September 25 Readings

                The theme of this week’s readings has been vision. Kouzes focuses on inspiring that vision in others while the other three readings concentrate more on personal vision. Umair Haque’s “How to Let Your Purpose Find You” offers an almost quixotic version of vision, in which one exposes themselves to heartbreak. He does not mean to say that vision = heartbreak, but that having vision and pursuing it means doing what you love, and risking the possibility that that love may end in heartbreak.

                I take some issue with the process described in “Drawing Forth Personal Vision,” in that the fourth part of the approach is basically the “why” game small children play. Yes, learning the motivations behind your wants and desires is important, but ultimately it all traces back to happiness. As Aristotle wrote in Nicomachaen Ethics,

“…honor, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.”

I suppose the source of my mild ire is that this exercise is, in a fashion, thousands of years old, but pays no heed to the original source material. Maybe we could read a little Aristotle for class?

Readings Sept 11

                As cynical as it might be, shortly into The Evolving Language of Diversity, I couldn’t help but think, “By looking broader- thus, at multiple identities that include age, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and immigrant status – we come to see new and exciting ways to oppress people.” My point being, when the current matters of identity are resolved, some new division will arise to replace them. Tying into this, I must disagree in part regarding the “freedom fighter” vs “terrorist” distinction. The matter is entirely subjective and does not particularly belong among issues of diversity. Simply, one is a freedom fighter when their goals or values align with yours, while one is a terrorist if their goals or values are in opposition to yours. Though we can make great progress in promoting diversity and understanding, there will always be matters that come down to us vs them. The best we can hope to achieve is that such future conflicts are over freely-made choices rather than circumstances of birth.

                At first, I was a little confused as to why an article on diversity would be lumped in with issues of managing oneself, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense, since using the proper language is very much a matter of self-management. It ties in well to the self-assessment Peter Drucker describes in “Managing Oneself,” especially in asking what your values are. It is this component especially that helps one determine where they stand in an organization or if they should stand within a particular organization. Certainly, diversity should be among those values that one stands for.

Readings Sept 9

                It is interesting how much psychology and neuroscience affect the idea of leadership, an area often thought more of as an art than a science. It also seems almost counter-intuitive that carrot-and-stick incentives do not work in the workplace, at least not by themselves. Both “Drive,” by Dan Pink, and “Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership,” by Dan Goleman, reach this conclusion, though from different angles. Goleman approaches  the issue from a social standpoint, with neurological data supporting his arguments. He stresses the importance of a leader’s “social intelligence,” how they interact with those they lead and the effect their leadership has. The leader’s actions have a direct influence on not only how subordinates perceive them, but on how effective they are at working and on their self-worth within the organization. David Rock, in his article “Managing with the Brain in Mind,” expounds on this viewpoint and even breaks down successful management strategies into the acronym SCARF: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. If a leader promotes, protects, and propagates these ideals among subordinates, the organization works more effectively and individual members feel far more valued and fulfilled.

                Most striking, though, are Pink’s conclusions in “Drive.” He cites a series of studies regarding carrot-and-stick incentives; the higher quality/quantity work, the higher the monetary reward. While one might think that a high reward yielded higher quality/quantity, instead high rewards led to substandard work, where there was little difference between work produced given moderate and meager rewards. He further points out that, looking to websites like Wikipedia, people are often willing to pour hours of time into their work for free if they feel as though they have purpose. So it is not the monetary reward that drives people, but that sense of purpose and accomplishment.

Yann Martel Convocation Address

                Yann Martel brought a very interesting perspective with him at the convocation, characterizing reason in a manner not often heard. Rather than describing reason as a goal unto itself, he instead described it as a tool. Regarding his book, Life of Pi, Martel described it as a departure from reason. While that may sound like a descent into madness at first blush, Martel explicitly wanted to avoid madness while at the same time abandoning reason. Instead, the book focuses on faith.

                Growing up, Martel was raised in an environment without strong religious faith, his family instead placing emphasis on the arts. This is a fairly mainstream approach in Canada, Martel’s home, where religion plays a much diminished public role as compared to within the United States. Traveling to India to seek inspiration for a novel, Martel encountered a society grounded far more in faith than he had been previously exposed to (I found particularly striking the idea of pious Hindus leaving offerings at Christian sites of worship). It was this immersion in faith that helped inspire Life of Pi.

                He explained how, throughout the book, he aimed to stretch the reader’s suspension of disbelief to the limit, with such improbable, but not impossible, happenings such bumping into another life boat set adrift and an island in the Pacific Ocean populated by meerkats. At the end of the book, the protagonist relates his story to a pair of investigators attempting to determine how his boat ultimately sunk. When they do not believe him, Pi tells a second, more believable story. The investigators choose to believe the second story, but ultimately there is no way of determining through reason which is true or false. The only thing to do is take Pi on faith.

                This is an interesting take on the ideas of faith and reason, especially on a college campus, where reason is generally held as one of the highest ideals and faith tends to be held in lesser regard. Before hearing his address, I had always thought of reason as an end unto itself rather than a means to an end. While an interesting way of viewing reason, I am not sure that I would put reason and faith in the same toolbox, so to speak. There are certainly issues that reason alone cannot answer, namely anything that falls in the metaphysical realm. While elements of reason can be used to approach metaphysics and perhaps discern probable truths or at least weed out certain fallacies, ultimately, one cannot come to any solid conclusion. Martel stated as much in criticizing the work of Descartes, who argued for the existence of God and the self through rational means. While I do not agree with Martel’s characterization of Descartes’s arguments, I must concede that Descartes is mistaken in attempting to draw a hard, rational conclusion from his Meditations. Ultimately, issues such as those must be left to faith.

September 4th Readings

                It is an interesting idea to liken leadership styles to one of the four classic elements and a useful tool for swiftly identifying such styles and adjusting one’s own accordingly. However, I do wish there had been more details regarding people of mixed elemental styles, those being fire/earth, fire/air, fire/water, earth/air, earth/water, and air/water. I raise this point because I scored evenly in the air and fire categories in the self-assessment. Perhaps it is a subject that could be examined further in class.

                Desmond Tutu, in his interview, expounds on the classic, but still relevant notion that the best leader is a servant. What is meant by this is that a leader must seek the betterment of their followers and suffer doing so. What is meant by suffering is that leadership must not be viewed as a tool for personal gain, but rather as a burden that must be born stoically. Indeed, the leaders Tutu named, including Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all suffered for the leadership roles they took, but ultimately affected great social change, bettering the lives of many.

                Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, in her video points out a very worrying trend: that women occupy only a small portion of leadership positions in government, business, and non-profit organizations and that the number is growing smaller. Though many factors are at play in this trend, Sandberg postulates that at least part of the reason may be some of the personal choices or strategies that women employ in the workplace as compared to men. Where men are more likely to be assertive and think highly of themselves, many women tend towards the opposite. Sandberg encourages women in the workplace to be more assertive, to sit at the table and to keep their hands raised, to use two of her personal anecdotes. While this does not speak to issues of discrimination or other systemic problems, more women becoming assertive and making long-term plans that foster personal success can serve to begin reversing the trend.