What Really Matters

Are you stuck? Asking yourself "What Do I Do Next?"

Stuck just doesn't apply to cars in snowbanks and peanut butter jar lids. It is equally, if not more applicable, to individuals and the organizations of which they are a part. I have found three interesting books that address this issue from different angles, but with some unique intersections. All three deal with the sometime daunting and difficult issue of change. And all three also say - either explicitly or implicitly - "What are YOU going to do about it?"

Individuals, Organizations, and the Systems Approach
Unstuck (and its accompanying website www.unstuck.com) is co-authored by Keith Yamashita, founder of Stone Yamashita Partners, a San Francisco based consulting firm that works with companies undergoing large scale strategic change. Based on the premise that all great people (and organizations) get stuck at some point - it examines the real trick, which is knowing how to get "unstuck." Intended primarily for organizations, the approach has great relevance for individuals in their business and life decisions (and are the two really separate?) In fact, in a recent interview in Fast Company, Yamashita stated that after reading a draft of the book, his masseuse decided to change his life direction and moved ....

"Unstuck" advocates a Big Picture approach - zooming out for the systems view from 20,000 feet - and looking for the single root cause that has pulled the system out of balance. Ideally with unity of purpose at the center, the systems view is defined by the surrounding elements of strategy, people and their interactions, structure and process, metrics and rewards, and culture (aka "soul"). And the "Serious Seven" primary causes of the imbalance are defined as: overwhelmed, exhausted, directionless, hopeless, battle-worn, worthless, and alone. Understanding which of the seven is the root cause of your organization's "stuckness" and how it derives from a particular imbalance of the six elements of the system, provides a beginning point for crafting a plan of action. The book provides many interactive tools, techniques and brief real world case studies (eg PBS, The Gap, HP, and IBM) to assist in the process.

The Recruiter's Perspective for the Individual
In How to Earn What You're Worth, author and executive recruiter Sunny Bates takes a slightly diffferent approach to "Stuck" - looking at individuals "stuck" in their jobs and unable to find the "juice" to communicate their value and passion to potential new employers. Similar to "Stuck" (although focused on the individual rather than an organization) the first section of Sunny's book deals with exercises, questions and general soul searching to determine an individual's essential blueprint and story - Bates appraoch for the individual is informed by 15 years of conversations and 75 specific interviews with individuals she calls "wothies" - her case studies from which she has formed her "system" for the individual crating a personal profesisonalplatform for getting "unstuck."

Personal Stories, Lessons, and Anecdotes
Taking another road (literally), as chronciled in What Should I Do With My Life, Po Bronson traveled the country to find stories of people of all ages and professions who have struggled to find "the job" that fits with their true nature, and what mistakes they made before they "got it right." From the documented efforts of the 55 individuals in the book, some common lessons and experiences emerged - creating the personal analog of the large organization "systems approach" of "Unstuck."

Bronson says,

"We all have passions if we choose to see them. Most of us don't get epiphanies. We don't get clarity. Out purpose doesn't arrive neatly packaged as destiny. We only get a whisper. A blank, nonspecific urge. That's how it starts."

So whether it's thru a systems approach tested with the Fortune 500, a recruiter's observations and experiences, or personal anecdotal stories from a screenwriter to a shrimp farmer --- there are a number of interesting and creative ways to address the issue of being stuck , and how to get unstuck.

So what have you done when you've been stuck? Who has helped you and how did you find them? What's the biggest lesson that you learned from this and still use today?

The S.U.V phenomenon: is acting out really worse than giving up?

In a January 12, 2004 article in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the difference between the perceived (or hoped for) safety in an S.U.V. and the reality. His article gives interesting insight into what motivates S.U.V. purchases and how drivers are removing themselves from the safety equation. Here's a snippet:

"In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness, which arose from a series of animal experiments in the nineteen-sixties at the University of Pennsylvania. Dogs were restrained by a harness, so that they couldn't move, and then repeatedly subjected to a series of electrical shocks. Then the same dogs were shocked again, only this time they could easily escape by jumping over a low hurdle. But most of them didn't; they just huddled in the corner, no longer believing that there was anything they could do to influence their own fate. Learned helplessness is now thought to play a role in such phenomena as depression and the failure of battered women to leave their husbands, but one could easily apply it more widely. We live in an age, after all, that is strangely fixated on the idea of helplessness: we're fascinated by hurricanes and terrorist acts and epidemics like sars--situations in which we feel powerless to affect our own destiny. In fact, the risks posed to life and limb by forces outside our control are dwarfed by the factors we can control. Our fixation with helplessness distorts our perceptions of risk. 'When you feel safe, you can be passive,' Rapaille says of the fundamental appeal of the S.U.V. 'Safe means I can sleep. I can give up control. I can relax. I can take off my shoes. I can listen to music.' For years, we've all made fun of the middle-aged man who suddenly trades in his sedate family sedan for a shiny red sports car. That's called a midlife crisis. But at least it involves some degree of engagement with the act of driving. The man who gives up his sedate family sedan for an S.U.V. is saying something far more troubling--that he finds the demands of the road to be overwhelming. Is acting out really worse than giving up?"

When business leaders ask for and seem to ignore feedback from employees are we teaching learned helplessness? Are there ways to unlearn such helplessness? Do organizations exhibit learned helplessness? What risks are acceptable? What risks are necessary? How do we tell the difference? And how do we make the difference clear to our employees?

How Living Your Values Can Help the Bottom Line

In How Living Your Values Can Help the Bottom Line Greg Steltenpohl, Founder of Odwalla Juice, describes the surprising change in ownership structure at Odwalla after they experienced a food safety contamination problem and did a voluntary recall of all their products. Bottom line? Stock price dove, and long-time juice drinkers became stockholders.

Steltenpohl concludes:

"... one of the misunderstandings around socially responsible businesses is that it seems like an obligation, when in reality it changes the engine of a company. When you embody a strong values structure inside an organization, it actually drives innovation, it drives commitment, it drives performance. In my experience, there's really no conflict other than an old mental model that says doing good is an expense-- instead of an asset.

"To put it in business terms, we should be thinking of social responsibility and accountability in creating a business as a balance sheet issue, instead of as an income statement problem. But nowadays I think there's a sinister side to a lot of it as well-- that I would characterize as a commodification and monetization of human values. And really it all boils down to, in economic terms, how we act in the marketplace and what is called 'socially responsible investment' strategies."

Do you agree with Steltenpohl that monetizing human values is "sinister"? Or is placing a monetary value on doing the right thing a good way to inspire the doing of the right thing?

Can mere mortals understand E=mc2?

David Bodanis introduces E=mc2 explaining what inspired him to write it:

"Everyone knows that E=mc2 is really important, but they usually don't know what it means. That's frustrating, because the equation is so short that you'd think it would be understandable. [...]

"There are plenty of books that try to explain it, but who can honestly say they understand them? To most readers they contain just a mass of odd diagrams ‚ those little trains or rocketships or flashlights that are utterly mystifying. Even first-hand instruction doesn't always help, as Chaim Weizmann commented when he took a long Atlantic crossing with Einstein in 1921: 'Einstein explained his theory to me every day,' Weizmann said, 'and on my arrival I was fully convinced that he understood it.'

"The overall surveys of relativity fail not because they're poorly written, but because they take on too much. Instead of writing yet another account of all of relativity [...] I could simply write about E=mc2. That's possible, for it's just one part of Einstein's wider work. To a large extent, it stands on its own."

Indeed it does. From the "Toronto Globe and Mail," November 4, 2000:

"...Bodanis's account is exhilarating. One thinks of Browning's description of youth: 'Oh the wild joys of living, the leaping from rock up to rock.' As a minor participant, I have experienced the slipperiness of those rocks. This book filled me, once again, with delight at what numbers, together with a free-ranging intellect, can achieve. E=mc2 is to be treasured because, in its small compass, it reveals so much of what makes science tick..."

How can we apply what makes science tick to what makes everything else tick? Bodanis combines a laser-like focus and a wide-view lens to make e=mc2 not only understandable, but even personal. What can we learn by focusing on the many small things that comprise every great thing? Where do you find your "wild joys of living"? Are there lessons here? There's certainly a great book and a fascinating mind.

Is the U.S. rebuilding Iraq or dismantling old alliances?

Gayle Smith, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, asks important questions in an article called Rebuilding Iraq, or Dismantling Old Alliances? She writes:

"The Bush administration has poured another bucket of cold water on efforts to internationalize the stabilization of Iraq. With its public announcement yesterday that reconstruction contracts will be limited to coalition partners--and withheld from 'Old Europe' - the Pentagon has increased the cost to Americans, weakened the traditional alliances America needs to defeat terrorism, and undermined Iraq's long-term future. [...]

"The longer term implications are staggering. The administration has legitimized political interference in government procurement operations, setting the stage for future contracts to be subjected to the whims of individual government agencies. It has upended trade relations by using its status as occupying authority to monopolize a single market. And it has certainly lent credence to the view held by some that one of its aims is to secure the spoils of victory.

"The Bush administration's spin is that excluding other nations from bidding on reconstruction contracts is in the interests of U.S. taxpayers. If the administration really wants to serve the interests of U.S. taxpayers, it needs to focus less on revenge and more on the tasks at hand - expanding troop contributions from other nations, leveraging an increase in donor contributions to Iraq's reconstruction, and ensuring that the rebuilding of Iraq paves the way for the emergence of a vibrant, integrated economy."

Is loyalty a legitimate factor on which to decide military (or any other) contracts? Does it make sense to let one act (or lack of action) negate decades of cooperation and define "loyalty"? If loyalty is so easily negated does it have any real meaning or impact?

What is the key to entrepreneurial leadership?

"Entrepreneurial leaders need to be a little bit deaf and a little bit blind. By definition they're trying to do something that defies the common view. They have to be inured to skeptics. They have to believe that their vision is true and they can make it happen. But if they are too deaf and too blind they won't learn from the market or their advisers, and as a result they won't have a chance to course-correct. They won't be able to respond and adapt as more information becomes available to them. It's a tricky balance.

"They've also got to be great communicators. They've got to be electric in sharing their energy and vision broadly among potential employees, potential partners, potential investors. That borders on charismatic. Now, there are different styles of charisma. But there has to be something compelling about the leader that inspires others to follow.

"And, whether it's a start-up or not, you need a leader with adequate self-knowledge. Lots of entrepreneurs -- especially those who experience early success -- don't understand the basis for their success and believe themselves infallible. Those entrepreneurs tend to fail the next time -- hard. Without understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, you are unlikely to create an organization with the genetics for success. Where each piece complements the rest and the whole is stronger than the parts."

--Excerpt from "The Business Case for Passion" by Randy Komisar in Leader to Leader, No. 19 Winter 2001

Do entreprenurial leaders need entreprenurial followers? Or is that a contradiction in terms? Can the best and brightest get along and be productive? Or do "B" players implement the ideas and directions of stellar leaders better than "A" players chomping at the bit?

Where do economic and artistic health intersect?

In the Nov 15 2003 broadcast (Show 446) of Kurt Andersen's Studio 360 show on NPR, he interviewed Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class as well as an article in the January/February issue of The Washington Monthly entitled Creative Class War.

Both the radio show and the article bring up some interesting points about the state of arts and creativity in the US - and where new creative meccas are/will form (eg New Zealand and Canada). Additional questions include whether or not the US and its citizens need to find new ways of looking at the intersection of economic and artistic health. Are a country's or an individual's economic and artistic health independent, interdependent or mutually exclusive?

Linda Biehl with Anderson Cooper on CNN April 5

CNN will air Anderson Cooper's interview with Linda Biehl on Monday April 5th at 7 pm EST. This will be part of a week-long series dealing with forgiveness. Highly recommended.

Deomocracy and Technology

Mitch Ratcliffe and Jon Lebkowsky are working together on a book about democracy and technology. Mitch recently posted a draft of the first chapter and has some interesting things to say about what he calls the creation of "Extreme Democracy," about the change from a hierarchical model of political parties to a more fluid form fueled by public debate and participation enabled by the Internet. To quote two paragraphs from the piece :

"Political parties are very much like corporations were before the advent of the networked computer. They are hierarchical and rigid with leadership that is hard to displace or enter on any terms other than those laid down by the longest serving veterans. As the networked computer broke down the old boys networks within companies and opened the membrane surrounding senior management, not to mention unleashed a wave of outsourcing and exporting of formerly core assets to partners and overseas, the Internet is about to hollow out the major political parties. [...]

[...] As more people connect and learn through the Internet, public debate about the direction government should take has reached a critical mass that could transform the very notion of democratic systems. This transition will not end differences of opinion, nor will it abolish ideology from public debate. It will simply make the debate more fluid, with many more specific perspectives represented, because the massive party infrastructures are becoming more porous. The Howard Dean campaign, where it was possible to find far-left Democrats hoping to stop the war in Iraq working with moderate and center-right Republicans angry about runaway deficits working together, demonstrates how an extremely democratic technology can bring together many perspectives. Its massive fund-raising success of the Howard Dean campaign during 2003 and early 2004, which built a war chest of $45 million for a candidate who began his quest for the White House as an asterisk, is the proof point for the transformation of politics via network. That campaign failed for a variety of reasons, but the example is a clear statement about people’s willingness to work together despite their differences when they see a clear opportunity to make a difference."

Would Howard Dean’s supporters have been as visible and effective without the Internet connection? Will technology give individuals a louder voice within party politics or will it be the demise of the existing hierarchies? Will the desire of those in power to remain in power slow the development of technological tools? Or can such development be stalled?

On Digging a Grave for King Kong - from The Economist

If ever there were a story that embodied the often complex relationship between the environment, economics, and war, that story would be about central Africa - in particular in eastern Congo. I saw hints of this in a life-changing journey I took with the Co-Executive Directors of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK in the Spring of 1998. We traveled across the border of Uganda into Congo, and then up into the Virunga Mountains in search of mountain gorillas. I saw first-hand the economic and environmental decimation that resulted from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the subsequent movement of nearly a million refugees across the border from Rwanda into Congo. Philip Gourevitch, who also writes for The New Yorker, wrote an amazing book about this, with the very long but meaningful title : We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

I have stayed in touch with the Fossey folks over the years and they tell of additional economic complexity: the discovery of the mineral coltan (used to make some of the electronic components in mobile phones, computers, hand-held games and pagers) within supposedly protected habitat areas along the border.

The Economist wrote about this in a July 2003 article

"With people still killing each other in horrific numbers in eastern Congo, why worry about the destruction of a national park and its few hundred gorillas? Because, according to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, one is closely tied to the other�

"In the past decade, thousands of people, both soldiers and civilians, have fled into the Kahuzi Biega National Park, a swathe of tropical forest near Congo's border with Rwanda. The refuge, a United Nations World Heritage Site, has suffered from forest clearance, charcoal burning, hunting and harvesting. Of the 350 elephants living there five years ago, all but two have been killed for meat and ivory. And although most locals have long refused to kill or eat gorillas, gun-carrying refugees have no such scruples. Poaching and the clearance of bamboo, a favourite food, have cut a population of 258 gorillas in the park five years ago to some 110 now.

"But war alone is not responsible. Or, more subtly, one of the causes of the war is also a cause of deforestation. Coltan (colombite-tantalite, to give its full name), is a valuable mineral spewed out by the local volcanoes. It is found scattered widely over the area, including in the park... [and] demand for coltan has (thus) mushroomed over the past decade. This demand lured 12,000 people to Kahuzi Biega, where they could earn a princely $80 a day with just a pick, a shovel and a sieve."

Last year European activists, who complained of "blood on their handsets", persuaded Nokia, Motorola and other users not to buy their coltan from Congo. Arthur C. Clarke, a science-fiction writer, and Leonardo DiCaprio, a film star, have thrown their weight behind the campaign.

Evin d'Souza (a mining consultant who reported on the state of the park on behalf of the Dian Fossey fund) said the miners should be helped to look for deposits of coltan outside the park, and to find ways of working that are less destructive to the forest. Food aid, micro-credit, training and gifts of farm tools and seeds could persuade them to give up digging inside the park.

Should high-tech companies who use this mineral in their components take note of this complex situation? And if so, what should they be doing? How can conservation groups who place a great deal of their focus on micro-loan and other economic base-building policies (such as the Dian Fossey UK group) work with technology companies on this issue, as this is not a simple choice of economics v. environment?

Read what Saleem Khan had to say about coltan in Ethics, Environment and War.