A Bright, Shiny New Year

As I was working on my annual plan for 2017, my daughter asked me why I spend so much thinking time on planning my commitments and aspirations (others call them resolutions) every year.  I told her if you don't set priorities, how do you know you're spending your time on the right things?

I love the feeling of a whole Bright Shiny New Year stretching out before me filled with possibilities and opportunities.  I love the luxurious feel of thinking about how best to use that wide expanse of time.  New Year's is my favorite holiday, in fact.  Not for the party scene but for the pleasure of this process.  I tend to start the process by setting a theme.  An overarching idea that encompasses and unifies the individual goals and aspirations.  

Last year the theme was "More" as I committed to finding ways to say "yes" to more things and enlarging my span of impact and influence.  This year the theme is "Integration."  By Integration I mean having seamless transitions and flow between all aspects of my life - removing all barriers that consume time and energy with no value.  

Once the theme is in place, I begin thinking about the individual Commitments, the things I am committed to accomplishing or doing and Aspirations, the results I will achieve through my Commitments.  I believe the reason Resolutions have a bad rap and a high failure rate, is because most people focus on the outcome first - I want to lose 10 pounds or save $10,000 or improve a relationship without thinking through the actual changes they will need to make to achieve them.  The first focus should be on the inputs - the things you are actually Committed to getting done.  Going to the gym 3x per week or cutting out the weekly Amazon purchases or spending 30 minutes every day with your spouse after dinner to reconnect.  The Commitments are what you are going to do.  The Aspirations are the whys.  

I think the other reason for the high failure rate is that most people make a big list without first having an Accountability system in place.  How do you know you are keeping on track if you aren't monitoring your progress?  People don't track out of the gate, get too far behind and give up before January is over.  Having your Accountability process ironed out starts before you even set your first Commitment.  I have found that this annual process has actually strengthened my ability to hold myself accountable in all areas of my life.  Discipline is like a muscle, you have to work it to make it strong.  Start small if you need to with a small number of Commitments.  You can add more once you have improved your ability to be disciplined in what you are setting out to do. Large Commitments should be broken up into daily or weekly goals.  If you can't break a goal up into smaller bite sizes to track, the likelihood of falling off plan is high.  

There are a lot of tools and techniques to use that can help with transparency and accountability.  These apps are great for transparency - the key to accountability. I have tried many.  The one I have settled on is Strides.  It is a great app - flexible enough to track all sorts of Commitments - time-based, numerical, etc. It is also easy to use with a beautiful UI.  I have it on the home page of my phone and iPad.  I start every morning by marking my performance against my Commitments.  

And 2017, this Bright, Shiny New Year is off to a great start.

Maybe too Much Empathy Isn't a Good Thing

Google "empathy" and "leadership" and here are just some of the first page links you will find.

"Why The Empathic Leader is the Best Leader"  Success
http://www.success.com/article/why-the-empathetic-leader-is-the-best-leader

"Empathy: A Critical Skills for Effective Leadership" Bounce Back Higher
http://bouncebackhigher.com/articles/empathy-a-critical-skill-for-effective-leadership/

"Why We Need More Compassionate and Empathetic Leaders" Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201608/why-we-need-more-empathetic-and-compassionate-leaders

"Why the Empathetic Leader is the Best Leader"  Lolly Daskal, Lead from Within
http://www.lollydaskal.com/leadership/whats-empathy-got-leadership/

"Empathy in Leadership: 10 Reasons Why it Matters" Tanveer Naseer

http://www.tanveernaseer.com/why-empathy-matters-in-leadership/

"Empathy is the Hottest Trend in Leadership" Time-Money

http://time.com/money/4376423/empathy-leadership-trend/

 The concept of empathy had been put forth as the answer to crime, violence of all sorts, political conflicts and all manner of ill.  Obama perhaps started the trend with his 2007 presidential campaign where he highlighted the "empathy deficit" as the most pressing problem facing America.  Some even attributed his re-election in 2012 to empathy, stating that  he one specifically because he and the Democratic Party were more successful at expressing empathy than Mitt Romney and the Republicans. (Barack Obama quotes about empathy - http://www.azquotes.com/author/11023-Barack_Obama/tag/empathy).

Whenever a concept or idea reaches such levels of hyperbole in the popular media - just look at the language in those titles to see it - Hottest trend, Best, Critical - I generally begin to ask "what if the opposite is true."  In our culture, it is usually just a moment in time until such powerful "no brainer" trends are met with opposing arguments and forceful backlash.  And so it was with the empathy movement.  One of the first salvos I read "Against Empathy, The Argument for Rationale Compassion" by Paul Bloom.  (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CY2LCZI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) is a witty "plane ride" read and is provocative with some powerful ideas sparking contemplation.

Bloom's thesis is that empathy is biased, innumerate, parochial and irrational. It leads us astray and foils our efforts to make rational moral decisions.  In fact he makes the case that some of the most important decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy can distort our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage.  

Bloom argues that compassion instead of empathy (turns out there is a difference) leads to a much better decision making process.  Bloom defines emotional empathy—feeling another’s pain. vs. non-empathetic compassion which is a more distanced love and kindness and concern for others. Bloom is a big fan of compassion if not so much empathy. He makes the point that kindness and altruism are proven to be associated with all sorts of positive physical and psychological outcomes, including a boost in both short-term mood and long-term happiness. If you want to get happy, Bloom argues that helping others is an excellent way to do so.  Empathy, on the other hand, can be draining and lead to burn out and exhaustion.

But larger than the impact on the individual, Bloom argues that it makes the world overall a worse place.  Empathy in the moment blinds us the long-term consequences of our actions.  So where empathy is an emotional and knee-jerk response to a situation close at hand, compassion can be logically reasoned - taking into account future generations, cold calculation and cost:benefit analyses.

In his book, Bloom looks at this empathy vs. compassion comparison from the perspective of public policy, charitable giving and personal relationships.  He did not apply his logic to the professional environment or to leadership situations.  I would argue that it is just as applicable to think about the difference between "rationale compassion" vs. "empathy" as we lead our teams at work.  Bloom claims that "empathy distorts our moral judgments in much the same way the prejudice does," both are emotional reactions and both lead to sub-optimal decisions.  It is easy to see how leaders passionate about their teams, their companies and their colleagues could get caught up in an emotional response to a peer's failures or personal struggles or a customer's frustration.  Bloom argues that it would be better to apply the cool logic of reason in the service of dispassionate but real compassion - weighing the odds, running the numbers, assessing the ramifications, aiming for a greater good - rather than the heat of an emotional empathy seeking to provide relief in the near-term to ourselves and our colleagues with short-term solutions.

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Paul Bloom, 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CY2LCZI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Harper Collins