The third place no more?

I just read that McDonald's just overtook Starbucks' near decade-long run as the world's most valuable restaurant brand.  According to a report by the global marketing consultant firm Brand Finance, McDonald's brand value rose 7 percent in 2025 to US$40 billion, while Starbucks brand value declined 36 percent to US$38 billion.  Jason Aten, writing for Inc. magazine (see "McDonald's just got big news in its decades-long battle with Starbucks"), McDonald's has been playing the long game by investing heavily in its McCafé brand by improving the quality of its coffee and adding free WiFi.  He writes, "In doing so, McDonald's made a bold move: it started positioning itself as a viable third place."

Let's go back in time to talk about what Aten meant when he referred to McDonald's as a third place.  Several years ago, I happened to be speaking at the Risky Business Patient Safety Conference in London at the same time that my sister and her family were touring England.  We decided to meet up and see some of the sights together.  We had a fantastic time!  There's even a picture somewhere of all of us recreating the Beatles' famous Abbey Road album cover.  We had planned to meet at a specific location (I can't remember the exact location), and we had to travel separately via the Tube in order to meet ("Mind the Gap").  Apparently my youngest nephew was just a little too late jumping on to the train at the last minute, and so the rest of my sister's family inadvertently left him at the station and went on without him.  He was already in high school at this point, but his mobile phone didn't have an international plan.  He went to a Starbucks close by and used the free WiFi there to text my sister and find out where they could meet.  Very resourceful!

Starbucks used to be a place to hang out and work while enjoying a great cup of coffee.  The company actually encouraged customers to come and spend free time in their stores and had done so almost from the beginning.  There's a well-known story of how former CEO Howard Schultz wanted to re-create the ambience and experience of a European coffeehouse.  Starbucks was originally founded in 1971 by Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Ziev Siegl, primarily as a small coffee shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market.  The store specialized in selling whole arabica coffee beans to a niche market.  Schultz joined the marketing team in 1982, and during a business trip to Europe, he became fascinated with Italy's coffee culture, particularly the important role that neighborhood espresso bars played in the everyday lives of the individuals living there.  When Schultz returned to Seattle, he was excited to recreate the same environment at Starbucks.  The small company set up an espresso bar in downtown Seattle, which would serve as the prototype for what Schultz envisioned was the future of the company.  

Schultz 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."

The three founders didn't want to become a restaurant business, so Schultz left the company to start his own company, Il Giornale (apparently the Italian word for newspaper).  His coffee shop quickly became popular, and to close the circle, Schultz eventually purchased Starbucks from its original founders.  Over the next several years, he built Starbucks into what it is today - a global brand developed around the concept of a third place.  

Schultz served as Chair and CEO at Starbucks from 1986-2000, 2008-2017, and again as Interim CEO from 2022-2023.  Over the years, Starbucks has occasionally lost its way by de-emphasizing the third place concept.  Schultz famously came out of retirement in 2008 to resurrect the brand and the company by returning to its roots as a third place for people who love coffee.  Schultz famously wrote an open letter to all of the company's partners (what Starbucks calls its employees) in 2018, "Great coffee and our stores will always be catalysts for community.  Now more than ever the world needs places to come together with compassion and with love.  Providing the world with a warm and welcoming third place may just be our most important role and responsibility, today and always."

As it turns out, always doesn't always mean forever.  Over the last several years, Starbucks, under new executive leadership, began to prioritize goals like efficiency and volume over the customer experience.  The legendary (often mythical) third place was de-emphasized.  As B. Joseph Pine II and Louis-Etienne Dubois write in an online article for Harvard Business Review (see "How Starbucks Devalued Its Own Brand"), "Starbucks is in trouble again...Going to Starbucks isn't what it used to be, and the brand itself isn't what it used to mean.  The fundamental problem: Starbucks has been commoditizing itself."

The meteoric rise of Starbucks as a company has been covered in a number of Harvard Business School case studies, articles, and books (see in particular "Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal" by Nancy Koehn and colleagues, as well as Schultz's book, Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul).  What is remarkable is the fact that prior to Schultz and the third place, coffee met almost every definition of a commodity.  Any business person in their right mind wouldn't have predicted a company built around specialty coffee would become one of the world's best known brands.  The secret recipe for the success of Starbucks really comes down to the third place concept.  As Schultz himself suggested in an open letter on LinkedIn to the company leadership, Starbucks has lost its soul.  Starbucks, as Vetha Varshini Kavya Alam writes on Medium, has become just another coffee shop.  As a result, McDonald's has taken over as the world's most valuable restaurant brand.

Daniel Kline writes (see "Starbucks CEO sounds the alarm on coffee chain's problems") that "Starbucks seems to bounce between two types of CEOs: those who care about coffee and atmosphere and those who worry about efficiency and operations...Laxman Narasimhan and Kevin Johnson, both of whom followed Schultz in the top spot, always seemed more concerned about operations than coffee."  Starbucks' new CEO, Brian Niccol, who was CEO of Chipotle prior to becoming CEO at Starbucks on September 9, 2024, appears to be a hybrid of the two.  He wrote in an open letter shortly after taking over the company, "We're refocusing on what has always set Starbucks apart - a welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas."

Time will only tell whether Niccol can keep operations smooth and efficient, while at the same time emphasizing the quality of the customer experience.  It's a position (and predicament) that many leaders in health care know all too well!  At least for the moment, however, it seems that Starbucks can no longer claim to be the third place.

Squaring a circle

Once again, I learned a rather interesting bit of trivia about the number π a few weeks after (not before) International Pi Day (see another post from the past, "Pi and Infinite Monkeys" which I posted on September 3, 2023).  March 14th is always a fun day in our house, because my wife is a middle school math teacher!  She always celebrates International Pi Day by having her students bring in either pizza or pie, and there's always a contest to see which student can recite the highest number of digits in π.  While I am confident that almost everyone can remember that π is roughly equal to 3.14, I suspect that many of us forget that (1) π is what is classified as an irrational number (a real number that cannot be expressed as a fraction), (2) the decimal representation of π never ends and never repeats itself (although there are occasional short repeating elements, such as the six consecutive nines that appear starting at the 762nd decimal place, commonly known as Feynman's Point after the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman, (3) π is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

What I didn't know is that my home state of Indiana almost passed a law in 1897 to change the value of π to 3.2.    

Since antiquity, mathematicians have tried to solve a problem known as "squaring a circle".  The problem can be stated as follows: Given a circle, construct a square with the same area as the circle using only a compass and straight edge.  Unfortunately, solving the problem has proven to be impossible, which is why "squaring a circle" is now an idiomatic expression used to describe a problem that is impossible to solve.  Here's where the Indiana law comes in.  Back in 1894, an Indiana physician and math enthusiast named Edward J. Goodwin believed that he had discovered a solution for the "squaring the circle" problem.  He was so proud of his proof that he asked his friend, Taylor I. Record to introduce a bill (Bill 246) in the Indiana House of Representatives under the title, "A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth" in 1897.  Bizarrely, if passed, the law would have allowed the state of Indiana to publish his discovery in its textbooks for free, while everyone else would supposedly have to pay royalties to Goodwin.  I'm not sure that's exactly how copyright laws work, but that didn't seem to bother Goodwin or Record.

Interestingly enough, Goodwin's proof only worked if π was equal to 3.2.  The other state representatives in the Indiana House were confused by the topic and whether it was even appropriate for them to vote on such a bill.  One representative referred the bill to the Finance Committee, presumably because the bill involved numbers.  Another representative joked that the bill should go to the Committee on Swamplands, where it would "find a deserved grave."  The bill eventually made its way in the House Education Committee, which approved it and sent it to the General Assembly for a vote.  The Indiana House of Representatives voted by majority to approve the bill on February 6, 1897.

Before the bill went to the Indiana Senate, however, another mathematician caught wind of the bill.  Purdue University's Clarence Abiathar Waldo had apparently stopped by at the Indiana Statehouse in order to request funding for the Indiana Academy of Science.  Instead, he found himself teaching Indiana Senators on the finer points of geometry.  Waldo later recalled in the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science, "A member then showed the writer a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

Despite Waldo's impromptu geometry lesson, the bill nearly passed the Senate.  However, the Senate agreed to postpone consideration of the bill indefinitely on February 12, 1897, narrowly avoiding what would assuredly result in widespread ridicule.  Waldo later wrote, "My state did not further this monstrosity, and it was probably the Indiana Academy of Science alone which prevented it.  That one act of protection was worth more to Indiana, jealous of her fair fame as she is, than all she ever contributed or can contribute to the publication of the proceedings of her Academy of Science."

It's an interesting footnote in the history of mathematics.  I wonder why I was never heard about this story when we were taught Indiana State History in grade school?  And even though I am posting this on April Fool's Day, as far as I can tell, the story is absolutely true (Goodwin even published his proof in the prestigious journal, The American Mathematical Monthly under the title "Quadrature of the Circle")!

Happy Doctor's Day 2025!

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

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

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

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

"No Easy Victories"

I was reading a Harvard Business Review article ("How to Stay Optimistic (When Everything is Awful)") just last week that referenced another article written many, many years ago by former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (under President Lyndon Johnson) John W. Gardner.  The article, "No Easy Victories" was published in the journal American Statistician on February 1, 1968 and is based on a speech that Gardner gave at the American Statistical Association's annual meeting in December, 1967.

Gardner made several points about leadership in general that I thought were worth repeating here.  They fall into the following high level points:

1. It's lonely when you are in the arena.

Gardner opens (after a few introductory comments about how he came to be speaking at the American Statistical Association's meeting) with the following statements:

I cannot speak with assurance, only with concern.  I constantly marvel at the number of people outside the arena of action who know precisely how to solve our problems, and the number of people in the heat of action who lack that superhuman clarity.  

I think that Gardner provides a key point on leadership here.  First, as I've stated many, many times, leadership can be lonely (see my posts, "Reflections on leadership", "12 O'Clock High", "It's lonely at the top", and most recently, "Fortress of Solitude").  It's lonely because: (1) as a leader, you are always "on stage" in that everything you say or do can be scrutinized, questioned, evaluated, or criticized; (2) the expectations for leaders oftentimes far exceed what they can deliver; and (3) almost everyone believes that he or she could do a better job leading.  I am reminded of Theodore Roosevelt's "In the Arena" speech or Brene Brown's speech "Why your critics aren't the ones who count".  As William Shakespeare said, "Uneasy is the head that wears a crown".

2. Leaders have to make difficult choices.

Gardner talks about some of the difficulties that leaders encounter.  Foremost among these is the job of making rational choices when resources are limited (and he offers the qualification that resources "will always be limited relative to expectations").  He said:

Forced choices are of course not the only consequence of a limit on resources.  We can have our cake and eat at least some of it if we can get a higher yield from the dollars, talent, and institutional strength available to us...somewhere up the line hard decisions will be necessarily made.

As a leader, you will have to make difficult decisions at times, some of which will be unpopular.  It's important that leaders make decisions that advance the organization's mission and vision, as well as ones that are consistent with the organization's core values. 

3. Expectations oftentimes do not match reality.

I mentioned above that one of the reasons leadership can be lonely is that the expectations for leaders oftentimes far exceed what they can deliver.  The same is true for organizations.  Gardner said that most of the individuals today believe that their institutions can accomplish "just about anything".  Moreover, when these same institutions fall far short of those expectations, the natural tendency is to blame "the people who love power or money more than they love mankind".  He suggested that this mismatch between expectations and reality has created some of the mistrust and cynicism that we are seeing today in the workforce:

The modern belief that man's institutions can accomplish just about anything he wants, when he wants it, leads to certain characteristic contemporary phenomena.  One is the bitterness and anger toward our institutions that occur when high hopes turn sour...cynicism is continually fed and renewed by the rage of people who expected too much in the first place and got too little in the end.

4. Leaders will have to lead their organizations through change.

Gardner said:

Even excellent institutions run by excellent human beings are inherently sluggish, not hungry for innovation, not quick to respond to human need, not eager to re-shape themselves to meet the challenges of the times...We are going to have to do a far more imaginative and aggressive job of renewing, redesigning, revitalizing our institutions if we are to meet the requirements of today.

I am struck by how much of what was true in 1967 is still true today.  Some of the challenges that leaders faced back then are faced by the leaders still today.  However, Gardner's message is one of hope and optimism.  He ended his speech with the following statement:

The fight for a better world is a long one, a recognition that retains high hopes but immunizes against childish collapse or destructive rage in the face of disappointment...We face the gravest difficulties in the days ahead.  But if we could bring to bear on our toughest problems all of the talent and resources of this Nation we could accomplish some things that would leave an indelible mark on the history books. 

The paradox of work

You don't have to be an elite runner to feel what is commonly referred to as a "runner's high", that brief state of euphoria which can occur after either a long period of continuous, moderate-intensity exercise (classically for a long-distance run, hence the name) or even short bursts of high-intensity exercise.  Elite athletes often talk about being "in the zone", a similar term to "runner's high" that describes a state of intense focus and peak performance.  The cognitive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conducted research beginning in the 1970's on a similar concept that he called "flow".  Csikszentmihalyi said in 1990, "The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."

Csikszentmihalyi described flow as a state of "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost."  There's a whole body of research in the field known as positive psychology on "flow", and Csikszentmihalyi wrote an excellent book on the subject (one of many actually), now considered a classic, entitled (appropriately enough), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

While "flow" is certainly a fascinating topic, what's perhaps most interesting to me is a related concept called the "paradox of work" based upon a study ("Optimal Experience in Work and Leisure") performed by Csikszentmihalyi with his colleague Judith LeFevre published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1989.  Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre gave workers (107 participants completed the study) from five large companies in Chicago an electronic pager that would beep at seven random moments throughout the day, at which time study participants were instructed to complete a short questionnaire (note that this particular method of research is called "experience sampling method" or ESM).  They described their current activity, mood, psychological state, sense of motivation, engagement, level of boredom, etc.  

The results they found were surprising.  Study participants reported feeling happier, more fulfilled by what they were doing, less anxious, and more highly motivated while they were at work compared to when they were at leisure.  In their free leisure time, they tended to feel bored and anxious.  In other words, they experienced flow more than three times as often during work compared to when they were at home away from work.  If you think about it, that at least makes some sense on the surface.  While work can be stressful at times, it can also be challenging, motivating, and fulfilling.  

Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre were also able to determine what specific activities the participants were engaged in when they were experiencing "flow" (i.e., when they were in the zone).  In general, participants were more likely to be experiencing "flow" when they were spending time on challenging activities, such as problem-solving or fixing things at work.  Perhaps not surprising, time spent at home watching television was typically not associated with experiencing "flow".

Even though activities conducive to flow were much more frequent at work, participants stated that they were less happy when they were at work and would rather be at home.  When they were on the job, they expressed a strong desire to be off the job, and when they were off the job, the last thing they wanted was to go back to work.  These results seem particularly counterintuitive, which is why Csikszentmihalyi and others have labeled these findings the "paradox of work" (these findings have been replicated in other studies - see, for example, the study by Stefan Engeser and Nicola Baumann in the Journal of Happiness Studies).

The logical follow-up question is how to explain these findings.  Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre suggested that the obligatory nature of work may mask the positive experience that typically comes while experiencing a state of flow.  In other words, people make judgements based upon social convention as opposed to their actual feelings.  The concerning conclusion to this suggestion is that people will continue to try to do more of those activities (i.e. leisure activities) that provide the least positive experiences and avoid those activities (i.e. work) that do - in other words, at the societal level there will be a mass exodus from the most productive activities in favor of the leisure ones.

All of this is very interesting, if not somewhat disturbing. Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre suggest a couple of potential ways to mitigate against the paradox.  First, they suggest that merely knowing about the paradox of work will help individuals overcome the social conventions against work.  I'm not sure if this is very realistic unfortunately.  Second, they recommend that we try to focus more on the kinds of leisure activities that generate flow and avoid the ones that don't.  While this may certainly help our overall emotional states, I'm not sure it addresses the need to motivate people at work.

I realize that this is an older study, but as I mentioned, the findings have been replicated in more contemporary studies using similar methods.  I at least thought that the study warranted further discussion.  Based on what I've learned about flow, I might suggest a couple of ways for leaders to try to create conditions at work that are conducive to flow.  First, we need to be clear about what we are trying to accomplish and provide immediate and transparent feedback.  Second, we need to make sure that individuals are appropriately matched from a knowledge and skills standpoint to the task at hand.  Challenging tasks are more conducive to flow, but only when individuals feel that they have the necessary skills to meet the challenge.  "Stretch" goals are great, but goals shouldn't be completely out of reach either.  Third, we know that focus is just as important as clarity.  Goals should be as specific as possible and limited in number and scope.  Finally, we need to provide individuals with enough autonomy that they feel as if they are in control of the situation at hand.  With these caveats in mind, we can create the conditions that will help our teams "get in the zone"!

"Real friends are useless"

We are always striving for wellbeing and happiness - what some have termed the "good life".  The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the "good life" could be achieved by striving for what he called eudaimonia, variously translated from Greek as "wellbeing", "flourishing", or even simply, "happiness".  He also believed that we could achieve eudaimonia by striving for excellence.  

Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do."  He also said, "Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny"  (on a side note, the quote, "Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit" is commonly attributed to Aristotle, but it was actually a statement made by the historian and author Will Durant, who was paraphrasing Aristotle).  In other words, if we continue to strive for excellence, we will achieve excellence.  It is through the pursuit (and achievement) of excellence that we achieve eudaimonia.

Dr. Robert Waldinger, Harvard Medical School physician and author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness has found that our relationships (and the quality of those relationships) have an important impact on our physical and mental health.  Aristotle also talked about the importance of friendships and relationships for achieving eudaimonia.  He actually proposed a hierarchy of friendship in his book, Nicomachean Ethics, in which he writes, "Friendship is one of the most indispensable requirements of life...We consider a friend to be one of the greatest of all good things, and friendlessness and solitude a very terrible thing, because the whole of life and voluntary interactions are with loved ones."  Aristotle listed three different types (or species) of friends:

1. Friendship of utility: These friendships are based on what someone can do for another person (what someone can do for you or conversely, what you can do for someone else). For example, you may be looking for a job and need someone to "put in a good word for you" or serve as a reference. Importantly, these friendships are more transactional in nature and frequently end as soon as the use or need for the person is no longer present.  These kinds of persons have generally very little to do with character.

2.  Friendship of pleasure: These friendships are based on the enjoyment of a shared activity. For example, these kinds of friendships involve friends who you might go out for a drink with, someone you go to a sporting event with, or even someone who you enjoy a particular hobby with.  Again, these types of friendships can also end quickly, as they depend on people's ever-changing likes and dislikes.

3.  Friendship of virtue: These friendships are based more on character, and they are generally more sustained than the other two kinds of friendships.  For example, these friends are the people you like for themselves, who typically influence you positively and push you to be a better person. These are the deeper relationships that, when established, make us happier and better as individuals.

While all three kinds of friendship are important, Aristotle suggested that "friendships of virtue" are the ones that will truly help us achieve a state of eudaimonia.  He wrote that "For perfect friendship you must get to know someone thoroughly and become intimate with them, which is a very difficult thing to do."  These kinds of friendships require honesty, acceptance (of all flaws), selflessness, and perhaps most importantly, love.  Aristotle also suggested that the act of loving is better than the reciprocal act of being loved.  He wrote, "Since friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in who this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship that endures."

Arthur C. Brooks, Harvard Business School professor and author of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier (which he co-wrote with Oprah Winfrey) refers to deal friends versus real friends.  Deal friends are those individuals who we may strategically keep in contact with, as our mutual relationship may prove to be useful at some point in the future.  In other words, deal friends are what Aristotle refers to as "friends of utility" or even "friends of pleasure".  True friendship, however, is more than just camaraderie.  Our real friends are "friends of virtue".  These involve friendships built upon a foundation of mutual love.  Our real friends are the ones that we can share our truest and deepest selves with - these are the kinds of friends that we can always count on.  These are the kinds of friends that will drop everything that they are doing if and when we need them.

Brooks writes, "Deal friendships feel incomplete because they don’t involve the whole self. If the relationship is necessary to the performance of a job, it might require us to maintain a professional demeanor. We can’t afford to risk these connections through confrontation, difficult conversations, or intimacy, like we can with real friends."  Brooks goes on to suggest that "the best friends in life are the ones who can do nothing for you."  In other words, real friends are useless.  Your real friends bring you joy, even when they can do nothing for you.

"Clear the Mechanism"

A few weeks ago, I sat down and finally watched the 1999 movie "For Love of the Game" starring Kevin Costner and the late Kelly Preston.  The movie is based on a book by the author Michael Shaara with the same title (Shaara also wrote the book, The Killer Angels, which was made into one of my all-time favorite movies, "Gettysburg").  The movie follows the perfect game performance of aging star baseball pitcher and future Hall of Famer Billy Chapel, played by Kevin Costner, as he deals with the pressures of pitching in Yankee Stadium in his final outing by calming himself with memories of a long-term relationship with Jane Aubrey, the character played by Kelly Preston.  It's actually a really good movie.

There's a scene at the beginning of the movie, when Chapel takes the mound to start the last game of a losing season for the Detroit Tigers as they play against the New York Yankees, who are trying to win the game in order to make the play-offs.  He is trying to warm-up for the game amidst all of the noise and confusion (with many fans even yelling and screaming at him).  In order to quiet the noise and focus on the task at hand, he whispers to himself, "Clear the mechanism".  Everything suddenly becomes quiet.  The fans behind home plate become blurry, and the only things that he sees in sharp clarity are the batter and catcher.  It's a powerful scene and a great reminder of the need to focus on the task at hand.

Legendary baseball play-by-play announcer Vin Scully has a cameo appearance as the play-by-play announcer in the movie (which I found interesting, since he spent most of his career calling games for the Dodgers, not the Yankees).  At one point, he quotes the famous line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If":

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...

There's another line from the Kipling poem that doesn't appear in the script, but I think it certainly applies:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

Chapel fights through all the pain of his long and storied baseball career to do the unthinkable - pitching a perfect game in his final start!  He throws a perfect game (no hits, no walks, no runs) by his incredible ability to ignore everything that is going on around him and concentrating on the player in the batter's box.  It is his focus by "clearing the mechanism" that gives him the stamina to fight on and finish the game.

Focus is a very powerful thing.  But here's the catch - it takes effort to focus.  Focus is an active activity, not a passive one.  There are a number of ways to improve your focus and "clear the mechanism":

1. Create a distraction-free work zone - When possible, we should eliminate clutter in our normal workspace.  I like the Lean 5S model (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain) to organize a workspace.  5S achieves “a place for everything and everything in its place.”  In addition, sometimes it's helpful to designate an area where distractions are minimized that is separate from our usual workspace.  For example, I know some hospitals that have set aside areas on inpatient units designed for staff to relax and recuperate while they are taking a break away from the bedside (these are called "Tranquility Rooms", "Serenity Rooms", or "Meditation Rooms").  We can't focus when we are overly stressed!

2. Practice mindfulness and meditation - We can help "clear the mechanism" with a variety of techniques, such as mindfulness, meditation, or prayer.

3. Set clear goals and priorities - When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.  We should set clear goals (I like SMART goals), and as leaders we can limit the number of goals that we set for ourselves and for our teams.  Prioritization is important here too.  If something is not a priority for the organization, we shouldn't be dedicating time and resources on it.

4. Embrace single-tasking - Multi-tasking is a fallacy.  Study after study has proven that we can't focus on more than a few things at a time, at least if we are trying to do something well.  Dedicate time and resources to just one single task at a time, and in the long run, you will save time and reduce mental strain.

The ability to focus is an important skill for leaders and their teams.  We should not try to do everything, but instead we should do one thing very well.  The late Steve Jobs was particularly adept at this skill.  He said, "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got your focus on.  But that's not what it means at all.  It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.  You have to pick carefully.  I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done.  Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things."

"Clear the mechanism" and in an instant, everything fades away and out of the picture.  "Clear the mechanism" will help you get the job done.  "Clear the mechanism" will help you get the job done well.