The Trap of Tactics

I was a few paragraphs into “How David Beats Goliath” before I looked up at the author and recognized Malcom Gladwell’s name. The article is classic Gladwell, throwing a lot of seemingly unrelated ideas into a story with a strong central narrative and creating a mind bending milkshake.
It’s a great read, especially for those of us that love the game of basketball on a philosophical level. More importantly for that, as I sat at the computer last night reading it, it helped me come to terms with what I thought had been a meeting gone wrong.
The short story is that I had gathered a group, and started to talk about the plan. I had thought through the tactics and how to best push things along. Heck, I even had a Excel spreadsheet and a homework assignment.
The meeting went badly, because everyone kind of ignored that part of it. They wanted to know about the strategy. They wanted to know about the conclusions I had made in my head, and why we were doing what we were doing.
I had looked at the landscape of the organization and made a lot of decisions based on just getting the project done, and I jumped right there with the group. The problem is that I didn’t bring them along. I didn’t engage their thinking, and their perceptions of what needed to be done and who needed to do it.
What reading Gladwell (and a great phone call from a friend) helped me realize was that it is the way of thinking that matters. I didn’t the groups agreement on how to think about this project, and I didn’t respect how they viewed the problems this project would solve. So, when I jumped in with tactics they jumped back. They wanted answers to a lot of questions I didn’t have.
Today, I’m ready to take a little different tack and look at the problem and try to come up with new solutions, rather than just dive in with tactics. I think that is the challenge for most us in almost all parts of our life. We are rewarded for completed tasks, but much of the time it is the thinking, analysis, and problem solving that truly leads to innovation and ultimately makes our lives more fulfilling.
I can’t think of an area of life where this doesn’t apply. Even in my relationship with Christ, I can go about the tasks of teaching a Sunday School class or writing a tithing check, but Christ is clearly more interested in our thinking our or intent in those things. At work, I can go about the tactics, but what is personally rewarding and best for the organization is that I think about the problems in a long view which solves them in the long term, not just the short term. In my family, I can focus on getting everyone where they need to go without stopping to ask if we are going to the right places.

Fish, not just for breakfast anymore

Today’s New York Times includes a link to the blog opinion piece by Stanley Fish called God Talk. I am a fan of Fish, and often have some piece of his in a pile on my desk waiting to be read, or waiting to be filed for reference in some currently unknown project.

What strikes me most today about the academy and the discussion on religion is how false much of it rings. Today’s discussion by Fish reminded me of a professional conference I once attended where they brought in a debate team for after lunch entertainment.

This was five years ago before much of the debate about gay marriage was settled, so as a topic it seemed provocative. However, the debate ended up being a debate over civil union versus marriage. It wasn’t much of a debate, because those that had given the topic had already decided that one of the two was the right answer.

Now I realize that collegiate debate doesn’t have a lot to do with the fleshing out of ideas, rather it’s about scoring points and judges. However, I think it is still and interesting example of where the institution of higher education gets many of these debates wrong.

Despite how you feel about gay marriage or any other hot button issue, the debate has to happen over the real conflict. The conflict is whether or not gay marriage is an option. The debate is pretty robust and over some key foundational concepts of what it means to be human, religious faith, psychology, law and a host of other disciplines. To start the debate somewhere other than at the core just doesn’t do much good. It alienates the University from those truly seeking answers.

I think Fish has some good thoughts in this piece, and I hope the debate about God and the meaning of life at Universities and elsewhere picks up steam and grows deeper. The answers to these questions shape every discipline.

Classic Montana hiring problem

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away called Montana I worked in their University System. I actually remember President Malone, who served before Geoff Gamble at Montana State University. I also sat in enough meetings with Gamble to know he was a pretty good guy.
That makes me very interested in both the decision to retain an outside consulting firm and the call for a change agent as reported in today's Bozeman Chronicle.

The code seems to be that they want someone who can raise money, not spend money, and be a leader of a complex campus system. At the same time, the big problem they are likely to run into is money. University President's are much better paid in most states that Montana, and at some point a view of the mountains just isn't enough of an attraction, particularly in a state with shifty political winds when it comes to higher education.

It will be an interesting process, and probably will happen largely under the radar not for a lack of transparancy, but simply because watching decisions get made in higher education is like a cricket match. If you're going to watch the whole thing you are going to be there a long time, and most of us are just interested in the outcome.