Integrity-first Management

It’s been refreshing to see the narrative of “maximizing shareholder value” be influenced by other ideas, like: triple bottom line, shared value, positive business and others.

These ideas are hybrids, balancing the interests of customers, owners, employees, and society.

But what if we went further and didn’t treat these interests congruently?

Instead, what if we simply refused to consider strategies that were unethical, irresponsible, or harmful? After first applying the hard constraints demanded by our character and integrity, we could then freely maximize shareholder value. At that point, maybe we ought to.

The problem is, that requires a lot of integrity and a lot creativity. I think it’s worth it, and something we owe to each other now, and to future generations.

I suspect that there are already many people that are quietly running companies this way. Even though running businesses in this way is hard, I think we can do it.

Afterall, the only two nearly renewable resources are sunshine and human creativity. And sunshine makes the difficult challenge of acting with integrity much more pleasant.

What I do vs. how I do it

What do I want to be known for? What I do, or how I do it?

Put another way, will I do anything to achieve what I want? Or, will I act in accordance with a set of standards no matter what?

Put another way, what am I uncompromising about, results or integrity?

Put another way, what do I want my sons to learn from, what I accomplish or how I act?

Put another way, what’s my deathbed prize, knowing I was successful or knowing I was consistently a good person?

What we do and how we do it aren’t always in tension. But it happens often enough. And when they are in tension, the choice defines me, defines us.

Touchdowns vs. First downs

First downs are not touchdowns. That is obvious.

No football team ever has won a game when they make progress down the field but never score any points.

On teams, first downs often can feel like touchdowns and be celebrated as such, but they’re not the same.

Touchdowns take courage. To say it’s done, shipped. To deliver and present. To go to market. To make a decision. To make the change. To be specific. To put it into the world and be on the hook for it. To commit and forsake all others. Courage.

First downs merely require making progress, gaining yardage, keeping the wheels turning. Whatever that loosely means.

To be sure, first downs are important. But only if they put us in position to take a real shot at the end zone and achieve the goal that actually matters.

Consequently, it’s REALLY important to REALLY understand what tasks are touchdowns and which ones are merely first downs. Otherwise, we’ll have spent our lives being busy, without actually making anything better.

Power and Responsibility

All these degrees, all these internships, all these flights and travels, all this preparation and learning - to work. To work earning a living. To work as a husband and father. Hopefully to serve others. What am I trying to do here?

Am I in it for the power, or the responsibility? The distinction is a big one.

Why? I’ve found that there often comes a time when our loyalties to power and responsibility are at odds. Here’s an example.

Let’s consider the act of taking credit for success. I can take credit, and boost my chances of a promotion. Or, I can credit my team, and boost the chances that my team will continue doing good work even without me.

In the example above, I can’t have it both ways. I can’t be loyal to power and responsibility at the same time.

The choice is revealing, and ours alone.

A little, gracious, reminder that life is worth the trouble of eventual death

We are celebrating Bo’s birthday with family tonight, which makes it a special day. I am in our dining room, on a Friday, but I am working from home. Robyn and I are having lunch. Bo is napping, which he especially needs today because he has a tough cold.

Like she had done for our son’s first birthday the year prior, Robyn has affixed some simple decorations. It may even be fair to call them spartan. There is a single “Happy Birthday” hanging banner, recycled from when Robyn’s colleagues decorated her desk. The rest of the decor are only pictures.

They are of the past year. They are individually placed in the panes of our driveway window and the french doors from dining room to foyer. There are some more photos in the doorway to the kitchen and some on our marble fireplace mantle. They are scotched taped, simply, gently. Robyn is as economical as she is thoughtful.

Bo is in all the photos, some are by himself and some are with others. These are pictures of special occasions, yes, but many are just every day life. A snuggle with Riley. Playing in the snow. Christmas day. Afternoons with grandparents. Family vacations. Walks along the river. A first haircut. Football tailgates where we rolled down a golf course hill.

Come to think of it, I misspoke earlier. Not all these photos are holidays or of particularly notable moments, but they are all special occasions.

Looking at these photos I feel many things simultaneously, but mostly two things. I feel love in my whole body, and I feel the passing of time.

These photos are befuddling because they remind me that with each year, with each birthday, my death grows nearer. Eventually Bo will have a birthday where I’m not here, in the flesh. But I still feel an unqualified joy…the purest happiness. Why? I don’t understand.

A moment passes. I take a breath. And I realize why I feel so happy in this moment where death feels especially identified. As much as I feel time passing - sitting here in this one room, in this one house, on this one street, in this one city on this pale blue dot, here in this moment - I realize. Looking at these photos…the opportunity for these photos, it is more than worth dying for. And this makes me feel love in my whole body.

And then I take another breath, deeper this time, and Robyn and I finish our lunch. And more time passes.

Unselfish vs. Selfless

My father was a rare type of man. I didn’t realize it when he was alive, but he was the rarest form of selfless.

We start as selfish creatures. When we are young we need things. We need food. We need shelter. We need love. We need guidance. We need protection. We need knowledge. We need time. This is expected, and there is no shame here. We come into this world needing things.

If we are lucky and work at it, we are able to become householders. The sort of people that support others and provide them what they need, to themselves become providers. This work is unselfish. This work is giving. This work is sacrifice. This work is charity. This work is virtuous. But perhaps not quite selfless.

My father was a rare man, because his aims were always beyond that of being unselfish.

You see, a householder can have a dangerous addiction. As a householder, we are needed. Other people need us and what we provide to them.

And It is a wonderful thing to be needed. It is a wonderful thing, perhaps even a euphoric thing, to sacrifice for others. That feeling, of being needed, can be addictive.

The problem is, if we live in such a way where others continue to need us, they cannot transcend us. They cannot truly become householders themselves. There is a trade off here - if we want to be needed, we are by definition forcing others to be dependent on us.

What was rare about my father, I’ve realized, was that his aim all along was for the people in his world to not need him anymore. More than anything, he wanted me to not be dependent on him. From the time I was born, he was trying to put himself out of the job of being a father. He resisted the euphoria of feeling needed. Instead, he raised me so that I would not need him anymore.

This, I think, is what the difference between unselfishness and selflessness is. The unselfish man asks the question, “what can I provide to the world?". And the selfless man asks, “what can I do so that I am no longer needed?”.

It is a very hard task to intentionally try to put ourselves out of business. But it is perhaps the greatest, most selfless gift we can give.

My father was selfless, and that made him a rare type of man.

You are explorers.

Both of your grandfathers are sailors. It is important for you to know this. This is where you come from, being an explorer is who you are.

It is important for you to know this because you have an itch and you may believe it is there by accident. It is not. To know more, to reach further, to venture into the distance. You explore. You are an explorer, I already see it in you. You will explore, it is in your nature. Your mother and I honestly didn’t put it there, it was there when you were born.

It is not there by accident.

Both your grandfathers, as I said, are sailors. Your Granddad has been sailing since he was a boy. He loves the water. As far as I know, he always has. Everything he does is to learn, to grow, to try the new. His is an exploration of zeal and adventure.

Your Dada was also a sailor. He was an engineer on a ship. He sailed all across the world, fixing the boat’s engine. As a young man, he flew from India to Tehran and took a bus to the coast. From there he traveled the world, port by port. Your Dada was not an explorer because of a sense of adventure. Your Dada was a dreamer. He dreamed of a better life, in a place where the corruption did not cause common people to suffer. He loved the water, no doubt, but his exploration was one of tenacity and sacrifice.

And I, boys, am not a sailor. I have always been partial to mountains. And my appetite for exploration is one service. I need to know the truth, not just because the truth is divine, but in the knowledge is the key to leaving the world better than I found it. Which is what I must do, it is involuntary. My exploration is one of curiosity and vision.

And your stories, my sons, are yet to be written. But that voice inside, it is not a false prophet. You are the grandsons of sailors, and you are explorers.

So when that voice inside whispers to you, listen carefully. To be sure, it will be scary. Exploring is not comfortable. But your father before you, and my fathers before me…we were all explorers. And we, all the men in your ancestry, whether we are on Earth or gone ahead - look to the night sky and you will find us there, watching over you.

You are explorers. I hope this has helped you understand why.

Masterclass

A masterclass is a class for a great teacher to teach experts or to teach other teachers. At the end of my life, I often wonder, what masterclass to I want to teach?

It is a window into the heart.

Masterclass 1: The Process of Becoming Good - Being a good person is a human’s most noble pursuit. But it does not just happen. It cannot be plucked from a tree. Becoming is a process. I cannot claim to be a good man, but I do claim that I have spent my whole life trying to discover and refine a process that gives me a damn good chance. This is a workshop to help you build your own process.

Masterclass 2: Building thriving communities - We operate in this world as a participant in organizations. A minority of organizations are communities where people - any everything they touch - thrive. The rest are merely just built. This is a class on how to intentionally build systems and feedback loops so that your organization becomes part of that small but mighty, virtuous, thriving minority.

The other cool thing about a masterclass is that if you think about it early enough, you have your whole life to qualify yourself to teach it.

Everybody, even our foes, will have heartbreak

My (wife’s) Uncle Mark posted a link about a colleague of his who had a sudden cancer diagnosis and died shortly before his daughter’s wedding. Even as far as tragedies go, it’s really heartbreaking.

I didn’t know this man or his family. But I assume I would like them.

But even if I knew the guy and hated him, it would still be a terribly heartbreaking story.

I don’t know why my mind went there, but it dawned on me that even people I really don’t like will have some devastating heartbreak in their life. In our human life, it is inevitable.

Realizing that, opens my heart to them even if just a little.

Landing On Mars

I’m forming a landing party and going to Mars. Will you come?

Full disclosure: I’m not actually going to Mars (shocker). But let’s play out this thought experiment as if I were.

Before making a decision you’d ask me a lot of questions, some would probably be these:

• Are you serious?

• Why are we going to Mars?

• Are we coming back?

• How are we going to make the journey safely?

• Why are you asking me, and what would be my role in the mission?

• Why should I trust you to make this happen?

• When are we going and coming back?

• If I agree to this, what do you need me to do now?

In organizations and community we ask others to go to Mars all the time. We just call them new “projects” or new “programs.”

Those new projects we want to start are not as audacious as actually going to Mars. But to those we want and need to bring along, it might feel as if it were.

And because it feels like going to Mars for them, we need to answer those questions and build up their trust in us before we ask them to enlist. If we don’t, we should expect them to say no, and they honestly ought to.

“Leader” is a title, leadership is taking responsibility

I could prepare, read, study, interview experts, take a standardized test, get a degree, get a fellowship, and then get a placement and then take responsibility for something.

That would make me a leader. It is one path.

On the other extreme, I could take responsibility for something today that needs responsibility taken, and then take responsibility for getting better at it. Even something really small. Then I could do the same thing tomorrow, the next day, and the next day.

That would make me a leader today, and an even better leader tomorrow. That just puts me on the hook today, instead of 5 or 10 years from now.

Title or not, we’re not leaders until we take responsibility for something that needs responsibility taken. The second we take responsibility, we instantly become a leader.

Marriage and the long tail

The internet gave us unlimited choice in a slew of markets. Not just a lot of choice, but unlimited choice.

It’s not just Amazon, there’s unlimited choice in much more intimate domains, too. Like places to live, religion, politics, and marriage. For marriage though, reviews, algorithms, and no-questions-asked return policies can’t help you.

In a world of unlimited choice, if you venture beyond the safety of the harbor, if you swing for the fences, if you skip the consensus pick…

If you venture into the murkiness of the long tail, you must listen with radical honesty to your heart and what calls upon it. You need to know the depths of your own soul. The only ones to whom you can turn, are the others who know your heart better than you.

In a world of unlimited choice, we must know who we are. I know of no other way.

Timeless

The Mona Lisa isn’t just a painting of a woman smiling. A pair of Levi’s isnt just a pair of pants. Shakespeare didn’t just write some plays. Amazing Grace and Ave Maria are just some spiritual songs. The Gettysburg address wasn’t just a speech.

None of these are particularly fancy. There are plenty of comparables in their respective domains, too. And yet somehow these things are different. Not cool, not hip, not sexy, but still something special.

They tapped into something deeper than trend, or the zeitgeist. They are simpler. They have stories about them that transcend the trivial concerns of a single generation. They exhibit outstanding craftsmanship.

They are timeless.

A marriage, a family, a company, a team - even a blog. These could all be timeless too. But to be timeless, we must give up trying to be a lot of other things.

An American Dream

Our country seems so big, and with so many people. Too big, sometimes. What could possibly be a common aspiration that most, let alone all of us, have?

My best guess at what we might all want is not fancy. But it is something.

I hope, for myself and for us, that we be blessed with at least one of these four things: the chance to be a good friend, part of a good family, a good neighbor, or to contribute something generously to the greater whole.

And maybe this is not the dream of our whole country. It is probably not the new American Dream. If it isn’t, I hope we are blessed with the wisdom and good sense to hope for something greater than ourselves.

It seems to me that if we don’t dream about something greater, we will dream instead about small things. Namely being wealthier, cooler, or more handsome than the next person. Dreaming about ourselves scares me, because it generally seems to devolve into madness and violence.

The question that changed my life

What I do as a father is not glamorous.

I give Bo food. I carry him around. I make sure he cleans up messes. I wipe up urine. I wash his dishes. I put on his socks. I read him stories. I keep him from jumping off things. I give him hugs and kisses. I make him use his words. I comfort him when he’s upset. I take him with me to the grocery store. I wipe his tush.

What I’m trying to do as a father, is a much different question. I’m trying to help him feel loved and safe. I’m trying to help him learn to be a good person. I’m trying to help him discover some of life’s joys like reading, friendship, love, family, service, and faith. I’m trying to give him a model of how to treat his spouse, his parents, and his children. I’m trying to create the space and courage for him to be himself.

What we do and what we are trying to do are radically different questions. The first question (what we do) is about the very specific actions we take, the second question (what we’re trying to do) is the generous, positive impact we hope our actions make for those we seek to serve. In organizations - whether it be companies, families, churches, community groups, or teams - the nuance here is often lost.

And what a tragedy that is.

Because for a team to be high-functioning both questions have to be answered, very specifically. More often than not, the question of what we’re trying to do is what’s forgotten. Which is a damn shame, because that’s the question of the two that motivates and inspires us to be the best versions of ourselves.

But answering that second question, I admit, is very difficult because it requires us to imagine a future that does not yet exist. I’ve found, however, that once you struggle through the nuance it is absolutely transformative.

Who is my life for? Who are my people?

It has been hard to admit that I am, in large part, a jack ass. I hope I am less so now.

For so much of my life, I prided myself on volunteering and serving. And some of that effort was sincere. But so much, too much, was signaling to others that I was generous, kind, and other-oriented.

This became clear when Robyn and I married, because for the first time any selfless act I made was actually sincere. After marriage I began to actually understand what it meant to live for someone else, and put the needs of someone else before my own. I realized that what I thought was selfless before was merely signaling.

I hope this attitude has cross-pollinated to friends, family, and neighbors. Only time will tell.

And yet, even though I know that I have a tendency to virtue signal, my heart still yearns. To serve, it yearns. To contribute something beyond my own family and friends, it yearns. To leave an anonymous gift, with even a small, lasting impact, it yearns.

I used to wonder what impact I wanted to make. But I think the better question is for whom?

Who do I care about so much that I will take time and energy away from my family? Who do I yearn to serve so intensely that I will intently listen to them and humbly offer to help after really understanding them? Who am I that committed to? For whom does my heart yearn? Who are my people?

An easy answer would have been my heart yearns for people like me. I couldn’t even if I tried, because I have no tribe.

I am Indian, but not really culturally. I am a theist, but not baptized nor a practicing Hindu. No political party has a philosophical underpinning that sits well with my conscience, and if it does it’s priorities are not aligned with mine. I am male, but not particularly masculine. I am a minority everywhere in the world I land, even at home as a resident of a majority-minority City. I can’t help people like me because I am a misfit, always. I don’t even know who people like me are.

My life, I believe, is not my own. It is not for me. I don’t even know if I want it to be for me. I am the residual claimant on my own life, if anything.

And if I believe, my life is for people beyond my family - which I do - than who? Who is my life for?

This is the hardest question I have encountered in many years. I don’t even know how to start answering it, yet. But I can’t help but feeling that it’s critically important one. My gut tells me it is a question worth a struggle.

The Married Mindset

Being married is not the same as dating. It is not even the same as being engaged. The difference is the vows, and what a difference those make.

Robyn and I made the vows traditional for Catholic and Hindu marriage. I like them. They’re simple, bold, and no nonsense. Marriage vows are no joke and they shouldn’t be. That’s why, I might add, I find marriage to be so great. It implies something specific, difficult, and extraordinary.

I was recently talking with Christopher, my brother-in-law, about the difference between being married and being engaged. When I asked him what he thought, he had a beautiful thought, which I’ll try to replicate.

The difference between marriage and engagement, is that there is no emergency exit. It’s on you and your spouse to take care of that marriage and grow that marriage. It’s not something you lease and can take back to the dealership when you have problems, it’s something you build together with your spouse, and have to maintain together. And you promise do it forever, however long forever is.

His real wisdom, however, was in reflecting on how the mindset of a married person must be different than an engaged person. The married person must have a vision. He or she, must be planning and thinking ahead, together with their spouse, on how to build that marriage together. The married person must be proactive and solve problems that arise quickly. Because at the end of the day, there is no out - you must grow together and adjust to life, together, in perpetuity.

And that’s what I found to be the key to his wisdom: timescales. The engaged person thinks on the timescale of getting married - there is a concrete end date with a concrete goal: getting married on your wedding day.

The married person must think on an indefinite time scale and must simultaneously build a unique vision of marriage together with their spouse. And, unlike an engagement / wedding plan there is no checklist to follow. Every couple has no choice but to write their own, one-of-a-kind, handbook.

Marriage is fundamentally different. And it’s much, much harder.

99% of the time, I am grateful to be a happier person

I am a happier person than I was a year ago. That’s a good thing. But my writing has suffered.

For brief, rather very brief, moments, I miss my intense feelings of anxiety and sadness. It was much easier to draw something meaningful into my words - my art - when my feelings were intense. I never liked being overwhelmed by my emotions. But damn, did they make for good copy.

99% of the time, I am grateful to be a happier person. But it presents a challenge. I have to dig much deeper to write. When I am not emotional, I must open my heart wider to bring words from it.

It’s not a dilemma, per se, because being healthier and with more peace is not worth sacrificing for my writing. It just means I must work harder as an artist. It’s a worthy, albeit bizarre, challenge.

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On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

How the iPhone taught me to be a better father to my son

The iPhone won. But that’s okay, because it taught me how to talk to my son.

Bo, our son, is fixated on my iPhone when it is around. My usual tactic was to take it away so that he would do something else instead of stare at a screen. Our parents faced the same problem, except instead of smartphones, they tried to restrict television and video games.

The problem with taking the phone away is that it doesn’t work. Bo does not just forget about it just being in his hands. Trying to force it from him only creates a power struggle between us. And no matter the outcome, it drains both of our energies.

Why does the iPhone win his attention? It’s really well designed.

First, it’s extremely responsive. I don’t think that the problem with screens is that they distract us, but rather that the screen is undistracted for us. The screen is fully focused on Bo. When he picks it up, it is ready for him. When Bo pushes a button, it does something. The iPhone is completely ready to react to Bo and it does so consistently.

It’s also kind and gentle. I’d even call it emotional - because of the colors, the lights, the sounds, and the way the screen seems to effortlessly glide. Even the haptic feedback is subtle and will calibrated. Nothing about the iPhone is jarring. It doesn’t yell at Bo, nor does it shock him. It is calm and predictable.

I don’t think in cliches like this, but I eventually thought something like, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Instead of taking the phone away, I began interacting with Bo, more like the iPhone does. I’ve tried to be more emotive, attentive, and consistent. With more touch and sound, and with more immediate responsiveness. With more peace and patience. More than anything, I try to be undistracted. I actually think it’s working. We both have more energy when we play together.

It is bizarre to think of it this way, but the iPhone taught me, very specifically, to be a better father. It upped my game. This is hyperbolic, I know, but the iPhone can appeal to basically all of the right senses to win my son’s attention.

But it cannot love. And if I do the basics right, like the iPhone taught me, I don’t think it will “win” in the long run.

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On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

The art of being adamant about small, but transformative things

One of the things I do very deliberately when I am in public is to pick up single bits of trash I come across. I want the sidewalk to be clean And it’s really very easy.

I always hope that someone notices me doing it. I don’t want credit, but I will admit that I feel nice when the act is appreciated. What I do want people to think having a clean sidewalk is normal and caring enough to pick up a single piece of trash to keep it clean is normal, too.

A key question is: what critical mass of a community needs to be adamant about something for the culture to change? Some folks say 3.5% and others say 25%. It seems to depend on what the objective is, like whether you’re spreading an idea or a behavior.

The good news is, both estimates are much less than 100%. From what I’ve gathered and observed, the key is to be adamant about doing the very specific action for it to catch on.

These are worth being adamant about, to me. If we had even 3.5% of the population doing these, we would have a very different community:

• Picking up a single piece of trash

• Saying “hi”, “good day”, or nodding to people that pass

• Running or riding a bike through the neighborhood

• Shoveling snow promptly

• Keeping grass cut (though I admit to slacking on this)

• Saying thank you when I am a customer

• Asking emotional questions and sharing emotional stories when asked

If a small group of people are adamant about something, it tends to happen. This makes it really important then to be adamant about something. And carefully considering whether those things we go to the mat for make things better, or make things worse.

A question for the comments: What’s something that is worth being adamant about?

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On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.