Dan Erwin

Quotation of the Week: Ellen Goodman

Ellen Goodman is one of the formidable journalists of the past thirty years.  A leading sydicated columnist and Pulitzer winner, Goodman spends more of her time writing about social change in America. Intriguingly, she refuses to call herself a pundit.  The following was from a recent lecture at the Milton Academy in Massachusetts.

Life is not a straight line; you will continually be changing while you prepare yourself at the same time.  We need to remember the way real life works.  You make plans, you have accidents; you move straight ahead, you take a detour; you screw up, you recover; you try hard, you get lucky; you carefully make a five-year plan, you succeed because you improvise.  You keep on proposing and recomposing your life. 

    --Ellen Goodman

Declarations like this are especially useful because they can work to create a fundamental perspective on life.  The Hollywood view that the planned life moves thoughtfully onward without setbacks can be very debilitating.  Yet, again and again I meet people who are stymied because life didn't work out the way they'd hoped.  The actual problem was that they were stymied because they'd developed highly unrealistic expectations and were cornered when life didn't make them possible.

Experience tells me that accepting a reality such as Goodman's won't take place in the lives of a huge majority of people until they are forced to do so.  Yet Goodman's "journey" is both liberating and realistic. Well, I'm probably preaching to the choir. 

Quotation of the Week: Paul Krugman

Today's column by Krugman was all about Paul Ryan's Republican response to Obama's State of the Union.  Rather, it was really about Mr. Ryan's errors.  Since Ryan did his best to make his audience believe that under Obama the US is heading for a Greek, Irish, UK and the rest of Europe's financial catastrophe.  Thus, Mr. Krugman's statement about what really happened to Ireland.

The lesson of Ireland doesn't say "cut spending nor, or bad things will happen"; it says that balanced budgets won't protect you from crisis if you don't effectively regulate your banks--a point made in the newly released report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which concludes that "30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation" helped create our own catastrophe.

        Paul Krugman, NYTimes, January 28, 2011

Quotation of the Day: Paul Gewirtz, Yale Law School

Joe Klein had an insightful article in the January 24, Time, on the subject of arms and the unbalanced. Klein inveighed against the excesses of gun control.  I could only cynically muse, doesn't he know that the arms business (the umbrella industry for guns) is highly profitable?  And what right-minded capitalist would inveigh against a highly profitable business?  FYI: Statistics from 2006 indicate that the arms business of the top 100 arms producing companies amounted to $316 billion.  It is part of what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Looking at that issue and a number of others from a more intelligent perspective, here's one law prof's take on the matter.

    Our various legal rules, taken together, may be producing a society in which liberty is bordering on disorder.

As Klein points out, the libertarian tendency (a focus on the individual's rights) goes back all the way to the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s--that excise tax forced on farmers by East Coast elites.  It's also obvious that our liberties must be balanced against any civilized society's need fro behavioral constraints, all agreed upon by the consent of the government.  I think there's little doubt that not only the shootings, but also the verbal violence of the media point in the same direction. Sounds to me like it's time to reassess the excessive liberties we've granted ourselves in the past 25 years.

Quotation of the Week: Javier Bardem

Javier Bardem, the "hot" Spanish actor of "Eat, Pray, Love," comes from an acting family.  He is, as Sunday's NYTimes says, an actor who builds his roles.  

To get to the art, one must work very hard.  Art doesn't exist just as talent.  It exists as effort, work and judgment.

        --Javier Bardem, NYTimes, in The Actor as Architect of a Role, by Larry Rohter

Rohter's fascinating essay takes the perspective of actors as architects.  The comparison is intriguing, emphasizing the process of thoughtful, detailed and systematic development.  What's more intriguing is that growing up as the son of a great actress, he learned the value of deliberate practice from his mother at an early age.  When his mother was learning a character, Bardem would read the other characters to her.  He was fascinated listening to her.  She'd begin to speak, thenstop and correct herself.  Go back to the beginning, and go over and over the same process until she had control of the role, and then "she would fly." 

Bardem creates the character like an architect builds a building: drawing the plans, laying the foundation, and gradually building up.  Once this is complete, Bardem says, then you decide on the walls, the materials and the colors.  Bardem, in spite of his great success, continues to work with an acting coach, gaining the insight and feedback that are necessary for expertise.

How Bardem creates a character and architects build buildings is identical to what all expertise requires.  In a number of blogs on deliberate practice, I emphasize the same details.  In my blog, on changing your personality, deliberate practice includes five phases:

• Crystallization of discontent
• Extensive practice,  practice, practice
• Mentoring and coaching
• Adaptation to feedback
• Integration of behaviors

Sounds just like Bardem?  The model works for all of us.

 

Quotation of the Week: Dmitri Medvedev

There are people in America who are sympathetic to the 'reset' (of the New Start Treaty).  There are others who shudder at the thought of it and think all evil is concentrated in the Russian Federation.  This is just democracy at work.  Still, I think American society and its establishment will have enough tact and self-control to continue this path.             

            Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev

Russia's President called the New Start treaty a cornerstone of security, speaking warmly of President Obama and the just ratified treaty.  

Medvedev's awareness of the American political scene cannot be but helpful to us.  On the one hand, we should be grateful for knowledgeable statement such as this.  On the other hand, the differences between that world and its government need not blind us.  Smart policy, such as the New Start treaty, is clearly a step forward.  Astute congressional members are aware that moves in the direction of Russian rapprochement need not imply naivete, no matter what the history of relationships.

Quotation of the Week: What the Top Ten Movies Reveal About Us

Sunday's Times had a listing of the top ten movies of 2010, but all under the rubric of what these movies reveal about us.  The quote which summarizes much of the article is this:

"Inside Job," a comprehensive investigation into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, leaves you with the uncomfortable realization that greed, when allowed to run rampant, triumphs every other human trait. . . . Several power brokers who agreed to appear in the film are actually offended when asked about their possible culpability. 

Thankfully, not all of the so-called top ten films of 2010 are about greed.  Here's the list for your perusal.

1. The social network
2. Inside job
3. Inception
4. Carlos
5. Another year
6. Vincere
7. White material
8. The kids are all right
9. True grit
10. My dog tulip

Well, what do you think? 

Quotation of the Week: On Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

Given the recent WikiLeaks, I want to surface a realistic understanding of the relationship between diplomacy and transparency with a quote from a 17th century British ambassador to Venice:

    A diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.

In a Washington Post op/ed, Throw the Book at WikiLeaks, Charles Krauthammer does an excellent job of explaining the damage done by WikiLeaks.  He calls the leak sabotage, arguing from a number of perspectives.  He points out that WikiLeaks damage our war-fighting capacity, are a blow to our ability to collect information, and make the U.S. look very bad.

You can almost sort levels of journalistic responsibility by how the various members of the media reported on the WikiLeaks.  Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times and the DesMoines Register, among our truly great newspapers, took a far more nuanced perspective.  Ha'aretz, the leading Israeli news media, was unsurprisingly cautious.  Even the Wall Street Journal was very careful in its writing, although the Journal's sister medium, Fox News, took the Leaks as an opportunity to badmouth government and the Democrats. 

My suspicion is that WikiLeaks may well be the nail in the coffin of transparency.  Thirty years ago when I was a faculty member at a theological seminary, transparency in psychological training was viewed as an absolute necessity in human relations.  But just a couple years ago, I had a drink with a former psych colleague of mine, and he referred to transparency as the "naivete" which he espoused early in his career.

Secrecy and deception are an inevitable, if not an occasional necessity, in all human relations.  And not just in diplomacy or negotiation.  No serious political compromise, corporate merger, complicated legal settlement, negotiation or even healthy human relationship could ever be managed without a reliable level of confidentiality and secrecy.  Even in the most intimate of human relationships, complete transparency is not always the best long term strategy for a healthy relationship.  Now that my beloved wife is beset with Alzheimer's, her occasional defensiveness becomes obvious, and our daughters and I chuckle about it openly, which reflects the acknowledged admission of its existence.  It's clear that our daughters and I have been aware of that defensiveness for years, but no longer need to keep it confidential.  My own attitude is that openly discussing that defensiveness was not especially useful in relations with my kids prior to her illness.  Much of our intimate relations are like that.  And that's a strength.  Besides, there's intriguing research that indicates that the best marriages survive because of the male's deference to his spouse.  I've followed that rule for years and found deference, confidentiality and secrecy, even though obvious, very useful strategies for a rich relationship. 

After all, as research has shown, lying is ubiquitous in the brain.  Max Bazerman and his Harvard colleagues' research has made clear that we all lie.  And though they believe it not to be especially so, they admit to its occasional usefulness.  So there are plenty of occasions in which transparency is not a useful strategy.  My own attitude is that the huge majority of the time truth-telling is the route to go.  For example, I despise sucking up and distrust those who do.  I've worked diligently to gain my reputation as a straight shooter.  But white lies, protective lying, and diplomatic lying are not only useful strategies, but can be a form of highly liberating street smarts.

Yeah.  I've pushed the envelope on this.  But largely to make the point that transparecy can be destructive.  The rest of the time, you'll get kudos for authenticity. And never forget that deception and lying require a lot of energy.  Energy that sometimes can be better used.

Most Enjoyable Quotes of the Week--On the TSA Body Scan

These quotes from today's NYTImes made my Thanksgiving morning and brought a huge laugh.

“If it’s going to keep me and others safe, I’m all for it,” said the Rev. George Oberle, a Lutheran minister who said he had gladly submitted his body for a scan on his way to New York from Detroit. “I’m 50,” he said. “I’m proud of what I’ve got.”

“We’ve had 10 years to be desensitized; I’m not sure why people are freaking out now,” said Dr. Janice Manjuck, 50, a physician from San Francisco who was traveling with her husband and 11-year-old son to Norfolk, Va. Dr. Manjuck said she doubted the efficacy of the pat-downs and body scanners, but did not particularly object to them."

“We’ve got terrorists coming over wearing explosives in their clothing,” said Jason Moody, a 34-year-old X-ray technician in the Army, who was reading a novel during a layover in San Francisco. “The T.S.A. did not just dream this up.”

Joe Murphy, 76, a retired consultant who was flying to Washington, was not impressed.  “Protesters?” he asked. “There were more people selling tickets to my grandson’s high school football game.”

And then, of course, this: “We’re from San Francisco, so we’re used to nudity.”

- - - - - -

Ruth Marcus' article in yesterday's Washington Post eviscerated the issue:  "Don't touch my junk?  Grow up America."

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Quotation of the Week: Bob Sutton, Stanford Business School

Devoting relentless attention to doing one good thing after another--however small--is the only path I know to becoming and remaining a great boss.

--Bob Sutton, PhD, from Good Boss, Bad Boss

As a rule great bosses, like great employees are not people who continually meet one huge objective after another in great leaps and bounds.  Instead, as Sutton makes very clear, relentless attention to doing one good thing after another remains the key performance attribute of the best achievers. 

What's true in Sutton's observation is true about all learning.  Many think it's important to go after huge objectives.  But the research shows that it won't work.  It's a fact that I address in an earlier blog, Why small changes work and big changes don't.  Successful changes, like successful managing, take place in small chunks resulting in small wins, which over the long-time result in large successes as a result of the multiplier effect.

Quotation of the Week: Rep. Barney Frank

Some speople were taken aback by the (voter) anger.  We're professional people who are used to affection.  It's almost disorienting. 

--Rep. Barney Frank, U.S. House Representative, 4th District, Massachusetts, as quoted in today's NYTimes.

I hooted with laughter when I read this comment from Barney Frank in an article on voter anger.  Frank, the brilliant, witty Chairman of the House Financial services, known for his self-deprecating humor, is hardly among the vulnerable Democratic candidates.  This morning I talked to my eldest who lives in Wellesley in Frank's district.  I was curious to know whether he ever had much opposition.  "No one likes getting beaten badly," she said with a smile over the phone. 

Jeff Zeleny's article, from which I took the quote, emphasizes that voter anger is no surprise to Democrats this time.  Democrats are not going to get caught with their pants down this time.  They're very aware of their detractors.  You know.  Forewarned is forearmed.

As an occasional scholar in the field of change, I am amazed at the ongoing anger at the health care, financial reform, and financial stimulus packages.  The subtext of the anger, which thus far has not been discussed publicly, is that politicians are arguing that a national budget is analogous to a family budget.  That notion makes for great sound bites, but never will stand up to scrutiny.

The fact of the matter is that any intelligent CFO knows that a corporate budget is not analogous to a family budget.  How could a governmental budget, which is inevitably far larger than corporate budgets, ever be analogous to a family budget.

I like analogies. Done right, they make complicated things more understandable.  The brain is a computer.  The heart is like a pump.  Jesus' parable of The Good Samaritan is also like an analogy. If you understand the basic concept, you can get a decent grasp of the real issue. So understanding something really complicated can often start with a good analogy.

But only pieces of the comparison or anology are accurate.  Take the brain is a computer analogy.  The focus is on the huge amounts of data and speed in handling the data.  The differences are highly significant.  The computer is still garbage in, garbage out.  It's creativity is limited.  Although the brain's creativity has some limitations, neuroscientists tells us that correlations and connections in the brain are nearly infinite.  Not true for the computer.  So when dealing with analogies, figure out the similarities and the differences.  Otherwise, you're going to be making some serious mistakes. 

The blog started out as a post on humor and wit, but I couldn't resist the potential for segue into analogies.  After all, much of the anger at bottom is driven unknowingly by a number of false analogies, one of which is that a governmental budget is comparable to a family budget.