Motivations

Note: this blog entry was a long time developing. I wrote it almost a year ago, publishing it at IBM, but it really belongs here on my personal blog. Some of my Facebook connections, particularly my high school connections, will find this interesting if nothing else.

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While doing some landscaping I had an interesting and powerful thought. What is motivation? More particularly, where does motivation come from? How does it work? My thought process started with my posting a picture from my high school yearbook on Facebook. Friends from high school commented on it and we had some fun over it.

From that, hours later, I wondered how people who knew me in high school but not now would think of my current state of affairs. I was very immature in high school, a big-time screw-off, and so poorly understood by others I couldn't get a date for our senior prom even after asking more than a dozen classmates, two of my neighbors, and friends of my family's. Partially because of not getting a date for the prom I hated high school and until recently considered it the four worst years of my life.

Before anyone takes offense, I do not now, nor have I ever, blamed anyone other than myself for that. I was immature, perhaps even emotionally messed up, but I wasn't stupid. It took many years of very hard work to overcome some of my limitations and partially overcome others. I made some very good friends in high school, and now look at my past behavior not as a cause of events but merely to assist my understanding of those bad memories.

There were many times earlier in my life where I felt a need to "show them" I wasn't a complete failure. There are two things wrong with that statement. First, I'm not a failure. I may not have succeeded in things some people thought were important; that's their opinion, it should not be mine. Second, I've come to realize "I'll show them!" is not a very good motive. Oh sure, it can be effective, but its costs are very high and the results aren't necessarily worth the cost.

After thinking about that for a while, the idea of successful motivation came to me. I dislike pigeon-holing ideas, and yet I see two forms of motivation: external (do something because someone else thinks it's good) and internal (do something because you think it's good). I invite you to consider that and welcome you to reach your own conclusions. Mine, I think, are instructive.

External motivations usually imply someone other than you is telling you how to manage your life. The cause and/or source of external motivations can change without notice. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is no way of understanding the "why" of external motivations even if they are fully explained to you. Think about all of that for a moment, and then continue reading.

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Done? OK. Think about my prom story. At first I did not want to go. I was happy with that decision. My mother (with all good intentions) tried to talk me into it ("It's the last time you'll hang out with your high school friends. You'll build some good memories."). My friends also (again with good intentions) tried to get me to go ("Come one, we've got three couples. Ask someone and we can take a whole table.") Over time this wore me down and I started asking for dates.

Did I really want to go and convinced myself I didn't want to because of insecurity? Almost certainly; I still have weird feelings about it, although after 30 years of blocking them out memories of emotions are fuzzy. The person I really wanted to take was someone whose parents had come to believe I was "trouble." I asked her anyway and, predictably, her mother grabbed the phone and told me never to call again; I never got an answer to my question. So I asked others. Perhaps I asked the wrong people, not the right ones, or a bit of both. Perhaps it was too late, although only a few told me they were already going. Perhaps if I paid more attention to people around me I may have noticed those who liked me despite my immaturity. Whatever the reasons, I went from being reasonably happy to miserable in the space of a week, and stayed miserable until well after graduation. Why? Because my motivation came from outside myself. I tried to do something I didn't want to do to please others.

Fast forward 28 years. I'm laying in a hospital bed, after my first angioplasty to clear a 100% blockage in my heart. The doctor tells me I need another four stents to open up two more 90% blockages the next day. I ask the obvious question: why me? I kept a (reasonably) healthy diet, stayed active, watched all of my risk factors, and still had a heart attack before age 50, becoming the youngest ever in my family history to have a heart attack.

What would you ask after a heart attack at age 46? I asked, "OK, doc, what do I need to do not to have another heart attack?" He told me, and I've followed that prescription since, happily, with no doubts (although I do skip a workout or eat a Sausage McMuffin with Egg® on occasion). Why? What's different about this motivation than the other one? This time, my motivation comes from inside. While fear is some of it, I believe I have value to add to my family and society at large, and living longer gives me more time to do that.

This motivation works because I want this for me and my own goals, not for anyone else's goals. While those goals include being there for my family and friends, among other things, they are not my family's goals or my friends' goals. I chose them; they are what I consider important.

Despite what some may think I am not advocating being selfish; I'm only advocating making your own decisions within your own personal space and belief system.

To summarize, then, my insight was this: the most effective motivator for you, by far, is you. I encourage you to sit down and really think about what you want. Take those goals and make motivators out of them. Succeeding at external motivators is a hollow victory; you "won" for someone else. Win for yourself and others will share your joy.

The Specializing Non-Specialist

Last year my wife Betty came home from a shopping trip complaining of stomach and back pain, nausea, and vomiting. She had no fever, just a general feeling of malaise, and asked me to check out the source of the pain. While doing so I noticed the pain was pretty much everywhere, but worse in her lower right abdomen. I said, “It's probably appendicitis, let's get you in to get checked out.”

Sidebar: appendicitis symptoms usually include somewhat localized pain (she had pain everywhere, just a little worse over the appendix) and fever, but vomiting and back pain are unusual.

When we got to the ER the resident covering for the afternoon came in, read her charts from the nurse's interview, checked her blood work, and examined her. He then asked if she had back pain. When she said she had but not any more, the doctor said, “Hmm, that's unusual, I'd expect some back pain with kidney stones.” He examined her further, more-or-less ignoring her abdomen and hitting her in her lower back (trying to determine if her kidneys hurt). I asked, “I don't know, the pain is over her lower right abdomen, not in the back; why do you think it's kidney stones?” He said, “Your wife doesn't have any signs of appendicitis; nothing at McBurney's point, no fever, white count is normal, and there's no rebound pain. I'm sure it's kidney stones; we'll send you up for a CT scan of your lower half.”

McBurney's point is the specific area where appendicitis pain centers; it's about half-way along an imaginary line between the right hip and the navel.

Rebound pain is the term used when a pain gets worse as pressure to the pain area is released. In other words, the doctor will press on the area and then release; if the pain gets worse upon release, that's rebound pain.

When the results came back the resident came in and said, apologetically, “Well, it was appendicitis. We've scheduled your surgery and you'll be going up in about an hour.”

Why am I telling you this? I'm not making a point about the hospital, doctor, or my wife; I'm making a point about specialists. The ER doctor was a urologist. He thought “kidney stones” because he's trained to see problems with the urinary tract. Specialists often do that; while they catch a lot of things most people would miss, they have an observational bias. People who have a highly specialized knowledge very often cannot break out of that role to see the general picture. They're highly intelligent, but their very specialization causes them to miss the obvious.

I bring this up to make a point. Most departments in most companies place a high value on specialization. They offer certification in various disciplines and pay specialists very well... and who can blame them? Specialists often solve problems the average person in that field cannot. Any DB2 DBA can design a half-decent database; it takes a specialist to make that database behave in the most efficient manner possible. Specialists are valuable in other ways; consider who writes white papers. Everyone working with IMS knows who Rich Lewis and Bill Keene are, and anyone working with DB2 knows the names E. F. Codd and Craig Mullins.

Now I know you're all thinking, “Yeah, yeah, we know this. What's your point?” Remember the doctor in the ER? His expertise caused him to miss a diagnosis I, a non-medical professional, made easily. Nobody in the ER believed me because I wasn't in the medical profession. And no, I didn't get lucky... I know anatomy because I've studied it. I know human morphology; my paleontology background prepares me for that. I also know every person's body is unique; not everyone shows the same symptoms, the same patterns of disease.

My point is simple: the generalist, AKA the “specializing non-specialist,” gets no respect... and yet you need them. They see things specialists miss because the generalist has no biases specific to a given situation. Not everyone's cut out to be a generalist; it takes a very open mind and a wide range of knowledge across many fields of study.

A primary tool of the generalist is systems thinking, also called the Fifth Discipline (as described in the book of the same name by Peter Senge). In effect the systems thinker sees a given thing or event as influencing other things and/or events within an overall system. In short the systems thinker sees each event as an interaction between parts of a whole, and problems as breakdowns within the system.

I'll offer another analogy, this one from baseball. Even people who aren't baseball fans know who David Ortiz or Albert Pujols are; on the other hand, many baseball fans can't tell you what teams Alex Cora or Bill Hall play for. Naturally stars have a big influence on whether a baseball team wins a lot of games or not, yet the “little players,” the utility men, have an important role. Stars cannot play every day without increasing their injury risk or reducing their efficiency (you can't play your best when you're tired). That's where the utility players come in. They can play effectively while the star takes a break, and if one of the regulars goes down with an injury these utility players can replace them for weeks at a time without costing the team. Beyond that, because they can play anywhere the manager can rotate days off for their stars, so at most one star is sitting at any given time. Maybe a team cannot win a pennant with a team of Alex Coras, but a team needs at least one Cora to be a champion. Consider how many World Series MVPs are not regular players; of the non-pitcher World Series MVPs since the award started in 1955, 8 of 30 (about 27%) of them were not regular players for their teams and, if I named them, most of you would not recognize most of the names. Expand that to include non-World Series playoff games and the percentage of "unknowns" winning MVPS is higher.

And for those who think I'm only looking at fringe backup players, consider Craig Biggio (a certain Hall of Fame-level player) played catcher, second base, and outfield during his career, and made the All-Star team at catcher and 2b. Now there is an All-Star "supersub" for you.

Baseball recognizes the jack-of-all-trades; why not the corporate world? I understand why big-name specialists get recognized regularly, and I don't begrudge them at all; they deserve it. On the other hand, we the “specializing non-specialists” are just as important to the overall well-being of the company, yet we get nothing. To the contrary, we're often chided for not paying attention to our assigned job roles, and companies will not hire us because we don't specialize enough.

I welcome any and all comments about these observations. I have made an effort to network with people about this issue, learned a lot from a few people, and hope to learn more from my readers.

O'Dea Knights, my fantasy team... a few insights.

As most of you know I do fantasy baseball, and have done so for a long time.  My first team had (among others) Kevin Romine, Dennis Eckersley, Roy Hassey, and Rickey Henderson, which will tell you how long I've been doing this.  I've been in my current league for well over ten years, and the core of it (that is, teams in the league since the beginning) is a bunch of really good people... as are the newer teams.

I did some analysis on my team this week because injuries have put me in a bind:  I don't have enough outfielders to stay competitive.  While I'm not in the league for money or prestige (I do it because it's fun), naturally those two things are still enjoyable.  The things I do for fun are the statistical analysis pieces, such as what my yearly pace is, how I stand among the other teams, and so on.  This is the first time I've put anything about those analyses in a blog entry; it's much better for league harmony than posting it on the league's web site (some owners in the league are very competitive).

Anyway, here's a few tidbits for those people who enjoy baseball statistics.

• We've just finished Week 16 of the 26 weeks of the regular season.  There are 12 teams and we count the "standard 5x5" categories.  In hitting, those are BA, Runs, RBI, Home Runs, and Steals; for pitching, they are Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP.  (Interestingly, this is a case of Major League Baseball taking a cue from the modern groups of baseball fans, such as SABR (Society of American Baseball Research), Total Baseball (Pete Palmer), and Bill James' work, among others).  WHIP is Walks + Hits divided by Innings Pitched and is a measure of the number of runners a pitcher puts on base by himself (errors are not the pitcher's fault).  Ten years ago WHIP was a fantasy baseball-only stat; today pitchers' WHIPs are listed in the newspaper.)
• My team usually has fair to poor first halves and good second halves.  I am hoping this year is no different as I'm in seventh place now.
• This year is the most competitive in recent memory.  The difference between 8th place and first is only 14 points, and the standings change quite a bit from week to week, even day to day.  I like this; people stay happier and are more likely to come back next year.
• Injuries usually play a big part of a team's standings.  This year, last year's winner is essentially eliminated from competition, as is last year's second-place team and another team which is usually strong, all because they had all-stars who ended up out for the season early on.  They will come back strong next year; all three owners know their baseball, this year they were unlucky.

Moving on....

• At this juncture my hitters lead the league in team at-bats but rank next-to-last in team strikeouts.  That shows my team puts the ball in play a lot.
• My team is also next-to-last in number of walks.  Most of my hitters are from countries such as the Dominican Republic, where the saying "You don't walk off the island" is common, so they have high contact rates and don't walk much.  Alberto Callaspo, for example, is hard to strike out (once every 12 AB) but swings at everything (a walk every 21 times up).  The net result is a high number of AB and a good BA but only a middling OBA (on base average).
• So why am I only in sixth place in runs scored?  I answered that partially in the previous bullet (low OBA), but there's more to it than that.  Most of my hitters hit low in their team's batting order, and hitters batting in slots seven through nine do not score as many runs as those hitting lead-off or #2.
• While I don't have top power hitters, almost all of my lineup is capable of hitting 15 or more HR in a season.  In this case my team is "making it up on volume" rather than having a few top HR hitters (the one exception is Paul Konerko), so I'm in the top three in the category (usually).  After the leader there are four teams within a handful of HR of each other, so the standings change almost daily; one hot week vaults a team from fifth to second.
• 60% of my team's SB come from one player, Carl Crawford.  The reason for that is, as I mentioned above, injury.  My other SB threat, Brian Roberts, has missed the entire season.  If Roberts hadn't gotten injured I'd probably be three points higher in the standings in SB.
• Streakiness both helps and hurts.  One team had Ty Wigginton until May 15, during which time he led the AL in HR with 12 and was hitting .312.  I traded for him, knowing full well he would not continue to hit that way, and he hasn't... in twice as many AB he's hit only 4 HR and batted .210.  Some teams in the league take advantage of that, and change their active rosters accordingly.  I usually don't, because 1) the only thing which matters is team totals at year-end, and 2) whether nor not a player will have a hot week is unpredictable; I've sat players who proceeded to hit enough to move me two or three places in the standings, and also sat players who hit oh-for-the-week.
• Our league's talent penetration is so deep we have lineups featuring players who are in the minors or who are just not playing because there just isn't anyone else available.  Even without injuries I'd still have Eric Patterson in my lineup.
• Part of my "pitching problem" is simple:  the rest of the league has caught up with me.  Normally I shoot for a balanced team, and then mid-year make a shift to an all-reliever squad.  The result is leading the league in saves, ERA, and WHIP, and finishing in the middle of the pack in strikeouts and wins.  This year I moved too early, and now have to be careful to meet the league's minimum IP requirement.  Also, there are two teams using the same strategy, and they are as good at it as I am.  When I was the only one using it the strategy had an advantage; now that advantage is gone.  The other two teams using the strategy have better numbers than I do, and so my pitching staff's league ranking is among the worst I've ever had.  Thus I have to discover a new strategy which would again set me apart from the other teams.  It's too late for this year, so I need some luck; next year is another animal.
• Along the same lines, as usual I lead the league in strikeout rate but am last in the league because I am also last in IP.  In other seasons I had enough IP to be in the middle of the pack; this year I traded my starters too early (because my offense was bad) and thus my IP is too low.  I will still make the minimum IP (700 IP), but it will be hard (my prediction with my current staff is 714-1/3, and that assumes a pitcher now in the minors is called up before September).  If I make no changes to my staff I'll finish around 680 IP, and none of my pitching points will count (thus I'll finish out of the money).  BTW, I consider putting myself in this situation as a major mistake running my team; I've never had this problem before, and I know why I have it now.  It was just a stupid mistake I'll have to learn from.

I suppose that's all I really have on this; I enjoy fooling around with numbers and this has been a welcome break from making politically-charged statements.  Until the next time, "Be excellent to each other" - Ted Logan.

Follow-up to yesterday's post

In yesterday's post about people calling the Obama administration on things out of their control, I mentioned there were some things about Obama and his administration I don't like.  Well, here's one:  CBS news story on Shirley Sherrod's firing.  I know Obama wasn't personally responsible for firing her, but he is still in charge of his cabinet and should never bow to right-wing (or left-wing) extremist pressures when making policy or personnel decisions.

It's quite clear the majority of people know Glenn Beck and Fox News edited the tape of Sherrod's speech to make it seem as if she were discriminating against a white farmer (she did not).  This type of lying is very common on Fox News, and with Beck as well.  It's offensive, unethical, and just plain wrong.

And when the administration bends over to accommodate this crap, it just makes things worse.  Listen to the whole speech, learn the facts, and then act.  Gut reactions are inappropriate when running a government, and especially so when Obama makes such a point of thinking things through.

I understand compromise is necessary to pass bills and so on.  This case, though, is not a matter of compromise over different opinions or situations, it's a matter of an obvious lie and letting that lie create a political action.  At least Tom Vilsack and the White House apologized to Sherrod and offered her another position in the USDA.

For an interesting (and brilliantly satirical) take on Glenn Beck, see the South Park episode Dances with Smurfs.

Obama and the economy

It is so easy to blame our economic woes on Obama.  He is our president, and he is the most powerful single person in the US.  There are many things Obama and his cabinet have done (or haven't done) which annoy me; but I should point out our current economic woes are, for the most part, not his fault.  Yes, I know our budget deficit has skyrocketed over the last several years.  I remind you Obama's been in office only a year and a half.  Further, a great deal of the overspending we're seeing under his administration falls into three categories.

1. Paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Neither of these were his doing, they belong to the Bush years.  You cannot blame those staggering costs (nearly $1 billion a year) on Obama; he didn't start the wars, he's stuck with them.
2. Paying for the bailouts of banks and automobile companies.  Most of both of those policies were decided before Obama took office in January of 2009; besides, they would not be needed if the Republican congress under Bush had not repealed most of the banking regulations between 2000 and 2006.
3. Stimulus packages.  In this case Obama had little choice:  either let a failing economy continue to fail or inject some cash into it.  Also, the stimulus bills are not his; while he urged Congress to come up with something and he did sign them, he did not create them.

Again, let's be clear here.  I do not think Mr. Obama is completely blameless for our continuing economic woes.  However, one cannot expect him (or Congress, mostly) to fix in two years a mess the Bush administration (and his Congress) took six years to create and another two years of apathy from Democrats and resistance from Republicans and Mr. Bush himself.

What I'm hearing from people is disingenuous at best, hypocritical at worst.  If Obama and Congress let the Bush tax cuts expire, they'll be blamed for raising taxes; if they extend the tax cuts, they'll be blamed for worsening the economy.  The way I see it, the Bush tax cuts need to expire.  Further, regulations protecting consumers from the runaway profiteering from banks and corporations must be reinstated; those regulations brought tax income into the economy.

For those of you who think Bush did the right thing with his tax cuts, consider this:  he said it would make the economy better and help the middle class.  Well, did they?  We've had eight years to find out.  I think the answer is obvious:  we (the lower and middle classes) are not better off now, we're much worse off.  And before you blame Obama, consider this:  economists agree it takes at least two years for an economic policy to take effect, and Obama hasn't been in office that long.  Further, conservatives (mostly Republicans, and some Democrats) have been fighting Obama every step of the way; how can we know if Obama's policies would work if they aren't passed?

Final thought:  keep in mind our economy is not Obama's only worry.  Historians agree almost unanimously Bush was the second-worst President we've ever had, particularly concerning foreign policy.  Not only does Obama have to fix Bush's mess at home, he has to fix it across the entire world.  Our reputation among the world's governments suffered horribly during Bush's eight years, and the eighteen months since Obama took office is hardly enough to fix that.

The people really responsible for our continued economic problems are Congress, who cannot agree on anything, primarily because many Republicans seek to discredit Obama at every turn.

If you think I'm making this up, please see the memo sent by Republican leader Michael Steele and other strategists to Republican members of both Houses (CBS news at http://tinyurl.com/26mmnrc).  This is public information now; in the memo, Republicans are given various parliamentary and other strategies to stop any legislation proposed by Obama (primarily health care but also other proposed legislation), with no consideration whether the policy is any good or not.  Also see the Facebook group "Stop Obama" and the group StopObama,org, among others.  I cannot remember any worse vitriol directed at our presidents, ever.

In short, I don't see how we can blame Obama for our current mess because a) he hasn't been around long enough to fix pre-existing problems, and b) nor has he been around long enough to create any new ones.  What we can blame him for is not keeping some of his campaign promises, a big one being more transparency in government.  Where is that?