Author

Ron Potter

REPOSTUsing MBTI to Great Advantage

REPOST: Four Functions, Three Rules

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. This series was interacted with well, so we hope you enjoy revisiting this introductory post.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) structure is made up of four pairs of functions. Together they combine for a possible 16 different preference types. Notice that I use the word “preference.” These functions have nothing to do with skill or ability, they are simply different preferences for dealing with the world around us.

Experience Preference

Let’s experience a preference in real time. Take a writing instrument and a piece of paper and sign your name to it. I know, I know, I never actually do this either when a book or blog site asks me to do it but I guarantee you will understand it better if you experience it instead of just imagining it. So pick up that pen and sign your name. Thanks.

Photo Credit: Lucas, Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Lucas, Creative Commons

Now, put you pen in the opposite hand and sign your name again. When I do this in a team of people the room immediately fills with nervous laughter and chuckles. It can be embarrassing.
When I ask people to describe the experience of that first signature I’ll hear words like:

  • Easy
  • Comfortable
  • Natural
  • Without thinking

When I then ask them to describe the second experience (often after waiting quite a while for them to complete the task) they will use words like:

  • Difficult
  • Awkward
  • It took longer
  • I had to think through almost every letter

This is an example of your personal preference at work. Whether right handed or left, when you’re working from your preference it’s easy, comfortable, and natural and you do it without thinking. Let me suggest right here that if you’re trying to make a decision, maybe you shouldn’t do it “without thinking!” When we force ourselves (individually and collectively) to use our non-preference methods, we’re actually forcing ourselves to think more.

MBTI series headerThe best teams and leaders

Over my consulting career I have observed many teams and leaders improve their effectiveness by learning to balance their MBTI preferences. The most effective teams are the ones that, either naturally or through process balance their preference diversities and use that balance for better decision making and corporate impact. Also, the best leaders I have ever worked with seem to have no strong preferences when it comes to working with their people in spite of the fact that they and I know that they possess very strong personal preferences. Great teams and leaders have learned to balance their natural preferences.

Over the next several blogs we’ll first do an overview of each of the functions and then in subsequent blogs I’ll dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making.

So the Four Functions are:
1. Energizing
2. Perceiving
3. Deciding
4. Work Life

And the Three Rules are:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

With the proper use of these four functions and three rules you’ll build better teams and become a better leader.

Many of you have shared this learning with me in numerous MBTI sessions. Share with us some of your “ah ha” moments or deeper understanding that have helped you become better leaders and team members.

This post was originally posted here on December 8, 2014.
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REPOST

ROUNDUP: The Rise of AI

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. As we watch the rise of AI, here are some books and articles you may be interested in.

Ron’s Short Review: Great view of how our rapidly changing technology and expectations of the next generation of young people are going to change the structures of our corporations.  Written way back in 2009, you can see much of this playing out already.

Ron’s Short Review: The shift to technology-based work is pushing us beyond the information age. If you’ve been an “Information Worker” you should learn how to augment technology to keep yourself relevant.

 

24/7 Connection

We never get away from it. 24/7 we’re connected. Maybe it’s because I spent much of my career without all of this modern connectedness that I’m a little better at managing it rather than it managing me (my wife will laugh at that statement). But, different than many of my younger colleagues, I believe it is ok to shut it off, not answer that phone, don’t respond instantly to that incoming message. I believe it’s because we don’t shut off this connectedness in the evening when we should be focused on family, or weekends when we should be focused on R&R and getting that job-list done or on vacation when we should be re-creating that our work-life balance seems out of whack. Continue Reading >>>

The Need for Empathy

I have been emphasizing the need for strong face-to-face relationship building for years with my corporate clients. One line from Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock from years ago has always stuck with me. That line was, “High tech, high touch.” His point was not to assume that the increase in technology was going to diminish the need for personal relationships, the need for personal relationships was going to increase right along with the technical capabilities. Continue Reading >>>

Information Overload

Toffler defined “Future Shock” as “A personal perception of too much change in too short of time.” He also coined the term “Information overload.”

His term “high tech, high touch” lead into his discussion of one of the antidotes to dealing with future shock and information overload. His point was that as we deal more and more with this intrusion of the globally connected, instant on, information overload, we must also make sure we increase the “high touch” right along with it. This high tech world will not work without high touch, trusting, and personal relationships. Continue Reading >>>

More Information Isn’t Always Better

Forecasting is another place where I see the siren song of technology creating unintended consequences.  The belief seems to be that if we just have more information (often striving for “all” the information) it will help us become better forecasters.  Brain science debunks that theory right off the bat.  The human mind is just terrible at forecasting.  If you want to debate me on that statement, I’ll start with political polls and forecasts.  End of argument!  And other research done by the people who actually study forecasting for a living tells us that the companies who seem to be best at forecasting do it with a minimum amount of data.  More data doesn’t make better forecasting. Continue Reading >>>

Afraid of AI

So, I’m afraid.  For the first time in my life, I’m worried about technology running our lives rather than us using technology to enhance our lives.  Is ChatGPT the start of it?  Timnit Gebru spends her days looking at and learning about what is going on with AI.  She expected AI to one day power much of our lives.  But she didn’t believe it would happen this quickly. Continue Reading >>>

AI’s Untrustworthiness

While we’ve seemed to hold AI in high regard, let’s keep in mind that it’s unreal, counterfeit, fake, and false. Artificial intelligence is not to be admired, it’s to be looked at cautiously. I was talking with my daughter and son-in-law the other day and saying that I was concerned about kids today believing everything they see and read on their phones as if it were reality. Continue Reading >>>

The reviews were originally posted here and here on March 31, 2016 and February 1, 2018.
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Facing AdversityREPOST

REPOST: Facing Adversity Series

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. This series from last year might be a good one to revisit.

Facing Adversity

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?

Continue reading the first post here.

Or consider how these categories map to the types of regret Daniel Pink discusses.

This post was originally posted here in early 2022.
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REPOST

ROUNDUP: Curiousity

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. Are you curious about curiosity?

Ron’s Short Review: I just love the idea of curiosity and use it often to help myself and clients learn to listen better.  Brian Grazer (Ron Howard’s movie producing partner) makes a great case for how intentional curiosity has helped him live a richer life.  I did take a few notes but I think the book could have been written with at least one third fewer pages.  I think the books “A More Beautiful Question” and “Learn or Die” have a little more meat on the topic.

Ron’s Short Review: This one really convinces you that managers have answers, true leaders have questions, provoke questions and teach their teams to constantly question.

Ron’s Short Review: Many organizations rely on getting better, faster, and cheaper, others rely on innovation to drive growth. Both require learning.

Are You Curious?

Be careful how you answer, it may define your chances of success!

Source: Beverly & Pack, Creative Commons

Source: Beverly & Pack, Creative Commons

I’ve been reading A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer.  Most of us know Brian because of his movie making partnership with Ron Howard.  Look at their film biography sometime.  All great films.

But the reason I started reading the book was not because of who Brain was but because of the title, A Curious Mind.  For much of my consulting career, the word curious has been an important concept in my work.  One issue that I seem to be working on with many leaders and in fact the one that seems to gain them the most traction in becoming better leaders is listening.  I try to help them grasp the concept and practice of listening with an intention to understand rather than listening with the intention to respond.  It really makes a difference in people’s lives and in our learning ability if we can make this shift to listening to the other person to completely understand what they’re saying and what’s behind or driving what they’re saying.  Stop trying to figure out how you’re going to respond to the person and just listen to understand them.

When my clients ask for help at getting better at listening to understand I talk to them about curiosity.  Everyone seems to be curious about something.  Everyone seems to have at least one topic that they enjoy, are passionate about, never tire of learning about, and are tremendously curious about.

What happens to your mind when you’re pursuing that curiosity?

  • How are you thinking about the topic?
  • Why do you want to learn more about the topic?
  • What happens when you learn a whole new aspect of the topic?
  • What happens when you learn something that seems to be counter to what you’ve learned in the past or thought you already knew or understood?

What’s happening is that you’re unleashing your curiosity.

Humble leaders listen to others with curiosity.  They want to learn.  They want their beliefs challenged and upset.  They’re gaining new perspectives.  Warren Berger really fleshes this out in his book A More Beautiful Question.

A few of the quotes that caught my eye from Brian included:

  • “Life isn’t about finding the answers, it’s about asking the questions.”
  • “I’ve discovered that even when you’re in charge, you are often much more effective asking questions than giving orders.”
  • “I’m a boss—Ron Howard and I run Imagine together—but I’m not much of an order giver. My management style is to ask questions. If someone’s doing something I don’t understand, or don’t like, if someone who works for me is doing something unexpected, I start out asking questions. Being curious.”

Are you curious?  Are you a leader?  You won’t be good at leading if you’re not good with curiosity!

This post was originally posted here on September 24, 2015. These reviews were originally posted here, here, and here on September 26, 2015, January 25, 2014, and May 24, 2014.
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REPOST

ROUNDUP: Deep Work

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. A few years on, we’re looking back at some posts Ron wrote at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Ron’s Short Review: This book changed my habit of getting meaningful work done. I have carved out time every month to isolate myself and my thinking on particular projects. The productivity improvement has been astounding.

Deep Work

The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world.  In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.

One of the things that Cal says is:

To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.

This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

How not to be replaced by a computer

The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note.  Why did I highlight that particular statement?  Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work.  More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work.  Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!

How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer?  You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.

Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)

You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home.  These sources talk about

  • Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
  • Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
  • Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
  • Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well.  You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink)  And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
  • Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.)  Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.

What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.

Living a life of Deep Work and Thought

As Cal Newton closes his book he says

Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”

Isolation Advice

Then I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.”  The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated.  They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.

“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.

    • Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
    • Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
    • Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
    • Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”

Curiosity

I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work.  Wikipedia says

Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”

Development and Learning

Notice that curiosity is heavily associated with development and learning.  I once had a friend who was fond of saying “as long as you’re like the little kid pulling his wagon up the hill, you’re doing fine.  But as soon as you stop exerting the effort to get up that hill and you sit down in your wagon to rest, you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the hill”

Reflection

I think the first thing to be curious about is yourself.  Socrates is quoted as saying “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”  I’ll give Socrates a pass because he was alive about 400 years before Jesus but the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Even if you don’t hold to the Christian faith, let’s put those two concepts together.  What they are really saying is that you must know who you are and how you fit into this life and humanity as a whole.  That doesn’t come easily.  A complete lack of this reflection is a sign of Psychopathy.  Just a few of the symptoms of Psychopathy include: Grandiose sense of self-worth, lack of remorse, guilt, or empathy.  Lack of long-term goals.  None of these symptoms show signs of self-reflection.  Start with yourself.

Notice that not having long-term goals is one of the signs associated with lack of self-reflection.  Where are you going?  What does the end of your journey look like?  What do you want to be remembered for?  These issues and others are not part of our busy lives, they are reached only by deep, reflective thought.

Opportunity

You’ve been handed an opportunity.  Don’t waste it!

  • What kind of person do you want to be?
  • How will you become a great leader?
  • What will make you an outstanding team member?
  • What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?

Build it into your routine.  Find a quiet place and a quiet time at least several times per week.  Force yourself to go quiet and think about these things.  You’ll come out the other end a better person.

This post was originally posted here and here on March 26 and April 23, 2020. This review was originally posted here on December 1, 2017.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Character vs. Competence

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Tyranny of Competence

Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character.  They assume the character flaws would never cause enough negative issues to overcome the positive impact of being really good at their job.

Don’t ever think that.  The destruction caused by lack of character is always greater than the competency provided.

Steven Covey gave us the image of leadership, being equal parts character and competency. You can be the most competent person ever, but without good character, you’ll never become a great leader.  Conversely, you can be a person of utmost integrity and character, but without being competent at what you do, you’re no longer trustworthy and therefore will never make a trusted leader.

I’ve always been a little surprised at the lack of visibility around this issue. I’ve often thought that maybe I’m more tuned into the destructive aftermath of this character issue than the executives I work with.  And quite honestly, the measurement systems of our corporate environments tend to be more competency based than character based.

Rock Stars of Competency

Then one morning I experienced a little incident that added some clarity.  Because of a heart operation and subsequent complicating factors, I had been living in a hospital environment. Beyond dealing with my own personal health issues, the thing that occupied me the most was observing the culture of an operating hospital from a patient’s (customer’s) point of view.

Now, a hospital is certainly competency-based. Without a doubt, I want the most competent surgeon handling my heart so I can get healthy. But it’s amazing that even at this “rock star” level of medicine, how much of a difference character makes. From the patient’s point of view, the doctors I consider the best are the ones that treat me as a human being. I have been very blessed with great doctors but what’s even more interesting is how the hospital staff reacts to these surgeons.

The high character surgeon treats the staff with respect and relates to them as human beings, even as simple as using their name. The entire staff is very eager to provide to the patient whatever the doctor thinks necessary for the health and well-being of the patient. However, when the doctor forgets to exhibit that good character to the staff, the patient actually suffers. The staff goes back to a checklist approach.  It’s clear that the overall care of the patient diminishes when the providing doctor doesn’t demonstrate good character, but assumes it is only great competency that gets the job done.

Character Based Environments

Below the doctors are the nurses and the rest of the caring staff. Down here, it’s character that makes the difference. Without exception, these nurses and “techs” (one nurse and one tech assigned to each patient) are there to help you get well. There are still competence issues of taking “values”—pressure, temperature, weight, etc. and administering meds—but for the most part they mainly want to know how you’re doing and what they can do to make your stay more comfortable. The most precious commodity is sleep. And while the timing of the system conspires against you, many of the nurses and techs will delay almost anything if they think it will allow you to sleep just a little bit longer. Except Alex!

Don’t Be Like Alex

Alex is a young, energetic tech who was new to me until one morning. At 5:00 a.m. (one of the few times during the day that I could actually fall into a deep sleep) Alex bounded into my room, turned on the lights, and asked if he could check my weight. My answer was, “No!” Undaunted, Alex wheels in the scale (light still on) and offers to help me out of bed. It’s obvious he’s not going to leave so I slowly bring myself to consciousness, drag myself out of bed, stand on the scale, and satisfy Alex that he’s done his job. He even encourages me to get some sleep as he departs with his poundage figures in hand.

My reaction to Alex’s overall performance?

Competent? Yes.

Showed character? No.

Overall, rude, obtrusive, failure as a tech.

In competency based environments, lack of character is always destructive but may be under the radar.  In character based environments, lack of character is seen as complete failure.

The message in all of this is balance, balance, balance.

Regardless of which aspect is more valued in each environment the best leaders, the most cherished and valued people are the ones with both great competencies and the same time exhibit the greatest of character. They are respectful and treat others with great dignity.

If you yearn for success, be the best you can be and at the same time, care and respect those around you for who they are.

This post was originally posted here on September 10, 2015.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Opposite of Victim

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Some people I’ve worked with have what we might think of as that victim mentality. The Leadership Style instrument I use (LSI from Human Synergistics) measures two areas titled Dependent and Avoidance that collectively describe a style that starts with the assumption that they are the victim in most circumstances. Some of the descriptions include:

  • A tendency to be easily influenced, not taking independent action
  • A strong tendency to deny responsibility or accountability
  • A passive attitude
  • Feelings of helplessness and/or guilt over real or imagined mistakes
  • The presence of rapid change or traumatic setbacks
  • A lack of self-respect
  • Extreme fear of failure

Someone asked me the other day what was the opposite of the victim mentality. That ignited a lively dialogue which came to the conclusion that Creativity is the opposite of victim mentality. Isn’t that a great picture? If we eliminate policies, procedures, governance, or leadership styles that create or assume a victim mentality, we unleash creativity.

Although my work is focused on leadership within corporations, the first thing that came to mind was our lawmakers. Start evaluating all of the bills that are coming through Congress (or ones that have been part of the landscape for many years) and begin to evaluate them in terms of “Do they create victims or do they instill creativity?” Many of the laws of this nation seem to start with the assumption that you are (or should be) a victim. And then they tend to perpetuate that belief. Our only opportunity in this rapidly changing global economy is to be creative and innovative. Shouldn’t we stop passing laws that push us toward or assume we are or should be victims?

But, closer to home, can you evaluate your or others’ leadership style on this victim-creativity balance beam? It’s always easiest to see it in others but the first step in great leadership is self-awareness, self-assessment, and humility. Have a discussion with your team. Maybe start by evaluating the group of people that work for you. Do they behave as victims or creators? What about our leadership style is causing that? How do we change the way we lead to increase the creative nature of our company?

My wife and I recently had the opportunity to listen to Condoleezza Rice when she made a speaking engagement in our hometown. During the question and answer period, one of the first questions was “How did a young person of color from Birmingham, Alabama make it all the way to Secretary of State?” The first words out of her mouth without hesitation were “We were never allowed to be victims!”

This post was originally posted here on June 1, 2011.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Listening With the Intent to Understand

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

The next time you’re listening to something, especially on a topic where you don’t necessarily agree, try this experiment: Use part of your brain to pay attention to what you’re thinking when listening to the other person. It’s okay. Your brain has a lot more capacity than your think. You can actually listen to another person at the same time as you act as an observer to watch what your own brain is doing. I know you can.

If you’re like most of us, you’ll find your own brain developing some sort of checklist:

  • Those two points support my side of the argument so I’ll immediately respond with those.
  • That point is not supported by fact, so I can instantly discount that.
  • That reminds me I need to pick up dog food on the way home.
  • I can’t believe they actually think that point is valid. How could they be so naive?

Then the moment happens. The other person pauses; they may not even be finished with their point of view, but just pausing a moment to collect their thoughts or even pausing a moment before presenting their obviously convincing closing statement. It makes no difference; it’s a pause.
So you jump in:

“Let me reinforce a couple of statements you made earlier because I believe they make my point exactly. And let me also clarify another conclusion you reached that is counter to all the facts we have.”

And on and on and on until you’re forced to pause and the cycle repeats.

If this scenario reflects in any way what you are experiencing while “listening” to other people, then you listen with the intent to respond. Most of us do it. Most of us do it most of the time. It takes a conscious effort and some practice to actually start listening with the intent to understand. But what a difference it will make in your life if you even get marginally good at it.

When you listen with the intent to understand, your curiosity kicks in. You’re not trying to catalog the points you’re hearing. You’re wondering:

  • I wonder why they believe that?
  • I wonder what experience they’ve had with this in the past?
  • I wonder who they trust on this and why?
  • I wonder what they believe will be the best outcome?

If you’re truly curious and wondering, then your response when that inevitable pause comes will be totally different.
Your first reaction to the pause may be to simply wait to see if there is a conclusion or further thoughts.
You may actually ask if there is a conclusion on further thought.
You may express your wonderment and curiosity and begin to ask questions or clarification or deeper understanding or more background.

Whatever you’re response. If it’s driven by curiosity and wonderment, the other person will immediately know that you’ve been listening to understand. You want to understand, you want to know their viewpoint. This sparks a very different reaction on their part.
A few key things happen from their point-of-view:

  • Once they realize you’re trying to understand their point-of-view, they become less rigid in their stance and more willing to admit it’s just their point-of-view.
  • They become more open to questioning their own point-of-view because you’re honestly questioning it in an attempt to understand and not with the intent to control or discredit it.
  • And most importantly, once you’ve fully listened to and attempted to understand their point-of-view, they’re much more willing to listen to and be open to your point-of-view.

Steven Covey, in his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, indicates that one of the seven habits is to “seek to understand before being understood.” This is what he was talking about.

Listen with the intent to understand. Practice it. Use it often. You’ll be amazed at how much people are willing to share with you and how much they’re willing to listen to and understand your point-of-view.
Try it. It will be refreshing.

And one more solid point: In my book, Trust Me: Developing A Leadership Style People are Willing to Follow, the number one trait of great leaders is humility. The foundation of humility is the willingness to listen with the intent to understand.

What’s your reaction when someone actually listens to you and truly wants to understand?

This post was originally posted here on January 15, 2015.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Performance vs Trust

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Those are not my words.  Those were spoken by Simon Sinek.  If you have not discovered Mr. Sinek, look up his website.  I read him and Share Parrish more than any other blog writers out there.

Navy Seals

Simon talks about working with Navy Seals.  Navy Seals are probably the highest-performing teams on the planet.  In his work with Seals, he asked, “How do you choose the guys that make it to Seal Team 6?” Seal Team 6 is the best of the best.  The Seals drew the following graph:

Leader or Teammate

Nobody wanted someone from the lower left: Low Performer and Low Trust.

Everyone wanted someone from the upper right: High Performer and High Trust.

When Simon asked them which type of person they want as a leader or teammate, they all said they would prefer someone on the right side of the chart than the best performer who had low trust.

Keep in mind that these are the highest-performing teams in the world.  But they would select Trust over Performance when it came to a leader or a teammate.

Corporations Have it Backward

In my thirty-plus years dealing with corporations and corporate reviews, they have all been heavily weighted toward the left side of the chart.  They graded and promoted people based on their performance rather than the trust they exhibited or expected.  It’s interesting to note that the Navy Seals termed that upper-left leader or teammate as toxic!  Regardless of high performance, if the person wasn’t trustworthy, they were toxic.

Performance Reviews

Why do corporate reviews focus so much on high performance rather than high trust?  I’m sure there are many reasons but the two that I see as most prevalent are:

  1. Corporations often want high performance (get the job done now) over anything else.  Part of the reason is that public corporations have bowed to quarterly reporting.  If the return isn’t better that quarter, the leadership is often called on the carpet by Wall Street and the Investors.  They don’t want to be in that position.  Therefore, they promote people who produce high results, regardless of the internal costs.  Remember that the Navy Seals labeled them as toxic.
  2. It’s easier to measure performance than trust.  With performance, it’s easy to check the box.  Was the goal met or exceeded?  Was it done on or ahead of schedule?  Easy to measure and identify.
    Does the person generate trust within their team?  Hard to predict.  The results may not show up for a long time.  Corporate leaders want results this quarter, not three years from now.

Trust Builds Long-Term Performance

I’ve worked with a few leaders who ranked high on the trust scale.  There are more stories, but two that come to mind include one leader who I worked with about a decade ago.  Three members of his team are now CEOs of three different companies.  He built trust!

Another CEO I worked with started two companies and built leadership teams that now run or are high-ranking leaders in several corporations.

Both of these leaders (and there are a few more) built leadership teams based on trust.  That doesn’t mean they ignored performance, but trust ranked higher when it came to evaluations.

Visit Simon Sinek’s youtube talking about Performance vs Trust.  Then evaluate what kind of leader or teammate you happen to be.  Then think about the type of leader or team you want to be a part of.  If you don’t like the answer to either of those questions, make a change!  If you’re the kind of person that believes outperforming everyone is what will make a difference in your life, you’re in for a shock.  You’ll end up very lonely.

If you’re the kind of person who exudes and promotes trust, you’ll find yourself much loved!

Lonely or loved.  You make the choice.

This post was originally posted here on May 7, 2020.
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Fake Smarts

by Ron Potter

I’ve talked about my concerns with ChatGPT. A word that is heavily used in articles related to ChatGPT is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Let’s start with the word artificial. Synonyms for the word include:
• Unreal
• Bogus
• Counterfeit
• Fabricated
• Faked
• False
Now let’s take a look at some of the synonyms for the word intelligence:
• Brainpower
• Reason
• Sense
• Smarts
So if we put a few of those words together we get Bogus Brainpower, Counterfeit Reason, Fabricated Sense, False Smarts, etc. There are endless combinations, none of them very flattering.

While we’ve seemed to hold AI in high regard, let’s keep in mind that it’s unreal, counterfeit, fake, and false. Artificial intelligence is not to be admired, it’s to be looked at cautiously.

I was talking with my daughter and son-in-law the other day and saying that I was concerned about kids today believing everything they see and read on their phones as if it were reality. They pointed out that their kids seem to be more discerning about what they see and read but made the point that it’s not just my grandkids’ generation but my kids’ generation as well.

I can think of a few AI machines in the movies that were both humorous and scary. The first one was HAL from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

HAL

HAL stood for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. HAL scared the bejeebies out of me. Why? Because he began to take over without human control.

This was HAL speaking to the captain of the spaceship where HAL was the onboard computer: “When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the computer must assume control. I must, therefore, override your authority now since you are not in any condition to intelligently exercise it.”

HAL had become the AI computer that no longer needed human control.

R2-D2

R2-D2 and C-3PO are from the Star Wars movie series. George Lucas, the creator and producer of Star Wars, calls R2-D2 his favorite character. R2-D2 was friends with C-3PO (standing next to him) and he never had his memory wiped by Darth Vader, the evil character of the film series. But he never used it for bad and he never shied away from listening to others. He was a good and funny character.

It is my impression that throughout history, everything invented by man has at some point been used for evil and good. HAL and R2-D2 seem to be opposite sides of the same coin.

AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is just another one of those human inventions. It has and will be used for both good and evil. I don’t think we’ll avoid it but I do believe we can be very cautious and questioning. Don’t just take the things created by AI as reliable. Be discerning! Question everything it’s saying or writing! This all implies that you have the willpower and character to do so. Know who you are first then look at the world around you through those eyes.

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Am I a Luddite?

by Ron Potter

I’m really sure I’m not a Troglodyte.  For one, I can’t grow a beard.  For two, my forehead is too big.  But more importantly, our current definition of a Troglodyte is: a person who is regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.  I may be old-fashioned but I really try not to be ignorant.

I also don’t think I’m a Luddite.  Unfortunately, Luddites don’t know that they are Luddites.

I haven’t been afraid of too many things in my life.  I’ve shared in previous blogs how my first job out of engineering school had me walking structural steel up to 160′ in the air with no safety equipment.  I was terrified my first day and told the chief engineer that I couldn’t do it.  He said, “Give it two weeks and if you’re still struggling, I’ll find another job for you.”  Two weeks later I could do it.  I had overcome my fear (although I was still very cautious).

Computer Fear

A lot of people were very fearful of computers taking over our lives when they first appeared.  I remember seeing my first Osborne “portable” computer in about 1981.

It had two floppy drives and a 5” blue screen. I was watching it run Visicalc, a precursor to Microsoft Excel. I saw this first microcomputer at a Las Vegas exhibit. I flew home and went to my boss and told him I was leaving the construction industry and going into microcomputers. He said, “What’s a microcomputer?” I said, hang on, you’ll find out.

While microcomputers frightened a lot of people, I was not worried.  It still took a human to control them.

Technology Adapter

I was an early adaptor in a lot of technology.  I recently showed you my Curta Computer.  When I show people even today, many of them have never seen one.

I was an early adapter of Blackberry phones. The first one I owned came out about three months after Research in Motion introduced them.

I was really quite comfortable with technology and its advances until last week.

ChatGPT and the Printing Press

I meet with a small group of guys about every week and we discuss whatever is on our minds.  One of the guys asked if we were familiar with “ChatGPT.”  I, like most of the group, said no.  However, I said no because the technology scared me and I had simply avoided it.  For the first time, I was afraid of technology because it seems like it has crossed that barrier of requiring human control.

There is a Wall Street Journal article with the title “ChatPGT Hearlds an Intellectual Revolution.”  The opening paragraph of the article says, “A new technology bids to transform cognitive process as it has not been shaken since the invention of printing.”  The article talks about the technology revolution that was introduced when Gutenberg printed the Bible on his press in 1455.

When I was in Germany years ago, I went to see the Gutenberg press and some of the documents it printed.  Those documents were beautifully illustrated pages from the Bible.  To me, it seemed like a wonderful invention in history.  But I know that at the time it frightened many people.  There was no instrument that could reproduce the written word and the fact you could now do it seemed almost evil.  I hope I’m not reacting the same way to ChatPGT, so I’ve tried to educate myself about the technology.

GPT

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer.  The WSJ makes several interesting observations.

  • ChatGPT statements and observations appear without an explanation of where they came from and without an identifiable author.
  • Answers are not simply copied from the text in the computer’s memory.  They are generated anew by a process that humans are unable to replicate.
  • Within a few days of ChatGPT’s launch, more than a million people signed up to ask questions.
  • The WSJ asked ChatGPT to give “six references on Henry Kissinger’s thoughts on technology.”  All were plausible: one was a real title and the rest were convincing fabrications!
  • As models turn from human-generated text to more inclusive inputs, machines are likely to alter the fabric of reality.
  • What happens if this technology cannot be completely controlled?  What if there will always be ways to generate falsehoods, false pictures, and fake videos, and people will never learn to disbelieve what they see and hear?

Timnit Gebru

One ray of hope for me is a woman by the name of Timnit Gebru.  Ms. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR).  Much of her work involves the ways AI (Artificial Intelligence) programs can reinforce existing prejudices.  She says, “We talk about algorithms, but we don’t talk about who’s constructing the data set or who’s in the data set.”  Go Timnit, I’m pulling for you!

So, I’m afraid.  For the first time in my life, I’m worried about technology running our lives rather than us using technology to enhance our lives.  Is ChatGPT the start of it?  Timnit Gebru spends her days looking at and learning about what is going on with AI.  She expected AI to one day power much of our lives.  But she didn’t believe it would happen this quickly.

Luddites

Who were the Luddites?  Many people think they were small-brained and stupid.  They were not.  Many people get them confused with the Troglodyte.  I spoke above about the Troglodytes being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.  Luddites were the craftsmen of the day.

The Luddites protested against manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry.  Ned Ludd was an apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers.

I don’t believe I’m a Luddite.  Although I’ve learned and used technology from the time it was invented, I don’t want to destroy it.  I do however want it to remain under human control rather than humans being under the control of technology.  The good news is that God is the one who is really in control of Troglodytes, Luddites, humans, and machines.  He’s the one in control and that comforts me even when I’m worried about the machines taking over.

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Mind Like a Steel Trap

by Ron Potter

Steel

I visited my chiropractor the other day and he had a new young assistant who checked me in. As this young man was checking me in on the computer, I patted him on the shoulder as I passed him on my way to a chair. Wow! This kid’s shoulders felt like steel to me. I asked him if he was still in college and if he participated in sports. He was indeed enrolled in a nearby college and he said he was on the track team. I said, “Wow, you’re a runner?” He said no he didn’t run but he threw things: the shot and the hammer. It came clear. Those shoulders that felt like steel came from the fact that he threw very heavy things. In this case, feeling like steel was a good thing.

I’m not very attracted by the images, but when you see bodybuilders, they often look like they’re cut from a block of steel or granite. The image of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was in his body-building days comes to mind. However, I’ve heard Arnold and other bodybuilders say that even though they work hard at building their bodies, they lose a lot of flexibility in the process. I think steel can be good, but the loss of flexibility is not.

You may have heard the old statement having a mind like a steel trap—or maybe it’s just a saying that us old engineers are familiar with. The idea is self-explanatory of course. You grasp an idea and your mind closes on it like a steel trap and won’t let go.

That’s a good thing if you’re setting up a trap to catch wild animals. It may not be the best approach when it comes to ideas.

Flexible Thinking

An article that Shane Parish wrote in his Farnam Steet blog caught my eye. His opening statement is “The less rigid we are in our thinking, the more open minded, creative and innovative we become.”

Shane has several quotes from a book written by Leonard Mlodinow. Shane’s opening paragraph says this about Mlodinow’s book: “Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Constantly Changing World confirms that the speed of technological and cultural development is requiring us to embrace types of thinking besides the rational, logical style of analysis that tends to be emphasized on our society.”

I received a wonderful email from my grandson who is currently living halfway around the world with his parents. He said, “I look up to your logical thinking.” I certainly took that as a compliment from him but wasn’t sure it was the best thing to be known for in an ever-changing world. Shane, in his comments, says, “We need to accept that analytic thinking—generally described as the application of systematic, logical analysis—has limitations.” He goes on to say, “Although incredibly useful in a variety of daily situations, analytical thinking may not be best for solving problems whose answers require new ways of doing things.”

Experts Sometimes Know Too Much

In my years as a consultant to CEOs and their teams around the world, I would often observe a dynamic that fascinated me. Many people on the leadership team were outstanding on a particular topic. On that particular topic, they had a mind like a steel trap. However, there were many times when the team was stuck on a particular issue and couldn’t seem to come up with an answer outside of their expertise. But, on those occasions when there was a young (less expert) member of the team, they seemed to ask a question about their current dilemma that the “experts” had not thought of. In fact, they might often start their question with some qualifier like, “I don’t really know what I’m talking about here but I’ve just been thinking that it might be a good idea to explore ‘such and such.'”

I would often watch the team of “experts” go completely silent until one of them would acknowledge that they hadn’t really thought about it that way before. They were soon talking non-stop about how that opened them to a whole new way to think about their dilemma. Flexibility, not rigid “steel” thinking, had them coming up with new approaches.

“Flexible thinking” is required to work our way through our ever-changing world. Without it, we are just stuck and will quickly be left behind.

For next week’s blog I’m writing on a topic that really scares me. It scares me for personal reasons. It scares me to think about what my grandchildren will be facing in the world as they mature. It scares me for the human race in general. I’ve not yet figured out how to deal with the topic and not be afraid, but I and others must do it.

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