Rules vs. Values

I have a friend who works for the government and can't tell me exactly what he does.

It has something to do with artificial intelligence and video cameras.

I begged him one time to give me a hint and he said this:

"When you look at a guy walking down the street and he gets into a car, you know intuitively that the guy is -- suprise!-- now in the car. But a computer doesn't know that intuitively. You have to program rules to tell the computer that what it is tracking is now inside something else. Then you continue to do this for every conceivable situation."

After a while, as you can probably guess, there are a lot of rules. Thousands upon thousands of rules.

This is why for the first 50 years of artificial intelligence they haven't been able to make computers that can operate at the same speed and intuition as the human mind-- unless it's in the highly regimented and specified context of games like Chess.

Another approach to artificial intelligence has emerged over the past 20 years or so and it approaches things very differently. Rather than programing thousands of rules, they program simple machines with 3 or 4 rules. Then they give the machine a goal and then give it memory-- so that it can learn.

A few rules.
A goal.
Memory.

What they've discovered is that when these machines are put into mazes and other complex and even dynamic learning environments they are able to learn, adapt and progress to a goal much better than the rule oriented A.I. They can improvise and even surprise the people who invented the machines as they evolve in unpredictable ways.

Leadership in organizations exist in much the same way.

You can create a long list of things you want people to do. You can create lots of rules in a manual or training binder, etc. Or you can help people embrace a handful of values and then be surprised at their innovation. You can train people to death or you can throw them in the deep end and teach them how to swim.

One of the worst things you can do in an entrepreneurial culture is over train. Mostly because what you teach people by over training is "you can't do this yet." But if you give people a goal and help them embrace your values they will find greatness and ingenuity inside of them that they didn't even know they had.

On the flip side, if you're not getting the output you want from people or teams there are 3 possible reasons. 1. The team doesn't know what the goals are. 2. The team doesn't have the same values. 3. The team isn't learning as it makes mistakes and successes.

So how about your work environment? Do they (or you) over train or do they (or you) struggle with one of the 3 problems above?

And how about the cultures you lead-- friends or family or teams or clubs-- do you lead by creating rules or by instilling values?

From Volunteer to Vigilante

What is the first thing you think about when you think of the word "volunteer"?

Here are some responses from a recent facebook poll:

"Knocking on doors getting people to donate canned food."
"Doing something good."
"Helping others."
"Not paid - but that's OK." (Thanks, Mom!)
"To give away your time and energy with no tangible reward or recognition."
"It's always more hours than you anticipated, but sometimes there are unexpected results that make you glad you did."
"Giving up your time to give back to those in need."
"Civic duty, college applications."
"Service."

And several people thought of Tennessee basketball.

Some common themes to these definitions were this: It's something I do here or there. It's helping out. Collecting goods, moving boxes, handing out food, filing, passing out fliers, cleaning bathrooms. It's something I do for college applications.

What I discovered is that, without a serious face-lift, the word "volunteer" has little sex-appeal. And almost always "volunteer" and "leader" are not used in the same sentence. Volunteering is something you do for or with leaders but it is not generally thought of as leading in and of itself.

But why not? How did leadership and volunteering get put in separate categories?

This is why I think volunteering is a good place to start, but eventually we must shift from volunteers to vigilantes.

[vij-uh-lan-tee]: one who is alert, watchful, takes responsibility of.

Vigilantes are people who don't wait to be recruited. They don't serve a little here or there. They don't help a cause. They own a cause. Vigilantes are volunteers who lead. They say "this is something that needs to change and I'm not going to stop serving until it does."

We need volunteers. But we're desperate for vigilantes.

The Music Of Your Life

Once there was a man who was struck by lightening and suddenly had an insatiable appetite for music.

Another man had the worst case of amnesia in recorded history but could still learn and play classical music on the piano.

A third man suffered from Parkinson's disease and could not even button up his own shirt...unless he was humming a tune that he knew from his youth.

These stories in Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia tell of the power of music.

I'm still in the process of finishing my short film. Post-production is the biggest pain in the rear for anyone who has absolutely no skills in it.

My friend Dave is helping me with the score.

I liked my rough cut even without the music. My Assistant Director, Director of Photography and my Editor were completely amazing and helped me get the shots I needed to make what I saw in my head.

Yet when Dave put music behind it...

Everything got better.

Earlier in the year I wrote a blog about how PIXAR can be tempted to do visually what bad after-school specials blatantly do audibly: they use their craft to tell you how to feel rather than the enhancing how the story feels.

Whether you agree with that or not isn't really the point. The point is that music is so...powerful.

Music is like nitrous oxide in the gas tank of a story. Put it in an empty tank and the tank might explode. But combine it with the gasoline of good storytelling and-- watch out-- your soul will soar, dive, weep, laugh, reflect, live in ways you didn't know was possible.

Music is like nuclear power: it can create unbelievable good and can be used for unbelievable harm (i.e. the Jonas Brothers).

Just kidding.

Music not only adds to the stories we tell. Music adds to the stories we live. Like the man with Parkinson's who literally needs music to put on his clothes. Or the man who tragically cannot remember who his wife is but can find joy in Beethoven's 5th.

Music can be a healing balm, or water in a desert that helps parts of us grow that are too fragile to stand up on their own.

What is the music to your life? What's your soundtrack? And what parts of you do you keep hidden that only music gets to see?

Build Well.

In 1932 a carpenter in the small town of Billlund, Denmark created a toy company of small blocks that children could play with.

The company name was LEGO.

Just about everyone loves LEGOs. My nephews are currently 4 and 2 and they love these little bricks of creative goodness. Over Christmas my parents and my wife Sarah and I got Xander-- the 4-year-old-- the same LEGO set. We got him the same stinkin' toy. Same box. Everything.

He didn't care.

He just wanted to build.

Whether it's sandcastles, playdough, boxes in the closet, constructs (remember those?) or LEGOS, children have this almost compulsive need to build.

For a while I looked at my nephews with a jealous nostalgia. "Those kids are so lucky," I'd say. "They get to play with LEGOS." And my wife will buy me LEGOS every now and then.

But then I realized that when it comes to building, getting older actually makes it better.

We used to only be able to play with little plastic bricks. But as adults we have more resources and opportunity to build.

We used to be able to only make little LEGO cars. But now I have friends who design concept cars for Honda. We used to only be able to build castles in the sand. But now we get to build cities. We used to lead only the stuffed animals or action figures on the living room floor, but today-- if we choose-- we get to lead people into a better future.

The older we get the more we get to really build.

Which made me wonder: what am I building? What thing(s) am I giving my time and energy? What does it mean to live a life that builds well?

Incidentally, the word "LEGO" comes from the Danish phrase "leg godt."

It means "to play well." The latin means "to put things together."

May that be true of our lives as well.

May we put things together. May we play well. May we build.

Create Change.

Creating change in the world sounds so intimidating, doesn't it?

I mean, where do we start? The problems are so big.

Sometimes because we don't know where to start we never start at all. Sometimes the problem seems so big that we decide to not tackle it.

Granted, this doesn't stop people with genuine courage. But it might stop you sometimes and it certainly has stopped me more times than I'd like to admit.

So here is a 3-step process to get you going in the right direction. Each step is more complicated than it sounds, but this offers a kind of big-picture outline for how things-- almost anything-- gets started.

1. Model what you really are about.

This is the sincerity-o-meter. Before you call anyone to anything you've got to live it yourself. The blood has got to be on your sleeve before others will bleed with you. Take a cue from Ghandi and start volunteering before you ask others to.

2. Invite them into your modeling lifestyle.

Anything worth doing can't be done alone. Especially if you care about making real change rather than just clocking in and having "doing good" on your to-do list. Once you own it, invite others in. What you're doing is important-- it's worth people giving up an hour, or two hours or money or whatever.

3. Challenge them to challenge others.

This is the last step that most people forget and is also the step leaders jump to too quickly. This is where you challenge the people who come with you who are now-- because of you-- modeling themselves something worth giving their lives to-- to bring their friends along side them.

Step one is self-leadership, step two is others-leadership, and step 3 is cultural leadership. It can be you, then one friend and then 5 of you together doing stuff. Or it can be you, then 10 friends and then 100. Or it can be you, then 50 and then 500.

Either way, you have to ask yourself: how much potential do I have to create positive change in the world? It's not about whether you're as talented as so-and-so, it's about what you are capable of creating. What is the size of the wake you are capable of?

It's probably bigger than you think.

So Model. Invite. Challenge.