#twitter bullshit math?

October 11th, 2009

I have been twittering for a year or so and something is starting to bother me about the math.

First, consider my use:

  • Have experimented with posting rambling updates on my food intake, following the rich and famous, and forwarding intriguing nuggets of news or ridiculously funny (to me anyway) posts by acerbic wits.
  • Have connected my blog with www.twitterpost.com in order to automatically tweet the headline and drive tweeple to read the blog.
  • Have been playing with www.SocialOomph.com (formerly tweetlater) to automate “thanks for following” notes and have begun earnestly tweeting opinions and one-liners on the #leadership topic thread.
  • I am now adding about a dozen new followers per day and am at a whopping 300 or so followers.

Might not sound like much but I’ll get to that in a minute.

In my time playing with twitter, I have noticed something troubling. The majority of my followers have bailed on me—Over 600 people have followed me but only half are still with me. So I had a look at the quitters and learned they were for the most part selling something. Real estate agents, vitamin salespeople, work at home gigs, get rich fast schemes, get more twitter followers schemes, etc. Yes it’s true some people find my tweets annoying or boring and leave annoyed or bored. But when I look at the profiles of those who recently started following me, about half are individuals or organizations seeking followers whom they can pummel with promotional messages. Then I looked at other twitterers with 1000, 5000, and over 10K followers.  It was more of the same junk followers inflating the follower total.

The “rules of the game” in twitter are often regurgitated by many “social media experts.” The central message is: You get more followers by following others. The logic goes like this. Since many people follow the “rule” of following when followed, you quickly add followers just by following. Soon you can have thousands of people who follow you. Of course that’s just nonsense. Nobody I have ever met can actually read more than a few dozen active twitterer’s daily feeds. I saw one active twitterer with 14,000 followers and 14,000 people she followed. Come on. Really? You can read 14,000 people’s posts? Of course not. Nor can you read the posts of 5,000 or even 1000 people. I cannot find the data to prove my point, but I am willing to bet there are millions of people with at least 1,000 followers  and of those, most are junk followers.

Although all twitterers post noise of one kind or another, only the best tweets are worth reading. Keep in mind the Worthy-Post to Noise-Post ratio (the twitter equivalent to signal-to-noise ratio in telecommunications) must round to zero.

Now it is true there are celebs who post actively and intelligently. As a result they have millions of followers. But for the vast majority of not-so-famous people, their followers are mostly junk.

Why don’t I have more than a few hundred followers? First and foremost, I am not a celebrity. Nor am I very funny. I don’t tweet more than a handful of times per week. And I don’t follow the must-follow to build follower rule. I only follow those people who post tweets that I am actually willing to read almost every day. Fortunately most dont post more than once a week, or I’d have to drop many of them. So unless I have a lucky break on America’s Got Talent or become the next Washington State Governor, I will have only a small handful of loyal readers and a bunch of other followers who have forgotten that they followed me and I am lost in their collection of 3,987 twitter friends.

Net net: I have to believe that when the early adopter enthusiasm wears off, twitter will be a cool way to stay in touch with celebrities. A handful of intelligent blogger/tweeters will eventually have a solid following. A cultural revolution in the making will have a brief moment of international awareness like the riots in Iran this summer. The rest will live with a false sense of twitter follower fame until the next  social media darling comes to replace twitter or facebook or both.

Is twitter really like television in the early days? I don’t think so. There isn’t a mass adoption of a new medium. Twitter isn’t really new. It’s just like instant messaging and text messaging, only more unbridled in its reach. There is a lot of conversational noise that hasn’t died down yet. Kind of like the vibrating cacophony of voices in the audience before a concert. Once the real program begins, the masses will ignore each other until intermission. I suspect the same will happen to twitter.

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Listening isn’t about getting information. It’s about building confidence.

October 8th, 2009

Listening is by far the most important skill for a leader to hone. Have you ever seen a leader who seems unflappable and remains calm in even the most chaotic circumstances? Watch that person closely and you will see the secret to this cool demeanor—focused listening. As a leader, you need to pay attention to the words and actions of others while suspending judgment long enough to allow your intellect to catch up with your instincts. Why? If you speak too soon, you shut off creative impulse. You shut off collaboration. By speaking too soon, you force ideas on your team, even if that is not your intention. When you keep silent long enough to understand fully—not just hear—what someone is saying or doing, you create space for that person to invent, aspire, and contribute. By creating that space, you afford your team a sense of ownership, and you make room for the possibility that someone on your team has the best idea at this moment. By listening carefully, you sharpen all your senses and promote composure among those around you.

Pay Attention

There are many ways to listen; the most obvious is with your ears. However the act of listening is far more nuanced than just hearing words. To do it effectively you must pay careful attention to sounds and much more. The pace, breath, tone, and inflection of the voice all combine to provide the implied meaning, intentions, state-of-mind, and needs of the speaker. Reactions of your fellow listeners can also teach much. When you listen attentively, you shelve your own thoughts, and for a moment there is no judgment, no discrimination, no understanding. Only listening. When you listen deliberately, your mind—which is like a hyperactive dog pulling on a leash—soon starts barking with ideas, assumptions, interpretations, and decisions. If you can hold that dog off for a bit, you can listen with clarity, which leads to hidden insights. Insights that are very useful to a leader.

Listening is not for ears alone. When you practice listening, you sharpen your other senses—sight, smell, taste, and touch. When you listen carefully with your ears, you can sense tone and inflection, cadence and emphasis—all of which combine to provide insight into the meaning of the words spoken. When you apply that same level of attention with your sight, you might notice a flicker in the corner of an eye, a twitch in the corner of a mouth, a shift in stance—all of which combine to provide insights into meaning both overt and covert. You develop a perception skill that few even know exists, let alone master.

Our wonderful human brain can simultaneously process observations made with all our senses. Listening as a practice sharpens that awareness automatically and leads to clearer perception of what is happening with the people on your team and in their environment. This clearer perception leads to competitive advantage because you can identify critical cues about intentions and motivations.

Are You Listening?

Most schools don’t teach listening. Neither do most parents. The closest we get to teaching children to listen is concentration games such as I Spy, Where’s Waldo? and Memory Match Cards, which emphasize keen observation but not listening per se. Early in childhood, by the third grade in the communities I have seen firsthand, we move our kids’ efforts toward serious academic pursuits, which usually involve more than a decade of frenetic preparation for scarce slots among top universities. As a result, we produce well-educated men and women with a singular need to demonstrate that they are the smartest person in the room, who vie to answer first, and who are not very practiced at listening. How many times have you come across this person in your career? Are you one of them?

Some kids growing up in this education system react to competition by becoming a class clown in an attempt to divert academic scrutiny or out of scorn for it. No listening there. Those who cannot compete in the “speed-answer-game” or the corollary “snarky-comment-game” often give up. For them, daydreaming or socializing becomes a deeply ingrained habit. Listening loses out here, too. Other kids end up pursuing non-intellectual competition, usually focused on running or retaining possession of a fast-moving ball. These more athletic youngsters might learn to listen to a coach, but if you have ever coached kids, you know they aren’t usually listening; they just get skilled at looking as if they are.

In other words, education, development, and training in every country on earth are invested in sharpening competitive skills. This is indeed necessary for leadership, but it is not sufficient. I have spent much of my life perfecting a competitive instinct. I love competition, thrive on it, and believe it is the fuel that makes a democracy and capitalism possible. What I find disappointing is that in the midst of all the competitive juices flowing in academic, athletic, and professional endeavors, we neglect to develop the most important skill we will ever have—careful listening. It is the doorway to understanding our world and our place in it, and is the source of every great leader’s strength.

If this doesn’t make sense, consider the fact that a professional baseball coach doesn’t win by hitting a home run.  A baseball coach wins by getting the team to function well and consistently over the course of nearly one hundred ninety games each season. He assembles a team that has the potential to win. There are key athletes on the team that can hit home runs when needed most. There are those who pitch well at the beginning or at the end of a game.  There are others who field the ball well together and make brilliant defensive plays. To guide a team to victory, the baseball coach must have a very clear awareness of the abilities, temperament, and condition of each member of his roster, and an awareness of each of these critical areas is best sharpened by practicing clear and concentrated listening every day on and off the field. With a competitive drive, the coach will make the effort to lead the team well. And, if he listens well and pays attention with all his senses, the coach can consistently lead them to win.

Listen and Learn

Listening is a skill that, like any other, is mastered only through practice. And because listening isn’t part of the standard primary or secondary curriculum, we are all sorely in need of practice. Our minds are very busy. You and I and every person trying to lead an organization has a mind that acts like a dog sniffing, chasing, and barking at shadows and leaves rustling in the breeze. Learning to listen meticulously is a lot like training a dog. Want to learn how? Let’s practice.

Breathe. Find a quiet place. Sit still and comfortably with a reasonably straight but relaxed spine. Close your eyes. Bring all your awareness to your breath as you inhale and exhale as fully and deeply as you can. Allow your mind and body to relax and settle a bit as you use the breath to bring yourself into the present moment.

Observe. Open your eyes and look down at what is in front of you. With your eyes open, you are less likely to start daydreaming. For this practice to be effective, be sure to stay awake and present. What do you hear? Can you hear traffic? Birds chirping? People talking nearby? Your heartbeat? The blood rushing in your ears? A clock ticking? Your breath? Let your mind roam and listen to everything around you, all while your eyes are open.

Concentrate. With your eyes still open, concentrate on your slow, deep breaths in silence. Listen to each breath carefully as it enters your nostrils, passes through your trachea, fills your lungs, and then reverses. Continue to listen to the inhales, exhales, and subtle spaces in between. These sounds and the sounds of all the activity around you can each be perceived individually and collectively in each breath. Every time your mind wanders away from your breath, just smile, take an extra deep breath, and start again. You are concentrating on one point amidst all the activity around you. Just breathe. You are training your mind to sit still instead of roam.

Awareness. You may get bored listening to your breath. You might become frustrated that you end up in a daydream after each few breaths, even though your eyes are open. You might feel antsy. You might realize you are hungry. No matter what you experience, whenever you notice that you have strayed from your breath, you are having a spark of awareness—you just woke up. Use that awareness and just come back to studying each breath while you observe all the other sounds around you and in you. Practice patience with yourself. Practice calm control. Practice staying present. You are gently training your concentration to come back on command.

Practice. Do this for at least five minutes every morning or evening, whenever you are likely to consistently set time aside. If you enjoy this practice, do it for ten or fifteen minutes every day or try it for five minutes three times a day. After two weeks, apply your honed, concentrated listening to someone speaking to you. If you notice that your mind wanders, becomes bored, or starts coming up with ideas while that person is speaking, use that same spark of awareness to return to the speaker. Come back to their voice, just like you came back to studying breaths. With practice, you will notice that you aren’t drifting as much, and you will start to see, hear, and feel cues you may never have noticed before.

Listening Inspires

Leadership is a relationship, and listening is essential to building successful relationships. When people are heard fully and completely, without interruption and without debate until they have finished their point, they are more likely to trust you. They are far more likely to be receptive to whatever ideas you would like them to consider—whether it is a request you are making of them or an opinion you would like to share with them.

Have you ever seen a leader checking email messages on a laptop, BlackBerry, or iPhone during a meeting? Are you one of those leaders? Not only is this enormously disrespectful, it is self-defeating. By not listening and observing, you miss the most valuable information you need to lead, and you simultaneously devalue the speaker and the others in the room. Pay attention to the people in the room or cancel the meeting. Listening isn’t just about getting information you need; the act of listening is the primary tool you have to inspire and motivate others.

It doesn’t take much effort to become a more effective listener. Consistent practice is essential. If you start now, in a few weeks you will already be a more skilled listener than the majority of people on the planet. The average adult attention span has been conditioned by years of television and Web browsing to last only about twenty seconds.9 So if you can focus your attention for five minutes, then you will be operating fifteen times higher than the average. Not a bad start. Even more valuable, by practicing calm listening every day, your demeanor begins to adjust. You begin to be more deliberate, even in the midst of noise and chaos. You will appear unflappable, which is always inspiring. Your natural levels of passion and enthusiasm will not be dampened—they will be more focused.

People will start to take notice and you will too. What are you waiting for? Try it right now. We are at the end of this post. It is a good time to take five minutes to practice listening. And always remember the ancient wisdom of Epictetus:  We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

QUICK CUES—LISTENING

  • Be still and silent.
  • Relax your mind and observe.
  • Use your breath to focus your attention.
  • Let go of expectations and judgments.
  • Stay present and focused on your breath.
  • Each time you drift from observing your breath, gently guide yourself back to it.
  • Do this, in silence, five minutes every day.
  • Apply this deliberate awareness to all situations.

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When should you be like Moses, Trump, or Socrates?

October 1st, 2009

Strength in NumbersSince your primary purpose as a leader is to inspire and motivate a group into sustained action toward a common goal, how do you get people to agree on a common goal? You can certainly impose your will and authority and declare the goals for your organization. Many leaders have done so, with some success. Are you sure you know the right goals? You probably have some really good ideas, but leadership is not a solo performance. You are trying to inspire and motivate others to work hard. By creating an open forum for the exchange of ideas in your organization, you are able to forge agreements and build the relationships that make successful leadership possible.

You need your team to function well and start achieving results now, not in the distant future. For that to happen, you need a collaborative environment that leverages your team’s expertise, insights, and abilities. To foster that environment you must listen more than you speak, and you must avoid making assertions until absolutely necessary. You need your team to think, to aspire, to create, and if you are deliberate about your approach, they will come up with goals and plans better than you could have conceived on your own.

Listening is paramount in unifying the team. Please do not underestimate its value. As a leader, the instant you speak, two-thirds of your team stops thinking. This hefty first cohort will capitulate and begin to interpret or outright solicit your instructions. And of the remaining one-third still thinking, half of them will disagree with you just because you’re the boss. They might not say so out loud, but you can count on them undermining your efforts when you aren’t present. Time and time again over more than two decades, I have seen leaders speak too soon and lose the creativity, enthusiasm, and passion inherent in their team.

In order to illustrate an effective method for reaching consensus, let’s consider three distinct approaches: Moses, Donald Trump, and Socrates.

Moses climbed up a mountain and found God. This model works well for many entrepreneurs who yet to attract investors, employees, or customers. It doesn’t work very often once you have a group of people working with you. After you return from your place of solitude to seek the right strategic plan or  product roadmap, you have a lot of explaining to do. And more often than not, you face the same group of curmudgeons that Moses faced when he came down with the tablets only to find that everyone else had decided to follow the golden calf. Be careful when you use this model.  Moses had the help of God and had trouble.  You will have more trouble than that.

Donald Trump seemed to love to bark “your fired” at the end of every Apprentice episode. This of course is the climax after creating a contest in which teams had to prove their worth to his lordship. A variation of this model happens almost ever day in most organizations. The leader sets up an environment in which ideas must compete for approval, and may the best idea win.  Sounds great, but if there is one judge, then then the worst behavior comes out.  When Mr. Trump speaks, his lieutenants instantly adjust their world view—intentionally or subconsciously—to more closely align with his. This is a reasonable and rational reaction to try to win approval, but it creates an inherent bias. Instead of having the best idea win based on its merits, the idea or project that wins merely fits the explicit or deduced views of the leader. In effect, the Trump Model is merely a high drama version of dictating the outcome. The Trump Model isn’t always invoked intentionally, but I have seen more than one leader deliberately use it as a club for beating people into submission in a pitched, public battle. It certainly drives consensus for a while, but the backlash afterward is immense. Remember, if you use public bashing to drive agreement, mutiny isn’t far away and it is rarely overt.

Socrates pursued truth through debate, and his approach emphasized the use of challenging questions to pierce into topics to attain useful insights. To lead using the Socrates Model, you must ask questions not only in group meetings, but also as a course of daily practice with the individuals in your organization. You must spend far more time listening than speaking. In group settings, this means calling intentionally on those who are silent to encourage them to express their views. When you do offer an opinion, you should play contrarian and offer opposing assertions deliberately to instigate debate and then harness the group’s discussion to foster a respectful and rational contest among competing assertions. Most importantly, you need to push the team to compromise on opinions, standardize on facts, and push for a decision with a sense of urgency. You only step in to declare a firm opinion and decision if the resolution isn’t possible in the team.

If you like this post, you can read much more about this and related topics in my book Inspiring Excellence available on Amazon and also at Barnes & Noble.

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The root of courage is embracing doubt

September 25th, 2009

When confronted with great uncertainty, our sensory cortex fires into high gear and produces a feeling of fear in our bodies. Chimpanzees have a similar biological mechanism, but at least their fight-or-flight response only activates when confronted by real danger. We humans on the other hand react to our imagined fears with the same ferocity as a life threatening situation. Whether it is fear of failure, rejection, reprisal, or death, it is fear that rules this world.

In the midst of our chimpish lives, seeking some kind of bliss while leaping from fear to fear, every once in a while we encounter someone who stands still and stares willfully into the abyss of doubt. We admire those who can enter into a moment of great uncertainty and risk, and yet will not run. I see this kind of courage every day working with men and women who build and run new ventures. They face enormous doubt and at times experience visceral fear, yet they persevere.

What is it that allows some people to move boldly into doubt while others cower or run away? First, you need a little ego. You must believe your action might lead to a better future. Whether you are like Howard Schultz who built a new kind of coffee company despite all the naysayers that insisted middle-class Americans would never pay $2 for a cup of coffee, or like Rosa Parks who refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger because it just wasn’t right, if you believe that your actions might lead to a better future, you are more willing to risk the consequences of today. Neither Howard nor Rosa was sure of the outcome of their effort. Both faced great uncertainty and economic or personal peril. Yet they each acted because they deemed that the future they sought was worth the risk.

Our inability to know the future often triggers the fight-or-flight response. The human mind, always seeking certainty, then assigns certainty to the undesirable outcome, just as a child at night is sure that the bogey man is in the closet. But until we open the closet, we just don’t know what is in it. The bogey man is in our head.

We all face uncertainty. The root of fear is fighting your doubt. The root of courage is embracing it.

Doubt is not your enemy. Doubt is the source of your creativity. By staring silently and openly into the dark closet of your uncertain future, you discover freedom. Since you can’t know for certain anything that lies in the future, you are completely free to choose today. Fear kicks in when you want to control the outcome. By definition, the riskier the decision or venture, the less control you have of outcome. Most days you can control whether one foot falls before the next as you walk. On the other hand, no matter how hard you try, you cannot control the rain. Nor can you control whether your venture will succeed or fail.

If you relax into your doubt, you will find creativity, hope, and opportunity. And others will witness courage in action.

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Sept 11 One Kind Word: a poem and the start of a journey

September 11th, 2009

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in New York City giving an investment presentation to the executive team at Monster Worldwide.

Within a few minutes of starting that pitch, the 70 year-old Chairman Andy McKelvey was abruptly pulled out of the meeting by his assistant. We all looked at each other wondering what was going on. Some execs rolled their eyes and whispered to each other, chuckling and thinking the old guy was up to no good.

Then a crescendo of anxiety quickly rose as rumors of a small plane hitting the World Trade Center escalated into stories about one tower being on fire. Many of us left the conference room and went to the south side of the buidling.

We stood in a magnificent corporate office, 40 stories in the air, providing a clear view of the World Trade Center south of us. The towers were in fact on fire.

We stood mute, watching in disbelief. Then gasped and shook as each tower crashed before our eyes. There wasn’t a scream among us. Just a sudden gasp, hand covered mouth, eyes watering, quiet sobbing.

I remember trembling that only a week earlier, I had been in the south tower that now crumbled before my eyes, killing thousands as it collapsed. As my tears rolled down, I said a prayer of gratitude that I was a spectator and not a victim.

The city was eerily quiet that afternoon. I walked south to volunteer and turned around again and headed north. I did that at least ten times. Unsure of whether I could be of any help or if I should get home to be with my family. Torn. Guilty. Indecisive. Confused.

I went back to the office. I tried to rent a car to go home, but they were reserved for emergency personnel. All flights had been grounded. I headed to Union Station to try to get a train and found the station jammed with thousands of other would-be rail travelers. I had to leave my bags behind in that station so that I could squeeze into the last train out. It was a stinking, sweltering standing room only ride to Philadelphia. The next day I was on Amtrak headed across the country to Seattle.

On the week-long ride home, I had time to reflect on this experience and wrote a poem. Every year, I re-read this poem again. I feel the same now as I did then. The victims of 9-11 will not have died in vain if we learn to love fully. Those of us who did not die on 9-11 have received the gift of life. Every moment we breathe and see and hear is an opportunity to build a better world.  It isn’t in the hands of our generals, presidents, or prime ministers. The opportunity and the responsibility to build a better world is in our hands.

One kind word by  Michael Schutzler 9/11/2001

In one instant, all we knew

Assumed, hoped, or dreamed

Had collapsed.

So many aspirations, adulations, ruminations

And hard won stations

Washed away in a sea of fire,

Concrete and steel,

Dust and tears.

Haunting cries of electric armbands in the darkness

Screeching, shrill alarms

Sole witness and testimony

To heroes lost.

Twin towers of Babel

Monuments to the one language

That cowers humanity;

Mighty fortress,

Brought down with blood of innocents;

Pride bedashed lying at our feet;

Stench of smoldering death

Draped on a late summer breeze.

Ten thousand eyes burned dry for life;

Ten thousand hands scraped raw moving rocks in vain;

Ten thousand hearts broken searching in the rain.

Cries of vengeance! Calls for revenge!

Tip-tip like rain on a thin glass roof;

The question WHY bursts in

Desperate, choking, breathless despair.

But the soul of the world knows

What is softly whispered in the quiet corners

Of our solitude:

Violence sown is violence reaped.

Oh the mother of hatred is an empty belly;

And her husband is neglect.

Yet one act of kindness

Born of humility,

Propelled by faith,

Marks the end of suffering.

The time to act is a twinkling;

A challenge that flickers,

Fleeting and swift.

It is our chance to reply

With one kind word,

Or help lift one burden,

Or ask forgiveness,

Or offer thanks.

Our moment is at hand!

Don’t waste it.

Say one kind word;

So it might flourish and grow.

Hurry!

For in an instant, all you know,

Assume, hope, or dream,

May collapse

Leaving orphaned intentions

To wander in the caverns

Of broken hearts.

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Why I Skype With Glee

July 25th, 2009

I first set foot in Saudi Arabia in 1985. I was a young engineer with a head filled with romantic images of Peter O’Toole riding a camel across the dusty, hot wasteland. Naturally, I was a little disappointed with the Chevy Suburban my company had outfitted for members of the royal family. The Saudi princes and their cousins liked to go hunting with hawks and they needed transportation that was equipped to handle the desert. Camels would have done well enough, but a Suburban tops out on a straight desert road at about 130 MPH (more on that another day…) gas was practically free, and they had air conditioning.

Camels are much slower, stop inconveniently at random moments, smell pretty rank most days, and leave you exposed to boil your brains in the sun. Plus, our Chevy trucks were equipped with special phones that allowed a young prince to call home to let mom and dad know they were going to be late for dinner, call their investment broker, or arrange a tryst in London.

In 1985 most phones were rotary dialers and touch tone phones were had in really high end hotels and businesses. There were no cell phones. So a car with a phone that could call from the middle of the desert to any place on earth was an amazing thing. So amazing in fact, that only a rich prince could afford the luxury. The car, the phone, the radios, the talented engineers to build, test, and maintain the gear. Not $100. Not $1000. Try hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last week I spoke with one of my clients in Cambodia. He works in the capital city of Phnom Penh. We spoke for an hour about his dysfunctional board of directors, his inexperienced management team, and his plan to navigate through a politically charged re-capitalization. Our entire conversation was held while I sat outside a coffee shop where my wife was watching a singer-songwriter perform. I was speaking on my iPhone using the Skype application, running over the free wifi that the coffee shop offered. My client sat in his office, with a headset plugged into his laptop. The call quality was crystal clear and it cost nothing.

Oh yes, I had spent $400 for my iPhone. He had spent $500 for his PC. Both devices perform many useful functions. But our call itself – free. Not one penny.

Skype on the iPhone is a beautiful thing!

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It's never too late to start

July 4th, 2009

Wilbur is a friend of mine. Well not really. At least not as “friend” is usually defined. He isn’t the first person I call when I get good tickets to a ball game. I couldn’t call on him to bail me out of jail or watch my kids when I needed to take my wife to the hospital. But Wilbur and I get along pretty well.

We are Mutt and Jeff.  He is 6’8” when slouching; and I am 5’8” if I stand with proper posture. He is a highly respected public figure; I am a minor character actor in the Seattle business arena. He has made a large fortune, has sent his kids to private school, and could fund a small country for years; I have made just enough money to send my kids to college and then live a decent retirement with my wife. Yet Wilbur and I get together for a lunch or breakfast every six to twelve months. We trade stories about raising kids, running a company, or the trials of being married for a long time. I don’t see him very often, but we always enjoy our time together. Truth be told, I would happily embarrass myself in golf, basketball, poker, or any other “man-sport” that I suck at to spend more time with him. Not that he ever asks.

Just a few weeks ago, as Wilbur and I met at one of our rare meals, he noted that he had no close friends. For a moment I was speechless. Wilbur is the quintessential definition of winner, and he has no close friends? When I shared my confusion, he bemusedly smirked and said it was the byproduct of a deliberate decision that left him bereft of friends. He said: “I have worked hard, tried to accomplish much in my career, and tried to be a good dad, a good husband. And how much time did that leave for golfing buddies? Poker games with pals? Or time for a lunch with a friend just to say hello? Almost no time at all. I tried to live up to the expectations placed on me, have arguably been successful, and now I am alone.”

Wilbur’s situation is bittersweet and commonplace—at least for men. Women in my experience seem more adept at creating and keeping social relationships alive in the midst of career and parenting. The men I have come to know who strived to succeed professionally while trying to be a decent parent and spouse, end up pretty much alone. And now it was clearer why Wilbur always said yes when I invited him to share a meal, despite our Mutt-and-Jeffness. Who else in his world invited him without an agenda other than to say hello and share a meal? Only his few friends.

It’s interesting to note that as Wilbur ends one phase of his successful career and as his kids leave high school for college, only now does he become wistfully philosophical and notes that he is alone. The truth is, we are all too distracted with activities, obsessions, or obligations to invest enough time and energy into building and maintaining healthy relationships with friends and family. That is nature of our American experience. We have all inherited the immigrant opportunity to “make something of ourselves” often at the expense of our friendships and families. And that is as true for women as it is for men.

When I was a kid, my dad used to say, “We are born alone and we die alone. If along the way you are fortunate enough to make friends or have a family, treat them with love and care while you can. It will all be over very soon.” It wasn’t clear to me as I heard those words as a teenager, but given how much of my own adult experience as a striving professional and parent has mirrored Wilbur’s lonely condition, my dad’s advice makes more sense than ever.

Wherever you are today, I hope you take the time to enjoy and lavish attention on the friends and family you have. Soak it up while you can. And if you find yourself as lonely as Wilbur, take solace in his last words on this topic: “As a fifty year old man, I am now applying myself toward building frienships with the same determination I once applied to my career and parenting.”

It’s never too late to start.

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Supreme Punting

June 30th, 2009

There was some hullabaloo yesterday about the Supreme Court ruling in the discrimination case of Ricci v. DeStefano. The mainstream media did a fine job of obfuscating facts in an attempt to breathe new life into what had become an almost dead controversy surrounding Obama’s nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Selling newspapers or advertising on cable TV news new requires shrill noises to attract the attention of a US citizenry obsessed with the antics surrounding Michael Jackson’s recent passing and reminiscing about his halcyon days twenty-five years ago.

News outlets clamored that Ms. Sotomayor’s nomination was now in jeopardy. According to left-leaning media, the Supreme Court did catastrophic damage to decades of civil rights progress and in the process spanked Sotomayor.  According to right-leaning media, which has been maligning much of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, the Court finally got something right and Sotomayor was a sullied candidate.

Nonsense. The Supreme Court actually didn’t decide anything of substance yesterday. Because I have been an ardent advocate of diversity throughout my career, I actually waded through the 93 pages of opinion on this case. I wanted to see for myself what was really going on.

Justice Scalia said it best. He writes, “I join the Court’s opinion in full, but write separately to observe that its resolution of this dispute merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the question: Whether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection? The question is not an easy one.”

Indeed it is not an easy question. The dispute in this case stems from a classic catch-22 situation: a firefighter promotion exam was conducted in New Haven-Connecticut as is the normal procedure. Because minorities on average didn’t score as well as whites on the exams, if the city used the test results to rank candidates for promotion, the city faced a discrimination case. On the other hand, not all minorities did poorly. If the city threw out the test results, they still faced a discrimination case from those who did well on the tests including whites who would claim reverse discrimination. The city threw out the tests and lawsuits were promptly filed by those who had done well on the tests.

The Supreme Court did not touch this catch-22 directly. The majority opinion simply pointed to the city’s rationale for discarding the tests and found their arguments wanting. Therefore, the city must use the test scores as originally planned – to rank the candidates for promotion based on scores. The Court did not rule on a constraint for Title VII. The Court did not resolve the inherent conflict between the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights and Title VII’s bias toward minorities.

I have seen terrible bias every day. I have lived in Chicago, Washington DC, near Philadelphia. I have travelled all across the US. The bias against Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans is prevalent and even here in bland Seattle I have seen pockets of virulent bias. We may have a black president but we are very far away from a land of equal rights blind to race, creed or color. Until then, we must be willing to argue forcefully and vigilantly against bias against minorities. I for one am thrilled that Sotomayor is the nominee. The Court may yet face this ugly question squarely and when it does, I hope there is much debate and passion to preserve a balance of power among our many races, creeds, and colors in this country.

Meanwhile, Ms. Sotomayor should keep clear of this noise and wait for the next celebrity fiasco to take public attention away from meaty matters like civil rights and who gets to sit on the nation’s highest bench.

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Leadership is not about you – Ahmadinejad as an object lesson

June 26th, 2009

Most successful leaders begin their careers yearning for success, fame, power, or wealth. There is nothing unusual about this motivation as a starting point, but our decisions and actions as leaders are intertwined with the lives of those we lead. Leadership is an intricate web of relationships. Build them and you succeed. Break them and you fail. Focus your effort on the greater good, and you help build a better world. Focus on your own well being, and you destroy far more than goodwill.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  is a stark object lesson on this topic.

The controversial President of Iran had a humble beginning as the son of a blacksmith, worked hard on his education and served in very difficult assignments in both the brutal war with Iraq and in his early political career.  Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a populist message. He effectively leveraged the anti-American sentiment reignited by then President Bush in “axis of evil” speech. Ahmadinejad also promised the people of Iran a government of principle, in particular focused on using their nation’s oil wealth to improve infrastructure, education, and healthcare.

Once elected, Ahmadinejad promptly revealed his true nature. In the past four years, we have seen a man drunk with fame. He has continued to beat the drum of anti-American, and by extension anti-European and anti-Israeli rhetoric, in an attempt to inspire through bravado and conspiracy theories. He has not invested oil wealth into infrastructure, education, or health care for Iranians. He has invested substantial money and effort into creating a nuclear capability in a vain attempt to lift his own stature at home and abroad.

Whether you believe the election of 2009 is a fraud or not, his actions to suppress allegations of improper voting and calls for a new, fair vote make it clear that he is not working for the benefit of those he leads. If the election were not a fraud, he would have sponsored a fair and transparent investigation to demonstrate that he is the legitimately re-elected President. Instead, he has ruthlessly suppressed criticism and debate. He isn’t using the power of his position to create a better world for Iran.  He is using his power to retain his position—at the bloody expense of his own people.

History has shown us time and again—in politics, business, religion and every other field of endeavor— when a leader arrogantly pursues exclusive privileges for the few at the expense of those being led, it ends in failure. Kenneth Lay of Enron, Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, and Governor Spitzer of New York are just a few recent, home-grown examples that reiterate this point. The demise of Ahmadinejad is all but certain without a sudden and radical shift in his focus and action.

For all of us who lead, this object lesson teaches us a core leadership principle. Consider why you are in a leadership role in the first place. You didn’t achieve a leadership role because you are special. You attained this role because the people you lead want you there. Perhaps, they need an opportunity to further their career. Perhaps, they don’t have the confidence or desire to lead. Perhaps, they like you or your ideas. Regardless of the specific motivations of the people you lead, your leadership role is not about you. It never was. It’s about them. If you are sincere and thoughtful about your leadership role, then you are already investing the majority of your waking—and some sleeping—hours in leading your organization. Why are you doing this? Is it for your fame? Your wealth? Your personal satisfaction? Your professional development? Only that? Why not aspire for something more? Are you afraid to take it on? Are you unwilling to make the effort? Please note, the higher the aspiration and the more inclusive the benefit of your ambition, the more you create a sustainable and successful effort that outlasts your own personal investment of time and energy. Anything less is a waste of your opportunity, and if you insist on serving your own self-interests, it will only lead to disaster.

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Of stinger missiles and sheep testicles

June 19th, 2009

In the 1980′s I had the pleasure of travelling all over the Middle East.  Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Egypt, etc.  Among the many interesting projects I worked on, I was particularly in love with a crazy experiment to slurp radar data from AWACS, E2C, and missile systems in the forward area (that’s where all the scary noise is) and munge all that radar data into one complete picture locating the bad guys and good guys and displayed neatly onto a metal suitcase version of a laptop.  I think it was made by Compaq and looked something like this.

Mind you, in 1988 “laptop” meant something very heavy and very lame compared to what it means today. We gave those 14 pound laptops (with a whopping 8Mhz clock and all of 16MB of RAM…) to stinger missile teams. Now those guys are each already packing at least 60 pounds of gear per person into the forward area. They weren’t too happy with this new piece of heavy gear to lug.  Until of course they saw what it did for them.  You see, a stinger missile team normally had to use binoculars (or their Jedi mind training) to anticipate where MiG’s or F15′s would appear in order to shoot them down. These jets were able to go from the horizon to over your head in about 1.5 seconds.  This new piece of iron showed the stinger teams where the bad guys were long before the bad guys were at the horizon and therefore long before they could pose a threat. Advantage Stinger Team, 100.  Bad Guys, 0.  The already heavily burdened stinger teams lugged the new iron.

So I was in Egypt.  My team was tweaking a missile firing test to show our hosts how well it worked in the desert. We had some down-time to visit the pyramids. That was very cool (and a story for another Friday…) Then we packed into transport trucks and headed well north of Cairo into an empty expanse of sand and dirt in the Sahara and we promptly shot down the test target. Extremely cool. The generals were impressed. We were elated.

By this time in my career I was an old hand in the Middle East.  I could read and speak and even write a bit of Arabic.  The food was familiar and so were the customs.  We finished off the trip with a well deserved celebration meal, held of course by the host.  The most senior host suggested we dine at the The President’s Club.  Of course we agreed. We had visions of arriving at The Intercontinental Hotel in a tux to eat and drink a first-class French meal. This was welcome especially after a week of eating MREs in the dirt and if we were lucky, local shawarmas.  Instead, we were hauled via a harrowing cab ride (another story for another Friday…) into a seedy section of Cairo.  The pub name was indeed The President’s Club, which was inscribed above the door not in English nor Arabic but as we had hoped, in French. Only bits and hints of the gilt and black lacquer that once adorned the creaking, carved, wooden sign (carved when Rommel still roamed these parts) were still there.

In this basement hole in the wall, we sat among wealthy, well dressed locals.  Some in fine Italian, handmade suits.  Some in a silk and wool dishdash, equally well tailored.  We were served Johnny Walker Black by a nice waiter in a tux and we skipped the ice or water because it was, after all, Cairo.  Not one bottle.  Not two.  We had three bottles of Johnny to serve five people.  That certainly took the edge off.  We ate a kind of Egyptian tapas.  Sheep’s brains served raw in lemon juice, or boiled in a bit of saffron broth, or deep fried.  Nice choice. We had goat skewers and mutton skewers. Better.  We ate tomatoes and cucumbers and hummus.  And then came a nutty, crunchy tasting substance that had the texture of a bamboo shoot in Chop Suey.  Except a little chewier.  After asking my host what it was, he slurred whiskily that they were yummy sheep testicles. They were like their sheep brain appetizer cousins served raw in lemon juice, or boiled with saffron, or deep fried. No tartar sauce.  Too bad.  Messr. Walker urged me to keep my mouth shut, jut my chin firmly, smile, and eat a second helping like my host. I chewed merrily and washed it down with some more Johnny.

The next morning, I was on a long plane flight back to the states. I had little sleep and was still reeking of whiskey and burping up occasional whiffs of nuttiness as my cab took me to a friend’s birthday party. We ate his favorite meal:  Maryland Blue Crabs steamed in the bushel, served with corn on the cob, cheddar cheese and a massive amount of Old Bay Seasoning leaving nothing but fire and thirst in its wake.  The sheep were long gone.

And it was indeed, good to be home.

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