โIn preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.โ -Dwight D. Eisenhower
I donโt have a leadership philosophy.1
Perhaps this surprises you.
Sometimes, I worry readers hope that there will come a point at which we will learn a single idea that can guide leadership practice instead of learning a constant stream of new ideas in no particular order.
Iโm sorry to disappoint you, but no all-powerful idea will be forthcoming.2
Ideas are tools in a toolbox. Skilled practitioners show mastery by knowing how to properly use certain tools in certain situations and other tools in others. A person who tries to find a single tool to do every job is someone who ultimately seeks a shortcut, and leadership has no shortcut.
However, like a late-night infomercial for a tool that meets all of your needs,3 there is always some well-credentialed person claiming to offer a grand theory of leadership. I read their books because I am a sucker, but the theory never delivers what it promises (although it often leads to decent book sales and speaking engagements for the author, which I suppose is something.)
At the same time, the desire to construct a grand theory of leadership (and my willingness to fall for it) is guided by a heuristic that impacts daily leadership work. So buckle up.
Narrative Fallacy
While I hope youโll take the previous section seriously and be wary of anyone claiming to offer a grand leadership theory, I know this is a losing battle. Ultimately, well-meaning people consistently want to simplify complex situations by identifying an illusory underlying pattern.
This is the narrative fallacy.
The narrative fallacy is the idea that people seek larger patterns where none exist. The term tends to be attributed to our new friend Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan.4 He writes:ย
โWe like stories, we like to summarize, and we like to simplify, i.e., to reduce the dimension of matters. The first of the problems of human natureโฆis what I call the narrative fallacy. (It is actually a fraud, but, to be more polite, I will call it a fallacy.) The fallacy is associated with our vulnerability to overinterpretation and our predilection for compact stories over raw truths. It severely distorts our mental representation of the world.โ5
Taleb wants us to resist the narrative fallacy but acknowledges that this is impossible because people have a โlimited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them.โ6 Humans want to figure out some explanation for problems with many causes, so we create a narrative that links a bunch of previously disparate stories into a single one. Itโs flawed logic, but itโs our logic (even if it is illogical.7)
In the context of Jewish organizations, we are constantly inundated with attempts to fit the choices of millions of Jews into narratives that rarely hold up to scrutiny. In fact, many of the grand pronouncements this newsletter mocks are simply versions of the narrative fallacy:
Synagogues are dead
So are denominationsโฆ
But Jewish camping will save us
Or Israel trips
Or maybe social justice
(Unless social justice destroys us by tying our destiny to cancel culture)
However, none of this matters because Haredi Judaism is the only Judaism with a bright future because Haredim have the most babies
Seen in isolation, these narratives are mostly โharmlessโ as long as you donโt believe them. The minute you do, you start seeing patterns where none exists, which makes impactful communal action difficult because groups buy into flawed collective narratives. And that dysfunction can turn harmful when we look at the narrative fallacy in the context of debating the Simhat Torah Massacre in Israel this past October.
I wonder every day how this once-in-a-generation tragedy will change the long-term fates of Israelis and Palestinians. And truthfully, I do not think anyone is even close to answering that question. But that doesnโt stop people from pushing strongly held narratives that prove weak upon even modest scrutiny. And Iโve yet to see a single noted thought leader about Israel announce that their grand theory of the conflict completely changed because of this event. And I doubt I willโฆ
Taleb urges us to โavoid the ills of the narrative fallacyโฆ[by favoring]...experimentation over storytelling, experience over history, and clinical knowledge over theories.โ8 In a sense, this is why I prefer to look at the ideas we explore as tools that are valuable in particular situations precisely because there is no grand pattern. Sometimes, a concept you will learn works great; other times, it wonโt work at all.ย
But itโs a great excuse to keep reading.
The Fund
While I could show you plenty of leadership books promising to offer a grand theory of leadership, the most famous recent one to hit bookshelves is Principles by hedge fund titan Ray Dalio. I bought this book, read it cover-to-cover, and even read a distilled version of the Principles turned into a childrenโs book.
At the same time, I wasnโt proud of my purchases. Today, Iโm even less proud of them after reading Rob Copeland's The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend to focus on Dalio. I have no investment in Dalioโs success or failure, but I would urge anyone who praises Dalioโs principles to read Copelandโs book.
Decades ago, Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates and turned it into the worldโs largest hedge fund. As such, itโs not surprising that Dalio would prematurely buy into his own brilliance (heโs in good company.) However, Copeland notes in his introduction that Dalio,
โmight be the first to claim that he alone has discovered the solution to what he sees as two of mankindโs greatest challenges: Our reluctance to disagree with one another, and our desire to pursue meaningful lives.โ
Dalio is not just a billionaire; heโs a billionaire who believes that his pathway to riches is also a pathway to solving human conflict and misery.
(Yes, you read that right.)
Of course, managing disagreement and finding meaning in our lives are noble goals, and perhaps Dalioโs success has something to teach us about each. However, Copelandโs thesis is that Dalioโs commitment to his principles is betrayed by two primary sins: (1) the principles continuously change without an internal logic, and (2) those principles never seem to apply to Dalio.
The Fund describes an organization where every meeting was recorded, public tribunals were convened to resolve highly sensitive disputes, and employees could be ranked on baseball cards based on what only seem to be arbitrary changes. I could share the horror stories with you (and there are many), but the one that stuck with me the most is an exchange between Dalio and a high-profile hire named Jon Rubinstein.ย
When Rubinstein is hired as co-CEO of Bridgewater, he is tested on the principles like everyone elseโฆand flunks. However, since Dalio claims to want honest feedback, Rubinstein uses this failure as an opportunity to see how much Dalio really wants feedback by sharing his main issue with the principles: the length. It does not go well:
Once Dalio caught word that his new prized hire had struggled in boot camp, he asked for some time to chat. Rubinstein, cognizant of everything heโd learned about the Bridgewater founderโs love of raw honesty, decided to tell Dalio what was on his mind:ย
โYouโve got three hundred and seventy-five Principles. Those arenโt principles. Toyota has fourteen principles. Amazon has fourteen principles. The Bible has ten. Three hundred and seventy-five canโt possibly be principles. They are an instruction manual.โย
Dalio blamed himself. Itโs my fault, the Bridgewater founder said, for expecting you to appreciate such a complex system so quickly. The Principles could not simply be memorized and then instantly absorbedโthe only way to understand them was to live them. Dalio called The Principles โthe way of being.โย
It was around this time that Rubinstein thought to himself, Shit.9ย
Dalio claims that raw honesty is critical to his success, yet he cannot even take a relatively innocuous piece of feedback (i.e. โthe principles are too long.โ) This is a bad, bad, sign.10
You will have to read Copelandโs book to decide whether or not you agree with my assessment. That said, if you find yourself being devoted to Principles, I would say read them at your own risk.
The Bully of Bridgewater
28
The total number of books that sold more than 500,000 copies in the United States in 2022. Out of approximately 300,000 published titlesโฆ11
(Thanks to Jason Colavito for this information.)
What I Read This Week
Why Adults Are More Imaginative Than Children: My creativity muscles strengthen as I age. Apparently, Iโm in the minority about my perspective, but apparently, there is science to back me up.
Soldier On: Tributes to Charlie Munger continue, and I found this piece particularly powerful. So much wisdom.
Jewish Workplace 2023: Leading Edge released its latest report on Jewish workplaces. No matter the findings or recommendations, itโs still the best data we have on Jewish workplaces.
Rethinking the Annual Performance Review: Annual Performance Reviews (APRs) are standard practice in most organizations, but does the status quo make sense? Corporate Rebels say โno.โ
What Happens to a School Shooterโs Sister: Powerful piece.
I also donโt read romance novels.
At least not from this newsletter.
Like the Ginsu knifeโฆ
By the way, if you read the entire book in the week since I recommended it, I applaud you. But I will assume most of us mere mortals cannot do that.
Ibid.
As Josh Lyman once said, โThatโs a permeating syllogism.โ
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 145.
For someone who has a problem with brevity, telling me that my essay, speech, letter, etc. is too long is hardly a personal attack. If anything, the people who warn me about going on for too long are usually the people who want me to succeed the most (because they do not want my valid points to be lost in a sea of unnecessary words.) If I canโt take that feedback, it is likely I will react even worse to more substantial feedback.
Apparently, eight of these books were by Colleen Hoover, a romance novelist. Now footnote 1 finally makes sense.