Da Vinci's Seven Principles

Leonardo da Vinci was the textbook definition of a polymath.  A polymath is an individual whose knowledge, skills, and expertise span many different subjects.  These individuals draw upon their extensive knowledge and expertise to solve complex and difficult problems.  Leonardo da Vinci lived during the so-called High Renaissance period.  For this reason, we often use the terms polymath and Renaissance man interchangeably.  

We could certainly learn a lot from Leonardo da Vinci.  The author and management consultant Michael J. Gelb wrote a book in 1998 entitled, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day.  While da Vinci himself never wrote down a set of "seven principles", Gelb and other modern thinkers have listed seven principles needed to understand his genius, based largely upon da Vinci's own notebooks, writings, and life.  They are:

Curiosità

The Italian word curiosità is translated directly to the English word curiosity.   Leonardo da Vinci possessed an insatiable and lifelong curiosity for all things, asked questions to explore life's wonders, and sought new experiences and knowledge.  His notebooks are filled with his observations and ideas, and he famously sketched out his ideas for an early version of the airplane, the helicopter, the parachute, and an armored tank.  If we wish to be like da Vinci, we should start by asking questions and continuously learning.  As Ted Lasso famously said, "Be curious" (see my post "Barbecue Sauce").  

Dimostrazione 

The Italian word dimostrazione is translated directly to the English word demonstration. Leonardo da Vinci was committed to learning through direct, hands-on experience.  He believed that we learn best when we learn from our own mistakes.  It is often said that experience is the best teacher, and I am sure that Leonardo da Vinci would agree with that sentiment.  I am reminded (see one of my old posts) of a quote by former major league baseball player, Vern Law (who won the Cy Young Award in 1960 while pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates), who said, "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." 

Sensazione 

The Italian word sensazione is translated directly to the English word sensation.  Leonardo da Vinci believed that in order to maximize our experiences (see above), we needed to use each of our five senses, particularly the sense of sight.  We learn by our experience, for sure, but we experience our world around us through our five senses (see my post "All life is an experiment" for more).  

Sfumato 

The Italian word sfumato refers to one of da Vinci's painting techniques that uses subtle, soft blending to create a hazy or "smoky" transition between colors and tones, effectively blurring harsh lines (his masterpiece Mona Lisa is an excellent example of this technique).  However, in this context, the term is used to suggest that not everything has a clear answer.  We live in a world characterized by uncertainty. In order to be thrive in this world, we need to be willing to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty (see my posts "Welcome to the age of chaos..." and "What if this isn't the storm?").

Arte/Scienza 

These two Italian words translate directly to the English words art and science.  In order to thrive in a world of chaos and uncertainty (see above), we need to strike a balance between logic and imagination, between science and art.  We need to leverage our "whole brain" in order to merge our analytical powers with our creative ones (see my posts, "What do Robert Frost, Hippocrates, and Daniel Drake have in common?", "Ipsa scientia potestas est", and "A night at the theatre").

Corporalità 

The Italian word corporalità translates directly to the English word corporality or corporeality.  The concept refers to the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.  Leonardo da Vinci, as a scientist, was fascinated by the human body and, more importantly, by the connections between physical health and mental well-being (see my post, "The Five Pillars of Happiness").  True wisdom can only come when we are thriving from a physical, mental, and spiritual standpoint.  

Connessione 

The Italian word connessione translates directly into the English word connection.  Leonardo da Vinci thought about the interconnectedness of all things and applied "systems thinking" in order to see and understand patterns and links between seemingly unrelated ideas.  Just as important, I believe (and the evidence strongly supports) that in order to thrive in today's world, we need to stay connected with our friends, family, and peers (see my post "The truth about connection", "Ubuntu", "It's a small world after all...", and most recently, "Connections").  

So there you have it!  Follow these seven principles and you will be well on your way to becoming a person of the Renaissance!  More importantly, they will help you to become a better person and a better leader.

Happy Halloween!

Today is October 31st - that means it is Halloween!  Today I'm going to re-post a favorite from the past (the year 2018 in fact).

One of the many great things about working in a children's hospital is that you get to wear your Halloween costume to work - and it's completely acceptable!  In the spirit of Halloween, I want to talk about one of my all-time favorite television shows growing up - the cartoon series, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!", which was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1969 to 1970 (surprisingly, this now iconic series aired for only two seasons before going into syndication and generating a number of spin-offs).  The show featured the adventures of Scooby Doo and Mystery, Inc., a group of four teenagers who solved mysteries which frequently involved ghosts, monsters, and the supernatural.  

Shaggy Rogers (I bet you didn't know his last name was Rogers!) and his best pal, Scooby Doo, once gave some really great advice:

Hold on, man.  We don't go anywhere with 'scary,' 'spooky', 'haunted,' or 'forbidden' in the title.

It seems fairly intuitive and simple, but the advice is really great.  Unfortunately, most of the mysteries that Scooby Doo and his friends were trying to solve involved going to places with the words 'scary,' 'spooky,' 'haunted,' and 'forbidden' in the title!  That happens a lot of times in the real world too.   Despite our best intentions, the world can be a dangerous place.  And no matter how hard we try, there are times when we are going to have to choose to take risks.

I like to read and write a lot about so-called High Reliability Organizations.  HROs are usually defined as organizations that have succeeded in avoiding serious accidents or catastrophes in dangerous environments - the kind of environments where accidents are not only likely to occur, they are expected to occur.  The important point to realize, however, is that these same HROs don't seek to avoid risk - indeed, they could not exist if they did.  Rather, these organizations manage that risk in such a way that when (because it's always a matter of "when" and not "if") accidents occur, the adverse impact on the organization is significantly attenuated.  

Shaggy and Scooby Doo tried hard every episode to avoid taking a risk.  However, the whole purpose of Mystery, Inc. was to solve the mystery, and solving the mystery required taking a risk.  Scooby and his friends usually did a good job of managing risk - I wouldn't say that Mystery, Inc. was a great example of a High Reliability Organization, but they usually did pretty well in the end.  There was always the line from the villain at the conclusion of every episode, "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids."

So, in the spirit of Halloween, take a leadership cue from the gang at Mystery, Inc.  Manage your risks.  Solve the mystery.  And have fun.

Connections

I recently posted about Dr. Vivek Murthy's (Dr. Murthy was the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the Untied States) report, "The Healing Effects of Social Connection" (see my two posts "The Loneliness Epidemic" and "Ubuntu") and his "Parting Prescription for America".  Apparently his "Parting Prescription" is no longer available on the Department of Health and Human Services website.  I've also posted a lot about the role that television (see "Amusing Ourselves to Death"), technology (see "The Walkman Effect", "The Quiet Commute", and "Take a Break...") and social media (see "Familiarity breeds contempt...",  "Liberation", and "The truth about connection") have played in this epidemic of loneliness.  I think we can easily make the argument that the more time we spend on technology (e.g. smart phone, Internet) or social media, the less time we are connecting with others (friends, family, etc).  

Other people a lot smarter than I have also made the observation that we are less connected now than ever before.  I have referenced the author and journalist Nicholas Carr a number of times in the past.  His books are very interesting (see in particular his most recent book, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart), but his blog posts are even more compelling in my opinion.  Carr published a collection of his articles and blog posts in Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations.  Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation is also an important book that has received a lot of attention recently.  Several books by the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam with a similar theme are also on my reading list (Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Better Together: Restoring the American Community, and The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again) and come highly recommended.

With all of this in mind, I recently came across a great online article by the social entrepreneur Aaron Hurst, who recently co-founded the U.S. Chamber of Connection, a movement to reverse the decline in connection and trust in society today.  They've called the connection gap the greatest challenge of our time, stating that "We are divided and disconnected.  It is destroying lives, communities, and our country."  The article "How '6 points of connection' can repair our shared trust" appeared on bigthink.com this past August.  Hurst stated the key takeaways of the article:

1. "Workplace loneliness is a growing issue fueled by the erosion of everyday connection."

2. "The decline in connection and trust is the result of more than a century of technological and social change." (see my points above!)

3. "In divided times, shared action often builds more unity than shared opinions."

While many have blamed this decline in connection and trust on social media and COVID-19, the truth of the matter is that this decline has been a long-standing trend over the past century or so.  Hurst blames social media (of course), but he also suggests that automobiles, television, the Internet, smartphones, and even artificial intelligence are just as guilty.  The U.S. Chamber of Connection offers six points of connection that we can establish and foster, which will help reverse this slow decline and restore our trust in society today.

Point #1: Know Your Neighbors

When I grew up, we knew all of our neighbors.  All of the adults (most, but not all had children around my age) watched out for us kids.  We used to have neighborhood block parties, and all of the neighborhood kids would play together.  As I've grown older, I've started to truly know my neighbors less and less over the years.  Today, according to a 2023 survey by Pew Research, only 26% of Americans know most of their neighbors and just 44% say they trust them.  Times have definitely changed!  Hurst states (and I agree), "To rebuild a connected life, one of the most powerful actions is also one of the simplest: get to know the people who live near you."  Stopping to say hello, offering to help with a small task, organizing a block part, inviting a neighbor to dinner - all of these small acts of kindness help build trust, belonging, and a shared sense of responsibility and community.  

Point #2: Community of Identity

Robert Putnam writes about the decline in participation in clubs, civic groups, sports leagues, and religious groups and how this has directly led to a decline in trust and connection in American society today in the books I listed above.  We all need to feel seen and heard, and one of the best ways to make that happen is through forming a community of identity, a group of individuals who share similar beliefs and experiences with our own.  According to the American Survey Center, almost fifty percent of adults under the age of 30 years say that they don't feel part of any community.  Hurst writes, "A community of identity provides a sense of home beyond geography...These groups offer something rare: shared language, shared understanding, and fewer barriers to being your full self...When you are deeply connected to at least one group that reflects who you are, you're more equipped to bridge divides and contribute meaningfully across society."

Point #3: One-on-one Connection

I've always said that everyone should have at least one true friend that they can count on for support.  It truly takes just one friend.  One study ("How many hours does it take to make a friend?") suggests that it takes about 200 hours of interaction to form a true friendship.  Unfortunately, many of us don't spend anywhere close to that amount of time.  According to the American Time Use Survey, nearly 40% of adults in the U.S. spend no time with friends during a typical day.  But it's important to have at least one friend who we can trust and rely upon to anchor us emotionally.  We all need someone who will celebrate our successes and who we can lean upon when we fail.  

Point #4: Third Places

Howard Schultz, founder and former CEO of Starbucks, had a vision to design a place where people could go and hang out and enjoy a great cup of coffee (see my post "It's not about the coffee...").  He described his vision, saying, "The idea was to create a chain of coffeehouses that would become America's third place.  At the time, most Americans had two places in their lives - home and work.  But I believed that people needed another place, a place where they could go to relax and enjoy others, or just be by themselves.  I envisioned a place that would be separate from home or work, a place that would mean different things to different people."  Unfortunately, at least one survey showed that nearly half of U.S. adults can't name a single place where they regularly connect with others outside of home or work.  Hurst writes, "Third places matter because they invite spontaneous connection - between generations, across cultures, and beyond our usual social circles.  They're where we bump into each other, strike up conversations, and build trust without needing an invitation."

All we have to do is show up.  Visit a third place such as the public library.  Introduce yourself to the people who work there.  Say yes to the community event.  Become an advocate for third spaces, such as public parks, plazas, or gathering spots.  Be present in your community!

Point #5: Activity-based Community

Again, referring back to Robert Putnam.  One of the best ways that we can get involved with our local community is by participating in regular group activities, such as book clubs, sports leagues, civic or religious groups, or even neighborhood homeowners' associations.  Again, according to a recent survey, only one in four U.S. adults belongs to a local club, team, or hobby group that meets on a routine basis.  Joining and participating in an activity-based group of like-interested individuals can help increase life satisfaction and lower stress.  These groups can also support the third places and other community groups, creating what Hurst calls a "virtuous cycle of local connection."

Point #6: Community Service

Hurst writes, "Helping others is one of the most reliable paths to connection, meaning, and joy."  Spending time helping others and helping our community is a great way to form connections and build mutual trust and shared ownership.  Hurst goes on to write, "Volunteering at its best isn't about checking a box - it's about showing up for each other."

The "Six Points of Connection" aren't going to address all of our society's problems right away.  They are designed to be iterative, and I do believe that they are a great place to start.  We need to re-establish deep connections with each other, which will go a long way to re-building trust and harmony.

Mind-set matters...

The so-called "placebo effect" is a great example of "mind over matter", referring to the commonly observed phenomenon in which willpower and determination can help an individual persevere through physical pain, fatigue, or other difficult circumstances.  I recently came across an older study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2007 ("Mind-set matters: Exercise and the placebo effect") in which 84 hotel employees were split into two groups.  The first group ("informed group") was told that the work they do - cleaning the hotel rooms - was good exercise and satisfied the Surgeon General's recommendations for an active lifestyle.  The second group ("control group") were not told this information.  After 4 weeks, individuals in the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before the study.  More importantly, compared with the individuals in the control group, these hotel employees showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index!  In other words, simply changing their mind-set and giving their everyday work meaning (it was exercise) produced tangible health benefits.

The author Zach Mercurio talked about the power of mattering at work in a recent Harvard Business Review article ("The Power of Mattering at Work"), which I mentioned in my last post ("To be of importance to others is to be alive...").  The article was adapted from Mercurio's newest book, The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance.  Mercurio suggests that helping others to see the importance of their work and how it connects to the greater mission of an organization can make all the difference in the world.  He writes, "When people know that they matter at work, they thrive."  Feeling that you matter strengthens your motivation, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.  And it improves your performance and engagement.

Mercurio offers several helpful points for leaders to create a sense of mattering in their organizations.  Importantly, he suggests that "mattering" can be measured (and he provides a measurement tool to do just that in his HBR article).  He says that "the first and most important step in cultivating a sense of mattering is to truly notice people."  Noticing others requires both seeing ("acknowledging them and paying attention to the details, ebbs, and flows of their life and work") and hearing ("demonstrating a genuine interest in the meaning and feeling behind their words and inviting them to share their experiences, perspectives, and feedback within a climate of psychological safety").  

In order to notice people, leaders need to make time and space to do that.  Leaders need to pay "deep attention" by fully connecting with the people on their team or in their organization.  And leaders need to respond compassionately and always follow up.  Leaders also need to affirm people by showing them that they are needed, whether by acknowledging their unique gifts and contributions to the team or by telling stories about how their work is connected to the greater mission of the organization.  

Mercurio ends the article by writing, "By genuinely seeing, hearing, affirming, and expressing how we need and value one another across our organizations, we can do more than foster connection.  We can reignite a sense of interdependence and bring our workplaces - and one another - back to life."  I am sure he goes into a lot more detail on how to create a sense of mattering at work in his book, which I have ordered from our local public library!  More to come on that in a future post...

"To be of importance to others is to be alive..."

I read a powerful anecdote in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review ("The Power of Mattering at Work") written by Zach Mercurio.  The article was adapted from his newly released book, The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance.  Mercurio starts the article by telling a story about Jane, an environmental services employee at a local university.  Jane had just started the job after previously working as a live-in caregiver for a beloved family member who had recently passed away.  After a few shifts, she found herself struggling and asking, "Why couldn't I have done something more with my life?" or "I wish I were more than just a janitor."  

Luckily, Jane's supervisor noticed her struggling and handed her a dictionary.  She asked Jane to look up the word custodian and read the definition out loud.  Jane responded, "A custodian is a person responsible for looking after something."  Her supervisor pointed at her and said, "That's you.  You're responsible for and take 'custody' of this building and everyone in it."  

Jane's perspective changed because her supervisor pointed out to her that what she was doing mattered.  She wasn't "just" a janitor - she was "responsible for the building and everyone in it."  She was their custodian.  Jane ended up staying on the job for the next 18 years before finally retiring.

The story reminds me of another one that I've mentioned a couple of times in the past (see "Back to that Vision thing...NASA, cathedrals, and an automobile executive" and "We are all caregivers...").  The story involves President John F. Kennedy and a janitor that he met during a tour of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  President Kennedy asked the janitor, "What do you do here?"  The janitor responded, "I'm helping put a man on the moon."  Even if there's no evidence that this story actually happened (there's a similar story about the famous architect Christopher Wren, who designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London), it's yet another powerful reminder of the importance of mattering.

Mercurio defines mattering as the experience if feeling significant to those around us because we feel valued and know that we add value.  It's more than just a sense of belonging (feeling welcomed and accepted in a group).  When we matter to the group, we feel significant to the individual member's of the group.

Study after study has shown that when employees feel that they matter at work, they experience greater self-esteem, self-worth, and self-efficacy.  Mattering strengthens motivation, well-being, and performance.  Unfortunately, Mercurio cited polls that show that 30% of individuals feel "invisible" at work, 65% of employees feel underappreciated, and close to 82% of individuals feel lonely at work (see my previous post on the epidemic of loneliness).  He wrote further, "Many of the workplace challenges currently plaguing leaders - a 10-year low in engagement numbers, demands for dignity and equity, increased labor action, declining employee mental health, and a few years ago, quiet quitting and the Great Resignation - can be traced to a growing mattering deficit."

The great Modernist poet T.S. Eliot reportedly once said, "To be of importance to others is to be alive."  If we can make that connection in someone's mind that what they do truly matters to the mission of the organization, we can take an important step in addressing the growing mattering deficit that Mercurio refers to in his article.  Mattering matters.  And I'll come back to this topic in a future post.

I'm a cheerleader, really!?!?

I briefly mentioned the paradox of emotional well-being in aging in a recent post.  Once again, the paradox refers to the fact that despite what happens to our physical and cognitive abilities as we get older, we tend to be more positive and experience significantly fewer mood swings.  Think about it for a moment.  As we get older, we aren't able to do all the things that we could physically do when we were younger.  We aren't as mentally sharp as we once were - just think about how many times you forget something that you were going to say, and when you finally get the chance to say it, it's lost forever!  Our social networks get smaller.  We may experience the death of a parent, a spouse, or a close friend.  Our health tends to get worse.  And yet...studies consistently show that we are more positive than we were younger. 

I also have mentioned the Harvard scientist and author Arthur Brooks in the past (see, for example, "The mathematics of happiness", "Are you happy?", and "All shall be well").  Dr. Brooks studies happiness, specifically, what makes us happy!  I signed for a free online class by Dr. Brooks through the platform EdX, and one of our "assignments" was to take a test called the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS).  Dr. Brooks has a free version of the test, though it requires you to enter your name and e-mail in order to get the results.  I've talked about the PANAS test before in a previous post, "Are you happy?"  I was curious to see if my scores changed compared to when I last took the test earlier this year.  They haven't, which is a good sign for the test (and for me).  I still score as a very positive person.  My positive score was a 38 (50 is the highest), and my negative score was a 13.  Based on that score, Dr. Brooks would classify me as a Cheerleader, i.e. someone with a high positive affect and a low negative affect.  

As with all things, there are advantages and disadvantages to being a Cheerleader.  If I were to be 100% honest, I don't necessarily see myself as a Cheerleader, but I do consider myself a positive person.  According to my profile, I tend to be optimistic about the future, a good motivator, and a reliable source of happiness for friends and family.  Okay, I agree with the optimistic part, but I'm not sure about the rest.  

My profile also suggests that I am so buoyed by my positivity, that I am often highly averse to bad news.  I may try to explain away or ignore bad results.  I may give rosy advise to friends in need, rather than deliver the hard truths.  I may be less sensitive to others who are experiencing distress.  Okay, there's probably some truth in there as well, but I honestly don't feel like I have a problem being straight with people and delivering the truth, even when it may be uncomfortable.   

Dr. Brooks does make an important point, "Remember, no affect profile is better than another.  You are not rigidly bound to the best and worst qualities of your profile.  The point is to know yourself.  Now that you know your strengths, act on them with purpose.  And now that you know your weaknesses, keep an eye out for your pitfalls."

Hopefully I don't receive a lot of spam messages in my email inbox as a result!  That's not very cheerleader like, is it? Overall, I found taking the PANAS to be a useful exercise, and I would highly recommend it.

The Messy Middle

I recently posted about The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, an Episcopal priest who is currently serving as the head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (District of Columbia) and her 2023 book, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments of Life and Faith.  Bishop Budde made several great points in the book that I thought were worth sharing.  Today I wanted to introduce a concept that she learned from a book by the American author, entrepreneur, and early-stage investor  Scott Belsky.  Belsky was named one of Fast Company's "100 Most Creative People in Business" in 2010.  The book is called The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture.

Bishop Budde used Belsky's definition of the "messy middle" with a direct quote from his book:

"What's in the middle?  Nothing headline-worthy yet everything important: Your war with self-doubt, a roller coaster of incremental successes and failures, bouts of the mundane, and sheer anonymity.  The middle is seldom recounted and all blends together in a blur of exhaustion.  We're left with shallow versions of the truth, edited for egos and sound bites.  Success is misattributed to the moments we wish to remember rather than those we choose to forget. Worst of all, when everyone else around us perpetuates the myth of a straightforward progression from start to finish, we come to expect that our journey is meant to look the same.  We're left with the misconception that a successful journey is logical.  But it never is."

In other words, we often see the successes (and the failures too, of course) of individuals, teams, and organizations.  What we don't see is the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears that are behind the success.  Failure to see and appreciate the work that goes into any successful endeavor can create anxiety, stress, and fatigue when we don't experience a similar degree of success.  Others have referred to this concept as the "Iceberg Illusion" (the figure by the illustrator Sylvia Duckworth below explains this well):

Don't forget about the "messy middle"!

The Bullwhip Effect (again)

One of my favorite exercises in business school was a simulation called the "Beer Game".    The simulation was developed by Jay Wright Forrester at the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1960 and is probably the best illustration of the importance of logistics.  I first heard about the "Beer Game" in the book "The Fifth Discipline" by Peter Senge.  

There are a number of simulations available for free online.  Game play is fairly straightforward.  Individuals play the role of a brewer, a distributor, a wholesaler, or the manager of a local retail store (in some games that I've seen, the distributor and the wholesaler are combined into one role).  The game's objective is simple in concept, but difficult in execution - keep up with the changing customer demand for beer.  The trick is to look at these individual players as being part of a system.  During the first few rounds of the game, the system establishes a certain equilibrium where beer moves through the supply chain without any significant problems.  

Once an equilibrium is established, the game adds in a new twist.  A popular singer or famous professional athlete appears in a video drinking a certain brand of beer, and when the video goes viral, demand for that particular brand of beer skyrockets.  The individual playing the part of the manager of the retail store tries to keep up with the demand by placing more orders for beer.  Unfortunately, the supply chain is unable to keep up.  As with all popular fads, the demand for the brand of beer quickly returns to its baseline.  Unfortunately, the orders for the brand of beer have already been placed.  Soon, the local retail store has a huge supply of the once popular brand of beer, but now the demand for the beer is just no longer there.

The "Beer Game" is a great illustration of a concept known as the "bullwhip effect".  The "bullwhip effect" (or "whipsaw effect" as it is sometimes called) is a well-described problem in supply chain logistics that describes the role played by periodical orders as one moves upstream in the supply chain toward the production end.  Even when demand is stable (as in the initial equilibrium phase of the "Beer Game" above), small variations in demand at the retail-end can dramatically amplify themselves upstream through the supply chain. The result is that order amounts become very erratic - they may be very high one week and then zero the next week.  The most recent example of the "bullwhip effect" occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and involved the toilet paper supply chain (remember when you couldn't buy toilet paper because all the stores were out of stock?).

As I mentioned in a recent post ("The world is changed..."), the worldwide demand for wine has dramatically declined in the past several years.  According to a recent article ("California's Wine Industry Is in Crisis") in The Wall Street Journal, the California wine industry in particular is experiencing a perfect storm in which people are drinking less wine (particularly the younger generations), tariffs have caused the biggest foreign market for California wine (Canada) to dry up, and the weather has been unusually favorable (cool temperatures), causing the grapes to grow in abundance.  As a result, some winemakers are destroying their grapes, while others are simply getting out of the business.  One estimate suggests that 30% of the grapes grown this year will not be sold.

However, all that being said, I am starting to wonder if we will see another real world example of the "Beer Game" and the "bullwhip effect" in the wine industry.  The pop singer Role Model recently appeared as the musical guest on the television show Saturday Night Live and sang his hit song "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out".  Apparently, whenever Role Model sings the song live, he invites a fan to join him on stage and dance during the bridge (as he calls out, "Where's my Sally tonight?").  A number of celebrities have also joined him on stage, including his mother, Susan Pillsbury,  Dylan Minnette, Renée Rapp, Bowen Yang (during a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), Conan Gray, Natalie Portman, Olivia Rodrigo (at Lollapalooza), Troye Sivan, Kate Hudson, Hilary Duff, and Charli XCX (during his recent appearance on Saturday Night Live).

Given the popularity of the song (I know it's hit the top of the charts), I do wonder whether we will see a "bullwhip effect" on wine sales, given the title and prominence of the lyric, "when the wine runs out".  Who knows?  Stranger things have happened.  Apparently the U.S. sales of merlot decreased by 2% (and pinot noir increased by 16%) after the main character in the 2004 film Sideways trashed merlot.  The character played by Paul Giamatti loved pinot noir and apparently said during the film, "“No, if anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any f#$&!@* Merlot!"  If you are in the wine industry, perhaps the anxiety about "the wine running out" will lead to the opposite effect!  Only time will tell...

Southwest Airlines' New Boarding Plan

Times are definitely changing. As Dawn Gilbertson wrote in The Wall Street Journal this past July ("I'm calling it.  Southwest's new seat policy is just another money grab"), "Southwest [Airlines] is officially just another airline."  I guess I've been hiding under a rock, because I wasn't aware of their plans to change.  I first heard about it after seeing a commercial on television advertising the Southwest's upcoming switch to assigned seating.  A representative from the airline stands at a podium and asks, "America, are you sitting down?  Southwest Airlines is introducing assigned seating!"  The rest of the commercial shows Americans cheering and clapping.  

The airline will officially make the switch on January 27, 2026.  But wait, wasn't the open seating arrangement at Southwest Airlines one of the perks that everyone was supposed to like?  Wasn't their open seating policy supposed to be a market differentiator?  And as Ms. Gilbertson suggested, are they now just another airline?

One business school case study on Southwest Airlines from a few years ago stated, "Southwest is profitable because of two factors: its low costs and the loyalty of its customers. Its low costs come from a number of sources. Southwest offers a no-frills approach to customer service. No meals are served on board, and there are no first-class seats. Southwest does not subscribe to the big reservation computers used by travel agents because it deems the booking fees too costly."

The author of the case study went on to say, "Southwest also has a reputation for being the most reliable carrier in the industry. It has the quickest turn ­around time in the industry (it takes a Southwest ground crew just fifteen minutes to turn around an incoming a craft and prepare it for departure), which   helps keep flights on time."  Part of the reason for the rapid turnaround time was the open seating policy.

Adam Richardson wrote an article in Harvard Business Review in 2011 ("Southwest Airlines Is Playing with Brand Fire") and stated, "A major part of Southwest’s brand is simplicity (a key piece of the larger convenience message): Pick your own seat so you don’t have to plan ahead. Check-in online on your smartphone. Everybody is in the same class of seating. Need to swap a ticket for another date or grab an earlier flight? No problem. From an operations standpoint, they use Boeing 737’s for every flight, simplifying training and maintenance."

Simplicity.  Consistency.  The same no-frills service again and again.  That is the essence of the Southwest Airlines brand.  But as Richardson also emphasized, as Southwest Airlines expanded and tried to keep up with some of the changing airline regulations (particularly after 9/11/2001), they had to change some of the practices and procedures that were essential to their brand.

In a more recent WSJ article this past week ("Here's a Sneak Peek Into Southwest's New Boarding Plan") , Ms. Gilbertson wrote, "The last time Southwest Airlines changed its boarding process, nearly 20 years ago, it launched an online boarding school to teach passengers the basics.  This time, travelers might need a graduate-level course. The airline that has offered open seating for more than 50 years is switching to assigned seating in January, including its first premium seats. Those changes dictate not just a few boarding tweaks but a dramatically different system."

Ms. Gilbertson thought that there was "a lot to love" about the new boarding process (she got a sneak peek at the airline's Dallas headquarters), even if it will be a major change for Southwest Airlines customers.  As a general rule, and speaking strictly from on a scientific basis, there are certainly better ways (and much more efficient) to board a plane, but unfortunately no airline uses them and probably never will - these scientific methods would require a lot more coordination, and more importantly, they would require doing away with some of the priority boarding perks (e.g. first class passengers board before everyone else) that some of us love.

Time will tell whether Southwest Airlines' new boarding procedures will prove better in the long run.  And more importantly, it will be interesting to see if people are still cheering after experiencing the new procedure!  As my wife used to often tell our kids, "We'll see..."

"Beyond the holacracy hype"

Several years ago, our clinical operations team invited Harvard Business School professor Ethan Bernstein for a visiting professorship.  I was fortunate to have dinner with Dr. Bernstein during his visit, and he taught me a lot about organizational structure.  He wrote an article for Harvard Business Review a few years ago that I've mentioned a few times in previous posts (see "Lovable Losers once more...", "A Flock of Starlings", and "Any old map will do...") called "Beyond the Holacracy Hype".  I've also posted about Dr. Bernstein's other research several times in the past (see "Vox Populi", "The Search for Meaning", and "Big Brother is Watching").  Reading his article, "Beyond the Holacracy Hype" led to the purchase of a book by Brian Robertson entitled Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World.  Earlier this year, I finally picked Robertson's book off my shelf and read it.  I think I originally purchased the book two years ago - remember "Tsundoku"?

I have a been a major proponent of the concept of "Deference to Expertise" and some related leadership concepts, such as empowerment, Auftragstaktik, "commander's intent", and "Pushing Authority to Information".  I have read with interest some of the research on self-managed teams, some of which touches upon the even broader concept of complex adaptive systems.  And up until relatively recently, I've thought that a decentralized model of leadership would work best in today's environment.  I now believe that organizations have to centralize (at least somewhat) before they can take full advantage of these more decentralized models of leadership (see my post "You centralize so that you can decentralize...").

So, my leadership philosophy has evolved somewhat since the first time I met with Dr. Bernstein.  I'm not saying that everything I've posted on this topic in the past was wrong - quite the contrary.  I'm simply saying that a fully decentralized model, similar to what is suggested by Brian Robertson in his book, Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World, may not be the best model in today's environment.  Perhaps management theory and organizational behavior will catch up with Robertson one day, but not just yet.

Holocracy is defined as a method of (mostly) decentralized management and organizational governance, that distributes authority and decision-making through a which claims to distribute authority and decision-making to self-organizing teams (or self-managed teams) rather than being vested in the management hierarchy of the more traditional organizational structure.  The conceptual basis of Robertson's model is not new.  For example, the management guru Gary Hamel said at the 2009 World Business Forum in New York, "The world is becoming more turbulent than organizations are becoming adaptable.  Organizations were not built for these kinds of changes."  

Hamel wrote in an article for Harvard Business Review in 2011 ("First, Let's Fire All the Managers"), "Give someone monarch-like authority, and sooner or later there will be a royal screw-up...in most cases, the most powerful managers are the ones furthest from frontline realities.  All too often, decisions made on an Olympian peak prove to be unworkable on the ground."  Robertson said something a little stronger, when he wrote, "Today's organizations are quickly becoming obsolete.  

Robertson suggested, "Our organizations today are simply not designed to rapidly evolve on the basis of inputs from many sensors.  Most modern organizations are built on a basic blueprint that matured in the early 1900's and hasn't changed much since.  This industrial-age paradigm operates on a principle I call predict and control: they seek to achieve stability and success through up-front planning, centralized control, and preventing deviation...the predict-and-control approach focuses on designing the perfect system up front to prevent tensions...This model worked well enough in the relatively simple and static environments faced in the era in which it matured."

The traditional models that worked well in the past are no longer appropriate for today's VUCA world.  Robertson would certainly agree on this point.  He wrote, "In today's postindustrial world, however, organizations face significant new challenges: increasing complexity, enhanced transparency, greater interconnection, shorter time horizons, economic and environmental instability, and demands to have a more positive impact on the world...the predict-and-control foundation of the modern organization often fails to provide the agility desired and needed in this landscape of rapid change and dynamic complexity.  And the structure of the modern organization rarely helps ignite the passion and creativity of the workforce."

Unfortunately, Robertson's model replaces the traditional org chart with something as equally complex and, at least to me, confusing.  Work is structured around roles, not titles (that part makes sense to me). One person can hold multiple roles, and these roles can change over time (that part also makes sense, but it's starting to get harder to follow).  The organization is divided into "circles" (basically, self-managed teams), each responsible for a specific function.  These "circles" are semi-autonomous and nested in even broader circles (okay, that part sounds like Robertson is replaced the pyramidal-shaped classic org chart with a bunch of nested circles, which still sounds to me like an org chart).  There are governance meetings and tactical meetings, with rotating membership and different rules of order to follow (at this point I became thoroughly confused).  The pre-defined and agreed upon rules, regulations, and processes that are used to run these two different meetings and, as a result, the operations of the organization itself, seemed just as prescribed and rigid as any other operating model.  And indeed, that has been one of the biggest criticisms of Robertson's holocracy model - it can be so complicated and rigid to implement that it quickly overwhelms teams.

I am not saying that we don't need rules and standards.  David Allen, who wrote the Foreword for Robertson's book is the author of two similar books, called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity and Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life suggests, "There is no freedom without discipline, no vision without a form...If there were no lines painted on the road, you wouldn't be free to let your mind wander and be creative while you drive.  You'd be too busy hoping no one hits you.  But if there were too many lanes and restrictions and rules, you'd have traffic moving much slower than it should, as everyone was trying to pay attention to the right place to be."  Allen makes a lot of sense to me and states something that I've argued for in the past - the fact that "Deference to Expertise" (or whatever you may wish to call it) has to come with guardrails (see "The Nelson Touch" and "Empowering employees doesn't mean leaving them alone...").  

Overall, I had higher hopes for Robertson's book (and model).  Again, perhaps my leadership and management philosophies have evolved somewhat over time.  I still believe STRONGLY in the concepts of empowerment, Auftragstaktik, "commander's intent", and "Pushing Authority to Information".  And I do think we need to look at organizational structure differently than we have in the past.  However, replacing the complicated structure of a heavily matrixed organization with the equally complicated structure of nested circles doesn't really sound to me like a major improvement.

The courage to be brave...

My wife checked out a book from our local public library that I ended up reading.  She had heard an online interview with the author, The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, an Episcopal priest who is currently serving as the head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (District of Columbia).  The book is entitled, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments of Life and Faith.  

Bishop Budde is perhaps best known for delivering the homily at the January 2025 interfaith prayer service following President Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration (see the transcript of the homily here).  The theme of her homily was, poignantly enough, unity.  She said that unity is "the threshold requirement for people to live together in a free society."  She went on to say that unity is not conformity, and it is not partisan.  She said, "Unity is a way of being with one another that encompasses and respects differences, that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect; that enables us, in our communities and in the halls of power, to genuinely care for one another even when we disagree."

Bishop Budde also said that we should not be naive to the realities of politics.  As I've stated before (see "Political Animals"), politics is really about how people in a group make decisions, even when people in the group want different things or don't agree.  She said, "When power, wealth and competing interests are at stake; when views of what America should be are in conflict; when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is, there will be winners and losers when votes are cast or decisions made that set the course of public policy and the prioritization of resources. It goes without saying that in a democracy, not everyone’s particular hopes and dreams will be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term or even a generation. Not everyone’s specific prayers—for those of us who are people of prayer—will be answered as we would like."

Bishop Budde suggests that there are (at least) three characteristics that are foundational to unity in our world today: (1) Honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, (2) honesty, and (3) humility.  She then goes on to say, "Unity is relatively easy to pray for on occasions of solemnity. It’s a lot harder to realize when we’re dealing with real differences in the public arena. But without unity, we are building our nation’s house on sand" (note that she used, as pretext, a passage from the Bible, Matthew 7:24-29).

At the end of her homily, she admonishes President Trump "to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now (specifically referring to the members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and refugees, stating, "Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land."  As you can imagine, her homily was not well-received by the current administration (for more, see the transcript of an interview she gave later that same week for NPR).  Regardless, the overall message that she delivered - the need for unity - is one that we all should embrace, regardless of our political leanings.  

Her book was first published in 2023, so it first came out before the January 2025 homily.  The theme of the book is fittingly appropriate given her message in the homily.  She talks at length about the need for courage in order to be brave (in her own personal case, the courage to be brave to speak up for unity and justice in our country).  She provides a number of anecdotes, both from her personal experience and from various walks of life.  

For example, she mentions J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and cites a passage from the first book of the trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring).  Interestingly enough, I've mentioned this passage as well in a previous post (see "I wish").  The characters Frodo and Gandalf are speaking with each other during their passage through the Mines of Moria.  Frodo is lamenting the fact that the burden of carrying the ring to Mordor has somehow fallen on him, saying "I wish it need not have happened in my time."  Gandalf responds with what I think is a powerful message, "So do I, and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Later in the same conversation, Gandalf tells Frodo, "There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil, Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought."  

Bishop Budde explains further by adding, "We do not choose where we are in the human story, only how we live in the time we are given."  The way I would summarize this particular point, and I think it's an important lesson for all of us who live in "interesting times", and especially for those of us in leadership during "interesting times", is that whether we like it or not, or even whether we feel adequately prepared for it or not, we may be living in times that we did not choose.  We may be faced with challenges that we did not want.  We may be called upon to solve problems that we feel that we cannot solve.  What is important is that we accept our circumstances (a very Stoic sentiment), focus on our own personal responsibility (i.e., "focus on what we can control"), and empower ourselves by choosing to act ("clear the mechanism"), regardless of whether we think it will make a difference or not.  More than likely, our actions will make a difference.

While Bishop Budde didn't mention it, there is another passage from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that I think is important to mention here.  This particular passage is from the second book of the trilogy (The Two Towers), and it's often referred to as "Sam's Great Stories Speech".  Here, Samwise Gamgee is helping Frodo carry the ring to Mordor.  Frodo starts by saying, "I can't do this, Sam."  

Sam replies, "I know.  It’s all wrong.  By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something."

Frodo asks, "What are we holding on to Sam?"  To which, Sam replies, "That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for..."

It's a beautiful sentiment, and one that I think is consistent with Bishop Budde's theme of having the courage to be brave.  She ends her book with a short prayer:

"My prayer is that, by grace, we all will be emboldened to lean into the wisdom, strength, power, and grace that comes to us, whenever we find ourselves at a decisive moment.  May you and I dare to believe that we are where we are meant to be when that moment comes, doing the work that is ours to do, fully present to our lives.  For it is in this work that we learn to be brave."

"When colleagues compete outside the firm"

My wife and I recently went to go see our beloved (well, mostly my beloved) Chicago Cubs play their second game of the best of five National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.  Unfortunately, the Cubs lost, and we left the game early.  It was our first time at American Family Field, and it will probably be our last!  It wasn't that the Brewers faithful were unfriendly - to the contrary, most of the Brewers fans were very friendly.  However, when we asked one of the ticket ushers outside the ballpark which gate we should enter in order to get to our seat the fastest, we were told (in a friendly manner), "Go to the next gate down and then turn left."  It seemed like we walked half way around the ballpark before we finally came to our section.  When we left the game, to our surprise, we walked straight out of the gate that was closest to our seat, which happened to be the one that we should have entered on the way inside.  More importantly, it was the exact gate where we first saw the usher, who either mistakenly gave us the wrong directions (doubtful) or purposely steered us in the wrong direction (more likely).  By the way, we were both proudly wearing our Cubs gear!

I should have remembered the Robbers Cave experiment from the 1950's.  I should have realized, prior to attending a play-off baseball game in an "away" ballpark, that I represented the "outgroup".  Groups, teams, and organizations are usually very loyal to the other members of their "ingroup".  As described by Dr. Saul McLeod on Simply Psychology, the Robbers Cave experiment was conducted by Muzafer Sherif, who studied intergroup conflict and cooperation among 22 boys at a youth camp in Oklahoma. The boys were initially separated into two groups, and both groups went through the typical stages of group formation and eventually developed a group identity as well as a common bond and esprit de corps. When Sherif and his team of investigators introduced competitive tasks, the two groups were outright hostile to one another. The later introduction of cooperative tasks reduced this conflict, highlighting the role of shared goals in resolving group tensions.

I've posted a few times in the past about the Robbers Cave experiment (see "The Wager" and "Blueprint").  It's an important, if not controversial, study that could never be conducted today (for a more in-depth account, see the book The Lost Boys by Gina Perry).  Apparently, the psychologist Lufty Diab conducted a similar experiment in the 1960's with 18 boys from Beirut, Lebanon.  The "Blue Ghost" and "Red Genies" groups each contained 5 Christians and 4 Muslims. Fighting soon broke out, not between the Christians and Muslims but between the Red Genies and Blue Ghosts.

We all bring different backgrounds, interests, and life experiences to our groups, teams, and organizations.  That is a key reason why groups often make better decisions than individuals alone - diversity makes us strong!  However, there's a very good chance that we belong to more than one group.  For example, we may associate with a certain religious group, political party, club, or civic organization outside of our professional group.  And the interests and goals of one group may fail to align (or even outright clash) with those of another group in which we belong.

With this in mind, Thorsten Grohsjean, Henning Piezunka, and Maren Mickeler published an interesting study in the Strategic Management Journal, "When colleagues compete outside the firm".  They studied whether coworkers' collaboration inside an organization can be adversely impacted if their extra-organizational affiliations make them competitors outside the organization.  Importantly, they suggested that this effect could occur only if two conditions were present.  First, the individuals had to identify strongly with the external group, team, or organization.  Second, the level of competition between the internal group and external group had to be significant.

The investigators took advantage of a natural experiment involving professional football (soccer) players.  Players in the top five major European football leagues (English Premier League, French Ligue 1, Italian Lega Serie A, Spanish Laliga, and German Bundesliga) often represent their home countries on their national teams during the FIFA World Cup, an international football competition held every four years.  So, they may find themselves playing against their teammates during the World Cup competition.  They used a difference-in-difference study design, comparing the number of passes between players (player A to player B and vice versa) during the professional football season before the 2018 World Cup (2017/2018 season) and the season after (2018/2019).  They specifically compared teammates who competed against each other during the World Cup versus teammates who did not compete against each other during the World Cup.

The "treatment group" (teammates who competed against each other during the 2018 World Cup) consisted of 142 pairs of teammates, while the "control group" (teammates who did not compete against each other during the 2018 World Cup) consisted of 842 pairs of teammates.  The average number of passes between teammates who competed against each other during the 2018 World Cup decreased by about 11 percent!  In other words, there was something about competing against each other in the World Cup that led to a decrease in cooperation (as measured by the number of passes between teammates) in the subsequent professional football season.

While this is just one study, the results are likely generalizable to groups and organizations outside of professional football.  I would also say that as society becomes more polarized, these findings may assume even greater relevance.  What we experience outside of the work setting likely influences how we cooperate and collaborate inside the work setting.  

Oh and by the way, the fifth and deciding game between the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers is being played tonight - in Milwaukee.  It's a good thing that most of my co-workers are Cubs fans too!  Let's go Cubbies!

The Pacific at War

I have been on a "World War II in the Pacific" kick lately, which has been an ironic and unexpected surprise.  It's ironic in that the Pacific was my own "theater of operations" while on active duty in the U.S. Navy.  Our family and I spent about six years "island hopping" around and across the Pacific Ocean, spending time, albeit at times only briefly, in San Diego, Hawaii, Guam, Wake Island, Okinawa, Palau, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Bali, and Japan.  The places and names are certainly familiar to me, as many of these islands were the sites of some of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II.  And yet, to my surprise, there was a lot about the the Pacific Theater during World War II that I did not know.  

Everyone probably knows that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (see my posts "FDR's 'Day of Infamy' Speech" and "Never Forget" for more).  But what is less commonly known or even talked about was that the Japanese also attacked Malaya (part of present day Malaysia), Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, and Wake Island at the same time (technically, these attacks occurred on December 8, 1941, because of the International Date Line).  In other words, the attack on Pearl Harbor was part of a larger coordinated attack on all of the U.S. and British territories and colonies in the Pacific.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt mentioned these simultaneous attacks during his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress requesting a formal declaration of war on December 8, 1941.  Those of us in the United States spend a lot less time learning about what the other Allied Forces were doing in the Pacific Theater, and that is unfortunate, for these battles were no less important.

I recently finished watching the HBO television mini-series The Pacific for at least the fourth or fifth time, which started my current "World War II in the Pacific" kick.  I finally got around to reading the three books on which the series is based - With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie.

Towards the end of his book China Marine, Eugene Sledge comments on the question on whether the U.S. needed to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.  It's an important question, and one that is still debated to this day.  Eugene Sledge said, "The A-bombs saved my life, saved my buddies' lives, and most decidedly saved the lives of millions of Japanese, civilian as well as military."  

That is certainly one of the most commonly cited justifications, particularly for the Hiroshima bomb.  But even Sledge and his fellow Marines heard rumors of a looming Japanese surrender after the first atomic bomb, prompting questions on whether the Nagasaki bomb was truly necessary.  To this, Sledge quotes one of his fellow Marines, who said, "They [the Japanese] won't surrender.  We'll have to go back into the islands and wipe 'em all out just like Peleliu.  Even if they do surrender in Tokyo, we'll have to fight 'em for years until every last one is knocked off."  

Another Marine agreed and said, "Yeah, they might throw in the towel to keep their cities from being bombed flat, but those bypassed [Japanese] troops on Truk, Rabaul, and other places are not going to surrender."  I suspect that the Marine was right.  While living on the island of Guam, we heard stories about a Japanese soldier named Shoichi Yokoi who spent nearly three decades only in the jungle, waiting for his rescue.  He never once thought that the war had ended.

Keeping with the story of the U.S. Marine Corps fighting in the South Pacific, I also read two books about Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a combat fighter pilot ace (he shot down 28 planes during aerial combat), Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, and former Prisoner of War.  The first book, was Boyington's memoir, Baa Baa Black Sheep, which was the basis of an American television series of the same name in the late 1970's starring Robert Conrad.  Apparently the other members of VMFA-214 (the famous "Black Sheep" squadron) neither agreed with or appreciated how they were portrayed in the television series, which led to a much better book by Frank Walton, who served as the squadron's operations officer during their South Pacific campaign, called Once They Were Eagles: The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron.  Both books provided a personal perspective on the war in the South Pacific theater of operations.

Speaking of the South Pacific, this past year, I also enjoyed reading the collection of short stories in Tales of the South Pacific (and its sequel, Return to Paradise) by James Michener, which are largely based upon his own experiences during World War II.  These stories are so much more than what is portrayed in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "South Pacific".  Rather than focusing solely on combat, Michener's stories explore the relationships, cultural clashes, and moral dilemmas faced by soldiers, nurses, and islanders that experienced the war firsthand.

I've already mentioned the British Army fighting in Singapore, Malaysia, and China in a couple of recent posts (see "Through the Valley of the Kwai- Part 1" , "Through the Valley of the Kwai - Part 2", and "A masterpiece of fiction!").  Another important story is what happened to American and British citizens in Japanese-occupied China.  The author J.G. Ballard wrote an exceptionally captivating and powerful story that was in part based on his own personal experiences in his book, Empire of the Sun.  If you've never seen the 1987 movie of the same name (directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring the actor Christian Bale in his first major role), I highly recommend watching it!  The book tells the story of a young British boy named Jim growing up in Shanghai at the outbreak of World War II. When Japan invades China, Jim is separated from his wealthy parents and must survive alone in a war-torn city before being captured and sent to a Japanese internment camp.  Towards the end of the book, Jim witnesses a sudden bright flash in the sky, "like a second sun", that is later revealed to be one of the two atomic bombs (it's never revealed which). 

After Jim is liberated and returned to his parents, he spends a few months in Shanghai before getting on a ship to go back to England.  While boarding the ship, he witnesses a large group of drunken American and British sailors standing outside a local night club.  They form a "chorus line" and urinate down the steps.  Ballard described the scene perfectly with a hauntingly prophetic statement, "...the Chinese watched without comment as the arcs of urine formed a foaming stream that ran down the street.  When it reached the pavement the Chinese stepped back, their faces expressionless.  Jim glanced at the people around him, the clerks and coolies and peasant women, well aware of what they were thinking.  One day China would punish the rest of the world and take a frightening revenge."

Whether or not Ballard's prediction about China becomes true or not, remains to be seen.  The best-selling writer Simon Winchester suggests that the Mediterranean Ocean helped to shape the classical world, while the Atlantic Ocean connected Europe to the New World.  But it is the Pacific Ocean that will define the future (see his book, Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators and Fading Empires).  President Obama once spoke of need for a "pivot to the Pacific".  While that didn't necessarily occur, it is clear that the Pacific will continue to be an important focus for American foreign policy.  

I have often mentioned the statement by George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (see also my posts, "Past is Prologue", "Study the past", and "...all of this has happened before").  When it comes to the Pacific, we would all do very well to remember Santayana.  What is also evident to me that in order to deeply immerse oneself into the history of a particular region, we should take advantage of memoir, fiction, and non-fiction writing as well as our own personal experience.  While I have still a lot to learn, I feel that I know a lot more about history of the Pacific War and its impact on world history.  And that is a start to learning about the Pacific's role in our future.