Mind the Gap
Friends!
I have a special relationship with London. My parents lived there. We lived there. It is where our oldest daughter took her first steps. I have returned continuously and frequently during my entire life. I feel at home there. It’s old and new at the same time. It’s a melting pot of almost all things I like. Internationalism, trade, art, music, fashion and tons of great food. All buoyed by some close friends and relatives who call London their home.
And the underground. It works. It’s certainly one of the best in the world. The logo and MIND THE GAP sign is forever etched in my mind. Today I want to reflect on the deeper meaning of a particular kind of gap. The gap between what we say and what we do.
I was inspired to reflect more on the importance of gaps after Adam Grant’s tweet (to the right here) and also after a beautifully inspiring conversation around culture with Mark Miller.
Early in my career a mentor of mine always used to say: Parents can tell but never teach unless they practice what they preach. Or of course a different saying with the same meaning is that people don’t do what you say, they do what you do.
It is our actions that ultimately define our destiny. But in a world where it is really easy and free to broadcast any opinion I see two very harmful consequences. First, “talk is cheap” as we say and since it is so easy to opine on anything people opine on everything. This widens the saying/doing gap and dilutes and erodes trust in our public conversations. Secondly, and perhaps more perniciously, it is easy in the comfort of your own bedroom, far away from the arena, to launch more sharp attacks on people. As President Dwight D Eisenhower famously once said: “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field”. Whenever I scroll on Twitter (I try not to) I am shocked how mean and offensive most commentary really is.
Actions are much harder than words. They require real effort and commitment. An old colleague and friend of mine, Charlie Bell, who was my supervisor in the early 1980s and later became CEO of McDonald’s and who so sadly left us way too soon, used to, whenever I expressed an opinion, ask me:
Mats, are you the chicken or the pig in a ham and egg sandwich? The pig is committed but the chicken is merely engaged!
It’s a good question. Before we express an opinion we should check whether or not this is something we ask of ourselves. Perhaps we should change the order of “practice what we preach” and rather only “preach what we practice”.
Since I have been leading a lot of innovation work in my career I have come to understand that people are more likely to act themselves into a new way of thinking rather than think themselves into a new way of acting. Very few behaviors are changed just because you read a book or see a new idea. If we want a better and brighter future WE ALL have to change our actions more than our words. We cannot talk ourselves out of problems we behaved ourselves into. And I think we can all agree that we are long on talk and short on action.
It’s (apparently) tempting to use words as weapons. And I am not saying words don’t matter. Of course, they do. But when they are divorced from action they become more like fiction. I’d love to see less accusatory and evil language. And more words that are assuming the best and not the worst from others. And perhaps most importantly, words that are more humble thereby recognizing the difficulty every one of us face when turning new ideas into action.
When I hire people I spend a lot of time talking to people who have worked with, for or around the person I am considering to hire. I look for evidence of what they did. How they made people feel? Who they promoted? Who they helped succeed. I place very little value on what they themselves say in an interview. That’s just a starting point of a conversation. Then I compare and contrast that with what other people are saying. And I do mind the gaps. Like the gaps on the tube, they are dangerous. You can get swooped in and really hurt yourself!
I think much of the social unrest we are experiencing is amplified by the gap we feel between not believing what we hear and not seeing what we want.
In a prior newsletter I posted the Man in the Arena quote below. I am doing it again since it so beautifully and perfectly captures the distinction between commenting (and speculating) on what is going on around us vs participating and being in the game.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt, at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23 1910
Let’s all get in the game of doing. Let’s dare greatly. Let’s celebrate the act of acting more than that act of saying and trust that it is in the act of doing and exchange of behaviors that we ultimately find our voice and humanity and it is there where we can collectively adjust to the new demands of our ever-changing reality.
Have a great weekend!
Always loved this song by Extreme and theme and content speaks more than words!
If you want to hear the entire episode with Brad Feld which covers so much wisdom click here
I have always loved this scene from Scent of a Woman where Al Pacino delivers this incredible monologue on the essence of principled leadership and how we must reward actions more than words
I love photographs that shows perspectives we cannot see. This is a photo of the space shuttle leaving the atmosphere. Thank you to Chuck Ebeling for sending. I apologize for not knowing who took it (NASA?)