Ending Social Inequity Begins With Ending Political Inequity

I can't go into the details, but a member of my family was recently preyed upon by some seemingly crooked cops. And it got me thinking about the rough set of circumstances that some people are born with. Say you were personally affected by some number of these circumstances:

• You grow up in a poor neighborhood
• You have an unstable family situation
• There were a lot of kids who try to get you to smoke or do drugs growing up
• You have an appearance which makes it hard for you to make friends
• It's hard to find people to help you with your homework
• You were not nurtured or were maybe even abused as a child
• You are not of the majority race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity where you grew up
• English is not your first language

Now what the general societal narrative tells you is that if you work really hard, make a reasonable amount of reasonably good choices, and don't do anything catastrophically stupid you'll make it and have a good life. That you'll be okay and not have to deal with an unreasonable amount of hardship.

But this is what gets me - say you are a person who has at least a handful of those statements applying to you. And let's say you work real hard, make a reasonable amount of reasonably good choices, and you do not do anything catastrophically stupid. You do everything right.

The way I see it in American today, there's still a good chance you won't make it, because you get miffed hard by the system. Because if you're one of those people I've referenced above (and maybe not even as in as difficult a starting point as one of those folks) you still have to deal with these political realities, which are totally outside your control:

• Cops are going to write you up for things that you don't deserve
• Even if you get good grades, you can't afford to pay for college or graduate school
• You get passed over for a job (or paid less) for reasons having nothing to do with your qualifications
• You are poorly represented in congress because your district is gerrymandered, and so laws and policies never slide your way
• Because of your social identity, you're never able to act like yourself - you always feel like you have to put up a front
• You never feel like you can enact political change because of the tremendous influence of money in politics (and you're not a rainmaker)
• You don't have the personal or family connections of others so you never get access to the best jobs, mentors, or business opportunities

So let me recap where we're at with this hypothetical example - you're born at a disadvantage but you work really hard and do everything right. But you know that you probably still won't make it because of how much the system is stacked against you. So whether you work hard or not, you hold the reasonable belief that your chances of being upwardly socially mobile are slim. So why even try?

If I were in that situation, I'd find it very hard to motivate myself to work hard. And even though I'm incredibly privileged because of the circumstances of my birth, I even feel politically marginalized in some of the ways I've listed.

All this makes me think that if we're ever going to resolve social inequity in America, we're going to get nowhere if we don't resolve political inequities first. Because if we don't resolve political inequities, it's disillusioning to the point of giving up hope. And, I couldn't hardly blame anyone for giving up if the political deck was stacked against them like that.

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This is all a bit stream of consciousness and written rawly. I get that. That sort of style seems fitting, given the topic.

My take on "How will you measure your life?"

I've been taking a class with Bob Quinn called Transformative Leadership, and I've been reflecting on how I live my life. Here are three observations - two truths and a lie, if you will - that I've been thinking about. Two Truths

Lately, I've been captivated by a question that Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School talks about, "How will you measure your life?"

You should definitely watch Professor Christensen's talk, but this is my take on his question.

In the biggest sense, the largest outcome we impact with our lives is the trajectory of human history. The way I think about this is simple - we can either help humanity move closer toward good (which I think of as God's glory) or we can help it move closer to evil (which I think of as wickedness).

And really, we each have a micro-impact on this very large thing. There are very few people (I'd argue none) on the planet who will ever make an aggregated, measurable impact on the trajectory of human history. That said, I do think that we each influence humanity's trajectory and that impact, however small, does matter in aggregate.

That is this idea's brilliance. By looking at our impact on the trajectory of humanity, something none of us can cause a measurable blip on, we don't have to focus on whether we outperformed somebody else. We are freed from comparing ourselves to others. Rather, we can focus on fully utilizing our own potential. We can put all our efforts into being good people, instead of worrying about being more good than others.

So that's the first truth - the biggest "measurable" in our life is whether we influence the trajectory of humanity toward good or evil. In practice, I ask myself the following question: today, did I move humanity toward good, toward evil, or was it a wash? I try to log more days in the "good" category than the "evil" and "wash" categories.

In any case, that's how I'm starting to measure my life.

But, thinking about measuring your life in terms of the trajectory of humanity is unbelievably impractical on a day-to-day basis. After all, how the heck do you know whether you are inching humanity closer to good or to evil? The short answer is, we can't. There's no way for us to know whether we are spreading good or evil.

Given this practical quandary, I thought about what a good, practical, indicator that is a good proxy for whether I'm influencing humanity toward good or toward evil. After all, if you list out your values, you can look at them every day and reflect on whether you lived them out.

It seems to me that if I choose a strong set of values to live by, and have integrity to them, I feel pretty confident that I'm positively affecting the trajectory of humanity. So more practically, that's what I try to ask myself and practice on a day-to-day basis - whether or not I'm living my values.

To be sure, living my own values is not a trivial matter. It's very hard. In fact, it's probably the single hardest thing to do on a day-to-day basis. But that brings me to the second truth - living your values is the hardest challenge we have every day, but it's also one of the things we have the most control over. As John Steinbeck talks about in East of Eden, we have timshel - we have the choice of conquering our sins (see an excerpt below). We have a choice.

This argument is why I'm starting to think character is the most important thing we can teach. If you do that, I believe, everything else starts falling into place.

A Lie

In this scenario I've created - centered on living our values as the practical proxy of positively influencing the trajectory of humanity, it becomes very disillusioning if you feel like you don't have character or agency. After all, if life comes down to living out your values and you don't feel like you can, then that's the ball game. If you can't live your values, you might as well hide under your bed and give up.

But that brings me to the lie, that we can't change. We can change. We can live our values. We can be less wicked. It's hard, but we can.

Hope (or lack of) is a powerful narrative. If you have hope you can change, and therefore become more good than wicked, and therefore positively impact the trajectory of humanity. If you don't have hope, you don't think you can change and you regress yourself into destructive behavior. To me hope is the belief that we can change into being better than we are.

I think it's a lie to believe that we can't change. Why? Because we do, all the time.

In any case, this is what I've been thinking about over the past few weeks.

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On timshel, excerpted from East of Eden, pulled from: http://timshel.org/timshel.php

“After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’ The old gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent. It brought them out of their Chinese shells too, and right now they are studying Greek.”

Samuel said, “It’s a fantastic story. And I’ve tried to follow and maybe I’ve missed somewhere. Why is this word so important?”

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”

“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.

What we'd presumably have in common with space-faring aliens

I've been trippin' out over the Fermi Paradox lately. Indeed, it's hard not to. And I've been contemplating - if we were to encounter a space-faring alien civilization in our travels across the universe a few hundred years from now, how similar would they be to us? More similar than we'd want to admit, I think.

They'd probably have senses to detect different things like we do, like light, sound, touch, and others. Maybe their senses wouldn't be exactly the same, but they'd have to have some way of understanding the world around them. They'd probably have discovered and developed some of the same materials that we have, after all, the types of elements in the universe are fixed.

They'd probably have some mechanism in their bodies for capturing, storing, and expending energy. Their bodies would probably have some sort of waste or disease. The universe after all, is not efficient and it is certainly prone to random mutations. They'd probably have some mechanism for reproduction.

If they were space-faring explorers of the universe, they'd probably have a large population. After all, it would be difficult for a single alien or small group of aliens to develop the technology needed to explore space. As a result, they'd probably have some sort of language and some set of social issues arising from many beings having to live and work together.

Surely, it is captivating to think about an alien race's similarity or dissimilarity to us, but here's what gets me. Despite how much we have in common with an alien race, we have much more in common with other humans.

Our emotions, psychological biases, our notions of beauty, art, and God...something, even many of those things have got to be unique. I'd hope that our full humanness is not something that could be replicated by aliens. Human life is special.

At the same time, let's assume that we never find any other space-faring alien civilizations. That even more so makes me believe that humans are special. We could be the only life in the universe that's left. And even if we aren't alone in the universe, we may be the only civilization that ever explores the universe.

So whether we are alone in exploring the universe or whether we aren't, I can't help but think that human life is special. Which means we are all special beings, endowed by God with something magnificent. Which makes me wonder why we treat each other so badly sometimes. I just don't get it.

To whom would your life's work be dedicated?

To Nakul, who in death teaches me every day how to live. If I were to ever write a book of significance, Nakul is who I would dedicate it to. He is my brother, my teacher, and my inspiration.

If you were to write a book of significance - meaning one that you put your heart and soul into - to whom would you dedicate it?

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A friend from school, Heather, pointed out the dedication in our Professor's text book. The dedication in his textbook is here:

Money is everything, money is nothing

Money is everything, and money is nothing. This is one of the most interesting insights I've had since starting business school. For a company, meaning the LLC-CCorp-faceless-legal-mumbojumbo contractual relationship, money is everything. Companies exist to generate a profit. Money is the means and the end. There is no reason to have a company if it does not make money. To be sure, it's not unfortunate if the company does other things instead of make money, but that's not the most function of a company.

The most important function of a company is to make money. But a company is nothing without people.

For people, meaning the air-breating-love-making-hand-holding-fun-loving-soul-filled humans, money is nothing. Everything that matters in life to people is precisely not money. We care about freedom, love, justice, god, greed, stability, pleasure, pain, prestige, and truth. Money only matters because it is a way to get one of those things that we actually care about. To be sure, money is important because it's how we can get those other things.

For a person, money is a mere means that's not intrinsically valuable. But we need it.

Paradoxically, money is everything and money is nothing.

3 simple rules to reform political campaign finance

Today, I had the pleasure of catching up with one of my parents' longstanding customers, who has become a family friend. Let's call him Jack. Jack is in his eighties and without fail, we always end up talking about politics when we get together. He's staunchly conservative and his view on most issues is starkly different from mine.

Despite our differences, we always see eye-to-eye on governance issues. In a nutshell, we both believe it's better to have a government which makes decisions in the public's interest, rather than in the best interests of private political actors.

Today, he shared a few simple rules to improve elections and campaign finance schemes. I've added and modded a little bit to round out the spirit of our conversation. I think they're good rules, and rather elegant.

1. You must be a registered voter to make a contribution to a candidate or party organization
2. Registered voters are only allowed to donate to candidates / party organizations for races in which they will be able to vote (e.g., someone voting in Ann Arbor wouldn't be able to donate to a candidate representing Omaha, if you live in  Michigan you can only donate to the party organization in your state or to a national party organization)
3. Any individual donor or donating organization to any organization engaging in political activity (whether to a candidate, party, issue group, etc.) must be disclosed weekly in a machine-readable format with the donor's name / unique voter ID, donation amount, donor's company Tax ID, and date of their donation

This proposal would presumably need constitutional amendment to be legal. Is there any reason this wouldn't work well?

In any case, I re-learned something important today. There are people who care about politics because of their private interests and others who care about politics because they care about the public's interest and future of this country. Liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, it doesn't matter - people of all political stripes fall into both camps.

Jack and I are a great example of this. Because we both care about the public interest over our private interests, we are able to engage in respectful discussion even though we wildly disagree on most issues. More importantly, because we both prioritize the public's interest, we are able to find clever nuances on specific policies which allow for compromise.

Will the city benefit from economic growth initiatives? (Plus a framework)

In business and innovation, Teece's model helps you determine who will profit from an innovation. After learning about it, I got to thinking if that model - or a similar concept - could be translated to cities and regions. So I came back with a question - how do cities know if they will reap the benefits of an economic growth initiative? Here's a model to help answer that question. It's unsubstantiated by data, but it's an intuition that I'd love your feedback on.

THE MODEL

To determine if a city or region will benefit from an economic growth initiative, I propose mapping the initiatives along two axes: the type of growth the initiative intends to create and the source of new revenues created.

As it happens, the quadrant look curiously similar to the Michigan Model of Leadership.

• Type of Growth - is the growth created because of a creating a new product or services that meets an unmet market need? Or, is it a product or service that tries to steal market share from a competitor?
• Source of New Revenues - are the incremental revenues created generated from customers in the city? Or, are those revenues collected from people from another locality? In other words, are the revenues exports or not?

USING THE MODEL

Using the model is simple. Note that the "city" is a placeholder term for the economic subdivision being analyzed. You could replace "city" with state or region.

Each quadrant has a distinct flavor. I've included notes in each quadrant to help economic growth teams determine the conditions under which they can reap the benefits from initiatives in each quadrant.

1. Generate a list of all economic growth initiative for the city
2. Map them on to the model. Initiatives that are 100% new products/services with cash 100% generated from non-local customers would go in the top right hand corner. And so on.
3. Each quadrant has a distinct flavor. Look at where the distribution of all initiatives across the framework lie. Is it balanced? Should it be balanced?
4. Look at the quadrant each initiative is in. Are the conditions in that quadrant met? If so, the city may reap the benefits of growth. If not, their ability to reap the benefits of growth will be handicapped.

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Does this model made sense? As an economic development professional, do you find it useful?

Business lessons from social movements

My friend Erin raised an interesting question a few weeks ago, during the height of the Ferguson protests. Here's a snippet of what she wrote: "I would love to hear a good lecture/discussion (of series of the same) on the business of social change. I think what people fail to realize about the Civil Rights Movement is how deliberate and strategic its leaders were. For example, they chose Selma for the march for specific reasons...

In the end, a comparison of Selma and Ferguson (and even Occupy Wall Street) would be more than warranted. It’s a different day and time, in some ways, but thought-provoking to consider the definition of tangible metrics for success, identifiable leadership, legal and political leverage, and management of public opinion."

On this point, I agree. It is interesting and important to understand what makes certain transformative efforts successful versus others. In a sentence, though more discussion is obviously warranted, what strikes me about Selma vs. Ferguson is how focused the activists in the Selma were, compared to today's protests.

And that's a lesson for leaders today, when leading other people it's crucially important to focus.

WHY, WHAT, HOW

There are three questions which bring a goal into focus - why, what, and how. Most of the time, business leaders focus on the how. What I think makes organizations and movements (like Selma) effective is very clearly defining the "why?" and "what?".

I think of why, what, and how like a road-trip. What is the destination you want to go to. Why is the reason you want to take the trip. The how is the route you take, the stops you make, and how you pack the car.

The what and why function like the lenses on SLR cameras. An SLR lens has two calibration steps. First, you rotate one of the focus rings to get the framing of the shot in the right range. Then, you rotate the second focus ring to get a clear image through the viewfinder.

Similarly, defining the "why" casts a compelling big-picture frame. Then, defining the "what" helps everyone understand exactly what matters within that frame.

DEFINING WHY AND WHAT

What's difficult is clearly and actually defining "why" and "what." If a leader is able to clearly define these things to his/her team, choosing the "how" is much easier in turn.

Different types of leaders start in different places to define these important questions of what and why. For discussion's sake. Let's assume we're a visionary leader who gets an image of what the future could be and clarifies that vision as he goes.

First, define a vision - this answers who and what.

• Vision (Who's involved in the future and what do we want that future to look like?). This is a detailed, sensory, emotive perspective on what the future should look like. Zingerman's is very good at this and I learned about visioning from them. Steven Denning and other members of the Global Peter Drucker Forum are customer centered - and I agree with their contention - which is why "who" is an essential part of this question.

Then, define why this vision is compelling, using each of these angles:

• Convictions (Why do we care?) - Strong beliefs tied to intrinsic motivations give people the fortitude to achieve a goal. This is an exercise looking inward.
• Context (Why now?) - This is an exercise looking outward. In the organizations market/operating environment, why is this vision worth pursuing now? Is there a regulatory change? Is there a new technology? Why is the external environment ideal now rather than later?
• Capabilities (Why us?) - Each organization has a unique set of resources and skills which lend themselves to achieving different visions. What capabilities do you have which make your organization ideal to go after this vision?

Finally, define the target by addressing the remaining "whats":

• Purpose (What outcomes do we want to see?) - A vision is broad and purposes are specific objectives. These are smaller, incremental pieces of the larger vision which can be measured and tracked. What are the small group of things that you must achieve for the vision to come true? Define them.
• Priorities (What matters most, and, what doesn't matter?) - People in an organization need to know what's highest priority and what's not, so that effort and resources are used wisely. Defining what's not important is just as necessary as defining what is.

If a leader, a company, a movement, or any other organization can define the answers to these 6 questions, they have a chance at accomplishing tremendous transformations. And, if you clearly define the whats and whys, it much easier to craft a strategy (a how) to actually get it done.

That's why I think movements like Selma were successful - they were able to clearly define what and why, and then pick the right how to actually make their vision a reality.

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Also, I'd encourage you to read John Hagel's recent post on terrain vs. trajectory-based strategy. It gave me a good boost in congealing my thoughts here.

The questionable accountability of non-profits

Organization's tend to work better when independent entities (like boards or regulators) hold them accountable for their actions. That's why public companies have boards of directors - to make sure the company's leadership team is effectively advancing the interests of shareholders. Similarly, government entities like the SEC and FDA exist to make sure companies follow the law and aren't causing harm.

Who holds non-profits and foundations accountable for their day-to-day actions?

Non-profits are given tax exempt status because they serve a charitable or other purpose that is in the public interest. Most non-profits I know, though, don't have independent boards that make sure the organization is appropriately serving a charitable purpose or doing it effectively. There also isn't a government entity that regulates the day-to-day management of non-profits.

Sure, non-profits have boards of directors, but those directors aren't independent. Directors are often close allies of the non-profit's founder or are big donors or who have private interests in addition to any public interests they have. And those boards aren't selected or monitored by the public. Rather, the selection and operation of boards are often heavily influenced by the chief executive of the non-profit, further blurring independence.

I'm not suggesting that the non-profit that you or I donate to is corrupt, run poorly, or otherwise complicit in some level of malfeasance.

What I am suggesting, however, is that the systems of governance that most non-profits have in place would make it very hard to know of malfeasance when it occurs, because non-profits police themselves.

On balance, do you know of any institution that polices itself effectively? Do you have any reasons to think non-profit organizations would be better at policing itself than the average institution?

An ethics lesson from the Shawshank Redemption

One of my favorite quotes from any movie is from the Shawshank Redemption. In the film, the character played by Tim Robbins (Andy) says you either "get busy livin' or get busy dyin'." It gets me every time. [Here's a link to the video clip]

It's obviously an inspiring scene, but it also brings an interesting observation about human behavior to light - we have a hard time staying where we are.

Andy suggests that as we go through life, we can't stay at the same equilibrium indefinitely. Rather, he says, we either get better or get worse. There's no such thing as staying where you are.

And so it is with acting ethically. I do not think ethics is as simple as drawing a line in the sand saying "I will not cross this line". If that's how we chose to manage ethical behavior we will always lurk toward acting unethically. In real life, it doesn't work for ethics to be a standard.

Rather, ethics is a practice. We have to constantly strive to be more ethical and live our ethics more fully. It's something we must work on every single day. If we don't do that, we'll surely become more unethical as time passes.

Ethics isn't something that can be maintained as a status quo. We must either get busy being more ethical or get busy being less ethical. There's no in between.

Business should be truly ambitious

I read two articles about ambition, risk, and innovation this morning. I'd like to share these articles and the thoughts they inspired about business's role in society and my own moonshot goal. THE ARTICLES

"The golden quarter: Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled?" - Why was the post WWII period to technologically groundbreaking and why hasn't the trend continued? This article explores why.

"Google's Larry Page: the most ambitious CEO in the universe" - This is a profile of Google CEO Larry Page (who's a Michigan Alum, by the way) his approach to management, and his aspirations for Google & humanity.

Both pieces are more than worth reading. And as I said before, they helped me get one step closer to crystallizing the "moonshot" everything I do works towards.

But it also helped me better articulate my point of view about business's role in society. I'd like to share that with you first.

BUSINESS SHOULD BE TRULY AMBITIOUS

I'm an MBA at the Ross School of Business, and the new Dean has articulated how Ross is the school that creates leaders that make a positive difference in the world. The implicit assumption there, from my perspective, is that business should make a positive difference in the world.

I don't disagree with this (very much) as an outcome. What I disagree with strongly is the framing, because it doesn't emphasize what's really important. This framing misses the deeper point of ambition.

What I see now is that business should be truly ambitious. What I mean by that is business should create products and services for customers that solve their most challenge and most valuable problems. It just so happens that the most ambitious things are the ones that make a positive difference in the world. So I think it's a subtle mistake to advocate for business's purpose to be making a positive difference in the world, what really matters is for business to be ambitious.

If you do that, making a positive difference in the world is sure to occur. Notice however, that the corollary (if you advocate for making a positive difference, ambition is sure to follow)  is unappealing and untrue. Put another way, what's the point in making a positive difference if it's incremental and not ambitious?

Business shouldn't be about incrementally improving software or developing a slightly more differentiated laundry detergent. Business should do be doing things that are hard and profitable, not easy and profitable. Business should be doing ambitious things that are worthy of the sector's resources and its brightest minds.

Something that truly kills my heart a little bit is to see tremendously bright people join companies that put their talents toward banal purposes. If a mind is a terrible thing to waste, wasting a great mind on uninspired ends is a tragedy.

And that's what I learned, It doesn't matter if we mint business leaders who make a positive difference in the world if they aren't truly ambitious when selecting the problems they choose to solve.

As many of you know, I've had a number of qualms with business school. I think the root of my frustration is that at its core, it doesn't breed true ambition.

MY MOONSHOT: "MANAGEMENT AS FREEDOM"

I think a moonshot - a transformative goal that far exceeds the possibilities of the present day - is something everyone should have. These moonshots are the goals that matter so much to you, you don't care if you fail when trying to achieve them. It's something that you want to take risks to achieve and want to connect with others around.

Moonshots are goals that evolve and become more clear as time passes. Here's my latest understanding of my moonshot.

In the past 100 years or so, organizations and management have been about control. Management has tried to centralize, streamline, and bring consistency to the organizational world. The way organizations treated people was like interchangeable parts in a machine.

I don't believe that management should focus on maintaining control anymore. Management should be about freedom.

I want to rewrite the playbook on management - from its purpose to its strategies to its tactics - so that it focuses on freedom, not control. This means rethinking a host of things, like leader-follower relationships, collaboration, cross-sector partnership, metrics, technology, strategy, and others.

My moonshot is to fundamentally change the practice of management so that every organization in the world is rooted in freedom and not control.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• What's your moonshot?
• Am I full of it? Is business truly ambitious?

I want to quit football, but I can't

I haven't heard many people express tension about football (aside from their respective team underperforming) but I don't think that I'm the only one that feels it. Between the media buzz at Michigan, domestic violence, and concussions, though, it helps bring to light what I think many are feeling - we want to quite football, but we just can't. I WANT TO QUIT FOOTBALL

The problem I have with football is that it's not consistent with my values. It's violent. It tends to be excessively masculine and at times, homophobic. It's also laden with horrific injuries and physical consequences for players - whether it be professionals or pee-wees.

I don't care for violence, and I don't think that excessively masculine environments are comfortable. In fact, I'd argue that excessively masculine environments are not just uncomfortable, they're dangerous. They give young males a very skewed view of what being a man is supposed to be: brute, aggressive, and tough - leaving little room for empathy, intellect, and admitting weakness.

These issues with football and football culture are no longer merely perceived, they are real. There are real cases of homophobia (although some would allege that the case of Michael Sam doesn't indicate homophobia), and the effects of concussions. There are very real cases of domestic violence in the NFL - whether it's Ray Rice or Adrian Petersen.

Just this weekend it was released that a football player at OSU with recent concussions may have committed suicide. To be sure, correlation isn't causation, but there's a creeping number of cases like this one and in the long-run new research being conducted on football-induced brain trauma may indicate that these cases are not merely correlation.

In addition to serious, life-threatening issues there's also a litany of daily annoyances caused by football. On the more substantial end, the NCAA is often accused of being corrupt and college football has a host of issues unto itself. On the less substantial end, I'd contend that after the first 5 minutes, most conversations about football are horribly boring and uninspired (this is something I noticed once I stopped watching football regularly).

Whether it's because of deep moral misgivings or minor frustrations, there are plenty of reasons to want to give up football.

BUT I CAN'T

I want to give up football, but I haven't been able to yet because of its redeeming qualities. Every time I try to give up football, I remember that it's part of who I am and part of who we are as a country.

We have many football traditions in high-school, college, and beyond - nostalgic times that seem almost synonymous with growing up in midwestern America. And despite the overly masculine environment football creates, I learned great lessons as a football player - I played from 8th grade until 10th grade - about persistence, handwork, and teamwork.

There are also wonderful stories about upstanding football players that use their celebrity status to be role models for others. There are also stories of football being a way for kids going to college that wouldn't have had the chance otherwise. I know that nothing makes domestic violence okay, but some of these heartwarming stories make it easier to forget the horrible stories tying football to violence.

For me, football has been a rite of passage. It's an excuse to chat with my buddies about a common experience and the fantasy football league I'm in is a way to keep in touch with old friends. I distinctly remember the times I've been in the Big House for games and I remember when Michigan won the National Championship in 1997. I remember football practices and super bowl parties. Homecoming games and the Rose Bowl Parade. Now, those memories include Robyn (my girlfriend), Robyn's family, my family, and many other friends - both male and female.

The idea of football is so difficult for me. On some level, I hate football and what it stands for. But in another way, I love it.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• Would you quit football?
• Is it okay to be a patron for something that you don't agree with entirely?

The day the protests stop

In America today, people are talking about Ferguson. They are reading about it, I hope, from sources representing a variety of viewpoints. Even more, still, are sharing their opinions about the matter. People are protesting, too, and that's what I'm most thankful for. Of course, I'm not thankful for any of the violence and the reason there has to be a protest at all. But the protests mean people still care and still believe that their actions could pressure institutions to change.

The day the protests stop - meaning that they never occur - is what worries me the most. Because when the protests stop it means that citizens have lost their appetite for bettering their communities. It means they have become so disillusioned in their government that they think that trying to change it isn't worth the effort.

I'm glad today isn't the day the protests stopped. I hope that day never comes.

Twitter matters because it is a stethoscope

Twitter has a stratospheric valuation based on the fact that it can sell advertisements to its expansive user base. And that makes sense for investors. But I think that model of Twitter - as a microphone for advertisers - misses the platform's real power as a stethoscope for institutions to listen directly to the masses. Think about it. The POTUS, the Pope, and the Dalai Lama are all on Twitter. Multinational corporations are on Twitter. Celebrities and even airlines you want to complain about are on Twitter. You can tweet at all of those folks and they might actually respond.

I have personally engaged with really interesting people and institutions on Twitter that I've never met in person. It's incredibly liberating to have access to institutions with power. Never before in history has it been easier for an individual without formal power (read: people like me) to collaborate with those that have lots of it.

That flipping of the model could be world-changing, and I'd argue it has been already. Twitter doesn't seem to have done that intentionally, but that's what's happened.

Twitter is trying to make gobs of money by giving advertisers the ability to shout their shouts as loudly as possible. But wouldn't it be interesting (and more valuable) if Twitter instead focused on helping institutions listen instead of shout?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• Do "the masses" really have an appetite to share their opinions, ideas, and stories? Do institutions have an appetite to listen?
• If "the masses" really do care about sharing their opinions, ideas, and stories, why don't they now? For example, civic participation isn't exactly rampant in the USA.

Why society depends on love

I thank God everyday for the unconditional love I have in my life. I'm so lucky to have a girlfriend, family, and friends who love me even when I do stupid things or am sinful. And yes, it feels good to be so loved, but there's a societal benefit to that love as well - it tames my human instinct for greed. I, like anyone else, have impulses that I'm not proud of. Let's take business school as an example. Being in business school, I've learned a lot about how to make money. As a result, I've developed a strong ambition to make money, make impact, and make things happen. On the one hand, this ambition is important because it compels me to act and give effort toward things. On the other hand, it compels me to take, and take ruthlessly.

If unchecked, this ambition will become greed. I know this to be true, because it's a theme that runs throughout history. I am not immune to this the fallibility of human nature.

And that's where love comes in. It checks my ambition and greed.

The love that Robyn, my family, friends, and even strangers sometimes, give me is not something I feel afraid of losing. I feel secure in it and know it is there to catch me when I am at my lowest. It's something I can lean on.

That love is enough for me to be happy. Even if I'm not successful in my career or in other pursuits, having and giving love fills me up. Because I have and give love, I do not have to worry about replacing the space it occupies with money, prestige, or power.

This is good, because when money, prestige, and power become an end in themselves, it makes us do funny things. It makes us behave unethically and robotically. At best, the lust for money, prestige, and power stress us out. At worst, that lust will drive us to madness.

Even though, I think hippy-dippy interpretations about love in society are bit superficial, I think those that talk about society needing more love are on to something. Love isn't just something that's nice to have as an individual. Because it's a calming force that tempers greed and the darkest parts of our humanity, love is something society depends on.

Jobs pay a lot when they suck

I don't think a high salary necessarily indicates that a job is "better." Most of the time, I think jobs are high-paying because they suck. Of course, I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but, here's what I mean.

Let's say there's a dollar value, let's call it $I (for income), and $I is the average amount of money people in America need to have a pretty good life. Nothing super fancy, but something nice enough that the average person is happy with.

Now, why would anyone take a job that pays more than $I per year? After all, if you're happy with I, why bother doing something that requires more effort (which is presumably the case because you're getting paid more).

There are two types of reasons:

1) Because you're awesome 2) Because the job sucks

BECAUSE YOU'RE AWESOME You might take this job for more money, because you're valuable. Maybe you have a special set of skills and therefore, companies have to pay you more because of competition in the marketplace. If they don't pay you a premium, someone else will. You get paid more because you're awesome.

This is ideal, because you're not sacrificing anything to get higher pay. You're happy, and you are really skilled so you get paid more. Wonderful.

BECAUSE THE JOB SUCKS An alternative explanation for taking the job that pays more than $I per year is that something about the job makes it less desirable. Maybe it's because you have to work many hours, or the work is physically demanding. Maybe it's boring or worse, maybe it's not meaningful. Maybe it's humiliating or dehumanizing work. Maybe the job is difficult and you're likely to fail. Maybe the work/company isn't prestigious. Maybe it's stressful.

In this scenario, if the company doesn't pay you a premium you wouldn't want to do the job. You get paid more because the job sucks.

In reality, the wage we're all paid is probably a mix of both - being awesome and the desirability of the job. If you  have a high paying job it's worth asking yourself, and I direct this at my MBA classmates, is your job REALLY paying you a premium because you're awesome, or because the job sucks?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• How much of our educational life prepares us for being awesome, and how much of it prepares us for dealing with stuff that "sucks?"
• What careers do you think are the most desirable? How much does it pay? Does it seem high or low, why?
• Are there other reasons why some jobs pay a premium?

Detroit is not a laboratory

Detroit is not a laboratory, but we should be scientists. Here's some explanation about where I'm coming from. DETROIT IS NOT A LABORATORY

One of the narratives I've heard about Detroit, especially when stories about Detroit are told to those not currently living here, is that Detroit is a laboratory. It's a blank slate, a place where enterprising folks can experiment and make something for themselves. Detroit, the story goes, is the new wild, wild west and a low-cost place to take risks and try something new.

That's not exactly true because Detroit is precisely NOT a blank slate. The City was founded in 1701. It had over 1.5 million residents at its peak, and there are still over 700k that live within the city limits - not to mention the many more in the metro area. Detroit already has a culture, and monuments, artifacts, and history. It has major sports teams, and Universities. We've started cultural, economic, and social movements in our storied history.

Detroit is the opposite of a blank slate.

I mention this because talking about Detroit as a blank slate / laboratory can make locals feel marginalized - like they're in a petri dish, under observation, and without agency. More and more, I feel that way too when folks talk about Detroit as a "laboratory."

BUT WE SHOULD BE SCIENTISTS

That said, there are lots of people - both long-time residents, and new comers - trying new things and figuring out what works to make life in the City better. And I think that's great. Detroit isn't a city that works for everyone. It can be better, it can "rise from the ashes" as we Detroit's like to say.

The way we get there is being scientists - by observing, listening, trying, failing, succeeding, learning, and sharing. Being a scientist doesn't have to mean treating the city - and those in it - like part of an experiment. What it does mean being curious, humble, and learning by doing.

I'd also say that "being scientists" is part of who we are as Detroit's. We've always been creative people, who work hard and build new things. And so we should.

It's not lost on me that this is a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one.

When Facebook isn't free

I've been asking friends a simple question over the past month: if Facebook started charging a monthly fee, what's the most you'd be willing to pay? Take a second and think about your answer.

Most people I talked to, unsurprisingly, said $0 is the maximum they'd pay for Facebook. 1-3 people said they'd pay $5 a month for Facebook, assuming all their friends stayed on the site.

This is remarkable to me, because so many people are on Facebook and people spend so much time on Facebook. In fact, the average American spends 40 minutes on Facebook, according to a July 2014 report. That's a remarkable amount of time for something that's close to value-less, based on the results of my straw poll.

Why do you think this is the case?

I'd contend because Facebook is free. The thing is, it's not. Time has a tremendous opportunity cost - there's so much other stuff you can be doing with time. Especially when you think of Facebook time in aggregate - what would you do with an extra 250 hours a year?

Perhaps that's also why folks use Facebook profusely. It's hard to imagine what you would do with an extra 300 hours a year. It's less daunting to just use Facebook, than to go through the deep reflection required to imagine new possibilities for your own life. We don't exactly live in a society with that's facilitating of that sort of imaginative visioning, unless you grow up with uncommon privileges.

That's a deeper issue, I'd say, than the fact that folks use Facebook a lot. What would it take to create a world where people are more likely to imagine a different future for themselves, rather than use that time on Facebook?

Enter, the liberal arts.

Knowledge, Skills, Wisdom (and Liberal Arts)

I've been fairly amazed by the proliferation of online learning platforms, like Coursera, Skillshare, Khan Academy, and others. They're remarkable, I think, because they decouple "learning" from needing to interact with a person in real-time. You can learn from a screen and/or a computer and still have it be more interactive than a book.

As a quick point of reference, I'd argue there are (roughly) three types of things we learn:

• Knowledge - awareness and understanding of a topic. Knowledge answers what something is.
  • Sample Online Platforms: Coursera, Khan Academy
• Skills - an ability required to complete a task. Skills are an answer for how to do something.
  • Sample Online Platforms: Skillshare, CodeAcademy
• Wisdom - a virtue which helps decide what to do. Wisdom is an answer for why to do one thing versus another.
  • Sample Online Platforms: Do you know of any?

If you look at online learning platforms, you'll find that most platforms fall into the knowledge and skills categories. The only platforms that come close to developing wisdom are things like TED and BigThink and even so only with certain talks. TED and BigThink are more like insights - when other people share their wisdom. True wisdom, I'd argue, is something which must be internalized.

The thing is, developing wisdom takes practice, thoughtfulness, self-awareness, and reflection. It takes asking tough questions and sitting with them. It takes a broad diversity of people and disciplines around you to develop.

Wisdom is the stuff of deep truths. Developing it is hard. I think that's why you find plenty of online platforms exchanging knowledge and skills but few, if any, developing wisdom.

HIGHER ED

It seems to me that colleges and universities can't win if they hang their hat on distributing knowledge and skills unless they do most of it cheaply on digital platforms. Online courses for knowledge and skills will always be cheaper than in-person ones.

What colleges and universities can win on is wisdom. They can offer meaningful experiences and a diverse community. They can offer mentors and teachers. They can provide coaching and external influences. In other words, they can provide the right environment for students to develop wisdom through practice.

They also have the liberal arts. Because of its diversity, propensity to uncover truths and deep questions, and it's depth, it seems to me that the liberal arts are essential to developing wisdom.

Even if you're an engineer, business person, doctor, or lawyer, the liberal arts are essential. Why? Because the liberal arts cultivate wisdom.

--- photo credit: Russ Allison Loar via photopin cc  

Exploring Business Strategy via Fantasy Football Drafting

When deciding on a business strategy, it's important to choose the right target and frame challenges correctly. In fantasy football, for example, you can frame the objective when drafting in one of two ways (note that I'm thinking of a standard draft, not an auction draft): 1. Draft the players who will score the most points 2. Draft the team that will score the most points, against my opponent, week after week

Here's how the drafting strategy changes based on how you frame the objective -

If your objective is draft the players who score the most points, you:

• Draft stars because they score a lot of points
• Draft players who are anchors of their respective teams because they are perceived to score more points
• Draft sleepers because you want to get more value for your pick (and appear to be smarter than your friends)
• Draft kickers and defenses in late rounds because they usually score low amounts of points

My objective is to draft a team which scores the most points, against my opponent, week after week. So, this is how I draft my team:

• Draft stars because they score a lot of points (duh)
• Draft players on teams that are expected to win games (this reduces variability because if the team is better, they will likely score more points, even if they aren't at the top of the depth chart of their individual team). If you've ever drafted an offensive starter on the Oakland Raiders you know where I'm coming from
• Avoid players who have had major injuries or off-the-field issues (Ray Rice, AP, anyone?)
• Draft players in contract years (because they are more motivated to do well)
• Spread out bye weeks (so you can prevent having two stars out of your lineup in the same week)
• Draft defenses and kickers early (their expected value is higher) You play defenses and kickers 16 out of 17 weeks so they end up being higher contributors than a bench player you only play during bye-weeks. Also, there's less depth at those positions so drafting late gets you lemons
• When trying to draft sleepers, determine how the team has improved in the offseason to determine whether the player is now surrounded by better teammates

I've had fairly good results once adopting this strategy, but my fantasy football strategy is beside the point. The point is, how you frame your objective dramatically affects your business strategy. So choose the right one.