Top Ten Leadership Reverie Posts of 2021

It's that time of year again, when everyone starts putting together their annual "Best of..." or "Top 10" lists.  Here are the "Top 10" (in terms of most viewed) Leadership Reverie blog posts for the year 2021:

1.  "What you permit, you promote..." (February 15, 2021)

2.  "Better a live donkey than a dead lion..." (March 16, 2021)

3.  "Sully's miracle" (May 2, 2021)

4.  "The grit in the oyster" (April 11, 2021)

5.  "Anyone can lead when the plan is working..." (October 17, 2021)

6.  "Hobbits and orcs, chickens and foxes, and the story of Velcro" (June 20, 2021)

7.  "Do hospital rankings matter?" (June 30, 2021)

8.  "Dart-throwing monkeys" (July 21, 2021)

9.  "Our America" (January 7, 2021)

10. "I think I literally have a better understanding of who killed Kennedy than what is offside" (March 7, 2021)

"Blue sky on Mars. That's interesting..."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, seven-time Mr. Olympia, former governor of California, and movie actor starred in the 1990 movie Total Recall based upon the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick's short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".  Apparently there was a remake in 2012 starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, and Jessica Biel, but I don't think it was as successful as the original.  Besides, I never saw the remake.  The original was entertaining and had all of the usual Arnold one-liners.  The concept, however, was particularly interesting.

Basically, the movie takes place in 2084, and the planet Mars has been colonized by the people of Earth.  Schwarzenegger plays construction worker Douglas Quaid, who has recurring dreams about Mars and a mysterious and beautiful woman (who is not his wife).  He ends up visiting a company called Rekall that implants realistic, but false memories to spice up a boring life.  Quaid selects a memory that he is a secret agent working on Mars.  One of Rekall's techs comments, "Blue sky on Mars.  That's interesting."

Before the memory is implanted, he experiences a mental break and starts believing that he really was a secret agent.  Of course, Quaid ends up on Mars and for the rest of the movie, the audience has to separate truth from fiction, real memory from implanted false memory, and reality from fantasy.  The movie ends (of course, Arnold plays the hero and wins in the end) with a scene in which everyone on Mars looks up to see blue sky.  So if the memory was real, why did the tech at Rekall comment about the blue sky before he implanted the memory?  The blue sky on Mars suggests that it was all fantasy, but I guess we will never know for sure.

I've talked a little about the concept known as cognitive dissonance in an earlier post (see "Sour grapes and sunk costs..."), which I think is relevant here.  Cognitive dissonance states that when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with one another, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.  At times, they may go as far as believing the unbelievable, say that they are a secret agent working on the planet Mars.   Remember, the original study by Leon Festinger involved members of a UFO religion in Chicago that believed in an imminent apocalypse - when the apocalypse didn't occur at the designated time (and the UFO's didn't arrive to pick up the church members and whisk them away to safety), the members didn't just abandon their strange beliefs, they actually doubled down and adhered to them even stronger.  

Here's the thing though - cognitive dissonance doesn't just apply to bizarre beliefs.  The social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson wrote an entire book providing everyday examples of cognitive dissonance, entitled Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me).  As a still fictional, but more realistic example, Dan Gilbert in Stumbling on Happiness talks about the ending of the movie Casablanca (one of the greatest of all time, and my personal favorite).  Ilsa, Ingrid Bergman's character, wants to stay in Casablanca with Rick (played by Humphrey Bogart) instead of escaping from the Nazis with her husband (the plot details of how we ended up here don't matter, but trust me - watch the movie).  Rick (Bogart) tells her that she would always regret her decision not to leave with her husband, "maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life."  Gilbert suggests that due to cognitive dissonance, regardless of the decision that Ilsa makes, it will always be the right one without any regrets.  She would have found reasons to justify either choice, along with reasons to justify not making the other one.  

Moving away from fiction, Tavris and Aronson mention the story of the 19th century Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweiss.  It's a well-known and oft told story of how Semmelweiss suggested that physicians could drastically decrease the rate of puerperal fever (an infection after childbirth that was associated with almost 100% mortality in the pre-antibiotic era) if physicians would just wash their hands with soap and water.  He even conducted one of the first placebo-controlled clinical studies to justify his case.  For his efforts, he was ridiculed and lambasted by his colleagues, who not only refused to accept that hand-washing could reduce puerperal fever, but also convinced themselves that Semmelweiss was insane (truly).  Semmelweiss was eventually sent to an insane asylum, where he was beaten by guards and ironically died of a gangrenous wound infection.  

Even the statement "mistakes were made" is an example of cognitive dissonance.  In a sense, the speaker is saying, "Someone made a mistake, but it certainly wasn't my mistake."  The choice that Tavris and Aronson made for the title of their book was a brilliant one. 

The lesson here for leaders is that individuals and groups will hold on to their beliefs and perceptions, sometimes to the point of excluding all other possibilities.  If a mistake or negative outcome is involved, the tendency to hold on to these false beliefs and perceptions is even stronger.  I came across a quote from an anonymous author, "It's easy to judge the mistakes of others, but it's difficult to recognize your own mistakes."  We need to learn to be comfortable with making mistakes, because that is how we learn and succeed in the end.  And just as importantly, we, as leaders, need to create a psychologically safe environment so that others feel comfortable making and accepting their mistakes.  

Vitamin D

We all need vitamin D in order to maintain normal levels of calcium in our bodies.  Surprisingly, the single largest source of vitamin D is through synthesis of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) in the lower layers of our skin epidermis through a chemical reaction that is dependent on exposure to the sun's ultraviolet radiation.  We can also get vitamin D through our diet (primarily via fortified milk, fortified breakfast cereals, or fish).   The biologically inactive cholecaciferol is converted to its active form in the kidney and liver.  

I was taught in medical school that one of the most common risk factors for vitamin D deficiency was inadequate exposure to the sun (people living far from the Earth's equator where there is less sunlight year-round are particularly at risk).  As winter fast approaches, the days have been getting shorter and shorter.  For the last several weeks, I have been walking to and from work in the dark (yes, I am fortunate enough to be able to walk to work right now).  I don't drink as much milk as I used to, so I am glad that starting tomorrow, the days will start getting longer again.  

Today, December 21st is the shortest day of the year - the winter solstice (which is technically defined as the day when the Earth's pole, in this case the North Pole, has reached its maximum tilt away from the sun)!  Starting tomorrow, the days will start to get longer again, and with more potential exposure to sunlight, my vitamin D levels should start to improve.  

December 21, 2021 is noteworthy, at least to me, for another reason as well.  If today is the shortest day of the year, it is also the longest night of the year.  Darkness will turn to light.  We wait with anticipation for the coming dawn, the light of a new day.  This year, of all years, we look to the sunrise with hope and anticipation.

I know it seems like things are getting bad again.  COVID-19 cases are starting to surge, and as infectious disease experts predicted, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has become the dominant variant in the United States.  We've been dealing with this pandemic for almost 2 years, and I know people are tired of COVID-19.  However, I believe that we can still look to the future with hope and anticipation.  December 21st is truly symbolic.  There is, and there always will be, hope.

The author Orison Swett Marden said, "There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow."  The late Senator Edward Kennedy said, "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dreams shall never die."  Jesse Jackson said, "At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division."  Finally, Desmond Tutu said, "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."

Hope is our vitamin D.  We need the light of the coming dawn to give us hope.  We need hope to move us forward to the new day.

We can choose to look at all the things that are going wrong in our lives, and with the omicron variant, we seem to be going in the wrong direction.  Or, we can recognize that today is the darkest day of the year, which means that there is hope for tomorrow.  We can continue to do what we need to do to make sure that this pandemic will end, for all of us.  We can hope.  We can dream.  And we can go forward.

The Bermuda Triangle of Leadership

When I was growing up, I was absolutely fascinated with the legends surrounding the Bermuda Triangle (known by some as the Devil's Triangle), a triangular-shaped area of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by the city of Miami, the island of Bermuda, and the island of Puerto Rico.  The triangular area covers nearly 500,000 square miles of ocean, and since the time of Christopher Columbus, sailors and pilots have reported strange phenomena and erratic compass readings while traveling in that area.  In addition, there have been a number of ships, planes, and in one case, a group of five TBF Avengers (Flight 19) that have mysteriously disappearing while traveling through the Triangle.  Through the years, various individuals have blamed these disappearances on everything from space aliens to the famed lost city of Atlantis.  There are just as many skeptics, however, as there are believers.  The U.S. Coast Guard has reportedly said, "In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified."

The legends and mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle no longer quite hold the same level of fascination with me today as they did when I was ten years old.  I suppose that's what happens when you get older.  These days, I am intrigued by a concept that is called the toxic triangle of leadership (a term proposed and popularized by Art Padilla, Robert Hogan, and Robert Kaiser).  In honor of my childhood fascination, I propose that we call this the Bermuda Triangle of Leadership.   The concept here is that it takes more than just a bad leader to create a hostile work environment.  Rather, it is a confluence of a destructive leader with susceptible followers and a conducive environment that makes organizations suffer.  

The first side of the triangle is destructive leadership.  Importantly, we rarely deal with absolutes when it comes to leadership - there are likely to be positive and negative results produced by bad leaders.  Using the characterization developed by Adam Grant in his book, Give and Take, destructive leaders are primarily "takers" - individuals who try to get as much as they can possibly get from a relationship.  Destructive leaders have a selfish orientation (as opposed to being selfless) and lead through dominance, coercion, and manipulation rather than through influence, persuasion, and commitment.  Destructive leaders generally thirst for power and are prone to narcissism.  To use Adam Grant's terminology, they take more than they give, and their motivation focuses on consolidating their power and increasing their status.

There are usually checks and balances to counter destructive leaders.  Susceptible followers form the second side of the triangle.  Two types of followers support destructive leaders - colluders and conformers.  Conformers passively allow destructive leaders to assume power, while colluders actively support them.  Colluders often mimic the destructive leaders' behavior, because they benefit from the power it gives them.  Conformers tend to stay "below the radar" in order to keep their jobs or to avoid conflict.  

Given the right set of environmental conditions - the third side of the triangle - destructive leaders working with susceptible followers leads to organizational failure.  Weak oversight and governance, unclear ethical standards, and an inadequate system of checks and balances comprise the conducive environment that create disaster.  Place a destructive leader with a group of conformers and colluders in the wrong organizational culture and you have your leadership version of the Bermuda Triangle.

The design of everyday things

I just finished reading The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (for those of you who are paying attention, the book was on the 2021 Leadership Reverie Reading List).  The book is a best-seller that was fist published in 1988 with the title The Psychology of Everyday Things.  I read the updated, revised, and expanded edition that was first published in 2013.  

Several years ago, I took a six-week course in the science of continuous improvement at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center called the Intermediate Improvement Science Series, or I2S2 for short.  One of the assignments was to choose from a list of recommended books and present an overview to the rest of the class (basically, write and present a book report).  I actually selected another book for my report - The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge.  I have really wanted to read The Design of Everyday Things ever since.  After a number of years, I finally looked the book up on Amazon.  The reviews weren't all that great, so I decided to hold off on reading it.

Last month, I took a chance and decided to check the book out from our local library.  I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the book.  Perhaps I would feel differently if I was a subject matter expert (in human-centered design), but I thought the book was very informative and readable.

When I first heard of the book in my improvement science class, my first reaction was, "What does a book on human-centered design have to do with continuous improvement?"  I was surprised - and I think you will be too - that the answer to my question was "plenty."  There are so many parallels between human-centered design and quality improvement, that I would argue that they are really almost one and the same.  

As an example, we often talk about a blame-free or just culture when it comes to patient safety in health care.  Individuals working in high reliability organizations work in a blame-free environment, where they are able to report errors or near misses without fear of reprimand or punishment.  Errors, almost always, result from defects in the system.  Norman writes about this concept in his book, "We need to remove the word failure from our vocabulary, replacing it instead with learning experience.  To fail is to learn: we learn more from our failures than from our successes."  He goes on to advise, "Do not blame people when they fail use your products properly.  Take people's difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved."  In other words, humans make mistakes.  When mistakes are made, re-design the system to prevent them from occurring again.

Norman describes in great detail the different ways that designers can force the desired behavior.  For example, he talks about using a forcing function (also called a poka-yoke in the Toyota Production System or Lean/Six Sigma) to "force" individuals to do the right thing.  As an example, drivers are unable to take a car out of park without first pressing down on the brake pedal.  Similarly, most ATM's "force" you to take the cash before you can remove your bank card.  

Norman goes on to talk about the different kinds of forcing functions - interlocks, lock-ins, and lock-outs.  For example, have you ever walked down the stairs of a public building and noticed a gate placed at the ground floor?  If you open the gate, you can walk down another flight of stairs to the basement.  The gate's sole purpose is to prevent people who are rushing down the stairs to escape a fire from continuing on (mistakenly) into the basement, where they could be trapped.  I have noticed those gates, but I never knew what they were for - mind officially blown!

Norman talks about something that he calls the "Iterative Cycle of Human-Centered Design," which he divides into four stages (admittedly, there are other versions of this same cycle in the design literature):

1. Observation

2. Idea generation (ideation)

3. Prototyping

4. Testing

Since this is a cyclical process (not a linear one), the "Testing" stage goes back to the "Observation" stage at the end.  If you are familiar with quality improvement, you will recognize this as a slightly different version of a Plan-Do-Study-Act or PDSA cycle.  Taking it one step further even, Norman recommends using small tests of change so that you an, as David Kelley (Stanford professor and co-founder of IDEO) calls, "Fail frequently, fail fast."  If the results of the test are negative, you can quickly move on to the next test without wasting further time and resources.

As if all this weren't enough, Norman dedicates an entire chapter ("Human Error?  No, Bad Design") to discuss the different kinds of human error and design principles that can be used to mitigate them.  I have to say that this chapter  was one of the best discussions of human error that I have ever read.    which he classifies as either slips ("a slip occurs when a person intends to do one action and ends up doing something else") or mistakes ("a mistake occurs when the wrong goal is established or the wrong plan is formed").  Notably, slips are more likely to be made by experts, while mistakes are more common with novices.  Norman talks further about rule-based, skills-based, and knowledge-based mistakes.  He also talks about error reporting and detection, the use of checklists, and the root-cause analysis technique.  

Overall, I think this would have been a great book to read during my improvement science class.  I am glad that I finally read it, and I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in improvement science, patient safety, or human-centered design.

Metric Madness

If you want evidence that people don't like change, look no further than the Metric system.  I first learned about meters, grams, and liters when I was in elementary school.  My teachers told me that soon, everyone around the world would be using the Metric system, which is a system of units of measurement that are based on the number ten.  It is relatively simple in concept and easy to understand.  Surprisingly (at least to me), the Metric system has been around since the 1790's, when it was first developed by the French.  

As of today, there are just three countries around the world that have still not officially adopted the Metric system - Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States.  Please note that the United States still officially uses a system of measurement adapted from the British Imperial system of measurement, which even the British moved beyond in 1965.  American scientists, hospitals, and Olympic athletes do, in fact, use the Metric system, though most Americans do not.  The late U.S. Senator Jesse Helms once said, "If God had wanted us to use the Metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles" (just for the record, Christian teachings state that Jesus had 12 disciples). 

Why are Americans so resistant to this change, especially when nearly every other country around the world have officially adopted the Metric system?  The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to "fix the standard of weights and measures" in Section 8 of Article I.  The Metric Act of 1866 legally recognized the Metric system, opening the door for the United States to adopt it as its official system of measurement.  However, adoption of the Metric system was never mandated, and most industries at the time continued to use the old system of measurement.  Congress tried again in 1975 with the passage of the Metric Conversion Act which declared that the Metric system was the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce."  However, adoption again was not mandated.  I suspect that until adoption is no longer mandatory, most Americans will continue to use the system of measurement that they are most comfortable with - the one adapted from the British Imperial system.

One of the major reasons Americans haven't embraced the Metric system is that people are just resistant to change.  We've talked about change resistance before.  Change can be uncomfortable.  I can remember a time when I was growing up that units of measurement (distance markers on the highway, volume measures at the gas pump, etc) were listed in both the British Imperial system and Metric system with the goal of increasing the level of comfort with the Metric system (shortly after the 1975 Metric Conversion Act).  As with any change initiative, old habits are hard to erase.  Whenever people get out of their comfort zone, even just a little bit, they will revert back to the "tried and true" way of doing things.

I suspect that part of the reason is financial.  There is no question that there will be a cost associated with making the change to the Metric system.  NASA estimated that it would cost the U.S. government over $370 million to change fully to the Metric system.  The total cost of a conversion is hard to determine, but there is no question that it would be expensive.  

There are certainly cultural, financial, and likely political (unfortunately, politics is always a factor in these kinds of issues) reasons why the U.S. is one of only three countries that haven't changed to the Metric system.  I don't necessarily always subscribe to the rationale that "just because everyone else is doing something", you should follow suit.  But in this case, there are a couple of real-world accidents where conversion between the Metric system and the British Imperial system played a causal role.

Air Canada Flight 143, now known as the "Gimli Glider", a scheduled commercial flight from Montreal to Edmondton was forced to make an emergency landing on July 23, 1983 after running out of fuel at the half-way mark at an altitude of 12,500 meters (that's about 41,000 feet for us stubborn, bull-headed Americans).  The plane ended up gliding down to an abandoned Royal Candadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba (hence the "Gimli Glider").  While there were multiple holes in the proverbial "Swiss Cheese", one of the reasons that the plane ran out of fuel is because the ground crew mistakenly switched between pounds and kilograms of fuel.  The Boeing 767 departed with only 45% of its normal fuel load.

More recently, NASA lost the $125 million Mars Orbiter in 1999 when the engineering team failed to convert from English to Metric units when exchanging vital data before launching the spacecraft.  Apparently, during the landing itself, Lockheed Martin was sending thrust calculations based in the British Imperial system of units (pounds), while NASA was expecting Metric units (Newtons).  The spacecraft crashed onto the Martian surface and was lost.  There are numerous other examples.

Okay, I know what you are thinking.  What does THIS have to do with leadership?  In my mind, failure to change to the Metric system has everything to do with leadership.  The success or failure of any major change initiative depends upon how that change is managed by the organization's leaders.  The change guru John Kotter said, "We know that leadership is very much related to change.  As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership."  Leadership is all about change.  

Making the transition to full adoption of the Metric system in the United States will require a leader who is fully committed to making the change and willing to push it.  We've had plenty of time to embrace the Metric system.  And as the examples above suggest, there is no better time to do so.

Digging for gold

The 19th century steel industry magnate and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie said, "You develop people the same way you mine gold.  When you mine gold, you have to move tons of dirt to find one ounce of gold.  But you don't go in there looking for the dirt.  You go in there looking for the gold."  I think that is particularly true for recruiting and/or developing leadership talent.  

There is an old saying, "People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses."  As it turns out, this is more than just a cliché - there is evidence to back up the statement.  A Gallup poll of more than 1 million U.S. workers found that 75% of the workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of a bad boss or direct supervisor.  As the Gallup CEO at the time, Jim Clifton, summarized the 2013 "State of the American Workplace" survey, "The single biggest decision you make in your job - bigger than all the rest - is who you name manager.  When you name the wrong manager, nothing fixes that bad decision.  Not compensation, not benefits - nothing."

I should point out that most, if not all, of the studies citing "bad bosses" as one of the most important reasons that workers leave their jobs were performed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  If selecting managers and supervisors was important before the pandemic, it is even more so now!  Investing in leadership training and development is not only a good idea, it is an organizational imperative!  Just as important is the leadership selection and recruitment process.

I think the military definitely understands the organizational imperative to identify, select, develop, and train leaders.  In this case, it's not just the survival of the organization that is at stake.  As the former Army Chief of Staff, General James McConville explains, "From where I sit, command is a privilege.  It's a great privilege to lead America's best, and we have a sacred obligation to get absolutely the best, most committed leaders that we have in charge of these great Americans, who have raised their right hand to serve."

The U.S. Army has invested significant resources to getting leadership identification, recruitment, development, and training right.  The military has been and always will be an important source of government and industry leaders.  It's important to recognize, however, that even the military doesn't always get it right, when it comes to leadership development.  According to a survey performed in 2009 of over 22,000 soldiers in the Army, 20% said that they were serving under a toxic leader.  Recognizing that they could do better, the Army has developed a new selection process that I think captures perfectly the importance of leadership recruitment and development, called the Battalion Commander Assessment Program, or BCAP.  One of the architects of this innovative program, Colonel Everett Spain, summarized the components of BCAP in an article from the Harvard Business Review published a year ago.

Battalion commanders generally have spent 17-20 years of military service and represent the first executive-level position in the Army.  They are lieutenant colonels who are in charge for approximately 500 soldiers, and the Army selects about 450 of these commanders every year.  The Army completely overhauled the Battalion Commander selection process, and the level of attention and investment into this process is quite instructive.

The interview and selection process takes four full days.  All candidates undergo a battery of tests, including physical fitness test, writing and oral communication skills assessments, psychometric tests, cognitive and strategic talent tests, and formal interviews.  Somewhat unique to this process was the fact that both the interviewees (the officer candidates) and interviewers were trained prior to participating in the four-day event.  Interviewers received extensive training on ways to reduce bias, as well as training on scoring systems and behavior-based interviewing techniques.  Candidates were provided with an orientation to the process in general, as well as an introduction to the STAR method (which teaches people to answer questions by describing the situation, the task, the action taken, and the result).  As an additional way to eliminate bias, the program used double-blind auditions (a black curtain separated the candidates from the interview panel at all times), a technique adopted by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the 1950's.  

The impact of the BCAP program is unknown at this time.  Only time will tell how effective the new assessment will be in identifying and developing the most talented leaders for the Army.  What is clear is that the Army has made a significant investment in their new program.  To paraphrase the quote by Andrew Carnegie at the beginning of this post, they are moving tons of dirt to find a little gold.  I think it will prove to be worth it.

Expedition behavior

It's been an interesting week in college football.  Aside from the ongoing drama (Who's in and who's out?) of the NCAA FBS (Football Bowel Division) College Football Playoff rankings that will be released today, we've witnessed the usual end of the year coaching carousel (see an older post, "You're fired!").  Two head coaches (Oklahoma's Lincoln Riley and Notre Dame's Brian Kelly) from two of the most storied programs in all of football left to go coach at two other so-called "blue blood" programs.  The manner with which one of these coaches (the former Notre Dame head coach) was far from ideal (although true to form based on his past departures).  Kelly reportedly let his coaching staff and players know that he was leaving via text message while he was away on a recruiting trip.  Rubbing the proverbial salt in the wound, he even tried to entice key members of Notre Dame's coaching staff to join him.  As the pundits continue to say, college football is a business, and sometimes business stinks.

I don't want to talk about Brian Kelly.  What I do want to talk about is what happened after he announced that he was leaving Notre Dame to be the new head football coach at LSU.  The players rallied around their coaches, and the assistant coaches rallied around the players.  None of the coaches followed Kelly to LSU (at least so far), telling the players that they were committed to staying and finishing the season at Notre Dame.  Take a look at the video of Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees telling the team that he was staying.  More importantly, check out the video of how the Notre Dame players welcome the former Defensive Coordinator and now Head Coach, Marcus Freeman for the first time as the head coach.  Lastly, check out what Coach Freeman tells his players about what is important and how they need to finish the season together.  

I suspect that the football players at Notre Dame went through an emotional rollercoaster this past week.  The behavior of everyone in the program (aside from the former head coach, of course), from players to coaches to administrative staff beautifully illustrated something known as "expedition behavior" - placing the needs of the collective whole first and foremost above the needs of the many individuals.  The term was first used and described by the legendary mountaineer Paul Petzoldt for his National Outdoor Leadership School, which he founded in 1965.

"Expedition Behavior" is all about the team.  "Expedition Behavior" is how teams consistently perform at a high level, even when faced with unpredictable and unexpected risks.  When I think about high-perfomance teams, I of course think about High Reliability Organizations.  These organizations recognize that their success depends upon how the team works together to achieve a collective mission and vision.  To use another popular analogy, everyone in the boat is rowing in the same direction towards a common goal.

Who knows whether or not Coach Freeman will be a successful head coach.  It's certainly too early to tell for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the University of Notre Dame's football team will be just fine.  They are in great hands, and the expedition will succeed.

"In God we trust. All others bring data."

W. Edwards Deming, an industrial engineer and arguably one of the founders of the Total Quality Management movement, reportedly once said, "In God we trust.  All others bring data."  In other words, if you are both omnipotent and omniscient, you probably can make a convincing argument on your own.  If not, you better have the data to back it up.

There is absolutely no question that data can be powerful.  The right data can motivate change, and change is the essence of continuous improvement.  You may already be convinced, but just to prove it to you, I want to briefly talk about two important and recently published studies.  

As Deming himself stated, "Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality."  Clinical protocols and care guidelines exist to minimize variation in care as much as possible.  Once variation is controlled, providers can monitor outcomes and adjust the protocol accordingly.  However, developing these clinical protocols and care guidelines is not easy - it takes time and money (and most importantly, it takes buy-in from the key stakeholders).  Here is where these two aforementioned studies come into play.  Both studies involve critically ill children who have undergone surgery for congenital heart disease.

Using a technique that they called "target-based care", investigators at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah and Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford in Palo Alto, California significantly reduced the variation in care that children received following cardiac surgery.  The way that they accomplished this is particularly interesting (and relevant to the "power of data").  They did not use clinical care guidelines or protocols.  Instead, they merely posted specific targets for the expected or typical time it would take to remove a patient from the ventilator, discharge from the intensive care unit, and discharge from the hospital.  These targets were based on either published data from national outcome registries or internal data, respectively.  That's all there was to it.

These targets were placed on regular signs and posted at the bedside for all to see.  The targets were visible to both the members of the care team, as well as the patient's family.  As the investigators emphasized, this level of transparency led to both clinical improvement opportunities in real time, as well as influencing expectations and creation of shared mental models to improve the family's understanding of the care being provided.  The care team was not asked to alter their practice, but even without a protocol or guideline, the variation in care (as measured by the standard deviation around quality metrics, including the targets themselves) significantly decreased.  At least at Lucille Packard, the overall length of stay in the ICU and hospital also decreased!  Finally, the patient/family experience improved as well.

The simple act of posting the typical and/or expected benchmarks in the care of the individual patient reduced the variation in care, improved the patient/family experience, and in at least one of the studies, decreased the overall length of stay in the hospital.  Here are two perfect examples of the power of data.  Nothing fancy or costly was required, except having access to data (which is important, but not too difficult) and a piece of paper to write and post the data on for all to see.

The IKEA effect

Today is my 600th blog post!  I have really enjoyed reading and writing about leadership.  Looking back to my very first post (entitled, appropriately enough, First blog post!), I mentioned two goals for starting my own blog.  First, I wanted to write more.  I have always enjoyed writing, and I thought that having my own blog would be a great way to continue to develop and refine my writing skills on a subject that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Second, I wanted a place to collect stories, lessons, articles, and good examples of leadership.  I never thought that I would get to 100 posts (I did start slowly, going almost seven months without a post during the first year), let alone six hundred!  It's truly been a great experience for me, and even if no one outside my own family reads this blog, it's been worth it!

My first post was just an introduction and an explanation for why I was starting my own blog.  My second post introduced a favorite personal strategy on learning about leadership ("What can we learn about leadership from a movie?").  I enjoy watching movies, particularly those movies that have important lessons about leadership (see my post "12 O'Clock High" for a list of some of my personal favorites).  Last year, I watched the famous war movie, "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" starring Sir Alec Guinness and William Holden as two prisoners of war during the Burma Campaign of World War II.  Guiness stars as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson, the senior British officer at the POW camp, who provides a very interesting case study in leadership.  He is all spit and polish and lives 100% by the book.  

The Allied POW's are forced, at least at first, to build a railroad bridge across the River Kwai (hence the name of the movie).  Ultimately, Nicholson leads his men to build the bridge on time, on budget, and according to specification.  The bridge becomes an object of pride and admiration for the men.  Nicholson seems to forget about the bridge's strategic importance, but William Holden's character, Navy Lieutenant Commander Shears does not.  Shears escapes from the camp and leads a band of commandos to destroy the bridge.  

At one point, Nicholson unbelievably tries to prevent Shears and his team from bombing the bridge.  At the last minute, he comes to his senses, uttering "What have I done?"  He is shot, and as he falls, he detonates the bridge just as a Japanese train is crossing it.  The mission ultimately succeeds.  Why was Nicholson so attached to the bridge?  He was either incredibly stupid or deranged to the point where he tried to save the bridge for the Japanese Army Colonel who ran the POW camp.  Actually, there's a simpler explanation.  The bridge was his creation, or at least he saw it that way.

If you have a chance to read anything by the cognitive psychologist and author, Dan Ariely, please do so.  He's authored a number of books and research papers, and he most recently started writing a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal called "Ask Ariely".  A few years ago, he published the results of a study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology on something he calls, "The IKEA effect".  After reading this study, I suspect that Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson's behavior in The Bridge Over the River Kwai will make a lot more sense.  Ariely and his team conducted four studies in which study subjects were asked to build IKEA boxes, fold Origami, and build Lego sets.  Subjects were consistently willing to pay significantly more money for their own creations than someone else's creation.  

Ariely's "IKEA effect" (so named to honor the Swedish company whose products require assembly) reminds me of another famous study by the cognitive psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch, and Richard Thaler on something known as the "endowment effect".  In this study, subjects who had been given a coffee mug were offered a chance to trade it for some pens or sell it for a certain amount of money.  The price that subjects were willing to sell their mugs was almost twice as much as the price that they were originally willing to pay for it.  Ariely also demonstrated the endowment effect in another study, in which students were willing to sell four NCAA basketball tournament tickets for twice as much as they would have been willing to pay for them.  In other words, once we own something, we tend to want to hold on to it and are reluctant to part with it.

Okay, now that we've introduced the "IKEA effect" and reviewed the "endowment effect", what's the lesson for leadership?  I will suggest that there are two points to be made here - both have to do with change management.  First, according to the "endowment effect", individuals will want to hang on to the "way that we've always done things around here,"  making any significant process or culture change that more difficult.  Leaders should be cognizant of this fact.  Second, according to the "IKEA effect," we place a greater value on things that we have created or built.  Leaders should absolutely leverage this cognitive tendency when it comes to change management.  Individuals and groups will be more receptive and supportive of change when they have a hand in what, how, and when it happens (more on this in a post next month).  

Perhaps the "IKEA effect" can overcome the "endowment effect" here - remember, at least in the movie "The Bridge Over the River Kwai", the "IKEA effect" was so strong as to overcome patriotism and loyalty to the Allied cause!  At least in my own experience, change is easier to manage when the individuals or groups have at least some input into it.  

As I close this 600th post, I will end, as I frequently do, with a quote.  Going back to one of the main reasons I started this blog - to write - I will leave with a quote by the author Louis L'Amour, "Start writing, no matter what.  The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."  And one more, from the essayist, Anais Nin, "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."  I have enjoyed writing these posts, and I look forward to the next 600 with even greater anticipation.

"Skate to where the puck is going..."

I spent several years of my life in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana.  For those of you who don't know, Indianapolis is actually the state capital, the largest city in the state, and the 16th largest city (by population) in the United States (just behind Charlotte, NC and just ahead of San Francisco, CA).  When I was young, there was only one professional sports team that called Indianapolis home - the Indiana Pacers (the Indianapolis Colts were the Baltimore Colts until 1984).  We also had a World Hockey Association professional hockey team called the Indianapolis Racers from 1974-1978.  I do remember going to a few Racers games at Market Square Arena (which hosted both the Racers and the Pacers), but I will confess that I wasn't a huge hockey fan growing up.

The Racers weren't very good, and they certainly didn't last very long - the World Hockey Association actually folded in 1979, and only four teams (Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and New England Whalers) joined the older and more well-established National Hockey League.  The Racers had a number of players that went on to have successful NHL careers, including Pat Stapleton, David Keon, Mark Messier, and most famously, Wayne Gretsky.  Gretsky was only seventeen years old when he played for the Racers, his first professional major league hockey team, and he only played eight games for the Racers (there is a rumor that he attended my high school's arch-rivals, Carmel High School while playing for the Racers, but I don't know whether that is true or not).  The Racers were losing money and simply could not afford Gretsky's contract (a seven year contract worth $1.75 million at the time).  Gretsky was traded to the Edmonton Oilers, where he played for most of his career.

Gretsky is widely considered the greatest hockey player of all time (his nickname is "The Great One").  He was never the strongest player or the largest player - he relied instead on unrivaled stamina, intelligence, and game-sense.  When asked why he was so much better than everyone else at hockey, he reportedly once said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been."  

Gretzky captured nine Hart Trophies as the most valuable player, 10 Art Ross Trophies for the most points scored in a season, two Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP, and five Lester B. Pearson Awards (now called the Ted Lindsay Award) for most outstanding player as judged by his peers. He led the NHL in goal-scoring five times and assists 16 times. He also won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship and performance five times, and often spoke out against fighting in hockey.  When he retired after the 1999 season, he was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and his number (99) was retired league-wide.

While I like Gretzky's quote above and often use it ("Skate to where the puck is going"), what impresses me most was something he said later on.  Hockey fans used to think that Wayne Gretzky had a "sixth sense" or instinct that he was born with.  He disagrees, "It's all practice.  I got it from my Dad.  Nine out of ten people think it's instinct, and it isn't.  Nobody would ever say a doctor learned his profession by instinct; yet in my own way, I've put in almost as much time studying hockey as a medical student puts in studying medicine."  In other words, Gretzky learned to play the game that he loved to play in a way far better than anyone else ever has or likely ever will, by hard work, practice, and a commitment to studying the game.

I've said it over and over again - great leaders are not born, they are made through study, practice, and good old fashioned hard work.  If you want to be a great leader, read and learn about other great leaders.  If you want to be a great leader, practice your craft.  Great leaders critically self-evaluate every leadership decision they make so that they learn from their successes, as well as their mistakes.  Take advantage of every opportunity to get feedback from those who you lead, from your peers, from your mentors, and from the leaders that you yourself follow.  Leadership is a skill that can only be improved through practice, practice, practice.

It is true that great leaders - like great hockey players - skate to where the puck is going.  But what is also true is that they achieve that level of intuition, vision, and perceptivity through hard work, dedication, commitment, and practice.

The real bridge to nowhere...

Several years ago, members of the Alaskan congressional delegation helped secure federal funding for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska (the state's southeasternmost major city) to Gravina Island.  At the time, there were only 50 Alaskans who lived on Gravina Island.  So why, do you ask, would anyone propose to build a bridge (with projected costs around $398 million) to an island with a population that small?  The Ketchikan International Airport is also located on Gravina Island.  Before the proposed bridge, passengers would have to travel to Gravina Island to reach home - or the airport - by ferry.  The proposed spending bill encountered significant opposition and became a symbol for so-called "pork barrel" spending.  The "Bridge to Nowhere" even found its way into the 2008 Presidential election campaign, when the Republican nominee for Vice President, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, told a crowd on August 29, 2008,"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere!"  Interestingly enough, the Alaskan government continued work on the Gravina Island Highway, which would have connected with the proposed bridge, at a cost of over $25 million.  The road has now become known locally as the "road to nowhere."

There is a perhaps less famous "Bridge to Nowhere" that I find more interesting.  There is an old bridge in the city of Choluteca, Honduras that was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1935 and 1937 that was considered one of the greatest works of architecture in all of Honduras.  The bridge was modeled after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.  The bridge is part of a major thoroughfare that controls traffic flow from Guatemela to Panama.  At some point in the early 1990's, the Honduran government recognized that a second bridge was necessary to help accomodate the increasing amount of traffic in the city of Choluteca along this major thoroughfare.  The new Choluteca Bridge, known as the "Bridge of Rising Sun" was built by a Japanese construction company beginning in 1996 and was completed in 1998.  

Hurricane Mitch is the second deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record, causing over 11,000 deaths in 1998, both from the storm itself and the floods that occurred in its aftermath.  Seven thousand people died in Honduras, where much of the flooding occurred.  Aside from the catatrophic number of deaths, the President of Honduras claimed that the storm's damage set the economic development in Honduras back at least fifty years.  The storm wrecked about 35,000 houses and damaged another 50,000, leaving up to 1.5 million people homeless (about 20 percent of the country's population).

The storm and flooding caused over $6 billion in damages across Latin America.  The country of Honduras was hit particularly hard, with just over $2 billion in damages alone, most of which was due to ruined crops and damage to transportation infrastructure.  Many of the roads and bridges across the country were either heavily damaged or destroyed, including the Old Choluteca Bridge above.  However, the new "Bridge of Rising Sun" survived the storm completely intact.  Unfortunately, while the bridge itself was in near perfect condition, the roads on either end of the bridge were completely destroyed.  As a matter of fact, the roads had completely vanished without a trace.  The Choluteca River, which was over 100 meters at the bridge, had carved itself a new channel during the massive flooding caused by the hurricane and completely re-routed itself.  The bridge no longer crossed the river!  Here is a picture of the bridge in the aftermath of the hurricane:

As you can see, the new Choluteca Bridge had truly become a "Bridge to Nowhere."  The bridge has become a perfect metaphor  for dealing with the constantly changing dynamics of the world we live in today.  Admittedly, the fact that the bridge withstood a category V hurricane and a "once in a generation" flood of biblical proportions is an impressive feat of engineering, particularly when so many other bridges and structures collapsed.  Moreover, I would bet that most engineers don't factor in such a rare occurence as a river completely changing its path - it is a completely unexpected kind of event!

High Reliability Organizations are perfectly positioned to manage these rare, unexpected, "Black Swan" kinds of events.  Just consider the title of one of the earliest and by far the best book on High Reliability Organizations HROs) - at least in my opinion - by Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe - Managing the Unexpected: Sustained Performance in a Complex World.  I have written a number of blog posts in the past on HRO's, so I won't go in too much detail here.  Suffice it to say that HROs are perfectly positioned to deal with "Bridge to Nowhere" kinds of events because they are:

1. Preoccupied with failure

2. Reluctant to simplify

3. Sensitive to operations

4. Committed to resilience

5. Defer to the experts

Organizations may never have to deal with an incident even remotely close to what the city of Choluteca had to deal with following Hurricane Mitch.  Regardless, learning how other organizations have dealt with similar issues, or better yet, adopting many of the principles that these organizations followed, will help position your organization to deal with any variety of these unexpected, rare events.  I will end this post, as I frequently do, with a quote, this one from Senator Elizabeth Warren.  She said, "Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected."  Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts said, "A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens."  Herein lies the essence of high reliability.

"What makes a champion?"

While I have never listened to him in person, I suspect that P.J. Fleck, currently the Head Football Coach at the University of Minnesota would be a great motivational speaker.  Coach Fleck has developed an entire philosophy around "elite performance" (see my previous posts, "Row the Boat" and "Golden Gopher Leadership 101" for more on his philosophy).  He really likes to use the word "elite" A LOT!  He suggests that when it comes to level of performance, there are five kinds of people in this world - Bad, Average, Good, Excellent, and Elite.  He distinguishes between "excellent performance" and "elite performance" (he is clearly pushing his football players towards more of the latter than the former).

Can we really distinguish between "excellent" and "elite" performance in sports?  I believe so.  As an example, the Kenyan runner Lawrence Cherono won the 2019 Boston Marathon with a finishing time of 2:07:57.  The second place finisher, Ethiopian runner Lelisa Desisa finished right behind him with a time of 2:07:59.  In other words, just 2 seconds separated the top two finishers.  Ok, great.  What about the rest of the runners?  Apparently, Cherono was approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes (almost a full two hours) faster than the average finishing time of the rest of runners in the field.  That's even more impressive when you consider that runners have to qualify for the Boston Marathon, so the "average" runner in this highly selective field is still fairly fast.  

What about other sporting events?  Can we similarly distinguish between "excellent" and "elite" in other events as well?  Someone determined that the odds of a master-level chess player (in other words, an excellent chess player) beating the currently #1 ranked chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, is about 1 in 1,000,000,000!  

It's not as easy to quantify performance in other domains, such as music, art, writing, science, or even leadership.  However, what is true for sports performance is likely true for these other domains as well - there is a clear separation between "excellent" and "elite."  Assuming we can agree on this point, the more interesting question is how does someone become an "elite" performer versus simply just being an "excellent" one.  The age-old "Nature versus Nurture" debate is certainly relevant here.  Are elite performers born with incredible abilities or are these abilities developed over time?  Similarly, we can ask (and many have), "Are leaders born or made?"

There have been a number of books that have attempted to answer this very question.  See, for example, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code, Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated, David Epstein's The Sports Gene and Range, and Anders Ericsson's and Robert Pool's Peak.  All of these are FANTASTIC books, and I would highly recommend each one..  I think that when it comes to sports performance, these authors would suggest that both "Nature" and "Nurture" are important to success in sports (and certainly some of the other domains too).  At least when it comes to "elite" level performance in sports, having good genes (i.e. the "Nature" side of the debate) is definitely important.  However, there is no question that having good genes is not sufficient - "elite" athletes achieve "elite-level" performance through training (i.e. the "Nurture" side of the debate).

Okay, so both nature and nurture are important.  But how much nurture?  If training is important, should athletes begin training in their chosen sport as early as possible?  Everyone knows how successful athletes like Tiger Woods, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams were at an incredibly early age.  Similarly, they focused on their chosen sports (golf and tennis, respectively) at an incredibly early age.  Conversely, it's also well known that basketball superstar, Michael Jordan, was cut from his high school basketball team.  He developed his superhuman basketball skills much later in life.

It is this latter question that Arne Gullich, Brooke Mcnamara, and David Hambrick addressed in their recently published meta-analysis, "What makes a champion? Early multidisciplinary practice, not early specialization, predicts world-class performance".  Essentially, is it better to focus on just one sport early in an athlete's life, or should athletes spend time developing general athletic skills and abilities through participating in multiple sports?  The meta-analysis analyzed the results of 51 different studies (this is a popular topic!) from 14 different countries and involving over 6,000 athletes published between 1998 and 2018.  The outcome of interest was the ultimate performance level achieved (world class versus national class).  

There's no argument from these investigators (or these studies) that the more time an athlete spends practicing in a specific sport, the greater the chance of elite-level performance (more time, more coaching, and more practice leads to improved performance).  Aside from this point, there were three major findings of interest from the meta-analysis.  First, the amount of multisport practice discriminated between athletes who achieved world-class levels of performance (world championships, Olympic medals, etc) compared to those who achieved national-class performance (e.g., U.S. championships).  Elite, world-class athletes generally spent more time playing several different sports early in life, switched to a singular focus later on, and reached performance milestones at a slower rate than national-class athletes.  In other words, world class superstars like Tiger Woods or Serena Williams who started early in life are the exception and not the rule.

Second, athletes who found success in early-stage competitions, such as the Junior Olympics typically started their singular focus on a specific sport early in life.  That sort of makes sense, right?  If you want to peak early in life (e.g. Junior Olympics), you should start focusing on a specific sport early in life.  However, if you want to compete on an elite, world-class level in senior-level competition, you are better off playing multiple sports.  The third finding, which is perhaps not as relevant to the present discussion, was that time spent in non-organized, general play (participating in a pick-up basketball game, for example) had negligible effects on both junior-level and senior-level elite performance.

Whether these findings can be universally applied to domains outside of sports is a reasonable question.  If so, it seems logical to suggest that acquisition of generalized knowledge in a wide variety of domains should occur before the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge.  By extension then, perhaps we should be training general leadership skills in the early career stages before focusing on more technical, domain-specific leadership skills.  These questions will certainly require further study.  As David Epstein writes in his book, Range, "Everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines."  He goes on, "In a wicked world, relying upon experience from a single domain is not only limiting, it can be disastrous."

"Too much time on my hands?"

I was driving back to Chicago the other day and saw a billboard advertising an upcoming concert by the rock band Styx.  They were really popular in the 1970's and early 1980's, and at one time, I owned a number of albums by the band.  One of their best-selling albums was a concept album called Paradise Theatre.  The album told a fictional account of the story of the real Paradise Theatre in Chicago, which was a metaphor for the changing times in America from the 1970's to the 1980's.  The album was released in 1981 and was certified triple-platinum, reaching #1 on the album charts for about three weeks.  There were four singles released from the album, and two of these singles made it into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 ("The Best of Times", which made it to #3 and "Too Much Time on My Hands", which made it to #9).

Notably, the second hit single ("Too Much Time on My Hands") doesn't really have anything to do with the Paradise Theatre story.  It's still a good song that talks about a guy who spends all day at a local bar because he has too much free time.  The following lines sums up the rest of the song perfectly:

Well I'm so tired of losing

I've got nothing to do and all day to do it.

Well I'd go out cruising, but I've no place

To go and all night to get there.

Now that you see how a billboard advertisement can trigger a fond memory from my adolescence, let's get to the topic at hand, which actually, is about having too much free time (see, there's a method to my madness).  I want to talk about a recently published study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  The study received a lot of attention in the lay media, and I actually think I first heard about it via a Twitter post by Adam Grant.  The study's main objective was to determine the relationship between discretionary (i.e. "free") time and subjective well-being.  In other words, how do Americans feel when they have "too little" or "too much time" on their hands?  I suspect that there would be few to dispute the point that having "too little" time on our hands is not good for our state of well-being.  

What's unique about this study is that the investigators (Marissa Sharif, Cassie Mogilner, and Hal Hershfield) are proposing that there is an inverted U-shaped curve between discretionary time (on the X-axis) and well-being (on the Y-axis).  Think about the inverted U-shape curve as following the "Goldilocks principle" - too little or too much discretionary time is associated with lower subjective well-being, with an optimal point somewhere in the middle where the amount of discretionary time is "just right" for subjective well-being.  

The first portion of the study utilized a large pre-existing data-set (National Study of the Changing Workforce), in which 13,639 American workers were surveyed between 1992 and 2008.  Study participants were asked to rate, among many other things, their subjective well-being, as well as the average amount of discretionary time per day.  While they were unable to demonstrate a U-shaped curve here, there was a significant negative quadratic (i.e. curved) relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.  In other words, as the amount of discretionary time increased, subjective well-being decreased (at least after a certain point).

The second portion of the study utilized another pre-existing data-set (American Time Use Survey, or ATUS), which included survey data from 21,736 Americans (both working and non-working).  This particular survey was a little more detailed, in that individuals were asked to provide a detailed account of all the activities that filled the 24 hours before completing the survey (among several other questions, including of course subjective well-being).  Sharif, Mogilner, and Hershfield conducted a second survey of 500 individuals to classify the various activities listed in the ATUS as discretionary or non-discretionary.  With this second data-set, the investigators showed that there is an inverted U-shape relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.  As a matter of fact, they found that overall, subjective well-being increases as discretionary time increases from zero to two hours per day, peaks between two to five hours per day, and then decreases after five hours per day!

Sharif, Mogilner, and Hershfield took their analysis one step further.  They were able to drill down and determine that (1) when individuals spend their discretionary time in social (as opposed to solitary) activities, more discretionary time is better (there is no peak, where a further increase in discretionary time leads to lower subjective well-being) and (2) when individuals felt that their discretionary time was productive (the time is not "wasted"), more discretionary time is better (again, no peak).  

The last two portions of the study were simulated experiments, in which individuals were asked to mentally simulate having a certain level of discretionary time per day over the course of six months.  Study subjects were randomized to different amounts of discretionary time.  The results of these last two portions of the study were consistent with the second data-set analysis, in that there was an inverted U-shape relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.

I can imagine what all of you are thinking right now.  The last several months have been incredibly disruptive, and there is a national labor shortage in a number of industries, including health care.  It's difficult to imagine that having more free time could actually worsen our subjective well-being.  That was my feeling too, when I first heard about this study.  However, as I think about it more and reflect on my professional life before the pandemic, I start to understand (and agree with) the results of this study more.  Think about a time when you had plenty of down time at work.  Did you feel "bored out of your mind"?  

We all need down time in our lives, both our professional ones as well as our personal ones.  What these investigators have shown (and perhaps what we've know all along) is that having too much down time is not necessarily a good thing.  The sense of being unproductive when we have too much down time causes a level of stress that actually lowers our sense of well-being.  Shifting that down time towards either productive (think of spending time exercising or doing an outdoor activity as productive free time versus watching television, which is unproductive, at least according to this study) or social activities may help alleviate this negative effect on well-being and lead us back to eudaimonia!

Languishing and Flourishing

Earlier this year, the Wharton School organizational psychologist, Adam Grant wrote an article for The New York Times that was as timely and important as it was interesting ("There's a name for the blah you're feeling: It's called languishing").  Corey Keyes, a sociologist and psychologist at Emory University initially described the concept that mental health lies along a continuum from languishing to flourishing.  I particularly like this model, as I think it perfectly describes what I think everyone would agree with - mental wellness cannot be measured using a binary (yes/no, present/absent) approach.  Mental wellbeing is not simply the absence of mental illness, just as it is not simply the presence of high levels of wellbeing.  As Keyes describes the two opposite ends of the mental health continuum, individuals with complete mental health are "flourishing" - they have high levels of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.  Some psychologists call it "flow".  Conversely, those individuals who are not flourishing have lower levels of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.  

Languishing is not the same as burn-out or depression, but individuals who are languishing are at risk for both.  These individuals are not functioning at full capacity.  Languishing is characterized by apathy, as well as a feeling of being unsettled or unfulfilled.  Individuals who are languishing aren't necessarily interested in the things that typically bring them joy.  They are simply "going through the motions" - the complete opposite of "being in the zone" or "firing on all cylinders" (both commonly used idioms for "flourishing").

While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly increased the number of individuals who were languishing, this is not a new phenomenon.  For example, The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard developed a Flourishing Index (also published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) to measure the degree of flourishing.  The index consists of two questions from each of five domains: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.  While there is no single threshold score to indicate whether someone is flourishing or not, higher scores are better.  Of interest, the national average for this score (it's been used in a number of large studies and by a number of organizations, including Harvard) was 70 before the pandemic.  By June, 2020, the national average had decreased to 65.  Unfortunately, I am not aware of a specific "Languishing Index" (though there are a number of tools to assess burn-out, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

So, now that we have at least defined "flourishing" and "languishing" (and we've even provided a way to objectively measure "flourishing"), what can we do to shift our mental state so that we are flourishing instead of languishing?  Dani Blum, writing for The New York Times ("The Other Side of Languishing is Flourishing.  Here's How to Get There."), provides some suggestions.  Adam Grant also has a TED talk on how to stop languishing.  

First, assess yourself.  Determine where you are on the Flourishing Index scale.  Knowing and recognizing where you are and where you need to go is the first, but most important step.  Second, make sure that you take the time to celebrate and savor the small things in life.  Appreciate even the tiniest of victories.  Notice all of the good things happening in your life.  My wife used to have us all give one example of something positive that happened to us during the day at the family dinner table.  It worked wonders and helped us all focus more on the positives and less on the negatives that particular day.  As it turns out, there is some really great evidence for this technique (see "Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life").  Third, do five good deeds a day.  Call them good deeds, random acts of kindness, or "paying it forward" - it doesn't matter what you call them, the evidence (see one study here) strongly suggests that doing a good deed increases our own wellbeing!  Fourth, look for communities or connection.  Finding connections again, particularly after the pandemic, is something we should all be doing both in our personal and professional lives.  Finally, find purpose in your everyday routines.  Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of Man's Search for Meaning (literally, one of the best books that I have ever read) said, "The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing."  For many of us, we lost some of that sense of purpose during the pandemic.  Finding it again will help us flourish again.

The ancient Greeks had a name for flourishing - Eudaimonia.  In his Nicomachean Ethics, the philosopher Aristotle defined Eudaimonia as "the condition of human flourishing or living well."  Importantly - and this is absolutely crucial - the Ancient Greeks did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy.  Rather, they proposed that the purpose in life was to achieve Eudaimonia.  As the writer Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."  Purpose is the key to unlock the door to flourishing.

Happy Veterans Day 2021

On November 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson issued a message to all Americans on the one-year anniversary of Armistice Day, which marked the end of major hostilities in World War I at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of 1918.  Following that tradition, the anniversary of the end of World War I was unofficially celebrated every year on November 11th, until Congress passed a resolution to officially honor and observe November 11th every year as Armistice Day in 1938.  

Later on, a World War II veteran named Raymond Weeks petitioned General Dwight Eisenhower to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who died or served in World War I.  General Eisenhower, of course, supported the recommendation until he signed the bill that officially named November 11th as Veterans Day in 1954.  Incidentally, Weeks was later honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan and was recognized as the “Father of Veterans Day."

Today, we celebrate Veterans Day, which honors all military veterans, those individuals who have served in one of the branches of the United States Armed Forces (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Space Force, and the National Guard).  Veterans Day coincides with other holidays that are celebrated in other countries (Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, for example), though it is distinct from Memorial Day, a U.S. holiday honoring those who died while in military service and Armed Forces Day honoring those individuals who currently serve in the military.

While most calendars print November 11^th as “Veteran’s Day” (with an apostrophe), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs states that the apostrophe is not necessary, “because it is not a day that ‘belongs’ to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.”  The U.S. government also recommends that we honor all veterans at 2:11 PM Eastern Time with two minutes of silence.

If you have read my blog in the past, you will know that one of my favorite television mini-series of all time is the HBO show Band of Brothers, based on the book of the same name by the historian and author Stephen E. Ambrose.  There is a scene towards the end of the show, when a General in the Wehrmacht (German Army), now a prisoner of war, asks to speak to his men.  His speech (in German, of course) is translated by a member of Easy Company into English.  The men of Easy Company and listen that the words apply to them as well.  It's a powerful reminder, I think, of what it means to serve, even if not in times of war:

Men, it's been a long war. It's been a tough war. You've fought bravely, proudly for your country. You're a special group. You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You've shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You've seen death and suffered together. I'm proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.

If you are a veteran, today, we celebrate and honor you.  Thank you for your dedication and commitment to our country and thank you for your service!  You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.