shitmydadsays

My friend Josh Klein, young hacker of everything, told me I'm not too old to twitter. I decided to give it a shot. That was three and a half weeks ago. I've managed six tweets. I'm struggling. But, I'm optimistic. I've already got 40 followers. Is that good? No, but it's a start.

In addition to telling me my age should not stop me from jumping on the twitter bandwagon, Josh suggested that I start off by using twitter as a scanning tool for new ideas. Huh? "Simple enough," he said. "Just find some really smart tweeters and start to follow them." That made sense to me, so I asked him how to separate the smart tweeters from the not-so-smart ones. "There's no one way to do it," he said, "but if I were you I'd pay special attention to the ones who have the most followers." And so I did. Here are some of the folks I'm following:

• Guy Kawasaki @ Alltop - 8594 followers
• HarvardBiz - 37,084 followers
• Marcus Buckingham - 4253 followers
• Fast Company - 39,180 followers
• Freakonomics - 28,056 followers
• Rick Warren - 49,820 followers
• Malcolm Gladwell - 41,426 followers
• shitmydadsays - 618,839 followers

Whoa! What is that all about? Almost 620,000 people following something called shitmydadsays? Can't be true! And yet, it is.

Some background. shitmydadsays debuted on August 3rd. For those of you who are counting, that's not quite three months ago. As of today 64 tweets are posted. The tweeter is Justin (no last name mentioned). Here's how he describes himself and what he is doing:

"I'm 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says."

That's it? Yep. "Well then," you say, "his dad must say some pretty smart things to attract so many followers." I don't know about that. Here are a few examples. Judge for yourself.

"You're being fucking dramatic. You own a TV and an air mattress. That's not exactly what I'd call a lot to lose."

"You need to flush the toilet more than once...No, YOU, YOU specifically need to. You know what, use a different toilet. This is my toilet."

"It's just a fucking june bug, calm down. Jesus Christ, what happens when something bigger than a testicle attacks you?"

"I like the dog. If he can't eat it, or fuck it, he pisses on it. I can get behind that."

Rather bawdy, wouldn't you say? How about brilliant? Maybe. Maybe not. Funny? Yes and no.

How about 620,000 followers in less than 90 days? That's the important question here, and in the answer you're likely to unearth some secrets to building a highly recognizable and attractive brand.

Conversation:

• Justin used just four words - shit ... my ... dad ... says - to both name and position his offering. Can you do the same for yours?
  
• Justin used earthy language to communicate with his audience. Do you think he would've attracted as many followers if he'd cleaned up his act ... if he had said pearls of wisdom from my father - or something akin to that - for example?
  
• Can you use the same approach and language to build your brand via social media that you did using traditional media? If so, how so? If not, why not?
  

Afterwords:

"If we left brand differentiation to most CEOs, most companies would stand for "quality, service, and innovation," and there would be even less differentiation than there already is." - Blaise James, Gallup global brand strategist, as quoted by Gallup Management Journal

"'Can't please everyone' isn't just an aphorism, it's the secret of being remarkable." - Seth Godin, writing in his blog

"In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." - Boris Pasternak

"The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred." - Aldous Huxley

"I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no doctrine, I carry on a dialogue." - Martin Buber

Life Is Short. Wear Your Party Pants.

This is Loretta LaRoche. She is an author, PBS TV personality, humorist, and stress management consultant. She appeared in our 2004 Masters Forum series. She talked about how to reduce stress in our lives by changing the way we look at things and learning to laugh, especially at ourselves. She was a stitch! We laughed until we hurt. We learned many lessons in the process. Here are some of them in Loretta's own words.

"We define ourselves by how much we have to do and how stressed we are. We are now a nation of human doings, not human beings. People would rather tell you how much they’re doing. The person who’s listening doesn’t care, because they’re practicing in their head how they’re going to counter how much you’ve done. So they’ll say, 'You think you have a lot to do? You should see what I have been doing!' Now, you haven’t won yet, so you have to add physical problems. You might say, 'I’ve been having headaches, backaches, frontaches.' What a sad commentary on life! We’re only here to distract ourselves until we die. That’s what this lecture is really about: Get a grip. You’re going to die. Don’t you want to live before you die? Don’t you want to be juicy? Don’t you want to thrive? Don’t you want to throb with delight every day? We’re all going to suffer - why practice?"

"The media wants to constantly remind you that you’re not enough, that something’s wrong, that there’s terror amongst us, that your lips should be fuller. Nothing is right, nothing. There are so many products on the market today that you can’t even get in your shower sometimes."

"So much is about structure: we have to have rules: 'I can’t have pineapple until 4:00; I can only eat meat at 11:00.' Who cares? Be quiet. Why don’t you tell me about something else? Wouldn’t it be fun to hear somebody say, 'I'm learning how to speak Chinese'? How much time are you taking doing these things and then complaining about it?"

"How many moments of our lives do we spend complaining and talking about what is not instead of what is? You know, we should go up to somebody and say, 'May god, my hair looks damn amazing today!' The pleasure concept of life is very important. This does not give pleasure - to always feel like I’m on the edge of not being okay. We spend so much time being careful about what we eat, but inside we’re dried up because we aren’t getting any pleasure. Put it on your tombstone - 'Was thin, died anyway'."

"People impose the tyranny of the should and the must on themselves. So at night you might be lying there shoulding on yourself, 'I shoulda done this, I shoulda done that'; or you might be going over what you must do in the morning, 'This is what I must do, this is what I must do' - that’s called musturbating. And we should on other people, too, because the nature of the mind is to be a saboteur. The Buddhists talk about the monkey mind. The monkey always wants a banana. The insistence is to keep talking to yourself in terms of not having what you need, or what you didn’t do, or what you should be doing. Isn’t that the way a lot of us are living - we’re waiting to finally get the accolades from 'they,' so we can feel okay. Perfectionism is a lot about shoulds and musts."

"The brain is not capable of multitasking. We are trying to teach ourselves something that’s impossible to achieve, because somebody came up with that word and now we think it should be part of the culture. No wonder people have lower productivity in workplaces: there’s all this baloney going on, all this fake stuff, and you believe it. What is the mission statement? It should be, 'We're here to have fun, first, and to create community.' Community and fun would be the mission statement, and then everything else would follow."

"How would an optimist behave? First of all, optimists see the world as a way to foster resiliency. Consider savoring all that you do. Have abundant pleasure in your life every day. Yesterday’s history; tomorrow’s a mystery; and today’s a gift - that’s why they call it the present. The other things optimists do is laugh a lot. They laugh at themselves in particular, because they know they’re the joke. Everybody in this room’s a joke; some people don’t get it. Don’t you hear this a lot: 'Do you know who I am?'? When I hear that I say, 'No, do you? You must be an idiot'."

"The most important thing an optimist can do is allow themselves to be playful with everyone they come into contact with. As you lighten up, so will the world. This is because your energy goes out into the world. Everything you do is felt by others. Even your thoughts manifest an energy that is picked up by everyone."

"Get a funky hat. Become as bizarre as possible. They’ve found that eccentric people live twenty years longer and go to the doctor rarely, because they’re living their bliss."

"If you think the worst and get the worst, you suffer twice. If you think the best and get the worst, you only suffer once."

Conversation:

My suggestion is to kick some of Loretta's ideas around and see what insights come your way. A couple of questions you can start with are:

• Do you have a monkey mind?
  
• If so, what is it you always want?

Afterwords:

"The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb." - Marshall McLuhan

"The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny." - Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

"The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things - not merely industrious, but to love industry - not merely learned, but to love knowledge - not merely pure, but to love purity - not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice." - John Ruskin

Video:

A short clip of Loretta LaRoche

Six-Word Memoirs

There's a literary legend that the great American writer Ernest Hemingway was once challenged in a bar to write a story in six words. He wrote:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

A couple of years ago, Smith, an online magazine dedicated to personal storytelling, picked up on the Hemingway legend and started a contest in which people - celebrities and just plain folk - wrote and submitted six-word stories of their own - as memoirs. The magazine received over 15,000 stories and selected a few hundred to publish in a book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Among those published are:

"Longed for him. Got him. Shit." - Margaret Atwood

"Well, I thought it was funny." - Stephen Colbert

"Liars: hysterectomy didn't improve sex life." - Joan Rivers

"After Harvard, had baby with crackhead." - Robin Templeton

"Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears." - Bill Querengesser

"Found true love. Married someone else." - Anonymous

Conversation:

• Do you think it's possible to sum up your life in just six words?
  
• Are there some possible statements, questions, or ideas that speak to who you are?
  
• Can you think of a single poignant moment, for example?
  
• Is there a song - or movie, poem, book, story, speech, quote - that is particularly meaningful?
  
• Can you recall a time when you were at a crucial juncture in your life, and the decision you made then? How might your life have turned out, if you'd made a different choice?
• What is your six-word memoir?
  

Afterwords:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." - M. Scott Peck

“Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.” - Isaiah Berlin - The Crooked Timber of Humanity

"I didn’t have a 'mission statement' at Burger King. I had a dream. Very simple. It was something like, 'Burger King is 250,000 people, every one of whom gives a shit.' Every one. Accounting. Systems. Not just the drive through. Everyone is 'in the brand.' That’s what we’re talking about, nothing less." - Barry Gibbons, former CEO

Pattern Recognition Rules!

In an earlier post, I featured the questionnaire that James Lipton uses on his television program Inside the Actor's Studio. I said I was intrigued by it because it allowed me to view his 200+ guests through a single lens. And, by holding the lens constant, I was able to see the differences between and among them.

I actually ran into this idea many years ago. I was introduced to it by one of my early mentors in the leadership development game, Dr. David W. Merrill, co-founder of what is now known as The TRACOM Group, and a true genius in the fields of individual, management, and organizational behavior.

Dave showed me a series of questions companies might use in the first step in the hiring process; he called it a patterned interview. The idea behind it was simple: hold the interviewer constant by asking the same questions - in the same order - to a group of candidates, thus making it possible to see the variety in both their answers and their behavior. This is important because if the approach of the interviewer varies, it becomes much more difficult to get a true reading on the differences between and among the candidates. In other words, the candidates' responses become the constant. Dave's simple explanation of this was, "Put 'em on stage. Ask a question. Be stoic and listen." In my view, Dave's questions can also be used as the basis for a conversation in which you and another take turns answering them. The end result is that you will know each other much better than before.

Conversation:

• Will you please tell me what you'd like about such things as your educational accomplishments, work experience, personal interests and career goals?
  
• What is your greatest success in life?
  
• What is your greatest failure?
  
• What are your strengths?
  
• What are your weaknesses?
  
• If I asked your friends what five adjectives describe you best, what would they say?
  
• What is your philosophy of life?
  
• What is the most important thing we can do to help you succeed with us?
  
• If we were to have any difficulty helping you succeed here, what would it be?
  

Afterwords:

"People don't change much. As a result, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you were to pin me down, though, and ask me to give you the reasons why people change when they do, I would give you three: traumatic life experience, religious conversion, and prefrontal lobotomy." - Dave Merrill

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
- William Stafford

The Impossible Dream

Dale Wasserman is an American playwright best known for writing the story on which the celebrated musical Man of La Mancha is based. The story was inspired by the life of Miguel de Cervantes, author of the 17th century masterpiece Don Quixote.

Man of La Mancha is best known for a song, The Impossible Dream. But, that's not the title of the song. Wasserman explains in an excerpt from his 2003 book, The Impossible Musical:

"Once upon a time I invented a phrase, 'the impossible dream.' People think it comes from a song, but it doesn't. It's from my original television play, 'I, Don Quixote.' The phrase has gone into the language and traveled far and wide. It's been used (and abused) countless times, and will continue into the future. I invented it simply to explain Don Quixote's quest - indeed the song's proper title is 'The Quest.' But the public seized upon the eponymous phrase and won't let go. The odd thing about the phrase is that everyone seems to misunderstand it. 'The impossible dream' is customarily applied to ventures that may be somewhat difficult but perfectly possible. A pennant for the Mets. A new spike in the company sales chart. An even faster computer (who needs it?) or possibly the latest burp in technology. When I see these references - and I see them every day - my impulse is to holler, 'Pay attention, damn it, the operative word is not 'dream,' the operative word is 'impossible!' Of course no one listens. But 'impossible' is exactly what I meant: the dream, to be valid, must be impossible. Not just difficult. Impossible. Which implies an ideal never attainable but nevertheless stubbornly to be pursued. A striving for what cannot be achieved but still is worth the effort. As, for instance, peace on earth. Or a gentleness for all who breathe, and breathing, suffer. Or a hope that we may mitigate the horrors paraded for us on the news every hour of every day of every week. That we may reduce the tidal surge of wars, crimes, cruelties to humans and to animals, and the orgies of atrocities that sicken the earth. These are impossible dreams. Still, quixotically, they must be dreamed."

Conversation:

• What is your impossible dream? Explain.

Afterwords:

The lyrics to The Quest by Joe Darion:

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
To follow that star --
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far.

To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will be peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To reach the unreachable star.

Video:

The Quest by Brian Mitchell Stokes at the 57th Tony Awards.

Are You a Hammer or a Nail?

The Hammer and Nail - created by John Provo of Reitaku University in Japan - is an exercise designed to encourage abstract thinking. It also presents the opportunity to see ourselves from many odd and interesting angles, and helps the others come to know us in new and different ways.

Conversation: From each of the following pairs of words, pick the one you think best describes you and thoughtfully explain why you feel that way. Are you:

• Hammer or nail?
  
• Child or old man or woman?
  
• Sun or moon?
  
• Cube or ball?
  
• Present or future?
  
• Yes or no?
  
• Physical or mental?
  
• Pencil or eraser?
  
• Question or answer?
  
• City or country?
  
• Dictionary or novel?
  
• TV or radio?

Afterwords:

"Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought."- Karl Kraus

"How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?" - E.M. Forster

"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind." - Emily Dickinson

Splatter Vision

In their book Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals that Will Make or Break Your Company, Paul J.H. Schoemaker and George S. Day describe a method the FBI uses to scan large crowds for early signs of trouble:

"The FBI trains its agents to use a scanning approach called splatter vision. This involves scanning a crowd for would-be assassins by looking into the distance and not focusing on anyone in particular. Once the agent fixes a general gaze, he or she looks for deviation or change. Is someone restless, looking around too much, slowly putting a hand into a coat pocket? From among hundreds of faces, the agent seeks a lone assassin; suspicious activity then triggers a more intense focus. By balancing directed and undirected scanning, a single agent can spot signs of trouble across a fairly large area."

This technique is not new; it has been used for centuries by Native Americans to track game in the wilderness. It is also used by fighter pilots in air-to-air combat situations, and in top driver training schools.

Roch Parayre is a partner with Shoemaker and Day in Decision Strategies International, and a Fellow at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. In a recent Masters Forum presentation - Scanning the Periphery - he said a figurative version of this technique can be used by companies to pick up weak signals of impending threats or opportunities in their environment. He added that those who do this successfully will gain a significant advantage over competitors who are late to arrive at the table. To do an initial scan, he suggests:

Conversation:

• What have been our past blind spots?
  
• What is happening there now?
• Is there an instructive analogy from another industry?
• Who in our industry is skilled at picking up weak signals and acting on them ahead of competition?
• What important signals are we rationalizing away?
• What are our mavericks and authors saying?
• What are our peripheral customers and competitors really thinking?
• What future surprises could hurt or help us?
• What emerging technologies could change the game?
• Is there an unthinkable scenario?
  

Afterwords:

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little that we can do to change, until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." - R.D. Laing

"Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers." - Daniel Boorstin

"Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization." - Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

"Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events, and in today already walks tomorrow." - Friedrich Schiller

"The punch that knocks a man out is the punch that he doesn't see. Have you ever seen the pea in the shell game? The man who works the game must have the ability to direct attention to the wrong area. That's what happens in boxing." - Cus D'Amato, boxing trainer and manager.

Are These My Students?

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with most of the world's great speakers. At the very top of that list is Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are many things that have boosted Ben to the top of the speaker leader board. First, he is a true genius and his thoughts on how to better our lives, relationships, and organizations are practical as well as profound. Second, he is a remarkable performer. He shares his ideas with great warmth and joy. He also plays the piano, tells poignant stories, and involves his audience in ways that make his points jump to life. These things alone make Ben a lock to receive a standing ovation and the highest possible ratings whenever and wherever he speaks.

But, there is something else - an X factor if you will - that brings Ben even higher regard: he always shows up as the caring, interested human being he is, and not as a celebrity or the star of the show. To illustrate:

In early 2000, I was involved in planning and conducting a three day conference for an international bank. We hired Ben to give the opening keynote, which took place right before dinner on the first night. Ben's presentation was a rousing success, of course. But, it was what happened before he even registered at the hotel that clearly demonstrates what I mean when I say he shows up as a human being.

I met Ben's limo when it arrived at the front entrance to the hotel. After he stepped out, we exchanged pleasantries, corralled his luggage, and headed for the lobby. Once inside, we bumped into 20 or 30 of our conference's attendees who were milling around as they waited to register. It was what Ben did at that point that helped me understand why he moves people so deeply. He said - out loud so that everyone could hear - "Are these my students?" When I confirmed his notion, he said "Ahhh! There you are!" He followed that by wading into the crowd and asking folks to tell him their name, where they were from, and so forth.

There is a great lesson here that should not be missed. Whenever we walk into a room full of people - or simply greet one other person - we have a choice: we can feel, think, and behave in a way that says, "Here I am!" or we can do it in a way - Ben's way - that says "Ahhh! There you are!"

Conversation:

• Do you know someone who shows up like Ben Zander? How does that person make you feel when you are with him or her?
• How are you most apt to show up with others? How do you want to show up?
• When you meet someone for the first time, what are you most interested in learning about him or her? What do you most want that person to know about you? Which comes first?
• Are you more attracted to people who seem fascinated with you, or to people who fascinate you?

Afterwords:

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." - Dale Carnegie

"When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life." - Brenda Ueland, author

The Strength to Lead, the Courage to Die

According to Be, Know, Do: The U.S. Army Leadership Manual:

"Leadership starts with what the leader must be; the values and attributes that shape the leader’s character. Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do."

A boots-on-the-ground example of what that really means comes from a story told at an early Masters Forum session by David Kirk Hart, former professor at BYU's Marriott School of Management:

"When the British pulled out of Israel, the Israelis went to war with all the Arab nations. A small Israeli raider company became trapped in a very bad firefight, 70 men against 1500. The raider commander said, 'We've got to retreat.' In a retreat, you call upon somebody to stay behind and cover the retreat. The commander of the Israeli unit was a man named Naham Arieli - you should remember the name - and Arieli gave the retreat order which later became the creed of the Israeli officer corps. The retreat order was, 'All of the enlisted men are to withdraw; the officers will cover the retreat.' One officer got off the hill alive. In an age of golden parachutes, in an age of sacking and pillaging the firm to be sure the CEO and the second financial officer are okay before announcing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that's noblesse oblige."

Conversation:

• Name a person whose courage has inspired you. Explain.
• What heroic qualities do you possess? What scares you?
• What is the most difficult ethical or moral decision you've ever had to make?
  
• What do you continually get away with?
• What was a significant crossroad in your life? What path did you take and why?
• What would you be willing to die for?
  

Afterwords:

"Perhaps because warfare has played a central role historically in the development of our conceptions of leadership and authority, it is not surprising that the ancient linguistic root of the word 'to lead' means 'to go forth, die.'" - Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers

"There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else." - Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

"You can be obsessed by remorse all your life, not because you chose the wrong thing - you can always repent, atone - but because you never had the chance to prove to yourself that you would have chosen the right thing." - Umberto Eco

Cowell and Candor

American Idol judge Simon Cowell is thought to be mean-spirited for saying things like:

"You have just invented a new form of torture."

"Shave off your beard and wear a dress. You would make a great female impersonator."

Simon also gives plenty of pats on the back ...

"I don't say this lightly, what I'm about to say. That performance was on a par with Whitney Houston ... Celine Dion ... seriously."

"At five seasons, you are the best male vocalist we've ever had."

... but hardly anyone notices, or thinks of him as nice.

Why? His candor - especially when he is being brutally honest - is so out of step with the current conventions of social discourse that it stands out like a sore thumb. Simon understands this ...

"I think you have to judge everything based on your personal taste. And, if that means being critical, so be it. I hate political correctness. I absolutely loathe it."

... but there's a method to his madness:

"I haven't done anything particularly harsh. Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That's harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who's got zero talent that he or she has zero talent actually is a kindness."

Maybe this is why he says:

"I am poor, misunderstood Simon. I'm really the nice one and no one gets it yet. But, they will."

Whether you agree or not, it's worth examining his premise more thoroughly.

There is a show in the U.K. similar to American Idol. It's called Britain's Got Talent. Simon is a judge there as well. Watch the following clip from the show. Here is what you'll see. A six year old girl steps onstage to perform. She is vying for a spot in the finals. She sings. The first two judges sing her praises. Simon is last to speak. Pay close attention to his words and - more importantly - how he frames them.

Here's Connie:

There are at least two things worth noting. The first is to recognize Simon's credibility as a judge. Little Connie, her parents, the audience and the other judges were all holding their breath as they waited for Simon's assessment. This is because they knew - based on his previous behavior - that he could be trusted to give her the rating he thought she had earned - nothing more and nothing less. And, they were afraid that he might not have liked her performance all that much.

The second is more subtle. When he said "Connie, I'm going to talk with you like an adult because I think it is important," he was deliberately making it clear he was going to hold her to the same standard as everyone else in the competition. If he hadn't framed it that way - and simply told her she was terrific - she might have thought he was just being nice to her because she was only six years old. As a matter of fact, odds are great that most of the feedback Connie had gotten up to that point in her life had been qualified as in "She's really good ... for someone who's only six." Instead, Simon gave her a true gift: feedback she could take to heart. It didn't matter that she was only six, she was good ... period.

But would he have been straight with her - or mean in the mind of most - had her performance been poor? In all likelihood, yes. It's also likely he would've taken her age into account and cushioned the blow as best he could. In other words, he would've tried to balance courage with consideration.

As a leader or manager or coach or mentor or teacher or spouse or parent or friend or neighbor or whatever, you should feel obligated to give the folks who wander in and around your life any feedback you think would - or even just might - be helpful to them. There are times, of course, when it is easier - and correct - to say nothing, or color the truth in some small way, to avoid hurting someone's feelings or getting into an argument. But, don't be too tempted to take the easy way out. Be like Simon. Care for people instead of taking care of them. There's a big difference.

Morris Schectman lays out the difference in his book Working Without a Net:

"Caretaking is when you bother me a little bit, and I do just enough. I feel better because I think I took care of you. That is not any good to you at all. You may be in fact an alcoholic and I just gave you the money to buy the bottle that kills you. But, I feel better and go home."

"Caring is actually stopping and dealing with the human being, trying to understand enough about them to genuinely make sure you improve their life, even if you have to start with a conversation like, 'If you will quit drinking, I will help you get a job.' This is a lot harder than saying, 'Here's a buck or 5 bucks. I hope it helps.'"

Conversation:

• How do you tend to have either a caretaking nature or a caring nature?
• Can you think of a situation(s) in which you were a caretaker? What did you do? What was the short-term result? Long-term? How was what you did either fair or unfair to the other person involved?
• Can you think of a situation(s) in which you were caring? What did you do? What was the short-term result? Long-term? How was what you did either fair or unfair to the other person?

Afterwords:

"He who praises everybody, praises nobody." - James Boswell

"Speech devoted to truth should be straightforward and plain." - Seneca

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names." - Confucius

"Beware how you take away hope from another human being." - Oliver Wendell Holmes