May you live all the days of your life.Colonel AtwitRecently my wife and I were driving innocently along a city street when a commercial panel van stopped in front of us at a red light. Obviously this was not the most momentous event in itself, but I noticed that the van had painted on the back in large letters, FEAR DOESN’T KEEP YOU FROM DYING. FEAR KEEPS YOU FROM LIVING.My first thought (and possibly yours): “Hey, that’s cool. We shouldn’t fear fear.” I pointed it out to my wife.I imagined the business owner being inspired by the saying. Perhaps the sentiment motivated her as she founded the business and guided it toward success. Maybe her business cards feature the aphorism, which she hands to prospective customers who say, “hey, I like that.” The slogan helps her form bonds.I also imagine her purchasing her first business van and hiring a painter to put the maxim in large letters on the back. The painter probably said, “righteous, my dude.” (That is how I suppose commercial van painters talk, but I am open to correction.) The saying is certainly attention getting, but I struggle to recall what the business was. In that sense, it was a marketing failure.The light changed, and we drove on. Still, being who I am, I continued to contemplate the saying. I later looked it up, and it is similar to a quote from the Egyptian author and Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz: “Fear doesn't prevent death. It prevents life.” (I have also seen it attributed to Buddha, but that seems spurious. He certainly never owned a van.)As I thought about it more, though, and with all due respect to Mahfouz (or his translator, as it were), I realized the first half of the van’s bit-o’-wisdom (and Mahfouz’s), is all wrong. The second half is a little more nuanced but is also wrong on its face.Let’s be up front here. Fear has a purpose — an evolutionary purpose — and that very purpose is, in fact, to prevent harm and even death.Yup. That is what fear does. If a hero rushes into a burning building to rescue a kitten, we say that person overcame their fear to perform that selfless act. If that hero dies as result of the rescue attempt, we can easily see how fear, properly heeded, could have prevented that outcome. Therefore, fear can preserve one’s life.To be sure, I am not advocating that we all give into our fears any more than I would argue we should give into our anxieties and worries. In fact, I have written on this very topic.Fear, like worry, can be overdone and can be our undoing, certainly, but what I am suggesting is that our fears need to be balanced with reality. The hero who risks all to rescue a kitten either does not fully grasp the danger or values a kitten’s life over their own.Whatever the case, heeding their natural fear of the burning building and the harm it could do would have preserved the life of the would-be hero who is free then to go on and perhaps rescue a different kitten from a less perilous situation, such as annoying people by appearing in too many adorable Instagram photos.As for the second half of the saying — that “fear keeps you from living” or as Mahfouz puts it “prevents life” — well, yes and no. On the one hand, as we have seen, fear actual preserves life. You presumably wouldn’t step in front of a moving panel van because of your fear of being squashed. Right?But of course by “living” and “life” both the van and Mahfouz mean “experiencing the fullness of one’s existence.” There is a similar use of the term “life” in a quote from my good buddy Jonathan Swift (we have never met) that makes the rounds of inspirational posters and whatnot. My wife, perhaps in an effort to taunt me, even came home with a refrigerator magnet with the quote: May you live all the days of your life.This sounds great, right? Again, the supposed meaning is to live life to the fullest. Except that Swift originated the statement in his Compleat Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, a series of dialogues featuring fictional members of the “most polite” set in English society. Anyone who knows anything about Swift and his satiric ways can guess by the sardonic title of his work that these dialogues will be designed to mock his subjects. Indeed the lengthy dialogues are relentlessly clever, insufferably witty, and utterly vapid. The quote from my fridge magnet — “May you live all your days of your life” — is no exception. It occurs as a toast by Colonel Atwit to Miss Notable (the names are a clear hint) and is an example of the empty-headed speech of the fashionable set. After all, whether there be one million, one thousand, or just one day left, how can you not live all the days of your life? For Swift, this line taken literally (as with many others in Ingenious Conversation) is a big duh.It is perhaps Swift’s vengeance or maybe curse that the quote has been reproduced without apparent irony on countless inspirational consumer items, such as fanny packs, stress balls, and that damn magnet. By the way, notice how Swift ruins everything? I love him for it.Which brings us right back to the words on the panel van: “Fear doesn’t keep you from dying. Fear keeps you from living.” I hope I have successfully established that the first part is flat-out wrong. If not, let me reiterate. Fear keeps you from dying. It does a lot of other things too, good and bad, but life preservation is its main purpose. Capisce?The second part of the van’s claim is only true if we take “living” to mean living well or living fully, which is not really all that profound. On it’s surface, it is pretty silly.To be sure, I get the spirit of what the van is trying to tell us. Fear can hinder our full enjoyment of life. And I agree wholeheartedly. Still, I am bothered by not just the imprecision of its pronouncements but by the van’s negligence. It is reckless, and no one wants to see a reckless van careening down our streets!The moral of all this? Well, there are several. First, develop a healthy understanding of and relationship with fear. Do not allow fear to debilitate you any more than you allow fearlessness to endanger you. Great leaders curate fear and risk.Second, words matter, and while a saying on the back of a van does not warrant the scrutiny I have indulged in, someone actual paid someone to paint that saying, and someone actually painted it. If you are going to put that much into a saying on the back of your van, choose more wisely.Third, while rear doors can be compelling and may seem authoritative, don’t trust everything you read on the back of a van.Now, go forth and live your life (whatever that means).How well do you manage fear and anxiety? How healthy is your relationship with fear?Learning to manage and curate fear and risk will be critical for you to develop as a great leader, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation and gift.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free.Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

I You know what I mean - you know exactly what I meanBob DylanOne thing I have learned over my many years of fumbling through life is that mistakes get made. How is that for a profound revelation? Mistakes happen, and, yes, yes, (yes!), we should learn from our mistakes, which means first learning to own them. Blah, blah. Blah.Blah.All true, painfully true, and a topic for another day.Speaking of true, it’s true confession time! Forgive me, readers, for I have erred. For a long time I found it challenging to own my mistakes. I’d blame others or circumstances or bad luck (curse you, cosmos!) even when I knew damn right well that I had messed up, slipped up, tripped up, fallen short, dropped the ball, blew it, muffed it, botched it, flubbed it, and ultimately screwed the pooch. (It is best not to dwell on that last one.) This predilection wasn’t some sort of chronic pathology, but it took deliberate effort for me to admit my role in an error.Eventually I recognized this shortcoming, but then I sort of overcompensated and became very hard on myself. I would take the blame for things that were happenstance and over which I had little control. It got to the point where genuine people would pay me genuine compliments, and I would genuinely suspect their motives, which is genuinely ungenerous on my part. I had to consciously resolve to be gracious in the face of their horrid sincerity! I still struggle with this new openhearted approach, but I am striving to improve.In fact, you can help me in my journey. Go ahead. Reach out and pay me a compliment or two. I can take it. Be sure your compliments are of the particularly fetid kind, like, “I love reading your writing, Jim. It really does the trick when I have insomnia.” Or, “The best feature of your weekly essays is their short length!” Or, “My, you are a handsome man for such a geezer!” Trust me, I can handle your atrocious accolades, and I really need the practice accepting them.Please.Oddly, while receiving compliments has been a burden for me, offering them has been almost the opposite. In fact, I sometimes am so free with my compliments that I have to rein myself in so I don’t sound like a babbling brook of blarney. However it may seem, I have always strived to assure that the compliments I pay are well earned.Did you catch that? It’s funny, the language of compliments — “offer,” “pay,” “earn.” Who knew compliments were so transactional, so fiduciary? Compliments are the coin of the realm. What we need are more complimentary compliments, freely conveyed and readily received. Complimentary compliments to complement a spirit of generosity.When I was a boss, I found that a well-placed (and sincere!) compliment could really make a difference to the recipient and help build relationships. I also noticed that there was a ripple effect as my complimentees became enthusiastic complimenters among their peers.I have also had a couple of bosses who were excellent at doling out praise when it was due. I even had one who was a liar, a bullshitter, and a bully, but he sure knew how to give a sincere compliment when warranted. Of course, in retrospect, the stark contrast between his supportive and sincere praise and the rest of his behavior just contributed to the whole gaslighting thing.On the other extreme, I had a different boss who seemed congenitally incapable of giving individual compliments. I only heard her do so once (not to me!) when not under duress although she was capable of generating a group compliment of the “you’re-a-swell-team” type on special occasions, such as tipsy Christmas parties.The only other time I heard her give an individual compliment was, as I said, under duress when, because of my puckish nature, I tricked her into complimenting me in front of her boss. It went like this. Her boss said that I handled an event well. I thanked him and then turned to my boss, saying, “you did a good job too.” Trapped! She was obligated to reply in kind or look like a jerk. It was bizarre to observe her countenance morph into several shapes as she struggled with her dilemma. Ah, good times.Why are compliments so complicated? Why do we struggle to both give and receive praise? Part of the problem is flattery. In the moment, it can be hard to discern the sincere from mere puffery. Then there are those who use even sincere and warranted compliments as a tool of manipulation, like my other boss, the lying, b**********g, bullying gaslighter. Then there are all those narcissistic weirdos, like the non-complimenting boss I described, who imagine that individual praise is an enervating indulgence.Add to all that freakery the fact that so many of us suffer imposter syndrome even late into our careers and that society tells us that anything short of perfection is failure while adding that we should appear (not be) humble and whatnot, and what you get is utter dysfunction. Therefore, I cannot but conclude that among our many crises, our culture suffers a crisis of commendation. A compliment gap, if you will.Meanwhile, there are those countless blowhards who consume both warranted and unwarranted plaudits like Tik Tacs, wolfing them down by the fistful. Most of these people are no more deserving of praise than you or I — and probably are less so — but they seem to dominate workplaces, organizations, and even society although their numbers are small. Some become politicians. Others are commanders of industry. Still others are right in the building with you now. You know who I mean. You know exactly who I mean.Paying compliments, sincere and earned compliments, is the quickest way to up your leadership game. Accepting sincere and earned compliments with gratitude is a bit trickier, but — perhaps paradoxically — it too will set you on the path to great leadership. The reason compliments are so important is because they make everyone feel good — complimenter and complimentee — so gracious acceptance is a positive for all. Also, and this is key, when compliments are sincere and earned they are the truth, and the truth is always better than the alternative.So sincere compliments are, or at least should be, just a part of our everyday human connections, part of how we communicate and interrelate. In that spirit,as we conclude here, just know that you are fabulous! I mean it.How ready are you to offer sincere compliments? How ready are you to accept sincere compliments?Giving and receiving compliments are critical skills for you to master as a leader, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation and gift.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free.Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

Originally published 12 August 2021Leaders at every level need to understand that an individual’s perception is reality. This statement is not the same as “everything I believe to be true is true,” which is just lazy, fanciful thinking. Nor is it a license to insist that everyone share your perceptions, which is bullying. Indeed, the failure to grasp this last point or, more cynically, an effort to exploit this last point has led this nation to the cultural-political precipice where we teeter at this moment.Wise leaders both recognize and respect that their people’s perceptions are their people’s reality. This fact is particularly acute when crossing cultural divides, including (but decidedly not limited to) race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and even organizational rank. Again, we are not here contemplating a license for people, whether leaders or followers, to impose their perceived reality on others or to do as they please. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This essay is a call for leaders to credit others’ different points of view and to supply a heuristic razor for doing so: perception is reality.In every venue of our society we sort individuals, including ourselves, into identity groups. This inclination and the hierarchies that can ensue will often generate friction and dissonance and significantly contribute to intractable dysfunction in organizations. A wise leader will have tools for resolving such challenges. For instance, a Black, female employee may explain to a White, male boss that she contends with discrimination in their workplace. The boss can have no direct access to her experiences and perceptions and may subsequently not discern any offense, so it behooves him, rather than dismiss her concerns, to listen carefully and defer to her point of view unless and until evidence demonstrates she is in error. This way of thinking, that others experience events and reality that is different from and perhaps not accessible to us, is patently obvious yet somehow regularly escapes our grasp. Some people are even hostile to this basic notion, a stance that stems from ignorance driven by a dangerous solipsism. Since you cannot walk in another’s shoes, it is smart to accept their perceptions as their reality. You need not adopt it wholesale as your reality, of course, but you must give other’s perceptions wide berth to stretch and flex while tempering your assumptions. All too often as leaders we immediately want to instead constrain the perceptions of others and impose our own, particularly when they are outside of or challenge our perceptions or foil our designs. Reminding ourselves that our own reality is based entirely on the vagaries of our own perception is helpful here.So I am introducing a heuristic razor, a tool for getting at the heart of a problem and making decisions. Again, as with all heuristic razors, it is a great tool to start with, but it cannot be your last or only tool. Let’s call it the perception-reality razor. In longhand: Always assume that another’s perception is valid unless and until evidence demonstrates otherwise. In shorthand: Perception is reality.To be sure, sometimes your experience with a person will provide sufficient evidence to conclude otherwise. For instance, if that person has proven time and again to be unreliable for whatever reason, then it would be foolhardy to assume the next time will be different. But, let’s face it, those situations are vanishingly rare. If you are a boss, it is vital to apply this razor liberally by starting with the default that an employee’s perception — sometimes articulated as a complaint or criticism — is valid.Admittedly, something inside us tends to resist the truth of this razor. One challenge is that we naturally struggle to perceive things in any other way but our own. Good leaders, though, can and must do so in order to remain effective. If it helps, consider this a form of cognitive empathy.In cases where an accusation is made, this razor may seem opposed to our culture’s sense of justice, which is built around the idea that all individuals are innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the proof of an offense is the burden of the complainant not the alleged offender, who need not prove their innocence because it is assumed. Superficially, defaulting to another’s perception that they have been wronged may seem counter to this principle of presumptive innocence, but not so. First, the default to innocence is an important and noble concept and can and should inform our decision making, but it is primarily a function of the criminal justice system and does not apply so neatly to other areas.Second, default innocence, though a vital part of the criminal trial system, does not preclude accusation and investigation of suspects. In fact, when law enforcement investigates a crime, they primarily try to prove guilt rather than search for exculpatory evidence and even make arrests based on their suspicions. When bosses deal with a workplace accusation, they are at first more like law enforcement than judges. Later, as circumstances warrant, they may have to pivot to the more neutral stance of the judiciary.Wielding the perception-reality razor can be difficult to master since it calls for a leap of trust and often puts us at odds with our own perceptions, thus requiring humility and resilience. It also often involves delicate matters of human identity and demands a dose of empathy. Finally, being all about human perceptions, it runs against all manner of behavior, including irrationality and dishonesty. In short, it sucks, but in a wide world of things that really, really suck, like facing workplace discrimination or bullying, applying the perception-reality razor entails a pretty minor exertion. Pro Tip: Remember, as a heuristic tool, the perception-reality razor — perception is reality — can clarify quickly, but it is only a tool of first resort.Do you find the many rules of communication daunting? Do the rules sometimes get in the way of expressing yourself?Next week I will present a new original piece.How do you adjust when others’ perceptions do not square with your own? Do you want to learn a more effective approach to understanding the perceptions of others?You can be the sort of great leader who appreciates and manages perceptions, and and I can help. Click below for your free consultation and gift.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

It shall pass, however, for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark.Jonathan SwiftOriginally published 23 September 2021Look. I generally detest listicles and have resisted compiling them, with one exception: my spontaneous parody of the listicles that abounded in honor of the 80th birthday of my good friend Bob Dylan.That said, enjoy the following listicle!This one is on effective oral and written communication, but what I offer are not rules. They are more like guides, mere suggestions, helpful hints, noodgy nudges, and the like. After all, rules just beg to be broken. For instance, consider my personal rule that I don’t write listicles. So take that, rules!The Lucky 131. Clarity trumps everything.In this statement, “everything” includes everything on this list. The fundamental goal of communication is to get a message across, and unclear writing axiomatically does not do so. Therefore, it is imperative that you eschew obfuscation and dispense with befoggery. Then again, virtually everything on this list has to do with maximizing clarity, so this listicle is merely an abundancy of redundancy.By the way, if you write incoherently because you figure, “Tough nuts! I’ll communicate however I like because I’m the boss,” then be aware that, while you are successfully making that point, no other point is getting through.2. Know your audience.Who is your audience? What do they look like? How do they dress? Are they nice? Do you think any of them might be willing to lend me some money?Identifying your audience is key to how you will shape and tune your communication. If you are writing a blog that only a handful of friends will read, that is quite different than a blog that is open to the public and promoted on Twitter.If you are not sure who your audience is exactly or if your audience is potentially very broad, a good trick is to imagine an audience that will absolutely and purposely misinterpret your communication. The fact is, they will.3. Know your genre.“Genre” is fancy talk for format or type. Just like your audience, the format of your communication dictates many factors, including tone, length, style, etc. Writing an email is different than writing a letter, which is different than delivering a speech, and so forth.Social media is a particularly perilous genre, especially for those of us who grew up thinking social was a word to describe disease and that telephones are utterly useless for taking photos. After all, where would you put the film? Even with that newfangled social media all the kids are into these days, though, these guides apply.4. Communicate the message you want to hear the way you would want to hear it. This is the writing equivalent of the Golden Rule and is therefore a matter of empathy really. We have all had to suffer through poorly communicated material, usually due to a lack of clarity, so pity your poor audience and don’t try to wow them with quasi-profound obscurity. Here is a simple exercise for mastering this Golden Rule of Writing.Recall a piece of writing or other communication that you found baffling and confounding. If you ever had to read a paragraph over and over or asked the person sitting next to you, “What did she mean by that,” don’t assume the problem is with you. Instead, identify what made that communication so confusing and frustrating. Was it poorly structured? Did it use overly difficult language? Was it illogical? Have you figured it out? Good. Now, don’t do that.Here’s another helpful tip. If you ever think to yourself, “oh, it’s okay. They will get what I mean,” you are wrong, just wrong. Rewrite. Partial (or wishful) communication is always miscommunication, and it’s your job to be clear. Don’t leave it to others to figure out.5. Sarcasm is a double-edged sword.Go for it. Use sarcasm indiscriminately. You won’t regret it. As a card-carrying Gen X sarcasm addict, I get cut by this one all the time.6. Mind your grammar and mechanics.Know and respect grammar and mechanics but don’t obsess and don’t be slavish to the standards. Grammar is the rules for both oral and written language, such as how to use the parts of speech. Mechanics is the rules that apply only to written language, such as punctuation. Good grammar and mechanics usually aid communication, but reliance on the rules can also and should never hinder clarity or style.For instance, you may wonder, “is it ever okay to break the rules and, say, use a sentence fragment or slang?” Sure nuff. Yup. Uh-huh.And, while you are not obsessing over grammar and mechanics, don’t fall for bogus grammar rules. If you are not sure what I mean, go ahead and feel free to quickly look up “split infinitive.” I’ll wait. Now look up “dangling preposition.” Got it? Good.Now forget you ever learned about them. They are bogus rules.And, one more thing. Fergodsake, spare us the confusion and just use the Oxford comma!7. Straight talk is a virtue.Straight talk means getting to your point with as little fluff as possible. I wrote a whole essay on this once. You want to avoid passive aggressiveness, caginess, and over-wordiness, which lead to miscommunication.One danger here is that straight talk can sometimes come across as curt and rude. Avoid being rude and turning off your audience unless you have reason to do so, such as they are all jerks. Also, be aware that emails are notoriously difficult to keep short and to the point without sounding impolite. I always try to include some pleasantries (“please,” “thanks”) and then sign off with an upbeat “Best.” If you receive an email from me that does not include such courtesies, I probably just don’t like you.Guides 8, 9, and 10 below are closely related but worth discussing separately.8. Go ahead, use cliches, but sparingly. Don’t get your knickers in a knot over this one. Sometimes cliches are just the thing to get the job done. A wisely used cliche can be the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, and the right stuff. The heart of the matter is to make sure you use the right cliche at the right time so it’s not a fish out of water. And, bottom line, whatever you do, when it comes to cliches, don’t beat a dead horse.9. Euphemism is sometimes necessary, but it still flirts with miscommunication.Euphemism is a way to avoid saying something directly, ostensibly to soften a blow, and that is a good thing. You wouldn’t say to a grieving child, “Hey, that sucks, your mom dying in that horribly gruesome way yesterday and all.” But euphemisms can also be purposely misleading. For instance, how might our views of war change if instead of using the euphemism “collateral damage” we straight up said “we killed innocents.”10. The same is true for jargon.Jargon is specialized language that can aid internal communication in professional fields. Used externally, though, it is just showing off or, worse, participating in a conspiracy against the public. Lawyers are notorious for slinging jargon among civilians in order to wow and/or dumbfound the lay populace. My favorite legal phrase, by the way, is “to make whole,” as in, “my partners and I are confident that this generous settlement will be sufficient to make your client whole.” It just means “compensate totally.”11. Be bold. Surprise your audience. Thrill your reader. Assault their comfortable assumptions. Don’t be afraid to take risks in your writing to get people’s attention and your point across. That last phrase, by the way, was a slick use of zeugma, which has nothing to do with Zumba, which has nothing to do with Roomba, which has nothing to do with rumba, which is a vacuum cleaner. No, wait. That one is a dance, or is that rhumba?Anyway, don’t be ordinary.12. Remember COP — Clarity, Organization, and Precision.This is a handy mnemonic acronym like FAN BOYS (for the coordinating conjunctions) or ROY G BIV (for the colors of the spectrum).We have thoroughly contemplated the virtues of C: Clarity. If you have already forgotten, go back to 1. And get that memory thing checked out by a professional.O: Organization has to do with logic, and there is a really handy rule of thumb here: be logical. Can it be easier than that?P: Precision is saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Be careful not to confuse accuracy and precision, though. Accuracy is always precise, but precision is not always accurate. Saying “it is now twelve, noon, on New Year’s Day” is precise but would be inaccurate if the real time were one in the morning sometime in July.13. Read. Listen. Mindfully. I considered listing this one first because it is so important, but I made it last instead so it would stand out and linger in your recollection like the first time you woke up in bed next to a dead kangaroo or like a McDonald's jingle. The best communicators are the best audience members first. Every communication you read or listen to is an opportunity to hone your skills. If something strikes your fancy (which is fancy talk for “you dig it”), try to determine why. Can you make that part of your repertoire (which is fancy talk for “stuff”)? In contrast, if someone’s attempt at communication vexes you (which is fancy talk for “pisses you off”), figure out why. How can you avoid doing the same thing?Here’s hoping you find something useful here. If you take away one thing from this listicle, let it be that rules, guides, suggestions, and the like are supposed to enhance your communication. Never let them hinder your communication. And let me reemphasize 11: Be bold.I know that I missed your favorite communication tip, so let me know your additions by email or, preferably, in the comments. If you disagree with anything here (and I’m sure some do), let me know as well. I look forward to the conversation.Do you find the many rules of communication daunting? Do the rules sometimes get in the way of expressing yourself?You can be a great leader, one who readily navigates the challenges of communication, and and I can help. Click below for your free consultation and gift.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

Now everything's a little upside down As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped What's good is bad, what's bad is good You'll find out when you reach the top You're on the bottomBob DylanMy Catholic school days taught me a lot, albeit little I was supposed to learn. For one thing, I was quite a freethinker by parochial school standards. I had wild, wild thoughts and too often even blurted them out, which I am certain thoroughly endeared me to my classmates and to my teachers.Indeed, my attempts at being true to myself and to my intellectual pursuits were so universally well-regarded that by the end of sixth grade, I had become afraid to raise my hand. The bullying from classmates I learned to deal with, but the teachers were another thing. My classroom silence lasted all the way through college.Still, being a curious kid — that is, both inquisitive and odd — I often made pronouncements that annoyed or bored my classmates. Usually these occurred well outside the classroom. One time — and somehow I remember the location but not the circumstance or the topic — my few friends and I were in the schoolyard, which was really just the church parking lot, and someone said something along the lines of, “if this thing is not true, then it’s opposite must be true.” Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that my reproduction of this statement is not verbatim.That half-baked observation struck me in an instant. It was a profundity that warranted a reply in the style that only I among our little group had mastered, the understated manner I had carefully nurtured to defend myself in that hostile educational environment. I replied something along the lines of, “don’t be stupid. Just because X is wrong doesn’t mean -X is right, you idiot.” I am sure we had substantial discussion about the propriety of name calling, which would itself undoubtedly involve a good deal of name calling on both sides, but inevitably we would have settled down into a more philosophical exchange, arguing our points, Plato-like, well until we were called in from recess.Sadly, I think in that moment I hit on the first and best truth I have ever hit on. The idea that just because something is wrong doesn’t mean its direct opposite is right has stood me in good stead throughout my life. It has protected me from the lure of knee-jerk contrarianism and fostered my more individualist or even iconoclastic outlook.The OppositeDon’t get me wrong. There is much to be said for doing the opposite. In fact, I love counterintuitive thinking and use it frequently in my approach to life and to my writing. It’s just that just doing the opposite is no less absolute than just staying the course. Few things in life are so linear. For instance, think of how you got to where you are now in life. Was your path a series of straight-up choices like climbing a ladder, or was the way more convoluted than that?There is a great Seinfeld episode that plays off the power of doing the opposite. In it, George, the schlemiel character, realizes that every choice he has ever made is wrong. He decides on the spot — the spot being the corner diner — to change it up and do the opposite of what he normally does. Instead of his usual lunch he orders chicken salad on rye, which in his mushy mind is the opposite of his regular tuna on toast.“Nothing’s ever worked out for me with tuna on toast,” he defiantly proclaims. Cue laughter.He then, against his every inclination, approaches an attractive woman and boldly states, “My name is George. I’m unemployed and live with my parents.” Despite his evident shortcomings, he gets a date, and that date leads to an unlikely job interview with the New York Yankees. During the interview, George encounters George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ overbearing owner, and, again defying his instincts, proceeds to lambast Steinbrenner to his face. Steinbrenner hires him right then.If only such were the way in the real world. Then again, who among us would choose to live in Seinfeld’s world? I mean aside from Jerry Seinfeld.Opposing the OppositeIt’s true that choosing to do the opposite of what you know to be wrong will improve your chances of doing right if only because you are avoiding that wrong thing. But the opposite is no panacea, George Costanza’s experience aside. Thoughtlessly doing the opposite will work, but only with stopped-clock accuracy — that is, only when the time and circumstance happen to align. Therefore, it behooves us, when faced with an obvious wrong choice, to seek out the right choice as best we can.Aside from inconsistent results, merely choosing to do the opposite has some other ramifications we must consider. For one, regularly doing the opposite sets up a world where there is only X and -X, which is almost always a false dichotomy. There are rarely only two choices. Think of an elevator. Before you board, you will only have two directions to choose, up or down, right? Upon boarding, though, there will be several floors to stop at, each of which is itself an option. And then there’s always that terrifying alternative to the elevator called “the stairs.” Or you could just wait in the lobby and not go anywhere, one more possibility still. Come to think of it, Batman seems to have forged his own methods for accessing the top floors. See? Far from there being only two choices, the possibilities turn out to be numerous, perhaps endless.Besides, it would be silly to assume that the right choice is the exact opposite of the wrong choice — “I went up on the elevator last week on my way to talk to the boss, and he yelled at me. Therefore today I will press the down button to get to his office. After all, once bitten, twice shy.” More often than we care to admit the best choice is to abandon the question altogether, leave the building, go for a walk, and enjoy a park. Just give the boss the slip and live the good life. If we instead limit ourselves only to doing the opposite, we are left with just two options even though options abound, a true false dichotomy.The other danger of just doing the opposite, choosing -X as the winner every time, is that it creates a sense that our world is populated by only absolute winners and absolute losers — a zero-sum game — which is itself a false dichotomy. The binary philosophy of zero-sum is a pathology that infects the likes of bullies, sociopaths, my sixth-grade teacher, and other miscreants.I don’t mean to suggest that George Costanza is a sociopath for switching to chicken salad. But, then again, there was that series finale…The zero-sum approach, because it sees winning as an absolute necessity, becomes a justification for lying, cheating, deception, and other destructive behaviors. That is ultimately where the binary logic of choosing X or -X leads. A world where there are only two possibilities is a two-dimensional world, flat, featureless, and as distorted and misleading as a Mercator world map.——The truth is that sometimes doing the same or obvious thing is the right choice, sometimes doing the opposite of that is the right choice, and sometimes doing something entirely else is the right choice. And don’t forget that doing nothing at all is itself a choice, and it too could be right or wrong. The key is in that phrase, “the right choice.” Our decisions are typically driven by invisible habits and paradigms that serve a purpose at first but that become hindrances over time. Of course you cannot and should not throw out all your habits and practices, but it is important to recognize them for what they are and to act accordingly. B.J. Fogg of Tiny Habits fame teaches us that we can create healthy new habits, that we can master the skill of change and allow positive change to be a force for good in our lives.The trick is to understand that maybe tuna on toast is a satisfying lunch, but a big salad from time to time may be even better.How do you know when to just do the opposite or even throw out the old models and start from scratch? What can result from doing so?Learning to be a great leader requires you to be able to add, subtract, and balance when you make decisions, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

THIS INSTALLMENT IS AN ENCORE PRESENTATION FROM AUGUST 2021Welcome to my first Ted talk.Two types of politics pervade most workplaces. One is the politics of possibility, the idea that, through sheer persuasiveness and appeals to values, people can be recruited and motivated to work together for good. That their passions and their intellect can be encouraged to join forces in common cause for the betterment of all.The other is sadly much more pervasive, the politics of power, which centers on the ego and the zero-sum game and relies upon the machinery of personal destruction. In this brand of politics, the we is never evoked but in service to the I. Accomplishments remain singular affairs. Even collaborative effort is merely the coming together of individuals in support of their individual interests. Practitioners of this political philosophy are the type who tend to claim most or all the credit no matter their contribution. For them, the betterment of the organization has no purpose but as a means or byproduct of the betterment of the self.As a recovering academic, I have too much experience with the politics-as-a bloodsport crowd and the untold damage they inflict on individuals and institutions. Unfortunately, in most industries, the same politics of winner-take-all overwhelmingly dominates. Individuals seek to position themselves to protect their interests at the expense of their organizations, their clients, and even their missions. The ignoble and petty politics of ego and personal gain flourish and prevail with sometimes devastating consequences. For an object lesson, look no further than the many and mighty deep and wide travails of higher education.So how about the politics of possibility, of getting things done, of maximizing and sharing the win? How can we assert the power of such politics in our organizations?Talkin’ Ted: Ted Lasso vs Jamie Tartt (With occasional translations for those whose first language is American)In the first season of the television series Ted Lasso, two characters evoke two different world views for getting things done. On the one hand is Jamie Tartt a young football (soccer) star, noted for his brashness — hence the name Tartt. His idea of how to win games is to take control of the ball and charge toward the goal. The fact that he is a cracking (supremely talented) player means that his approach is relatively successful even if he is a bit of a prat (arrogant fool). When he scores a goal (point), he celebrates his accomplishment as a singularly personal event that just happens to benefit his club (team).In the clubhouse (locker room), he is a self-interested bully who demonstrates his lack of respect for his club mates (teammates) through his nonstop expressions of self-regard. He does not encourage his club mates, nor does he celebrate their successes since, in his zero-sum mind, their success somehow dulls his luster. For Jamie, the team is merely an accessory to his glory, a means for a winner like him to take all. If the team wins, it is because of him. If the team loses, it is despite his dazzling and lone(ly) play. Jamie will even throw a wobbly (have a temper tantrum) at his club mates in order to deflect blame. In the politics of the clubhouse, Jamie dominates by inspiring a bold mix of fear, hatred, and admiration in his mates (colleagues). If they do not openly adore him or, worse still, if they show him up, they will face his considerable wrath. His is the politics of power, ego, personal destruction, and self-promotion. For him, the club only exists to serve his needs. Elsewhere I have written of the overall deleterious effect of such beasts in the workplace.The set-up of the series is that the new gaffer (coach), Ted Lasso, is a hyper-amiable American whose experience is limited to coaching American football (football) at a uni (college) in Kansas. Ted, of course, knows nothing about football (soccer). He, in fact, has unwittingly been brought in to fail and to scupper (destroy) the team.As it turns out, though, Ted knows nearly everything about leadership and about clubhouse politics. His approach is relentless positivity enhanced by a distinctive cheekiness (slight irreverence), as he introduces the players to the power of possibility and ropes them in through sheer persuasion — hence the name Lasso. Eventually, instead of a team built in service of individual players and their performance on the pitch (field), these lads (men) begin to coalesce in service to the club. Ted’s approach confuses and frustrates Jamie, to be sure, but it also fascinates him.Ted also knows that building a team is not about just collecting individual stars and sending them out onto the pitch. Instead, he slowly persuades those individual players that they are best when they work together in service to the club. His political approach is informed by his inherent human decency as it advances the art of the possible.Ted Lasso’s clubhouse politics is expansive and optimistic, a world in which everyone can be a winner. Jamie Tartt’s is insular and self-serving and only allows for one winner. In life, the most brilliant (very good) leaders are builders, like Ted. They are patient and consistent and are not overawed by raw talent and drive. Armed with fortitude, courage, and resilience, they serve the team or organization and never the other way around.In a world that demands quick results and instant gratification, the Ted Lassos are all-too rare. Rarer still is the environment that allows them to flourish. Instead, we most often see the Jamie Tartt philosophy of zero-sum individualism receive all the praise and resources despite its vapid and decidedly nihilistic outlook.The politics of possibility can be challenging to implement and even harder to maintain. Such a political approach is marked by inclusiveness, collaboration, and personal humility. Society’s immediate rewards perversely go to the rugged individualist who gathers glory as though glory were a finite resource. Think about that. The politics of personal power, being a zero-sum game, regards glory and winning as finite. If you win, I lose, therefore… How obviously and utterly dozy (wrongheaded)! Yet, we insistently and persistently laud such counterproductive behavior.The politics of possibility is the antidote to the toxicity of personal destruction. Bad being stronger that good, it can be hard to break through by practicing the art of the possible, but the alternative is unacceptable. We need to be builders like Ted Lasso. Otherwise we will continue to live in a world overrun by gits (dipshits) like Jamie Tartt.Thank you for attending my Ted talk.Click here for an exceedingly gratifying four minutes of television.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You must register with Substack to leave a comment, which stinks but is painless and risk free.I look forward to hearing from you.Post this essay on social media or send it by email to someone you want to inspire/annoy.Subscribe to receive my weekly newsletter and special editions directly to your mailbox.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

You want to talk to me Go ahead and talk Whatever you got to say to me Won’t come as any shockBob DylanThe difference between bossing and leading is massive. Yes, of course, most leaders are bosses on some level, but very few bosses are leaders. By that I mean too many bosses do too little to bolster their leadership skills and many in fact assume they are leaders simply because they are bosses. If you make that assumption, I can guarantee you are no leader no matter what your title. Boss is a position. Leader is an attitude of greatness, whatever the position, which is why untitled (and unentitled) employees can be great leaders without being bosses.Leaders intuitively understand the difference between bossing and leading even if they do not put it in those terms. They know that there are times when bossing may be necessary but that leading is always called for.Bosses and leaders even have different ways of talking. Here are some things I have heard dopey bosses say. Pro Tip: If you want to talk like a leader, just flip these statements around.Things Dopey Bosses Say“My people keep preventing me from implementing my great ideas. Why? They’re great ideas!”Now, it could be that your people are a bunch of malcontents, but that would not be the case if you were any kind of leader. More than likely, though, the truth is that your ideas weren’t such great ideas after all. I know of a brand new boss who complains widely and loudly how his people constantly block his ideas. The problem is that his best ideas had long ago been implemented, well before he got on the scene, which he would have known if he had bothered to listen or do his homework. The bulk of his ideas, though, are insipid. “Our leadership team is really smart, so we don’t need to get some other brains on this to help us out.”Just as no individual can know it all, no leadership team has all the answers. There is nothing wrong with bringing in expertise or just fresh thinking whether from inside or outside the organization. Indeed, trusting your people to participate in decision-making is one of the most powerful tools you can use. It is a sign of a healthy organization. This is how leaders think.“This is an at-will state,” and “other duties as assigned.”When these appear in a job description or are stated as de facto policy, written or otherwise, you have just stripped your people of autonomy and dignity. First, the facts. All fifty states have some degree of at-will employment, but only Montana (freaking Montana!) limits that status to the first six months of employment, which is in line with, ya know, civilized nations. When Montana is the progressive groundbreaker, you know something is wildly amiss. At-will employment policies send the message that bosses are monarchs and employees are disposable serfs. By the way, if you are in the habit of disposing of people at will, you have no chance of ever becoming a leader unless you change your ways — to be more like Montana.As for “other duties as assigned,” while you may legally be able to get away with this, doing so is fundamentally dishonest. If you don’t know how to write an accurate job description, find someone who can. If an employee’s duties must change down the line, that is something to negotiate in good faith, not impose. Only dopey bosses treat their people like ranch horses.“I have to check or even do everything because everyone else is incompetent.”Do we really have to rehearse this one? If you think or say this, then I know for sure who is incompetent in that scenario. Either you don’t know how to hire and train people, or you’re just full of yourself. Or both. Frankly, you ain’t all that (and everyone knows it even if you don’t). This stupidity is the hallmark of a dopey boss.“When I hire, I try to trip up the candidates over and over in order to weed them out.”The attitude that the job candidate is in the hot seat and you are supposed to get them to slip up is both archaic and counterproductive. If, instead, you treat the job application process as an uplifting and mutually beneficial interaction, you are accomplishing two things at once. First, you are sending a message about the positive culture you are cultivating and setting the successful candidate on the right path. Second, you are leaving every candidate, no matter the results, with good feelings about you and your organization, which will reflect well on you down the line. You say you don’t care about either result? Well, shame on you, boss!“I don’t want my workers to worry/panic/complain, so I keep information from them if I think it will bother them.”It’s hard to believe that this one is even a thing, but I know it is. Here is a rule of thumb: maximize transparency and omnidirectional communication. Unless you oversee a bunch of teenaged workers in a fast-food franchise at the mall, your people are adult professionals. Treat them as such. No one likes secrets, and no one likes to be patronized.And, yes, there are items that for legal and other reasons must be kept secret, but in a culture of openness, everyone can easily understand and accept that fact. If you think this one is too hard, I can assure you that the alternative is far harder. Leaders relate through communication.“My people are lucky to be working at all. They couldn’t get hired anywhere else.”I worked at a college where the president literally thought like this and even sometimes said it aloud. He was a jerk and a very bad boss.“No one works harder than I do, and I expect my people to work just as hard.”I have gone on and on and on about the BS virtue of hard work. Instead of working harder, try working better and striving to work best. Simply working harder is always counterproductive, and expecting others to work harder is even worse, particularly if they are not compensated for their time. Bosses don’t understand any of this."I expect exemplary behavior from my people, but since I am the boss, I do as I want." If you are the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do type, just stop it! That attitude goes by another name: hypocrisy. In contrast, great leaders strive to be great all the time and inspire greatness in their people by modeling the best behaviors themselves.“We can all aspire to greatness, and we can always be greater still.”Whoops! That one snuck in. This statement reflects the triumphal mindset of true leaders. If you want to lead, start here.You probably heard echoes of bosses past in some of these statements. Maybe you have even heard your own voice. The boss mindset is ego-based. It involves short-term thinking and lacks fundamental human decency. The leader mindset is broad minded and values based, imbuing every act with a conscious commitment to integrity. It’s a challenge, and all the more so since the leader mindset requires constant vigilance. Bosses pump and preen their egos. On the other hand, leaders regularly stuff their egos in a sack and throw them in the river.Bosses fail and fail again, wasting much of their time and their people’s time compensating for their ineffectiveness. Sadly our culture rewards bossing behaviors, such as displays of power and mindless cruelty, which distorts things so that even those failures look like successes. Leaders, being human, will fail as well, but they learn from their failures and those of others and tend to be most efficient in the long run. Again, sadly, our culture often denigrates leadership behaviors, such as openness, but the rewards are well worth it. Bosses are rarely leaders, but leaders are truly boss.When you speak, do you sound like a boss or a leader? How do you know?Great leadership is a mindset you must cultivate and constantly revisit, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

I can’t feel you anymore, I can’t even touch the books you’ve readBob DylanI recently heard a local politician quip, “I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, but they put covers on books for a reason.” It’s a clever turn of phrase, and he has a point. Modern book covers are a marketing tool and are supposed to indicate, reflect, or symbolize something about the contents of the book. Therefore, the cover should have some meaning and some bearing with regard to the book itself.Then again, covers can also be misleading, obscure, or perfectly uninformative. For instance, I am reading a 1995 novel by Richard Ford called Independence Day. The front cover, which is presumably all we mean when referring to judging covers, is dominated by a photo of a furled U.S. flag in front of a green lawn viewed through a rain-spotted screen. As striking as it is, the photo conveys little information.Of course the cover also features words. Aside from the title and the author’s name across the middle, we learn, along the top, that the book was a “NATIONAL BESTSELLER.” We also learn that Ford is the “Author of The Sportswriter.” The cover neglects to tell us that this particular book is a sequel to said The Sportswriter, an odd omission. As it happens, I have never read The Sportswriter, so already I am at an assumptive loss reading Independence Day although I wouldn’t know that from the cover.Out of the way in the upper right, a black circle with hard-to-read gold lettering informs the sharp-eyed reader that something or someone — the book? The author? — is the “WINNER of the PULITZER PRIZE.” That is a good piece of information, but I had to look it up to find that it refers to this novel itself and not an earlier book or the author himself.Finally, way down in the bottom-right corner in white lettering against the dark foliage of a shrubbery in the background photo, there is this blurb from The New York Times: “Powerful…as gripping as it is affecting…, Ford has galvanized his reputation as one of his generation’s most eloquent voices.” If I weren’t so lazy, I might want to locate the original review to see what words those ellipses stand in for.All of this information, the verbal and the nonverbal, reveals little of the content or even style of this book. I cannot even discern its genre — fiction, history, biography, etc.So what do we really mean when we evoke the well-worn metaphor of judging a book by its cover? Well, the most obvious offense we wish to mitigate is committing a superficial rush to judgment. For instance, that novel I am reading, Independence Day, I probably would have rejected it based solely on the cover. Sorry, designer, but the image — colorful as it is — leaves me cold. I only picked up the book because a guy I just met recommended it, and it was a good recommendation.So, aside from books themselves, what else do we judge based on their cover? Here are a few possibilities.I like it when people look me in the eye when we speak, but I have encountered and even known plenty of people who just can’t look you in the eye for whatever reason. And there may be a host of reasons beyond their control. Yet some folks make it a point of high virtue and pride never to trust someone who won’t look them in the eye, thereby judging the person by their interpersonal superficialities.Or, this. When I was a college dean, I once had to have a stern conversation with a professor who brutally called out some poor freshman in front of his classmates for wearing torn jeans to class. The professor tried to pass it off as though he were giving the kid some advice about what to expect in the working world, but he was just being a prick, judging a student by his jeans.And what is it with shoppers rejecting a nice piece of fruit because of some slight (and edible) blemish? I have done it myself, and shame on me for judging an apple by its skin.Instead, imagine getting to know a person before rejecting them for something as trivial as not making what you deem proper eye contact. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for not trusting people. Eye contact is a poor one. If you get to know the person, you may learn that they must constantly compensate for a condition they cannot control. That, in fact, they are persistent, brave, and strong. Oh, and trustworthy.Or what if that professor, rather than choosing to humiliate the young student he is charged with teaching, bothered to find out more about the student? He would have learned that the student was just a sensitive young man trying to figure out where and how he fits in. His torn jeans were his way of expressing himself in the moment and not the result of him being too stupid or morally reprobate to wear proper pants.The thing is, that student was still finding his way in college and did not need this BS. Unfortunately for that professor, by not learning more about his student, he did not recognize that this young man was no passive sufferer. The student, in fact, had the temerity and wherewithal to report his professor’s mean-spiritedness. Rather than the cowering victim the professor expected, that student stood up to a more powerful bully, ratty jeans and all, and contributed to the hastening of that professor’s long overdue retirement.What if I just bought that apple and then took a bite? I might even find that blemish was the sweetest part of the fruit.Judging the CoverPerhaps perversely, book covers being as limited as they are, I have always enjoyed inspecting the cover after finishing the book to see if I understand the intent of the design. Certainly some book covers are almost literal in depicting a scene or motif that appears inside. Others are completely mysterious or just have a picture of the author or the title on a colorful background. But many, maybe most, are somewhat in between, inspired by the content but not particularly revealing or, dare I say, inspiring. So by judging a cover by it’s book I hope to glean some insight about the book that I have just finished, and sometimes I am actually successful. I also almost always can surmise something about the way the book has been marketed.In other words, we can learn a great deal more about the world if we not only not refrain from judging books by their covers but also get into the habit of judging covers by their books. By coming to understand the reality of the outside after familiarizing ourselves with the inside, we may learn a bit more about what lies within while almost certainly gaining insight into how we and others approach and interpret surfaces. As the politician said, “they put covers on books for a reason.” And such awareness of our own and others’ perceptions can be invaluable, much more valuable than just judging a book by its cover.How often do you base your assessments on superficialities? Do you ever seek to judge a cover by its book?The world is a tapestry of perspectives you can master, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have On Leading with Greatness sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading On Leading with Greatness! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

The world of research has gone berserk Too much paperworkBob DylanLet’s start by stipulating that you are busy, very busy, very, very busy even. What with the kids and that damn dog and your nagging boss, not to mention the sheer number of tasks you are expected to complete in a given work day. You’re busy. I get it.Let’s also stipulate that there is no inherent virtue in being busy. Can we agree to that? Take a deep breath here before you react. Think. Just because someone does lots of stuff does not mean they are doing good or even doing good work. Just doing more stuff is neither a moral imperative nor a sure means toward effectiveness. By extension, you therefore do not have to compete with your co-worker, neighbor, sibling, or even spouse over who is the busiest since busyness is — wait for it — meaningless in itself. Besides, count on it, you’re really busy. Really, really busy. So what?What if I told you that busyness is as much as mindset as, well, any other mindset you might have? By mindset, I mean a deep-seated inclination, a set of unquestioned assumptions and all the habits and paradigms that accompany them.Mindsets can be wonderful. If you truly believe that you can indeed learn new tricks no matter how old you are, you will tend to keep learning. If you truly assume that you will meet your personal goals, it is likely you will succeed.Mindsets can also be debilitating. If you tell yourself you are bad at math, well, guess what. Even if there is no intrinsic reason or evidence that you have a math deficiency, every time you encounter a math problem you will tend to freeze up. Similarly, if you imbibe the notion that you, your family, or your organization simply lack the resources to get ahead, you will, indeed, lack the resources to get ahead. We call that the scarcity mentality, and it’s a killer.Educators, following the work of Carol Dweck, tend to divide mindsets into two categories: growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. An example of the latter is the belief that my intelligence level is set, that I cannot grow smarter no matter how much I try. In contrast, a growth mindset would tell you that you can, indeed, improve your mind and increase your intelligence. By the way, can you guess which one of those is accurate?Let’s try another. A fixed mindset will tell you that it’s all stacked against you. That the income you have now is about all you can ever expect. Sure you may get raises and promotions, but those will be incremental. You will never achieve your financial dreams and will wallow in scarcity. On the other hand, a growth mindset would tell you that what you make now has little bearing on what you will have in the future, that your income can increase exponentially. If you really believe this, both your attitude and — this is important — your behavior will change for the better.So, let’s play with this idea that busyness is a mindset — something we believe without any doubt, an assumption, a habit. Is it a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?Got your answer? Go ahead and just shout it out there.Well, I can’t hear you anyway, so I will just tell you. It’s a fixed mindset. Much like the scarcity mindset, the belief in the need to stay busy embeds you in a permanent state. You are busy for two reasons. One is that you have lots to do or perceive that you have lots to do. In this respect, you are not so unique. The other is that you are busy because you think you should be busy or, perhaps unconsciously, want to appear busy to others. To compound this silliness, we even compare our levels of busyness, like it’s some sort of contest. I am sure you have chuckled over the notion that whoever has the most stuff when they die wins, right? That’s just stupid. (I’m looking at you Musk and Bezos.) Well, the busyness mindset, that lame competition we all endure, similarly suggests that whoever is doing the most when they die wins. Wow! Just wow! If my calendar is full of upcoming appointments when I shuffle off this mortal coil, then I am a winner! Yay me.I’ll bet that you have, many times, tried to impress someone with how busy you are. I know I have. I’ll also bet you have done so more than once in the past week. Maybe, even more absurdly, you tried to compete with someone over who got the least sleep. I long ago started prioritizing sleep (not always successfully), and I cannot tell you how many times I was in a conversation where people were comparing their lack of sleep as if competing to see who could bottom-out first. It’s like a drinking contest where the winner is the first to get carted off to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Whenever I dared to chime in with “I try to get eight hours,” the reactions ranged from disbelief to actual revulsion. People thought less of me.These folks would usually respond with something like, “I could never get eight hours! Not with all the things I have to do!” Saying you are merely trying — just trying — to get eight hours is regarded as though you just announced you never wash your hands after using the toilet.Let’s shake on that.The source of the problem with this competitive busyness/sleep deprivation nonsense is not the individual. We have all been swept up in a cultural phenomenon that imposes this debilitating mindset on us.That said, the solution does lie with the individual. Each of us can opt-out of the mindset. Again, I am stipulating that you truly have much to do — you are way too busy — but that fact does not mean you have to maintain the busyness mindset. There is something called Parkinson’s Law, which states, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.“ In other words, you will use whatever time you have to complete a task. This is why we rarely finish work early … unless we resolve to do so.That last point is critical. We somehow can fill our every day with toil deep into the evening except when we have a four o-clock tee time or when tea time is at four o’clock sharp.I became aware of the notion that we take all the time we have to complete a task when I first started teaching as an adjunct professor. I realized that no matter whether I had one, two, or three courses a semester, I was just as flustered and harried by the workload. Initially I assumed that when I had only one course to teach, I was just putting in extra work. Or maybe I was skimping on the work for each class when I had more courses to teach. Over many years, though, and with ever-increasing workloads, I realized that I performed roughly the same amount of work for each course no matter the number, but I was somehow expanding that work when I had fewer courses to fill the time I had.To be sure, I don’t mean that I was taking undue breaks or goofing off. Somehow, as per Parkinson’s mystical law, I was expanding the time on task it took to get the same quantity of work done. Eeek!Eventually, I made some adjustments to how I viewed work, and my time-on-task reduced. In short, I shifted my mindset. Mind you, it isn’t easy to do this in our society, and I have reverted many times, even recently. The siren-song of the busyness cult is quite powerful. So yes, you have lots to do. You are truly, truly busy.But are you really? Yes, yes. Of course you are.But, really?What steps can you take to prioritize your important work over your busy work? How can you shift your mindset to resist the lure of busyness?You can strike the balance in your work and life that you deserve, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media. And don’t forget to click subscribe to have Tools+Paradigms sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading Tools+Paradigms! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

There is nothing so stable as change.Bob DylanBack in April of 2021, the business and entrepreneurship guru Sahil Bloom posted on Twitter a simple but profound observation.The world wants you to be normal. Our systems and institutions are all designed to make it easy to be normal. Maintaining your distinctiveness is possible, but it will require effort — painful, constant, relentless effort. But stay the course. You’ll find it’s worth it.Bloom sets himself up here as an enemy of the normal, of the comfortable, of the same-old-same-old, of the status quo as he advocates for individuals and organizations to lean into their distinctiveness in order to differentiate themselves from the herd.My experience working in higher education exposed me to leaders who professed to do just that but instead did little to distinguish themselves or their institutions. They established entire offices devoted to communication and marketing and charged them with conveying the institutional brand to the world — a quixotic task given the sameness of so many colleges. I really felt for those marketing folks. These professionals would identify areas of potential differentiation only to have it all undermined by leaders who blanched at the perceived risk of actually being different. Sameness seems safer. Normality seems best.I once had a college president veto a much-needed and innovative major with the absurd question, “why should we be the first?” Higher ed is pretty good at generating innovative ideas for others to execute, but as an industry seeking to improve its practice (educating students) and enhance its product (educated students), too often, higher ed is where innovation goes to die.Many higher ed leaders, particularly but not exclusively at smaller schools, act as though they can simply continue to do the same-old-same-old and then add some secret sauce: Our students! Our dorms! Our location! Our one popular major! Our sports fields! Our endowment! Our lazy river! Our parking garage!In reality, their schools are pretty much alike, as evidenced by their largely interchangeable mission statements. I have seen exceptions, but they are, indeed, exceptional.One school I worked at was located in an extremely impoverished part of the country and prided itself on giving opportunities to under-resourced kids. The only problem with that claim was that the graduation rate for the college was and is less than one-third. In other words, the opportunity offered was for masses of students to run up debt while there was not much opportunity to complete a degree. Frankly, from a financial standpoint, those students would be better off never attending college or attending one where success is more attainable.The problem is, in my professional opinion, systemic and solvable. The college had and has a superb faculty and a staff of dedicated professionals as well as decent facilities — in other words, good bones. Nonetheless, instead of addressing the graduation rate with the sincerity and creativity it deserves, senior administrators largely dismissed it as “historical” when it came up at all. I learned it was best to never even mention the graduation rate or any other niggling challenge around the president, who grew surly whenever her fragile sense of contentment was threatened.Instead of tackling problems, the leadership there opted for gimmicks, tweaks, half-measures, and one-offs that were supposed to reverse course but did little at all. Worse still, some of these ventures were well off-mission and therefore added no discernible (let alone measurable) value to the institution or its students.SurfingThe major obstacle to overcoming the odds is never challenging them.Price PritchettSmart leaders don’t go around generating gimmicks and certainly don’t ignore or dismiss systemic problems. If you are a leader and don’t at least try to address systems, you are no leader of any worth. You’re probably just a boss like the college presidents I have mentioned. Every systemic problem has a solution. It may not be easily accessible. It may even be out of reach, but it does exist. The job of a leader is, first, to recognize its existence and, second, to prioritize putting a solution in place. Often doing so will require the abandonment of the status quo and involve some risk, and poor leaders are inherently risk adverse. True leaders, in contrast, are sensible about risk. Indeed, true leaders are curators of risk. True leaders are not cowards and they’re not cowboys. Cowboys are, by definition, rugged individualists and therefore not good leaders. If you are a boss and regularly shoot from the hip, please just stop. You can put out an eye doing that!Instead, good leaders are good surfers in that they know how to ride or surf the status quo in order to get ahead. And as everyone knows, you can’t surf very well if you’re wearing leather chaps and Western boots.Most people think of the status quo as flat, featureless, and waveless. Drifting in the status quo, though, is like being caught up in a giant ocean swell. Everything seems just fine until you realize that the calm water you were enjoying is transforming into a massive breaker rising well over your head. In other words, if you are sure of anything, you can be sure of this: even the status quo entails risk.There is no way to quell a roiling sea, so you must get above it, ride it out, catch that wave, and surf. Sure, you might wipe out, but then again, with some skill and confidence you could maintain your balance and propel toward new and exciting possibilities. And even if you do falter, you can get back up on that board again. Alternately, staying put while doggy-paddling for dear life in the expansive sea of the status quo, will all-but guarantee that you eventually will drown, that is if the sharks don’t get you first.Normality Is Just Plain NormalI think this is what Bloom is talking about when he advocates resisting the call to be normal. Normality, like the status quo, is a trap — a deceptively calm sea. As with that college with the abysmal graduation rate, maintaining the status quo, being normal, is tantamount to failure. In fact, if over one-third of your students do not graduate from your school in a timely fashion (and close to 50% don’t graduate from any school at all), you have already failed. The success of a college is measured by the quality of its student learning, not whether you manage to keep the doors open and the tuition dollars flowing.Being different, doing different is hard. As Bloom says, “it will require effort — painful, constant, relentless effort.” Different is a challenge, the sort of challenge that real leaders run toward. You have heard it said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Well, fiercely maintaining normality and the status quo in the face of abject, persistent, and systemic failure renders that insanity as something even more sinister. It’s akin to willful neglect. People get hurt as the institution fails. Those who seek reform, reset, and redirection are stifled, co-opted, or tossed away.That’s worse than insane. It’s evil. How can you learn to surf the status quo toward greatness? How can you learn to be a curator of risk and a champion of positive change?You can resist and overcome the false calm of the status quo, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You’ll need to register with Substack to leave a comment, which is painless and free. Please share this post on social media.And don’t forget to click subscribe to have Tools+Paradigms sent weekly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks for reading Tools+Paradigms! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Intro and outro podcast theme music by LiteSaturation from Pixabay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com