Long Live Rock!

As I've mentioned in the past (see "You can't always get what you want..."), when I was in high school, I decided to post a "Quote of the Day" on a small dry erase board on the refrigerator in our family's kitchen.  I planned to only use quotations borrowed from rock-n-roll lyrics.  It worked great for about 3 days, then I quickly started losing momentum, gave up, and stopped.  The first quote that I used was from a Rolling Stones song called, "You can't always get what you want".  I've also wondered in the past whether Mick Jagger, the lead singer for the Rolling Stones was a Stoic philosopher (see "Was Mick Jagger a Stoic?")!  It's not far-fetched at all - Mick Jagger once studied economics at the famous London School of Economics and Political Science, which boasts an acceptance rate of about 8 percent!  

As it turns out, I've learned a lot from rock-n-roll lyrics over the years.  One of my favorite rock-n-roll artists, Bruce Springsteen once said, "The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with."  With "The Boss" in mind, I decided to build upon my earlier posts and talk about some of the most important lessons that I've learned from listening to rock-n-roll:

1. "You can't always get what you want..." by the Rolling Stones:  Let's start with the song I've already mentioned.  There's a lyric in the song's chorus that goes: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you'll find, you get what you need.  It's a pretty amazing sentiment, if you really think about it outside the context of a rock lyric.  I think that you will find in life that you don't always get what you want.  Things won't always go the way that you hoped.  If you find yourself in that situation, take a pause and reconsider.  Chances are that you will come to realize that things always happen for a reason.  Even if you don't always get what you want, you will find that you will get exactly what you need.  What Mick Jagger is singing is a particular brand of philosophical thinking that encourages us a a sense of acceptance and contentment with what life offers, rather than constantly chasing after unattainable goals.

2. "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger: I've always thought that this is an absolutely amazing song.  There's an incredible lyric at the beginning of the song which may be the most poignant statement about life that I've ever heard in a rock-n-roll song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.  Here, Seger is lamenting the fact that as we grow older (and wiser), we learn some hard lessons about life that we don't necessarily appreciate when we are younger.  The lessons we learn as we grow older can be painful - the most important lessons in life usually are so.  The Roman general Julius Caesar himself said that "Experience is the best teacher" (he technically said it in Latin, "Ut est rerum omnium magister usus").  It's also been said (by many) that "experience is the hardest teacher, because it gives the test first and the lesson afterward."

3. "Follow Your Heart" by Triumph: The Canadian rock band Triumph was one of my favorite bands growing up.  They were known for their powerful guitar-driven rock songs with lyrics that always seemed to have an inspirational message as opposed to the "sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll" cliché - "Fight the Good Fight" (which was written for one of the band members' aunts who was suffering from cancer), "Lay It On the Line", and "Magic Power" to name just a few.  There's a line in their song "Follow Your Heart" that goes: People say don't ever look behind, happiness is just a state of mind.  The underlying message here is one that I've been posting a lot about recently - we can choose to be happy and optimistic, or we can choose to be unhappy and pessimistic.  It's truly a choice.  It all comes down to how we react to life's difficulties and experiences.

4. "The Grand Illusion" by Styx:  I loved this entire album growing up!  The theme for the entire album (Styx was big on concept albums) was that things aren't always what they seem and that it's a "grand illusion" that success will make you happy (see my post, "Success is not the key to happiness...").  Here's the key line from the title track: So if you think your life is complete confusion, 'cause your neighbors got it made.  Just remember that it's a grand illusion, and deep inside, we're all the same.  Here's another line that is just as powerful (and definitely still appropriate given the adverse impact of social media on trust and happiness in society today): Don't be fooled by the radio/the TV or the magazines/They'll show you photographs of how your life should be/But they're just someone else's fantasy...Just remember that it's all a Grand Illusion/And deep inside we're all the same.

5. "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin: This song is one of the all-time classics and probably has one of the greatest guitar solos of all time (definitely when performed live, but even the studio version's solo is great)!  There's a powerful line in the middle of the song that goes: Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on.  In other words, throughout life we will be faced with choices.  The important thing to remember is that if we make the wrong choice, it's never too late to correct course and choose the alternative route.  

There are definitely more lessons from rock-n-roll that I've shared in the past (see in particular "And the world will live as one..." and "Give me something to believe in!").  And there are some that I hope to share in the future.  Art is powerful in that regard.  U2's guitarist, The Edge, said, "You see, rock and roll isn't a career or hobby - it's a life force. It's something very essential."

The Marshall Plan

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies ("Saving Private Ryan") involves one of my favorite leaders, General George C. Marshall.  It's the scene where General Marshall first learns that Private Ryan's three brothers have been killed and orders a rescue mission to bring Private Ryan back home.  During the scene, General Marshall pulls out and reads a letter, which is the famous "Letter to Mrs. Bixby" written by President Abraham Lincoln in response to a similar situation that had occurred during the American Civil War (see also my post "Courage, Honor, and Commitment").  I've never found out if the scene actually occurred as Hollywood showed it, but it is a very powerful and emotional scene nevertheless.  

General Marshall was one of only five U.S. Army generals to have been awarded the rank of "General of the Army" ( a five-star general) during World War II (the others were Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry H. Arnold, and Omar N. Bradley).  He served as the Army's Chief of Staff under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, and he later served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under President Truman.  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called General Marshall the "organizer of victory" in World War II and wrote:

During my long and close association with successive American administrations, there are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of Gen. Marshall. He is a great American, but he is more than that. In war he was as wise and understanding in counsel as he was resolute in action. In peace he was the architect who planned the restoration of our battered European economy and, at the same time, labored tirelessly to establish a system of Western defense. He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example

As Secretary of State, General Marshall was an early advocate for an American commitment to Europe's post-war recovery.  He was the architect of the Marshall Plan, which provided over $13 billion in foreign aid to Western European countries (roughly $135 billion in today's dollars).  In recognition of that work, General Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, the only Army general ever to receive the honor.

Prior to all of this, however, while serving as aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing (Pershing was the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I), then Major Marshall wrote a letter to General John Mallory, dated November 5, 1920, in which he outlined the four qualities necessary to be a successful leader during combat.  What's important to emphasize is that these same four qualities aren't specific to war-time leadership - they are fundamental aspects of leadership in general.  To this end, two of the qualities overlap with what Warren Buffett looks for in a potential leader.  

Marshall writes, "To be a highly successful leader in war, four things are essential, assuming that you possess good common sense, have studied your profession and are physically strong."  

1. Optimism:  A leader should be "cheerful and optimistic."  Marshall's belief here is aligned with several other, more contemporary, views of what qualities are necessary for leaders, including my own (see my most recent posts, "All shall be well", "Hope is not a strategy...or is it?", "Two words - wait and hope", and "Leaders are dealers in hope..." on this topic).  What's important to remember is that hope is optimism with action.  In other words, hope goes beyond simply believing things will turn out well (which is, in essence, optimism).  Hope goes one step beyond and involves actively envisioning a path and taking steps to achieve desired outcomes.  As leaders, it is our job to restore and provide hope - we do that by taking action.

2. Energy:  As General Marshall writes, "When evening comes and all are exhausted, hungry, and possible dispirited...you must put aside any thought of personal fatigue and display marked energy in looking after the comfort of your organization, inspecting your lines and preparing for tomorrow."  Leadership is hard (see my post, "No Easy Victories"), but it is our job as leaders to never show that our will, our resolve, and our commitment to the cause is flagging.  As I've mentioned in the past, leaders are always on stage.  The individuals in the organization will look to their leaders first for any signs of quitting or giving up.  

3. Loyalty:  General Marshall admonishes General Mallory, "Make a point of extreme loyalty, in thought and deed, to your chiefs personally..."  I do believe it is important for leaders to be loyal to their organizations and their teams.  One of my former mentors, the head of our Division of Critical Care Medicine, used to say that he would never ask the other members of the Division to do something that he was not willing to do himself.  That's always stuck with me, and it is certainly something that I try to practice to this day.  

4. Determination: What General Marshall calls determination, I like to call grit.  He again admonishes General Mallory, "The more alarming and disquieting the reports received or the conditions viewed in battle, the more determined must be your attitude."  Persistence.  Resilience.  Grit.  Determination.  These are the qualities that help leaders persevere through the challenges that come with leadership.

Incidentally, Warren Buffett said that he looks for three qualities in a leader - integrity, energy, and intelligence.  General Marshall assumed that leaders must have common sense, be physically fit, and know their craft.  So, he certainly would have agreed with Warren Buffett that leaders should be intelligent.  They should study their profession and continuously learn and develop their knowledge and skills.  Buffett also agrees with General Marshall that leaders should have energy.  

I've mentioned an online video by Simon Sinek in the past called "Trust and Performance" (see my posts, "Do the Cleveland Browns have a trust issue?" and "Attitude > Talent").  Sinek talks about how the U.S. Navy SEALS select the members of their elite group, SEAL Team Six - they select individuals who perform well (of course), but the weigh trust and integrity higher than performance.  In other words, they would choose a SEAL with "high-trust" and "medium-performance" over another SEAL with "high-performance" but "medium-trust".  In other words, they look for individuals who are loyal to their teams, their organization, and the mission.  I think the Navy SEALS would agree with both General Marshall and Warren Buffett.

A life with meaning and purpose...

When I think of all the books that I've read throughout my lifetime, there are a few that stand out as having an enormous impact on my life for one reason or another.  There are others that I just really enjoyed.  I would have to say that Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is one of the most important books that I've ever read.  I can measure the impact that it's made on how I've come to view the world in which we live by the sheer number of posts that I've written about it.  Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor.  He developed an entire philosophy and form of psychotherapy called "Logotherapy" (literally meaning "healing through meaning") based largely upon his Holocaust concentration camp experience, first at Auschwitz and later at Bergen-Belsen.  Frankl talks about the three fundamental tenets of "Logotherapy" in his book.  First, life has meaning, even under the most miserable of circumstances; second, our main motivation in life is to find meaning in life itself; and third, we are free to find meaning in who we are, what we do, and what we experience.  If you are searching for that elusive "one thing" that captures the essence of what it is to live with purpose and meaning, these questions are a great place to start.

Studies have consistently shown that psychological well-being is a key determinant for living the good life.  Individuals with positive well-being live longer and suffer fewer health problems compared to those without positive well-being.  Frank Martela and colleagues recently published a study ("Which predicts longevity better: Satisfaction with life or purpose in life?") that compared "satisfaction with life" (subjectively determined using a validated measure) and "purpose in life" (again, using a validated measure) and mortality.  Having a purpose in life was a much better predictor of living a longer life than simply being satisfied with life.  In other words, having a sense of purpose not only makes us happy, it helps us to live longer lives with fewer health problems!

  

Both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions suggest that finding your purpose in life is one of the keys to a happy life.  For example, Buddha said, "Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it."  Viktor Frankl said, "Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself, or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself."  

Another one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, said that "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."  As it turns out, finding your personal "why" is perhaps one of the most important things that you can do in life.  It is the key that unlocks both our happiness and our success.  Finding one's purpose is a highly personal journey, but thankfully there's been a lot of great articles that can certainly help pave the road and make the journey a little easier.  Stay tuned for a summary of the articles that I've found most helpful in my next post.

The third place no more?

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

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

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

Schultz described his vision, saying, "The idea was to create a chain of coffeehouses that would become America's third place.  At the time, most Americans had two places in their lives - home and work.  But I believed that people needed another place, a place where they could go to relax and enjoy others, or just be by themselves.  I envisioned a place that would be separate from home or work, a place that would mean different things to different people."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Squaring a circle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Doctor's Day 2025!

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

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

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

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

"No Easy Victories"

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Leaders have to make difficult choices.

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

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

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

3. Expectations oftentimes do not match reality.

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

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

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

Gardner said:

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

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

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

The paradox of work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Real friends are useless"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Clear the Mechanism"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Leaders are dealers in hope..."

I wanted to build upon my recent post "Hope is not a strategy...or is it?" and talk a little more about hope.  One of history's greatest military leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte, reportedly once said, "Leaders are dealers in hope."  Former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (under President Lyndon Johnson) John W. Gardner wrote in his book On Leadership, "The first and last task of a leader is to keep hope alive - the hope that we can finally find our way through to a better world - despite the day's action, despite our own inertness, shallowness, and wavering resolve."  What does it say when two very different leaders from two very different times and two very different worlds basically say the same thing?  My take is that leadership is about creating and fostering hope.

The Harvard Business School professor Arthur C. Brooks writes a weekly column for The Atlantic magazine (online), "How to Build a Life".  In his piece from September 23, 2021 ("How to be more hopeful"), Brooks mentions Medal of Honor recipient and Vietnam Prisoner of War Vice Admiral James Stockdale and what business author Jim Collins (perhaps best known for his superb book Good to Great) has described as the Stockdale Paradox.  Collins asked Stockdale how he made it through more than seven years of captivity during which time he was beaten, tortured, starved, and denied medical care.  Stockdale replied, "I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."  Stockdale showed incredible resilience, which prompted Collins to ask him about the POW's who didn't survive the ordeal.  Stockdale quickly answered that they were the ones who were most optimistic, "They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart … This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be" (emphasis mine).  

Hope is a very powerful thing.  While many people tend to use hope and optimism interchangeably, they are two distinct emotions.  Two psychologists reported in a 2004 study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology that "hope focuses more directly on the personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general."  Optimism is a belief (which may, in fact, be a false one) that "everything is going to be okay."  Hope does not make that assumption and instead is a conviction to take the necessary steps to make things better.  Hope, according to a study published in 2013 in the journal Psychological Reports, is "having the will and finding the way."  That same study found that high-hope employees are 28% more likely to be successful at work and 44% more likely to enjoy good health and well-being.  Hope is our super power!

Annie McKee, who at the time was a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (and author of How to Be Happy at Work) shared in her 2008 Harvard Business Review article "Doing the Hard Work of Hope" an important point made by her close friend, Father Vladimir Felzmann: Hope = Faith + Hard Work.  She writes, "Hope is an experience that allows us to:

• Tap into optimism (we will get through this)
• Find a feasible vision for the future (No delusions! Be reasonable)
• Discover efficacy (I, or we, can make this happen!)."

Note that optimism is "Faith" in Father Felzmann's equation above.  McKee goes on to say that "Hope is nothing without courageous action."  Dane Jensen, writing for the Harvard Business Review ("Sustaining Hope in Uncertain Times") adds an important caveat.  Jensen writes, "The final component of hope - and the one that makes it resilient - is an ability to make peace with the fact that we cannot control or predict the future despite our vivid imagination and best laid plans. When things don't go according to plan, cultivate the ability to see adversity as an inflection point rather than a reason to abandon hope."

During these uncertain and turbulent times, it is our job as leaders to cultivate and foster hope.  It's important to remember, though, that hope is both an emotion and an action.  Without action, it's just optimism, and that's not enough.

The Big Switch

You've probably noticed that I have been posting a lot about the author Nicholas Carr lately.  I have read several of his articles, blog posts, and books over the course of the last several months, and I believe his commentary on both the positive and negative consequences of the Information Age are incredibly relevant in society today.  One of his older books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, compares and contrasts the commoditization of electric power in the early 20th century with the rise of cloud computing (instead of storing applications on your individual PC, everything is stored in a central data warehouse) in the 21st century.  

Just as electricity was turned into a utility by centralizing and standardizing power generation, the shift of data storage, computing power, and software services to centralized, remote data centers is turning computing into a utility.  And, similar to what happened with electric power, the commoditization of computing will fundamentally change how organizations operate by reducing the need to own and maintain IT infrastructure (see also Carr's Harvard Business Review article "IT doesn't matter" and book Does IT Matter?) and making technology more accessible.  

Carr introduces his thesis at the beginning of the book, writing, "We see the interplay of technology and economics most clearly at those rare moments when a change takes place in the way a resource vital to society is supplied, when an essential product or service that has been supplied locally begins to be supplied centrally, or vice versa.  Civilization itself emerged when food production, decentralized in primitive hunter-gatherer societies, began to be centralized with the introduction of the technologies of agriculture. Changes in the supply of other important resources - resources as diverse as water, transportation, the written word, and government - also altered the economic trade-offs that shape society.  A hundred years ago, we arrived at such a moment with the technologies that extend man's physical powers.  We are at another such moment today with the technologies that extend our intellectual powers."

Carr chose to begin his history of electrical power with Burden's Wheel, a water wheel believed to be one of the largest and certainly the most powerful vertical water wheel ever built, used to power the Burden Iron Works located on the Hudson River near Troy, New York.  The wheel, which was built by Henry Burden around 1836, measured 62 feet in diameter and 22 feet in breadth and weighed over 250 tons!  When moving at full speed at two-and-a-half revolutions per minute, the wheel produced 500 horsepower of energy to fully run the Iron Works.  Burden's Wheel was apparently the inspiration for the first ever Ferris Wheel, built by George W.G. Ferris at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  Ferris was educated at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.  On a side note, several of the temporary buildings that were designed and built in the neo-classical style by the famous architect Daniel Burnham were painted white, and as a result, the Exposition site was nicknamed the "White City" (see also the wonderful book by Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America).  The "White City" was apparently the inspiration for the Emerald City, the city in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In the early Industrial Age, every factory had to have its own source of power (i.e., Burden's Wheel at the Burden Iron Works), which significantly increased the costs associated with doing business.  Starting around 1900, individuals like Samuel Insull, one of the early entrepreneurs in the electrical power industry (for those of us who live in Chicago, Insull founded Commonwealth Edison, Inc, better known as ComEd) and Thomas Edison, recognized that a better option would be to centralize the generation of electricity and then distribute it to the factories.  Carr writes, "Manufacturers came to find that the benefits of buying electricity from a utility went far beyond cheaper kilowatts.  By avoiding the purchase or pricey equipment, they reduced their own fixed costs and freed up capital for more productive purposes."  The national power grid was born from the efforts of Insull, Edison, and others.

Carr next launches into a history of early computers in the so-called Information Age.  What's striking to me is how short-sighted the early pioneers in the computer industry were given what happened with the electrical power industry.  For example, the Harvard physicist Howard Aiken who helped design IBM's first programmable computer dismissed as "foolishness" the idea that there would be a big market for computers.  The scientists who developed the UNIVAC computer in the 1940's believed that the United States would need no more than a half dozen or so computers, primarily for military and scientific applications.  Indeed, IBM's Thomas Watson said in 1943, "I think there is a world market for about five computers."  I still remember when my parents purchased our first home desktop computer - it may have been a TI-99/4A (basically, a keyboard that connected to a regular television that had about 16K memory and required a regular tape recorder and cassette tape to permanently save anything), but I am not 100% sure.  Fast forward several years later to when my wife and I had school-age children of our own, we always had a desktop computer in our house.  Now, the mobile telephones that we carry with us everywhere we go have about 1 million times the memory of the computers used during the Apollo space program!

Thanks to the Internet and advances in modern computing, we now have instant access to information at our fingertips.  Carr sees that the same thing that happened at the turn of the 19th century with the electrical power grid today is happening today with the computer industry - we have democratized and commoditized information.  He writes, "What happened to the generation of power a century ago is now happening to the processing of information.  Private computer systems, built and operated by individual companies, are being supplanted by services provided by a common grid - the Internet - by centralized data-processing plants.  Computing is turning into a utility..."  

In regards to technology, there are always going to be optimists and pessimists.  It's fairly easy to see that Carr takes a more pessimistic view of technology, as he provides a counterviewpoint to so-called "techno-utopianism" in all of his writings.  Arguing for the optimists, Nicholas Negroponte, author of the 1995 book, Being Digital wrote, "Digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into greater world harmony."  The Internet was once felt to be a tool that would increase the diversity of thought and opinion, but it probably has done the reverse!  Harvard Law School professor and author Cass Sunstein argues for the pessimists, suggesting that the Internet, and in particular, social media, have only pushed us further apart (see his article on ideological amplification).  As I have suggested in a number of previous posts (see, in particular, "Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid..." and "Familiarity breeds contempt..."), Carr feels the same way as Sunstein.

The pessimists typically use terms such as fragmentation, polarization (or even hyper-polarization), balkanization, and single-mindedness when talking about the impact of information technology on today's society.  At the extreme, they even use terms such as fanaticism, radicalization, and extremism.  However, there are additional downside risks with the "big switch" from traditional IT systems to cloud-based systems.  Carr addresses the potential security concerns (though even with the most advanced cybersecurity systems, traditional IT infrastructure is at risk as well), the potential loss of control, and the concentration of power in a few large, dominant companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  

I am trying to keep an open mind, but the more I read, the more I find myself leaning towards the side of the pessimists.  When it comes to any argument, it's important to keep a balanced view for as long as possible, so that you can listen to both sides equally.  I've probably spent too much time reading what the pessimists have to say, so it's probably time to read more about what the optimists are saying (I could probably start with Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto).  I've at least read all of Nicholas Carr's books, which makes it an even better time to move on to a new viewpoint.

Aequanimitas

I came across an essay written by the 19th century physician William Osler with a Latin title ("Aequanimitas").  Dr. Osler was one of the "Big Four" founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital and is often called the "Father of Modern Medicine" for his many contributions to the profession.  Someone once called him "one of the greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope."  He was an author, a historian, and best of all (in my mind), a lover of books!  

Dr. Osler was born in Canada and attended medical school at the Toronto School of Medicine and McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal.  He trained with the famous physician Rudolph Virchow in Germany before returning to McGill University as a faculty member in 1874.  He apparently started the first journal club there (still used in academic medicine today), and he left McGill to become Chair of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1885.  He left Penn to help found Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, and "Aequanimitas" was his farewell address delivered to the graduating medical class at Penn.

"Aequanimitas" was first published as a pamphlet in 1889 and later appeared in a collection of Osler's essays entitled Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine in 1904.  The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Company apparently gave away more than 150,000 copies of the book to medical school graduates from 1932 to 1953.

The word aequanimitas is the Latin word for equanimity and refers to staying calm and composed.  Osler advocates two essential qualities for physicians in the essay, imperturbability and equanimity, which he defined as coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances.  The medical ethicist Daniel Sokol suggested in a 2007 British Medical Journal article suggests that the essay answers the age old question, "What makes a good doctor?"

I think it's appropriate that Dr. Osler begins his essay with a quote from the ancient Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, "Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which, though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted."  While I am not completely certain, I would bet that Dr. Osler was a Stoic too!  Stoicism emphasizes both imperturbability (unable to get upset or overly excited) and equanimity (mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation).  These are the qualities that Dr. Osler highly valued in a physician.  Importantly, this did not mean that physicians shouldn't be emotionally detached from their patients and uncaring.  Instead he emphasizes that stillness and calm will foster confidence and trust by a physician's patients. 

I think imperturbability and equanimity apply to leadership too.  When everything is falling apart, a true leader is defined by their ability to stay calm amidst the storm.  The best leader in a crisis is one who can embrace the chaos and guide their team through uncertainty.  Calmness and stillness will foster confidence and trust.  Calmness and stillness are also contagious.  When the other members of the team see a leader who is calm and composed, they too will respond with calmness and composure.

I will end this post with two quotes by two great leaders who also led during times of chaos, uncertainty, and crisis.  Winston Churchill said, "Difficulties mastered are opportunities won."  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."  Aequanimitas.