i know nothing

Give some thought to all the people who have achieved something great, only to quickly fade into obscurity. I’m sure you can think of a few, whether they’re entertainers or business people or athletes. 

In my career I’ve coached many “successful” people who came to me because their lives had gone flat, and they had become uninspired and tepid. What happened? For many of them, they got comfortable. For years, they had pushed their comfort zones to get where they wanted to be. But as soon as they chose certainty over uncertainty, they stopped achieving. They hit the wall.

Why does it happen? Because when you’ve accomplished one of your goals, when you’re rich and successful, the future naturally seems a little more certain. I’m sure we’d all feel a little more secure with a million bucks or so in the bank.

But that mindset shift is exactly what creates the environment for our ultimate undoing. When we’re no longer uncertain about money, the desire – the need even – to pursue it recedes. When we’re no longer uncertain about success, our ambition can blunt or mellow. We get to wallow in our bloated illusion of certainty. Eventually we get to do that thing called “settle.” We settle for certainty. 

That’s the kind of power that uncertainty has in our lives. It can make us or break us. It can make us rich or make us poor. It can be the key to our success or drive us in the other direction. 

For many people, it ends up being both. 

The funny thing is, no matter how much you chase certainty, you’ll never really be able to hold it or retain it. That’s because it doesn’t exist. The universe will always send us little reminders of its chaos and power, and no one is exempt from the prompting. 

Nothing is certain. You could go to sleep tonight and never wake up. You could get in your car and never make it to work. Certainty is a complete illusion. Voodoo.

Some of you might find this terrible to think about, but it’s true. No matter how hard we may try, we can never predict exactly what life will bring. Our plans will falter at some point eventually. 

By running from uncertainty in search of certainty, we’re actually rejecting the one thing in life that is guaranteed in favor of something that’s nothing more than a fantasy. 

“All I know,” Socrates once said, “is that I know nothing.” Many wise people understand this. In fact, they owe their wisdom to that very realization – that they don’t actually know a damn thing.

Because when we think we know everything, we inadvertently turn ourselves away from the unknown and, by default, whole new realms of success. The person who accepts how unpredictable and uncertain life is has no choice but to embrace it.

They’re not afraid of the uncertain; it’s just a part of life. They don’t seek out certainty because they know it doesn’t really exist. They are also the kind of people who are aware of and open to the real magic and miracles of life and what can be accomplished.

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.103-106

root-cause mind-sets

Mind-sets ingrained by past management practices remain ingrained far beyond the existence of the practices that formed them, even when new management practices have been put in place.

Here are three business examples that underscore the perils of ignoring this lesson. Example one: a bank that identified how its high performers succeeded in cross-selling decided to roll out a change program with support scripts and good profiling questions for the other bankers to use—and was dismayed to find that these moves had a negligible impact on sales. A second example: a telco introduced a dramatically simplified process and rating system for performance reviews only to find that its leaders still avoided delivering tough messages. Finally: a manufacturer invested hundreds of millions in a knowledge-management technology platform meant to discourage hoarding and encourage collaboration—only to declare, several months later, that the system had been a complete failure.

In all these examples, the companies did a good job of recognizing the behavioral change needed to achieve the desired goals. Yet they didn’t take the time, or use the tools available, to understand why smart, hard-working, and well-intentioned employees continued to behave as before.

At the bank, for instance, two seemingly good but ultimately performance-limiting mind-sets accounted for the failure of the new sales-stimulation tools and training. The first was “my job is to give the customers what they want”; the second, “I should follow the Golden Rule and treat my customers as I would like to be treated.” At the telco, employees had a deep-seated, reasonable-sounding belief that “criticism damages relationships.” At the manufacturing company, people had an underlying conviction that “around here, information is power, and good leaders are powerful leaders.”

The upshot? By looking at—and acting on—only observable behavior, company leaders overlooked its underlying root causes. Consequently, the change efforts of all three organizations led to disappointment.

Once the root-cause mind-sets are identified, the next step is to reframe those beliefs and thereby expand the range of reasonable behavioral choices employees make, day in and day out. That creates the caterpillar-to-butterfly effect described earlier. Would different beliefs, for example, have inspired expanded and better-informed behavioral choices for average-performing bankers? If so, which beliefs? Suppose they believed that their job—indeed, the way they add value for others—was to “help customers fully understand their needs” rather than “giving customers what they want.” Also, what if instead of applying the “Golden Rule,” bankers applied the “Platinum Rule”: treating others as they (rather than bankers) want to be treated.

And what if the telco executives, in their performance-management discussions, had believed that “honesty—combined with respect—doesn’t damage relationships; in fact, it is essential to building strong ones”? And what if the manufacturing managers had thought that “sharing information rather than hoarding is the best way to magnify power”? Had they believed that, the company very likely wouldn’t have needed an expensive (and ultimately futile) knowledge-management system to help employees reach out to one another and share best practices.

Beneath each of the reframes described above, it’s important to note, lies a deeper shift in worldview. For example, moving from the giving-customers-what-they-want mind-set to helping them fully understand what they really need reflects a move from subordinate to peer. Recognizing that honesty builds rather than destroys relationships reflects a shift from victimhood to mastery. And choosing to believe that power is expanded by sharing information, not that hoarding information is power, focuses on abundance, not scarcity.

"Getting personal about change," by Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger. McKinsey Quarterly. August 21, 2019. 

to attain wisdom

To attain knowledge add things every day. To attain wisdom subtract things every day.

Lao-tzu

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Crown/Archetype. 2020. p.185.

how we can be more helpful to others

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. You can use this material to blame just as well as you can use anything else. Merely knowing the material doesn't get you out of the box. Living it does. And we're not living it if we're using it to diagnose others. Rather, we're living it when we're using it to learn how we can be more helpful to others...

Knowing the material

• Self-betrayal leads to self-deception and "the box."
• When you're in the box, you can't focus on results.
• Your influence and success will depend on being out of the box.
• You get out of the box as you cease resisting other people.

Living the material

• Don't try to be perfect. Do try to be better.
• Don't use the vocabulary - "the box," and so on - with people who don't already know it. Do use the principles in your own life.
• Don't look for others' boxes. Do look for your own.
• Don't accuse others of being in the box. Do try to stay out of the box yourself.
• Don't give up on yourself when you discover you've been in the box. Do keep trying.
• Don't deny you've been in the box when you have been. Do apologize, then just keep marching forward, trying to be more helpful to others in the future. 
• Don't focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right to help.
• Don't worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.

Leadership and Self-deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute. Berrett-Koehler. 2002. p.165,166

a man with enthusiasm

I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm than a man who knows everything.

John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller on Making Money: Advice and Words of Wisdom on Building and Sharing Wealth. Skyhorse Publishing. 2015.  As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

knowledge shared

Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied. 

Robert Noyce

The Manager's Communication Handbook by David Cottrell. 2003. 

WD > WS

Monty Williams is a man of many sayings. Some of them, like, “Well done is better than well said,” have made it onto hats. Others sneak into his answers in press conferences (“Reps remove doubt”), and still more have been relayed to Suns players so often over the past two seasons that they show up in those players’ own responses (“Preparation meets opportunity”). But there are also some staples of Williams’s lexicon that don’t count as sayings, yet may be even more indicative of how he approaches both basketball and life.

If you watched Williams’s media appearances throughout the playoffs, you found that he has no problem saying “I don’t know” in response to a difficult question; he said it 17 times during the Finals alone. You also saw that when Williams is asked something that requires perspective, he will make sure to mention how “grateful” he is or how much “gratitude” he has to be in this position—he used those words in answers 18 times during the series, including when talking about how he still gets excited when he gets fresh gear.

Six of those 18 mentions came on Tuesday night, mere minutes after Williams’s Suns had lost Game 6 of the Finals—and an NBA championship—to the Milwaukee Bucks.

“It’s a blur for me right now,” Williams said, talking about the game’s fourth quarter. “I’m just thankful that God allowed me to be in this position to be the head coach in the Finals. It hurts badly, but I’m also grateful that we had this chance to play for a championship. I’m just grateful for that part.”

Paolo Uggetti

"The Suns’ Future Is Bright, As Long As They Have Monty Williams" The Ringer. July 22, 2021

A.D.K.A.R.

 

Awareness represents a person's understanding of the nature of change, why the change is being made and the risk of not changing. Awareness also includes information about the internal and external drivers that created the need for change, as well as "what's in it for me."

Desire represents the willingness to support and engage in a change. Desire is ultimately about personal choice, influenced by the nature of the change, by an individual's personal situation, as well as intrinsic motivators that are unique to each person.

Knowledge represents the information, training and education necessary to know how to change. Knowledge includes information about behaviors, processes, tools, systems, skills, job roles and techniques that are needed to implement a change. 

Ability represents the realization or execution of the change. Ability is turning knowledge into action. Ability is achieved when a person or group has demonstrated capability to implement the change at the required performance levels.

Reinforcement represents those internal and external factors that sustain a change. External reinforcements could include recognition, rewards and celebrations that are tied to the realization of the change. Internal reinforcements could be a person's internal satisfaction with his or her achievement or other benefits derived from the change on a personal level.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. 2006. Prosci Research. p.2,3

not knowing everything

Move and the way will open. – ZEN PROVERB

At the start of many important endeavors, you’ll often think: How can I do this? I don’t even know enough to begin. It’s a common excuse, and it’s often a mask for cowardice. When we say that we don’t know what to do, it’s often not information we’re lacking, but courage.

When we begin, we sometimes lack the skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out even the most basic tasks. Of course we do. If we had the experience we needed, we’d already be done.

Not knowing everything cannot be an excuse for not doing anything.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.39, 47 

the balance between giving and taking

Gauge the balance between giving and taking. Givers offer assistance, share knowledge, and focus on introducing and helping others. Takers attempt to get other people to do something that will ultimately benefit them, while they act as gatekeepers of their own knowledge.

[Adam] Grant’s conclusion is clear: a willingness to help others is not just the essence of effective cooperation and innovation — it is also the key to accelerating your own performance.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

roots and mission

While the young Springsteen honed his craft every night in bars on the Jersey Shore, he enjoyed his growing popularity but felt that something was missing. “Part of getting there,” the most elusive of all Springsteenian ideals, “is knowing what to do with what you have and knowing what to do with what you DON’T have,” he writes.

That Springsteen’s work never defines there might have helped fans give it the meaning they most wanted. For him, the book suggests, there is a combination of taking a stance, making it last, and having freedom to run. Holding on to what is precious without losing the open road. But if there is vague, one thing is clear: Getting there takes hard work. You can hone your craft and let purpose find you. But you can’t hone your purpose and hope that craft will find you.

And purpose is what he did not have, for many years — the drive that comes from knowing your work is meaningful to you and valuable to others. “By 1977,” he recalls, “in true American fashion, I’d escaped the shackles of birth, personal history and, finally, place, but something wasn’t right…. I sensed there was a great difference between personal license and real freedom…. I felt personal license was to freedom as masturbation was to sex.” It is a good reminder that purpose has a long gestation, and is borne of actions and encounters, not just ambition and doubts.

Within the next few years, a major shift in Springsteen’s relationship to his work occurred. “By the end of the River tour,” he writes, “I thought perhaps mapping…the distance between the American dream and American reality might be my service, one I could provide that would accompany the entertainment and the good times I brought my fans. I hoped it might give roots and mission to our band.”

That is what purpose does. It gives a craft its roots and mission, a story to remember and imagine, a place to go from. Springsteen grasps the distinction between the work his music has to do, getting people turned on in Jersey bars or big arenas around the world, and its purpose — keeping the American dream alive — and never lets it go.

Purpose gives sense and direction to a working life spent on the road but, Springsteen’s story cautions, does not spare you torment. There is plenty throughout his life and work: the torment of depression, a struggle with his inner demons; the torment of talent, a struggle with the sense that he could always do more; the torment of service, a struggle with shouldering others’ pain. If he often fails to make sense of that torment, at least he succeeds in making use of it.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017

every battle is won before it is fought

"The only sign we have in the locker room is from 'The Art of War.' 'Every battle is won before it is fought,'" says Belichick, who started breaking down films of opposing teams when he was 7 years old and hanging out with his dad, Steve, an assistant coach at Annapolis.

"You [have to] know what the opponents can do, what their strengths and weaknesses are ... [and] what to do in every situation," he says.

That ability — to adapt on a dime — is why Belichick says he spends so much time building teamwork, from having the team train with Navy SEALs, to organizing trivia nights, where, incidentally, all social media is banned.

"Nobody is against [social media] more than I am. I can't stand it," Belichick says. "I think it's important for us, as a team, to know each other. Know our teammates and our coaches. To interact with them is more important than to be 'liked' by whoever on Chatrun." (In the same conversation, he also derided "InstaFace" in all seriousness.)

Suzy Welch
"Bill Belichick reveals his 5 rules of exceptional leadership" CNBC. 4/13/2107

look, look, look

Most unorthodox of all, and crucial as time would tell, was his [Louis Agassiz's] manner of teaching. He intended, he said, to teach students to see - to observe and compare - and he intended to put the burden of study on them. Probably he never said what he is best known for, "Study nature, not books," or not in those exact words. But such certainly was the essence of his creed, and for his students the idea was firmly implanted by what they would afterward refer to as "the incident of the fish."

His initial interview at an end, Agassiz would ask the student when he would like to begin. If the answer was now, the student was immediately presented with a dead fish, usually a very long dead, pickled, evil-smelling specimen - personally selected by "the master" from one of the wide-mouthed jars that lined his shelves. The fish was placed before the student in a tin pan. He was to look at the fish, the student was told, whereupon Agassiz would leave, not to return until later in the day, if at all.

Samuel Scudder, one of the many from the school who would go on to do important work of their own (his in entomology), described the experience as one of life's turning points.

In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish.... Half an hour passed - an hour - another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face - ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at three-quarters view - just as ghastly. I was in despair.

I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fist it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me - I would draw the fish, and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature.

When Agassiz returned later and listened to Scudder recount what he had observed, his only comment was that the young man must look again.

I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another... The afternoon passed quickly; and when, toward its close, the professor: "Do you see it yet?"

"No," I replied, "I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before."

The day following, having thought of the fish through most of the night, Scudder had a brainstorm. The fish, he announced to Agassiz, had symmetrical sides with paired organs.

"Of course, of course!" Agassiz replied, "Oh, look at your fish!"

In Scudder's case the lesson lasted a full three days. "Look, look, look." was the repeated injunction and the best lesson he ever had, Scudder recalled, "a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part."

The way to all learning, "the backbone of education," was to know something well. "A smattering of everything is worth little," He would insist in the heavy French accent that he was never to lose. "Facts are stupid things, until brought into conjunction with some general law." It was a great and common fallacy to suppose that an encyclopedic mind is desirable. The mind was made strong not though much learning but by "the thorough possession of something." In other words, "Look at your fish."

David McCullough

Brave Companions: Portraits In History. Simon and Schuster, 1992. p. 25, 26

I don't know

Have the courage to say I don't know.

Louis Agassiz

Brave companions: portraits in history by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 1992. p. 35

mapping the coast of the island of knowledge

Michael Smithson, a social scientist at Australian National University who co-taught an online course on ignorance this summer, uses this analogy: The larger the island of knowledge grows, the longer the shoreline — where knowledge meets ignorance — extends. The more we know, the more we can ask. Questions don’t give way to answers so much as the two proliferate together. Answers breed questions. Curiosity isn’t merely a static disposition but rather a passion of the mind that is ceaselessly earned and nurtured.

Mapping the coast of the island of knowledge, to continue the metaphor, requires a grasp of the psychology of ambiguity. The ever-expanding shoreline, where questions are born of answers, is terrain characterized by vague and conflicting information. The resulting state of uncertainty, psychologists have shown, intensifies our emotions: not only exhilaration and surprise, but also confusion and frustration.

The borderland between known and unknown is also where we strive against our preconceptions to acknowledge and investigate anomalous data, a struggle Thomas S. Kuhn described in his 1962 classic, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” The center of the island, by contrast, is safe and comforting, which may explain why businesses struggle to stay innovative. When things go well, companies “drop out of learning mode,” Gary P. Pisano, a professor at Harvard Business School, told me. They flee uncertainty and head for the island’s interior.

Jamie Holmes

"The Case for Teaching Ignorance" The New York Times. 8/24/2015

ignorance

In the mid-1980s, a University of Arizona surgery professor, Marlys H. Witte, proposed teaching a class entitled “Introduction to Medical and Other Ignorance.” Her idea was not well received; at one foundation, an official told her he would rather resign than support a class on ignorance.

Dr. Witte was urged to alter the name of the course, but she wouldn’t budge. Far too often, she believed, teachers fail to emphasize how much about a given topic is unknown. “Textbooks spend 8 to 10 pages on pancreatic cancer,” she said some years later, “without ever telling the student that we just don’t know very much about it.” She wanted her students to recognize the limits of knowledge and to appreciate that questions often deserve as much attention as answers. Eventually, the American Medical Association funded the class, which students would fondly remember as “Ignorance 101.”

Classes like hers remain rare, but in recent years scholars have made a convincing case that focusing on uncertainty can foster latent curiosity, while emphasizing clarity can convey a warped understanding of knowledge.

In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist, Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. (He suspected that a 1,414-page textbook may have been culpable.)

As he argued in his 2012 book “Ignorance: How It Drives Science,” many scientific facts simply aren’t solid and immutable, but are instead destined to be vigorously challenged and revised by successive generations. Discovery is not the neat and linear process many students imagine, but usually involves, in Dr. Firestein’s phrasing, “feeling around in dark rooms, bumping into unidentifiable things, looking for barely perceptible phantoms.” By inviting scientists of various specialties to teach his students about what truly excited them — not cold hard facts but intriguing ambiguities — Dr. Firestein sought to rebalance the scales.

Presenting ignorance as less extensive than it is, knowledge as more solid and more stable, and discovery as neater also leads students to misunderstand the interplay between answers and questions.

People tend to think of not knowing as something to be wiped out or overcome, as if ignorance were simply the absence of knowledge. But answers don’t merely resolve questions; they provoke new ones.

Jamie Holmes

"The Case for Teaching Ignorance" The New York Times. 8/24/2015

challenge your certainty

Our beliefs and assumptions are skewed by personal biases and not to be fully trusted. Often they haven't been tested or revised based upon new information. They reflect partial knowledge and are only partially wise. Resist acting instinctively on your beliefs and assumptions, and open your mind to the subject's potential complexity. Before registering your opinion, enter into a state of not knowing. Zen Buddhists call this the "beginner's mind." Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Immunity to Change, Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009) would describe this as moving from the "self-authorizing mind" to the "self-transforming mind." 

Once you learn to distrust yourself, it's easier to trust others. The goal isn't to locate the most trustworthy or least fallible individual and hand all decision-making to this person; the goal is to share the load and get everyone to feel ownership in the organization's direction and operations. This doesn't mean that everyone should participate in every decision, but decision-making needs to be more evenly distributed. 

Gary B. Cohen

"Leadership: How to Ask the Right Questions" Bloomberg Business. 9/29/2009

make room for what they do not know

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know – not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.