Clarity And Courage

I’m telling ya, last Sunday’s Corner Office column in the New York Times covered some good ground. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was interviewed, and the first question is always about learned lessons in leadership. To this, he responds with a very Scrum-y principle: prioritization. He talks about his time at Yahoo, when Jerry Yang just became CEO:

True prioritization starts with a very difficult question to answer, especially at a company with a portfolio approach: If you could do only one thing, what would it be? And you can’t rationalize the answer, and you can’t attach the one thing to some other things. And I was struck by the clarity and courage of his conviction.

I have not thought of prioritization in this light: clarity and courage. The ‘clarity’ part, I understand; picking out what is more important than others does require a refined vision, either an ultimate outcome or a chosen path. It is clarity of not only direction, but also values, the rationale for choosing one over another. You have to answer to at least yourself for making these choices, and thus in making these decisions, you are taking responsibility, which can entail courage. Hmmm… so the very act of deciding takes courage, since every action has an opportunity cost.

The opposite of prioritization is NOT making decisions and then living off the decisions made by others. Responsibility becomes shifted onto somebody else. Laissez-faire is neither courageous nor clear.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

On Sundays, me and my lady run away, far far away, across the river, to the mystical land of Cambridge. There, among the locals, we mingle with the plebeians at a watering hole of our spontaneous choosing. There, we read the New York Times over cappuccinos and pastries. There, I turn to a favorite column of mine: Corner Office by Adam Bryant, in the SundayBusiness section. There, last Sunday, he interviewed LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who was asked, “What career advice do you give to business school students?” His response is below. Challenge yourself. Do the exercise he mentions as soon as you read it.

The advice I give about their career path and realizing their dreams starts with me saying: “I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to have 15 seconds to answer it: Looking back on your career 20, 30 years from now, what do you want to say you’ve accomplished? Go.”
If they can’t answer it in 15 seconds, it probably means they haven’t thought about the answer before that moment, or they don’t have a definitive answer, which is fine, because for some people that’s a lifelong journey. But you can’t realize your goal if it’s not defined. It sounds so simple but it’s true.

So? What did you get? I enjoy these different ways of finding one’s life vector / heart song / master purpose. This take is more from the approach of looking back and being happy, versus doing what rings true with you now and every day. Ideally, the latter leads to the former.

So? What’s your answer?

Hi Neighbour

Love thy neighbour.
Really dig thy neighbour.
Like thy neighbour.
Be ambivalent towards thy neighbour.
Tolerate thy neighbour.
Hold a slight grudge against th-

Y’know what, we’re swinging through this emotional spectrum towards investing negative energy in thy neighbour, towards hating thy neighbour. Energy towards judging others or just holding a grudge or thinking they stink because they vote a certain way or thinking they stink because they’re walking slowly and taking up the whole sidewalk while looking down at their glowing rectangle oblivious to the flow of human traffic trying to get somewhere and I’m late and this stupid idiot is in the way and oh now he’s just stopping altogether and flatulently ignoring the rest of existence and not at least courteously pulling over to the side t- … So yeah, I have plenty of opportunity for improvement in this area, too.

Whether we share an apartment wall, or are in line to order coffee, or ephemerally glance as we pass each other crossing the street, or intently absorb the soul-goodness from this blog (you’re welcome), we are sharing time together, however short, and sharing space together, however vast. We are neighbours.

Hi, neighbour.

Soutata

I had a dream where I was talking to this super-genius bad guy who just explained and rationalized his super-genius evil plot, the scene for which ended with the following exchange.

Hell, it all comes down to some of the most ancient advice there is! You gotta ganstah yo strengths and soutata the rest!

Soutata?

Yeah. S-O-U-T-A-T-A. Look it up.

This stuck with me for the rest of my dream, since I’ve never heard of that (and I wanted to look it up), such that when I woke up, I struggled to extract from my unconscious this particular portion of the night. With nothing significant from a subsequent Googling, I submitted this transitive verb’s definition to Urban Dictionary. Still waiting.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a few words on some of the most ancient advice there is. Let’s gloss over ‘gangstah yo strengths’, since Tom Rath neatly covers how it feels good to be a-ganstah-ing yo natural talents and skills in his StrengthsFinder 2.0 book. From an economic perspective, leveraging your natural inclination is efficient. Businessy folks would talk about core competencies. Taoist folks might call this active expression of your Tao, your Te. I folks say, “Yep, got it, makes sense, move on, dot org.”

I happen to think the “soutata the rest” part is where we might be trippin’… over ourselves; and just like literally tripping over ourselves, the struggle lies in how we get in our own way. We take a job for the sweet six-figure salary, while enduring the sour 80-hour weeks away from family and friends and self. You want to come out of the closet, but social pressure instead dictates starting a heterosexual family: 2.5 kids, a dog, a Volvo, suburbia. You are indoors all day, sitting in front of a glowing rectangle at a desk, secretly a slave to the glowing rectangle in your pocket/purse, and are too tired at the end of the day to do anything other than crash in front of another glowing rectangle on the wall; yet, you wish you had the time and energy to restore vintage motorcycles outdoors, jam with the band, and craft interior design for dollhouses. And yes, I know somebody who does all this.

Getting in our way isn’t just doing stuff we don’t like instead of what we do like, but stuff we don’t like as well as stuff we do. This is the going out even though you’re exhausted. This is schmoozing and endless small talk with strangers even though it feels fake. This is the uphill battle of learning a new thing you hate, don’t see yourself ever using, and are just doing it ’cause somebody told you to. These are not strengths, but we do them anyway ’cause we feel we have to.

Do you have to? (And don’t you love that question?) Do you absolutely have to? Have you considered the life and death ramifications of simply… not? The opportunity cost is doing something else more fun, exciting, and internally fulfilling, most likely in line with yo strengths. Are you willing to trade your strengths for ‘the rest’? Or do you want to be “the best in the world” (‘world’ meaning some niche market) via strategic quitting as per ‘The Dip‘ by Seth Godin? In light of the gifts unique to you, quitting ‘the rest’ might be the best thing for you.

You gotta ganstah yo strengths and soutata the rest.

C’mon, Urban Dictionary. Accept my submission.

Style Over Fashion

As soon as I started pinning on Pinterest, I found myself browsing like a mother-trucker. Do you know how truckers of mothers browse? At first thoroughly. Antepenultimately rabidly. Penultimately unrelentingly. Ultimately embarrassingly: I browsed all of the Men’s Fashion section. It took a whole evening, but I powered through to its anti-climactic end, at which point I slumped back in my chair and contemplated the meaning of life.

Just kidding. I contemplated Fashion. And Style. And what it all means. And by ‘all’, I mean just those two things. I was struck down and dumb after the at times visually orgasmic click-fest because… because… wow, this is ultimately embarrassing… I felt like a fraud.

Why am I looking at Men’s Fashion? Seriously. Why the heck am I perusing all of it?

Check it out for yourself. You see guys in skinny jeans – not exactly flattering, in my opinion. You see guys in full-on mountain-man beards – something I can’t currently pull off. You see those shoes with the two buckles like you’re some modified Geppetto – I don’t make puppets. You see cardigans like you’re Mr. Rogers – I cried after he died, so no, they make me sad.

This is fashionable. It also makes me puke a little in my mouth. So unless I’m dressing up like a hipster for Halloween, it ain’t happenin’ – sorry ladies.

So if this stuff is fashionable, or so says Pinterest users, and it’s not clicking with me, then why do I continue to subject myself to shudder-inducing visuals?

I continue to veg out because I’m looking for what I like. So what do I like? (Do you even care?) You see Oxford wing-tip shoes with the thin laces. You see bow-ties. You see creative cuff links. You see other fun accessories.

So if this stuff is fashionable, too, and it doesn’t make me puke a little in my mouth, or anywhere else for that matter, and yet (stay with me, here) there is other stuff that does… it’s all fashion, yet it elicits two very different reactions. Why is this?

Enter the dragon the second word: style. I’m not looking for any ol’ style. I’m not looking for the currently popular style. And I’m definitely not looking for the slender part of a pistil – I’m not into plant porn. I’m looking for my style, the stuff that resonates with me, the stuff that feels like forms of me. I’m looking for… me. (Wow, that’s deep.) And I’m looking for me on Pinterest of all places.

Assumptions: I’m characterizing ‘fashion’ as ephemeral and ‘style’ as essential. Thus, I’m not looking for the fleeting & crowd-sourced, but the everlasting & self-sourced.

Are you looking for your style? Are you looking like a mother-trucker?