Boy Trouble

There have been a couple of articles in Time during the last month about boys. I used to be one of those, perhaps I even still am, so I found them interesting.

The first article included a study of teenage boys, their behavior, and how things have changed for boys in the last couple of generations. As the article pointed out, this filled a gap in the literature. For there have been study after study of teenage girls, and nothing like the same attention to boys.

Interest in girls has followed the revolution of feminism since the 1960’s. It is clear that this gave young women many opportunities, at least in the part of the world where the revolution has not been held back. These opportunities, coupled with developments in technology such as social media, drove many changes in behavioural norms and a number of challenges.

I saw this clearly with my daughter, now twenty-four, and was able to celebrate teenage years with her that had fewer constraints than those of her mother or grandmother. Her generation, at least in Europe, had the benefit of not being limited in their educational or career choices, and of many more social freedoms.

The young women of today can choose their attitude and their style. They can choose when to be active and when passive, and it is now more acceptable for women to take the lead with boys. There are alternative role models available to Barbie. Millennial young women can thank earlier feminist icons for suffering through the hard yards to make this possible.

In my experience, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Characters bloom. Diversity flourishes. Confidence emerges. My daughter had few hang ups about her own sexuality and how to handle herself with men. Feminism helped, and so did the rise of social media. As a thirteen-year-old, she escaped to her room as often as possible to connect on MSN, to flirt and experiment harmlessly with boys, and, equally importantly, to compare notes and feelings with other girls.

As a parent, I was always at least one step behind. Each time I found the courage to try to throw in some worldly wisdom, I was too late, as the wisdom had already been learned from peers.

The new world of opportunity for young women still has its challenges. Social media can be indescribably bitchy, perpetuate clans and create winners and losers. At one stage, more than half of the girls in my daughter’s class were seeing the doctor or taking some medication for psychological issues. Mild depression was common.

All of this has been well documented. Crucially, girls, with their more open way of observing and sharing feelings with each other, have been able to find their way. And adults have also found a way to respond. The embarrassing grandma, with inappropriate remarks about virginity and marriage, has largely vanished, and even Walt Disney films start to portray more balanced female figures.

This is all great. But what about boys? The article suggests that boys have been subjected to just as much of a revolution, but that attitudes and responses have not followed suit, leaving generations of suffering kids. I tend to agree.

Start with the embarrassing granddad. He still exists and has not changed. A young teenage boy is still expected to sow wild oats, while not doing anything granddad wouldn’t do and staying out of trouble. In other words, the boy is expected to be the same unthinking, sex-obsessed, feral creature that I was expected to be.

This stereotype was damaging even in my day. I may have been sex-obsessed, but I had no idea what to do with that obsession, and had all sorts of false notions about my role, about girls and about consequences. The result was paralysis, acne, and awful hang-ups that persist to this day. I was not alone in this pain, but, true to my gender, I suffered it in silence, running away from any advice and any analysis of my own feelings.

But, tough as it was in my day, now it is worse, since all sorts of expectations have become jumbled up. Boys can still just as easily fall in love, and be just as easily hurt, but the road now is packed with new obstacles. Girls are allowed to behave differently. Social media speeds everything up. A humiliation can be much more public.

So the journey is tougher, but the map remains rudimentary. Advice from seniors still resembles the unhelpful embarrassing granddad. Peers are available, but boys find it much harder to share their feelings. Rather than ask each other questions, they tend to bombast and bullying to hide their true feelings. As a result, an exaggerated hierarchy develops among the boys, and winners and losers become more extreme. Inept at playing the new game with girls, they resort too easily to the weapons they do have, intimidation or running away. Fewer boys see the doctor, but more boys become seriously depressed and even take their own lives.

So the scene I witness in my own house daily becomes the norm. The girl is on facebook and her mobile phone, flirting, sharing and learning, as well as occasionally suffering. But the boy is hiding behind a computer game, locking away anything more real or more threatening.

Sadly, the article is at its weakest when advising us parents what to do about the issue. I can work out myself that perpetual questions will be greeted as warmly as my mother’s public questioning about my spots. I can guess that finding a quiet time and inviting confidence is the goal, but I didn’t pick up many hints about how to attain it. Perhaps there are no easy answers, and we just have to wait to see him find his own solutions.

I can conclude that more studies might help, and I thank Time for sharing one study. As with many issues, awareness is half the battle and it also helps to know that others have the same experiences. Even though on balance opportunity in life is still greater for boys compared with girls, even in developed countries, I think the balance of emotional challenge has begun to shift against the boys.

True equality of opportunity was the subject of the second article, and the global experiment is Sweden. There any gender difference is challenged, especially in early childhood. I remember this well. I lived in Stockholm and I observed the effects.

I support this movement unreservedly. Yet it gives me qualms. When I lived in Stockholm, it was noticeable that women were more confident than men. Even physically, women walked tall while men cowered.

It is possible to hypothesise an ugly future for this experiment. Is it possible that within a couple of generations of this cowering, Swedish men would become infertile? It certainly felt that way to me. At the time, this made me fear for the experiment and a part of me wished it would be rolled back in time.

But reading the two articles together enabled a second response. The experiment is just and correct and we should all advocate for it to continue, to accelerate and to spread around the world. Start in practical places like childcare provision, maternity leave and working hours.

Then add a missing ingredient. Help the men. Start by helping the boys as they mature to understand how to succeed in the new environment. The feminist revolution – wonderful yet incomplete though it is – has created a new need – for men. Solve the trouble with boys, and the revolution can proceed with confidence.

I wish a happy Christmas and blessed 2014 to everyone. I have just now succeeded in one resolution I made last New Years Eve, to write three blog posts per month. That was not so hard. Yet it was a typically male resolution, as did not challenge my feelings or require any vulnerability. Still, successes should be celebrated. I hope you have had your own successes in 2013 to celebrate.        

Moving Pains

We are just emerging from the misery of moving house. There is a famous old saying that nothing is worse for most of us than moving, except death and divorce. I’m not so sure, it was not all that bad. But it certainly was no fun. And the experience is so fixed at the top of my mind that it has to be the subject of a blog. I’ll try to make it not too depressing, and maybe there are some lessons for others buried deep in the experience.

I think the main reason why our family found this move so difficult mentally is that there was no positive story about it. Last year we accomplished the much tougher feat of moving from Europe to the USA: this time we scarcely shifted a mile. But the move last year was part of a life changing adventure. We were excited, a little daunted, and distracted, and our energy level was high. Many moves have such a positive backdrop: perhaps you are moving in with a partner, or trading up to somewhere nicer or embarking on a new job.

This move had no such context. Moving was forced upon us by our landlord selling up. We had not sought to move. We liked where we were. The market had gone up so we struggled to even maintain a place as nice as our previous one. Add in the darkest weeks of the year and some cold and snow last week, and you can understand the dark context further.

So that is my first lesson. Look for the positive storyline, and create one even if it is rather manufactured. A good feeling about an adventure papers over a lot of sore backs and unpleasant surprises.

The move itself we handled relatively easily. I suppose we had done it many times before and had learned a few lessons. Moreover we were not on a particularly tight budget. We know that moving furniture and carrying boxes are jobs for the experts. I marvel at the strength of professional movers, and their superb spatial awareness. My wife and I can both stare at the problem of fitting a piece of furniture through a door and come up with different wrong answers. These guys just get the job done.

So the second lesson is not to pretend you can do more than is sensible. Packing stuff into boxes is not a big problem, and it is amazing how few things break even if your packing is a bit lazy. But pay for pros to do the heavy stuff. Your mood will be dark enough and your back will ache enough without making it worse. I was never fit and now I am not young either. We got plenty of help, but my back still hurts after a week, and I am falling asleep at nine every night: I have missed the end of the last four TV NFL evening games.

Moving teaches you a lot about teamwork, especially with your partner or housemate or whoever is sharing the load with you. Teamwork is easy when the problem is fun and everyone is motivated and has energy. Moving has few of those advantages, so you have to work harder at it. It is obvious that a good team will allocate the tasks according to their respective strengths. It is also obvious that complements and treats go down especially well when everyone is under pressure. But I also learned that we measure progress in different ways. For me, it is critical to tick off milestones and to get rid of as many boxes as possible as quickly as possible, even at the expense of needing to revisit things again later. My wife prefers to make each part of the house perfect the first time.

A good lesson would have been to work this out in advance, or even just to recall it from previous arguments over moves. Then we could each have adjusted our approach subtly to please each other.

It also helps the team if you can find a way to relax and to celebrate together. We ate out with a bottle of champagne on the first evening. Relaxing things are especially helpful, since everyone is stressed. I found the routine of Church services and concerts powerful in the days around the move; maybe meditation and massage might work for others.

Some moving lessons are quite well documented but nonetheless easily forgotten. First come basic project management principles, especially as regards critical path analysis. The morning the movers arrive you need to be ready, not just nearly ready. The day you hand over the keys the place must be cleaned and empty. When you move in you need electricity. It is surprising how many items are not time critical, yet we spend precious time on them. Also, you always start slow and speed up and then run out of time. Some early effort on time critical tasks will repay later.

Another lesson is about what might be called critical items. Most of us can work out to put our valuable things somewhere under full control, but perhaps our kids need coaching of the same skill. We can probably also work out that having a suitcase of clothes, toiletries and so on for the changeover days makes sense, almost as though preparing for a holiday. But there are other items to add to the critical list. Cleaning things and extension cords are two examples. No doubt there are good lists on Google.

 A clear lesson is about throwing things away. We tend to make the mistake of postponing chuck outs, even thinking we can achieve a good chuck out during a move. There is no time for that! We have just packed the same junk into boxes that we packed an unpacked a year ago, and now it is cluttering up yet another house. For most of us, chucking only works as a regular thing, a bit like dieting. True, a blitz can achieve a lot, but without good everyday habits things will get worse anyway. I think it is also good logic to think hard before buying bulky things. We understand the dimension about value for money, but what about value for space? There is another useful comparison with holidays here: a 20kg mentality for purchases is a healthy thing.

Even following all these lessons, there will be difficult days and disasters will occur. Something will be unexpectedly deficient in the new place. Maybe like us you will welcome your new abode by blocking the toilet, to gain acquaintance with the wonderful devices available to unblock them. Or, also like me, you can misunderstand how a door locks, and find yourself outdoors in your bedroom slippers in below freezing temperatures. Look on the bright side. It is a good way to meet the neighbours, you made their day, and you can laugh at all your misfortunes for years to come.

Finally, for a fanatical observer of firms like me, moving offers many gems. I wonder if anyone managing Home Depot has ever actually visited Home Depot. As a handyman, the experience my be tolerable, but the place is marketed for regular humans too and it just does not measure up. For 80% of the store, people like me would need staff help, yet finding staff is almost impossible. If you want to make a bad day worse, call on Home Depot! And surely, in the days of the internet, a place like that ought to work out that personal service is essential, and that we would pay enough for it to make it worth their while.

I also bought a computer. Best Buy sold me a bundle, that required me to log onto a website that did not exist to activate. Brilliant. And who in the world designed Windows 8? Microsoft spent years coming up with this, yet surely can’t have tested it on any non geeks. I even needed help learning to turn it off! Then all these folk have websites that you can link to for instant chat, but then all they tell you is that you need to contact the horrible service you always used to. Thank goodness for the helpful people in Staples.

OK, that is enough on moving. It helped to write about it, so maybe that is another lesson: share your pain. Now I’ll get back to the boxes. I’ll not skimp on help, focus on time critical items, do something that I find pointless but my wife will appreciate, and take everyone out to dinner again, where we’ll search for a positive story for the whole experience. Then after I’ve become even more frustrated with Windows 8 and Home Depot, I’ll start the most important job: chucking things out in preparation for the next move.    

In search of Heroes

The news this week has been dominated by the death of Nelson Mandela. Truly Mandela was a 20^th century hero. His story had the earning of leadership, courage in fighting an unjust status quo, extensive suffering, then developing a different kind of leadership, shaping a future for many, and finally reconciliation and generosity.

This set me thinking about what constitutes a hero for me, and who else might qualify. The Mandela list is a reasonable place to start in terms of attributes. We have leadership (earned not inherited or gifted), courage (telling truth to power and being willing to suffer the consequences), shaping a future (a positive legacy) and some humility and generosity (sacrifice of power for a greater good).

In one way Mandela was lucky. He lived long enough for his heroism to become recognized universally. Often it is only looking back, sometimes a few generations back, that heroism becomes evident. It is interesting to try to skip this time interval, and predict who may be seen as a hero in the distant future but not already.

One example of this may be FW de Klerk, the last white apartheid leader who oversaw the dismantling of the odious system. The Nobel committee showed great judgement in my opinion by nominating de Klerk to share the prize with Mandela. Truly the wonder of Mandela could only bear fruit with the heroism of de Klerk. Wounds are still fresh, and it remains tough to see de Klerk as anything but a perpetrator, but there is a strong case to the contrary. In my ways, the hardest part of heroism is to cede power. De Klerk is a shining example of this. We can argue all we like about it being tactical, or too late, but from his seat of power he will have been advised to make choices opposite to the ones he made. That is enough in my book to elevate him to hero.

Another one from a similar background is Michael Gorbachev. I believe his motives were sound. He could see that persisting with communism was only going to hurt his countrymen, so he set about dismantling the system. The personal consequences were tough – and even now he is reviled in his own land and not given enough respect outside of it. He makes my list of heroes.

It is possible that in future Thein Sein in Myanmar could been seen in the same light, as the hero who stopped the nonsense in his own country. We all know about Aung San Suu Kyi, and indeed she seems to be pretty heroic too, but we have to respect the one who voluntarily sacrifices power as well.

In the same light, we all recognize Martin Luther King as a hero, but John F Kennedy deserves a lot of respect for responding to the equal rights agenda when he had little need to, at great political risk.

Edward Snowden is slightly different. He has not sacrificed much power, but he has certainly sacrificed his comfortable lifestyle. People in the US find it hard so far to respect him, and I am not surprised that Time did not make him their man of the year (even nominating him was brave), but for me he qualifies on my list of heroes, so long as it doesn’t later emerge that fame was a stronger motivator than justice.

Instead of Snowden, Time chose Pope Francis as their man of the year. What a good start he has made as Pope, I love the humility in all his pronouncements. And he too looks set to voluntarily give up power, in this case the power of the curia and the vast Vatican enterprise. I wish him well.

Someone else who surrendered power and took a risk for his country was Deng Xioaping. Much of the development in China during the last forty years can be attributed to his heroism in challenging the orthodoxy prevalent in his circle. President Lula in Brazil did not achieve quite so much, but can still be proud of his legacy, especially in reducing poverty.

No doubt many other heroes lurk in the shadows, unknown to most of us, and content to be unknown. In business, years ago I read an article about level four leaders. The article was actually not terribly convincing technically, but I did like the hypothesis, that great business leaders sacrifice themselves, and especially their ego, for their company. The best leaders that I have worked with in business have great humility, loving to coach and develop and to plan for their own succession. I always laugh when I see some CEO portrayed as a hero in a magazine. It is very common that this burnishing of the ego is swiftly followed by a fall from grace.

Sometimes heroes are simply good administrators, and are not called to great heroic acts. In the British 1940’s we all remember Churchill – it will be interesting to see if that legacy unwinds at all in the coming years as challenging him becomes permissible. But arguably three B’s had as much impact on the future of their own country, and even of others. Beveridge brilliantly designed the welfare state. Butler reorganized education. And Bevan transformed health services via the NHS. How we could do with such courageous and far-sighted political leaders today. Of course even those three would probably drown in the US congress or the UK parliament of now. The aftermath of a war is often the place where the brilliant can have a lasting impact.

Still sticking with politics, I think we will in time come to see Angela Merkel as a heroine. Navigating the euro crisis as a national politician has required all the hallmarks. She has earned respect, she has challenged dogma and she has sacrificed power for a greater good. So far, she has not really shaped an exciting future, but she has certainly helped us avoid a frightening one.

Finally, we can also look outside of politics for our heroes. In culture, we could consider van Gogh, Picasso, or Igor Stravinsky. While each suffered in different ways, the main characteristic of these artistic heroes was to challenge the dogma of their time. Popular wisdom will have derided their output, but from a distance we can see that they each took their field to an exciting new level. Perhaps these artists also sacrificed power, as in each case they would have enjoyed greater fame and fortune in their lifetime with a more conventional approach.

The Economist recently reviewed a study about how civil wars end. Overall, it made for quite depressing reading, since a prime conclusion was that ending civil wars is very hard. Most often, they only end when there is stalemate on the ground, and when outside backers lose their patience. The local protagonists are usually wedded to continuing a war even when they know they cannot win, partly because their personal power comes from the war. Those with the courage to take steps to seek peace after years of hatred can be heroes, even if they are not recognized as such even by their own side. How we could do with such a leader in Syria, or Israel. Perhaps at last we have found one in Iran.

I have really only mentioned heroes close to the spotlight of public attention. For each of these, there will be many more, toiling away in the background. I will stick with my four criteria, of earned leadership, courage to face down dogma, a lasting legacy and the voluntary sacrifice of power. I find it a good list, not least because each of the four is available to all of us, maybe in a limited way. As the new year approaches, perhaps we should all look for ways in our work and private lives to make some progress in each of the four areas. Even with our families we can do more. We may not seek the limelight, but we all have the chance to be heroes. Rest in peace, Nelson, and thank you for everything, including the gift to me of that list.

Moving up a Level

Here is a little trick I learnt as a Shell GBLP faculty, but which applies in many situations. If you are bogged down in detail or want to communicate powerfully, consider moving the conversation to the next level up.

By explaining the GBLP context, I hope I can make this clearer. In GBLP, candidates were asked to play a particular role in a series of business exercises. Maybe they were handling an operational meeting with a difficult partner, or trying to coach a staff member, or trying to get a project back on track. The simulations were written to be challenging and to require a lot of thinking and acting spontaneously.

Candidates often struggled, and in different ways. Two types of struggle were very common. Some became overwhelmed and found it hard to act with structure or make any progress at all. Others were quite active, but got lost in detail, hammering on about the issue at hand but unable to give any context or motivation.

It was hard to help the overwhelmed. Often they just needed more composure or experience at this kind of situation, and were betraying their immaturity and lack of readiness for this sort of tough role. Either they needed more time or practice, or perhaps their career had some limiting factors.

But my tip could help the detail people. I would ask them to appeal to a higher authority. That didn’t mean God, or even the boss, but something more in reach. They could progress if they found some common ground with the person they were arguing with.

Three types of common ground were often readily available, if only candidates could emerge from the morass and step back far enough. One was the vision or strategy. The second was the customer. And the third was the team or staff.

If they were stuck in an argument, the role players on the other side were told to just carry on. But if the candidate had the presence of mind to change the discussion, the role player responded. So something like: “This is all true and we have to resolve it, but let us not forget what we are trying to do here for our customer. He does not care about this detail, but he definitely wants us to reach an agreement.” Something similar for vision or strategy or team can easily replace the customer.

This does the trick. It changes the nature of the discussion. The other side always responds, even if it is not a role-play exercise. By appealing to some common ground, the atmosphere becomes about seeking a resolution rather than prolonging a dispute.

I call this moving up a level and I try to use it in many situations. It is a good general rule, that if you seem to be stuck in a dispute, moving up a level always helps.

Sometimes the dispute as an internal one with yourself. Should I tip this waiter who provided very ordinary service? Wow, that mechanic should have warned me before handing me that bill? That driver was rude and dangerous, I want to pay him back.

This sort of everyday situation makes us angry, gives us stress, and causes us to start fights. But try going up a level. Perhaps you are in a foreign country where things are cheap and even a 30% tip would amount to less than your daily Starbucks. Perhaps the mechanic will respond better to some humour or some begging than to anger, and you can do a better deal and remain friends for next time. And the driver will be rude and dangerous to others whether you honk your horn or not, but your kids in the back seat care will be put more in jeopardy if you start driving the same way.

Sometimes I wonder if this basic rule has eluded some of our politicians. It was obvious from the start that the brinkmanship leading to the closing down of congress was not going to work, but the players became more and more stuck in their petty argument and failed to see the big picture. For them the biggest picture they ever see is a headline in tomorrow’s local newspaper. Gradual erosion of their party base would be a more useful starting point. Public trust in democracy and the decline in America’s standing in the world might be even more useful to bear in mind.

There are some interesting books appearing about the origins of the first world war as we approach its centenary. That moment in 1914 shaped much of the next hundred years so it is fascinating to find out about the characters involved. One thing is clear, people became so stuck in the tiny detail that they initiated something of huge negative consequence to themselves and everyone else. One player was obsessed by a personal sleight. An army leader put building his power base above all else. Tragically, no one was able to go up a level.

Obama is a master at going up a level. He is always able to see and articulate a bigger picture, and use it to motivate people. That is how he got elected and then re-elected. Kennedy had the same, whereas someone like Angela Merkel relies more on the daily grind. It remains to be seen whether Obama’s legacy reflects this ability, though the recent deal with Iran looks promising, and it is possibly the harbinger of other good things. Kennedy may have been flawed in many ways, but ultimately his legacy includes major progress on minority rights and the beginning of the de-escalation of the cold war. That is not bad.

But the Obama example shows that going up a level, while always a good approach, is rarely sufficient. Two other things are necessary.

The first is the ability to find a higher power to appeal to. You cannot go up a level when there is no such common ground. This is why the level of the nation state remains such a frustrating blocker to progress on many issues. Climate change is one example, but others include eradication of poverty, reforming finance and middle east tensions. A little bit of common ground would go a long way in each example, but the only appeal anyone can make is an altruistic one. That is not enough when weighed against the interests of re-election and national competition.

The second requirement goes back to the example. Moving to a higher level can take the conversation away from petty disputes. But the petty disputes do not go away. At some point it is still necessary to resolve them, and that takes hard, painstaking work. Obama has shown himself notably unwilling or unable to do this.

I recently read a quote from Bill Clinton about Obama, in both Time and the Economist. Clinton points out that Obama has been brilliant at all the difficult things, but has been undermined by failing in all the easy ones. Success needs both.

So remember the skill of taking disputes to a higher level, it almost always works. But remember also to come back and fix the disputes as well. Even in a positive atmosphere, that is still needed.