Dan Erwin

Quotation of the Year: Defense Secretary Robert Gates

This quote deserves national, no, universal attention.  I'd call it a quote for the century.  It comes from our Republican Defense Secretary.  It should be emblazoned on every Pentagon member's brain.  That also includes every hawk, dove and voter's brain.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

  ROBERT M. GATES, the secretary of defense.

In my own lifetime we've fought four or five major wars, only one of which was fundamentally necessary. I doubt that any historian would view WWII against the Axis governments as anything other than a just war.  The Korean War was the first major response to the domino theory, the notion that if we give up land or nations to the communists they'll just keep taking more and more.  The Korean War was the US attempt to stop Communism.  The two wars, Reagan, and US policy ultimately had little direct effect on the demise of communism.  I'd argue that Communism ended because the Russians did it to themselves. 

The Vietnam War was the domino theory gone to seed.  Those of us who lived through it remember that not only was there a phenomenal loss of American and Asian lives, but that the war tore apart the US population.  In many ways, the Vietnam War was a major turning point for the American culture.  The most serious loss in that time period was our trust of our government, just as the Supreme Court's Bush/Gore decision may well have been a key loss of trust in the judiciary.  The Iraq War, otherwise known as the ruse over WMD, has been terribly destructive and not significantly liberating.  Based on what's happening in the Middle East today, it may well be that technological connections in the form of Twitter, Facebook, cellphone,email, etc. have far more impact than US boots on the ground. 

The Afghanistan War has been a horrible waste of soldiers, money and policy.  There are so many other ways the US could have more wisely spent its largesse.

Well, The Secretary of Defense is the right person to say it.  The report on Gates' speech, delivered at West Point is in Sunday's Times.  The full text of the "lecture" can be found in The Stars and Stripes. 

Telling It Like It Is: The Bennett Test

I've been waiting for an opportunity to blog on a few political verities.  Here are three from people of differing political stripes.  What unites all three is that they are accurate, needed, and exceedingly applicable to the current domestic political scene.

On occasion, Joe Klein of Time magazine dredges up some interesting quotes that you have to be more than Gen-Y or Gen-X to be familiar with.  His latest Time article, a discussion about the difficulties of real deficit cutting, included a very astute statement by William Bennett about how to assess presidential candidates. 

Yeah, I know.  Bennett is a right wing politician of the sort I distrust (if it matters to you, there are left wing politicians I also distrust).  But I learned many centuries ago to take truth wherever you can get it.  And this is TRUTH, so I recommend the Bennett Test for your voting toolkit. 

If a candidate tells you only things you want to hear, if he asks nothing of you, then give him nothing in return, certainly not your vote, because he is not telling you the truth.

This was Bennett's recommendation as he introduced a parade of his party's presidential candidates in the mid 1990s. 

Mentioning right wing and left wing politicians also reminds me of another truth, exceedingly significant in today's tough financial and social context.  Arianna Huffington has been pushing this button on a number of occasions, including the interview at the announcement of the merger between Yahoo and the Huffington Post.  She complained, accurately, that,

the use of the political terms “left,” “right” or “left-wing” is preventing policymakers from solving “problems” because of the connotation tied to each of them.

I'll tie this up with another accurate statement--that of David Brooks. 

Society is too transparent. Since Watergate, we have tried to make government as open as possible. But as William Galston of the Brookings Institution jokes, government should sometimes be shrouded for the same reason that middle-aged people should be clothed. This isn’t Galston’s point, but I’d observe that the more government has become transparent, the less people are inclined to trust it.

Closed door political, off-the-record meetings have their place.

What ties all of these together is their political honesty.  Take truth where ever you can get it.

Can You Really Tell When Your Boss Is Telling the Truth?

Bosses matter a lot because nearly all employees have them.  And most bosses also have bosses. There are at least 21 million bosses in the United States.  Bob Sutton points out that estimates run as high as 38 million bosses.  Far more often than not our success is tied to that relationship with our boss.  It's invitable In organizational structures that we sometimes wonder whether the information coming from our boss is really the truth.

Bosses can be deceptive for any number of reasons: they lack permission to share information, they don't think we need the information, they don't understand our need for information, or they're defensive.

As a result, most of us prefer face-to-face meetings when there's a lot at stake.  We like to think we can gauge the truthfulness or sincerity of our boss's words by the look in her eye and the tone of her voice.  

So, how good are you, really, at ascertaining when your boss is telling the truth?

Paul Ekman, the well-known expert at non-verbal assessment and lie-detection, has found that most of us aren't nearly as good as we think.  In fact, the studies indicate that our hunches about whether people are telling the truth or deceiving us aren't much better than a coin toss.  

In an earlier blog, Powerful People are Better Liars, I pointed out that research has found that if you give people power, they're more comfortable lying, and it will be harder to tell they're doing it. That's supported by recent research that has found that the higher up the ladder and more isolated from his or her people, the more oblivious and indifferent to your needs your boss becomes.  

There are two obvious routes for subordinates: extreme cynicism or extreme trust.  Neither approach is of value.

So, how can you get better at determining your boss' truthfulness?

Build the best relationship possible

The starting place is the quality of the relationship you have with your boss. Relationship development is not significantly about chemistry or emotionality, but primarily about skills.  Although you may want to begin honing your skills with likable people who share your values, it's even more important to develop the skills to relate successfully with people of diverse cultures, different values and even what you may consider to be troublesome styles.  Quality relationships give you a baseline of his/her typical behaviors and responses out of which you can better judge your boss's truthfulness or deception.

Listen with your eyes

Poker players look for their opponents' "tells."  If you saw the movie, Casino Royale, you'll remember that Agent 007 focused on identifying Le Chiffre's tell--that unintended signal that a player sends when bluffing or when he's drawn aces.  Good players watch opponents long enough to detect a pattern.  It's not at all easy to control the emotions that bubble up to the surface.  So, the more you know and understand your boss, the more identifiable his or her patterns of truth and deception.  

Look for anomalies

When we've known a person fairly well for a long time, there are occasions when what he says or does is out of sync with his usual practices.  In an article on deception in negotiation, Harvard's Michael Wheeler tells a story with which many of us in Minnesota are familiar.

Several years ago (Clancy Prevost) had a student who seemed amiable, even if he wasn't a particularly skillful pilot. In casual conversation. . . Prevost happened to ask the student if he was Muslim, which drew the reply "I am nothing.  (The student) sort of flushed.  It wasn't the right reaction."

Prevost took his concerns about the trainee pilot to school administrators, who eventually contacted the FBI. The student was arrested near the flight school on August 16, 2001. He was Zacarias Moussaoui, now charged as the so-called twentieth hijacker in 9-11.

Prevost apparently had no special training in reading nonverbal communication and assumed that Moussaoui was a typical customer. But the coupling of an odd statement and a flush jolted Prevost into realizing that things were not as they seemed. Moussaoui's visceral response told a critical truth about him that the instructor was alert enough to catch.

Similarly, when what your boss is telling you sounds a bit odd, and when you ask a question about what's been said, a nonverbal response such as a slight flush or difference in vocal tone or conversational speed may be a signal that he's being deceptive.

Ask careful questions

No subordinate is going to ask her boss whether what he's saying is true.  You'll either get yourself in trouble or get a bullshit-yes.  Furthermore, deception often hinges on what's not being said. Some bosses feel morally bound to respond truthfully to any question you ask, but not obliged to volunteer information.  

Your task is to figure out what to ask that is not being said, and how you can ask a question that won't anger or alienate your boss.  

Suppose, for example, you know that your business division has lost a major portion of its market share. Your boss gathers the organization together to assure the members that their jobs are secure. They've decided to do blah, blah, blah--all rather obvious strategies that haven't worked previously. You might find it useful to quietly ask what other strategies the organization is currently considering.  If he has no significant answer to that question, that silence is telling and could mean any number of things. 

Operate on a three-track basis

First, you'll be paying attention to the substance of what your boss is saying. Second, as I've indicated above, you'll want to be watching and listening very closely, as well as asking better questions.  And finally, as Marshall McLuhan taught 50 years ago, context triumphs over content.  It might be largely impossible to immediately process all three of these tracks.  So before you make a decision about your boss's truthfulness, you may want to go back to your cubicle and think through the three-tracks:

1. What did your boss actually say?  (the substance track)
2. What did you learn from watching and listening?  (the nonverbal-sensory track)
3. How does your boss' message relate to the organization and business?  (the context track)

Hone your skills

In spite of the fact that many make the attempt, it's no longer possible to think like a 1960s factory worker and hold down a job in today's world. The skills for success in the 21st century job market can be complex. It's especially difficult to gain immediate feedback on the truthfulness of your boss's statements, but your livelihood may depend on the ability to do so. 

You aren't a passive member of the team when your boss is making a declaration.  Being an active participant gives you the chance to get a better grasp on the validity of your boss's statements.  While you can't magically determine whether he's telling the truth, there are definite skills for raising your batting average and even hitting a home run.

If you take the cynical route or permit yourself to be conned by your boss, you may be putting a nail into your own coffin.  Likewise, if you act duplicitously or pounce on him when he's making a statement, he will have little reason then and in the future to be open with you. 

One of the best rules, however, for promoting truthfulness in your bosses is to give them reason to be truthful with you.  

Quotation of the Day: Egyptian Youth Leader

In an absolutely fascinating article, the well-known Times investigative journalist, David Kirkpatrick, reported on the 15 or so young leaders of the Egyptian revolt.  To a high degree, Kirkpatrick found that the leaders tend to be well-educated, wired and shrewd professionals, 30 years of age or younger, mostly lawyers and physicians. 

The Egyptians have been especially smart at planning and marketing the protests, as well as avoiding the police.  For example, before each protest they leaked a false lead to throw off the police.  According to Kirkpatrick, all the leaders aspire to a Western-style constitutional democracy, where civic institutions are stronger than individuals. 

Inevitably, the group has to deal with deep divides, especially over the role of Islam.  Amusingly, when one of the leaders was asked whether he could imagine an Egyptian president who was a Christian woman, he paused:

If it is a government of institutions, I don't care if the president is a monkey.

Anyone have an opinion on the U.S. and Egypt?

Foolish question.  Everyone with the slightest interest in Middle Eastern politics has an opinion on the U.S. and Egypt.  The Washington Post, for example, listed 25 opinion pieces by the paper's editors and Jackson Diehl.  The headlines went from wrongly choosing generals over the democrats, to one on the decline of freedom, another on whether Mr. Obama got it right, and even one opining that Mr. Obama is lost in the Mideast.

So how do you make sense out of all this?  Let me put on my teaching hat.  It's exceedingly important to understand the distinction between an opinion or inference and facts.  I've watched Ivy League grads screw up in this area, much less grads of Podunk College from Timbuktu.  There's a huge misunderstanding of the distinction between opinion and fact, and it doesn't matter whether the field is journalism, medicine, law or business. 

An opinion or inference is an interpretation or conclusion based solely on what you as an individual know—or think you know.  So opinions take the shape of predictions, interpretations, hunches or guesses about events or experiences that cannot be observed directly.  Inferences are all attempts to understand the world and people around us.  Inferences can be predictions about a person’s behavior, or in this instance, a nation's behavior (specifically, Egypt).  Of course, the more vivid and exciting the opinion, the more believable it becomes.  People can draw numerous (I like to say an "infinite number") opinions about most any event, behavior or data.  My maxim is that you can lie with statistics, but a well-chosen opinion, built on an example, does the job better.  So you can imagine that I'm a skeptical listener.

Facts, in contrast, are confined to what one observes or has been tested (in science, before a fact is a fact, it must be tested and evaluated by many).  You can only make a limited number of statements of fact.  And, we tend to get agreement when it is possible to make factual statements about a situation.  Inevitably, you can expect disagreement if only opinion or inferential statements can be made in a situation.  You have to wonder whether a journalist has enough historical facts and cultural knowledge to share opinions. 

Thus far, in all that has been written or said about the U.S. and Egypt, I've seen only one major opinion that I'd trust.  It was rendered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American, national security advisory at the time of the shah of Iran's fall, well known student of policy and international affairs, and statesman.  He also is a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins School of International Affairs.  He's not only an ivory tower thinker, but also a guy who's had his finger in numerous international issues.  Furthermore, he has interacted with Mubarak on numerous occasions, and knows him personalIy.  I give you all this info, not merely to puff him, but let you know that he has a lot of facts at his fingertips, more than 99% of the pundits today.  At 82, exceptionally lucid and knowledgeable, he's also usually close to the mark in his analysis, predictions and opinions.

Here's what he has to say about the U.S. and Egypt, extracted from Sunday's Times: No administration starts with an ideal set of international partners, but "we have to deal with the governments that exist.  And some of those are dictatorships."  He believes that "Egypt's prospects are brighter than Iran's, largely because the army is respected and has a lot of support across the country.  There is a middle class of sorts.  And the Muslim Brotherhood is is still under control, reducing the risk that a theocratic regime would emerge."  Brzezinski by no means considers American support for Mubarak to have been a mistake.  "I would say it was a good deal for the U.S. and for Egypt."  Mubarak consolidated peace in the region (Israel and Egypt) and was a "modernizer" at home. 

And then he concludes: "Historic change oupaced the modernizer (opinion), as often occurs (testable fact, historically)." Notice how he mixes fact and opinion, expertise which you'll rarely see or hear.

 

Do You Have An Immunity To Change?

As a personal coach to managers and executives for more than 25 years, I've learned that humans differ in their ability to make change.  Even though nearly all my clients have been highly motivated achievers, personally desirous of making change, I've found that their ability to make change differs significantly. Some it seems, have almost an immunity to change.  Often, they understand the need for change and they may even understand what the change might look like, but for some reason they seem stymied, and unable to achieve long term change.

It's an issue I've worked with for years, and thankfully, with some unique and useful breakthroughs.  Still, change is a very messy, sometimes fuzzy process.  And so I was delighted to see that the Harvard profs, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow, who've spent years analyzing and researching the same problem, have come up with some especially intriguing insights and very useful strategies.  Indeed, they've clarified my own conclusions, making them ever more practical.

The basic question I've been asking is what really drives personal change and growth?

A system-wide study of research, as well as their and my own experience finds that the real driver for change is what can be called optimal conflicts.  By optimal conflict I mean conflicts that are of the greatest degree that provide the most favorable conditions for resolution.  These are messy drivers that draw on both our head and our heart, on both our thinking and our feeling.

Kegan and Laskow lay out their understanding of optimal conflicts this way.

• The persistent experience of some frustration, dilemma, life puzzle, quandry, or personal problem that is . . . 
• Perfectly designed to cause us to feel the limits of our current way of knowing . . .
• In some sphere of our living that we care about, with . . .
• Sufficient supports so that we are neither overwhelmed by the conflict nor able to escape or diffuse it.

If you or your colleagues seem to be immune to change, I suspect an analysis of what's going on will be serious enough to fit the above template.  

An unforgettable example: A few years ago, I was asked by a marketing executive at one of America's leading companies to assist him with change--one that fit the above categories perfectly.  In his early 40s, he'd worked in a very hierarchical manner with his employees for his entire professional life.  His firm was making major changes, pushing down responsibility, and making executives into team facilitators rather than "order givers."  Because his people especially liked the new direction, they were beginning to complain about his old hierarchical ways.  It went on for some time and he got more and more frustrated. He also realized that if he didn't change, he'd gain a bad reputation, lose his job and be at financial risk. You can readily imagine that both his thoughts and his feelings were intertwined.  So, when he came to me asking for support in making the change, he put the statement clearly:  "Dan," he said.  "I'm a dinosaur (at age 43), and if I don't make some changes, I'm gong to be on the streets.  How can you help me?"

A small proportion of us have worked through our immunity to change, but that VP was caught in a trap. Thankfully, he recognized his mess.  But the drivers were all in place, forcing him to get beyond that immunity.

Since I am especially interested in this topic, I'd be delighted with any comments you have.

Reference: Robert Kegan and Lisa Lakow, Immunity to Change.  (Boston: Harvard Business Press), 2009.

Photo: Flickr.com, FrenchKheldar 

"Ten Reasons Why Economists Always Get It Wrong."

Eytan Avriel, the chief editor of the business newspaper of Ha'aretz (the Israeli English language newspaper), has a fascinating article in today's paper entitled, Ten Reasons Why Economists Always Get It Wrong.  The writer's headline reminds us that economists didn't foresee the financial crash, the collapse of property values, the rapid rebound of some economies afterwards or the meteoric rise of stocks.  Nor, I will add, the phenomenal recent bonuses of Wall Street.

First, I have no brief against economists.  They provide an absolutely necessary service, deal with highly complex financial, environmental, governmental and international issues.  Indeed, I make a regular practice of reading the work of rather diverse economists from the around the English-speaking world.  Avniel's article grew out of a closed-door dinner discussion at Davos, and included such leading minds as Robert Schiller, Joseph Stiglitz, Simon Johnson and Raghuram Rajan.

What I most appreciate about Avniel's article is its nuanced and amusing discussion of important issues.  Fact of the matter, if you don't have background in economics, his article is a good place to start understanding the backstories and difficulties of economic prediction.  So I'll just summarize his ten objections and link to the article (see above) for those of you who want read the entire column.

Here are Avniel's ten reasons why economists get it wrong, and why he says you shouldn't expect that to change anytime soon.

1.    They never stood a chance.  Forecasting doesn't work and never did.  Like weather forecasts, which are based on physical parameters (not pschological--like economics), it's always a hit or miss affair.  [Obviously, neither Schiller nor Avniel are aware that weather forecasting is the most accurately predictive vocation of all professions.  That's a scary fact!]

2.    You can't predict a turning point.  It's the old issue of will this turn into a horrible recession, or merely a blip on the radar for the next 15 months?

3.    Economic models assume that economies are stable.  Data, such as bond ratings and debt structures, are never stable.

4.    Economists tend to focus on specific, accepted parameters and ratios. As a result they fail to see warning signs unless they hit them over the head.

5.    Economists are afraid to break rank with the consensus.  If they're wrong, it's career suicide.  Since no one dares to say otherwise, the consensus grows stronger and becomes even harder to buck.  In other words, economists are human, and they err.

6.    Forecasts, of themselves, affect the economy.  The forecast becomes part of the "given," and influences human behavior--for good or ill.

7.     Forecasts influence politicians.  A politican approaching an election will treat a forecast differently than after he/she's elected.  The most relevant example is Germany and Angela Merkel.  All forecasts depend on how Germany and Merkel behave, but nobody really knows how they will behave. 

8.    People look for shortcuts, but there aren't any.  Robert Shiller said the market failures of the recession were foretold in the economic literature, but nobody looked at the data. Just the bottom line.  The devil is in the details but if you don't read the details, you'll get caught up.

9.    Economists believe their own stories.  "This time it's different, or our case is different."  It never is.  They thought, for example, that securitizing debt would change the world and that economics would start acting differently.  But it didn't, and the world exploded.

10.    When the economy is roaring and soaring, control mechanisms collapse.  We make our biggest mistakes when the future looks very, very sunny.

Have You Been Given an "Invisible Promotion?"

By that I mean have you been given more assignments and and wider responsibilities, along with an additional number of reports, all without a significant raise or formal promotion?  That's the focus of an intriguing and spot-on article in the February issue of Fortune Magazine. 

With unemployment at an all-time high, you may feel fortunate to still have a job after all the lay-offs.  But with that staff shrinkage many firms have brought a piling-on of responsibilities to an all-time high.  Sure, you remind yourself, productivity is high--but so is unemployment. 

So what can you do when you find yourself more and more in the throes of an "invisible promotion," and dealing with a lot of unwanted stress?  It is quite possible to make that extra work work for your career in the long run. The article in Fortune (see link above) makes a number of useful suggestions.