Category Archives: Ideas

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Bringing Out The Best In Us

As we struggle through a difficult time of turmoil and division, I’m reminded that one of the least tangible yet most important responsibilities of leaders is to bring out the best in others. When we think about business leadership, we often think about strategy, alignment of goals, proper resource allocation, facilitating healthy debate around key issues, and maintaining team focus on high-impact initiatives that matter despite the noise.

Sometimes we lose sight of a more important task: inspiring others to reach the full potential of their talent. While the verb “inspire” is about as amorphous as it gets, another version of it might be coaching, or encouraging, or shaping, or mentoring. These days as a boss, I think more than half the battle is keeping people cooperative and positive, guiding them to circumvent negativity and work together even where differences in viewpoint creep into conversation.

Going deeper, I think about the best bosses I’ve worked under, and how their very different styles brought out the best in me.

While the input and output of these great bosses were different, their intentions were the same. Their goal was to get me to achieve things I wouldn’t have achieved without their direction. They wanted me to do the best work of my career with their guidance. They never took credit for my work, they got it as a macro by default. Like a baseball coach, each saw talent on the playing field and wanted to see more wins than losses.

Consider a tale of two bosses.

One was relentless in expecting the most of me. He was extremely competitive and wanted me to be more competitive. He was highly creative and wanted me to be more creative. He was troubled by mediocrity and wanted me to refuse it at every turn. He was perpetually prepared for a crisis and wanted me to embrace the mandate of rising above obstacles without excuse. He wanted me to expect more of myself. The notion of being indefatigable comes to mind.

The other was a master of collaboration and consensus. He wanted constructive dialogue and insisted I encourage it. He believed teams were stronger than individuals and wanted me to suppress all the egos in a room. He believed in building the best products in the world, but reminded me no end that if a product burned out a team, losing the team wasn’t worth it. He wanted me to be open to unusual or counterintuitive ideas. The notion of being empathetic comes to mind.

These two role models held commonalities, particularly of character. Neither of them ever lied to me. Both of them were ceaselessly demanding of my results, never satisfied, yet they never berated me even with the toughest feedback they offered. Both were tolerant of honest mistakes and noble failures, yet I knew that well wasn’t bottomless. They were happy to be proven wrong with data and facts (well, maybe not happy, but they welcomed it as important learning). They each displayed a unique sense of humor, entirely different in tone, but pointedly more pronounced in darker moments that required lightening.

Both of these bosses applied correct approaches in my mind, and while if ever put together they would have ardently disagreed on style, their synthesis lives in me. I believe they saw bits of themselves in me, chances to fix wrongs in their own failings. They knew I could do better, be better, and they took personal reward in seeing my potential realized.

I believe all of us are complex combinations of the conflicting inputs we receive over time, positive and negative. In that evolution, we come to form our own unique style of leadership. The key point here is to remember what we are trying to do is help others realize their own significance in the brief time we share with them.

To bring out the best in others may be the hardest thing we do. Like all difficult things, when we see the result we know it was worth it. We also learn repeatedly that style is content, how we lead in troubled times is as or more important than our intentions. Integrity is as contagious as its opposite. When we aspire to a higher purpose, we can lift each other to an otherwise unimaginable shared vision.

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Photo: Pixabay

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“Tune Out The Noise”

In lieu of a broader blog post this month, I’m sharing a link to a documentary film recently released on YouTube entitled “Tune Out the Noise.” It was featured in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend and tells the story of Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), a pioneering investment firm born out of exhaustive academic research at the University of Chicago. That graduate school of business, now known as the Booth School, is named for David Booth, a generous contributor to the university and a co-founder with Rex Sinquefield of DFA.

This 86-minute documentary, directed by the masterful Errol Morris, frames the practical application of decades of study by multiple Nobel Prize laureates around the triumph of passive investing over active investing. If you’re not familiar with the difference between index investors (passive) and stock pickers (active), or the alleged controversies surrounding the comparison, this film will provide an entertaining primer to one of Wall Street’s greatest battles for the hearts and minds of ordinary people putting their money to work for the long-term, particularly into retirement. I won’t spoil the punchline, but you won’t have to wait for the end of the movie to understand its thesis.

The DFA leadership team sponsored the production and made it available free of charge because they want to broaden the public’s perspective on the mathematics underlying equity markets, generation after generation. I have been a massive fan of DFA almost since its inception. Whether or not you agree with the firm’s approach to investing, I believe you owe it to yourself to better understand what they set out to do, how it has played out, and how many believers have been fortunate enough to benefit from so many serious, critical thinkers who set out to change their corner of the world and pulled it off in spectacular fashion.

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did, and come to respect this brilliant group of financial leaders as much as I do.

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Video: YouTube

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Insist on Honesty

I have learned with age that part of life is navigating past disillusionment. With humility we recommit to resilience. The rules have clearly changed on us. What we thought we learned was dependably true no longer seems so.

Defeat is a temporary condition as long as we choose to continue to advocate for character, integrity, and justice. There is no silencing honesty and lies will always be lies.

Perhaps this is a good time to re-read 1984 by George Orwell. First-time readers are equally likely to be astonished by its prescience and relevance. As long as 2 + 2 = 4, the notion of shared understanding remains in the realm of the possible. There is no interpretation of 2 + 2 = 4; it is always so. Facts must be facts.

Can human beings be bullied to answer otherwise? Can we be compelled to state openly that 2 + 2 = 5? That‘s what’s on the table. There has to be such a thing as empirical reality or all bets are off. When too many people are convinced otherwise, a community can no longer function without chaos. Fear can never cause us to deny the objectivity we know to be true or freedom deteriorates to a misnomer of ethical compromise.

Demanding honesty has to be bipartisan or the ability to cooperate despite our differences becomes impossible. We insist on honesty from our children and teach them this is a fundamental value. One of the first lessons we teach a child is that lying is always wrong. Tell the truth always, take ownership for your mistakes, do not justify doing harm to others, do not cheat, build trust with others through consistent honesty. We must then lead by example, all of us, or the teaching is corrosively undermined.

Understanding science is part of embracing honesty. Sorting past rhetoric to examine the assembled results of structured experiments is not easy work, but without that ceaseless effort, it’s easy to be deceived. Scientific process will forever evolve, that is its nature. We unpack the natural world as we explore it through the generations, century after century.

Sometimes we arrive at settled knowledge. Sometimes we make decisions based on prevailing proof. When an idea gets turned over, that is not a matter of subjectivity but disciplined argument and expert peer review. There are subject matter experts who have earned their authority. Internet and social media noise are forms of unedited expression, not authority.

Insist on honesty from all those in your life who would tell you otherwise. We can’t become cynical or the inspiration to effect positive change will elude us. We are still in this together, our empathy is our strength. What better choice do we have than to be even more honest versions of ourselves?

Raise your voice, maintain your courage, never cave to false promise. Blame is a coward’s tactic, not a sustainable motivation. Hope will lift us up. A setback is a moment in time.

We fight on.

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Book Cover Image: Signet Classics

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How Sure Are You?

Lately I’ve been struck by a surprising phenomenon finding its way into all kinds of discussions. That would be the expression of certainty.

It seems increasingly in many of the conversations I’m having that others have reached conclusions they feel no further need to revisit. It’s more than certainty. It’s absolute certainty.

Here are some varied examples:

Let me tell you what the Fed is going to do at its next meeting.

Let me tell you what the NASDAQ will do between now and Christmas.

Let me tell you how the conflict in the Middle East will end.

Let me tell you what Elon Musk is really after.

Let me tell you what’s ultimately behind climate change.

Let me tell you who is going to win the presidential election.

Let me tell you what’s going to happen to the nation after the election.

Note the lack of the words might, probably, likely, or even most likely. The statements above are followed by declarations of certainty. Needless to say, these utterances do not come from people who are experts in all areas of knowledge. Who can claim broad insight — approaching clairvoyance — across such a broad spectrum of complex topics? These statements are offered by ordinary folks whose opinions form much the way too many undisciplined declarations emerge in real time.

These days, I often find myself the least certain person in the room. I wonder, how can everyone be so sure about what they are proclaiming?

I work in a business where decision-making is data-driven. We have spirited arguments about work strategies all the time, and the boss doesn’t always win the debate. We argue with facts because there is shared value in our outcomes. Sometimes opinion prevails, but only when subjectivity is guided by objectivity.

We also require a lot of close listening before we get to conclusions. We know our choices have consequences on our company’s results, the actions of our customers, the well-being of our employees, and the financial impact on all our stakeholders. Data drives rigorous thinking. We take our choices seriously.

I realize company culture has little to do with random conversation or even the talking heads clamoring for attention on the media platforms that flood our lives. We are aware fake news creeps into all corners of communication. Somehow a justification for lying has woven its way into popular opinion, where the deliberate application of false information seems to some less of a vice in mainstream conflict if it is deemed a means to an end. Still, when I hear people parrot incoherent arguments expressed by others either for some concocted agenda or strictly entertainment value, it surprises me how willing we can be to compromise our credibility for nothing that would warrant it.

I wonder how so much claimed certainty continues to pierce our uncertain world. The internet fills our lives with noise. You’d think it would humble us to seek more truth before we convince ourselves we have found an answer. You’d think our personal character and integrity would matter more to us. We are endlessly willing to let a social media algorithm drive conflict in our discussions and stir our ire, rather than invest a bit of time validating our expressions before we pile onto the verbal brawl.

Do I expect this to change broadly anytime soon? Probably not. It’s too easy to speak without citing facts, to claim the right to say what we want, when we want, how we want, and believe this is without consequence because one voice self-corrected has little bearing on arena spectacle.

Yet that’s not true. One voice self-corrected is an example that leads to another and another. If those with authority won’t lead by example, imagine the influence of the broad population accepting the burden of that same leadership by caring enough to speak with a tad more precision.

I’m not suggesting anything outlandish. It’s a matter of individual commitment to modest self-reflection over boisterous hubris. Before you say something with absolute certainty, simply ask yourself: How sure are you?

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Photo: Pexels