The purpose of this blog is to share stories, metaphors, quotes, songs, humor, etc. in hopes they'll be used to spark authentic and rewarding conversations about working and living fruitfully. There are at least three things you can gain by getting involved in these conversations. First, you'll discover new and important things about yourself through the process of thinking out loud. Second, you'll deepen your relationships with others who participate by swapping thoughts, feelings, and stories with them. Finally, you'll learn that robust dialogue centered on stories and experiences is the best way to build new knowledge and generate innovative answers to the questions that both life and work ask.
I write another blog called My Spare Brain. This is where I am "storing" ideas for use in future books, articles, blog posts, speeches, and workshops. There is little rhyme or reason for what I post there. I do this to encourage visitors to come as treasure hunters looking for new ways of seeing and thinking vs. researchers looking for new or better answers to questions they already know how to ask.
John Steinbeck's East of Eden was published in October, 1952. It became an instant best-seller. It was adapted for film in 1955 by director Elia Kazan. A TV miniseries was aired in 1981, and rumors have it that Universal Pictures will produce another adaption of the novel with a release date of 2009.
Steinbeck's inspiration for the novel came from the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, it came from Genesis 4: 1-16, which recounts the story of Cain and Abel. The title, East of Eden, was chosen by Steinbeck from verse 16:
"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."
The book explores themes of depravity, beneficence, love, and the struggle for acceptance, greatness, and the capacity for self-destruction. Steinbeck said of it:
"It has everything in it I've been able to learn about my craft in all these years. I think everything else I've written has been, in a sense, practice for this."
In Chapter 13, Steinbeck described the condition of the world. He said:
"There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused."
He went on to say these conditions prompted him to ask himself three important questions. These same questions are worth asking ourselves today.
Conversation:
What do I believe in?
What must I fight for?
What must I fight against?
Afterwords:
"The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross, which bridge to burn." - David Russell
"I think when people have illustrated the Bible, most of them have been devout Christians. Because they're devout Christians they can't separate themselves from the work. They get mired in piety, so they can't see the darkness. They only see the light of salvation. But if you don't have the darkness to contrast with the light, then what are you offering but cotton candy for Sunday school children? I think that some of the images in this Bible will be disturbing to a lot of people. The Bible is a very disturbing book." – Barry Moser, illustrator
"Lord, give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything." - Reverend Peter Marshall, a prayer offered at the opening session of the U.S. Senate on April 18, 1947
"Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found." - Lao Tzu
"Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses…" - Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
"It is immensely moving when a mature man – no matter whether old or young in years – is aware of a responsibility for the consequences of his conduct and really feels such responsibility with heart and soul. He then acts by following an ethic of responsibility and somewhere he reaches the point where he says: 'Here I stand; I can do no other.'" - Max Weber
Garrison Keillor is creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion which was first broadcast from the Janet Wallace auditorium at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 6, 1974.
Today, almost 40 years later, his tales from the fictional Lake Wobegon, which he calls "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve," are heard by over 4 million listeners each week on almost 600 public radio stations here and abroad.
Speaking about the show's long run on APHC's website, Keillor says:
"When the show started, it was something funny to do with my friends, and then it became an achievement that I hoped would be successful, and now it's a good way of life."
I get Garrison Keillor. I grew up in a small, out-of-the-way Minnesota town - not unlike his Lake Wobegon - and can relate to the yarns he spins about the folks who live there and the warp and weft of their lives.
I also get Garrison because he and I are pretty close to the same age and grew up with the same stuff spinning around, over, under and through us: the dawn of the nuclear age; the dark shadow cast 'round the world by an evil Soviet Union; The Shadow and The Lone Ranger on the radio; Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best and Bonanza on TV; the birth of rock & roll; the tragic deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P Richardson aka The Big Bopper; the civil rights movement; the murders of Jack and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Timothy Leary and trips on LSD; Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and The Kingston Trio; San Francisco, flower children, Volkswagen buses and free love; Vietnam, draft dodgers, war protesters; the Beatles, Helter Skelter & Charlie Manson; Richard Nixon, Watergate, and on ... and on ... and on. Ahh! Yes! "Those were the days, my friend" ... sing along now ... "I thought they'd never end, we'd sing and dance forever and a day." Hmmm.
Times have changed, of course, just like Bob Dylan said they would, and when I get to looking back on those days of yesteryear, I usually get to thinking about how smart I thought I was; how I had all the answers. Maybe Garrison does too. But, once you get to be our age - Garrison's and mine - and if you still have your wits about you, it slowly dawns on you that you may not have been so smart after all. Or, as Garrison has simply and profoundly stated:
"You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories."
Stories ... they are the principle driver of learning that sticks in the human brain:
"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten." - Rudyard Kipling
Stories ... they keep us from losing our way:
"If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life." - A Siberian Elder
Stories ... they help us connect with others in a deep, meaningful way:
"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — 'Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.' " - John Steinbeck
Conversation:
In Dreamgates, Robert Moss wrote: "Australian Aborigines say that the big stories - the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life - are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush." What is the big story you are meant to tell?How will it find you?
Hannah Arendt has said: "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." How do you understand what she is saying?
When he is talking to leaders, Peter Block often says: "Our ability to facilitate the learning of others is absolutely dependent on our own consciousness and on our willingness to make our own actions a legitimate subject of inquiry. Allowing the personal to become public is the act of responsibility that initiates cultural change and reforms organizations. Our need for privacy and our fear of the personal are primary reasons why organizational change is more rhetoric than reality. Real change comes from our willingness to own our vulnerability, confess our failures, and acknowledge that many of our stories do not have a happy ending." Do you typically share these kinds of stories? Why or why not?
Afterwords:
"The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances." - Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum
"Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them." - Aldous Huxley
"The leader who says ‘I don’t know’ essentially says that the group is facing a new ballgame where the old tools of logic may be its undoing rather than its salvation. To drop these tools is not to give up on finding a workable answer. It is only to give up on one means of answering that is ill-suited to the unstable, the unknowable, the unpredictable. To drop the heavy tools of rationality is to gain access to lightness in the form of intuitions, feelings, stories, experience, active listening, shared humanity, awareness in the moment, capability for fascination, awe, novel words and empathy." - Karl Weick
"Self-disclosure is the act of revealing yourself to others – your thoughts, feelings, intentions– telling your story. Another word for self-disclosure is 'intimacy'. This word is commonly associated with sexuality. But it really refers to familiarity and closeness. Intimacy can be understood better by pronouncing it as 'in-to-me-see' – a clear reference to self-disclosure. Why is intimacy so important? It builds understanding, trust, compassion, and commonality – all of which are essential to effective relationships. When you begin to understand other people’s stories, your heart softens. You find that their sorrows and joys are similar to yours, and that you have more in common than you ever thought. You draw closer and become more tolerant, more supportive, and more understanding." - Mark D. Youngblood, Life at the Edge of Chaos
"'I would ask you to remember only this one thing,' said Badger. 'The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be good story-tellers. Never forget these obligations.'" - Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel
"A minister has to be able to read a clock. At noon, it's time to go home and turn up the pot roast and get the peas out of the freezer." - Garrison Keillor
"They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days." - Garrison Keillor
"Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people." - Garrison Keillor
There is a quote from Tony Campolo, pastor and author, that I've had in my files for years. I've kept it because it jarred me when I first read it, and has challenged my thinking about life since. Here's what he said:
"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
I've never been able to argue with his assertion; I've only been able to ask myself why I think he's right, and on that score, I've come up empty.
There's another quote I came across recently that's helped me begin to answer my question. It comes from Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon:
"Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that."
Or, as Tom Robbins asked about the TV set in Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates:
“Does it not posses the power of a totem pole and the heart of a rat?”
Is television to blame for the fact so many of us have become so numb and disconnected from the violence and suffering that whirls around us like a doomsday machine? I think so; at least in part.
A case in point. I was up late reading and watching TV when the first reports of the February 13, 2009, plane crash at the Buffalo, NY airport started coming in. For a few minutes, I gave my full attention to the TV, but soon I was back to reading and glancing up every now and then to see if anything new was happening. I fell asleep before long, and slept peacefully through the night. In the morning, I turned the TV back on and found out that 50 people had died in the crash. At that point, I did what I think many of us did that morning: I acknowledged that some people I didn't know died in a plane crash in a city far away, and went about my business. After all, we see stuff like this on TV all the time.
Then ... I got a wake-up call. I had wandered back to the family room. The TV was still tuned to a cable news channel. I watched - mindlessly at first. I noticed that a young man was being interviewed. I figured the reporter would be asking the same banal questions reporters always ask in similar situations, and that the young man would answer in pretty much the same way others I've seen standing in his shoes did. The reporter didn't disappoint, to be sure, but the young man's answers stunned me. All of a sudden I was awake, and personally involved. In a nutshell, here's what happened. The young man told the reporter he had planned to stop by the airport on his way home from soccer practice to meet his sister's plane. He told him he had learned she was on the ill-fated flight, and no one had made it out alive. The reporter asked the first banal question: "What has been going through your mind the last few minutes?" The young man said he just talked to his Father - who was vacationing with his Mother in Florida - to relay the bad news, and said he was really worried about his Mother. The reporter then asked him another banal question: - "How are they taking it?" His answer was anything but banal:
"To tell you the truth, I heard my mother make a noise on the phone that I've never heard before."
All of a sudden I was there with him. I conjured up a vivid picture of his parents dealing with their grief in a small motel somewhere in Florida. I thought back to the time in my life when I had to pass the news to my future wife - we had been dating for about six months at the time - that her 14 year old brother had died in a freak accident. I remember trying to come up with the words to comfort her. I couldn't so I just held her. She cried herself to sleep. I thought about the struggle our family has been going through to help one of my sons deal with a serious substance abuse problem, and the nights I've stayed awake waiting for him to come home, and hoping the phone didn't ring first. This is hard stuff, and you pretty much end up dealing with it by yourself. Even those of us who thought twice about the 50 folks who died in the dark of night in Buffalo, were able to quickly put it our of our minds and go back to our daily routines. For those closest to the victims, however, life will never be the same.
In the future, I hope to remember that there are real people - with real families and friends that love them - behind the pictures we see and the sound bites we hear on TV. And, if I can do that, maybe I can also remember to stop to say a prayer asking God to walk with them in their time of great need.
Conversation:
What is your reaction to the Tony Campolo Quote?
Have you experienced the sudden loss of a close friend or family member?
If so, how did you cope? Did you walk through your pain or deny it?
If not, have you ever helped someone deal with a tragic loss? Explain.
Afterwords:
"You cannot put a cheap band-aid on a sacred wound; there is no way through pain but to walk through it." - Dr. Robin Smith
"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, 'Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.' " - John Steinbeck
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." - Henri Nouwen
Country singer-songwriter, Garth Brooks, has sold more records than anyone in the history of the music industry, save The Beatles. His signature song is the blue-collar rouser Friends in Low Places.
Friends in low places is a theme that shows up often in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, which is based on the book of the same name by George Crile. A synopsis of the movie from Reuters follows:
Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) was a bachelor congressman from Texas whose "Good Time Charlie" exterior masked an extraordinary mind, a deep sense of patriotism and a passion for the underdog. In the early 1980s the underdog was Afghanistan - which had just been brutally invaded by the Russians.
Charlie's longtime friend, patron and sometime lover was Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) - one of the richest women in Texas and a virulent anti-communist. Believing the American response to the Russian invasion was anemic at best, she prodded Charlie into doing more for the Mujahideen (Afghan freedom fighters).
Charlie's partner in this uphill endeavor was CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) - a blue-collar operative in a company of Ivy League blue bloods. Together they traveled the world to form unlikely alliances among the Pakistanis, Israelis, Egyptians, arms dealers, law makers and a belly dancer.
Their success was remarkable. Funding for covert ops against the Soviets went from $5 million to $1 billion annually. The Red Army retreated out of Afghanistan. When asked how a group of peasants was able to deliver such a decisive blow to the army of a superpower, Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq responded simply: "Charlie did it."
Charlie was able to do it because of the help he and Gust got from friends in low placesand in other places as well. Crile explains:
"The way things normally work, if you’re not Jewish you don’t get into the Jewish caucus, but Charlie did. And if you’re not black you don’t get into the black caucus. But Charlie plays poker with the black caucus; they had a game, and he’s the only white guy in it. The House, like any human institution, is moved by friendships, and no matter what people might think about Wilson’s antics, they tend to like him and enjoy his company."
"Avrakotos was hardly the first CIA case officer to recognize the value of lower-level members of an intelligence organization. Abroad, every CIA spy recognizes that perhaps the most promising targets for recruitment in an enemy intelligence service are low-level figures: the code clerks, the secretaries, the couriers. But it was rare indeed to fine a case officer who made an effort to befriend such lowly figures within their own organization. In vivid contrast, Avrakotos had always found himself more at home with these fellow untouchables than with the well-born, high-ranking officers of the clandestine services, and from the time he first joined the CIA he had befriended them. He made it a point to intervene when he could on their behalf. He became their champion whenever one of them would be unfairly treated. And he always shared the truth about the way he felt about the blue-bloods."
Conversation:
How would you characterize your relationships with the little people in your personal as well as your professional life? Would they echo your comments? Are you sure?
How has a friend in a low place helped you?
How has an enemy in a low place done you in?
As you build and nurture your networks, where do the little people stand? Top of mind? Afterthought? Out of the picture?
If you say they are important to you, are you treating them accordingly?
If you say they are not important, is it possible you should rethink your position?
Afterwords:
"Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, from The Sunday Times - June 1, 2008
"If you're in trouble, or hurt or need -- go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones." - John Steinbeck
"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but it's people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor, but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters." - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, who has been nationally syndicated since 1999. He is also a frequent guest on TV news shows such as Larry King Live, The Early Show on CBS, The Today Show, The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, and Hannity & Colmes. He has written four books, including the best-selling Happiness Is A Serious Problem.
Dennis has been with us at The Masters Forum on four occasions. During his first appearance, while delivering a presentation titled Ultimate Issues, he asked an interesting question:
"If you could choose just one of the four, would you want your children to grow up to be happy, smart, successful, or good?"
He asked us to make a choice and discuss it with a person sitting nearby. Incidentally, there is a correct answer to the question as far as Dennis is concerned: good. This jibes with his philosophy that the most basic and meaningful way to sort people or behavior is to use two boxes: one marked Good;the other marked Evil.
Then came a second question:
"If I asked your children which of the four they think you want most for them, what would their answer be?"
In other words, he wanted us to consider the possibility that we might be saying one thing is important with our words, while unwittingly reinforcing another with our deeds.
Steve Kerr, former Chief Learning Officer of both GE and Goldman Sachs, says we are prone to making this same mistake in our roles as managers and leaders. His classic article - On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B - sheds light on the subject.
Conversation:
How do you typically let others know what you expect of them?
How do you check to see that they are absolutely clear about what you want?
How do you ensure that what you are asking for and what gets rewarded are one and the same?
If you could choose just one of the four, would you want those who work with you - or for you - to be happy/engaged in their work, smart/committed to learning, successful/getting the job done, or good/doing what's right?
If you asked them, what would they say you want most?
Afterwords:
“Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy, she'll beat you if she's able. You know, the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.” The Eagles, Desperado
"I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?" - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Italian film director Sergio Leonne selected Clint Eastwood to play the lead role in his Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). All three films were hits, and Eastwood became a star playing the role of a stranger who was simply called, The Man with No Name. The plot in all three of these movies was essentially the same. A stranger arrives in town. He finds evil and drives it out. He leaves without telling anyone his name, where he is from, or what brought him to town. He doesn't even pause to be thanked.
There are many people who enter our lives as strangers, make their mark, and leave the way they came. Most often, these outsiders help us in simple, yet meaningful ways.
A case in point comes from StoryCorps, a company whose mission is to help people share their stories with others. The story is about a young man, Julio Diaz, and is titled A Victim Treats His Mugger Right. The story was featured recently on the NPR's Morning Edition:
March 28, 2008 · Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?’”
Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome."
"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth. "The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"
"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"
"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.
The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."
Conversation:
What is the role strangers play in our lives?
How has a stranger helped you?
How good a strangerare you?
How good a one would you like to be?
Afterwords:
"I like Clint Eastwood because he has only two facial expressions: one with the hat, and one without it."- Sergio Leonne
"Some strangers become more important to you than family, maybe because you’re not expected to love them. You can leave them whenever you want to. Every moment together is a choice." - Walter Kirn, Thumbsucker
"The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost." - John Steinbeck
When he appeared at The Masters Forum, author Dan Pink told of a conversation he had with an HR executive he met at a conference. When talk turned to unusual interview questions, she shared her favorite:
"Are you lucky?"
Dan immediately thought, "I'm so going to steal that." And, he did.
I heard a great story about luck several years back. It came from Cliff Havener and concerned a consulting project he had just finished at 3M. Cliff included the story in his book - Meaning: The Secret to Being Alive - which was published two or three years hence. I quote from the book:
The general manager of 3M's Occupational Health and Safety Products Division once asked me to conduct a broad-scale study. The flagship of his line was disposable face masks.
The two questions he wanted answered were: Why was this product successful? and Will it continue?
If you didn't know how and why it would work, how did you get into the business?
Here's what he told me:
Once upon a time there were two R&D scientists experimenting with a technology to mold paper into various shapes and have it stay that way. Once they got it to work, they asked each other, 'Now what can we do with this?' One suggested paper dresses. 'Nah!' said the other, 'That's been done.' But, being on the subject of women, he added, 'But what about paper bras? A woman could wear the bra for a few days and throw it away. She'd never have to wash it.' That was their idea of the product's reason for being. Each asked his wife what she thought. Being supportive, loyal wives, they answered, 'Oh honey, you're so smart. What a great idea!' They just didn't mention they wouldn't wear one on a bet. Having completed their market research, the two convinced management to build a pilot plant. It consisted of die-cutting machines stamping out everything from 32As to 44Ds.
They named the product, packaged it, and gave it to the sales force that called on department stores. These guys usually called on the stationery buyer about tape and such. They made a detour to see the lingerie buyer, who, of course, was a woman. The roars of laughter that erupted from the lingerie buyers' offices caused the sales guys to slink out without bothering to open the door. With bright red faces, they called headquarters: 'Did you clowns ever check this out? That was the worst experience of my life.' The home office cheered! One possible application of the technology had been eliminated. They were one step closer to finding a home for it.
'O.K., the bra idea didn't work. Now we've got all those die-cut machines. What can we do with them?' someone asked. 'Well, if we cut the bras in half and add rubber bands, we'll have face masks,' someone offered. That's what they did. Industry bought them, like crazy. That's how we got into this business. The thing is, we don't know why industry bought 'em like crazy - or if they're gonna keep buying them like crazy. What I found out was that while Tweedledum and Tweedledee were playing with the bras that became face masks, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) changed its primary focus from accident prevention to air quality. Manufacturing plants found themselves equipping workers with canister masks. Canister masks are heavy. They restrict breathing, induce fatigue, and interfere with vision. Morale and productivity plummeted. Adding insult to injury, plants had to sterilize the masks every night further increasing costs.
Into this situation blindly stumbled a product that was lightweight, induced far less fatigue, and interfered less with vision. It provided a way for companies to comply with OSHA’s regulations without destroying their profit. That’s dramatically superior usefulness. No wonder industry bought ‘em like crazy.
The company had provided dramatically superior usefulness – without consciously intending to do it, knowing how to do it, or knowing it had done it.
This is also a story of prototyping. Send something into the market. Find out if it works. If it does, great. If it doesn't, regroup and try again. Typically, though, a company will make a much smaller bet on the front end. Conversation:
Are you superstitious?
Do you believe in karma?
Are there some people who are just plain lucky and others who are unlucky?
Who is the luckiest person you know? Unluckiest?
How has luck - good or bad - made a difference in your life and career?
Is good luck simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time? If so, how can you know when you're standing in the right spot?
What can you do to increase the chances you'll be lucky?
Afterwords:
"No matter what our character, no matter what our behavior, no matter if we are ugly, unkind, murderers, saints, guilty sinners, foolish, or wise, we can get lucky." - Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather
"Luck or tragedy, some people get runs. Then of course there are those who divide it even, good and bad, but we never hear of them. Such a life doesn't demand attention. Only the people who get the good or bad runs." - John Steinbeck
"My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker." - Woody Allen
On September 7, 2002, Navy Secretary Gordon England announced the decision to name the fifth amphibious transport dock ship of the San Antonio class U.S.S. New York (LPD 21). He said:
"This new class of ships will project American power to the far corners of the Earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century. From the war for independence through the war on terrorism, which we wage today, the courage and heroism of the people of New York has been an inspiration. U.S.S. New York will play an important rule in our Navy's future and will be a fitting tribute to the people of the Empire State."
In response, New York Governor George Pataki, who had requested the the Navy revive the name U.S.S. New York in honor of the 9/11 victims, said:
"The U.S.S. New York will ensure that all New Yorkers and the world will never forget the evil attacks of September 11, 2001, and the courage and compassion New Yorkers showed in response to terror."
The ship's motto is Strength forged through sacrifice. Never Forget.
The ship is not only special because of its name; it is also special because 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship's bow-stem section, which is the foremost section of the hull on the water line that slices through the water. When the steel was poured into the molds on September 9, 2003, Navy Captain Kevin Wensing who was there said:
"Those big, rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence. It was a spiritual moment for everyone there."
It wasn't too many months later that Hurricane Katrina disrupted construction on the ship when it pounded the Gulf Coast, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage and within two weeks thousands of workers - including hundreds who lost their homes in the storm - were back at work. Some who lost their homes lived at the shipyard. Others lived on a Navy barge. Still others in bunk-style housing. Why this great devotion to duty? Philip Teel, a vice president for Northrup Grumman and head of its ship systems division, shared his opinion at a Navy League dinner in New York City on March 22, 2006:
"It sounds trite, but I saw it in their eyes. These are very patriotic people, and the fact the ship has steel from the World Trade Center is a source of great pride. They view it as something incredibly special. They're building it for their country."
Our highest calling is to make a contribution to something outside ourselves and our own. As a result, we are most committed to our work when we feel that we are dutifully and loyally serving a group of others too large for us to know everyone in it. Examples abound: soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, firefighters, police officers, EMTs, members of the FBI, CIA, DEA, INS, and others risking their lives for their country; research scientists dedicating their lives to eradicate deadly and debilitating diseases; teachers working long hours for minimal pay to prepare our kids to go out and make the world a better place; employees who work for companies or organizations that not only provide important products or services, but are also serving and supporting the communities that surround them; etc.
Author Robert Heinlein viewed moral behavior as that which contributes to survival: first for ourselves; second for our families; third for our group; fourth for all of mankind. His notion of moral behavior at the third level - which he called patriotism - was women and children first. He told a story to illustrate this in an address at the U.S. Naval Academy in April, 1973:
I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut right through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck —
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them.
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
This is how a man dies. This is how a man ... lives!
Conversation:
How do you go about learning from your successes, your failures, or significant events that impact your life?
How do you make sure any lessons you learn are integrated into your current approach to work and life?
How have you dealt with any sacred wounds you've received? Is there a better way?
What is your reaction to Robert Heinlein's notion of moral behavior and his story of the tragedy in his hometown?
What is your life's mission? How does it bring out the best in you?
How does your company's mission and/or that of your job bring out the best in you?
Afterwords:
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long." - Robert Heinlein
"You cannot put a cheap band-aid on a sacred wound; there is no way through pain but to walk through it." - Dr. Robin Smith
"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the grey, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories" - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Rich Karlgaard is publisher of Forbes Magazine. In a blog post from 2004 he said:
"Most business books are big fat bores, except for those that are skinny bores - those trite little tomes involving whales and cheese and lessons learned from kindergarten. Unless I know the author personally, I won't read a business book. If I do know the sucker, I like to drop the book on the pavement - in his presence - and back my car over it. I spent too many years reading such piffle, underlining and highlighting 'salient' points, taking notes and promptly forgetting everything I'd read within a week. Lessons from business books never stick. Much better learning tools are novels, history books and biographies. For me, at least, these can really teach. Why? I suppose it's because when your imagination is engaged, when you dig the lessons out yourself and connect them to your own life, the learning goes much deeper."
Then he named the best book on entrepreneurship, business, and investment he'd read in quite some time, and it wasn't a business book per se; it came from the field of religion. The book is The Purpose Driven Church. It was written by Rick Warren. Here's what Karlgaard says about it:
"Warren - in 1980 and from scratch - launched Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif. Under his leadership, the church has become the fastest-growing one in America. (Saddleback is a Southern Baptist evangelical church, by the way.) Weekends bring in an average of 15,000 worshipers. Saddleback has spawned dozens of so-called daughter churches throughout the country. Were it a business, Saddleback would be compared with Dell, Google or Starbucks."
He went on to underscore some of Warren's advice for growing a church, substituting the word business for the word churchas he went along. For example:
Don't try to make your business grow. Instead, work to make your business healthy. Because if it's healthy, it will grow.
Don't compete for market share. Instead, compete with non consumption. "The church [business] must offer people something they cannot get anywhere else," Warren says.
In the example above, Rich is using the simplest form of an idea that is best tabbed knowledge arbitrage; taking ideas and concepts that work in one situation and applying them to another. A second example - this one spectacular - is described in a 2007 article in TheNew Yorker by Atul Gawande, M.D. The article is titled The Checklist. It tells the story of how a young critical care specialist from Johns Hopkins Hospital, Peter Pronovost, borrowed the idea of a pilot's checklist - originally conceived by the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1935 - and used it as a vehicle to remind the doctors and nurses working in the I.C.U. of the steps they needed to take in order to avoid infections when putting a line such as a catheter into a patient. The results? According to Gawande:
"Pronovost and his colleagues monitored what happened for a year afterward. The results were so dramatic that they weren’t sure whether to believe them: the ten-day line-infection rate went from eleven per cent to zero. So they followed patients for fifteen more months. Only two line infections occurred during the entire period. They calculated that, in this one hospital, the checklist had prevented forty-three infections and eight deaths, and saved two million dollars in costs."
You must be a curious sort to apply the concept of knowledge arbitrage. If you are, begin by scouring the non-business landscape to find an individual, organization, or idea that has been singularly successful. You should roam far and wide. In fact, the further out you get, the better the chances you'll make a connection your competitors wouldn't think of in a million years. Here are a handful that jump out at me:
When you land on one, study its history to learn as much as you can about the reasons for its success, and then ask yourself if there is anything useful you can import to your situation.
Conversation:
You can do knowledge arbitrage by yourself, but it's usually much more fun and fruitful when you involve others. Here are some suggestions for working as a group.
Find an unusual place to hold the conversation. Use your imagination.
Create intentionality by working on a big problem worth solving, creating a new business or reinventing an old one, transforming your culture, or some other such thing.
Let the conversation create the path on which you travel. Roam far and wide, think abstractly, make up your own words, try not to use business jargon, make absurd connections, have fun, laugh, etc.
Afterwords:
"A great thought begins by seeing something differently, with a shift of the mind's eye." - Albert Einstein
"I try to vary my reading diet and ensure that I read more fiction than nonfiction. I rarely read business books, except for Andy Grove’s Swimming Across, which has nothing to do with business but describes the emotional foundation of a remarkable man. I re-read from time to time T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an exquisite lyric of derring-do, the navigation of strange places and the imaginative ruses of a peculiar character. It has to be the best book ever written about leading people from atop a camel." - Michael Moritz, venture capitalist
Early on in my stint with the Wilson Learning Corporation, I heard founder Larry Wilson tell the following story:
It seems a dog food company introduced a new product only to see it fall flat. After a short time, the company got the sales force together to ask them what the problem was. The meeting opened. A very senior executive spoke.
He challenged the group: "Who uses the best ingredients?" They shouted: "We do!" Louder: "Who has the best advertising?" The retort: "We do!" Louder, still: "Who has the best sales force?" Shouting now: "We do!" The big question: "Why the hell aren't we selling more dog food?"
Silence.
Then, from the back of the room: "Because the damn dogs don't like it!"
I've not forgotten that story and it's message: a product is doomed to failure if the end users don't like it.
It's simple stories like this that can help you remember important principles and recall them when necessary. You are also likely to have a much more interesting and creative conversation with your product development folks, if you are talking about whether or not the dogs will like it versus whether or not the new product or service in question will meet or exceed customer expectations.
Here's another dog story with a lasting lesson.
The late Susan Butcher was a four-time winner of Alaska's Iditerod Trail Sled Dog Race. In an article published in the January, 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review, she said:
"The dogs finally lost confidence in me. They’ll forgive a few mistakes, but if you send them in the wrong direction too many times, they’ll just stop."
Conversation:
Have you ever lost confidence in a leader for the same reason the dogs lost confidence in Susan Butcher? How quickly did it happen?
In Susan's case, the dogs simply stopped. Assuming you were not in a position to stop working, what did you do instead? Slow down? Passively resist? Resort to sabotage? Lead a counter-revolution? Other?
In your case, what could the leader have done to regain your confidence? How long do you think it would've taken - if ever - for trust to be completely restored?
Have you ever had a group of people you were leading lose confidence in you? How did it happen? How did you find out? What did you do to correct the situation? Did it work? Are you sure?
Afterwords:
"All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy." - Henry David Thoreau
"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." - John Steinbeck
Video:
There’s a scene in the 1976 movie, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, in which Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau eyes a dog sitting near a hotel clerk. This exchange follows:
Clouseau: "Does your dog bite?" Hotel Clerk: "No." Clouseau: [bows to pet dog] "Nice doggie." [dog barks and bites Clouseau] Clouseau: "I thought you said your dog did not bite!" Hotel Clerk: "That is not my dog."
John Steinbeck's East of Eden was published in October, 1952. It became an instant best-seller. It was adapted for film in 1955 by director Elia Kazan. A TV miniseries was aired in 1981, and rumors have it that Universal Pictures will produce another adaption of the novel with a release date of 2009.
