The love of money isn’t the root of all evil; *arithmetic* is the root of all evil. More specifically, counting. And it could be ruining your life. Here’s the podcast. My full October 2007 newsletter on the dangers of counting can be found in my website’s articles archive at:
http://SteverRobbins.com/articles/is-counting-evil.htm.
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The love of money isn’t the root of all evil; arithmetic is the root of all evil. More specifically, counting.
Don’t get me wrong; counting was a wonderful invention. It has its uses. We can keep track of kids: “Are all 5 kids here? Let’s see, 1… 2… 3… 4… where’s Billy?” We can keep track of time. “He’s working overtime in the salt mines, honey. Instead of 12 hours, he’s working 14 hours today. He’ll be home at … 9, 10. Yes, 10 p.m.” And we can keep track of money: “He gets paid $1.49/hour working overtime, so our bank balance will be $11.37 … $12.37 … $13.37 … $13.86 after Billy gives us his share.” In fact, they remind us over and over in MBA school that “What gets measured, gets managed.”
So where’s the problem? This is evil? This gave us the industrial-friggin’-revolution. This sounds great!!
We measure the wrong stuff
Well, the problem starts when we choose what to measure. We often measure what doesn’t lead to our goal, and expect the measuring to magically create the managing.
Want profit? Let’s count expenses. Tell all managers to submit weekly reports of their team’s expenses. Let’s call it a TPS Report, and count how many TPS reports people send, to make sure they’re doing their job (which has silently morphed from “running a profitable business” to “submitting TPS reports”). Well, whoopie. We’ve added a whole layer of useless counting, and then another layer to count who is and isn’t counting. Since we don’t actually know what to do with the silly TPS report, we slide further from profitability. We’re counting the wrong thing.
Or how about sick days? There’s a hoot. “You only get six sick days.” Nice. Like that’s controllable. If you’re sick for seven days, come on in and give it to everyone else in your department, so everyone has to take six days off. You can measure sick days, but the measure is useless.
Seemingly meaningful measurements … aren’t
Then we make up measurements that mean nothing and try to manage those. “Let’s rank our employees. Then we can fire the bottom 10%.” Sounds easy; isn’t easy. (Sadly, however, it is a much-publicized Jack Welch policy.) How much time will managers spend on this ranking exercise? Do they apply consistent standards that are directly related to the company’s goals? Do we fire the 10% of managers whose ranking skill is in the bottom 10%? Who decides that?
Ranking is hard. Really hard. In fact, in 1963, psychologist George Miller’s famous paper “The Magic Number 7 +/- 2” presented results showing people can make ranking distinctions between 5 to 9 items, and then we pretty much lose track. If you think you can accurately rank a 250-person department, you’re deluded and thus in the bottom 10%; it’s time to pack your bags.
Even if you can rank, can you use the rankings for action? We want to punt the bottom 10% of the company. We can’t really compare an accountant against a design engineer, so our fresh new Harriford MBA, Darren, suggests we eliminate 10% of each department. That will add up to 10% of the company.
But what if our 30 design engineers rock, while our 30 accountants all suck eggs? As a company, we want to fire six accountants (10% of 60 employees) and no design engineers. But firing 10% of each department means we leave three mediocre accountants standing, and three rockin’ design engineers out of work. That’s clearly wrong. But we get one benefit: we know Darren didn’t understand the logic of firing, so we know he’s in the bottom 10% and should be fired. Success! We have at least one confirmed cost savings from this exercise.
Measurement turns us evil
I know you’re asking: what in heaven’s name does this have to do with spirituality, morality, and/or the rest of our lives? (If you weren’t asking that, don’t worry, just go with the flow.)
Here’s where the evil comes in. We only measure so we can make decisions about those measurements and change our behavior. But we do this by judging the measurements as “good” or “bad.” When we’re measuring a “bad” trend, we panic. We’re afraid. We’re angry. We get frustrated, anxious, mean, jealous, violent, and nasty.
How do people act when they feel anxious, mean, jealous, violent, and nasty? Fortunately, we live in a Highly Evolved Society, so we meditate for five minutes, do some yoga, and we’re fine. NOT! Most people want to get rid of the bad feelings. Some fudge the numbers and play financial games. Think Enron. Some people hit something. Some people treat everyone around like crap. And some people blame.
Yes, they blame. They blame colleagues. “Sales are down! Sally distracted me so I lost the big prospect.” They blame loved ones. “I went over my sick day quota since I had to take Billy to treatment for his Black Lung disease.” They blame the government.”If it weren’t for the (Republicans/Democrats), (the economy/the occupation/global warming/life/love/happiness) would be better.” And they blame themselves. “I’m just a failure.”
All because they counted, then got emotionally wedded to the counting.
What counts and what doesn’t?
I’ve been talking so far about business, only not really. We count the wrong things in business, we count the wrong things in life. We go to pieces when our business counts go off-track, we go to pieces when our real-life counts go off-track. And remember, real life counts more. Where do you get caught in the counting?
Some of us count who’s done more housework, us or our spouse. Some of us count the dollars in our savings account. Some of us count what someone does to prove they love us. Some of us count how pious our neighbors are. It all turns into judgment, and from there, into emotion. When the counting is going the way we want, we think life is good. When the counting goes the other way, we get upset.
The upset is extra, though! It’s our reaction to the counting. The counting doesn’t cause the problem; it’s our stories about the counting that cause the problem.
Let’s fix this. Let counting be counting. Let emotion be emotion. All this score-keeping, counting, and measuring is made up. It’s all fantasy. It’s a convenient tool for making decisions. But it’s not real. And it’s certainly not worth turning yourself into an ogre, feeling horrible, and abusing yourself and your loved ones.
What if you count and discover your bank account isn’t high enough to send your kids to college? Don’t get upset. Use it as information and change your savings plan. But don’t beat yourself up. You can’t do anything for your kids that way, except set a bad example. Use the information to stay centered and work with the people you love to fix the situation.
What if you count and discover your spouse overcharged on the credit card? You can fly into a rage, or you can sit down with your spouse, love each other tremendously, and decide from that place how you’ll deal with the situation. I used the “fly-into-a-rage” method several times. It didn’t pay the bill, nor did it make me an attractive snuggle partner, even to our stuffed animals. The counting-as-information plus love-then-problem-solving works way better.
What if you count pounds, and discover you have more than you want? You can get depressed and eat a chocolate cake to help yourself feel better (Stever’s diet advice: learn to distinguish “sugar rush” from “feel better”). Or realize the number’s just information you can use to change your diet. If you’re going to diet, doing it from a place of fun makes it … well … more fun. And if you’re not going to diet, then at least enjoy the chocolate cake. But don’t let counting trick you into not-dieting, and also not enjoying the cake. That’s plain foolishness!
And what if you count and discover you’re not as rich as Darren, despite your superior skills? Or you’re not as rich as the goal you set at age 23? You can call yourself a failure and jump out of a plane without a parachute. That’s one solution. But maybe you can notice that a number is just a number, while you’re an entire human being who has much more to offer than a number.
Counting is optional. If you stop counting and look around, you just might find you’re warm, dry, full, and reading the web. And that’s not such a bad place to be. So count only when it’s useful, don’t take it too seriously, and feel good either way. Move your attention from counting to living. Put your attention on the things that make you feel happy, joyous, and grateful. If you must count, count those, and every day, count a little higher. It’s your life, and only you can make your counting count.
A post popped up on Inspiration Nation discussing the article on Overwhelm I wrote in 2005. If you haven’t tried it, I also created a free companion email overload assessment to figure out how many sushi dinners worth of time you’re sacrificing to the Great Gods of Email Overlaod.
The overload situation hasn’t improved since I wrote the article. The 40-hour workweek is widely considered to be a thing of the past. Corporate profits continue to reach all-time highs, so we’re definitely making more money. But so what? Wages are flat or, if you adjust for inflation and higher energy prices, falling. Why does a “good economy” matter if we have to give up our free time and relationships for a falling standard of living? The outgoing MBA graduates I occasionally coach assume they’ll have no life in their pursuit of … the good life?
I’m very puzzled. I’m puzzled that we’ve been so thoroughly trained to confuse buying stuff with happiness (and the two just don’t equate). I’m puzzled we believe it makes sense to give up time with friends and family so we can earn enough to … take time off and spend it with friends and family. And I’m puzzled that even when we are being more productive, we aren’t more outraged that the benefits of that productivity are accruing to people who already have so much money they can’t possibly use any more.
It’s puzzling. And it’s a world we’ve made for ourselves. And if we want change, we’ll have to change it ourselves.
I think it’s a natural progression of our underlying economic system. Our success measures are all growth measures: economic growth, profitability growth, productivity growth. As long as we require yearly growth, it has to come from somewhere. We must get more productive to have productivity growth, and corporations must retain a greater percentage of that gain each year to produce profit growth. That means cutting back on little expenses like healthcare or payroll.
There’s nothing wrong with a nice, stable business that makes a consistent profit year after year, but somehow, we’ve decided that’s not enough. Which is a shame, because thanks to our imperative of growth, many of us have less and less of a life each year.
Every year, I staff Otherworld, a yearly adventure weekend that lets participants spend a weekend adventuring as their “heroic selves.” As a participant, Otherworld was one of my funnest weekends ever. As a staff member, it’s been fantastic as well.
This year, I was a “Companion.” I traveled with a group of adventurers, making sure they didn’t fall off a cliff, supplying power bars when needed, etc.
By the end of the weekend, I was beaming with pride for my group. Whenever they came across a group having a challenge, be it combat, a locked treasure chest, or not having enough Royals to pay for lunch, they leapt to the rescue. It’s not required by the adventure, nor is it rewarded.
It struck me afterwards at how powerful it was, watching a group that were genuinely living with a heroic, generous spirit, while still keeping to their own quest and taking care of themselves. I see this so very, very rarely in my daily life. It seems like our culture is one of “take care of #1.” Sure, we provide a market economy and some resources to do it, but there’s really no sense of “we’re in this together.”
Spending a weekend with my group’s heroic selves really inspired mine.
In real life, my current heroic venture is helping to mentor a Junior Achievement group of high school students in creating and running a business. It’s a 2-hour commitment, once a week, for 12 weeks. By the time I’m done I will have spent a whole day (24 hours) this year being heroic. That’s about 1/4% of my time spent heroicly.
How much of your time do you get to spend as your heroic self? Any ideas for how to increase that number?
Amazing. Utterly amazing.
The New York Times is reporting that Churches are now attracting teenagers to the church by having “Halo” nights. That’s when teenage boys get together and play a videogame that’s rated “M” for mature (which means teenagers can’t purchase it without a parent’s permission).
First of all, isn’t there a commandment about “Honoring Thy Father and Thy Mother?” Shouldn’t the churches require parental permission? Remember the bum standing outside the liquor store, buying alcohol for teenagers in return for a few bucks. This time it’s the church buying violent videogames. This does not sound wholesome.
(Of course, we just came off the Catholic-Church-as-teenage-sex-ring scandal, so I’m not sure we should be surprised.)
But let’s say it’s fine for the church to override parental wishes, since they have a direct line to God and the parents, presumably, do not.
They say it’s harmless fun. They must not know how to use Google. It took me less than 30 seconds to visit the American Psychological Association’s web site and look at the 2005 survey of 20 years’ worth of videogame studies. Playing violent videogames heightens aggression, both short-term and long-term.
Now I wasn’t raised in a Judeo-Christian household, so I don’t know the Bible in great detail. But an Orson Wells special on Nostradamus I saw as a kid outlined Armageddon in brief terms (and without attending Bible study classes, it’ll have to do). One of the highlights was when people acting in the name of God and the Church began doing the devil’s work, all the while believing they were doing God’s work.
I would say luring teenagers to Church by exposing them to non-parentally-approved games that are known to increase violent behavior just might fit the bill.
An International House of Pancakes recently opened in Harvard Square.
Harvard Square is in the midst of Harvard University, and is populated mainly by college students. It was once a really hip, cool shopping area, and is now occupied almost entirely by banks and huge ATM bays. Who hangs out in Harvard Square? Teenagers, college students, and grad students.
IHOP recently opened a restaurant in Harvard Square. It’s right across the street from the Kennedy School of Government, chock full of grad students. But for some reason, IHOP business may not be too good. So their windows have huge signs advertising their specials: SENIOR SPECIAL, 50% OFF! and KIDS EAT FREE TUESDAYS.
Wow. Omigosh, wow. They’ve located their restaurant in the heart of a neighborhood whose occupants are between the ages of 18 and 25, largely unmarried, and virtually without kids. Are they really so clueless that they think a SENIORS SPECIAL and KIDS EAT FREE will increase their business? Or maybe they’re niche marketing to the six families in the area who have senior citizens or young children.
We’re taking a trendy, hip, cool shopping area and turning it into a wasteland of financial institutions and IHOP. This is progress?
A friend asked: What is personal integrity? Does a person have personal
integrity when their personality is integrated, or what?
Interesting question. One meaning is that you act congruently with our values, tell the truth as you see it, etc. This is “integrity” n the sense of having societally-accepted good values like telling the truth and keeping your word.
For the structural meaning of integrity–that bridge has structural integrity–it means all parts of a system are aligned in support of the system’s function. In a human, it would correspond to having minimal conflicts, clear values, acting in accordance with those values, and acting consistently enough over time that you actually anage to produce the results you want in your life.
That’s my interpretation, at any rate.
Questions for reflection:
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I’d like to share with you a LinkedIn exchange I had on the topic of whether Being Nice is a good business strategy. You can find the transcript in my article, Is “nice” good business or just wishful thinking?
Click here to hear this article as a podcast.
I’d like to share with you a LinkedIn exchange I had on the topic of whether Being Nice is a good business strategy.
Questioner Is there power in being nice, with people in general or as a management tool? … Do you agree, or is this just so much psychobabble?
Stever
I haven’t read “The Power of Nice,” though I’m amused that we’ve created a culture where we believe we have to make a case for treating each other nicely. It can certainly be better business to screw people. Prof. Howard Stevenson of Harvard Business School did a study about that years ago. He concluded that being unethical did, indeed, pay, but it produces a world we don’t want to live in, so we tell stories like, “Being ethical is good business.”
In my life, I find when I’m centered and calm and at my best, I naturally want to be nice to people, and it feels darned good. And yeah, there’s more and more research supporting that position.
Questioner Are you saying there are times when the best thing to do is “screw people”?
Stever
The “best thing to do” depends on your value system. In business, if you value profits over people, you can sometimes maximize profits by screwing people. Nicotine-enhanced cigarette, anyone? Unethical behavior is common in business. The Conference Board did a study showing 60% of all people interviewed over a wide range of companies and industries routinely were asked to do unethical or illegal things. That makes it the majority way of doing business. That says to me that unethical behavior is more normal in the workforce than being female. (Copy of the study is available in PDF form here. See page 22.)
Personally, I value people over profits. I would love to live in a world where, if a business can legally, but unethically, make a profit, it would go out of business regardless of profitability. I used to stand up in meetings and point out when we were doing something unethical. Now I’m self-employed; honest self-examination isn’t a survival trait in corporate America. What was a survival trait, however, was the willingness to help everyone convince themselves that the profit-maximizing choice was also the ethically and morally “right” choice.
My own life has been a continual effort to deepen my integrity and building a life that aligns with my values. It disturbs me to see people damage their own integrity through self-denial.
That’s why I quoted Prof. Stevenson’s research. There’s this very comforting, but empirically false story that we can somehow maximize our business fortunes and our ethical/moral fortunes in one happy bundle. When we adopt the story, we get to have it all. When we face tough choices with very real tradeoffs between being a “good businessperson” and being a “good human being,” we relieve ourselves of having to confront the real choice, since our little story lets us maximize people OR profits, and claim that in the long run, our decision was magically best for both.
So back to your original question… I’ve had a very happy, satisfying, successful life on many levels, and have forgone chances to get a lot richer, legally, in ways that would have compromised my personal sense of integrity.
You may be different. If you prefer profits to people, then yeah, the best thing for you may be to screw people. I suspect if you do that, you’ll find yourself at life’s end surrounded by people you don’t like very much, with fewer happy memories than you might like. But that could simply be MY wishful thinking. I’m sure there are people who’ve been total jerks their whole life, accumulated huge fortunes, and died quite happy and quite oblivious to any suffering or harm they cause to others.
The good news is that you get to choose who you’ll be.
Have you seen this story? Our Boston leadership (and I use the term loosely) is once again promoting terror, fear, and ineptitude, in one happy package. An MIT student had a “bomb hoax” on her shirt.
“Hoax” implies she was trying to pull one over on the police. No, she had a piece of wearable electronics that (a) looks NOTHING like a bomb–it looks like two batteries and a breadboard, and (b) had no intent to blow up or deceive anyone.
They’re almost proud as they discuss how, thanks to her cooperation, they didn’t shoot her dead on the spot.
So what’s the point of this story? My takeaway is that their security people are scared by a battery and a piece of wire that doesn’t even remotely resemble a bomb. That doesn’t fill me with confidence. Yet they seem to want to tell us that they somehow saved us from some would-be evildoer.
Is this the world we’ve created? Where inadequately trained security people can’t tell the difference between AA batteries and a bomb, and we’re proud of our restraint in not killing a science student in our overreactive frenzy? Absurd!