Anger…

What do you think about getting angry?  At work, does the boss get mad at you?  Or you at the boss?  Ever write a nasty email?  Ever find yourself yelling at someone?

Customer service reps are a frequent target.  Of course, they’ve been trained:

How to Manage an Irate Client Call: 

“I’m sorry you’re so upset.  I really feel your pain.  No, I don’t think we can fix the problem.  No, you can’t get your money back.  Well, I am the supervisor.  Let me transfer you to Mr. Dial Tone…” 

Unknown Sage 

I tried to temper my anger over the years.  Then I read an article published in Sales and Marketing Magazine ©,  “Is There A Place For Anger In Management?” .  Paul Nolan offered several points backed by research suggesting anger is more good than bad in the work place.  Here’s one example: 

We’re more likely to perceive people who express anger as competent, powerful and the kinds of leaders who will overcome challenges.  Anger motivates us to undertake difficult tasks. 

Competent and powerful… motivate to accomplish difficult tasks… I don’t know – what do you think?  Apples’ Steve Jobs was infamous (or perhaps famous) for his tirades. 

A final view about anger comes from two, fictitious monks: 

Two monks were strolling by a stream on their way home to the monastery.  They were startled by the sound of a young woman in a bridal gown, sitting by the stream, crying softly.  Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed across the water.  She needed to cross to get to her wedding, but she was fearful that doing so might ruin her beautiful handmade gown. 

In this particular sect, monks were prohibited from touching women.  But one monk was filled with compassion for the bride.  Ignoring the sanction, he hoisted the woman on his shoulders and carried her across the stream - assisting her journey and saving her gown.  She smiled and bowed with gratitude as the monk splashed his way back across the stream to rejoin his companion. 

The second monk was livid!  'How could you do that?' he scolded.  'You know we are forbidden to touch a woman, much less pick one up and carry her around.' 

The offending monk listened in silence to a stern lecture that lasted all the way back to the monastery.  His mind wandered as he felt the warm sunshine and listened to the singing birds.  After returning to the monastery, he fell asleep for a few hours.  He was jostled and awakened in the middle of the night by his fellow monk. 

'How could you carry that woman?' his agitated friend cried out.  'Someone else could have helped her across the stream.  You were a bad monk.' 

'What woman?' the sleepy monk inquired. 

'Don't you even remember?  That woman you carried across the stream' his colleague snapped. 

'Oh, her' laughed the sleepy monk.  'I only carried her across the stream.  You carried her all the way back to the monastery." 

Buddhist parable 

I suppose anger boils down to a matter of degree and the context of the situation. 

I don’t always succeed in controlling my anger.  However, I do try to avoid “carrying it all the way back to the monastery”. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

 

Giving our best…

Football is my favorite sport.  A bit ironic because football is the epitome of a time when I did not give my best.  Actually, it was worse than that.  It was the one time in all my competitive pursuits (athletics or business) that I quit.  I’ve lost many times; won my share, too.  Quit?  Once.

I quit my high school football team two weeks into the start of my junior year.  It was the only time in my life that my Mom told me I disappointed her.  I can remember going into the head coach’s office to quit as if it was yesterday.  Totally ironic, because after being a starter and co-captain my freshman and sophomore years, I was not even planning to play my junior year.  I was focusing on basketball. 

Over the summer the coach called and asked me to reconsider.  I agreed, but when I showed up I wasn’t prepared to give my best.  He and his coaches weren’t prepared to coach me up either.  At the age of sixteen, I decided that quitting was my only escape.  I’ve regretted it to this day.  It’s not the not-playing that I regret; it’s the not giving my best.

Here’s a 6 minute clip about high school, an underdog team, and their coach’s expectation about giving one's best: Facing the Giants

Perhaps not a technique that transfers into the business world today - but the message does, true?  We don’t have to go it alone.  It’s best to have a coach.

In business, our favorite, Unknown Sage offers this:

Common misconceptions about coaching in the marketplace: 

“Coaching is primarily for correcting behavior” - If we only coach people when they do something wrong, we have missed the point.  It’s about building not fixing. 

“Coaching requires giving up power and control” – The manager relies more on influence. The person is still accountable. 

“Coaching takes too much time” – Coaching takes too much time if you don’t do enough of it and you don’t do it correctly. 

“Coaching is soft stuff” – The manager who avoids soft stuff usually does so because it is so hard.  The work is easy; people are difficult. 

“Coaching is laissez-faire management” – Freedom in the workplace, actually just about anywhere, is rooted in strict discipline. 

“Coaching is simply being a good cheerleader” – A good manager has the courage and inner strength when needed to tell people the truth. 

“Coaching is like therapy” – To be a good manager and coach one does need a basic understanding of human behavior and motivation, but therapy has no place in your relationship with the people you are leading.

Coaches enjoy occasional accolades, too.  The best I ever heard was a tribute to Bum Phillips, former head coach of the then, Houston Oilers.  It was once said of Bum:

He could take his and beat yours - and then he could take yours and beat his. 

Bum was able to get his players to give their best and have no quit.  Imagine – what could we accomplish if we committed to giving our best? 

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

High School Sweethearts…

October; autumn … I love this time of the year.  I love the colors and smells.  It reminds me of high school; football; and dating.  Do you remember your first high school sweetheart? 

High school is a special time for teenagers.  It certainly was for me.  It was a different time; an innocent time.  I always enjoyed the month of October when I was in high school – Homecoming; Halloween; dating; parties (most chaperoned, some not). 

Fifty-five years ago, this very time of the year, Glenn Vician held a party at his house.  His parents weren’t home.  I hung out with the prettiest girl in my high school at that party.  It was there that I asked her out on a first date.  I guess both events went well enough because here we are fifty-five years later and still together.  Even now I’m awe-struck by the glow of her beauty.

 I hope you enjoy this opening to Chapter XII True North of my book, The Peace & Power of a Positive Perspective © as much I enjoyed writing it and as much as I still enjoy re-reading it every October: 

Dedicated to… a crisp night in October; with a slight breeze blowing through bare trees – waiting for the coming winter.   Close your eyes.  Can you smell remnants of autumn leaves burning? 

To winning the homecoming football game.  To being carefree. To a Saturday night party at the teenager’s house whose parents are away.  Can you hear the kids having fun in the kitchen; the basement; and the backyard, all to the beat of the Rolling Stones? 

To couches, blue jeans and sweaters.  To the floor lamp reflecting on her blond hair making it shimmer with silvery streaks of light.  To the nervous small talk of a teenage boy in the presence of a varsity Pom-Pom Team member.  To the patience of the teenage girl sitting on the couch with the captain of the varsity basketball team.  Can you remember when you could actually hear your heart throbbing? 

To throw pillows, which come in handy when the small talk runs out – what else can a young boy do?  And to playful pillow fights; which lead to gentle wrestling and ultimately to that first kiss. Remember how delicate she felt in your arms – the hint of her perfume – the taste of her lips? 

To first dates – dinner and a movie.  To the movie Catch 22 and the Oriental Theatre in downtown Chicago.  To dating the prettiest girl in your high school; to falling in love; to asking her father’s permission for her hand in marriage.  Were you ever so nervous? 

To the tears welling up in my eyes even as I write this short memoir.  To all those emotions; all the happiness; all those hopes and all those dreams; some fulfilled, some yet to be; and all that I can remember today as if it just happened yesterday – that I will remember every day, as long as I live.  How can someone be so lucky? 

To 1970 - and that Saturday night in October in Elmhurst where I kissed Debbie for the very first time.  And to the friend’s house whose parents were out – to their couch, their floor lamp, to their throw pillows; and to the Rolling Stones music.  Can you imagine being so young, so infatuated, and so in love? 

I still am. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

There’s a difference…

I attended a presentation by Dr. Troy Butler.  He is the Associate Dean of Research & Creative Activities at the Colorado University Denver School of Liberal Arts.  His topic involved the compatibility of artificial intelligence with a liberal arts education. 

I was surprised that Dr. Butler is also a Professor of Mathematics at CU Denver and a researcher in the field of uncertainty quantification, stochastic inverse problems, and computational probability (among other things).  According to ChatGPT, a stochastic inverse problem is: 

A kind of mathematical problem where you try to infer uncertain inputs of a model from observed outputs, while explicitly accounting for randomness or uncertainty. 

Any Star Trek fans? 

Dr. Butler focused on the mathematical/technological vs. the liberal arts – “learning how to learn” - side of the equation.  His sophistication describing how AI works reminded me of its beginnings in the business arena: 

Since Appian was first a famous Roman highway, you'd think this might be a clue to Xymos' new identity.  But the release says; 

“Appian was chosen for the name because it represents the ability to use leading edge technology and innovation, integrated into solutions that provide differentiation and competitive advantage.” 

Just what the Romans had in mind. 

Rick Levine 

I have a liberal arts degree and I’m a career sales professional in the business-to-business, technology field.  Even so, when it comes to the uncontrolled proliferation of AI, I find myself leaning towards the Luddites’ camp as described by Jaron Lanier in You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto ©.  

With that in mind, permit me to summarize my takeaways from Dr. Butler’s presentation: 

• AI (which I refer to as “the machines”) does not think the way we humans think.  It computes – the way we humans can’t compute.  There’s a difference.
• Human thinking involves perception, reasoning, imagination, and rational judgement.  The machines occasionally hallucinate. That’s about it.  There’s a difference.
• AI computes on “big data” (immense/immeasurable, really) with Large Language Models, probability, and “Machine Learning”.  That’s not how you and I do it.  There’s a difference.
• AI doesn’t have “feelings”.  It merely emulates via a statistical combination and sequencing of words in a sentence that has a high probability of sounding like feelings to we humans.  AI does not “discern”; it is not “a friend”.  It’s a machine.

 

There’s a difference. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

 

How’s your day?

Eight years ago today I was in an earthquake in Mexico City.  A big one, too.  7.1 on the Richter scale.  How do you work that into casual conversation? 

September 19, 2017 at 1:15 pm local time, a powerful earthquake shook the bejeezus out of my training class; our lunch break; my colleagues; and me!  Thankfully, no one in our group was hurt. 

Unfortunately, there were many in Mexico City and surrounding states that did get hurt; over 200 people killed; hundreds perhaps thousands injured.  According to The Guardian ©; 

It was the second major earthquake to hit Mexico in two weeks and came on the anniversary of the 1985 quake that devastated Mexico City, killing 5,000 people and destroying 10,000 homes. 

To commemorate that 32^nd anniversary the hotel actually ran an emergency evacuation drill at 11am; just 2 hours before the real thing hit again! 

During the episode, I was conscious of the fact I was experiencing an earthquake – on the 19^th floor of a hotel no less.  What started out feeling like a freight train passing by causing the table to vibrate, quickly erupted into a period of ferocious shaking.  It literally knocked me off my feet. 

Those much braver than I were calling out; directing us to crawl to the archway leading into the room.  Firmly they instructed us to move away from the windows; calmly, they reassured us that we will be alright.  I remember looking out the window and seeing the glass buildings across the plaza actually swaying.  It was surreal.  It reminded me of the scene in movie The Matrix where a helicopter crash caused the facade of a glass office tower to ripple. 

Ultimately, we took nineteen flights of stairs down and filed out onto the streets joining tens of thousands of others.

 So many had invested so much before the earthquake hit – and after.  Gustavo Moussalli, our Latin American Division Director and the executive sponsor for the class had made a huge commitment to his local partners; coordinating a 3-day enablement class to support their success. 

Gerardo Diez Martinez, our local Channel Manager arranged the meeting rooms and set-up; AV equipment; food and beverage.  Gerardo spared no expense to insure we had everything we needed. 

My colleague Susanna Lagtapon sacrificed time away from her daughter’s 13^th birthday; traveling instead to join us for the class.  Our colleague, Tony Caporal, with cooler head and bravery, prevailed following the earthquake.  He helped us retrieve our laptops and luggage.  (Even stopping at the lobby bar to grab a free beer on his way out of the hotel.) 

Our VP, Brian Enright, was our “home base”; coordinating flights out of town; hotel reservations; and anything else he could do to support us from afar. 

And especially Hector Garcia from our long-time partner NetSoft.  Hector insisted on personally driving us to the airport; would not hear of us taking a taxi or a bus.  He navigated us through the city streets on constant vigil for our safety.  Three hours to drive us 12 kilometers.  Three hours in the opposite direction from his own home and family – taking us in his care. 

As with all disasters, there were many heroes – named and unnamed.  We are all thankful for so many first responders and others.  May God bless them all. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.