What Really Matters

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?

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.

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?

Observation Inspires Invention

What do the 1981 design of MTV's logo, the concept for the elliptical trainer, and the Bravo reality series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have in common? At least one thing - observation as the catalyzing force for inspiration that led to invention and continuing innovation. Observation of oneself, observation of others, observation of seemingly inanimate or mundane objects in the environment. And I'll add - observing off the beaten path.

In Tom Kelley's book The Art of Innovation, he describes how Larry Miller's elliptical trainer was inspired by noticing the natural movement of his daughter’s legs when she ran.

One of the exec producers of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy said his inspiration for the show came when he saw a woman criticizing her husband in a NY gallery and 3 gay men "came to his rescue" -- (I don't know any more of the specific details (Does anyone out there?))

While working at MTV, Fred Seibert taught himself to design album covers for his own company, Oblivion Records - and his approach was largely inspired by the innovative graphic design and packaging that came out of Columbia records in the 60's and 70's. When it came time to create a visual identity for MTV, his model was album covers and not the CBS Eye logo. The first version of the famous "M" in MTV was inspired when one of the designers from a small company commissioned by Fred (called Manhattan Design) walked past a graffiti encrusted wall at a school yard. In that moment of observation and inspiration she realized that MTV's logo had to be made of three-dimensional letters that echoed street culture. And the initial idea for an identity was born. (For a longer piece on this see The instigator: Fred Seibert By Steven Heller.)

What all of these stories - from different industries and periods of time have in common - is the art and business translation of observation - and an echo of that moral "some of the best ideas come from unexpected sources." (Remember the waffle iron and the Nike shoe sole?) What are your best unexpected sources? How do you keep your eyes (and your self) open to them?