151 Days

June 5, 2020

One of the most valuable lessons I learned while I was working in Corporate Finance was how to respond to an e-mail when I was upset.  The best piece of advice I received was to wait 24 hours to respond, after I calmed down.  Sometimes I would frantically type up a response to someone, carefully crafting each point to make my argument.  When I was done venting and blowing off steam, I would save the e-mail in my Drafts folder and come back to it the next day.  When I re-read the e-mail, 99% of the time, I realized I was overreacting in my initial reaction and I deleted the draft.

I thought of this experience on Monday when I started planning this week’s blog post.  I originally planned to write about some of my favorite comfort movies and some developments in the movie industry.  Instead, I thought I could let that idea sit for a week – I wanted to write about the events of this past weekend and Monday, in particular.  When I started thinking about everything I wanted to say in this post, I started becoming angry about a lot of things.  Angry that we still have evil people in positions of power in this country who could commit heinous crimes.  Angry that there are millions of people in this country who do not feel safe and even worse, feel a sense of desperation that nothing will ever change.  Angry that peaceful protests were tainted by violent mobs who were looting and destroying property, and committing violent acts against innocent bystanders and police officers.  Angry that the media spent a disproportionate time broadcasting the violence at these protests (never forget the old media adage – “If it bleeds, it leads”) instead of highlighting the peaceful protestors and those emotional moments where police officers came together with them to say “We are not all like those officers in Minnesota and we want things to change too” – these exchanges often ending with embraces and officers marching with the protestors.  Angry with politicians taking advantage of people suffering to score political points instead of using their positions to enact meaningful change.  Angry that this country is getting worse and worrying about the world my kids will be living in for the next ten or twenty years.  I became so angry that I decided I might regret what I would write, so I decided to wait a few days before starting this week’s post.

Listen And Learn

One of the best life lessons I ever learned was that not every problem can be fixed immediately and sometimes you need to be quiet and listen to someone when they are explaining their problems.  You don’t need to come up with a solution to solve their problem in the moment – you can help them just by listening, empathizing, and quite simply – being there to comfort them.  That was a tough lesson for me because in order to manage a busy professional career, I became a maniacal “to-do list” person.  It’s how I am wired – even after leaving the Corporate world, I am still a “list” person in my personal life.  When you manage your life like this, you feel a sense of accomplishment and happiness when you can solve a problem, cross it off your list, and move on to the next task.  The trouble with having this type of personality is that not all problems or tasks can be solved immediately or easily.  My tendency is to look at what is wrong and come up with a solution to fix it.  That’s where my mind was going on Monday.

What I have been reflecting on the last few days is that I need to listen more and I need to learn.  I need to empathize with people who are suffering.  I may have ideas on my head with what could be fixed, but I am in no position to be able to provide recommendations.  I am the textbook definition of “white privilege” and cannot relate to what someone who is suffering is going through.  We all have biases in how we think – some are conscious and some are unconscious – but we all have them.  I am looking for resources who can make me smarter – writers, podcasters, filmmakers, activists, business leaders, and yes, even (some) politicians.  Speaking of which, while watching coverage of the protests and riots and reading as much as I could to follow what was happening, I stumbled upon the speech given by Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Friday night as the riots intensified in her city.  She implored the people who were causing chaos on the streets of Atlanta to go home because they were not helping and they were destroying the community.  The following comment resonated the most with me “If you want change in America, go and register to vote…show up at the polls in November.  That is the change we need in this country.”  You can watch the video here. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am a movie fan and my love of film has been expanded over the last year, largely by the podcast “The Big Picture.”  On Tuesday, the podcast host (Sean Fennessey) announced that they were not releasing an episode this week and suggested to his listeners that they watch the 2017 film Strong Island, and listen to the interview Sean did with the film’s director, Yance Ford.  The film tells the story of the murder of Ford’s brother, a 24 year-old African-American, and the impact it had on their family.  I watched the film and listened to the interview this week and it was eye-opening for a few reasons.  While the murder provides the framework for the film, the story is really about the family and how the lack of prosecution for the murder is a microcosm of so many things wrong in this country.  What struck me about the interview is that even though it was conducted in February 2018 (after the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary), the conversation could have taken place last week.  In talking about the racial problems in this country, Ford and Fennessey discussed how things had not changed, despite numerous events over the previous decades.  And here we are, two years after that interview, back in the same place.  It was both revelatory and very sad to hear. 

Later in the week, I decided to watch Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee’s 1989 film about escalating racial tensions on a hot summer day in Brooklyn.  I had never seen this movie, but had it on my list, along with some of Lee’s other movies, to watch ahead of the release of his new film next week.  Watching the end of the movie, when one of the characters (Radio Raheem) is choked to death by police officers breaking up a fight that leads to a riot, was chilling – this movie was made over 30 years ago, and we are still dealing with these issues in this country.  On a podcast recorded in August 2019 discussing the film, Wesley Morris (the film critic for the New York Times) described the film as “a perfect movie about an imperfect problem – America’s biggest problem – that America is never going to solve.”  It’s a profound statement about the movie, and unfortunately, an accurate statement about the state of our country.  Lee made a short film this week, weaving together footage of the murders of George Floyd and Eric Garner with Raheem’s murder from the movie, referring to them as “three brothers”.  When we have contentious times in our country, our tendency is to say “This too shall pass” – I for one hope that the momentum toward change will continue, in a peaceful manner, beyond the dying down of memes on social media, until we see meaningful change from the people running our country, states and cities across America.  Speaking of which….

Everyone Has A Boss

We’ve all had experiences with people who cannot do their job effectively.  Sometimes the job got too big for them and they couldn’t rise to the occasion.  I recently started a book about the mobilization efforts in the United States ahead of World War II.  I am only about halfway through the book (it is very long, detailed and somewhat academic), but it has been very instructive to see the enormity of what the country faced in preparing for the war.  There was a massive effort across government, business, unions, manufacturing, and everyday life that impacted every American.  It wasn’t smooth sailing for President Roosevelt – he faced a lot of opposition to support Europe in the war efforts and it wasn’t until the attack on Pearl Harbor that the country rallied around a common cause.  Despite the changing sentiment, winning the war required a monumental effort from millions of people and fortunately, Roosevelt rose to the challenge in leading the country through a historically difficult time. 

Other times I have seen people fail in their job right from the beginning.  It wasn’t a good fit and was a poor decision to put that person in the job in the first place.  My sister compared it to an organ transplant – sometimes the body rejects the organ.  My former boss used to say, “It’s ok to fail, but fail fast and fail smart, especially when it comes to talent.”  The gist of it was this –we all make mistakes, but when it comes to people on your team, especially in leadership positions, fix the problem fast and don’t make the same mistake twice.

When people are not effective in their jobs, they are held accountable by their boss and they are replaced.  Everyone has a boss – even the highest ranking person in an organization.  CEOs are held accountable by the company’s Board of Directors, who are held accountable by the company’s owners (the shareholders).  Public officials have a boss too – that’s us, the voters.  And when they can’t do their job effectively, it’s the voters’ job to replace them.

I’ve said before in this blog that I have no affiliation to either political party.  I think there are effective leaders and ineffective leaders in both parties.  Usually when I am deciding who to vote for, it’s a choice of who “least offends me”, not necessarily “who I believe in.”  We are (literally) facing unprecedented times in our country – a global pandemic, over 40 million people unemployed, and social division not seen in fifty years.  Choices we make this year are incredibly important and I keep coming back to a concept I strongly believed in during my professional career – establishing the right culture as a leader.

When you are leading a large organization, you cannot (literally) do all the work.  That’s obvious – you rely on your team.  It’s the leader’s job to set the strategy and the culture.  People watch what their leaders are doing – the tone comes from the top.  That phrase is not a cliché.  It’s true – I’ve seen it in action.  A valuable lesson I learned from the leaders I worked for was this – you can have the best strategy, but if you don’t have a strong culture, you will fail.  It takes a team of people aligned with a common culture to achieve its goals.  Our culture in this country right now is a mess.  Now is not the time for hate and division.  We need leaders who will bring caring, empathy and unity to this country.  We don’t need to agree on every political issue – that’s not realistic.  But we need to agree on one thing – that we will treat each other with caring and respect – it’s common sense and common decency.  Let’s start with that and go from there.

Every path forward starts with one step.

Election Day is only 151 days away.  We’ve already made it 1,305 days since the last election.  We can make it the rest of the way and make it better in this country. 

Don’t lose hope.

Thank you for reading.