Proceed Until Apprehended

The older I get, the more I see meaning, purpose and fulfillment in not-for-profit, community service activities. I’m ashamed to say that for a good long period, they just didn’t seem relevant to me. Most organizations in this category are really passive and reactive. Rarely do they reach out, market or do something remarkable. If you’re not looking, they’re not selling.

It seems to me many don’t even know (or question) if they’re relevant. They laid out their charter in about 1967 and they’re sticking to it.

In the past ten years, I’ve woken up to these organizations and how much they mean to me. Now, I sign up, I get plugged in, I participate, I wonder why it’s done that way, I shrug it off and just provide my time, I get frustrated, I decide to pull back for my sanity. Later, I try again. I come up with a good idea, it’s met with resistance… it’s sort of a circular, love/hate relationship. I’ll feel foolish if this is only my story, but I don’t think it is. I think many of us struggle with finding organizations that are willing to receive new ideas and challenges to the old model.

I tend to try and volunteer at the governance level. That may be the problem, but it’s also where I feel like I can make a difference. I’m struck by how un-strategic and short-sighted these boards can be. I guess much like our for-profit organizations, many of the “leaders” around the table are those who proved their mettle in the rank and file, doing the blood, sweat and tears-work. Unfortunately, there are different issues at a board table, but old habits die hard. Being an excellent fundraiser isn’t a strength in that discussion. Constantly pulling the discussion back to a side issue or a particular project is downright detrimental.

That table needs questions like, “why do we exist?” and “are we relevant?” Those are the earth-shattering questions that could bring these organizations back from the brink of extinction.

Personally, I don’t think it’s in the cards. More non-profits are going to dwindle away than build an evergreen culture. I haven’t lost my passion for community service, but creating alternate methods of delivery looks more appealing, even if it’s a lot of effort to start them.

I can point to two definitive instances when I had a revelation about my personal responsibility.

The first happened when I was about seven or eight years old. It was a realization that someone had been taking care of me. Before that point, I had the care-free existence that most children get to have, where everything just was. The neighbourhood was my entire world. There was no responsibility, no future to concern me and no basic needs to fulfill. Someone else, namely my parents, took complete responsibility for my welfare.

That was a long time ago and I was a little kid, but I still remember the loss I felt. I knew then that one day I was going to have to take responsibility. I was soon resigned to this new future, but I remember wishing I just hadn’t figured it out for a few more years.

What followed was a few decades of slow, incremental growth of responsibility. I went from being a child to being a kid with desires to grow. I went from being a straight-A student to being a young adult that wanted to be successful in the world. I got into management roles and areas of responsibility with work that I thought were impressive. I kept a mental note of who were at the same “level” as me. I should always be the youngest, I thought. I thought that was a good measure of my ability and my success. It was this pattern that also started to create dissonance for me. I saw that this was a path that would keep going for my entire career. Then, as the saying goes, “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

I found myself at a leadership training course in 2005 with a man that would become my personal coach. He said leadership was “down and in before up and out.” This idea, as well as many of the practical concepts he shared that day, created the second significant revelation for me. I saw that not only was I responsible to care for myself (my epiphany as an eight-year-old), but I was also personally responsible for the way I responded to events and the way I acted. I wasn’t just there to know the answer and implement it. As an intelligent and responsible person, I could… should… decide what was the right and effective thing to do. A subtle distinction, perhaps, but it shifted me from my basic responsibility to be a proficient and market-valuable person to a responsibility to be a thoughtful and participating member of humanity.

I see now there is an entire industry of people trying to help others make this leap. The personal responsibility revelation market. If I could bottle my experience and put it on a shelf, I could be a millionaire. Alas, it appears that the revelation is destined to remain in the domain of psyches and souls of individuals. It’s a personal journey. No-one else takes you there. Having people talk about it and share their experience helps though, so I’ll keep talking about it.

I was re-reading Seth Godin’s Tribes and came across this:

It’s easy to underestimate how difficult it is for someone to become curious. For seven, ten, or even fifiteen years of school, you are required to not be curious. Over and over and over again, the curious are punished.

I don’t think it’s a matter of saying a magic word; boom and then suddenly something happens and you’re curious. It’s more about a five- or ten- or fifteen year process where you start finding your voice, and finally you bigin to realize that the safest thing you can do feels risk and the riskies thing you can do is play it safe.

When you start something new, you often see with great clarity the things that are wrong or inefficient. You ask simple questions like, “why is this done this way?” or “could we just stop doing that?”

It’s a tremendously valuable perspective, but it’s typically not received that way. Instead, the reaction is defensive, perhaps a bit perturbed. My guess, the person doing the reacting probably agrees with your point, but it’s that you’ve made them feel foolish. It’s hard to separate the emotions from the logic.

You see, everyone prides themselves on being a strategic thinker. It’s like those surveys that ask people if they have above-average intelligence. The large majority will say they do. These folks have been fighting the good fight, even if it was a little in the weeds, and today you pointed out that they’re churning instead of making it simple. It’s like someone just showed them the shortcut after they’ve used the long route for five years (or twenty). They had a reason, you know… or in ’82 that option wasn’t available… or it’s easy to say that NOW… or we’ve been building to that shift for a while, let it come.

As the instigator of a broader view, however, you should gird yourself for this kind of reaction. Finding an innovation was easy. The hard part is getting through the egos and the habits to make it happen.

I apologize if this isn’t new to you. I’m not necessarily writing anything original with this post. However, I find this to be such a simple, profound observation that I can’t let it go, even if it’s new for just one reader.

I want to share with you the “Marshmallow Test.” I’m familiar with the Marshmallow Test because Daniel Goleman talks about it. Goleman is a leader in the Emotional Intelligence field of study, and it’s very informative stuff, in that so-reasonable-it-must-be-true sort of way.

The Marshmallow Test had researchers putting a marshmallow in front of four-year-olds. If the child can wait 20 minutes without consuming it, they get another one. They can then receive a total of two marshmallows. If they eat the first before 20, that’s it. They’re done at one.

This can be seen as a pretty simple measure of these kid’s ability to delay gratification. Twenty years later, the researchers show that the kids that had the ability to manage their impulsive desire to eat the marshmallow for twenty minutes did better on a number of measures intended to indicate life success.

Perhaps the lesson is obvious by this point, but let me hit you over the head with it anyway. We’re confronted with opportunities to get instant gratification all the time. Buy now, pay next year. Skip the gym. Eat the dessert. Avoid the crucial conversation.

Beyond the results of the test, I think we all know we can challenge ourselves to put the long-term utility of our choices as a bigger priority than our immediate satisfaction.

I’m not saying don’t pursue gratification, though it’s an option. The lesson I take is that the more we can manage our impulses and make rationale decisions about what and when, the better off we are in the long run.

I’ve got one word for you. Plastics.

I don’t have good advice. I tricked you, as so many others have before. In my defense, at least I’m willing to admit the charade.

I’m pretty frustrated by the “helpful” advice we get from friends, colleagues, parents, teachers, guidance counsellors, professors, supervisors, people that are older than you, people that have some sort of societal status… I’m sure you have more to add to the list.

It is soooo hard to discern good advice from bad. You can’t tell from tone of voice, cut of clothes or the number of degrees on their wall. Seeing material evidence of their success or media coverage of their latest coup doesn’t actually mean anything, either.

Whatever they say, you’re still confronted with an individual that is giving well-meaning advice about a future they can’t predict.

I’m in a unique role now to see LOTS of people who have listened to LOTS of well-meaning advice and are still struggling to find success, to get work or to feel valued. All those people that provided advice with gentle eyes and a hand on the shoulder? They didn’t know. They just thought they knew. From a paradigm of “my position requires me to groom, control and cultivate,” they sold a Nigerian inheritance.

I’m thinking it would be more helpful if they said, “I don’t know what’s needed. I’ve had a long and full life with a particular strategy for adding value, but I’m not sure it’s relevant anymore. I think the only thing I can encourage you to do is ready yourself for a lot more change. Be ready, willing and adaptable.”

THAT would have saved me some time… if I listened to it.

The last person to get knocked out of a poker tournament before they get to the cash payouts is called the “Bubble Boy.” Celebrating the arrival of the Bubble Boy is great fun for everyone but, you guessed it, the Bubble Boy.

I watched a World Series of Poker broadcast the other night when they were going to “break the bubble” and get into the cash. Poker celebrities were talking about the misery of being the Bubble Boy, their own experience with the bubble and their hopes for this year. They all took pity on the Bubble Boy, except Daniel Negreanu, a well-known Canadian player. Daniel celebrated the Bubble Boy as someone who took a risk when they were close to the reward. He said they could walk away and people should say, “there’s a guy who is going to be a great poker player.”

I think there’s two ways to have a career, and one of them looks a lot like the Bubble Boy. You can choose to be the methodical, incremental value creator or you can be the make-it-or-break-it person, the one that succeeds and fails a dozen times. The one that creates stories worth telling – about the times they hit and the times they missed.

Sometimes that person has to walk away from the table, but it doesn’t have to be in shame. Someone will be saying, “there’s a guy who is going to do great things.”

I checked in with a colleague to see how he was and how his project was going.

He said he had completed his recommendation and submitted it. When he saw it in the next phase, it had substantially changed.

“How did you feel about that?” I asked.

“Well, by the end, it kinda got out of my hands anyway. I was more just interpreting instruction than making choices for the recommendation.”

Turns out, it wasn’t really his project anymore. He was still holding the document, but his “superiors” were calling the shots.

That’s disappointing. That’s a brain underutilized, to say the least.

When the project got into this dynamic, you can guess he was still spending a lot of time revising and editing the document. However, the rules changed in terms of what he did to make it better. Sure, he still found the document could be improved if he applied his knowledge and skill, but he actually did a subtle little calculation that dramatically changes the overall outcome. He first determined if he intrinsically cared enough about the project to go through the eye rolls, the patient deep breaths and the paternal voice that tells him why they’re not doing it that way. Most of the time, you can guess that he determined it wasn’t worth the discomfort.

If you’re a manager, please understand that taking things out of people’s hands isn’t done by announcing that you’re taking it out of their hands. I know you’ve got better sense than to take that drastic step. Taking things out of their hands happens when you amend their work without consultation or you cram your expectations for the product down their throat. I know you’ve got pressures and deadlines. What’s the emergency that justifies ripping the individuality and creativity from your employees?

Now that I’ve been blogging for a while, I would say this is the question that haunts me the most. A lot of magnificent thinkers and writers are talking about the same sorts of things I am talking about.

I’ve just learned about www.caliandjody.com. They have a model is called ROWE, the Results Only Work Environment In my estimation, it’s brilliant. I downloaded the introduction and first chapter of their book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, and the evisceration they give to our out-dated perspective on time is fantastic.

So what am I doing here blogging when other people are already saying it so well? Well, two things. First, I’m forcing myself to get my own thoughts into a coherent format and be responsible for them. It’s tremendously helpful, if not even a little cathartic. Second, I’m contributing my voice to a movement, one that needs every member the world can spare.

Your quiet agreement to some or all of what I say is great. Agreeing in a not so quiet manner, through voice or action, is powerful.

Oh, hang on. There’s a third reason. By blogging, I’m learning a ton. I’m not sure I would have come across ROWE without the generosity of a reader. Thanks Sebastian.

I just watched the Blue Planet episode where they show how coral grows and overtakes other coral.

Here’s the piece that got me thinking. At 38 seconds there is some fascinating time-lapse footage of one coral overtaking another.

If you were snorkeling or scuba-diving by this fascinating scene, would you notice? I think it would look pretty static and I would swim on by.

Bureaucracy is pretty static too, right? What if we could time-lapse photograph a bureaucracy? What would become apparent that’s difficult to see with the naked eye? Speeding up the pace would likely make the slow encroachment of policies, procedures, restrictions and risk aversion look as sinister as this coral. If you sped it up , I think you’d see that the well-intended efforts to influence and control employee behaviour actually kills an employee’s discretion and ability to be independently thoughtful.

This progress goes seemingly unnoticed every day. We tend to take for granted, or perhaps we shrug off, the daily insults to our autonomy and ability to be discerning. We choose not to push back. Through time-lapse, we’d see that we’re losing the battle. We’d see the bureaucracy move forward so steadily that you’d think it could only be planned.

I don’t in any way think it is planned. Rather, I see it stemming from a culture and paradigm of command and control that doesn’t work. Those that champion this out-dated style or those who don’t stand up against it need to see some time-lapse footage of its effects.