Happy Doctor's Day 2024

National Doctor’s Day is celebrated every year on March 30th.  We usually have a special luncheon for our physicians on Doctor's Day (or on the Friday before, if Doctor's Day falls on the weekend, as it does this year).  It's not the most convenient time of year for a celebration, as this week usually falls in the middle of Spring Break for a lot of our physicians.  Regardless, it's important to celebrate our physicians and everything that they do for our organization.

The first Doctor’s Day was observed more than 90 years ago, on March 30, 1933 by the Alliance to the Barrow County Medical Society in Winder, Georgia (a small town located just east of Atlanta).  Members of the Alliance selected the date to honor all physicians on the anniversary of Dr. Crawford W. Long’s first administration of anesthesia in 1842.  Of note, Dr. Long used ether during surgery to remove a tumor from the neck of James Venable.  The first Doctor’s Day was observed by sending cards to all the physicians and their spouses, and a red carnation flower was placed on the graves of deceased doctors.  

Through a series of resolutions in the years that followed, Doctor’s Day was widely celebrated throughout the southern United States, with sponsorship by the Southern Medical Association.  Eventually, a resolution was adopted and approved by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on October 30, 1990 and signed by President George H.W. Bush, designating March 30 as “National Doctor’s Day."  The red carnation remains as the symbol of Doctor’s Day.

I have never been more proud to be a member of this great profession.  We've all had a difficult past few years with everything that has been going on in our world.  Regardless, physicians have been at the forefront leading societal change during one of the most difficult periods in our nation's history.  Importantly, our influence is due in large measure to the trust and respect that society has for our profession.  

It's important that we continue to earn that trust and respect from other members and professions in society.  There have been a number of studies and articles on the so-called "disruptive physician" in the past few years.  Ultimately, health care organizations promote the behavior that they tolerate, and I am proud to say that in my experience, "disruptive physicians" are incredibly rare.  

There have also been a number of studies and articles on the increase in physician burnout in the past few years.  Certainly, the trend in burnout has only further increased since the COVID-19 pandemic.  Health care organizations should continue to focus on addressing the system and local factors that contribute to burnout.  Unfortunately, I do think that some of the issues that we face as a society are also contributing to burnout in all professions, including the medical profession.  We need more partnership with organizations outside of medicine to help us address these issues which are so important to our workforce.

I can honestly say that if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would still choose medicine as my life's work.  Medicine has been my passion and my calling.  Being a physician has made me a better person, and I am incredibly proud to be a member of this esteemed profession.

To all Doctor's - thank you for what you do, each and every day!

Leadership is not about solving problems???

The late Colin Powell, retired General who served as the 12th Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 and Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005 said, "Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them."  It's a great quote that emphasizes that leaders need to build psychological safety within their teams so that they will feel as though they can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or even acknowledge their mistakes.  The Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson has written extensively about psychological safety, including The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth and most recently, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (both are superb).

I recently came across a LinkedIn post by Robert Shumate who made a slight correction to Colin Powell's quote.  He said, "Leadership is mentoring others to solve problems.  The day those you lead come to you to solve their problems is the day you've failed leading them."  After thinking about this some more, I realized just how profound this slight change in the original quote is for leaders today.  Leaders have to create "fearless organizations", but they also have to both train and empower their teams to solve problems on their own!  After all, this is exactly what High Reliability Organizations do with the fundamental principle of "Deference to Expertise".  

The Trolley Problem

M*A*S*H was a television sitcom about a U.S. Army mobile army surgical hospital (which explains the abbreviation) during the Korean War that ran on CBS from 1972-1983.  I believe it was one of the longest running television series in history when it last aired on February 28, 1983 with the finale episode "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen".  The finale episode, which was 2 1/2 hours in length had over 125 million viewers.  Apparently, the episode was seen by so many people that the New York City Sanitation/Public Works Department reported the plumbing systems broke down in some parts of the city from so many New Yorkers waiting until the end to use the toilet (in the three minutes after the finale ended, around 77 percent of the people of New York City flushed their toilets).

The finale begins with one of the main characters, Hawkeye Pierce, receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital by another character Sidney Freeman.  Pierce tells Dr. Freeman about a recent beach outing by a busload of the camp personnel, who had picked up some refugees and wounded soldiers on their return to base.  The bus was forced to pull off the road to avoid an enemy patrol, and Hawkeye remembers telling one of the refugees to keep her squawking chicken quiet. However, as a result of his command, the refugee smothered and killed the chicken.  

The episode highlights an interesting ethical dilemma.  Is it morally acceptable to silence the noisy chicken (and kill the chicken in the process), in order to prevent the entire bus from being detected by the enemy patrol?  Would the answer to this question change if the chicken were instead a crying infant?  Later in the episode, Pierce reveals that the "chicken" in his memory was actually a crying infant.  These are the questions asked by two books that I recently finished reading - Would You Kill the Fat Man? by David Edmonds and The Trolley Problem, or Would You Throw the Fat Guy Off the Bridge? by Thomas Cathcart.  The titles of both books come from a variation of the famous "Trolley Problem", a philosophical thought experiment first described in a 1967 article by Philippa Foot, an American philosopher (and, on an interesting side note, granddaughter of former US President Grover Cleveland).  While Foot described the thought experiment, Judith Jarvis Thomson dubbed the experiment the "Trolley Problem" in a 1976 paper.  

The thought experiment basically asks whether it is ethically acceptable to kill one person in order to save five people (the "fat man" part is a later variation of the experiment).  In essence, the problem is usually set up with the following:

1. There is a runaway trolley moving down the tracks. 

2. Up ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied down to the track and unable to move. The trolley is heading straight towards the five people and will likely kill them. 

3. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. 

4.  Up ahead on the side track, there is one person tied down to the track and unable to move.  

The reader is left to ponder one of two choices - do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track, or pull the lever, which will divert the trolley onto the side track, killing the one person (but saving the five).  If you want to see a "real life" example of the "Trolley Problem", check out a video clip from Episode 19 of the television show The Good Place.  

If you are interested in learning about the history behind the "Trolley Problem", with a discussion of several different variations of the problem as well as the underlying philosophical basis behind the answers to the problem, I would encourage you to check out Edmonds' book (which I found slightly more readable than the book by Cathcart).  There are a number of potential real world applications of the "Trolley Problem", which are discussed at length in both books.  Philippa Foot discussed the so-called "Doctrine of Double Effect" in the context of questions around the ethics of abortion and birth control.  

Several experts have questioned both the validity and generalizability of the  "Trolley Problem", and I would agree that some of the proposed variations described in Edmonds' and Cathcart's books are way over the top and not very realistic.  However, I think thought experiments are by their very nature somewhat contrived and unusual.  At the end of the day, I do think diving into the  "Trolley Problem" is a worthwhile investment of a leader's time.

"Handle Hard Better"

Kara Lawson is the Head Coach of Duke University's Women's Basketball team.  She became the sixth head coach in Duke's history on July 11, 2020.  Her resume is impressive.  She played for the University of Tennessee Lady Vols under legendary Head Coach Pat Summit, one of the greatest (if not "the" greatest) college basketball coach of all-time, where she was a two-time All-American.  She continued her basketball playing career in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), winning a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics and a WNBA championship with the Sacramento Monarchs in 2005.  After retiring from the WNBA, Lawson was an analyst for ESPN.  She began her coaching career as an assistant for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2019 (the first female basketball coach in that team's illustrious 73-year history) and coached the U.S. Women's National 3x3 basketball team to a gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics.  

Coach Lawson delivered an impromptu speech to her team during the summer of 2022.  A member of Duke's video team happened to be there and recorded the 49 second speech and posted it on the Duke women's basketball social media page.  It's gone viral with over 1 million views for a reason - it's a great speech!  She says that we often wait for life to get easier and cautions us that "Life doesn't get any easier.  We just handle hard better."  It's a great speech and one that you should definitely watch!  Part of our growth and development as individuals is continuing to live through our struggles.  We learn, as Coach Lawson says, to "handle hard better."

The Legend of the Spider

I always enjoy reading about leaders throughout history, particularly those who led their team, organization, or nation through difficult and challenging times.  Robert the Bruce is a national hero in Scotland.  He was famously portrayed by the actor Angus McFadyen in Mel Gipson's epic 1995 movie Braveheart (which told the story of William Wallace, another national hero of Scotland) and Chris Pine in the 2018 movie The Outlaw King.  Bruce led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England, becoming the King of Scotland from 1306 until his death in 1329.  

It's hard to separate fact from fiction and history from legend, for as the narrator (actually, Robert the Bruce) in Braveheart says, "History is written by those who have hanged heroes."  However, Robert the Bruce was the fourth-great-grandson of King David I and therefore a legitimate claimant to the Scottish throne.  Unfortunately, there were others who could (and did) legitimately claim to be the rightful heir.  Apparently, in 1306, Bruce murdered one of these claimants, John Comyn in front of a church altar in Dumfries, Scotland.  As a result, he was excommunicated by Pope Clement V but was later absolved by the Bishop of Glasgow and quickly crowned himself King.  Of course, the English King Edward I disagreed with Bruce and defeated him at the Battle of Methven.  Bruce would suffer a series of defeats, his army was virtually annihilated, and he was driven into exile.  Three of his brothers were executed and his sister was later captured by the English.  Bruce fell into despair, and he wasn't sure what to do next.  He was ready to give up.

Legend has it that while Robert the Bruce was hiding from the English in a cave, he watched a spider struggling to build a web.  Whenever the spider would make progress, it would fall, only to climb back up again and start over building the web.  He would fall and start over, again and again.  Finally, the spider completed its web.  Bruce realized quickly the old adage, "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again."  Bruce would go on to defeat the English in a series of battles, beginning with the Battle of Loudon Hill in 1307 (shown in the movie The Outlaw King)and the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 (shown in the movie, Braveheart).  Robert would go on to rule an independent Scotland as King until his death in 1329.

The lesson here is as least as old as Robert the Bruce (and probably even much older than him).  "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again."  It is the same lesson in Aesop's Fable The Oak and the Reeds or Sam Ryder's song "Fought and Lost".  We hear the same lesson in an ancient Japanese proverb, "Fall seven times, rise eight times" (translated from the Japanese phrase, "Nana korobi ya oki") or most recently in Ted Lasso's goldfish rule.  Ultimately, it's about the High Reliability Organization principle of "Commitment to Resilience".  "Never, ever give up."  

"The past is never dead..."

The American writer and 1949 Nobel Laureate William Faulkner once wrote, "The past is never dead.  It's not even past."  It's probably one of his most famous quotes and comes from the book, Requiem for a Nun, published in 1951.  I love this quote, but it's perhaps useful to share the full passage in order to provide additional context:

The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always.

In other words, we are all products of the choices we have made, both the good ones as well as the bad.  Most of the challenges that we face in life, to some degree, are of our own creation and due to choices we've made in the past.  Faulkner would have us believe that, at least to some extent, we are the product of the choices that our parents and grandparents made too.  Regardless of whether you agree with Faulkner that everyone is the product of the choices they made as well as the ones their ancestors made, I do firmly believe that one can change his or her destiny.  But that doesn't mean that we can forget our past.  Sometimes, the only way to move forward is to look backward.  As the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." 

We would do well to remember the past (see my post "Past is Prologue"), but we also need to look forward into the future.    Learn from the past - both your failures as well as your successes.  Don't repeat the same mistakes. 

"It's a team"

My wife and I spent Sunday afternoon this past weekend watching the 2023 movie Nyad starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.  The film tells the story of open water swimmer Diana Nyad's multiple attempts in the early 2010's to swim from Cuba to Florida across the treacherous Straits of Florida and is apparently based upon Nyad's 2015 memoir, Find a Way.  The film received generally positive reviews, and both Bening and Foster received numerous accolades and award nominations, including for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively at the 96th Academy Awards.  I remember Nyad's earlier career from my childhood (including her unsuccessful attempt at swimming across the Straits of Florida in 1978), and I also remember hearing of her unsuccessful 2nd, 3rd, and 4th attempts and ultimately successful 5th attempt when she was over 60 years of age.  

Nyad's story is one of both persistence and resilience.  There's no question that completing a 103-mile swim in shark-infested and jellyfish-infested waters requires incredible passion, commitment, dedication, and perseverance.  To do that after failing the first four times requires incredible resilience too.  Lastly, in my opinion you also have to be a little crazy to accomplish something like this feat, particularly at the age of 64 years!  When she finally made it all the way to Key West, she proudly told the crowd that had gathered at the beach to welcome her and cheer her on:

"I got three messages.  One is we should never, ever give up.  Two is you are never too old to chase your dreams.  Three, it looks like a solitary sport, but it's a team."

While her accomplishment has never been formally recognized due to some controversies around the lack of an independent observer on board her support boat and incomplete documentation, it still is an amazing feat in my mind.  What impressed me the most (and what is particularly relevant to leadership) is the fact that, at least as depicted in the movie, Nyad only achieved success after recognizing that she needed her support team.  The movie depicts an individual who is not particularly easy to like.  She is confident bordering on arrogant, self-motivated bordering on self-centered.  At one point, she refers to her last name, which stems from the naiads of Greek mythology, "My ancestors are the nymphs that swam in the lakes and the rivers and the ocean."  She believes in her birthright to be great, and her superiority complex at one point leads her best friend and coach to walk away.  In the end, they all came back to support her, and she embraced the concept that she needed her team of supporters to help her achieve her dream.

It's a good story and an important lesson for all of us.  "Never, ever give up...You are never too old to chase your dreams...it looks like a solitary sport, but it's a team." 

"How 'bout them Cowboys?"

I frequently listen to ESPN Talk Radio on my commutes to and from work.  The National Football League's period known as "Legal Tampering" began this past Monday, 3/11/2024 at Noon ET.  I actually thought that the radio hosts were making a tongue-in-cheek comment about the NFL's free agency, until I looked up what it meant.  Apparently the NFL implemented a "legal tampering period" in 2012 that allows teams to speak and begin negotiations with representatives of unrestricted free agents before free agency officially begins.  During this period of time, no one is allowed to officially sign a contract, but they can verbally agree to deals.  I guess this was done to prevent so-called "Illegal Tampering", but given the amount of deals announced shortly after noon on Monday, I strongly suspect that tampering of the illegal variety continues to occur!

Anyway, apparently everyone who cares about the Dallas Cowboys is upset because they haven't really done anything during "Legal Tampering".  The Cowboys are the league's most valuable franchise (which they've been for the past 15 years in a row, despite the fact that they haven't won the Super Bowl since 1996, which was also the last season that they played in the NFC Championship.  It's not that they are a bad team, like say the Carolina Panthers or even the Chicago Bears.  As a matter of fact, they've won 12 games each of the past three seasons and have a 98-65 W-L record since 2014!  So, why are the fans upset?  Why are all the talk radio hosts having a field day with the Cowboys' relative inactivity during the last couple of days?  Why haven't the Cowboys won or even played in a Super Bowl?  Most everyone, including some of the players on the Cowboys roster, provide a one-word answer.  Culture.

I've talked a lot about the importance of organizational culture in previous posts (see most recently "Nelson's Touch" from a few weeks ago), so all of this talk about a potential problem with the culture that exists within the locker room at "America's Team" is of great interest.  The superstar linebacker Micah Parsons called out the team's culture on his podcast "The Edge" following the Cowboys embarassing loss to the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card Round of the NFL Play-offs on January 14, 2024.  Parsons said, "We need to have way more accountability. I just think we let things slide too often because we know we’re good. That’s all about me. I want to change the culture. I want to change the identity of what the Cowboys are. Cut the extra stuff out, I just want people to lock in for 22 weeks. Seven months can change your life. And I’m ready."

He went on, "The talent is there. We got to have discipline and that will to win. We got to be together. And we have to have the leaders. I feel like that was the difference, and it showed. I got to step up. You got to step up. Everybody has to step up. We got to all look in this mirror. We got to deal with this one."

Earlier in the month on ESPN's First Take, Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence suggested that one of the reasons for the team's unexpected and embarassing loss to the Packers was fatigue.  He claimed, "In all honestly, I think the main thing is we was burnt out.  Long season...the legs get tired."  Of course, Micah Parsons had a response.  On ESPN's The Stephen A. Smith Show (alson on ESPN), Parsons countered, "What I feel like, once that regular season ends and they get in playoffs, you’re supposed to get rejuvenated.  Like, this is a whole new me, whole new you. We need to get ready — and that’s part of that culture stuff that I was talking about, where I want to dive into the players that we gotta change. You should never go into a game like, ‘I’m tired. I’m ready to go home.’ Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen and it did happen.  I’m coming to the game like, ‘I got four more weeks left. I don’t know what y’all got, but I got four more weeks left."

Sports Talk Radio had a field day with all of this.  And it all eventually got back to the Cowboys' quarterback (and supposed team leader) Dak Prescott, who said, "The culture is high, honestly.  The culture is high from my standpoint. I say that in the sense that I don't know all of the talk that's been said, so I don't want to go into a good, bad or whatever. If y'all know of anybody, I'm not the one listening and I try not to."  

In other words, Dak Prescott either disagrees with Micah Parsons, doesn't understand the meaning or even the importance of culture, or is just not paying attention to what is being said by his teammates in the media.  Regardless of which of these is the case, it's clear to me that the Dallas Cowboys have a HUGE problem with culture in their locker room.  And if they don't find some players who can bring leadership and culture (for more on how leaders such as Dak Prescott should set the tone, see The Captain Class by Sam Walker) to help address these issues, they won't be finding their way back to the Super Bowl anytime soon.  Sports teams with good talent and excellent culture will beat teams with excellent talent and poor culture.  As legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne said, "I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven."

Every group, team, or organization has a certain culture, often defined as a set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, and behaviors that can be summarized by the statement "the way we do things around here."  Nicholas Christakis provided the best definition of culture that I've seen in his book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.  Christakis say, "Culture may be defined as the whole set of ideas produced by a group, ideas that are usually transmitted socially and that are capable of affecting individual behavior."  In other words, the behaviors of all the individuals in a group help determine the group's culture, but just as importantly, the group's culture in turn affects the behavior of each of the individuals in the group.  

As I've said numerous times in the past, having the right culture is critically important.  Making sure that everyone in the group is on the proverbial same page is critically important.  Culture does indeed eat strategy for lunch, and if the leaders within the Cowboys locker room don't address their culture fairly quickly, they too will get eaten for lunch.  

Lombardi Time

They say opposites attract, and I think my wife and I are pretty good examples of that statement.  Over the last 30 plus years of marriage though, I think we've become more like each other in many ways, with perhaps one exception.  I consider being "on time" arriving at least 10-15 minutes early, while she thinks that "on time" means that you should plan to arrive within a few minutes of something starting.  In my mind, we were always running late - and in hers, we were always running early!  My wife had a trick that would help her always be on time - she set the clock in her car about 5-10 minutes fast!  She used to have to remind me whenever we rode together that her clock was fast!  

As it turns out, setting your clock fast on purpose is a psychological trick that a lot of people use!  Look no further than the clock tower at the historical Lambeau Field, home to the National Football League's Green Bay Packers since 1957.  The clock tower is a relatively new addition and was part of a stadium renovation project completed around 2012.  Apparently the clock is set 15 minutes fast!  They call it "Lombardi Time" in honor of Vince Lombardi, who coached the Packers from 1959 to 1967, winning five NFL championships in seven years, including Super Bowls I and II.  Coach Lombardi had an overall win-loss record of 96-34-6, and he is recognized as one of the greatest head football coaches of all-time.  As a matter of fact, when the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVIII last month, they held aloft the Vince Lombardi Trophy.  

Coach Lombardi expected his players and coaches to be 15 minutes early to meetings and practices. Not on time -- 15 minutes early. If they weren't, he considered them "late." Thus, it came to be called Lombardi time.  He believed that showing up on time is a sign of respect, dedication, and commitment.  I guess Coach Lombardi and I would agree on one thing for sure! Whatever you have to do - setting your clock ahead or just showing up 15 minutes early, just be on time.

"Wisdom comes from experience..."

The British author Terry Pratchett, who is perhaps best known for writing 41 comic fantasy novels all set in the fictional land of Discworld (which apparently consists of a large disc, hence the name, resting on the backs of four huge elephants which in turn are standing on the back of an enormous turtle who slowly swims through space) once wrote, "Wisdom comes from experience.  Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom."  It's a circular quote, which completely makes sense coming from a writer who created a fantasy world that exists on a flat disk held up by elephants standing on top of a cosmic turtle!  

As I think about Pratchett's statement a little more, though, it actually makes perfect sense.  Picture in your mind someone who is wise, and I would be willing to bet that you are thinking of someone with gray or even white hair (see my post "Gray-haired wisdom")!  Regardless of industry, individuals who have done a lot and seen a lot are the same individuals that others go to for help.  We learn through our experiences.  I've posted in the past about the importance of learning from our failures, as well as our successes (see, for example, "Failure", "I wish you bad luck", "Failing Forward", and "The greatest teacher, failure is").  The experience that we gain through our failures helps us to learn, grow, and develop.  in other words, "Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom!" 

I want to end with one additional quote - this one from Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company.  Ford said, "Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this.  For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward."  Fail.  Learn.  Repeat.

"Nobody ever cut their way to greatness..."

Several years ago, I read a book by Edward Hess Grow to Greatness as part of an MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that he taught by the same name.  I don't remember all of the details from the course, but I can say with certainty that Hess at no time talked about cutting costs as a strategy to achieve business success.  My take was that if an organization is already running efficiently, then cutting costs as a way to keep expenses less than revenue is not an ideal business strategy.  As I've heard said probably a hundred times throughout my career - "Nobody ever cut their way to greatness." 

Whenever I hear statements such as this, I always find myself looking for evidence that the statement is in fact true.  Has any organization ever achieved success through downsizing?  There are actually a number of studies that show that lay-offs is frequently deleterious for the organization, with a so-called "dirty dozen" of detrimental effects:

1.  Centralization - downsizing leads to further centralization of decisionmaking and control

2.  No long-term planning - organizations focus more on crisis management and short-term thinking at the expense of long-term strategy

3.  No innovation - organizations become risk-averse and overly conservative

4.  Scapegoating - inevitably, senior leaders will get blamed for the crisis that led to the downsizing

5.  Resistance to change - similar to "no innovation" above, downsizing leads to further resistance to change

6.  Turnover - downsizing unfortunately often leads to the departure of top talent

7.  Low morale - downsizing leads to a decrease in morale and loyalty to the organization (which often leads to the greater turnover, discussed above)

8.  No slack - uncommitted resources or "rainy day funds" are used to cover operating expenses

9.  Fragmented pluralism - special interest groups become more organized and vocal

10. Loss of credibility - employees lose confidence in their leaders

11. Non-prioritized cuts - cutbacks occur across the board, so top talent and/or strategic programs get cut too

12. Conflict - as resources get scarce, there is growing competition and infighting for them

To this end, I found at least one published study ("Airline downsizing and its impact on team performance") that found evidence for all of these deleterious effects.  The study, which was published by Amy Fraher in the journal Team Performance Management in 2013 examined data obtained from 127 in depth pilot survey responses from major US airlines, as well as 43 semi-structured interviews, following the airline downsizing that occurred following the September 11, 2001 attacks.  Fraher found that pilots who stayed with an airline after cutbacks and downsizing experienced greater levels of burnout, loss of engagement ("quiet quitting"), loss of trust, loss of commitment and loyalty to the organization, greater distress and distraction (and as a result, more errors), and ultimately greater turnover.  

As Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher explained, "Nothing kills your company's culture like layoffs."  More often than not, corporate downsizing actually worsens long-term outcomes!  In other words, it's probably reasonable to say with some degree of confidence that "Nobody ever cut their way to greatness."

Dogs Really Are Our Best Friends

As I've mentioned a few times recently, our family returned to the island of Guam this past summer, where I we were stationed for a couple of years in the late 1990's.  Our youngest daughter was actually born there, so this was her first trip back to the place where she was born.  For those of you who don't know, Guam is located about thirteen degrees north of the Equator and a little west of the International Date Line (hence its slogan, "Where America's Day Begins").  It takes 8 hours to fly to Guam from Hawaii, so it's a long trip.  We flew back home via Tokyo, Japan and decided to stay for a few days to see the sights there.  It was a great trip!

One of the popular attractions (for both locals and tourists apparently) in Tokyo was the statue of the dog Hachiko near the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing:

Hachiko was a Japanese Akita dog born on November 10, 1923.  His owner, Hidesaburo Ueno was a professor in the agriculture department at the Tokyo Imperial University and brought him to live in Shibuya as his pet.  Hachiko would meet his owner every single day at the Shibuya train station when he returned home from work.  Sadly, Ueno died of an acute brain hemorrhage on May 21, 1925 while at work.  Hachiko would return every single day to wait for his owner for the next 9 years, 9 months, and 15 days until his death on March 8, 1935.  Several other commuters would notice the dog waiting every day by the train station, and Hachiko became a national story and symbol of loyalty.  It's a beautiful story that pulls on your heart strings (and was the subject of a 2009 movie starring Richard Gere called Hachi: A Dog's Tale.  

There's no question that dogs deserve the title "Man's Best Friend".  Dogs are a symbol of loyalty, one of the most important virtues that our society values in relationships with our families, our friends, our co-workers, our organizations, and of course, our pets.  Loyalty is also a critical driver to any organization's long-term success.  Employees that are loyal to their organization are more likely to innovate and problem-solve and they are more willing to go the extra mile to help the organization to achieve its goals.  Leaders can build loyalty by:

1. Be present and "show up" - leaders need to build relationships with their teams and show that they generally care about them as individuals.

2. Help their teams grow and develop as professionals and give them opportunities to lead

3. Show that they trust their teams ("Deference to Expertise") and empower them as professionals

4. Provide fair and honest feedback

5. Recognize and reward their teams appropriately

6. Remove unnecessary uncertainty by being as open, honest, and transparent as possible

The late U.S. Army General Colin Powell said, "Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence."   The film producer Samuel Goldwyn said, "I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty."  U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper said, "Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down."  I would add, "Be like Hachiko!"

"There's plenty of room..."

One of my favorite songs ("Hotel California") by one of my favorite bands (The Eagles - see my post "I can't tell you why"), which apparently is the subject of a lawsuit right now in New York City, has a line that is very appropriate for today's post:

There's plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year (any time of year), you can find it here.

I know of another hotel in which there is always plenty of room for guests - it's called Hilbert's Grand Hotel, named after the German mathematician David Hilbert.  Hilbert's Grand Hotel is yet another veridical paradox, a paradox that produces a result that is absurd but nevertheless true.  It also illustrates some interesting properties about infinite sets and the "number" infinity (technically infinity is not a number).  Here's the problem.  Imagine a hotel that with rooms numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on with no upper limit (i.e. continuing on to infinity).  Let's also imagine that initially, every room is occupied.  Essentially we have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of guests.  What happens when a new guest shows up?  A normal hotel with a finite number of rooms and no vacancy could not accomodate any additional guests, but no so for Hilbert's Grand Hotel!  

How can we accomodate new guests?  Hilbert suggested that we could do so by moving every guest from their current room n to the next room, n+1.  We can do so because there are an infinite number of rooms!  Room 1 is now empty and can accomodate the new guest:

Hilbert showed that the same method could be used to accomodate as many as k new guests (we could just simply ask every guest to move from their current room n to the n+k room).  As it turns out, Hilbert showed that the Hilbert's Grand Hotel could even accomodate an infinite number of new guests!  Here's how - start by moving the guest in room 1 to room 2.  Next move the guest in room 2 to room 4, and in general, the guest occupying room n to room 2n, such that all the odd-numbered rooms (which are countably infinite) will be free for the new guests.

As it turns out, infinity is a pretty cool concept!  Basically, we are saying that infinity plus infinity equals infinity!  Even when it's full, there's always plenty of room at Hilbert's Grand Hotel.  Any time of year...

"My nose grows now!"

Last time, we talked about a few famous examples of paradoxes, and in particular how the American philosopher and logician W.V.O. Quine distinguished between three different classes of paradoxes - the veridical paradox, the falsidical paradox, and the antimony.  I covered veridical and falsidical paradoxes last time, so today I will focus on a famous antimony that involves a famous wooden puppet who wanted to become a real boy!

The Italian author Carlo Collodi wrote the children's book The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883.  The book is of course different from the Walt Disney animated film, which was the studio's second animated feature film and one of the greatest animated films of all time.  The character Pinocchio is a mischevious wooden marionette, at least at first, whose dream is to become a real boy.  Pinocchio's nose is perhaps his best-known characteristic, which famously grows longer whenever he tells a lie. 

There is a famous paradox that involves Pinocchio, which was apparently first described by an eleven year-old named Veronique Eldridge-Smith in 2001 (Veronique's father, Peter, specialized in formal logic).  The father and son published what is now known as "Pinocchio's Paradox" in the journal Analysis in 2010.  

Here is the essence of the paradox: Pinocchio says, "My nose grows now."  As you can see, if Pinocchio's nose only grows longer when he tells a lie, the statement "My nose grows now" can be neither true nor false.  The statement cannot be true, because Pinocchio's nose only grows when he is lying.  So, if he is telling the truth, his nose can't grow.  However, the statement cannot be false either.  Follow?  Eldridge-Smith explains, "Pinocchio's nose is growing if and only if it is not growing."

"Pinocchio's Paradox" is a variation of the classic "Liar's Paradox" (also known as the antimony of the liar), in which a liar says, "I am lying."  If the liar is indeed lying, then the liar is telling the truth, which means the liar just lied.  More generally, if the statement "This sentence is false" is indeed true, then it is false, but the sentence states that it is false, and if it is false, then it must be true, and so on.

There are two additional variations of this paradox that I want to briefly introduce.  The first is the logic puzzle " Knights and Knaves", first described by Raymond Smullyan in his 1978 book, What is the Name of this Book?  Imagine a fictional island where everyone is either a "knight" (always tells the truth) or a "knave" (always tells a lie).  There are a number of variations to this puzzle, so here is just one example (an easy one):

Imagine you are a visitor to the island of Knights and Knaves.  There are two individuals standing in front of you, Red and Blue.  Blue says, "We are both Knaves."  Who is really the Knight and who is the Knave?

Similarly, "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever Designed" was described by George Boolos in The Harvard Review of Philosophy in 1996.  Boolos credits Raymond Smullyan with first introducing the puzzle, and it is certainly based upon " Knights and Knaves" described above. Here is the puzzle:

Three gods A, B, and C are called, in no particular order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes–no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are da and ja, in some order. You do not know which word means which.

Importantly, a single god may be asked more than one question, questions are permitted to depend on the answers to earlier questions, and the nature of Random's response should be thought of as depending on the flip of a fair coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.

You can definitely find the answers to both " Knights and Knaves" and "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever Designed" on the Internet.  However, I would challenge you to try to work both out on your own first!  It's probably a good idea to start with " Knights and Knaves" first.  Good luck!