River of Dreams
EVERYONE tells me that this newsletter is amazing. (Or do they?)
And even though I know
The river is wide
I walk down every evening
And I stand on the shore
And try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find
What I've been looking for
-Billy Joel, “River of Dreams”
Do these posts inspire you?
I won’t be offended if they don’t. I can take it.
The truth is that a Moneyball approach to Jewish organizational life can, at times, lack a certain degree of inspiration. If you choose to go where the evidence takes you, traditional narratives will often be torn apart, and you become faced with what Paul Tillich calls a “broken myth,”1 what Rabbi Neil Gillman z’’l defines as an aspect of one’s belief system that has been “exposed as our subjective, human construct.”2
This is not a journey for the faint of heart.
In Parashat Vayishlakh, we read about Jacob crossing the Jabbok river prior to his meeting with Esau, ultimately wrestling with a mysterious “man” until the break of dawn. The Rashbam says that the reason Jacob wanted to cross the river at night was that “he intended to change direction to avoid a meeting with Esau.”3 Sometimes, it is easier to run away than face truths about ourselves that we must confront.
However, I find Moneyball to be the essence of inspiration because it is based on the hope that leaders can make decisions that are best for the greatest number of people using the best possible information. Too often, decisions in organizations of all sizes are disproportionately influenced by the loudest voice or wallet in the room; however, if our goal is to serve the Jewish people, then we have an obligation to be objective about what it means for an approach to be the “best.” The reward of taking this approach is that those who embrace it will serve more people and make a greater impact than those who lead on instinct alone.
But beware if reading this newsletter causes you to think of examples that you want to apply this and others did not; our minds are designed to narrow our focus even in moments when a wide lens is required.
Availability Bias
When someone asks for your opinion about the future, and you have no time to do research, how do you arrive at your conclusion?
If you’re like me, you use the examples that first come to mind. If someone asks me what I think about my children’s school, I base it on what my children told me. If someone asks me what the feedback is “in the field” about a particular project, my gut instinct is to recall recent conversations.
And while this instinct is understandable, it is also very, very wrong. Meet the availability bias.4
The availability bias refers to our “tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future.” Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman found that a person tends to estimate the frequency of a given event by “assessing the ease with which the relevant mental operation of retrieval, construction, or association can be carried out.”5 When we are asked for an opinion, our minds naturally gravitate towards the most easily accessible examples. However, just because we can conjure an example easily does not mean that the example is reflective of the reality we are trying to assess. We are zooming in at a time when we need to zoom out.
I find that the availability bias comes up most frequently when trying to help a group identify relevant feedback, as opposed to basing strategic decisions on what examples people can readily cite. Beware any conversation with someone who says that a decision should or should not be made because “all of the people I talked to” said so. At best, this is the availability bias, choosing to draw conclusions based on what first comes to mind. At worst, this is confirmation bias, choosing to only remember the examples that reaffirm someone’s desired outcome.
Either way, don’t trust this incredibly common refrain.
The Leader Who Is Hardly Known
True leaders
are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders
the people know and admire;
after them those they fear;
after them, those they despise.
To give no trust
is to get no trust.
When the work’s done right,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
“Oh, we did it.”
-Lao Tzu
This quote from Lao Tzu is the basis of Steven Simpson’s The Leader Who Is Hardly Known, a fantastic book that combines reflections on leadership, mindfulness, and wilderness education. We should not be surprised that many leaders default to the availability bias; assuming our instincts are correct is often the narrative leaders use to justify why they are the right person to be in charge (i.e. “I alone can fix”).
And again, this is understandable but very, very dangerous.
Simpson argues that while “fortune…seldom has been a significant motivating factor” for those in education (or nonprofit work), “the dream of fame…is a different matter.”6 Simpson does not define “fame” in the way that we think that movie stars or athletes are famous, but rather fame as “encouraging devotion from others” and “behaving in certain ways because it impresses people.”7 All of us know leaders who make implicit and explicit moves in their leadership persona in order to receive admiration from others. Most of us have done it, from time to time; I know I have…
Over time, Simpson argues that model leaders internalize affirmation and become less motivated by “surrounding themselves with an admiration society.”8 The reflective leader is one who focuses more on the outcomes and the impacts on the people they seek to serve, rather than how much of that impact is attributed to them.
In Jewish leadership, Simpson’s embrace of the leader who is “hardly known” calls to mind the kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum, or “contraction.” Rabbi Arthur Green argues that tzimtzum is profound because “God withdraws out of love, seeking to make room for the other to exist.”9 It is incredibly human to want to be known by others in the short term, but there is a tremendous downside in the long term.
Weekly Links
The Metrics Onion: While I love data, I try not to overuse the word “metrics”; I find that eyes glaze over. This “sketchplanation” of metrics explains why.
What Happened When Zapier Cancelled Meetings?: Perhaps my being a fanboy for Cal Newport has made you a fan, and now you read his work on your own. If that’s the case, I applaud you. If not, I loved this piece by Newport on what happened when one tech company stopped having meetings for one week.
Effective Bed Habits: I have terrible sleep habits, in spite of knowing that research grows every year about the importance of adequate sleep and effective leadership. Here’s a wonderful guide on effective sleep habits. WARNING: Don’t read this article in bed on your phone. The irony would be too rich.
Too Nice to Lead?: I try to read as much as I can about gender stereotypes and leadership, mainly because (surprise surprise) I’d rather acknowledge my biases and beat expectations than pretend that I can promote gender equity on good intentions alone. Here’s a piece from Harvard Business School on a major stereotype of women leaders, and research on how it manifests itself.
Embrace Complexity Through Behavioral Planning: As we discussed in the issue on design thinking, changing well-established biases and habits begins by understanding the person you are hoping to impact. Here is an article from Behavioral Scientist about how to do just that.
Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957).
Neil Gillman, “The Problematics of Myth,” in Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, 1 January 2002. Accessed 2 December 2022.
“Why do we tend to think that things that happened recently are more likely to happen again?,” in The Decision Lab. Accessed 2 December 2022.
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability,” in Cognitive Psychology, Volume 5, Issue 2 (September 1973), 207-232.
Steven Simpson, The Leader Who Is Hardly Known: Self-less Teaching from the Chinese
(Bethany, Oklahoma: Wood N. Barnes Publishing, 2003), 16.
Ibid.
Ibid., 18.
Rabbi Arthur Green, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publications, 2004), 26.