Don McMinn

Casting vision is an important part of a leader’s job. Without vision, you can manage an organization, but without fresh vision it will eventually stall.

Vision is a picture of the future that is better than the present. It envisions an improvement, an upgrade, over the current status. So vision requires change, and most people resist change. When you cast vision for your organization, it will create pressure and tension. You’ll feel it yourself and you’ll sense it in others. This is normal. Take a deep breath and carry on.

Here’s an object lesson that illustrates the tension and strain that vision creates. Hold a rubber band between your two index fingers. Consider your right finger as your organization’s status quo, your left finger as the future of your organization, and the rubber band as the tension that exists between the present and the future. Keeping your right hand stationary, move your left hand farther away; the tension in the rubber band increases as more pressure is produced with more distance. Similarly, vision creates tension in organizations.

I’m the executive director of a small non-profit organization. Years ago, I led the organization to purchase four acres adjacent to DFW Airport and we remodeled an existing building for our headquarters. It was a major financial commitment. I used my personal financial assets as collateral on the loan.

The morning after closing on the property, I woke up in a cold sweat, thinking, What have I done? My team and supporters were kind and helpful, but at times I could sense them wondering, Is this going to work?  

It did work, and when the vision became reality it was a wonderful result.

I’m not suggesting that leaders be impulsive, reckless, or make unilateral decisions. I’ve written often about the advantages of collaborative, careful leadership.

I’m simply saying that leading aggressively through bold vision comes with a price: risk, tension, pressure, the possibility of failure…and that these factors should be anticipated and negotiated.

Bold leadership is not for the faint of heart.

Action item — Leaders, evaluate your vision-casting. Do you have fresh vision for your organization?

Discussion question — Share a time in your life when, as an individual or the leader of an organization, you felt the pressure that accompanies bold vision

Also: Isadore Singer, one of the most important mathematicians of our age, created a bridge between two seemingly unrelated areas of mathematics and then used it to build a further bridge, into theoretical physics. In this video, observe the humble nature of this beautiful mind. Let’s imitate his unceasing curiosity about life and learning.

In a recent post I wrote about existential risks: events and situations that threaten the welfare of humanity. 

Some are natural risks: an asteroid hitting the earth, or super-volcanic eruptions. Others are anthropogenic risks which are caused by humans, such as nuclear weapons, climate change, and unaligned Artificial Intelligence. 

To me, the most alarming risks are those that currently don’t exist. In the next 50 years, existential threats will appear that we have never even thought of.

Recently, it became clear to me that a new existential threat is already among us and corroding every aspect of our lives. Reading Nina Schick’s book, Deepfakes, solidified my thinking on this topic.

The greatest new threat to human wellbeing is misinformation (bad information) and disinformation (information meant to deceive). The much-anticipated and applauded information age has been adulterated and is now an infamous tool for mass confusion and corruption. Anyone who has access to social media can post a false narrative which can go viral and deceive many people.

The threat is heightened by synthetic media—images, audio, and video that have either been manipulated or wholly generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using readily available software and an average computer, anyone with minimal computer skills can create synthetic media and publish it online to worldwide access. 

Let’s make this personal. Anyone, using AI, can copy your biometrics (voice print, facial features and patterns, personal nuances) and make a quality video of you doing and saying anything the creator wants. It can create a picture of you slapping a child, saying vile things in your own voice, or show you in lewd sexual poses.

Soon, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between lies and truth. Everything you see and hear on the media will be suspect. 

Read Schick’s book for a deeper dive into this topic. I’ll conclude this post with an excerpt from her book that illustrates how disinformation can lead to civil unrest and even genocide. 

“[In Myanmar], when the ruling military junta started to relax its extreme censorship in 2010, the South-East Asian country went from a nation of limited information to one of information abundance almost overnight. As citizens acquired smartphones, millions joined Facebook. For many, Facebook became synonymous with the Internet. By 2019 an estimated 20 million of Myanmar’s 53 million citizens had joined the platform. While these freedoms were liberating, they came with new dangers. Facebook became a breeding ground for misinformation. In Myanmar, it was used to exacerbate the darkest side of pre-existing communal tensions between the majority (Buddhist) and (minority) Muslim populations. This racial hatred—stirred up by Buddhist extremists, military leaders and militia—soon spilled over into real life.

“In 2014, false accusations that the Muslim owner of a teashop in Mandalay had raped a Buddhist employee were shared by Wirathu, an ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk, on Facebook. Soon enraged mobs armed with machetes and sticks began marauding around Mandalay, torching cars and ransacking shops. As the racial and ethnic disinformation continued to spread on Facebook, the animosity reached a breaking point in 2015. By the time Facebook finally started to ban the extremists encouraging violence against the Muslim minority on its platform with mis- and disinformation, 25,000 Rohingya had been murdered and a further 700,000 had fled the country. The UN lambasted Facebook, saying it had ‘turned into a beast,’ and that its conduct—allowing disinformation and hate speech against the Rohingya to proliferate—‘bears the hallmarks of genocide.’” [Schick, pages 120-121]

We need to realize that everything we see online could have been fabricated, particularly material that is posted on social media. Develop a strong sense of skepticism instead of credulity. 

Action item — Identify what might be synthetic media on your social media sites.

Discussion question (click the comment button) — How can we distinguish between true and false information? 

Must-read article by George Schultz

George Schultz – former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury and state – died February 7, 2021, age 100. Two months earlier, the Washington Post published an article he wrote titled  The 10 most important things I’ve learned about trust over my 100 years.

Most things are differently valued by those who have them and by those who wish to get them: what belongs to us, and what we give away, always seems very precious to us. — Aristotle

The endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion) is the finding that people are more likely to retain an object they own than acquire that same object when they do not own it. For instance, if I own a bread maker I’m reluctant to discard it, even though if I didn’t own one I wouldn’t buy one. 

The endowment effect (EE) also asserts that we overvalue things we own. For instance, if we decide to sell our house we’re usually overly optimistic regarding it’s worth. We overvalue something we own regardless of its objective market value. EE runs rampant if we have an emotional or symbolic attachment to something—I’m likely to overvalue a painting that was painted by my mother. 

Research has identified two main psychological causes of the endowment effect:

• Ownership: Studies have shown that people will value something they already own more than a similar item they do not own, much in line with the adage, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” It does not matter if the object in question was purchased or received as a gift; the effect still holds.
• Loss aversion: We tend to hold onto things we own, even though relinquishing them at a loss would be the better choice. This is why investors often hold onto unprofitable assets; the prospect of divesting at the prevailing market value does not meet their perceptions of its value. We often hold onto things that we should sell at a loss. 

In short, we overvalue what we own.

We even overvalue, and are reluctant to jettison, our personal ideologies and convictions. If I have embraced a particular theory, philosophy, or principle most of my life, I’ll be hesitant to analyze its validity and even more reluctant to change positions because I’ve invested so much in it. For instance, people seldom change their political beliefs later in life because we have so much emotional and intellectual currency invested in them. 

This relates to another topic: our reluctance to change. Over time, who we are and what we think and do become so engrained that we’re unwilling to entertain change and may even become unaware of other possibilities. 

To make this post practical, let’s think of of what we “own” and simply reassess each item’s value. Is there an item, relationship, viewpoint, habit, or investment that we should reevaluate and then reduce or discard? This exercise will help affirm and solidify those things in our life that we believe to be true and valuable. It will lead to a fresh and renewed commitment to things we hold dear.

A must-read article

I like to read Adam Grant’s thoughts. I’ve read most of his books, and his article titled The Science of Changing Someone’s Mind (New York Times, January 31, 2021) is insightful and helpful.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

[Dialogue from Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises.]

Some things in life happen suddenly, with no forewarning. Like car accidents.

But usually, small actions, repeated over time, gradually accumulate and then suddenly morph into something big. Like the guys putting rubber bands around a watermelon. It happens gradually, then suddenly. Hemingway wrote that bankruptcy can follow this path, and we also see the pattern in other areas of life.

This dynamic can be either harmful or beneficial. Multiple, unwise small actions can lead to major problems.

• Use your credit card indiscriminately on a regular basis and eventually you’ll be in financial trouble. 
• Consume a few more calories than you burn day after day, and you may become obese.  
• Neglect relationships and they’ll turn sour.

But multiple positive, small actions can lead to significant and good results.

• Doggedly abide by an annual budget, get out of debt, and save for retirement, and you’ll have financial peace and security.
• Restrict your food intake and exercise regularly and you’ll enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Calories in/calories out; it’s just math.
• Deliberately prioritize and cultivate important relationships, and you’ll “never walk alone.”

The Bible uses an agricultural analogy to explain a similar phenomenon: the Law of the Harvest: “Whatever a person sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Notice:

• You reap what you sow. If a farmer sows corn seed, he’ll reap corn. You can’t plant corn seeds and expect to get broccoli. 
• You reap later than you sow. After the seed is planted it seems like nothing happens for a long time, but eventually fruit comes.
• You reap more than you sow. A single seed produces a lot of corn. There’s an exponential return. (In finances, it’s called compound interest.)

Identify some small tasks that you persistently do (both good and bad) that may accumulate and cause a major event. Drop the ones that are heading in the wrong direction an accelerate the good ones.