Over 50 years ago, Robert E. Kelly wrote the following:
"Folks of all colors and creeds, from all walks of life, in all age groups, become God's people in the bleachers of a ball park on a Sunday afternoon. And the sense of community that fills the souls of fans who share a ball game does not entirely end at the exit gates. In bars, strangers talk about the sport and its heroes and chuckle together over the antics of a personality. Board meetings begin after the score of that day is announced. Kids copy the style of favorites, on playgrounds and on school diamonds.
Such people are the lovers of baseball who sense the beauty of the sport- its strangely unifying characteristics. They enjoy its true heroes, it's strategies, perhaps most of all, its peaceful and nonviolent solutions. They read aobut it, analyze it, worry about it."
-Baseball for the Hot Stove League- Robert E. Kelly, 1955.
Play ball! It's spring! Hope springs eternal!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Millennial Madness
Just finished up facilitating a management retreat for a regional PR/Advertising firm. All of the senior managers (ages 35 to 50) were complaining about the work ethic among their young employees. There are 80 million so-called "Millennials" in the U.S. who were born between 198o and 1995.
My client was struggling with how to deal with young employees who apparently don't know that they have to produce results to get ahead.
According to 60 Minutes (November 11, 2007):
They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it. As correspondent Morley Safer reports, corporate America is so unnerved by all this that companies like Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, Disney and scores of others are hiring consultants to teach them how to deal with this generation that only takes "yes" for an answer.
The creative director told the story of a mother who called on behalf of her daughter to get some background information on the firm. "Have her call me," was his response. Bravo! Maybe a little backbone is the answer?
Is this really a big problem? My guess is that this might be a problem with some people born in that timeframe, but most young people are pretty much like people were in previous generations. Hard working, smart, nice people are out there.
Having said that, to the extent that such coddled folks are out there feeling entitled, maybe a good ol' fashioned recession wouldn't be ALL bad.
My client was struggling with how to deal with young employees who apparently don't know that they have to produce results to get ahead.
According to 60 Minutes (November 11, 2007):
They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it. As correspondent Morley Safer reports, corporate America is so unnerved by all this that companies like Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, Disney and scores of others are hiring consultants to teach them how to deal with this generation that only takes "yes" for an answer.
The creative director told the story of a mother who called on behalf of her daughter to get some background information on the firm. "Have her call me," was his response. Bravo! Maybe a little backbone is the answer?
Is this really a big problem? My guess is that this might be a problem with some people born in that timeframe, but most young people are pretty much like people were in previous generations. Hard working, smart, nice people are out there.
Having said that, to the extent that such coddled folks are out there feeling entitled, maybe a good ol' fashioned recession wouldn't be ALL bad.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Brain Baloney
This may be all baloney, but....heh, that's what blogging for. To try on something new.
Our brains are full of constant chatter. If you think about what goes through your brain during your waking hours, it’s fairly amazing. It seems to me that most of the chatter in our noggin is driven by emotions. It also seems to me that a lot of this brain chatter are things we invent to make sense of our daily life.
For example, if we have another couple over to our house and they never reciprocate, I tell myself that either they do not entertain at their home. Or I find something about them that I do not like and tell myself that I really didn’t want to be their friend anyway. (Of course, if we do get an invitation, I readily accept.)
There’s an interesting column in the current National Geographic Adventure by Laurence Gonzalez that got me to thinking about all this and why it has far more important consequences than our insignificant social life on Cape Cod.
Apparently Steven Pinker, a noted psychologist, says that our brains contain a ‘baloney generator” that offers up explanations of our behavior that might have nothing to do with reality. These are stories that we tell ourselves to help us deal with the world around us. They help us decide how to act in the future.
It’s as if we live in a dream world of baloney that we have created about what is happening around us.
For example, my personal baloney generator told me that any money that I send to New Orleans to help Katrina victims will not reach the proper people because there is too much inefficiency, and maybe corruption, in the charitable organizations that had been set up. Is it true? I don’t know. But it’s a story I tell myself so that I don’t have to actually part with any cash. (I'm not proud of this, by the way).
Life is a jumble of these stories we tell ourselves to make sense of things. We use them for everything. When the stories reflect the real world, we do well. When they don’t, we find ourselves in trouble. But we rarely take the time to examine them to see if they fit with reality.
I once quit a job because I thought my boss didn't respect me. In my exit interview, I found out that none of that was true. Just brain baloney that I'd generated based on a grab bag of circumstantial evidence.
The tsunami that occurred in 2004 is a tragic example. As Gonzalez reports, “Officials were surprised to discover that all 250 of the isolated Jarawara tribe had survived. They had little contact with the outside world. But their folklore told them to head for high ground when the earth shakes and the sea retreats. They survived because they heeded that message.
Supposedly sophisticated people died because the story that they told themselves, that they were on vacation on a beautiful sunny beach and nothing bad could happen to them, was not true. Apparently there are videos of people laughing and playing as the water starts to gather around their ankles. As I said, tragic.
So, maybe some of the stories we tell ourselves do not serve us well. They might cause us to ignore potential threats.
But they might also be the cause of some of our unhappiness. We might have a mental model that we don’t fit in at work, or that our boss does not like us because when he passed us in the hall he didn’t smile, or that our co-workers are lazy because they don’t put in has many hours as me. They might cause us to moan and groan about the unfairness of things, when in fact, everything is just fine.
Not sure what to make of all this, but maybe from time to time we should examine the baloney that our brain is generating. Confront reality. Maybe even invent new mental models and try them for awhile. Create some new brain baloney. “My boss really likes and respects me.” “Those guys in creative really produce some great work.” It might make us happier people.
Our brains are full of constant chatter. If you think about what goes through your brain during your waking hours, it’s fairly amazing. It seems to me that most of the chatter in our noggin is driven by emotions. It also seems to me that a lot of this brain chatter are things we invent to make sense of our daily life.
For example, if we have another couple over to our house and they never reciprocate, I tell myself that either they do not entertain at their home. Or I find something about them that I do not like and tell myself that I really didn’t want to be their friend anyway. (Of course, if we do get an invitation, I readily accept.)
There’s an interesting column in the current National Geographic Adventure by Laurence Gonzalez that got me to thinking about all this and why it has far more important consequences than our insignificant social life on Cape Cod.
Apparently Steven Pinker, a noted psychologist, says that our brains contain a ‘baloney generator” that offers up explanations of our behavior that might have nothing to do with reality. These are stories that we tell ourselves to help us deal with the world around us. They help us decide how to act in the future.
It’s as if we live in a dream world of baloney that we have created about what is happening around us.
For example, my personal baloney generator told me that any money that I send to New Orleans to help Katrina victims will not reach the proper people because there is too much inefficiency, and maybe corruption, in the charitable organizations that had been set up. Is it true? I don’t know. But it’s a story I tell myself so that I don’t have to actually part with any cash. (I'm not proud of this, by the way).
Life is a jumble of these stories we tell ourselves to make sense of things. We use them for everything. When the stories reflect the real world, we do well. When they don’t, we find ourselves in trouble. But we rarely take the time to examine them to see if they fit with reality.
I once quit a job because I thought my boss didn't respect me. In my exit interview, I found out that none of that was true. Just brain baloney that I'd generated based on a grab bag of circumstantial evidence.
The tsunami that occurred in 2004 is a tragic example. As Gonzalez reports, “Officials were surprised to discover that all 250 of the isolated Jarawara tribe had survived. They had little contact with the outside world. But their folklore told them to head for high ground when the earth shakes and the sea retreats. They survived because they heeded that message.
Supposedly sophisticated people died because the story that they told themselves, that they were on vacation on a beautiful sunny beach and nothing bad could happen to them, was not true. Apparently there are videos of people laughing and playing as the water starts to gather around their ankles. As I said, tragic.
So, maybe some of the stories we tell ourselves do not serve us well. They might cause us to ignore potential threats.
But they might also be the cause of some of our unhappiness. We might have a mental model that we don’t fit in at work, or that our boss does not like us because when he passed us in the hall he didn’t smile, or that our co-workers are lazy because they don’t put in has many hours as me. They might cause us to moan and groan about the unfairness of things, when in fact, everything is just fine.
Not sure what to make of all this, but maybe from time to time we should examine the baloney that our brain is generating. Confront reality. Maybe even invent new mental models and try them for awhile. Create some new brain baloney. “My boss really likes and respects me.” “Those guys in creative really produce some great work.” It might make us happier people.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Difficult People
Just got off conference call with the leaders of an advertising/pr firm that is growing from a regional to national agency. Going to be doing a management and staff retreat with them this month. The theme of the retreat will be how to foster collaboration and respect within their organization as they grow and as they integrate their functions to better serve their clients.
One of the retreat modules will be Dealing with Difficult People. The irony, of course, is that the Chairman of the firm is, by his own admission "the personification of a 'difficult person" (if that makes any sense). He's difficult for his staff because he's demanding. He's demanding because he has high standards, is very intelligent, has a keen sense of the human condition, and wants his agency to create great work for its clients. He challenges people. He brings out the best in them, whether they like it or not. He is relentless in his pursuit of creativity and quality.
He's not alone. Time and again I've seen organizations run by people who are in some ways difficult. MacArthur and Patton are the obvious military examples. But corporate America has them too. Sergio Zyman at Coca-Cola might be the poster child. What is it about these leaders who are often called arrogant, but who lead their organizations to do great things?
Are they smarter? I don't think so. Work harder? Not necessarily. Jerks? Sometimes, but jerks don't last long.
The key ingredient that these leaders possess is courage. Courage to confront issues that others would rather avoid. Courage is often associated with physical situations, but real leadership calls for courage to create and communicate. It is rarely written or talked about.
In 1973, Rollo May wrote a book called "The Courage to Create". In it he says: A curious paradox characteristic of every kind of courage here confronts us. It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must be fully aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. This dialectic ...is characteristic of the highest types of courage.
They may be "difficult people", but I like working with them.
One of the retreat modules will be Dealing with Difficult People. The irony, of course, is that the Chairman of the firm is, by his own admission "the personification of a 'difficult person" (if that makes any sense). He's difficult for his staff because he's demanding. He's demanding because he has high standards, is very intelligent, has a keen sense of the human condition, and wants his agency to create great work for its clients. He challenges people. He brings out the best in them, whether they like it or not. He is relentless in his pursuit of creativity and quality.
He's not alone. Time and again I've seen organizations run by people who are in some ways difficult. MacArthur and Patton are the obvious military examples. But corporate America has them too. Sergio Zyman at Coca-Cola might be the poster child. What is it about these leaders who are often called arrogant, but who lead their organizations to do great things?
Are they smarter? I don't think so. Work harder? Not necessarily. Jerks? Sometimes, but jerks don't last long.
The key ingredient that these leaders possess is courage. Courage to confront issues that others would rather avoid. Courage is often associated with physical situations, but real leadership calls for courage to create and communicate. It is rarely written or talked about.
In 1973, Rollo May wrote a book called "The Courage to Create". In it he says: A curious paradox characteristic of every kind of courage here confronts us. It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must be fully aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. This dialectic ...is characteristic of the highest types of courage.
They may be "difficult people", but I like working with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
