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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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BlogPersonal

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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BlogLeadership

Leading Change

by Ron Potter

The basis for this blog is a Harvard Business Review article by Patti Sanchez titled “The Secret to Leading Organizational Change is Empathy.”

I’ve had several experiences in my consulting career and personal life that emphasize the importance of empathy. One of them was a personal experience.

The Association

We moved into a new city several years ago to be closer to one daughter and her family. This particular family lived in the Middle East for at least ten years and we wanted to spend more time getting to know our grandkids before they went off to college. After looking at several possible locations we settled on a small community of condos within a couple of miles of our daughter’s house.

After a few years, I was asked to be the association president. The president before me had been in that position for several years and it seemed to him he was constantly dealing with conflict. When I agreed to run and won the presidential position, his words to me were something like, “Good Luck. This is a rough crowd.” He felt like there were competing desires within the homeowners and there was no way to reconcile them.

There were only sixteen homeowners in the association, so the first thing I decided to do was get to meet and listen to the needs of each of them. I had no agenda and no particular goal. I just wanted to listen and show empathy.

I visited each of the sixteen families and just listened. No goal. No timeframe. No rush. Each family invited me in and talked with me about their situation and desires. I made no attempt to correct or guide them, I just wanted to hear them. I left each visit with no promises made. I had just listened.

There were a couple of difficult issues that the association faced. After those visits, I formulated my plans (with the executive team) and let the residents know what I was going to recommend for a vote at our annual meeting a few weeks later. They had been controversial issues for a few years and I wondered how the discussion and vote would go. There wasn’t much discussion, so we put the issues to vote. All the issues were passed by unanimous votes. People felt they had been listened to. In fact even now, several years later, one of the residents who had been the most controversial and vocal calls me “the best president they ever had.” Why? Because I listened to her with empathy.

Who’s the Boss?

Another issue I remember is related to my consulting career. The CEO resided in the US but they had major operations in Europe and SE Asia. The European leader for the company was Irish and resided in Ireland. He was an authoritarian leader. People did what he told them to do or else. After our team meeting about leading with empathy, I was hoping he would change. Unfortunately, not.

When I began to talk with him about being a leader, I asked him to describe what a leader was like. He proceeded to tell me about the British ruling Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland by English kings happened in the last 1100s. His view of being a strong leader went back nearly a thousand years. But to him, a great, strong leader was based on England ruling Ireland. He wasn’t about to shake that image that a ruler was someone who came in and subjugated people to do what they were told when they were told.

Experience

Question your own thoughts and motives. What has your experience taught you? Who empowers you as an employee, that controlling boss who keeps you under his thumb or the empathetic boss who makes you feel like you’re a part of what’s going on?

Most often people think of an empathic leader as weak and a controlling leader as strong. That’s not true. A great empathic leader is one who helps you grow, develop, listen, and help your team make decisions. A controlling leader is one who makes all the decisions and expects you to respond. My observation over the years is that good people will leave a boss like that as quickly as possible. The people who stay under those conditions are sometimes referred to as “yes men” and all the creativity leaves the organization. Believe me, now and in the coming years creativity will become more and more required. Without it, companies will die quickly.

Fortune 500

Only sixty companies remain that were in the Fortune 500 after WWII. Why is that? One of my beliefs is that after WWII, most of the companies on the list were being run by officers from the war. They knew how to “command.” They expected their commands to be carried out without question. Companies were generally not creative. In order to survive the coming years, companies (leaders) will be required to be creative.

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BlogCulture

Consensus Building

by Ron Potter

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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BlogPersonal

People Will Remember You

by Ron Potter

There was a chart on LinkedIn the other day that caught my interest.  I’m sorry I couldn’t find the original author.

Categories

By the time you’re my age, you’ve put most people in one or more of the following categories, just because you’ve seen about every type:

  • When you think of a person, will you think about the salary they earned?
  • How about those who believed being busy all their life was a measure of success?
  • What about those who were the first in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night?
  • Maybe being successful meant the number of Gucci bags (or other luxury items) they owned.

Traits

And then think about yourself.  It’s almost always easier to see these traits in others than in yourself.  But be honest.  (You’re by yourself and just quietly thinking.  No one else will know what you’re thinking.)

  • Have you made one of the highest salaries in your profession?  Is that what you’ll be remembered for?
  • Have you never stopped to relax?  Will being busy with your projects be what people remember the most?
  • Were you the first in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night?  Is that what people will remember?  Will they even remember it as a positive trait?
  • How about the possessions you own?  Just think of the ads on TV.  Is it that car, that suit, that Gucci bag, or the top-of-the-line golf clubs?

Are these the things that people will remember you for?  Not likely!

Now think about others and yourself in very different terms.  People will remember…

1. How You Made Them Feel

Have you stopped to tell that other person how well they’re doing?  How about your own child or grandchild?  How would you react to that statement?  It’s powerful.  That’s the person they’ll remember.  The one who made them feel good.   The one who gave them the courage to try something.  The one who gave them the confidence to take on difficult tasks, to take on the “world.”

2. The Time You Spent With Them

One of my earliest experiences with a grandchild is sitting on the floor with them as they played with Lego and made up stories to fit what they were making.  It struck me that I was comfortable just sitting there on the floor with them.  But then I began to think about my own children.  While I may have spent some time with them on the floor, it never lasted very long.  I had work to do.  I had the chores around the house that needed doing.  It struck me that while I was enjoying all the time I needed with the grandchild, I never could have spent that amount of time with my own children.   The grandchildren loved that time together.

Both of my girls have lived around the world as their kids were growing up.  I believe it gave my grandchildren a better understanding of people and cultures.  But that often meant that I would see my grandkids once or twice a year and how much I missed that time with them.  If you have the opportunity, make sure you spend as much time as you can with your own children and grandchildren.

3. If You Kept Your Word

It’s easy to think about this one in the short term.  But the statement is, you’ll be remembered for keeping your word.  No time frame attached.

I’m embarrassed by my behavior recently relating to a particular issue.  A friend of mine has kept one part of my digital world going for many years.  A couple of years ago it was becoming time in his life to let that go and turn the responsibility back to me.  I said I would take it over.  But I haven’t!  About once a month I would get a notice from the internet provider that would remind me that I had committed to taking the responsibility back.  However, it seemed like the notice from the provider came at the beginning of the weekend or right in the middle of something else going on in my life.  I would always find myself thinking, “I’ll get to that on Monday.”  But Monday would come and go and I wouldn’t think about it again until the next notification (always on a weekend or during some other issue).  Once again, I would forget about it, all the time leaving my friend with the responsibility.  I gave my word but I had not kept my word.  That was horrible behavior and not fair to my friend at all.  I’m sure it diminished my value in my friend’s opinion.  It sure decreased my own valuation of myself.

4. If They Could Count On You

I really just hit this issue in the topic before.  Giving your word is one thing (and must be counted on) but making sure you follow through on that word is just as important.  Think about the people in your own life that you know you can count on.  Where do you put that person on the list of valued people?  Now, think about yourself.  Can people count on you?  If so, you’ll be high on their list.  If not, you’ll drop down that list pretty quickly.  Probably to a spot lower than you would care to be.

In last week’s blog, I ended with, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”  The biblical versions (Matthew 5:37) go on to say that anything beyond this is of evil origin.  If you don’t keep your word and people can’t count on you,  it’s not just a bad thing, it moves into the area of evil origin.

What Will You Be Remembered For?

Think of the issues on the list that people will remember.  If you know a person high on all of the categories you’ll probably think of them as being some of the most outstanding people you know.  Don’t you want to be one of those people?

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BlogPersonal

Yes, yes, yes, yes!

by Ron Potter

I almost always say “Yes” to anything that is asked.  I’ve been guilty my whole life, especially when it comes to church.  I figured that I was doing the Lord’s work so I should say “Yes” to anything and everything that was asked of me.

The problem was that I was beginning to resent the amount of work I was doing while others didn’t seem to be pulling their share.  Then a wise Christian friend gave me some advice.  He helped me understand that I was putting too much sweat into the projects and I was losing my joy doing them.  He noted that while my effort was appreciated, I may not have been the best person doing the job.  He also noted that by saying “Yes” to everything, I was likely preventing other people from participating.  Good advice!

From that day forward I limited myself to two major projects at a time at church (and elsewhere).  If I was asked to do more than that, my response was that I was happy to do it—which current project should I stop in order to take on the new project?  Often the answer was to not stop what I was doing; they’ll find someone else to perform the task.  Or if it made sense to take on the new job, the question became, “Who should take on the task I was doing in order for me to spend the time and energy on the new project?”  Either answer was good.  These questions often led to me doing the job that best suited me and also helped prepare other people to become more involved.  Win, win.

Value Your Time and Energy

I read an article in Entrepreneur magazine by Jess Ekstrom titled “The 6 Questions I Ask Before I Say ‘Yes’ to Anything.” Here are the six questions:

1. What purpose does this serve?

If the answer is “to serve,” that’s the wrong answer.  There should be purpose for what I do.  Why am I doing it?  Am I doing it because I believe the Lord is asking me?  Am I doing it because I like to see myself as the “go-to” guy?  After that talk with the wise friend, I began to think about the things I do and I began to think about why I’m doing things.  When you’re young, your personal resources seem unlimited.  They are not.  Over a lifetime, you only have the personal resources to do a limited number of things.  Make sure they count and there is a purpose for doing them.

2. Why am I afraid to say no?

I never wanted to offend people.  If they asked me to do something and I said “No,” it felt like I was offending them.  Then I began to analyze what happened if people said “Yes” but in the end didn’t do for me what they had said “Yes” to.  I was very offended.  Let your yes be yes and no be no…

3. What else could I be doing with this time?

What is your time worth?  I spent about 30 years of my career working with leaders and small teams.  Setting a price for my time was very difficult for me.  Every time I set a fee for my work, I had this sinking feeling that I had set it too high.  Would anyone be willing to pay that amount?  It seemed like every time I went through that process, there was no hesitation on the client’s part.

4. Can I delegate this?

This is a tough one for individual contributors like me.  After I retired, many people asked me if I had sold my business.  I told them there was nothing to sell.  My clients bought me, not some company.  Most of this work couldn’t be delegated.

5. What is stealing my energy?

This is an interesting one for me.  I traveled all over the world and always seemed to have plenty of energy.  But was there anything that seemed to be stealing my energy?  As I think about it there were two sources:

  1. The title of this blog.  Saying “Yes” to too many things sapped my energy.
  2. The second one I had to learn.  When I tried to do everything the business required.  Once I realized that I could have someone else do a lot of the work that took time, I had some of my energy back.  (Thank you, Chris.)

6. How do I refuel?

Refueling happens very simply for me.  We own a cabin in the North Woods of Michigan.  Once I’m there for a few days in the woods and near the water, I feel completely renewed and refueled.  You’ve probably heard me talking about how important nature is.  Even children who grew up in the “projects” on the south side of Chicago were happier and better adjusted if they simply had one tree outside their window.  How do you refuel?  This is an important question that helps us get through life better if we’ve taken enough time to understand that the thing is for us and if we use it regularly.

Do you pay attention to these six items in your life?  To me the most important and overarching one is, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”  The biblical versions (Matthew 5:37) go on to say that anything beyond this is of evil origin.  Restrict your life to yes, no, and who else should be doing this other than me?  Beyond that, it’s of evil origin.

 

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Transister Radio

by Ron Potter

When I was growing up there were no computers masquerading as radios. But I do remember my first transistor radio.
It had both AM and FM and would fit in my hand. This allowed me to lay in the front yard on warm summer evenings listening to the Detroit Tigers baseball game. But baseball games had a lot of downtime which allowed me to think, observe the Milky Way, and listen to the sounds of summer nights.

Polymath

I thought a lot about being a polymath.

Not really; I didn’t even know the word polymath. A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects and is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Those long evenings in the front yard allowed me to think about many ideas and subjects.

Curious

I was always curious. I was always asking a question related to seemingly unrelated topics. While this drove my mother crazy, my father seemed to get it and would always question me about the source of the question. My dad had a degree from the high school in our small community. But now that I know the term, I considered him a polymath.

Famous Polymaths

One article written by Zat Rana is titled “The Expert Generalist: Why the Future Belongs to Polymaths.”

While I don’t consider myself comparable to them:

  • Aristotle invented half a dozen fields across philosophy
  • Galileo was as much a physicist as an engineer
  • da Vinci might have been more famous as an inventor than an artist if his notebooks were published

 

The polymath is interested in learning.

Specialist

Don’t get me wrong, the world needs specialists. In fact, there are a lot more specialists than there are polymaths. The difference is that a specialist picks a topic and then goes deep. The world couldn’t live without them. The polymath, however, specializes in a domain or two of specialty.

Learning Is a Discipline

As I said above, the polymath is interesting in learning. Learning itself is a skill and when you exercise that skill across domains, you get specialized as a learner. When I was growing up it was common for people to have a single career and then retire. In the future (while it has arrived) people will likely have multiple careers that differ significantly. In such a world, learning becomes even more valuable.

Engineering and Microcomputers

I received an engineering degree from the University of Michigan. It was assumed I would spend my career working in the engineering industry. But then, I saw my first microcomputer. It had dual floppy drives and a 5″ green screen. I knew my career was going to change right there. When I arrived back at headquarters, I informed my boss that I was leaving the engineering business and going into microcomputers. His words were “What’s a microcomputer?” I said, just wait, you’ll find out.

After many years in the microcomputer business, I realized that I was being asked by key executives to help them think about their business more broadly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were asking me to be a polymath. I still didn’t know what the word meant but I did realize I was being asked about a broad range of businesses from construction to pharmaceuticals to food and other industries. They were asking me to learn about their business from a broad “polymath” viewpoint.

From that point, I worked on three continents, in multiple countries and cultures. I was being paid to think as a polymath. Once again, I’ll make the point that specialists are required. They invent things and get things at peak efficiency. But without polymaths, no ideas are sweeping across disciplines. They are also required and often seem to be thinking before the specialists understand their topic. Polymaths can often seem ahead of their time.

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Loss

by Ron Potter

I’ve lost both of my parents and all my aunts and uncles.  Although my father died of wounds from WWII earlier than he should have, he likely would have died by this age anyway.  He would have been 103 this year had he lived.  Thankfully, I still have all my siblings but the loss of family seemed natural to me.

Loss of High School Friend

The loss of friends, however, seems different and for me hurts just a little bit more.  I had a high school friend who I had been companions with since we had been a few months old.  Our parents were friends so we were together right from the start.  Throughout our high school years, we were almost inseparable.  We had fun together and got into trouble together.  Even the one cop in the small town we grew up in knew us and our parents.  For high school kids, that can be good and bad.

I have one memory of some new walkie-talkies that my father bought.  I took them to town and grabbed my friend as we went out “looking for trouble.”  The only thing was our one cop in town seemed to show up wherever we were and put an end to any pranks we had in mind before we could get in trouble.  We couldn’t figure out how he always knew where we were and what we were up to until we discovered that his police scanner could hear our walkie-talkies.

I couldn’t imagine being away from him until our lives diverged after high school.  I headed for college.  He went to Viet Nam.  After he returned we just didn’t seem to have much in common anymore.  That was sad to me but I figured it was part of growing up.

Cancer

But then years later he came down with cancer and came to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I was living at the time, and he was getting treatment at the U of M Medical Center.  I’m so thankful that he and his wife (who also graduated from the same high school) reached out to me and let me know what he was going through and arranged times together when he was in town for treatments.  Our old friendship began to rekindle, and we had some wonderful times together.

A few months later my friend’s son called me and said his dad was bedridden and couldn’t speak and I should come and see him if I could.  I immediately drove the 3 hours it took to get to his home to find him in bed with no hair and extremely emaciated.  I wouldn’t have recognized him if I didn’t know who it was.  His wife and two children told me he had been bedridden and comatose for a couple of days.  I stroked his forehead, talked of some of our fun times together, and told him how much I missed him.  He squeezed my hand!

After talking with his wife and two children I headed back home.  By the time I got there, his son had called to say his father had passed soon after I left.  I saw him during the last few hours of his life and I may have been the only one whose hand he squeezed.  I just had to cry.  We had been together for 18 years, apart for a few, then back together again for about a year before he died.  Losing a good friend like that was very different than losing family to normal aging processes.

Post-College Friend

Another friend who graduated from Michigan, as I had, came to work for me a few years after I finished school.  We became very good friends.  In fact, after that first construction project together when we headed in different directions, we always kept in touch.  As it turned out, our kids were not too different in age and they have known each other since childhood.  In this blog, I couldn’t even begin to tell you all the fun we’ve had together through the years including river rafting, “up North” (Michigan) trips, and others.

I always had to laugh because he was one of the very first users of spreadsheet programs and recorded many aspects of his life and plans on them.  If he was telling me about an upcoming trip I would finally say, “Show me the spreadsheet.”  He would smile and then bring out the spreadsheet.  He even began to incorporate color as technology advanced.

Cancer (Again)

He retired a few years ago but soon after was diagnosed with cancer.  After we found out, he began to tell me all the things he wanted to do and accomplish while he still had his health.  I said, “Show me the spreadsheet.”   He smiled, then showed me the multiple-page, color spreadsheet.  It was all there, everything he wanted to accomplish. He had some ups and downs but we were able to enjoy each other’s company on a regular basis.

He died recently.  I was able to see him a few weeks ago on one of his good days but I’m having a hard time coming to grips with the loss.  The next day I was in my doctor’s office for a regular check-up and I couldn’t stop crying.  It took the doctor several minutes to diagnose grief over something physically wrong with me.

Grief

One definition is, “Grief is a strong, sometimes overwhelming emotion.”  It certainly has been strong in my life with the loss of my friend, but I don’t think it has gotten too overwhelming where my own physical or mental health is concerned.  That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be careful and aware to make sure it doesn’t.

What is the Purpose of Loss?

I don’t know the answer to that.  I’m sure there are some intellectual answers about making you stronger or preparing you for other or deeper losses.  I just don’t feel it at the moment.  This is terribly sad to me.

God set the example when His only son, Jesus, was crucified.  God’s loss and Jesus’s sacrifice provided salvation for me.

I know that loss is supposed to make us stronger and it probably will in the long run.  But right now it’s just painful.

I raised the question with a group of friends the other day.  One of them who is a reader of my blog said he thought I was experiencing it because I would write about it in my blog and it would help many others.

All of those ideas are probably part of the answer but right now I just feel sadness.

Maybe that’s part of the answer.  Much of the world tells us we should be happy all of the time.  That’s not true!  We will and do experience sadness in life.  It’s unnatural to think we won’t or shouldn’t.

Handle your losses with dignity.

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Kell onni on

by Ron Potter

Kell onni on, se onnen Katkekoon.  I’m sure many of you know this already but this is an old Finnish saying that roughly means, “Don’t compare or brag about your happiness.”

I’ve lived through a few nasty winters in Michigan where I’ve lived most of my life.  But Helsinki, Findland’s capital, resides farther north than any other capital except Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.  Finland is also the most sparsely populated country in the EU.  So if you’re not happy, what else do you have?

Happiest Country in the World

The basis for this blog are some notes from Frank Martela, a philosopher, psychology researcher, and lecturer at Aalto University in Finland.  He lists three things the Finns seem to avoid.

1. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

I’ve been talking about happiness lately during poor health, loss, and life in general.  Here are three things that Dr. Martella talks about.

The first is the Finnish quote I gave you above.  Don’t compare or brag.  If you compare yourself to others and start thinking that you’re better than some (or the best in one way or another), something or someone will come across pretty quickly to knock you off that perch.

Also, if you’re bragging, you’ll create some enemies pretty quickly.  Someone will be gunning for you to knock you down a few notches.

Success to the Finns means looking like everyone else.

2. Don’t Overlook the Benefits of Nature

I grew up in the country.  Our nearest neighbor was a mile away.  Our property had a stream, fish, crawdads, and many trees.  I didn’t know it at the time (I was just a kid growing up) but research later showed how much being in nature is good for us.  If you’re feeling down, take a walk in the woods.

Sometimes there is not a woods available but further research discovered just how much one tree helped.  There was a study of kids who grew up in the “projects” on the south side of Chicago.  They found a small set of kids who seemed to be much happier than the others.  At first, there seemed to be no explanation but someone finally noticed that the group of happier kids had a tree outside their window.  If you only have one tree, sit down at its base and focus on the sounds and feel of nature.

I currently live in a neighborhood called “Thousand Oaks.”  It is well-named and I find myself looking out the window at the trees for long periods of time.  Because of the trees and our bird feeders, we tend to have many types of birds that hang around Michigan in winter.  I find myself getting lost watching them and lose all track of time.

3. Don’t Break Trust

This was an interesting one to me for several reasons.  One is that I see generally two types of people in the world.  One type starts out skeptical of everyone and won’t grant trust until they believe the other person has earned it.  The second type (I seem to fall into this category) is a very trusting person right from the start and only considers another person untrustworthy after they have violated the granted trust.

I see issues with both approaches.

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Change

by Ron Potter

This is an interesting dilemma of the human race: “I would like change but I’m doing just fine the way I am.” The basis for this thought comes from Bob Beusekom, a program manager, consultant, and coach.

As I think back, my first reaction is that I’m the same person I’ve always been. But that’s not true and, in fact, when I think about it, I’m glad I’m not that person from years ago. (I believe) I’ve grown more mature, have more patience, and think about the world in a broader and more comprehensive sense.

Part of that broader and clearer sense of the world around me comes from spending time all over the world. I once added up how many countries I worked in during my consulting career. I don’t remember exactly how many it was, but I did work on three continents. I circumnavigated the globe on one trip. That time around the world with different cultures helped me form a much better view of the world and the people who occupy it.

Grandchildren and Horses

I have four grandchildren. All four of them have lived in different countries of the world. You can see already that it has given them a broader and more tolerant view of people. I’m proud of them (as we all are with our grandchildren). They have seen different cultures, been exposed to different people groups, and know multiple languages.

Growing up, I never left my small hometown in Michigan except for one visit we made to Kansas. One of my dad’s best friends moved there and he wanted to visit. What an experience for a nine-year-old boy who had never left the state prior to that. A ranch in Kansas was an entirely different world. The ranch hands were hard working from dawn to dusk. I was introduced to horses for the first time.

My dad’s friend had a couple of daughters about my age. We would pack a lunch and go to the barn in the morning and saddle some horses (with help, of course). Each day we would head in a different direction and ride until lunchtime and find a large rock or a fence post that would help us back on the horses after lunch. After lunch, we would saddle up and head back to the barn. I was on a horse every day. And though I found it a unique and fun experience at the time, I’ve never gotten on a horse since. I experienced a part of the Kansas culture but never had a desire for more. Different cultures for different people.

Tribes Cause Wars

One definition from Merriam-Webster describes tribes as a “social group composed chiefly of numerous families, clans, or generations having a shared ancestry and language.” If you look back at just the two World Wars, tribes were at the root of them. When I was growing up, there was not much global travel. Our fathers came back from WWII and, for the most part, just wanted to be home (with their own tribe). Our biggest rival “tribe” was the community next door we played sports against. There was not much love lost between these tribes. I created a bit of a stir when I married a girl from the neighboring (and rival) tribe. When I see old friends and family who still live in that local community (tribe), they often have a much different view of the world than I do.

My wife has a Dutch heritage which led us to Poughkeepsie, New York, during one trip. When the Dutch settled Poughkeepsie, they had to negotiate with something like 30+ Native American tribes. Simply getting through negotiations must have been a major ordeal.

Dying Tribes

When I was a kid, one of our Michigan vacations included a visit to an American Indian cemetery. You would still see a few Indians in the towns “up north,” but very few. When we stumbled across this old cemetery, it was haunting to me that a whole culture was dying. There was an old Indian at the cemetery. He seemed very sad and my thought was his tribe had died and he was the only one left.

What Do We Need to Change?

As the cartoon says, we all want change but none of us wants to change personally. And yet, we have lots of evidence that resisting change can have unwanted consequences. Here are some things that need to change:

  • Your attitude. Check your attitude. If you believe the only “right” view of the world is yours, you may find yourself sad and alone when your tribe dies.
  • Your understanding. When your understanding of the world (or a piece of it) doesn’t fit with what you’re seeing, witnessing, or hearing, don’t assume that your understanding is correct and everyone else is wrong.
  • Your listening skills. I’ve said before: listen to understand, don’t listen to respond. When you’re trying to understand, although it may be different than anything you’ve experienced, your learning will grow. Learning is a lifelong endeavor, don’t stop.
  • Your surroundings. As I’ve said, I’ve worked around the world. I could have said they were doing things wrong just because that’s not the way we do things in the US. But the population of the US is pretty small compared to the rest of the world, and there are even pockets in the US who would think that Michigan thinks entirely wrong about a subject.

Where do you need to change? What’s it going to take to help you realize you need to change? Without change, you die (intellectually, emotionally, and physically)!

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Boss – Leader

by Ron Potter

On LinkedIn the other day, Fabio Moioli displayed a chart with the differences between a Boss and a Leader.  I thought it was well done and here are the ten he listed:

Touchy, Feely Consultant

The more I looked at the list the more powerful it became.  I’ve had bosses that fit mostly in the Boss category and a few bosses that fit into the Leader category.  I had a very successful consulting career for 30 years.  As I looked at the list and thought about how I conducted my consulting work, I believe much of the success I experienced was due to the fact that I worked off the Leader list as much as possible.  It also struck me that it had been very difficult functioning as a helpful consultant when the person I was working with believed very much in the Boss list.

I remember one vice president who functioned on the Boss side of the ledger.  To start with, he could just not figure out why his boss had hired me to help him with his leadership skills.  After all, he had been very successful (in his mind) working on the Boss side of the ledger.  Why on earth would he need this touchy, feely consultant?  He just didn’t get it.

Almost everyone who had worked for him over the years had either asked for a transfer or left the company.  When I asked him about that statistic, he considered them weak and blamed them for their failures.  It obviously had nothing to do with him.

Boss vs Leader

If you’re in a leadership position, think about each of those terms.

  • When you’re talking about the success of your group, are you talking about the great example you presented so that your team would do the right thing?
  • When you give an assignment to one of your direct reports, do you explain every detail and how you want it done, or do you allow them to be creative?  I’ve worked with people who had that micromanaging boss and it wasn’t long before they stopped taking any initiative and just waited for the boss to tell them what to do.
  • It’s easy to criticize.  It takes work and discipline to encourage when things go wrong.  I’m a football fan.  You can always tell what kind of coach you’re watching just by how they treat their players when the player makes a mistake.  Those who encourage the player and help them learn build great teams full of players that want to do their best.
  • Focusing on weaknesses vs strengths can be a tough one.  I don’t believe it’s a good idea to ignore weaknesses but it’s also important to help your team learn from their weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
  • I’ve also been in team meetings where the boss never shuts up.  Pretty soon most of the participants tune out what is being said and never learn.  The leader who listens and encourages grows great teams.
  • Whether they intend to or not, bosses are always inspiring others.  They either inspire fear or enthusiasm.  Inspiring fear brings the growth of a team to a halt.  As a leader, make sure others are inspired to be enthusiastic and do better.  Growing teams become powerful teams.

Easy to Get Trapped

It’s very easy to remain a Boss when you should be a Leader.  Being a Leader brings risks.  If the team fails, you feel like you’re failing.  But don’t make the mistake of believing that being a Boss will eliminate failure.

The best approach to becoming (or remaining) a Leader is to have a confidant who will tell you the straight story.  This confidant may be an outside or inside consultant.  It may be someone on the team who you trust and who is not afraid to tell you straight out how you’re performing.  It may be someone totally removed from the work environment that you can talk with and be straight with and they’ll be straight with you.

But all of these things are difficult to see on your own.  It takes a partner of some sort who you trust will give you the straight scoop.

Being a Leader

It’s difficult to be a Leader.  It takes hard work, good listening skills, and a lot of humility.  Find someone you trust who you can be honest with and they’ll be honest with you.  It will pay you great rewards.

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Marriage

by Ron Potter

My wife and I have been married for fifty-three years.  It’s wonderful and rewarding but it’s not always easy.  It takes hard work.  I get upset by our media that tries to convince young people that if they just marry the right person, they’ll be happy.  When those difficult bumps in the road happen with that attitude, your first thought is, “I guess they’re not the right person for me because I’m not happy at the moment.”  Who (or what) you’re married to speaks volumes.

Who or What Are You Married To?

Over 40 years ago I hired a young man who had just graduated from university and had become very skilled at coding and writing software.  He was a wizard.  He could code on a computer screen faster than I could read it as it scrolled up.  An amazing young man.

I try to give him a call about once a year just to catch up and hear a little bit about his life.  He knows my family and my two daughters in particular because he used to invite them over to his home to play on his grand piano.

When I talked with him a couple of weeks ago he mentioned something about his girlfriend.  I stopped the conversation right there and asked more about this person because he has always been single.

As I probed about having someone else in his life, he said, “You know me, I’ve always been married to my work.”  That’s true, he always has been.  He started a company from the ground up, and has built it into a growing enterprise employing many people.  He has indeed been “married to his work.”

Who or What Am I Married To?

But after our phone call, that statement got me thinking.  Can we identify who or what we’re married to?  Yes, my marriage to a woman has produced children and grandchildren.  But were there other things I was “married” to—and what does that say about me?

As I began to reflect on that thought, one thing that came to mind was cars.  When we were married in 1969, I had a brand new (cheap) Pontiac Tempest.  There was nothing fancy about the car (rubber floor mats, straight six engine) but while I was getting married in the traditional sense, I was also getting “married” to the idea of always having a new car.  I have had a new car every three years (thanks to leasing) up to and through my current 2020 Buick Envision.  I love (am married to?) new cars.

For the last 30 years of my career, I consulted with corporate leaders around the world.  We built trust, got comfortable with each other, and talked about any and every topic.  I loved that work.  I was married to consulting with executives and would go anywhere in the world to help them.  I sacrificed other parts of my life because I was “married” to that work.

Boundaries

As a side note, there was one time when an executive I was working with in London asked me to come over and work with him and his team right now.  It was one of the few times I said No.  He tried everything to get me there but I said my daughter was getting married on Sunday and I was not going to be away.  I said I was sorry and we hung up the phone.  However, a little while later, he called back and asked if he got me a ticket for the Concorde on Monday morning, would I be willing to fly over and meet with him and his team Monday afternoon?  I said sure and I have great memories of flying on the Concorde supersonic jet.

Reflection

So I’ve been married in the traditional sense but I have also been married to my work and new cars.  I’m sure that if I spent more reflection time, other things would fit into that category.

I urge you to look at and reflect on your life.  Who or what are you married to?  Do you have things in the right priority?  Are you ignoring important things in your life because you’re married to something else?  No matter your age, should you and would you change priorities so that your life is in better balance than it is today?

This concept was new to me.  I would love to hear from you.  Share your experiences.  Tell us about getting priorities straight and how that has affected your life.  Let us know if you just came to the realization that you’re married to something else that is being a detriment to your love.

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