Open the window shades. Look under more rocks.

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Ice from airplane3It was odd. Unnerving. And a little disorienting too. After we took off from Hong Kong to the States, the mapping tool in the airplane that shows where we are in the world wasn’t tracking. The little airplane icon kept showing we were still on the runway in Hong Kong. Which was impossible since we had been in the air for some time.

Hours went by after the meal service. The cabin was darkened and the shades were pulled down, and still the map showed our airplane icon on the runway in Hong Kong. Most people on board were asleep or had their faces lit up by electronics. At some point about six hours after we took off, I stopped a cabin steward and asked where on earth we were. She asked me to wait while she went to ask the captain.

She came back a minute later and said, “The captain said in just a couple minutes we will be passing over the north pole.” Wow. I got up and went to the back of the airplane to the rear bulkhead and there I eased open the window shade. Blindingly brilliant sun light reflected off of the fractured polar ice below. Although we must have been nearly six miles in the air, the clarity and ice detail was astonishing. It seemed high noon on the polar ice cap and the ice detail was crisp and wrapped for miles to the horizon.

I closed the shade and turned back to look down the darkened fuselage of the airplane. Almost everyone was asleep, while we were passing over the north pole. I cracked the window shade again and gazed down at the glittering ice.

The experience led me to learn more about new flight paths over the polar ice cap from Asia and it reminded me of the wondrous moments we can experience when we get curious and seek new experiences.

When we keep our kids up late to lie in the yard and look up at a meteor shower. When we wake early to swim across the lake at dawn just as the birds are waking. Take off the headphones and listen to the conversations in the market. Look under more rocks. Sometimes it’s unforgettable.

Talk to each other people! Avoiding shipwreck.

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boat_minnowThe dense fog wasn’t bothering me at all. Once we were twenty minutes into our ferry ride on the Laura B to the mainland from Monhegan Island, 14 miles off the coast of Maine, even my wife had started to relax. There wasn’t much to see out the window of our 65 foot ferry boat so I had disappeared into reading Carl Hiasson’s latest hilarious novel. I had just laughed out loud at something in chapter eight when suddenly the engines stopped, and seconds later we hit the rocks, shuddering the entire vessel.

The sound and tremor was unmistakable. We had hit rock ledges, eight miles from shore in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the dozen passengers looked alarmed, but not yet outright panicked. Out the windows, just at the edges of the fog, we could plainly see we were, in fact, surrounded by rock. How we got here I didn’t know yet, but there appeared no escape.

We went up to the wheelhouse and overheard the captain radio to the mainland and say, “We’re lost on the shoals.”
“How can we help? What do you need?” came the reply over the radio.
Our captain said, “Just take a deep breath with us. We’re trying to get our bearings.”
My wife turned to me, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

I went to the stern of the boat with a young deckhand and asked him what he knew. Apparently, once we had set out from Monhegan, the captain went below to check the engines and left the helm with the first mate, an older salty gentleman who looked born with barnacles in his beard. The boy said although it was his first summer on the ferry line he knew that coming out of the island we should have a heading of 26 degrees yet the mate held a course of 355 degrees, slow and steady through the dense fog. The boy said nothing, and minutes later we hit the ledge. He quietly confessed to me he wished he had said something.

It also turned out that when the boat was drifting in light circles on and off the rocks, the radar system didn’t have a consistent heading to lock on to, and was also spinning in circles. Which explains why the captain wasn’t certain which way to escape the rocks.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. My wife later said, “See, these things actually happen!” But I still didn’t believe it. I bet that beautiful venerable old boat hadn’t hit a rock in forty years.

Once we steered clear of the ledge and set back on course, the captain came on the loudspeaker and explained what happened, accepted responsibility, and assured everyone the vessel was sound, that we were on course, and would arrive shortly. He also sent the crew below deck to look for leaks. That was reassuring.

There’s a few lessons in here:

  • If the captain needs to check the engines, he should relay clear and concise instructions to next in command. Wait for acknowledgement. Then duck below to check the engine room.
  • If the mate held an incorrect heading, how certain could he have been? Hard to say, but ask, ok?
  • And if the boy was reasonably certain we were on a wrong heading, speak up. Even if the seasoned mate insists or corrects him, speak up.

And as for passengers, always check where the life jackets are stored. And read up on surviving a shipwreck.

Do the Right Thing

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the-hard-thing-is-the-right-thingIt never really occured to me. It didn’t occur to my wife. Candy never thought of it either. The morning when Annie and I got in the car, it did cross my mind, but only briefly enough to send a quick text to Candy asking, “Do you think it’s OK if I bring Annie?” It never seemed such a concern that I should call in advance or question it. Although alas, that decision changed the day.

Our team decided a year ago to have a group event and volunteer our time and energy giving back to communities. We picked a GoodWill Center. Candy arranged the time and volunteer effort with the center, and at the last minute I decided to include my five year old daughter in this wonderful exercise of giving. She’s just in kindergarten, and well shucks, what better education than to include her in a day to giving back to those in need?

Annie and I drove the hour from Portland Maine to the GoodWill center and presented ourselves, along with the clothes and toys we had gathered that morning to donate. We were greeted by a floor supervisor who led us to the assigned task of the day. In the warehouse he brought batches of newly donated goods which we were to sort into bins to later be placed on the floor and sold to needing families. Annie thought it was awesome! digging through interesting clothes and sorting them into bins for the WoodWill center to sell.

While we set up shop and prepared to attack the task, the supervisor person re-emerged and declared that we could not stay because Annie was in violation of their safety regulations. It wasn’t a kind dismissal, but delivered more in the tone of “well rules-are-rules” sort of way.

Well, I understand following policy but still asked to talk to the manager who decided this. This was the same decider who was still hiding in her office. Annie and I walked to the closed office of the GoodWill site manager to politely inquire. My intention was just to build rapport and understand her concern. Well, immediately it was clear she was adamant – five year olds cannot be on the “sorting floor”. Ok, I get that but we’re just throwing clothes into big boxes and Annie would love it. She would, in fact, be awesome at it. We were never asked to sign any type of release and obviously I’m there as her parent responsible for her behavior and actions.

Nope, not a chance. Perhaps we could distribute the sorted clothes on the floor in the showroom? Nope, not in the policy. My daughter started to cry, and I knew there was no negotiating. It would only make things more difficult for her. We left, had a nice lunch and I tried to get Annie to forget about the unyeilding people at GoodWill.

Here’s the thing – consistently the best places to work communicate clearly that they trust their people. W.L. Gore, Umpqua Bank, NetApp, and many others have, for example, have adopted travel policies of “do the right thing.” GoodWill has a chance to communicate clearly to their people in the field that they have an opportunity to “do the right thing” as well. Or at the very least be human when delivering sad news.

No Regrets

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NO-REGRETSIf you’ve ever heard Marshall Goldsmith speak, you’ll know he has a signature bit near the end of his presentation in which he asks you to imagine you are 95 years old and preparing to die. But before you die, you can speak to your younger self and provide advice. In his talk Goldsmith advises: Be Happy Now, Focus on Friends and Family, and Live Out Your Dreams. The last one always gets me. It’s a reminder to go after whatever audacious goal you have – play the drums, speak Japanese, scuba in Aruba, or whatever drives your mojo.

I came across this book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, recently. In it Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, recounts spending the final three to six weeks with dying patients and shares what they have to say about living. The following is straight from her website:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
“This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Blue Monkey 22

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coyote2As a family we ski quite a bit in the winter. We’re about two hours from Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine and the kids love it. A couple years ago, I would regularly launch off a series of ski jumps in the terrain park. It’s exhilarating. Drop down to approach the ramp, race up to the lip of the jump and sail high to a smooth landing on the downhill other side. Fifteen feet? Twenty? I probably exaggerate but it feels really far. If you get the speed right it’s smooth, easy and fun. I could do it all day. What a blast.

As a big treat, I attached a ski trip to a business obligation in Denver and took our boys Charlie (10) and WIll (8) out to Breckenridge, CO to see the big sky, ski the big mountains. We met some good friends living there and headed up to Summit County for a few days. On the first day of skiing, I was riding up the chairlift with my friend Greg, and as the lift was passing over the terrain park below, which included a series of substantial jumps, Greg remarked, “I’ve always thought that looks fun but I’m not sure I want to try it.”

What a setup. Of course I say, “Oh, it’s no problem. Just get the speed right and it’s easy. I’ll show you. I do it all the time.” I spend the rest of the chairlift ride talking about how the key is to commit to it. Own it.

We skied down to the jump and I positioned myself to attack it. Maybe it was oxygen deprivation at altitude or a function of being forty, but in that moment I recall being supremely confident. This was a piece of cake. I dropped in, gained speed, and sailed smoothly off the jump.

Too fast. I hit that way too hot. I soared far over the easy downhill landing zone, arms pinwheeling like Wile E Coyote stationary above open air. I hit hard. I still remember the fall, but the next few seconds are blurry. Evidently after fifteen seconds or so, I wobbled to my feet and turned to see Greg had skied down next to me. Eyes big, he gestured and said “Sit down!”

I sat down and a blink later a Patroller was in front of me looking at me closely, and asking, “Where are you from? What day of the week is it? What did you have for breakfast?” Stunned, I turned and looked blankly at Greg, “I have no idea what I had for breakfast.”

Next the Patroller says, “I want you to remember these three things, OK? Blue. Monkey. 22. Got it?”

And I’m thinking, “No way, he’s doing that thing to me!” I have friends who are EMTs, ski patrollers, field trauma experts, and I knew he was performing a concussion assessment on me. There is no way I’m going to blow this. Blue. Monkey. 22. Oh, I got this dialed.

He asked me a series of questions about my kid’s names, who the President was, and so on, and when he came back to the three things I definitely nailed it. But still he said, “We’re going to put you on the sled, give you some oxygen, and take you down.” At eleven thousand feet, I remember the oxygen felt really good.

We went down to the patrol hut, Greg and the kids following. I got another look over, and some advice on how to behave. I suddenly felt pretty far from home, and when my son quietly teared up I felt embarrassed at being such a fool. Another Patroller came in and, after hearing my story, peered at me sagely and said, “The terrain park is a young man’s game.”

Blue Monkey 22 became code for “Do you really think you should do that? Maybe think it through first.” Lesson is: what works on the home court doesn’t always translate on the road. Or: with home in the rear view mirror, objects are closer than they appear.

It’s just another reason I stay off the jumps these days.

Insourcing Innovation

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GE is in the process of overhauling design of their signature appliances. And starting to manufacture them in Kentucky instead of Mexico and China.

“So a funny thing happened to the GeoSpring (water heater) on the way from the cheap Chinese factory to the expensive Kentucky factory: The material cost went down. The labor required to make it went down. The quality went up. Even the energy efficiency went up.”

– Charles Fishman

In 1951 GE began construction on what would become the largest domestic appliance manufacturing plant in the United States, aptly named Appliance Park, zip code 40225. Housing the appliance division of GE, and featuring the first-ever use of a computer (a gigantic UNIVAC) in a manufacturing setting, appliance park became the centerpiece of GE’s appliance production division and within just a couple years employed 16,000 people. By 1973, twenty years after opening its doors, the immense plant, with its mile-long parking lot, and its own fire department, employed over 23,000 people and turned out washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, and other appliances to Americans eager to embrace the conveniences of technology.

Within another just ten years, by 1984 the plant had been nicknamed Strike City for the constant divisive and productivity-killing strikes that were pervasive, and the working population had dropped back to 16,000 workers, then fell steadily through the 1990s as GE continued to outsource manufacturing to Mexico and China, until finally a mere 1,863 manufacturing employees remained at Appliance Park, KY in 2011.

Then, an interesting thing happened in February, 2012. GE fired up a manufacturing line in Building 2 of Appliance Park to build high tech, low energy, water heaters than had been made in China for over a decade. And then, a month later, in Building 5, another assembly line opened up to begin assembling fancy refrigerators, previously assembled in Mexico.

The GeoSpring was re-engineered to have 20% fewer parts, and is now produced in Kentucky in 80% less time than it was made in China. Partly because of the device design, but also because they have redesigned the workplace and assembly lines themselves. For example, their revamped dishwasher assembly line requires only 20% of the physical space previously required and reduces production time by 68%

By the end of 2012, GE expects to have over 3,600 professionals employed at Appliance Park, KY including salaried designers, engineers, and IT professionals. These product designers work hand-in-hand with the assembly line employees to ensure the design conveys efficiently to the actual construction process. As Jeff Immelt writes in the March, 2012 edition of Harvard Business Review, “At Appliance Park we have torn down functional silos and replaced them with a “one team” mentality. Designers, engineers, and assembly-line workers together determine the best way to meet their goals; they own the metrics.”

Meanwhile, on December 6, 2012 CEO Tim Cook announced to NBC that Apple intends to invest $100 million dollars to begin producing a line of Apple products within in the United States in 2013 for similar reasons.

You vs. Your Awesomeness

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Trying is the first step toward failure
– Homer Simpson

Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
– Garrison Keillor

86% of Harvard students believe they are more attractive than their classmates. 82% of drivers say they are in the top 30% of safe drivers. Most employees claim to have greater knowledge of industry facts and of their own company’s business than they actually do. Most managers overstate their understanding of these same questions by an even greater margin. Physicians overstate their confidence of accurate pneumonia diagnosis, and lawyers claim their likelihood of winning cases at better than 50% – a statistical impossibility. Salespeople are not immune either. Salespeople claim their likelihood of winning a final proposal at better than 70% which, considering there are often at least one other bidder, is a statistical impossibility.

I recently sat down with Jill Klein, Professor of Marketing at Melbourne Business School, to discuss her work, and her particular interest in some of the cognitive bias tendencies that we, humans, have when interpreting circumstances and events, and then choosing decisions based on our understandings and instincts. She pointed out that we all often suffer from an overconfidence of our abilities and knowledge on a wide range of subjects. In other words, we believe that we will be correct more often than we usually are.

There are a variety of psychological explanations for our overconfidence bias, but the most compelling reason may stem from our need to believe in our own sense of self-importance and optimism. If we recognized the statistical truth, we might be a little more pessimistic and grumpy getting out of bed in the morning.

This overconfidence bias can be a useful motivator toward driving action and initiative, and might even further our own careers and success socially, but if unchecked can lead to action in the wrong direction. Unchecked by organizational culture, managerial oversight and self-reflection, overconfidence can lead to failed endeavors and poor decisions for us and for our work.

Dr. Klein has a few actions and behaviors to help overcome decision overconfidence:

Solicit the opinion of more people. As James Surowiecki, author The Wisdom of Crowds, argued in his book, and as the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” demonstrates on prime time television, when we ask a larger group their opinion on a question, their collective judgment is almost always better than our own.

Solicit your own second opinion. When we average our own second opinion with own our first opinion we are almost always headed in the right direction.

Consider the extremes. If we place our own odds of success, or effort, or time required, at X, we should also ask ourselves what we consider the extreme positive and negative boundaries of these outcomes. That consideration will likely lead toward moderation – one way or other – of how we should proceed.

Separate our “deciding” self from our “doing” self. When we acknowledge that the estimate we make, however fact-based and analytical, is not actual but hypothetical, we can temper our own judgement by visualizing what will be entailed in the “doing” of our endeavor.

After reflection and consultation, remember ultimately the doing matters. WD-40 is named for the 40th chemical concoction which worked, and according to Sir James Dyson it took him over 5000 prototypes to build the world-renowned Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Do, or do not. There is no try.
– Yoda

You Make Your Own Luck

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Friday afternoon I stopped by our local convenience store to gas up. When I went inside, I was surprised to find a sizeable line of people to buy megabucks lottery tickets. I knew about the lottery since it was plastered everywhere but had yet to encounter the fever pitch first hand. The drawing for 650M was in a few short hours. Showing the same wildly irrational hope, I bought a few tickets.

We don’t have much control over whether we win the lottery, but it turns out, we have control over what we perceive as “luck,” and we have a great deal of control over our own happiness by how we interpret events and situations. When events occur we choose whether we believe they happened to us, or we caused them to happen. Bronze medal winners consistently self-describe themselves as happier with the result than Silver medal winners. Because they are not celebrating the facts, but interpreting counter-facts. They are answering the what-if question, and Bronze medal winners are celebrating that they are on the podium, while Silver medal winners are disappointed they lost.

Here’s another example of how we look at the world. In Daniel Kahneman’s book, he describes a bank survey in which they asked two separate questions:

  • How much would you pay for $100,000 life insurance that will pay in the event of death for any reason?
  • How much would you pay for $100,000 life insurance that pays in the event of death by terrorist attack incident?

Survey respondents said they would pay much higher rates for the second type of life insurance. This is deeply irrational but speaks directly to how negative emotions and ideas have the ability to cause us to overvalue or over emphasize their likelihood because of our emotional response to the idea.

In Richard Wiseman’s book The Luck Factor, he describes luck in terms of choice. In his research working with over 400 individuals he found some key attributes of those who describe themselves as “lucky.” These are the four big points in the book:
They consistently have chance encounters that lead to interesting new possibilities and opportunities
Lucky people harness the power of curiosity well. They are creative and curious, and everyone can learn to be too. Wiseman has a fun game you can play in which you write down six activities or experiences you have not tried but would be willing. Write them down and then roll a die and go do it.

They make good decisions without consciously knowing why or how they did
Those who describe themselves as lucky make better gut decisions. Which seems impossible to control, yet Wiseman discovered this is a learned trait since he found that those lucky decision-makers actually spent more time reflecting and meditating on the decision once considered, and spent more time envisioning hypothetical circumstances they might have to decide on. So when the situation arose, those lucky were better prepared to make a decision in the moment.

Their dreams and ambitions have a knack of coming true
Lucky people expect the best outcomes, despite any negative past experiences, whereas unlucky people allowed past negative events to dictate future expectations. The lucky people also described their expectations of upcoming interactions with other people as generally positive.

They regularly turn their bad fortune into good luck or opportunity
Wiseman describes two primary ways people turn bad luck into good. Basically they interpret the bad as “could have been much worse.” And when they reflect, they spend a greater amount of time visualizing and selectively remembering the positive. Other words, the bad wasn’t all that bad, and the good was pretty great.

The Meeting After the Meeting

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Don’t do this. Don’t hijack an hour of time from people, ask their thoughtful opinion, and then excuse everyone and hold back your cronies and have that “meeting after the meeting.” Sometimes you hear it on the conference call when a team leader says, “Hey Margaret can you call me right after this to follow up?” What is that all about?

We can easily sabotage our efforts to build the valued trust, rapport and engagement we know are important to drive excellence. Here’s a little way in which we can sometimes show to the team that their opinions aren’t really part of the solution: Having the meeting after the meeting.

The meeting after the meeting in which the “real” decision-makers call the shots, says to everyone that they don’t really have a voice. Or at best, they are fighting for their opinion to be heard. Or at worst, it’s a polite move so the shot-callers can attest publicly that opinions were heard, that they took in people’s concerns.

Do this instead. Listen more than talk. Ask credible, relevant and probing questions, and then collaboratively work toward decisions in front of everyone that recognizes and includes the voice of everyone. If you don’t intend to value an opinion, you’re not leading, you’re lobbying.

Don’t save Par, make Birdie

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“You don’t know how strong you are, until being strong is the only option you have.”

There’s an old adage that suffering yields ingenuity. The list is deep of artists, innovators, and inspiring leaders who found strength in the depths of adversity. It’s a beguiling truth since we tend toward safety and risk aversion in most aspects of our lives and business. So the question becomes, “If we aren’t currently in the depths of adversity, how do we find deep creativity and inspiration within contentment?” Or a better question might be, “How do we intentionally perturb ourselves in the search for creativity and inspiration?”

Statistically it’s true that golfers become better putters when faced with making par versus making birdie, from the same distance, with the same lie. We have surety and conviction when attacking the status quo, and make poorer choices when reaching beyond ourselves to excel, even when the goal remains the same. When we are on the edge of social risk, we retract, concede, and assimilate back to the norm – we make par.

Try this:
Choose between getting $900 for sure or a 90 percent chance of getting $1,000.
A. Getting $900
B. 90 percent chance of getting $1,000

Choose between losing $900 for sure or a 90 percent chance of losing $1,000.
A. Losing $900
B. 90 percent chance of losing $1,000

See below for the analysis, but the answer is clear. If you, like most people, chose A and then B, you could well be $100 down at the end of this exercise. What’s your social risk tolerance? What’s your measure of personal need for gain?

(Jamie Lalinde, Vanity Fair) The results of this simple problem set, for which most participants answer A and then B, were used to develop the thesis that would make Kahneman and Tversky famous: prospect theory.

In a 1979 paper, they documented a peculiar behavioral tendency: when people faced a gain, they became risk averse; when they faced a loss, they became risk seeking. As a result of their discovery, Kahneman and Tversky debunked Bernoulli’s utility theory, a cornerstone of economic thought since the 18th century. (Bernoulli first proponed that a person’s willingness to gamble a certain amount of money was a product of how that amount related to his overall wealth—that is, $1 million means more to a millionaire than it does to a billionaire.)

Along with playing a large role in Kahneman’s being awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002, the theory also spawned a new academic pursuit, the field of behavioral economics. Prospect theory, Michael Lewis writes, explains “why people are less likely to sell their houses and their stock portfolios in falling markets; why, most sensationally, professional golfers become better putters when they’re trying to save par (avoid losing a stroke) than when they’re trying to make a birdie (and gain a stroke).”