The head of the Long Island Parkway told Robert Moses, “Legislation can change, but it’s very hard to tear down a bridge once it’s up.”
What he meant, what the notoriously racist Moses understood, was that once the systems are in place, they defend themselves. The roads of Boston have all outlasted the buildings. The buildings get razed and rebuilt, but the byways and thoroughfares remain, because the system demands far more effort to change than the road ever did to get built in the first place.
The irony of the word ‘bridge’ in this sentence is profound. Because when we say bridge, we usually mean a connection, or a way to move forward. And while these metaphorical bridges are far more fragile than the stuff Moses built, they’re worth building too.
Because one way to change systems is to start building connections and tunnels and yes, bridges, that make the old ones shift.
June 10, 2020
Why is there so much short-term hustle? Because that’s what we buy.
Why is there so much negative campaigning? Because that’s what changes our actions.
Why is social media filled with manipulation and vanity? Because that’s what we click on.
We buy foods that are engineered to make us fat and we watch shows that are designed to numb us instead of inspire.
Not all of us, not all the time.
It’s not our fault alone. The gears in the system are too often turned by short-term profiteers and people who seek to manipulate us for their own ends. They need to own the responsibility for their selfishness and not blame us for it. Leadership requires a commitment to make things better. Don’t blame the market.
But the system is extraordinarily sensitive to what we click, what we buy and what we talk about. If we can do the difficult and heroic work of acting differently, the system can tell. As soon as we shift to long-term thinking, the market will too.
The same thing can happen to our culture if we can shift our timeframe and our focus.
June 9, 2020
This isn’t a current events blog. It might be inspired by them, but I try to write something every day that’s worth reading in a month or a year.
And so, I choose to ignore the specifics of breaking news, because breaking news keeps changing.
Sometimes, though, ambiguity isn’t called for. Sometimes, it’s misunderstood. In my town and my city and my country, we’re coming to grips with issues that have been simmering for far too long. And you’ve certainly heard from people with clear and actionable things about what you can do right now, and about their commitment going forward. I don’t want to confuse anyone about my take on it.
Avoiding breaking news is a privilege that I have, because there’s insulation for me.
Black Lives Matter.
The systemic, cruel and depersonalizing history of Black subjugation in my country has and continues to be a crime against humanity. It’s based on a desire to maintain power and false assumptions about how the world works and how it can work. It’s been amplified by systems that were often put in place with mal-intent, or sometimes simply because they felt expedient. It’s painful to look at and far more painful to be part of or to admit that exists in the things that we build.
We can’t permit the murder of people because of the color of their skin. Institutional racism is real, it’s often invisible, and it’s pernicious.
And White Supremacy is a loaded term precisely because the systems and their terrible effects are very real, widespread and run deep.
The benefit of the doubt is powerful indeed, and that benefit has helped me and people like me for generations. I’m ashamed of how we got here, and want to more powerfully contribute and model how we can get better, together.
It doesn’t matter how many blog posts about justice I write, or how clear I try to be about the power of diversity in our organizations. Not if I’m leaving doubt about the scale and enormity of the suffering that people feel, not just themselves, but for their parents before them and for the kids that will follow them.
It’s easier to look away and to decide that this is a problem for someone else. It’s actually a problem for all of us. And problems have solutions and problems are uncomfortable.
June 8, 2020
When is it time to give up, to stop trying, to settle for what is?
Five years ago, when I founded the altMBA, I had no idea what 2020 would be like. I don’t think anyone could have described the confluence of events, the unevenly distributed tragedy of our times, the injustice, the hurt and the illnesses as well. The despair that’s around us is real, and it has exposed many of the fault lines we’ve been papering over.
Leadership is needed. People, regardless of where they are or what they do, who can help those they work with move forward.
What else to do but to seek to make things better? Start where you are and do everything you can.
Today, the hard work of leading, asserting, connecting and contributing seems incredibly difficult. But it’s more urgently needed than ever. Right here and right now.
When we ran the first session of our thirty-day virtual workshop, it was something that had never been done before. We had to explain what Zoom was, had to describe a future where online learning was not only possible, but could be transformative, and had to invent a whole new way for people to connect and learn with each other. But, truthfully, we had no idea. It was an experiment, and the 100 people who took that first session knew that, and were eager to give it a try.
We just finished our fortieth session. We’ve had graduates from 16 to 80 years of age. In 77 countries. Leaders from some of the biggest companies in the world as well as people who run non-profits, play professional sports or paint. Because making things better isn’t about what you look like or where you work. Making things better is an attitude. The attitude of possibility and the posture of generosity. And then making the decision to own your learning.
Don’t stop speaking up, don’t stop leading, don’t stop learning. Don’t stop seeking justice. We can’t give up.
Today is our five-year anniversary. 40 sessions, hundreds of coaches, thousands of alumni. And we keep showing up because you keep showing up. You do it with grace and kindness and confidence, even when the world is turned upside down. If you’re suffering from a hardship right now, know that we’re thinking of you.
It’s not a good time for us to celebrate our anniversary. It’s difficult to even share the news. So many people in our community and on our team are going through tough times right now, experiencing a world that they never asked for or expected. The best instinct I have in moments like these is to help people choose to lead. To do even better work on the projects you care about. To show up and to lean in and to contribute. In whatever way you can.
I hope you’ll check out the materials and faqs we’ve posted here. The final deadline to apply for the upcoming July session is tomorrow.
Hearing happens when we’re able to recognize a sound.
Listening happens when we put in the effort to understand what it means.
It not only requires focus, but it also requires a commitment to encountering the experience, intent and emotion behind the words. And that commitment can be scary. Because if we’re exposed to that emotion and those ideas, we discover things we might be avoiding.
June 7, 2020
Before desktop publishing, the best way to layout a complicated image for printing was to cut a rubylith.
Rubylith is a translucent sheet of thin plastic. A craftsperson would carefully cut the ruby, knowing that the parts it covered would reflect the light when the plate was created. It was difficult and painstaking work.
That’s all obsolete now. An hour of cutting a ruby is replaced by two clicks in Illustrator.
Here’s the truth: images cut by hand with a rubylith weren’t better. They were simply the best available option.
As soon as technology allowed people to skip this step, many of them did. The others fought hard, pointing out that their craft was hard-won and that the old way was the better way.
Defending your particular rubylith skill is not really a winning strategy. Because everyone else doesn’t care.
Defending better, on the other hand, is truly important.
June 6, 2020
We know that the median is often not the same as the mean, but in describing a population, it also pays to differentiate between the average person and a typical one.
For example: The average dog owner spends $500 a year on dog food. But the typical dog pamperer spends $5,000 a year (all numbers invented).
The reason the numbers are different is that the samples are different. We chop off the outliers in the second set, homing in on the kind of person we’re talking about.
This is really useful, because it enables us to be clear about the smallest viable audience. “Our typical customer” is a more accurate and useful way to start a sentence than, “the average person.” Because typical implies intent. “The person we are seeking to serve does this…”
June 5, 2020
Think about your most deeply-held beliefs. It’s entirely possible that someone who disagrees with you feels just as deeply.
Consider your chronic aches, your devastating pain, your persistent allergy–it’s possible someone else has their own version of this, but different.
And perhaps, your dreams and desires, the ones that keep you up at night, are similar (but different) from the person sitting right next to you.
They’re not making it up. It’s as real as you are.
June 4, 2020
When a problem appears too large, too intractable and too unspeakable to deal with, it’s easy to give up.
There never seems to be enough time, enough resources or enough money to make the big problems go away.
Perhaps we can start with a very small part of it. One person, one opportunity, one connection.
Drip by drip, with commitment.
Those are the two hard parts. The insight to do it drip by drip and the persistence to commit to it.
June 3, 2020
There’s just no way to be sure what it feels like. Other people, people in our lives or out of it, people who look like us or don’t. Your mileage will vary, your experience will be different. Some started with a huge head start, some with a disadvantage they couldn’t possibly deserve.
Of course, the “I” is really we. No matter who we are, we can’t truly know what it feels like for someone else.
It may be that we can’t imagine what it’s like to be the victim of systemic distrust and profiling. Or what it’s like to worry about putting food on this table for that family. Or what it’s like to be fighting a chronic illness or being unjustly accused of a crime.
We can try. We assume it’s just like what happened to us, but slightly different. We can realize that tragedy is unevenly distributed and in constant rotation, but it’s never going to be the same.
But just because we can’t imagine–it doesn’t mean we can’t care. We can refuse to magnify our differences and focus on maximizing possibility, justice and connection instead. To take action and to dig in.
The leverage we have to see, to speak up and to create long-term change is a difficult weight to carry. Because if we can do something to make things more just, that means that we must.
I wish I was better at it. I wish it were easier.
We’ll make things better by seeing, by speaking, by doing the work. Even if it’s uncomfortable, especially when it is.
June 2, 2020
