I’m an Idiot

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Effective leaders mix humility, kindness, and composure, in what may be thought of quite simply, as “human decency”.

Most Republican primary voters do not share my view. The one candidate displaying the most decency is in last place. And it appears as if most Democratic primary voters do not share my opinion either. The Democratic candidate exhibiting the most humility, kindness, and composure is losing that race too.

I can’t help but conclude, I’m an idiot.

I also believe life in the United States has improved over the last seven years—fewer people are destitute around the world, GLBT citizens are enjoying new civil rights, more people are working and have health insurance, our environmental ethic is stronger, we’re opting for diplomacy over conventional warfare, the stock market has more than doubled in value, and everything has worked out beautifully on Downton Abbey.

Most Republican primary voters do not share my view. Apparently, the frontrunner’s success is the result of deep-seated, widespread anger at the state of things. In their view, we don’t win anymore. Who cares about people in other places, traditional marriage and religious liberty are under constant attack, socialized medicine means worsening quality of care, and who cares about the stock market when there’s not any savings to invest. If only “W” could have had a third and fourth term.

My whacked out thinking is probably the result of my white, male, well-to-do privilege trifecta. In the interest of going along to get along, maybe I should get more angry, think more negatively, and support the most brash candidate possible, human decency be damned.

 

 

 

The Art of Teaming With Others

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My first nomination for Best 2016 Long Form Journalism piece is in, “What Google Learned In Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team” by Charles Duhigg.

Crystal clear and filled to the brim with trenchant insights into why most teams usually flounder. In short, Google researchers found individuals on the most productive teams “spoke in roughly the same proportion” as one another and were skilled at “intuiting how others felt”. Furthermore, the greater a team’s perceived psychological safety, measured by how comfortable team members felt being themselves, the greater that team’s “collective intelligence”.

Take Duhigg’s test:

Imagine you have been invited to join one of two groups.

Team A is composed of people who are all exceptionally smart and successful. When you watch a video of this group working, you see professionals who wait until a topic arises in which they are expert, and then they speak at length, explaining what the group ought to do. When someone makes a side comment, the speaker stops, reminds everyone of the agenda and pushes the meeting back on track. This team is efficient. There is no idle chitchat or long debates. The meeting ends as scheduled and disbands so everyone can get back to their desks.

Team B is different. It’s evenly divided between successful executives and middle managers with few professional accomplishments. Teammates jump in and out of discussions. People interject and complete one another’s thoughts. When a team member abruptly changes the topic, the rest of the group follows him off the agenda. At the end of the meeting, the meeting doesn’t actually end: Everyone sits around to gossip and talk about their lives.

Which group would you rather join?

Here’s the right answer based on the literature that informed the researchers’ work:

. . .you should probably opt for Team B. Team A may be filled with smart people, all optimized for peak individual efficiency. But the group’s norms discourage equal speaking; there are few exchanges of the kind of personal information that lets teammates pick up on what people are feeling or leaving unsaid. There’s a good chance the members of Team A will continue to act like individuals once they come together, and there’s little to suggest that, as a group, they will become more collectively intelligent.

In contrast, on Team B, people may speak over one another, go on tangents and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. The team may seem inefficient to a casual observer. But all the team members speak as much as they need to. They are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. While Team B might not contain as many individual stars, the sum will be greater than its parts.

Google’s researchers conclude:

“. . . no one wants to put on a ‘work face’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘psychologically safe,’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency. Rather, when we start the morning by collaborating with a team of engineers and then send emails to our marketing colleagues and then jump on a conference call, we want to know that those people really hear us. We want to know that work is more than just labor.”

These take-aways are equally applicable to most non-work teams. In my experience, a recurring challenge in applying these lessons is team members who dominate discussions often lack self awareness. Even beginning teamwork with an explicit emphasis on the importance of balanced participation sometimes does little to prevent the most loquacious among us from repeatedly dominating discussions. Those most loquacious team members also don’t realize their teammates quickly fatigue, and shortly thereafter, begin tuning them out.

Another challenge in improving teamwork is people have a multitude of negative team experiences as points of reference for every positive one; as a result, they anticipate one or a few people dominating and scant attention being paid to people’s feelings.

That’s why this research deserves a large audience. It not only illuminates why groups often get sideways, but provides a roadmap for improved work and non-work teamwork.

[Thanks FK for the link.]

What I’ve Learned From Grand Designs

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One of the nice things about living in the upper left hand corner of the country is getting a Canadian television channel which airs my current fav television show, Grand Designs.

Every weekday I record the hour long show, and then, in the evenings, watch it while fast forwarding through commercials. The format is simple, each episode Kevin McCloud follows one UK couple through the home building process. In recent years I’ve grown keenly interested in architecture and design, but I enjoy the show for more subtle reasons too.

For example, I really like the way Kevin does what the vast majority of us find so difficult. He routinely befriends the builders while honestly and directly confronting them about their missteps. In other words, he masterfully leverages his rapport with the builders to speak truthfully about their projects.

Other take-aways from a selective sample of middle class to well-to-do Brit builders:

  1. People always underestimate how long a build is going to take. Usually by about 50%. Why is that common knowledge? When will more (or some) homebuilders begin extending their initial estimated timelines?
  2. People always underestimate how much a build is going to cost. Usually by 20%+. The standard “contingency” line in a budget is 10%.
  3. People almost always take on more debt than intended (see number 2).

What’s most intriguing about the show is the inspiring nature of the partnerships, whether straight or gay, married or not. Every relationship is tested by a home build, it’s something different every day often for a year plus. The participants on Grand Designs have common values and visions and just keep getting on despite the unforeseen problems, the endless delays, the mounting debt. The way their friendships carry the day is life affirming.

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How to Thrive in the Peloton Without Killing Yourself

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Daylight savings is around the corner, meaning it’s time to shave the legs, break out new tires, and psych the hell up.

“Reynaldo,” fellow cyclists have repeatedly asked, “how the heck do you hang so well when you can’t sprint worth shit and we ride twice as much as you?”

I’m only going to explain this once so get some paper and a pencil. I do it several ways, from more to less obvious.

  1. I have human growth hormone sent to the crib in the Good Wife’s name. I have not had to throw her under the bus yet, but I’m prepared for that inevitability.
  2. I employ a small, undetectable motor in the frame of my bike.
  3. I draft as if I came attached to your back wheel.
  4. When I get to the front, I immediately pull off to the left, turn back while raising my right arm, and ask “Where are we going again?” Or “Did someone say someone flatted?” Or “Are we all together?” Variety is critical.
  5. I attack during nature breaks.
  6. I attack right after sprints.
  7. I attack at the slightest hint of a mechanical.
  8. I attack at yellow lights and then pretend not to hear when the others yell “HOLD UP!”
  9. It’s probably the roids, but whenever things start getting stretched out, I demand that the person in front of me “Bridge up dammit!”
  10. I wait until I hear a train before I dare lose touch.

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Quitting Football

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Like my dermatologists are so fond of doing to my basal cell skin cancers, I’d like to cut football out of my life. Literally throw a switch and not follow it anymore, high school, college, pro.

Now that we know about CTE’s devastating effects on players, it feels too much like watching Christians and lions in an ancient Roman Coliseum. Except in this case, both sides lose.

The title of this post is too optimistic. I’m not sure I can throw the “no football” switch. “I Want To Quit Football” would’ve been too wordy. I grew up playing football so I’m talking about severing a childhood root. And I enjoy following sports more generally and it’s impossible to watch SportsCenter or listen to Dan Patrick without half of the content, half of the year, being football-related.

In 2016, in the Pacific Northwest, you can be disappeared for not being a “12”, the name given to Seattle Seahawk fanatics. Lots of (oddly elderly) people have taken to wearing Russell Wilson jerseys to church in an apparent effort to curry God’s favor. To my Canadian friends to the north, imagine how ostracized you’d be if you gave up hockey.

I didn’t care about either team, but still watched about 50 minutes of the SupBowl, 20 live and 30 at enhanced Tivo-speeds. Besides the brain injuries, I can’t take the pace of play with the incessant challenges, television timeouts, injury time, and commercials. Hey Roger, I have a dog that needs walking, a work project that I’m behind on, a house that needs packing up. Here’s an idea that only someone suffering from CTE might propose, let’s take 10 minutes from the billion viewers to determine if the receiver had possession. That’s a well spent 10 billion minutes.

There were no concussions at halftime despite an angry dance-off between Bruno’s boys and Bey’s girls. They can dance some, but if they ever play one-on-one basketball, I’m going with the Queen. She can just back him down. And of course it’s the one time of year that the commercials are actually worth watching. I’m going to buy a jeep and then the GalPal is going to throw herself on me. Or I’m asking for my money back.

That pgraph right there highlights the challenge. You can’t be culturally literate without knowing somethin’ somethin’ about football. If I somehow find it within myself to stop watching, I’ll continue to see headlines and read boxscores. Will even that make me complicit in the violence?

I’m confident I can go about eight months without watching a single snap. Here’s hoping even longer.

 

 

 

 

What William Morris Didn’t Factor In

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William Morris was a 19th Century English textile designer, artist, writer, socialist, and Marxist. I imagine him as a calmer, more serene Bernie Sanders.

Among other memorable quotes, Morris said, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Same goes for cars, work offices, garages.

Wonderful goal, but most of what’s stored in our residences was helpful once, but isn’t anymore (ethernet cables, college texts, the golf shag bag). Or we think it may be helpful at some point in the future even though it hasn’t been for a long time (a gazillion screws, nuts and bolts; a road atlas, the golf shag bag). When it comes to our possessions, we mostly live in the past and future.

Similarly, we’re surrounded by stuff we found beautiful at one time. If we’re honest, a small subset of what we’re surrounded by is beautiful or particularly useful with any regularity (the Gal Pal just suggested I look in the mirror). What purposes then, do the majority of our things serve?

Like historical landmarks, they create order and bred familiarity. Like old photos or friends, subconsciously, they remind us of the past. Often, they are the product of nostalgia mixed with inertia. A sedentary sentimentality confounds efforts at genuine minimalism.

Knowing that, we can be much more selective about what we save as links to our past, scanning and digitizing much of what makes the final cut. Doing that, our living spaces will grow and we’ll enjoy them more.

 

 

Statistics to Ponder

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  1. From “The life-changing magic of simplistic solutions to complex problems”.”The average American home contains around 300,000 “things”, while the average person spends 153 days looking for misplaced items in a lifetime.”
  2. One of the courses pro golfers are playing this week, The South Course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, is 7,698 yards long.
  3. More factoid than statistic. First time five international players appeared on an NBA court at the same time, April 2001, Dallas Mavericks. Obinna Ekezie (Nigeria), Eduardo Najera (Mexico), Steve Nash (Canada), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Zhizhi Wang (China) . A 7’6″ human bean pole was riding the bench, can you name him? Hint: Some consider Utah another country. Don’t say Mark Eaton, who I once rode with in an elevator at UCLA. He was a mere 7’4″ and retired eight years earlier.
  4. From “Wal-Mart to Boost Wages for Most U.S. Store Workers“. “Wal-Mart loses about half a million store workers a year.” That’s out of almost 1.2 million hourly employees. Over 4 of 10 employees walk every year.

 

The Sorry State of Social Studies Education

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These are tough times for myself and other past and present social studies educators.

Exhibit A. Kathryn Schulz’s cogent explanation of everything that’s wrong with Netflix’s 10 hour long documentary “Making A Murderer”. Thanks Alison for the link, you saved me 9 hours and 20 minutes. Not quite sure how to spend those savings, maybe an extra hour of sleep for nine straight nights!

Excerpt 1, “. . . we still have not thought seriously about what it means when a private investigative project—bound by no rules of procedure, answerable to nothing but ratings, shaped only by the ethics and aptitude of its makers—comes to serve as our court of last resort.”

Excerpt 2, “. . . the documentary consistently leads its viewers to the conclusion that Avery was framed by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department, and it contains striking elisions that bolster that theory. The filmmakers minimize or leave out many aspects of Avery’s less than savory past, including multiple alleged incidents of physical and sexual violence. They also omit important evidence against him, including the fact that Brendan Dassey confessed to helping Avery move Halbach’s S.U.V. into his junk yard, where Avery lifted the hood and removed the battery cable. Investigators subsequently found DNA from Avery’s perspiration on the hood latch—evidence that would be nearly impossible to plant.

Perhaps because they are dodging inconvenient facts, Ricciardi and Demos are never able to present a coherent account of Halbach’s death, let alone multiple competing ones. Although “Making a Murderer” is structured chronologically, it fails to provide a clear time line of events, and it never answers such basic questions as when, where, and how Halbach died. Potentially critical issues are raised and summarily dropped; we hear about suspicious calls to and messages on Halbach’s cell phone, but these are never explored or even raised again. In the end, despite ten hours of running time, the story at the heart of “Making a Murderer” remains a muddle. Granted, real life is often a muddle, too, especially where crime is involved—but good reporters delineate the facts rather than contribute to the confusion.

Despite all this, “Making a Murderer” has left many viewers entirely convinced that Avery was framed. After the documentary aired, everyone from high-school students to celebrities jumped on the “Free Avery and Dassey” bandwagon.

Excerpt 3, “As of January 12th, more than four hundred thousand people had signed a petition to President Obama demanding that “Steven Avery should be exonerated at once by pardon.” That outrage could scarcely have been more misdirected. For one thing, it was addressed to the wrong person: Avery was convicted of state crimes, not federal ones, and the President does not have the power to pardon him. For another, it was the wrong demand. “Making a Murderer” may have presented a compelling case that Avery (and, more convincingly, Dassey) deserved a new trial, but it did not get anywhere close to establishing that either one should be exonerated.”

Exhibit B. The Republican frontrunner (tRf) repeatedly says we don’t win anymore and he promises to make America great again. His strategy of playing on people’s zenophobia, fears, and ethnocentrism is working. Most disheartening, few ask how a simplistic, single-minded focus on the U.S., will end up benefiting the U.S. in the medium and long-term. Similarly, few ask why international competition holds more promise than international cooperation.

Because his name wasn’t in the headline, tRf probably skipped this news story from last week titled “Slow Growth Clouds Progress on Global Poverty.”

“Unprecedented global economic growth over the past quarter century has lifted an estimated 1.25 billion people out of poverty, in one of the greatest recent achievements in human history.

. . . . In 1990, 37% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, which the World Bank defines as living on less than $1.90 a day. Today, the bank estimates that 9.6% of the world is in this destitute state—agricultural workers and others who live in rural mud huts with no electricity or running water, work others’ land, and spend nearly all of their resources on food, often going hungry.”

We don’t win anymore only if “we” is defined in the most narrow of ways. Social studies education has failed when so many are so taken with someone who thinks so narrowly. If we had done a better job as social studies educators everyone reading about the stupifying progress on global poverty would immediately realize the positive ripple effects including slower population growth, reduced regional and international violence, increased security, military savings, and increased global trade.

Instead nationalism and demagoguery are winning the day. Given that, the profession and I get a big fat “F”.

Blasts From the Past

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You’ve probably often wondered, exactly what kind of water polo player was Ron? If I’m gonna continue reading his blog, it would sure be nice to know.

Five goals against Western High in a Sophomore game. Probably shoulda played in the 1980 Olympics. Still upset at Carter for the boycott. A legend in my own mind. This Cypress High School 1980 pic is everything you need to know. Total baller.

Ron-eggbeater

Nevermind that I was built like a pool cue. Major hops! In polo one’s manhood was determined by how high he could get out of the water. Waist high was big time, seeing suit, the equivalent of dunking a bball. Kneecaps, making change for a dollar off the top of the backboard.

Okay, I guess enough time has passed. It’s time to come clean. I had some underwater assistance. You can do it too. Here’s how. Find Steve Wright and ask him to crouch down in about 5-6′ of water. Then ask Kevin Babb to stand on the deck and take the pic right after Steve explodes off the bottom with you standing on his shoulders. Like in life more generally, timing is everything. Pre-Photoshop genius.

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[Steve, Kevin, Legend]

Thanks to Operation Declutter, here’s another one from the archives.

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In 1993 The Good Wife and I were moving from Denver, CO to G’boro, NC. I must have asked my dad a moving/tax question. In response, he went full memo. LOVE the cursive Dad. Had he not included that, I most certainly would’ve questioned the memo’s authenticity.

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One last one. A “gift” my from my loving brother when PressingPause was getting going. His idea of encouragement. It came to mind this week because I mistakenly used the phrase “school funding” in a blog post title. Sporadically checking my stats, I felt like the Seahawks at the end of the first half. And now me in a speedo probably means an even more precipitous drop in readership.

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Why School Funding Matters

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In reference to the recent post, “Numbers to Ponder“, a loyal reader, okay my older brother, wrote:

This is an absolutely mind-boggling situation to me. Given my complete lack of experience / knowledge regarding school levies I must ask “What suggestions can one with your experience / knowledge make in a scenario such as this one?” It appears to me that asking for a school levy in the Bethel School District would be a totally futile pursuit.

At the end of our the district tour, I asked the superintendent what polling was showing and whether he thought voters would approve the bond. I was surprised by his honest assessment that it was going to be very difficult. Seemingly resigned to a negative outcome, he referenced a neighboring district that passed their bond on the tenth try. I followed up by asking if there was a Plan B. There is not, which may mean the gap in educational opportunity will continue to widen in Western Washington State.

In the US, the fact that we fund public schools largely through property taxes means communities with larger, more expensive homes generate more funds for schools than those with smaller, less expensive ones. Property tax based funding makes a mockery of one of the things we most like to believe about ourselves, that there’s equal opportunity. How can there be equal opportunity if there’s not equal educational opportunity?

More specifically, how can we expect Bethel students to achieve at the same level as others in Washington State when they lose class time walking from distant portables to the main buildings to use bathrooms or change classes, and when they lose class time to floods and unsafe plumbing and electrical problems, and when they don’t have as many books to choose among or computers to use, and when their teachers come and go? Not to mention rodents and unsafe athletic facilities.

During the tour I was reminded of a poignant documentary from about 20 years ago about your home state, O-H-I-O. That Public Broadcasting System film detailed the extreme differences between the most wealthy and poor districts/schools in the state. I read some follow up articles about the backlash it caused and several new schools were built in response.

In fact, activist groups in several states have succeeded in legally challenging the school funding status quo. Many of those states now pool the bulk of their property tax revenues and then distribute them in a more uniform manner. If we truly value equal opportunity, that’s a step in the right direction. But it’s an incomplete step because privileged families will always supplement what their children’s schools have available so that their children maintain a relative advantage.

Among other ways, our daughters schools, like a lot of 0thers, did this by holding fund-raising auctions for parents. They provided dinner, had local businesses—often owned by the students’ families—volunteer gifts, and then auctioned them off. I recall a plain looking chocolate cake going for $500. And an auctioneer that asked, “Who’d like to give $100 to the library so that we can order more books?!” A majority of people’s hands shot up.

Or maybe I didn’t hear him correctly, maybe he said, “Who wants their children to remain a leg up in the race of life?”