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?

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.