Category Archives: Reflections

Is Gen Y the Most Pessimistic Generation Ever?

Current Affairs, Reflections, , ,

Global warming, the environment, energy crises, worldwide wars of religion, crumbling political systems, economic turmoil: today’s generation of the recently-grown up are the first generation ever to grow up expecting the world to get worse, not better, in the future.

My generation, by comparison, was arrogant: we really believed we could, and would, change the world for the better. That’s what the 1960s were about. We got into college, opposed the war, protested, demanded change. We were going to tear down the establishment and create a new world of greater love, greater justice, fairness for all.

Consider this comment, made by historian Tony Judt in a recent interview with Terry Gross on NPR Fresh Air:

I’m encountering the first generation of young people in colleges and schools who really do not believe in the future, who don’t think not just that things will get evidently and permanently better but who feel that something has gone very badly wrong that they can’t quite put their finger on, but that is going to spoil the world that they’re growing up into.

Whether it’s climate change or political cynicism or overreaction or lack of reaction, to external challenges, whether it’s terrorism or poverty, the sense that it’s all got out of control, that they, the politicians and so on, media people, are neither doing anything nor telling us the truth. That sense seems to have pervaded the younger generation in ways that were not true in my experience.

Maybe the last time that might have been true was in the 1920s, where you had the combination of shock and anger from World War I, the beginnings of economic depression and the terrifying realization that there might very well be a World War II. I don’t think we’re on the edge of World War III or IV. But I do think that we are on the edge of a terrifying world.

And then, this response:

GROSS: And you say back in the era of self-assured, radical dogma, young people were far from uncertain. The characteristic tone of the ’60s was that of overweening confidence. We knew just how to fix the world. It was this note of unmerited arrogance that partly accounts for the reactionary backlash that followed.

Do you feel that you shared in that sense of confidence and arrogance?

Mr. JUDT: Oh, absolutely.

This exchange, related to Judt’s last book, is just a detail in a much larger interview titled, sadly, A Historian’s Long View on Living with Lou Gehrig’s disease. The noise of the respirator accompanies the entire 39-minute interview.

In Praise of Not Knowing

Advice, Reflections

“I don’t know” is one of my favorite phrases. It’s a sign of intelligence. As far as I’m concerned, smart people deal in shades of gray, or better yet, shades of color, but not blacks and whites. People who are sure they’re right about something impress me a lot less than people who recognize they may be wrong.

diceEarlier this week I dealt with a doctor known to be one of the very top people in his field. He was very comfortable talking about what might be true, or what was likely, or what he guessed, without claiming certainty. And he reminded me that true expertise gives people the confidence to recognize limits, and acknowledge so many things that are less than certain.

You know those people who know everything? That must be exhausting. I’ve never found knowing everything an attractive quality in a job applicant. I’m much more inclined to like the person who recognizes a lot of possible alternatives and thinks in terms of “on the other hand” for every question. I think understanding the question is often more useful than knowing the answer.

I’m not advocating ignorance. Of course it’s good to know where you left something, or how to get there, or how to do that. I like it when people know what’s going on, generally, and know their business and their areas of expertise. I want people to know the product they sell like the back of their hands.

I’m not arguing against planning either. In a business plan context, for example, I’d expect you to know standard industry averages, general market data, details about your business offering and your management team, specific customer data, past financial history, competitors, substitutes, and so on. But I don’t want you to be so damn sure of the future. I want you to realize that your plans will probably change. That doesn’t meant you don’t make plans; having them makes them easier to change quickly and effectively. It does mean you don’t get too obsessive about it.

But certainty gets way less attractive when it has to do with business strategy, business advice, planning, motivations, dealing with people, health, relationships … and, yes, of course, even the age-old favorites, religion and politics. Or who said what, when, and what they meant. We’re all guessing. And what you think you heard might be very different from what I think I said. An open mind is a good thing.

And one good way to never make a decision is to wait until you’re certain. Few if any important business decisions ever happen with any kind of certainty. You guess the future. You recognize that you might guess wrong, and that, often enough, even good decisions have bad outcomes. If you have to wait until you’re certain, you’re not making decisions right.

You want an alternate measure of intelligence and understanding? Then ask yourself this: can you see both sides of an argument? Can you understand multiple points of view? If you respect uncertainty, you’ll understand business and your customers better.

Morals, Humanity, Liberals, and Conservatives

Current Affairs, Reflections, ,

I was browsing the TED.com site the other day and stumbled upon this fascinating 18-minute talk on what divides liberals and conservatives, from a very deep psychological research point of view. It’s interesting to me how relevant this is on the long term, even after the cacophony of the last presidential elections.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt summarizes research into (among other things) five very deep cross-cultural moral fundamentals that seem to show up in humans throughout history. And how these seem to track across political and ethical views.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

This isn’t strictly speaking topical; it’s from before the last election. But I found, reading it last night, that it is as topical as ever.

While I try not to get into politics often, at least not on this blog, I’m impressed by the way he finds common ground on both sides, and wisdom in bringing ourselves together, rather than apart. That’s a compelling message.

It’s not hard to watch this right up to the end, because it’s fascinating from the beginning. But that message at the end makes it even more valuable.

Invention is the Mother of Necessity

Reflections, Technology, , , , ,

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but in our world these days, it’s often actually exactly in reverse: invention is the mother of necessity.

broken light bulbFor example, before we had cell phones we survived without being able to call from anywhere to anywhere at any time. Phone calls happened only when we were at home, or in the office, or, in an emergency, from phone booths. And, amazingly enough, we all survived. And lived to tell the tale.

And yet today, now, we can’t live without cell phones. Try leaving yours at home or in the office some day, and getting through your day without it. Can you? Of course not. Invention is the mother of necessity.

The same  is true with email, SMS text messaging, even the Web connection. I shudder to even think of being cut off from the Web for an hour, let alone a day or longer. Perish the thought. And yet, amazingly enough, back in the 1980s and earlier we survived without the Web. See what I mean?

Spreadsheets, when they first came out in the early 1980s, made extensive budgeting and financial analysis relatively easy. Now we take spreadsheets for granted, and demand a lot more budgeting and analysis than we used to.

The early laser printers and page layout software made something we called “desktop publishing” suddenly accessible to the masses. Then it was unusual. Today we absolutely demand desktop publishing in everything we do, as a matter of course.

Invention is the mother of necessity.

(Image: snail race via Flickr cc)

Humility, Leadership, and Self Promotion, Oh My

Advice, Leadership, Reflections, , , , , , , , ,

What happens if you make light of your achievements, shun the spotlight, and pass the microphone on to the next person in line? Will this stunt your career growth?

microphoneI’ve worried about this for years. I used to deal with a guy who did very well as a professional expert, while knowing not much more than what he’d read the in a trade journal or two the night before a presentation. That never bothered him. And he did very well. And it kind of bothered me.

And then we have the new world order of personal branding, led by experts like Dan Schawbel, Jonathan Fields, Pam Slim, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, John Jantsch, and many others.  Dan is the leading expert as defined by Google. Those others are great personal brands, acknowledged experts. What does personal branding say about humility? Can you get there with humility? (hint: some do, some don’t.)

I’d like to think that the world rewards people who let others tell their achievements. But does it?  Can someone who doesn’t love the spotlight be a leader?  A leader is defined by followers. What if you never take credit and stick in the background? Will your would-be followers ever find you? Will they give you credit?

I was happy to see this note included in Startup lessons learned from Warren Buffett published on VentureBeat over the weekend:

Like self-deprecation, humor has a disarming effect.

In context that’s more about humor than self deprecation, but the quote itself, coming from Warren Buffett, has some power. Right?

I also like Humility as a Leadership Trait by John Baldoni at HarvardBusiness.org. He writes:

A sense of humility is essential to leadership because it authenticates a person’s humanity. We humans are frail creatures; we have our faults. Recognizing what we do well, as well as what we do not do so well, is vital to self-awareness and paramount to humility.

He goes on, in that post, to list ways to demonstrate humility in the workplace. Temper authority, look to promote others, acknowledge what others do.

And yet, much as I like this idea, I think it has to be tempered with reality. People are busy. People need to be told what they think. If you don’t take credit, somebody else will. Baldoni says:

Can you be too humble in the workplace? Yes. If you fail to put yourself, or more importantly your ideas, forward, you will be overlooked. Chances for promotion will evaporate, but worse you will not give anyone a reason to believe in you. All of us need not lead others, but those who do seek to influence, to change, to guide, and to lead their organizations, need to find ways to get noticed. Again humility comes to the rescue. That is, if you celebrate team first, self second, people will notice what you and your team have achieved.

Damn: paradox. Lack of a general rule. All of it case by case. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a conclusion there about doing the right things in moderation. What do you think?

(Image: Marie C. Fields/Shutterstock)

Are You Happy, Or Just Remembering Wrong?

Advice, Reflections, ,

Here is another great TED talk, this one from TED last month in California. Are you happy? Here’s the TED summary:

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy — and our own self-awareness.

If you don’t see the embedded video here, you can click this link to go to the source at the TED.com site.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Just to get you interested, here are a few quotes:

  • “Time has very little impact on the story.”
  • “We don’t choose between experiences. We choose between memories of experiences.” And for the future, we think about the anticipation.
  • Question: “How much do we consume our memories?”
  • “We do not attend to the same things when we think about life and when we actually live it.”

Your Business is No Excuse for Being an A**hole

Advice, Reflections, Work Life Balance, , , ,

To be honest, I thought it was a joke; irony, perhaps, or sarcasm. But no, to my surprise, I clicked on Love Your Business More Than Your Family, a column on entrepreneur.com, and he’s serious. Author George Cloutier says:

Your cell phone is for keeping in touch with clients and sales managers in the field, not for taking calls from your spouse throughout the day about what groceries to pick up on the way home. Cutting out early to take your kids to baseball practice three times a week, or picking up your Aunt Tilly or Uncle Ned from the airport, are unacceptable interruptions to success.

You can keep doing these things and waste dozens of hours each week. Or you can focus on the financial future of your business and work all day, every day. You are the only person responsible for fixing your business and making it better, and that isn’t going to happen while you take 14 personal phone calls a day and attend local Cub Scout meetings three-times a week.

That is extremely bad advice. I have absolutely nothing against George Cloutier. I’m even a fellow columnist on the same entrepreneur.com site, where I do a column on business planning. But sheesh, how can I read that, and not write about it? What would Bob Sutton (author of the book on business a**holes) say about this?

How wrong is George’s advice? Well, there’s no way to list all that’s wrong with it, but here at least is just a brief start on that list:

  1. It’s bad for your life. And business is to serve life, not life to serve business. Make no mistake about it; if you choose to “work all day, every day” do it purposely and knowingly, recognizing that you’re sacrificing your life for a business. Stay single and alone. Don’t ever have kids.
  2. It’s bad for your business too. You don’t manage a business, manage a team, make decisions, and get through the long hard days without balancing your life. People eventually blow up when they try.
  3. OK there are exceptions, but what if you aren’t one of them? What if you sacrifice everything and you don’t end up like Richard Branson, water skiing in the Caribbean with a naked model? Some totally obsessed people end up wealthy and happy; but obsession doesn’t create the success, and most of them are just lonely and full of regrets.

Am I exaggerating here? I should add that I’m not just quoting him out of context. He means it. He starts with an obsolete tale of an obsolete business school professor from about 40 years ago telling married students to give up because they couldn’t be married and successful. Here’s what he says about that:

He told them that a family would get in the way of their success, so there wasn’t much point in them taking his course. In the end he let them stay, of course, but he wasn’t kidding. That was his way of making an important point: If you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to love your business more than anything else–even your family.

And he finishes with this conclusion:

Often you will feel tremendous pressure to take time away from your business to devote to family matters. But in the end, the best thing you can do for them is to create the legacy of a business that is thriving and financially sound. When you’re retired, wealthy, and able to spend Valentine’s Day and other special occasions with your kids and grandkids at your winter home in Hilton Head, you’ll be glad you devoted so much of your time to your first love: your business.

Don’t believe him. I do hope that George is in Hilton Head with kids and grandkids. But if you or I follow his advice, we wouldn’t have anything at all to do on Valentine’s Day. Neither our kids nor our grandkids will be spending time with us. They’ll be with our ex-spouse and probably the step-parent who actually raised them. Skip the occasions, the practices, the parenting, and plan on being alone. And, unless you’re very unusual, regretting it. To paraphrase a line from Hello Dolly: “and on those cold winter nights, Horace, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It’s a little lumpy, but it rings.”

Life is way too short to lose to business. Bring business and life together, mind your balance, and be successful at both. That’s what entrepreneurship is really for.

(Image credit: by Loren Javier via Flickr cc)

What? I’m a Prospect? Bummer.

Reflections

Has this happened to you? You get an email or Twitter DM from somebody you’ve thought of as a friend, and it turns out it’s a sales pitch, mass communication, off of a list?

Disappointing. What? I’m a prospect? Bummer.

Not even a personal note (hey Tim, I was doing this mass email and I thought you might be interested, or pass it along.) Or maybe a half apology. Nope, I’m a prospect. That means I’m not a friend, not even a colleague.

Damn. I thought we had a relationship.

(Image: granata1111/Shutterstock)

Robert Sapolsky: the Uniqueness of Humans

Reflections, , ,

I’m so happy to see that the TED site, by far my favorite collection of online talks (I’ve posted several of them on this blog before), picked up this Robert Sapolsky talk. If you don’t see it here, or if you want to watch it in a higher quality HD mode, you can click here for the link to the YouTube source.  The TED talk user ratings call this “informative inspiring fascinating.”

This talk is fascinating. Dr. Sapolsky, the author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, makes a set of amazing “contrast and compare” points about how we are remarkably similar to a lot of other animals in much of our behavior, but — and believe me, this part is going to make you think — different. His talk is fun, entertaining, and important.

By a stroke of good fortune, I was there at Stanford Univeristy to see this talk when he delivered it (actually last June, although the site says September). I wanted to share it then, and was reminded of it today, when I saw it among the new talks on the TED site.

Research Agrees: Time is the Scarcest Resource.

Advice, Reflections, Work Life Balance, ,

I was going to do another strategy piece this morning, in keeping with the time for planning theme I’d thought I was doing for this week. But no. We can do business strategy next year. Instead, for this last work day of this long and less-than-stellar year, let’s please enjoy, now, this excellent new research about the psychology of putting off enjoyment.

I’ve said it several times on this blog, usually in the context of work-life balance: time is the scarcest resource. This research looks into that tendency we all have to save the miles, or the gift certificates, or the vacation days, or the best wine, in “a widespread form of procrastination” that’s about putting off the good times, not the bad. “The strange impulse to put off until tomorrow what could be enjoyed today.”

And here we have this NYTimes.com piece on new research that confirms it. Author John Tierney starts it with this intriguing lead:

For once, social scientists have discovered a flaw in the human psyche that will not be tedious to correct. You may not even need a support group. You could try on your own by starting with this simple New Year’s resolution: Have fun … now!

The core of it is this:

… we’re not accurate in our estimates of “resource slack,” as it is termed by Gal Zauberman and John G. Lynch. These behavioral economists found that when people were asked to anticipate how much extra money and time they would have in the future, they realistically assumed that money would be tight, but they expected free time to magically materialize.

Hence you’re more likely to agree to a commitment next year, like giving a speech, that you would turn down if asked to find time for it in the next month. This produces what researchers call the “Yes … Damn!” effect: when the speech comes due next year, you bitterly discover you’re still as busy as ever.

So enjoy the holiday. Have a Happy New Year.