Holiday Traditions

As we close out 2023, I wanted to pause and reflect on the holiday season.  Our family holidays begin with Thanksgiving, continue with Christmas, and end with New Year’s Day.  While the Christmas season is one of our favorite times of year, we have a number of wonderful holiday traditions in our family throughout the holiday season.  First, for the last 20 plus years, we have celebrated Thanksgiving with my wife’s side of the family.  She comes from a large family, so every year we alternate who hosts Thanksgiving.  It’s a great time to gather together, and it’s always a lot of fun.  For the past several years, our family has celebrated Christmas Eve with Mass and a dinner at a local restaurant.  Prior to our move to Chicago, we always dropped off Christmas cookies for the PICU staff at the children’s hospital where I work.  We end Christmas Eve by letting our children open only one present u dear our Christmas tree, and it’s always the same gift - a new pair of PJ’s for Christmas morning (incidentally, this particular tradition is one I carried with me from my own childhood).   We open Christmas presents on Christmas morning, followed by a large brunch meal at home.  We tend not to do much on New Year’s Eve - early on I used to be on call in the PICU that night, but later we’ve typically been on vacation.  And of course, we watch a lot of college football on New Year’s Day.

My point here is not to share all of our family’s holiday transitions.  Rather, I want to emphasize the fact that over the years, we’ve often changed our traditions.  For example, we didn’t always go out for dinner on Christmas Eve - that tradition started once our kids reached high school.  I also used to read the holiday classic, “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”  to our kids every Christmas Eve before they went to bed, but that ended a few years ago, once all of our kids reached adulthood.  For the last several years, we’ve held a “white elephant” gift exchange on Thanksgiving, but I think everyone is ready for that tradition to fall by the wayside.

As I wrote in a post a few years ago called “Traditions”, “Traditions are important - they help form who we are, both as individuals and as groups.  They are a unique part of our culture that collectively bridge the gap between the past and the present, as well as the present and the future.”

Traditions can and do change.  And that’s okay. It’s great to be able to celebrate and remember the past, but there comes a time when traditions should change or be replaced with new ones.  I am sure our kids will always remember listening to “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve.  And there’s a part of me that will miss it.  But we have new traditions instead, and they are just as important to what it is that makes us a family.  

The same is true for organizations.  Traditions are a wonderful way to cherish the past.  They keep an organization connected to its past.  But just like with family traditions, there comes a time when an organization’s traditions needs to change too.  It doesn’t mean that those in the organization no longer respect the past or even forget it.  It’s just a normal evolution of the organization’s culture that makes it the organization that it is today.

Remember that as you are honoring some of your holiday traditions this New Year’s Eve night.  See you in 2024,

The Top Ten Leadership Reverie Posts from 2023

 As we are just about to close out another year, I wanted to share the top ten Leadership Reverie blog posts for 2023:

1.  What makes you stay?  (April 28, 2023)

2.  "Why your critics aren't the ones who count" (March 10, 2023)

3.  The Accountability-Authority Matrix (January 5, 2023)

4.  "The longer you stay, the longer you stay" (October 16, 2023)

5.  The two most important words... (May 3, 2023)

6.  Why Ted Lasso is the perfect HRO leader (May 22, 2023)

7.  Annual Gallup survey on honesty and ethics among professionals (January 15, 2023)

8.  Mandatory Education (March 26, 2023)

9.  Word of the Year (March 13, 2023)

10. "I just want my kids to be happy" (June 13, 2023)

I continue to learn a lot from researching and writing these posts.  Someone recently asked how I found the time in my busy schedule to continue to write for a blog.  Of course, I referred that individual back to my very first blog post ("First blog post!") written on January 2, 2016, in which I listed a couple of reasons why I created "Leadership Reverie" in the first place.  I also told that individual that I've always remembered things and understood them better when I wrote them down or explained a concept in my own words.  By writing about the leadership concepts and stories I've read, I tend to remember them and understand them better.   I do not claim to be an expert on leadership, but I do consider myself a student of leadership.  The word "student" comes from the Middle English word studient, meaning "one who pursues knowledge" which itself comes from the Latin word studiens, meaning "to strive toward, devote oneself to, or cultivate."  With this blog, I am trying to cultivate my own knowledge on the fascinating discipline of leadership.  The fact that at least a few of you have spent the time reading (and some of you have even commented) my work provides even more motivation and inspiration to continue.

What's good for the hive is good for the bee

The Roman philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius is often quoted as saying, "That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees."  In other words, what is detrimental or harmful to the overall wellbeing of a collective group or community will ultimately have negative consequences for the individuals within that group.  Marcus Aurelius uses the analogy of a beehive to illustrate this concept - bees are one of the best-known examples of group behavior.  In order for the bee colony to thrive and survive, the individual bees must work together for the collective good of the whole.

We can learn a lot from bees.  The research scientist and author Mark Winston writes, "Bees teach us that leaders best serve society when they promote core ideals that unite rather than divide."  But what's particularly interesting is that even though a typical bee colony appears to be relatively homogenous at first glance, they are incredibly diverse.  The population of a honey bee colony may reach 50,000 individual bees.  These colonies are comprised of stepsister worker bees who all share the same queen mother but with different (15-20) drone fathers.  If you spend the time looking at the individual bees in the colony (NOT an easy task!), you will note the incredible diversity.  Some of the bees are jet black, while others may be yellow or even brown.  All of the bees play different roles too, whether it's foraging for nectar or pollen, helping to rear the larvae, or defending the hive.  

The temperature inside a bee hive is closely regulated between 32 to 36 degrees Celsius.  If it's too cold or too hot in the hive, the young larvae do not survive.  Bees regulate the temperature inside the hive by huddling together (to increase the temperature) or fanning their wings at the entrance (to decrease the temperature).  What's striking is that scientists have found that hives with greater genetic diversity (more drone fathers) are better at maintaining the temperature within a constant range compared to hives with less diversity (few drone fathers).  In other words, greater diversity actually produces more stability!  

Similarly, even though greater diversity allows the hive to thrive, the bees still need to work together and collaborate for the greater good of the collective group.  Winston writes, "Honey bee workers spend considerable time in the hive listening to each other, picking up information about what needs to be done within the colony and what might be happening outside that requires their attention."  It is a beautiful, even if paradoxical metaphor for how individuals work together in a group.  Greater diversity leads to greater stability and allows the group to thrive.  Yet, greater diversity requires more collaboration and work for the collective good.

Win today, pay for it tomorrow...

As many of you probably have guessed by now, I am a huge sports fan.  While I've never played organized baseball, it's probably one of my favorite sports to watch.  And like many baseball fans, I was excited about the possibility that my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, would sign free agent phenom Shohei Ohtani (there were rumors, but unfortunately I don't think the Cubs were ever in serious competition to sign Ohtani).  Ohtani is a once in a lifetime talent - not only is he a dominant starting pitcher, he's also a dominant hitter.  Despite the fact that he is not likely to pitch for at least one season due to Tommy John surgery, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him over the weekend on a record contract of $700 million over 10 years.  What's even more incredible about this contract is that Ohtani himself requested that most of the money would be paid long after he was done playing baseball!

Ohtani will make $2 million per year over the next 10 years ($20 million in total), while the remaining $680 million will be paid starting in 2034, when he will be paid $68 million per year until 2043!  The deferred money will be paid without interest.  What' surprising to me about this deal is that it was Ohtani's choice!  I don't know his motivation for sure, but I suspect he's figured out that by being paid less now, the Dodgers will have the opportunity to pay other superstars on their roster so that the team can win championships now.  In other words, it's a "win today, pay for it tomorrow" strategy!

This is not like the infamous Bobby Bonilla Day, when former New York Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla gets paid just over $1.19 million on every July 1st from 2011 to 2035.  Bonilla signed what was at the time a record-setting contract ($29 million spread out over 5 years) in 1991.  He played for three and a half seasons with the Mets before being traded to the Florida Marlins, who traded him back to the Mets in 1997.   Rather than paying the remaining $5.9 million owed to Bonilla, the Mets chose to defer the remaining money with interest in order to release Bonilla in 2000.  At the time, the Mets owners were expecting a huge pay-out from an investment with Bernie Madoff, an American financier and criminal mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.  Unfortunately, that investment didn't work out for the Mets, so now they are paying for it over time. 

It's not that unusual for teams to defer large contracts over several years.  What's unusual is for an athlete to request it.  Only time will tell whether Ohtani's gamble (if a deferred payment scheme can be called that) on winning now will actually pay-off.  For now, I will continue to watch to see if there are more contracts like this one in the future.  

"Chop wood, carry water"

I've been traveling for the past week, so I haven't been doing much writing, but I have been doing a lot of reading (long flights are good for that).  I just finished the book Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty.  In many ways, this book is similar to Sacred Hoops, which I recently posted about as well.  However, rather than covering just the first of three of his eleven NBA championships as a head coach, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success covers all of them, from his six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls to his five championships with the Los Angeles Lakers.  There are many, many leadership nuggets in this book as well, which I hope to return to in future posts.

If you anything about Phil Jackson, you will know that he really likes Eastern philosophy, and he is often referred to as the "Zen Master" (see his book Sacred Hoops).  In the book on his eleven NBA championships, Jackson mentions a famous Zen Buddhist dictum that states, "Before enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water.  After enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water."  Enlightenment is the ultimate goal of the Buddhist religion - it is a state of perfect peace where there is no suffering (it's also known as "Nirvana").  "Nirvana" represents the highest attainment that a Buddhist can achieve.  "Chop wood, carry water" means that no matter how accomplished we are, how wise we have become, or what heights of ultimate success we have attained, there will always be mundane things that we have to do, because, well, that's life.  Even the famous celebrities and superstars put their pants on one leg at a time.  Remembering the phrase will help keep you grounded.  And no matter what your profession is - whether it's sports or medicine or business - there are always going to be basic fundamentals that you have to master and practice, over and over and over again.  Chop wood, carry water.

Practice makes perfect

I am a huge college football fan!  Our family can legitimately claim allegiance to some of the most storied college football programs in history (as well as some of the not so storied ones).  One of our daughters attended the University of Alabama during an incredibly successful run (they won the national championship twice and appeared in the national championship title game all four years).  I've posted several times about the Crimson Tide football team and, in particular, their head coach Nick Saban (see "Chemistry is Culture", "Roll Tide!", "The Process", and "The half-time rally").  Saban has won seven national championships as a head coach (including his first when he coached at LSU), the most in college football history.  He has been the focus of at least one Harvard Business School case study (see "Embracing the Process"), as well as at least two books on leadership (see The Management Ideas of Nick Saban and Nick Saban and The Process).  Whether you like him or not, he will go down in history as one of the greatest college football coaches ever, due to his unprecedented success in arguably one of the most difficult and competitive periods in which to be successful as a college football head coach.

What is the secret to Coach Saban's success?  He calls it "The Process" and describes it as follows, "The process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful.  We try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis.  And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self-determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you're trying to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don't try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be."

The process boils down to these simple rules (as listed by Patrick Zeis ):

1. Focus all of your energy on the present moment.
2. Remember that everything matters ("attention to detail")
3. Eliminate distractions and outside noise.
4. Relinquish your attachment to outcomes
5. Develop toughness and discipline to face adversity
6. Compete against yourself while being accountable to others
7. Refuse to get comfortable

Today I want to focus on rule #2 above - "Remember that everything matters" or "Attention to detail."  I see a lot of parallels to the High Reliability Organization principles of "Preoccupation with Failure", "Reluctance to Simplify", and "Sensitivity to Operations" here.  Simply stated, Coach Saban prepares his team for any and all contingencies ahead of time so that when they encounter a difficult situation, they know exactly what to do.  Case in point - watch the play in the final seconds of this year's Iron Bowl match-up against their in-state rival Auburn University (see video clip here).  With his team losing 24-17 on a fourth down and forever (actually, it was fourth down and goal from the 31 yard line due to a couple of really awful plays on 2nd and 3rd downs), Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe somehow found wide receiver Isaiah Bond in the end zone to put Alabama up 27-24 (after the extra point)!  During the post-game interview, Saban said, "Believe it or not, we actually practice that play every Friday."  He went on further to say, "When we do walk-through, when we do special-situations. We get in that formation, everybody runs down the field and runs pairing routes in the end zone. Jalen made a great throw, but IB really kind of got himself into position where there was some room to throw it. He pushed inside, the DB was inside of him and then he came back out and Jalen threw it back out to him. It was a great catch, and a great throw, but that is a play that we actually work on."

In other words - an important, perhaps even critical, part of "The Process" is practice.  High Reliability Organizations understand that you cannot simulate every possible contingency, but they also recognize that practicing and simulating for specific situations that may be encountered is critical to successfully navigating a world filled with complexity and chaos.  It is that "attention to detail" that helped prepare Alabama's offense for executing that play under the most difficult of circumstances with the clock winding down.  Even Coach Saban recognizes that there is always a little bit of luck involved, but the best organizations create their own luck by preparing for as many possible scenarios as possible.