Albert Einstein

The powerful leader willingly gives from their power

The powerful leader willingly gives from their power

Even the most powerful was once powerless.  When we are born, we rely completely on others for support.  As we grow in strength and ability, we become more independent – but even this comes from receiving from others in some measure.  It is only when we look back at where we were and where we are that we understand our power came from others before us.  This should remind us to give back in the measure that we received.  

“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ―Albert Einstein

Multiply your impact.  Leaving your mark on the world is a desire that we all share.  The farthest reaching impact anyone can achieve comes not from what is personally accomplished but in the multiplicative effect of helping others succeed.  To grow your impact, you must spread your influence through others.  Invest your time in activities that plant the seeds of success far and wide.

 “Power is strength; and giving that strength to others. A leader is someone willing to give their strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”  –Beth Revis

Success is all about loving what you do.  Life passes by so quickly we should seek to enjoy every moment.  The greatest achievements come from seeing others accomplish their goals and knowing that you had some small part in helping them realize their potential.

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” Robin Sharma

How to read the signs.

How to read the signs.

Making a decision isn’t always easy.  There are times we can take too long because we want to be sure that we have analyzed everything. Albert Einstein pointed out the fallacy in thinking we can be so sure, “Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts.” So, what’s the answer?  How do you know what matters? How do you make quick decisions? How do you read the signs?

A heuristic is a general assumption based on practical experience and not based on observed scientific evidence at the moment.  The word heuristic comes from the Greek word heuriskein which means “to discover.”  Heuristics are useful in situations where detailed measurements and research are either unavailable or not practical given the time constraints, or when less precision is acceptable.  Reading the signs is how experts quickly decide. Realizing that heuristics won’t always give the right answer, sometimes the decision will be to do more research, but even that decision can be made quickly with heuristics.

The game of baseball is an area where heuristics come into play. Major league batters have just about 100 milliseconds to analyze the pitcher and the pitch to decide if they should swing. What can a batter actually see in 100 milliseconds?  The seams, spin, and trajectory can be signs of what pitch is coming.  There may also be signs from the pitcher directly like the height of the hands or the speed of the release that indicate a certain pitch.  From years of experience batters can read these signs.  What isn’t happening in the first 100 milliseconds is a physics calculation to determine where and when the ball will come across the plate.

Another example of this would be the phrase “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.” From experience, weather observers understand that these signs are generally reliable indicators of weather patterns.  Getting one step closer to the detailed weather predictions is the fact that a red sky at night indicates a sky filled with dust which means a high-pressure zone is in the atmosphere and good weather should follow.  A red sky in the morning means that water is in the air and rain will be coming. This heuristic is just an educated assumption and more sophisticated weather models can predict this with much more accuracy, but it’s a fair, quick gauge.

Heuristics can be used for that quick review and analysis of the limited facts in a limited timeframe to make an informed decision.  There is a balance between knowing everything and knowing enough to make a decision.  Your ability to quickly decide comes from reading the signs; and that comes from study, experience, and asking the right questions. 

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee

Here’s what you can do to develop your ability to read the signs:

Study – Michelangelo, the artist who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the sculptor who brought the statue of David to life; and the architect who designed the dome of St. Peters Basilica. When speaking of the creation of his works of art said, “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”  He studied his craft that allowed him to read the signs described as his ability to, “See the angel in the marble and carve until I set him free.”  

If you want to develop your ability to read the signs, seek out all opportunities to learn. Read books, participate in mentoring relationships, attend seminars. Fill your mind with examples of success.

Experience – William Osler, one of the founding doctors of John Hopkins who created the first residency program and instituted bedside clinical training with classroom studies, said of experience, “The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.”  Osler agreed that the study of medicine was an important part of learning, but added the need to experience medicine to be able to read the signs, “He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.”

If you want to develop your ability to read the signs, seek out all opportunities to practice. Volunteer for new projects, try out what you have learned, review the outcomes and try again.

Ask – Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, best-selling author and sought-after speaker.  He discussed the importance of being able to ask good questions in this quote, “My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus the other.” Asking the right questions will help you read the signs.

If you want to develop your ability to read the signs, seek out all opportunities to ask questions.

A few questions you should ask to narrow in on the decision are: What do I have to believe for this to be true?  What options have been considered? What is the downside of not getting this right?  

Solve the big problems

Analysis paralysis is one way of describing the inability to decide because every detail is not fully known and understood. This is not, however, an excuse to avoid solving big problems. Don’t default to the belief that there must be a difficult solution for what seems to be a difficult problem. There are answers for even the hardest questions, they just have not been discovered yet and are likely simpler than you can imagine. 

First you have to be willing to take on the challenge.  Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for his simple explanations for such topics as the big bang, the speed of light, general relativity and dark matter, to name a few.  He obviously didn’t shy away from difficult topics and has said, “The most creative people are motivated by the grandest of problems that are presented before them.”  You must be willing to challenge yourself to take on the big problems with the goal of find the simple anwswer.

Second you must find the solution to the right problem.   Difficulty often arises in big problems when the problem itself is incorrectly defined.  Solving a symptom of the problem will not ultimately solve the real problem itself.  Albert Einstein said, “The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution.”   He went on to state how he solves the big problems and not fall prey to analysis paralysis, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” 

Lastly you must recognize that perfection equals simplicity.  Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was known for solving the most difficult cases.  In discussing his method for making the outcome look simple, Holmes replied, “If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”Ask yourself what you need to believe for the hypothesis to be correct.  If that is not reasonable than it isn’t the right answer.

Service as Success

You don’t hire people to work for you, you hire people so you can work for them.  Your job as a leader is to help people succeed.  In his book, The Stuff of Heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership, William Cohen said, “Helping your employees is as important as, and many times more so than, trying to get the most work out of them.” 

You start with service. The basis for your actions as a leader should be the service you are providing to your team.  What are you doing to help them succeed? That is the number one question.

“It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service.” ― Albert Einstein

You will get to know yourself through your service.  Helping other succeed causes us to dig deep into our knowledge and abilities.  Pulling from all you can to provide the best individual service to each person will hone your skills and perhaps lead you to solutions you might never have otherwise seen. 

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Your success is defined by the success of those you serve. Leaders like to win, so how do you keep score in the area of service?  Simple, it’s the success of those you serve.  Their success is your success.

“True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader.” ― John C. Maxwell

Don’t take the simple answer, take the simplest answer.

If you want the right answer to a given question or hypothesis, it is may not be the first one you come upon.  It is likely not one which is just simple, but it should be the simplest.  This means that in order to select the right answer you may need to look more than once to see all the potential answers clearly so that the simplest can be chosen.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein 

The most well-known version of taking the simplest answer is called Occam’s razor.  Named after William of Occam, a 14th century philosopher, it states generally that within a number of explanations for a set of facts, the one that is the simplest is preferred.  Occam’s razor is also known as “lex parsimoniae,” Latin for the Law of Parsimony. This idea is not just a philosophical notion.  In science, the Parsimony Principle says choose the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence. In statistical modeling, a Parsimonious Model is said to use the simplest model with the least assumptions and variables but with the greatest explanatory power.

Finding the simplest answer among the possible answers is good advice for every choice we make.  Here are three simple steps to find the simplest answer:

Expand your choices. When facing the need to make a decision, ensure that the relevant facts are known.  Don’t make decisions based on limited knowledge which will lead to the simple answer.  Instead, dig deeper to see what may not be immediately evident.  Challenge the limited assumptions.  Ask questions like, “If this assumption isn’t right, what else could be driving this outcome?”

Ask the experts.  It’s likely that there is someone who has at least attempted to solve the same question, if not one that is similar.  If you can, ask them personally to share their views.  If not personally, then read or listen to, what they have said on the topic.

Examine your choices. Now that there are multiple possible answers, they need to be analyzed to further understand the impact of each one being the right.   Challenge the many assumptions, “If this is true in this situation, what does that mean in another situation?”  Or, “If this is true at this point, what must also be true to support it?”

From these questions, the assumptions needed to support each answer will be known and can be compared.

Extract your one choice.  At this point, there are several potential answers with multiple assumptions for each.  Challenge the many answers, “What do I have to believe in order for this answer to be the one I choose?”

From this exercise you will settle in on the one that has the simplest assumptions.   And that is your answer.

 

What to do with an unsolvable problem.

Too many times people face problems that they deem unsolvable. They stop trying to solve the problem by saying, “It is what it is.”

But is it?

An unsolvable problem is really just a problem where the solution has not yet been identified.

Why do some people solve enormous problems while others give up? According to Bill Hybels, “Visionary people face the same problems everyone else faces; but rather than get paralyzed by their problems, visionaries immediately commit themselves to finding a solution.”

Here are the steps that will help you solve those unsolvable problems:

Re-Group. Just because you can’t see the answer to a problem doesn’t mean the answer isn’t already there. The odds are that someone, somewhere, has faced the same problem and at least stumbled upon the answer. Trust that you will find it, somewhere else, if you look.

“If you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world, or in the room, you’ve got real problems.” – Jack Welch

Re-Grip. Prepare yourself to hang on long enough to find that solution. Look around you. Where are other successes happening? Who is having those successes? How are they having those successes? Select from the many choices you will find and take hold of what will work for your problem.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”- Albert Einstein

Re-Commit. Now that you have decided to solve the unsolvable problem, and you chose the right solution, commit to give it all you’ve got.

“It’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” – Mario Andretti

The best answers are often questions

the-right-questionSometimes easy answers are just too easy, and aren’t the best answers. Often the best answers are questions that force us to dig deeper into the issue. Good questions can challenge our assumptions and lead us down another path than the easy answer would. Paul Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, said “Good questions outrank easy answers.”

Take the time to ask questions and you will see that you and other people will learn more even if you think you know the answer.

Questions help get to the right answer. We have heard about the five whys of consulting – asking why until you uncover the root cause. Peter Drucker says the best consultants work by simply asking a few questions. People are better connected to the outcome if they are part of developing the plan.

Here are a few ways to ask questions that helps others discover the right answer for them:

“How would you go about accomplishing this….” then listen to their ideas.

“What would happen if…” then challenge different assumptions in the answers being presented.

“Have you thought about…” then offer alternative options to be discussed.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”  – Benjamin Franklin

The right questions help solve the right problem. The human mind is a wonderful machine that is a problem solver. When you pose a question, it works tirelessly to seek the answer. The key to solving the right problem is to ask the right question.

If something is not working, we might ask ourselves and our team, “Why can’t we accomplish this?” That is the wrong question because all of your energy will focus on understanding the ways you have been deficient and uncovering reasons why you can’t succeed.

Instead, in the same situation the right question is, “What does it take to accomplish this?” With this question you and your team will begin to identify all that needs to happen to succeed. Once you have solved that, your next question should be, “How can we deliver what it takes to succeed?” and so on until you narrow down the right answer to the right question.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein

Understand the real question before you answer.

answering the right questionSuccessful people don’t always have the answer to every question, but they know how to find it. The key to finding the answers is to understand the real question before you answer.

Author, Shannon L. Adler believes that, “Most misunderstandings could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask what else could this mean.” I agree. In this busy world we often want to quickly answer what we think we hear so we can get onto the next question. As the witty Charles Schultz says, “In the book of life’s questions, the answers are not in the back.”

The reality is that we should invest the time needed to get the right answer the first time. Albert Einstein, arguably one of the brightest scientific minds, said, “It’s not that I’m so smart. But I stay with questions much longer.”

If you dig a little deeper you may find that once you discover the real question, the answer is easier than you originally thought. Dr. Seuss wrote many children’s books that were filled with wisdom shared as witty stories. His advice on understanding the real question before you answer is, “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

If you want to truly succeed, asking the right questions is the key. As novelist Thomas Berger once said, “The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.”

Leaders: Does your team really know you?

getting to know youHow can your team get to know you? Is it through emails, team talks, and presentations? It’s all of those and more. Is it by observing you in action? Yes, that too. How about from the results you drive? That’s an important one. If you had to pick the most important way for your team to get to know you what would it be? The answer is all three together.

Your team needs to feel connected to you. Your team needs to see that you are consistent. And your team needs to be convinced that if they follow you they will be successful.

Connected. Are you available and approachable? Your team should hear you and see you on a regular basis; and not just on stage – although that’s a good start. How about meeting with them in person. Of course you are in meetings with people on projects, but are you talking with them about them? The best interactions are the regular, “How’s it going?” talks where you ask questions and they ask questions and you keep your connection strong.

“The business of business is relationships; the business of life is human connection.” – Robin Sharma

Consistent. Does what you say match what you do? Your team needs to know they can count on you to back up what you say. Remember even though you are the leader, you are still part of the team. Only commit to what you can deliver, and deliver what you commit to. People will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold – but so does a hard-boiled egg.

“In any team sport, the best teams have consistency.” – Roger Staubach

Convincing. Does what you say and do lead to success? What you say and what you do will lead to some result – make sure it’s a good one. This is the ultimate expression of getting to know you. Some might say you are what you celebrate.

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein

 

Dig deep enough before making decisions

decisionsDon’t make decisions based only on where you are; make decisions based on where you want to be. Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is quoted as saying, “We are not a product of our circumstances, we are a product of our decisions.”

Your circumstances do play a part in your future, but only to ground you as you decide what to do next.

Jonathan Schaeffer, the creator of computer chess programs, calculated that there are 197,742 different ways that the players in a chess match could play their first two moves. When you expand that to the first three moves the possible outcomes becomes 121 million. In chess, as in life, your decisions don’t end when you first decide, but continue through each step as you evaluate what’s next.

When faced with choices, before you decide, commit to settle for nothing less than knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Today we have the ability to receive more information than at any time in history. Take care to evaluate what you know before deciding where to go.

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within – not without.” – Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot

Invest the time it takes to be the best. How long should you think and evaluate options before you decide? It depends on the potential impact of the decision and the level of experience you have in the area. A greater chance of impact and a lesser degree of experience require more time. Stay with it until you feel that you have the ability to make the best decision possible.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”– Albert Einstein

Pay attention to how the facts fit together. The first step in decision making is a knowledge of the facts. Next comes an understanding of why the facts are what they are. Most important is to obtain the wisdom to apply what you now know and understand to make the best decision possible. This comes from broadening your view through other people and other similar decisions that have been made.

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.” Marilyn vos Savant

Profit from your analysis. You will never have all the answers needed to make a perfect decision. Don’t let that stop you from asking as many questions as reasonable to make the best decision possible.

“I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.” – Arthur C. Clarke

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