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October 31, 2012

Grok It

"Grok", to me, means being OK with letting yourself grow. Without judgment, without limitation, without time, in an infinite and ever-expanding way.

When I feel I'm becoming more open-minded, "open-mindedness" becomes a label and the societal implication is that others are close-minded, when I don't believe that to be the case. I'm just at a growth point along my personal path. Feeling open-minded can sometimes close you off from others and create a separation where none existed before.

By saying I grok something, an industry like healthcare for example, I'm indicating a deep understanding through experience and study. I'm not saying I know everything about it. There's always more to learn. I have come to a point where I can speak to most people about healthcare in a very simple way. The simplicity itself connotes deep understanding, because I don't have to use industry acronyms or make reference to healthcare leaders to leverage my knowledge.

I couldn't say the same about industries such as the environment or education, but even industry is a closed reference to a particular professional group. Very often, I interact with a lot of different professionals in a variety of industries, including environment and education. I grok the interchange between professionals in business regardless of industry. I'm very familiar and comfortable with the straightforward, casual style of men and women in business.

Again, I couldn't say the same of artists, military personnel or teachers, though I have friends from each of these areas. I grok my relationship with them and learn from their different viewpoints. My rapport in these friendships is easy-going and touches on their respective professions, which unlike business define who they are as much as what they do. I understand that, I grow from it, I grok it.

The word, "grok", can mean so much but it's so silly in its structure and sound, so made-up, that if I ever want to use a label for describing my recent growth, it's easily available. I rarely use it, except with others who have either read "Stranger in a Strange Land" or are familiar with the lingo and grok it without knowing the word "grok".

Still, "grokking" is often my aim when relating to most people. I want to understand more deeply their lives, experiences, thoughts, and actions. It goes beyond industry, profession, and calling. Within the label of a "30-something straight Indian man", I'm made aware of the distinction in my interactions with women, children, the elderly, married couples, people identifying as LGBT, parents, and people from other ethnicities. Though I am removed from the daily experience of someone from each of these categories, I often think of what life looks like through their eyes. I try to empathize with how the world reacts to them and how they respond to that reaction. I try to grok it.

Grokking - or limitlessly growing in my understanding of others - creates an enormous amount of love for people. In my hopes of experiencing others' experience, I see how much closer we are as opposed to what makes us different. The connection is human first. All the labels drop away, and I'm simply left with being myself. I know the societal labels will always be there, but my approach is more friendly, my eyes are softer, my body language is more open and in general I'm more relaxed.

Ironically, grokking others creates an enormous level of comfort with myself and who I am. As I learn to relate more openly, I become more relatable. My relationships follow less the path from stranger to acquaintance to friend to close friend. They have an energy of their own.

I'm just beginning to experiment applying this thought process. Empathy, grokking, love, openness are concepts we're all familiar with. There's no guide book for putting them into action. We're taught operational skills in grade school and largely left to our own devices for our emotional growth. Our parents can prepare us for only so much and some of us don't have the societal luxury of a nuclear family either. The media is of little help and can be a "mis"-guide in teaching us how to relate with others.

The responsibility is solely ours. Framing empathy, love and growth within the world as grokking just seems more fun, so that's what I do. There's a lot of dire seriousness in philosophy, a nostalgic longing in self-help, and a flawed sense of self in therapy. Each has its place and all are encompassed within a basic human approach to relationships. We're trying to shed our labels, and sometimes that's through creating more simplistic labels that energize us, move us, help us grow and make us laugh.

Grok it, or call it something else, but discover the human side of you and see what happens. I'll be somewhere on that growth curve, so don't hesitate to reach out.

October 24, 2012

My New Year's Resolutions

This is the best time to set New Year's resolutions, for a couple reasons. It takes time to start and there's a hump around 2 months to get through.

1. It takes time to set up logistics. 

For example, if you want to start a regular workout routine, you have to figure out what workout makes sense for you - kickboxing, weight-lifting, spinning, pilates, yoga, etc. You have to either find a gym or a workout DVD or a workout partner. You may have to get the right clothes, buy some weights, get a yoga mat, or whatever equipment you need for your specific workout.

All these logistics take a lot of energy and time to set up and can sometimes derail you from your resolution before you even get started. Get them out of the way now so you're ready to hit the ground running when the new year starts.

2. There's a hump to get over at 2 months.

A resolution is either a habit itself (like a workout routine) or it's a process of setting new habits to complete a specific goal (like writing a book). So how long does it take to form a habit? About 66 days, or between 2-3 months depending on if you count weekends. The first few weeks are fun since you're starting something new, but there are plenty of drop-off points and it can seem like an uphill battle, especially around day 40.

If you start your resolution on November 1st, with all the holidays counted in, day 40 will be very close to the start of the year. This is a time when everyone else is excited about starting and you can play off that excitement to get through this hump. By the end of January, your habit will be set and you'll be that much closer to meeting your resolution only a month after the year starts.

That being said, my new year's resolutions for 2013 are:
  1. Volunteer once a month
  2. Take an online spanish course
  3. Begin an at-home t'ai chi practice
Another thing to note about resolutions is specificity. I didn't say, "I want to volunteer, and learn spanish and t'ai chi." Knowing my schedule, I can handle volunteering once a month so I'll start there and add more days as it becomes part of my routine. Though the best way to learn a language is through an in-person immersion experience, it takes a lot of time and energy. I want to practice online first and perhaps take a trip to a Spanish-speaking area to refine what I've learned. Same goes with t'ai chi. I could take a class, but I know from personal experience that form-based exercise comes easier for me on my own first. I can correct my form once I have the fundamentals down.

I already have an account with New York Cares and my first volunteer project is on Halloween. I'm excited about it and the holidays are a great time to start volunteering. 

My research in t'ai chi got me curious about the Yang Long form. I wanted a very basic introduction that focused on increased flexibility so I chose BodyWisdom Media's: Tai Chi for Beginners. It goes through the 24 forms in eight separate lessons ranging from 10-30 minutes. A good start to my day. 

Lastly, I'm currently seeking affordable spanish courses that focus more on conversation than structure and grammar. I want to be able to speak colloquially by the summer and NYC offers plenty of opportunity to do so. If you have any suggestions on online courses, please comment or email me. 

Now it's your turn. How do you want to start the new year? What resolutions do you have in mind?

September 28, 2012

My Netfllx Top 10

I've reviewed many Netflix top 10 suggestions and they're usually clones of each other, with The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, and Arrested Development somewhere in the mix. If you haven't watched these shows, you should, but if you have and are hungry for more, this is your list.

House of Cards - Ian Richardson is diabolically haunting. If you like Machiavellian political dramedies like the West Wing, this show is right for you.

Luther - Idris Elba is the reason to watch this show. If you liked him as Stringer Bell in The Wire, you'll like him as Luther. Be warned, it's Law & Order SVU + Criminal Minds on steroids.

Peep Show - The first person perspective is really original and works well with the two lead characters in the show. It's a hilarious but awkward show like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Arrested Development.

Jekyll - James Nesbitt is such an amazing actor. The expected persona switch he makes between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is striking. Like most British shows, it's short and sweet.

Sherlock - How would Sherlock Holmes solve cases with modern day technology? This show answers that question. Who knew another Homes series could be so well done.

Intelligence - Trade craft and meta-politics behind police work revealed. The only other show I can think that weaves plot lines like this is The Wire.

Twin Peaks - Slow, methodical, and creepy. A cult classic that Kyle MacLachlan makes so funny at times. If you watch it, there's a point where you'll feel like you should stop. Heed that instinct.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within - Switching to movies, this is a political action drama not to miss. The Fraga character is enthralling to watch and the corruption so infuriating.

Mesrine - You won't recognize Vincent Cassel in this. He's so hard-edged and powerful to watch. Throughout the movie, I felt like I was watching it on the big screen instead of my laptop.

Winter's Bone - Is that Katniss? No. It's an amazing actress with barely a movie to her name who shows up and gives it everything she's got. This movie will leave you hollow and surprised. 

September 27, 2012

How do you know if you're really working?

"Doing focused work for 5-6 hours a day is really hard. We forget this because much of what keeps businesspeople “busy” during the day is plowing through email or sitting in random meetings or socializing. We waste hours to this daily ho hum. Yet through it all we trick ourselves into thinking we’re being productive since we’re 'at work.'"
This quote came from Ben Casnocha's Behind The Book, a worthy, wiki-like long read about what went on behind-the-scenes of writing "The Start-Up of You".

It is certainly not the most important quote in what is an extremely comprehensive and personal diary of events in an author's life. It isn't even that original.

But, in length, form and delivery, it's the best explanation of how "work" works. Let's dissect it.
"Doing focused work for 5-6 hours a day is really hard." 
Many would scoff at this, touting they pull all-nighters and work 12 hours a day, but until you actually track the time you spend on projects, as Ben did using Toggl, you never know the difference between "work" and work. There were only a handful of times - crunch time - when Ben actually pulled 12 hour days.

This is not to say that time spent thinking about a project doesn't count. I have young memories of sitting in my dad's office watching him work, and the majority of the time he would sit there silently mulling over something in his mind. Occasionally he would write something down or whiteboard a few diagrams, but it took him a while to get down to writing a proposal or brief or press release (which now I know is what he was doing). Ideating is extremely important, and perhaps even trackable, but consistently drumming out 5-6 hours of focused work each day is in fact really hard.
"much of what keeps businesspeople "busy" during the day is plowing through email or sitting in random meetings or socializing." 
This is the filler time before Miller time (I had to). It's what pads those 12 hour days. Rarely can I imagine knowledge work being done for such a long period of time. This is not only speaking from personal experience but also observing many colleagues, consultants and entrepreneurs at work. Some of them are brilliant at what they do, but burnout doesn't come from working the whole time, it comes from coping with the distractions. The CIO in my last job used to come in at 7am and stay till 7pm because he found the first few and last few hours to be the most energizing and productive.
"We waste hours to this daily ho hum."
Most people like to work, create, review, ideate, and produce. Whether it's knowledge work or not, there's a personal worthiness attached to these activities. The distraction comes from meetings, workplace politics, water cooler talk, office social media and general social media. Again, this is not to undermine these activities, it is to downplay them in the context of the term, "productivity." I often get right to the point in a conversation or engage deeply in a person's challenges, hearing them out, mulling over solutions, assessing the situation. This is too abrupt for some people and that's understandable. More ice breaking is involved in some contexts over others. But it still doesn't fall under productive time. 
"we trick ourselves into thinking we’re being productive since we’re 'at work.'"
Going into the office everyday has it's bonuses; free coffee (sometimes), business broadband, colleague proximity, consistency, printer/scanner/fax, etc. Yet, for those that have the option of working remotely or have freelanced before, there is a lot of productivity in freedom of location too. Sometimes, "because the possibility of communicating is so easy, it is often taken for granted"(thanks Lifehacker), and becomes diluted in its necessity. 

Bottom line, you don't have to be in a specific place for work to happen. Occasionally, I miss having a place to dump my stuff, but if it's coffee and wifi and a printer/scanner/fax I need, I turn to a free coworking space or a library. At the least, I can go into a Starbucks or B&N or use the scanner app on my phone to replicate what expensive office technology offers. 

There's always a way and that's what work, in essence, boils down to. If you need to get stuff done, you'll do it one way or another. You'll put the 5-6 hours of focused work in and come out of it sighing with relief that you just got that creative good out of you and out into the world. It may not be ready for show time, but it's there for you to look at it again. And you'll do it again tomorrow when you're recharged to take it on again. 

Consider this an ode to a well crafted paragraph or a redundant, perhaps thorough dissection of what makes "work", in fact, work. I see it as another way to tell if you're really working. 25-30 hours a week. That's it. Good luck finding what gives you focus. 

September 26, 2012

The single most important message of the Social Good Summit

I spent the past couple days and the weekend at the Social Good Summit, watching, networking and tweeting. The format was executed really well. Literally, every 15-20 minutes there was one panel of speakers after another, from the eloquent Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. whose prodigious use of Twitter made the public he serves loyal fans to the brilliant Hans Rosling, who has an amazing knack of creating a visual narrative for public health data to the electric Todd Park, the CTO for the White House who is down right fun to watch as he makes government seem like a fun place to work. I'm geeking out of course, but celebrities like Forest Whitaker, Deepak Chopra, and Mira Sorvino also made an appearance to speak about their personal missions around social good.

If I were to sum up the Summit in one sentence though, it would be:

"Everyone has a voice."

This was mentioned so many times that it became exhausting, but the point of the message was to use that voice since technology now allows you to do so. Mobile-savvy entrepreneurs, conglomerate tech company CEOs and a few ambitious teenagers from disparate countries spoke about the power of the mobile phone to change the world. It was a consistently motivational message peppered with real-world examples.

Couple of interesting things happened at the conference that are worth mentioning. The first day, lunch was served on plastic plates and cups. Being a social good conference, this was tacky and not very thoughtful. Since "everyone has a voice", people openly discussed and tweeted this fact and the next day the plastic changed to recyclable paper. It was pretty remarkable and sparked another thought stream of BYOC or BYOP; bring-your-own-cup / bring-your-own-plate. Sounds extreme, I know, but it was voiced and that was the point.

The other point to note was that while everyone had a voice, they were using it within their closed online social media networks more than they were with each other in person. I met more people there through twitter than I did through traditional face-to-face networking. Now this has some pros, like avoiding the first few minutes of small talk awkwardness before you figure out what you click about, if anything. But on the other hand, people were glued to their mobile devices so much that their attention span in live conversation was sporadic and limited. The phone was more their voice than their larynx.

It was amazing to see the buzz generated around and through the Summit unfold. The main goal was to legitimize social good and that's a smart move in a single bottom line world skeptical of the risk/reward proposition. Some people had made millions working in social good (though that wasn't the point) and some affected billions of lives (which also wasn't necessarily the point). By the end, it was obvious that social good wasn't simply a concept, it was a movement that worked through familiar financial and business models to impact scaleable change on the people and planet level.

It wasn't SXSW, but it certainly wasn't HIMSS. It was a conversation that would traditionally be one way if it weren't for social media. Next time, I would take it one step further and let the audience ask questions of the speakers and have the moderator curate in real-time. Make it more interactive for the audience instead of simply mobilizing them as a PR force.

This blog is my voice so I'm using it. I continue to stay excited about the developments in social good and would gladly attend the Social Good Summit again next year. It'd be far more interesting as a speaker. Though, which conference isn't? 

September 24, 2012

Work on stuff that matters

Here are three video links I've emailed out more times than I can remember about doing work that matters. Ideas include the role of citizenship, creating for the sake of creating, and appealing to the purpose behind your work. Enjoy.

1. The Gardens of Democracy



2. The Clothesline Paradox & the Sharing Economy



3. How Great Leaders Inspire Action

September 19, 2012

Achieving Oneness

As I was biking through the park today, the uphill climb became effortless all of a sudden. My legs, body, and hands seemed irreversibly connected to the bike itself. I was flowing fluidly uphill with this two-wheel metal contraption underneath me, but it wasn't separate from me. I was a part of it.

We were one, but even that's not quite right. Rather, there wasn't any question in my mind that we could have been two. My body swayed perfectly and in tune with the bike's motion, my breathing timed to the rotation of the pedals, the weight of my arms evenly distributed for functional balance. Everything felt easy.

I've experienced this before when driving and walking too. In the case of walking, the pavement and I were separate to begin with and then we weren't. As I remember it, my body and the pavement just worked together and I felt more relaxed and connected to my surroundings.

If you can connect with inanimate objects such as the bike, the car, and the pavement, it's not a stretch to extrapolate this feeling to animals. People who ride horses, elephants, or camels regularly express being one with the animal's motion. They know when to slow down or speed up, read signs of danger and even emotionally understand the animal's needs. The word "whisperer" is often used to describe those that seem to naturally have this ability.

From inanimate objects to animals, I'd venture you can feel this way with people as well. Sometimes it's just really simple to talk to someone and you can't tell why. Every conversation starts off where you left it, a day, a week or even a year ago. I feel this way with some of my friends and occasionally with people I just met. You "click".

To summarize this feeling more generally, you and something other than you start as separate and then something changes to make you and that other than you the same. That's oneness. 1 + 1 = 1, perhaps. The idea of flow in psychology comes very close to describing it:
"In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand.The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task  although flow is also described as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one's emotions."
Alignment, disappearance of oneself, spontaneous joy, channeling. These are emotions that can only hint at the reality of the feeling. But how do you activate it? How do you flow or be one with something or someone on cue? What do you do to connect with someone who you feel separate from?

In my experience, the process is very educational. A sharing of knowledge and understanding between two entities. With inanimate objects, it can only come with experiential education. You bike enough that you start learning about its idiosyncrasies - the stiffness of the brakes, the rotation of the pedals, the balance of the frame - and start shifting your body to match them.

From my little experience with animals, I'd guess the learning process is very similar. Attention and mindfulness are key. If you're just riding the animal to get from point A to point B, that's one thing. You jump on and go and get what you need from the animal's strength. But if you recognize that the animal is taking the journey with you and listen to its needs, achieving oneness is that much easier.

How does it work with two people or even a group? The simple answer is empathy, but initiative really decides how quickly you'll feel a stronger connection. For example, when you meet someone new, how often do you extend your hand first? What does it say about the interaction? It's an amazing feeling when two people extend their hands at the same time for a handshake. That immediate connection and the timing is very telling.

Same goes with greater levels of connection. How often do you initiate a hug? A kiss on the cheek? What have you accepted culturally and what do you feel comfortable with? The start of an interaction doesn't define its entirety, but it can set a powerful tone for developing a connection. Context matters in that your initiation may put someone at ease, or make them uncomfortable. No reason to over think it, but be conscious that how you initiate can have an impact on feeling one with another person.

After the interaction has been initiated, a certain level of rapport must be established before flow sets in. This is usually small talk about the weather or current events. Too often, people get stuck here and don't get to the point of flow. I see this as another lack of initiative, on both sides. In order to be one with someone who you currently feel separate from, you have to ask questions, put yourself in their shoes, see the world through their lens, just as they are attempting to do the same for you. You have to grok them before oneness can take place:
"To understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience."
Think of a great party you've been to. Recall how the music, food, and people made you feel. Think about the ambience, and even the way people moved through the crowd. What made it so great? I'd wager it was a strong feeling of belonging. A feeling of oneness with everyone and everything there that made all the social awkwardness and disjointedness disappear. You grokked the vibe and were part of what made others grok it too.

Being curious and willing to learn about other people while sharing your story can be really fulfilling. It's educational for both sides and combines initiative equally. It moves you down the path of initiation, rapport, and empathy all the way to oneness. I'll give you a few examples from business, which suffers terribly from separation between the customer and the supplier. It doesn't have to be this way.

Think about brands and businesses you have an attachment to. They understand what you need and you go back to them again and again because of how they make you feel. It could be cheerful customer service before the 2nd ring, discovering slips of paper in your egg carton with the names of the chickens who laid your eggs, or a simple salutation customized for you that stands apart from all the auto-generated messages you receive in your email every day.

Achieving oneness is really about the way we approach the world. Whether inanimate objects, animals, or people, we bring something to the interaction that changes it, either bringing others closer or moving them further apart.

On that note, I'd like to hear from others about their experiences of oneness. This post will go to twitter and G+ so please share your thoughts.

September 12, 2012

How to measure growth from a triple bottom line perspective

From a single bottom line perspective, growth is financial and limitless. The only way to grow is up, and as quickly as possible. Revenue maximization, market share, and industry leadership is the guiding mindset.

Growth eventually reaches a threshold though where the next unit of growth provides less value than the previous unit did. In economics, it’s called the law of diminishing marginal utility. The growth curve basically plateaus out. If you’re bigger than everyone else, being just a little bigger makes little difference.

If growth isn’t just about going upwards, then what is it? From a triple bottom line (TBL) perspective, growth is about going outwards, spreading horizontally rather than vertically. For example, instead of asking, “how much did the company grow financially last year?”, you might ask, “how satisfied were my employees, customers, and vendors?” Instead of increasing an already high profit margin, you may look at increasing training or volunteer hours, or recovering costs from energy savings.

More specifically, if you’re an electronics manufacturer with huge surpluses, look at your supply chain and check your recyclability, quotas and waste production. If you’re a grocery chain with Whole Foods-like potential, double-check your food sourcing and look for sustainable products you can put on your shelf.

In the pursuit for greater financial growth, economic impact on employees, community and environment often takes the back seat. The essence of TBL is to provide checks and balances, not put things on hold, but to pay forward the benefits we’ve worked so hard to accrue. It’s a mentality that guides us down a path where people and planet are given some, if not equal, consideration along with profit.

September 7, 2012

Single vs. Triple Bottom Line

There's a house in my neighborhood that has a great front yard with beautiful flowers. You pass by and you can't help but admire them. As you do though, you might just get sprayed by the water sprinklers that reach over the short fence. Or you might step through the puddle forming on the sidewalk and even the muddy grass next to it, because the sprinklers have been on since early morning.

After getting myself or my shoes wet, my appreciation of these flowers changes. Knowing the sprinklers are on most of the day makes me admire them that much less. Are they still beautiful considering the disregard of the sidewalk and the water wastage? It's a matter of opinion, but even someone who appreciates their beauty can't ignore the negative affects. They're real, annoying and resource-intensive.

I've been using this example a lot over the last month to explain the mentality behind single versus triple bottom line. Profit matters just the way the beauty of those flowers matters. The question is are we accounting for all the factors that make that profit possible? We know the positives of wealth production. What are the negatives? Who are the people affected? How is our environment changed?

After answering those questions, is the profit as meaningful as it was before accounting for these people and planet factors? That's the key question each one of us has to answer for ourselves. The answer is neither right or wrong, it simply reveals the guiding force behind our local and global decisions.

It's hard to account for factors that aren't readily visible, especially when profit is involved. But just like in the case of the flowers, the impact on people and planet is real, whether we notice it or not. Triple bottom line is simply a way to consider those factors. If our decisions change because of it, then we know how we feel about those flowers.

September 1, 2012

How do you know you know better?

When I was fresh out of college, I had a job to get, an apartment to find, and new friends to make. Those were my objectives and I hung on until I got all three done. I didn't know any better. I didn't think about what kind of job I wanted, just that I needed one and preferably one that paid well. I didn't care where the apartment was as long as it was close enough to my job and a scene I wanted to be a part of. I wasn't selective about my friends, filtering only through mutual interests and hobbies.

Over the years, I learned that who you work with is more important than what you're doing. I moved to enough neighborhoods in NYC to understand their cultural differences and choose based on what best fits my lifestyle. And friends came and went, so I began selecting for longevity, not just common interests. I didn't know any better before and now I think I do.

But how do I know I know better? What if the filters I'm working with are all wrong? I don't believe this question is from a place of insecurity, but rather curiosity. I wonder what I'll know in 5 years that will make me rethink what I know now. And I wonder how I can cut those 5 years into 3, or even 2.

Though it takes time to gain experience to better understand yourself, how do you know you know better? What benchmarks do you use that let you know you've grown? Or devolved? Or stayed the same?  

August 30, 2012

What is reverse nostalgia?

A mental illness perhaps where the patient longs for the future to come sooner. Many suffer from it unwittingly, or at least hold their tongue for fear of standing out. Many become sci-fi, fantasy or fiction writers, revealing possibilities we never knew existed and never expect will come true.

Some fear the future, because the present is lucrative, certain, within their control. It's hard to let go of what you have and risk the unknown, even if it's better for most. None are immune from thinking this way, but we may be negligent culprits in our own right.

The future is already here. You can't stop it, you can't prolong the present, nothing is ever certain. This isn't doomsday thinking, it's what we choose not to see because we're passing through it, like the air around us.

Very few are building that future our forefathers have given us the stepping stones for. All the philosophy, culture, medicine, technology, engineering, behavior is just enough so we can exist with each other and take the next step forward.

Whether electric cars, biofuels, stem cells, or artificial intelligence doesn't matter. Once the idea, and more importantly the execution to make the idea possible, exist, there's no stopping the eventuality that we will see it sooner or later. As Vinod Khosla says, "Everything that's possible eventually happens." Accepting, rather than fearing what's to come, moves the dial along that much quicker.

Reverse nostalgia is in us all. The only way to get rid of it is to build that tomorrow we long for.

August 29, 2012

Can you value empathy?

How would you measure the value of empathy?

It's emotional, much like happiness, which we measure using surveys. We sometimes use scales from 1-5, with 1 being the unhappiest and 5 being the happiest, and ask people to rate themselves. Or we qualify the happiness so it's not just numbers, such as are you "very happy", "somewhat happy", or "not happy at all"? It makes more sense to collect this data over a long period of time so you're not catching a person just after they lost their job or got a promotion.

Knowing we can rate happiness, can we rate empathy - in ourselves, in other people, in corporations, in our government?

I'm still working out the "algorithm", if there is one, so I'm going to echo Bob Sutton's post, which inspired this thought process, Felt Accountability: Some Emerging Thoughts. He puts out a 4-part framework for accountability:

1. Authorship
2. Mutual Obligation
3. Indifference
4. Mutual Contempt

The first two represent the positive side of empathy. Authorship is wanting to do a good job because you believe you're the best person for it and spurring others on to do the same. You're an example simply because you showed up and did the right thing. Empathy is contagious by definition and by paying it forward through your skill, you motivate others to do the same.

I have a personal example for mutual obligation. I came into healthcare wanting to build a system I'd want to be a patient in. I wanted to be a part of that change, knowing it would not only give back to me but also so many others. Proverbially, it's what got me up in the morning and as Bob said in his post, got me to "do the right thing even when no one was looking."

Indifference happens when bad incentives make us lose our empathy towards others. If you feel that the people around you don't care, why should you? When the group mentality favors indifference, it's hard to be the author or feel that everyone is mutually obligated to help each other. It's like soda going flat. It just tastes wrong and you can't drink it, so you either find another soda or force yourself not to care about it.

Mutual contempt has got to be the worst. It's the opposite of empathy. You care so little about the person next to you that you begin to despise them and resent them for putting you in this emotional state. It's a self-fulfilling death spiral and the only way I can think of avoiding it is by leaving or at best planning a managerial coup.

I like that Bob Sutton brings awareness to the injustices some people suffer at work so we can begin to recognize them and deal with them head on. In my opinion, finding the value of empathy is a step towards that, because it's in the search for it that I believe we'll find it.

August 28, 2012

1BL, 2BL, 3BL, 4

1BL - single bottom line measures the financial health of a business. Few examples:
Return on investment (ROI)
Return on assets (ROA)
Profit margin
Price-earnings (P/E) ratio
Customer lifetime value (LTV)
Cost of customer acquisition (CAC)
...and the list goes on. They're quantitative vital signs.

2BL - double bottom line simply tacks on a social layer.
# of training hours per employee
# of staff volunteer hours
% of payroll invested in training
# of reports of discrimination
# of health & safety violations
$ amount of charitable donations
Tip of the iceberg. They're accountability metrics for internal/external social benefit.

3BL - triple bottom line adds an environmental layer.
% decrease in CO2 emissions
% of energy savings
% of water returned to natural cycle
Total amount of recyclable waste collected
Compliance rate with environmental regulations
4 - it's called triple bottom line, so having a fourth, or even fifth or sixth metric to account for could be over the top. The idea though is to go beyond the single bottom line and think ethically about negative outcomes of your business.

What's missing? What kinds of things does your business measure that go beyond contributing to the margin? Continue the conversation on twitter @akshaykapur or #triplebottomline. 

August 27, 2012

Thinking like a librarian

Librarians are curators. You ask them a question and they find you the best possible resources to reach an answer, often redefining the original question itself. They're not consultants, analysts, managers, decision-makers, engineers, logisticians, or artists. Their drive is to accumulate large volumes of information and categorize it effectively so it may be referenced at any time. Prior to Google or Wikipedia, they were the search engines.

And they are far from obsolete. In fact, librarian thinking is an incredibly necessary skill set when, everyday, we query search engines for answers to both mundane and extremely complex questions. How we search may have changed, but what we search for is still mostly the same.

"How do I...?"
"What is...?"
"Directions to..."
"Places to visit in..."
"Best..."
"Cheapest..."

We want quality answers quickly, but the #1 result may not be it. How do we know? What judgment skills do we use to evaluate whether the "best restaurant in Santa Fe is ___" or if "easiest way to hard boil eggs is ___" The answer doesn't matter, but the way you evaluate the answer does.

The essence of librarian thinking is curation. How would a librarian conduct a Google search? They would start by looking for something, get some answers, review those answers, ask the question in a different way, narrow down the answers, rate the answers, research each answer to qualify it, review the original question and see if the final answer is accurate. This process only skims the surface of what a librarian might do.

There are technical features that make the search process much more specific. The use of operators is one example. Using +, -, and, or, quotes, ~, and *, adds a level of specificity to your search. Using allin operators lets you manipulate your searches further by restricting where exactly Google will search for the word or phrase you entered.

These are tools, though, that are readily available for anyone to use. The key to librarian thinking is in the prefix, "re-": re-defining, re-searching, re-organizing, re-versing, re-evaluating, etc. It's not one step, but many. Much like the metaphor of peeling back the layers of an onion, librarians have a multi-layered approach to their searches.

The importance of a librarian's knowledge, experience and thinking can only grow as the volume of information available to us grows. We must all learn the basics of these skills to decipher, judge and better evaluate the answers we receive. We make medical, legal, business, and general life decisions based on these answers. Librarian thinking is a skill that will be invaluable in developing our foundational reasoning in the generations to come. 

August 22, 2012

Ethical Conscience

At its most basic, triple bottom line (TBL) is about ethics. Whether we call it sustainability, corporate social responsibility, or responsible business, the essence of TBL provides financial, social and environmental factors to promote an ethical conscience within business and society.

When I look at the transport trucks that pass by on the highway and local roads and read their signs, I have a general idea of what they do, but I'm clueless about who they are. There is little neighborliness in branding. Its objective is to convey a single message of value to its potential customers. The stakeholders that invest in the company benefit financially from the value customers receive from the company's products and services. In this sense, maximizing stakeholder value is in fact equivalent to maximizing customer value.

This starts to fall apart when you consider the negative outcomes or externalities of production. It's easy to pick at oil mining and cigarette companies, but consider the organizations you're involved with on a daily basis like laundromats, coffee shops, electronics manufacturers, book publishers, furniture producers, real estate developers, waste management companies, fashion designers, and utility suppliers, to name a few.

The world around us works through large, complex supply chains that, at their most efficient, deliver products right to our door. This kind of convenience is simply amazing, but it comes at a price to the workers who are required to meet large quotas and the increased use of transportation to deliver goods on time. Customer convenience rarely equals responsible supplier behavior. Just look around you and think about the potential social and environmental waste that is produced.

If, with our convenience, we added a few other requirements, such as smaller quotas, more humane working hours, and a limit on CO2 emissions, we may not get what we want when we want it, but it's difficult to say whether we'd be less happy or satisfied. Knowing others are being treated fairly has ethical value, a soft metric that may be impossible to measure but as a belief in the minds of consumers.

The belief in ethics, though, can also change how we measure stakeholder value. The opportunity cost of delivering less to less people is made up by ethical responsibility a company develops for workers and the environment. As a whole, it is a net positive for society; satisfied customers (profit), happier employees (people), and a cleaner environment (planet).

The case against TBL often comes from the perspective of defining value by our current, single bottom line framework. A better question is, "what would happen if we defined value differently?" Would customers be less satisfied if their perspective on value shifted from single bottom line to triple bottom line? Would companies truly produce less stakeholder value if stakeholders had a similar shift in ethical belief systems?

TBL is a conceptual framework with ethics as its backbone. We make decisions based on price and judgments based on quality every day. Applying the same analytical mindset to companies we buy from and asking about their social and environmental policies will be the true enabler of change. 

August 21, 2012

Self removed

I've felt myself removed from the world in general. A part of this removal is my environment, where I am responsible for myself most of the day, without obligatory responsibility. I create my own work in my own time, but even if this were to change, I'm not sure the sense of personal ownership would go away.

Another part of my removal is ideological. I question sometimes whether it is holier-than-thou, but having experienced that negligent, ego-inflating sensation before, I don't believe it plays a part. The removal is more from a place of exhaustion, a mental and emotional sigh. And just as a sigh leaves the body, I leave the world for a bit. I step out of my body, which is very much in the world, and choose to be an observer. 

The choice isn't real-time, not something I decided then and there, it's a choice I made a long time ago and am only cashing in on now, in that moment. Since my mind knows what I want, my body, through it's mental processes, takes me there. It's a little like Mike discorporating in "Stranger in a strange land", like the God Emperor going into a memory trance that takes him so far back in time it's hardly imaginable, but only a few seconds go by.

The time lapse is important to note. Personally, I feel the removal lasting much longer than the actual time that passes. I'm "gone" for but a few seconds, five at most, but I feel like I've taken a trip - vacation or drug - your choice. I'm in a past decision-induced mental coma. 

It's not from a place of apathy or escape and again I feel confident in saying so because I've experienced each of those emotions very strongly throughout my life. This is far more peaceful, a letting go, knowing the now matters more than anything. 

There is so much I don't understand and perhaps we all read and learn to expand our understanding of the unknown. This experience is not one of reading or learning or practicing though. It is one of being. Knowing who you are and being so comfortable with yourself that you're willing to let yourself be without butting into the flow of you. Emerging through to the Self by letting go of the self.

EDIT: What I've described above is an outcome of experiencing reality subjectively. Watching yourself as an outside observer. It's not the same as being on auto-pilot, which can be very passive. You're very much engaged, there, completely in the present, and flowing through time.

Steve Pavlina describes subjective reality really well here. And the quintessential read on the subject is I Am That.  

August 17, 2012

Peopling Corporations

Often, talk of triple bottom line boils down to what policies a company has to promote not only financial, but also social or environmental benefit. Charitable donations, health and safety considerations, maternity/paternity leave, carbon footprint reduction, sustainable development and many more emerging ideas are all proactive measures of a sound triple bottom line infrastructure.

There is a reactive side to the picture as well and I came across one such example today through Seth Godin's impassioned blog post, Corporations are not people. To summarize, Seth describes an ongoing situation with Progressive insurance using their retinue of lawyers to fight an otherwise open-and-shut case where one of their insured members was killed in a tragic car accident by another driver who ran a red light. Progressive is on the line for paying the family $75,000 and they are doing their best to pay nothing to 1/3 of that amount.

The paragraph that struck me most in Seth's post was this:
"Like many people, I'm disgusted by their strategy, but my point here is this: if someone in your neighborhood used this approach, treating others this way, if a human with a face and a house and a reputation did it, they'd have to move away in shame. If a local businessperson did this, no one in town would ever do business there again. 
Corporations (even though it's possible that individuals working there might mean well) play a different game all too often. They bet on short memories and the healing power of marketing dollars, commercials and discounts. Employees are pushed to focus on bureaucratic policies and quarterly numbers, not a realization that individuals, not corporations, are responsible for what they do."
Even beyond the direct social benefit that could be offered to the deceased's family and the overall benefit of earning long term goodwill with their customers, Progressive, as an insurance company is acting outside the boundaries of fiduciary responsibility to its members.

Any short term gain: $75,000 - legal fees (which could be a net negative), is lost on customer acquisition and retention. Simply on a financial level, it is a poor decision.

To "bet on short memories and the healing power of marketing dollars," is outdated and unfortunate. The power of blogs counters this influence and spreads the message that Seth sparked and Matt Fisher - the deceased's brother - continues to update us on.

The long since-emerged, internet-based, trust economy keeps corporations honest. Corporations are not people, but their growth - financial, social and environmental - depends on those peopling corporations. Commercials, discounts and marketing eventually lead back to word-of-mouth, still the strongest form of loyalty marketing. These hard-to-shake stories will proliferate and slowly dilute the message corporations want you to believe until the people who run it do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

August 9, 2012

Links to begin understanding the triple bottom line

Here are three links that I've sent out at least 50 times over the last few months. Might as well throw them out there for anyone who's interested.

1. The Empathic Civilization (youtube video) - Jeremy Rifkin explains how we all have mirror neurons that light up when we see someone going through an experience, like eating chocolate or seeing a spider on their arm, in the same way as if we were going through that experience ourselves. Another example, when one baby cries in a nursery, all the other babies start crying as well. We're soft-wired for empathy: homo-empathicus.

2. Resilient Communities - This is the torch that John Robb lit, but really, it's a common sense reaction to when we think, "Why aren't we already living this way?". Who knows, but the idea of resiliency is simplifying self-reliance on a community level. Right now, it's attracting people on the extreme, but the message will trickle down in a packaged way soon enough.

3. Capitalism 3.0 - Otto Scharmer presented this paper in 2009 and since then he's started a company and perhaps a movement around replacing ego-systems with eco-systems that look at financial, political, social and environmental benefits as equal. He goes beyond the theoretical and works with organizations to make these ideas a reality.

June 6, 2012

Are you one of the lucky few?

Love this speech by Michael Lewis at Princeton's graduation. Luck as an explanatory factor for success is hard to reconcile within yourself. To paraphrase Lewis, you feel you deserve success because of x, y or z. "But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't."
"People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don't want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either."...
"If you use better data, you can find better values; there are always market inefficiencies to exploit, and so on. But it has a broader and less practical message: don't be deceived by life's outcomes. Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky. 
I make this point because — along with this speech — it is something that will be easy for you to forget."...
"But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything."

June 5, 2012

Arbitrary rules

You think through the solution a little, enjoying it for its own sake and you realize that even if you were to solve this problem, the solution wouldn't be accepted because of power or money reasons. If enough people gain money or power from the wrong - ethically wrong - method, their livelihood stops them from reversing course. Can you really blame them? They made the decision or rather they didn't even know they were making a decision to be on the wrong side a long time ago. They went with the societal flow - it was right then - not thinking twice whether slavery or the tax system or criminal's rights were unfair. It is what it is they said and moved on. Play within the rules they said. Why fix something that it isn't broken they said.

And they continued simple-mindedly, with singular focus towards being better at a game they didn't create just to earn more, have more power, get ahead. Now, 5, 10, 20 years later, they've made it a habit to think in this one way and their income, their family depends on them thinking this way. They simply can't change it now, because why would you want to when you've almost won the game you didn't create? Why bother to understand where the rules came from now? Why create another game that makes you lose, even if it's just a little?

What if you said it would be more fair? They wouldn't agree because it wouldn't be fair to them. Why didn't someone do this when they were starting out? That would've been more fair. Why should they lose something now when the rules could have arbitrarily been changed when they were young and fighting and deserved fairness like everyone else. How is it fair that they lose now?

And that's why your solution doesn't make it through right away. The people who said it is what it is and are shown a different way have a hard time realizing that what is arbitrarily changing on them now could have arbitrarily changed by their direction much earlier if they hadn't accepted what is. It's social. It's man-made. It's arbitrary.

Things do change. But they change ever so slowly, with momentum and sacrifices and incredibly hard work. The easy life is very attractive though. It's more convenient than ever before to know change is necessary and still avoid it. If you're smart enough to come up with the solution, you're smart enough to live without putting it into effect. Does that make you any different though from those that don't accept the arbitrariness of life? What are you left with if you do and still don't change it?

These aren't satirical, rhetorical questions, but ones every person who shirks society's arbitrary rules struggles with eventually. Being a martyr or change agent seem more like barriers to entry than requirements for changing the world. Being an example, choosing a less traveled, more reasoned path because you see things another way may be enough. "Think different" may be the catch phrase of the decade, but it does slowly become the norm. From civil rights and women's rights to freelancing for a career and being green-friendly, ideas that were once anathema are now commonplace.

If you have a solution in mind, share it. Discernment and personal judgment remain the strongest driving forces we have in our tool belt. Even with all the doubts about society's willingness to accept your solution, there are quiet mouths with listening ears waiting for someone to say what they can't.

May 30, 2012

Responding in kind

When you feel resigned to lose against hate, knowing you have a choice in your action matters. Knowing your response is prompted because of another and not from within yourself makes you pause and look over your convictions before saying anything.

How do you respond when a friend, spouse or relative rejects you? What do you do when your boss tells you you're not good enough? What do you feel when you hear a racial slur?

Understanding that others' hate comes from their own hurt, fear, misunderstanding, or grief humanizes them and also your response to their negativity. Knowing an eye for an eye only leaves you more hateful in the end, you put something positive out there, not to counteract but to heal.

Only sometimes do I succeed at responding to hate with love, but I understand why it can't be a strategy and instead comes from a deep connection with one's own vulnerabilities.

Empathy develops from a practice of self-awareness, discovering the minutiae that make you as human as those around you. The humility it takes to be continually positive without expectation seems awesome from the outside, but I bet it's as easy as flexing your hand when you know it. It's within you because you've become the person capable of it.

May 29, 2012

East of Eden

"A man, his whole life, matches himself against pay. And how, if it's my whole life's work to find my worth, can you, sad man, write me down instant in a ledger?"
What do we stake our worth on? Are we producing value that lasts, that someone trusts, that we can, with respect for ourselves and our community, put out into the world and let grow beyond our own understanding of it?

What more does it add than to fill our pockets and those of others? Are we too busy waiting for the numbers to go up in our accounts to ask the right questions?

John Steinbeck so simply reveals our vulnerability to the appeal of the paycheck and the measure by which we live.

May 25, 2012

The Art of Storytelling

Every story has its basic elements from protagonist to context to the outcome and resolution, whether good or bad. That's the start.

But not every story comes off the page, not every story can make your mind photographic or feel the lilt of its words so you get carried away by the flow of paragraphs and pages. A practiced author can make that happen but mass appeal doesn't prove art.

Beyond the page turners are those stories you never want to end because you're breathing through the sentences, rereading to sniff out the planning and placement, feeling your way steadily through the individual words to capture the minutiae necessary to make the recipe just right. The philosophy is in the details.

I'm reading such a book right now. I'm not yet halfway through East of Eden by John Steinbeck and I want to go back and read it from the start to make sure I didn't miss phrases like "the water of people", describing a crowd at the brink of riotous, righteous fervor or the making of pancakes as "little hassocks, small volcanoes formed and erupted on them until they were ready to be turned" or a man so close to remembering a far-off memory as "a little more there was to it, he dug it up and set it before his eyes in the air ahead of the horse's head". All read within a span of three pages.

The story is only an element, perhaps just a context for the author to weave in little tidbits imagined, crafted, found and stored in a separate place waiting to be carefully placed so the reader might catch a hint to pay attention exactly at that moment. 

I've often skimmed passages of page-turners to get to the end. It's an art to tell a captivating story that keeps you hungry but patient enough to savor the juicy details.   

March 19, 2012

What is the best career advice?

Mark Cuban gives advice about following your effort over passion and people listen because of his success and authority. Dick Bolles sells millions of copies of What color is your parachute? and people listen because, well, a lot of other people are listening. The idea of social proof continues for Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, both successful entrepreneurs who promote a start-up mentality to work and life fulfillment.

Everyone's right in some way. All these perspectives are vetted, come from credible sources and help people get jobs. The authors though have differing opinions when it comes to passion v. effort in deciding which career path to pursue.

It's similar to love v. arranged approaches to marriage. Going after your passion is a strong Western sentiment. Love comes first and effort maintains it. Arranged marriages are set on the opposite premise. Put effort into a relationship you may or may not have passion for. It develops over time the more you work at it. Mark Cuban support this mentality when it comes to careers. Often love of work comes directly through the effort.

The hybrid approach to marriage also seems to be gaining popularity. You have a short courting phase where you test out the potential relationship and eek out whether personalities will jive. Then, after a period of 2 weeks to 3 months, you decide to get married and put in the effort.

Extrapolate to the job market and it looks very similar. You try out a job for a few months, perhaps through an internship, freelance work, informational interviews or mentor shadowing. You gauge whether it's a fit with your personality, work ethic, lifestyle balance, income needs, etc. Then you solidly give it your all.

It should be noted that he hybrid analogy breaks down when you look at the structure of the market. Though the changing nature of arranged marriages may harbor greater equality in decision making for future partners, in the job market employers still have much more power than applicants. Most are not lenient to a courting phase. They have the ultimate hiring power. This isn't very beneficial to either party as employers hire employees with good skill sets but poor fit and employees struggle to find power in a one-sided dynamic.

Regardless, the approaches to discovering one's career path are diversifying, sending a strong signal that the status quo is shifting. It's not so much that Reid Hoffman's advice is better than Mark Cuban's advice or that there's one right way.

It's once again a matter of what fits you in particular. Some people would find a passionate approach more suited to them and others would prefer an effort-based approach. For some, testing the market through a hybrid method might work.

It's not so black and white. There's never one prescription that works for everyone. By writing this post, I too am giving advice. And in a world of advisers, being a cautious judge is a necessary skill, perhaps the one skill that will determine personal fulfillment.

March 17, 2012

The Dirty Life of an Entrepreneur


Kristin Kimball's transition from city to farm held strong notes of my personal transition from 9-5 work life to the free-wheeling, self-disciplined road of entrepreneurship. Though The Dirty Life came second-hand as a fast read, it took me a while to get through it. I almost fell into my habit of putting books down 3/4 of the way through and coming back to them later.

I'm glad I didn't though, because a brilliant observation about being a pro versus an amateur was waiting in the last few pages.
"...I heard a man say that the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro doesn't have an emotional reaction to losing anymore. It's just the other side of winning. I guess I'm a farmer now, because I'm used to loss like this, to death of all kinds, and to rot. It's just the other side of life."
There's steadiness in a 9-5 job that is nonexistent in self-employment. The steady stream of ups and downs are the only constant. You get used to it. You learn the pulse of your industry and match your own bursts of productivity to it. When the lull comes, it require utter patience, a careful waiting and watching and knowing when you'll need to act again. 

You keep yourself occupied with the never-ending upkeep you could never anticipate when starting a company; the banking, the outreach, the cold calls, cold emails, cold social media, writing contracts, writing copy, writing claims, the back and forth of scheduling anything with more than two people, the warmer in-person coffees, the building of relationships commonly misconstrued as networking. They're not exactly chores, though they seem like it at first. Here's where The Dirty Life comes in to explain:
"The word chore connotes tedium, but that was not how I felt about them. I had missed my chores. Chores were the first taste of the weather, first effort of limbs, a dance to which I knew all the steps with certainty."
The outcome is uncertain, but the steps are all familiar, whether you're just out of college or a 20-year corporate veteran. Writing is a necessary skill, market research becomes a part of daily life, conversation always holds a hint of personal and professional. The transparency takes some getting used to. In a large work environment, the buck can always be passed. The only person negatively affected when you pass the buck on your own dime is you. Personal accountability reigns supreme. You find you, which can be a scary prospect. You're not self-reflecting anymore, you're self-acting.

The part of The Dirty Life that resonated with me the most was Kristin Kimball's evolutionary loss of the meme of daily commerce. When you're off the clock so to say, time isn't an elephant in the room anymore. It isn't to be contended with. You discover a rhythm for yourself, not realizing it's discordant with the society you used to know. Kimball conveys the essence of this shift away from the "norm" with her disappearing longing for shopping:
"The last old habit to fall away was shopping. I could feel the need to shop building up in me during the week, like an itch. I'm not talking about shopping for clothes, or shoes, or any of the other recreational kinds of shopping people generally do. I mean only the oddly comforting experience of flowing past shiny new merchandise, the everyday exchange of money for goods. In the city, most of the landscape is made up of objects for sale, and it's nearly impossible to leave your apartment without buying something - a newspaper, a cup of coffee, a bright bunch of Korean market flowers. When I went for days without buying anything, without setting eyes on commerce, without even starting the car to burn up some gas, I felt an achy withdrawal."
I especially feel this way when I don't get out of the house all day. I often wonder what I spent so much of my money on though. The coping coffees, the hot truck lunches appealing to that longing of wanting something "different", the regularity of eating out that makes eating in seem a luxury. The cycle of self-fulfilling commercial life sustaining itself.

I'm cognizant of being an amateur and the new beginnings I'm going through. Loss is not something you get used to easily, but it feels different when it's a shedding of habits you didn't really mean to acquire in the first place. They came packaged with the environment. A farm is quite different from a company, but I found a kinship to Kimball's personal evolution in a new environment that she only partially chose herself.

March 8, 2012

OHIO, the most productive state

I was introduced to the only handle it once (OHIO) principle a little over a month ago through John Halamka's very informative blog. I had to try it out and see for myself if it worked before sharing it.

The idea seemed so simple and obvious, I put it into effect immediately after reading his post. Handling the majority of work-related tasks only once is as easy as it sounds. Maintaining it is about making friends with your conscience. John puts it simply:
"The end result of this approach is that I truly only handle each issue, document, or phone call once. It's processed and it's done without delay or a growing inbox. I work hard not to be the rate limiting step to any process."
That's it.

I used to check my email right when I got out of bed, simmering over my responses as I got ready for work. The ten minutes I took to do so was mostly deleting, prioritizing and marking items as unread so I could get back to them. This added little benefit and made my morning routine more stressful.

Now, when I open an email, or even unlock my phone to check it, I know for a fact that I'm going to deal with it then and there. No putting it off, no delays. This doesn't necessarily lessen the pile of work on my desk, but it lessens the noise in my mind. Putting my entire focus on the task at hand lets me read, digest, respond and move on.

I've only mentioned email so far because it represents such a huge portion of my work, but OHIO works in most cases. Research, writing, brainstorming, scheduling, delegating all work well when handled only once. If there's follow up necessary, I've only sped the process along so I can take care of the next step.

What happens when I don't handle it once? It's a constant nag if I skip out on something and say I'll do it later. I know from years of experience not doing it this way that I'll have to deal with it anyway the next day on top of whatever else arrives. It's not worth it and I get back on track as quickly as possible.

I have become much more efficient by following OHIO and my mind is much more at ease tackling only what I put in front of it. Quality and efficiency.

Try only handling tasks once and see what happens. I hope you have as good an experience as I have had.

March 7, 2012

How to "Be here now"

In light of my last post, I'm going to give you the philosophical summary right away and then build to it with the actual story of how I got to this summary. When I read this summary much later, which I typed on my iPhone right after the conversation that led to this stream of thought, I as the author didn't understand it. It was like trying to read your hand writing and not having a clue what it says. It seems zen, overly contrived and kitschy now. But that's because, like most philosophical ramblings, it has no context. Hopefully it will make sense after the fact.
"We are in the perfect place and don't even realize it. Expectations explain everything. If I told you your future, you still wouldn't be happy because who wants to know the ending of a story before they read it? Your story, your life, has to transpire for you to think back on it.

Be here now, because no one can set you up for the perfect. If they did, it wouldn't be perfect. So stop seeking the perfect. Nothing will be more uncertain, more random, more spontaneous, more surprising than it is now. You're already in the perfect state of mind to experience the unknown."
I was at a dinner party the other night with a lot of artsy people. Literally, there were sculptors, architects, graphic designers, and such. Being on the business side of healthcare, this was not my usual crowd, and I was loving the change of social scenery.

I got into an engrossing conversation with a young couple consisting of a sculptor and an art student. The ambiance was perfect. We'd all had about one glass of wine, a little food, the lights weren't dim nor were they bright. The general noise level was medium, there was a hum of conversation but not too loud so you didn't have to yell, like in a club. It was the definition of "chill".

As it goes at these events, we were talking about what each of us did and somehow the conversation drifted towards expectations. We all came in with strong expectations of what the event was supposed to represent. We assumed it would be a gallery-like exhibit with an uppity Manhattan hipster feel. The presentations would be extremely abstract, sensible only in the vacuum of the current crowd.

We were generally right, but the people at the event made all the difference. They were strong-minded, yet open-minded. Firm, but friendly. Rich, but gracious. Whatever picture we came in with was repainted by the people there. It wasn't fun in the sense a house party with your friends is fun, but the warmth of the attendees made us all amenable to deeper conversation (than expected).

The couple and I discovered we all shared a similar sentiment about the unraveling of our expectations and talking to others in the crowd only reinforced our view. We realized we were also a part of that friendliness that made it so welcoming. The way I'm describing it makes it seem like some kind of like-minded commune party, but it just happened to have the right elements to make all of us "click".

We were all very much made aware that nothing could have prepared us for this moment in time. It wasn't overly special or exciting, but it befuddled our expectations of what we supposed it to be. One could say our expectations helped to shape our view of the event after all, considering how our perspective changed because we held onto preset beliefs coming in. In this light, I suppose expectations can create a favorable outcome, but very rarely. They didn't add to the effect so much that they were needed.

Understanding this gave us a reality check about being in the moment. No matter what someone tells us about a place, no matter what hype is built around it, nothing can prepare us for the actual thing, boring or thrilling though it might be. It just is. And that zen sort of explanation was palpable right then, prompting me to write about it in a such an abstract way.

From this experience and others like it, I've come to believe that zen-like spiritual writing can only make sense in the right context. You could in fact call this an expectation. It's more of a premonition though.

If you read a simple zen quote, for example, "The obstacle is the path", at first it's frustrating. Second time around, you start relating it to personal experience and understand it's wisdom. But until you truly feel it, in the atmosphere from which it came, understanding the context behind it, it's difficult to ingrain into your life, and even more difficult to pass onto others. Some sayings you hold onto and at some point in your life, it hits you "SMACK", like hands clapping together hard right in front of you. You "get" it. Grok it, perhaps?

I hate when people say "you had to be there", so I tried to describe the origin of abstract thought. We all do this daily with each other, using narrative, song, theater, art, and other mediums that will get our message across. Language is only the start. Our communication depends on effectively explaining the "you had to be there" moment.

Explaining "Be here now" and making it actionable is tough. As an abstract writer and thinker, I personally find this to be an even greater challenge. "The obstacle is the path" and I'm pushing through it I'm riding that wave.

February 27, 2012

How feeling and intellect affect job satisfaction

As I was listening to an episode of "This American Life" today, my ears perked up to a story about a couple falling apart because the husband missed social cues, didn't listen well and in general acted very much like a stereotypical man. It seemed to be an extreme case and the wife just couldn't stand it and it was driving them apart.

Then the wife, Kristen, read a questionnaire that tested for Asperger's syndrome and noticed how closely the questions related to her husband, Dave. She had him take the test and turns out he did in fact have Asperger's and wasn't just being an insensitive man (a lot of wives are now testing their husbands with the same questionnaire). While I find the idea of women thinking their husbands have Asperger's because they follow socially accepted stereotypes that probably attracted them in the first place a bit odd, the story comes to a really interesting point.

Close to the end, after Dave has described his revelation of being diagnosed as a blessing in disguise, he starts to describe the changes he's made as a result as not truly being real. Since teaching himself the right social cues and the ability to listen, Kristen and his relationship has improved dramatically, but when asked if he really "feels" like he's doing the right thing at the right time or is truly listening, he says, "no".

He describes it less as an emotional response and more as an intellectual reaction. After studying his syndrome and understanding to cope with it, he mentally knows what to do and practices to become better at it. But, he doesn't "feel" in his gut that it's right. In a way, he's fighting his initial response and correcting for it.

Rather than get into what "normal" means in this situation and what "disorder" may imply, I want to delve into what this means in terms of our work lives.

When I got to this point of the story, I immediately thought of all the people I know who are happy doing the work they do and those that aren't. Comparing the two, I realized the ones that are happy are doing the work they "feel". What comes to them naturally. Their instinctual response towards math, history, engineering, economics, art, design, even management, gives them the ability to do the right thing at the right time (or at least what we judge to be "right" by current societal memes).

Not only do they "feel" it innately, they have also worked their intellect to understand the things they may have missed and in general to boost their knowledge of their chosen domain. They're not only "street" smart about it, they also took the time to become "book" smart.

The ones who aren't happy, or the ones who are searching for work that will make them happy, seem to be working at their jobs out of intellect, not necessarily feeling. They know how to do a job and like Dave in the story, they can react appropriately as the situation requires, but they don't necessarily "feel" that it's what they should do.

In a strict corporate atmosphere, for example, a phone call or meeting may have a very formal tone to it, with idioms and a general workflow that everyone's silently agreed upon. To some, this just comes naturally, whether through their upbringing or education or their general emotional reaction, they think this is how business should be done and do it. They're "naturals" (at a human-made game).

Others, having assimilated and studied corporate atmospheres, learn to fit in. They may not be doing this consciously, but whether it's survival instinct, peer pressure, or they haven't been introduced to any other type of work, they adapt. They sharpen their intellect to assess and understand the situation, but they don't necessarily "feel" like what they're doing is what they want to do.

That rift, between what they want and what they feel they should do, is what I believe makes them unhappy. This isn't to say they aren't good at what they do. In fact, some may be better than the "naturals". But, if they've taught themselves to react against their instinct, the charade can only go on so long before they crash under the subconscious pressure.

"Feeling" something's right and intellectually understanding its right may not matter in terms of job effectiveness, but it may in terms of job satisfaction.

February 19, 2012

Why philosophy is so hard

Ideas, especially philosophical ones, cannot exist in a vacuum. If we talked of existentialism in the 1500s, very few would understand us, and we may even be persecuted or at least set apart from society because of them. Or more simply, if someone explained gravity or electricity to someone in the 16th century, they would consider it magic and have no way of comprehending it.

Similarly, there are moments when philosophical ideas are ripe. And the explanation of those ideas cannot be clear unless the moment is also right for the one explaining the philosophy and the one listening to it. The setting is important.

This is why reading philosophy or spiritual texts seems so difficult to understand. And even when you do understand it, seems even more difficult to practice. The light bulb has to go off in the way a young math student "gets" the concept of subtraction and can then always subtract numbers from then on. In medical school, the training motto for exams and procedures is "Learn one. Do one. Teach one." In the same light, understanding Christian theology or Zen Buddhism or Nietzche's philosophy has to truly "click" before one reaches full understanding and can even remotely explain it to someone else.

The mastery of abstract concepts requires the right situation. Lots of people take philosophy, religion and theology courses so they can train that muscle in their brain that helps them understand such abstract concepts and relate them to daily life. In my opinion, the lecture setting is a terrible way to teach philosophy, but it has its strong points in using routine and constant exposure to drill (as the military does) certain muscles needed to think a certain way. These learn-ed philosophers get to that point where understanding philosophical concepts is easier for them than for others simply because they've practiced more. Like a piano player who can read the bass clef much faster than a trumpet player. They can both read music, but one has simply practiced reading the bass clef much more.

Just because you're good at reading the bass clef or doing subtraction or learning philosophy doesn't mean you're good at teaching others to do the same. When you write or talk about it, it comes from a practiced perspective and you're explaining it to someone who hasn't practiced as much as you have. They haven't made the mental connections to "get" what you're saying.

There's really only two ways of explaining it. One, you have to unravel your learning process and find the key points when that light bulb went off and summarize your learning in a way that helps others get to each of those light bulbs. The speed of getting there doesn't matter, everyone has their own pace. Your ability to convey the path of getting to those light bulbs is the only thing that matters.

The other way of explaining something, philosophy, math, music, whatever, is to create the right setting. This is essentially what we do in life. Create the right settings for people to understand us. Language is just the start. We have to be able to talk to each other. But how often does that let us truly communicate? So we have to find the right mediums; some use music, some use art, some write, some lecture, some build, and so on. Even when we have the right mediums, we have to find the right people at the right time to really get the idea across.

Let's use music as an example. I'm Beethoven and I write a beautiful piece of music that moves people from emotions of sadness to glee to brooding and explains the way I, as Beethoven, feel about love perhaps. I'm a musician so I can't talk about it, I can really only explain it through music. In a sense, if someone knew how to read music like a composer they wouldn't even have to hear it. They could read the music and feel the emotion being conveyed and understand it.

But we don't all have that experience, so the music is written for a symphony orchestra of clarinets, flutes, trumpets, violins, cellos, and a wide variety of instruments that help bring the music to life to such a point that gets the message across. Then I have to find the right theater. Some music can be explained in the open air, but that can sometimes change the message, so I can't just place my orchestra in a park and have people come listen to it. I choose a lecture hall and then realize the acoustics will echo so I have to buffer the room so sound doesn't bounce off the walls and again change the message. Then I realize the front row will have a different experience than the back row or mezzanine, so I change the angles and situate the orchestra and the speakers so the music is evenly distributed. I'm getting there!

Now I need to pick the right people. I, Beethoven, have had classical music as part of my life since childhood. To be correctly attuned to receive my message, the people who will understand the best will also have had classical music as some part of their upbringing. These probably indicates a certain level of affluence and education, so I price my tickets appropriately to narrow into the right crowd.

I want people to be attentive throughout so I require a formal dress code (which coincidentally works out with the rich crowd I've attracted). People view it as a solemn affair and are even more primed to listen for the full 2 hours. Just to make sure, I have an intermission to give them a breather and serve a little refreshment and snacks to keep them in just that mental spot for them to receive the message. Finally, I can begin to tell them how I feel!

This kind of production seems over the top, but we all do it, at dinner parties, at book clubs, at sports events, at weddings, and so on. We are constantly working on creating the right setting to explain what we really mean. Even outside of special occasions, we express the sentiment of trying to explain ourselves daily in our lives. The right food helps, drinks help, the choice of drinks help, background music helps, the right art on the wall helps, the book covers on the bookshelf help, the furniture helps, the setting of the furniture helps, the flowers in the vase help, the dishes and silverware help, the kind of clothes you wear helps. It all comes together to represent you.

As an author of this blog post, I have to write the post in a way to get you to this point where, hoping you've read and felt what I'm trying to get at, I can finally explain what I really mean. Which is...

You can't read or listen to philosophy and expect to understand it right away. It's hard to explain and it's hard to absorb simply because the setting matters so much. You have to be in the right place at the right time to "get" what's being said. It's why we watch movies and read books and go to concerts and listen to lectures. We're setting ourselves up for receiving the message and the person delivering the message is setting the table, so to say, for you to digest what they're telling you.

It's what makes us sometimes storytellers and sometimes a rapt audience. It's what life is. A production that helps us understand one another.

February 4, 2012

Believing in humanity

I always enjoy reading John Halamka's writing, from the most technical to the most personal. Below is a snippet slipped into one of his posts describing the journey him and his wife have been on since she was diagnosed with cancer. They're informative, beautiful posts that illuminate the complexity of the healthcare process.

This is an empathetic story that restores faith in the golden rule of humanity:

"When Kathy pursued the issue, noting that the 19 year old with the poor driving record was lying, the insurance company told her that without a photograph of the accident or an independent witness who was willing to verify the events, they would have to believe the 19 year old because Kathy was exiting a parking lot and that makes her at least 51% responsible. Despite Kathy's over 30 year good driving record, the insurance company representative literally ended the conversation with the statement "Life isn't fair".

That episode temporarily caused Kathy to lose her faith in humanity and gave her a sense of helplessness in a hostile world.

As with any conflict or issue, for everything there is a process.

Kathy appealed the ruling to the Massachusetts Board of Insurance and wrote an eloquent letter stating the facts.

Today the Board of Insurance ruled she was not at fault, rescinded the point on her license, and demanded that the insurance company refund/rescind the surcharge. She cried when she opened the letter. The nice guy can still finish first."

Right brains at work

Designers think differently. I'm finding that out firsthand watching people take notes at a designer conference.

Most people in the audience are using blank sketch pads with no grid lines to draw, chart and sometimes write notes. Some have their laptops open to Paint-like programs that let them digest visually.

My favorite is a brilliant sketch artist next to me drawing the face of each lecturer so well that it looks like a photo. And these are 10-minute short lectures. Underneath she includes a small snippet summarizing the core message. I'll remember the last three lectures better because of her rendering.

Having mainly been to business and healthcare operations conferences before, this is really eye-opening and also comforting.

January 23, 2012

Pick a side


I've been going through a very difficult decision process and then I saw this poster echo my thoughts completely. Amazing what you see when you're ready for it.