Options, Not Plans

I often say that I feel better when I have a plan. In fact, I just said it a few days ago to my mentor as our next steps for my career exploration started to take shape. I used to say it when my husband's cancer would return — waiting for data and doctor's appointments was much harder than treatment (which was no picnic), because simply having a goal with actions ahead of us was much better than being in decision-making limbo. I've said it in times of re-organizations and reductions in force — when you have enough data to start planning next steps, it's so much better than not having enough information to even consider options to rearrange the work.

Upon deeper reflection, though, it's not really a plan that makes me feel better. It is having reasonable options based on a vision.

There's something about the word "plan" that connotes a step-by-step procedure to me, something relatively fixed, with milestones, commitments, and a fixed endpoint. Webster agrees:

• an often customary method of doing something: procedure

• a detailed formulation of a program of action

It's not that I don't like plans. It's just that objectives I must meet according to a plan don't stress me out. It's just normal stuff. You lay it out and check off the intermediate steps. I don't really think about it, think to report on it, or give it much notice at all because it's so routine. I should, because that seems to be the work most people care about, in my experience. It's the stuff on which my performance rating is based and my value is judged. It's so infinitely measureable: solid process measures, clear milestones, obvious endpoint. The control freak inside each of us is blissful. 

When something requires a vision and options, it's a much bigger deal: big risk, big unknowns, big change, big impact. It's something that requires constant course adjustment, quick response, jumping into the void, trust in my own judgment, faith in others and in the system. Achieving a vision, navigating uncertainty, never being able to see more than a couple of steps ahead is such a rush, though! And, when you get close to the vision, you have really made a difference that counts — BIG value, BIG change.

Trouble is, it's hard to measure your progress along the way, and it can take a long time, so we have a tendency to say "nothing is happening" when, in fact, the reality is just that we don't know how to measure, or we simply become impatient. Or, even if we do wait it out, it takes long enough that it's like the "boiling a frog" metaphor: Major change can happen slowly and stealthily, like when you slowly turn up the heat under a pot of water, a frog in the pot will not notice that he's slowly being cooked. But if you drop the frog into a pot of water that's already boiling, he'll jump out. Dropping the frog into the pot, or measureable, point-in-time, firefighting-style change is what we notice and reward, even when it's not the most important step—or even a step at all—on the way to the vision (which, in this case, is a boiled frog). Slowly boiling the frog, or systematically achieving a vision, is not really noticed or appreciated because it happens gradually, even though it can result in a radical change in state (at least, for the frog).

In my experience, we talk a good game about wanting meaningful results, but, because it takes patience in a faster-than-Moore's-Law-paced corporate world, we don't pursue them. It's easier to chase the tangible and immediate, even if, in the scheme of things, they are not going to help us achieve what we want.

Many in corporate America are buckling under the weight of an over-processed, overloaded, over-everything work environment. The economy is weak, businesses are struggling, and pressure is intense. In response, we're micro-managing the obvious, to pacify our inner control freaks in an out-of-control work world, applying management concepts in increasingly desperate ways. We're adding layer upon layer of process to avoid the slightest deviation...cherry picking rather than delving deeply...making everything lean to the extreme. We're more interested in the bell curve than the people it represents. We're quick to fight fires or dash for the finish line, but slow to learn. We push to zero risk rather than push toward a vision. We don't want any uncertainty anywhere. These aren't bad things necessarily, but they shouldn't be an excuse to avoid more uncertain, more rewarding paths.

By managing out all uncertainty, perhaps we're also managing out options critical to achieving our vision.

Let's re-frame the thinking. Collect enough data to create a vision (per Webster: a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination; unusual discernment or foresight) and then formulate options (choices, alternatives) that can help achieve it. When I do this, the control freak in me is happy because I am in control — at least, enough control to make decisions as the next few steps unfold. That's enough to make me okay with the remaining uncertainty, and creativity can flow. Plus, uncertainty means I can never get stuck: uncertainty equals options. 

Have faith in a vision, and back it up with just enough data.

Can you tell I'm a sunshine yellow manager?

Would you believe that I'm equally a cool blue?

Is that leadership schizophrenia?

Systemic Change...or Insider Amnesia?

Reacting to The 6 Rules Women Must Break in Order to Succeed, my favorite blogger, Paul Smith, stated:

"...their definitions of power were built upon structures of power already in existence...it seemed the very structure they claim is holding them back, is the same one they want to embrace...instead of creating truly new rules, they were suggesting to follow rules already in place...I was hoping it would resemble this quote from Alison Maitland..."We shouldn't be fixing the women but the system"...To me, if you wish to truly create new rules: take charge of yourself, create your own definitions of success and power, and be the captain of your own ship."

For once, I had to disagree with Paul. I agree that systemic change is needed. But I do not believe that it can be driven by those who do not control those systems. I used to believe that, but, after years of trying to impact change from the outside, I don't anymore. At least, I don't believe it can be done at a pace that will create a change I will see in my career. For significant, swift, meaningful, and lasting change, it needs to be driven by insiders, by those who control the systems. So, we need a critical mass of insiders motivated to change the systems under their control. But insiders have no incentive to change the systems that got them to where they are and help them maintain their position and power. And, simply by being an insider, they have not felt the inequity, bias, or discrimination that the current systems sustain.

One possible way to achieve that critical mass is for those who are currently outsiders to masterfully navigate the existing system to attain the leadership roles in larger numbers. I think that's what the 6 Rules are meant to do:

"We want to see women make up at least 30 percent of the leaders at the top levels of corporate America within the next 10 years. We believe that 30 percent will be a tipping point. If (when) that happens, the goals and direction of corporate America will change. The old rules will be shattered, America’s corporations will be better lead, and everyone will benefit."

The trouble is, once people become insiders, my experience is that they forget what it was like to be outsiders (or maybe they were never really outsiders, weren't change champions to start, or don't have enough insider support to change the system).

Can critical mass even be achieved in the next 10 years? And, even if it is achieved (which is a pretty big "if," given the roadblocks inherent in the system -- it's not as if we haven't tried to break the glass ceiling before), will the new insiders suddenly have insider amnesia and lose their passion to change the system?

I think "insider amnesia" – my term for forgetting what you wanted to change in the system when you were an outsider – is human nature. Reminds me of the anecdote in a December 2006 HBR article, "The Curse of Knowledge," by Chip and Dan Heath (also brought to mind by one of Paul's relatively recent posts). They describe a psychology experiment in which a group of people were divided into those who would tap out the rhythm of a well-known song on a table and those who would listen and try to identify the song. Tappers were asked to predict the probability that the listeners would guess correctly, and they guessed 50%. The actual success ratio was 2.5%. The tappers were shocked at the listeners' inability to identify the songs. The disparity was summed up:

"When a tapper taps, it is impossible for her to avoid hearing the tune playing along to her taps. Meanwhile, all the listener can hear is a kind of bizarre Morse code. Yet the tappers were flabbergasted by how hard the listeners had to work to pick up the tune.

The problem is that once we know something—say, the melody of a song—we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. We have difficulty sharing it with others, because we can’t readily re-create their state of mind."

Maybe once we begin tapping from the inside, the system seems less broken to us, even though it hasn't changed. Or maybe we just are more invested in protecting the system that is currently rewarding us. It's probably some of both.

I'd still like to see 30% women at top leadership levels in corporate America within a decade, just to see if that is a tipping point. Couldn’t hurt to try that experiment, could it?

What do you think?

• Is it possible for women to achieve a critical mass of corporate leadership roles within 10 years within the existing business infrastructure?
• What are critical success factors?
• What do you think will happen if the goal is achieved?
• How do you feel about all of this?
• What will you do?

Crowdsourcing Science

"We are…moving to post-publication peer review where the scientific community judges what matters…connected globally through the internet."- Richard Smith Director of United Health Group's chronic disease initiative

Meh, so some guy blogs about the demise of peer-reviewed journals.

Only, I think he's right.

And the guy's opinion should carry some weight—he is a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the preeminent peer-reviewed medical journals that has followed the peer review model since 1840.

In my opinion, the train left the station on this one a long time ago. It is a slow moving train, however. It is not in the best interests of those making money on the peer-reviewed journals industry to let go of their income source.

According to Smith, "Scientific journals began in the 17th century…Before that…scientists went to meetings and presented their studies. The assembled scientists would then discuss and critique the studies…This was the original peer review: immediate and open."

So, over time, the stewards of scientific information became a relatively small group of the scientific community, with some key publishers and their peer reviewers being the arbiters of "reliable" scientific communications. Not a bad way to do things for 170 odd years.

But the connectedness of the digital age changes everything. Everyone can be author, publisher, reviewer, promoter, as well as reader.

Even before Nature checked the data, I had faith in crowdsourcing as an imperfect but relatively sound way of maintaining an adequate level of factual integrity. The debate over whether or not to use Wikipedia as a source of information raged for years in the library realm because it isn't peer reviewed. I have always believed that for most substantive entries, there is statistically a high enough number of people who read it and a subset of them who will weigh in if the information is blatantly untrue. Experts are everywhere. Of course, there are also pretenders. I guess my feeling is that the information is likely to be accurate enough for many purposes. And I have never believed everything I read, even in peer-reviewed journals. Best to have several unique corroborating sources, maybe some data of your own, and a good dose of common sense on weighty matters.

So, will the validity of scientific information of the future be digitally crowdsourced, debated, and rated like a product on Amazon rather than peer reviewed? What impact will this have on future work based on information found in non-peer-reviewed sources? How will it impact the robustness and supportability of intellectual property? What are the implications on education of new scientists and how we teach them to evaluate data?

In my mind, I suddenly see Socrates surrounded by a mass of intellectuals and students peer reviewing

the old fashioned way—in a dynamic, real-time exchange. Isn't that exactly what we could do digitally, globally, and with more experts weighing in? Or, as Smith said, "It's back to our roots."

What Socrates could have done with a smart phone…

Technorati tags: Richard Smith, peer review, scientific publications, BMJ

My happiness: Shall I decide or shall you?

At the recommendation of a colleague, I read the getAbstract summary for the book Stumbling on Happiness (Vintage, 2007) by Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert, whose research centers on predicting one's future emotional state. The book is about why people make cognitive errors in predicting what will make them happy: Our brains, overloaded with memories, take faulty short cuts in which they intersperse a smattering of facts with greater quantities imagination and erroneous perception, resulting in a poor estimation of the future state. The summary states:

Based on extensive psychological research, his book posits that, regarding life's future milestones, most people would do better asking someone else what to do rather than making their own decisions.

Note that I have not read the whole book, so there likely is more to it than the summary relates. However, for me, it boils down to the well-known adage, perception is my own reality, and that perception-reality includes lots of my own imagination.

I don't disagree with the main point made by the author: that imagination (I need to add the qualifier, "alone") is a bad happiness-planning tool. His reasoning:

1. Realism – We think we see reality, but we don't. The abstract states:

Because memories and perceptions are in part fabrications, they are often unreliable guides to future feelings. Yet, people uncritically accept the images their brains provide as true, even when their brains make up or leave out important details.

2. Presentism – How we feel in the present distorts our assessment of future state. The abstract states:

The brain operates on a policy of 'reality first'…if you're imagining a future event and your emotional response to it, your current positive or negative perceptions of the real world will take precedence over what your mind's eye creates. This may distort your feelings about future events.

3. Rationalization – We invent explanations that make us happy even if they are not rooted in fact. The abstract states:

The brain inherently leans toward positive, clear, rational interpretations of events – past, present and future. It provides "psychological immune systems" that keep people's spirits buoyant. Thus, even if an experience is negative…the brain will try to provide a positive perception of it…

Sure, I can buy that. Be aware of the part imagination unconsciously plays in our assessments and estimates. Check.

But where I get stuck is in the assertion: "...most people would do better asking someone else what to do rather than making their own decisions." Hmm…

Okay, I'm a scientist and I love good data and analysis as much as any geek. But abandoning my own personal data and analysis – especially as it relates to constructing a plan about me and my future – in favor of the data and analyses of others having similar experiences? That seems like a fundamentally flawed solution by the author's own arguments (not to mention a convenient way to abandon personal responsibility, which always rankles me). Doesn't it follow that an assessment of an experience by someone who has already gone through it is tainted by the same problems of realism, presentism, and rationalization as they relate their experiences to others?

I'll also concede that in controlled conditions a majority of people can have predictable responses to certain stimuli, but I do not fully support the assertion noted in the summary that "most human beings are alike" – at least, not without a whole lot of qualifiers. People have unique ways of drawing together their individual experiences and (faulty) thinking to construct a response. Maybe that response isn't "reality" in an absolute way, but my response is my reality, even if it is based largely on personal perception. And my perception is intensely related to my personal happiness. Vive la différence!

If you could just assess absolute data and assign cause-effect relationships, understanding human behavior would be so simple that Professor Gilbert would have to find something else to do. (Just kidding.)

I think a better approach to understanding happiness is, in addition to seeking input from the experienced (which is not a bad tip, just an incomplete solution), trying to sort out components of reality vs. imagination as best as possible in our own thinking and then analyze for complexity. Being aware of realism, presentism, and rationalization sure could help in sorting all of that out. (I suspect that, if I read the whole book, I would have excerpts to show that this is what Professor Gilbert is getting at.)

Happiness, I think, is a balance sheet. The return on your investment needs to come out on the positive end. The profits need to outweigh the liabilities. The trouble is that the things that make us happy all have strings attached, making the accurate construction of that balance sheet pretty complicated. It takes some work.

In my experience, if there is a way in which "most human beings are alike," it's that a lot of who we are is seemingly hard-wired, coloring our natural responses to the world. If we seek additional quality input (e.g., asking about the experiences of others), we may be able to modify our responses somewhat:

• If you are the sort of person who seeks happiness (i.e., relies on that "psychological immune system") and balances it with consideration of the data, you will find a measure of happiness, even if it is not perfect.
• If you are more radical and disregard the data in favor of blind optimism, your delusion may crumble and you may crash when it doesn't measure up to your perfect imaginings.
• If your inclination is to see the glass half empty (and I don't mean that in a snide way – some people are just like that) and you balance it with data, you may find avenues leading to some measure of happiness you hadn't considered.
• If you disregard the data, you may only see a miserable, flawed world in that half empty glass.

It's all about balance.

What do you think?

Technorati tags: Daniel Gilbert, happiness, Stumbling on Happiness, getAbstract

Are you real, Mona Lisa?

It lives. It breathes. I know the intensity of these words.

A troupe of 300 Japanese tourists, all taking individual photos of themselves in front of the glass enclosure, finally left for the next gallery, offering only a moment to fight my way to the rail.

I’d seen photographs, of course; we all have. But, now, the photographs seem to represent some other work. This is no eyebrow-deficient, small-mouthed, jaundiced lady on a muddy canvas who dolefully reminds me of Morticia Adams’ homely sister. This is a gorgeous, vibrant, three-dimensional, human creature, searching my eyes across time and space, whispering her secret joys in my heart. I could not breathe within her gaze. My God.

This is the indescribable power of portraiture, of capturing faces to exude the subject’s core at that moment, grasping recognition in my own. It is a soul released of vulnerability, speaking deepest truths it could not utter in life.

I still tremble when I think back to that moment in the Louvre.

I commissioned an artist I admire to paint a portrait of my recently deceased mother, at my father’s request. He sent emails with attached jpegs, I sent back guidance on how to make the smile more like Mom’s or to better describe the shape of her chin. When I saw the photo of the best version, I was pleased. Today I saw the painting. My God.

The artist said, “In the photo you gave me, I saw a young, happy, woman, typical of her era, seeing her future of possibilities.”

That is exactly what he painted, but both his words and mine fail to describe her truth. Only oil and canvas can.

I cannot breathe within her gaze. I cannot stop looking.

Technorati tags: Mona Lisa, portraiture, painting, art

Rubber band

Have you felt strrrrrretched to the breaking point, lately? I have. And just when I think I can go no further, I find a little more elasticity.

I was losing my mind thinking about the 7,432 things I need to accomplish by Friday. After a couple of hours pounding away furiously on my laptop in the waiting room at the hospital (long story), oblivious to everyone around me, I hadn't put even a small dent in those 7,432 things. In fact, the list had grown. And a couple of huge complications had arisen.

Frustrated, I unplugged my laptop and popped my cell phone into my pocket so that I could visit the restroom. Of course, it was closed for cleaning, so I had to go searching for another. Another woman was also on the potty hunt, so we headed off to find it together. 

She was wearing a baseball cap and had no eyebrows or eyelashes. Although the visible evidence suggested the answer, I asked her what she clearly wanted to be asked. She is fighting breast cancer.

She had driven more than an hour for her final chemo session. She continued to grapple with “Why me?” questions because she has always been very health conscious. She was feeling besieged by unsupportive co-workers who were speculating about what she’d done wrong to bring this curse upon herself. She was deflecting people who had various (ridiculous) suggestions on how to beat cancer. She was there all alone, facing her disease.

She told me about some uplifting audio programs that helped her emotionally. She showed me a new age tool for improving circulation and talked about her chakras and energies. When I complimented her beautiful complexion, she described a concoction she invented to heal her chemo-ravaged skin. She relayed concerns about her medical bills. She told me how she had to cut back to make ends meet, including cutting off her internet and cell phone – lifelines of connection when people can’t physically socialize. She told me about her exercise program. She told me of the joy of having a pedicure.

She smiled, she teared up.

She had a whole bag of tools with her that she used to help herself through this ordeal. She wanted someone to see them.

She wanted to help.

She wanted to be heard.

So, I looked. I listened. I commiserated. I encouraged. I affirmed. I congratulated. I complimented. I noted her advice. I tried to link her up with people and services that might help her to share her self-help discoveries with other cancer patients who might find comfort in them. I probably said a few wrong things, too.

I hope that when she drove home alone, feeling like hell, trying not to nod off or lose her stomach, leaving a few more hairs inside her baseball cap, heading closer to the people and bills that complicate her plight, she knew that someone heard her today and thinks that what she has to offer is important.

And, while I tried to be truly present for this stranger, I forgot the 7,432 things on my to-do list and focused on one unexpected thing that probably had more value than all the others combined. What a relief!

Stretch a little more. Be present for someone today. Maybe that extra stretch will keep both of you from breaking.

Thank you, lady in the baseball cap.

I Have Not the Courage

I recently visited the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. Although a range of African-American experience and worldwide social injustice is covered, emphasis is on the African-American Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1968.

I was born at the end of this movement, so I have no firsthand memory of it. Textbooks I used in the 1970s and 1980s didn't include many events past World War II. (Encyclopedias I used as a child stated, "Someday man might explore space.") My upbringing in a white area in the North didn't provide exposure to racial tension; it existed in town, but didn't enter the few square blocks of my life. I knew only of a few events, like Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus, the Little Rock Nine pioneering school integration, and Martin Luther King saying "I have a dream."

So, when our exceptionally fabulous tour guide queued up displays with, "Of course, we're all familiar with the story…", I, shamefully, wasn't familiar. For example:

In 1955, 14-year-old, black, Chicagoan, Emmett Till, was brutally murdered while visiting family in Mississippi. Dared by his cousins, he wolf-whistled at a white woman. As a result, he was kidnapped, beaten, blinded, and shot in the head. His body was thrown into a river with a 74-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire. His mutilated body could only be identified by a ring he wore. The two white suspects were acquitted by a jury of white men after only 67 minutes of deliberation. Afterward, the defendants gave an interview in which they admitted their crime. They never expressed remorse

As a mother, I'm shaky as I recall the photos—indescribable anguish on the face of Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, viewing an unrecognizable lump that was once the face of her son. She insisted on an open-casket funeral, saying, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum is the original site of the Greensboro Four sit-in (a story I vaguely recall hearing before). On February 1, 1960, four African-American North Carolina A&T University students sat at the all-white lunch counter of F.W. Woolworth in Greensboro, triggering nonviolent sit-ins throughout the U.S. Joined daily by other students, they continued until the drugstore chain served all "properly dressed and well behaved people," regardless of race several months later.

It's unfathomable that such extreme and unpunished injustice and brutality could have been so common in my country (almost) within my lifetime.

The Greensboro Four were phenomenally courageous, given the extreme retribution exacted from a child who merely whistled 5 years earlier. How did they ever muster the courage to defy their oppressors? How did parents of college and high school students sitting in protest at that counter, amid jeers and threats, endure their fear for their children's safety, while remembering the heart-rending story of Mamie Till-Mobley's loss?

It is powerful to see the lunch counter standing on the same tile in the same room where a revolution began. It is sobering to admit I would not have the courage—courage like that of the Greensboro Four and so many others who risked their lives for equality—to cross those tiles to sit at that counter myself.

I stand in awe.


Technorati tags: civil rights, African-American Civil Rights Movement, Greensboro Four, Emmett Till, Mamie Till-Mobley, International Civil Rights Center and Museum, courage, F.W. Woolworth