George Floyd

The tragedy of the homicide of George Floyd has triggered demonstrations throughout the United States and indeed the world.  There have been similar moments during my 80 years of life but somehow this time it feels different.  We may be witnessing the beginning of a significant change in American life.  I hope so.  I think most Americans feel that enough is enough and now is the time to begin to make changes.  Not just in policing but in other areas as well.  Today I heard Governor Cuomo say essentially that.  This is the time to "carpe momentum," to seize the moment.

Marilyn and I spent the weekend working out our feelings and ideas about this moment.  We did not feel comfortable going to any demonstration so we decided to express our view directly to our elected officials on the town, county, state and federal levels.  We did not waste paper or postage sending anything to the President which is sad but realistic.  Here is that letter.

As an about to be 80-year-old male and 69-year-old female, we have not been participating in the demonstrations occasioned by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  However, we do not want our absence from these demonstrations to silence our voices.  And so we write to you as one of our elected officials to ask you, what actions are you going to take to address four issues:  police violence, guns, racism and economic inequality?

The video of an officer sworn to protect and serve almost casually killing a citizen who posed no threat to himself, the officer or bystanders lives vividly and disturbingly in our memories.  When the EMT crew arrived, they dragged Floyd’s lifeless body as though he was roadkill.  They acted with the assurance and arrogance of impunity.  Because of a 17-year-old girl and her cell phone, the entire world has been able to witness this tragic interaction between police and citizen in a country which most of the world sees as a beacon of liberty.  We were horrified at what we saw, not because it has not happened before but because this time it was blatant, out in the open, and undeniable.  We do not want this done in our name, not ever.  

We also know that this has happened too often in the past several years to view it as an isolated incident; there is a systemic problem that goes well beyond individual police officers.  We want to believe that most police officers would condemn this and other instances of excessive force but this abuse of power may be more common than we know.  Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensive and transparent information on police use of force makes it difficult to know for sure.  We do know that as the interaction between militarized police and demonstrators increased, the acts of violence also increased and have made things worse, not better.

We believe this is not just about individual police officers who have acted illegally.  We ask those sworn to serve and protect us to do so in a society awash with guns of all kinds so that even a simple traffic stop can erupt into deadly gun fire.  We ask them to serve in a society with endemic racism which has become more visible in the last three years.  We ask them to protect us in a society riven by polarizing political differences which our political leaders have exacerbated rather than diminished.  We ask them to provide public safety in a society in which social and economic inequality has increased and predictably resulted in social and health disfunctions.  Beyond the need for justice in the Floyd case, we must begin to deal with these systemic problems

The fact that George Floyd was a black man has underscored the racial issues involved in policing.  As a white couple, we have never experienced what it is like to view police as dangerous protagonists.  However, we have no doubt that what our few black friends say about their experience is valid and true.   We have never had to have “the talk” with our children but if we or they were black, it would be irresponsible not to.  This is a deeply sad situation.

All this has happened during a pandemic which has impacted black and brown people and communities more severely than white people and communities.  Clearly income and economic inequality drives much of this impact, but that inequality is also driven by racism against people of color.  To be poor is one thing but to be poor because of your race is a death sentence.  

Police violence, gun ownership and control, racism and economic inequality are the foremost issues confronting our community.  Our national administration is incapable of providing any leadership—let alone “mature” leadership as General Mattis termed it.  As with the coronavirus, it is up to others to step forward and provide that leadership.

I ask that you publicly acknowledge these issues and describe the actions you will take to begin to address them.  Please do not suggest that we need to study these issues before we begin to change things.  There have been more than enough commissions and reports on these topics.  Recommendations have been made but rarely has there been the follow through required to change cultures and outcomes.  We ask you along with other elected officials to commit to concrete steps to begin the address these core issues.  

Governor Walz of Minnesota said, “I don’t think we get another chance to fix this.  I really don’t.”  This time must be the last time and you must step forward to provide the leadership we all need.  You will have our support in whatever way we can as you do this.

There are already initiatives underway in New York with state legislation to address some of the policing issues but more needs to be done in other areas.  The governor has publicly spoken of these issues and we look forward to actions to match his words.  At the federal level, Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation that will address some of the policing issues.  But again, much more remains to be addressed.  And simply introducing legislation, while a good step, does not change anything.  We intend to keep ourselves informed about these developments and to communicate our thoughts directly to our representatives.  Little or nothing has been done at the local level to recognize these issues and to respond with actions.  Again we will keep ourselves informed.

I encourage you to examine your own views on these issues of police violence, guns, racism and inequality.  I also encourage you to write those ideas down so you can communicate them to others.  To do that, however, you will need to do more than Tweets or Facebook posts.  It takes time and thought to work out your thoughts in a longer form but the exercise can help you think more clearly about what you really want to say.  I encourage you not to get caught in the trap of responding to others.  Focus on how you really feel and think about these issues.  It will be a rewarding process even if you never share the results.  But finally I encourage you to do exactly that.

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things...like characteristics of effective leaders

This is the third of three posts on leadership.  In the first, I wrote about my definition of leadership and in the second about the role of power in leadership.  In this one, I will be reflecting on the characteristics of effective leaders.  I defined leadership as influencing the behavior of other people in a way that fully respected their freedom and autonomy.  This may not be everyone's definition but it is the one that I have concluded best describes leadership, the kind of leadership we are sorely missing today.  People in formal leadership positions have the power to influence others based on the authority and prerogatives delegated to them by the organization.  But everyone has personal power bases deriving from their personal characteristics and capacities.  In general reliance on positional power alone is not an effective long term strategy for effective leadership.

Leadership has probably never been more important to our organizations and communities than it is today.  Our ability to take collaborative action has become central to our social and economic health.  Our notion of a leader as a strong individual who knows best, makes crucial decisions, and tells others what to do, is no longer consistent with our understandings of human behavior and our values of human dignity and freedom.  Our society’s mistrust of authority should not be confused with a mistrust of leaders.  We do and should mistrust leaders who do not respect our freedom and instead rely on authority, power, and manipulation.  We do and should mistrust leaders who are more interested in their personal success rather than the common good.  Our realization that leaders do not necessarily act in our best interests has made us less compliant to exercises of authority and more needful of true leadership.

Characteristics of Effective Leadership

Given these new realities, what can we say about true leaders, those who influence our behavior while fully respecting our freedom?  After four years of listening to graduate students reflect on their experience and to the leaders who shared their experience with us, I came to the following conclusions about the characteristics of leaders.  Think they are even more relevant today.

Leaders respect the dignity and worth of each follower

Two behaviors are key to this.  First, such leaders do everything possible to reduce status differentials in groups and communities.  Status based on socioeconomic factors and job titles can probably never be eliminated from human groups, but leaders must work to de-emphasize those differentials rather than emphasize them.  Second, leaders must make clear by their behavior that they value and respect all followers, especially those who are less powerful, less healthy, less educated, younger, older, poorer, less skillful in communication, and different in race, language, religion, gender or sexual orientation from the majority.

No leader can successfully influence the behavior of other people unless they trust the leader.  The cornerstone of that trust is the confirmed belief that the leader values each follower and is guided by what is fair to all.

Leaders are learners.

They learn from success, but they especially learn from their failures to which they freely admit.  Leaders are constantly searching for the truth; they are open to reality even when that reality does not accord with their notions of what reality is or ought to be.  They can see things as they are and they are not frightened of the change which that view of reality will cause in their own thinking.  Leaders are not ideologues, though dictators typically are.

Leaders empower their followers.

The simplest way to understand the notion of empowerment is to appreciate that everyone in a group or community exercises leadership - not just the formal leader.  This occurs in an environment in which leadership is not seen solely as something which the elites do to the rest, but in which everyone can legitimately exercise influence over others.  Leaders must work diligently to create such a climate and to arrange the group or societal processes to nurture the leadership potential of all members, especially those who might be traditionally excluded from leadership.  This is not as much a question of sharing power as it is of developing the capacity of each follower to influence the behavior of others.  If empowerment is only seen as sharing power, one is acting out of a model of leadership that relies on coercion and manipulation because leaders can only share their positional power.

Leaders have a vision of how things can be different and better.

By definition, leaders are concerned about change.  If one is trying to influence the behavior of another, one does so out of some dissatisfaction with the current or likely behavior of the other.  One seeks to change that person’s behavior.  The direction and content of leadership behavior must be guided by a vision of how things can be not just different but better.  That vision of how things can be better must have the following characteristics.  There must be an authenticity about the vision based on a clear consistency with the leader’s own personal values - not just espoused values, but values which can be clearly seen in the leader’s personal behavior.  That vision must be clearly communicated in both the words and the personal behavior of the leader.  That vision must be drawn from the values of the followers.  That vision must draw people together around the fundamental values which give meaning to the lives of the individual members.  A charismatic leader is not someone who creates a vision and then uses it to lead people, but rather someone who draws on the values and meanings of the followers to articulate a common mission that provides meaning and direction to the group.

Leaders include rather than exclude.

Ken Blanchard, the author of the One Minute Manager, has articulated the reason for inclusion by quoting from a poster in an elementary school.  “None of us is as smart as all of us.”  The individualism that is deep in the American DNA can lead us to think that the important contributions as made by super individuals acting alone.  The reality is that important contributions are made by people working in teams.  The more talented and motivated the members of the team, the more effective is the team's work.  Effective leaders must facilitate the contributions of all followers.  Only in this way will the group or community be able to identify its true interest and goals and be able to work effectively to achieve them.

Leaders do their homework.

Leadership is always task-specific.  Leaders influence other people about specific issues, challenges, behaviors.  To influence other people, therefore, leaders must do their homework on the issues or challenges.  Leaders must develop and understand information on the specific issue and must be aware of the attitudes and positions of those they desire to influence.  Leaders who do not do their homework often are forced to rely on raw authority and coercive power which moves them away from effective leadership.

Effective leaders must be able to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflict

The number and rate of cultural and technological changes that characterize our world require leaders whose intellectual outlook and personal character enable them to operate effectively in a confused and conflicted situation.  This ability to act in such situations communicates a sense of confidence and potency to followers.

Idealism and Pragmatism - A Necessary Combination

In short, effective leaders today can be characterized as pragmatic idealists.  They must have a clear sense of values about the importance of all individuals and have the skills and understanding needed to influence the behavior of others while fully respecting their freedom.  It is not enough to be a visionary.  It has often been observed that there is no shortage of people with good, even revolutionary ideas; there is a shortage of people with good ideas who are able and willing to do the hard, pragmatic work of putting those ideas into practice.  If I have a vision of how things ought to be, but I am not willing to engage in the work of leadership - listening, learning, empowering, taking risks, and driving relentlessly for real implementation - I will be irrelevant, a “hopeless idealist,” “a fuzzy-thinking liberal,” or worse.  On the other hand, if I am skillful at implementing ideas without a clear sense of direction, I will become a “technocrat,” able to get things done, but not knowing what things to do or not do.

Conclusion

Never before in my lifetime, I have felt the lack of effective leadership in most areas of our life:  church, business, nonprofit organizations, and government.  As it always is, a crisis highlights the failings of leadership.  As Warren Buffet has wisely observed, "You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out."  In the church, it was the sexual abuse coverups.  In business, it was the frauds and shady dealings leading up to the Great Recession of 2008.  In the nonprofit world, it was the financial misappropriation of funds and failure to protect children.  In government, it was the pathetic efforts of the clown car Trump administration to protect us from COVID-19.  Americans can and do disagree on politics and government policies but surely all Americans can agree that we deserve competent and effective leadership from those who would present themselves as leaders.  

I believe these characteristics of effective leadership should be the criteria by which we judge those who hold formal leadership positions:

Effective leaders

1. respect the dignity and worth of individuals
2. are constantly learning
3. empower followers and create a culture of leadership
4. have a vision of how things can be different and better and effectively communicate that vision
5. include rather than exclude
6. do their homework
7. effectively deal with ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflict
8. must be pragmatic idealists

These are the standards of leadership to which we as employees, citizens, members, and clients have a right.  As employees, members, and clients, we very often do not have a voice in the selection of those who would lead us.  But in government we do.  Elections and politics are our ways to have a voice in that selection.  Before we look at policies and partisan issues, we need to look at the quality of the leadership candidates will provide us.   This has never been more important.

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things...like leadership and power

In the previous blog, I wrote about our current need for leadership on all levels but especially at the federal.  I also defined leadership as the process of influencing others while fully respecting their freedom.  While crisis situations can call for quick and decisive decisions, long term change relies on influence so that followers engage in the desired actions because they want to and not because they are ordered to do so.  In this post, I will discuss "power" and its role in leadership as I have defined it.

  

At first glance, power seems incompatible with respecting the freedom and autonomy of followers.  Often our experience with those who hold power is they use it to compel obedience.  Power seems to inevitably lead to a command and control approach to leadership.  That probably says more about the leaders we have experienced rather than the nature of leadership.  Power is one of those words that have multiple meanings and uses.  It comes from the Latin" posse" which means "to be able."  Power is the energy that enables someone to exert leadership.  It is the engine of leadership.

If leadership is the attempt to influence others, then power is the leader's potential for leadership.  A  leader has assets to use in leadership.  These assets fall into two categories:  positional power and personal power.  Another word that is handy here is "base."  Someone seeking to influence others has two power bases:  positional and personal.    Positional power comes from one's role in an organization.  For example, if I am a Director of Marketing, I have authority delegated to that position.  Also, I have power based on the relative importance and status of that function.  If I report to the CEO, I have more clout than if I report to a Vice President.  These are ex officio powers that an organization, group, or country grants to those who hold positions independent of the abilities and talents of the incumbent.  We can assume that the best people are selected for every job and that the talents match the authority of the position.  However, we have all had enough experience to realize that this is not always the case.  This same analysis applies to national and local governments as well.  Election to an office confers power to the incumbent quite apart from that person's actual talents and experience.  We hope for the best but are often disappointed.

Positional power is a function of the authority inherent in organizations and their governing structures.  Sometimes this power is limited and at other times quite expansive.  It all depends on the level and importance of the position and urgency of any threat.  In a democratic society, no position has absolute and unlimited power.   Laws, social norms, unions and associations, organizational culture and values, professionalization, and a general distrust of authority limit the positional power of leaders.

There are four positional power bases.  Coercive power is the perceived ability to force people to act in certain ways.  This is the rawest form of power.  It is the power of a dictator in a well established dictatorial system but it exists in all types of organizations.  An order from your boss with the implied threat that you will be fired if you do not obey relies on coercive power.  If you believe that the threat will be carried out, your compliance is being coerced.  

Connection power is the perceived association with influential people or organizations.  If I have a connection with powerful people in the organization, I carry some of their positional authority even if I do not formally do so.  It was well known that there were several fiefdoms in the Ford Motor Company during the reign of Henry Ford II as chairman and CEO.  Key Vice Presidents had shadow organizations of loyal operatives throughout the company.  These operatives had power over others based on their relationship with their respective vice president even outside their "home" organization.  Their power was a function of the power of their sponsoring vice president.    

Reward power is the perceived ability to provide things people would like or need to have.  These include salary, bonuses, titles, plum assignments, office location, reserved parking, expense accounts.  The list is endless.  If you control the allocation of these resources, you have enhanced power to influence others by rewarding the behavior you desire and withholding resources to punish behavior you do not want.  Finally,  legitimate power is based on the perception that it is appropriate for a leader to make decisions due to a title or position in the organization.  If you are the president of an organization, the members will generally accept decisions because you are the president, independent of any other factor.

Personal power is the extent to which leaders gain the confidence and trust of those people they are attempting to influence.  Unlike positional power which comes from an organization, personal power is granted by followers.  As with positional power, there are several personal power bases. 

Referent power is the perceived attractiveness of interacting with another person.  This is obviously a highly subjective power base because it relies on personal preference.  I may find someone very attractive and would enjoy spending time with him or her.  However, another person might have exactly the opposite reaction.  He or she would have more power to influence me than a person who just didn't like him or her.  There is no particular rhyme or reason to this.  It is just human preference.  Social psychologists study attractiveness a lot.  While there are no complete answers to this complex question, two factors appear to be key:  physical attractiveness and similarity.  The first has some gender differences (men can be tall but not women; men can be older but not women) but someone who is not physically attractive has less referent power.  Followers appear to be more open to leadership from people with whom they can identify in some way:  background, history, religion, geographic region, status, etc.  Referent power can be important to a leader but it generally cannot be increased or decreased as long as honesty and openness are valued.  What leaders can do, however, is to share their stories.  Political leaders are typically very adept at this kind of self-disclosure.

Information power is the perceived access to or possession of useful information.  This personal power base has become extremely important since the rise of the internet.  While the amount of data has increased beyond measure, information has become more elusive.  Raw data becomes information when meaning and significance become attached.  "Actionable" is the term du jour.  A person who has information who can present it in ways that everyone can understand has enhanced his or her ability to influence people.  Unfortunately, the amplification of the internet works as well for false information as for true.  Concocted conspiracy theories work about as well as well referenced and verified reports.  People have realized that appearing to have information works as well as actually having it.  A 2018 study found that only 25% of U.S. adults could correctly distinguish factual statements from personal opinion statements.  Further, the study found that political affiliation had an impact on the evaluation of politically charged statements.  In another study, only 9% of 15-year-olds could correctly distinguish between facts and opinions.  This wholesale confusion of facts and opinion has eroded this personal power base.  Your partisans agree with whatever you say which might make you feel good but actually impairs your ability to influence other people.

Expert power is the perception that the leader has relevant education, experience, and expertise.  In the cacophony of information, we look for experts.  We want to hear from people who have demonstrated expertise in the area of concern.  Or more precisely, we used to want that.  Expertise has become linked with elitism and often is rejected out of hand.  We are often left with dueling experts who rail at us with more opinions than facts.  This erodes our trust in each other under the guise of valuing ordinary people and common sense.  In my lifetime I have experienced two presidential elections in which the obviously more qualified candidate lost the election to relatively inexperienced newcomers:  George H. W. Bush and Hilary Clinton.  

A leader who has a clear vision of the future and can articulate it effectively can use this as a personal power base.  This power base offers hope of personal power beyond referent power.  When information power and expert power bases have become weakened, a person who has an understanding of what is going on and has a clear view of the next steps toward a future that will be better has the opportunity to exert influence on people's behavior.  Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren exemplify this.  Based on a diagnosis of the current social and economic circumstances, they articulated a future that would address these issues.

Personal power is a function of the character, intellect, and presentation of a leader, independent of his or her role in an organization.  Of course, the most effective leaders will combine both a leadership role in an organization and highly cultivated personal power bases.  But any individual can develop his or her power bases and thus his or her capacity for leadership.  In fact, leadership is often exercised independently of the organizational position of a person.  Members of a group other than the formal leader can use their referent, information, expert, and/or vision power bases to influence the behavior of others in the group.  The highest performing groups are typically those whose members are all exercising leadership and not dependent on the formal leader alone.  The most important task of a formal leader is to nurture and sustain the leadership capacity of every group member, to create a culture of leadership.  Uncritical loyalty to the formal leader is incompatible with this approach to leadership.

An effective leader cultivates and uses as many power bases as possible.  Given the challenges that formal leaders face today with the decline in public trust in institutions and authority,  smart leaders will work on his or her personal power bases.  So which is better:  position authority or personal authority?  Which power bases are better?  Since most agree that leadership is situational, it all depends.  But the most effective leaders develop their own personal power bases so they are not completely dependent on positional power.  The more leader depends on positional authority, the more problematic.  This is especially true for coercive and reward behavior.  The more one relies on either of these, the more one must resort to them.  As the legitimacy of coercion or the lack of rewards become evident, the ability to influence followers decays.  Long term compliance is more reliably built on personal power bases.

This has been the second of three blogs about leadership.  The first defined leadership and this one discussed power and its role in leadership.  My third and final blog on leadership will present lessons about leadership from my own experiences of exercising leadership and teaching a graduate course in leadership.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things...like leadership

Indeed, the time has come to talk of many things.  In Alice in Wonderland, Tweedledee and Tweedledum recite The Walrus and the Carpenter to Alice.  The Walrus and the Carpenter are strolling on the beach and find themselves at an oyster bed.  They decide to trick the young oysters in going for a walk along the beach with them, a walk that ends with the oysters becoming dinner for the two.  Midway through their walk, the Walrus says

The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings.'

I am not sure what that list means but it did serve to distract the young oysters so they didn't realize what was happening to them.  An old oyster let the Walrus know that he was having none of this but the young oysters fell for it.   Let us not be distracted by nonsense in our national political life.  This is the time to talk about leadership because our challenges with COVID-19 highlight our nation's need for leadership.

As the world, our country and my state deal with a pandemic, the elected leader of the United States presents himself in daily briefings as a man unmoored from the standards that should guide the public behavior and statements of a leader, especially in a time of crisis and threat.  First, he says he has absolute and complete authority to tell the states, and by extension, everyone in the country what to do.  Then within days, he declares he is not responsible for anything.  He makes wild statements about improbable and even dangerous cures in a way he has honed over the years so that he takes no responsibility for the statements.  His speech is filled with "people say." "I've heard some people say." "Some people think." "Maybe it's true, maybe not.  We'll see."  He avoids taking a clear position so he can avoid any responsibility.  Or even more unsettling, he will contradict himself and then claim he never said what everyone heard and saw him say.  It always provides him with deniability if things turn out bad.  He can also claim he knew it before anyone else if it turns out well.  He seems obsessed with success and "winning" or at least with the appearance of success and winning.

Early in his career, he made himself into a celebrity by stimulating coverage on Page Six of the New York Post, basically a gossip page.  He did that by making outrageous statements about himself and others, statements he knew would be repeated in print regardless of their truth.  He even impersonated a media consultant to himself who would contact reporters and talk about "The Donald" in the third person.  The reporters knew who it was but repeated what he said anyway because it made such good gossip page reading.

He graduated from Page Six when he was cast in the lead role of The Apprentice and later The Celebrity Apprentice.  He went from a Manhattan-based notoriety to a national one as a leading CEO and business leader, not in reality but in a reality TV show.  Once he found Twitter, he was off and running.  He didn't change his tactics but they were amplified beyond anyone's imagination.  And now he is confronting a crisis.  And this crisis is not of his own making.  It is not a public relations creation to build his image or expand his reach.  It certainly gathers eyeballs but these eyeballs are looking for leadership, not entertainment.  What we now see is a man who has no idea of what a leader is or does other than WIN.

It is not his fault.  There are plenty of people who ascend to leadership positions without much of an idea about what leadership is or how to do it.  "I'm on top.  I have the supreme authority in this company, organization or country.  What I say, goes."  And that approach often works because people have gotten very good at letting leaders think they're in charge.  When a crisis arises, things can change quickly and radically.

If the crisis is dangerous and imminent and the leader is decisive and clear, people will tend to go along with whatever the leader says, even commands, at least in the short run.  But if neither of those conditions is true, it's a different ball game.  It won't work for the simple reason that people don't like to be told what to do.  Think about it.  Do you like to be told what to do?  I don't like it because it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me.  Does someone think I am so dumb that I need to be told what to do?  And having some in authority tell us what to do makes us feel impotent and no one likes that.

What a leader needs to do is get people to do what the leader wants voluntarily, not because someone told them to but because they genuinely want to do it.  If a leader wants a lasting and significant change in behavior, people need to do it themselves.  Leadership is the process of influencing people's behavior while fully respecting their freedom.  Let's take a look at this in more detail.

First, leadership is a process, not a one-time event.  Effective leaders can often seem repetitive.  They realize that not everyone hears the message the first time and some who do forget it in the turbulence of everyday lives.  Key themes and actions need to be said often and repeated in different settings.  That consistency can often be boring and a challenge to leaders with short attention spans or a need for immediate results.  Sometimes a crisis makes it feel like leadership needs to be immediate.  If we feel threatened we are more likely to want someone to take charge and tells us what to do.  In a crisis, Americans typically increase their support of whoever is President.  This crisis bump can be squandered if the actions and decisions of the leader are not seen as effective and in the common interest.

Second, leadership is a process of influencing, not command/obedience.  Effective leadership seeks not just short term compliance but a lasting change in behavior and that lasting change in behavior is in the hands of followers, not the leader.  We don't need leadership if everything is staying the same.  Most of us most of the time follow a set of rules about what to do.  If A happens, we do B.  Everyone does B and we have always been doing B.  And B works.  It is the appropriate response.  Sometimes, it happens that B doesn't work.  We may try it over and over again but it just doesn't work.  Now what?  We have to change but how, when, and why?  This is where leadership comes in.  If everything is working out just fine, management works quite well.  But adapting to change requires leadership.  This is especially true when the challenge is clear to leadership but it may be murky for the rest of us.

Third, effective leadership fully respects the freedom of followers.  In other words, leadership is not about coercion.  Sometimes coercion is needed because of the risk or speed of a threat.  But we need to clarify that it is not leadership even though the leader may be the one coercing.  There is a World War II maxim, "Nobody's smarter than 100 GI's."  A commander could issue orders and depending on the situation the troops would comply.  But if they didn't trust the commander or found the order not in their best interest, eventually, they would figure a way around the order.  They would often go to extreme lengths to let the commander think they were complying.  In Vietnam, infantry patrols would go out from fortified positions.  It was not unusual for them to stop when they got out of the eyesight of the commanders and decide whether they were going out on patrol or not.  It was called sandbagging and eventually led to outright mutiny or combat refusal.

It almost seems self-evident that leadership requires followers.  Good leadership requires good followers.  If no one is following, the leader is not very effective.  The ultimate test of effective leadership is the extent to which followers change their behavior in response to leadership.  To some leaders, it might seem that good followers do what they are told.  Good followers are obedient followers.  However, it turns out that good followers don't do what they told just because someone in authority tells them to.  Good followers are empowered and autonomous and make their decisions based on information, assessment, understanding, and vision.  These are the very same characteristics we want in a leader.  In the end, everyone one of us can exert leadership in relation to others.  The best leadership culture is one in which all members are capable of leadership and exert that leadership to achieve group goals.  The prime directive for those in formal leadership positions is to create and sustain a culture of leadership rather than see themselves as the only ones to lead.

But what exactly do leaders do?  And how does power figure into all this?  We will get into that in the next episode.

Do you take a photo or make a photo? And why it makes a difference.

"Excuse me but could you take a photo of us?"  How many times have you said that or had someone say it to you?  I bet a lot.  I know I have.  A cell phone is handed over and several photos are taken--"Let me take two or three just to make sure"--and then the favor is returned.  More photos.  Ever wonder how many photos are taken in a typical year?  Mylio is a photo organizing and management

https://focus.mylio.com/tech-today/
how-many-photos-will-be-taken-in-2020

company.  It estimates that people took 1.42 trillion photos in 2019 and will take 1.56 trillion by 2022.  I tried to find an image that would give an idea of just how big a trillion of anything is but nothing really worked.  For example, it would take you 31,309 years to count to one trillion.  See, not very helpful.  It is just too big a number.  No matter what we think a trillion looks like, we can agree that we are drowning in photos and the water gets deeper and wider every year.

Cell phones account for 90% of that 1.4 trillion.  Digital cameras, about eight percent.  Tablets, typically in the hands of grandparents, the final two percent and that is declining.  Personally, I use a cell phone and two digital cameras to contribute much more than my fair share of the total.

The ubiquitous cell phone with its increasingly capable camera and storage puts a camera in almost everyone's hands.  We can take a photo almost instantaneously and then share it with friends, family, and followers.  Taking a photo of a luncheon entree costs practically nothing in terms of time, cost and inconvenience.  Imagine doing that with a film camera!  You wouldn't and no one ever did.  Now, we take photos of everything, everywhere.  We take photographs to memorialize people, places, experiences, and even meals.  We want to remember these and share the photos with others so they can share them.  Without much thought, we say we "take" a photo.  But some photographers say they "make" a photo.  To understand the difference and why it is important, we need to visit the history of photography.

View of the Boulevard du Temple, a daguerreotype made by

Louis Daguerre in 1838, is generally accepted as the earliest 

photograph to include people. It is a view of a busy street, 

but because the exposure lasted for several minutes the 

moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the 

bottom left corner, one of them apparently having his

boots polished by the other remained in one place 

long enough to be visible.

Photography, as we know it, began in 1839 when Louis Daguerre introduced his photographic method, daguerreotypy.  This process used a camera to capture an image on a silver-surfaced metal plate that had been fumed with iodine vapor.  This created a silver iodine surface that was light-sensitive.  The process required long exposure times--in the minutes--and created a positive image which is to say a unique image.  Each daguerreotype was one of a kind.  Since there was no negative, the image could not be reprinted.

A daguerreotype was a pristine and detailed image but the process was complicated, expensive, limited to a single image, time-consuming, and cumbersome.  It was limited to a studio.  Nevertheless, it was the dominant form of photography until 1851 when a wet plate process was introduced.

The collodion method was dominant between 1851 and 1871.  This required an elaborate process in which glass plates were coated with collodion and then immersed in silver nitrate.  This had to be done in a darkroom. The plate was placed in a light-tight holder and then inserted into the camera which had previously been set up for the specific image.  The lens cap was removed for two to three seconds and the image was imprinted on the plate, still wet with the chemicals.  The plate was immediately removed and taken into a dark room where the image was fixed on the plate creating a negative to be used later to print the image.  All this had to be done within 15 minutes to keep the plate wet and thus light sensitive.  The resulting negative was used to contact print typically on albumen paper.

Matthew Brady (left foreground)
 and assistants at Petersburg 1864

This wet plate photography required a lot of equipment and a professional photographer skilled in handling the many chemicals needed in the process.  Matthew Brady used this collodion process for his Civil War photography of battlefields and camp life.  To operate in the field, he needed to set up a darkroom on site.  This meant he had to haul equipment, chemicals, and the darkroom along with at least one assistant.  Brady could not take photographs of battles in progress because of long exposure times and the realities of active battlefields.  His battleground photographs are after-action and often show the bodies of the dead soldiers.  And that was enough to change forever how citizens saw war and its aftermath.

Dry plate photography was a major improvement since it did not require the plates to be wet during exposure and development.  Dry plates were prepared ahead of time and then developed and printed in a darkroom at a later time.  Even though simpler and more flexible, dry plate photography was still the domain of professionals.

If you look back at this brief history, you can see why "taking a photograph" would hardly do the process justice.  Daguerreotypes, wet plates and even dry plates were "making photographs."  It was a technically and creatively challenging activity, not something for the ordinary person to do even as a "hobby."  And photography was expensive.  A single ambrotype would cost $6 in today's dollars.  Family and individual portraits predominated.  Candid photography simply didn't exist.

1923 cartoon showing what Eastman might
have looked like as a wet plate photographer

All that changed because of a young man from Rochester NY, George Eastman.  As a teenager working in a local bank to support his widowed mother and sisters, George became interested in photography and began to practice the art using wet plates and their necessary accouterments.  We don't know exactly how good a photographer he was because none of his images survived.  Eastman wasn't making photographs because of the finished product but rather to learn the process of making photographs.  Using that understanding, he worked on inventing materials and processes that would improve photography and take it out of the hands of professionals and make it available to ordinary people.

In 1881 Eastman and his partner Frank Strong founded Eastman Dry Plate Company to provide dry plates to photographers.  In 1885 Eastman patented the Eastman-Walker Roll Holder.  This freed photographers from handling individual plates because it could advance a roll of paper film.   In 1889, an Eastman chemist developed a transparent, flexible film that could be cut into strips and inserted into cameras.  The age of modern photography had dawned.

When Kodak introduced the Brownie camera in 1900 for $1, the age of "snapshots" was born.  Eastman realized that chemists and engineers could turn the exposed film into photographs.  His engineers figured out how to automate the process.  All the photographer had to do was "press the button" and Kodak would do the rest.  What had been a professional and highly technical process was now in the hands of ordinary people to record their lives, people and places simply by pressing the shutter.  Professional photography continued, of course, but more as an art form or for specialized purposes.  So there were still people "making" photographs but most of us were now "taking" photographs.

With the advent of digital cameras, even film became unnecessary.  What had taken a "pack-horse load" of equipment, chemicals and a portable darkroom plus an assistant now took place within a hand-sized camera.  With cell phone cameras, the package grew both smaller and more capable.  We are all "taking" photographs, trillions and trillions of them.  What does it mean now to "make" a photo?

You can make a photograph with film or digital images.  The process of getting from the image captured on film or the digital sensor is technically very different but essentially the same.  Making a photograph requires the photographer to have an idea--the more detailed the better--of what the scene in front of her can be made to look like.  It is not so much about documenting what she sees as it is bringing to life what she sees as a possible image.  One image by Ansel Adams can clarify this. 

On November 1, 1941, he was returning home after a disappointing day of photographing. Around 4:00 on a highway through Hernandez NM, he saw a scene that he instinctively knew he could make into a superb photograph.  But it wasn't what he saw but what he knew he could make it look like.  You may know the image:  Moonrise Hernadez New Mexico.

Moonrise Hernandez N M:  Straight contact print on the left and the iconic print on the right

Different prints of the same negative over 35 years

His young son, Michael, was with him as Adams and a companion hurriedly set up the 8x10 view camera on top of his "woody" station wagon to catch the waning light from the setting sun and the rising moon.  Michael has famously said that the scene he saw was not the scene you see in Moonrise.  In fact, a contact print from that negative is a more accurate capture of that scene.  Precisely because Adams"made" photographs, he could visualize the photo that was there hiding in the apparent scene.  Of course, he needed to properly expose the film.  Then he needed to develop the film properly.  Finally and most importantly, he needed to print the negative in a way that captured what he had visualized out in the New Mexican desert that afternoon.  The high dynamic range of the image made the printing process extremely difficult and complicated.  He did extensive "dodging" and "burning" to capture the darkest and the lightest parts.  Adams personally made more than 1300 prints and freely admitted that each print would be unique and one-of-a-kind.

A recent photo from Tinker Park. 
Camera exposure left and final image right.

So the difference between taking a photo and making a photo is the difference between snapshots with your phone camera and a more careful and more intentional capture.  The photographer has a visualization in mind of the final product which is often different from what appears in the viewfinder at first glance.  Ninety-five percent of the time I "take" photos.  When I "make" photos, it is a slower, more intentional process.  I visualize the final image.  It may not be as specific as Adams had with that iconic image.  And I may not be sure exactly how it will turn out but I have an idea of how I will capture and process it so that it will be different than a snapshot.  I know for certain that I am out to "make" a photo when I take a tripod along.  That means I will be setting up a shot and taking time to select appropriate settings rather than just "pressing the button" as the Kodak ad said.

So why is all this important?  There are three reasons.  First, while taking photos is important because it creates a record of our experiences, relationships, and locations, making a photo can create an image that is memorable and beautiful.  Think about Adams and his unforgettable images, not just Moonrise Hernandez New Mexico which we talked about here.

Second, making a photograph requires me to slow down and more carefully observe what is around me.  There is something about looking at the world through a lens that helps me see reality in a new way.  It is the difference between lollygagging my way through life or paying close attention.  I think it has something to do with the fact that a lens excludes a lot of reality and focuses my attention.  After a while, I begin to do that even without a camera.  I begin to see photographs in my surroundings.  I experience what is around me in a more detailed and powerful way.  And that is when I decide to return with my tripod and have a go at "making" some photographs.

Third, there is an important lesson about life and reality.  Empiricism takes the position that sense experience is the basis of all human knowledge.  "What you see is what you get" to outrageously oversimplify.  Rationalism is the opposite.  It takes the position that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience.  A botanist looks at a tree and sees a tree.  A poet looks at a tree and sees a metaphor for a well-lived life.  The poet sees something that is "not there" but is indisputably true.

A Christian looks at the world and sees the empirical reality of economics, politics and social status but also sees the deeper reality of the Kingdom of God where justice and charity prevail.  It is a reality that can be "made" by the individual actions of Christians just as a photograph can be made.  Both, however, require visualization of a reality that is not apparent but is real nonetheless.  This is what Christians call faith.  Jesus cautioned his followers to not be deceived by appearances.  There can be a deeper reality in the empirical world if we take the time to look for it and open ourselves up to a knowledge of a different sort.  This is true, I believe, of any of the great religious traditions.  Just as we can find beautiful images in ordinary reality, we can find mercy and forgiveness in evil and deprivation.

 It all depends on what we can visualize.  In so many ways, it is up to us.

I think I've fallen into a triangle! Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, I described my understanding of triangulation as developed by Dr. Murray Bowen.  Triangulation can help people deal honestly and directly with issues causing tension.  However, it can also open the door to manipulation which can turn the relationship toxic.  I applied this concept to the tension I experienced in my relationship with President Trump and found I was in a toxic and ultimately unhelpful triangle with the President.  I realize this sounds weird so if you haven't read Part 1, you probably should before continuing.

After trying to divert myself with hobbies and after infecting many of my personal relationships with unending Trump-rage, I turned to national news outlets to better understand what was happening.  I subscribed to the New York Times and the Washington Post.  Until a couple of months ago, we didn't have cable.  I only watched or listened to CNN and MSNBC when traveling or working out at the gym.  I became an eager consumer of news from these outlets.

I now realize that the triangulation that began with the far-right media during the Obama administration has now infected almost all of the "mainstream" media.  The right-wing media realized that many people were uncomfortable with Obama as president. Targeting people susceptible to triangulation could build a loyal audience for the media and its personalities.  This audience eagerly accepted the most irrelevant and preposterous stories about Obama. They amplified these stories by sharing them on emerging social media.  No story seemed over the top:  Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii.  Hilary Clinton was involved in a child pornography ring operating out of a pizza parlor.  Like a predator on the prowl for tension-filled dyads--remember them--the right-wing press, radio, and TV found vulnerable targets from whom they could extract a lot of money.  The outrageous Alex Jones--he of Infowars--admitted through his attorney in his child custody hearing that he was a performer, playing a role.  In short, he was simply using his audience to make money, not at all to inform them.  I hope this came as a shock to his audience.

With the election of Donald Trump, however, the mainstream media gradually began to use the same dynamic.  They may have begun with just covering the news but they soon realized that they had the same kind of market with liberals and mainstream moderates as the right-wing media did with conservatives. While they have not gone to the extreme of concocting patently false stories, they have targeted me and other vulnerable Trump-stressed people.  Here are two examples from the day I am writing this.

As CNN was waiting for Governor Cuomo's daily briefing on COVID-19 in New York, John King read a story about the increasing deaths in the US and the rate at which they were increasing.  As part of that story, he ran a clip that showed Trump making statements in January and February about coronavirus.  Trump clearly downplayed the threat to America.  The clip contained true statements.  No question about that.  However, including these in the story was calculated to engage me emotionally, stoking my outrage at the ineptness of Trump and his willingness to lie or his unwillingness to do his homework.  None of that was relevant to the story about the increasing deaths.  It added no new information; it didn't help me understand the pandemic and prepare for it.  It used time and space to stimulate me emotionally and thus hook me into a triangle with CNN designed to make Trump the outsider.

Here's another example.  Nicholas Kristof published a piece in the NY Times this morning with this title:  "Trump Wants to ‘Reopen America.’ Here’s What Happens if We Do."  The first paragraph mentions Trump and "other political conservatives" and their desire to end the social distancing by Easter and treating this epidemic as though it were the flu.  From that point on, the article is a careful and creative analysis of how epidemics spread and why closing down is the best way to "flatten the curve."  The article includes a simulation model that shows the impact of longer or shorter periods of social distancing.  It is dramatic and instructive.  I have no quarrel with the article but what grabbed me was the title about Trump.  But the article really wasn't about Trump.  I know the editors would argue that that's the point.  I got pulled in to read the article because of the headline and thus learned a lot about the epidemic that I would otherwise not have known.  But still, that headline was crafted to appeal to someone like me, filled with anxiety about my relationship with the president.

While I was gaining more information about public issues from the mainstream media, my anxiety was constantly stimulated by the same media.  If this were not bad enough, I began to realize that my personal communications became infected with this virus.  There are family members and friends with whom I avoid talking politics and I am very careful when discussing national issues.  I love them and value our relationship deeply and do not want to run the risk of disrupting that relationship.  I think they might feel the same way.  But then I realized that the conversations I have with friends and family who do share my views and my Trump anxiety have also been impacted.  I haven't tried to measure the proportion of these interactions devoted to discussions about President Trump.  My sense is that these have consumed a growing share of our time.  Triangulation helps explain why.  I can ease my distress and tension by interacting with others who feel the same way.  Our relationship may grow closer but for all the wrong reasons.

The calming effect of some amount of such sharing is valuable but it does nothing to deal with the cause of the anxiety.  More important, increasing this component of the interaction can easily weaken the relationship.  For example, the more time I spend talking to my daughter about Trump and his outrages, the less time we have to talk about our lives, our relationship, our challenges, our joys, our experiences, our achievements, and our failures.  These are all the subjects that build, sustain and deepen relationships and yet I fear that I have substituted calming my anxiety for deepening a relationship that is important to me.  For daughter, I could have written son, wife, sister, brother, grandson, granddaughter, or friend.  The point is that my personal relationships have fallen victim to triangulation.  It is not that these relationships are not good but that they could be much better.  Think about what we all talked about five years ago.  What are we giving up because Trump-talk takes so much of our time?

As with all toxic triangulation, it hasn't helped me deal with the underlying issue.  I am still anxious in my dyad with the President.  The momentary relief provided by the liberal media or these conversations with friends--both of which tend to repeat themselves to the point of boredom and thus require constant shots of new outrage over the latest twitch of Trump--keep me from taking positive and direct steps to change the situation.  And that is important because I believe that Trump poses a threat to the values and traditions that actually do make America great.

Here are five steps that I am trying to take.  First, gain a deeper understanding of why I get so anxious about his antics and tweets.  That might be an appropriate and healthy conversation to have with family and friends.  A therapist might be a good idea as well.  Whenever an emotional reaction is more than could reasonably be expected, there are often underlying personality problems that are asking to be addressed.

Second, take positive steps to change government policies with which I do not agree and support those in line with my thinking.  Volunteer and/or financially support campaigns on the national, state and local levels.  Spend time listening to candidates whose personal style is to include rather than exclude.  Avoid any politician who thinks the only problem is the man the nation chose as president in 2016.  Five years ago, there were plenty of problems.  What about those?  At the very least, I would be putting my energy to use rather than just endlessly talking about the problems.

Third, think and express myself more clearly about concerns and issues without becoming overly polemical and partisan.  This means I would have to inform myself on the issues and not just the politics of the issues. Discover sources of information that are not infected with this triangulation.  Since that might be impossible, vigilantly look for triangulation and resist the temptation to let it take over and distract from the information.  Perhaps I could just be a responsible citizen, able to see and hear both sides.  Imagine that!  And come to my own position without any ideological bias.  Imagine that!

Fourth, find media that deliver information in a way that is not so partisan.  We need media that do not focus on our anxieties as a way to drive circulation and eyeballs...and thus profits.  I have found USA Today to be a welcome change.  It covers the news but does so in a way that creates a sense of normalcy and balance.  The PBS Newshour and NPR news do the same.  They present the news with a sense of decorum and balance.  There are others as well.  We just need to look for them.

Fifth, engage with family and friends focusing on all those things and experiences we used to share.  Time has slowed down for many of us during the COVID-19 isolation.  We can be more reflective.  We can share with each other how our day-to-day life has changed.  It can be a time to reconnect and focus on what's important to us.  For me, that means family relationships.  My children and grandchildren, my wife and in-laws, my friends especially those I haven't connected with for a while.  It means spirituality and religious beliefs.  It means the art of making photographs.  It means learning more about website design.  It means writing which has always been central to my life.  Writing helps me be clear about what I think, how I understand the world.  As Flannery O'Connor said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

These are all ways we can reconnect with what and who we truly care about.  We can step aside from the madness that plays out around us.  We may not be able to change that madness but we can stake out our own world where sanity, courtesy, respect and compassion live and grow.

I think I've fallen into a triangle! Part 1

Murray Bowen, the founder of Family Systems Theory, spent his professional life studying the dynamics of human relationships. He described the complex interrelationships within a family.  And he used systems theory to analyze them  He formulated his thinking into Family Systems Theory.

I am certainly no expert in Bowen's theory although I have personally benefitted from his insights.  I have used them to understand better my own and others' behavior in my families.  I have also experienced how they can clarify interrelationships and resulting behavior in other human groups.  Perhaps, even an entire society.  With apologies to the late Dr. Bowen and his many highly trained followers, I want to use my version of one of his basic ideas to look at my own behavior.

Triangles:  Matin Tiller on YouTube

Bowen taught that two-person relationships, or dyads, are inherently unstable.  They have a low tolerance for tension and quickly turn to third parties.  A triangle with a third person can stabilize a two-person relationship experiencing tension.  For example, a mother and a teenage daughter are experiencing tension in their relationship.  The mother reaches out to a friend to talk about her daughter and the behavior that is creating the tension.  The friend can play a vital and useful role in helping to stabilize the mother-daughter relationship.  If the friend listens sympathetically and suggests strategies to help the mother and daughter communicate directly, the third person can help reduce tension and reestablish a livable balance.  We can probably all recall times when we reached out to a third person this way.  Perhaps we have been a third person for a dyad.

But triangles don't always turn out that way.  Sometimes triangulating a third person accentuates problems in the relations making it harder for the dyad to grapple directly with problems and feelings.  This can be especially toxic, I believe, if the third person is also experiencing tension in other relationships.  Let's adjust the genders in the example.   A father experiences tension  with his teenage son.  He reaches out to a female friend who it happens is also experiencing stress in her marital relationship.  It is deceptively easy for the two people to calm their tension and anxiety by bonding together through sharing information and criticism of the other person in the relation.  The friend deepens her relationship with the father by listening to criticism of the son.  She agrees with it and even stimulates it.  She never says or does anything that would help the father deal directly with the son.  She may even begin to share about her marital relationship.  Over time, the two may grow more emotionally enmeshed and thus more distant from the son and the husband, as well as the father's wife.  They have calmed their anxiety but have done nothing to address underlying issues.  The situation has become worse by inserting a third person into two family dyads and creating two new outsiders, the mother and the son.  They may, in turn, triangulate in retribution.  (By the way, I could change the genders in the examples and the result would stay the same.  These are human dynamics.)

There are also predators who cruise around the social landscape probing relationships to see if one or both members of a dyad are experiencing tension.  This creates an opening for a third party whose motivation is typically not benign.  This is especially disastrous in marital relationships.  An outsider senses a vulnerability in a couple of which even they may be unaware.  The predator typically focuses on the dyad member of the opposite sex and begins to ingratiate him or herself into the relationship as a friend of both.  Under the cover of friendship, the predator cultivates emotional closeness with his or her target.  This eventually pushes the other member into an outsider role.  The predator may become physically intimate with the target thus achieving his or her ultimate goal. There may be a reduction of the tension for the target member and surely for the predator but the original relationship can be damaged beyond repair.

So, this is a long way around to get to the triangle I think I have fallen into.  What I am about to say may sound ridiculous.  I know it did to me as it began to emerge into my consciousness.  Each of us as citizens of the United States is in a relationship with our elected leader, currently Donald J. Trump.

In my lifetime, there have been 14 presidents beginning with Franklin Roosevelt.  I have had a good relationship with the first 13.  I didn't like or agree with all of them.  I felt closer to some than to others.  (Disclosure:  I was born in Kansas City MO into a line of Democrats stretching five generations in rural Missouri and further still in Virginia.  While many of those would probably be Republicans today, my Dad would certainly not be.  However, this essay is not about politics although it seems to be headed that way.  Just hold on.)

The current president is the problem, or at least my problem.  On every level--personal behavior, style, and policy--I simply cannot stand Trump.  Beginning with the night of his election, I experienced intense anxiety that I had never felt with other presidents.  As time passed after the election, my anxiety didn't decrease; it increased.  The more he talked in those elliptical sentences, blurting out nouns without verbs, the more anxious I became.  My response was predictable, I began to recruit third persons into my Trump triangle.

Some of these weren't persons at all.  I began reading theology to try to understand some of the more fundamental issues of life.  I especially was drawn to Reality, Grief and Hope by Walter Brueggemann.  I needed to deal with reality, grieve what had been lost and experience hope.  It helped...a bit.  I got more engaged in hobbies:  photography, writing, web design.  Not much help there.  I was trying to find something to which I could become emotionally engaged and thus calm my anxiety.  It worked as long as I was actively engaged in those activities, but the impact quickly waned.

Next, I began to spend a lot of time talking about Trump with my wife and other like-minded people.  We would share outrage after outrage.  It felt good to let it all out with another person who shared my feelings.  This strengthened my emotional bonds with them.  My emotional space grew more settled.  The acceptance of those with whom I shared my feelings reduced the Trump-induced anxiety.  This is a classic triangulation.  I was bonding with a third person and reducing tension while doing nothing to deal with whatever was causing the disruption.  If I kept on this way without dealing with the real problem, there would be no end to this.

Then I turned to the national media to understand better what was happening.  What I now think happened then was a surprise.  I will pick up there in the next blog.