Show me the data!

Quote of the day, read to me by Mrs. Reeves who was looking at an article on "oil pulling" and Avurvedic "medicine":

"These rich, white, vegan hipsters cure cancer every six months...and yet nothing changes."

As I say in response to all these claims: "Show me the data."  Keep in mind that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Emotions

Do you know your own emotions?  Do you know what will make you happy?  How accurately do you think you could answer those questions?

Be careful!  You might not be as accurate as you think.

I've been re-reading a fascinating book by Daniel Gilbert...a book named Stumbling on Happiness. It makes a number of excellent and interesting points.  One I'll mention here is that when we choose something (a spouse, a car, a restaurant for tonight's dinner) we're guessing how happy that decision will make someone else.  The "someone else" is...the future you.

Imitations

"Rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength."

                                                                --Eric Hoffer

The power of "IWI"

If you look around (do it...) just about everything you see began with someone saying, "I wonder if...."

Every chair. (I wonder if we could enter the chair market....)

The paint on the wall. (I wonder if a yellowy-greenish-pink would sell....)

The song playing on the radio/stereo/mp3/i-something.

All of it.  An ordinary person, asking, "I wonder if...."  

So...what are you wondering?

bullet points

Some bullet points to remember or reflect upon:

• Listening is hard work.  Sometimes your partners just need some listening. 
• Regular and sincere encouragement is like water to a plant.  If you want someone to flourish, water the plant.
• Call yourself out--sometimes it'll be after the fact--when you've been out of line.  Admitting your own failures is powerful.  Followers need honesty.
• Take time to "build into" people.  [That term is courtesy of Tony Dunge.]  The payoff is a long time coming, and the payoff isn't for you.  It's for them, and those who will be affected by your impact on the individual.  It's like planting a tree; mostly it's for future others, but you get the satisfaction of knowing you've planted a tree.

errors

So, what do you do when your organization is...wrong?  Has made an error?  Blew it?
When there are problems with performance--say, an individual DID something or DIDN'T do something they should have--I often ask myself whether there was a COMPETENCY error, or a SYSTEM error.


In the medical field, it seems that about 90% of errors are system errors.  The competency errors are often simple gaps in knowledge, but sometimes they're more willful incompetence.  I'm pretty sure I'm dealing with willful incompetence when the person I'm talking to begins their explanation of the situation with, "I've been doing this for XX years...and I know how it's done!"


There is nothing...NOTHING, in the practice of medicine that has not changed in the last 20 years.  Some industries may not change much (say...classical violin).  Most other industries change.  


But still, most of my effort goes in to dealing with system errors.  If you're not more-or-less continuously redesigning your processes, then you're

• lucky to be in a business where the external environment doesn't change
• not paying attention

belief

Why I hire people who don't work out....

Because I believe things about them.  I believe in what they CAN do, and see my needs they CAN fill, and then I'm off to the races.  I find myself reinterpreting the person's past deeds (or lack thereof) in light of what I hope they CAN do in the future.  

Hope springs eternal.  Problem is, the spring's sweet water is littered with stinky leaves and some pond scum.

The best antidotes provide only a modicum of (useful) relief.  What I need to do better is focus on what the person IS (current skills and traits) and HAS DONE (past accomplishments, training). 

I gotta get better...!

aloneness

It works.  Well. 

Great and wild idea: 
You don't have to lead alone.  Mayo uses the "dyad" approach--a physician paired with an administrator.  Physicians, left to their own leadership devices, will run the programs in such a way that they provide great care, and the place goes out of business.  The businessmen (administrators) will run it in a way that makes good money, and quality suffers. 

Sharing power is hardly new.  In republican Rome, the Senate elected two consuls, who led the government as co-equals.  Yes, there are times that approach breaks down (study your Roman political history, and find the original meaning and utility of a "dictator.")  But overall, it works more often than it fails.  

Nota bene: The study of history is the study of what worked and what didn't.  As such, it's really an operator's manual for the present.  Just sayin'.

New year a-comin'

The new year's a-comin'...and I've got to think of resolutions!  Actually, I've given up on resolutions.  You might even say that I've resolved to have nothing to do with resolutions; they're really just a cultural joke--no one expects you to keep a New Year's resolution. They're nice ideas...goals...things we should focus upon, but often we just regress back to the mean (our mean). 

Although it seems like a non sequitur, here are a couple good questions, posed by R.K. Cooper:

1. what's the most exceptional thing you've done this week?
2. what's the most exceptional thing you will do next week?

I really like these clarifying questions.  They focus me, help me cut away the crap, the dross (now THERE'S a great word!  Underused, too).  What I don't like is that it's hard to spend each moment, each day, each week in focused concentration.  My battery just wears down.  Doing the hard thing is...well...HARD!  Pundits who exhort me to "deliver my best" seem to forget that some days my best just isn't there.  On those days, I...

JUST GET UP OFF THE FLOOR.  That's it.

squad

Some days it's one hard thing all day long: the long-simmering issue that you've brought to the point that you can effectively deal with it.  In the movies these solutions are easy to put together, and you execute them in a stunning flourish (with panache, even!)  In reality, they take a lot of time.  And they suck.  That is, they SHOULD suck.  Firing someone should suck, even when they are toxic, dangerous to your enterprise, and need to go.  As Henry Cloud notes in "Necessary Endings," it's not easy to...

• Fire an employee who should be fired
• End a relationship which is not going where it should
• Shut down a product line or a business unit
• Get out of social ties and activities whose "season has passed"
• Letting go of a dream that is not going to materialize and moving on
• Admit that something is failing and waving the white flag

Did you ever think about the guys aiming the guns?  The guy standing against the wall...he did something to get there.  It's not an accident that he's got the bricks behind him and the blindfold on.  Don't get me wrong...no doubt he's getting the short end of the stick here, but don't assume the guys with the guns are having a good day.

Today I put someone on "administrative leave."  He will be fired (oops..."terminated") because he's dangerous to our mission, and continues in a bad direction despite multiple attempts to help.  Today sucked...for both of us.  Worse for him, no doubt, but also bad for me.  Some will blame me for doing what they had advocated for.  Doing the right thing requires courage, even when it is the obvious and right thing to do.  "Sure I wanted him to go, but I didn't mean I wanted him FIRED!" they think.  Some live in "imaginary-ville," where people just magically realize that they need to go, and that's just how it works out.  No blood, no fuss, no noise.


Yeah...riiiiiight.

Note to young leaders: when you fire someone, 

you always leave some of your own blood on the floor.