How I Conquered My Fear of Failure

[photo by HeyRocker]

You can also listen to this post as a podcast.

Fellow blogger Kelly Diels recently talked about how she manages her fears. Here’s how I conquered one of mine.

I grew up with hard-working parents who never had enough money to live on. We were always close to the edge and it wasn’t beneath my folks to find dinner in a dumpster behind the local grocery store.

People cringe when they hear that but really, it sounds worse than it is. Once you get them home and cleaned up, they’re just like all the other expired groceries in the cupboard. And frankly, some of the most fun I had with my dad growing up was finding salvageable stuff in dumpsters.

One of the downsides to it however; I was always aware of how close we were to not making it. I grew up with a fear of ending up broke and homeless. It always seemed to be just around the corner.

When I was sixteen years old I took a Greyhound bus to visit my grandparents on their farm in northern Michigan. It was summer and my grandfather always needed help bringing the hay in. I was looking for an adventure and even at that age traveling alone didn’t bother me.

To the contrary, it empowered me; when I traveled by myself I felt a surge of freedom, as though I could go anywhere. I was high on life and life’s endless possibilities.

I was young and spirited and it was summer. My days were spent in the fields but my mind was always somewhere else. I thought about traveling to Europe or exploring the Canadian wilderness. I envisioned quaint Swiss villages along the Alps and majestic Canadian mountain ranges carpeted with evergreens as far as the eye could see.

“I’m in Chicago…I’m just not coming to your house.”

The work was hard but it felt good to sweat in the sun and to be treated like a man. I felt a great sense of accomplishment riding back to the barn on top of a trailer piled with the freshly baled hay I had stacked. I spent a few weeks on the farm and when the hay was all in, took another bus to see my uncle who lived in Chicago.

On the way to my uncle’s house however, a funny thing happened. I decided not to go. I had always been afraid to be homeless but there, in Chicago, I suddenly decided to try it out. I called my uncle from the bus station.

“So, you’re not coming to Chicago?”

“No, I’m in Chicago. I’m just not coming to your house.”

“Why in the world not?”

“I just thought I’d stick around downtown and see if I could earn some money. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

He tried to convince me to come stay with him. I could be gone all day if I wanted but at least I’d have a place to sleep. I couldn’t tell him that was the point, I didn’t want to have a place to sleep. I didn’t want to have anything I didn’t earn myself.

I like how Danielle LaPorte explains the difference between fear management and fear leadership but I’ll save you the trip and just tell you, I was in fear management mode.

I found a day labor place called Ready Men right downtown, filled out a short information sheet and sat down with the rest of the guys waiting for work. It was a rough looking crowd with used up faces and tired clothes, shoes splitting at the seams. I would later refer to it, the way other regulars did because of its clientele, as “Ready Bum”. I untucked my shirt.

When they looked at me I looked right back, hoping not to look scared but also not look like I was staring. I was sending out a vibe I hoped was saying “I’m one of you”. Given I’d had a shower in the last week and a haircut within the last year this was difficult to pull off.

“Everything in that place was ancient and neglected.”

It was ten in the morning and I didn’t realize it but I’d come during the doldrums between the morning crews that got called at eight and the afternoon crews called at three. The people who stuck around in between were the people who were desperate enough to hope for anything and those with nowhere better to be.

They chatted amongst themselves and picked through the collection of cigarette butts on the floor to see if there was anything worth lighting. Or they dozed, absently swatting flies. I looked at the broken linoleum tiles and noticed how they’d been worn smooth from use, the exposed glue beneath them catching dirt in swirling patterns.

I wondered how long the place had been there and how many nameless men had worn the wooden benches smooth by sitting, waiting, squirming, slouching. It was like driftwood, smooth but not flat. I ran my hand along the bench. Everything in that place was ancient and neglected.

The room was long and narrow with filthy pane glass windows in the front and a small counter at the rear beneath an opening five feet up the wall. This is where they handed out the jobs and it attracted our gaze like the blue light of a backyard bug zapper. As though if we could just catch his eye he might suddenly motion for us to come up there for a job he was saving for someone special.

When three o’clock rolled around I was lucky enough to get called for a second shift job. He passed the slip down to me with the factory’s address.

“You give this to the supervisor when you get there,” the guy at the counter told me. “You need money for the bus?”

“Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I got it.”

I was working in a metal fabrication plant making what looked like loaf pans. The supervisor gave me the ten minute rundown on what to do and what not to touch. I was supposed to pull them out of a solution and stack them on a cart. Just like stacking hay, I thought, but a lot lighter. Piece of cake.

At midnight all the workers left the factory and I started wandering around looking for a place to sleep. Ready Bum was closed and the city looked more forbidding than it had in the daylight.

I found a piece of cardboard in an alley and lay down but was startled awake some time later by the guy who apparently lived there. His piece of cardboard. Sorry.

My body surging with adrenaline I wandered around for a while again surveying the empty streets, evaluating options for sleeping places. Walking down an alley I noticed the security bars covering an apartment window were directly beneath the raised ladder of a fire escape.

Climbing the bars I was able to ascend the fire escape to the roof. There wasn’t much up there but at least I’d be undisturbed. I huddled on the leeward side of a chimney and drifted off.

“Just like stacking hay, I thought, but a lot lighter. Piece of cake.”

Somewhere before dawn I was awakened by the sound the “L” clattering past my building. It had begun to drizzle—just a light mist—and I sat on the black tar looking out over the downtown skyline. To my left was Lake Michigan and to the right, the iconic Sears Tower.

I only had a couple bucks and a work voucher in my pocket that was worth around $20. I had no food or shelter. No security whatsoever. But at that moment I took a deep breath of the cool, moist Chicago air and I felt like an absolute king. I felt like Chicago was my city and my opportunities there were limitless.

I knew there were days of hard living ahead (I spent a week there being “homeless”) but I knew I would get through them. I knew if I could make it through a day, I could make it through a week. And if I could make it through a week I could survive.

I knew if I could step off a bus in Chicago with only a couple dollars in my pocket and survive. If I could make enough money to get something to eat and find a place to stay, I had nothing to fear from financial ruin.

It was a lesson I needed to learn in order to be fearless with finances, to get over my worries of “what happens if…” In most instances the worst case scenario is going broke, and now I knew I didn’t have to fear that anymore.

So when Dave Doolin, writing on his blog about passion being the new cool, asks this probing question: what drives you? The fear of being broke?

I can honestly say, not me. Not anymore.

(7:57) How I Conquered My Fear of Failure

How I Conquered My Fear Of Failure by Siddhartha Herdegen  
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Nurturing Imagination in a Reality-Driven World

[photo by Per Ola Wiberg]

As children we are indulged. We can live in a fantasy land and have imaginary friends, develop elaborate and impossible plans and draw innumerable pictures of unidentifiable objects. We could call it whatever we wanted and our parents would simply say, “Oh, yeah. I can see that now.”

Somewhere along the line though we get the subtle message imagination is okay for kids but mature people must live in the real world. People no longer think it’s cute when you tell them about your island home where dragons live or introduce them to your best friend Poon, the wooden spoon.

That’s kind of sad. Because imagination is the Christopher Columbus of our minds. Sometimes it falls off the edge of the world but sometimes it discovers a new land that turns out to be pretty useful.

Sure, it may not be India like he thought it was, but it’s still useful.

“Find some time to be bored out of your mind.”

In order to find new ways of thinking we have to allow ourselves to look foolish and to fail. Failure and success are two sides of the same coin, they come together. Failure is only a result, not a value judgment.

As adults our minds have become used to suppressing our creative impulses and we have to relearn how to use those skills. It takes practice. Here are some ideas which should help:

Get isolated

Spend time alone, without distractions. Getting away from people and attention-demanding media allows our mind a chance to breathe. I would even go one step further and say, find some time to be bored out of your mind.

As a child I spent many hours being dragged from one place to another by my parents. Rarely was this a playground or a toy store. Most often it was a place where sitting quietly was the only appropriate activity. This meant I spent a lot of time finding mental activities to occupy my imagination.

When was the last time you were really bored? We live in an information abundant society; there are always plenty of diversions if we want to find them. We have to consciously make time to think without distractions.

Don’t be bound by reality

Too often people suffocate their ability to think imaginatively by only considering what is possible. But the really great ideas start with what we wish the world were like and work backwards to how we can get there. Sometimes the answer is we can’t.

As children we are mostly ignorant of the constraints around us. We think it’s quite possible animals think like humans and just can’t express themselves in our language. We allow our minds to imagine wondrous things because we don’t yet know they’re impossible.

“Idea people know what it’s like to have an idea kicked in the gut when it’s down.”

There will be a time when we’ll need to ask some hard questions about possibilities and practicalities, but imposing these restrictions too soon stifles our ability to let our minds envision something beyond what currently exists.

Surround yourself with people who value creativity

Every idea needs a cheerleader, someone who will say, “You can do it” even if we’re not sure we can. The great thing about idea people is they know what it’s like to have an idea kicked in the gut when it’s down. Creative friends will pick your idea up and carry it home to recuperate.

When we’re still young everyone around us is going through the same mind-expanding, thought-exploring phases we are so it’s easy to have conversations about the things we imagine. We’ve got a ready audience who will not only treat our ideas as valuable but will join in the creative process.

As we get older, fewer people want to explore the world of make believe. We have to consciously seek these people out and make a comfortable place to discuss ideas. It’s amazing how much an idea changes when it’s expressed to someone else. We need to give our ideas this growth opportunity.

Get the blood flowing

Fostering imagination is not all about seclusion and isolation; it’s also about getting out into the world and experiencing life. You will probably find some of your best ideas come when you’re engaged in, or just after, a physical activity. Running, hiking, and climbing all get the blood flowing and help spur creativity.

During our youth this just came naturally. Running around, climbing trees, building a fort, going swimming. We could find so many ways to exert ourselves we never had to think about it. It was just a natural part of life.

“Expressing our ideas to others lets them grow.”

Now that our lives are more sedentary it takes a commitment and an intentional plan to provide opportunities for physical exertion. It’s not just for the sake of our health we should incorporate exercise into our lives; we need it to nurture imaginative thinking as well.

Some affirmations

Sometimes we need to prime the pump, especially if it’s been a while since we’ve exercised our creative muscles. When we’re trying to inspire ourselves to come up with creative ideas it helps if we focus on one particular area of exploration. Then actively think about the following two thoughts.

1. Give yourself permission to think big. Tell yourself not to think about the restrictions of reality right now. For most of us it’s a habit we have grown used to over years and it may take a while before we really believe it’s okay. So keep telling yourself this until you believe it.

2. Be intentionally extreme. Really take ideas to the maximum and see what lies on the outskirts of what we can conceive. Doing this forces us beyond the everyday ideas and affirms what we just told ourselves, that it’s okay to think big.

Some exercises

After finding a spot without distractions give yourself a substantial amount of time for undisturbed thinking. Then give yourself a prompt. This could be two words selected at random from a dictionary—or from any book really. Just pick two random numbers, the first is the page number the second is the row. Use a word on that row.

Ex: 1. Use two words selected at random and see if you can form a connection between them or apply them to a particular problem you’re having. Our minds are very good at finding connections, you will usually be able to form an idea even if only a ridiculous one. Consider how that idea could be applied.

Ex: 2. Find a picture in a magazine. Use something in the picture as a prompt. It could be an object, a word, or the layout itself. Choose two items and find a connection as above.

Ex: 3. Don’t stop with your first idea. The best ideas are rarely the first ones developed. Take your idea and use it as a prompt to build on. Continue this process two or three times.

A final thought

As with any new skill, the most important thing is to practice. When we do things repeatedly they become easier.

Learn what works well for you and what doesn’t. Find out which people are most receptive to your craziest ideas and what activities help you get blood flowing to your brain.

In time you will find using your imagination can be quite fun. You may even discover what it’s like to be a child again.

(7:27) Nurturing Imagination in a Reality-Driven World

Nurturing Imagination In A Reality - Driven World by Siddhartha Herdegen  
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Breaking Into the Intellectual Soulscape

[photo by kelsey]

I recently worked in an office with a dozen or so desks all separated by cubicle dividers. I could go all day without ever seeing half of the people I worked in the same room with.

I could send email back and forth with a person whose desk was literally ten feet from my own and never talk to them face to face. I didn’t even know if they were in the building or halfway around the world (as they sometimes were).

This isn’t a rant about how we’ve lost our sense of humanity. Humanity is what humanity does. I, for one, am a huge proponent of technological change and innovation. I think it does much more good than harm. It allows us to be more productive and to enjoy more leisure time today than at any other time in the history of the world.

But it does change things. It allows us to satisfy our preferences more easily, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends a lot on what our predilections are. In the past we’ve had to make do with what was locally available. Like the kids stuck in small farm towns, we’d paint the water tower for lack of something more entertaining to do.

“Humanity is what humanity does.”

So even if the guys down at the barber shop weren’t our ideal companions we’d engage them in conversation because they were there. We compromised in so many ways. Our opportunities were limited by what was intellectually possible and geographically feasible.

The internet allows us to find compatible companions regardless of geography. It also allows us to compromise less when it comes to entertainment and information. We can find what we want when we want it rather than taking what’s available. We can have an entire social life without ever meeting our neighbors.

We don’t need the internet to remove ourselves from society though. There are people who have been doing that since before recorded history.

Family time

When my family drove from my grandparents’ farm in northern Michigan to our house in Ohio my dad threw a sack of groceries in the back seat and we didn’t stop until he needed to buy gas. The bag contained the two staples of our traveling diet, a loaf of bread and a roll of red.

When we got tired of hitting each other we would pick out letters or states on the license plates of passing cars. My dad would listen to the radio until we were out of range and then we would sing songs together.

My mother loved this part. Every year she forced us to watch The Sound of Music on TV and when we were on the road she got to act out her von Trapp family fantasy. My parents were visionaries, living in their own world.

They had transcended their parents’ narrow-minded reality, fractured the bonds of geographic enslavement and broken out into the intellectual soulscape.

“My mother got to act out her von Trapp family fantasy.”

While they had both grown up in Chicago, they were no more American than the Buddha was Indian. They had thrown off the cultural blinders worn by generations before them and become citizens of the world. A world without geographic boundaries, only mental barriers.

They were pioneers on a quest to settle this new world without the help of the local inhabitants. Anyone who couldn’t tune in to their frequency was part of the problem not the solution. These people were simply obstacles to work around.

This was in the 1970s, before anyone had a computer in their home much less the internet or a “mobile device”, but people still had enough social independence to live amongst, but not with, other people. Separation is a mental decision not a technical divide.

Our family was a self-contained unit and my father was our prophet. He talked of solar panels and geodesic houses, of living in harmony with nature and the Ch’i of Mother Earth. We had our own group of like-minded friends and we drove miles out of our way to visit them.

Social connections

The people who lived on either side of us were strangers. Our peculiar practices went largely unnoticed by our neighbors with the exception of the large compost pile growing behind our garage. I doubt I would have recognized any of them had we passed each other on the sidewalk.

So when I hear people complain about how technology is driving society apart I have to laugh. This is not a new phenomenon, people have been dropping out of society and tuning in to their own mental stations for generations. People have always sought the comfort of others who saw the world the same way they did.

We strive for those connections and use every technological innovation available to us to fulfill that need. We find it comforting to be with our kind of people, those who get our paradigm; whose ideas stir our souls.

While the internet breaks down many of the geographic barriers to establishing and maintaining these connections, it is only the latest instrument to do so. It’s not the first and will certainly not be the last.

“We will always need friends IRL to satisfy our need for human interaction.”

But there is a balance between our need for intellectual companionship and need for physical interaction. We will always need to find people we are geographically near to satisfy the drive for human interaction.

For this reason you can never truly take away the human aspect. And we should be careful how much we rely on the internet and social networking to meet our needs. It can help us find like-minded people but ultimately we still need the human connection.

We neglect our real-life social skills at our peril. Let’s not forget there are people on the other end of the line, and those people need to be understood as humans not as “online friends” alone.

Even though my cubicle-delineated office felt isolated, I could not forget my officemates were still all too human, and sensitive to a carelessly thought out email, lest a Nerf football come flying into my personal soulscape from across the room.

(6:12) Breaking Into the Intellectual Soulscape

Breaking Into The Intellectual Soulscape by Siddhartha Herdegen
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Three Reasons Everyone Wants to Be a Leader

[photo by dbking]

I’m going to be quite blunt in this post. I hope not to offend anyone.

Let’s just all admit up front we’re most comfortable with our own worldview. We grew up with it, built it from scratch and then discovered it. Our worldview is who we are.

Anyone who’s travelled overseas has had the experience of confronting situations which turn our worldview on its head. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. That’s what culture shock is, confronting a bunch of facts that contradict our worldview.

1. We want to be in charge

Our worldview is our way of seeing things. And we all like to get our way. We spend our entire childhoods wanting to be in charge. Because when we’re in charge we can do whatever we want. We don’t have to convince others to see things our way.

Our parents don’t have to convince us we want to do it their way, they just tell us. That’s because our parents are in charge. And that’s the person we want to become. Because that’s the person who is most comfortable in life, the one who gets their way.

Now I’m sure that just made some people cringe. Some people said, “Not me. I’m not interested in always getting my way.”

Let’s be real. We all just want to live in a world where our vision of how the world operates is accepted by everyone else. That doesn’t mean we always win the coin toss or the foot race, these are indisputable events.

“We want to live in a world where our view is accepted by everyone else.”

It doesn’t mean everything turns out rosy for us. It means we want to live in a world where a false start is considered unfair and if the coin hits the edge of the table before landing on the floor it’s interference and a do-over.

The reason you think you shouldn’t always get your way is because everyone can’t have their way all the time. It’s because society has a pact—we call it good manners—and this pact says, don’t want something that’s going to cause conflict.

We are social animals; we need each other in order to survive. If everyone tries to be in charge there’s chaos and conflict. To avoid conflict we collectively decided it was essential to tell ourselves wanting to be in charge, to be the one who gets their way, is a negative thing. It’s egotistical, selfish and self-centered.

But just because we agree not to try to get our way all the time doesn’t mean we don’t want our way. We’re always most comfortable when people see things our way.

We created rules about who got to be in charge. These rules took the decision out of our hands. It was royal lineage; you couldn’t do anything about that. Born in the wrong family? Too bad. You don’t get to be in charge.

2. We want people to see things our way

But as time went on we were no longer satisfied with aristocracies and monarchies. We wanted more control over our own decisions. A democratic republic is a good start but it’s not enough. There’s more to our existence than basic human rights, we expect more from our lives than that.

We’re now living in a time of mental economics, when we all want the freedom to view the world the way we want. We want to surround ourselves with like-minded people. We want a customized reality.

Wait! You say. You can’t have different realities.

But you can.

Ask two people about an event they both witnessed and they will give two different accounts. Ask two people what caused the financial crisis of 2008 and you will hear two different reasons. Ask two people what the perfect vacation, restaurant, house, city, community looks like and you will get a different answer on each of these from both them.

These are all “reality” to the person who believes them. Reality is the lens through which we interpret the world around us.

And we all see the world differently.

One very good definition of leadership is, getting others to see the world the way you do.

This is what is meant by influence. This is why the popular kids in school were cool. Not because they did the right things, but because whatever they did was right. The kids around them adopted their worldview and their worldview was saying, this is the right thing to do.

Think of yourself in a meeting at work. A group of about fifteen employees are gathered around the conference table. Two ideas are proposed, one yours and one Bill’s. They are mutually exclusive, they represent two different worldviews. And a decision needs to be made.

What do the other thirteen people do? They think about it and come up with their own opinion. This opinion will generally correspond with your idea or Bill’s. Do you think they land on one side or the other by chance? No.

The opinion of the undecideds land on the side of the person who has persuaded them to see the world the way they do. The bottom line is influence. You need it so other people will see the world the way you do. You need it to get your way.

3. We want people to follow us

Nearly every conversation or interaction is doing one of two things. It’s either reassuring each other you see the world the same way, or it’s trying to convince the other person to see it your way. The more influential you are the more likely they are to see things your way.

Let me be clear. I’m not saying when two people have a conversation one person is putting forth a cogent argument and the other is being ridiculous. I’m saying two people are putting forth equally strong arguments based on different worldviews.

Because it’s unlikely two people will see the world so similarly they will be in complete agreement on everything, relationships in which both people agree a lot are usually the result of one adopting the other party’s view.

“It’s soul-satisfying to find a person with whom you share a worldview.”

This is okay; it’s creating harmony and good feelings. It’s what you do in a relationship you want to prosper. But let’s not pretend it isn’t happening.

When people adopt our worldview it’s because they want to follow us. They have decided, for whatever reason, to hook their cart to our horse and come along for the ride. It may be they want us to take them where we’re going, it may be because they like our company, but for whatever reason they’re choosing our worldview over their own.

The ultimate realization of this aspect of leadership, the ideal situation, is when we are clear enough about our worldview and are able to communicate it broadly enough, that we gather likeminded people to us.

It’s exhilarating to be in charge. It’s nice to convince people to see things our way. But it is mutually uplifting to find a person with whom you share a fundamental belief. It’s like coming home.

(7:01) Three Reasons Everyone Wants to Be a Leader

Three Reasons Everyone Wants To Be A Leader by Siddhartha Herdegen
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How to Use Social Media to Lose a Friend and Kill a Dog

[photo by bobmarley753]

There is a debate among philosophically minded people as to whether it is the intent or the result of our actions which matter.

On the one hand, if intent matters more than results, then if we intend to do something that turns out badly we’ve still done the right thing.

If results matter more than intent, then we only need to be concerned with outcomes to know if what we’ve done is right or wrong. The downside is there’s no way to know until after the fact.

I have a friend IRL who also “friended” me on Facebook. It’s a good way to stay in touch and keep the friendship going even though we don’t see each other much.

“Anywhere there’s a U.S. military base, there will be stray dogs.”

He was recently finishing up a tour of duty in Iraq where he had befriended a stray dog. They’d apparently become very close.

I can tell you from experience, anywhere in the world there is a U.S. military base there will be stray dogs. Everywhere except Turkey. I’m not sure what’s going on in Turkey but there were dozens of stray cats, no dogs.

But my friend is in Iraq not Turkey so there are plenty of stray dogs and he fell in love with one. It’s some kind of mutt with battle scars and half-eaten ears; the kind of animal that really tugs at your heartstrings.

The problem is, my friend is coming home on a military flight and they won’t take the dog. Not even if it’s had all its shots which the local Army vet assured them it did.

How to use social media

Now my friend is a combat hardened member of the military but the thought of leaving this poor dog to fend for itself in Iraq is too much for his conscience. He finds out how much it costs to buy the dog a commercial airline flight out of Iraq back to the U.S. (around $6,000 if you’re wondering) and asks all his friends to pitch in for the fare.

You know where this is going…but it gets worse, I assure you.

He puts out an APB on FB which I could have just ignored but which I didn’t because I’m a pyromaniac and there’s nothing I like to see burn more than an old bridge.

Plus, I happen to be actively involved in a charity that helps orphans in Afghanistan which I think is a much more important cause than saving a dog, being the orphans are actually human children and not stray animals.

But I didn’t say that in so many words. I said it much more critically. I said, “Why would I spend even a dollar to save this mangy animal when there are people whose lives could be improved for decades with just a small donation.”

“He didn’t appreciate the logic of that answer. Or my tone.”

“If I had any money I was going to give away, I would use it to improve the lives of my fellow man.”

His response was predictable to anyone who thinks about how other people are going to take their words. They caught me off guard.

“Hey, I do a lot of charity work for humans too,” he wrote. “But I have enough compassion to go around. If I can help any creature in distress, I’m going to do it. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

Well, it’s not a bad thing. I just think there are better things. As an economist I recognize there is an opportunity cost for every expense. Since there is an unlimited supply of needy humans and a limited supply of money we are making implicit choices. When we spend money helping stray dogs we are choosing to save them over choosing to save humans.

There may be an infinite supply of compassion in the world, but there is not an infinite supply of resources.

He didn’t appreciate the logic of that answer. Or my tone.

It’s difficult to tell tone in a FB comment. I wasn’t intending to be mean.

It was one of those times I wondered what mattered more, the fact I had not intended to be condescending and dismissive or the result, that he felt hurt?

Economic realities

While I still believe what I said is true, I’ve given it some more thought and have come to realize it’s an impossible ideal. We can’t think about people dying every time we spend money or we’d never buy anything but the bare essentials for ourselves and give the rest to people around the world who are in dire need.

At some point we have to say, I’m going to donate some money and the rest I’m going to spend on myself in whatever way I think is best.

It’s inherently a selfish position but it is reality—and a generous reality at that. Some people wouldn’t give anything to others, just start being selfish from the get-go.

It was too late for our friendship however, it had already been irreparably damaged. That wasn’t my intention, but it was the result. Did it really matter what my intention was? His feelings were valid and justified even if I had been right about my argument and even though I had changed my mind later.

The dog, however, got the worst part of the deal. He never made it to the States.

He died on the plane.

So what matters more, intent or results?

(5:20) How to Use Social Media to Lose a Friend and Kill a Dog

How To Use Social Media To Lose A Friend And Kill A Dog by Siddhartha Herdegen  
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Why “Management” Is Becoming “Leadership”

[photo by Sukanto Debnath]

Many people think management is necessary for industry to be successful. That, similar to the use of hydraulics, we have found a way to harness natural properties in a way that increases our productive capacity. They believe human labor can be manipulated like fluid, with predictable results.

But human productivity is not as easily captured as an incompressible fluid and what works for one culture or generation does not necessarily work for another. In fact, when it comes to human behavior, the one thing we can be certain of is that our behavior is uncertain.

The origin of management goes back centuries. Certainly, as soon as humans started working together in groups some form of management was needed. But it really took off during the industrial age when factory after factory was set up to take advantage of machine based manufacturing and assembly lines.

“The only certainly is that human behavior is uncertain.”

As with any new technology, the initial gains were easy, and large companies made great productive strides over independent tradesmen or smaller operations. Simply bringing people together, providing a steady supply of work and coordinating their efforts led to some huge productivity gains.

Inevitably however, the easy gains were reaped early in the process and factory owners had to figure out how to extract even more productivity out of their workers in order to remain competitive. This resulted in a myriad of management “experiments” in which workers were the guinea pigs and productivity was the metric.

Daniel Pink provides a plain, yet powerful insight in his latest book Drive. He simply points out that management is a man-made development, an invention which was useful for a time but, like all other human inventions, will eventually outlast its usefulness.

It’s such a straightforward observation, but a critically important one. Too often we think of management as simply being “how human productivity is harnessed”. But it’s just one way and perhaps not the best way. Like the vacuum tube computer, it had its time of usefulness but perhaps we have moved, or are moving, past it.

An information economy demands a different system of organization

If traditional management is becoming irrelevant, what will replace it? This is the question which vexes organizational designers and freelance futurists alike. I believe we are approaching a time of mutually interdependent sole proprietors. A time when more and more individuals will incorporate themselves and become a business of one.

These entrepreneurs are their own firm, their own corporate entity, but operate in conjunction with other similarly small organizations. Maybe hiring one or two contract employees of their own to do the bookkeeping, marketing, or customer service functions.

This may appear an odd concept but it is a reality in many industries already. And two things are spurring the trend along; inexpensive and pervasive coordination technology, and an increasing reliance on knowledge skills.

It used to be that anyone with a skill could hang out a shingle and attract their own customers; blacksmiths, tailors, butchers, bakers and candle makers could make a living as sole proprietors. The industrial revolution put them out of work because manufacturing could be done faster and more efficiently in factories.

“Our economy increasing relies on knowledge skills.”

Similar productivity gains in the service sector led to a consolidation of unskilled labor. But the people who have escaped being corralled have been the intellectuals. The people whose productive skill has been their knowledge.

These are the doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects and engineers. You could make some modest productivity gains by pooling shared resources and decreasing overhead, but not so much that you’d put the lone professional out of business. Because their productivity is in dispensing what is in their heads. Their knowledge is their skill and it’s problematic to extract gains from economies of scale when dealing with intellectual capital.

Now that communication and coordination costs have come down however, it’s becoming viable for other professions to step out on their own as well. Marketers, florists, personal assistants, draftsmen, the list goes on and on. More and more often the skills people are learning are not what they can do with their hands but what they can do with their minds.

These are the kind of jobs that are easy to freelance. So as our economy shifts increasingly to an intellectual capital marketplace, more people will have the option of becoming an independent contractor. Of course their independence is from a large structured organization, not independent from other economic actors. That’s why I call them interdependent contractors.

The future of organizations

Even people who choose to work for a large company will be liberated by the viability of a solo career. We see this today in the expectation of Millennials that they be treated as equals within the organization even though they’ve only just arrived. These are people who quite possibly ran their own company before they graduated from college, it’s no wonder they feel on par with their more senior colleagues.

People who see themselves as professionals with an independent firm as a feasible possibility do not want managers directing their actions. They want to follow leaders voluntarily and have the autonomy to make important decisions as well, to be leaders in their own right. The future, and not the far distant future but the one just over the horizon, is of organizations full of leaders.

While this concept may appear at first glance to be untenable, a bit too much like “too many chiefs, not enough Indians,” it is not as far-fetched as it seems. Our economy is a perfect example of how people can fill multiple roles at the same time. We can each be both producers and consumers in the economy—one doesn’t cancel out the other.

Likewise, people can be followers and leaders as well, as long as they’re not trying to lead the same people at the same time. Consider your own life. Do you follow more than one leader? Chances are you do.

“The new leaders will emerge organically from within groups.”

You may have a boss at work, a favorite political figure, a religious leader, and a personal hero or mentor all providing leadership for different areas of your life. We don’t find conflict with these multiple leaders because we have assigned them specific areas of our life to lead.

You are quite possibly a leader yourself, as well as a follower of multiple leaders. Maybe you are a father, a little league coach or a community activist. Each of these activities is an opportunity to exercise leadership. So you can be following several leaders and be a leader yourself in many different capacities. There is no inherent contradiction in this.

The future of management then is less management. Organizations will shift to smaller units of collaborating interdependent contactors presided over by leaders who take their cue from the leaders above them. Unlike organizations of yesterday however, these leaders will not be assigned by the company hierarchy but will emerge organically from within these groups.

In this new economy it will be essential for each individual to be a capable leader. Whether as a “business of one” or working on a team within a larger organization, our ability to develop a clear vision and to communicate that vision to others will be a critical skill.

Leadership will be the new form of management.

(7:36) Why "Management" Is Becoming "Leadership"

Why Management Is Becoming Leadership by Siddhartha Herdegen
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Do People Really Get Happier With Age?

[photo by pedrosimoes7]

“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out.” Charles Schulz

I like learning about why we do the things we do, why we are the way we are. I’ve had a longstanding interest in what it is that makes us happy and how that influences the choices we make.

For me, it has been the study of economics which has fed that appetite over the years. Economics is ostensibly about money but it’s really about happiness; how people get it and what they’re willing to trade to get more of it.

“Simply because there is a correlation does not mean there is causation.”

So it was with interest I read a recent post by my friend Sara Gallagher. She writes a clever blog about “the way we work” called Gears and Shifts. You should check it out.

A couple days ago she wrote Now Are You Happy? after reading an article on Yahoo!News “claiming people are much happier in their 50s than they are in their 20s.”

I should mention Sara’s in her 20s. She went on to say:

People say that accomplishments, titles, money, material things, power, and adventure provide only a fleeting sense of happiness. Since this is all well-documented material from both eastern and western religion, I tend to believe it…at least intellectually.

But viscerally, here’s what I know about myself: I love compliments. I like money too, but not as much as achievements and titles. I will definitely die if I do not go to graduate school. I will similarly die if I have to wear clothes from Target for the rest of my life.

Clearly Sara finds herself conflicted, as do most people in their twenties. They’re conflicted because their elders are telling them one thing and their gut is telling them another.

Old people are happier because they’re almost dead

And maybe the old folks are onto something, after all study after study shows older people are happier. Maybe they’ve figured it out after all those years.

Here’s a study published in the April 2008 edition of the American Sociological Review by Yang Yang, Ph.D. showing people are happier as they age.

Research by Yang Yang, a sociologist at The University of Chicago, provides a comprehensive analysis of the disparities in happiness between men and women with different demographic characteristics, such as age and race. While substantial variation in subjective happiness exists between social groups, she finds that overall, levels of happiness increase with age [emphasis added].

So what gives?

I think there’s a serious conceptual error going on here. Older people are (in general): wiser, happier, and more interested in family than in money or worldly praise.

But while these three things can be said to have a correlation, that is quite different from a causation.

Are older people happier because they’re more focused on “things that matter” like family and helping others or does happiness happen for other reasons as a person matures (i.e., gets closer to death)?

Is focusing on “things that matter” the result of wisdom or other factors?

An alternative theory of happiness and age

If I did nothing but pose these two questions I think I would have done society a great service. But I am going to go one step further and offer an alternate explanation.

Mainly because I believe people will continue to use a flawed theory unless they are given a different one. So, while I believe it’s perfectly okay to point out flaws without offering a solution it is generally futile to do so.

My alternate theory: we make choices about where and how we spend our time based on many assumptions and expectations. Young people believe (and rightly so) they have a lot of time ahead of them in which to enjoy the company of family and friends.

They also know the investments they make in training and education, acquiring prestige and amassing wealth will have a higher payoff over the course of their lives if they are obtained in their youth.

Knowing all this, young people make the rational and wise choice to spend their limited amount of time investing in those things which will provide the biggest payoff.

“Recommending youngsters make the same choices as their elders is neither rational nor wise.”

Older people make the same calculation however, the situation has changed. When older people make the same comparison they see less time for investments in education and prestigious titles to pay off and they see how little time they have to take advantage of being around family and friends.

So elderly people make choices which are just as rational and wise but result in an opposite conclusion as to how to spend their time. We frequently hear from elderly people, once they reach this conclusion, they wish they would have spent more time with their children and less time working when they were young.

The implication, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle, is that younger people should make the same choices while they are young as older people make in their twilight years. This is neither logical nor advisable.

But, why are they happier?

The reason old people are happier is not because the calculus of social economics has changed but because our brains are designed to accept that which we cannot control.

When we anticipate an important decision or a moment of critical significance in our lives our mind becomes stressed, intent on influencing things as much as possible in our favor. But after the fact, no such stress exists. Our only unhappiness comes from lamenting our losses and anticipating our next decisions. These both fade with time.

This is why “everything looks better in hindsight” and “time heals all wounds.” It is because our brains can accept past events as being final and will compensate for our emotional pain.

As Daniel Gilbert explains in his excellent book Stumbling on Happiness, we remember things as being better than we thought they were at the time. That is, as we get further away from the event we remember it more positively.

“Everything looks better in hindsight.”

The emotional stamp we place on our experiences is not permanent. A very embarrassing experience can be painful at the moment, but the emotional impact fades over time. The next day we don’t want to talk about it, a few weeks later it’s just something that happened and a few years later it’s a hilarious story we repeat at parties.

So when young people, whose lives are mostly ahead of them, think about life they see a future which is unknown and scary. And they feel anxious. When old people, whose lives are mostly behind them, think about life they see the past which is known and, even though things didn’t always turn out as they had hoped, seems to their mind to have been mostly good.

Older people are happier and wiser and less focused on money and prestige, but these factors are merely coexisting not causing each other. Age itself causes all three.

Happiness then comes primarily from accepting the things we cannot change. And so, like Sir Francis Bacon, I find my greatest happiness is in understanding the way the world operates, even if I can’t change it. Or possibly, because I can’t change it.

“No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.” Sir Francis Bacon

(7:46) Do People Really Get Happier With Age?

Do People Really Get Happier With Age? by Siddhartha Herdegen
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