"Live a Little"

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence starred in the 2016 movie "Passengers" as two passengers on an interstellar spacecraft carrying thousands of people to a colony on 120-year journey from Earth.  Everyone on board is suspended in hibernation for the duration of the voyage, and the spacecraft runs more or less on auto-pilot.  Unfortunately, due to a malfunction, Pratt's character, Jim wakes up from suspended hibernation about 90 years too early.  He is all alone on the spacecraft.  

Jim eventually wakes up Jennifer Lawrence's character, Aurora, because he is lonely.  They fall in love, get in a fight, rescue all of the passengers, and eventually, by the end of the movie...I won't spoil it.

There's a scene in the movie where Pratt's character is talking to an android bartender, named Arthur.  He's feeling sorry for himself, and Arthur gives him some really good advice.  It's advice that we all should take to heart (check out the video clip here).  Here's the transcript (and I am paraphrasing slightly to shorten it up):

JIM: I'm your only customer, but you're always polishing a glass.

ARTHUR: Trick of the trade.  Makes people nervous when a bartender just stands there.

JIM: Okay.  Lay some bartender wisdom on me.  I'm lost in space here.  

ARTHUR (as he is polishing a glass): You're not where you want to be.  You feel like you're supposed to be somewhere else.  Right?

JIM: You said it.

ARTHUR: Well, here's the thing.  Say you could snap your fingers and be wherever you wanted to be.  Back on Earth, or on Homestead II.

JIM: Okay.

ARTHUR: I'll bet even if you got your wish, you'd still feel this way.  Not in the right place.  Supposed to be somewhere else.  The point is, you can't get so wrapped up in where you'd rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are.

JIM: What are you telling me?

ARTHUR: Take a break from what you can't control.  Live a little.

Jim starts to learn the lesson.  Of interest, at least in the original script for the movie, it took Arthur a couple of times to teach Jim the lesson that he needed to hear.  When Jim first encounters Arthur in the bar, shortly after figuring out that he woke up far too early, he says, "I am in trouble. I'm screwed.  I am completely, ridiculously screwed."

Arthur responds by telling Jim, "That's a lot of self-pity."  

Of course, Jim replies, "Self-pity?  I'm going to die of old age on this ship!"  He will never see Homestead II.

To which, Arthur replies, "Jim, we all die. Even androids end up on the scrap heap. It's not dying that matters, it's living. This is your life. Are you going to live it or lie down and die?"

It's an important message for all of us, and one that I need to be reminded of every once in a while.  Nothing is perfect.  Even if things were perfect, we would likely be wanting more out of life.  The key point is to be happy and content with the life that you have.  As Arthur says, "You can't get so wrapped up in where you'd rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are."  Once again, here's another great example of learning an important lesson from the movies.  Great advice for leaders, and really, for all of us...

"The Case of the Cashiered Lieutenant"

I recently finished reading the science fiction novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein for the second time.  It's a great book (much better than the 1997 movie of the same name, even though I liked the movie too).  I was reminded of a story that I had apparently forgotten, "The Case of the Cashiered Lieutenant" (the title of an article appearing in the Minnesota Historical Society's journal, Minnesota History, almost sixty years ago).  When used in this context, "cashiered" refers to the ritual dismissal of an officer from military service as punishment for a breach of duty.  The specific case refers to an incident that happened on June 6, 1813, during the War of 1812 (which despite its name, lasted from 1812-1815), when the USS Chesapeake lost a battle with the HMS Shannon off the coast of Boston.

Notably, the Chesapeake was one of the original six frigates built in the early days of the United States Navy, as brilliantly told in the book Six Frigates by the historian Ian W. Toll.  The battle was brief, lasting between 10 and 15 minutes, ending when sailors from the Shannon boarded the disabled Chesapeake and captured her.  The Chesapeake's commanding officer, James Lawrence, was killed during the battle, uttering his now famous words shortly before succumbing to his wounds, "Don't give up the ship!"

William Sitgreaves Cox was serving as  "third lieutenant" in charge of gun crews during the battle.  When Captain Lawrence was mortally wounded, Cox took him below deck.  Unbeknownst to Cox, all of the other officers had been seriously wounded, incapacitated, or killed, which technically made him the ship's acting commanding officer by default, though it's not known whether Lieutenant Cox was aware of this fact.  Technically, then, as the acting commanding officer, even if by default, Cox should have remained on deck to lead the battle.  

During the time that Cox was below deck, British sailors boarded the Chesapeake.  Cox returned to the deck and fired the last cannon round at the Shannon.  There were just too many wounded and not enough men left to fight off the British boarders.  The Chesapeake was taken and Cox became a prisoner.  After a prisoner exchange, Cox was promoted to third lieutenant permanently.  

Everyone in America at the time felt that the defeat of the Chesapeake was a major catastrophe.  Something must have happened, as the public believed that Captain Lawrence ("Don't give upt the ship!") could never have been defeated in a fair fight.  Commodore William Bainbridge of the Navy Department perhaps said it best when he wrote, "The well proved courage and skill of Captain Lawrence, and the bravery of the officers and crew, justify a full belief that the loss of the Chesapeake has been entirely owing to some fortuitous event happening on board of her, and not to any superiority of skill and bravery in the enemy."  In other words, there had to be somebody to blame.

The public demanded an explanation, and the Navy Department convened a Court of Inquiry in February 1814 to further investigate the defeat of the Chesapeake.  Lieutenant William Sitgreaves Cox would be the scapegoat that everyone was looking to blame.  Lieutenant Cox was brought before the court on April 15, 1814 and formally charged with cowardice, disobedience of orders, desertion from quarters, neglect of duty, and unofficer-like conduct.  He was convicted on the charges of dereliction of duty and unofficer-like conduct for abandoning his watch station while under fire from the enemy.  He was cashiered from service and left the Navy in disgrace.

Of course, there was another side to the story.  Second Lieutenant George Budd survived his wounds and testified that he and Cox had a conversation while they were being held prisoner by the British in Halifax.  Budd reported that Cox told him that Captain Lawrence had not asked for assistance to be carried below deck and had been angry that Cox had left his post in order to help him.  That apparently was sufficient to find him guilty.  Cox would try in vain to be cleared of both charges, though the guilty verdict was upheld by then President James Madison.  He entered a business career and died in 1874.

Apparently, Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his book, The Naval War of 1812 that Lieutenant Cox had acted "basely" during the Chesapeake-Shannon battle.  One of Cox's descendants protested so vigorously that Roosevelt later apologized and removed the word from subsequent editions. For a period of 138 years, Cox's descendants fought to clear his name.  They argued vehemently that Cox was simply helping a wounded leader and that he had no idea that he was the acting commanding officer.  In 1952, Congress passed a resolution to clear his name, and President Harry Truman officially restored Cox's honor and rank posthumously.  Cox's story was told in an issue of Time magazine (see "The Case of Lieut. Cox" from the April 6, 1952 issue), the New Yorker magazine (see "Scapegoat" from the May 3, 1952 issue), and the Proceedings of the Naval Institute (see "Scapegoat of the Chesapeake-Shannon Battle" from the May 1953 issue).

I think this particular story is a great example - and I believe this is why Robert Heinlein used the story in his novel, Starship Troopers - of what happens when you hold leaders accountable for something that they have no authority to control (see in particular my posts "The accountability-authority matrix", "Sell ice cream!", "You have to hold people accountable...", and "Necessary companions, but often strangers").  I don't think it was justified to blame Lieutenant Cox for deserting his post as acting commanding officer, particularly when his actions during the actual battle suggest that he acted courageously.  Accountability is important - leaders should be held accountable for their decisions ("The buck stops here"), but only when they have the necessary authority to actually make those decisions.  

Now, Heinlein argues in Starship Troopers that, fair or unfair, Lieutenant Cox was, in fact, the acting commanding officer and should have been held accountable for the defeat of the Chesapeake.  I do not agree, and I believe history has appropriately vindicated Cox.  But I think the lesson here is an important one for all leaders, not just those in the military.  As the unnamed "Museum Sage" of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum wrote in The Daybook publication, "Just when does blame begin when something goes wrong?"  We are often too quick to ask the question, "Who is to blame when something goes wrong?"  I would argue that we would be better off investing time in trying to answer the question "Why did something go wrong?" or "How did something go wrong?" as opposed to answering "Who is to blame?"

Are tropical birds returning back to Guam?

I've posted a lot about our family's experience living on the Pacific island of Guam in the past (see in particular, my posts "Abandon all hope ye who enter here...", "Summer break is over!", and "It's an island thing!").  It was a memorable experience and one that I think we all cherish.  I've also posted about the Brown Tree Snake, an invasive species that was accidentally introduced to the island during World War II and which unfortunately wiped out most of the native species of exotic birds on the island (see "Is this another April Fool's joke?" and "The law of unintended consequences").

I was excited to see the newest development on this particular story.  No, there has not been any more attempts at parachuting dead, acetaminophen-stuffed mice into the jungle canopy in an attempt to control the Brown Tree Snake population!  Apparently, there has been an active captive-breeding project involving a few of the Guam indigenous bird species at several zoos around the U.S. in the past couple of years.  The latest involved the Cincinnati Zoo (and about four others) and the Guam Kingfisher, also known as the Sihek.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported earlier in July that the Cincinnati Zoo currently has 17 Kingfishers, including two on exhibit and six in the nursery.  The Guam Kingfisher is being reintroduced into the wild on the Pacific atoll of Palmyra, which is located just south of Hawaii.  The program reintroduced nine Kingfishers to Palmyra in 2024, and so far everything is going great!  The birds have started breeding, and the first egg was spotted in April 2025 - the first Guam Kingfisher egg laid in the wild in over 40 years!  It's an exciting development for sure!  The project will re-introduce nine new birds to the island each year for the next several years.  The plan is to eventually return these beautiful birds back to their home island of Guam, if protected areas can be established and the threat of the Brown Tree Snake is eliminated or better controlled.  Let's keep our collective fingers crossed!

If you want to keep up-to-date on the Guam Kingfisher project, check out the website for the Sihek Conservation Program here.  And if you want to see a cute video of a newly hatched Guam Kingfisher chick, check out the Facebook page for the Cincinnati Zoo!

As an aside, I realize that this post doesn't have much, if anything, to do with leadership.  However, anytime I can provide an update from older posts, I try to do so, especially when it involves two places where I've spent a lot of time during my life, Guam and Cincinnati, Ohio!

"Are we there yet?"

Last time (see "How to achieve your goals in life...") I posted about Nine Things Successful People Do Differently by Heidi Grant.  I mentioned that people monitor and track their progress towards a goal by considering what they have accomplished (a "To Date" framing) or what remains for them to do (a "To Go" framing).  As it turns out, this is an important decision because our level of motivation to continue to push towards the end of our goal depends upon whether we use a "To Go" versus a "To Date" framing.

Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fischbach published a famous study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2008 ("Dynamics on self-regulation: How (un)accomplished goal actions affect motivation").  They proposed that there are two factors that influence our motivation to continue to work towards a goal - our level of commitment to pursuing that goal and our progress (or lack thereof) towards reaching that goal.  They conducted a series of experiments to further test these assumptions and found that (1) when we are definitely committed to a particular goal (e.g., studying for an important exam in school), emphasizing what we have yet to accomplish (i.e. a "To Go" framing) increases our motivation to continue working towards that goal and (2) when we are uncertain about our level of commitment (e.g., studying for an unimportant exam in school, finishing a book that we don't really care about reading, etc), emphasizing what we have accomplished so far (i.e. a "To Date" framing) increases our motivation to keep working towards that goal.

Just imagine when you are reading a book for fun.  Which motivates you to continue to read that book - how much you have left to go to finish (a "To Go" framing) or how much you have read so far (a "To Date" framing).  If you are really enjoying the book or have to read the book for work or school (i.e., your level of commitment is certain), then you are likely to be motivated more by how many pages you have left to finish the book.  Conversely, if you are not really enjoying the book and you are supposedly reading the book for fun (i.e., your level of commitment is uncertain), then you are likely to be motivated more by how many pages you have read so far.  If you are only 50 or 100 pages in, chances are that you may just give up and set the book aside!  I usually give every book for fun that I read at least the first 100 pages before I decide whether it's worth it to keep going or not.

As it turns out, there's more to this story!  Andrea Bonezzi and colleagues published an interesting paper in the journal Psychological Science ("Stuck in the middle: The psychophysics of goal pursuit") that provides some additional context.  They specifically looked at what happens when you are exactly half way towards reaching your goal (let's say you've read 100 pages of a book that is 200 pages long).  The classic goal-gradient hypothesis suggests that our motivation to reach a goal increases as we progress towards the desired end-state.  In other words, the closer we are to reaching the goal, the more motivated we are to doing so.  Bonezzi and colleagues suggested that motivation to work towards a goal can decrease about halfway to the desired end state, causing people and teams to get "stuck in the middle" on the way to their goals.  Again though, everything depends on whether we are looking at how much we have left to go at the half-way point (i.e. a "To Go" framing) or how much we have accomplished at the half-way point (i.e. a "To Date" framing).

Bonezzi and colleagues further suggested that where we started (the initial state) is more relevant to us at the beginning of our goal pursuit, while where we are going (the end state) is more relevant towards the end.  In other words, we may shift from a "To Date" framing to a "To Go" framing at the half-way point, which causes us to get "stuck in the middle" (see Figure below).  Indeed, their experiments confirmed this hypothesis.

  

Wiebinga and Fennis (see "The road traveled, the road ahead, or simply on the road? When progress framing affects motivation in goal pursuit") provided additional evidence that a focus on the road traveled (i.e. a "To Date" framing) was more motivating at the beginning of goal pursuit, while a focus on the road ahead (i.e. a "To Go" framing) was more motivating towards the end of goal pursuit.  

Miki Toyama (see "Which motivates an individual more: The to-date frame or the to-go frame? A regulatory focus perspective") assessed which framing was more motivating when individuals have what is called a "prevention focus" versus a "promotion focus".  Individuals with a "promotion focus" generally "play to win" (they see goal pursuit as an opportunity to learn, grow, and advance), while individuals with a "prevention focus" generally "play to not lose" (they see goal pursuit as an opportunity to meet their responsibility and stay safe).  Toyama's study showed that prevention-focused individuals are motivated more by how much they have accomplished (i.e. "To Date" framing), while promotion-focused individuals are motivated more by how much they have left to reach their goal (i.e. "To Go" framing).

In summary then, what motivates us to keep working towards our personal and professional goals?  

1. If we are highly committed to achieving a goal, if we are promotion-focused, or if we are close to reaching our goal, we should emphasize the work that we have left to achieve our goal ("To Go" framing.

2. If we our level of commitment to achieving a goal is uncertain, if we are prevention-focused, or if we have just started the pursuit of our goal, we should emphasize the work that we have accomplished up to that point ("To Date" framing). 

How to achieve your goals in life...

I recently mentioned a book by Heidi Grant called Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (see my post, "Be an optimist without being a fool").  Dr. Grant also wrote an article for Harvard Business Review with the same title which summarizes the book.  The book version is relatively short at just 112 pages, so I'd recommend taking a little extra time to read the book instead of the article.  I promised then that I would get back to her "nine things" in a future post, so that is just what I am going to do in today's post.  

While there are a number of definitions for the word goal, the best that I've heard is one from Ayelet Fischbach, who defined goals as mental representations of desired states.  Goals describe our idea of how we would like things to be in our personal and/or professional lives.  Dr. Grant's HBR article (and book) focus specifically on the nine things that successful people do in order to achieve their personal and professional goals.

1. Get specific  

I've mentioned the SMART goal framework in the past (see, for example, my post from 2016, "Goooooaaallll!").  Recall that "SMART" is an acronym, with the S standing for Specific.  When you set a goal, it's better to be as specific as possible.  For example, rather than setting a goal to "lose weight", be more specific and set a goal to "lose 10 pounds."  Leave no question or ambiguity about what it is that you are trying to achieve.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals

As I mentioned in a recent post ("Only the disciplined ones are free in life..."), achieving our personal and professional goals in life requires discipline.  We have to take advantage of every opportunity to act on our goals.  Dr. Grant again recommends being as specific as possible.  We should decide what action we will take to achieve our goals, as well as when and where we will take each action.  She suggests using "If...then" statements.  For example (and I will continue to use the example goal, "Lose 10 pounds in 3 months"), "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I will work out for 30 minutes every morning before going to work."

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go

Assuming we have adopted the SMART goal framework, we can monitor the progress to achieving our goal (remember that the M stands for Measurable).  Dr. Grant says, "If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or strategies accordingly."  In her book, she discusses the difference between using a "To Go" versus a "To Date" framing.  I plan to discuss this topic in an upcoming post soon, but simply stated with a "To Go" framing, you count how much work, time, or distance remains until you reach the end (goal achievement).  Conversely, with a "To Date" framing you count how much work, time, or distance you have already completed up to a specific point in time.  As it turns out, our level of motivation to continue to push towards the end of our goal depends upon whether we use a "To Go" versus a "To Date" framing.  Whether we use either framing, Dr. Grant's point here is that we should know exactly how far we've come and how far we've left to go to reach our goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist

I recently posted about a concept known as realistic optimism (see again, "Be an optimist without being a fool").  Particularly when we set so-called "stretch goals", it's important that we have the confidence in our ability to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves.  However, it's equally important that we are realistic about those same abilities.  Studies consistently show that if we think that it will be easy and effortless to achieve our goals, not only will be less prepared when the "going gets tough", we will significantly increase the odds of failure.  It's better to believe in ourselves AND know that it will require a lot of effort, commitment, and dedication.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good

We should have what Carol Dweck calls a "growth mindset" (as opposed to a "fixed mindset"), which she defines as a belief that intelligence, abilities, and talents are not fixed traits but can be developed through dedication, effort, and a willingness to learn. We should focus on continuously improving ourselves by adopting a growth-mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset.

6. Have grit

I've posted a lot about Angela Duckworth and her TED talk that was based upon a research study that she published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ("Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals").  She later wrote a book (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) that quickly made it to the New York Times bestseller list.   The book was interesting, but if I were to be completely honest, the research study and TED talk were just as impactful (and shorter).  We often, for good reason, use the words resilience, perseverance, and grit interchangeably.  Dr. Grant says that grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals and to persist, even in the face of adversity.  Importantly, grit is something that we can develop over time.    

7. Build your willpower muscle

I've posted about the famous "Stanford marshmallow experiment" in the past (see "Life is a marshmallow - easy to chew but hard to swallow"), as well as a similar study involving marshmallows, radishes, and will power by Roy Baumeister (see "What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes").  Basically, these studies tell us that will power and self-control are a lot like our muscles in that we have to exercise them in order to keep them strong.  In order to build self-control and will power, start out with small, challenging tasks that build over time to bigger and even more challenging tasks.

8. Don't tempt fate

If our will power and self-control are like muscles, we need to recognize that muscles can become fatigued with overuse.  We shouldn't try to take on two challenging tasks at the same time (for example, quitting smoking and losing weight at the same time).

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do

Replace bad habits with good habits.  If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, frame what you will do in the positive as opposed to the negative.  For example, "I will walk 30 minutes every morning" as opposed to "I will sitting on the couch and watching TV."

Dr. Grant makes a number of great points here.  Collectively, these "nine points" will help you to set not only the right kinds of goals for yourself, but also they will help you successfully achieve them.  As mentioned above, next time I will talk a little more about the research on using a "To Do" versus a "To Date" framing when measuring progress towards goal achievement.

Ripple

I've always enjoyed music by the American rock band, The Grateful Dead, even if I am nowhere near to being called a "Deadhead" (I never once saw them play live, which I think is a requirement).  I owned at least three Grateful Dead albums over the years - American Beauty (one of their greatest), Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of the Grateful Dead, and What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been.  Their fifth studio album American Beauty was released in November 1970, and it is fantastic!  The song "Ripple" is one of my favorite songs on the album.  It was originally released as the B-side single of "Truckin'", and it has grown in popularity over the years, even though the band rarely played it live (I read somewhere that they have only played the song live just 40 times over their many years of touring).  The song was written by long-time lyricist and former member Robert Hunter.  Founding member and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia added the melody, and the song debuted on August 18, 1970 at Fillmore West in San Francisco, California.

In 2024, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Ripple" at number 334 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  It really is a great song.  More importantly, it's a great song with an even greater message.  The song has been called a meditation (some have even called the song a spiritual hymn) on the journey through life, wisdom, and relevant to this blog, leadership.  Here are the lyrics to the song:

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung

Would you hear my voice come through the music?

Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken

Perhaps they're better left unsung

I don't know, don't really care

Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty

If your cup is full, may it be again

Let it be known there is a fountain

That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn, and the dark of night

And if you go, no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow

But if you fall you fall alone

If you should stand then who's to guide you?

If I knew the way I would take you home.

The late Jerry Garcia once suggested that he felt like a Presbyterian minister whenever he was singing this song.  The late Bob Weir, founding member, songwriter, and guitarist, said that he was frequently asked by Deadheads to sing and play the song "on their way out" when they were on their deathbeds.  Longtime Deadhead, NBA basketball player, and Hall of Fame NBA Coach Phil Jackson used lines from the song ("There is a road, no simple highway...") in his philosophy of basketball and life (see his great book, Eleven Rings - see also my posts, "White Elephants and Wheelwrights" and "Chop wood, carry water").

The title of the song ("Ripple") is often interpreted as the idea that small actions, words, or moments of kindness spread outward, influencing others in ways we may never fully see—like ripples on the water.  I think that same sentiment applies to leadership.  The impact that we have as leaders spreads outward like ripples on the water.  One of the lines in the song ("You who choose to lead must follow...But if you fall you fall alone...If you should stand then who's to guide you?") speaks to a theme that I've often referred to in this blog, the so-called loneliness of leadership (see "12 O'Clock High", "Reflections on leadership", "It's lonely at the top", and "Now is the time to lead").  Leaders often stand alone and bear the ultimate responsibility for many, if not all, of their decisions.

There is apparently an additional verse from an earlier draft of the song that wasn't used in the final recorded and released version.  The line speaks to two of the most important leadership characteristics, wisdom and humility.  As I've stated in the past, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said of wisdom, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."  The narrator in "Ripple" would agree ("The wisest man is but a pilgrim, he will not claim to know the way").  However, in order to recognize that you can't know everything requires a certain degree of humility as well, which is why humility is one of the most important leadership traits of all (see my posts, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble...", "Lessons in humility" and "Be humble").

The wisest man is but a pilgrim

He will not claim to know the way

He will not promise dreams of glory

His words are few and his ways are kind.

The song's lyrics suggest that some of life's deepest truths can't just be taught, but they rather have to be experienced firsthand. For example, the line used by Phil Jackson in his coaching philosophy ("There is a road, no simple highway") implies that each person has to find their own path.  Again, I think that this also applies to leadership.  I've stated many times that I do not believe that we are born with a ready-made set of traits, characteristics, and skills that make for great leadership (see, for example, "Once again...are leaders born or made?" and "Why do giraffes have long necks?").  However, genetics definitely play a role - some studies suggest that approximately 30% of leadership probably comes from the traits and personalities that we inherit.  The majority of leadership development, however, occurs through our experience - we gain "leadership wisdom" all along the way.  There is a well-known model of leadership development called the "70-20-10" rule that states that leadership development is 70% experiential ("learning by doing"), 20% social ("learning from coaching and mentorship"), and 10% didactic ("learning through formalized education).  

The song ends on a hopeful note ("If I knew the way I would take you home").  Even though the road is difficult and uncertain, there is beauty, guidance, and companionship along the way.  Life is a journey, just like leadership.  Trust the journey, rather than fear it.  Finally, the song suggests that there is a higher power ("Let it be known there is a fountain...That was not made by the hands of men") that is always there to help guide us through life, and that too is an amazing, reassuring, and beautiful thing.  Check out and enjoy the song, "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead.

Blind taste tests...once more

I mentioned the book The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success by the physicist and Northeastern University professor, Albert Laszlo-Barabasi in a recent post (see "Blind Taste Tests and the Universal Laws of Success").  Laszlo-Barabasi uses professional wine tasters as an example to help explain why there isn't always a perfect correlation between performance and success.  In reality, there's often a fairly poor correlation between the two!

Given my growing obsession with wine, I was fascinated by his claim that professional wine tasters aren't always accurate in their assessments of fine wine!  In his book, Laszlo-Barabasi references two studies performed by Robert Hodgson, an emeritus professor of oceanography and statistics at Cal Poly Humboldt.  Hodgson is also a vintner who started making wine in 1976 at the Fieldbrook Winery, which he co-owns and operates with his wife Judy, in northern California.  As the story goes, Hodgson started wondering how one of his wines could win a gold medal at one wine competition and "end up in the pooper" at another competition held in the same year.  So, in order to better understand how professional wine tasters evaluated wines, he studied to become one himself.  At some point, he became involved with the California State Fair wine competition, the oldest and most prestigious wine competition in North America.  He convinced the other judges (after what he described as "lots of begging") to allow him to run a controlled scientific test of the wine tasting competition held there.

As he discussed in a podcast called Vintage Year, hosted by the Journal of Wine Economics, which published his study (see "An examination of judge reliability at a major U.S. wine competition"), Hodgson found that expert wine judges are rarely, if ever, consistent.  Between 65-70 judges participated in the study at the California State Fair wine competition held every year from 2005 to 2008.  Each panel of expert judges received a flight of 30 wines, which included four triplicate samples of the same wine poured from the same bottle (unbeknownst to the judges).  Only ten percent of the judges were able to replicate their scores on the same wine.  According to the 100-point wine rating system first popularized by the American wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr (more on him shortly), the judges' ratings typically varied by plus or minus four points on scales ranging from 80 to 100.  In other words, a wine rated 91 by one judge at the first tasting could be rating an 87 or even a 95 at the next tasting (again, each wine was scored three different times by the same judge in the same flight).  Only 1 judge out of 10 could score the same wine with a two point range using the same scale.

In a follow-up study, again published in the Journal of Wine Economics (see "An analysis of the concordance among 13 U.S. wine competitions"), Hodgson analyzed over 4,000 wines entered into thirteen different U.S. wine competitions.  Of the wines entered in more than three competitions,  roughly 47% received a Gold medal at at least one competition. However, 84% of these exact same Gold-winning wines received no award at all in at least one other competition.  When he analyzed all of the data, Hodgson concluded that the probability of receiving a Gold medal at any competition depended largely upon chance alone.  Importantly, certain wines consistently received no award or Bronze medals across multiple competitions, suggesting that judges mainly agree on what they dislike rather than what they love.

Later that same year, the American physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal reporting on Hodgson's findings, "A hint of hype, a taste of illusion" (I've posted about Mlodinow in the past, see "Drunkard's Walk").  Mlodinow references a number of other studies that shed further light on this issue.  Apparently, as far back as 1963, a team of investigators from the University of California, Davis added flavorless food coloring to a dry white wine to simulate several different varieties of red wine.  The professional tasters description of each wine reflected the type of wine that they thought they were tasting (e.g. sherry, rosé, Bordeaux, burgundy, etc) as opposed to what the wine actually was - a dry white wine.  

Several years later, a French neurophysiologist named Frédéric Brochet served 57 French sommelier students the same Bordeaux wine served in two different bottles.  One wine was served in an expensive Grand Cru bottle, while the other was served in the bottle of a cheap table wine.  The sommelier students greatly preferred the Grand Cru wine to the cheap table wine, rating the Grand Cru as "excellent" and the table wine as "flat" or "unbalanced" (note that Brochet also published a study as the 1963 study in which food coloring was added to "turn" white wine into red wine, with similar results).

Several studies have replicated Brochet's method of presenting a cheap table wine as an expensive wine (through packaging and pricing information) and vice versa (see, for example, Robin Goldstein's working paper, "Do more expensive wines taste better? Evidence from a large sample of blind tasting").  One study even used functional MRI (which looks at brain activity) and showed that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of wine quality as well as brain activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (one of the area's of the brain responsible for pleasantness).  I guess that's nature's way of telling us that we can't tell a cheap wine from an expensive wine when it comes to flavor, but instead, we just need to look at the price on the bottle!

As you can imagine, Hodgson's results were fairly controversial when they were first released to the public.  What's compelling is that the test subjects in his study were professional wine judges.  The Goldstein study referenced in the paragraph above included both professionals and non-professionals.  Non-professionals slightly preferred the cheaper table wines to the expensive wines in blind taste tests, while professionals did slightly better picking the more expensive wines correctly, though still leaving a lot to be desired.  Similarly, Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire conducted a study in which over 400 members of the general public correctly classified their wines as expensive versus cheap about 50% of the time, which is about what would be predicted based on chance alone.  So, the question is whether someone can be trained to taste wine accurately.  Hodgson's studies suggest not.

While reporting on Hodgson's results, Leonard Mlodinow contacted the American wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr.  According to an article published in December 200 in The Atlantic magazine, "The Million-Dollar Nose" (the title of the article comes from the fact that Parker has a million dollar insurance policy for his ability to smell and taste fine wine), Parker tastes approximately 10,000 wines every year and claims that he can remember every wine he has tasted over the past 32 years and every score he has given, within a few points.  Parker told Mlodinow that he didn't find Hodgson's results too surprising, and he further confessed that he had participated in a blind wine tasting of fifteen top wines from Bordeaux in 2005 (which he labeled, "the greatest vintage of my lifetime").  Parker apparently failed to correctly identify any of the wines, and confused so-called "left bank" wines and "right bank" wines several times during the tasting (note, in general "left bank" wines are grown in regions west of the Gironde Estuary, and "right bank" in the regions east).  Parker had previously tasted and rated each wine, which was why these 15 wines were specifically selected.  He told Mlodinow that his second rating (during the blind taste test) was always within 2-3 points of the first, unblinded tasting (which all ranged from 95-100).

While Parker did not do too bad, he is, after all, the world's expert at wine tasting.  For all of us mere mortals, there appears to be no hope.  Getting back to Albert Laszlo-Barabasi's argument in The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success, there are all kinds of reasons to explain why professional wine tasters fail to perform consistently or, at least in blind taste tests, accurately.  He states, "Wine competition judges don't fail because they lack expertise, preparation, or thoroughness.  They fail mainly because the wines they're judging are all excellent...And they have no 'stopwatch', no simple tool to determine which anonymous glass of Malbec, raised to the nose and swished in the mouth, is, definitively, a winner."  More generally, "even though performance does drive success, the problem is that the differences among top contenders are so tiny that they're often nearly immeasurable."