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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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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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BlogPersonal

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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BlogPersonal

Firsts

by Ron Potter

We received a card the other day and in the card, and they mentioned that they missed my blogs.  It was not my intention to stop blogging,  it’s just that my health issues have left me with the inability of producing weekly blogs as I have done for years.  It takes more “thinking” than I have the ability to accomplish and it has left me with typing skills that are almost non-existent.  That lead me to remember those “first” things I ever did.  Much of the world was ahead of me on many of these fronts but they were “firsts” for me.

Typing Class in High School

I attended a very small high school.  One of the skills I thought would be useful for me in college and beyond was typing so I joined my high school typing class.  I was the only boy in the room and because I was the fastest and most accurate I was at the head of my class.  Unfortunately, that upset the girls in the class as they prepared to become secretaries and typists in the business world.  They didn’t have a lot of opportunities in the business world when we were graduating.

Survey Class in My First Couple Years of College

One of my early classes in college was a survey class.  At the time we would have to go into the field and run a survey circuit.  We would make notes during the survey and then return to the classroom and use a hand crank Friden Calculator to check all of our notes and make sure our math “closed.”  If your work “closed,” great.  If not, back to the field to start over.  It was very time-consuming and I felt I needed to find a better way.

I had started to hear about a Curta Calculator on the road race circuit.  They used it to calculate the speed needed to hit their next point as accurately as possible.  Now I could go into the field, take all my notes, then sit under a tree and use my Curta to check my math.  I still own my Curta over 50 years later.

Structural Steel (Walking)

My first job out of engineering school was walking structural steel on a power plant.  I worked as high as 160′ in the air.  That’s approximately a 16-story building.  Back then, there was no safety harness belt or any netting below me.  Just me, the breeze, my instruments, and an 8-inch beam to walk on.  It was a terrifying experience but I had a wise chief engineer.

When I went to him after that first day of terror and told him I couldn’t do that, he asked me to spend two weeks doing the best I could at my job up on the steel.  If I still wanted off the steel, he would find me another job to accomplish.  His wisdom came with the fact that after two weeks, I could do the job.  There were still terrifying moments but I learned a great deal about facing my fears and what my fears were.

Introducing Computers

I had finished my bachelor’s degree at Michigan on a slide rule.  I still own my Pickett from those days.  Several years later I was teaching a course in the graduate engineering school at the University of Utah.  None of the students had seen or touched a computer yet.  I introduced them to computers and had them working on a program for scheduling that I had hired a friend of mine to write.  Soon after, microcomputers were introduced and the computer age began.

Blackberry

In the late 90s, a company called Research in Motion (RIM) introduced what they called the Blackberry.  I was blown away.  RIM introduced the Blackberry publically in late 1999 (December?).  I purchased my first one within months of that introduction.

Consulting with Executives

After years in engineering and software, I decided that I wanted to become a consultant.  I started with a partner who has been in the business and learned “the ropes.”  Eventually, I struck out on my own and named my company TLC standing for Team, Leadership, Culture.

I was working with one of my first CEOs and we had just finished a session with members of his teams from around the world.  It was just him and me in his office that evening and he said,

  • You helped me to build that global team more than I could have imagined.
  • You’ve taught me more about being a leader than I’ve ever seen in the leaders I’ve worked for.
  • Today you helped me build more of that into the culture of the company than I could believe.

At that point, I was feeling pretty good about my TLC company.  Then he said, “Dut your real value is…”!!  I was shaken.  I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.  He had just covered every point of TLC.  He finished, “Your real value is when we talk like this.”  That’s when I learned that corporate leaders needed someone they could talk with, someone they could trust, and someone they could express their fears with.  That was my greatest value.

Dictate in Word

Because of the deterioration of my typing skills I needed to find a new way to create blogs other than just typing them out.  I discovered that Microsoft Word has a dictate section.  I’m now learning how to talk with MS Word and convert it into text for publishing my blogs.

My “Firsts”

I’m sure there are others but the ones that came to mind for this blog included:

  • Typing Class
  • Survey Class
  • Learning about my fears on the structural steel
  • Computers and Blackberrys
  • Being a sounding board for executives
  • Converting my spoken word to the written word

Our “firsts” help determine who we are.  They shape us and form us.  Think about the “firsts” you’re accomplished or even walked away from.  You’ll discover a lot about who you are.

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BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

Management of the Absurd

by Ron Potter

As I continue the review of some of the books I’ve read through the years, next up is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson.

Management of the Absurd

A dictionary definition of the word absurd calls it “wildly unreasonable or illogical.”  I consider myself both highly reasonable and logical so this definition didn’t make sense to me.  Which may be why I read it.  My notes alone for the book totaled up to 15 pages so I guess it caught my interest.

This book is written by Richard Farson.  In the book, he lays out eight parts.

  1. A Different Way of Thinking
  2. The “Technology of” Human Relations
  3. The Paradoxes of Communication
  4. The Politics of Management
  5. Organizational Predicaments
  6. Dilemmas of Change
  7. The Aesthetics of Leadership
  8. Avoiding the Future

I’ll quickly touch on each of the eight parts but I think you’ll notice the absurdity in the titles themselves.

A Different Way of Thinking

The most important discoveries come from taking a fresh look at what people take for granted.  They cannot see it because it is too “obvious” or is what they expect to see or not seen.  Farson calls this the invisible obvious.  I’ve often seen when the “expert” doesn’t pay any attention to the new person on the team or someone who doesn’t have the same “expertise” they do on a particular topic.  The absurdity comes from the fact that the best new creative ideas come from the person who is taking a fresh look at a topic.  This can come from the new person or, if you train yourself well, you can provide that fresh look no matter how much of an “expert” you are on a topic.

The “Technology of” Human Relations

Farson says that “The more important a relationship, the less skill matters.”  In both parenthood and management, it’s not so much what we do as what we are that counts.  It is the ability to meet each situation armed not with a battery of techniques but with an openness that permits a genuine response.

Effective leaders and managers do not regard control as the main concern.  Instead, they approach situations as learners or teachers or sometimes both.

My take from this section is the openness and genuine response that people respect and will be motivated by.  Trying to control or dictate situations will not motivate people.

The Paradoxes of Communication

Paradox is another one of those interesting words.  Webster says that it is “a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.”

Listening can also be a disturbing experience.  All of us have strong needs to see the world in certain ways, and when we really listen, so that we understand the other person’s perspective, we risk being changed ourselves.

The best kind of listening comes not from technique but from being genuinely interested in what really matters to the other person.

This is what I have come to think of as listening to understand rather than listening to respond.  Often when we’re listening to the other person, we’re building a list in our head about how were are going to respond.  That’s easier and takes less energy than listening to truly understand what the other person is saying and the belief system they are basing their statement upon.  Listening to understand creates a different set of questions, often forcing the other person to expose their own belief system.

The Politics of Management

Fighting for the rights of special groups has contributed to an erosion of civility.  When people are treated as representatives of special groups, society is fragmented.  The achievement and preservation of the community must become our top priority.  Otherwise, the concept of rights has no meaning.

Organizational Predicaments

Organizations that need help most will benefit from it least.

I experienced this with one client I worked with many years ago.  The head of HR knew that the team needed help and convinced them to employ my services.  After talking with the head of HR, I decided to highly discount my services because I didn’t believe that would have been willing to pay my going fee.  In their mind, they just weren’t in that bad of shape.  After working with the team for almost a year I believed we had learned a lot and gotten much better.  If we were climbing a ten-step ladder, we had just successfully made it up to step one.  However, to the team this was seen as such great strides—they felt like they had reached the top of the ladder.  Because they were so much better than they had been a year ago they no longer had a need for my services.  In their mind, they had achieved everything they could have.

Dilemmas of Change

I’ve talked about the word “dilemma” before.  The foundation is “dilaminent” which meant horns.  Being on the horns of a bull put you in a dilemma.  You’re going to get gored either way.

Our author Farson makes the point that creative ideas are relatively easy to elicit.   Implementing them is a much tougher task.

Farson says that it’s important that we fail.  We need to fail ofter.  If we don’t, it means we’re not testing our limits.

The Aesthetics of Leadership

Farson says, “There are no leaders, there is only leadership.”

One of the great enemies of organizational effectiveness is our stereotypical image of a leader.  We imagine a commanding figure perhaps standing in front of an audience, talking, not listening.  The real strength of a leader is the ability to elicit the strength of the group.  Leadership is less the property of a person than the property of a group.

Avoiding the Future

Farson closes with “If absurdity is ubiquitous, if the most important goals are lost causes, why do we keep playing this absurd game?  We play it because it is the only game in town.  Of course, it is absurd.  Of course, it is only a game.  But it is a game well worth playing and worth playing well.”

Management of the Absurd is a long thought-provoking book.  I have not done it justice in the blog so I suggest you find a copy, read it, and underline it so that you come away with the greatest learnings for you.

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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Afflicted in Every Way

by Ron Potter

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

No One Is Left Out

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

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

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

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

No Avoidance

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

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

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

Affliction Solution

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

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

Read the next post in the series.
Facing Adversity
Afflicted in Every Way
Perplexed
Persecuted
Struck Down
Ancient Text
Regrets—Text to Corinthians
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BlogCultureFacing Adversity

Facing Adversity

by Ron Potter

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

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

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

Glass Half Full

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

We’re Not the Only One

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

Be Prepared

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

Read the next post in the series.
Facing Adversity
Afflicted in Every Way
Perplexed
Persecuted
Struck Down
Ancient Text
Regrets—Text to Corinthians
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BlogCulture

Unity Through Diversity

by Ron Potter

Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity.

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

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

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

Another Ancient Text

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

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

Uniformity vs Unity

These are close words but they mean different things.

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

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

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

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

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

Uniformity or Unity

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

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

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

Build Unity

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

Unity can save us from ourselves.

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BlogCulture

Humans Project in Straight Lines

by Ron Potter

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

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

Straight Line Projections

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

Straight Lines Tend To Be Short

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s a Leadership Team To Do?

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

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

Four Tools of Discipline

by Ron Potter

Shane Parrish (my favorite blogger) wrote an article titled “The Four Tools of Discipline”.  The four he lists are:

  1. Delaying Gratification
  2. Accepting Responsibility
  3. Dedication to Reality
  4. Balancing

Dealing with Difficulties

Shane sets up the article with a few quotes from other well-known people.

Scott Peck from “The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth”.  This has been one of my favorite books through the years.

Peck points out that most of us want to avoid problems.  They’re painful, frustrating, sad, and lonely.  All things that we would prefer to avoid.  But he also points out that the whole process of facing, dealing with, and solving problems is what gives meaning to our lives.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.”  He said that fearing the pain involved we attempt to avoid them.  We procrastinate, ignore, forget, and pretend they don’t exist.  We attempt to get out of the pain rather than suffer through it.

Avoiding problems avoids the opportunity for growth!  Shane lists the four disciplines needed to face and deal with the problems.

Delaying Gratification

We’ve all seen this play out in our lives.  I’ve been desiring a new watch.  Do I need one?  Not really.  Do I need one right now?  Definitely not!  What would delayed gratification tell me to do?  Wait?  The price will likely come down.  I have a watch that meets my needs right now?  Will I put off the purchase of the new watch?  Probably not.  Why?  Because I want it and I want it right now.

You can see the difference in children who have learned to delay their gratification.  If they haven’t, they want something now and will raise all kinds of calamity so that the parents will stop trying to delay their gratification and just give them what they want in order to shut them up.  The child has learned that if they just throw a new and louder tantrum, they’ll eventually get what they want.  They never learn delayed gratification.  Unfortunately, that leads to difficulties as young adults and even into their adult lives.

Accepting Responsibility

Shane says that accepting responsibility is emotionally uncomfortable.  He’s right.  It’s easier to say

  • traffic delayed me
  • someone else did the wrong thing, it wasn’t my fault
  • no one told me about the bigger picture or what was at stake
  • It wasn’t my fault.  It wasn’t my fault.  It wasn’t my fault.

The list goes on and on.  Shane closes that section with the following statement

Whenever we seek to avoid responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual, organization, or entity.

Dedication to Reality

My blog last week was titled “Reality is Constructed by Our Brain”.  In that blog, I quoted Brian Resnick who said “Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong.  Knowing that you might be wrong should drive you to be curious about how others see their “reality”.  If it doesn’t create that curiosity, it causes us to dig in our heels about what we believe to be true and our own version of what reality is.

Scott Peck says “Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful.  We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain.”

Shane says “The only way we can ensure our map is correct and accurate is to expose it to the criticism of others.”

If we believe our view of the world is the one and only correct view, we remain closed to the view of others.

Balancing

Shane says that “Balancing is the discipline that gives us flexibility.  Extraordinary flexibility is required for successful living in all spheres of activity.”

A few blogs back I talked about Simone Biles and the balance she exhibits in her gymnastic routines.  There are only a handful of people in the world who can come close to the physical balance she exhibits.  But many of us can work at and accomplish that kind of balance in our mental thinking.

Delaying gratification.
Accepting responsibility.
Dedication to reality.
Balancing.

Let’s close with the last one, “Balancing”.  Think about balancing the other three.  If the first three get too far out of balance with each other, problems arise.

Too much-delayed gratification without a dedication to reality will lead to frustration.  Eventually, the question will arise, delayed gratification to what end?  If there is nothing at the end of the tunnel, the delayed gratification is for nothing, it only leads to frustration.

As I was about to write the next statement about “Accepting Responsibility”, I found myself looking over at a picture of my father.  He had lost a leg during WWII.  I never heard him talk about how the Germans were responsible.  I never heard him talk about how the generals and leadership were responsible.  While he may not have accepted responsibility, he did accept reality.  He came home from the war, married, started a business, and had four children.

The picture I found myself looking at was dad (with his cane) and all four kids out on a frozen pond with a hatched while he taught us to cut a hole in the ice for ice fishing.  Looking at that picture reminded me why he has been one of the most influential in my life.

Balance.  Balance.  Balance.

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