Don McMinn

Several years ago Mary and I toured Morocco. We started in Marrakesh, then went to Fez and ended up in Casablanca, which is a really rough, dirty city. (The movie Casablanca was filmed in Hollywood, so it’s not an accurate depiction of what the city really looks and feels like).

One of the must-see sites is the Hassan II Mosque; it is the largest mosque in Morocco and the 13th largest in the world. I took a taxi from my hotel to the mosque, but when the tour ended, I decided to walk back to the hotel. About a quarter mile into the two-mile route I found myself in a rough neighborhood, the slums. I’m not easily frightened but I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that I was in the wrong place and in danger. I reversed my course, got back to a main street, and took a taxi back to the hotel.

I yielded to my unsubstantiated uneasiness and possibly avoided a bad situation.

Pilots are taught to pay careful attention to what they call “leemurs”—the vague feeling that something isn’t right, even if it’s not clear why.

At times, we should do the same.

Don’t be extreme with this suggestion. Ninety percent of the time, there is a logical explanation for  feelings of uneasiness – your understanding + experience is sounding the alarm – but sometimes there’s not. That’s when we need to heed that quiet, subtle voice that’s saying, “Be careful.”

My son-in-law, who is a flight surgeon for an F16 squad and a pilot himself, tells me that in the cockpit of a military plane a lower-ranking officer can “pull rank” at any time he or she feels that the mission is going in the wrong direction. They have the authority to act on leemurs.

Leaders: Wouldn’t it be beneficial if you gave your team members permission to vocalize the leemurs they may experience in the context of the organization?

[reminder]When have you experienced leemurs? How did you respond?[/reminder]

Join me in testing the view that most individuals and companies are functioning at only 40, 50, or 60 percent of their capacity, and that the much higher levels of performance reached in emergencies are actually more closer to true, sustainable potentials than are the “normal” levels of performance. Robert Schaffer

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile in recorded history. The 25-year-old native of Harrow on the Hill, England, completed the distance in 3:59.4.

For hundreds of years, a sub-four-minute mile was thought to be humanly impossible. Many predicted that it would never happen. But then Bannister broke the record by 6/10th of a second.

Interestingly, within one year of Bannister breaking the record, 37 other runners ran the mile in less than four minutes. The next year, 300 runners did the same. Today, high school athletes do it regularly.

The current world record for the mile is held by Hicham El Guerrouj. His time? 3:43.13—an incredible 16 seconds off the “impossible mark.” Here’s a video of that race.

We often limit ourselves by yielding to artificial boundaries. Sometimes the boundaries are set by others, often by ourselves.

Before completing this post, I experimented on myself.

Part of my exercise routine is doing pushups. I don’t remember how or why I set my maximum at 25, but for years I have thought that was my best. When I get to 22, 23 I start feeling feeble, but I push on to 25. Yesterday, when I worked out, I told myself that doing 40 pushups was my maximum. I whizzed past 25 and when I got to 38, 39 I thought I was reaching my maximum but I kept going. I did 42. I was reminded of Roger Bannister’s statement, “It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.”

I have a friend who manages a sales team for American Express. Every year her boss raises her sales goal 15-20% over the previous year. When challenged by the new goal, my friend is incredulous—how is that possible? But every year she meets or exceeds the new target.

Conventional wisdom may seem safe, prudent, and trustworthy, but it can also blind the eye to possibilities and make us apathetic and complacent.

Personally—are you coasting through life or do you push the limits of what you can achieve? Have you been inhibited by your upbringing, environment, and expectations?

Professionally—are you in a tight box with a low ceiling? Years ago my daughter was in a dead-end job here in Dallas. In a bold and audacious move, she moved to New York City, enrolled in a master’s program at Columbia University, got a job at Juilliard and, later, American Express. None of that would have happened if she had not stepped out from under the glass ceiling.

Organizationally—does your group ever challenge the status quo?

I double-dog-dare you: identify three areas of your life in which you might suffer under the perceived restraints of a false barrier. Identify the faux constraint and ignore it; push past the previous status quo and do more.

I’ll conclude with one more example I read about in the must-read book Think Like a Freak by Levitt and Dubner.

Believe it or not, there exists an annual, televised eating competition that pays $5,000 to the person who eats the most hot dogs and buns. For years the record was 25.1 HDB in 12 minutes; a formidable performance. But in 2000, Kobi Kobayashi, who was studying economics at Yokkaichi University and behind on his rent, decided to enter and win the contest.

To make a long story short, in his first competition he ate 50 HDB. Today, the record is 69 HDB in 10 minutes. (In 2008 the contest was shortened by two minutes.)

Do not be constrained by artificial limits.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

Peter Drucker coined the phrase “organized abandonment” to describe the process whereby we can free up resources that are committed to maintaining things that no longer contribute to performance and no longer produce results.

According to Drucker, the change-leader puts every product, every service, every process, every customer, and every end use on trial for its life. The question to ask is, “If we did not do this already, would we, knowing what we now know, go into it?” If the answer is no, abandon it. The change-leader must also ask, “If we were to go into this now, knowing what we now know, would we go into it in the same way we are doing it now?’” [Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, pg.74]

The term organized means doing this regularly and on a systematic basis.

Over time, organizations and individuals become burdened by unproductive and unnecessary actions. On a regular basis we must ruthlessly evaluate all functions and jettison those that no longer contribute.

In your personal life, organized abandonment might probe these areas:

• Do I still benefit from reading a physical daily newspaper or should I get my news digitally?
• Should my typical breakfast menu of bacon and eggs be abandoned for a healthier alternative?
• If I was not currently living in my particular neighborhood, would I choose to move here?
• Have some of my relationships grown stale; would I benefit from new, more invigorating relationships?

In your organization, this exercise might probe these areas:

• As I consider every position in my organization, is each one still needed?
• Do I have the right people in key positions?
• If I had the opportunity to fill a position, would I hire the same person who is presently working in that position?
• As I analyze every line item of the budget, are all expenditures still justified?
• Are our products still viable?
• Are there any customers we should “fire”?

Another approach to this topic is to regularly adjust your life using the Keep—Stop—Start formula:

I want to keep doing, or do more of _______.
I want to stop doing, or do less of _______.
I want to start doing _______.

“We’ve always done it that way” is an unwise justification for any activity.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

[callout]Click here for more information about the June 21-22 Lead Well workshop.[/callout]

In the 1840s, a young obstetrician in Vienna named Semmelweis noticed that doctors who performed autopsies and then delivered babies had a high rate of disease among the children they delivered (known as childbed fever). So he made the audacious and until then, unheard of, suggestion that doctors wash their hands between doing an autopsy and delivering a baby. He recommended that they wash in a solution of chlorinated lime, which apparently solved the problem; there were fewer cases of childbed fever.

Sadly and incredulously, instead of being praised for his life-saving solution, he was ostracized from the medical community because at that point in history, there was no germ theory; scientists had not made the connection between microscopic germs and illness; science doubted that the unseen could be a cause of death.

Psychologists have coined a term to describe the tendency to ignore information simply because it does not fit within one’s worldview: the Semmelweiss reflex, or Semmelweis effect. Daniel Kahneman calls it theory-induced blindness—an adherence to a belief about how the world works that prevents you from seeing how the world really works.

It’s an interesting anecdote from history but let’s try to apply the lesson to our lives so we can avoid the tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge simply because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.

In our society:

• Many are reluctant to accept global warming even though 97% of scientists agree that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring; and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence.
• Managers have been slow to accept the fact that the “carrot and stick” approach to motivation (rewards and punishment) doesn’t work in the modern workplace; employees are motivated by autonomy, purpose, and mastery. [Not convinced? See Daniel Pink’s terrific book, Drive]
• People spend billions of dollars on the latest weight-loss craze, sadly ignoring the factual approach to weight-loss: calories in/calories out.
• Despite the fact that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that biorhythm works, millions of dollars are still spent on this movement every year.
• Neurolinguistic programming for education still has its adherents despite the scientific evidence declaring it a ruse.

We suffer from the Semmelweis reflex every time we refuse to accept facts and instead rely on our prejudice or unfounded convictions. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” but sometimes we think our opinions are tantamount to facts.

They are not.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

[callout]Click here to learn more about the June 21-22 Lead Well workshop.[/callout]