Pointless Tasks and Leadership

Anna Maria Maiolino, from her exhibit at LACMA

Anna Maria Maiolino is an Italian born Brazilian artist.  As a “modern” artist her works tend to concentrate on minimalism.  Currently, the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art is running an exhibit on her work.  One of her performance art pieces involves the game of solitaire. 

Her twist is to randomly remove two cards before beginning.  Of course, without two cards you can neither finish nor win the game.  As she quietly sits and plays the game, you can’t help but think that it is pointless.  Playing a game you can never win, nor properly finish seems pointless.  But, if you reflect a little deeper, solitaire is inherently pointless; win, lose or missing two cards. 

Having used card playing in general and poker specifically as a metaphor to examine leadership in our book Leadership:  Texas Hold ‘em Style, I thought about leadership and the pointless tasks we ask people to do.  Not just those tasks that have no deeper meaning.  Lots of stuff we have to do must be done. It has no deep meaning.  It is just necessary work to do.  I thought about the “busy work” we give people.  The busy work we do. 

The next time you assign a task (or undertake a task), think about leaving out a step that makes doing the task unfinishable.  Does it matter if it can be finished?  If not, maybe we shouldn’t do it at all.

By the way, I enjoy solitaire, as a Zen like activity that clears my mind and focuses my subconscious.  That’s not pointless.

About the Author

Raymond E Foster is the author of nine books, including Police Technology (Prentice Hall, 2004) and Leadership: Texas Hold ‘em Style.  You can read more about Raymond at www.police-lieutenant.com    

Office Hours

I get requests for brief consultations; questions from aspiring leaders, writers and others.  I work twice a week at my local Starbucks, so I decided to try “office hours” if you want to stop by – Starbucks, 114 E. Bonita, San Dimas, CA.  The days/time are tweeted in real time @policeofficer.

Raymond

Character

By Brig. Gen. Karl McGregor, U.S. Air Forces Central / Published February 02, 2016

AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar (AFNS) -- The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, Defense Department or the U.S. Government.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” said Martin Luther King Jr., in one of his most famous speeches.

Character is what's deep inside each of us, it’s who we are on a daily basis, it's who we are when things go well and more importantly, when things go wrong. It’s who we are when we're in leadership positions, as well as with the family in our living rooms. Character is our moral and ethical strength; it is who we are when no one is looking. Character is a mix of traits that are distinct to each person and baked into that person's life. It's much more than just what we try to display for others to see, good character is doing the right thing because it is right to do so.

For those of us who serve in the military, we are and should be held to a higher standard than the general public. We are servants of our country and our bond to those we serve is tied to our reputations and inevitably, to the character that reputation is built upon. Reputation is a long-term display of good character traits and we enhance that display, by making our character traits consistent by living our morals and ethics every day.

We must model good character for ourselves, our families and our service organizations daily. When promises are made, no matter how small, they must be kept. Be a great example, be known as a promise keeper. Never take shortcuts, communicate the importance of quality to your team and make sure that in times of stress, the importance of delivering quality is not lessened. Stay consistent when you deal with others. Treat everyone with respect, regardless of how long the day has been or the number of setbacks created by people in the organization that "just don’t get it."

Finally, always self-audit. At the end of the day, week and month, review your decisions for bias and consistency against the character goals you're striving to achieve. Every action reflects on your character, as Whorton says, "no matter how small." Make sure your reflection is in line with who you are.