Continuing the theme of not knowing / unknowing from yesterday . . .
My favorite part of late July has been a shift that I’ve noticed in my son, who is just starting out his journey as a teenager.
Lately, he’s been asking me lots of questions. An easy 300% more than usual and none of them having to do with screen time or his next meal.
As we weave up the switchbacks on our way from Lloyd Road to the Highlawn Pavillion on our way to West Orange . . .
How do you know your way around all these secret backroads? How did you learn about them?
As we ease onto and off 280 West or East . . .
“How did these roads get these names, and why are so many of the names numbers?
As we pass an ice pack back and forth on the couch, from my foot (running) to his leg (soccer), and he clicks the TV from the Democratic debates to WWE Smackdown . . .
Why are these the people who are running for President? Is this real? Do you think that hurts?
As we wait for yesterday’s pizza to heat up in the oven . . .
Why is milk a sponsor of the Olympics?
Though I can’t answer most of these questions, I love them so much. They wake me up to the life around me, show me a young man starting to crawl out of himself and into the world, and remind me that we often know each other best when we wrap our arms around what we don’t know, solvable or not, sayable or not. We have no clue. And that’s just fine.
Just make a left, there, at that fence near the pine . . .
I suppose one way to judge a week, and one’s inquiries during that week, is to make a list of the words or phrases that you had to look up or, as my kids would say, search up. So far this week, here’s my word cloud of unknowing:
Phase transition
Infill site
UTM code
I’m not going to define these terms for you because, depending on the kind of week you’re having, searching them up could be just what you need.
When planning and dealing with all the problems and possibilities inherent in any given week, ask yourself:
Am I the agent or the actor?
Being the agent requires you to ensure the conditions for someone else’s performance. You need to market the show, check the lighting and sound before the show, coach the actors where necessary and in the right ways, manage the audience, and deal with all the unexpected things that happen up to and through showtime.
Being the actor requires you to bring your full self / energy / attention to a situation. You need to ensure that you are well trained, well rested (or as a runner would say, appropriately tapered), fueled, and clear headed.
Look at your big events or meetings for the week and apply the Agent or Actor lens. See if that makes a difference in how you approach your work and the way things unfold.
Thus far, I’ve expressed Make Yourself Clear gratitude to Jason Wingard, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University, and Keri Potts, Senior Director of Communications for ESPN. Today, I’m turning my attention to Owen Jennings, Product Lead at Cash App, a mobile payment service developed by Square.
I met Owen when he was a high school student who would ask me questions that routinely exposed the limits of my knowledge. For example, he once walked into my office and said, “I’ve been comparing a few respective citation system, and I have some questions about inconsistencies I have found.” And then he walked through them, item by item, my curiosity rising along with his as I said, “I don’t know . . . let’s find out . . . you’ve stumped me . . . that’s interesting.”
I followed his career as he moved from studying philosophy and researching health care in college to working for Ray Dalio at Bridgewater to ultimately falling in with the finance arm — Square — of Jack Dorsey’s business interests. When people heard about those transitions, they frequently scratched their heads, but they all made sense to me. Owen Jennings is one of the most indiscriminately intelligent people I have ever met.
What I mean by that is simpler than it sounds. Regardless of the topic or problem, he rises to it with vigor and questions. Could be Sartre; could be scooter-sharing systems in San Francisco. He likes to take things apart so that he can understand them. He likes to know how the world works, and he knows that you can get there, to deeper understanding of the world, through a variety of pathways. Citation systems, philosophy, health care, economics — there’s really no need to compartmentalize. All puzzles strengthen the enigmatologist; and all solved puzzles improve all unsolved puzzles. Or at least that’s what Jennings continues to teach me as he continues to introduce me to things that make me say, “I don’t know . . . let’s find out . . . you’ve stumped me . . . that’s interesting.”
When Reshan and I spoke to him while writing our book, he seized most quickly and directly on the concept of Immediacy, which we define as “what happens when a transaction occurs at a time when it is most meaningful and helpful for all parties.” In fact, Jennings said that Immediacy was “top of mind” when his company was building one of its most innovative products, Boost.
Boost allows customers to receive instant discounts from debit card purchases. In our book, Jennings offers a deep look (or, rather, as deep as our editor would ultimately allow him to go!) at what are called “rewards programs” associated with credit and debit cards. In so doing, he explains the way in which Boost is using Immediacy to improve transactions, by improving rewards, between paying customers and brands. To simplify greatly, when a customer earns a Boost on a product like, say, Chipotle, he or she receives an instant discount, eliminating the usual game of accruing points and ultimately trading them in. The brand, in this case, Chipotle, also benefits in terms of customer acquisition and retention.
Jennings helped us to understand how Immediacy is serving as an operating principle for some of the most innovative products and services currently available. As is his way, though, he also helped us to understand a completely different aspect of our work — Authenticity — when he went off on a tangent about how customer service is changing in many industries due to excessive automation. We included that excerpt in the Authenticity section of the book because it was simply too good to leave out of the final manuscript. Which is a good way to think of Owen Jennings more broadly, and across the variety of fields he inhabits.
Below is some of the art that has appeared on the Cash App Twitter page on Fridays. I’m including it because I’ve mentioned the first two sections of our book and not the third. The third section is about Delight. Here’s some:
As people have read and reacted to Make Yourself Clear, we have been building out a page on the book’s website to show a chapter-by-chapter progression. Here’s a quick invitation if you’re up for it.
Send us your own reaction to a chapter (or to what has already been said about a chapter). We’d love to include more voices on the page, which if you haven’t clicked on it yet, looks like this:
Reshan and I recently interviewed an incredibly productive professor. He has written a dozen books, many of them the leading textbooks in his field, is often voted the “best” professor at the business school where he teaches, serves as an advisor to businesses and entrepreneurs, and produces a blog and Youtube channel — both offering pure substance and no fluff –that routinely reach over a hundred thousand people. Though I’ll publish this interview before the summer’s end, here’s a piece of advice that won’t make the final cut. It’s one of the moves that make him so productive.
When you’re done with something, you just want to move on. I say, look, take the extra two or five minutes to make it usable on another front.
For example, when I write an email which is a long email that answers a question that I’ve been asked before, I copy and paste it into a document, which then helps me create something that I can put on my website as a “frequently asked question.”
It takes an extra two minutes, and I don’t want to do it. I’d rather move on, because I have other things to do, but that extra two minutes saves me god only knows how many questions I’ll get in the future on that particular issue.
So the next time you complete a task that produces a product, even a very small one, ask yourself a simple question: can I make this usable on another front? If the answer is yes, and it won’t take long, give it a shot. See if your output changes. See if your audience responds.
I recently listened to a good conversation between podcaster and athlete Rich Roll and Matthew Futterman, Deputy Sports Editor for the New York Times.
Futterman’s new book is about Bob Larsen, a legendary running coach and the driving force behind some of the most lasting innovations in the sport’s history.
At one point, Roll and Futterman talk about the way Larsen helped his athletes to move away from the daily grind of training that was the dominant ideology at the time. In short, he moved his athletes “off the track and onto the trails.” He taught them to run based on feel and to perform what, today, would be called “tempo” runs.
Surely, at the time, Larsen’s methods must have been questioned by both onlookers and perhaps his own athletes. He was cutting against the received wisdom of the day. (I’m looking forward to learning more once my copy of the book arrives.) When Futterman looks back, though, with the gift of hindsight and an inquiring mind, he is able to unpack exactly what made Larsen’s methods so useful for his runners.
The track and the pool are really, really good for one person. And that’s the coach. Because the coach can stand in the middle of the track, or can stand on the pool deck, and can have the watch and can monitor everything. But he or she is not the one going around in circles like a hamster all afternoon or going back and forth in the water all afternoon, slowly going mad. But when you get off the track or you get out of the pool it’s just, for obvious reasons, liberating. You feel free.
Of course this makes me think about the classroom . . . about teaching . . . about teachers.
If you’re a teacher, have you thought through your teaching methods or are you simply doing what you’ve always done? Are you simply teaching the way you, yourself, were taught or according to some form of received wisdom? Is the received wisdom even right?
One level deeper: Is what you’re doing in your classroom serving the needs — and instincts and intuitions — of the students in your care, or is it simply giving you a feeling of control. Is your practice serving you (or your administrators) or is it serving your students?
And, most important: is your teaching making your students feel more liberated, more free?
The classroom, it occurs to me, is often really, really good for one person. And that’s the teacher. Because the teacher can watch and monitor everything. But he or she is not the one going around in circles . . .
I can’t wait to read Futterman’s book because I know it will not only teach me about a sport that I love, but also broaden my perspective about teaching and learning. More on all of that later!
Last week at Teachers College, Columbia University, I presented a “KlingSalon” to 50 graduate students from the Klingenstein Center.
KlingSalon, the brainchild of Klingenstein Center Director, Nicole Brittingham Furlonge, is a series designed to bring school leaders together to listen, share, and wonder in community. I focused most of my planning energy on the latter — wonder and its close cousin, wander.
After introducing three key concepts from Make Yourself Clear— Authenticity, Immediacy, and Delight — I sent teams of participants into the surrounding school buildings and city. Each team was assigned a particular focus . . . and an option for exploration. (See the full assignment here.)
After a half hour outside the classroom and some storytelling inside it, I asked the individual students to translate the day’s experience into their local school contexts, to which they would return in late August. Though forced reflection isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time, I rarely like to leave a workshop without grounding it in the practical, which is different for every participant.
Some students generously shared their takeaways with me, along with some photos, and I grouped some excerpts below. It’s a simple, rough-cut story of what happens when a group of motivated learners are given some slight constraints and the freedom to explore the world around them.
It was really nice to explore with my colleagues. We were able to be both goofy and productive. [The exercise] hit the sweet spot that helped it to be a memorable educational and social experience. I often forget about the social part [of learning] and provide too much structure and individual siloing. This was a great reminder that less-structured group time can be really valuable.
I noticed that our deepest, most authentic interaction with strangers was enabled because of the time they invested in our interaction. Even though the women [we met] did not know the name of the statue [about which we were curious], they stayed with us and shared several anecdotes about the statue. They invested time from their day even after they knew they could not help us with our initial query.
“Nameless Bust”
In returning to my school, I will seek to be aware of the time I spend interacting and try to ensure it is beyond what is simply necessary. This will help create authentic interactions, regardless of context or topic and build deeper rapport across relationships.
What stood out to me today, and what I hope to bring back to my school, is the concept of immediacy. I am the director of student life and am responsible for coordinating medical leaves. Communication is key in these moments — communication with parents, with the student, and with advisors. Our faculty often [comment] that they do not have the information they need. I want to consider when communication should occur when it is most meaningful to them and to me. My sense is that [the faculty feels] it is too late. I may even explain how I prioritize my communication, so they understand why it is delayed.
One simple takeaway from today’s KlingStudio was the power of activities beyond the classroom. Getting outside creates a memorable learning environment and is a great way to break up the routine of the day. This type of activity is a great way to introduce topics like research, field studies, or interviews. As a teacher, I want to find more ways to invite fun into my classroom and find ways to engage students out of their seats. As a learner, it is a great way to think about what types of activities make us learn in creative ways. As a leader, I need to think about finding ways to break up the monotony of school and create something exciting for my faculty.
For me personally, I very much enjoyed getting out with people in my group. I haven’t been able to join in many activities with the cohort outside of classroom so this was a good experience for me with the group. This was low stakes and could be useful with faculty and advisories for bonding and reflecting on values and education. I could [also] translate this activity to the language classroom at many different levels to explore the linguistic landscape of a place
One thing I enjoyed was that by giving some structure, but not too much, you let each group do something that was organic for them. I appreciated that. My group chose a quiet walk and look around an old church, because one of our group members had been there before and wanted to share the experience. It gave us time to walk and talk as a group, and having even a loose focus, led us into a space of curiosity where we were asking questions and sharing stories.
As the leader of this particular learning experiment, I’m pleased to see the various unplanned — though certainly hoped for — ways that the participants will carry the work forward. I’m also pleased to see that the exercise helped, in some cases, the participants themselves to feel more connected to one another.
Last week I highlighted Jason Wingard’s contribution to Make Yourself Clear. Today I want to highlight Keri Potts, who shows up as a guiding light in our chapter “Communicating with Immediacy.”
Reshan and I met Potts, Senior Director of Communications for ESPN, at a conference for entrepreneurs. Being participants, we were assigned to small groups run by mentors. In each group session, a mentor shared his or her story and then asked us to share a problem or opportunity that was currently on our minds. He or she would then try to share actionable advice or broader coaching to help us figure out our next steps.
The first thing I noticed about Potts (one of our mentors) was the way she blended somewhat contradictory characteristics. When she entered our room, she was strong and charismatic; some might say she “owned the room” from the start. But she was also humble and respectful. As she told a few stories about her work at ESPN, she was candid and transparent about the difficulties of PR and marketing, and the ways in which relationships and luck often make a difference in an outcome. At the same time, she was authoritative and clear — someone who had put in the time and worked hard enough at a craft to ensure a rigor of process, again and again. She was funny and fun to be around, but also appropriately serious.
When Reshan and I were writing about the way immediacy has altered communication practices for businesses, we knew we had to call Potts. It seemed to us — and still does — that she is one of the foremost practitioners of crisis communication in a time when immediacy of information, factual or not, and fair or not, shapes the large scale understanding of events. In her typical fashion, when offering advice, Potts is both pragmatic and aware of the philosophical underpinnings of her craft.
The thing with immediacy that has changed in my industry is having to let go of the foundation that so many of us were brought up with. That is, doing things the right way — everything from getting people on-board, agreeing with the message and how you are going to approach it, [and thinking about] what is responsible, what is ethical — all those things. If you try to hold onto that now, it is the scenario of, “the operation was a success, but the patient died.”
In her section of our book, Potts was reluctant to offer black and white, do-this-and-it-will-work solutions. Instead, she offers something much more valuable — the endorsement of near constant struggle. Like sport itself, we learned from Potts, communication has to be advanced yard by yard, pitch by pitch, shot by shot, lap by lap. You may lose some games, especially when, “public opinion [goes] off and running” so quickly and “everyone is a town crier.” But if you proceed like Potts (or, if you’re ESPN, with Potts), you can expect to win seasons. You can weather bad press cycles, take the time to do things right, put in stopgap measures when necessary, and contain the kinds of contradictions and multitudes that ultimately make you seem fully human to your audience. Just like Potts.
Thank you, Keri, for lending your voice to our book.
I was silent (here) yesterday because I spent the better part of the day with students in the two-summer Master’s program at the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College. I plan to write up some notes — based on the students’ takeaways — but here’s the learning experiment / activity I asked them to complete. The idea was to use the heuristic from Make Yourself Clear to explore a local environment. The overarching question was, “Can I learn here?”
Walk around the school, library, or surrounding city (not more than a few streets in any direction). Your walk can be physical or digital, but stay with your group.
Engage with people, systems, space, etc. in an effort to gather information, goods, or services. (So as to reduce the cognitive load of the exercise, and allow you to focus on Authenticity, Immediacy, or Delight, here are some options. Option 1: Check out from the library 3 books about progressive teaching. Option 2: Find suggestions for Columbia schwag as gifts for a 9 year old and 11 year old. Option 3: Find five recommendations for dinner in the area. Option 4: Uncover the history of a statue or other “named” artifact within or outside of the building. Option 5: Choose your own adventure.)
As you complete the above transaction(s), take note of the way the experience relates to your assigned term. Is it authentic or inauthentic? Immediate or not? Delightful or not?
Work with your group to identify and document a story that you think will be most instructive for the full group, when you return to our room. Your documentation should be boiled down to a single digital image that you can share.
Share your documentation with Steve by either emailing him or Tweeting an image with the hashtag: #MYCxKLI
Return to the room by an agreed upon time and nominate one person from your group to serve as a storyteller who can explain the experience you selected and how it relates to the term you were assigned.
All the while, be thinking, in some deep recess of your mind, about how the overall experience relates to school leadership, learning, and teaching.
Refreshing Wednesday, LLC 