Oops, I Accidentally All Night

I’ve learned a lot this semester. I’d venture to say I’ve learned more this semester than any single year of my life so far. Most of what I’ve learned I’ve learned the hard way, and I find myself scrambling here at the 11^th hour trying to damage control to the best of my ability.

It seemed that every time I would learn something in my life, I would go to PDII lecture and the content thereof would match what I was going through verbatim. I would often walk out of class thinking, so that’s the name of what I learned yesterday. I was taught the importance of self-leadership through my failures, and was taught the tools to lead myself in this course. I learned in-groups and out-groups are unavoidable through fights with teammates, this course showed me ways to navigate them. I learned what born leaders are capable of right as I discovered hidden talent on my team, and I learned ways I could make the new leader I was mentoring even better. After listening to different strategies for dealing with attitude, I became more aware of people’s perception of my moods when I am performing in a leadership capacity.

Everything covered in class I experienced in real-time, every frustrating short-notice detail of it, so lectures really sank in.

I think above all the PDII lectures helped me not as much learn lessons about leadership, but the terminology and  theory  behind it, so that I may describe my lessons and experiences to others effectively. I can also categorize the life lessons in my head more distinctly, which will help me remember them much better.

As a course title, I think Professional Development is misleading. I learned very little that will help me in a strictly professional sense. I believe that a more appropriate title would be Personal Development. After learning what this class has to teach (for the most part) I feel like I am a more focused, experienced and aware person, i.e. I feel more developed. Everything I’ve learned can also be applied in a professional setting, but what I’ve taken away from this course is much more.

The section discussions that accompany this course are as valuable as lecture, but for many more reasons.

I am an engineer; I always have been and always will be. I attend a rigorous engineering school. I am not going to say that engineers lack imagination; On the contrary, I think the engineer friends I have are some of the most imaginative people I’ve ever met.

I will concede, however, that (especially when free time is nonexistent) we become very focused on tasks of engineering and coursework- Components, systems, talent allocation, communication, homework,  and learning, for example.

Having the section content be so far removed from my everyday tasks was extremely refreshing for me. Engaging in discussion of topics from politics to farm ethics allowed me to take some time and think about everything else that is going on in the world outside of my busy little bubble.

It was also fantastic to talk with classmates, which is something rarely done on campus. Lectures are silent, labs are strenuous and Troy (and the weather machine) naturally makes people antisocial, so to meet someone new and talk with them for an extended period of time was more than kind-of nice.

Using a blog as a vessel for responses to course material was something I was weary about in the beginning of the course. Yuck, Blogging, I thought. I figured blogging was more or less for angry political activists and cooking shows.

The Jury is still out on that one.

What I can say about the blog, however, is that I am glad my responses to the course material are digital and public. Unlike every other class, my homework was not pages of hand calculation, or a lab report typed in the same 12pt TNR with a ‘right’ answer and a point-value. It was a well-devised, personal thought train that (through a freak accident) some friends have discovered and enjoyed reading. It’s like a very small body of work that I can be proud of, as opposed to the same equation that has been solved by every attending student since 1824. I can’t say that my blog will be maintained, but I think I’ll leave it up for anyone who has a few minutes to kill.

I do not suck up to my superiors. I do not grade grovel. This final post may seem very happy in a this-was-an-overly-fantastic-course kind of way. Regardless, I give credit where credit is due. I’m not going to say that I enjoyed everything in this course (lectures were slow, the reading was oftentimes hard to relate to), or that some of my learning about the course material wasn’t coincidental with other life events, but overall this is a solid course and I will recommend it to anyone that asks my opinion.

As for my section room in Sage: FOR THE LOVE OF HYDRATION WILL SOMEBODY BUY THAT ROOM A THERMOSTAT?

That is all.

KLON Radio

Is it just me, or has regular radio not changed in at least a decade?

I may only be 20, but I’ve been listening to the radio since I was old enough to fight with my alarm clock in the fourth grade. While all the other kids were listening to CD players and first gen IPods, I had a D-cell powered boom box screaming away in my room. By 7^th grade I had probably consumed my own bodyweight in D-cell batteries as well.

Anyway, I love listening to music radio. Rock, alt, and country mostly, which have all shared the same format for as long as I can remember- 50 minutes of music per hour, with three blocks of ads. The ads were always for the following six items: car dealerships, Mortgage loans, bars, concerts, tax help, and whatever the ongoing contest was. They each had a morning show that danced on the line of what was appropriate for public radio, spliced in with traffic and weather read verbatim off of the local news station’s TV channel.

I think the fact that radio’s evolution is so stagnant is why it is so comforting to listen to. In this ever-changing media landscape, no matter where I am there is a rock station I can tune into and get the same thing I’ve been hearing for years.

To be honest, why should it change? The recipe obviously works; I have yet to hear of a radio station that “went out of business.” The events they sponsor are always changing, the music library is (slowly) growing, and the volume of ads has been pretty constant.

It’s just interesting that literally every other aspect of media is changing- we have fifteen different varieties of internet radio, smartphones can download or stream whatever you want to listen to, mp3 players are built into cars, friends can share songs and playlists, and yet WPLR is still going to play the same 6 Eagles tunes twice today, as they have for twenty years.

MmMmMax Headroom Here...

You know, this whole internet/advertising thing could come back to bite us in the ass.

I’ve come to notice a vicious cycle forming. There is a high demand for free stuff- free apps, free video, free services- that is supported by advertising revenue from these products. As we desire more free stuff, advertising will have to provide even more money to support the growing free-stuff industry, so on and so forth.

In my mind, this could end a number of ways, pretty much all bad.

First, I figure that as the volume of ads increases, people are going to become desensitized to them, requiring more adds to sway consumers in the same way. The more ads, the more desensitized consumers will become until, finally, advertising has no effect on purchasing decisions by the consumer. The advertising industry will collapse (perhaps only the portion associated with free stuff), and all the free stuff will no longer be free.

The second option is that advertising will become so intrusive (due to increased volume caused by de-sensitivity) that it will become more and more worth it to consumers to buy some of the formerly free products (think about the add-free version of every app).  A rift will be created between the types of services that are worth it to pay for, and those that aren’t.  As the services become more advanced, they will cost more, until a little advertising would be worth it to take the price down a bit. The cycle of increased adds/pay more will continue until there is a very small handful of products worth paying for, and everything else will spiral out of control with adds until, again, advertising collapses.

Another option is that there will be some other source of money for the free stuff. For example, you can now trade some of your personal CPU power to the cloud for real-life money to buy things. Once advertising collapses or maxes itself out, we will just trade something else instead of our attention for free stuff, but there’s only so much to give.

I’m sure the simple calendar apps and such will remain cheap, but the rate of advance of tech and apps suggests that there is some seriously cool stuff on the horizon. I’m not sure when this whole thing will blow up, but it will be bad.

They Threw Me Into "Public"

I am glad there is such a large emphasis on public relations these days, for two reasons. First, I believe maintaining a good public relation is something that a good leader owes to him or herself, and may be a reward that is overlooked otherwise. Second, because public image is so important, the actions of an entity (especially a large company) are carefully scrutinized, enticing the entity to respond to a problem more admirably than otherwise.

Praise is deserved for those who are doing a good deed; this is not a hard concept to understand. Often, however, people will flaunt their righteousness in the face of those around them. After a time, everyone knows all too well what that person is doing correctly, and are sick of hearing about it, especially if the “good news” is blown out of proportion.

I have found that, just as often, people do a good job and seek no reward for it. Being humble is certainly admirable, but occasionally it becomes a handicap. I have observed people responsible for great success be passed over by their superiors because they didn’t claim their work; the good they did seemed to magically appear and was forgotten by those involved.

Some might claim that the only reward they require is the satisfaction of doing the right thing. If this is truly why you do what you do, then you owe it to those you serve to share with others your charge. People around you will probably want to help by way of supplies, expertise, or space, allowing you to do even more good.

In any event, be sure you claim the good that you do, it’s healthy and deserved.

The other side of this coin is the accountability produced by needing to maintain good public image. Here, I am referring more heavily to companies and public figures.

The first example that comes to mind is the juxtaposition of the corporate response to the Exxon Valdez spill and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig spill. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in 1989 and dumped a huge amount of oil into the ocean, Exxon was slow to react and blamed the ship’s captain for the disaster. Possibly learning from this anxiety-ridden and slow response, BP instigated a massive containment and cleanup effort very quickly following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010.

Other tragedies, such as Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, were reacted to very quickly by the American Government, perhaps in fear of the same backlash FEMA received for its slow response to the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

It is for these reasons that I believe those in the media spotlight should continue be very mindful of their relation to the public. Not only is it a healthy thing to watch after, it is a great source of learning.

Funnel Vision

 “Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.”

I am often struck by how perfectly these words explain how I feel from day to day. Hope is such a wonderful thing- it propels us as humans to achieve what would otherwise be impossible. It is also the fuel that burns our minds when we are unable to realize a goal- without hope, we would not be disappointed.

I can’t tell if the almost-crippling existential crisis I’ve been suffering the last two years puts me on par or behind the curve. I’m slowly figuring out what I want to do with my life, but most of the clues on how to do so have come from my peers- they already seem to have a firm grasp of what’s going on. I’ve had this bad habit these past two years of putting all of my eggs into one basket. I’m a very hopeful and a very unlucky person, so I’ve been subject to some serious heartbreak lately.

I read an article today titled What are You Going to Do with That?, a paraphrased transcription of a speech given by William Deresiewicz. In it, he discusses how young people often let decisions make themselves, and the boring, single-minded elders around us did the same thing when they were our age.

This article is a little assurance that what I’m doing by re-evaluating my life is a good idea. I want to lead myself down a path of my choosing, not let the self-making decisions lead me their way. I’ve always worked towards my own goals, but a lot of the time I didn’t put any thought into what those goals were, as long as they were my own.

There’s a little bit of self-leadership content here, but I recently realized why my peers were figuring out their lives so much faster than me. The truth is that, regardless of how my college sells itself, it is simply a four-year live-in technical seminar. It is not a place to have “the college experience,” the self-discovery that my peers are accomplishing by way of their diverse and new experience at school is nigh impossible for a well-adjusted individual at my school. The socially inept may have the awakening they needed, but those of us with basic hygiene and the ability to ask someone to hold the door are already too far ahead.

I guess I always have to be on guard for surprises like that. Figuring out my life the hard way is a challenge I have accepted, but it irks me a little that I didn’t even know I was being challenged. Habitual tunnel vision aside, I think I’m going to enjoy the more holistic view of my situation. Deresiewicz calls the tunnel vision the funnel- you zoom in closer and closer on one thing and after a while it’s too tight to turn around and look back. Just think, if I had stayed just as clueless, I could have spent just as much time funneling as my counterparts at real college.

It's All About that Fitness

I don’t have a problem with hyper-masculine, fit males in advertising. I’m not really bothered by women in perfect shape all over advertising either. Before you call me a pig, hear me out.

I feel like a lot of the “pressure” that studies have shown is placed on people to have the “perfect TV body” is self-inflicted. I guess that people see the ‘advertising body’ and falsely believe that they should be able to make that kind of body happen with a normal schedule. The truth is that searching for the ideal body in spare time is both unrealistic and possibly not worth it.

It should be known that the people in advertising have the bodies that they do because they are paid to. Their job is to look good when filmed; they have chosen to make their living by staying in shape and representing various products. In a lot of ways I’m jealous- Get paid to work out all the time? That would be sweet.

It’s unrealistic to think that if you have a full-time job you will be able to work out as often as models do. You can’t. You have other things to do. People need to know that one’s value as a person does not just rely on how in-shape they are. Having a family, being successful at your job, enjoying other hobbies and spending time with friends are all components of personal wealth. It should follow that a person must make a decision on what the value of each of these components is and work to maximize their self-worth.

On the other side, if you’re depressed about your body image then do something about it, but make sure your goals are realistic. I’ve heard people openly complain that watching models makes them feel terrible about their bodies. Either decide to make a change and live a healthier lifestyle, or decide your other traits as a human make up for being unhealthy.

Another component of the fight over personal fitness is diet. I’m well aware that healthy food is slightly more expensive and slightly less accessible, but the dividends paid by overhauling your diet and switching to a healthy lifestyle are more than worth the extra effort. Models are, again, paid to eat perfectly so that they may maintain their perfect body. To me, this is not too much to ask, but it’s a conscious decision that has to be made. I often tell people to ask themselves how much the taste of a food item worth in health. Usually that gets them thinking about what they really value. To be honest, healthy food isn’t bad tasting, either. It’s just less mainstream so far less people know how to prepare it. You have to be confident enough in your healthy lifestyle to pass up MacDonald’s with your friends and eat that chicken salad later at home.

I’m glad that models are in such good shape. It lets me know the potential my body has, and serves as a metric for where I am on the useless-fat-blob-to-perfectly-in-shape scale. I don’t look at all of the unhealthy, hygiene-lacking, scared programmers I see around me and become depressed because my coding abilities are pathetic compared to theirs. I have so many other things going for me. Why should fitness be any different?

5 Cent Eggs

During a lecture regarding leader-controlled media, a thought about a catch-22 popped into my head. If a leader’s tenure in power is perpetuated by follower support, and the leader makes the poor leadership choice to spin the media in his favor, he is simultaneously becoming a poor leader and making it almost impossible (especially in the short run) to be discovered as a bad leader.

Putting a positive spin on things has never been my strong suit. I tell the whole truth, every anxious frustrating detail. I do this based on the golden rule; I agree that ignorance is bliss, but I’d rather be aware than blissful.

Anyway…

Critiquing a leader’s performance real-time seems to be to be a very tricky endeavor. Rarely is a leader’s situation unoriginal enough to have a good precedent for them to follow, and even if there was a plan that had worked in the past, different leadership styles can attain the same, if not better, results.

A lot of the time (at least in my experience) followers don’t know what to look for in their leader. This makes those followers both blind to important problems and prone to panic.

All of this occasionally makes the decision to support a leader very complicated. If a leader is doing a good job, but the situation leads followers to become frustrated towards him or her, followers may want to remove that leader.  Removing a good leader will be a poor move, save for the small amount of catharsis. Maybe then it is better to leave all leaders until the end of their term, regardless of their popularity. Clearly, however, some leaders are doing such a bad job that they need to be removed immediately. But how clear is it really? How do we know that we won’t thank them for their frustrating leadership later?

This area is nothing but pure grey. Just think, a leader could be smart enough to hide an unpopular decision as to remain in power and see their good plan through, or they could be dumb enough to hide an unpopular decision because they truly believe their obviously flawed plan is brilliant. Go ahead; your brain may now explode

I guess all I’m saying is keep an open mind when critiquing a leader. Don’t panic, keep your head on a swivel, and be logical. And for the love of decisiveity, know what you want.

NewSong/Submerged

I often end up in arguments with my peers concerning pirating music. It usually gets pretty heated, and I get ganged up on frequently.

Unlike most people my age I don’t pirate music. I pay full price for each song and have amassed a music collection worth thousands of dollars. Most of my friends think I’m crazy. They figure that if an artist is popular enough to be on ITunes, they are wealthy enough to not care about the additional ten cents per song otherwise.

That’s not the point, guys.

I’ve been where these artists are now. I know it may be hard to believe, but I was once in a band. Girlfriends for groupies and parents for roadies, typical high school stuff, but it was still just as much work as anything even mildly more professional.

We didn’t suck, either. Amity Regional High school has an award winning music and performing arts department, and the year we played POPS (the annual audition-and-play-music-in-the-auditorium-for-money event) we performed the only original song. I am proud to inform you that I wrote the chorus music for that song, and figured out how to get my buddy Adam Watts his dope drum solo.

I tell you this because I received absolutely no credit for that song whatsoever. I worked hard to figure out the missing piece to that song, and after a few weeks one of the other guys in the band started taking all of the credit. The other band members, save Watts, started playing along just to piss me off.

The punch line is that I spent some serious effort on intellectual property and reaped no reward. There wasn’t any money involved, either. If I’m so frustrated about simple bragging rights, I can only imagine how angering and unfair it is to pour years of your life into an album only to have a bunch of entitled college kids rip it off your CD and spread it on the internet. It is absolutely the same thing as stealing. The music is the product these musicians are selling, just because you can’t hold it in your hand doesn’t mean its ok to unlawfully take it.

Just for giggles I attached a link to the recording of the song. This was recorded by the band after Watts and I quit. I’ll warn you that it’s pretty lame. Watts and I took all the bite with us when we left.

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=56429366&ac=now

A Google Dragstrip App?

Effective self-leadership (the topic of a lecture I was in today) is exactly the reason why I switched to a smartphone. You read that correctly, AJ Pyne has switched to a droid to fulfill his cellphone needs. Once you have defibrillated yourself, read on and I will explain why.

First, what self-leadership is: organizing your skills, your weaknesses, and your time so that you may accomplish goals in a fashion that would otherwise be unattainable with simple, unguided effort. Many have argued that effective self-leadership is necessary for leading others. I’m not convinced, because as long as a leader’s faults don’t interfere with his or her leadership there is no issue, but I’m sure it can’t hurt.

Next, I would like to explain my problems with smartphones. In the following rant, all offences are intentional and no fucks are given: Youth of America: pull your heads out of the facechat twittergram’s ass. Too much of your time is spent watching the internet lives of people you don’t really care about. As you stand and stare motionless at your IPhone screen the real world is tripping all over you; look up and join the flow or sit down and get out of the way.

I am going to go ahead and say that the biggest reason why I switched from my faithful LG Dare to a Razr is Google Calendar. I can now objectively look at my day and determine the best way to spend it, as opposed to “I feel like doing this now”. I love that the droid can be as annoying as I want to be as far as reminding me to teat my hourly as gospel. I can also track the food I eat (which is HUGE- from both a health standpoint and an oh-crap-I-only-ate-a-bagel-today standpoint) and my training development (I am an avid fitnesser). I feel that I am more efficient, even if only slightly.

There is a horrifying effect of this regimentation- the failure that was my time management is even uglier in hindsight. It is a cold, rude awakening when you determine that your priorities were almost entirely backwards and an even colder ruder awakening when you determine why. Overall, I believe that I’m going to be better in the future both as a person and a productive entity.

I refuse to install Facebook on my phone; I have no, Instagram or Snapchat account. I have nothing in the way of entertainment on my phone, save the Jegs Perfect start app. It’s a training app that hones your response time in relation to a drag-racing strip light tree. I am glad to report that not only does the droid make me more organized; it makes me better at laying rubber. 

Wait, I think that's the 'Lord of the Flies' plot...

It would be very easy to sit here and rant about bad leaders whom I’ve served under so far in my life. Who doesn’t love to complain? I’ll bet there is a decent chunk of bloggers who use the faceless persona of the internet as a punching bag when they want to bitch about whatever is bugging them. I digress, however.

So far most of my leaders have been bad. How do I know they were bad leaders?  Some have been selfish individuals who have used their leadership position as a way to advance themselves and only themselves. Some leaders have been completely detached from the group and simply enjoy the title of ‘leader.’ I have had leaders who micro manage, leaders who knew nothing about the task at hand, and leaders who couldn’t take the stress of responsibility and cracked.

Why are they bad leaders? My first answer is that most of them lacked experience. When we are younger, you have instructors: parents, teachers, coaches. Their instructions are to be followed only because they have to be. They are not your leaders. There is no group goal to be achieved, just a risk of detached personal loss. Quite simply, you do what you or told or it is game over. If you don’t follow what they say you are punished, failed and booted, respectively.

Leaders are your peers, and when younger they are your team captains, your assignment group mates, and your friends. You follow them because you put them in charge. But when you are young you have no experience, so oftentimes your peers don’t either. As you age, your leaders (bosses, elected leaders, etc.) are still your peers, but they have been around the block once or twice and have gained experience with both leading and following, which makes them a better leader.

The next big issue is simply a lack of maturity. I have often seen leaders who jumped to the top of a hierarchy because they thought it was going to be fun without considering the consequences. When their responsibilities caught up with them they were blindsided and rendered useless. They didn’t take the time to appreciate what leadership meant, which also happened to allow them to (for lack of a better term) embezzle from the group whatever resources were available.

I know that as you move up in age brackets the quantity of bad leaders doesn’t asymptote to zero, but the reasons won’t be related to lack of experience, perhaps it will be the overabundance thereof. Perhaps that by learning exactly what leadership is we also learn how to use it selfishly, but that is an argument for another day.

I will say that the quality of leadership has been increasing as I have gotten older, which leads me to believe my reasons for poor leadership among youth are valid.  It is, in my eyes, clear evidence that leaders are made, not born. 

More Chefs, Better Soup

I’m amused by the timing of my professor’s lecture on group leadership, as it coincided perfectly with my realization That I don’t have a “boss” at work. Sure, Rich signs my paycheck, Lou has his name stamped across the project and Jack owns the company. There is no chain of command, however. Vaughn (the other engineer),  Lou and I all know what needs to happen and it we just get it done.

It’s odd to think that I give instructions to my boss as often as I do, but when I need him to do something, the company needs him to do it, so he does it without question. It works that way with all of us, really. We only give orders for the good of the company and so far it has worked quite well.

Our situation is unique. The three of us have very specialized knowledge of the various facets of the units we produce, and we trust one another to know what they are doing. These skills and our small numbers make us both the floor grunt worker and the higher-up systems head, so everyone simultaneously needs to be in charge and an underling.

We conflict sometimes about direction and prioritization, but when a task gets prioritized behind another it’s not personal,  it means something more important is going to get done. The surprises go further in fact, as (in my mind) our largest problem has arisen because Lou has staked his claim as the final word in one aspect of our program.

We work with partners over seas who have this peculiar habit of selective email reception. They only seem to respond to communiques that they want to see. It is therefore no shock when I tell you that progress on our end has been slow due to the one-way flow of information.

The problem really arises when Lou fights the idea of playing hardball about communicating with our partners. While Vaughn and I believe that our time is being wasted (as it is the information he and I need to proceed with our tasks) and we should jump on them so that we can get things done, Lou doesn't want to pressure them too much, for fear that we will spook them.

I am firmly of the belief that squeezing our partners for info we need is the smart way to go. After all, you would talk differently with your brother than your priest. Our partner is analogous to our brother, right? The way to make that decision is to have Lou come down to our level and really talk it out with Vaughn and I. Lately he has been increasingly blunt with our partners, and has been great for helping us find proper direction with the whole program, but the time has come to deal in a definitive hand-me-the-damn-screwdriver kind of way.

In this particular instance, the soup needs more cooks.

Kill the Messenger, Perhaps?

The facechat twittergram is alight with images of cheesy sayings slapped over stock photos loosely related to the content thereof. Every cubicle farm and company hallway I’ve been in is lined with motivational posters so below witty and entertaining that it almost hurts to read them.  The great comments of leaders past and present have been reduced to media marketing fodder.

It is for these reasons that I believe that these saying hold some serious weight. Everything original nowadays has been warped, distilled and screen printed onto something that people are meant to buy. Skateboarding, off-roading and parkour are now so mainstreamed it’s almost as unique to forego them as activities. Most of what you see started out as pure, original ideas that some marketing group recognized the appeal of and decided to make money with it.

So why do we want to be surrounded by the thoughts of great leaders?

In a nutshell, we want to learn. While everyone might not want to be a leader, everyone wants to know how to lead well. By analyzing the famous thoughts of great leaders we can get a glimpse into what they were thinking, especially when they are talking about leadership itself.

What was the style of the leader who was in charge last time this happened? Were they nurturing? Powerful? Did they believe in shut-up-and-do-it? Did they mince words? Did they juice every sentence for content? Did they share only small thoughts at a time, or did they give their audience a lot to think about? Were they humorous? Serious? Confident?  

I tend to follow a two-step attitude when it comes to accomplishing goals: Step 1- Achieve goal, Step 2- Repeat Process. This is why General Patton’s thoughts on leadership hold very strongly with me- “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” Because I identify with him his leadership tools may be something I too can employ effectively.

I fear, however, that these great ideas are being diluted as we become accustomed to reading them constantly. What was once wisdom is now cliché. How many times have you rolled your eyes when instructed to ‘lead by example?’ How many poster boards with a big “ATTITUDE” slogan have you coldly walked past lately? Both of these concepts are neigh invaluable to leading others, but we are so sick of hearing them in a bubblegum media kind of way.  I almost want to take another less effective route just for the sake of breathing room.

I guess all I’m saying is hate the messenger all you want, but appreciate the message.

Informal Orgs: Formally Fantastic

Informal organizations within a hierarchy are as important as the formal organization where the hierarchy exists; it’s as simple as that.

First, let’s discuss the difference between the two.  A formal organization is the job you work and the classes you take. Someone is in charge because they have to be. They tell you what to do because that’s how things get done. You have tasks at work, you have tasks in class.  There may be several levels of people being in charge of other people, but it all breaks down into you do what your boss says because you have to.

The informal organization is your group of friends you study with. It’s the coworkers you go to lunch with. It’s who you ask when you have a problem; it’s who comes to you when they are stuck. They are the phone numbers you have not because you have to, but because you want to.

Often the informal organization is the reason why you tolerate the formal organization as long as you do. Imagine if you went to work and had no friends to talk to, it was just work-related banter with your superiors, colleagues and charges. Or if you went to school and had no friends, how long do you think you could last? We as humans need a sense of belonging, which is why informal organizations exist. But beyond that, you have a sense of empathy and attachment to those in your informal group, which is why you help them with more verve than someone you work with because “that’s the way it has to be.”

Informal organizations are also not bound by section like formal organizations, so by interacting with a group of individuals that may not be in the same area of work as you, additional perspectives can be gained. Well-rounded individuals are usually more desirable for many reasons (think back to extra-curriculars on your college application), and this rounding comes primarily from informal organizations.

T-T-T-Teach Me How to Struggle

As usual, my opinion on the topic of discussion is a hybrid of the two popular opinions. Today, we discuss the effects of media; does what we see in the media (aside from making decisions based on facts) affect what we do?

This is classic question: do first-person shooter games breed psychopathic mass murdering children? My response: kind of, sort of, maybe.

I believe that the emotions that drive the actions we are discussing- shootings, violence, etc. - are naturally built into those who commit these actions. I don’t think playing a first person shooter makes you want to kill people. That being said, you usually go the familiar route with getting things done, so if you are going to go postal and you are a gamer the closer to a videogame the better.

School shootings aren't the only big issue with life imitating art. Self-destruction among youth is something I see quite often. Us "youngins" are confused, anxiety ridden, angry and hyped up like never before. We are looking for ways to beat on ourselves (it’s the familiarity thing again, society beats on us, so that’s what we are used to and are comfortable with), and what we see in movies, TV and videogames is what we go for.

You see it all the time in college- kids partying out, rampant drug use, caffeine addiction, destructive relationships, and perpetual existential crisis. It’s not all simply to ruin our lives. Most forego sleep for caffeine and use drugs to increase productivity; they party to cope with the stress. How many movies to come out lately have crazy party scenes? How many movies have youth suffering through crazy hardships to be successful in the end? How many movies show a youth lost, trying to get their shit straight?

The media shows us a popular way to channel emotions we naturally have. As far as I can tell, the challenge of being young is a race against the insanity of youth catching up with us. Does the media speed up or slow down the clock? That remains to be seen.

Make It, Don't Fake It

To me, the only thing more taxing than working with others while in a bad mood is pretending that you are actually in a good mood. You can understand my surprise when my professor mentioned that a viable option for leading people while in a bad mood is to fake being happy.

I can certainly understand that the mood of a leader affects the mood of his or her group. That being said, aside from being in a perpetually bad mood (crushing depression or severe anger issues, for example), does it matter to the group what the mood of the leader is? Does the mood of the group as a whole matter?

I’ll believe you if you told me that I’m envisioning this scenario in ideal circumstances. I have the advantage in my life that I am surrounded by people who care as much as I do about getting done what needs to get done. This drive supersedes our moods or our relationships with each other; in the end the only thing that matters is that we get our tasks done and get them done to the best of our ability.

I therefore see no merit in my life to deny if I’m in a bad mood. I would rather pour that energy into every other aspect of leadership- communication, guidance and efficiency to name a few.

This may even be more effective in the long run than pretending to be happy. If someone who I am leading always sees me in a good mood, he or she might be confused and frustrated because I appear “superhuman,” always being able to maintain a good mood. Or he or she might think that I simply do not communicate with people when I am not in a good mood (because I am never seen angry) and therefore avoiding people when in a bad mood is acceptable. What might happen instead is my example will show them that they can contain their emotions and keep working through, which is ultimately what needs to happen to succeed.

It is entirely plausible that interactions between leadership and followers may transition from transformational to transactional while a leader is in a bad mood, but I assert that less- effective leadership (transactional is widely considered less effective than transformational) is a fair price to pay for energy that would be wasted faking a good mood.

Ignorance is Complicated

The term “ignorance is bliss” has always held an interesting line of thought in my mind, because few statements have so many powerful arguments both for and against their merit as truths. Recently my debate with myself over my ‘ignorance is bliss’ beliefs was renewed when I read an interesting passage in Campbell, Martin and Fabos’ Media and Culture that discussed the media’s responsibility to cover news related to war.

It’s no secret Americans do not like hearing about war. The loss of American public support for the Vietnam War is historically credited to the media’s coverage of the horrors therein. Rather than risk the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq falling prey to poor public attitude, the most grotesque images from the warfront have been made illegal to publish (i.e. American caskets under G.W. Bush, detainee abuse under Obama).

Some would argue that war is a necessary evil and that by leaving those who cannot stomach the horror in the dark, what needs to be done can get done. Others will argue that because it is the public’s choice (beyond executive order and other short-term sources of power) to be at war, the public should be presented with every ounce of available information to be empowered to make an informed decision.

I think us as the public should be presented with all available information, but good news doesn't sell, so to level the playing field legislation is usually required.

I propose a solution that I believe will be highly effective, albeit highly unorthodox: Perfectly opinion-segregated media. Currently, media sources are always walking the line between growing their audience by covering events that will attract attention, and covering all news impartially without concern for ratings. If we can de-couple money and news (I will leave it to you to decide how this should be done) near perfect news coverage can be achieved by having one media entity assigned to each of the major opinions of current topics.

In the example of war, one media source will be entirely devoted to the downfalls of war- economic hardships, the horror for the local population and those fighting the war, corruption and lies. Another media source will be entirely devoted to the pros of the current conflict- the importance of what is being sought after by way of the conflict, what improvements have come from the fighting (stability, safety, and resources), etc.

The size of the media source (and more specifically the rate of volume of news) will naturally closely relate to the frequency with which positive events or negative events occur, and the content of the news will easily represent the significance of the reported events. This pool of information will partially reduce a very complicated decision to a simple mental calculation- comparing volume & density of one side to the other to make a personal decision. 

So it Occurred to Me After Lecture

Recently, during a lecture I was in, a professor at my school described and discussed two kinds of leadership: Transactional and Transformational.  Transactional leaders are concerned with efficient transfer of information to the end of increasing productivity, while a transformational leader is dominated by their empathy for those they lead.

As the definitions of each type of leader became more in depth, the more juxtaposed they seemed to me. It was therefore unsurprising that some scholars list these two styles as mutually exclusive.  I have had the opportunity to observe two leaders whom could very easily be described as singularly transactional or singularly transformative, respectively.

The situations created by each leader seem to match the theoretical projections of their workforce word for word. The transactional leader on my team appears to everyone as the “hard ass,” he holds deadlines with an iron grip and really doesn't want to be bothered by you unless you have an issue or update. He communicates with clockwork precision, and unsurprisingly he leads the largest and most productive area of our team. Equally as unsurprising, however, there is little to no camaraderie on his sub-team. Recently he assigned a deadline that was short, to say the least. To complete it would have been both very difficult and very lucrative for the team. Unfortunately, no one put in the extra effort to meet this deadline at such short notice. He reacted harshly and questioned everyone’s dedication to the team. He came to me and complained about everyone’s apathy and lack of ability to follow simple directions. I realize now that these students are on the team of their free will and don’t enjoy dealing with him, so they simply don’t. His group can easily be tracked on paper, but I think in the end they aren’t going to pull through and get everything done on time, mostly because they don’t have the love for the team that is required to put up with a manager like that.

Our Transformational leader is as disjointed as he is passionate. He wants everyone under his wing to be the next Carroll Smith (a world-renowned racing car expert) and walks over hot coals to get everyone on his team amped up and focused. Unfortunately, he lacks most organization. Areas of his system are being neglected, and there will need to be some serious eleventh-hour work to get everything done, but I have absolute confidence that it will. The term I would use to describe his constituents is ‘addicted.’ They willingly spend long hours working on the projects, prioritizing them higher than schoolwork, recreation, and often times simple needs like sleep and food.  They want their systems to be cutting edge (and I am confident that they will be) but the peripheral components of their project will suffer because they are falling through the cracks in planning.

Which leadership style is more effective? It depends how forward you want to look. Our transactional leader will get this year’s project built, but I am concerned about member retention for next year. The transformational leader will boost retention through the roof, but his subsystem will get done at great personal cost to those involved. 

Tripping Face-First into Wisdom

I recently read a decade-old article by Daniel Goleman in the Harvard Business Review, titled “What Makes a Leader?”  The article discusses the facets of emotional intelligence- a skill not directly defined, but described through five ‘components,’ one of which being self-awareness. Goleman discusses knowing one’s limits and capabilities as a vital part of being a leader, and recounts specific events where self-awareness has benefited those he has observed.

When discussing ‘knowing one’s limits’ (as far as skill, productivity, knowledge, etc.) Goleman stresses that someone with good self-awareness both won’t allow him or herself to over-stretch when it comes to work, and then redundantly claims that he or she won’t accept tasks where failure is certain.

The first bone I have to pick is with the usefulness of claiming that someone with good self-awareness won’t shoot his or herself in the foot by committing to something where success is known to be impossible. I know for a fact that I can’t eat an entire steel-belted tire, therefore you will never see me with a nice Goodyear on my lunch plate. I applaud you, Lieutenant Obvious.

My next qualm is with the stress placed on ensuring you stay below one’s limits. Grave injury and complete financial ruin are certainly to be avoided, but in order to succeed you can't be scared. In my experience being cautious is not the best way to go about truly maximizing capability or productivity.

I assert that knowing your limits for certain requires exceeding them, even if only occasionally. This requirement stems in part from the inaccuracy of situational modeling and the novelty of the present. No matter how much you calculate, how thoroughly you recount experiences or how intimately you know a certain task, all aspects of a challenge will not be tabulated. Something will always be missed in your assessment, and the way to most effectively and quickly learn (and remember) what was forgotten is to attempt the task sans fear.

Another reason to commit headlong is the fluidity with which human beings change. People are such a complex system that small changes in the environment or timing of other unrelated situations can vastly change a person’s productivity. You may not yet know how you will perform in the current situation. The way to learn is, again, to go for it.

This is not an exercise in futility. I believe that you will learn several times more about your capabilities by failure than by just barely accomplishing something. A failure now will serve you more in the future than many successes.

I leave you with this simple concept to mull over: You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. 

Reluctant leadership, Effective Leadership Part 1

It's interesting to me that most people assume leaders want to be leaders. In my experience, when asked, a lecture room full of people, a recitation full of students, and an apartment full of engineers-to-be will all list a desire to lead, to organize, to direct, among the traits of a good leader. That extroverted leaders will openly enjoy being around followers and introverts will justify their discomfort with their desire to lead.

This is interesting because, frankly, some of the most effective and loved leaders I have had the opportunity to observe hate dealing with people and hate being in charge. 

To my knowledge, the study of leadership is not yet a quantitative concrete tool for determining properties of, and results pertaining to, leadership. We cannot yet add 2 and 2 and create a profile of the perfect leader for a situation.  Knowing this, I believe it is more worth my time to explain my case for the effectiveness of a reluctant leader than disprove the innumerable other theories behind the source of good leadership. 

First, a leader having little to no desire to lead in the pertinent capacity serves as a fail-safe for the purity of motives of that leader. Understanding this concept requires a few definitions, however. 

First, let us consider a perfectly benevolent leader. Let us assume someone who fits this description does everything in their power to further the group they are leading, and beyond that will waste none of that group's time, energy, money, or experience in furthering his or herself beyond what will further aid the group. This is to say that his or her selfish concern pales in comparison to concern for the group.

Let us now consider the exact opposite, a perfectly corrupt leader. This leader will use as much of the group's resources to further his or herself as possible, within the bounds of remaining in good favor and therefore not being removed from power by the group. This means that the only concern that this leader has for the group is as a vessel for gain for the leader.

Next we need to consider our reluctant leader’s attitude towards a position of power. For my argument for the effectiveness of a reluctant leader to remain true, we need to establish that the leader’s disdain for being a leader outweighs the perks of leadership. This is to say that he or she will not seek out a leadership position to better his or herself, despite the rigors and frustration caused by a position. This will also mean that the leader will step down as soon as his or her leadership is no longer required to lead, which removes the possibility of "overstaying their welcome", i.e. to fabricate justification for staying in power, which can lead to complacency (including failure to act properly should another need for a leader to arise) and unnecessary expenditure of the group’s resources. 

It needs to be considered, however, that the reluctant leader may be required to remain in power for a certain amount of time, regardless of their actions. It might be logical to assume that a smart person, unrelated to their reluctance as a leader, will "make the best of it" (referring to their stint in power) by making a gain for his or herself at the expense of the group (possibly behind the guise of the "crisis"- the situation that arose to necessitate our reluctant leader), which is more like our perfectly corrupt leader, who’s concern is purely selfish.

The strongest and most obvious argument against the possibility of the reluctant leader behaving as a corrupt leader in this regard is simply a thought about effort. To better his or herself corruptly, a leader must further officiate, persuade, and request for resources beyond what is needed to solve the "crisis". While in some situations it may be a simple matter of rationalizing something to make a gain for a corrupt leader, any leadership behavior beyond solving the "crisis" is outside the realm of desire of our reluctant leader.

The courses of action of our reluctant leader, dictated by his or her attitude towards themselves being in power, are the same courses of action we can expect our perfectly benevolent leader to take, therefore proving that someone who is reluctant to lead can very much be an effective leader.

Reluctant leaders may also be effective leaders due to the high likelihood of him or her being exceptionally skilled in the area in which they are called upon to lead. This will be discussed in Part 2.