Monthly Archives: October 2010

Nice Editorial That Makes the Case– Meaning over Data

Nice editorial from up in Canada.  It makes the case for talking instead of trying to so the impossible–multi-task.  The subjective nature of “what is important to me — based on the new data coming at me” is a topic I explore in the book. We live in the world of data.   The author here is longing for a world of meaning.  Below is the whole editorial.  Here is the link.

Crackberrys lead to all type and no talk

Posted Oct 28, 2010 By Katie Stewart

EMC Editorial – Have you ever noticed that in any coffee shop downtown, all of the businessmen and women are sitting together in a group, and yet, no one is speaking? (No one is even looking at each other. Their heads are down. Their fingers are moving at the speed of light. They are all holding the same product. The crackberry. It is a new type of addiction that our fast-paced, obsessed society has fallen in love with and can’t live without.

While it is truly amazing that there is a tiny little gadget that can give us access to anyone and everything that we would want, it seems that it has given us an excuse for poor manners. How often have you been out at a restaurant with someone, they hear that ding go off, and your conversation is put on pause? Or your friends have become professionals at active listening, saying the occasional “uh huh” or “ya,” all while fiddling with their BlackBerrys.

Because of this new craze, it has become acceptable that we pick up our phones and deal with something else instead of the person in front of us. And we, the present company, have to put up with sitting silently and waiting.

Bad manners have become acceptable because it has become the norm for people to constantly check their phones and ignore the people they’re surrounded with.

I don’t know if it feels this way to you, but it is so frustrating to try and have a conversation with someone when they are trying to do two things at once, it comes off like they have better things to do then to listen and be involved in the conversation they’re having.

We have become so fixated on the idea of knowing everything the second it happens, that we choose to put whatever is going on in the present on hold, while we are thrown brand new information.

And let’s be honest, most of it is not that important. It’s the latest Facebook update, a new tweet, or more junk mail in our inbox. This information is treated as priority, instead of the people that you’ve chosen to spend time with.

Will it get to the point where a person does not need to leave the house, because they can do all of their socializing at home? Turn off the crackberry, look up, and socialize.

Deep Reflection– The Chile Miners and Rumination

The limits of reflection

The limits of reflection and the Chile miners

The world watched with great joy as the 33 Chile miners made their way to the surface a few weeks back.   While the miners had the benefit of one another for human connection they also went through: days where they did not know if they would survive, nights of extreme heat and humidity, sleep deprivation, food rationing, fear, anxiety, contemplation, hope, humor and every other human emotion.   They even watched Jackie Chan movies.

Above ground the men were guided by a psychologist who helped them to think through what they were experiencing.  The goal was to avoid having them enter the dark side of reflection– also known as rumination.  The uncertainty of the situation drove the men to hours alone at night where their minds took them to the edge.

I explore the down side of reflection in my book as I wanted to ensure that I had a balanced point of view and didn’t suggest that thinking solves everything.  It turns out that over thinking can be very destructive when it enters the “why me?” phase that takes the individual into helpless inaction.   I interviewed two leading experts (Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and Professor Edward Watkins) on the topic of over thinking. They helped me discover what the word rumination really means.  It is a word highly correlated to depression.

Here is what the NYT recently reported about the psychological advice given to the miners.  See the end of the article below for the guidance on reflection.  Over thinking can be a huge barrier and experts sought to avoid it within this incredible and still largely untold story.  There are likely stories of how these men structured their time alone that are much more positive but we will need to wait for the book or movie before we learn the full story.  Reflection played a role in keeping these men alive but it also had to be managed:

From the New York Times, “Stories of Hope and Hardship of ‘Los 33’”

Some of the men focused on those waiting for them above. “Inside my heart, I thought of my family,” said Carlos Mamani, 24, of Bolivia, the lone immigrant in the group. “I talked to God.”

Psychologists treating the men through telephone and video links from the surface were worried enough about them that they began filtering virtually everything family members sent down a relief shaft. Cheery letters were all right; notes about troubles at home were not. Some letters were never delivered and others were edited, according to Mr. Ojeda, who called the actions “unjust.”

After about two weeks, the miners demanded that the censorship stop, arguing they were not as vulnerable as they seemed.

But medical officials remained cautious. Psychologists selected the movies that the men watched on a cloth hung on a cave wall using a smart-phone-size video projector. They were allowed to view Mr. Bean and Jackie Chan movies, but not films about natural disasters or terror.

“We wanted them to relax and enjoy, not get into deep reflection,” said Alberto Iturra, the lead psychologist dealing with the miners. Eventually, the psychologists stopped filtering what went down the hole, feeling the men were stable enough.

In the end, the psychologists could not prepare the men for everything. Not the shock of stepping from the isolation of their cocoonlike rescue craft into the worldwide media glare. Not the reporters who camped outside their hospitals and homes. And not the shock of leaving “los 33,” as they called themselves, to return to their other lives.

First book review online. John Budd’s comments on Consider

This came up in a search today — I was told that it would be published this month.  Very cool to see the first review of the book online.  My thanks to John Budd for taking an interest in my work.  Below is a snippet. Click here for the full review.

As rare as finding a marble-sized pearl in an ordinary looking oyster, a new book offers career-saving advice that demands only the discipline of willpower and a dollop of introspection. Daniel P. Forrester’s unpretentiously titled, Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) is an eye-opening examination of the downside of what technology has wrought: intimidating us into making instantaneous decisions stripped of thinking and reflection. The author argues persuasively that while technology favors us with an abundance of information, we, paradoxically, give most of it short shrift, taking less and less time to reflect on what we are deciding.

Clint Eastwood on Think Time & Pondering Afterlife

Clint Eastwood has a new film out about what happens after we die.   He did the movie as he says that its something that we all think about– how true.  He doesn’t exactly answer the timeless question which is why he did the movie. He wants you to step back and reflect.  He explained to reporters:

“The questions are there,” he said. “You pose the questions, and then it’s up to the audience to meet you halfway and think about it in terms their own lives and what their thoughts are or what experiences they might have had.

Later in the same meeting with reporters he recalled two near death experiences he had that informed how he looked at the movie and its universal topic.  What’s most interesting to me is how he recalled in the second story that having time to think gave him something that propelled him forward– determination.  It could be said then that reflection played a role in helping a young Eastwood to live when others might have given in.  This was not something that I explored in the book, but it is yet another example of what happens when we are given time to actually consider what is in front of us.  In this case, he has time to think and ask himself questions like: “is this to be the end of my life?” He was miles from shore and uncertain if he had the energy to make it safety but the time to think allowed him to find something even deeper inside.

For his part, Eastwood said he has had a couple of brushes with death that left him vaguely wondering about eternity.

“I remember when I was very young, my dad was taking me into the surf on his shoulders, and I fell off,” the director said. “And I can still remember today, even though I was probably 4 or 5 years old, I can still remember the color of the water and everything as I was being washed around in the surf before I popped to the surface again. But at that age you don’t think too much about (death).

“And then years later, when I was 21 years old, I was in a plane and we had to ditch off the coast of Northern California in the wintertime,” he recalled. “And I must say that as I was going in to shore I was thinking that I should be thinking about my demise, but all I was thinking about, as I saw some lights in the far distance, I said, ‘Somebody is in there having a beer and sitting next to a fireplace, and I just want to be in there. So I’m going to make it.’
“And that was the determination,” he said, “but there was no sense of fate out there. I don’t think you get a chance to think that much. When you get that much time to think you’re usually going to be OK.”

Read more about this cool new movie and the quotes above by clicking here. My thanks to Dennis King from NewsOK for writing the story that brought this to life.

“I never have time to reflect…” Bill Clinton, 1994

I had hoped to interview President Clinton for the book.  We were not able to close on a date given how busy he is –although there was interest on his side in sitting down with me.  There was a lot I wanted to ask him and someday hope to speak with him. In the book, I quote from President Obama talking about the need to have chunks of time to think during the 2008 campaign– as it helped him to keep the “big picture.”  Obama said that Clinton’s people gave him that advice.

Then I came upon this recent article that gives the highlights a new biography of Clinton by author Nigel Hamilton.  Take a look at this anecdote about the former President:

At the post-game bull session, Clinton refused to take any responsibility for his party’s defeat. “I was present with him at the first meeting to evaluate what happened,’” remembered Henry Cisneros, the Housing Secretary. ” ‘And he was the maddest I have ever seen him. And somebody — I think it was [Leon] Panetta — dared to suggest that it was at least partially his fault. And he said, ‘Goddamit, I’ve worked my ass off! You treat me like a damn dog! Like a mule! You trot me out every day, and all I’m doing is what you’re telling me to do! And if you’re telling me it’s my fault, then it’s your fault, because you’re the ones who’re putting out there, exhausting me, spending all my time… I never have time to think, I never have time to reflect, I never have time to strategize – you just treat me like a pack mule!’ I mean, he exploded!’

What I find most interesting is that (politics aside) Clinton fumes about the same thing felt by all leaders today. When busyness subsumes any notion of reflection then you see emotion rear its head.   What’s the cure: reclaim think time and force the down time.  Here Clinton is blaming his Chief of Staff for the lack of time built in to think instead of just going into campaign action mode.   My question to Clinton would have been: “was it his job or your job to put in the time to think and reflect Mr. President?”    I wonder how he would look back on this incident.   It makes me wonder what would he advise himself if he was to take on the Presidency again.  My guess is that he would insist on more time away from the noise.

Thanks to Nigel Hamilton for such a great anecdote. I look forward to reading the book.