For Better

Staying optimistic, looking on the bright side, holding on to hope: these are all wonderful mindsets, and I expect you have experienced, as have I, how elusive they are to hold on to in trying times. Some days, it seems as if there is more bad news than good, and it comes at us relentlessly, and from countless sources. My friends and colleagues tell me that they have simply stopped looking at the news. While I don’t do that, I can understand it. Avoidance---and the genuine phenomenon of contagion---make it not an unreasonable response. Upon further reflection, I have realized that I’ve been influenced by the idea of a stop -staring-at-the-problem strategy, and am even willing to consider denial which, as a bonus, results in almost immediate gratification!

Today, however, I stumbled on the words of Kieu Vuong, PhD, who said: “There is no problem that can’t get worse.” My immediate reaction was Oh no! Heaping a negative prediction on a negative present! But the longer I pondered, the more I realized I had the sock inside out.

Vuong (a former UX leader at Google and Airbnb) has pointed out a significant hole in the don’t-watch-the-news logic. Maybe a focus on the problematic present’s potential to get even worse, can be the prompt for action that might change the course of history. In fact, recognizing problems---identifying, naming and keeping them in the forefront of one’s thinking---is not focusing on the negative. It is a way of providing an impetus for the idea of working on the present. This concept really spun my head around! My denial thinking went like this: Problems require work to solve them->Work is something we all seem to have too much of already->It is demoralizing to focus on how much of a mountain of work is out there to be done->Might I try to stay positive by NOT contemplating how much problem solving there is to do?

In other words: Does buffering oneself against a sense of being buried by the enormity of the problems in the world today really help you?

My answer to that query is a resounding “No.” When I take my own pulse, I realize that I simply cannot put sufficient insulation around me to negate my sense that there is significant damage being done to others in the world. It isn’t a case of empathy versus sympathy. To me, it is a problem of reality versus fantasy. How can I live in reality and then choose to ignore it?

What would help? Surely the sense that I am making a positive contribution toward a value in which I believe. Staying informed and avoiding the passivity of being swept along by something I see as wrong, is not the answer. But, as I am painfully aware, my old solution of seeing my end goal and tackling it head on—the way I would have defined taking action until recently—does not appear to be a viable option.

If you see today’s world as chaotic (an apt descriptor I feel), you must recognize that the old “pull the cord and the bell will go off” framework of cause and effect cannot be our only yardstick for success. We live in a large, complex system undergoing constant, fast-paced change. Sure, AI is coming at all of us and our organizations. Certainly for many of us it is already here. But why aren’t we all getting trained to use it? Is that a failure---or can it be seen as a coping strategy for our reality? As one executive said to me, “Of course I want my workers to be ‘AI ready.’ My board is demanding it. My stockholders are monitoring our progress against our competitors. My employees are anxious to get training to keep their skills competitive, but are simultaneously terrified that AI is going to eliminate their jobs. So, I’m being asked about it constantly. But what’s a simple response?”

The reality is that there is not one. In cases where organizations have jumped in with two feet to stay ahead of the game, they have been frustrated to find that the game itself changes monthly—if not daily. How AI works, what it can do, how employees can leverage its capabilities and many other highly salient issues evolve at a rapid pace. The AI training planned for 6 months hence is outdated before it is even delivered.

Where’s the answer to this dilemma? It’s a complex challenge, to be sure, and there are no simple answers. What is certain is that there are few good strategies when the benchmarks for success are as cut and dried as we are used to framing them.

A few months ago, I heard social scientist Brian Klaas, author of Fluke: Chance, Chaos and Why EVERYTHING WE Do Matters address members of the Human Resources Leadership Foundation in metro Boston. Klaas lays out a different perspective on how to think about how our world works. He points repeatedly to actual history to support his contention that small, even chance, events can change everything. In this framework, Klaas questions what he calls “most people’s neat and tidy storybook version of reality.” He makes a good argument for his claim that, as unsettling as it sounds, we all willfully ignore a truth that is really self-evident: but for a few small changes, our lives (and our societies) could be radically different. He brings it down to the most personal level. If, in 1988, your enlisted mother from Idaho had not gone to a dance at the USO canteen in West Berlin and fox trotted with your father who hailed from Vermont, would they ever have met? If not, you’d never have been born. Or, using a more public example of this phenomenon, if President Kennedy had not been assassinated, what might the U.S. sequence of presidents look like today?

This mode of thinking leaves room for both an awareness of a present-day problem and the reality that an unexpected historical turn of events (the assassination of President Kennedy) set in motion the ascension of Lyndon Johnson to the Presidency which launched an ambitious series of successful efforts toward advancing the civil rights agenda in our nation. Would LBJ have been elected President if he had not assumed the title by being VP to a murdered President? Given the national turmoil at that time over the ongoing war in Vietnam, it is impossible to say. What we can say, however, is that, when he did assume the presidential title he carried out the Civil Rights agenda set by JFK, created his own complementary plan for a “Great Society” and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect voting rights, guaranteed access to public accommodations and allowed the federal government to withhold federal funds for programs that had discriminatory practices. The following year, Johnson ensured the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to step in to safeguard the rights of African Americans to register to vote and cast their ballots.

Klaas’s view on living and working is that we always are at the mercy of chance, and that, in times of chaos there is even greater uncertainty. Enormous uncertainty means that all we can know is that the future will happen, regardless of whether we engage today or not. But we also know that small choices can truly influence what happens, albeit not necessarily directly or promptly.

Which leads me back to the question I started with: in the topsy-turvy world we currently inhabit, how do we deal with the everyday challenges and choices that are the never-ending drumbeat of our lives?

My new mantra is Change Nothing… Influence Everything. The future will happen, regardless of whether one engages today or not. Don’t frame change as an immediate all or nothing proposition. Make your best contribution today and then do the same tomorrow. All kinds of things will happen in the future: the optimal means of helping define its direction is through daily influence and ongoing activism. This is, without a doubt, for the better.

[Photo credit: Jane Moulding, who snapped a picture of Della Francesca’s Duke and Duchess of Urbino at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.]

ADDITIONAL BLOGS THAT COULD BE OF INTEREST

Words of Wisdom

For Better

The Resonant Leader

Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee coined the term, resonant leadership, or at least made it more widely known, in their book, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting With Others Through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion [Harvard Business Press, 2005]. They had collaborated with Daniel Goleman, a leading proponent of emotional intelligence, on their volume Primal Leadership a few years earlier. The trio defined resonant leadership as a concept or approach that leaders could embrace, and in doing so they would become stronger and more adept in their strategic work with colleagues and teams. Adopting this approach would create a strong culture where working together, towards common goals, leads to high level success.

Be the Change...

Most of us know that, in the vast percentage of major enterprise transformation efforts, stockholders, the Board, the CEO and senior management care about the desired organizational change succeeding. Lower-level employees know, in particular, that their boss (if the boss is on the right side of the issue as assessed by those in the layers above her/him/them) cares, as well. They know all these people care because, (1) they hear them trumpeting about it all the time and (2) they know (and don't need to be told this part) that in most cases, these change promoters have a lot of skin (read $$$’s) in this game of change.

In fact, many employees are well aware that their superiors and the board members above them, care about the success of the organizational change that is afoot. But what about those who are not typically in the know when an organization merging with another, shifts its focus or is taken over by another firm? And what is the impact of organizational change on employees?

Tapping Into Function

SmarterWisdom has written a lot about teams. We believe in their good work and we see the immense advantages of highly functional teams. In a recent workshop with a large independent school that I led, I decided, with the head, to use Patrick Lencioni’s seminal work on teams: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, as my primary reference. I read this excellent short book several years ago after another school client recommended it to me. (Her school hired The Table Group, Lencioni’s firm, to work with them on team-building and so she had excellent first-hand knowledge.) The book is a great read, and I highly recommend it. It has stood the test of time, since its publication in 2002.

People Managing People

Many responsibilities fall under the job title manager. For an array of reasons, the demands on those holding this position have expanded considerably in recent years. As a result, managers are telling us that performing their job well is getting tougher. This is a trend that deserves serious attention.

The bottom line is that good employee management is a key lever in producing good employee performance. But in recent years expectations for the people in charge have escalated and the degree of difficulty for achieving effective people management has increased. It is only through an understanding of the components of this enhanced demand that effective strategies for preparing and supporting managers in our organizations can be generated.

Artful Discovery

I recently returned from a lovely vacation to New Mexico. I have travelled there before many times and it is always a trip that never fails to bring me some renewal, relaxation and learning.

A few aspects of this visit helped me think more deeply about organizational culture, customer service and relationships. Any chance I get to reflect in these areas typically rewards me with deeper knowledge.

I Just Need To Take This

Imagine the scene: you are happily sharing a meal with friends or family (whom perhaps you have not seen in a while) when suddenly one of the participants jumps up with their phone in hand, mumbling, “Sorry, I just have to take this?” Another possible situation: you are about to begin a group or team meeting at the office (perhaps it was a tough one to schedule) and as your colleagues arrive, several of them immediately place their phones right in front of them—some devices facing up, some down. In any variation of this theme, when a phone rings or vibrates, the owner not only moves quickly to answer the call, they frequently begin the conversation before they have left the scene.

What is Worth Learning?

Learning is at the center of my universe. I believe deeply in the value of education, and I wake up in the morning excited to learn what’s happened during my sleeping hours. I regularly absorb curated sources: blogs, on-line publications of all sorts, podcasts; you name it, I take it in. I’m a learning junkie. So, even questioning the value of learning tears at my heart.

But I have many coaching and organizational clients who want my advice on learning and development issues. Individuals seek my input on whether or not, for example, they should go back to school to further their careers. Organizations too are often looking for counsel on training curricula and employee development programs. As discomfiting as it may feel to question a value I hold so personally dear, in my professional role I want to assess the benefit of all kinds of learning in today’s work world.

Learning on the Job

Recently as I was collecting my thoughts in preparation for our quinquennial Words of Wisdom, I realized how important to us at SmarterWisdom the concept of learning on the job is. It is kind of core to our work that the people we work with want to get better, learn more and be good and helpful mentors to their team members. Creating a feedback-feedforward culture means that you are harnessing the idea of a growth mindset, and that what you expect of others is important to you too. So how might learning on the job become an integral value in your workplace and a robust part of your culture? Might there be additional ways for you to promote it?

Five Years of [Smarter] Wisdom

It’s extremely hard to believe that 5 years have passed since we founded SmarterWisdom Consulting. As we celebrate our quinquennial, we have been discussing whether or not we became any wiser over the time period. And by “we” we are certainly referring to Jane and Marcie! We thought the best way to assess our possible increased sageness was through taking a close look at the now 72 posts, our Words of Wisdom, that have appeared online since our founding, and in doing so, understand more about how our work together has continued to place us on a path of learning.

The BHAG Revisited

When Jim Collins’ book Good to Great was published back in 2001 the term “BHAG” was on the lips of every leadership consultant or CEO. Going for that Big Hairy Audacious Goal was what you needed to be doing if you wanted to drive success through clear vision and direction. Fast forward to 2024, and we are now suggesting something a bit different. No one is saying that you shouldn’t have a big stretch goal, but we’ve learned a few things about getting to the top of a large mountain on a different planet. Specifically, both research and experience tell us to start small.

Dealing With Dilemmas

When I was a head of school, it was quite common for members of my Board of Trustees, usually at an annual conversation about how things were going, to ask me: “What keeps you up at night?” When I moved into my current role as a leadership coach/thought partner, I found that I too began to use this question quite consistently. What are those nagging thoughts that re-visit us, usually as we try to drop off to sleep, or in those hateful hours when we simply cannot get back to our desired rest.

The quandaries that show up in our minds at these times, and others, are frequently puzzles where all possible solutions offer some kind of downside. In addition, they are issues that simply won’t go away, neither night nor day and in fact, we are driven to find a way forward. The word dilemma comes from the Greek word dilēmma, and the combination of the words di- meaning "twice" and lēmma meaning "premise" seems to scream interminable difficulty! In fact, the word dilemma was originally a technical term in logic that referred to a type of argument where a choice had to be made between two equally unfavorable options.

Back to the Future: Building Competitive Advantage

Over 20 years ago I co-authored a book focused on how organizations could re-envision diversity as a competitive advantage. Fast forward to 2024 and I realize I did not anticipate how the DEI effort would look in 2024. The need, when my colleagues and I penned the book, for an enlightened perspective on the value-add of equity in the workplace (not to mention the ethical impetus to address this issue) seemed both clear and compelling, as it well remains. As I look back and gaze forward with some hope that the competitive advantage might still emerge, with focus and intentionality, I plan to hold on to that brighter outlook from two decades ago. Because I envisioned that the dominos in the workplace were lined up neatly and the first ones were falling, I anticipated that the next stage of the initiative would pick up momentum and make major inroads through the tangle of debris wrought by lack of systemic efforts and change during the centuries of racism, sexism and homophobia that had interwoven irrevocably within our country. In my mental model of achieving equity at work, at least in recent decades and during the Civil Rights movement, the arrow of social justice had been launched, and it seemed as if our aim was true and our intended bulls-eye was within reach. In retrospect, and sadly, I was naive and lacked accurate foresight.

Deliberately Growing Up

Those of you who read our posts regularly know that we at SmarterWisdom are quite obsessed by several general approaches to leadership development. Themes and thoughts about self-awareness, intentional thinking and action, growth mindset and (Marcie’s favorite) letting the structure do the heavy lifting, are just a few that run through our writings, just as they percolate through our thinking. Many of these approaches that we care about help to form the framework of our work with the individuals and teams with whom we spend our time. Many of them even come together and align to create a structure that we can overtly share with people in an explicit form.

Which One?

Deciding on your dessert at a lovely evening out with friends can be hard. Is it the lemon mousse with white and dark chocolate? The strawberry shortcake? Tarte Tatin? Blackberry or peach sorbet? OK, you might make a choice you regret, or it just may not arrive and look or taste as you expected, but seriously this is not a complex decision: you won’t let anyone down, you can’t really make a bad decision here. Your dessert decision is simply a matter of choice, your choice alone. According to some scientific research, adults make around 35,000 conscious decisions every day, while others estimate that number to be as high as 350,000. Deciding on the initial path to take ,and the nature of the decision, whether it be a simple choice of sweet, or more, is definitely a huge part of our lives as leaders.

Some Leaders Are Born Women

Examples of women, who are at the height of their careers and those on the fast track to getting there, offer support for the notion that indeed other women should be following this path. From Beyoncé to Oprah to Taylor Swift, women entertainers are taking names and taking charge. No longer simply the pretty faces of success, these women are smart business people who followed their insight and their guts as they saw inside their industry and ensured that they reinvented what it could be for themselves. Oprah became a mega-performer and international figure; Beyoncé became a Harvard Business School case study and Taylor Swift has not shied away from taking on the behemoths of the music industry, from Spotify to Live Nation. Each has stuck her neck out to go a different way, straying from the path most taken, and carved out the way that brought her the time, clout and, yes, financial reward, she was seeking. They are each reinventing what it means to be living their own high-powered career by redefining what that is, and by taking on established power as they do so. By seeking to control the narrative and be in control of their actions and approach, their courage and smarts are setting the bar high and at a new level for all.

Hijacked!

I work with many school leaders. These leaders tend to be open-minded, consensus-oriented people and the schools they lead believe in the benefit of creating forums for discussion with and among employees. The idea that open discussion will nurture an engaged group of workers is a good one, especially during current times when employment engagement is at an all-time low. Freedom to ask questions of others, especially those who supervise programs and departments, in a group setting, encourages trust, develops leaders and allows group process that generates ideas that in turn can solve problems. Arguably, the existence of a place to speak up, to use your voice to improve the place you work, is vital to a successful organization of any kind.

The Existence of the Soul

Recently with my friend and colleague Julie Faulstich, of Stonycreek Strategy, I led a group of senior women administrators from independent schools in a yearlong seminar called: Female Leadership, Finding your Authentic Authority. We enjoyed deep and wide-ranging conversations; we unraveled dilemmas and we discussed the potential isolation of perhaps being the only one in the role of dean, assistant head, or division head, that is a middle manager and reporting to the head of school. Being in the middle in any kind of organization, is not always easy and the work these middle managers do frequently goes unnoticed—and yet without that work, the organization would suffer. So here’s SmarterWisdom’s tribute to the ones in the middle—to their very existence, and, even more perhaps: to our paying more attention to what they do and how important it is.

An All-Around Good Idea

n efforts to ensure that leaders at all levels receive helpful feedback, supervisors and trustees frequently look to the power of the 360 review. This is a process designed to elicit developmental feedback from a range of sources 360 degrees around the participant, with the goal of delivering honest and authentic data about a leader’s work from multiple perspectives; this approach closely reflects the actual up, down and sideways working relationships that characterize how most employees actually work today.

No Really, Look Before You Leap

In all situations, organizations devote time and energy to selecting board members for a very good reason: the quality of the outcomes of the board’s efforts will, of course, be greatly influenced by the quality of the individuals it selects. By ensuring that a structure of orientation, on-boarding and time for input and reflection is in place, the potential of each board member chosen can shine. For both the new trustee and the board their mutual effort and forethought might actually mean the fulfillment of the promise that made the match in the first place.

How an enterprise identifies what it needs in its board members may be tightly defined by its rules of governance or by the match between open board assignments and candidates’ areas of competence, but in many smaller, newer or less formal settings, driving forces include less well-documented considerations including its priorities at a given point in time, an individual’s visibility and degree of influence and access, who else is already serving and the preferences of the organization’s chief executive. In some boards, particularly not-for-profits, the ability to contribute financially and help the enterprise raise funds from others is also a key qualification.

Blank Space (2023)

If popular slang or culture is a way of understanding the ethos of our times then Rizz, Swiftie, de-influencing, beige flag, parasocial and situationship need to become part of our lexicon. These words give us a view into the lives of Millennials and Gen Z’ers (born 1996-2012) and a picture of 2023. Without question they seem to be a set of words that clusters around holding back from commitment versus a couple at the other end of the spectrum where they reflect a kind of signaling to identify as part of a team of followers or admirers. This dichotomy is in part a result of the isolation of the pandemic period. We know that many people, having learned to cope with the lack of in-person human connection during the worst of the virus, reported finding it difficult to resume a pre-pandemic level of social contact.

Crisis, What Crisis?

During my 20+ years of leadership at independent schools, I definitely faced the full range of crises that might beset small schools. I learned a lot about being both somewhat prepared for these exigent events, and also about being totally unprepared and yet somehow able to invoke the necessary actions and skills to get things on the level again. Initially, and in much of my early experience of these big bumps in the road, I tended to think that crisis was always something like a chemical spill on Route 128 very close to the school. Over the years, however, I learned, and internalized, that a crisis could develop from any event or incident that might adversely affect the mission of the school, if left unattended.

Up In The Air

The silver lining to the pandemic’s very dark cloud is that many of us successfully learned to face new threats, see new opportunities (sourdough bread, anyone?) and understand our world in a different way. As a result, even the change-averse among us learned that we can successfully change at least a selected set of our behaviors. Now that the world has rebounded in many areas and shifted to permanent changes in others, it is worthwhile to review our current choices in light of the present-day context. If we don’t identify and articulate our changed work-related behaviors, we are not optimizing our ability to adjust and adapt.

Lessons from Los Alamos

It is by no accident that Christopher Nolan chose to make his latest film, Oppenheimer, about the 1940s and early 1950s, the building and use of the atomic bomb and the life and times of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The book on which Nolan based the movie, American Prometheus by Bird and Sherwin, tells the story not just of the brilliant young scientist, but also of the times in which he lived, the background of the second Red Scare, the undercurrent of anti-Semitism and the way in which one brilliant man was ultimately brought down by the establishment. The parallels for our times are clear. We may not be living with those exact issues, but we are living with the fear of global conflicts, the potential effects of climate change and the fear of failing economies and increased poverty. Watching the movie, and reading the book, inspired me to consider the possibility of lessons for our times, and more specifically, to ponder the perennial and necessary leadership traits illustrated firmly in black-and-white and glorious technicolor.

Welcome Change

Change isn’t easy for some of us; we resist and worry and wonder. While for others it is in their DNA and they cannot wait for the next moment to shift gears. Change, however, typically signifies growth and without growth we run the risk of stagnation. Wherever you are on the REMAIN/ CHANGE spectrum, the fact is that change is constant. Whether you are an easy adopter of change, or whether you tend to avoid change, learning how to predict change, harness change and live a change friendly life, will help you avoid stress and mental anguish and basically make you a better member of your team.

Leading Yourself

Your personal drive or decision even to care about leading yourself is a key first step of self-knowledge. Is the desire to lead myself within me? Do I want to do this? Leading ourselves is the element of our approach to our work where we think and act explicitly in order to become better at what we do. It explains who we are, where we want to go and why we want to go there. It helps us understand what we might accomplish in our work. Ideally it might also help us control our emotions and behavior, since it brings focus and ideally razor-sharp vision to our work. SmarterWisdom sees its work with emerging leaders as helping them to access this deeper knowledge of their intrinsic motivation. Some leaders however struggle to understand the importance of further analyzing and capitalizing on their drive as part of leading themselves.

Gifts of Time and Place

One of the oft-cited reasons for return-to-work resistance is the time and effort of commuting, which, for many employees, constitutes their least favorite part of their work week. After having worked from home, the daily stress of racing for a train, waiting for a bus, or sitting in backed-up traffic strikes a lot of workers as a foolish use of their resources, which are, after all, finite. Whether it is the cost to their wellbeing of stress-triggered cortisol coursing through their bodies as they rush to get dressed, grab a bite or swig a quick cup of coffee, and get themselves (and anyone else for whom they are responsible) out the door, or making the return trip, conducted after a full day of labor, through the crowds and the traffic, many employees report the sense of watching the sands of their precious time running through the hourglass twice each day. They know the commuting routine consumes valuable time and generates a daily level of unwanted, unhealthy stress.

But Does It Bring You Joy?

Several years ago Marie Kondo’s approach to helping us clean up our lives took hold. A key part of her “cleaning up” approach (see Konmari.com), was to hold up a household item or article of clothing and ask does it “spark joy.” During the last year or so, in particular, many people have been asking this question about the work they do: are they in a role that they like, one that is satisfying to them. We have seen various responses to these questions, from people working less and placing family and their own well-being first, to the great resignation. Does your job bring you joy? If you could hold up what you do for a living in front of you, following the Marie Kondo approach, would it make you happy? SmarterWisdom thinks that this is a question worth asking and in a way that is constructive and active rather than passive.

Know Thyself

Self-awareness is certainly a key element in being effective at your work. What is tough about tackling self-awareness, however, is that it is rarely identified by the person being mentored as an area of challenge: understanding one's level of self-awareness is inherently difficult, since it is obviously dependent on the level of self-awareness you possess in the first place. The ability to know yourself and to know how you are viewed by others is key for success. The internal and external mirrors that exist within and outside of us needs to be activated, made shiny and clear, and available at all times in order for any kind of growth and personal development to take place.

Kindness Matters

When I see frequent references to a concept or topic suddenly appearing all over social media or hear a term popping up everywhere in presentations or interviews, I always perk up and register the phenomenon: it makes me want to wonder out loud if there is a need out there somewhere to grapple with this particular issue. Recently, the concept of kindness seems to be the new “it” idea, poking up everywhere I look—from business articles asking the boss to be more compassionate when assigning large projects, to my doctor’s office where I encountered waiting rooms plastered with (mostly handmade) signs and posters urging people to be kind. As I consider what seems to be a rising wave of interest in decency and warmth, I find myself curious about whether or not we just want to talk about it or perhaps act on it?

High performance, Career success, Partnerships, Team-buildingMarcie Schorr HirschOctober 19, 2025Covid-19, Flexibility, Time-of-change, Partnership