Was Fraud The Intent or the Outcome?

Thank you for allowing this shameless self-promotion before today’s story. In October, I was a guest on the Northern Trust Advisors Podcast, and I just learned that this podcast made their top ten for 2021. So exciting! Here’s a link if you want to listen to a 1.5-minute excerpt. 

Psychologists, anthropologists, everyone who studies the human brain tells us we are hardwired to respond to stories.

A while back, I watched two documentaries chronicling stories told by storytellers who were later indicted for fraud, Billy McFarland, founder of Fyre Media and creator of the Fyre Festival, and Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos. 

Perhaps because I watched them back to back, I was struck by the common themes. Both founders passionately believed in their stories and told them well, so well, that investors and buyers flocked to them. 

We will never know whether these storytellers and others like them set out to commit fraud or whether they believed so passionately in their stories that they were blind to the facts. 

Regardless of their intent, their stories were compelling, and investors and customers bought in. 

This past week, a jury convicted Elizabeth Holmes of three counts of fraud. And Billy McFarland was convicted of two counts of fraud in 2018.

For me, these cases raise important questions for us as leaders: 

  1. When does confidence become hubris?
  2. How do we recognize the difference between believing in our vision and blind passion? 
  3. How do we ensure that we monitor and evaluate our endeavors and keep ourselves open to hearing and processing feedback that may be contrary to our beliefs?

Oops, I Wish I Hadn’t Said That, I Wish I Had Done This…

Back in elementary school, when playing sports, we often were allowed a ‘do-over.’ As we got older, coaches and teachers stopped allowing this. The ball had to be played where it was. I suspect the reason for this was to “prepare us for life.” And, so we learned, no ‘do-overs,’ if I screwed up or forgot to do something, too late, can’t fix it.

  • While there must be rules in games (no way to score if there are not), does everything in life have to play by these same rules?
  • What if when we said something we wished we hadn’t, we went back to the person and said, “I am sorry, I wish I hadn’t said that, what I wanted to say is this…”
  • What if when we wanted to do something, we went back and did it?

In short, what if we started with the premise that nothing in life is irreparable or irretrievable, except death. While indeed words matter, see my blog of this same name (Words Matter), actions speak loudly, and ‘do-overs’ are a great way to take action and demonstrate intent. 

Another way to think about it, it’s not what you do, it’s what you do next.

Leadership Quote: From Pandemic to Endemic

2021 ended with yet another year of living in a pandemic. As I begin this new year, I’ve been reflecting on one of The Economist’s predictions, “In 2022, we will see Covid 19 move from a pandemic to endemic.”

Over the last two years, we have become so accustomed to making life and business choices based on this pandemic that I wonder, if this prediction is correct, how long will it take for behaviors to change accordingly?

We tend to make choices based on what we know, and it’s convenient to accumulate a bank of knowledge and rely on that to make decisions. What happens, though, when what we know isn’t so anymore?

The changing nature of Covid, what to test, when to mask, what test to rely on, etc., is a reminder, what is so today, may not be so tomorrow.

Can we learn to accept Covid as part of our society, much like other contagious diseases? Can we learn to protect those at risk and share vaccines worldwide while not trying to stop the world in the process?

Can we keep some of the good we learned from these past two years, e.g., we can nurture relationships on Zoom, take precautions to prevent spreading viruses, trust people to work even when we can’t see them working?

And can the lessons of the Covid evolution teach us to pause and evaluate what we are so confident of today that may not be so tomorrow?

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain

Are You Green & Growing?

The further along, we get in our careers, the more we know and the more we are challenged to stay curious.

Every now and then, I meet a leader that knows it all. They have “the way” they do things that worked for them in the past, and as leaders, they are confident it will work today.

They share “the way” with their team, expecting them to accept “the way” and to become successful because of it. They do this with the best intentions, yet the results don’t come. Frustrated, they try again. If only folks would simply execute “the way,” they will be successful, and so will our company.

Alas, they discover, it doesn’t work the way it once did. This leader has two choices, s/he can continue to lead as s/he has always done, or… s/he can become curious.

What I have noticed is businesses, like ourselves, are living beings. And, like a plant, if I am not willing and able to be green and growing, the result is that I and my company become ripe and eventually rotting.

Sometimes, It Really Is That Simple

In this complex world we live in, we sometimes ignore the obvious. Today’s technology tools enable us to test and analyze just about anything.

While these tools have led to innovation and life-saving discoveries, I have begun to wonder if the complexity of our society is also leading us to miss the simple answers. Are we missing the obvious along the way to finding a solution?

The following experience happened a while back, and I often use it to remind myself to pause and look first for a simple answer, even when it may not seem obvious.

My internet service was continually cutting out. It would go down for a few minutes, sometimes an hour or so, and would always come back on its own. This situation continued for months. I called for service many times, and each time, the provider sent a new technician to search for the source of the problem and fix it. They replaced modems, replaced wires, and genuinely tried to fix it. 

I became convinced the problem must be with the wiring in the building, so I hired an independent company who came out and checked the internal wiring. Every expert, and there were many, said it should be working. But it wasn’t. 

Finally, I called a technician whose name I had kept because he had been particularly helpful in the past. I told him the whole story, and he sent his supervisor out. The supervisor asked a few questions, listened to my story, and solved the problem in 5 minutes. 

How did he do it?

The answer sounds like one of those brain teasers. Actually, I guess it was. What he did was simple. He asked a few questions, listened to my answers, and since everyone else had looked for a complex problem, he began by looking for a simple one. It turned out he was on the right path. There was a loose wire where the system attached to the building. He tightened the wire, and I have not had a problem since!

My takeaway from this…

When something isn’t working, pause. Then ask questions, listen carefully to the answers, and begin by looking for a simple rather than a complex cause and solution.

Telling Your Tomorrow Story

This week’s Sunday Story is actually a podcast. I am pleased to share my interview with the Northern Trust’s Flexible Advisor hosts Laura Gregg and David Partain. Listen to a 90-second highlight here.

Listen to the complete 30-minute interview here:
Episode 66: Supporting Executive Clients With Their Tomorrow Story — With Elisa Spain

The Elephant In the Room

The other day, I asked for feedback from a team I was working with about the program’s value. One of the members came up to me afterward and said, “please don’t take this personally,” and gave me some additional feedback. My response was,” the elephant is in the room whether we talk about him or not. For me, I would prefer to know what you are thinking and feeling so that I can modify the program to give you results that meet your needs.”

Yes, the elephant is in the room whether we talk about him or not. There he is, clomping around, banging into things.

And yet, we often refuse to talk about him. Why is that? Here are the reasons I hear:

  • I don’t want confrontation
  • I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings
  • We can’t do anything about it anyway

My experience is that our reluctance to confront causes the elephant to cause more damage than if we just talked about him and got him out of the room.

It is our role as leaders to invite and initiate the conversation. With the elephant out of the room, we can get on to business. As long as he is there, we are focused internally instead of externally.

Go Ahead, Drop Some Balls

A friend of mine recently received a significant promotion. While he is excited about his promotion, he is searching for his replacement and, for now, is doing both jobs. When I asked him how it was going, he responded, “just trying to get it all done, without dropping any balls.”

This conversation reminded me of one I had with one of my clients. She was lamenting the challenges one of her executives has with burnout. In this case, the CEO said, “I wish he would learn to drop some balls; his effort to get everything done is what is causing his burnout!”

The’ to-do list’ can seem endless for those who want to dot every I and cross every T (I admit I am one of them). What I heard this wise CEO saying was, “go ahead, drop some balls,” just choose the ones you are going to drop.

What if, instead of starting each day with a list of what we are going to do, we begin by removing the things we aren’t going to do. Here are some examples to get you started:

  • What if you reviewed email once or twice per day and let everyone know this is your plan?
  • What if you coded your email so that critical emails moved to a priority list, and you responded to these first and removed yourself from cc lists?
  • What if for everything that comes your way, you paused and asked yourself, does this email, call, text, inquiry even require a response? And if it does, is this something only I can do? Or can I delegate it?
  • What if you paused before saying “yes”?

Perception ≠ Reality

We often hear the phrase perception is reality. Philosophers tell us that we cannot perceive reality directly; perception is all we have. “If a tree falls in the woods…..”

As leaders, we transfer this rule into behaviors, i.e., how we perceive a product becomes what it is. How we perceive a person or a company’s reputation is who they become for us. And, at work, how our peers, subordinates, and bosses perceive us becomes their reality and drives their expectations of us. 

And yet, perception is often far from reality. Even in the physical world, if we don’t have enough information, reality can be variable, e.g., without knowledge of time, darkness can be perceived as either night or a storm.

I was reminded of this fact recently when I attended a gathering with other coaches. Coaches as a group tend to pay attention to the subtleties; after all, we are trained to do so. Therefore, one would think that this would translate to “knowing” that what we perceive may not be what is. Yet, like most other humans, we miss sometimes.

Here’s one example. On the first day, we did an exercise that was a “fun” icebreaker. Hmm, well, at least it was fun for the extroverts, and, to a person, the introverts found it uncomfortable. It was an energy break for the extroverts; it was stepping outside our comfort zone for the introverts—a good exercise for sure, yet a very different exercise for us than for the extroverts. It wasn’t until I checked in with one of my fellow introverts that I understood how misaligned my perceptions were. We talked later, and I asked him why it seemed that he didn’t recognize me when we passed each other several times during the first-day exercise, and he responded, “Wow, I didn’t even see you; I was just trying to get through it.” On that day, my perception was that he wasn’t interested in engaging with me. His reality was that he was so uncomfortable with the exercise that he disengaged completely.

Another way to say this: perception is about us, reality is about the other person.

The learning for me…

Ask a question and seek to understand the reality beyond our perceptions, and life will hold some lovely surprises.

Words Matter

We live in a diverse world, and at the same time, it seems we have become increasingly intolerant. The more you look for signs of both, the more you will find it. Some say we need to stop looking so hard; I say we need to start looking harder.

Diversity is part of my core; I work hard to create diversity in my life. I find people who are different from me interesting. I learn more from people who see the world differently than I do from those who see it the same. Diversity of thought is the hardest. And, groups that achieve it consistently outperform. When everyone is thinking and saying something different, the member has a richer experience and a richer opportunity to make their own decisions.

So what does this have to do with words? We have a choice. We can live our lives surrounded by people who are exactly like us, listen to news that supports our way of thinking, and insulate ourselves from anyone and anything that isn’t aligned with our way of thinking and how we see the world.

Or, we can live in the world as it is, a mosaic of differences.

If we choose the former, we need only use words in common usage in our chosen community. On the other hand, if we choose the latter, then words matter; what is heard by the listener is all that matters.

Sometimes words can seem innocuous and harmless. For example, to some, an expression like “open the kimono” is simply a colorful way to describe transparency. Others call it sexist and racist. Forbes included “open the kimono” in its “Most Annoying Business Jargon” bracket, wherein Bruce Barry, a professor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Business, calls it “kind of creepy.”

Words matter in a diverse world because if we want to be heard, we must speak in a manner that allows us to be heard. Words heard as inflammatory cause the listener to stop listening and hear only the disrespect.

On the other hand, as with everything, there is another side. The side of being too politically correct. The place where we so carefully script our words that we lose any sense of honest communication.

What to do? On the one hand, increasingly, we hear words of hate and intolerance; on the other, more and more, we hear words that are so crafted they don’t mean anything. How do we reconcile these two opposing trends in our society?

I wonder if the common theme between the two is a lack of empathy and authenticity? 

  • If fear is what is truly present, rather than intolerance, how do we express this authentically?
  • Is it possible to be authentic and at the same time express tolerance of differences?
  • Is it possible to be authentic and be kind in the words and tone we choose?
  • Is it possible to express our fears and concerns while being open to hearing someone else’s truth?