the film, the great voice of NYC sports radio, explain ‘the power seat’?

Here was Francesca’s 'analysis' - in talk radio, there’s a power seat.

And… done! No further comments about the matter, at least as far as Mike Francesca was concerned.

Did this comment help us viewers understand any better what the power seat was? Of course not. But I think it helped me understand who Franscesca was, and how little of a shit he gave about explaining little details like 'the power seat', and how he didn't need to explain shit to demonstrate his expertise, and I think all of that was far more important for me to know than anything about the power seat. After all, the documentary wasn’t about the layout of a studio, it was about two radio hosts and why they did so well on this show together, and this two-second non-explanation of what the power seat was did more to help me understand Francesca’s style than any other part of the film.

is this post a black swan event?

A friend recently asked me to explain some of the things he might learn from reading The Black Swan. My answer turned into a mini-retrospective on one of the books I thought influenced me the most in my early adult years.

Here are some of the highlights:

1) It’s a pragmatic textbook for “if, then…” thinking

Many readers used this book’s ideas to cite certain unlikely events as possible ‘black swans’. No! A black swan event is unpredictable – the point of the book was to know how to respond given such an event has occurred.

A major illness is a good example. Most people become seriously sick without much forewarning. Though there is logic for trying to control every known risk factor out there, it remains very close to impossible to predict onset of a specific illness. Most people would get more out of planning what they would do if they became ill rather than trying to predict what illness they might get.

2) Statistics and common sense make for a powerful duo

This book shows that statistical theory is no substitute for some basic common sense. The example I like to give involves a gambling scenario.

Suppose you are betting on a coin toss. You are told the coin is evenly balanced. The first ten tosses are heads. What should you bet next?

The statistics textbook would say it doesn’t matter because the coin is fair. The past outcomes don’t dictate future outcomes so the odds are fifty-fifty.

However, common sense would say to bet heads. This considers one relevant factor – is the coin really evenly balanced? If it isn’t, the evidence is clear to bet heads. And if it is, well, since it doesn’t matter, what’s the difference if you arbitrarily prefer one or the other?

3) Variation means asymmetry

If point #1 summarizes how this book thinks, this point summarizes what this book thinks. The most common mental model we have is linear – one unit of input equals one unit of output, every gallon of gas is thirty miles of driving, and so on. This model is convenient because it almost eliminates the effects of variation on the final outcome.

The Black Swan challenges the reader to look for situations when one unit of input leads to different units of output. These events are governed not by their linearity but by their variation. Learning to identify these is vital to success in many real-world pursuits because most real-world pursuits are not represented well by linearity.

A good example is something I witness everyday in Boston – jaywalking. The risk of getting hit by a car is so low that most people decide to take the chance by crossing a street full of active traffic. These pedestrians arrive at their destinations seconds (or maybe even a minute) earlier than they would have. But is it worth the possibility of ruining (or losing) the next ten, twenty, or thirty years of life if there is a fatal accident? The answer is obvious, at least for those who think clearly in terms of asymmetry within variation.

does the bb go down with the ship?

Last time, I stopped by to discuss how the different goals of management and employees are bound to create tension within in an organization and lead to its inevitable decline. I concluded that resolving this tension is the job for the middle manager. If the tension becomes too great, the organization will start to decline and the middle manager is bound to lose the job.

Today, let’s do a little hypothetical exercise to demonstrate how this tension manifests for the manager and the responses available to arrest the organization’s decline. Suppose you are a manager and you’ve just learned that your organization is in decline. The prophecy comes from either management or the employees and it could be either right or wrong – therefore, there are four total scenarios.

In each scenario, you have two options - focus on the core of the job (train or motivate the employees, gather information and distribute it, all the stuff I’ve covered here in the past) or play a little bit of politics (which I define using Ben Horowitz’s ‘advancement by means other than merit’ definition he shared in The Hard Thing About Hard Things). Let’s define the choices as ‘focus’ or ‘politics’, respectively, and look at how each of these options will work in the four scenarios outlined above.

1) If management is correct…

This means market conditions are working against the organization or that the employees just aren’t very good at their jobs. It suggests performance will drop soon. And when performance drops, the manager will be let go because managers are very often judged according to team performance.

Your moves…

Option: focus

Let’s first look at the market conditions. If these are conspiring against the organization, there isn’t much a manager can do. At some point, the organization will need to consolidate its resources and learn to survive on a smaller revenue stream. There is a reason small organizations don’t have a layer of middle management and you’re about to learn the hard way.

If you want to play it straight, it might be possible to save your job by outperforming other managers on the same level. This could work out very well if peers are let go but you are retained. If you are let go, playing this option will leave you with good references for the next move. If people in your team also get laid off with you, you’ll have some workers you’ll be familiar with if you take on another managerial role and need to hire new people.

If the market is OK, then the problem is with the team. Again, focus is a good option because the remedy for bad performance is all the good stuff about managing – training, skill development, team building, and so on. If you do the job well, the team will improve, and management should eventually agree that their predicted organizational downturn did not come to pass thanks in some part to your renewed managerial efforts.

Option: politics

Again, this scenario has two branches. If the market is headed south, there is no help in allying with anyone above or below on the organizational chart because the market constraint will put downward pressure on every measurable. Sure, you like your team and all that, but never forget that the ship is going down. You don’t want to captain a sinking ship.

Instead, look at the organizational chart and determine how to best represent your performance. The key is to work across the chart, not up or down, because when management makes tough decisions about who to sack or employees make choices about teams and projects to contribute to, the decision will involve comparing you with your peers. Remember – when the water level falls, just treading water is enough to keep you at the top.

I advise getting involved in projects that have low-downside potential or even starting projects that allow you to pull in the highest performers from other teams. Do not get distracted with training, communicating, or making the organization a better place to work – all of that is just moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. When it comes time to crunch the numbers, you need to be able to say something like – hey, I know we had a tough quarter, but at least my teams/projects broke even.

Recommendation #1: ‘focus’ if you are thinking long-term, ‘politics’ if you are thinking short-term

Managing through a difficult period is really just another way to define the manager’s job. Any manager can train an elite worker and no manager will fail to communicate harmoniously when all the news is positive. Learning how to turn a struggling employee into a productive part of the team or knowing how to get bad news ASAP to the right people without getting into a ‘shoot the messenger’ situation are among the most valuable skills a manager can develop and chances to cultivate these abilities must be taken at every opportunity.

On the other hand, if these skills seem silly to you, it’s a good sign to get out of the manager career track. When the head honchos tell you the organization is turning south and you have no interest in arresting the slide, I think it’s the surest sign you’ll ever get that you have an employee’s mentality. In other words, the manager role is the wrong one for you. I would advise playing the short game, forging a couple of strong alliances as outlined above, and trying to hang on through the rocky period. If you survive the layoffs, the inevitable organizational restructuring will provide the right opportunity to redefine your job role to better align with your strengths.

2) If management is incorrect…

This means the market is favorable and/or the employees are good at their jobs. Do you know what it means if your boss thinks it’s about to rain and you don’t see a cloud in the sky? It means you work for a fool, fool, and fools are defined by their propensity to do foolish things, like firing their best managers.

Your moves…

Option: focus

The argument here is fairly compelling if the market is favorable. Even if management is technically incorrect in the sense of overall organizational success, they might be onto something in terms of how the organization is positioned to take advantage of favorable conditions. Training your team to prepare for coming opportunities and establishing better communication to help coordinate the efforts of disparate teams will only improve the organization’s position for strong performance in the future.

If the employees are already good at their jobs, this option is a little dicey. The team is performing well but management isn’t convinced? Let me put it bluntly – if your best isn’t good enough, you’re headed out, superstar. The bottom line is that managers should be assessed by their team’s performance. If the team is performing well but management can’t translate this information into a positive assessment, this is a good sign of something unrelated to performance going on in the organization. It might even be personal. In any event, training the team or optimizing communication paths isn’t going to do much since these actions will only improve performance and, as I mentioned already, performance doesn’t seem to count for much in this scenario.

Option: politics

In a favorable market with pessimistic management, politics is really out of the question. The opportunity to improve performance is too good to allow for distractions like forging alliances or talking up past accomplishments. Think of it like a little kid approaches Halloween, reader – is the best trick-or-treater the kid who shares candy with his friends on the street after each stop? Is it the kid who got a lot of candy last year? No and no – the best is the kid who runs from house to house collecting the most candy! The right move for a manager in this situation is to train the team on how to best exploit the market and make sure everyone has all the information required to get into the highest-value areas before the competition. So, stop shaking hands, stop kissing babies, and stop making empty promises – instead, get out there with your team and pick out the best fruit from a ripe market.

If the employees are strong, the politics route looks a little better. The role for the manager is to better represent the team’s performance so that they are properly recognized for good work (and so you don’t get unnecessarily sacked). It should not be particularly challenging since the performance is already good. I would start by looking at how performance is being presented to management and making sure the right context is accompanying the metrics – performance year on year, for example, or perhaps compared directly against teams your group is outdoing.

Recommendation #2: ‘Focus’ if the market is strong, ‘politics’ if the team is strong

Unlike with #1 where I broke the recommendation down by short and long term, I think the right distinction to make here is along the lines of the organization’s strengths. In a strong market, the key is to leave no opportunity behind. This demands a highly trained team and, if you do the job right as manager, the performance of the group should eventually reverse management’s pessimistic outlook.

However, if the team is already strong, there isn’t much to be gained from training the group or optimizing process. It seems like there is no other choice but to resort to political measures. If you are philosophical about avoiding politics, reader, let me assure you – this idealistic train of thought runs on the route from the manager source to the unemployment terminus. Besides, since your team is good, the politics involved won’t be met with much resistance – just gather the facts, present them to your skeptical management, and maybe take care to dress well as you do it.

3) If the employees are correct…

This means they are seeing negative trends and do not feel empowered to reverse these trends through hard work. Put another way, this scenario suggests employees do not feel adequately prepared to fully exploit the opportunities available to the organization. Like with #2 above, it is a sure signal of mediocrity at the highest levels of the organization. Unlike with #2, though, in this case ‘the highest levels’ might also include you, hotshot manager, since the manager’s job is to empower employees and make it possible for them to do good work.

Your moves…

Option: focus

The success of this move depends on how well the employees understand the market. If the team understands the market, their pessimism is based on either knowing there is no real opportunity or recognition that the work process is not sustainable for continued success.

In the former scenario, I would actually recommend resigning instead of trying. If there is no market and the team knows it, there isn’t much you can do with better effort. Eventually, management will note the declining performance and move to get rid of you. They’ll do this because they’ll believe in the market until the very end (if they didn’t believe in the market, they never would have started a business in the market). If the organization is going to fail, it will fail with them running the ship into the ground.

The latter is a better situation. If the work process is unsustainable, a manager focused on getting every detail correct will reverse the trend. Good managers will remove obstacles, increase efficiency, and train the team. All of these moves will improve performance and help the team exploit the market.

Option: politics

Again, the team’s perception of the market counts. A bad market means the manager is going out no matter what… unless… the manager convinces the management that the problem lies elsewhere. Since we know the problem lies in the market and we concluded above that a market problem would always lead to the manager getting sacked, in order for a manager to remain employed while pinpointing ‘the problem’ means the manager must pinpoint a problem that isn’t the true cause of the performance issue. This means politics (and a pretty serious version of it, if you can stomach it).

If the market is good, politics isn’t advised because the manager runs the risk of someone determining that the team is underperforming. Eventually, the situation reverts to the case described above – in order to keep the job, the manager will need to focus on getting a good performance out of the team.

Recommendation #3: ‘Focus’ if the market is strong, ‘politics’ if the market is weak

When the employees sniff out a real problem, it means the market is giving the organization no chance or that the organization is giving the team no chance. The manager’s response must align with a realistic assessment of the current market opportunity.

4) If the employees are incorrect…

This means they are seeing ghosts and becoming unable to connect their day-to-day performance with how it improves the organization’s prospects. This suggests some critical problems with organizational communication, the compensation structure, or management competence. Fortunately, the consequences for these problems are not urgent because failing to address them will not cause the organization’s imminent failure. However, I suspect this is the scenario that frequently leads to employees leaving their positions. This can come back to harm an organization if the departing employees remain in the industry by joining competitors. In the worst-case scenario, employees leave to start new ventures that use their knowledge of the industry to eventually beat the place where they learned all of it – your organization.

Option: focus

In an organization where employees perform well yet remain pessimistic about the organization, a high performing middle manager isn’t very valuable. At some point, the team’s improving performance will no longer have any additional effect on morale, perception, or output because the team is not able to link improved performance to the organization’s goals. Managers who focus on performing well in this environment can position themselves to head out the door on good terms because they’ll have the team’s full support when they need a reference – look at how well we are doing and yet look at how bad things are in the organization!

Option: politics

This is the move for those with an eye on the long-term. As defined above, the employees are disgruntled and think the organization is failing even though the organization is actually doing well. This kind of mentality is a form of widespread organizational illness and the remedy can only be administered from the highest levels of the hierarchy. A manager who is interested in improving the organization must first find a way to move up and, as we’ve noted earlier the impossibility of using performance to make such a move, politics is left as the only reasonable alternative.

Recommendation #4: ‘focus’ if you are thinking short-term, ‘politics’ if you are thinking long-term

This is a simple case, I think, because the setup of the hypothetical leads to a straightforward analysis. The employees think the organization is failing but they are wrong – this suggests performance isn’t being properly measured. As politics is defined as advancement without merit, a manager who is thinking long-term in such an organization must become politically savvy in order to survive. On the other hand, a manager who is thinking about new pastures should remain performance driven because the dynamics of the organization position a manager to leave so long as someone who remains behind can vouch for the manager’s competence.

Conclusion

Here is how it all comes together, reader, for handy reference the next time you catch wind of your organization’s imminent decline:

If management correctly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking long-term and play politics if you are thinking short-term

If management incorrectly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if your team is strong

If employees correctly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if the market is weak

If employees incorrectly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking short-term and play politics if you are thinking long-term

i do and i don’t

A friend told me the other day – you know 100x more about health insurance than I do…

What a nice thing to say!

And reader, I must admit, I did have to agree to a certain extent with my friend. Through a combination of my personal experience, work history, and outside research, I do know quite a bit more about health insurance than most people. 100x more might be a bit much… but let’s just defend the formula and not the numbers, OK, dear reader?

Anyway…

So yes, I did agree somewhat – I do know a lot about this. But on the other hand, I had to admit – sure, I know a lot, but…what do I know, really, about health insurance? Quite frankly, almost nothing of value. My realization took me to a dark place – if I can be described as knowing 100x more than someone about something and yet I know basically nothing, what do I actually know? Do I know anything?

I’m sure longtime readers will agree with me on my inevitable conclusion – no, I probably don’t know anything.

by 2030, we’ll have invented the car

I read a lot these days about the great future ahead for the autonomous car. I’ve always been of two minds about the technology. On one hand, the technology behind the idea is incredible and the gains for an industry that writes off thirty thousand deaths a year as an operating cost are significant. On the other hand, if automating driving is such an easy task, why not first prove the concept by automating a better controlled mode of transit like, say, a subway car?

Lately, I’ve heard more about a third option. This is a compromise for sure, a method that sits right in the middle of the two thoughts from above – automate the car but make sure a person is sitting in the driver’s seat and paying attention to the road. This type of compromise setup makes sense. The ‘driver’ in the car of the future wouldn’t do much work but could grab the wheel and take the controls if the car’s programming put the vehicle into trouble.

But… if we go ahead with it, what will we have? We will have a vehicle with a driver in the front seat who pays some attention to the road and takes decisive action in the case of an unusual situation. I have a better way to describe this: a car. An automated car with a driver who can grab the wheel as needed is just a car, folks.

Great invention.

This line of thinking seems like a trend among the Internet companies. The Black Tux – a company I’ve had a great experience with – is attempting to take the suit and tuxedo rental market fully online. Want to guess what they just emailed me about? Their nine ‘showrooms’! In these ‘showrooms’, renters can try on different outfits and get the perfect fit. The idea sounds just fine to me – I would definitely use it. But don’t these also sound exactly like the stores the company was claiming to replace?

reading review - meditations from a movable chair

Meditations from a Movable Chair by Andre Dubus (June 2018)

I read Meditations from a Movable Chair as a follow-up to Dubus’s Broken Vessels. The title is a reference to the author’s use of a wheelchair after the car accident that cost him one leg (and the use of the other) and as far as I understand each of these pieces was written in the years following this accident.

I thought this was one of the best books I read this year and the number of essays I reread after completing my initial read speaks to this assessment. ‘Letter to a Writer’s Workshop’, ‘Liv Ullman in Spring’, and ‘Witness’ were all essays I enjoyed a second time while ‘First Books’ stood out a little bit more when I read it again. My favorite essay from this collection was either ‘A Hemingway Story’ or ‘Sacraments’.

A theme that drifts in and out of this work was the impact of physical pain. Dubus points out that writers often fail to give physical pain the same importance they give to spiritual, mental, or emotional suffering. Perhaps this comment is explained by his insight that we are better at helping someone in physical pain than we are at helping someone in mental or emotional anguish – since we are able to help, we move on quicker from considering someone’s physical pain than we do from contemplating the unseen struggle we’ve left unattended.

Dubus also notes how the physically handicapped are often excluded from society through small acts of carelessness. One example he points out is how a newspaper would never review a restaurant that barred minorities from dining yet the same publication might write favorably about a restaurant that did not have proper access for the disabled. He makes a similar observation about the inaccessibility of most trains and planes that I never noticed in my three decades on two legs.

Dubus makes these comments, I suspect, because he feels that the challenge buried in producing good writing is to be a better person than you are. I suppose at some level I felt that the way he writes about the world after his accident is his way of trying to rise above his grief and suffering from the car accident. The writer who can reflect on the difficulty of living in physical pain or point out the small ways the disabled are excluded from public places isn’t automatically a good writer. But such a writer is working towards becoming a good person, or at least a better person, and as a reader I thought the courage needed to write so openly about his experience was the key ingredient in making this such a wonderful collection.

One up: I thought I deeply understood Dubus’s remark that it takes discipline and effort to not work when away from the desk. I suppose two and a half years of TOA have left me prepared to recognize the wisdom of the point. Sometimes, I’ll find myself out for a walk or taking a long bike ride and I’ll catch myself conjuring up words, sentences, or even paragraphs that I might use later.

It’s not automatically a huge problem to think ahead a little bit. In certain cases, the thinking I do away from the work has proven essential in moving a piece forward. I do find from time to time, though, that when I sit down to actually write that the spark that comes naturally from finding the right words and putting them to the page is gone thanks to my reduction of the task into what is essentially a note-taking exercise (1).

One down: Interspersed throughout the collection were various bits of insight and advice for handling spiritual and emotional demons. Many of these undoubtedly grew out of the author’s difficult personal circumstances during the time he wrote these essays. One comment I thought was particularly wise was a recommendation for how to keep these demons at bay whenever their lurking presence was noted – just focus on what must be done in the next moment.

Of course, not all suffering can pass by merely thinking or focusing on something else. An example Dubus cites is the way the start of a new season for him meant he felt anew the loss of what he once looked forward to about the start of the next phase in a year. When losses bring a suffering of such depth, there is little anyone can do but wait.

Just saying: In one essay, Dubus meditates on the purpose of a writer’s workshop and recounts his experiences as the leader of such a group. I agreed with his comment that the workshop loses its value as soon as a writer starts imitating another instead of writing in the way he or she knows best. In a way, the downside of coaching and mentoring is the constant pressure to conform to the standard of the more talented or accomplished guide. A good workshop presents commentary about a written work without resorting to veiled announcements about how another writer would have approached the same topic.

Footnotes / endnotes / a little extra for us working stiffs…

0. Encore, encore…

At some point, I assume everyone realizes that death is not just a destination at the end of the path but rather the yawning chasm on either side of the trail. When this knowledge replaces innocence, we age, and we do so, as Dubus points out, not minute by minute but rather in sudden spurts of years or decades. These ‘spiritual agings’ often cause once-close people to slowly start drifting apart from each other.

0a. A final thought I really liked…

He points out in an essay that for many writers ‘style’ is a polite way to describe how to overcome a lack of talent…

In an unrelated note, I’ve always felt TOA has had great ‘style’.

1. More work musings…

I guess this section is the flip side to the idea of ‘thinking being writing in your head’.

Another similar type of thought I liked was how it is a good idea to avoid strenuous work on days when regular routines take up most of a person’s energy. I’ve found that to be true in particular on my return to work – the days when admin takes complete control of the day are never good days for creative or energetic activity.

i read a song flung up to heaven so you don't have to

A Song Flung Up To Heaven by Maya Angelou (March 2018)

I wrapped up my project to read all of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies with this volume that picks up right after she returns from Africa and begins to work with Malcolm X. As usual, I found her absorbing writing peppered with valuable ideas and insights.

One thought I liked was Angelou’s observation that stereotypes exist to keep people comfortable. Instead of learning about others and trying to relate across our differences with new people, a stereotype encourages separation from others and keeps us in the familiar comfort zones of customs, preferences, and routines. Stereotypes also create a dangerous illusion that surface characteristics, features, or preferences permanently define groups of people. Someone who sees other groups through the lens of a stereotype strikes me as being uncomfortable with how life changes and ill-equipped to contribute meaningfully to the ongoing challenge of making the world a better place.

I felt the idea that teaching means helping a student learn to do the right thing without help was a great summation of the purpose of education. I notice a lot of teachers start to become less effective as soon as they get too involved with a lesson. Once a teacher shifts from guiding a student to showing and telling, the student becomes less likely to learn how to do something without help later. As The Good Ol’ Interwebs continues to make information more accessible, teachers must adjust by focusing less on imparting knowledge and focusing more on helping students learn what to do with the glut of information available to anyone with an internet connection.

I liked the observation that when someone tells you who he or she is, you should believe it because people know themselves. Of course, the obvious problem with the idea is that it isn’t always true. In fact, from my experience a lot of people have a somewhat deluded view of themselves and I worry that believing everyone unconditionally would only encourage more of these misguided self-reflections. Still, I believe in the spirit of the thought and I’m sure there is a better way to express the idea out there somewhere.

This final volume of Angelou’s autobiographies ends with her putting pen to paper on the first volume, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. It seemed like an unplanned ending (in the context of her plan, if she had one, when she started writing these books). As I reflected on the ending, I was reminded of some writing advice I pulled from the end of this Paul Graham essay about writing – when an ending appears, grab it.

leftovers - no time to spare: the future of the sharing economy

I went on a bit of a rant towards the end of this post about capitalism, things ending, and so on that I think would benefit from a second, more detailed rant today.

First, my main idea wasn’t necessarily a criticism of capitalism. It wasn’t even a criticism of LeGuin’s criticism of capitalism. I wanted to make a much simpler point - if things tend to end when they start going poorly, why do so many bother to point out that capitalism would also end when it starts to go poorly?

I suppose it is possible that answering this question should consider the details. A commonly cited detail whenever someone predicts the eventual doom of capitalism involves limits – the limit of available resources, the limit of the planet’s size – and how eventually continued growth will press us up against those limits. Fair enough. But the underlying assumption built into that point is that we would continue pressing on and on against those limits. I don’t buy that assumption because I think if we were at the limit and we knew we were at the limit, we would stop.

This is a thought I could easily be wrong about. The concept of collectively knowing we were at the limit when the collective numbers in excess of seven billion is a staggering thought. In fact, I’m fairly certain that it is nearly impossible to determine the exact point of this limit (and I recognize that this makes it even less likely that we would ever know if we were collectively above or below the limit). However, I’m not sure I want to spend too much time thinking about how to calculate the exact point of this limit – I’ll leave that bit of number crunching to the experts.

Instead, what I think about is what would happen if we did reach that limit one day and we all knew it. I suppose there are only two solutions. The first option is horror movie material – World War III, endless famine, climate-change induced super storms – and probably not worth going on about (not even I have too many interesting ways to describe a variation of we are all screwed). The second option would mean improved sharing. For what it’s worth, I’d vote for sharing (though I guess I should be ready for anything were it to go to an actual vote, but no matter).

LeGuin touched on this thought about sharing in a different essay and her conclusion was somewhat pessimistic – she wrote that we are grossly under-prepared for a world that demands constant sharing of critical resources. I agree with her to an extent – at the moment, we aren’t very practiced at sharing important resources like water or shelter. But this doesn’t mean we are bad at sharing. In fact, I would argue that we are pretty good at sharing essentially irrelevant things (like cookies, selfies, or links to this blog). I also commonly observe the people around me trying to help each other (by holding doors, carrying the dishes to the sink, or warning people that the link to my blog is a phishing attempt). I would argue that from my experience most people are pretty good at sharing when given the opportunity and I think we would probably figure something out if we really needed to, collectively, in the pre-apocalyptic future.

All this is well and good but maybe it’s a little too far off in the distance to make much use of now. Capitalism will end in the future, I suppose, but what does this mean for my weekend? Well, I think if the choice in the future is going to be all-out catastrophe or being good at collective sharing, it’s probably a worthwhile investment to start finding little ways to share now, you know... just in case. This way, the collective option will be more feasible on that day in the future when we might be asked to make this group decision.

I think there are some signs that people’s weekends are already being impacted by this possibility. Anyone who is uncomfortable with how Western governments are responding to all the people fleeing their homes for the safety of Europe or the USA is already exercising this sharing muscle. At some basic level, such a person wants to share the land, security, and opportunity we have with those who have been denied these bounties through the cruel lottery of birthplace. From my point of view, those fleeing their homes and embarking on the dangerous journey to Western borders are a good example of the limits of capitalism. For them, the system has already reached a limit and they are living examples of one answer to the question from above: forced into the horror movie material of fleeing unlivable homelands via overcrowded boats or perilous journeys across war zones.

And the worst part is, reader, their only hope for a happy ending is us becoming better at sharing.

We worry about the question of catastrophe in the future because we see what the answer looks like every time we turn on the news in the present. We saw the answer in the cages on American soil detaining ‘temporarily’ orphaned children just as we saw the answer in those fleeing the blasts from the bombs we helped bring into existence. But we've also seen seen the answer in all those who work to reunite those kids with their suffering parents. We've seen the answer in every charity that digs two wells for each one we’ve filled with rubble.

The people who show up unannounced and uninvited to our border are fleeing from a past that we worry will become our future. Shouldn’t we treat them as we would like to be treated? Shouldn’t we share with them what we would ask be lent to us? I’ve long liked the idea that we should be who we needed when we were younger – collectively, though, perhaps we should try to be who we will need when we are older.