Change – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

You are the Observer: Using the Hawthorne Effect for Self-Improvement

The Hawthorne Effect refers to a psychological phenomenon where humans modify their behavior in response to being observed or studied. This effect was first observed in the 1920s and 30s during a series of studies conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago, hence the name.

The studies were designed to investigate the relationship between lighting conditions and worker productivity. But researchers found that regardless of changes in lighting, workers’ productivity improved when they knew they were being observed. This meant that the mere act of being the subject of an experiment or receiving attention could influence individuals to perform better.

It also means this powerful personal growth tool is available to you. It turns out that you are the observer you’ve been waiting for, the catalyst for your own transformation.

“You can’t learn to swim by reading a book about swimming. You have to get in the water.” – Unknown

The Burpee Quest

Funny thing about burpees: watching someone do a burpee makes it look super easy (barely an inconvenience). If a Crossfit guy tells you that a good warmup is 10 burpees per minute for 10 minutes, you might think that’s totally doable…until you try it. You’ll learn about muscles you haven’t used in years. You’ll be reminded that gravity is not your friend, and that you’re not as coordinated as you thought.

What if you start by doing 10? Not 10 per minute for 10 minutes. Just 10. Each day.

That’s a tangible and doable goal to start. You can observe (there’s that word) your progress and set incremental milestones for more. Maybe you move up to 20 per day the second week, 40 per day the third week.

A great way to keep track of your progress is to track your progress. Sounds simple…but most people skip the tracking. Tracking is your way to observe (there’s it is) your progress, and lets you become your own motivating force. Write the date and burpee count down on a piece of paper, in your favorite journaling app, or maybe in an Excel spreadsheet.

You are incrementally moving toward 100 burpees in a day. You’re tracking your progress and will start to see the significance of each step toward your goal.

There’s something else you can observe (that word again). Your body’s responses while you’re doing the exercise. It will get easier as you go. Easy? No, just easier. Your body (and mind) will begin to move to a higher level of performance. Your baseline capability will increase. Gravity still isn’t your friend, but you’re starting to learn how to partner with gravity to do the next burpee.

“Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous.” – Confucius

It’s been 4 or 5 weeks since you started this quest. You’re now able to do 3 sets of 25 burpees each day. You haven’t reached 100 burpees yet, but you’re well on your way. If you’re like most people, you might observe (there it is) that you can lighten up a bit at this point. You’ve totally got this. You don’t need to push as hard to improve from here. Your goal is in sight. Don’t fall into this trap!

This is the moment to refocus your goal…push it out a bit…extend the finish line. You’ve already mastered the movements, now you need to apply discipline and blow past your original goal of 100 burpees per day. Parlay this achievement into the next goal?

Maybe actually using the 100 burpees as the warmup that Crossfit guy described. You’ve been working on just getting to 100 burpees in a day, but what’s the next exercise you can do after your burpee warmup?

Same process. Take it in increments, track your progress, celebrate your milestones, welcome to another new baseline, continue to improve, set the next goal.

How can you apply this to your profession?

Actively seek opportunities to acquire new skills. Embrace the awkwardness of not knowing exactly how to do something…and do it anyway. Remember that the satisfaction of learning and growth is uniquely yours. You, as the observer, choose the path of continuous learning. It’s the best way (the only way) to adapt to the evolving demands of your profession.

Improve your value in increments, track your progress, establish new baselines, continue to improve. Sound familiar?

Solicit constructive feedback from colleagues and mentors, appreciating external input as valuable guidance. However, remember that you are the only one who can internalize and implement these insights. Nobody will do it for you.

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” – Vernon Law

Your Keys to Self-Improvement

Consistently integrate self-observation and improvement into your routine, recognizing that only you can chart the course of your personal growth.
Reflect on your experiences, setbacks, and successes, understanding that the satisfaction of improvement is a personal journey. You are the sole interpreter of your progress.
Remain flexible and open-minded, adjusting your methods based on feedback and new insights. As the observer, you continually determine refinements to your approach.
Embrace setbacks as opportunities for growth, understanding that the satisfaction derived from overcoming challenges is a deeply personal experience. Stay committed to your objectives, recognizing that only you can appreciate the significance of your efforts.

The Hawthorne Effect is your friend (unlike gravity). Use it and always remember that you are the observer, the driver, and the one who benefits most from your continuous improvement journey.

A Season for Renewal

True renewal is a deliberate act of self-reclamation…

p/c: a recent sunset at our little homestead

Prayer to Saint Joseph the Worker

O Glorious Saint Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor,

obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins;

to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations;

to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God;

to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials;

to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, keeping unceasingly before my eyes death and the account that I must give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch, Saint Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen. – Pope St. Pius X

In life’s journey, we may find ourselves off course or losing track of our original path. We may even fail ourselves or those we love. It is in these moments that we are being called to profound self-discovery and renewal.

Renewal is not a passive occurrence. As the prayer to Saint Joseph states, it requires us “to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above [our] natural inclinations.” True renewal is a deliberate act of self-reclamation. We have a duty to ourselves and those we love to put in the work that leads to our self-transformation.

It isn’t easy (nothing worthwhile ever is). It involves adapting, finding new ways, and being intentional about embracing change.

When we realize that ours is always a season of renewal, that we can “work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of [our] many sins,” then we will be able “to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from [the] weariness and trials” of our self-improvement.

May the spirit of renewal be our guide, not diverting us from our journey but enhancing it. May we find the resilience within us to adapt, renew, and move forward with a fresh sense of purpose and determination.

The Unsung Heroes: Driving Excellence in the Shadows of Mediocrity

The pursuit of excellence is always a journey worth taking. Do you have what it takes?

It’s an unfortunate truth that a large cohort of our society defines their success as doing the minimum. For them, success means not failing (or being seen to fail).

They’re okay with mediocrity, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. They believe they can’t make a difference anyway, so they welcome the warm embrace of the status quo. They take comfort in joining the flock of mediocrity.

Do you find success in simply avoiding failure, or are you one of the rare renegades who can’t stand mediocrity?

In a landscape where inefficiency and ineffectiveness are accepted norms, there’s a shrinking community of individuals who see an opportunity for improvement. They envision a future defined by hard work, creativity, and continuous efforts to break free from the shackles of the status quo.

These unsung heroes view mediocrity as a chance to make a difference. They are willing to undertake the hard work necessary for transformation. These passionate individuals are the driving force behind organizational change, pushing boundaries and overcoming obstacles in the relentless pursuit of excellence.

They are willing to try.

They’re willing to risk failure, often multiple times, to pull themselves and their organization kicking and screaming toward a better future.

In a perfect world, organizations would recognize and elevate these passionate individuals, recognizing their contribution.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. Status quo is like a warm blanket. Those who threaten to take away that blanket are often seen as a threat. The well-organized flock of mediocrity is a powerful deterrent to new ideas and improvement.

Do you have what it takes to be one of the renegades? One of the unsung heroes?

Are you willing to toil in relative obscurity, pushing back the walls of mediocrity, making room for excellence in their place?

Few are up to this challenge. But organizations count on these renegades for their success everyday…even if they don’t realize it.

Aggressive Confusion

What happens when someone leads with their confusion?

It’s easy to be confused.

To be unclear about new information.

To ask for more explanations.

To need more practice.

But what happens when someone leads with their confusion, defending themselves behind a shield of doubt and uncertainty?

What if they wield their confusion like a weapon, merely to strengthen their grip on the status quo?

Is their objective to understand an idea or to avoid any responsibility for it?

Exploration (of anything) is a journey into the unknown and unexpected. It can be overwhelming, even confusing. It should be. Finding our way through the confusion is how we grow.

We make the choices:

Will we decide to push through our confusion?
Will we put in the effort to find new clarity?
Will we choose to grow?

Or, do we prefer to hide in our comfortable bubble of confusion?

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

Blame and Our Ego

Why do we play the blame game?

“If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.” –Jocko Willink

Here’s a thought experiment…

Looking back over the past few weeks (or months, or years), how many times did you blame:

someone
some thing
traffic
an injury
a disability
the weather
the economy
the government
your boss
your employee
social media
a company
a bad memory
anything but yourself?

No matter the subject, there are plenty of candidates for our blame…as long as we can aim it outward.

Our ego prefers blaming “the other” rather than accepting responsibility. Life’s easier that way.

Blame doesn’t just apply to things that happened in the past. Blame is most powerful (and crippling) when it prevents something from happening in the future:

I won’t be able to make it out there tomorrow. The traffic is just too crazy at that time.
I hate this job, but I don’t have time to learn a new trade.
I’d love to help you move, but with my bad back, I wouldn’t be very helpful.
There’s no way I’d ever start my own business in this economy. Besides, who needs all the government regulations and hassle?
It’s way too cold out there to go for a walk today.
I’d love to travel more, but there’s no way my boss would ever give me the time off.

How many times have you used blame to avoid doing something new, or something that could fail?

Blame is useful when it establishes a foundation for improvement. When it represents a first step toward identifying root causes that can be solved.

Beyond that, blame has very little value, except stroking our ego (and keeping us nice and warm in our cacoon of status quo).

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Time For a Reboot?

Reboots aren’t only applicable to technology problems…

I learned a truism about computers back in the late-80’s:

More than 50% of the time, a computer problem can be overcome by merely rebooting the machine

Sometimes this means pressing a specific keystroke combination. Other times it means simply unplugging the machine from the wall, and then plugging it in again.

Fast-forward nearly forty years, and the old “reboot method” is still effective at least 50% of the time.

Reboots aren’t only applicable to technology problems.

Unplugging from a problem or challenge, even for a short period of time, can shed light on a new set of perspectives. And, guess what…about 50% of the time, one of those new perspectives will hold the key to overcoming your “unsolvable” problem.

Rebooting doesn’t only mean disconnecting. It can also mean purposely switching up your approach, assigning new team members, changing up the words you use to describe the problem, or putting the issue into a “timeout,” so you can work on something else for a while.

Rebooting may mean taking that vacation you’ve been promising yourself and your family. You tell yourself there’s no time for a vacation. No time to disconnect.

Wrongo!

Denying yourself the opportunity to temporarily disconnect is denying yourself access to your most creative idea flow. The flow that comes from freeing your mind, even briefly, from your day-to-day tasks.

There’s a ton of power in the reboot, the restart, and the disconnect.

The answers to your most unsolvable problems lie on the other side of that reboot you’ve been avoiding (at least 50% of the time, of course).

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

Come on in, the water’s warm!

Back in the day, we used to grab our boogie boards and take the bus down to Seal Beach (in California). It cost 25 cents each way. Perfect for a budget-minded 6^th grader and his buddies.

Side note: nobody thought it was the least bit strange for a bunch of 6^th and 7^th graders to go to the beach on a public bus without their parents…my how times have changed in 40 years.

That first step into the waves was always the coldest. It never failed that a wave would break right on shore, just as we were trying to slowly enter the water.

We always knew that the moment the water hit our stomachs, we might as well just dive in and swim out through the waves.

Within about thirty seconds, we were used to the water temperature. We didn’t think about it for the rest of the day. All we were thinking about was catching the next wave and buying a hot dog and a Coke for something like a dollar at lunch time.

We humans have an incredible ability to adapt. Sure, we feel the shock of a new challenge deep in our gut at first. We’ll wonder how in the world we’re going to deal with this new set of problems. But, give us a little time, and we have what it takes to not only adapt, but to overcome.

The only question is whether we choose to adapt.

It’s our choice.

We decide whether we’ll dive into the cold waves and paddle out, or retreat to the warm safety of the beach.

The beach may be safe, but the waves we’re trying to catch are out in the water.

Time to dive in and start paddling.

Photo Credit: That’s our grandson, Charlie. He’s riding his first wave on a boogie board, at Beach 69 on the Big Island, a few weeks ago. He turns 4 this weekend. Cowabunga, Charlie!

Why the 90-Day Rule is So Powerful

With the advent of the internet, and then smartphones, we’re able to access the outside world on-demand from just about anywhere. The flipside is that the outside world can access each of us just as easily.

Friends and colleagues can send us an email or text at any time. They can use a selection of apps to “ping” us from across the world with information, photos, articles, or project status updates.

And, although rare these days, people can even call us on our smartphone…trust me, it still happens.

In all these instances, the expectation is that we’ll be fully accessible, and ready to respond immediately to any and all issues, questions, or opportunities that come our way.

An immediate-response, immediate-judgment, immediate-decision-making model of interaction is the new norm. We train our brains to quickly scan complex situations with the goal of rendering snap decisions that we can provide as part of our response(s).

There’s just one problem: creating this speedy-response capability eliminates the one thing that many decisions (especially complex and long-term decisions) require: TIME

Time and space are exactly what we need to make our most effective decisions.

Time to absorb information at our own pace.

Time to immerse ourselves in a new situation before being forced to judge it or make decisions about it.

Consider the person who gets a new job. This new job is going to be amazing. It’s what they want to do, and it pays a lot more than their last job.

It’s normal to visualize all the ways to be successful in the new job. It’s normal to think of how to spend the new-found money.

It’s also normal that once the work starts, the new job won’t be as amazing as it seemed. After the first week, the job and the people at the new job may seem like a nightmare.

Or, the new job is as amazing as it appeared and the people are awesome. But the work is highly technical and challenging. Doubts can creep in about whether it’s a good skill set fit.

The truth is, in the first week (even the first month) of new things like jobs, relationships, or workout routines, we don’t know enough to judge. We may think we know. We don’t.

This is where the power of the “90-Day Rule” shows itself. What is the 90-Day Rule? It’s something I made up that says for the next 90 days, I’ll immerse myself in the new thing (job, workout routine, etc.) without any preconceived judgment, without any pressure to decide, and without any thoughts about alternatives.

If I’ve decided to do this new thing (after days, weeks, months, sometimes years of contemplation), I’m going to give it at least 90 days before judging it.

In the new job example, consider how freeing a 90-day moratorium on judgment will be. You’re not judging the new people. You’re not judging the new company. You’re not judging your ability to perform in the new job. You’re not even judging the commute.

No judgments means you can focus on what it takes to be as successful as possible in the new job. All the energy you would have focused on making judgments and other distracting decisions is channeled fully into the most valuable tasks.

What about all that new money you’re earning at this new job? What if you give yourself 90 days before spending it on all that new stuff? Have a nice dinner to celebrate the start, and then wait 90 days. You’ll have plenty of time to spend all this new money on the 91^st day. What’s your hurry?

When was the last time you gave anything 90 minutes before passing judgment? It’s time to give important decisions at least 90 days before passing judgment.

You’ve decided on this course of action. Let it play out. Give it room. Let it breathe. See where it goes.

Give yourself the power of time.

Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash

What We Don’t Know

What do I know? I know that I don’t know much, even though I know a lot.

Consider everything you know…

All the things you’ve learned since you were born.

All the things you’ve forgotten…in the last five years.

The capital of Vermont. Montpelier. I remember that one from 5^th grade, even though I’ve never been to Vermont or Montpelier. I like the way it sounds, and the word Montpelier always makes me think of potato peelers.

“I” always comes before “E,” except after “C” and in weird words like weird.

Over ninety-eight percent of the population of Australia lives within 25 miles of the country’s coastline. I learned that from a tour guide. I assume it’s true.

Now, consider everything you don’t know.

Like, how to sew. Or, how to find top dead center on a Volkswagen engine. What about the method for calculating the orbital decay of a satellite? The percentage of nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere?

How about the exact weather forecast for a month from now? What your customers will want or need or expect one year, two years, five years from now? The truth is, they probably don’t know either.

I’d venture to say that what we don’t know is “Infinity minus One” larger than what we do know. Sounds hopeless.

But it’s the unknowns that make our little journey interesting. Discovering the secrets of an unknown is the reward for our curiosity.

How does cruise control work?

How and when did someone decide it was a good idea to pick certain red berries, dry them in the sun, then put them over a fire for just the right amount of time (whatever that is), then grind up what’s left and run hot water over it to make coffee?

Where does castor oil come from?

Curiosity and the humility to admit our ignorance, in pursuit of new knowledge is the key to learning.

Understanding that our decisions will never have the luxury of complete or perfect knowledge. We’ll never know everything before making the decision.

In fact, taking that risk and making the (uninformed) decision is another way we learn. If our decision is wrong, we learn from it (hopefully) and make a new decision that is less wrong.

Knowledge is power, and ignorance is bliss. Both are right.

But I believe ignorance can have more power. The power to try. The power to seek. The power to chase the unknown.

What do I know? I know that I don’t know much, even though I know a lot.

Knowing that I don’t know drives me to ask the dumb question(s), to search for answers, to seek the unknown, to leap, to discover, to practice, and most of all, to never stop learning.

Photo by Raj Eiamworakul on Unsplash