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...