Fatherly Wisdom

A few years ago, I wrote down some of the leadership lessons that I have learned from my father (see Fatherly Leadership).  This year, in honor of Father's Day, I'd like to add to that list some of the leadership lessons that I have learned while being a father as well.

1. Silly (and corny) dad jokes are a thing. 

There's nothing like a corny dad joke to get a laugh at just the right time, even if it is just a sympathy laugh ("Oh, Dad...").  The fact that all four of adult children still laugh at my silly dad jokes tells me one thing - a child's love is unconditional and forever.  And that is one of the greatest gifts of being a father.  We should all repay that unconditional love right back to our children.

2.  No matter what you think of the next generation, they won't let you down.

I can't tell you how many times that I have heard an older adult tell someone from the next generation on down, "When I was your age..." (fill in the blank - it's usually something like "we had to walk to school through ankle-deep snow, up hill both ways" or something like that).  I've said it myself.  It's easy for older adults from Generation X to look at Millennials or Generation Z, shake their heads, and question whether the future is in good hands or not.  Preceding generations said the same thing about us!  I look at our children and have nothing but hope for the future.  I know we are in good hands.  I am proud of the individuals that each of our children have become.  They have never let me down, and I don't think their generation will ever let us down.

3.  Pride is forever.

As I look back over the years, some of the best moments as a father were sharing in the triumphs and successes of our children.  I vividly remember the day that each of them rode a bike for the first time without training wheels just as clearly as I remember the times that they graduated from pre-school, middle school, high school, and college.  But I also remember, with just as much pride and joy, how they each handled the failures and disappointments that came along the way as well.  Failure is a part of life - we can either dwell on our failures or move on and learn from them.  They used their failures as a learning moment, and they never let failure stop them from moving forward.  In a sense, I've learned and grown just as much from sharing in our children's experiences with success and failure as they have learned.

4.  Never stop learning.

As it turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  Our children have taught me that there's no time like the present to learn something new.  As I've watched them all deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, each of them have started doing something new that they did not do before.  They've taken up new hobbies or re-invigorated old ones.  You are never too old to learn something new.  Never stop learning.

5. Being a father is the best job I've ever had.

I am so thankful and lucky to be a father to these four adults.  Their words and actions continue to amaze and inspire me, and more importantly, they remind me that being a father is the best job that I've ever had.

Thank you to our four children - I am lucky to be your father.  And to my own father, you were the first man I ever met and the greatest man that I have ever known.  Thank you for being my Dad and showing me the way.

Happy Father's Day to all!

Boris the Spider

I have a pet spider.  Well, technically "he" (I have no idea whether he is a male or female spider) lives right outside my window.  He's been there the past 2 weeks or so, and we've come to share a bond together, as he is there when I go to bed at night and again when I wake up every morning.  I've named him Boris - after The Who song of course!

I have to give credit to Boris - he's been through an awful lot the past couple of weeks.  First off, he went through a lot just to get to be outside my window (I am currently living on the 57th floor in a studio apartment).  So, he clearly has the endurance to climb what must be like, to him, at least a bazillion miles or so.

Boris also had to fight off at least one intruder spider.  Within a few days after he finished spinning his web, he had an unwelcome house guest.  At one point, there were two spiders on the same web.  I don't know what exactly happened with the second spider, but now there is only just Boris (RIP intruder spider). 

Finally, if you've ever spent time near the lakefront in Chicago, you will understand some of the challenges that Boris has had to face.  Since he arrived on my window, we've had a couple of major thunderstorms, one hail storm, and several days with really high winds!  Boris has had to completely re-spin his web several times over the course of these past 2 weeks.  There have been times, when I have looked out my window first thing in the morning only to see Boris gone and his web all twisted and frayed.  By the time I come back to my apartment in the evening, he's back with a brand new web!

I know what you are probably thinking - "He's lost it!"  Not at all.  I am telling you all about Boris, because I am incredibly impressed by his resilience.  We hear a lot about resilience these days - even before the COVID-19 pandemic.  For example, interventions focusing on resilience are frequently offered as solutions to professional burn-out.  Angela Duckworth has talked about resilience in a very popular TED talk and best-selling book called Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

Resilience, at least in this context, is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.  I like the alternative definition better - the ability of an object or substance to spring back into shape; elasticity.  Resilient individuals, and spiders, have that knack to easily (at least it seems that way) to bounce back and "spring back into shape."

I have found, in virtually every case, that resilient individuals maintain a positive attitude, even in the face of adversity.  Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and author of Man's Search for Meaning had this to say about resilience, "Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way."

Harvard Business School professor, Nancy Koehn recently authored a book called Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders (which is excellent, by the way), which provides a case study of crisis leadership.  I was struck by the fact that all five leaders had one thing in common - a positive attitude.  Dr. Koehn said, "Consider the freedom we each have, even in very difficult situations, to CHOOSE our own attitude.  This fundamental truth, as hidden as it often seems, is a source of empowerment and possibility.  It can fuel our survival and inner growth."

Is it really that simple?  I think so.  In my own experience, regardless of the situation, having a positive attitude makes it so much easier to deal even with the most difficult of challenges.  As my wife always says, "The power of a positive attitude!"  She is absolutely right.  Attitude makes all the difference in the world.

Boris keeps coming back.  Again, again, and again.  It would be easy for him to give up (after all, he's just a spider), but he doesn't.  Be resilient like Boris - have a positive attitude!

"To protect the whole line"

About a year or so, I wrote a post about the ancient Spartans.  According to Plutarch, mothers and wives of Spartan soldiers would tell their loved ones as they departed for battle, "Come back with your shield or on it".  As Steven Pressfield recently wrote, the Spartans would not punish a soldier who dropped his helmet or breastplate in battle, but if any soldier lost his shield, he would be put to death immediately.  Why the difference?  Plutarch tells it best, "Because helmet and breastplate are worn to protect the individual alone, but the shield is borne to protect the whole line."

Both ancient Greek and Roman soldiers fought in what is called a phalanx - each soldier would stand shoulder to shoulder such that his shield would overlap with the shield of the men next to him on either side.  Opponents would confront a single, powerful, impenetrable wall of armor as opposed to individual soldiers.  The enemy's only chance of beating the phalanx was to break the line at a single point - one failed shield would result in the loss of the entire army.  For this reason, Spartans placed so much emphasis on the importance of keeping one's shield - losing your shield was punishable by death.

I hope you know where I am going with this - we are seeing a similar strategy today during the COVID-19 pandemic.  As Pressfield asks in the article mentioned above, "Why are we asked to wear surgical or face masks in public, to practice social distancing, and to observe self-quarantining?"  His answer - "Because these practices are not for the individual alone but for the protection of the whole line."

Does wearing a surgical mask in public protect you from COVID-19?  Maybe just a little.  What's really important is that by wearing a mask, you are protecting everyone around you.  The available research suggests that wearing a simple face mask can block almost 99% of the number of virus particles that we emit from our mouths and nose!  So if everyone is wearing a mask, we are significantly reducing the transmission of COVID-19.  Universal masking works.  Social distancing works.  Self-quarantine works.

Two studies deserve mention here.  The first study looked at the number of cases of COVID-19 in counties that bordered both the state of Iowa and Illinois.  While Illinois issued a stay-at-home order, as well as universal masking in public, Iowa did not.  While the number of COVID-19 cases were similar in border counties prior to Illinois' stay-at-home order, there was a significantly higher number of cases in the Iowa counties afterwards.  In other words, social distancing and universal masking work!

The second study reported the number of employees at a single hospital in Belgium who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.  SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19, so the only way to get antibodies to this particular virus is if you have been infected with it.  This hospital tested almost all 4,000 or so employees - only 6.4% of the staff tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 antibody.  There were no differences in testing in workers who cared for COVID-19 patients and those who didn't, nor was there any difference in testing in workers who were exposed to colleagues with COVID-19 and those who weren't exposed.  As it turned out, most of the workers acquired the virus through exposures to infected family members at home.  Incidentally, this hospital had instituted both social distancing and universal masking.  Again, masking works!

It's not a political issue (or at least it shouldn't be).  Wearing a mask protects your friends, your colleagues, and everyone around you.  You don't wear a mask for yourself - you wear it for everyone else!  You wear the mask "to protect the whole line", just like the Spartans in ancient Greece.

Gender Jack-in-the-Box

This past Friday, several leaders at our institution participated in a seminar on implicit bias, taught (virtually, of course) by Dr. Uché Blackstock.  As part of our training, we took the Harvard Implicit Association Test, a well-validated test that measures an individual's attitudes and beliefs about issues such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.  Even if you have taken this test in the past, I encourage you to take another look, as they have added some new tests fairly recently.

I talked about implicit bias in my last post ("The 'Eat Lead Barbie' Story").  Implicit bias is commonly defined as an implicit (i.e. unconscious) stereotype, belief, or attitude about a member of a particular social group.  For example, I may emphatically state that it's perfectly normal for men to express their emotions, but yet at the same time, my actions, consistent with and motivated by my unconscious biases and beliefs, reinforce the stereotype that "boys don't cry" (which, in full disclosure, is not what I believe at all).  With regards to implicit bias, the adage that "knowledge if power" is certainly true.  If we can uncover some of our implicit biases through tests like the Harvard Implicit Association Test, we can then explicitly do things to mitigate them!

As it turns out, we are all subject to implicit bias.  A couple of interesting studies illustrate my point.  First (Sex Differences: A Study of the Eye of the Beholder), two psychologists from Cornell University studied how 204 male and female subjects rated infants' emotional responses to four different stimuli (a teddy bear, a jack-in-the-box, a doll, and a buzzer).  Half of the subjects were told that they were observing a "boy", while the other half were told that they were observing a "girl" (which may not have been true - that was part of the experiment!).  The same infant's emotional response to one of the stimuli was rated very differently, depending upon whether the study subjects were told that the infant was a male or a female.  For example, the jack-in-the-box stimulus frequently made the infants cry.  "Female" infants were more often rated as displaying "fear" for their emotional response, whereas "male" infants were rated as displaying "anger".  As the investigators conclude that "differences in the attributed emotional response were in the eye of the beholder".

Here's another fascinating study (The relationship between physician/nurse gender and patients' correct identification of health care professional roles), though not too surprising, given what I hear from female colleagues.  A random selection of 150 patients who had received treatment in the emergency department were asked to identify the gender of each member on their treatment team (physician, nurse, allied health professional, etc).  Patients correctly recognized male emergency medicine physicians as physicians 75% of the time, while they only correctly recognized female emergency medicine physicians as physicians 58% of the time (the difference was statistically significant).  In contrast, patients correctly recognized male nurses as nurses 77% of the time versus 99% of the time with female nurses.  Here is a great example of implicit bias based upon the stereotype that nurses are more often female and physicians are more often male.

It's important to recognize our own implicit biases.  The problem is that these biases often lie deep in our subconscious and only come to the surface when it is too late.  That is why I think it is important to learn about your own implicit biases through tests such as the Harvard Implicit Association Test.

The late Nelson Mandela said, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."

We can all learn to love.  But it starts with uncovering our own implicit biases.

The 'Eat Lead Barbie' Story

The scene is Christmas morning, 1993.  Hasbro Toys has released a limited edition Hall of Fame series 12-inch G.I. Joe action figure, platoon leader Duke.  Press his chest once and a gruff voice shouts out a series of commands or threats.  The G.I. Joe action figure had been introduced in 1964 - Hasbro's marketing department consistently claimed that G.I. Joe was not a "doll" (actually, he was), because "boys did not play with dolls."  Instead, the toy was marketed as a moveable action figure.  I can remember playing with G.I. Joe growing up as a child - all my friends had one (most, including me, had more than one).  But we never would have said that we were playing with dolls.

Several versions of G.I. Joe were released over the years (do you remember the G.I. Joe with the "Kung Fu grip" or "Atomic Man", the one that had the bionic arm and leg?).  The 1982 version was completely different.  Instead of a 12-inch "doll", G.I. Joe became a 3.75 inch plastic figure that fought against Cobra Command (the release of this version coincided with a cartoon show).  The 1993 release harkened back to G.I. Joe's early days.

In those days, girls played with Barbie dolls and boys played with G.I. Joe action figures.  So, imagine, if you will, your child's surprise when he or she opened up their G.I. Joe or Barbie toy on Christmas morning, 1993.  Your son presses the chest of his brand-new G.I. Joe doll only to hear it say, "Let's go shopping!" in the traditional female's voice.  Your daughter, on the other hand, presses a button on her brand new Teen Talk Barbie only to hear a gruff voice say, "Eat lead, Cobra!"

Apparently, a group of activists in an organization called the Barbie Liberation Organization had hacked several of the toys and switched the voice chips in the two toys.  They hacked about 300 toys in total, all of which were sold in either California or New York.  The stunt was a protest response directed against a controversy surrounding the  1992 release of the Teen Talk Barbie. 

The 1992 Teen Talk Barbie's voice chip said things like, "Want to go shopping?", "Will we ever have enough clothes?", and "Math class is tough!"  The backlash was swift.  The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics vehemently objected, as did the American Association of University Women, claiming that the phrase was detrimental to their efforts to encourage young
 girls to enter STEM fields.  Mattel eventually removed the quote from subsequent Teen Talk Barbies and even offered to exchange these for the "Math is tough" version, but the damage had already been done.  The television show, The Simpsons, even aired their own version of this controversy with the 1994 episode, Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy (Lisa objected to the sexist phrases, "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles"). 

Igor Vamos, one of the organizers of the Barbie/G.I. Joe switch said afterwards, "We are trying to make a statement about the way toys can encourage negative behavior in children, particularly given rising acts of violence and sexism."  Message delivered, but unfortunately the message was not widely understood.  These kinds of gender stereotypes were certainly not new back then, and they haven't changed all that much now (see, for example, previous posts from me on this issue: "A life of privilege - part III", "Word choice matters", "What's in a name?", and "It's your world and you can cry if you want to"). 

I will explore this topic further in my next post.  For now, the important "take-home message" here is that we all have these implicit biases in regards to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.  They are deeply ingrained - recognizing that fact is the first step on the journey to equity, equality, and justice.
 

The Bully Pulpit

The term "Bully Pulpit" was first used by the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.  Basically, the term refers to a "conspicous position that provides an opportunity to speak out and be listened to."  One of the questions I often hear is whether leaders (especially leaders of non-profit organizations) should refrain from speaking out in public, either in support of or against, a particular political issue.  In other words, should leaders use their unique position of power to advocate for an issue that may or may not have a direct impact on their organization?

There was a really interesting article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal on exactly this topic, "When CEOs talk about race and equality: Is speaking on social issues part of the job?".  Apparently, more than 300 chief executives, mayors, and government officials were scheduled to hold an online discussion about the business impacts of COVID-19.  The conversation quickly evolved into a discussion about whether CEOs should speak out in public on the recent racial and equity issues going on in our country, sparked largely by the modern-day equivalent of a public lynching of George Floyd by a group of police officers in Minneapolis.    A number of CEOs said that they decided that using the so-called "Bully Pulpit" was indeed part of their job.

Merck & Co.'s CEO Kenneth Frazier said, "We have to be careful not to assume that this experiment that we have called 'America' can withstand our apathy right now."  He later added that business leaders can and should play a significant role - if not a leadership role - on social issues that directly and indirectly impact their employees and customers. 

As the article points out, the use of the "Bully Pulpit" by business leaders is relatively new.  Historically, CEOs have been reluctant to take a stand for fear of reprisal where it impacts the most - on the company's bottom line profits.  For example, PepsiCo Inc. faced a boycott of their products after then CEO Indra Nooyi made public comments critical of the President of the United States.  She stated that she even received criticism from some of her employees.  Apparently, some employees were openly critical of her comments, some were in favor, and some were silent (roughly one-third in each category).  "So you could intrepret it as two-thirds are on your side, or two-thirds are against you."

The fear of reprisal is justified by past experience.  Delta Airlines faced a similar boycott after they severed ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA) following a series of school shootings in 2018.  Moreover, the Georgia State Senate (Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, GA) approved a tax relief bill that stripped Delta of $50 million in tax breaks shortly after they made a public announcement against the NRA. 

The pendulum is shifting though.  Netflix Inc. posted on Twitter this past week that "To be silent is not an option."  Ben & Jerry's, which has historically been outspoken in favor of social justice causes, posted a 700-word statement that provided a four-point plan to "dismantle white supremacy in all its forms" (I encourage you to read it here).  Walmart Inc. even helped negotiate a deal to take down a confederate memorial in Bentonville, Arkansas, where their headquarters is located.

Social change does not occur quickly or easily.  After all, racial inequality has been going on for over 400 years.  Social change requires leadership.  And who better to provide that leadership than the individuals who are in a position of power to influence the kind of change that we so desperately need right now?  Leaders - I am speaking to you now.  "Use your Bully Pulpit.  Be a catalyst for change.  Help us move forward, finally."

After watching the events of the past week or so, I am encouraged that this may be the moment in our nation's history when we will finally start to change.  As Winston Churchill said, "This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."  And as Sam Cooke sang, "It's been a long time, a long time coming..."   

"The Invisible Knapsack"

Former President Barack Obama gave a speech on July 13, 2012 in Roanoke, Virgina during his 2012 re-election campaign (I previously wrote about the speech in a post from earlier last year called Unsung Heroes, but today I wanted to talk about something different).  He said something during his speech which became a rallying cry for his Republican opponents.  He was talking about how rich individuals didn't get rich entirely on their own accord, but rather, these individuals owed some of their fortune to the contributions of their local, state, and federal governments.  He said (it's now called the "You didn't build that" speech):

"Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."

When you think about it, he was absolutely correct.  No one really lives the "American Dream" and pulls themselves up from their bootstraps and becomes successful completely on their own.  It really does require hard work, dedication, and commitment.  It also requires some amount of luck.  While some may argue with me, it surely helps if you happen to be white, and it helps even more if you are a white male.

There's a powerful video on the Internet that has received a lot of attention recently (see here).  Several high school kids line up for a short race - the winner gets $100.  Everyone is getting ready to run, but then the starter tells everyone that has both parents living with them to step forward two steps.  He then tells the runners to take two steps forward if they had access to a private education or a private tutor.  He makes several such statements - it is clear who gets the head start and who does not.  THAT, is exactly what is meant by a life of privilege (see here, here, and here).  There's nothing wrong with having led a privileged life.  Trust me, I am thankful for all the advantages I've had throughout my life.  But here's my point, don't just assume that you have succeeded in life all on your own, because you haven't.  More importantly, don't assume that you are smarter or that you worked harder than those who haven't been quite as successful as you, because you aren't and you haven't.  They just didn't have the same advantages that you did.  That is what President Obama was talking about.

Several years ago, the American feminist, scholar, and Wellesley professor, Dr. Peggy McIntosh wrote an article called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack".  It is well worth the investment in your time to read it, especially given everything that has been going on in the world the last several days.  Dr. McIntosh uses the metaphor of an invisible, seemingly bottom-less knapsack that all white people have that contains special provisions, guidebooks, tools, maps, codebooks, and even extra money that helps them navigate the travails of life.  African Americans don't get to carry the "Invisible Knapsack."

As I stated in my last post ("The Other America"), we have a lot of work to do to address the inequities of life in the two America's that exist today.  If what they say is true, that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, our first step to making our country a place where everyone has the same chance begins with a recognition and acknowledgment that there are two America's, and we live in the privileged one.