"Elementary, my dear Watson"

I recently watched the movie "Enola Holmes 2" with one of our daughters (actually, she fell asleep and missed the ending).  The movie brought back a lot of childhood memories of stories I heard about the world's greatest detective, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes.  Except here's the thing, Holmes first appeared in print in the 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet, and since that time the character has been the subject of numerous television shows, movies, cartoons, and numerous other adaptations and derived works outside the traditional Holmes canon (Doyle wrote 4 full-length novels and 56 short stories featuring the great detective).  It's no wonder that what we think we know or heard about Holmes and what actually appeared in the canon can be completely different.  For example, Holmes technically never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" in any of the stories or novels by Doyle (the quote came from one of the movies).    Is this another great example of the so-called "Mandela Effect" (see my post, "I once knew a gold robot with a silver leg").  Maybe or maybe not.

Here's another interesting point.  The Wikipedia article on Sherlock Holmes states that "Holmes was known his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard."  But technically, is Holmes really using his powers of deduction here?  I always forget the difference between "induction" and "deduction", but if I am correct, Holmes was brilliant at induction, not deduction.

Deduction moves from an idea (or theory) to observation to conclusion, while induction moves in the opposite direction from observation to idea.  Deduction involves the scientific method in which we use our powers of observation to confirm or refute a hypothesis or theory.  We move from a general framework to the specific observations of what is happening in the real world.  

One common form of deduction is known as a syllogism.  Here is an example.  "A spider has eight legs."  "A black widow is a spider."  Therefore, it follows that "a black widow has eight legs."  We are using the two true statements to deduce, if you will, that a black widow has eight legs.  

Conversely, with induction, we are moving from the specific to the more general.  We make several observations, notice a pattern (hopefully), and then draw our conclusions, often forming a theory about the world around us.  As an example, if we notice that there are fireflies in our backyard every summer, we may conclude that we will see more fireflies in our backyard this summer.  

So back to our brilliant detective.  Let's look at a few of his famous quotes (which actually appear in the canon).  In the novel A Study in Scarlet, Holmes said, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.  Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."  Here he is talking about induction ("theories to suit facts") rather than deduction ("twist facts to suit theories"), right?  Similarly, in The Hound of the Baskervilles  Holmes argues that "the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”  Again, observations lead to theories and not the reverse.  Sherlock Holmes, in other words, used his brilliant powers of induction!

Google Rules

Several years ago, statisticians working at Google's People Innovation Lab started a project they called "Project Oxygen" with the goal of proving once and for all that the leadership and management are critical to the success of high-performing teams (see one of my old posts "There's no team without trust" for more on "Project Aristotle" a similar study Google performed to determine the characteristics that set apart high-performing teams).  They collected data from employee engagement surveys, performance appraisals, interviews, and other sources of employee feedback, including nominations for top-manager awards.  Google actually conducts performance reviews of all employees on a quarterly basis rather than annually.  They coded this huge treasure trove of data and then analyzed it using a "Big Data" approach in a way that only a company like Google can do!

The "Project Oxygen" team found that good leadership and management really does matter.  They further identified what might be called the "Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers" (I like to call them the "Google Rules"), listed below in their order of importance:

1. Be a good coach

2. Empower your team and don't micromanage

3. Express interest in team members' success and personal well-being

4. Be productive and results-oriented

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team

6. Help your team members with career development

7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team

8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise your team

Laszlo Bock, Google's Senior Vice President for "People Operations" and author of the book Work Rules! admitted, "In the Google context, we’d always believed that to be a manager, particularly on the engineering side, you need to be as deep or deeper a technical expert than the people who work for you.  It turns out that that’s absolutely the least important thing. It’s important, but pales in comparison. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible."

The "Project Oxygen" team also identified three management pitfalls, or behaviors that leaders and managers should avoid at all costs:

1. Have trouble making a transition to the team

2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development

3. Spend too little time managing and communicating

Once Google had their list, they started using it in their leadership education and training programs.  Even though most of the items on the list seem intuitive and would likely be found in any management 101 textbook, simply focusing on the behaviors on the list improved even their lowest performing managers by 75 percent!  And just as important, Laszlo Bock will be the first to admit that these 8 simple rules aren't chiseled in stone.  Google's "People Operations" team will continue to monitor and test these rules and continue to reinforce them as long as they are shown to be effective.

Bock admits that these rules are fairly simple, and perhaps that is why they are so effective.  However, just as with any skill, good leadership requires hard work and practice.  Bock would also say that "if I'm a manager and I want to get better, and I want more out of my people and I want them to be happier, two of the most important things I can do is just make sure I have some time for them and be consistent." Simple, but elegant.

Player, Manager, Coach

Last time ("Why Ted Lasso is the perfect HRO leader") I briefly introduced the concept of players and coaches as it pertains to leadership.  In the sports world, there are coaches and players that serve distinct roles on the team.  The coaches are the individuals that stand on the sidelines in close proximity to the players and give instructions to the players on what to do in order to accomplish the goal.  They help motivate and train the players to perform at their best, and they usually develop the team's strategy and tactics so that they will be successful on the field (or the court).  The players are the individuals who are on the field (or the court) executing the plays, which they must do together as a team.  

Occasionally, we hear of individuals who formally serve both roles.  For example, Tris Speaker was the manager of the Cleveland Indians in the 1920's, but he also played centerfield for the team.  Pete Rose was another player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980's and broke Ty Cobb's all-time hits record as a player-manager on September 11, 1985 with his 4,192nd hit.  Incidentally, Rose was the last person to serve as both a player and manager in major league baseball.  These days, we think of the player-coach role more informally - for example, people say that whenever Peyton Manning was playing quarterback that it was like having a coach on the field.  Sports writers say the same thing about NBA player LeBron James today.  But how does this work in organizations outside of sports?

As Mark Murphy, writing for Forbes said, "If you're an individual contributor who also manages the work of other employees, you're what is called a Player-Coach."  Murphy cites three famous examples of the Player-Coach in Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.  All three of these legendary figures created and led organizations that have stood the test of time (Apple and Pixar, The Ford Motor Company, and General Electric, respectively) while remaining very much "hands on" tinkerers in the day-to-day operations.  For example, Jobs played a major role in the design of a number of highly innovative products while CEO at Apple, including the iPad, the iPod, the iPhone, and Apple Music.

We generally think of CEOs as playing more of a Coach role than a Player-Coach role, though Raja Jamalamadaka argues in "The 3 leadership pillars: Captain, Player, and Coach" that "A leader is one who effectively plays the role of a captain, player, and coach - and knows when and how to effortlessly shift roles."  I would emphasize the second half of his sentence - the ideal leader "knows when and how to effortlessly shift roles."  In other words, the best leaders know when and how best to play each role.  As Jamalamadaka admits, "Even the best leaders can't successfully lead every single initiative that shows up in their lives."

I am reminded here of one of my favorite scenes in the HBO series, "Band of Brothers", when Major Dick Winters once to step in take control for one of his under-performing direct reports, company commander "Foxhole Norman".  Major Winters' own boss tells him immediately to stop, at which point Winters relieves Norman of command and delegates responsibility to Lt Speirs.  This particular example is probably an extreme one, but rather than taking over as "Player-Coach", Winters stays focused on "Coach" and tells Speirs to lead the attack (with very few instructions, I might add).

I would offer an additional caveat.  As I've often mentioned in a number of posts, one of the five defining characteristics of High Reliability Organizations is what is called "Deference to Expertise".  The most important role that leaders can play is to create the vision and help their teams understand what needs (i.e. the strategy) to be done in order to achieve that vision.  Leaders within High Reliability Organizations provide the framework and guardrails in which their teams operate.  These leaders push decision making, especially in times of crisis, as much as possible to the frontline leaders and managers who almost always have the most up-to-date and most accurate information, as well as the expertise needed to make the right decisions.  However, there is a difference between "Deference to Expertise" and being completely "hands-off" as a leader (taken to the extreme, this is often called "Laissez-Faire Leadership").  In other words, if you were to place being "too hands on" as a leader (i.e. a Micromanager) on one extreme and being "too hands off" ("Laissez-Faire Leadership") on the other extreme, "Deference to Expertise" lies somewhere between the two.

The Forbes Coaches Council provided what I thought were some useful tips or recommendations on how to strike the right balance between being "too hands off" versus being "too hands on" (and micromanaging) (see the article "The Danger of Blind Trust Vs. Micromanagement in a CEO"):

1. Create expectations and accountability

Leaders should set clear expectations, roles, and responsibilities at the very outset.  They may want to be more involved when someone on their team is taking on a new role, in order to build up mutual trust and confidence.  In other words, early on the leader may be playing more of a "Player-Coach" role.  Once mutual trust and confidence has been established though, it's probably time to step back and watch the team thrive.  Here, the leader should shift to the "Coach" role.  Leaders should also hold their front-line leaders and teams accountable for their performance, again through a "Coach" role as opposed to a "Player-Coach" role.  

2. Trust and validate

"Trust but verify", a phrase once used by President Ronald Reagan to describe how he was handling nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, is probably a bit too extreme and in my opinion isn't really consistent with the concept of "Deference to Expertise".  Leaders who trust their direct reports can always "validate" if they have concerns about performance.

3. Be present as a leader

There's no better way for a leader to establish and build trust and confidence in his or her team than to simply be present.  Just showing up to see how the team is performing can go a long way.  I remember a time several years ago when I was leading our hospital's Incident Command during an electrical fire in one of our buildings.  The fire department had to shut off power to the entire hospital in order to contain the fire.  As our team was working to keep our patients, families, and staff safe, I remember our hospital CEO showing up and checking in with me.  I gave him a very high-level brief of the situation and what we were doing, and he responded, "Sounds good - let me know if you need anything" and walked away.  I knew that (1) he was confident that I was handling the situation to his satisfaction, (2) he trusted me to do the right thing, and (3) I had his full support and backing.  There's nothing like being present to build mutual trust and confidence.

4. Give away power while ensuring clear vision and goals

The problem isn't really about giving away too much power, it's about not providing support and clarity.  A leader's job is to make sure that people are set up to succeed, and the best way to do that is to be absolutely crystal clear about the his or her vision for where the organization needs to go, as well as the goals for the team that will help facilitate attaining that vision.  

Why Ted Lasso is the perfect HRO Leader

I've been a huge fan of the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso.  Even if Season 3 hasn't been my favorite (and I thought that the most reason episode this past week was awful), there are still a lot of lessons on leadership that I think are important.  I've talked about a number of these lessons in previous posts (see for example, "I think I literally have a better understanding of who killed Kennedy than what is offside", "Be a goldfish", "Simplify your offense", and "Believe", among others).

If you haven't seen the show, the character Ted Lasso (played by the American actor Jason Sudeikis) is an American collegiate football coach who is unexpectedly recruited (and even more unexpectedly, agrees) to coach the fictional English Premier League football soccer team, AFC Richmond.  It's all unexpected because Lasso has absolutely no experience (or knowledge) of soccer (which is called football everywhere else in the world).  AFC Richmond's owner, Rebecca Welton (played by the English actress Hannah Waddingham) wants Lasso to fail so that she can exact revenge on her ex-husband, who is the former owner of the team.  However, Lasso's unique charm, personality, and humor win her over, and everyone else for that matter, including the players on the team.

We are led to believe that Lasso coaches AFC Richmond exactly how he coached his college football team, which won a national championship.  Coach Lasso plays the role of mentor, advisor, and ultimate decisionmaker, leaving the tactical execution of the strategy to the rest of his coaching staff.  One could argue, that at least early on, Coach Lasso has more to do with creating a vision than developing the strategy.  During the very first episode, we see his best friend and long-time assistant, Coach Beard (played by the American actor Brendan Hunt) reading the classic Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics on the flight over to London.  In other words, Coach Lasso leaves all of the details on strategy and execution to Coach Beard while he focuses on how best to lead and motivate his players to achieve their fullest potential.

I'm not sure how realistic this last point is though, as I see the leader's role as both creating a vision and developing the strategy needed to achieve that vision.  Regardless, my point is that Ted Lasso's style of leadership is consistent with at least one of the five characteristics of a High Reliability Organization, specifically that of "Deference to Expertise".  During Season 3, there is a particularly poignant episode that makes this case perfectly.  The team is struggling to find wins, and no one is sure what they should do next.  Coach Lasso comes up with a strategy that he soon learns is called "Total Football".  "Total Football" was developed in the 1970's by the Dutch football club Ajax and the Netherlands national football team.  Here, there are no specified positions - aside from the goalkeeper, every player can play any of the different positions.  The players have the freedom to move around all over the field, depending upon the specific situation that occurs during the game.  Everyone - his assistant coaches included - thinks that Coach Lasso is crazy for completely changing the strategy and style of play during the middle of the season.  But, as we find out, it was exactly the right decision to make.  He makes that decision to change the strategy, but he leaves the execution of that strategy to his assistants and to his players.  "Deference to Expertise"

Next time we will take a closer look at this concept.  I will use another sports metaphor (sorry) of the player and the coach to further illustrate the concept of "Deference to Expertise", specifically in regards to the principles of high reliability leadership.

The next ten all-time...

Building upon the last post, here are the next ten all-time top posts for Leadership Reverie:

11. "You salute the rank, not the man..." - originally posted on January 31, 2017

12. "Those who honor me, I will honor" - originally posted on May 24, 2017

13. "Charlie Golf One" - originally posted on July 2, 2017

14. "Diabolical dictators or capable commanders?" - originally posted on August 5, 2020

15. "Sometimes, sorry is the best thing to say" - originally posted on October 6, 2016

16. "He had no shoes!" - originally posted on January 31, 2019

17. "A life of privilege - part I" - originally posted on August 14, 2017

18. "The doer alone learneth" - originally posted on September 16, 2018

19. "First blog post" - originally posted on January 2, 2016

20. "Health care's chicken or egg problem" - originally posted on July 11, 2017

Thanks for indulging me in this little trip down memory lane.  The next post will be an original!

The All-Time Top Ten (so far...)

It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but I wrote my first post to this blog on January 2, 2016!  I was curious about which posts had the most "hits", so I did some additional research.  Here are the All-time Top 10 Leadership Reverie blog posts since the very first one:

1.  "Amateurs talk strategy.  Professionals talk logistics." - originally posted May 8, 2020

2.  "Hatred corrodes the container it's carried in..." - originally posted on December 30, 2018

3.  "Do we need a National Women Physician's Day?" - originally posted on February 3, 2018

4.  "The legs feed the wolf..." - originally posted on September 13, 2017

5.  "What you permit, you promote..." - originally posted on February 15, 2021

6.  "Two sisters and an orange" - originally posted on February 27, 2019

7.  "Vontae Mack No Matter What" - originally posted on July 22, 2020

8.  "Napoleon's Corporal" - originally posted on October 22, 2017

9.  "No words" - originally posted on January 24, 2022

10. "Patients come second..." - originally posted on March 4, 2018

"Is it really a surprise if there are plenty of warnings?"

I've been reading about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, that killed over 2,400 Americans, wounded 1,000 more, and damaged hundreds of warplanes and ships.  I've been particularly interested in how the concept of "groupthink" caused our military to be taken by surprise.  I was even more interested to read the definition of the word "surprise" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  "Surprise" means "an attack without warning."  Based on what I've read, I can't help but ask myself, "Is it really a surprise if there are plenty of warnings?"

The American psychologist Irving Janis studied the "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor when he first developed his theory of "groupthink"  (see the chapter in his book, Groupthink for an in-depth analysis).  The signals were there, but unfortunately the U.S. military on Hawaii ignored them.  There have been a number of great books on this specific issue that I won't catalog here, though aside from the aforementioned Janis book, I would recommend Roberta Wohlstetter's book Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision for its depth of analysis of this unfortunate incident in American military history.

So, what were the missed warnings?  Before I catalog them, it's important to provide some historical context.  First, it's important to remember that Japan and the United States were allies during World War I, and by the conclusion of that war Japan's military had taken control of German bases in China and the Pacific.  With the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Japan was given a League of Nations mandate ("South Seas Mandate") over the German colonial possessions north of the equator, with Australia getting those south of the equator.  With that mandate, Japan had officially become a Great Power (see also Paul Kennedy's book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers).  

Shortly after the war, the world's largest naval powers gathered in Washington, D.C. for a conference (called, appropriately enough, the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922) to discuss naval disarmament.  The Five-Power Treaty was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Italy which called for each of the countries to maintain a set ratio of capital warship tonnage at a 5:5:3 ratio (the U.S. was allowed 500,000 tons, the United Kingdom was allowed 500,000 tons, Japan was allowed 300,000 tons, and France and Italy were each allowed 175,000 tons).  In reality, in order to meet these limits, the U.S. had to reduce its number of capital ships and cease further building of new ones, while Japan was able to significantly increase the size of its Navy.  The United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan further agreed to consult with each other in the event of any future crisis in East Asia, and additional countries (Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and China) agreed that to respect the territorial integrity of China, consistent with the U.S. Open Door Policy.

For a time, the status quo in the Pacific remained peaceful.  However, Japan continued to build up its military and slowly expand into China, which led to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the infamous "Rape of Nanking", both of which were universally condemned by the U.S. and several members of the League of Nations.  The USS Panay Incident that same year, in which the Japanese bombed  U.S. Navy river gunboat and three Standard Oil Company tankers who were attempting to rescue U.S. and Chinese civilians fleeing Nanking, further escalated tensions between the U.S. and Japan. 

Several countries were focused on Adolf Hitler's aggressive actions in Europe, and Japan took full advantage of this loss of attention in the Pacific.  Japan invaded French Indochina, continued its war in China, and signed the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Germany in 1940.  The U.S. responded by initiating an iron, steel, and oil embargo on Japan, and the Japanese military started making plans to go to war with the U.S. in the Pacific.   

Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of Japan came up with the strategy calling for simultaneous attacks on British, Dutch, and U.S. territories in the Pacific.  His plan included a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy's base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with the goal of disabling the U.S. Pacific Fleet for a period of six months, giving time for Japan to negotiate a peace settlement in their favor (and keeping all of their acquisitions).

With all of that historical context, we can go back and review all of the missed warning signals.  Most importantly, the U.S. military had been preparing for a potential war with Japan for several years, and with Japan's increasingly aggressive posture and military actions in the Pacific, the likelihood of that war had increased significantly.  As early as 1924, legendary Army hero Billy Mitchell, widely regarded as the "Father of the U.S. Air Force" had predicted a war with Japan, even providing specific details on how that war would begin.  He stated that Japan would carry out a surprise attack on Hawaii, predicting that 100 bombers would attack the naval base there.  The Army and Navy conducted a series of war games in 1932, in which Pearl Harbor was successfully "attacked" by 152 planes a half-hour before dawn on a Sunday.  Later, in 1938, Colonel (then) George Patton wrote a report titled "Surprise" which outlined how the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor before officially declaring war.  That same year, Admiral Ernest King led a carrier-born air strike from the USS Saratoga against Pearl Harbor in war games, achieving complete surprise and total victory.  Finally, earlier in 1941, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy listed the three dangers to Hawaii "in order of importance and probability... (1) air bombing attack, (2) air torpedo plane attack, and (3) sabotage."  In other words, some of the leading military experts at the time had all but predicted that war with Japan was likely inevitable and further how that war would begin - with a surprise air attack.

Just simply being aware of these predictions should have raised situational awareness in the military leaders on the island of Hawaii in 1941, but apparently it did not, at least not to the degree required.  But there were other signals too.  Joseph Grew, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, learned of Japan's plans to bomb Pearl Harbor from contacts at the Peruvian Embassy as early as January, 1941.  Britain's Lord Louis Mountbatten had also predicted a surprise attack by Japan and visited Pearl Harbor in October, 1941.  He was reportedly shocked at the lack of preparations there.  Finally, American cryptographers (Operation Code Name Magic) intercepted and decoded a message between the Japanese government and its diplomats who were negotiating for peace with the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. on November 22, 1941 that stated, "...after November 29, things are automatically going to happen".  Another message from Japan was intercepted and decoded, informing Germany of imminent war "through some clash of arms" on November 30, 1941.

Approximately one week before the fateful day of December 7, 1941, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet was asked about the odds of Japan attacking Hawaii and replied, "I should say none."  On December 2, 1941, U.S. Naval Intelligence lost contact with the Japanese fleet and suggested that they had potentially returned to home waters.  Kimmel famously responded, "For all you know, they could be coming around Diamond Head, and you wouldn't know it?"  Finally, Kimmel hosted a dinner party the night before the attack, at which Fanny Halsey, wife of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey who was out to sea at the time stated that she was certain that the Japanese were going to attack.  One of the dinner guests famously replied, "We all thought she was crazy."  Again, the U.S. military leadership continued to ignore a number of signals pointing to an imminent attack.  

Finally, on the actual day of the attack, there were a number of warning signs that could have (and probably should have) prompted a different response.  Early in the morning (3:20 AM) on December 7, 1941, the minesweeper USS Condor reported a periscope sighting at the entrance to Pearl Harbor to the destroyer USS Ward.  There were no additional sightings despite an active search.  Later that morning at 6:30 AM, the stores ship USS Antares reported another submarine sighting to the USS Ward, which actually fired upon the submarine (later revealed to be a Japanese mini-submarine).  They sent a report to the Pacific Fleet headquarters, "We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in the defensive area." The duty officer at headquarters chose to wait until further verification before sounding the alarm.

There were five radar locations on the island of Oahu, and only the Opana site was still operational by 7 AM on December 7, 1941 (radar was still a relatively new technology and these stations only operated at certain hours of the day).  Army privates Joseph Lockard and George Elliot tracked the incoming first wave of Japanese aircraft from 7:02 AM to 7:40 AM.  They notified their duty officer, LT Kermit Tyler at nearby Fort Schafter, who assumed that the radar signal was an expected incoming flight of B-17 bombers that were due to arrive from the West Coast.  

The first attack wave commenced at 7:55 AM and found the U.S. Pacific Fleet to be completely unprepared.  As a matter of fact, despite all the aforementioned predictions, the Army was more concerned about sabotage and had parked all of its planes close together to prevent that kind of attack.  In retrospect, this only made the air attack more successful.

The lessons here are to (1) Always be prepared for any and all continencies through a preoccupation with failure and a commitment to resilience; (2) Do not be a victim of "groupthink" and whenever possible, defer to expertise; (3) Look for the small warning signals through a sensitivity to operations; (4) Never accept the simple explanation for a chain of events.  Of course, all of these points are the five characteristics that define a High Reliability Organization (HRO).

"Where Good Ideas Come From"

I recently finished a book by the author Steven Johnson called Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natura History of Innovation.  I read one of Johnson's earlier books, The Ghost Map, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (fitting, right?), which tells how the physician John Snow and the Reverend Henry Whitehead helped to determine the cause of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in London.  Both books were really very good, and I suspect I will be checking out some more of Johnson's books in the near future (he's written 13 so far).  

If you don't feel like reading the book, Johnson covers the highlights in a TED Talk called "Where good ideas come from", or you can keep reading, as I am going to summarize Johnson's main points here.  It may be easier to start by revealing where good ideas don't come from.  We have a rich vocabulary to describe how many of us believe innovation occurs - a Eureka moment, light bulb moment, epiphany, "stroke of genius" etc - however, ideas rarely come about in such a manner.  

Great innovations typically occur slowly over time and often involve - dare I say, require - social interaction.  Johnson reviewed nearly 200 different great ideas from the pencil to the parachute and found that in virtually all of these cases, the ideas came from a group of individuals having a conversation together about a certain problem.  As a matter of fact, in his Ted Talk, Johnson says that great ideas often start in coffehouses, claiming that the English coffeehouse famously played a significant role in the Enlightenment, which occurred at the end of the 17th century and lasted to the early 19th century.  Here is where different people from different backgrounds gathered together to talk - here is where creativity blossomed.

Great ideas almost always build upon other ideas - as one reviewer of the book put it, "Every great idea is a combination or mutation of an idea that has already been brought to life. Ideas brought to life in products that are already out there are the building blocks of innovation – not thoughts."  In other words, innovation looks a lot like evolution.  Good ideas have to be molded and shaped over time, often building on platforms that already exist.  They often borrow from other, older ideas in this manner (a process Johnson calls exaptation).  They require connections and networks ("coffeehouses"), as well as a little bit of old-fashioned luck to turn something old into something new.  If, as the saying goes, "fortune favors the bold", when it comes to innovation, "chance favors the connected mind."

Johnson borrows a concept from the physician, theoretical biologist, and complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman called the "theory of the adjacent possible".  Simply stated, the "adjacent possible" can be defined as the set of all possibilities available to individuals, organizations, communities, etc at a given point in time in their evolution.  There may be an infinite number of possibilites available, but more often than not the possibilities that are just beyond our reach, the ones in the immediate vicinity and not somewhere in the distance, are the ones that truly matter.  "The history of cultural progress," Johnson writes, "is, almost without exception, a story of one door leading to another door, exploring the palace one room at a time."

Innovation, in other words, comes from the ideas that are just out of our reach - innovation is incremental and builds upon older ideas.  Ideas are bricolage.  Think of the famous scene in the 1995 movie "Apollo 13" in which the NASA engineers had to "fit a square peg into a round hole" literally to jerry-rig a carbon dioxide scrubbers in the lunar command module ("We gotta find a way to make this, fit into a hole for this, using nothing but that").  The "nothing but that" was the "adjacent possible"!

Building upon the "adjacent possible" concept above, Johnson says that innovation occurs at the edge between order and chaos.  Think of the transition states between solid, liquid, and gas (i.e., ice, water, steam).  Solids are rigid, ordered, and static.  In contrast, gases are chaotic and prone to disperse.  Liquids though are able to fit the shape of any container they are placed inside.  They are not really rigid, though they aren't prone chaotic either.  Here, in the liquid networks, where things are close enough to diffuse into nearby areas, is where innovation occurs.

Johnson talks about the story of Charles Darwin, who claimed in his autobiography that his theory of natural selection just magically popped into his head one day (a "Eureka moment").  He actually stated the exact day of September 28, 1838 and exactly what he was doing at the time (he was reading Thomas Malthus' famous essay on population).  However, Darwin's own notebooks (he kept meticulous notes throughout his career) told a very different story.  His theory of natural selection had been forming in his mind for several years - it was what Johnson calls a "slow hunch" - this too is exactly how Tim Berners-Lee invented the "World Wide Web".  In other words, ideas have a certain defined incubation time - they have to linger, to percolate, to simmer.  Here is a good reason to keep what is called a commonplace book, a place to write down and remember all of your ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem.  Similarly, this is why companies such as Google and 3M set aside a certain portion of their employees' time each week (at 3M it's known as the "15% Rule") to work on side projects or cultivate ideas.  Again we have the analogy that great ideas evolve over time.

Johnson also talks about the importance of "serendipity" or chance.  To be honest, I wasn't sure that I completely agreed that his examples represented "serependity".  However, he talked about a species of water flea known as the Daphnia, which apparently reproduces asexually under normal circumstances and, when subjected to stressful conditions, such as harsh weather, starts producing males in order to change to sexual reproduction.  Johnson writes, "When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect."  When things are going well, it makes a lot of sense to keep doing what you are doing, but innovation is required when things are not going well.

Johnson goes on to talk about the fact that innovation, because it occurs gradually and in stages, often creates a lot of dead ends or errors.  The 19th century English economist, William Stanley Jevons said, "In all probability the errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one."  He goes on to tell of all the great inventions that came about as a result of an error (the best example is the antibiotic, penicillin).  as the adage goes, "To err is human" (and to be completely honest, "Error is what made humans possible in the first place!").  He also talks about the psychologist Charlan Nemeth, who wrote a book called In Defense of Troublemakers and the power of dissent to prevent groupthink.

I really enjoyed this book, and I think you will too.

"Cut into the curb..."

Several years ago (and while living in a different city), I participated in a leadership program sponsored by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce called "Leadership Cincinnati" (of course, I was part of the best class, Class 42).  It was a great opportunity to meet other executives from a variety of different organizations in the area.  The program also helped me to gain a better appreciation for some of the assets in our local community, as well as some of the region's unique challenges.  At our graduation, one of the sponsors of the program introduced a concept that I had not heard before, called the "Curb Cut Effect".

You probably know what a curb cut is, as they are now ubiquitous in most cities.  However, there was a time when they weren't so common.  Prior to the 1970's, most curbs throughout the United States featured a drop-off that made it very difficult, if not impossible, for people with physical disabilities or mobility problems to cross the street or move between city blocks.  The first curb cuts were installed in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1945, largely in response to advocacy work by returning disabled World War II veterans, especially Jack Fisher, a Navy veteran and lawyer.

Fisher's successful advocacy work inspired many others to call for the installation of curb cuts in other cities.  Two Berkeley students, Ed Roberts (a survivor of childhood polio) and Michael Pachovas (who became paralyzed following a spinal cord injury resulting from an accident that occurred while he was a Peace Corps volunteer) were part of an activist movement that pressed city officials to install curb cuts so that Berkeley students with physical disabilities could get around campus easier.  The city installed the first curb cut on Telegraph Avenue in 1972, which would become "the slab of concrete heard 'round the world".  Several more U.S. cities would install curb cuts in the years that followed, and today they are a ubiquitous feature on most city streets across the country.

The civil rights advocate Angela Glover Blackwell pointed out in her article "The Curb-Cut Effect" that everyone, not just individuals with physical disabilities, has benefited from the installation of curb cuts.  Whether if you are a parent pushing a stroller, a worker pushing a heavy cart, or a business traveler wheeling your luggage around, you have likely appreciated how curb cuts make it easier to cross an intersection.  As a matter of fact, curb cuts make it a lot easier for all of us to cross the street!  For example, one study conducted at a Sarasota, Florida shopping mall noted that nine out of ten otherwise "unencumbered" pedestrians went out of their way to use a curb cut.  In other words, what had been originally designed specifically for one target population, those individuals with a physical disability, actually made life better for the general population as a whole.  

Economists would call it a positive externality.  In the military, we used to call it a force multiplier.  In this particular context, it is known as the curb cut effect.  John F. Kennedy once claimed that "a rising tide lifts all boats" (the phrase is often attributed to him because he frequently used it, however the exact origin likely predates Kennedy and is not known for certain).  What it means, and there are numerous examples, is that policies and investments designed to achieve equity frequently benefit more than just the target population - they benefit all of us!  As Angela Glover Blackwell said, "Cut into the curb, and we create a path forward for everyone."

"You have to hold people accountable..."

I've talked about the importance of accountability in the past (see "The Accountability-Authority Matrix" and "Sell Ice Cream!" from a few months ago).  The legendary University of Tennessee Women's Basketball Coach Pat Summit said, "Responsibility equals accountability, accountability equals ownership, and a sense of ownership is the most powerful thing a team or organization can have."  

As leaders, we need to be comfortable holding the other members of our team accountable for their actions, their behavior, and their performance.  Another basketball legend, Kobe Bryant said "If you're going to be a leader, you're not going to please everybody.  You have to hold people accountable, even if you have that moment of being uncomfortable."

Two more leadership experts offered their take on accountability.  Patrick Lencioni, author of the best-selling book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team said, "Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness."  Finally, the mental health educator, speaker, and author Minaa B., whose book Owning Our Struggles: A Path to Healing and Finding Community in a Broken World just came out this past year, said "Being held accountable is an act of generosity and compassion.  It is a gift that someone gives us to correct our wrongs, unlearn, and do better for the sake of our own growth.  It might be uncomfortable, but it is worth the discomfort."

So it seems that a number of leadership experts feel that (1) holding others accountable is part and parcel to being a leader, (2) holding people can be uncomfortable, even for some of the best leaders, (3) holding people accountable will help them grow and develop and is therefore an "act of generosity and compassion", and (4) not holding individuals accountable (and as a consequence, perhaps holding back their professional growth and development) just because it is uncomfortable or unpleasant is ultimately a selfish act.

With all of this in mind, what is the right way to hold people accountable?  Peter Bregman says that in order to foster accountability in the people around us, we need focus on five key areas:

Clear Expectations

Individuals must know and understand the standards to which they are being held accountable to as they work in the organization.  Leaders have to be clear (and fully transparent) about the outcome that they're looking for, how they will measure success in achieving that outcome, and how their teams should go about achieving that objective.

Clear Capability

Individuals on the team have to have the knowledge and skills to be able to perform up to their leader's expectations.  Just as important, it is the leader's job to make sure that the team is provided with the right resources to be able to achieve their goals and objectives.

Clear Measurements

As mentioned above, individuals have to know and understand their metrics of success.  Clear, measurable, objective targets and goals are absolutely the way to go here.

Clear Feedback

Honest, open, and ongoing feedback is critically important.  Feedback should be provided as frequently as possible, so that individuals can course correct along the way.  The end of the year performance evaluation is not the time to finally hold someone accountable - ideally those conversations should have been held throughout the year so that there are no surprises at the end of the year evaluation.

Clear Consequences

Just as important, individuals have to understand what happens if they fail to meet the leader's expectations.  Conversely, they also need to understand what happens if the do meet or even exceed those same expectations.  

As Bregman concludes, "These are the building blocks for a culture of accountability.  The magic is in the way they work together as a system.  If you miss any one, accountability will fall through that gap."  And as discussed above, if accountability does fall through the gap, we as leaders have missed out on a very important opportunity to show our compassion and generosity!

"This too shall pass"

The 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln loved a good story, and he loved to pass on his favorite stories even more than hearing them.  Prior to becoming President, he delivered a speech at the 1859 Wisconsin State Fair in which he told the following story:

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations.  They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away."  How much it expresses!  How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

It's difficult to say, but Lincoln probably first heard the story from the 19th century English poet Edward Fitzgerald's story "Solomon's Seal" which he based on an ancient Persian fable.  Fitzgerald's version involves the wise King Solomon, who one day asks his advisor to find him a magic ring.  King Solomon describes the ring as follows: "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy."  Fitzgerald goes on to say that King Solomon knew that such a ring did not exist, he merely wanted to humble his advisor.  The advisor unsuccessfully searches far and wide for the magic ring, and on the last day of his search (King Solomon gave him six months to find the ring), he passes by a merchant in the market who had begun to set out his day's wares on a shabby carpet.

He asks the merchant if he has such a ring that "makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows."  The merchant smiles and brings out a plain gold ring (seal) that contains an inscription.  King Solomon's advisor reads the inscription and realizes he has finally found the ring that he was searching for!  He goes back to King Solomon and hands him the ring.  The inscription read, "This too shall pass," and at that moment, King Solomon realizes that all his wisdom, wealth, and power - even his very life - were all but fleeting things.

As I look back at some of my posts at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic more than 3 years ago (see for example "In like a lion, out like a lamb" and "These are the times that try men's souls..." and "...all of this has happened before"), I am struck by how much we really didn't know about what was going to happen in our world.  We were worried about surviving (literally) the pandemic, and the last thing that was on any of our minds was what the other side of the pandemic would look like in the future.  Now that the World Health Organization has officially declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency (and even though they have not called an end to the pandemic), things are starting to feel a little closer to normal again.  And as King Solomon realized, all things eventually pass, including pandemics.

I didn't want this post to just be about the COVID-19 pandemic.  What I think is the important lesson from this story is exactly this - we should always remember that whether we are struggling with challenges and defeat or celebrating fortune and victory, the old adage that "this too shall pass" applies universally.  I'm sure that the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden never thought that his team's streak of 88 consecutive wins would last forever, nor do I think that every Chicago Cubs fan (this fan included) would believe that the team's 108 years of failing to win a World Series would keep going on either.  The ancient Stoics had a phrase that perfectly describes my point - Memento Mori (Latin for "Remember that you have to die").  

Marcus Aurelius wrote, "Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those to come" and further admonishes us to remember "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."  Remember the past, but do not dwell on it.  Live your life today to the fullest.  And most importantly of all, remember that "all things do pass", even us.

The Four C's of Leadership

Peter Bregman has written a number of articles on leadership for Harvard Business Review.  While looking up another article, I came across an article he wrote in July 2018 entitled, "Great Leaders Are Confident, Connected, Committed, and Courageous".  He states that in order to be an effective leader, you have to be (1) confident in yourself, (2) connected to others, (3) committed to purpose, and (4) emotionally courageous.  He explains further that "Most of us are great at only one of the four.  Maybe two.  But to be a powerful presence - to inspire action - you need to excel at all four simultaneously."  

Bregman used a fictional case (or at least a case in which the names had been changed to protect everyone's identity) of a leader who failed in at least two of these characteristics, describing the steps that the leader could have taken to address an employee who was underproductive and underperforming.  Of course, by the end of the article, the leader in the fictional case had done everything correctly and everyone lived happily ever after.

I immediately noticed that all four of these characteristics that are so foundational to leadership start with the letter C, and I remembered having read other leadership articles that spoke about the "Four C's of Leadership" (at times, a fifth C was added).  What's perhaps not so surprising is that these different leadership articles generally describe the same leadership characteristics, give or take a few.  They generally include some combination of the following: Courage, Commitment, Compassion, Connection, Competence, Character, Consistency, and Candour.      

Another leadership blogger, John Dabell, talks about his "four C's of leadership" and states, "We have enough recipes for leadership to fill a cookbook.  These are normally written as a concise list of qualities that you throw into your pedagogical pot, mix together and gently heat.  Some even contain magic ingredients, a plus one...Some recipes rely on just a few ingredients and conveniently some of these all share the same initial letter to make our lives easier."  

Regardless of which characteristics are included in the "leadership cookbook", what perhaps matters most is how we, as leaders, use the cookbook itself.  In other words, success in leadership probably depends less on how exactly the recipe is followed and more on how the different "ingredients" blend together to become leadership when it is all taken out of the "oven."

At least for the remainder of this post, I will use Bregman's list of "four C's", recognizing that some of the other characteristics are important as well.  And in so doing, I will avoid the temptation to come up with the "eight C's of leadership"!  So let's review again (note that I am changing the order a little bit):

Courage

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said that "Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others."  Leaders have to willing to choose "the hard right over the easy wrong".  As General Norman Schwarzkopf said, "The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."  What's frequently true is that the difficult decision is usually the least popular one.  Leaders have to be courageous enough to make the difficult decision, regardless of how popular it is in the end.  

Confidence

In many ways, confidence goes hand-in-hand with competency (frequently listed as one of the "Four C's" by others) and courage (one of Bregman's characteristics).  Part of what gives leaders the courage to make the difficult decisions is the confidence that they have in themselves and their abilities as leaders.  However, an important caveat that I have talked about in some of my older posts (see, for example, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble..." and "Lessons in Humility") is the importance of being "humbly confident" - we don't need leaders who are so "over the top" confident that they border on arrogance and hubris.  We need leaders who are both confident in their own ability, yet humble enough to recognize that they don't have all the answers and willing to listen to others.  General Douglas MacArthur once said, "A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.  He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."  

Connected

Bregman also talks about the importance of being connected with others, which I believe goes hand-in-hand with compassion (see how I am bringing all of the C's in to my list!).  Leaders have to know their staff and build relationships with everyone on the team.  As one of my mentors used to say, "I would never ask my team to do something that I am not willing to do myself."  A leader who is connected to others would never do ask someone to do something that he or she is not willing to do on their own.  Leaders who are connected to others are open, honest, and transparent (there's candour and character!) - building trust establishes connection!    

Commitment

Bregman would state that leaders have to be committed to a purpose, usually the organization's mission and vision.  Leaders also have to be committed to their people.  Commitment requires consistency, and as John Maxwell said, "Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time."  Commitment helps leaders and their teams achieve greatness.

There's a very good chance that you could probably come up with your own list of "Four C's of leadership", but I would be willing to bet that many of these characteristics would be on that list.  Again, the ingredients are important, but what is probably most important is how they are used in the recipe!  

The two most important words...

I talked about the power of gratitude in my last post ("Gratitude", posted 05/01/2023).  Dr. Sara Algoe, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, recently wrote an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal that started, "There are two simple words that can increase productivity, enhance collaboration among employees, make managers more effective, and improve corporate performance.  Thank you."  In my opinion, these two words may be the two most important words in the English language.  Dr. Algoe has been studying gratitude for more than two decades, and her research has consistently found, regardless of the setting, that expressing gratitude (often by simply saying "Thank you") has remarkably far-reaching effects.

People who regularly express their gratitude are perceived as being warmer, more empathetic, more likable, and even more competent.  More importantly, the individuals being thanked are actually more willing to work harder for them!  For example, Dr. Algoe and her team conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to edit a cover letter.  Some of these participants were thanked by the person they helped, while others were not thanked.  When the participants were asked a second time to edit a cover letter, the ones who had been thanked spent on average 15% more time to the task compared to the ones who weren't thanked.  

In a similar experiment, participants were asked to help a writer proofread a document.  The document had been previously reviewed and included tracked changes and comments from both the first reviewer and the individual who wrote originally the document.  In some cases, the original writer expressed their gratitude to the first reviewed with an extra comment that said, "Thank you so much for catching these typos!"  Participants who reviewed the document containing a simple thank you were 38% more likely to correct additional typos that they found (even though this wasn't part of their assigned task) compared to participants who reviewed documents that didn't contain a simple thank you.

Expressions of gratitude produce physiological as well as psychological effects!  Dr. Algoe's research has also found that both the individual expressing gratitude and the recipient of that expressed gratitude have lower heart rate, blood pressure, and markers of inflammation.  In other words, the mere act of expressing gratitude reduces stress and improves well-being!

I talked about the important of gratitude for leaders in two other posts from several years ago ("Real leaders say 'thank you' a lot...", posted 07/30/2017 and "Gratitude", posted 08/02/2017).  I talked about the so-called 5:1 rule ("The Ideal Praise-to-Criticism Ratio"), which states that leaders of top-performing teams provide positive feedback, gratitude, and praise five times as often as they provide negative feedback or criticism.  I ended that post with the simple admonition, "Gratitude is easy.  Gratitude makes you happy.  Gratitude is fun.  And gratitude is a great example of leadership."

Gratitude

Well it's May 1st even if it doesn't feel like it here in the Midwest!  I think our local weather forecast is calling for snow flurries.  Oh well - I guess that all of this crummy weather will make us appreciate and be thankful for the warmer weather that's on its way!

I talked last time ("What makes you stay?") about making sure that your employees feel both appreciated and valued.  I mentioned both a recent article from Press Gainey in the Harvard Business Review ("What makes health care workers stay in their jobs?"), as well as a study published last year in JAMA Health Forum which found that "feeling valued", "good teamwork", and "having values that are aligned with those of leaders" in an organization are some of the strongest predictors of staying with the organization.  How can leaders demonstrate to their employees that they are valued members within the organization?  Expressing their gratitude is a great place to start.

As Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman write in another Harvard Business Review article ("Do you tell your employees you appreciate them?"), "Every measure of morale, productivity, performance, customer satisfaction, and employee retention soars when managers regularly provide recognition."  They also state that the most common complaint that they hear about managers in organizations is that they don't show their appreciation to their employees nearly enough.  According to one survey performed in a health care organization, 29% of employees reported that they had not received any form of recognition within the past year!  An additional study using a database of thousands of 360° leadership assessments performed by their company showed that leaders who are rated in the bottom 10% for providing recognition to their employees have employees at the 27th percentile on engagement.  Conversely, leaders who are rated in the top 10% for employee recognition were at the 69th percentile on employee engagement!

According to the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey, a positive answer to one question accounts for 10-20% of the difference in measures of employee productivity, revenue, and customer loyalty: "In the last 7 days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work."  Unfortunately, 65% of employees reported that they receive no recognition during the previous year!  

Studies consistently show that leaders who regularly express gratitude and recognize their employees are perceived to be better at collaboration and teamwork, being open to feedback, building relationships, and inspiring and motivating their employees.  Employees who work for these leaders are more confident, feel better informed, work harder, and are much less likely to leave the organization.  Showing gratitude and recognizing employees, if done well, has huge payoffs!

Mike Robbins states in the Harvard Business Review ("Why employees need both recognition and appreciation") that "Recognition is about giving positive feedback based on results or performance...Appreciation, on the other hand, is about acknowledging a person's inherent value.  The point isn't their accomplishments.  It's their worth as a colleague and human being...In simple terms, recognition is about what people do; appreciation is about who they are."  Employees need both.

How can leaders express their gratitude through recognition?  Make sure that both recognition and appreciation are specific.  Describe a specific event or action and the impact that it had rather than just generally stating, "Good job today."  It's important that recognition comes from their immediate manager and that it is timely.  The sooner the recognition occurs after the behavior, the higher the perceived value.  Personalize the recognition as much as possible - some employees like to be recognized during team meetings, while others prefer something more private.  Handwritten notes are a great way to recognize employees!

Leaders can show their appreciation for their employees by listening to them (truly listening - "Put down your phone, turn away from your computer, and genuinely listen to them!").  Leaders should proactively tell their employees what they value about them.  As Teddy Roosevelt once said, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."  Show them that you care by frequently checking in with them, asking them how they are doing (and meaning it), and show them that you care.

It doesn't seem like much, but when it comes to the impact of gratitude through both recognition and appreciation on employee engagement, more is better!  According to Glassdoor's Employee Appreciation Survey, 53% of people said that feeling more appreciation from their immediate supervisor would help them stay longer at their organization, even though 68% said that their managers already showed them enough appreciation!

Mike Robbins concludes, "Recognition is appropriate and necessary when it's earned and deserved.  Appreciation, however, is important all the time."  Tell your employees what they need to hear, and what they want to hear!