spodek

First, the problem determines the solution. A team without leaders isn't better or worse. It's different. When one mode works better, use it. When the other, use the other. When something else, something else.

Second, the article shifts back and forth between leadership and management. I just posted to my blog about the difference, with a picture of an apple and an orange. While they overlap, they aren't the same. By no means am I suggesting one is better, only that big enough jobs require both.

Managers use skills like analysis, planning, record-keeping, and organization on readily measurable things, facts, figures, observable deliverables, and timelines. A successful manager creates compliance. Well-managed teams get the job done.

Leaders use skills like listening, vision, support, charisma, and credibility on intangibles, emotions, beliefs, stories, images, and symbols. A successful leader inspires. Well-led teams love their work.

Managers work in the system, improving it to meet the values and goals driving it, making it more efficient.

Leaders work on systems, adjusting them, leading them to align with values and goals they miss.

Managers use incentives—carrots and sticks—based on the outcome desired.

Leaders help others do what they already want to but haven't figured out how based on attracting and enlisting people whose goals and values align with the team and role.

Managers react to the values and goals set by leaders.

Leaders are proactive, figuring out what values and goals to prioritize.

A manager's skills transfer between companies and industries. A manager can succeed without caring about what the team does. Managers get people acting. An effective manager gives people the satisfaction of a job well done.

A leader must do what he or she leads others to. A leader believes in the cause. He or she can rarely succeed at leading what he or she doesn't care about, but the passion a leader feels for a cause makes the work rewarding and inspiring. An effective leader makes that inspiration infectious.

Well-managed, poorly-led teams and people may feel obliged to work hard at something they don't care about. They may work for material rewards but not value them. They measure their success by how much they do. Well-led, poorly-managed teams and people may feel inspired and passionate but not know what to do. They may feel frustrated with a present inferior to a future vision they aren't moving toward. They may lack a meaningful measure of success.

Well-led, well-managed teams and people embrace the challenges and use the problems of today to motivate and propel them to a future they love by creating effective strategies and plans and acting effectively. They measure their success by how much they reach their potential.

Here's my blog post https://joshuaspodek.com/management-versus-leadership, but it's basically the above.

Nothing beats reducing consumption.

I consider feedback a gift, so appreciate it. As the podcast has grown into a non-profit, which we plan to spin off to its own site, I plan to simplify my personal site. I expect to resolve such issues in the simplification.

This article is like a biological description of how muscles grow. People interested in getting stronger will benefit more from an exercise plan. They still have to exercise, but at least they'll know what to do.

If your interest is developing your empathy and other social skills, the answer is through practice, as with any other performance-based skills. You can develop empathy with practice, just like charisma, patience, listening, and so on.

I teach and coach leadership, having had to learn it from scratch after a PhD (physics) and MBA, only taught me theory, not practice, and starting several companies showed me the value of leadership skills, not how to lead. I wrote a book version of the course that gives the exercises to learn the social skills relevant for leading oneself and others. The preface is on my page: https://joshuaspodek.com/leadership-step-by-step, which develops this concept more. As usual posting about my books here, if anyone is interested in reading it or doing its exercises but money gets in the way, contact me and we'll work something out.

> Never Use Google to Sign-In

Never Use Google.

> Humans live in symbiosis with the sea.

The relationship sounds more parasitical than symbiotic. I see how we benefit at its expense. What do we do that benefits it, and do those benefits outweigh how much we trash it? I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem close.

I predicted based on what people are throwing away that cars will become disposable and landfills will fill up with them https://joshuaspodek.com/prediction-cars-will-become-disposa....

We keep not thinking of the unintended side effects so I hope we consider the end of life for these things. I suspect plenty of externalities aren't factored into the cost that the public will have to bare.

If you don't live near a farmers market, consider helping organize to start one. Do not accept the situation handed to you. You will find others who want fresher produce, to help their neighbors, and all the benefits of community.

The farmers markets others others live near didn't pop out of nowhere. They took time and energy. They return far more value.

Glad to see the project but not sure how I would use it. I'm friends with the founder of Litterati, but even that app is too much trouble for me to use. I don't bring a phone when I plog.

Still, I value tracking since it's fun and I think would motivate people. If my experience or practice can help, I'd be happy to.

No meaningful anecdotes since we mostly just talk.

Typical topics:

- They ask why I do it

- They tell me how the others are at the ends of their ropes but that I couldn't understand that situation without being there

- They call me good a lot.

- They tell me how others litter but never themselves.

- They tell me I should use gloves (I don't because I'm avoiding creating more trash)

- They tell me how the people who are supposed to clean don't clean that well

- Of course, they ask if I want to buy drugs or at least buy them dinner from a food truck

None of them ask me about my life, my values, etc. No meaningful connections. Just chit-chat. We'll see if things evolve.

I recently passed day 1,300 of picking up at least one piece of trash per day. It's not my only civic contribution, but it's deeply rewarding. I've also switched from jogging to plogging.

Some results:

It's gotten me on TV a couple times.

It's led to working with my city councilman, whose team recently started organizing group pickups.

Someone considering a Senate run contacted me for advice on sustainability.

I'm working with a few corporations to organize nationwide pickup events -- mainly fitness places you'd probably know the names of.

As a regular in my local park, the drug dealers there have become friendly with me, leading to long conversations about life.

I'm friends with entrepreneurs in the field.

People often thank me and we talk.

It reinforces my diet. I avoid packaged food, which I find increasingly disgusting, largely for what the packaging does to the world and the entitlement, willful ignorance, and salt/sugar/fat/convenience addiction does to our culture.

Most of all, I feel connected to my community.

On the downside, my view of human nature can get dark when I consider how much people pollute.

> Micromanagement, when used in the context of a business, is a situation in which managers (or anyone responsible for leading other people) are overly controlling of work or processes.

The key word in that definition is "overly" and the measure of over, under, or just right amount of control is the person being managed -- what works or doesn't work for that person.

None of the behaviors the article listed are good, bad, right, or wrong in the abstract. If the person responds positively to very firm management and asks for it, it's not micromanaging. For another person, very light management may be too much.

How do you find the optimal amount? Partly by asking, partly by observing, partly by experiment.

Bottom line: management (and leadership) is a human-human interaction. What works is based on the person you intend to manage (or lead).

Or they suck, depending on whom you mean by "they".

You're in for a world of discovery. Here is just a start: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=escher&atb=v173-1&iax=images&ia=im...

It's remarkable how the personality and ethics of founders (or early investor in Musk/Tesla) appear in how a company behaves, as in Zuckerberg/Facebook and Newmark/Craig's List for other examples.

This community is so quick to embrace new technologies and so dismissive of unintended side effects. We cringe at DDT dumps but loved it at the time. Do we not expect similar unintended side effects from other things this community endorses like fusion or seeding the atmosphere with reflecting materials?

We do this to Earth and we think we'll do better on Mars?

> plenty of regular walking unlocks the cognitive powers of the brain like nothing else

This view implies not walking is normal and walking is something you can go out of your way to do to improve on normal.

I prefer viewing walking as normal and not walking as aberrant, so I would say "not walking destroys cognitive powers of the brain like nothing else."

People are free to define normal how they want. I find my way motivates more walking and less sedentariness.

You're saying what we've been saying about the environment for generations. Plastic replacing elephant tusk for billiard balls and cars replacing horses filling streets with dung made such small impacts and provided such benefit. Who would have imagined we'd fill the oceans with plastic and the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, among other waste problems?

Maybe these unintended side effect are worth considering more than we think.

While the article has you thinking of stopping listening to the voices keeping you comfortably complacently lacking meaning and purpose, consider that the pattern and lessons apply beyond one's personal life to acting on the biggest problems of society too -- mainly choosing to act in stewardship for the environment. People expect it will be a burden, a chore, ineffective, and separate them from family an income, as the article implied it its context. Likewise, the opposite happens.

Didn't mention what I consider the biggest blow to the arts: our educational system's teach-to-the-test ethos quashing children's innate tendency to create. Adults' tendencies are quashed too, probably more by lack of leisure time, spreading thin of in-person community, distracting environment, financial insecurity, and unhealthy diet.

We can dance around it all we want, but we will always arrive at human overpopulation contributing to all our environmental problems. We can fool ourselves that lowering birth rates mean lowering population. We can fool ourselves that stabilizing the population hides that we are using more than the Earth can sustain, which will lead to population collapse. We can fool ourselves that human nature requires growth yet many civilizations have stabilized populations for centuries and nations like Thailand went from 7 children per couple to under 2 in a few years purely voluntary (think the opposite of the One Child Policy, no forced abortions or sterilizations). We can fool oursleves that efficiency will lower our waste to sustainable levels.

We can fool ourselves that rich nations won't feel it as much, but it will hit us just as much eventually.

This community is so quick to split atoms, fuse atoms, and rocket to Mars. If we can do those things, we can globally provide the contraception and education that leads to 1.5 children per couple for a few generations, which will bring our population to sustainable.

I did a couple video essays on the book that quote that passage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLAvBiols2Y and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4NZdciDozI.

The passage about the fish comes 45 seconds in to the first video in a NY Times quote from it, then the quote in context from the book at 5:15, though I recommend watching both videos and reading the book whole.

If interested in the Earth before humans exploded onto the scene, I recommend The Once and Future Earth by JB MacKinnon. http://www.jbmackinnon.com/books.html

I had no idea what we'd lost -- about 90%. North America had more large animals than Africa. Sailing ships in the middle of the Atlantic would grind to a halt from the density of fish. Whales as far as the eye could see all day. Beautifully written.

By exporting a lot of industry, we pollute more, just other people's water.

> What are some other professional duos?

Car Talk.

I went twice. I posted a bunch of videos http://joshuaspodek.com/summary-of-north-korea-videos. That post also links to the top ten of many posts I wrote on the experience. I studied strategy so wrote a book describing my view on why North Korea remains so stable for so long and why there seems no way out no matter how powerful someone attempting change may be, though I suggested a few ideas https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006PMDXTM (self-published, not scholarly, but I think I shared a few meaningful insights).

It's like walking into 1984 the book. Nobody who visits believes we're seeing the country as people there live it. You go where they let you, though we did take a detour when a road was blocked and saw parts of Pyongyang outsiders don't get to which felt like seeing the back of a movie set where you see behind the facades. Everyone in the group wanted to take pictures but we all agreed not to for the sake of our guides.

Since I tend to look for similarities, not differences, I was more curious to see how people lived under such a different culture, so disconnected. My two biggest takeaways

1. A greater sense of empathy for all people for seeing how similar people were under the most disconnected culture I've come across

2. Culture shock hits you when you return, seeing things that used to seem normal from a new perspective. Seeing Times Square after seeing their giant statues of their semi-divine Great Leaders. I still can't shake seeing Times Square as a bigger sanctuary that we kneel to, representing a comparable submission, devotion, subjection, and permiation into our lives and minds.

One could equally ask what is history, art, sports, etc. The answers mathematicians give seem partly interesting, but also, to me, imply insecurity -- that they have to justify to others that everyone should learn it. Not many other subjects suggest needing justification. Meanwhile, kids teach themselves math in self-directed learning environments https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201004....

Up to high school they taught it to me by textbook, mainly teachers who didn't know or care about it. I found beauty in it and loved it despite them. I suspect if we taught it less relying on authority and grades, more engaging and based on curiosity, we'd appreciate it more. Instead of asking what it is, we'd do it.

Even people who don't play music don't ask what it is, like it doesn't need to exist. They probably would if we just taught music theory from textbooks but not singing and dancing.

Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for the green revolution and understood the misguidance of efficiency as a strategy better than anyone. As a tactic it works under the strategy of managing population, as he said in his acceptance speech:

> "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only. . . Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the “Population Monster”. . . Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth."

We haven't curbed population growth. It's slowing, but we're in overshoot, which leads to collapse, and most projections still show us growing through 2100.

Luckily, have examples like Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand, who helped lower their population growth from around 7 children per couple to below 2 through voluntary means -- think the opposite of China's One Child Policy -- leading to greater stability and abundance. His TEDx talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/mechai_viravaidya_how_mr_condom_ma....

Not a gamer, but sounds like the makings of a game that might teach some biology too. I wonder how they'd render the fighting.

> The environment is not an immediate effect.

Every Day 10,000 People Die Due To Air Pollution From Fossil Fuels: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/03/10/every-da...

WHO reveals 7 million die from pollution each year in latest global air quality figures: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...