Month: May 2023

Categories
Book Recommendations

Questioning Our Sources

In my last post, I spoke a bit about Gell-Man Amnesia and how it can lead to differential weighting on the accuracy of reporting from the exact same source (despite the fact that such differential weighting is illogical), but I wanted to spend a bit more time delving into why we need to question our sources (and why in fact the more steeped in a discipline we are the MORE we need to be open to questioning given the way brains work).

I decided to create a book list of newer pieces that are questioning key elements of establishment narrative. The first on that list is the Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wegrow, which does no less than question our traditional narrative of the evolution of human society. So let’s recap the basics: the story I was taught in high school (specifically in AP World History) was that agriculture allowed for surplus of food, which led to cities and the formation of centralized governing bodies (whether monarchies or bureaucracies of some sort) because otherwise there would be no redistribution of food to enable specialization of labor, the development of educated classes, technology, and ultimately our technological revolution.

What the authors claim is that this Enlightenment era narrative is actually not correct in light of the latest archeological evidence (agriculture existed in many forms before city-states and specialization of labor existing before agriculture), and that centralized power is not inevitable or predestined for effective redistribution models. Thanks to increased investigations in South America and Africa leveraging technology like drones many new discoveries are calling these early conclusions into question. Their argument is that the formation of a State was not an inevitable progression of agriculture; in fact agriculture and centralized power are not the denouement of human civilization (necessary for economic prosperity), but for the vast majority of our history human societies tried MANY different organizing principles. They walk through a huge body of knowledge showing that society vacillated between egalitarianism (communal councils and equal rights for all citizens), and some form of centralized power, and that the power centralization was as often due to the consolidation of physical strength–barbarians/warrior classes who could overwhelm their neighbors, or through food surplus that could benefit through management for distribution purposes).

Interestingly in the examples they share sometimes power centralization happened due to food production/surplus, but often that happened in small regions: it was hard for those communities to move given their ties to their crops, and they couldn’t really spread their influence outside of a limited geographic region. If their communities were too awful/repressive, people would just leave, or they would revolt and join an external community with no skill in farming, but strong warriors who could overrule the current era. What this pattern teaches is not that state is inevitable, and that we must subjugate ourselves to our leadership for technological and economic advancement, but rather that societies self-corrected on these premises throughout the course of human evolution except for these past 3-4 centuries…why is that? What has changed? That is what the book questions. (It is really a phenomenal read, and I highly recommend it if you love history, anthropology, and archeology.)

Second on the book list of “question what you know” was Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny by Andrew Roberts. There are a huge number of pieces written about Churchill (including his own biographies), and while I know he is a difficult character for many, this piece is so well-researched it clarifies many of the discrepancies and decisions that were made (where he is honest, and strove to aid individuals, and where he was influenced by his biases) backed by extensive source material, including King George VI’s diaries and many more. I fundamentally do not believe that we can ignore history and its implications because we don’t agree with the decisions people made. We have to study what mistakes were made and why so we can endeavor to not repeat them. That he was a light in the dark for many through arguably one of the most difficult periods of human history is true, and his intelligence, work ethic, and inspirational leadership are traits worth study even with the racism, colonialism, and chauvinism that is also apparent and difficult to understand given the era in which I was raised. People are nuanced, as is our history. We cannot afford to erase the ugly–inevitably we will then miss the beauty and the learning.

I’ll keep sharing good books that I find help me question my assumptions like these–if you have recommendations, please do share.

Categories
Book Club

Book Club: Infinite Game

For the month of April we read the Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. For those who have no idea who Simon Sinek is, you’ve likely seen some clip of him speaking about business practices, ethics, etc. somewhere on the Internet: TED, Youtube, Facebook, etc. and if you, like me, have found these presentations meaningful (this is my personal favorite), you probably also felt excited to read this book.

So let’s start with the good: the principles of this book deeply resonate with me. Fundamentally, he is pushing back on the purpose of organizations: do we live to serve our shareholders (who are effectively “renters” of our organization), or to serve a bigger purpose (our customers needs, connecting people, helping the world, etc.) His point is that companies who play “the infinite game”–a long term strategy aligned to that greater purpose the company serves will make wiser long term decisions, which ultimately will accrue greater value than those who play to the market dynamics alone (whom he calls “finite” players). He gives great examples, and I found myself nodding along.

Another point he mentions are that companies who are more aligned to long term value tend to have more engaged employees (most of us want to work on something that is GOOD for the world, not just good for our shareholders), make better ethical choices, and have fewer incidents of questionable behavior (fraud, misuse of data, etc.) because they won’t suffer from the same “ethical fading” in which organizations without a clear purpose (above making money for investors) may find themselves.

But, here is where he could have cited research and helped us disambiguate between his opinions/observations and what the science tells us. In my mind, that is the biggest issue I had with this book. When we sat down to discuss it at Book Club, Dr. J Metz reminded me of “Gell-Man amnesia” a term coined by Professor Murray Gell-Mann and popularized by Michael Crichton (yes author of Jurassic Park, etc. etc.) that basically shows that we read a piece of garbage and if we know the subject, we will pick it apart, but if we don’t know the subject AND we agree with the statements, we will somehow forget that the source is the same as the previous piece of said garbage–that “amnesia” when you are biased to believe is the issue. Basically: we believe what we want to believe, and are only naturally skeptical if we DON’T already believe it, which isn’t a good way to learn (it is a great way to reinforce bias). We HAVE to force ourselves to be critical regardless of our bias, review our sources, etc. if we want to be life-long learners, and not subject to our own echo chambers (a problem often cited in these days of social-media influenced news).

All that said, I really loved these quotations from the book:

  • “Leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results. And the best way to drive performance in an organization is to create an environment in which information can flow freely, mistakes can be highlighted and help can be offered and received.” 
  • “To ask, “What’s best for me?” is finite thinking. To ask, “What’s best for us?” is infinite thinking.” 
  • “The ability to succeed is not what makes someone a leader. Exhibiting the qualities of leadership is what makes someone an effective leader. Qualities like honesty, integrity, courage, resiliency, perseverance, judgment and decisiveness,” 
  • “One of the primary jobs of any leader is to make new leaders. To help grow the kind of leaders who know how to build organizations equipped for the Infinite Game.” 
  • “When leaders are willing to prioritize trust over performance, performance almost always follows.”

I think listening to this as a lecture and thinking about how you would integrate the messages into your personal leadership style, or your framing for your company’s mission is useful. I just think there are more meaningful books that walk through the psychology of WHY his points resonate. Specifically the value of serving a just case, having a worthy rivalry to inspire your best work, building trust with teams (great work by Amy Edmonson on the value of psychological safety) and maintaining a strong ethical basis for your business decisions to have fewer issues associated with ethical fading (I would have LOVED to see the research on this because I want to believe it).

Anyway, no regrets that I read this, but gosh it could have been so much MORE impactful and not reinforced the “business guru with no hard facts” stereotype through some really simple citations to sources that are from credible publications and not business-sponsored.