Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Working Matters

  • Quote to Consider: Always Learning

    quote-to-consider“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”

    Socrates

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> What the Dog Saw #9: The Picture Problem

    thought-leadersDo my eyes deceive me? Can my eyes deceive me? Of course not, it’s right there in the picture!

    The observation that we often put too much faith in pictures is fascinating. We assume seeing more and more clearly is always better.

    What-the-Dog-Saw

    We trust our eyes. We trust our eyes more than our other senses. We trust our eyes to the extent that we are willing to suspend our brain’s ability to discriminate and discern.

    In this week’s chapter, “The Picture Problem,” Gladwell raises this interesting conundrum with his looks at mammography and satellite imagery.

    This issue has to do with context. Interpreting a picture out of context, no matter how clear the image, is a risky and uncertain effort. Is the human shadow falling across your picture there because the sun in behind the photographer’s back or because a predator is sneaking up on you? The picture of the shadow can’t answer the question.

    What’s interesting about this chapter is that our tendency is actually the opposite. If we have a clear picture, our confidence in our interpretation increases when it might need to decrease. Instead of asking more questions we ask less, shutting down vital inquiry when the conclusion seems so obvious because we saw a single thing clearly.

    Pictures have value. Great value. But beware if they result in a willingness to think less instead of more, to jump to conclusions earlier than later, or to make the complex seem simple.

    Where do you find yourself prematurely jumping to conclusions merely because you saw something? What was your main take-away from this chapter?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Loving Monday: Threat or Promise?

    loving_mondayHurtling westbound on the Santa Monica Freeway my daughter and I had an unexpected view fill our horizon this morning. Storm clouds and a rainbow.

    Living in sunny Southern California, rain storms are always half blessing half nuisance events that you usually can count on your fingers.

    To look out over the ocean and see both storm clouds and a rainbow was an unusual treat.

    Threat and promise at the same moment. Would the storm make its way inland and vent its pent up fury on us? Or was the rainbow a harbinger of what would become the sun’s ultimate triumph?

    Perception is a powerful tool. Whether we see the threat or promise in any given circumstance depends largely on the eyes we have chosen to wear that day.

    What sort of eyes did you put on this morning?

    Monday is the perfect opportunity to be as intentional about what eyes we will look through as we are about what clothes we will wear.

    Threat or promise? Danger or opportunity? Fear or hope? Not all circumstances, of course, fall so neatly at one end of the spectrum or the other. Most circumstances are ambiguous, or neutral, or a raw mix of complexities.

    We run into trouble when we unthinkingly assume that we interpret correctly, when, in fact, we are merely looking through either rose-colored or gloom-shrouded glasses.

    The danger runs both directions. We can be needlessly cautious, seeing danger around every corner, and, as a result, miss out on key opportunities. We can also be naively hopeful, and wait patiently for an opportunity that will never materialize, in spite of what we’ve been promised.

    This Monday, take an intentional and conscious look at what glasses you’ve put on. Through what interpretive lens will you be experiencing the day? What adjustments might be wise to make? What other “glasses” can you try on?

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Quote to Consider: Aspirations as Inspiration

    quote-to-consider“Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”

    Louisa May Alcott

  • Choosing to Show Up… Showing Up Engaged

    bored-at-workNo matter how powerless you feel at work. No matter how little power you actually wield. You always have control over how you show up.

    You can wield this “power” in a childish manner. Resentfully drag your feet and do the bare minimum at the last minute and only when asked for the umpteenth time. In other words, barely show up at all. As powerful as it feels to “stick it to the man” in this way, you end up diminished as a result as well. In other words, you’re only hurting yourself.

    Do yourself a favor and choose to show up engaged no matter what’s going on at work. Even for the most ungrateful supervisor, show up engaged. Even for the most uncooperative team members, show up engaged. Even for the most toxic of work cultures, show up engaged.

    You don’t have to keep working here—in fact, you should probably be looking for a change if you’re in an unhealthy situation—but while you are here, (more…)

  • Listen In -> Good Leaders in Bad Times #5: Creating a Culture That Get Results

    One of our recent Questions of the Week was, “What disincentives to taking the initiative would a visitor observe in our company?” (Watch it here.)

    As we conclude our audio series on Good Leaders in Bad Times, we take a look at the workplace as a cultural system. (Our passion, I know. It might be risky to listen this week.)

    We are all familiar with the workaholic workplace culture. We know the fear-driven cultures, the cultures of panic, and the cultures of boredom. We know the workplaces where everyone wears masks of competence and works in splendid isolation as a result.

    We know the cultures of finger-pointing and blame-shifting. We know the workplaces that are always running at 100 mph, the ones who are always a day late and a dollar short, and those which have so many rules no one can use their judgment in making a decision.

    But what about a culture of results? What if, in the very fabric of how you went about your days, how you communicated with each other, and how you approached complex and difficult issues, you created a culture of getting results?

    What if?

    Listen in.

  • Loving Monday: Verdict on a Rainy Day

    loving_mondayI hate the rain.

    Grey skies and rain-drenched highways evoke a spectrum of responses as we roll out of bed to begin another week of work.

    For some, including me, dreariness and traffic jams fill the imagination before we even get out the door.

    For others, thankfulness for the nourishing and cleansing water covering our desert metropolis fills our hearts, and we smile.

    It’s a matter of perspective. Same circumstance. Radically different experiences of it.

    Particularly powerful, though, is to realize that you get to choose what perspective you adopt each morning.

    Given that it’s Monday morning, and we’re trying to get our weeks off to a good start, I’d venture that anything we can do to read refreshment and gratitude into the precipitation would help set the brighter, more constructive tone we want for the busy week ahead.

    How aware are you of the perspective with which you interpret circumstances? Do you even realize that you are making a choice when you interpret circumstance as positive, negative or somewhere in between?

    Try an experiment with me. Next time something out of the ordinary happens: like a change in weather, a deadline change, an irritable client, an absent co-worker. Try noting your initial reaction. Then write down three other possible interpretations of the same set of circumstances.

    Now take another look at your original reaction. The choice is yours, and you are, in fact, making a choice. Will you stay with your original interpretation of the circumstance or will you choose to adjust it?

    The choice is yours. You have more power in how you experience of what happens around you than you think.

    I‘m still not particularly fond of rain, but I choose to be grateful for its gift of life and appreciate the clean skies that will result. My week is off to a much better start.

    What about yours?

  • Quote to Consider: To What End?

    quote-to-consider“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> What the Dog Saw #8: Million-Dollar Murray

    thought-leadersWhat if the choice were between solving a costly problem and staying true to one’s principles?

    In other words, what if staying true to one’s principles actually perpetuated a situation where complex and intractable social problems were merely soothed without being solved.

    What-the-Dog-SawSuch is the fascinating observation Malcolm Gladwell makes in this week’s chapter about Murray.

    Yes, it is interesting that most of the costs related to homelessness are concentrated in a relatively small number of chronic cases.

    But absolutely spell-binding is the insight that those on both the political right and left cannot hear this fact because it violates their principles at too core a level.

    If the bulk of the costs of homelessness could be eliminated by focusing the aid resources on the few complex and intractable cases, those on the right would object because those people don’t deserve so much help, and those on the left would object because the distribution of aid would not be fair.

    As a result, almost no group of policy-makers or activists will ever choose the route that might actually solve homelessness. Being true to their respective principles will result in aid efforts that actually perpetuate homelessness.

    Ironic, wouldn’t you say? Maybe even tragic. In any case, extremely expensive.

    What was your main take-away from this chapter? Where do you stand on the solution-first versus principles-first spectrum?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • American Idol Savvy: Knowing Who You Are

    Idol“You don’t know who you are as an artist.” “You’ve lost your way.”

    Criticism, advice and other forms of feedback are received differently by those who “know who they are” and those who don’t.

    I’m not referring to those who blow off all feedback in order to prove that they are their own best judge. People who don’t listen to feedback are insecure fools merely masquerading as the confident and accomplished.

    Each Idol contestant receives a variety of feedback each week. Criticisms about what didn’t work. Suggestions for improvement. Challenges to stretch or try something new.

    Those who “don’t know who they are” put on the advice like trying on a new costume or mask. As a result their next performances don’t work either. You can tell the “costume” doesn’t fit, and that they clearly are not comfortable wearing it.

    Those who are more comfortable with who they are receive the advice and make it their own. In order to listen carefully these contestants don’t need to adopt indiscriminately.

    It’s the difference between squeezing into a mold, which assumes the mold is the standard and you are what doesn’t quite fit until you incorporate all the given advice, on the one hand. And enhancing your appearance with some make-up and fashion accessories, which assumes that you are the standard and the advice will help you become an even better you, on the other hand.

    How do you receive advice from your elders, mentors, supervisors and others who have words of wisdom they wish to give you? Do you tend toward the extremes: either rejecting all input or conforming to all input?

    How might you listen more carefully without needing to adopt indiscriminately?