Leadership Lessons - Jerry Sloan Edition

This snippet from Peter Vecsey's profile of Cleveland Cavaliers' Mo Williams (who began his NBA career with the Utah Jazz) caught my eye:

Five and a half years removed from the episode, there's still alarm in Mo Williams' voice when describing his introduction to Jerry Sloan's methods of coaching and communication.

It was the first drill of the first day of Jazz training camp in 2003-04.

... On day one of practice, Sloan directed the Jazz to stretch and then called for a three-man weave. Fresh from re-signing (six years, $84 million) with the team, Andrei Kirilenko jogged through the drill while everyone else sprinted. Next time it was his turn, the same thing happened, at least at the outset.

"I'll never forget Sloan's reaction," Williams said with a shudder. "He came storming onto the court screaming, 'Damn you, Kirilenko, you think just because you've got an $84 million contract you can do whatever the bleep you want to do out here! Well, I've bleepin' news for you . . .' "

Williams said Sloan's earthy message was the best thing that could've happened to him . . . and the team, a consensus pick to go nowhere fast, yet finished 41-41.

"Man, if Sloan was gonna get on Kirilenko like that, I knew damn well what I had to do," Williams said. "I was like Speedy Gonzalez. I did exactly as told and then some. The funny thing is, everything I'd heard about Jerry turned out the opposite."

Well, almost, anyway. Sloan pushed and got on players, no doubt, Williams accented.

"A lot of bad words come out of his mouth. But, if you do it right the next time, in his next breath, he'll praise you just as heatedly. A lot of coaches don't understand; they beat you down without picking you back up," Williams said.

For me, the most sobering aspect of leadership is realizing that your words and actions are influential, as much due to what is said and done as what is not. From my own experience and from observing others', those in leadership positions often do not take the time to recognize the good among the bad, being more conscious of deficiencies as opposed to accomplishments. Which is not to say that one should carefully spend a certain percentage of their time criticizing and the other praising their minions; formulaic management reeks of insincerity and worse, is obvious in its amateurishness. Dale Carnegie in all his books of wisdom, almost always based his advice on something straightforward and sincere such as...if you want to earn people's respect, you need to truly care for their interests. That said, we have all at some point enjoyed working for tough leaders who criticized a lot and praised little, probably because we perceived some internal consistency in their method. Which I think is the crux of the matter: we want our leaders to be fair above all else. Whether they are effusive or overly critical, we want them to be consistent in how they treat us and our colleagues, treating each according to their performance measured by a clear standard. So, even though Jerry Sloan was a hard-ass, by praising his players if they did it right he displayed that internal consistency in his leadership, showing that he cared about good performance above all. More importantly, he held all his players to the same standard, even the star players.

As I Was Saying About Iran...

It's good to see that the powers that be are finally reading this blog. Two months ago, I pointed out that Iran is the key to easier access to Afghanistan, and that the road India built in Western Afghanistan to link up to an Iranian route to the coast could be useful to the U.S. as a better supply route in the future. We currently depend on a tortuous Central Asian route that is notable for how many unstable countries it traverses, not to mention how it depends on Russian magnanimity to let us play in their backyard...for now. Which is why it is good to see the Pentagon at least considering a future route through Iran and by way of the Indian-built road.

...Pentagon and NATO planners, as part of an effort to consider every contingency, have studied Iranian routes from the port of Chabahar, on the Arabian Sea, that link with a new road recently completed by India in western Afghanistan. The route is considered shorter and safer than going through Pakistan.

“In the course of prudent planning, our military planners have looked at virtually every conceivable avenue of supplying our forces in Afghanistan,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “However, as you would expect, they have done so with an eye on logistical feasibility rather than political reality.”

Indeed. The political reality is something else. But if necessity is the mother of invention as everyone says, we could add logistical feasibility to the bucket of common interests between the U.S. and Iran. Also, little matters such as reestablishing diplomatic relations might be required before we can even discuss this in seriousness. Not to forget that whole Iranian-pursuit-of-nuclear-weapons fly in the ointment.

Just one little step at a time...

How Languages Bind Us Together

I love languages, in an armchair sort of way. I have no formal training in languages, but I am often struck by how the evolution of language is simply a superficial marker of the deeper evolution of culture. People move and take with them a piece of their ancestral culture in the form of certain rituals, yes, but more importantly, they take their language with them. This 'snapshot' of their past doesn't remain still either; it incorporates influences from the new homeland, and the evolution continues. But the ancestral links remain. I remember my own wonder when I first learned in school about the Romance languages and how they were all derived from Latin. I further remember my amazement at learning about this so-called Indo-European language family, and the fact that Latin and Sanskrit were sister languages! Common knowledge for us now, but still a powerful symbol of how cultures have traveled over millenia. For example, India and China are neighbors, but, separated by the Himalayas and some mighty rivers, their cultures have had little contact and hence, their languages--Indo-European/Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan language families respectively--have little in common. The ties between the Dravidian (South India) and Austro-Asiatic (South East Asia) languages are more complex: close connections in script, but little in terms of vocabulary.

Because of my interest in the general subject of languages, I was fascinated to see this footage of British actor, Eddie Izzard, going to Friesland in Northern Holland where some of the Anglo-Saxon tribes originally came from. Eddie knows that the local language, Frisian, is a Germanic language that is very similar to Old English. So, naturally, he attempts to buy a cow from a local farmer, by speaking in old English and seeing if he's understood. (Hat tip to Tall Blog.)

Change is here; now go change the details--habeas corpus edition

Now for some real news that, naturally, is consigned to oblivion thanks to the bailout and Valentine's Day newsthink. Yesterday, a federal judge ruled against the Obama Administration on a key aspect of the current habeas corpus mess: Define what an "enemy combatant" is before we decide whether to keep holding them.

In the first federal court ruling rejecting a position of the Obama Administration on detention of terrorism suspects, a federal judge in Washington on Wednesday turned aside an Administration plea to go forward with detainees’ challenges without first defining who may be held as an “enemy combatant.” U.S. District Judge John D. Bates decided that no habeas cases can be decided without settling who may be treated as an enemy in the “war on terrorism.” However, he did give the Administration some added time — until March 13 — to come up with an alternative definition to one that he will be using temporarily. The judge’s order, though written in moderate terms, conveyed some impatience with the government’s initial response.

Emphasis mine. If you don't know or care about habeas corpus...sigh. Obama is, as we've been reminded once or twice, a constitutional law professor, and once memorably talked during the campaign about the need to protect one of our most important rights:

But, the former constitutional law professor argued, "What I have also said is this: that when you suspend habeas corpus -- which has been a principle, dating before even our country, it’s the foundation of Anglo-American law -- which says, very simply, if the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, 'Why was I grabbed?' and say, 'Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.'

"The reason you have that safeguard," he said, "is because we don't always have the right person. We don’t always catch the right person. We may think this is Mohammed the terrorist, it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You may think it’s Barack the bomb thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.

Myes, "why was I grabbed?" If you don't care to remember what h/c is, please burn that phrase in your brain, and know that you have a constitutional right to ask that in court. Not just in America, either. As George Will points out:

No state power is more fearsome than the power to imprison. Hence the habeas right has been at the heart of the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments, a struggle in which the greatest event was the writing of America's Constitution, which limits Congress's power to revoke habeas corpus to periods of rebellion or invasion.

Now, back to Judge Bates' decision. Without a properly focused definition of "enemy combatant," this Administration can hold almost anyone indefinitely, and the burden of proof shifts inordinately to the defense--and hinges on the capability of their lawyers. Candidate Obama railed against such sloppy uses/abuses of government power. Now, President Obama needs to go change how that power is used. The devil was always in the details.

Today's Procrastination Utility

Stick Cricket is one of my favorite flash games of all time. They've done a great job of improving the graphics over the years and have come a long way from the initial, literally "stick" game graphics. Just press one of the arrow keys at the proper moment to score runs! The game comes in many flavors (I like the World Domination game) and there is also a nifty training mode.

If you like the cricket version, there is also a really cool Stick Baseball game!

The Utilitarian Ethic of Procrastination

Psychologists at Oxford University have discovered an intriguing phenomenon: playing Tetris may reduce flashbacks to traumatic events, a hallmark symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder:

The researchers report in PLoS ONE that for healthy volunteers, playing ‘Tetris’ soon after viewing traumatic material in the laboratory can reduce the number of flashbacks to those scenes in the following week. They believe that the computer game may disrupt the memories that are retained of the sights and sounds witnessed at the time, and which are later re-experienced through involuntary, distressing flashbacks of that moment.

It is not clear whether Tetris is unique among video or computer games in being able to disrupt memories. Even so, what is clear is that those parental admonishments against playing video games too much because they turn your brain into mush might, indeed, have some basis in fact.

Naturally, after all that inane talk, I quite understand if you have the overwhelming urge to go play some tetris:

The Utilitarian Ethic of Science

Scientists at Newcastle University have shown that by giving a cow a name and treating her as an individual, farmers can increase their annual milk yield significantly:

The study, published online in the academic journal Anthrozoos, found that on farms where each cow was called by her name the overall milk yield was higher than on farms where the cattle were herded as a group.

"Just as people respond better to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one-to-one attention," explains Dr Douglas, who works in the School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development at Newcastle University.

The good doctor helpfully closes with this advice: "Placing more importance on knowing the individual animals and calling them by name can – at no extra cost to the farmer – also significantly increase milk production."

Something tells me that those farmers that aren't already predisposed to naming their livestock will find it difficult to incorporate his advice and suddenly begin sweet-talking Daisy and Bessie on their barnyard walks. What's more, I suspect that the cows themselves--intelligent beings that they are--might become suspicious if their owner goes from spitting or kicking at them to cooing sweet nothings on a moonlit night. If they don't become wary at this turn of events, evidenced by, say, a reduction in their milk production, said cows are likely not very bright after all.

It shouldn't be long now before we see numerous advertisements for seminars in cow-psychology, followed by early morning talk shows (Dr. Milk?), and a booming demand for cow-sitters (yes, I spelled that correctly). More likely, this will spawn the next great comic series--yes, Milkbert--where the bovine protagonist suffers through barnyard indignities and stupid HR policies. Hmmm, that gives me an idea for a hit TV show (you saw it here first)...The Barnyard.