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BlogCulture

Consensus Building

by Ron Potter March 2, 2023

I meet on a regular basis with a group of highly intelligent and successful guys.  We have a name for ouselves which is SPACE CADETS.  The story is too long about how we became known by that name but we’ve enjoyed it.

Our topics range across the things we’ve been thinking about: a difficult situation we find ourselves in or sometimes simply curiosity.  But it often deals with how we reach consensus with our team or client.  One of the definitions of consensus from Merriam-Webster is “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.”  You can look up the word solidarity but it often leads back to something solid.  You build something together that is solid and that you’ll all defend.

There are two words in the English language that are often associated with building consensus.

One of those words is discussion.  The other word is dialogue.  Most people think of a good discussion as a way to reach consensus.  Most of us don’t think of the word dialogue.  If fact we often mix the two words up and misunderstand their meaning.

Discussion

There are some interesting ideas that discussion is based on.  They include:

  • Narrow focus
  • Debate of what is “right”
  • Defending certainty
  • Seeking closure

Notice that there is an assumed “right” and “certainty” in the word discussion.  Add to that the narrow focus and seeking closure (instead of understanding) and you begin to see that discussion may not be the best approach to building consensus.  One of the best definitions that I found said that the word discussion is based on the same root word as percussion.  What do you think of when you think about percussion?  Drums!

I played percussion in our high school band.  When we were in an orchestra situation I remember our band director asking me to bring down the volume on the percussion.  But when we were outdoors in marching band, it seemed like he was always asking me to raise the volume.  He wanted more percussion.  Discussion in an open area with lots of listeners may be useful.  But in a small team setting, percussion is not useful.  It seems to have all the negative aspects of the bullet list above.

Dialogue

Dialogue is very different from discussion.  Dialogue is an exchange of ideas and opinions.  Dialogue has some very interesting aspects that you would probably love to have in most instances.  It:

  • Surfaces all assumptions
  • Names and faces defense routines
  • Slows down conversation to create learning and shared meaning
  • Suspends certainty

Suspending Assumptions

The last point in dialogue is suspending certainty.  All of us have certain ideas that we feel certain about.  This is natural and it’s certainly OK as long as we know they come from our own views and observations.  I think we would have a tough time with life if we didn’t have things we were certain about.  But it’s important that they are really our assumptions and another person (especially one with different experiences and coming up in a different culture) may see them entirely differently.

I was very fortunate that my consulting career had me working around the world and being exposed to different cultures.  I remember one team that was made up of people from Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the UK.  It was fascinating to see them start talking about a topic from their own culture and history.  Fortunately, this was a team that respected each other and was willing to understand how the different cultures viewed certain topics.

One funny experience I remember was working with a US CEO.  He had gotten tired of people being late for meetings so he instituted the rule that if you were late, you had to stand on your chair or table and sing your college fight song or country national anthem.  From his point of view that would have been very humiliating.  Then one day we were waiting for a meeting to start and I asked him if he saw the people standing outside the conference room door.  It seems that all the Irish were waiting outside the door so they could be late and have to stand on the table and sing their national anthem.  They loved it.

Suspending Assumptions II

A couple of things to think about when you’re suspending assumptions are:

  1. Let go of your own assumptions in order to understand the assumptions of others.
  2. When it comes to your turn, help everyone understand your assumptions and what formed them.
  3. Move from discussion to dialogue to help everyone understand all of the assumptions so that together you can come up with the best team solution.

It’s important to remember that you won’t win every argument and your assumptions won’t carry the day in every instance.  Most often one assumption persuades most of the team but is enhanced by portions of some of the other assumptions.

One way to judge your ability to do this well is how you respond to people after the decision is made.  When someone (who may have been fully aware of your position before the meeting) asks you what the decision of the team was, your answer should be something like, “The team thought this was the best solution.”  When the person says they know that was not your opinion prior to the meeting, say again, “The team thought it is the best solution.”

Keep in mind that we all have different assumptions.  I grew up with three siblings in the same house.  We have certain similarities but, as a whole, we are each very different people.  You’re no better or worse than the other person, you just have different assumptions.

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BlogCulturePersonal

Physical Therapy

by Ron Potter May 19, 2022

I’ve been in Physical Therapy (PT) for the last several weeks.  It’s a concept that can strike terror into your heart.

Pain

There is no shortage of pain or suffering while you’re at PT.  In fact, I’ve accused them of updating machines from the torture of evil dungeons.

The staff at PT doesn’t let up on the pain and suffering caused by their work.  In fact, they won’t let up until I get it right or I get enough repetitions to produce some gain from the effort.  They’re relentless in causing pain and suffering in order to gain ground on my ailment.

Encouraging

However, during the effort that is painful and exhausting, I find the staff to be very encouraging and motivating.  What causes this seeming dilemma?  On the wall, they have posted their dozen rules to live by.

Dozen Rules to Live By

  1. Live God-Centered
  2. Love People and Build Relationships
  3. Create Remarkable Experiences Through Exceptional Service
  4. Promote Growth and Embrace Change
  5. Be Generous
  6. Pursue Excellence
  7. Be Efficient
  8. Act with Honesty and Integrity
  9. Stay Humble
  10. Utilize Strengths and Passions
  11. Encourage Autonomy, Innovation, and Clarity
  12. Be Transparent

Let me expand on a few of these.

Live God-Centered

God doesn’t promise a pain-free life.  Be he does promise to love us and will always be with us.  That’s what the people at physical therapy do.  They are always with us through the entire exercise set and they make us feel cared for and appreciated when they’re administrating pain (in an effort to make us better).

Love People and Build Relationships

As people approach the end of their life, their minds turn to relationships.  I hope I have many years left but I do find my mind and memories turning to relationships.

I received a text message from a friend I first knew forty years ago.  I was so glad to get that message that I immediately called him back.  He had coded the first computer program I ever developed.  We spent many hours going through the code and becoming great friends along the journey.

Promote Growth and Embrace Change

Change is the part of life that people seem to resist the most.  Although things are constantly changing, there seems to be a desire to ignore or deny that things are changing.  Things constantly change.  Embrace it.

Act with Honesty and Integrity

Honesty and Integrity are the elements that people remember about us.  You can be generous, excellent, and efficient (numbers 5, 6, and 7) above, but honesty and integrity are what people will remember about you.

Be Humble and Transparent

Humility and transparency (numbers 9 and 12) are the two other aspects that will be long remembered.  People with these traits seem to be fully trusted and are long remembered.  When you’re administering pain (in PT) people must feel your humbleness and transparency or they won’t come back.

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BlogFacing AdversityRegrets

Regrets—Text to Corinthians

by Ron Potter April 14, 2022

We started off these two blog series with Paul’s text to the Corinthians.  He listed the following items:

  • Afflicted but not crushed
  • Perplexed but not driven to dispair
  • Persecuted but not forsaken
  • Struck Down but not destroyed

We then looked at Daniel Pink’s book The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. Pink identifies the four core regrets:

  • Foundation
    They begin with an irresistible lure and with incredible logic.
  • Boldness
    Thwarted possibility of growth.   The failure to become the person—happier, braver, more evolved, than we could have been.
  • Moral
    Deceit, infidelity, theft, betrayal, sacrilege.
  • Connection
    Meaningful relationships.

Together, they make some interesting connections.  In Paul’s letter, we experience great difficulties and painful points in our lives.  But in the end, they don’t break us.  We are not crushed, driven to despair, forsaken, or destroyed.

In Pink’s book, the four regrets of foundational, boldness, morals, and connection are capable of breaking us and in all cases are self-inflicted.  In Paul’s writing, the pain and suffering are no more or less than those identified by Pink.  However, in Paul’s letter, there is a sense that these things happen in everyday life.  While we should examine our own behavior and beliefs to determine if we are contributing to the affliction, perplexion, persecution, and personal destruction put forth by Paul—in the end, it may have nothing to do with our own behavior.  Daniel Pink says that it essentially has everything to do with our personal behavior.

Regrets: Self-Inflicted

If you look at each of Pink’s regrets, there is a self-infliction:

    • Foundational:  It starts with an irresistible lure.  This may be food, sex (also mentioned in the moral section), or materialistic desires.  I’ve mentioned that my irresistible lures are new cars (I’ve had a new one every three years over the past 50 years).  And watches.  The self-inflicted part happens when we let our logic run ramrod over knowing that certain things are just wrong.  I have an incredibility logical mind.  I can convince myself that almost anything can be explained through logic.  And I’m good at it.  My self-infliction is in allowing my logical brain to convince myself that my logic overrules irresistible lures.  I’m just too “smart” to be dictated by my feelings.
    • In the boldness category, Pink makes the point that we’re just not bold enough to try new things.  I’ve had three major careers since graduating from engineering school.  The first was walking steel 160′ in the air.  The second was developing a software company at the beginning of the microcomputer age.  The third was TLC (Team Leadership Culture) consulting all over the world.  A lot of people would say to me, “I couldn’t do that, I was never qualified.  How were you able to accomplish three different careers and work all over the world?”  It’s because I was bold and willing to try new and different things.  I never felt qualified either.  It just seemed like the new and bold thing to do at the time.  Our lack of boldness is self-inflicted when we feel that we must be qualified first.  If you’re bold in trying new things, you’re never qualified.
    • Moral.  In this one, I focused on sacrilege.  It doesn’t have to be a religious issue.  Sacrilege means “violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.”  What do you consider as sacred?  Violating it will cause suffering.
    • Connection.  I have at least three groups of good friends.  Two of the groups are (or were) centered in Ann Arbor where we lived for 35 years.  One group is built around our GPS4Leaders App.  We’ve gone through good times and bad but have stuck together for several years.  The second ground of guys have given ourselves the name “Space Cadets.”  This is a group from several professions and we spend our time discussing clients and how to add the best of who we are to help them grow and become better.  I feel very close to this group.  We also moved to Grand Rapids, MI, a few years ago to be close to one daughter and our two grandchildren (our other daughter and grandkids live around the world and are currently in Tunisia).  We are now a part of a Grand Rapids church and have developed several friends there.  We’re very blessed with all of these connections.

Pain: Everyday and Self-Inflicted

Paul talks about the difficulties that we face in this world.  If we have examined ourselves and feel we’re seeing everything clearly, these are difficulties that we face just because we live here.

Pink, on the other hand, talks about regrets being self-inflicted.  We can avoid that by examing ourselves and our motives.  It often takes that close friend who we trust who is not afraid to point out our flaws and shortcomings.  But we must have someone that we’re that close to and who is willing to tell us what they are seeing in our behavior.  Avoid self-inflicted pain—the world is full of enough pains for us without the ones we cause ourselves.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Ancient Text

by Ron Potter March 10, 2022

Over the last several blogs we have been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

  • Afflicted
  • Perplexed
  • Persecuted
  • Struck Down

Notice that I said this was a “partial” reading of the test.  This text was written by Paul to the people of Corinth.

When I add the text that I left out during the blogs written over the last several weeks it says:

  • Afflicted in every way, but not crushed
  • Perplexed, but not driven to despair
  • Persecuted, but not forsaken
  • Struck down, but not destroyed

These added words bring assurance and hope.  While we will be afflicted, we will not be crushed.  While we’ll feel perplexed, we will not be driven to despair.  While we will be persecuted, we will not be forsaken.  And even though we will be struck down, we will not be destroyed.

Reason for Hope

These additional words provide hope.  It’s important to examine our source of hope.  In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he of course is speaking of our hope in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one who offers eternal life regardless of the afflictions, perplexities, persecution, and strikes in everyday life.  You may put your faith and hope in other things and they will likely lead to relief in some or all of the conditions.  But please consider where you place your hope and the full relief from being crushed, experiencing despair, being forsaken, or destroyed.

Where Is Your Hope?

The only answer I know of avoiding the destruction mentioned in this text is through putting our faith in something greater than ourselves.  Those sources of hope can vary over time and in the moment.  I know that as I reflect on my hope at any given moment, it can come from many different sources.  However, there is only one source greater than ourselves which keeps us from being crushed, experiencing debilitating despair, feeling forsaken, or being destroyed.  That source is Jesus Christ.  Please examine your source of hope and put your faith in the complete answer.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Struck Down

by Ron Potter March 3, 2022

We’ve been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.  We now come to the last word in the sequence, Stuck Down.

  • Afflicted
  • Perplexed
  • Persecuted
  • Struck Down

Being Struck Down is Painful

While being persecuted seems very painful and personal, being stuck down seems to be the ultimate of pain and suffering.

Maybe you’ve been struck down in the past.  It might have been a baseball to the head that knocked you unconscious.  Maybe you didn’t see the low beam or branch.  These are very painful and physical.

I was never a fighter.  However, there was a time in high school when the school bully decided to pick me out of the crowd and make an example of me.  He was a couple of years older than me and much larger and stronger.  He slapped me hard on my left cheek.  It stung and brought water to my eyes and nearly knocked me out.  But when I recovered and just stood there, he didn’t like that.  So he struck me on the other cheek with similar results.  I guess at that point he decided he wasn’t going to be successful in either starting a fight or knocking me down so he simply walked away.

Years later a friend told me how impressed he was that I simply stood there and took it.  He thought it took real grit, self-control, and humility to accomplish.  I had felt almost ashamed for many years for not fighting back or defending myself and yet here was my friend telling me how impressed he was with the grit and strength that I showed during that moment.

Last Word of the Four

Being struck down seems to be the most destructive and painful of all of the four descriptions.  It can either be physical as in the example I gave or it can be emotional and maybe not even seen or noticed by others.  But it will feel as if you’ve been struck down physically when it happens.  Maybe it’s a simple word said by someone in a team meeting.  It may have been intentional or completely innocent but it feels as if you’ve been struck down.

Being struck down is painful and destructive.  It may even cause you to change who you are.  It can affect your character and your outlook on life.  And yet, it happens.

Dealing With Being Struck Down

There is no good way for dealing with the feeling of being struck down.  My only suggestion is to endure.  Remind yourself of who you are.  Fall back on your character and belief system.  You may have been struck down physically or emotionally.  Either way, endure.  Live through it.  Become stronger.  Grow.  The text says that it will happen.  We will be struck down.  In our lifetime, we will not avoid it.  At some point, we will be or feel like we’ve been struck down.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Persecuted

by Ron Potter February 24, 2022

We’ve been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

  • Afflicted
  • Perplexed
  • Persecuted
  • Struck Down

In this blog we’ll be looking at the third word on the list, persecuted.  One of the definitions from the dictionary is “Subject to hostility and ill-treatment.”  Another one says to “harass or annoy persistently.”  While being annoyed by someone can be humorous (for a period of time), the other words of hostility, ill-treatment, and harassment are powerful, personal, and damaging.

Dealing With Persecution

One of my favorite fictional characters is Jack Reacher from the novels written by Lee Child.  Reacher, retired from the Military Police, is simply walking across the United States to see it up close and in person.  However, his “simple” walk turns into some sort of personal persecution in almost every small town.  It’s interesting to me that even though he is unjustly persecuted in each novel, Reacher never seems to be too upset by the persecution. He simply starts some logical investigative work that he learned in the military to “get at” what is causing the persecution.

As our ancient text says, we will be persecuted for no apparent reason. Reacher lives with that kind of persecution everywhere he goes.  The text says nothing about justly or unjustly, it just says we will be persecuted.  Almost nothing makes us feel worse than being persecuted.

Tough to Deal With

Unlike the first two words of our text, persecution is personal.  It feels like we are being harmed.

I was working with one company for several years when my client saw me enter the office of someone he didn’t trust.  He immediately called me to his office and fired me.  He also began to persecute me.  He bad-mouthed me whenever he had the chance.  He identified me as a liar and troublemaker.  He said I could not be trusted and therefore should not work with anyone else at the company.  I was devastated.  I had always maintained a very high reputation at all the companies I had worked for and this seemed to be both personal and very damaging.

I talked with this person’s boss (whom I had also worked for and believed I had a good reputation with).  The boss gave me some advice.  He told me that when this person found out that none of the accusations were true (the boss still believed in me), he would never apologize (it wasn’t in his nature) but he would ask me to continue working for him as if nothing had happened.  The boss was right.  Within a couple of months, the person asked me to come to his office and began talking about what needed to be done next with his team.  He never apologized but simply went on about our work together as if nothing had happened.  In fact, I worked with him and his teams at two other companies when he took new jobs.

Persecuted

Persecution happened.  I almost quit consulting believing I had done something very wrong or bad, but just didn’t know what.  I was being heavily persecuted but it seemed to come from nowhere.  Our ancient text doesn’t say that we will deserve the persecution, it just says we will be persecuted.

Sometimes we’re persecuted for a reason.  Maybe we were the first to persecute the other person and now it’s payback time.  But that’s not what the text is referring to.  It doesn’t give a reason.  It simply says we will experience persecution.  To deal with the persecution there is reason to examine yourself to make sure you were not the instigator, but like my example above and the text says, “you will be persecuted.”  When that happens, the only advice I have is to be patient with yourself.  You may never know why you were feeling persecuted.  The text simply says “you will be persecuted.”  This takes a lot of humility and grit.  It’s not easy to remain calm during persecution—but be patient.  Eventually, things will clear up.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Perplexed

by Ron Potter February 17, 2022

We’ve been looking at a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

  • Afflicted
  • Perplexed
  • Persecuted
  • Struck Down

In this blog, we’ll be looking at the second word on the list, perplexed.  Webster defines perplexed as completely baffled, very puzzled.

Some similar words include mystify, bewilder, dumbfounded, and worry.  Have you sat in on a meeting where people are speaking a different language from your own?  Maybe you know a word or two but for the most part, you’re mystified, bewildered, and maybe worried that you’re not understanding what is being said and maybe you should be.

He Was Perplexed

At one point in my career, I spent a couple weeks in the Middle East.  After a few weeks back home speaking English, the only Arabic word I remembered was shukran which means thank you.  I had a client meeting in California and the driver who picked me up from the airport spoke Arabic.  On the 45-minute journey to the meeting site, he was speaking on his phone in Arabic, so I understood virtually none of the conversation.  Upon arriving at our meeting place I politely said shukran for the pleasant ride.  The driver was dumbfounded!  He almost stammered when he asked if I knew the language.  I let him worry for a few seconds then said that shukran was the only word I knew.  The blood returned to his face.  Dumbfounded, bewildered, worried.  You name it, he was perplexed.

Almost every company I have worked with through the years has reduced their conversation to acronyms.  It always took me several meetings before I knew what they were talking about when they used FOMO for “Fear of Missing Out” or some other crazy acronym.  It never bothered me much because I was the outsider.  If I hadn’t figured it out in a meeting or two, I would ask.  However, for those who were part of the team, everyone assumed they knew what it stood for and asking was frowned upon.  They were perplexed.

We Will All Be Perplexed

Once again, the ancient text indicates that all of us will be perplexed at one time or another.  We don’t like being perplexed because it makes us feel uncomfortable or like an outsider.  One of our approaches is to assume we know it all.  We think that we’re not perplexed, and they don’t know what they’re talking about.  We tend to write them off as lost, faking it, saying things that seem profound but are really covering up their ignorance.

This is a dangerous approach.  We must be humble enough to ask, to display our ignorance if necessary.  We may get that original rolling of the eyes, but if we do sincerely ask what we’re missing, it may give us the opportunity to share something we know and actually help the situation.  The rolling of the eyes will quickly turn to respect and trigger good discussion.

Overcoming Being Perplexed

The best way to overcome or avoid being perplexed is to ask questions.  Be humble and sincere but ask the question about your perplexity.  Often, we’ll find out that each member of the team may be referring to something slightly different from the other team members.  They’re also perplexed but may not even recognize it.  Good questions lead to good discussion.  It’s interesting that the solution to being perplexed will often lead to the solution for affliction, which is united discussion about good solutions.

Have you ever noticed that the person who leads to the most innovative answer is the young person, the new person, or the person whose knowledge is in an entirely different area?  They don’t know that they don’t know and therefore ask some of the most profound questions that lead to innovative solutions.  They are perplexed, so they ask questions to cure their own perplexity but that can often lead to a more interesting discussion.  However, once that person has been around long enough to know “how things are done here,” their perplexity is either gone or kept silent.  Those profound questions no longer come.  This is a dangerous place to be.

Encourage perplexity!  As you work your way through being perplexed, great discussions can happen that lead to a much better understanding by everyone and may even come up with some great innovative solutions.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Afflicted in Every Way

by Ron Potter February 10, 2022

This is from a text written over 2,000 years ago.  A partial reading of the text says that we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

  • Afflicted
  • Perplexed
  • Persecuted
  • Struck Down

No One Is Left Out

Notice that we text says “we.”  All of us.  No one is left out.  No one is not afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down.

Think of these in terms of teams and leaders.  Webster defines it as grievously affected or troubled.  Have you ever felt grievously affected or troubled as a leader or team member?  You’re not alone.  And it may not be the only time.

The text simply says that we will be afflicted.  It doesn’t narrow the definition to a person, to a moment in time, or to particular circumstances.  It simply says we will be afflicted.  Webster’s definition talks about being grievously afflicted.  The term grievous talks of something bad, very severe, or serious.

Even if we restrict our definition to seriousness, it can be crushing.  For example, have you ever sat in a team meeting, as either a member or the leader, and dealt with an issue that seems inevitable with no way to overcome the circumstances?

No Avoidance

These can be difficult moments with no way to avoid the bad, severe, or serious outcome.  We may be faced with market conditions that we didn’t see coming or we are totally unprepared to deal with.  In those moments we can feel grievously afflicted.  We may take it as a result of our own doing or shortsightedness of what is happening in the marketplace.

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about the tendency of humans to see in straight lines.  Our assumption is that if things are going well they’ll continue to get better.  If things are going poorly there seems to be no way to recover.  However, things will change.  Yet it can make us feel grievously afflicted along the way.

If there is no real way to avoid this feeling, how do we cope with it?  First, remember that we will all be afflicted one way or another sooner or later.  The ancient text says we will be afflicted regardless of circumstances.  If that is the case, state it.  Sharing that feeling with others helps us all cope.  Once you identify the affliction, work together for a united solution.  It may not be the best solution and it may not bring about fully satisfying results, but it’s a united solution and one that we can work together to create.  Going to work on a solution helps us get past the affliction.

Affliction Solution

I worked with one company that had been an industry leader for over a hundred years.  Because that was the case and they were thinking in straight lines, they didn’t see the industry changes on the horizon.  By the time they realized it, the industry had shifted and, in the end, they ended up with about 40% of the success that had experienced for years.  Many people on the team felt personally afflicted.  But, once they started working together on a solution, they began to talk about how they had 40% of the industry.  Companies would give almost anything for that kind of market share.  Even though it was a huge blow to the history of the company, it was still larger than any company in the industry.  Not really too bad in today’s market.

You will be afflicted.  It may relate to business life or personal life, but it will happen.  The sooner you can name it and work toward a united solution the better.  The affliction will dissipate (until the next one hits).  We will be afflicted.  Expect it.  Prepare for it.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Facing Adversity

by Ron Potter February 3, 2022

How do we face adversity? This is a difficult one for me to write.  Mainly because I’ve been in my own set of adversities.  Over the last several weeks I have been back in the hospital and had further operations as I deal with my inherited liver disease.  But, I’m not the only one.  I’ve seen several of my friends deal with

  • Cancer that requires infusions several times a month for the rest of his life.
  • Irritable bowel syndrome—that can put another friend in the hospital at any moment.
  • Parkinson’s disease.
  • Loss of a long-time spouse.

Adversity can touch any of us at any time. So how do we deal with it?

Glass Half Full

As my friends and I were talking the other day it became obvious that each of us was more concerned about the others.  This seemed to be the true definition of friendship.  While each of us was dealing with our own issue we seemed to be more concerned about others’ issues.  Each of us was in a good mood—laughing, joking, and lifting each other up.  It was that humor and lifting each other up that helped each of us work through our individual issues.  A glass half full adds a lot to everyone’s life.

We’re Not the Only One

That conversation also reminded me that I wasn’t alone. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on the conflicts from an ancient document.  This seems to indicate that each of us deals with these conflicts.  There is no escaping from the conflicts that we face in life.  They have been around forever.  If we think we shouldn’t deal with these conflicts, we’re just kidding ourselves.  Every human being has dealt with them throughout history.

Be Prepared

If we list them and name them and understand them at least we have a better chance of dealing with our own conflicts and helping others deal with their conflicts.  Let’s list them.  Let’s be prepared for them.  Let’s not assume that we shouldn’t face them.  We all will.  How we deal with them will make all the difference for ourselves and others.

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BlogCulture

Unity Through Diversity

by Ron Potter January 27, 2022

Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity.

You’ve heard this several times from me as a saying from Aristotle.  I actually use it for building teams.

  • Truth – be honest with each other and the team
  • Love – Show respect for each and every member of the team.
  • Beauty – Don’t make things complicated, make them simple.  (I’ve talked about the beauty of Einstein’s genius.  It was not his mathematical genius that helped him stand out as a pillar in his field.  It was his ability to simplify things.)
  • Unity – Work as a team.  Build unity.

In one sense we can view these as a progression.  By bringing out the truth, showing respect for individuals, ideas, and opinions, and boiling things down to the simplest of forms: we can then reach unity.  This doesn’t create uniformity; it creates unity through diversity.

Another Ancient Text

Many of us have heard the story about the Tower of Babel.  Most scholars put the writing of this book as much as a thousand years before Aristotle.  Most of us think this story is about the people of earth at that time building a tower so that they could become gods of their universe.  The reason this might have been possible is that the text says they had one language and the same words.  They had uniformity.  Earlier text indicated that the intent was for a diverse language and people.  The children of Noah (after the great flood) spread about the world and created different tribes and languages.  The intent was diversity.

The story of the Tower of Babel was about building a nation with one language.  In the passage from Genesis 11, God once again caused the nation to disperse into different tribes and different languages.  The goal was always diversity!

Uniformity vs Unity

These are close words but they mean different things.

Uniform: The same in all cases and at all times.  Unchanging in form or character.

Unity: The state of being in full agreement: Harmony.

The keyword in uniform is “unchanging.”  Nothing changes.  Beliefs don’t change.  Arguments don’t create change.  Different beliefs and opinions don’t change.  Referring to Aristotle’s statement, there is no need for Love (Respect) because nothing is going to change.  Without respect for other beliefs and opinions, nothing changes.

The keyword in unity is “Harmony.”  Have you ever been part of a choir, quartet, or jazz band/quartet?  I’ve been part of a choir off and on for many years.  I sing bass.  My sound and notes are very different from the altos and other sections of the choir.  But when we join all of our voices together, we create a wonderful and enjoyable harmony.

Have you ever listened to a great jazz quartet?  There is no written music, just great blended sound.  In fact, any instrument may take the lead at any time.  All of the other instruments listen, blend in, and create a great harmony together.  They create unity.

Uniformity or Unity

We’re seeing a great deal of uniformity in our nation at the moment.  Because of the lack of respect, there is no change, there is no listening.  There are only hard stances with an unwillingness to be open (and show respect for) other beliefs and opinions.  There is no ability to build a great nation in unity.

Business Teams have the ability to overcome this uniformity and create unity.  Business teams have the ability to be together because they are smaller and closer—although I worry about virtual teams. Business teams have the ability to share beliefs and opinions and listen to each other to build unity.

Our nation has less of a chance because of the desire to push an agenda to create a uniform belief (at least at a tribe level).

Build Unity

Build unity where you can.  I believe it’s easier at a team level because of the personal connections and a fewer number of members.  But, where ever you can, build unity on a national level.  This means examining your own “unchanging” views and being open to others’ believes and opinions.

Unity can save us from ourselves.

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BlogCulture

Humans Project in Straight Lines

by Ron Potter January 6, 2022

“It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” ~ Mark Twain

A friend of mine who recently retired and is now fighting cancer said to me the other day:  You said something to me years ago that has helped me tremendously through these hard times.  I immediately wonder what I might have said years ago that is having that kind of impact today.  He then explained.  You once said to me that the human mind projects in straight lines but nothing in the world runs in a straight line.  I do remember learning and saying that.  If things were going well, my mind assumed they would continue to improve.  If things were going poorly, my mind assumed things would continue to get worse.  It never works out that way.

Straight Line Projections

  • K&E Company (the makers of high-end slide rules) did a visionary study on their hundredth anniversary in 1967.  I was a sophomore in college and did all of my calculations on a K&E slide rule.  Their study missed the coming electronic calculator.  K&E shut down their slide rule engravers in 1976.
  • A late 60″s prediction was cheap energy forever.  The oil embargo happened in 1973.
  • By the late 80’s economic growth based on new industries and discoveries looked dim.  Netscape went public with their internet browser in 1995.
  • People tend to overestimate what they’re experiencing at the moment and undervalue the possibilities in the future.  This reinforces Mark Twain’s quote that it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

Straight Lines Tend To Be Short

It’s OK to make predictions and decisions based on how things are going today.  The mistake that most leaders make is assuming that the trajectory they are on (up or down) will last longer than it ever does.

I’ve seen many examples of this during my consulting career.  I’ll have to be careful telling about one example because if people know that industry, they’ll know which company I’m talking about.  In this example, the particular company had been the industry leader for over a hundred years.  They made the best and highest quality product within the industry.  They assumed that trend would continue and made plans and decisions based on the fact that the public would always purchase the highest quality product available.  But the buying public is finicky.  They actually changed their behavior and started purchasing less expensive products in large numbers.

I watched another client struggle with losing customers.  When the leaders asked some of their key employees why they were losing market share, the answer was “customers don’t see us as a nutritious option anymore.”  The leaders discounted their own employees by proclaiming that their products have been seen and promoted as a nutritious project for over a hundred years.  That couldn’t have changed overnight.  But it had changed overnight while the leaders were still projecting in straight lines based on the past.

This last example is not about a particular company but an entire industry.  Many of my clients through the years have been in the pharmaceutical industry.  The pharma industry may be one of the riskiest industries in existence.  They will often take several years and invest nearly a billion dollars bringing a drug to market only to have it fail to pass human trials or FDA approval at the last minute.  I can’t think of any other industry that takes that kind of risk.

I’m going to make a political statement here that I often avoid.  There has been a lot of discussion from our government on price controls.  It’s not a price control issue, it’s a trade issue.  Nearly all other countries in the world do put price controls on drugs.  This leaves the United States carrying the burden of the cost of development.  If the US also puts price controls in place, there will be no further development of new drugs.  Let’s fix the trade issue and have other countries pay their fair share of development.

Once a new drug has been accepted and makes it to the marketplace, there are a limited number of years left on the original patent for the company to earn back the high cost of development.  Once a drug goes off-patent and becomes generic, I’ve seen many companies assume that the brand name drug sales still have a life that will tail off slowly.  It never does.  Once a generic is available, sales of the brand name drug drop to zero almost immediately.  Thinking in straight lines can be deadly.

What’s a Leadership Team To Do?

It can be difficult for leaders and leadership teams to not get caught in the straight line syndrome.  Here are a couple of ways to avoid that issue:

  • Listen to the outlier.  When there is an outlier on the team their opinion is often discounted.  It’s just easier to go with the majority rather than reconcile the outlier’s thoughts.  Don’t do that.  Listen to what they have to say.  Listen with the intent to understand rather than reply.  Don’t try to fit their thinking into your view of the world.  Listen to how they see the world differently.
  • Nurture new and inexperienced employees to look at things differently.  People from different disciplines view things differently.  Listen to how they see the issue.  Inexperienced employees often have the freshest views on things.  They don’t know what they don’t know yet.  They often ask interesting, novel, and surprising questions that experienced people have forgotten.
  • Listen to experts carefully. “Experts”  know the answers they’re looking for and discount new ideas and outliers.  We need our experts.  But don’t just assume that their answers and opinions are right or the final answer.  They know what they’re looking for and discount answers and opinions that don’t agree with their preconceived ideas.
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BlogCulture

Loosing the Forest for the Tree

by Ron Potter December 23, 2021

You’ve seen me turn to Shane Parrish many times.  I think he is one of the best “thinkers” around today which makes him my favorite blogger.

Einstein Essentials

In this article, Shane talks about how Albert Einstein sorts the essential from the non-essential.

I can also go back to one of my favorite Aristotle quotes that I use for great teamwork: Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity.  Beauty is what Shane and Einstein are talking about here.

In Aristotle’s terms, he is talking about the simplest, most direct, most essential information.  Sorting out the essential from the non-essential is the key to great success but it’s getting harder every day.  Social media has filled our lives with more and more non-essential information.  Years ago I decided that the daily news was not about the news but about entertainment and sensationalism in an attempt to gain larger marketing numbers.  I stopped watching the evening news nearly twenty years ago because I found it irrelevant.  It was not about wisdom.  It was non-essential!

Einstein’s greatest gift

In Shanes’s observation of Einstein, he notes that a great mathematical mind was not his greatest gift.  It was not.  His greatest gift was the ability to sift the essential from the inessential, to grasp simplicity when everyone else was lost in the clutter.  Too many people today are considered experts on a particular topic and work hard at making it more complicated.  Real genius works hard at simplification.  In Einstein’s biography, it points out that it wasn’t that Einstein understood more about complicated things that made him impressive.  It was that he understood the value of simplicity.

In working with several corporate leadership teams through the years I would often observe those leaders who always wanted more information before they could or would make a decision.  My reaction was they didn’t understand the problem or issue and therefore they wanted more information in an effort to understand.  It seemed to me that the best leaders, investors, and advisors always simplified the situation to a few essentials that would make the decision clear and understandable.

We were talking with our own financial advisor recently.  It seemed to me that the market had been in a wild gyration over the last few weeks with the Dow going up and down several hundred points per day.  When I asked how they dealt with such volatility his answer was “It’s just noise.”  To him, it was non-essential information.

Filtering Skills

Shane closes his article by listing the skills to better filter and process:

  • Focus on understanding basic, timeless, general principles of the world and use them to help filter people, ideas, and projects.  The italics are mine.  The news is not timeless, it’s daily.  Timeless principles are the ones that last and ones we should be focused on.
  • Take time to think about what we’re trying to achieve and the two or three variables that will most help us get there.  Three variables lead to six options.  Four variables lead to 24 options.  The human brain can only deal with about seven options at a time.  Keep your variables to three or less.  Otherwise, the brain cannot process it.
  • Remove the inessential clutter from our lives.  This can be the things we think about, the number of balls we try to keep in the air, and even stuff.  The stuff you collect over time only creates clutter in the long run.  Sort it out.  Get rid of the inessential.
  • Think backward about what we want to avoid.  Start with the end in mind.
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