Horrible Bosses

It's almost a cliché to say that people don't quit a job, they quit a boss.  As you would expect, it's not quite that simple - I've even read that it's the biggest lie in HR!  Most of the research I've read can be summarized by three points:

1. People leave bad leaders and managers, but it's usually not the number one reason why people leave organizations.

2.  Leaders and managers can make a huge difference in "good organizations."

3.  Good or bad leaders and managers make very little difference in people's decision to leave "bad organizations."

I've mentioned Lt General Hal Moore in the past (see my post "We were soldiers once...") and his excellent leadership book, Hal Moore on Leadership: Winning When Outgunned and Outmanned.  In his book, Lt General Moore developed a rather lengthy list on the different types of "toxic leaders" that he encountered during his long and distinguished career in the U.S. Army.  He defined "bully leaders" as leaders who inflict emotional pain, deliver threats and ultimatums, hurl insults, and invalidate the opinions of others.  What's important is that this particular type of "toxic leader" has far-reaching implications, even after an employee leaves.  

I came across what I thought was an important study in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology titled "Scarred for the Rest of My Career? Career-long effects of abusive leadership on professional athlete aggression and task performance".  The investigators in this study looked at data obtained from professional basketball players and coaches in the NBA between the 2000-2001 and 2005-2006 seasons (693 players and 57 coaches).  They conducted an extensive leadership analysis of each coach (who held a coaching position for at least one full season during the period of study) based on publicly available descriptions of their leadership style.  They then rated each coach using a validated scale of abusive leadership.  Analyzing player performance was much easier due to the abundance of statistical data available.  Player performance was based upon a composite measure (previously validated) based upon points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, etc.  Player aggression was based on the number of technical fouls that each player received.  

Controlling for tenure, salary, team winning percentage, and absence due to injuries, players who were exposed to an abusive coach were more likely to be aggressive as well (based on the number of technical fouls received) for the rest of their careers, even after leaving the coach.  Similarly, players who played for an abusive coach also performed worse for the duration of their career (compared to their performance before playing for the abusive coach).  

While playing professional basketball is different from, say working in a hospital or business, I think at least some of the findings are transferable to settings different from sports.  First, there are at a number of studies outside of professional sports that suggest that working for a toxic leader leads to worse job satisfaction, lower motivation, and worse performance.  Second, though I suspect there are not a lot of studies to answer this question, it is possible that working for a toxic leader can lead to toxic behaviors in the future.  Toxic leaders create a toxic work environment and culture (that has been shown consistently).  In addition, we often model our behavior based upon what we have been exposed to in the past.  If we've worked for a toxic leader in the past, it's not a stretch to say that we may be more likely to exhibit some of these toxic behaviors in the future.  

There is a dark comedy with an all-star cast about toxic leaders, called "Horrible Bosses".  One of the main characters says, "We were all working at pretty terrible jobs for some awful bosses and we just thought, if we ever got a chance to be our own bosses, that we'd do things differently."  Hopefully that is the case, but it wasn't necessarily what happened in the movie nor in the study discussed above.  

Whether you leave or stay in an organization with a toxic leader is a difficult question and probably one that you can only answer for yourself.  However, I've found some great advice for how to cope with a toxic leader: "Surviving a toxic leader's influence while remaining a strong leader yourself, is a never ending task. Wherever you find a vacuum of leadership, step up to the plate and provide the real thing. Not by opposing others but by showing them a different way. Remember to take care of yourself and stay positive."

The 70's weren't all that bad...

I admit that I may be biased, but there was nothing better than Saturday morning cartoons and television shows during the 1970's!  Some of my personal favorites were Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (I especially liked "Peabody's Improbably History"), Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (particularly Commander McBragg) and  Schoolhouse Rock!, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, Land of the Lost, Scooby's Laff-A- Lympics, and Shazam! (and the Shazam / Isis Hour).  I'm sure there were more, but these were the ones I can still vividly remember.  Land of the Lost was surprisingly complex in some of its themes, and I think I learned from Schoolhouse Rock! at times than I did at school.  Many of my favorite shows often had a moral at the end, where characters would break the "fourth wall" and speak directly to the television audience about the show's lesson.

I'll admit that I've watched a few episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! on Amazon Prime recently, and I've found all of the episodes of The World of Commander McBragg on YouTube.  I'd love to find all of the episodes of Land of the Lost somewhere (the 2009 Will Ferrell movie was a travesty in my opinion - the Saturday morning television series was never meant to be a comedy).  There were of course some forgettable shows, but overall, I just think the shows were better than what was on television when our own children were growing up (they may argue with me on this point)!

While looking for old episodes of some of my favorites, I came across a television show that I hadn't remembered, until reading about it.  The show was called Ark II, and it was a live-action science fiction show about four scientists (well, okay three scientists and one chimpanzee) named Jonah, Ruth, Samuel, and Adam (the chimpanzee - who apparently talked, but I don't remember that) who drove around in a highly specialized vehicle set in a 25th century post-apocalyptic Earth.  Earth had been decimated by the effects of waste, pollution, and warfare (sound familiar?), and the surviving scientists pooled their knowledge and resources to send the Ark II (Get it?  The first Ark was Noah's Ark) to search for remnants of civilization.  Every episode started with Jonah, the leader, introducing the backstory:

"For millions of years, Earth was fertile and rich. Then pollution and waste began to take their toll. Civilization fell into ruin. This is the world of the 25th century. Only a handful of scientists remain, men who have vowed to rebuild what has been destroyed. This is their achievement: Ark II, a mobile storehouse of scientific knowledge, manned by a highly trained crew of young people. Their mission: to bring the hope of a new future to mankind."

The show would end with Jonah submitting his captain's log, which contained the episode's lesson (thus not breaking the fourth wall).  The show was revolutionary at the time for introducing a racially mix cast, though unfortunately there were also concerns expressed by the actors about how the chimpanzee was treated during filming.

They say that "art often imitates life".  Well, art also plays a major role in shaping culture, challenging societal norms, and influencing social change.  As I look back on many of the television shows that I watched as a child, I find they did have an impact on culture and social change.  I'm not sure that today's popular television shows (mostly reality TV) do that, which is unfortunate.  And at some point, most Saturday morning cartoons (which aren't even a thing anymore) were more geared to marketing a product versus providing any kind of moral lesson.  It would be hard to go back to the 1970's, but maybe there are some things that we can learn from that decade.

Youth Movement

Yesterday, the National Football League (NFL)'s Atlanta Falcons passed on the opportunity to hire former New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick.  Instead, they went with the current Defensive Coordinator of the Los Angeles Rams (and former Interim Head Coach of the Falcons) Raheem Morris.  Here is what the Falcons owner, Arthur Blank explained his choice:

"This is a historic day for the Atlanta Falcons – after a comprehensive search we are thrilled to welcome Raheem Morris back to Atlanta as the team’s new head coach.  With 26 years of experience in the NFL, including the last three in an outstanding organization that has won our league’s championship in that time, Raheem emerged from a field of excellent candidates and is the right leader to take our team into the future. His time in LA has given him an enhanced perspective on everything from personnel, team operations, game planning, working with an outstanding offensive staff and many other things that has helped him develop into an even more prepared coach in all aspects of the game. I believe his leadership skills have grown and his understanding of what it takes to have a highly collaborative one-team culture are now at a much higher level."

The Falcons reportedly interviewed 14 different candidates, include Belichick (they actually interviewed him twice, suggesting that he was at least receiving heavy consideration).  I think the Falcons made a great hire, and I hope Morris is successful there.  Of course, now the speculation begins on whether Belichick, who needs just 14 wins to become the NFL's all-time leader in wins as a head coach (he is currently second behind legendary coach Don Shula), will coach again in the NFL.  As of today (1/26/2024), there are just two head coach vacancies - the Washington Commanders and the Seattle Seahawks, and Belichick is currently not under consideration for either job.  I read at least one article by Senior NFL Reporter Charles Robinson that gave two reasons why Belichick won't coach this year - time and power.  He has too little time (he is already 71 years of age) and wants too much power.  

Surprisingly, former Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Peter Carroll is also waiting on a new job.  Carroll has won both at the college and professional level, winning the National Championship at USC in 2003 and 2004, and following up with a Super Bowl XLVIII win with the Seahawks in 2014 (he's actually one of just three head coaches to win a championship at both the college and professional levels - the other two being Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer). Carroll is 72 years of age, and given his credentials, he may suffer from a similar issue as Belichick - he has too little time and wants too much power.  We will see.

I say all of this at a time when the NFL seems to be hiring younger and younger head coaches.  The average age of coaches in the NFL right now is 47.3 years, and over half of the current group of head coaches is under age 50 years.  The Patriots replaced Belichick with Jerod Mayo, who at 37 years of age is one of the youngest head coaches.  As recently as 2016, the average age was 53.4 years.  The trend even has a name - the "Sean McVay effect", which described a youth movement that began in 2018 when the Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay at age 30 years, the youngest coach at the time in the history of the NFL.  McVay found success early, which led other teams to follow suit and hire younger coaches.

I have to point out that there doesn't seem to be a "youth movement" with the upcoming U.S. Presidential election (the two likely candidates are currently 77 years and 81 years) - I won't comment anymore on politics today, as the trends in the corporate world are more interesting.  According to a study by the recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, the average age of CEO's of S&P firms increased, with a peak in 2021 of age 56 years.  Apparently, the trend increased in the pandemic, as firms were seeking CEO's with more experience to help lead and navigate their companies through a particularly challenging time.  However, there was a sharp decline in the average age of CEO's in 2022 at 53.8 years (see the Figure below), and nearly 30% of newly appointed CEO's were under the age of 50.

In other words, boards could be changing their tune, investing in leaders with less proven experience but with the kind of potential to be great leaders for long periods of time.  The "youth movement" in the NFL is all about the ability of younger head coaches to relate to their players and perhaps less about predicted tenure.  Perhaps the "youth movement" in the corporate world is about both?  It remains to be seen.  Right now, I will continue to watch the NFL Head Coaching Carousel and the trends in CEO age and tenure with great interest.

The Wager

Okay, full confession.  I checked out a whole stack of books from the local public library right around the holidays, and I am just now getting through them all.  Most of the ones that I checked out were released a while ago, and there were multiple copies available to check-out.  In other words, I don't feel too bad that I had checked out library books sitting unread waiting for me, though there's still a small degree of guilt that someone else could have been waiting for them too.  Oh well.

One book that I read quickly, because I knew it was popular, was the new book The Wager by the author David Grann.  I've read a few books by Grann in the past (for example, The Lost City of Z, which was made into a movie that I thought was very good).  He is an absolutely outstanding writer!  I keep waiting to see the movie "Killers of the Flower Moon" until I've read the book!  I've read great reviews about The Wager, and all I can say is that they were right - the book is amazing!  Grann tells the true story of the HMS Wager, a 28-gun square-rigged ship in the British Navy that sank off the coast of Chile in 1741.  The ship was part of Commodore George Anson's famous expedition around the world during the War of Jenkins' Ear (yes, that was the name!) with Spain in the 1740's.  The Wager wrecked off the coast of present-day Chile following a difficult passage around Cape Horn.  The crew was stranded on a desert island, which they named Wager Island.  During a prolonged stay, the crew split off into factions, leading to murder and mutiny, which is really the subject of the Grann's book.  I don't want to spoil the book for you, but I couldn't help think about similar stories that I have read, including the famous "Mutiny on the Bounty", the Robbers Cave experiment in psychology (which I've mentioned previously in a post entitled "Robbers Cave"), William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, Sea Venture (a great book by Kieran Doherty that links the original Jamestown colony, the discovery of the island of Bermuda, and William Shakespeare's play The Tempest), and of course, Joan Druett's superb book, Island of the Lost, a tale of two different ships - the Grafton and the Invercauld - who wrecked on the remote Auckland Island with two completely different outcomes (see my post, "A Tale of Two Leaders").

Joel Achenbach wrote a story for The Washington Post ("Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized") and referenced work by the Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis (I've mentioned his research before - see my posts "Peer Pressure" and "2024 Leadership Reverie Reading List"), who wrote a book called Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society about an area of research called the "evolution of cooperation" (see my post, "Tit for Tat" for more on this field).  Our ancestors lived in a world of limited resources in which their survival depended upon cooperation.  We evolved to form tightly knit groups, and group survival often required competition with other groups. 

Christakis states, "The evolution of cooperation required out-group hatred, which is really sad." The simple fact is that we are prone to form groups.  And study after study (see in particular the Robbers Cave experiment, but also the shipwreck cases mentioned above) suggest that we vigorously defend our own groups, often at the expense of those who are not within the group.  Christakis mentions that "children as young as two will prefer other children randomly assigned to the same T-shirt color."  In other words, these tendencies to cluster or sort into different groups is deeply ingrained in our DNA.

There is no doubt that our world has become more polarized.  Whether we are more polarized now than at any other point in our nation's history is debatable.  I am not sure that I fully agree with Achenbach's thesis that today's polarization is a natural extension of in-group versus out-group behavior and the evolution of cooperation.  And admittedly, he does suggest that other factors are also in play.  Regardless, I thought Achenbach's story was interesting, and it is certainly worth a read.

Books with enormous impact (at least on me)...

I've talked about a few books that have had a significant impact on how I view the world.  For example, I mentioned the book Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Countries by Geoffrey West in a post earlier this year.  It's also one of the ten books on the 2024 Leadership Reverie Reading List.  

I wrote about two books from my childhood and adolescence years that had a huge impact on my choice of career (see "What's Up Doc?" from March 5, 2017) -  Life in a Log by George and Bernice Schwartz and Competitive Swimming Manual for Coaches and Swimmers by the late Indiana University Men's Swimming Coach James "Doc" Counsilman.  The former really solidified my interest in the life sciences, while the latter led to an interest in both sports science and exercise physiology (one of my undergraduate majors).  

Along those same lines, I would be remiss if I didn't add Jeffrey Blumer's A Practical Guide to Pediatric Intensive Care to the list as well.  I purchased this book as a fourth year medical student to help me during one of my rotations, which happened to be my first experience in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).  During my pediatric residency training, we really couldn't afford any of the other major pediatric critical care textbooks, so I kept going back to this one throughout my training.  Compared to some of the other textbooks out there (one of which I was honored to serve as an Editor: Pediatric Critical Care Medicine: Basic Science and Clinical Evidence), this one is more general in nature and was a perfect introduction to the field.  While reading through this textbook wasn't the only reason for why I chose to enter the field of pediatric critical care medicine, it certainly had an influence.

I would absolutely have to add J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy to that list, mostly for the pure enjoyment that both books provided me all through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.  I've read both a number of times throughout my life, and I actually recently picked up The Hobbit for the first time in several years.  Notably, the late actor Christopher Lee (who played Saruman in the trilogy films) read the trilogy every year of his life, prior to his death in 2015.  Similarly, I would definitely add my favorite book of all time to the list, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (listed on the 2021 Leadership Reverie Reading List).  It's just a wonderful story that I've enjoyed ever since I picked it up off my parents' bookshelf sometime in early adolescence.  As a matter of fact, it's probably time that I replace my very well-worn copy of the book!

If you haven't read Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein, you are missing out on a great book.  The book focuses on the age-old argument - is it better to be a generalist or a specialist?  You've probably heard that old saying that labels anyone claiming to be a generalist as a "Jack of all trades, Master of none".  Most of the time that this particular phrase is used, it is not meant to be a compliment.  However, did you know that there's a second part of this old proverb?  The complete saying is actually, "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."  The complete saying actually is suggesting that being a generalist is not such a bad thing after all.  And that's what this book is about!

I posted about a similarly themed book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool (see "Peak" from January 31, 2022), which is also on my list.  The fundamental question here is whether individuals are born with some genetically-determined talent or develop it over time through hard work, practice, and collective experience.  K. Anders Ericsson is a strong proponent of the "nurture" theory (which led to his theory of deliberate practice - Malcolm Gladwell popularized the "10,000 hour rule" in his book Outliers based largely on this theory).  Regardless though, Ericsson himself wrote, "The clear message from decades of research is that no matter what role innate genetic endowment may play in the achievements of ‘gifted’ people, the main gift that these people have is the same one we all have—the adaptability of the human brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us.''  That should be a welcome statement for all of us.

While my professional interests in the last 15-20 years or so have focused primarily on quality improvement and patient safety (particularly in the context of the theory of the High Reliability Organization), that wasn't always the case.  Our PICU Medical Director then pushed me to take an internal course offering on improvement science (called I2S2), and one of our assigned texts was a book by Donald Wheeler (no relation) called Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos.  It's a short book (it's just over 150 pages in length) with a powerful message about statistical process control.  After reading it, I was absolutely hooked!  Shortly thereafter, I read the principal book on High Reliability Organizations, Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity by Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe, two of the leading authorities in the field.  There are now three editions of this wonderful book, and all three are on my bookshelf in my office.

Lastly, while I have mentioned The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership by Sam Walker in a number of posts in the past (see "Turn slow, exit fast" and "Lovable losers once more..."), I've never really talked about it at length, even though it was one of the 10 books on my 2022 Leadership Reverie Reading List.  The tagline to the book says it all - The secret to winning is not what you think it is. It’s not the coach.  It’s not the star.  It’s not money.  It’s not a strategy.  It’s something else entirely.  Walker found that it is the team captain.  But it wasn't just any team captain, it was a certain phenotype of team captain.  

Walker started by developing a formula to analyze over 1,000 teams throughout history and across all sports, ultimately settling on sixteen of the most dominant teams in sports history (which included, among others, the New York Yankees major league baseball team (1949-1953), the Montreal Canadiens from the National Hockey League (1955-1960), the Boston Celtics from the National Basketball Association (1956-1969), Brazil's men's national football team (1958-1962), the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (1974-1980), the Soviet Union men's national hockey team (1980-1984), U.S. national women's soccer (1996-1999), France's national men's handball team (2008-2015), and New Zealand's All Blacks rugby team twice (1986-1990 and 2011-2015).  He found that these teams had the best team captains who were usually not the team's superstar (in fact, they usually played the role of a supporting player), nor was this individual necessarily the best role model. These individuals rarely got up in front of the team to make a big speech, but rather they would sit one-on-one with individual players to motivate them to play their best.  These dominant teams always had a self-sacrificing captain who wasn’t afraid of risking a negative public persona or putting his body on the line for the sake of the team.  It's just a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from reading it.  

There you have it - that's my list, at least for now.  I am sure that I've probably missed one or two books from the past, but these were the ones that almost immediately came to mind.  They've all had a great impact on how I view the world, and I highly recommend all of them!

Nurses are first...again!

Last year I mentioned the results of the Annual Gallup Survey on honesty and ethics among professionals , which showed that the nursing profession has the highest ethics rating among all professions, with 79% of U.S. adults stating that nurses have either "High" or "Very High" honest and ethical standards.  These results were not surprising - first of all, I have the honor and pleasure of working with a lot of great nurses!  Second, nurses have held the top ranking for every year of the survey, except one, since 1999 (which was the first year that they were added to the survey).  That year, firefighters earned a record-high 90% rating in their only appearance on the list following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  

Gallup just recently released the results of a survey that was conducted from November 1-21, 2023, which assessed the care provided in the U.S. health care system (see "Nurses First, Doctors Distant Second in Healthcare Provider Ratings").  Nurses received the highest rating by far, with 82% of those surveyed saying that nurses provide excellent or good medical care.  Physicians ranked a distant second at 69%.  

While this is a slightly different survey than the one on honesty and ethics among professionals mentioned above, the highly positive rating for nurses has stayed more or less the same with the two most recent surveys of the past, conducted in 2003 and 2010.  In contrast, other health care providers and organizations have dropped significantly compared to the last two surveys, with physician ratings dropping by 15 percentage points and pharmaceutical companies dropping 21 percentage points compared to the 2010 survey.

Also of note, hospital emergency rooms dropped by 13 percentage points and now rank lower than walk-in clinics/urgent care clinics.  I suspect a big reason for this decrease is the fact that many emergency departments were short-staffed and waiting times significantly increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.  Finally, only 52% of those surveyed rated telemedicine or virtual doctor visits positively, suggesting that most Americans still feel that virtual care (while a viable option) is different than in-person care.

What are the take-home messages here?  First, and most obvious (I hope), we can learn a lot from our nursing colleagues!  The care that they provide, the empathy that they show, and the commitment and dedication to always being there for their patients is an outstanding model to follow!  Second, we should continue to evaluate the growing trends with virtual care.  There is no question that virtual care can help improve access, particularly in rural areas.  However, we need to continue to evaluate how we can make virtual care "feel" more like in-person care.  Finally, there are likely some things that we can do to help offload our emergency departments (ED) - certainly making sure that all Americans have access to a primary care physician would help immensely.  I suspect that we can also better leverage urgent care (including virtual urgent care) to help decompress our ED waiting rooms.  Finally, I know of at least one or two children’s hospitals that have experimented successfully and safely with direct admissions for specific conditions, thus bypassing the ED altogether. 

I am looking forward to the next Gallup survey on honesty and ethics among professions.  Based on the results of this most recent survey, I suspect that nurses will once again rank first.  Congratulations and well-done to all of my nursing colleagues - you deserve it!!

Res ipsa loquitur

I wrote about former New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick last week (see "All Things Must Pass").  Apparently Coach Belichick has interviewed with at least one other NFL team this past week, and I believe all the experts expect him to be coaching again next year with a new NFL team.  Regardless, I came across an excellent post by Professor Michael Roberto ("Lessons from the Closing of the Belichick Era in New England") that was short enough that I thought I would pass it on.  Roberto writes:

"Simple, but powerful, lesson from the Belichick era's closing chapter in New England: Open up your inner circle as you grow older, invite new voices inside, and keep questioning whether the formula for past success continues to apply in a changing environment."

I think the post speaks for itself.  I couldn't agree more, and I don't think I could make Roberto's point any better or more clear.  So I will leave it - as they say in Law, Res ipsa loquitur (from Latin meaning "the thing speaks for itself").

"Uneasy is the head that wears a crown..."

Over the winter holiday break, I finished two interesting, albeit heavy, books on leadership by the American political scientist Eliot A. Cohen.  Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (and former Dean of that school from 2019 to 2021), and he also served as a counselor at the U.S. Department of State under Condoleeza Rice from 2007 to 2009.  Cohen wrote the first book, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime in 2003, focusing primarily on four leaders - Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion - and the theme (to borrow from a quote by Clemenceau), "War is too important to leave to the generals."  Cohen examines the relationship between military and political leadership and argues that active statesmen (i.e. ones who actively play the role of "Commander in Chief" of a nation's military forces) make the best wartime leaders.  I was particularly interested in his argument, as it seemed to be counter to my often argued HRO principle of "Deference to Expertise".  

Cohen starts his book with a chapter on what is called the "normal" theory of civil-military relations (to borrow a term from Samuel Huntington's book, The Soldier and the State).  In other words, when it comes to leadership during war time, there are "two hands on the sword" - the civil hand determines when to draw the sword from the scabbard and the military hand sharpens the sword for use and wields it during combat.  The military hand should be isolated as much as possible from politics and given free rein to operate with as little intrusion as possible from the civil hand.  My immediate response to this analogy was to ask myself, "Why would you ever have two independent hands that don't talk to each other exercising control over anything?"  It's the proverbial right hand not talking to the left!  Moreover, anyone who has paid attention to the recent international conflicts can quickly realize that it's difficult, if not impossible, to completely remove political considerations from the military ones.  As the legendary Prussian general and brilliant military strategist Carl von Clausewitz said in his classic book On War, "The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose."  Given my strong beliefs in the HRO principle of "Deference to Expertise", I was impressed by his arguments, and I will be doing some more reading on this topic in the future!

While ordering a copy of Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime from my local public library, I came across Cohen's most recent book, The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall, which came out in 2023.  I waited about six weeks for this book, so it must be a popular read, at least in Highland Park, Illinois!  The title comes from Shakespeare's play Richard II (note that the title of today's post is a quote from a different Shakespeare play, Henry IV Part 2):

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings —

How some have been deposed, some slain in war, 

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

All murdered. For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,

Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

I have to be honest, I haven't read very many of Shakespeare's plays.  There was the obligatory reading of Romeo and Juliet in middle school and Hamlet during high school, but that was really it.  What's great is that Cohen provides just enough context, background, and direct quotes from Shakespeare to support his argument, even for someone who has not read many of Shakespeare's plays.  He divides the book into three major sections, discussing how leaders acquire power, how leaders wield power, and how leaders ultimately lose power.  He does compare and contrast Shakespeare's leaders (many of which, but not all, are based upon actual leaders and events in history) with contemporary political leaders, but most of his arguments are based primarily on Shakespeare's plays.  He also makes the argument that leaders outside of politics (e.g. business leaders, academic leaders, etc) can certainly learn from Shakespeare's plays.  He writes, "Strip away the trappings of robes, crowns, and scepters and one realizes that today as well courts run almost all human organizations...there is someone at the top who rules or reigns. There is often a designated (or aspiring) successor filling the role of crown prince, and there are people at various other stages of authority who jockey for power."

The Washington Examiner has called the book, "The William Shakespeare Guide to Gaining and Wielding Political Power".  Rather than analyzing each individual play, Cohen brings examples from all the plays (focusing mostly on the Henriad histories and Roman tragedies, though he also discusses The Tempest and Macbeth at length.  Overall, I enjoyed the book, and it actually encouraged me to go back and read some of Shakespeare's plays.  And once again, Cohen highlights a point that I've previously made, that one can learn a lot about leadership by reading some of literature's greatest works.

Like clockwork?

I've been learning a lot about complexity science (see "A jumbo jet is complicated, but mayonnaise is complex") and chaos theory (see, "Tame the Chaos?") over the course of the past few months and came across a concept discussed by Brenda Zimmerman in her book, Edgeware: Lessons for Complexity Science for Health (for a shorter summary, see her article "Complexity Science: A Route Through Hard Times and Uncertainty" published several years ago in the Health Forum Journal).  Zimmerman and her colleagues discuss the differences between traditional leadership models, which are largely based on Newtonian physics versus the models that are required for today's world, which are largely based on quantum physics.

Newtonian physics versus quantum physics?  Let me explain.  Classical physics, often called Newtonian physics is based upon Sir Isaac Newton's three universal laws of motion and emphasizes the linear, cause-and-effect nature of the world around us.  To every action is an opposite counteraction.  Output is proportional to input.  The overall system is a sum of its individual component parts.  Under this paradigm, we should be able to both predict and understand exactly what happens in a system by breaking it down into its individual components.  For years, science used this reductionist approach to understand, or at least try to understand, the laws of the universe.  Take, for example, the scientific discipline of medicine.  We should be able to understand how the whole human body functions by understanding how each organ system works.  We should be able to understand how each organ system works by understanding how each organ in that system works.  We can understand how the individual organs function by understanding how the tissues that make up that organ function, and so on down to the individual cells and after that the organelles.  Anyone who has spent time in the hospital can appreciate that it's never this straightforward.  If it were, we would have cured many of the diseases that affect us.

Beginning in the late 1900's, as science was beginning to reveal the secrets of the atom, there was a paradigm shift towards quantum physics.  Rather than the machine-like, clockwork universe of Newton, we started to appreciate the inherent complexity of the world around us.  Rather than thinking in linear terms, we began to think in non-linear terms.  We began to appreciate that the whole is actually greater than the sum of its parts, and that we could never fully understand or appreciate how exactly a system works just by understanding its individual components.  The reductionist approach that led to so many discoveries in the past really doesn't work in this new age of quantum physics, and the world is not as predictable as we were previously led to believe during the age of Newtonian physics.  As an example, just consider how many times the weather forecast is correct.  Even with the sophisticated computer models and simulations that are available today, the 10 day weather forecast is only accurate about half the time!  

Leadership under the classical or Newtonian paradigm is relatively straightforward.  Best practices and so-called standard operating procedures can be universally applied to solve a problem with fairly predictable results.  In contrast, leadership in the quantum world of complexity and chaos requires a different approach.  The solution to a problem is neither obvious nor intuitive.  The tried and true routines do not work here.  According to Brenda Zimmerman and her colleagues (and consistent with other models that I have described previously), there are two different approaches to solving problems, which they call clockware and swarmware.  Clockware describes the core management processes that are rational, planned, standardized, repeatable, controlled, and measurable.  These are the standard operating procedures or best practices that can be used again and again with predictable consequences.  Swarmware describes the management processes that explore new possibilities through experimentation, trials, autonomy, freedom, intuition, and experience.  Here, the solutions are never straightforward and usually have to be just "good enough".  Both approaches are required in the world we live in today.  As Zimmerman writes, "When life is far from certain, lead with clockware and swarmware in tandem."  The best leaders are the ones who know when to apply each approach.  

"All Things Must Pass"

In the immortal words of one of my favorites, George Harrison, "Sunrise doesn't last all morning.  A cloudburst doesn't last all day...Sunset doesn't last all evening.  A mind can blow those clouds away...All things must pass.  All things must pass away."

I am almost 100% certain that Harrison wasn't talking about football, but this is the song that is playing in my head this morning.  If the rumors are true, we will have witnessed in the last 24 hours, the end of two eras, if you will.  University of Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban announced yesterday that he has officially retired after 17 seasons there.  He leaves a legacy that will never be matched again in my lifetime and probably in no other lifetime.  Seven National Championships (six of those at Alabama, all occurring in 12 seasons), 11 SEC Championships, the first coach in NCAA history to win two National Championships at two different schools (LSU and Alabama - this record has since been matched), and a career college football head coaching record of 292-71-1.  He coached four Heisman Trophy winners (Mark Ingram II, Derrick Henry, DeVonta Smith, and Bryce Young) and an all-time record 49 First-Round NFL draft picks.  His head coaching tree is long and distinguished.  He is a devout Catholic, a pillar in the community of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and keeps in contact and continues to mentor his former players long after they graduate.  There were no specific reasons cited for retirement, but Saban did have this to say, "It is not just about how many games we won and lost, but it’s about the legacy and how we went about it. We always tried to do it the right way.  The goal was always to help players create more value for their future, be the best player they could be and be more successful in life because they were part of the program. Hopefully, we have done that, and we will always consider Alabama our home."

One of our daughters attended Alabama during a four-year stretch in which Saban won two of his six National Championships (they were Runners-Up the other two years), so I have watched the program with great interest ever since.  I have posted about his leadership philosophy on a number of occasions (see "Roll Tide!", "The Process", "The half-time rally", and most recently, "Practice makes perfect").  He is universally acclaimed as one of the greatest college football coaches of all-time, and I would put him on my "Mount Rushmore" of the greatest college coaches with UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden, Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit, and Grambling State men's football coach Eddie Robinson.  I will certainly miss watching him coach, but more importantly, I will miss posting about his leadership philosophy and approach to the game.

Saban is apparently good friends with another legendary football coach who is apparently leaving his current head coaching job with the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick.  Coach Belichick holds the record for the most Super Bowl wins as a coach (eight - two of which he won as Defensive Coordinator with the New York Giants) and the most Super Bowl wins as a head coach (six - all with the Patriots).  He is just 14 wins shy of surpassing Don Shula's record for all-time wins in the NFL, and despite his most recent lack of success, he will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the all-time greats, if not the greatest, NFL head football coaches.  While he is not an easy coach to like, and he certainly had the advantage of playing with the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time, I have also posted a number of times about the dynasty he helped create with the Patriots (see "The Patriot Way", "The Patriot Way Redux", and "That makes it twice...").  

I have been really fortunate to witness these great coaches in their prime and during my lifetime.  I will miss writing about them, and I will definitely miss watching their success (well, at least with Coach Saban and not really with Coach Belichick, because I really don't like the Patriots).  It's perhaps poignant that both coaches are ending their respective careers, at least with the teams where they had their most success (there are rumors that Belichick will coach somewhere else), at the same time and in the same 24-hour period.  We knew their time would eventually come to an end, because "All Things Must Pass".

All the world's a stage

I have posted a lot about "crisis leadership" in the past.  Here are some of my favorites:

1. "Leadership during a crisis - Remembering 9.11.01" 

2. "Failure is not an option!"

3. "Brace for impact"

4. "Now is the time to lead"

5. "These are the times that try men's souls..."

6. "So came the captain with the mighty heart..."

7. "Sorting out the heroes from the bums..."

History has provided us with some very good role models when it comes to "crisis leadership" - certainly leaders such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, and Winston Churchill immediately come to mind.  The Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn discussed both Lincoln and Shackleton in her superb book Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders, but she also mentions the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, anti-Nazi dissident and clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and conservationist Rachel Carson as well.  The author and Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson in her excellent book Leadership: In Turbulent Times.  Finally, I would mention a book that I just recently finished on three abolitionists and women's rights advocates - Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Coffin Wright - called The Agitators, by Dorothy Wickenden.  All of these leaders lived through turbulent periods of time in history, and they all demonstrated what it is meant by "crisis leadership".  

Mayo Oshin said that, "In times of crisis, the world looks up to leaders for brutal honesty and credible hope..."  Sameh Abadir, writing for MIT Sloan Management Review ("The Two Roles Leaders Must Play in a Crisis") "Great crisis captains need to play two main parts: the front-stage and back-stage roles of leadership."  Calling to mind the sociologist Erving Goffman's metaphor on leadership, Abadir says that "in the front-stage spotlight, leaders inspire and assure their teams, sending a message of hope and sharing their vision with the organization. They also show empathy and public commitment. These leaders are simultaneously kind and humble, showing the caring side of their personality."  The front-stage role must be combined with the back-stage one, in which leaders take a blunt and realistic approach to the serious threats at hand. Behind the scenes, "leaders gather information and expertise, share facts, and dive deeply into processes — whether financial, technological, or human — to adapt and follow through on their plans. Such leaders are smart and confident, displaying the daring side of their personality."

Michaela Kerrissey and Amy Edmondson wrote about two leaders who were particularly effective at managing the novel crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic in an article published online by the Harvard Business Review ("What Good Leadership Looks Like During the Pandemic").  Adam Silver, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), took the unprecedented step of suspending the NBA season on March 11, 2020, which coincidentally was also the day that the World Health Organization officially designated COVID-19 a pandemic.  Note that this decisive action, still at a time of great ambiguity and uncertainty, occurred even before the U.S. government and others in the private sector began restricting public events.  Similarly, Jacinda Ahern, New Zealand's Prime Minister at the time, was one of the first world leaders to take bold and unprecedented steps to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, imposing a four-level tiered response to the COVID-19 pandemic that garnered widespread public support in New Zealand.    Kerrissey and Edmondson used these two examples of "crisis leadership" to distill four lessons on how to effectively lead through a crisis, even one as unique as a worldwide pandemic:

1. Act with urgency

Acting with urgency means that leaders have to make decisions, even in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty.  As Kerrissey and Edmondson write, "The risks of delaying decision-making are often invisible.  But in a crisis, wasting vital time in the vain hope that greater clarity will prove no action is necessary is dangerous."  

2. Communicate with transparency

Communicating bad news is never easy.  However, communicating with transparency and honesty is absolutely essential to effective "crisis leadership".  Leaders must communicate as clearly as possible (1) what they know, (2) what they anticipate, and (3) what it means for people.  There's one important caveat - leaders also have to communicate a hopeful vision for the future, otherwise people will simply give in to despair.  

3. Respond productively to missteps

Mistakes will be made.  That's probably the only thing that is certain during a crisis.  Kerrissey and Edmondson write, "How leaders respond to the inevitable missteps and unexpected challenges is just as important as how they first address the crisis."  Leaders need to avoid the temptation to get defensive, and they should absolutely never shift blame on someone else.  

4. Engage in constant updating

During any crisis, people are looking desperately for some semblance of stability.  Leaders should avoid the temptation to set a course and stick to it unrelentingly.  Rather, they must constantly adjust and update their understanding of the situation based upon the most current facts and understanding of the situation.  Notably, this often means relying upon their expert advisors and seeking diverse opinions ("Deference to Expertise").

As the English playwright William Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."  Leaders, particularly during a crisis, must balance the "front-stage" persona of empathy, inspiration, and hope with the "back-stage" requirements for decisiveness and bold action.

Peanuts Philosophy

There's a post that has been making it's way around social media for the past couple of weeks that I thought was interesting, so I am re-posting it here.  It's been called "The Charles Schulz Philosophy", but honestly I can't find for sure whether Charles Schulz, the famous creator of the comic strip Peanuts, actually ever said it in the exact same way as it's listed below.  Regardless, bear with me a minute and read through the passage below - I think it will make sense to you quickly.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman Trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4. Name 10 people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do? Were you able to answer all of the questions correctly?  The point is that no one really can remember the headliners of yesterday.  Think about it for a minute - all of these winners represent the best in their respective fields.  However, after the applause dies, awards tarnish.  Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

How did you do on this one?  Was it easier?  Here's the important lesson for today: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.  They are simply the ones who care the most.  These are the individuals who will have the most impact on your life.  They are the ones who stick with you through the good times as well as the bad times.  These individuals are the ones who truly matter.

The Morall of the Story

The current NFL season has been labeled “The Year of the Back-up Quarterback”  - nearly half of the NFL teams started a back-up quarterback in week 17 this past weekend.  Some of these teams simply grew tired of their starters’ poor performance and decided to roll the dice with someone else.  In other cases, the starter was injured earlier in the season.  Some teams have done well with their back-ups, while others have not.  But if you really want to talk about THE greatest back-up quarterback of all-time, you have to turn back the calendar to the 1970’s when a back-up quarterback out of Michigan State University backed-up not one but TWO future Hall of Fame NFL quarterbacks.

Earl Morall played for 21 seasons in the NFL, which is an impressive accomplishment in its own right.  He was a three-time Super Bowl champion, one-time NFL champion (pre-Super Bowl era NFL football), and NFL MVP in 1968.  He played for six different NFL teams, but he is perhaps best known for serving as the back-up quarterback for Johnny Unitas and Bob Griese, both legendary Hall of Fame quarterbacks for the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, respectively.  First, during the 1968 NFL season, Morall came in to replace injured Johnny Unitas , guiding the Baltimore Colts to a 13-1 record and the NFL Championship.  Unfortunately, the Colts lost to the upstart AFL champion New York Jets in Super Bowl III (remember Joe Namath’s famous guarantee?).  Nobody remembers that Morall - the back-up quarterback - started Super Bowl III, though Unitas would come in the game late to try to rescue a victory from the jaws of defeat.  Alas, it was not to be.  Joe Namath and his Jets would win and achieve immortality.  Morall would redeem himself, again for the Colts, in Super Bowl V, coming in to replace an injured Unitas again.  This time, Morall and the Colts were victorious.  

Morall made several starts for the Colts during the 1971 NFL season, but he moved to the Miami Dolphins the following year (where he again played for Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, who had coached him when he played for the Colts).  Morall came in to replace an injured Bob Griese on October 15, 1972 - at the time the Dolphins were undefeated.  Morall would start and lead the team to win the next 9 games for the undefeated Dolphins, the first time that any NFL team finished the regular season without a loss.  He would start the first play-off game against the Cleveland Browns, as well as the AFC championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, though Griese would come in and finish the game.  Griese would start and win Super Bowl VII.  With the win, the Dolphins completed the only perfect season in NFL history.  What is often forgotten is how many games Earl Morall played that year for the Dolphins!

Imagine having a back-up quarterback like Earl Morall!  The important lesson of today’s post (the Morall of the story, if you will) and perhaps the current NFL season is this - never be caught unprepared! Always have a back-up plan.  Make sure that you have developed the next layer of talent in your organization so that they can step up, when necessary, to replace one of the leaders in your organization.  

2024 Leadership Reverie Reading List

Keeping with my year-end traditions, here is this year's "Leadership Reverie" Reading List.  Similar to last year, I will list five books that I've previously read (and highly recommend), as well as five books that others have recommended to me (that I haven't read, but I am planning to do so this coming year).

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Great Things by Adam Grant 

I've read all of Adam Grant's books in the past, and I've commented on several of them in previous posts (see, for example, "Givers and Takers: One Last Time", "The July Effect and the Beginner's Bubble Hypothesis", and "Tell them about the dream, Martin" which each highlight points made in his last three books).  I just finished his latest offering a couple of weeks ago (thanks to the Highland Park Public Library).  Even though it's not his best book (at least in my opinion), I did really enjoy it and found it to be a quick read.  We live in a world that is obsessed with talent - the gifted student in school, the child prodigy in music, the natural athlete in sports.  Grant suggests that perhaps this obsession leads us to underestimate or underappreciate the "hidden talent" in individuals who can be just as successful.  Look for more posts on these studies in 2024.

A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

Our family spent some time in Tokyo this past summer, and since coming back I've started reading and learning more about the fascinating history of Japan and Japanese culture.  Miyamoto Musashi was a great warrior and philosopher from the 17th century.  The five "books" refer to the idea that there are different elements of battle, just as there are different physical elements in life, as described by Buddhism, Shinto, and other Eastern religions.  I've heard that this is a book about strategy, so I am looking forward to learning more about it this next year.

The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton 

I've always been told that you should step out of your comfort zone every once in a while.  This book was WAY out of my comfort zone!  I do enjoy reading philosophy, but I've never read too much about the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.  I've read a few short stories by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (check out "The Garden of Forking Paths" if you want a small taste of this talented writer), and lately I've been reading more about quantum physics, which introduced me to the German physicist Werner Heisenberg who is perhaps most famous for the uncertainty principle.  Borges, Heisenberg, and Kant all had similar ideas, which Egginton ties together nicely in this book that is part biography and part philosophy.  Some of the concepts went over my head at times, so it's not a light read.  But it is a good read, which is why I am recommending it here.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

So, if you are going to spend time reading a book about three different individuals from different time periods who had similar ideas (see the book above), it makes sense to pick up this one too.  GEB, as it is apparently known (it's a classic from 1979) talks about common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach.  The book has been mentioned several times in some recent books I've read on complexity and chaos theory, so I will give it a try this year.

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis

If you enjoyed my posts "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" and "It's a small world after all...", you're really going to enjoy this book.  According to Fowler and Christakis, your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you've never met her.  They call it "three degrees of influence" and they've been able to show that what we say and do influences our friends’ thoughts and behaviors (first degree), our friends’ friends (second degree) thoughts and behaviors, and the thoughts and behaviors of our friends’ friends’ friends (third degree).  I've posted about their research in the past (see "Peer Pressure" and "Happy is contagious"), and I really enjoyed this book-length discussion of their research findings.

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond 

I read Desmond's Pulitzer Prize winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City a few years ago - it's not an entertaining read, but it's an important read.  When I saw that he had released a second book on a similarly important subject, I put it on my list.

Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West

There is a short list of books that I would consider to have changed how I view the world, and this book by Geoffrey West, a theoretical physicist and former President of the Sante Fe Institute is definitely on it!  I posted about the concepts West describes earlier this year (see "Scale").  It's a fascinating book that has become one of my all-time favorites.

The Political Determinants of Health by Daniel E. Dawes

Daniel Dawes wrote another book that is sitting on my book shelf (150 Years of Obamacare), which I've unfortunately not read yet.  His most recent book was highly recommended to me by one of our health policy experts here in Chicago, so I am going to try to read both books this year.  Dawes argues that the political determinants of health create the social drivers of health, including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods, and lack of healthy food options which go on to impact all other aspects of health. 

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Leonard Mlodinow is another theoretical physicist who co-wrote A Briefer History of Time with Stephen Hawking, which was an update and rewrite of Hawking's earlier and more famous book, A Brief History of Time.  I've also posted about this book in the past year (see "Drunkard's Walk"), and I really enjoyed it.  Mlodinow talks about the role of randomness in our everyday lives and the cognitive biases that lead us to misinterpret them.  The laws of probability may seem simple on their surface, but in a world that is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and turbulence (VUCAT), it's often difficult and at times impossible to distinguish between random and non-random events.  

How Ike Led: The Principle's Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions by Susan Eisenhower

I'm not sure where I first saw this book, but as I read through a biography of each U.S. President (in order), I've often picked up another book or two on each President.  Susan Eisenhower is President Eisenhower's granddaughter, but she is also a security expert and Washington, D.C. analyst.  I am looking forward to reading more about Eisenhower through the eyes of someone who perhaps knew him in a different light.