I read a terrific piece by Hannah Fry that women don’t excel at math because of sexism. Sexism! Not innate or learned ability. Sexism. When I was a kid, the culture “said” that women couldn’t do math. However, I had two immediate examples that women were great at math. My mom could remember duplicate bridge hands […]
How Can We Learn to Belong to New Communities? Read More »
I love shortcuts—especially if I’m not supposed to use them. Why can’t I avoid right-angle paths and use the hypotenuse instead? That saves me some time. Can I make my exercise easier? I can—and I too often lose the value of the exercise. So shortcuts aren’t always good or always bad. The context matters. Shortcuts
What Do You Gain or Lose with Shortcuts, Rules, and Laws? Read More »
The world feels more complex now, where the Big Issues of the Day create “interesting” times in our lives. Even planning for vacation often requires adaptability. We must be ready to toss those plans when the circumstances change. Some people tell me we need to “return” to simpler times. Or that we can use direct,
How Can We Embrace Complexity—and Stop Trying to Avoid It? Read More »
In the 1960s, the US passed a bunch of policies that created a time of much more opportunity for many kinds of people—including me. Because of the Civil Rights Act, and later, Title IX, I had more opportunities and freedom to take my place in the world. I could apply for a job that traditionally
What Opportunities Do You Have Now That You Did Not Back Then? Read More »
I learned something new this week, about falsifiable and non-falsifiable claims. When we use hypotheses to examine the world around us, we look for observations that can disprove that hypothesis. In other words, we want to see if we can make the experiment fail in some way, to understand more. As an example: Hypothesis: All
How Can We Honor Other People’s Values and Move to Falsifiable Claims? Read More »
For years, I was a terrible photographer. When I took pictures of Mark and the children, I often cut off the top of Mark’s head. That was back in the days of film cameras and I never quite understood how to frame pictures. Until we developed those pictures, I didn’t realize how narrow my focus
When Do You Choose to Narrow or Extend Your Focus? Read More »
CAL Newsletter: How Do We Plan for Both Cascading Effects and Catastrophic Success? I learned new words this week for events I’ve seen many times: catastrophic effects and catastrophic success. I’m sure you’ve experienced catastrophic failure. Here’s an example that’s happened to me too often over my career: a disk drive fails, taking all my data with it. I
How Do We Plan for Both Cascading Effects and Catastrophic Success? Read More »
I’ve been shopping for a dress to wear to my younger daughter’s wedding. (I’ll call her YD because that’s definitely not her name.) I have many criteria for a dress. Aside from flattering me, the dress has to work with my rollator. That means the dress can’t be chiffon. At OD’s (Older Daughter) wedding, I
How Do You Judge How Good Something Is? Read More »
I spoke with a treasured colleague, Alex, a couple of weeks ago. He told me he was so busy he couldn’t “find” the time to write. I asked about his family and the house. No, everyone’s okay. Cooking, cleaning, kids—all good. He’s not working out any more than usual. I then asked this question: “How
Do You Offer Your Attention to People Who Deserve It? Read More »
A colleague worries that his team wants to change too much about how they work, all at once. He said, “They have 47 ideas that they want to use, to change how they work.” I said, “47 seems like a lot.” He nodded. “I suspect there are 46 too many for now.” After we both
Do You Need to Focus or Harness Your Energy? Read More »