Imagine if the owner of the local bookstore hid books from various authors or publishers. They're on the shelf, sure, but misfiled, or hidden behind other books. Most of us would find this offensive, and I for one like the freedom I have (for now) to choose a new store, one that connects me to what I need.
The airline tickets I purchased last week are missing. Oh, here they are, in my spam folder. Gmail blames an algorithm, as if it wrote itself.
That person who just got stopped on her way to an airplane—the woman who gets stopped every time she flies—the TSA says it's the algorithm doing it. But someone wrote that code.
And as AI gets ever better at machine learning, we'll hear over and over that the output isn't anyone's responsibility, because, hey, the algorithm wrote the code.
We need to speak up.
You have policies and algorithms in place where you work, passed down from person to person. Decision-making approaches that help you find good customers, or lead to negative redlining… What they have in common is that they are largely unexamined.
Google's search results and news are the work of human beings. Businesses thrive or suffer because of active choices made by programmers and the people they work for. They have conflicting goals, but the lack of transparency leads to hiding behind the algorithm.
The priority of which Facebook news come up is the work of a team of people. The defense of, "the results just follow the algorithm," is a weak one, because there's more than one valid algorithm, more than one set of choices that can be made, more than one set of priorities.
The culture (our politics, our standards, our awareness of what's happening around us) is being aggressively rewired by what we see, and what we see comes via an algorithm, one that was written by people.
Just because it makes the stockholders happy in the short run doesn't mean it's the right choice for the people who trust you.
January 12, 2017
Here's the obvious way: Watch people waiting to go through the line. Find the spot where the line slows down, where there's a gap between one person and the next. That's the spot that needs attention. Add a few spoons, pre-portion the item, remove a step.
Here's another way: Schedule how people enter the line. By managing the flow, you'll relax the participants and eliminate rush times.
Here's a better way: Pull the table away from the wall so people can walk on either side, thus giving your throughput a chance to practically double.
If you work on an assembly line, it's likely that someone has already thought about this.
But many of us are soloists, or do dozens of tasks a day. It's not as easy to notice where the bottlenecks are, so we have to look for them.
Have you considered the high cost of task switching? It probably takes you a little while to stop doing one thing and start doing another with efficiency. What happens when you switch less often?
Also: Consider the sprint test. If there's a task that comes up often, challenge yourself and your team to, just this once, organize and prepare to set a world record at actually completing this task. Get all the materials and processes set in advance. Now, with focus, seek out your most efficient flow.
Obviously, you can't do this every single time, but what did you learn? Steal the best parts and add them to your daily practice.
Is there someone who is more productive at a given task than you are? Watch and model. Even the way you hold the scoop, reach across the table or move the mouse is sufficient to change everything.
One last thought: Inspections are essential to maintain quality, but re-inspection is duplicative and slows things down. Where is the best place to be sure you've done the work properly? Do it there and then, and not again, and not five times. Organizing to build quality into the process, with steps that check themselves, is far more productive than constant task switching and over-inspection.
January 11, 2017
It’s not forced on us, it’s something we choose.
And we rarely benefit from that choice.
That emergency surgery, the one that saved your life, when the ruptured appendix was removed—the doctor left a scar.
We can choose to be grateful for our next breath.
Or we can find a way to be enraged, to point out that given how much it costs and how much training the doctor had, that scar really ought to be a lot smaller. And on top of that, he wasn’t very nice. We’re entitled to a nice doctor!
Or we can choose to be grateful.
Marketers have spent trillions of dollars persuading us that we can have it all, that we deserve it, and that right around the corner is something even better.
Politicians have told us that they’ll handle everything, that our pain is real and that an even better world is imminent.
And we believe it. We buy into our privilege as well as the expectation that our privilege entitles us to even more. It’s not based on status or reality. It’s a cultural choice.
And you’re entitled to your entitlement if you want it.
But why would you?
Entitlement gets us nothing but heartache. It blinds us to what’s possible. It insulates us from the magic of gratitude. And most of all, it lets us off the hook, pushing us away from taking responsibility (and action) and toward apportioning blame and anger instead.
Gratitude, on the other hand, is just as valid a choice. Except that gratitude makes us open to possibility. It brings us closer to others. And it makes us happier.
There’s a simple hack at work here: We’re not grateful because we’re happy. We’re happy because we’re grateful.
Everything could be better.
Not because we deserve it (we don’t, not really).
But because if we work at it, invest in it and connect with others around it, we can make it better. It’s on us.
It’s difficult work, counter-instinctual work that never ends.
But we keep trying. Because it’s worth it.
January 10, 2017
More creating
Less consuming
More leading
Less following
More contributing
Less taking
More patience
Less intolerance
More connecting
Less isolating
More writing
Less watching
More optimism
Less false realism
January 9, 2017
If someone needs directions, don't give them a globe. It'll merely waste their time.
But if someone needs to understand the way things are, don't give them a map. They don't need directions, they need to see the big picture.
January 8, 2017
When you appeal to the better nature of a specific group, you're doing something with good taste. Just barely ahead of the status quo, in sync but leaning forward.
The key understandings are:
It is never universal. Good taste is tribal, not widespread.
It's momentary. The definition changes over time.
And it's aspirational. When we encounter good taste, it makes us feel as though we can and will be better.
Because it's not universal, being seen as having good taste is not up to you. It's up to the recipient. You can't insist you're right.
Good taste is an incredibly valuable skill, and you can acquire it with practice.
January 7, 2017
You might have noticed that the gym was a little less crowded this morning.
It's only four days into the new year and most well-intentioned resolutions have already faded.
Of course they have. You can't change an ingrained habit with just a few days of willpower.
We stay where we are, finding a level and a routine and protecting it. Change isn't easy or everyone would do it. Finding more responsibility, making a bigger difference, following a new path–we need help and time to change those patterns.
That's why the altMBA takes thirty days. Every day, several hours per day. That's why we do it in small groups, with cohorts of just twenty people. And why we use live coaches, people who know your name. An online workshop that actually works.
I hope you'll sign up to have us send you some useful information about what we're doing. Every workshop we've run has been completely full, and we're accepting applications now for the spring session.
What will you create next?
January 6, 2017
Luxury goods are only consumed when we've got enough. You shouldn't go shopping for a Birkin bag with your last dollar.
It's easy to believe that kindness is like that. We need more reserves, perhaps, before we can expend some of what we've got in this generous way.
You've had a hard day, it's raining out, the world is changing, your boss is mean to you, the checking account is overdrawn, you're on deadline…
But… Does every need have to be filled, every emotion in place before we're capable of being kind?
Do we have to have enough money, enough confidence about the future and enough of everything else we crave before we can find the space to offer someone else a hand?
It turns out that the opposite is true. That kindness is a foundation for the rest. That investing time and resources in extending ourselves shifts the rest of our needs in precisely the right direction, not only putting us closer to satisfying those other needs, but enjoying the journey as well.
Kindness rewards the giver as well.
January 5, 2017
The bestselling novel of 1961 was Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent. Millions of people read this 690-page political novel. In 2016, the big sellers were coloring books.
Fifteen years ago, cable channels like TLC (the “L” stood for Learning), Bravo and the History Channel (the “History” stood for History) promised to add texture and information to the blighted TV landscape. Now these networks run shows about marrying people based on how well they kiss.
And of course, newspapers won Pulitzer prizes for telling us things we didn’t want to hear. We’ve responded by not buying newspapers any more.
The decline of thoughtful media has been discussed for a century. This is not new. What is new: A fundamental shift not just in the profit-seeking gatekeepers, but in the culture as a whole.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”*
[*Ironically, this isn’t what Einstein actually said. It was this, “It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.” Alas, I’ve been seduced into believing that the shorter one now works better.]
Is it possible we’ve made things simpler than they ought to be, and established non-curiosity as the new standard?
We are certainly guilty of being active participants in a media landscape that breaks Einstein’s simplicity law every day. And having gotten away with it so far, we’re now considering removing the law from our memory.
The economics seem to be that the only way to make a living is to reach a lot of people and the only way to reach a lot of people is to race to the bottom, seek out quick clicks, make it easy to swallow, reinforce existing beliefs, keep it short, make it sort of fun, or prurient, or urgent, and most of all, dumb it down.
And that’s the true danger of anti-intellectualism. While it’s foolish to choose to be stupid, it’s cultural suicide to decide that insights, theories and truth don’t actually matter. If we don’t care to learn more, we won’t spend time or resources on knowledge.
We can survive if we eat candy for an entire day, but if we put the greenmarkets out of business along the way, all that’s left is candy.
Give your kid a tablet, a game, and some chicken fingers for dinner. It’s easier than talking to him.
Read the short articles, the ones with pictures, it’s simpler than digging deep.
Clickbait works for a reason. Because people click on it.
The thing about clickbait, though, is that it exists to catch prey, not to inform them. It’s bait, after all.
The good news: We don’t need many people to demand more from the media before the media responds. The Beverly Hillbillies were a popular show, but that didn’t stop Star Trek from having a shot at improving the culture.
The media has always bounced between pandering to make a buck and upping the intellectual ante of what they present. Now that this balance has been ceded to an algorithm, we’re on the edge of a breakneck race to the bottom, with no brakes and no break in sight.
Vote with your clicks, with your sponsorship, with your bookstore dollars. Vote with your conversations, with your letters to the editor, by changing the channel…
Even if only a few people use precise words, employ thoughtful reasoning and ask difficult questions, it still forces those around them to catch up. It’s easy to imagine a slippery slope down, but there’s also the cultural ratchet, a positive function in which people race to learn more and understand more so they can keep up with those around them.
Turn the ratchet. We can lead our way back to curiosity, inquiry and discovery if we (just a few for now) measure the right things and refuse the easy option in favor of insisting on better.
January 4, 2017
The blockchain, game theory, float tanks, turmeric, Justin Trudeau, Joi Ito, dal fry, thermite, the Corbomite Maneuver… these are all notions (people, ideas, technologies, foods) that you may or may not be aware of or have engaged with.
There's a path:
- Unaware
- Aware
- Categorized
- Have an opinion
- Experienced
- Have a new opinion
- Have shared that opinion and are thus locked in
It's pretty clear that most the world is unaware of you and your work.
Once someone becomes aware of it, they'll probably leave it at that. "Oh." Because we're busy. And afraid of the new, because it often causes us to change our minds, which is frightening and difficult.
But sometimes, the culture or our work gives us no choice but to engage. We begin by putting this new thing into a category, so we know what to do with it, how to store the concept. Often, that's immediately followed by forming an opinion.
It's a huge leap, then, to go from, "Yuck, they make protein bars out of crickets," to, "I am going to try one."
After an experience, it's possible for a new opinion to be formed. But we like to be right, so that first opinion often sticks around.
And finally, seven steps in, it's possible that the word will spread, that awareness will be shared, that we'll tell someone else. And so the awareness barrier is crossed again, and the idea spreads, and opinions are truly locked in.
Some of these stages happen in clumps. Sometimes they take months or years to occur. How much time passed between the day you became aware that hockey was a spectator sport and the first time you went to a game?
We benefit when we're aware of how our idea will work its way through all seven stages, and cognizant that the process is different depending on the category, the culture and the people we're engaging with. Do it on purpose.
January 3, 2017
