Perseverance - The Reading Glasses Principle

By Rick Van Arnam

Bagram, Afghanistan

On the outside legs of the Army Combat Uniform (ACU), below the knee, is a pocket. No one knows exactly for what the pocket was designed, but I can tell you from daily experience that it holds a case for glasses comfortably. In my right leg pocket, you will find my reading glasses. It is such a convenient spot for holding reading glasses that I am certain the designer must have been somewhere north of forty-seven years old and wore reading glasses, too. For those older than I, you are likely smiling, even chuckling thinking, “Van Arnam is finally accepting the inevitable – he’s getting older, too.” For those younger than me, you are probably thinking…..well, I probably don’t really want to know.

On the occasion of my 48^th birthday, which I celebrated on August 20^th, I thought about my reading glasses as a symbol that reminds me of the process of character development. Among my Eleven Principles of Character, The Reading Glasses Principle states “Character development takes time.” The accompanying question for everyone to answer, whether twenty-eight or forty-eight years old is, “How will I find contentment along the way?” That question is likely more difficult to answer at twenty-eight than at forty-eight and more difficult even at forty-eight than at sixty-eight.

I recall a day back at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina on a basic training firing range during the summer of 1985. I can go back to that moment in seconds recalling the morning summer’s humidity, the light orange Southern clay and the wooden ammunition table around which I was having a conversation with a Command Sergeant Major twenty years my senior. At Ft. Jackson, I was an infantry officer working with basic trainees and a world removed from most of my peers who were leading infantry platoons in units far more recognizable than mine. I had not been to Ranger school or been assigned overseas. There was so much I wanted to do and it felt as if these opportunities would never come to me. His advice to an impatient young lieutenant was to stick to a plan, follow the process and get yourself ready. Not the advice I wanted to hear. The problem I was having was not so much around the process or next assignment, but how was I going to find contentment along the way?

A partial answer to that question rests in accepting wisdom in action as a definition for character. I’ve often been asked what is the diference between my 2003 Aghanistan tour and my current 2010 deployment to the same theater. Half jokingly, my reply has been two words, “Reading glasses.”

Truthfully, there is a big difference in the seven years between deployments and most of the change can be rolled into the application of wisdom, or as the Army calls it, lessons learned. Organizationally or individually, we are either more or less effective based on how much of what we learned in the past, we apply in the future. This is the measure of a character’s maturity. The more wisdom applied, likely the more developed our character. And there is no gettting around this fact – with reading glasses comes approximately four and half decades of living and most of that time represents learning opportunities.

I thought of this principle as I read about Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim earlier this year when his team was ranked near the top of the college basketball polls. Boeheim is the longtime coach of the Orange and a 1966 graduate of Syracuse University. I grew up an hour north of Syracuse in the 1970’s where following SU basketball is what one did in the winter. Before the Carrier Dome, Syracuse played in Manley Field House and had enviable regular seasons records, but struggled annually in the post season. Then came the Carrier Dome, larger tournaments and greater expectations. But the the knock on Boeheim remained; his teams could not shoot free throws down the stretch or win the really big games. Attendance at the Dome soared past 30,000 when rivals visited and Boeheim’s future was secure anchored by twenty-win seasons and his deep Syracuse roots despite disappointing fans each March.

Slowly, a funny thing happened began to occur. Under Coach Boeheim and along the way to 829 wins – Syracuse began to win in the post season. In 1987, Boeheim’s eleventh season as head coach, Syracuse made their first Final Four appearance. That year, the Orangemen (later the nickname was shortened to Orange) lost to Indiana in the championship game on a Keith Smart basket with seconds remaining. Nine years later, Boeheim guided his team to the Final Four and the championship game for the second time where they lost to Kansas. In both appearances, Syracuse was not favored to win and did not.

But even with the losses, Boeheim’s reputation was growing favorably. He had coached two teams to the Final Four and he had established Syracuse as a national power. His next trip to the Final Four would come sooner than his previous. In his twenty-sixth year as head coach, he guided a Carmelo Anthony led-team to the championship game where Syracuse beat Kentucky – an achievement that seemed impossible during the Manley Field House days in the late 1970’s.

Talk about wisdom in action – by the 2009-2010 season, Coach Boeheim surpassed 825 wins and is widely recognized as a master of the two-three zone defense. His name is now spoken of in the same conversations with other great coaches that include famed Duke coach Mike Krzyzewki with whom he is serving as an assistant coach for Team USA in the FIBA World Championships currenlty underway. Next to his 829 wins are 293 losses which likeky add as much or more to the lessons learned as the victories. And therein lies most of the contentment – whether wining or losing – it is not the current tally that matters as much as how much a person applies from what is learned on both sides of the win – loss column.

RVA

Perseverance - The Three Decisions Principle

By Rick Van Arnam

Bagram, Afghanistan

Not many organizations make as many decisions as the Army. The Army, I think, is pretty good at making decisions if not at least very comfortable. I was thinking about this during a recent Battle Update Brief (BUB) to the commander and just how routine it has become to brief him and ask for a decision. Last night’s BUB was particularly succinct comparable to a pitchers’ duel in baseball marked by both efficiency and effectiveness.

The staff’s success at mastering the decision making process as instinct made we wonder about one of my Eleven Principles of Character Development. The Three Decisions Principle states that, “Making a single decision requires you to make two more.” These latter two decisions address the when and how surrounding a single decision and are summarized by asking the question, “When and how will I act on the decision I made?”

It is not that we endeavor to make wrong decisions, but the realization that even when we make the right decision, the outcome can be limited because we made a mistake in timing or an error in execution. So if you have ever asked yourself, “What was that person thinking?” chances are good that he or she did not understand that every decision requires two more. Let’s dig deeper.

Kathryn Schulz is the author of the book, Being Wrong, and also writes a blog called The Wrong Stuff. She has a “credible claim as the world’s leading wrongologist” according to her homepage description and is consumed with doing forensics on decisions. In a recent interview with Peter Norvig, an engineer and director of research at Google, he reminds us that to be a good engineer requires failure. It is a prerequisite to learning, refinement and improvement on things consumers like to buy or services customers like to use – like Google.

I am not an engineer, but have believed that in order to be a good leader, I have to be willing to make decisions even if a decision may be wrong. It is perhaps the best way to learn as well as a fast way to make progress – as long as a quick, corrective decision is made subsequently. For years I have reminded my team that I’d rather be seven out of ten, with three wrong decisions, than to be two out of three with only one wrong decision. Seventy percent is better than sixty-seven percent and I generally believe that progress results from making decisions, not in avoiding them. I don’t encourage hazard by this, I am encouraging progress – and I recognize that there are those decisions that are major or strategic and require more time, more analysis or more input because there may be lives at stake or require a major investment.

But aside from the decisions of business or the military, I am even more interested in personal decisions that affect a person’s character development. And I think there are parallels that can be drawn in analyzing Google’s engineering philosophy and decisions that shape who a person is becoming.

At Google, Peter Norvig talks about two kinds of errors. He says, “One is, there's a clear error in the code: It's supposed to do one thing and it does something else. In that case, you know when you've got it wrong, and you'll know when you've got it right.” I speculate in this case, the fix includes a re-write of the code, which even I understand from taking a very basic programming course a long time ago.

The second kind of error, according to Norvig, occurs when the code may not necessarily be wrong, but it is not providing the best or most effective result. And that is the purpose of correctly answering the when and how questions in the Three Decisions Principle. Assuming a person makes the right initial decision, the when or how can either make the initial decision wildly successful or marginally effective.

Let me provide an example. Jackie Robinson’s story has always captivated me as one of the best displays of personal courage in human history. His ability to be one of the best baseball players of all time required tremendous restraint amidst both on and off the field hate, prejudice and threats and is beyond modern day understanding for most. It is fitting that his number “42” has been retired by Major League Baseball in honor of one of the greatest human achievements in baseball’s history.

Jackie’s ascension to the Brooklyn Dodgers was led by Branch Rickey. Rickey was the president and general manager of the Dodgers when he signed Robinson to a minor league contract in 1945. Basically, Rickey had already made the initial decision – that he would break a long standing policy and allow an African American to play in the Major Leagues in order to desegregate baseball. Once that decision was made, Rickey likely spent far more time deciding on the when and how decisions that followed than he had in deciding to sign Robinson in the first place.

During spring training in 1947, Rickey was asked by reporters about his plans for Robinson and replied, “If Robinson merits being with the Dodgers, I’d prefer to have the players want him, rather than force him on the players. I want Robinson to have the fairest chance in the world without the slightest bit of prejudice.” This quote, from Arnold Rampersad’s biography titled, Jackie Robinson, provides great insight into both the consideration of timing and the skill with which Rickey handled the execution. The rest, of course, is history. Robinson debuted for the Dodgers that year on opening day and went on to win the first-ever, Rookie-of-the-Year award commencing a Hall of Fame career. But Rickey’s precise execution, which included moving the Dodgers’ Spring Training location to Panama and Cuba from the South, led to a very effective result.

In the development of a person’s character, the ability to think through the latter two considerations may be just as important than making a right first decision. You have probably made an important decision in the past and were confident that the decision was correct. In that case, you may have confided to someone, “I want to do this, but I don’t the best way.” It is that habit, that curiosity and that mental exercise that leads to better results by making three decisions, rather than just one.

Maybe I have a little wrongologist in me or that all of us like to engage in dissecting high-profile decisions like that of President Obama’s to relieve General McChrystal this summer or watching how LeBron James handles his free agency decision. Regardless of why, I think the purpose of analyzing decisions is to reduce the cycle time in learning. This is what Peter Norvig referred to when he mentions “failing faster and smaller” to describe how a public company like Google can tolerate errors and actually become stronger. A large part of reducing personal cycle time is being able to answer, “When and how am I going to act on the decision I have made?”

RVA

Credits

The Wrong Stuff, Kathryn Schulz, 3 August 2010 (www.slate.com)