"Rest easy shipmates. We have the watch."

Today is Memorial Day in the United States.  Originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day is a federal holiday that honors those military personnel who have lost their lives in the line of duty.  While not known for certain, Memorial Day has its origins following the Civil War, when flowers were placed on the graves of fallen soldiers.  Tradition has it that John A. Logan, the third Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, Civil War veteran, and politician from Illinois, first called for a "Decoration Day" in 1868.  While Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30 from 1868 to 1970, the United States Congress standardized the holiday and changed its observance to the last Monday of May in 1971.

As I thought about what to write this year on Memorial Day (please see my previous Memorial Day posts from 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 - see also "Decoration Day, "The Chimes of Freedom", and "The last full measure of devotion" for related posts), I reflected on what an incredible year 2020 was for our country and for our world.  We dealt with more than just COVID-19.  We suffered through war, civil unrest, and oppression.  Our country became more polarized as we witnessed one of the most contentious transitions of presidential power in our nation's history.  We continued to witness the impact of systemic racism in our society.  And we struggled with an epidemic of gun violence that started long before 2020, and a pandemic of mental illness that significantly worsened as we dealt with COVID-19.

I think it is fair to say that freedom was tested in 2020 - and continues to be tested in 2021 - more than it ever has in our nation's relatively short history.  And perhaps that is why I am especially thinking of those who have lost their lives while protecting that freedom today.  How can we best honor the fallen soldiers and sailors of the past?  We can honor them by cherishing the freedom that they purchased with their lives and continuing their fight for freedom.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high." [In Flanders Fields by John McCrae]

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the greatest task remaining before us - taht from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." [The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln]

Ours is a cause worth dying for.  Our work has only just begun.  Our toughest days lie ahead, but we are up to the test.  "Rest easy shipmates.  We have the watch."

"Good to Great to Elite"

Someone sent me a video of a post-game speech that Penn State University's head football coach, James Franklin gave following Penn State's second straight 1-point loss to Ohio State University on September 29, 2018.  It's pretty good, so I am going to post it here today.

He started off by saying, "The reality is that we've gone from an average football team to a good football team to a great football team and we've worked really hard to do those things.  But we're not an elite football team yet."

There's no question that Ohio State University has an elite football team.  Penn State's football team, on the other hand, is a very good - and perhaps great - football team.  The fact that they lost to Ohio State again in the 2019 and 2020 season only emphasizes the separation between "good to great to elite."

Franklin goes on to suggest that the level of dedication, commitment, and hard work required to be an elite football team is even more than what was required to get to being a great football team.  "As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, from good to great, the work that it’s going to take to get to an elite program is going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we’ve already traveled. It’s going to be just as hard to get there. Scratch and claw and fight."

He goes on further, "Right now we’re comfortable being great. I’m going to make sure that everybody in my program, including myself, is very uncomfortable. Because you only grow in life when you’re uncomfortable. So we are going to break through and become an elite program by doing all the little things."

I have often used sports as a metaphor for leadership (and, for that matter, life in general).  There's a lot to unpack in Franklin's speech.  He gives a great summary of what is necessary for any organization to go from "good to great to elite."  There are only a small number of elite college football teams (Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State are in the national title hunt year in and year out and are certainly deserving of "elite" status).  Similarly, there are only a small number of elite organizations in the health care industry.  

It takes hard work and commitment to be an elite organization for sure, but I want to draw particular attention to something else that Coach Franklin said.  "You only grow in life when you're uncomfortable."  You go from "Good to Great" by being uncomfortable with the status quo (being just "good").  Similarly, you go from "Great to Elite" by being uncomfortable being great.  It's simple and elegant to summarize, but hard to execute! 

We should focus on being uncomfortable.  That's how we learn.  That's how we improve.  That's how we go from "Good to Great to Elite."

"Even Einstein struggled at times..."

Nobody said that life was always going to be easy.  However, no one could have predicted just how difficult it was going to be with a worldwide pandemic.  I am confident that we will all emerge out of these past 18 months stronger and more resilient.

It's somehow reassuring to know that everyone has faced difficult stretches in their lives.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I enjoy reading about some of history's most famous men and women, especially how they have weathered the storm, so to speak.  Take for example, my fascination with reading biographies about Abraham Lincoln (the latest is a book called Lincoln's Mentors: The Education of a Leader by Michael J. Gerhardt).  One could argue that no President ever before or since Lincoln had to deal with as big of a crisis as the American Civil War.  Lincoln stands out as the epitome of resilience and grit.  

I remember reading a number of biographies of famous Americans in a children's book series called the "Childhood of Famous Americans" published by Indianapolis-based Bobs-Merrill Co in the 1950's and 1960's and republished under the same name in by Simon and Schuster.  Two of my favorites were "George Washington Carver: Boy Scientist" and "Abraham Lincoln: Frontier Boy" by Augusta Stevenson, who incidentally was also a school teacher in the Indianapolis Public School system.  I enjoyed reading about how these famous individuals came from often humble beginnings and persevered to do remarkable things later in life.    

We can learn a lot from the experiences of others.  Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that learning about how others have faced struggles can somehow motivate us to push on through our own.  For example, Hong and Lin-Siegler showed that exposing 10th grade Taiwanese high school students to stories about how even successful scientists struggle increased both the students' motivation and interest in science.  Students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) struggle story condition, in which students read about the personal and intellectual struggles of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein; (2) achievement condition, in which students read about the successful achievements of these same three scientists; or (3) control condition, in which students read more about the physics that they were studying in class.  Students who read about how these three scientists overcame challenges in both their personal and professional lives (struggle story condition) identified these scientists as individuals like themselves who had to work just as hard to earn their success in life.  Their level of interest and ability to tackle complex, challenging problems in their class improved as a result.  In contrast, students who read about the achievements of these three scientists (achievement condition) expressed the opinion that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein were born with an incredible amount of talent endowed with a unique ability to be successful.  As a result, their level of interest and ability to solve complex problems did not improve.     

This same group of investigators conducted a follow-up study in 402 9th and 10th grade students from four urban schools in the New York City school district.  This time, students were randomized to one of three conditions: (1) life struggle stories; (2) intellectual struggle stories; or (3) achievement stories.  The three scientists were Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Michael Faraday.  Here the life struggle stories told about the personal struggles of these three scientists, in terms of what they overcame in their daily lives (for example, Albert Einstein moved several times during his childhood and ultimately had to escape Nazi Germany, while Marie Curie had to overcome significant gender bias just to even attend college), while the intellectual struggle stories focused on the fact that these scientists had to overcome early failures in their professional careers.  Again, students in the life struggle and intellectual struggle stories groups tended to self-identify with the three scientists and performed better as a result.  In contrast, students in the achievement story group did not improve and tended to fare worse!

What's the take-home message here?  First and perhaps most importantly, the road to success can be difficult.  Even if you can easily see an individual's personal and/or professional achievements, all of the hard work, dedication, commitment, personal sacrifice, effort, perseverance, grit, and resilience that was necessary to get there is often hidden from view.  Second, learning about what lies hidden from view (all of the sacrifice, hard work, and effort) can help motivate others to be successful too.  If you are new to leadership, read about other leaders and how they struggled to get where they are today.  If you are already an established leader, share your personal story with others - hearing about some of the challenges that you faced will make a huge difference in their professional growth and development.  Third, if you are in the teaching profession, it's helpful to focus just as much on the personal and professional struggles as the achievements of great individuals.  It's important for all of us to realize, that even Einstein struggled at times...   

  

The WFH question

Prior to 2020, there were approximately 7 million individuals in the U.S. working remotely, which represented 3.4% of the population.  While this doesn't seem like a significant proportion of the population, what is impressive is that this percentage of employees working remotely has tripled over the last several years.  According to Gallup's State of the American Workplace survey, 43% of Americans work remotely at least part of the time.  Working from home (WFH), known by a number of different terms, including telecommuting, telework, and remote work, is becoming mainstream!

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic changed things even more dramatically!  Many offices and workplaces closed overnight and asked their employees to work from home, beginning in March, 2020.  At the height of the pandemic, more than half of American workers spent the majority of their work-day remotely at home.    

There is a growing debate on whether U.S. workers should return to their place of employment and when.  It's a great question, especially now that the COVID-19 numbers are finally on the decline (at least in the United States).  The general impression is that U.S. workers have been just as productive working remotely from home as they had been working on site before the pandemic.  However, we don't make major decisions such as this one based only upon general impressions!  What does the data actually show?

Most of the studies conducted to date on this issue suffer from some fairly important methodologic flaws.  A number of these studies have been surveys asking whether managers believe that employees working remotely are productive or not.  For example, a large survey of 1,579 Japanese firms in several different industries suggested that the average productivity of employees who work from home is 69% of those who work in the office setting.  

I want to focus on two relatively new and important studies on the impact of the implementation of so-called "working from home" (WFH) policies on employee satisfaction and productivity.  The first study ("Does working from home work?") came out a few years prior to the pandemic, but it is the only (as far as I can tell) randomized, controlled study of WFH.  Here workers at a Shanghai call center were asked if they wanted to shift to working from home four days per week, with the fifth day spent in the office.  Approximately half of the employees (503) expressed interest in WFH, and of these, 249 were qualified to take part in the study (they had been working at the company for at least six months and had the appropriate Internet connections, equipment, and working space at home).  The qualified workers were subsequently randomized (by lottery) to either the WFH or control group.  The experiment lasted for 9 months.

At baseline, the two groups (WFH and control) were very similar in most respects.  Compared to the employees who didn't volunteer for the study, the workers in the WFH and control groups tended to have longer commutes, less tenure in the firm, and less education.  Productivity between the two groups was not different (WFH versus control, and volunteers versus workers who elected not to participate in the study).  The only significant difference between the WFH and control groups was that the workers in the control group were more likely to have children (this may be an important difference - see next study!).

Notably, performance (as measured by productivity) improved by 13% in the WFH group, mostly attributed to a 9% increase in the number of minutes worked per shift, with a smaller percentage increase due to an increased number of calls per minute worked.  A follow-up survey revealed that the WFH workers attributed this improved productivity to greater convenience - for example, they could get something to eat or drink very easily without necessarily dropping work.  Quality was not sacrificed for quantity - quality was measured by at least two valid metrics and did not change during the experiment.  Attrition decreased by 50% in the WFH group compared to the control group, and workers in the WFH reported higher satisfaction.  Most importantly, across the company productivity in aggregate improved by between 20-30%, and the company saved about $2,000 per employee per year due to the reductions in required office space and reduced turnover.

Not all of the news was positive though.  Interestingly, the rate of promotions (which were dependent primarily on performance) decreased by almost 50%.  At the end of the experiment, the company elected to continue the WFH program and offered its employees the choice of either remaining at home or at work.  Two-thirds of the workers in the control group (who had initially volunteered to work remotely at the beginning of the experiment) decided to stay in the office.  Half of the workers in the WFH group changed their mind and returned to the office.  When asked why they chose their minds, workers in both groups cited concerns about being lonely at home and missing out on the connections they shared with their fellow workers.  In addition, workers in the WFH group felt that they were "out of site, out of mind" (which possibly explains the decrease in promotions).  

The second study ("Work from Home & Productivity: Evidence from Personnel & Analytics Data on IT Professionals") is an observational study in which productivity was measured in a large Asian IT services company following the abrupt shift from working from the office (WFO) to WFH in March, 2020 during the beginning of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.  While this study was not a randomized, controlled study such as the one above, the investigators used a variety of methods and analytics to accurately gather and collect an extensive data set consisting of the total number of hours, how that time working was spent, and how productive the employees were during those hours.  The study's results are based on data collected over a 17 month period (including both pre- and post-pandemic) on over 10,000 employees.  

Employees significantly increased the total number of hours worked after WFH was implemented in March, 2020, and the bulk of this increase occurred outside of normal work hours (e.g. after 5 PM for a "typical" 9-5 PM work day).  Compared to pre-pandemic, work output did not change.  In other words, employees were working longer hours for the same level of work output, i.e. productivity decreased.  Measured in this way, productivity decreased by 20% compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Okay, you could look at this with a glass half full or half empty.  Half full first - perhaps individual employees were constructing their work day by taking personal time throughout the day and then working later in the normal work day to accomplish the same level of work output.  Given that these were all salaried employees (which is different from the first study), the most important issue is that the normal work was still completed, right?  Taking a half empty perspective, productivity decreased and we should worry that the employees were maybe working harder and longer for the same level of work output.  It's hard to say which is the correct interpretation here, so maybe we should look at some of the other results.

Looking at how each employee spent their day provides some additional answers.  During WFH, employees spent more time in formal and informal virtual meetings.  Spending more time in meetings means that they had less time available to generate work output - hence the longer work day.  They also spent less time networking (with colleagues and clients) and significantly less time in 1:1 meetings with supervisors.  Remember the WFH employees' concerns about being "out of sight, out of mind" in the first study!

The study revealed some additional insights.  Women were more negatively impacted by WFH than men (note that this has been observed in many, many other studies on the impact of the pandemic on the workforce).  However, this was not simply related to having children in the home (the study investigators speculated that this was due to the gender-specific norms in that country that placed greater demands on women at home).  Men too suffered a lower productivity when children were in the household (recall that in the first study showing greater productivity with WFH employees, the control group was more likely to have children).  Employees with children at home worked significantly more hours than those that did not have children at home, so even when work output stayed the same, productivity decreased.  

These two studies provide some important preliminary data that (1) working from home may increase feelings of being separate from the rest of the workforce (see increased feelings of loneliness in the first study, as well as decreased networking and 1:1 mentorship and coaching in the second one) and (2) the decrease in productivity (at least in the second study - remember that productivity improved in the first one) may require longer working hours with their own attendant consequences on work-life balance, satisfaction, etc.  

There is no question that the pandemic has permanently changed our world.  The shift to WFH that occurred almost overnight in March, 2020 has changed not only how and where we will work, but even also where we will live in the future (see "The doughnut effect of COVID-19 on cities").  To what extent these changes will impact the greater society at large remains to be seen, and for now, only time will tell.

Success

I just finished a book called "When the Game Stands Tall" by sports writer Neil Hayes, which tells the story of the record-setting De LaSalle high school football team (Concord, California), their head coach Bob Ladouceur, and a 151 game winning streak that lasted from 1992 to 2004.  The book was made into a 2014 movie of the same name starring Jim Caviezel, Laura Dern, and Michael Chiklis.  The book focuses on the 2002 season and closely follows the lives of the coaches (especially Coach Ladouceur), as well as the players (including a running back who ended up playing in the National Football League, named Maurice Jones-Drew) who continue the streak during one of the most difficult football seasons in school history.  The last few pages of the book tells the story of how the streak finally came to an end on September 24, 2004 against Bellevue High School in Seattle, Washington (you read correctly - at that point, De LaSalle was frequently playing teams from out of state, including a high school team in Honolulu, Hawaii during the 2003 season).

There is no question that Ladouceur's teams had talented athletes (case in point, Maurice Jones-Drew).  But to say that the team was successful because they always had the best athletes in terms of size, speed, and strength would be false.  There is clearly a lot more to winning that athletic ability.  The writer Don Wallace wrote about some of the keys to the team's success in a 2003 article in Fast Company entitled "The Soul of a Sports Machine".  After reading both the article and the book, you will learn that the keys to success in football (and in life) come from hard work, dedication, commitment, and perseverance.  You will learn that the team is more important than the individual.  

Ladouceur believes that his players should be the leaders.  The team has strict rules about discipline, but Ladouceur doesn't have to enforce them - the players do.  "I expect the kids to lead themselves."  When a player makes a mistake or is not putting forth enough effort, it's not Ladouceur who steps in - it's the players.  "They self-correct," he says.

You will read that the team meets together for dinner after the last practice on the Thursday before a Friday night game to hear about love.  Ladouceur says, "Love.  Why is that word so hard to say?  What is it with us that we find it so hard to say it to each other?"  He will wait, for as long as it takes, until one of his players overcomes his embarassment to stand up and talk about their love for their coaches, their teammates, and the game itself.  The team meeting ends with each player and coach hugging each other.

Overall, it's an amazing story that is worth the investment in time to read about, even if you don't necessarily like football.  During one of the Thursday night sessions, one of the players read a poem by the poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, that I think I will end with here.  Emerson defined success as follows:

What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by

a healthy child, a garden patch

or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed

easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

I think that is a perfect summary of Coach Ladouceur's leadership philosophy and key to winning, both in footbal and in life.  

"Who is my neighbor?"

I don't know how many times I've heard the biblical story of the Good Samaritan.  I have mentioned the story once before in a previous post ("If I do not stop to help this man...").  The story is told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and begins with the passage, "Who is my neighbor?"  A traveler is robbed, beaten, and left for dead alongside the road, and at different times, three individuals find him.  Two religious men walk past him and leave the traveler on the side of the road, while a third man - the so-called "Good Samaritan" stops and helps the man, giving him food, clothing, and shelter.  The moral lesson is that we should all show mercy and help each other out.  

Unfortunately, several studies have shown that when individuals are faced with someone in need of emergency assistance, they may not always choose not to help.  For example, the "bystander effect" is a well-known theory from psychology that states that an individual’s likelihood of helping in an emergency decreases when passive bystanders are present.  It's almost a reverse of peer pressure.  When other individuals are present, we are more likely to think that "someone else will help" and we therefore do not need to do so.  The most famous example of the bystander effect is the 1964 case involving Kitty Genovese.  Genovese was a 28 year-old woman who was stabbed multiple times and killed just outside of her apartment building in Queens, New York.  A New York Times article reported that at least 38 witnesses saw the murder without calling the police.  Most believed that someone else would call for help.  Subsequent reports suggest that the number of witnesses was inaccurate, though the story led the social psychologists, Bibb Latané and John Darley to coin the phrase diffusion of responsibility and propose a new theory of the "bystander effect" (which has also been called, for obvious reasons, the "Genovese Syndrome").

There is a very old study (published in 1973) that provides additional information relevant to the "Good Samaritan" story.  The investigators John Darley and Daniel Batson recruited 40 students from the Princeton Theological Seminary to participate in their simulation of the Good Samaritan story.  Subjects were told that they would be giving a brief 3-5 minute talk on the other end of campus on either (1) the jobs or professions that seminary students enjoyed most or (2) the Good Samaritan story itself ("explain in your own words").  Some of the students were told, "Oh, you're late.  They were expecting you a few minutes ago.  We'd better get moving.  The assistant should be waiting for you so you'd better hurry."

After leaving the laboratory, the students passed a victim who was slumped over in a doorway with his head down and eyes closed.  The "victim" was moaning and coughing.  If the subject stopped to offer help, the "victim" would respond with "Oh, thank you [cough].  No, it's all right [pause].  I've got this respiratory condition [cough].  The doctor's given me these pills to take, and I just took one.  If I just sit and rest for a few minutes, I'll be okay."

What do you think these investigators found?  As it turns out, subjects who were in a hurry were significantly less likely to stop to offer help compared to those subjects who weren't in a hurry!  Of the 40 subjects, 16 (40%) offered some form of assistance to the "victim", while 24 (60%) did not help.  Remember that these were seminary students!  And it didn't even matter if they were being asked to speak about the Good Samaritan story!

Looking at the data further, the only thing that mattered was whether they were running late or not.  If the subjects were running late, they usually didn't stop to offer assistance.  Subjects were told that they (1) had plenty of time to make it to the talk ("low-hurry"), (2) were on-time and should head over now so they wouldn't be late ("intermediate-hurry"), or (3) were running late and needed to move quickly ("high-hurry").  Sixty-three percent of the students in the "low-hurry" condition stopped to help, while only 45% of subjects in the "intermediate-hurry" and 10% in the "high-hurry" condition did so. 

So, what does this all tell us?  First, if there are others around in an emergency, individuals may not always step forward to help due to the mistaken belief that "someone else will do so."  Second, if individuals are in a hurry, they may be even less likely to step forward to help.  Being aware of these natural biases, tendencies, and behaviors is important, regardless of the setting.

It doesn't have to be a case of life-and-death!  The "bystander effect" has been observed in a number of different scenarios (just watch any episode of the ABC television show, What Would You Do?.  The fact that the "bystander effect" was first described in a potentially life-and-death emergency only further emphasizes that people will be resistant to participating or helping in any given situation, and they will be even less likely to help if they are in a hurry.  

The biblical "Good Samaritan" story is still a remarkable one.  I go back to my original post, which referred to a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr so many years ago.  Dr. King ended his speech with the "Good Samaritan" story, trying to explain why the priest and Levite did not stop to help the victim when the Samaritan did.  He offered, "And so the first question that the priest asked - the first question that the Levite asked, was 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?'  But then the Good Samaritan came by.  And he reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'"  

I would argue that Dr. King was thinking about one more question.  "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?  And by not stopping to help him, what does that say about me?"  "Who is my neighbor?"  He or she is right there in front of you.

The third-best is the way

After spending the past 14 months, give or take a few weeks, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it is fairly safe to say that we are living in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.  The U.S. Army War College is believed to have been the first to use to use the acronym VUCA to describe the state of the world that existed shortly after the end of the Cold War.  The acronym has since been broadly used in a variety of settings outside of the military to describe what organizations from hospitals to Fortune 500 companies deal with on a daily basis.  

Who would have predicted that a terrorist organization would weaponize four commercial airplanes to bring down the World Trade Center and cause significant damage to the U.S. Pentagon on September 11, 2001?  Who would have predicted that the hopelessness and despair of a Tunisian fruit vendor would lead to the so-called Arab Spring, which itself led through a chain of events to Brexit?  While a number of experts, including billionaire Bill Gates predicted that we were due for another worldwide pandemic similar to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, very few government officials and almost no one in the public at large believed that it would occur this soon.  And finally, who could have anticipated that a container ship getting stuck in the middle of the Suez Canal would have such far-reaching effects on the global economy?  If you have been reading my last few posts (see, for example, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!", "For want of a nail...", or "The razor's edge"), or if you subscribe to the belief that we live in a VUCA world, none of these events should come as a surprise.

Rebecca Zucker and Darin Rowell recently wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review entitled, "6 Strategies for leading through uncertainty".  While these leadership experts made several great points, one of the ones that stuck out, at least for me, was the recommendation to "Let go of perfectionism"  They suggested, "In a complex environment [see VUCA world above], the context is continually shifting; thus, aiming for perfection is futile.  Instead, aim for progress, expect mistakes, and recognize that you have the ability to continually course correct as needed."  

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt was a British physicist who was instrumental in developing and using radar (note that RADAR is also an acronym that stands for "RAdio Detection And Ranging") to help the Royal Air Force win the Battle of Britain in World War II.  Watson-Watt once said, "Always strive to give the military the third best because the best is impossible and second best is always too late."  Britain did not have the luxury of time during the summer of 1940 - waiting for the best (perfect) radar system would have delayed its employment, perhaps resulting in a history-changing German victory in the Battle of Britain.  This philosophy has come to be known as the "cult of the imperfect" which is perhaps best summarized by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire when he said, "The best is the enemy of the good."  

By focusing on the perfect solution, we may inadvertently try to tackle bigger problems, some of which may not be solvable.  As a result, we can start to feel overwhelmed - then we may not finish other projects or tasks.  As things begin to pile up, that feeling of being "stretched too thin" only gets worse.  A vicious cycle leads to psychological distress and burn-out.  Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook once said, "Done is better than perfect."  More often than not, "good enough" is better than perfect.  

Perfectionism is not only undesirable in a VUCA world, it is dangerous!  The pursuit of a perfect solution to a problem will waste valuable (and often limited) time and resources.  We should not try to "gild the lily".  Instead, we should strive for "good enough" or "third best."  Herbert Simon, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 and the Turing Award in 1975 introduced the term,  "satisficing", a portmanteau of the two words satisfy and suffice.  In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he said, "Decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world.  Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world of management science."

The world is too complex to aim for perfection.  It's been shown throughout history that in many cases, "third best" is not only "good enough", but it will also "satisfice" for most problems.  

Introverts and pandemics

It's interesting how things come full circle.  A few years ago, I wrote a post in which I mentioned the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts by the author Susan Cain.  It was a really interesting book, but I didn't actually "read" it.  I listened to it during one of the drives back from taking our youngest daughter to college.  I wrote another post about the Cain's book and the lemon juice test, which apparently can tell with great accuracy whether you are an introvert or extrovert.  I mentioned the book one last time in a post about my own personal childhood experience growing up as an introvert.  I am feeling a little nostalgic, and perhaps I should re-"read" the book, as I will be making the drive to bring our daughter home from college for the last time.  

Anyway, I was thinking about this book a lot this week, so it was rather by coincidence that I came across the whole subject of introversion vs extroversion once again in a tweet by the author, Adam Grant.  He mentioned a recent article on the Internet, along with a number of recently published studies that explored the question, "Have introverts really fared better in lockdown?"  It's really an interesting question to pose.  Theoretically, given that introverts feed off their own internal energy (as opposed to extroverts, who feed off others), one could certainly argue that the social distancing and isolation associated with the public health response to COVID-19 would be great for introverts.  On the contrary, and perhaps counterintuitively, extroverts appear to have fared better than introverts during the lockdown.

For example, recent studies (see for example the studies here, here, and here) have shown that introversion was predictive of a greater degree of loneliness, anxiety, and depression during the lockdown.  In contrast, extraversion was associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression.  Another study followed 484 US college students through the recent 2021 spring term.  As the pandemic continued on, introverts experienced greater levels of stress compared to extraverts.  Extraverts experienced a relative decline in mood, while the mood of introverts slightly improved.  Of interest, however, extraverts overall still reported a more positive mood than their fellow introverts.  

Don't get too carried away just yet.  All of these studies make an important point - the relationship between different personalities and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be far more complex than just extraversion versus intraversion.  At least two of the studies explore other personality factors comprising the so-called "Big Five" personality traits (the Five-Factor Model of Personality) - extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience.  For example, "openness to experience" and "agreeableness" also were shown to influence how individuals reacted to the pandemic lockdown.  All of these different personality types interact, so focusing on the single extraversion-introversion spectrum is likely to be too simplistic.  

Regardless, these are all intriguing findings that lead to more interesting questions.  We are already starting to see the impact of the pandemic on mental health in the United States - the pandemic has only compounded the growing mental health crisis that existed even before COVID-19.  However, whether someone is an introvert or extravert is perhaps less important  than the coping strategies that we use to deal with the stress.  If exercise in a group was your thing before COVID-19, you probably used exercise to help you deal with the additional stress of the pandemic.  Conversely, if you found peace through meditation, yoga, or simply reading a book, chances are that these were the same coping strategies that were helpful to you in the last year.  

As Jessica Stillman writes in Inc. magazine, "Don't make the mistake of thinking your underlying level of introversion or extroversion is a curse or a gift when facing a challenge. What matters is what you do, not which boxes you tick on a psychological inventory. And while introverts might need to muster more effort to organize a hangout or hike, if we do, we can weather crises as well as any extrovert."

"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

I remember a series of commercials in the 1970's for Chiffon Soft Stick Margarine.  Basically, during every episode, Mother Nature (played by actress Dena Dietrich dressed in a white gown and wearing a crown of daisies) tastes the margarine and claims it is all natural ("That's a stick of my sweet, creamy butter").  When the unseen narrator of the commercial informs her that what she was tasting was actually margarine and not butter, Mother Nature replies with an angry retort, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"  Her response was often accompanied by thunder and lightning or charging elephants.  The commercial ends with, "If you think it's butter, but it's not...it's Chiffon."

They sure don't make commercials like they used to!  I couldn't help but think of these commercials when I came across a recently published study in the journal Biological Conservation.  The study's publication release was accompanied by a number of news media stories, including the BBC and CNN (the National Geographic Channel produced a documentary in 2013 entitled Cocaine Hippos).  Apparently, the Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar imported several species of exotic animals to his private zoo in the 1970's and 1980's, including a small group (one male and three females) of African hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius).  Apparently, he too wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas.  

Following Escobar's death in 1993 (he was shot by members of a paramilitary Colombian police force), most of these exotic species were captured and relocated to Colombian zoos.  However, as hippos are notoriously difficult to capture and transport, Escobar's hippos and their progeny were allowed to wander on his now unattended estate.  As of 2019, the original group of four hippos has grown to approximately 100 hippos, some of which have been located as far as 90 km away from the Escobar estate.  

The aforementioned study modeled the population dynamics of these hippos over the course of the next several years.  Note that hippos have no natural predators in South America, other than humans (African lions and crocodiles are known to prey on hippo calves, but the South American caiman, alligator, and jaguar are likely not large enough).  If no measures at population control are implemented, the models suggest that the population will grow by 69 hippos on average per year, reaching what is called a full carrying capacity (the number of animals that an ecosystem can support - similar to the Malthusian model for humans) of around 1400 hippos by the year 2039.  

What's the issue here?  Should we care about hippos in Colombia?  The problem is that these hippos are a non-native species, and their introduction into an ecosystem without a natural predator will have far-ranging implications, particularly on other species.  Just as important, hippos can be dangerous (there have been reported attacks on local fishermen and farmers).  Others have argued that these hippos may have a positive impact (for example, through ecotourism).  

Aside from the question on whether hippos in Colombia is a good or bad thing, what is the lesson for leadership here?  Similar to my previous posts on chaos theory, Edward Lorenz, and the so-called butterfly effect, the lesson for leaders is to be wary of the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Small events can lead to dramatic effects that are both unexpected and unintended.  The "enemy of good is better", and achieving perfection at the expense of efficiency and cost may not always be the right path for an organization.  There are such things as diminishing returns in economics and hippos in Colombia.

Sully's Miracle

It's been a long time since I last talked about the "Miracle on the Hudson" (see "Brace for Impact" from September 18, 2016).  US Airways Flight 1549 took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009.  Shortly after take-off, the Airbus A320 struck a flock of Canadian Geese, resulting in the loss of both the starboard and port engines.  The pilot, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and co-pilot, First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, executed a flawless emergency landing on the Hudson River.  All 155 people onboard the aircraft survived.  The story was the subject of a 2016 film Sully, starring Tom Hanks as Captain Sullenberger.

Just watch the take-off sequence from the movie, Sully, here.  Read the transcript from the cockpit voice recorder here.  It's the entire transcript, so there's a lot of conversation prior to take-off.  Start at 15:27:10.4, when someone (I think it's Sully) says, "Birds."  Now read the rest.  What sticks out the most?  The conversation becomes very short and concise - almost staccato in nature (for those of you who don't know music theory, staccato is when music is performed with each note sharply detached or separated from each other).

Here's a sample, starting at 15:27:23.2:

15:27:23.2 HOT-1 my aircraft.

15:27:24 HOT-2 your aircraft.

15:27:28 HOT-1 get the QRH... [Quick Reference Handbook] loss of thrust on both engines.

15:27:32.9 RDO-1 mayday mayday mayday. uh this is uh Cactus fifteen thirty nine hit birds, we've lost thrust (in/on) both engines we're turning back towards LaGuardia.

15:27:42 DEP ok uh, you need to return to LaGuardia? turn left heading of uh two two zero.

15:27:46 RDO-1 two two zero.

15:27:50 HOT-2 if fuel remaining, engine mode selector, ignition.* ignition.

15:27:54 HOT-1 ignition.

15:27:55 HOT-2 thrust levers confirm idle.

15:27:58 HOT-1 idle.

15:28:02 HOT-2 airspeed optimum relight. three hundred knots. we don't have that.

15:28:05 HOT-1 we don't.

15:28:05 DEP Cactus fifteen twenty nine, if we can get it for you do you want to try to land runway one three?

15:28:05 CAM-2 if three nineteen-

15:28:10.6 RDO-1 we're unable. we may end up in the Hudson.

I removed the transcript of the sounds from the various warning indicators in the aircraft, but I think you get the idea here.  The two individuals flying the plane during this crisis were communicating with each other and with the air traffic controller using clear, crisp phrases and closed loop feedback (every point was clarified with the confirmatory response - for example,Sully states "My aircraft" when he takes control of the plane, followed shortly by Skyles confirming and "closing the loop" with a "Your aircraft").   Both Captain Sullenberger and First Officer Skyles were trained in something called, Crew Resource Management (CRM), which is designed to improve interpersonal communication, decision-making, and leadership during both routine and nonroutine flight operations.

CRM was first developed in 1980 and is now widely used in both commercial and military aviation around the world.  There are two fundamental aspects to the successful implementation of CRM.  First, the normal hierarchy in the cockpit (pilot is senior to the first officer) must be flattened.  Flying a commercial plane like the Airbus A320 is beyond the skills and capabilities of a single individual.  Flight crews have to work together as a team, particularly during a crisis such as the one expeirenced by Flight 1549 on that day.  Second and related to the first, there must be psychological safety.  The first officer must feel comfortable raising his or her concerns to te captain.  Just as importantly, the captain must address those concerns in an open and respectful manner.

CRM has been applied to other industries as well, including health care, and it is a particularly effective way to manage a crisis.  A group of investigators have studied patterns of communication and teamwork used by commercial pilots during their full-flight simulations.  They tested a scenario that included both routine and non-routine elements, including an in-flight emergency.  What they found is pretty amazing.

Above all else, the captain's style of communication had a significant impact on how the flight crew performed.  First, the crews performed much better when the pilot included the co-pilot in the decision-making process as opposed to just "barking out orders."  Second, crews were more successful at finding a solution to the problem when the captain asked open-ended questions, such as "How do you assess the situation?" or "What do you suggest?"  They published their findings in the journal, Group and Organization Management.  Consistent with CRM, flight crews also performed better during emergency situations when communication was short and crisp.  

As a follow-up, this same group of investigators surveyed a group of pilots in the German and Israeli air forces.  The article here is available in German if you are interested (this may be the only time in my professional life that knowing some German was valuable!).  The survey found that 80% of the pilots felt that subordinate crew members should speak up by freely and openly expressing their opinions.  Importantly, the majority of these same subordinates expressed discomfort with doing so and would only speak up if invited to do so!  

Similar findings were reported in a study published in the journal Human Factors in 1984.  Here, 83% of pilots agreed that co-pilots should be free to openly question the decisions of the pilot, while significantly fewer (63%) agreed.  Further, while almost 75% of pilots agreed with the statement that co-pilots need to be encouraged to speak up, 91% of co-pilots felt that way.  In other words, consistent with the results of the survey of German and Israeli air force flight crews, pilots feel that co-pilots should actively speak up, but co-pilots feel that the pilots should encourage them to do so!  Here is clear proof of the need for psychological safety!

There is no room for hubris in leadership.  No matter the situation, leaders need to rely upon their teams to collaborate and work together.  Leaders also need the individual members of the team to speak up - even if that means openly disagreeing with the leader.  Psychological safety is critically important to the successful completion of almost any task by a team.  And as these studies suggest, leaders have to be the ones to encourage their teams to speak up in order to achieve the level of psychological safety that is necessary for optimal team performance.

The men and women flying on US Airways Flight 1549 owe their lives to how well the flight crew performed that day.  But to call it a "miracle"?  The right team was there that day for sure, but the leader created and fostered the right climate for the team to perform.  CRM and one of its core principles - psychological safety - clearly made the difference.