Go 2 Shul

My wonderful dad is very religious and enjoys going to shul (i.e. synagogue) every day--multiple times a day. 

I love him for who he is and respect his deep religious beliefs and devotion to G-d--my dad truly serves and walks with Hashem.

And I hope and pray that my Dad has many more happy and healthy years to go to synagogue--"Until 120 years," G-d bless!

Often, Dad reminds me how important it is to attend services, especially since I am a more private person who would rather connect with G-d on a more personal level. 

To each his own and live and let live.  

My wife saw this license plate today and my daughter took a photo of it. 

Apparently, this is someone else who either wants to go 2 shul or wants others to go as well. 

I'm not sure, but it even looks like they wrote or carved the word "synagogue" on the bumper of their car as well. 

Anyway as long as everyone drives safely, it is great to find innovative ways to get the message out there. ;-)

Go 2 Shul

Shout, Let It All Out or Shut Up and Take 10

I like this photo..."I don't know what we're yelling about!!"

On one hand, some people may yell out of frustration or anger--because they feel terribly wronged or even abused by someone else (i.e. they feel a "righteous anger").

On the other hand, others may yell because they are mentally unstable or just can't handle their sh*t (i.e. "they are losing it").

Some may yell like in martial arts training to scare the other person and get them to back off. I remember someone telling me back in NYC that if you're about to be attacked, start to talk to yourself, act crazy, foam at the mouth, and yell...this way maybe they will leave you alone (i.e. "they'll look for an easier target"). 

While some studies are saying that yelling is becoming less of a problem, the sheer number of articles on this topic tell a different story. From yelling at your children to yelling at your employees, the yelling phenomenon is alive and well.

Parents are yelling more, maybe to avoid spanking, which is now more a social taboo. Studies show that 75% of parents scream at their kids about once a month--this includes shouting, cursing, calling them "lazy," "stupid," or otherwise belittling and blaming them. The problem is that yelling only makes the kids depressed, angrier, and creates more behavioral problems, not less. 

In this way, shouting at children is no different than physically abusing them (e.g. hitting, pushing, etc.)

Similarly, when superiors or customers scream at employees, the workers feel they are in an out of control situation where they are powerless. There are numerous negative impacts that this has on them, including problems with memory, reduced creativity, worse performance, and higher turnover rates. 

While some people may not resort to actual yelling in the workplace, they instead do "silent yelling--sending flaming emails, making faces or otherwise denigrating employees or simply marginalizing them. In other words, they don't yell, but rather are silent and deadly, nonetheless. 

Businessweek quotes Rahm Emanuel about how he motivates people, "Sometimes--I don't want to say scream at them--but you have to be...forceful."

Rather than yell or scream, the common advice is to bring it down--way down--using measures from taking a deep breath to meditating, counting to ten or waiting 24 hours before responding, describing how you feel to focusing on problem-solving.

The key is to calm down, act with your brains not your brawn, and figure out how to get to the root cause of the problem and solve it. 

People may raise their voice to vent or make a point, in the heat of the moment, or if they are being personally attacked, but in general, as it says in Ethics of Our Fathers, "Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations." ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Soukup)

Shout, Let It All Out or Shut Up and Take 10

Lessons Learned From My Family By Rebecca Blumenthal

This is a moving interview with Rebecca Blumenthal.

She came to me this afternoon, spontaneously, to tell me some meaningful lessons she had gathered from some of the special members of her family.

Immediately after I heard a few of the things she had to say, I asked her if she would mind me capturing these beautiful sentiments on this short video.

I was very moved by her sincerity and thoughtfulness, and it gave me pause in my own life to appreciate these things anew from the people who have been so important in my life as well.

(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)

Lessons Learned From My Family By Rebecca Blumenthal

Where Do You Find G-d?

My dad told me this joke over the weekend.

It's about the Rabbi who asked the little boy in school... 

"WHERE do you find G-d?"

Raising his voice again...

"Where do you find G-D?"

Stretching out his arms to the heavens....

"Where do YOU find G-d?"  

The boy rushes outside, nearly in tears, and finds his little brother and says:

"The Rabbi thinks we stole G-d."

I'm not sure if the joke itself is really funny or just the way my dad tells it. 

But I can almost see that child panicking and thinking he was being accused of something terrible. 

Anyway, as we all know G-d is everywhere and most importantly inside all of us. 

That's the spark that burns--our soul from above. 

(Source Photo: adapted from here with attribution to Kigaliwire)

Where Do You Find G-d?

Who Hasn't Been There?

So I was teaching a course this week in enterprise architecture, and some of the students asked about EA having a bad rap and brand (i.e. that it seems to not work so well in many organizations) and why is that? 

We had a pretty robust discussion around this--why some organizations fail and others succeed with EA.

We discussed the critical success factors that as the CIO or Chief Architect you can impact, and how these can drive planning and implementation for the organization to succeed. 

At the same time, we also acknowledged how--to be frank--not everything is in our control.

This was a class full of CIOs and Vice Presidents, and I gave an example and said you are all successful now in your jobs and careers, but raise your hand if you haven't been there--where you were on the outs and you boss or colleagues just didn't like you?

This was a class of about 20 people, and out of all these highly achieved folks, only one hand went up--a young kid--with only 3 or 4 years out of school, and still learning the ropes. 

Yes, this one person had not yet been on the losing end, but everyone else--all these successful people had been--ALL of them!

The point is not to say that success is just a chance event--it isn't! 

You have to work hard and try your best-- but no matter how much you think of yourself--it's even more important to remember that you don't control all the factors of your life that determine whether you succeed or fail.  

The same people that now had big, successful jobs, were the same people who had in a prior job or time been the person who could do no right at work. 

I tell myself to remember that there is personality, chemistry and fit at work; there is timing--and it is everything!--and there is how the stars are aligned. 

It helps a lot to be humble and learn, grow, work hard, never give up, have fun--and have faith in a mightier power above. 

From what I've seen, life is a cycle and today you may be down, but tomorrow you will be up (and the opposite is true too--so don't kick the person that is down and hurting). 

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)--for everything and for everyone. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Who Hasn't Been There?

Drama In D.C.

Wanted to share two unrelated, but noteworthy items from my week so far...

First, this tree went down right in the middle of traffic in Washington, D.C. today. The BMW on the left was totaled, the van and taxi on the right had their respective front and rear-ends crushed. So much for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On another note, I taught an enterprise architecture class earlier this week here, and in discussing establishing technical standards for the organization, one student put it well when he dramatically said "everyone loves standards, that's why they make their own."  :-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Drama In D.C.

If I Could Do School All Over Again

This program at Draper University of Heroes was written up in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (25 Feb. 2013) as The Silicon Valley Survival School. 

But really this is the remaking of education by venture capitalist, Tim Draper. 

There is an awesome focus on building thinkers, dreamers, inventors, and entrepreneurs--not just some more liberal arts majors without an real idea of how to apply what they learned or "what they want to be when they grow up."

The skills taught get you out of your comfort zone, break your fears, teach you life survival skills, and give you a core business foundation to hopefully, create the next great thing. 

Draper uses the terms superheroes, creativity, and imagination--skills so often overlooked in the traditional classroom where dated topics are not applied to real life, stale modes of teaching keep people in their seats and snoozing, and memorization is valued more than real critical analysis and innovative thinking. 

I am excited here by a curriculum that focuses on the big picture areas of vision, truth & justice, and creativity, and has lectures with CEOs of successful companies along side practical training in martial arts, survival, SWAT, first aid, lie detection, yoga, art and design, speed reading, cooking and more. 

This 8-week crash course teaches you how to come up with great ideas, start and finance a business, network, brand and sell, and classes are limited to 180 students, and the cost is $7,500 or 2% of your income for the next 10 years. 

The capstone is a 2-minute pitch to a panel of real investors, and the chance for Draper Fisher Jurvetson to make an actual investment in it. 

Investing in good ideas is one thing...investing in great people with the skills to succeed is even better.

I'd like to see this program expand to true University and even high-school level proportions--so we can really teach kids rather than just imprison them in mind and body. ;-)

If I Could Do School All Over Again

Educating The World

Salman (Sal) Khan is amazing!

He quit a job as a hedge fund analyst to start a free and now highly popular educational website Khan Academy.

Khan is the founder and sole faculty of the academy, and has posted over 2,100 educational videos on topics ranging from:

• Mathematics
• Science
• Economics
• Finance
• History
• Statistics
• And more

Khan goal is to "educate the world" providing the tools so that everyone can learn at their own pace, and where teachers are facilitators.

Khan explains the concepts of the various subjects slowly and clearly and uses an electronic blackboard to demonstrate examples and problems.

The Khan Academy also provides exercises, test prep (like for the SAT, GMAT, etc.) and a dashboard for tracking student progress.

As of today--26 May 2011--Khan has served up over 56 Million lessons!

According to BusinessWeek (May 23-29, 2011) Khan's work was recognized in 2010 by donations that included $1.5 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, $2 million from Google, as well as others.

Of course, there are other free learning sites out there, but to me Khan Academy seems unique in its breadth and depth of core academic learning--plus they are all taught by Khan!

Khan Academy is becoming the "free virtual school" for the world, and his students seem to love it.

While Khan is doing a super-human job, one suggestion that I have is to consider adding social collaboration tools (chat, blogs, groups, and so on) to the site to enable students to discuss about the material and ask questions and even post their own insights that others can benefit from.

Also, opening some element of this up to crowd-sourcing (like Wikipedia) may help this to grow even bigger and faster.

At some point, even a King Khan needs some help to educate the masses.

Educating The World

Raising the Bar By Aligning Expectations and Personality

I always love on the court television show Judge Hatchett, when she tells people: "I expect great things from you!"

The Pygmalion Effect says that when we have high expectations of performance for people, they perform better.

In other words, how you see others is how they perform.

While behavior is driven by a host of motivational factors (recognition, rewards, and so on), behavior and ultimately performance is impacted by genetic and environmental factors—“nature and nurture”—and the nurture aspect includes people’s expectations of us.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, people live up or down to expectations.

For example, studies by Rosenthal and Jacobson showed that if teachers expected enhanced performance from selected children, those children performed better.

When people have high or low expectations for others, they treat them differently—consciously or unconsciously—they tip off what they believe the others are capable of and will ultimately deliver. In the video, The Pygmalion Effect: Managing the power of Expectation, these show up in the following ways:

• Climate: The social and emotional mood we create, such as tone, eye contact, facial expression, body language, etc.
• Inputs: The amount and quality of instruction, assistance, or input we provide.
• Outputs: The opportunities to do the type of work that best aligns with the employee and produce that we provide.
• Feedback: The strength and duration of the feedback we provide.

In business, expect great things from people and set them to succeed by providing the following to meet those expectations:

• Inspiration
• Teaching
• Opportunity
• Encouragement

Additionally, treat others in the style that is consistent with the way that they see themselves, so that there is underlying alignment between the workplace (i.e. how we treat the employee) and who the employee fundamentally is.

Normally people think that setting high expectations means creating a situation where the individual’s high performance will take extra effort – both on their part and on the part of the manager.

However, this is not necessarily the case at all. All we have to do is align organizational expectations with the inherent knowledge, skills, and abilities of the employee, and their individual aspirations for development.

The point is we need to play to people’s strengths and help them work on their weaknesses. This, along with ongoing encouragement, can make our goals a reality, and enable the organization to set the bar meaningfully high for each and every one of us.

Raising the Bar By Aligning Expectations and Personality