The Lost Art of Conversation

Earlier in March, the Financial Times (FT) shared an interesting article titled "How To Have A Conversation", published in the "Life & Arts" section of their magazine.  The subject matter struck me as interesting, given that a whole decade had passed us by and no one paid much attention to the fact that the art of chatting had been systematically displaced by chatter, texting, and dare I say, something called sexting.  Silly me,  I grew up thinking that "chatter" was the sound my teeth made when they were cold.


The FT piece is fairly well written, perhaps a bit long for my taste.  Here's an excerpt: "What makes a good conversationalist has changed little over the years. The basics remain the same as when Cicero became the first scholar to write down some rules, which were summarised in 2006 by The Economist: 'Speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.' But Cicero was lucky: he never went on a first date with someone more interested in their iPhone than his company."


Yes, change happens.  But I would argue that no generation has been better prepared for change than our own (I include most of us out of college and professionally active in this demographic.)   So that might explain why we have stopped questioning the fact that certain matters seem to have taken a bizarre turn in our lives.  What seems to linger though is that uneasy feeling, our conscience perhaps, nagging us to find out if it's a turn for better or worse.  The easy way out of the nag?  Pick a side, and stick to it.  But be forewarned: if you choose to leave behind the eye-to-eye-contact option, in favor of the eye-to-screen one, you may want to wear a helmet when you leave the padded comfort of your digital zone.  It's tough out there in the real world, where "undo" or "save" do not stop an oncoming bus from mowing you down as you attempt to text and cross the street.

How do you get from Goldman Sachs to Carnegie Hall?

Last week, a man named Greg Smith dropped a bomb on Wall Street, one that caused $2.1 billion worth of damage within a 24 hour period.  Not a real bomb, of course, but a lot of you probably know what I'm talking about.  For those who don't: a Goldman Sachs division head resigned on March 14th, and he chose to announce it via a letter that the New York Times agreed to publish.  The letter, arguably written in a professional manner, was a serious blast of Goldman Sachs' corporate culture.  The next day, analysts estimated that Goldman Sachs' value had taken a 3% hit, equivalent to a decrease of about $2.1 billion.  Regardless of how real or long-term the impact on Goldman Sachs' value is, Greg Smith's letter sent quite a shock wave throughout the international business community.  Here's the headline as it appeared on the New York Times, and an excerpt from the letter:

Op-Ed Contributor (From The New York Times, The Opinion Pages)

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

By GREG SMITH

Published: March 14, 2012

"TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it."

Enough said?  Oh, no.  He's just getting warmed up.  Hoo-ah.  Actually Greg Smith's letter goes on for another page or so, and in my opinion, fairly well written.  Which of course is not the same as well said: too early to tell at this stage.  But you know what else would have been worth a couple billion dollars?  If someone at Goldman's had had the opportunity to video record, even with an iPhone, the expression on the faces of Lloyd Blankfein (CEO) and Gary Cohn (COO) as they read the letter for the first time.  I know, that would have been priceless. 

Leadership, like capitalism, is a moving target.  That may sound like heresy to a lot of people.  But here's why I believe that: as long as societal values shift at least once every generation, so will leadership.  Some may insist the fundamental aspects of leadership never have and never will change: a leader always was and always will have a clear vision, excellent communication skills, intelligence, decisiveness, and generally concerned about the well-being of his followers.  Oh, and highly ethical.  And there's your missing link.  The "Mad Men" leaders of fifty years ago may have not really cared that much about conflicting interests between themselves and their clients, and all else being equal there would have never been a Greg Smith grenade thrown at them. 

I would be willing to bet that you, like me, don't lose much sleep at night over the values of leaders fifty years ago.  But throw Mr. Smith into the mix, and as a business leader, you really should feel something tugging at you.  The question might be, where do we stand on our generation's change pressures?  Every generation has at least one ethical grenade thrown at them, we can't escape that.  Is this something I should try to search my soul about, before I find myself staring at a pin-less grenade at my feet?  Sounds advisable, except for one thing: soul searching is a good start, but unfortunately not good enough.

The story of Greg Smith v. Goldman Sachs is indeed just getting warmed up.  But from a leadership perspective, I find it a perfect opportunity for those of us who are driven by matters of business leadership and personal growth.  I see two clear paths that we can take in search of a valuable lesson here: we can fall into the "pundit" temptation, that is, stand on the sidelines and watch the moving target race unfold in slow motion; or we can place ourselves in the race. 

The old saying goes that the way to Carnegie Hall, one of the performing art Meccas of the world, is "practice, practice, practice".  So, regardless of who the good guys or the bad guys turn out to be in the final script of Smith v. Goldman Sachs:  for those of us hungry to become the best leaders we can be, how do we get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice?  Maybe, but we must really beware of practicing ourselves into a comfortable numbness on the sidelines.  To borrow from the script of Chariots of Fire:  in the words of the great Olympic runner Harold Abrahams, speaking to his trainer Sam Mussabini, "If I can't win, I won't run!"  To which Mussabini replied, "If you don't run, you can't win."

jy
3/17/12

Cool Tunes

Q: What do you get when you cross Peter Gabriel, Joe Cocker, and Bruce Springsteen?

A: Michael Crispin.

I don't know about you, but I find it fun "discovering" new tunes. Hey, I can kill a good hour cranking out The Doors, The Beatles, and Bruce Springsteen like any other guy who grew up in the 60's, 70's, 80's... oh who am I trying to kid: I'm still trying to grow up.   But we all have to move on, that's the way life works. In a good way, that is. No one is saying we need to burn bridges with the past. Good memories and great sounds should be revisited every now and then. But we can't live in them.

But back to Michael Crispin: OK, I hear mostly Peter Gabriel in his voice, but I'll let you have fun and see what other ghost from the 70's genre machine you can find in this guy's voice.  Though I wouldn't listen to him if you didn't care much for Gabriel, cause the similarity is definitely there.

So... (Peter Gabriel fans will appreciate the pun here), without further ado, here's Michael Crispin:

PS - Does anyone know anything else about Crispin?  2009 seems like a long time ago now, and I don't think he's come out with anything new since then.  His Facebook page doesn't seem to have much new info, and Google / YouTube don't give up much either.  But you can still buy his first album (6:16) on iTunes.

The Iron Lady (2011)

"Oh Maggie, Maggie what have we done!?"  So goes the last line from The Post War Dream, a song from the The Final Cut, Pink Floyd's last studio collaboration back in 1982.  The line is a direct reference to Margaret Thatcher's decision that same year to go to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.  Not long after, the Soviets nicknamed Maggie the "Iron Lady".

Thirty years later, British film director Phyllida Lloyd, who directed the most financially successful British film ever released (Mamma Mia!), unveils the biographical story of The Iron Lady.  The story as told by Lloyd weaves in and out of an aging Thatcher's point of view and stream of consciousness, almost to the point of introducing dementia as a whole new subplot.  For those of us over 40, the quasi-modern-time historical context of the movie created a bit of an Alzheimer moment for ourselves: was I aware back then that she had been elected as the first woman prime minister in the UK?  Did she really make into the 90's as prime minister?   Is she still alive??

Meryl Streep plays the part of Lady Thatcher not-surprisingly well, almost adding fuel to the stream of consciousness. As the timeline goes back and forth, we begin to wonder if we're not at times watching a documentary. While most of the audience may recognize Streep's name, the rest of the characters are played by relatively unknown actors. Between Streep's fair-enough likeness to Thatcher, and the unfamiliar cast, the film sometimes plays with the audience's collective mind as it appears to waltz in and out of a docudrama genre.

A few days after watching the film, I came across a commentary of The Iron Lady in the Harvard Business Review. Given the source of the review, it was not surprising that the focus was on Thatcher's management style, how effective it was, and how questionable it became when she was unable to evolve with the times as the 90's rolled in. But Herminia Ibarra, Harvard professor and author of the article, actually put some soul into the commentary beyond a pragmatic, ivy league management lesson.

Ibarra recalls a mid-90's BBC documentary about Thatcher, when the former prime minister is asked about her legendary aversion to consensus... "Flashing her famous blue eyes, she answers in measured tones: 'If you look at the great religions — and the Judeo-Christian religion is really at the heart — would you have those great guidelines if Jesus had said, Brothers, I believe in consensus?After a long and piercing look, she answers her own rhetorical question: 'Of course not, you'd have nothing of value.' "

That might give an insight of how Maggie rose to power. But how did she "lose it?" Well, that's when the "aha" moment sets in. Once again in Ibarra's words, "Thatcher's story is a textbook case on how to get power and, later, how to lose it... For as we all know, what got you here won't get you there." She concludes her commentary by saying "...if we are successful, the hard part kicks in: we come to the point where we have to reinvent ourselves. What must we keep and what must we shed in order to advance and grow?"

Well said.   Although on the matter of power I might feel compelled to put it as follows: it's hard to lose something you've never really had.   And that may very well be my takeaway from the story of The Iron Lady: the reason why we must reinvent ourselves, why someone as smart as Maggie should have known better towards the end of her mandate, is the very essence of evolution itself.   At the time the Iron Curtain came crashing down, ironically thanks in part to Ronnie and The Iron Lady herself, so ended the notion that sustainable power could be had by a single mere mortal, kingdom, or empire.

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Film Trailer:

Melancholia (2011, Lars Von Trier)

We decided to go see a movie last night, and we picked "Melancholia".  Yes, while most people were out trying to spend the first day of the new year in a happy way, we decided to go witness an existentialist drama about the obliteration of our entire planet as we know it. To exist or not to exist - that is the question you keep asking yourself throughout the film. 

Melancholia is yet another existentialist story from yet another existentialist Dane, filmmaker Lars Von Trier. The father of existentialism himself, Søren Kierkegard, must be proud of his fellow countryman.  I don't know what it is about the Danes and their existentialist ways, but I feel I must disclose that I am an admirer of Mr. Kierkegaard and his groundbreaking philosophy.   

Now, you would think that after watching the trailer of Melancholia, I would begin to agree with that guy in Hamlet who said, "there's something rotten in Denmark."  But, nooo. Existentialism sucks me in, yet again. The tragic spirit of the Prince of Denmark himself could have easily been spotted anywhere in the painfully long wedding scene in Melancholia, early in the story.  Appropriately set in a castle, modern day notwithstanding, Hamlet could have waltzed into the upper crust event, like the guy from Quantum Leap.  

The wedding party itself is fraught with all the aristocratic dysfunction that would have made the prince feel at home. Following the surreal toasts from the father of the bride, who was a spoon short of a proper table setting, and the mother of the bride, who ended her toast with the ever so popular at weddings, "Enjoy it while it lasts... I myself hate marriages", Hamlet could have provided the coup de grâce of the evening with his famous soliloquy "To be, or not to be".  All the while the beautiful bride Justine, sensually played by Kirsten Dunst, keeps exiting the reception, stage left, pursued by the mother of all Armageddons.

Kierkegaard could have also "quantum leaped" into this Danish tragedy, and would have found himself right at home.  He would have been useful too more than once, as comfort to the brave-but-one-pill-away-from-a-breakdown Claire, Justine's sister.  Though Claire helps Justine unconditionally through her wedding unraveling, Claire herself begins to breakdown eventually, without much relief from her pragmatic-but-useless-in-a-doomsday-scenario husband John.  John is well played by Kiefer Sutherland, and to be fair to his character, he at least delivers a much needed comic relief in the story when he asks Claire, "Is everyone in your family stark raving mad??"

Kierkegaard's existentialist input would have been borderline eerie, in light of the doomsday nature of the story.  It took me a while, but I eventually remembered and dug up an apocalyptic thought by the Danish philosopher, from his work "Either/Or, Part 1".  The lines could have very appropriately been delivered by Kierkegaard to Claire during the film's "Part 2: Claire": 

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.” (SK, 1843)

If I were to take two good stories in their own right: Mike Cahill's film Another Earth (also released in 2011), and Arthur C. Clarke's book The Hammer of God (1993), then  slow-cook them together, I would end up with Melancholia.  Presto, and that would have actually made a fine dish. What almost spoiled the taste was a dash of that bitter existentialism from a story like The Tree of Life (2011). Fortunately, it was just a dash, not enough to ruin the whole meal. At its  heart, I actually liked Melancholia. Von Trier might have considered a dash less of the dragging and drawn-out moments to hypnotize us into submission, but hey, it's his story and he's sticking to it.

To Mr. Von Trier's credit, I do believe he ultimately succeed in artistically paying tribute to Kierkegaard's genius, whether he intended it or not.  That is especially evident if you consider one of the philosopher's great quotes: 

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.”

jy - Jan. 2, 2012

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Film Trailer:

Bah, Humbug!

Saturday, in the park. I think it.. is the 3rd of December??  Whoa.  Wasn't it the 4th of July just yesterday?  Man, time does fly when you're not waiting for anything particularly important to happen.  Well, except for maybe... oh I don't know. Happiness?  Or as my Italian side of the family calls it, "Ah-Penis!"  (Yes, everything in Italy ends with an exclamation point.  And with the word "Penis". Well, the actual word in Italian is "Cazzo".  Which rhymes with "Fatso".  As in, "Wait, where was I going with this?  Cazzo!")

Chimney smoke and snowflakes are not the only things in the air this month, are they.  Yes, it's most certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Or as department stores call it: Ka-ching! 

I was having dinner last night with my daughter Tasha!  (yes, she was born in Italy), and we got to talking about her job at the mall.  Tasha's been juggling work AND studies towards a degree in Psychology, something that makes her papa and grandpapa very proud.  She works at a well known retail store in one of Cincinnati's most prestigious shopping centers.  OK, Cincinnati's only prestigious shopping center, who am I kidding.  After all, this is a town that believes that the word "sports" placed in front of the word "bar" is what separates a dive from a classy joint.

So I took the opportunity to ask her, as she is the first Yanes to infiltrate the corporate mall during this most wonderful time of the year, if she had any early observations about Christmas shoppers and holiday cheer. After she rated my attempt to rhyme "year" with "cheer" lame, she told me something that surprised me: holiday shoppers are in fact some of the biggest f***ing idiots she's ever seen.

Her answer was surprising to me on many levels.  I was surprised that she did not find my rhyming cool.  But once I got past that, I became very curious about why Christmas shoppers would act even more lame than store employees' dads.  Don't get me wrong, the fact that I was no longer the most lame person out there was cause enough for me to do a Joe Boxer dance in my head.  As lame as that image may be.

But perhaps the most sobering thought that came to mind was this: could it be that I have been wrong about this whole Christmas thing all along?  This may have been my Ebenezer Scrooge moment.  That precise moment when one of Charles Dickens' most memorable characters comes to the climactic realization that "I don't know anything!  I never did know anything!  But now I know that I don't know... All on a Christmas morning!"

Indeed.  All on a Christmas morning, or on any given Black Friday.  You see, it's not that Scrooge was wrong merely about his ungiving ways: it turns out that the essence of what he was wrong about was his angry and selfish ungiving ways.  As it turns out, it is actually possible to be angrily and selfishly giving, especially when one is armed with pepper spray and all.

And as it also turns out, the counterintuitive flip-side is just as elightning.  It is quite possible to be ungiving for the right reasons: because what we are giving is not what really matters.

To quote an Italian general, the late Renzo Moauro, who also happened to be my Italian language teacher in Rome many years ago: "Why are most people slaving to be in pursuit of material stuff, when they should be freely in pursuit of ah penis!"

Ma che cazzo!

Why Thanksgiving Is My Favorite Holiday

So we Americans decided long ago that we would set aside a day to be thankful.  I presume it was originally intended as a statement of gratitude expressed to a higher being, when the early colonists first gathered to celebrate a successful conclusion of the fall harvest. It was after all during this very first extended family gathering that our first act of giving thanks was born. And so it was indeed, but... not exactly for the official reasons we were taught as kids. During that first fall harvest feast, when a highly political (and significantly sloshed) uncle Harry was stabbed by cousin Jimmy, there was a collective sigh of relief when Harry's butter knife wounds were not as fatal as they first appeared.

Being grateful is not merely a religious matter, or even an emotional intelligence blessing: it is a key evolutionary trait.  I believe it makes us unique on this planet.  Case in point, every Thanksgiving it is over a quarter-billion humans who join their families to celebrate with a fresh out-of-the-oven turkey, not the other way around.  In fact, much more so than the threat of global warming, I say it's imperative to our survival that we prevent turkeys from learning how to give thanks.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for three reasons: first, the name of the holiday itself is gracious, unassuming.  Based on the name alone, it practically earns the right to a hearty celebration.  Other holidays typically have complicated and depressing names, such as, "National Observance of Overworked Laborers that Haven't Yet Been Passed Over or Crucified."  The name of those holidays alone makes you want to march to the drugstore and get yourself some Oxycontin -- ensuring of course that you spend the entire four-day weekend petting your plants and watering your dog.

Second, and speaking of a four-day weekend: has no one else noticed that Thanksgiving is the only holiday in America that offers an automatic four day weekend?  Yes, with the exception of prisons, forced labor camps (aka retail stores), football players, and selfless first-responders, everyone else is appreciatively offered a full four-day weekend.  That's an honor not even granted to the mother of all holidays: Christmas.

Which brings me to my third, and arguably most controversial reason: Thanksgiving is not Christmas.  Now, before you report me to Hallmark hear me out.  I do not hate Christmas. And I do not hate Capitalism. But putting the word "shopping" after the word "Christmas" is like putting the word “clean” in front of the word “coal”: it doesn’t legitimize your addiction to manipulation.

So just as I was getting ready to once again enjoy my favorite time of the year, with no traffic, no stores open, and as few TV commercials as I can possibly prevent without being kicked out of the house, here comes "Black Thursday". And there goes the neighborhood.

If you love to camp outside a store on any given thanksgiving day, and you don't think twice about crowd-punching to snatch one of three half-priced 75-inch flat screen TVs with a built-in popcorn maker, does that make you a bad person?  Aside from stepping over a little old lady, not necessarily. But my bet is that it does not make you a happy person either. And therein lies the rub: unhappiness is contagious. 

I can of course choose to whine about what seems to be a depressing trend, but I realize that it is probably the most contradictory thing I can do. So instead, to be consistent with the name of this wonderful holiday, I would like to wish a special happy Thanksgiving to all those parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents who refused to conform to the pursuit of unhappiness.  I am very grateful for the sacrifice they made when they left everything behind in the name of change.  I am inspired by their commitment to improve what some of their peers considered too sacred to change. And I'm just as thankful for those who serve on that special day, especially those who protected our newfound freedom in exchange for their lives.

A happy Thanksgiving of course to all my family and friends, thank you for your love and friendship.  And if you have read this far, I leave you with a classic Thanksgiving expression of relative love: shut up and pass the butter before somebody gets hurt.