Management at the Movies

Judge a Cover by its Book

A common way in business of explaining the word "culture" is "the way we do things around here". But one of the best explanations I've ever read is by Fons Trompenaars, who wrote the fascinating book, "Riding the Waves of Culture".

Referencing Geert Hofstede (who conducted one of the most well-known research projects on cultural differences), he wrote "culture is the way in which a group of people solves problems."

I love that explanation.

• Japan and Holland are small nations with scarce natural resources, encouraging a relatively high level of efficiency and business acumen.
• America was a spacious land which required bodies to populate territories and provide the muscle for a burgeoning industrial economy, resulting in relatively liberal immigration policies.
• Google is a company that was born of the Internet, trying to figure out how to find and organize the world's aggregate knowledge, and ended up organized in a relatively flatter way vis-a-vis more mature organizations.

All cultures are unique because they are shaped by so many factors: the physical environment, the climate, the long-term economic condition, population density, religious influences, educational system, etc.

I personally believe that understanding the factors that have led to a particular kind of culture is very helpful. While people from one culture may think that the people of another culture "weird", they probably would end up tempering their negative views if they understood the factors. They may even realize that if they had grown up in that particular cultural system, they would probably have ended up as "weird" as the others.

The Culture of Mankind

Gosh, it's been a month since I've updated my blog. But then again, I've been busy, having relocated to the United States after over 22 years away in Asia.

Having lived in three countries - America, Japan and Thailand - of distinctly different cultures has been a rich experience.

Japan is where I discovered my roots, where I met my wife, is a culture of refined taste and exacting standards, a society of cleanliness and civility, a market that blends foreign concepts into Japanese sensibilities with such thoroughness that you would sometimes wonder whether the concept was originally Japanese. Certainly schools kids prior to the age of the internet may have been excused to think that McDonalds and baseball were as Japanese as tempura (which I am told is actually Portuguese.)

Thailand is where my wife and I will early retire. On the whole, it is the friendliest society I have ever been a part of, a place where networking and making friends is a way of life, where people, delectable cuisine, tropical climate come together to make Thailand a long-term destination of choice, and where children and the elderly are treasured, at least on the surface, more than in the West. Thailand's history is a fascinating story of survival as nations around them fell to colonialism, as well as of economic upheaval, going from an agricultural-based to an industrial/services-based economy in a few short decades, and the culture-shaking implications that has on the country's political and social systems.

Although it was not so true when I was young, I have grown to appreciate the country of my birth - the United States of America - a living laboratory where experiments are constantly conducted to define or measure our particular concept of democracy and market economics. The so-called "American dream" - that all citizens have an equal opportunity to succeed - is a powerful set of beliefs which has served as the marketing slogan targeting, intentionally or not, the hundreds of millions of immigrants around the world who saw or see America as the land where lives can be re-invented.

I would not have fallen in love with these three countries if I had not left my home country and lived in others. Seeing differences is a truly effective way of forcing one to delve into one's own values and identity. It is in these differences we can begin to understand the incredible breadth and depth of human experience, and begin to feel the threads that weave the culture of Mankind.

Go West, young man! And East. And North. And South.

Just get off your butt and see the world!

The Correct Form

I always thought that one of the coolest martial arts in Japan was kendo, a form of swordfighting with weapons made of bamboo. The elegant maneuvers, the high-pitched screams and the thwack-thwack of bamboo on Vader-like helmets - the kind of images that may have served to inspire the swordplay in Lucas' Star Wars - were inspiration enough to get me off my butt and exercise.

I went to a local dojo where elderly sensei's were teaching elementary and junior high school kids, both boys and girls. As a 20-something foreigner who didn't speak Japanese, I sort of stuck out. But I spoke enough Japanese and will to allow me entry to the lessons. I remember one particular moment when the sensei, a white-haired guy not much taller than 5 feet - probably in his late sixties -

was sparring with me. He was barking something, trying to explain something to me as my bamboo "shinai" worked to follow his. And then he shouted, disappointed in something I was doing, and suddenly drove his shinai down hard, my shinai smacking the ground flat in a split second. In shock, I tried desperately to understand what I had done wrong….obvious to him, incomprehensible to me.

In Japan, to newcomers and old hands alike, there are many moments where one is surprised that there is a proper way to do something - whether it is seating arrangements, throwing away trash, or walking or standing on an escalator. Very often there are excellent reasons, and the rational explanations do not seem so apparent, hidden under decades or centuries of repeated behavior.

In the book, "Inside the Kaisha - Demystifying Japanese Business Behavior", Noboru Yoshimura and Philip Anderson believe that the Japanese education system play a great role in emphasizing the correct form, or the "kata":

Outsiders are often surprised at how constricted the accepted pattern of behavior is in Japan. It seems that there is a "right way" to do everything, from hitting a baseball to bowing. In fact, a recent book by a Western expert on Japan suggests that shikata, or the way of doing things, constitutes the cultural programming that makes the Japanese a superior people. There seems to be a kata (correct form) for everything - even for actions that are idiosnycratic in the West, such as eating, reading, and writing.

How do the Japanese absorb these lessons? Japanese schools are famous for their emphasis on rote memorization, and subjects such as mathematics and science are usually taught as an abstract set of rules to know. However, the characteristic mode of learning correct behavior is emulating a model or prototype.

Eating spaghetti the proper way

Right after the scene in the French restaurant, there is another classic scene from the film, "Tampopo".

An elderly Japanese women is holding a manners class for the daughters of well-to-do families. The purpose is to ensure that these women are educated in the proper way so that they behave in the proper way in order to attract a man from a well-to-do family.

In this scene, the Japanese manners sensei is explaining the exact steps in eating spaghetti as only a lady should. The director, Itami Juzo, knows how to exaggerate Japanese behavior just to the border of ridculousness while leaving an aftertaste of reality.

Although the scene is only available in Japanese, you should be able to understand the scene. If you have the DVD, you can watch this scene from 23:56~27:00.

SENSEI: You use grated cheese only on certain spaghetti dishes. This is spaghetti alle vongole, so do we apply cheese? No cheese, right? Fork and spoon, everybody. Spoon in your left hand. Catch three or four strings of spaghetti with your fork. …and gently turn it around on your spoon. You wind your spaghetti like this. And eat it silently.

SLURPING NOISE FROM A FOREIGNER EATING SPAGHETTI NEARBY.

SENSEI: Never make any noise.

MORE SLURPING SOUNDS.

SENSEI: No noise whatsoever. Listen carefully to hear if you make any noise. Sometimes people don't know they make noise. Listen carefully. Even a very faint noise ….(she makes the smallest slurping sound)…like this is taboo abroad.

HEAVY SLURPING. THEY ALL STAND UP TO LOOK AT THE MAN, SIT DOWN AND START EATING THEIR SPAGHETTI IN THE NOISEST, MESSIEST WAY POSSIBLE. THE SENSEI RELUCTANTLY JOINS IN.

Kikokshijo

I remember the embarrassment I had when I first arrived in Japan….looking Japanese but not sounding Japanese. In the end, those Japanese who get to know me accept me as a non-Japanese, someone not required to understand all aspects of how to behave like a Japanese.

But the children of Japanese parents who liv ed overseas for a period of time (because of the work assignment of their father) tend to struggle with the return and re-acclimation into Japanese culture. As one 14-year-old named Tom said in this Japan Times article, "You have to act Japanese, you know. You have to be the 'same height' as everyone else. If you're too tall, you get chopped off."

These children are called "kikokushijo", and having grown accustomed to learning cultures in other countries, they come back to Japan with behaviors that make them stick out. According to the article, the Japanese government coined the term "kikokushijo" with the express purpose of fast tracking them, grooming them for future key roles in the globalizing economy. But the government could not prepare them for fellow students who shun those perceived as too different.

One of the more interesting books on Japan I have read is called "Straitjacket Society - An Insider's Irreverent View of Bureaucratic Japan", by Dr Masao Miyamoto. He was a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Health and Education whose views were so at odds with his government that he actually got fired. He believes that the Japanese bureaucracy deserves some of the blame for creating such a strong culture of exclusiveness. Miyamoto called the government's overriding philosophy "messhi hoko", or "self-sacrifice for the sake of the group". This philosophy, via the education system, is engrained in Japanese, and that the fear of ostracisim outweighs the need to express one's individuality.

It is difficult to say no to messhi hoko and look for another job, since most Japanese companies are based on this philosophy. A person who rejects the concept of self-sacrifice can expect total isolation from the group. The fear of ostracism evokes strong anxiety in most Japanese, therefore the threat of removal from the group exerts a strong controlling influence on individual behavior.

To accomplish the goal that every Japanese embrace the philosophy of messhi hoko, the bureaucrats introduced an educational program based on the idea that all Japanese should look, think and act alike. This type of education does not allow for individual differences, and as a result, creativity is severely curtailed.

You can take the boy out of the jeans, but not the genes out of the boy….

I was 18 years old the first time I ever worked in an office. I got a summer job as a desk assistant at NBC News in Rockefeller Center. There were other desk assistants there essentially my age, but I seemed to have the particular habit of addressing the elder people there as Mr. Johnson or Ms. Smith. One time I went up to one of the editors with a question, and just as I said "Excuse me, Mr. Edwards…" he interrupted me and said in a somewhat irritated tone, "Would you stop calling me Mr. Edwards? It's John."

To this day, I still recall that moment because it awoke me to a formal, deferent part of myself that in certain cases seemed out of place. In the end, I am who I am for a myriad of environmental and genetic reasons, but there must be more than a trace of Japanese-ness in me due to my ancestry - at the very least, a need to understand the relative status between people and how to behave properly.

In one of the better books on the topic of Japanese business culture, "Inside the Kaisha - Demystifying Japanese Business Behavior”, Noboru Yoshimura and Philip Anderson wrote that "appropriate behavior depends not only on the context everyone shares, such as a client visit, an office trip, or an after-hours soak in a communal bath; it also depends on each individual's position relative to others within the context."

The authors go on to explain that a business meeting for example are important to Western and Japanese cultures, but that different things tend to be prioritized in different ways. They state that

...when Westerners are asked to attend a business meeting, they usually inquire what the subject or agenda of the meeting is. In contrast, the first thing a Japanese wants to know is who else is going to attend, for this defines the context of the meeting, regardless of its ostensible purpose. The context in turn defines correct conduct. For example, the most junior people attending the meeting will be well prepared, show up early, and sit near the door (in the "cheap seats" as it were). The most senior person attending the meeting will arrive on time (or a little bit late), take the best seat, and forgo prior preparation, since other participants will explain whatever he wants to know. No two people will approach the meeting in exactly the same way, because no two have exactly the same status.

In other words, the Japanese are keen observers of relative status, and are skillful at adjusting their behavior depending on where they stand vis-a-vis others in the room. Those Japanese who are not, for example that junior employee in the scene from "Tampopo", get criticized, or even ostracized.

When the nails line up, it can be a beautiful thing….

Japan's national team defeated the Korean national team 5 to 3 at the finals of the World Baseball Classic earlier this week. As if scripted, Seattle Mariner star, Ichiro Suzuki, knocked in the winning runs in the tenth inning, with two strikes and two outs. Japan exploded in celebration, while Korea collectively drooped.

Most of the 50,000 at Dodgers Stadium for the final were rooting loudly for one of the two Asian teams, while most Americans invested their spectator sports time in the NCAA basketball tournament. The possible truth is that many American's are not willing to admit that the rest of the world has caught up with the MLB.

Relative to the US, strong Asian cultures like those of Japan and Korea place a tremendous premium on getting the fundamentals right, on teamwork, on team spirit. I’m sure there were no players on the Asian teams complaining about travel itineraries or playing time, as some individuals on the American team had done.

As the New York Times explained, the Asians showed the world how to play America's pastime:

The championship game ended with one of the most accomplished hitters in Japanese and American history delivering a game-deciding single. By reaching the final, the Japanese, who had five major leaguers, and the South Koreans, who had one, showed why their precise style of baseball was refreshing to watch and difficult to overcome.

The Japanese used a sacrifice bunt, a sacrifice fly or a stolen base to contribute to four of their runs against South Korea. Japan pummeled opponents, 50-16, in nine games, but the hitters attacked softly. Of Japan’s 92 hits, 74 were singles.

Every player on the Asian teams came prepared….not to let anyone else on the team down.

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail.

"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

出る杭は打たれる。

This is one of the more well-known proverbs from Japan, and does indeed reflect a particular aspect of Japanese culture. The junior person in the highlighted scene from "Tampopo" is the proverbial nail that sticks out. In this context, "sticking out" means not behaving in a deferential manner in the presence of senior people, or showing up others by displaying an expertise beyond that of the group. In other words,  the junior person is not playing the role he is supposed to.

The managers in that scene have come to that expensive French restaurant for a ritualistic meeting, perhaps to officially recognize something or someone. The restaurant was selected to add a sense of formality or importance to the occasion, not so much for their culinary enjoyment. And yet, the junior person defies culture and convention, and orders his meal in a manner that draws the white hot spotlight to him. The manager to his left kicks the junior employee, but to no avail. The nail refuses to be hammered down.

While American culture may exhort the right of the individual to stand out and speak up ("The squeaky wheel gets the grease"), most Japanese will demonstrate a preference for unity, for harmony. It is a powerful cultural norm, and it contributes greatly to a society that values cleanliness, polite and reserved interactions, and a paucity of surprises.

Stuck in the middle

I remember the feeling of discomfort distinctly, that clash of values that takes place in the pit of your stomach, giving you pause as you figure out how to react.

Some 20 years ago, I was conducting a week-long training course for a major Japanese heavy-industry manufacturer, at their hide-away training center at the foot of Mount Fujii. We would run training sessions from 8:30 in the morning until 9pm at night over seven consecutive days. It was a week away from work for these busy middle managers, but they enjoyed the training and the camaraderie of their peers for a week.

One day, I was sitting in the lounge after lunch, reading the newspaper. I was so absorbed with the news that I hadn't noticed the gathering of 30-plus Japanese in the lounge, getting ready for the ritual exercise they held just before resuming training at 1 pm. I always avoided the lounge at this time for the express purpose of dodging the communal stretch….but this time I was trapped. The tape deck was switched on and the banal recording of a person instructing everybody how to stretch began.

I had a choice. I could put down the paper, stand up, and join the group; or I could stay seated, head buried in the paper, and hope to be ignored. I chose the latter, giving into the somewhat selfish need to convey a posture of independence.

In the end, I bonded with my Japanese trainees in other ways (e.g.: drinking late into the evenings, sports, drinking late into the evenings, and some more drinking….) In retrospect, it would have been little effort to stand up and join the others, but there are times that the emotional investment we have in certain values discourages even the simplest acts of flexibility.

Transcript of restaurant scene

Here is the transcript from the scene in “Tampopo” described in the previous post. If you have the DVD, the scene starts at 19:28 and ends at 23:48. Enjoy the quirky humor of celebrated director Juzo Itami.

SIX BUSINESSMEN FROM THE SAME COMPANY WALK INTO AN EXPENSIVE FRENCH RESTAURANT IN TOKYO.

MANAGER #4: This place is famous for its seafood.

THE LAST PERSON TO ENTER, THE YOUNGEST OF THE GROUP ("JUNIOR"), DROPS ALL THE BAGS HE IS CARRYING. THE MAN NEXT TO HIM HITS HIM OVER THE HEAD IN REACTION TO HIS CLUMSY BEHAVIOR. AS THE MOST SENIOR PERSON SITS DOWN, THE OTHERS SIT DOWN, ESSENTIALLY IN ORDER OF SENIORITY. AS THE YOUNGEST ONE ATTEMPTS TO SIT DOWN BEFORE THE OTHERS HAVE SEATED THEMSELVES, THE MANAGER LIFTS HIM UP BY THE NECK. AFTER THEY HAVE ALL SEATED, THE WAITER HANDS OUT THE MENUS, WHICH ARE IN FRENCH.

WAITER: Your order sir? What would you like sir?
MANAGER #1: Just a moment.
WAITER: And you sir?
MANAGER #2: I'm not too hungry. Something light.

MANAGER #4 NOTICES THAT THE SENIOR MANAGERS ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY READING THE MENU, SO HE TAKES THE LEAD IN ORDERING.

MANAGER #4: Sole meuniere, please.
WAITER: Some soup or salad, sir?
MANAGER #4: Consomme. No salad.
WAITER: A drink, sir?
MANAGER #4: Beer. Heinecken.
WAITER: Yes sir.

THE WAITER RETURNS TO MANAGER #1.

WAITER: And you sir?
MANAGER#1: I'll have sole too.
WAITER: Soup or salad, sir?
MANAGER #1: Consomme. No salad.
WAITER: Something to drink, sir?
MANAGER # 1: Beer too.
WAITER: And you sir?
MANAGER #2: Well, maybe I'll try the sole too.
WAITER: Soup or salad?
MANAGER #2: Well, maybe consomme.
WAITER: A drink, sir?
MANAGER #2: Well, maybe a beer.
MANAGER #3: Same for me.
MANAGER #5: Me too.

HE GATHERS THE MENUS FROM THE OTHERS AND WALKS OVER TO THE MOST JUNIOR PERSON IN THE GROUP. JUNIOR IS LOOKING VERY CLOSELY AT THE MENU.

WAITER: And you, sir?
JUNIOR: One moment.

THE OTHERS LOOK AT JUNIOR IN SURPRISE.

JUNIOR: So you have quenelle.

THE MANAGER NEXT TO JUNIOR KICKS JUNIOR UNDER THE TABLE.

JUNIOR: Boudin style.

THE MANAGER KICKS JUNIOR AGAIN.

JUNIOR: That's quenelle prepared in the shape of a sausage?
WAITER: Yes sir.
JUNIOR: I think Taille-Vent in France serves this.
WAITER: You're well informed. Our chef trained at Taille=Vent.
JUNIOR: Then it's served with caviar sauce?
WAITER: That's correct, sir.
JUNIOR: And the escargots wrapped in pastry. In fond-de-veau?
WAITER: Yes. Escargots and mushrooms simmered in Madeira, and then stewed in fond-de-veau, sir.
JUNIOR: Yes, I'll have that. And apple-and-walnut salad.
WAITER: A perfect match, sir. A drink, sir?
JUNIOR: I think I feel like some Corton Charlemagne. Do you have a 1981?
WAITER: I'll call the sommelier.
JUNIOR: Thank you.

THE WAITER WALKS OUT AS THE MANAGERS LOOK AT EACH OTHER IN ASTONISHMENT.

The Restaurant Scene in "Tampopo"

Japan is the second largest economy in the world, and yet is still commonly considered a culture hard to fathom. Perhaps it is. Perhaps any culture worth examining is hard to fathom.

A film clip that I enjoy using when talking about culture, and specifically, the Japanese culture, is the 1985 film, "Tampopo". If you love food, you'll love this self-professed "noodle" Western that tells the story of a single mother named Tampopo fighting to support her family by starting up a ramen shop. A fairly poor cook, she convinces a truck driver who happened into her shop, and coincidentally seemed to know a thing or two about a great bowl of ramen.

Interwoven throughout the ramen shop storyline are a dozen or so vignettes that are almost totally irrelevant except for their reference to food. One of my favorite scenes in this film is a story about corporate Japan in four minutes, which you can watch below.

"You've damn well got to be optimistic."

Sir Ernest Shackleton, the early 20th century British explorer, was quoted as saying "you've damn well got to be optimistic". As I described in my posts called "Shackleton", The Stockdale Paradox and Other Leadership Lessons", this great adventurer was the leader of one of the greatest survival stories known to man, refusing to give up on the prospects of saving his crew of 28 in the frigid Antarctic waters.

And like the farmers in the book, "The Grapes of Wrath", described in the passage of the previous post, Shackleton was resolved to never let his people see him break, see his despair. He knew that his people, despite their fears, would take heart from the leader's belief that all would turn out well.

As Dennis Perkins wrote in his book “Leading at the Edge”, Shackleton thought it was important for the men to busy themselves with activities, and relax together by playing sports or putting on shows. It was just prior to the beginning of a show the officers were about to perform before the crew when Shackleton revealed to his ship's captain that the ship, under heavy pressure of the ice that squeezed  it like a vise, was on the verge of destruction. He said, "This ship can't live in this, Skipper. You had better make up your mind that it is only a matter of time. It may be a few months, and it may be a question of weeks, or even days…But what the ice gets, the ice keeps." Perkins then wrote,

Immediately after this dire prophecy, First Officer Greenstreet knocked on the cabin door and announced that the crew was ready to begin the party. Minutes later, Shackleton was laughing with the boys. No one would have ever guessed the thoughts that must have lain heavy on his mind.

The Grapes of Wrath - “there was no break”

It has been decades since I read John Steinbeck's classic novel, "The Grapes of Wrath", about the plight of farmers in the Midwestern part of America in the 1930s. When the economy crashed, farmers could not pay the loans on their homes and land, and banks re-possessed their property, sending tens of thousands of homeless famers west to California in a somewhat futile search for increasingly rare opportunities to work.

And yet, I could remember the opening pages, the description of hardscrabble farmers, praying for rain, kicking the dust about them like a curse, wondering if they were going to survive another year. In those opening pages, Steinbeck spoke to the toughness of those times and the indomitable spirit of the farmers….particularly their capacity for bending, but not breaking. I loved the description of the wives, who carefully monitored the expressions and body language of their husbands, looking for cracks in resolve, satisfied that their men were up to the challenge for another day. And when the children saw that their fathers and mothers were ok, they too could exhale in relief. After all these years, here is the passage so vividly etched in my mind:

Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand by their men - to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring sense out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole. - John Steinbeck

"They've all gone to look for America."

America represents hope, second chances, opportunity for re-invention to many people, and thus it is the backdrop to Jim Sheridan's film, "In America", highlighted in these posts. He tells the story of a family in search of a better life, or escape from a life in pieces.

Regarding the early stages of that search, William Bridges writes in his book, "Transitions", that many people have difficulty making new starts because they have not given closure to what came before - and he calls this "disorientation". People have difficulty planning for the future, engaging in their everyday work, or simply motivating themselves to clothe and feed themselves properly.

He writes that in prior generations, in more traditional times, people more willingly accepted the suffering of change, as they had faith that things would eventually get better. "However," he wrote, "many modern people lacking that faith are caught between positive thinking and despair; they keep themselves going only by lighting matches and whistling in the dark."

When I hear the song "America", by my hometown heroes Simon and Garfunkel, I realize that it is a song of quiet but desperate hope, a mixture of emotions that indicates the disorientation that Bridges writes of. It is a song of a man and a women on a bus, travelling aimlessly throughout the country, living a fun-filled fantasy that the journey is more important than the destination, only to realize that their lack of destination and purpose scares them. I love the lyrics that give insight into the worries of the man -

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"

I give you Simon and Garfunkel and their beautiful song, "America".

America, by Simon and Garfunkel

"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together"
"I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera"

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
All gone to look for America

"There is always someone worse off than yourself."

I found this story from a list of Aesop's Fables called "The Hares and the Frogs", and it is about gaining perspective.

The Hares were so persecuted by the other beasts, they did not know where to go. As soon as they saw a single animal approach them, off they used to run. One day they saw a troop of wild Horses stampeding about, and in quite a panic all the Hares scuttled off to a lake hard by, determined to drown themselves rather than live in such a continual state of fear. But just as they got near the bank of the lake, a troop of Frogs, frightened in their turn by the approach of the Hares scuttled off, and jumped into the water. "Truly," said one of the Hares, "things are not so bad as they seem: "There is always someone worse off than yourself."

Wisdom from the Ages

“We’re seeing people who work at banks, for software firms, for marketing firms, and they’re all losing  their jobs,” said Dave Cort, the executive director. “Here we are in big, fancy Marin County, but we have people who are standing in line with their eyes wide open, thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m here.’”

The quote above is from a person who runs a food bank (a place where people can pick up groceries for free), a reflection of the particularly difficult times that people in America are facing now. More and more people are experiencing the shock of loss, working through their denial or anger or depression. (Go to this link for the NY Times article.)

The quotes below are from people who have experienced life fully, and have gained wisdom through perspective.

Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously. - Og Mandino

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." - Abraham Lincoln

In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel "burnout" setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long-term perspective. - Dalai Lama

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. - Carl Jung

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. - Alexander Graham Bell

We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world. - Helen Keller

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - Winston Churchill

In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him. - Anonymous

Gaining Perspective

I have problems. You have problems. Everyone has problems. For the most part, we overcome them, move on and are stronger for the next challenge.

And yet we sometimes allow ourselves to wallow in self pity, wondering why we are the recipients of  such poor luck. That is normal. That is even necessary to a certain degree. But Johnny has been in a state of depression since his son died far longer than other members of his family, and is clearly having difficulty shaking free from his haunting memories.

But finally, just as he looses his self-righteous anger on Mateo (in the scene of the previous post), he realizes that despite the unfair and desperate state of his condition, there are others facing even more dire circumstances.

It is this realization that allows Johnny to understand that his wife and his elder daughter have carried a similar burden, and that it was perhaps time to shed the stale skin of self pity, and become a husband and father again.

Acceptance

Sarah learns she is pregnant, and that the unborn baby, if brought to term, could end up killing the mother. Johnny, fearful of facing the loss of another loved one, cannot condone the birth of the child. Sarah insists that the child be born, which leads to another fight between the two. The fight is triggered as Sarah playfully asks Johnny to put his hand on her stomach and feel the baby kicking. In front of her daughters, he refuses to hide the clear fear and discomfort he is experiencing, and says he can't feel anything. Sarah tears into Johnny, saying that he is "the only actor in the world who can't lie, even for the sake of the kids."

Still unable to face his demons, Johnny rushes out of the apartment, only to bump into Mateo, a neighbor in the same apartment building. Mateo is an artist dying of AIDS, who has befriended the family. Johnny, who does not know of Mateo's illness, has grown jealous of the close relationship, an almost fatherly relationship that he has been able to grow with his wife and children. When he sees Mateo, he strikes.

Find the scene depicted below from 55:20~58:51 in the DVD, "In America"

JOHNNY STORMS OUT OF THE APARTMENT WITH SARAH SHOUTING FOR HER TO COME BACK. HE PASSES THE APARTMENT OF MATEO, WHERE MATEO IS STANDING IN HIS OPEN DOORWAY. JOHNNY STOPS, TURNS AROUND, AND ADDRESSES MATEO.

JOHNNY: (VERY AGGRESSIVELY) All right? Everything all right?

jOHNNY BANGS THE DOOR OPEN AND FOLLOWS MATEO INTO HIS APARTMENT.

JOHNNY: The baby'll bring its own luck, will it? I'll tell you the luck the baby'll bring. The baby could infect her, and two girls'll be left without their ma. So keep your trap shut.
MATEO: You don't believe.
JOHNNY: In what? God? You know, I asked him a favor. I asked him to take me instead of him. And he took the both of us. And look what he put in my place. I'm a fucking ghost. I don't exist. I can't think. I can't laugh. I can't cry. I can't... feel! Do you wanna be me? Do you wanna be in my place?
MATEO: I wish.
JOHNNY: Are you in love with her? Are you in love with her?
MATEO: No. I'm in love with you. And I'm in love with your beautiful woman. And I'm in love with your kids. And I'm even in love with your unborn child. I'm even in love with your anger! I'm in love with anything that lives!
JOHNNY: (LONG PAUSE) You're dying. (ANOTHER LONG PAUSE) I'm sorry. (HE WALKS OUT OF THE APARTMENT.)

Coming to Grips Before Getting to Hope

Johnny, in the highlighted scene from the film, "In America", is hopeful in his pursuit of winning the doll for his daughter at the risk of losing all the money they have. And yet, it is a desperate sort of hope, brought on by an attempt to play the role of the strong father…a role he has neglected since the death of his son Frankie.

Johnny's role as a father is in contrast to Sir Ernest Shackleton (featured in my posts entitled "Shackleton", The Stockdale Paradox and other Leadership Lesson"). Shackleton, who led a team to the Antarctic in the early 20th century only to have his ship destroyed by ice and his crew stranded in the freezing environment of the South Pole for over a year. Decades later, Shackleton is viewed as a legendary leader, partially thanks to what James Collins calls his Level Five leadership capability - the ability to grasp and communicate the brutal facts of a hopeless situation, and yet instill the belief that the ultimate goal or success is possible.

Despite winning the doll for his daughter, Johnny is not convincing in his vision of hope. He has yet to come to grips with his current reality, to allow himself to let go of his departed son. In fact, after he comes home victorious with his family after winning the doll, he sends his daughters running in glee as he embarks on playing "fee, fie, foe, fum", an Irish version of hide and seek, but suddenly imagines himself seeking his dead son. He breaks down in despair.

In her landmark book, "On Death and Dying", Elisabeth Kübler-Ross talked about the five stages people go through when they deal with death of a loved one:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Johnny moved his family from Ireland, looking for a new start, perhaps an escape from the lingering tragedy of the death of a young son, so one might presume that he is still in denial about his son. Perhaps he felt that moving to a new country would change his outlook on life, particularly one like America which is famous for attracting people who seek to reinvent themselves. But changing one's external circumstances before one is ready internally won't necessarily speed up the process of recovery.

Another excellent book on the challenge of dealing with significant change in one's life is "Transitions - Making Sense of Life's Changes", by William Bridges. He wrote that people often deal with difficult situations by making surface changes to their lives, without coming to grips with their demons.

It is the internal things that really hold us to the past, and people who try to deal only with externals are people who walk out of relationships, leave jobs, move across the country…but who don't end up significantly different from what and who they were before. They are likely to be people who have learned to use change to avoid transition. They storm out of a job ("rotten, no-good boss!") rather than discover what it is in themselves that keeps finding such bosses to work for. They end another (yet another!) relationship rather than let go of the behaviors, attitudes, assumptions, and images of self or others that keep making relationships turn out this way.

Johnny didn't walk out on his family, but all that emotionally attached the father to the wife and to the daughters flew off into the ether, leaving a cold and empty shell.

Transcript of the scene

My favorite podcast on movies is Filmspotting, which most recently featured their "Top 5 Movies about Hope and Change". And as you can see, one of the podcast hosts, Adam Kempenaar, lists "In America" as his 2nd best movie about hope, which inspired me to re-watch it, and come up with these postings.

1. "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
2. "In America"
3. "Hustle and Flow" and "Black Snake Moan"
4. "Wings of Desire"
5. "Children of Men"

Below is the transcript from the scene I am highlighting: 

THE YOUNGER DAUGHTER, ARIEL, COMES RUNNING THROUGH THE CARNIVAL CROWD TO HER PARENTS.

ARIEL: Dad! Dad! Dad, you can win E.T.! You can win E.T.!

THEY APPROACH A STAND WHERE YOU NEED TO THROW BALLS IN A HOLE IN THE WALL TO WIN A PRIZE.

BARKER: It's a game of chance. It's as simple as pie. It's a game of chance. It's simple as pie.

ARIEL: All you have to do is throw the ball through the hoop seven times and you win E.T.!
JOHNNY: Seven times? Is that all?
BARKER: Yeah.
Johnny: Can adults play?
BARKER: Sure. Simple as pie. That's $2. You can keep throwing as long as you double up your dollars. If you win, you get every dollar back and any prize you like.
JOHNNY: You get all your money back if you win?
BARKER: You get all your money back and any doll you like.
JOHNNY: All right.

HE THROWS THE FIRST ONE IN.

SARAH: Whoo!
JOHNNY: That's one in there.
SARAH: Come on, Johnny.
JOHNNY: That's two.
BARKER: Two down, five to go. $4.
JOHNNY: Come on. We'll get there. We'll get there.
ARIEL: Come on, Dad. You're excellent. You're brilliant.
JOHNNY: All right. Don't worry, I'll get it.
ARIEL: Mom, is Dad going to win?
SARAH: Of course he is darling.
ARIEL: Come on, Dad. Yes! Yes! Yay!
BARKER: Three, four, five. Very good. Only two to go.

BALL MISSES CUP. 

BARKER: $8. Game of chance. Simple as pie. You can keep throwing as long as you double up your dollars.
JOHNNY MISSES AGAIN.
JOHNNY: Shit
BARKER: Number five. Two to go. $16.
JOHNNY: Let's go for it.
ARIEL: Come on, Dad. Only two more to go.
JOHNNY: All right. I'll get this. Don't worry.
BARKER: $32. We got $32 over here.
JOHNNY: I don't need a crowd.
BARKER: Well, you're the main attraction. Game of chance. Simple as pie.

CHEERING AS HE THROWS THE BALL IN THE HOLE.

BARKER: One to go, one to go! One more throw. One more for the big doll for the little girl!
JOHNNY MISSES.
BARKER: $64. Are we finished, sir?

JOHNNY: I got $55.
SARAH: Here, I have another $5.

JOHNNY: Just need $4 more.

ARIEL: Dad, it doesn't matter.

CHRISTY HANDS HER FATHER A $5 BILL.

JOHNNY: Ah, no.
SARAH: Just take it, Johnny.
BARKER: And $1 change for the big girl. Only one to go. One ball to go over here. One ball to go
for the big doll for the little girl.
SARAH: Don't let him break your concentration, Johnny.
JOHNNY MISSES AGAIN.
JOHNNY: Give me the rent money.
SARAH: What?
JOHNNY: Give me the rent money.
SARAH: Johnny, please don't do this to me tonight.
JOHNNY: I can't lose in front of the kids again, Sarah.
SARAH TAKES OUT AN ENVELOPE OUT OF HER BAG AND PUTS IT ON THE TABLE IN FRONT OF JOHNNY.
BARKER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We got $128 over here.

ARIEL: Go on Dad.

JOHNNY MISSES.

BARKER: We're finished now, sir.

THE BARKER REACHES TO TAKE THE MONEY.

SARAH: Leave it, please.

SHE PUTS $256 MORE ON THE TABLE.

JOHNNY: We can't blow all our money.
SARAH: I believe in you and the kids believe in you and you can win that doll. Go on.
ARIEL: Dad, you're gonna win. I just know it.

CHRISTY VOICEOVER: And then I used all my will power to quieten the crowd. (HE MISSES.) But it didn't work.

JOHNNY PLACES OVER $500, THE REMAINDER OF THEIR RENT MONEY, ON THE TABLE.

CHRISTY VOICEOVER: Every cent of every penny we owned was down for an E.T. doll worth $30. So I said: "Frankie, I have to ask you for a second wish."
JOHNNY SUCCESSFULLY THROWS THE BALL IN THE HOLE.
CHRISTY VOICEOVER: And to this day, my dad still believes it was him who won the E.T. doll.

CHEERING.

CHRISTY (MOUTHS THE WORDS): Thank you. Thank God.
ARIEL: Great! Oh, my God!

With little more than hopes and dreams

They crossed the Canadian border into America, a family from Ireland explaining to border guards that they were on vacation. Like millions before them, whether they sailed into San Francisco or New York on steamers, crossed the Rio Grande, flew in to middle America on fake or authentic passports, or braved the seas on rickety boats - they came seeking America.

And like millions of others, they carried little more than their hopes and dreams.

In the 2002 film, "In America", director Jim Sheridan tells the somewhat autobiographical story of Johnny and Sarah, and their daughters Christy and Ariel, who move to New York City to reinvent themselves after enduring the death of Frankie, the son of Johnny and Sarah. They move into a shabby apartment building in Manhattan, neighbors with drug addicts and others living on the edge of society.

In a scene where Johnny and Sarah seek to bring fun and joy to their children, the family visit a local fair. The younger daughter, Ariel, who recently saw the movie E.T., comes running out of the crowd shouting to her father to win a doll of the friendly alien at one of the carnival booths. It is a powerful scene that goes from joy to excitement to fear and finally to hope, in just five minutes. With only a few hundred dollars to their name, Johnny is quite innocently and suddenly thrown into a high-stakes competition - all the money he has in the world, suddenly at risk for a $30 doll.

If you have the DVD to "In America", please view this scene from 20:07 to 25:35.

"Are we going to lose our home?"

"Are we going to lose our home? Are we going to be able to pay our property taxes? What are we gonna do for insurance? What are we gonna do for food? You know, and these are questions that you'd never think that we'd ask yourself. And now they're discussions in the home."

These are the questions Mike O'Machearley has these days according to a recent report in the American TV series, "60 Minutes". O'Machearley has recently lost his job at DHL operations in a particularly devastated town called Wilmington, Ohio, and he wonders how he will continue to support his four children and grandson.

Another former employee of DHL, Geri Lynn Thomas, tearfully told CBS newsman, Scott Pelley, that she was distraught she could not ensure her children had a better life than their parents, an assumption that many Americans had up till recently taken for granted.

"You start stocking up on groceries. You buy an extra can of soup or something, or toilet paper, package of toilet paper, peanut butter and stuff that you can stock in your cabinets to stuff in your freezer," Thomas says.

She's been building a stockpile of food. "So you just have to start doing and you do without things. And your son drops out of college early. You just do what you have to do."

"He dropped out of college?" Pelley asks.

"Yeah, we had to. We had to pull him. He didn't go the following winter sessions this year. We don't have the money," Thomas explains.

Neither she nor her husband went to college, and sending their kids to college was their dream. "It was my dream for my kids to have better than I had. But now they're not going to," she says

This 60 Minutes episode, called "A Town in Crisis", is heartwrenching. As the economic crisis tightens its grip on peoples' fears all over the world, it is hard to find those who are not affected, or don't know others who are.

And yet, people hold out hope. As O’Machearley said, "They always say that God closes a door, he opens another one. And we have faith that he will."

Wisdom: Know what you know, know what you don't know

This thread on “The Incredibles” has been one of the more difficult ones for me. I feel I have been shifting from theme to theme, trying in vain to sift out what is important.

First I make the point that superior talent needs to be recognized for what it is, not downplayed in order to make others feel comfortable. (This is not an easy thing to do. Even if you don't have super heroes in your company, it's likely your high performers are getting rewarded only a little better than the average performer.)

Then I point how out recognition of the super talent leads to elitism, which smacks of unfairness because somehow, not all the super talents are super, at least not all the time.

This leads to the third point about how difficult it is to actually identify high performers, beyond a few correlations to intellect, conscientiousness and emotional intelligence.

The last point was drilled home by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton in their book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. However, they did claim that super talents are people "who know the limits of their knowledge, who ask for help when they need it, and are tenacious about teaching and helping colleagues", which they wrote is "probably more important for making constant improvements in an organization, technical system, or body of knowledge."

Recall that wisdom is about "knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know." This enables people to act on their (present) knowledge while doubting what they know, so they can do things now, but can keep learning along the way. Wise people realize that knowledge is flawed, that the only way to keep getting better at anything is to act on what you know now, and to keep updating.

In the talk given by Morgan McCall, referenced in the previous post, McCall said that a bias for learning is one of the most important qualities a leader can possess. He often works with leaders by consistently asking them two simple questions: "What did you do last week? What did you learn?"

I may not have written the perfect thread about “The Incredibles”. But I continue to be curious about what I don't know….and strive to understand.

Flaws that had been tolerated should no longer be tolerated

In many organizations, particularly young, fast-growing ones, people who excel individually are often rewarded with promotions to people management. If the leaders and managers don't recognize the challenges of transitioning from individual achiever to management, the newly promoted manager may struggle to get results through others.

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a talk given by Morgan McCall, who has written extensively on leadership development. During his talk, he listed up a series of feedback comments given by executives about potential leaders on their teams in sessions he was privileged to observe. The comments were along the lines of "He's a strong engineering talent, but he is hated by people in the office", or "He's got all sorts of listening and communication issues, but he's really smart."

Very typically, these executives were recognizing that their potential leaders were strong technical talents and very smart, but that they needed broader people management and communication skills that were not as important in their careers up till now. Or they way McCall put it, "flaws that had been tolerated until now, would not be tolerated".

In the Q&A session, it came up that such concepts like continually leveraging and building your strengths (See Marcus Buckingham's "First, Break All the Rules") can actually result in diminishing returns, or even worse, strengths becoming weaknesses.

I've quoted from Marshall Goldsmith several times. His wisdom from the book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" is appropriate:

There’s a reason I devote so much energy to identifying interpersonal challenges in successful people. It’s because the higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral. At the higher levels of organizational life, all the leading players are technically skilled. They’re all smart. They’re all up to date on the technical aspects of their job. You don’t get to be, say, your company’s chief financial officer without knowing how to count, how to read a balance sheet, and how to handle money prudently.

That’s why behavioral issues become so important at the upper rungs of the corporate ladder. All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go.

Who would you rather have as a CFO? A moderately good accountant who is great with people outside the firm and skilled at managing very smart people? Or a brilliant accountant who’s inept with outsiders and alienates all the smart people under him?

Nurture trumps Nature

"Like a lonely mountain peak, or rather, like the spire of a cathedral, rise the men of high talent and of genius above the broad mass of mediocrity." Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles”, would probably be sympathetic with that statement. But I can't help find that assumption offensively elitist, and inaccurate to boot.

Ammon appears to be making the common argument that great talent is a matter of chance, a  matter of nature. In other words, those of "mediocre" talent are unlikely to develop into "men of high talent". But Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, two academics who have looked very closely at the research on this topic, believe the facts don't support the assumption that people who have the talent, were born with the talent.

In their book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management , Pfeffer and Sutton wrote:

Despite all the myths, talent is not completely fixed or predetermined at birth or at a young age. Talent depends on a person's motivation and experience. Talent depends on how a person is managed or led. Assessments of talent depend on how it is defined by a given culture in a given era. Talent depends more on effort and having access to the right information and techniques than on natural ability. Talent, in other words, is far more malleable than many people want us to believe.

Pfeffer and Sutton go on to explain that practice and hard work are far greater reason for talent than one's genetic make up. They cite that people like Tiger Woods and Amadeus Mozart practiced hard and consistently for years as children - in fact, it is believed that superior talent is often the product of at least 10 years of relentless practice.

The nature versus nurture debate persists in academia and society. But natural gifts are useless without lots of practice. People, teams, and organizations that are novices at something always do it badly at first; brilliant or at least competent performance is only achieved through raw persistence, coupled with the belief that improvement will happen. What people are able to do as beginners is far less important than whether they try hard and keep learning every day.