Category: Blog

 I recently read The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (2024). Dr. Dennis Wissing, the Dean of our college at LSU Shreveport, “baited” us to read this book. I am thankful.

My top takeaways:

• Mental health and social acuity of children plummeted from 2010-2015, the window in which phone-based existence began to predominate.
• Haidt’s 4-fold proposal: 1) No smartphones before HS, 2) No social media before 16, 3) Phone-free schools, 4) Far more supervised play and childhood independence.
• Fear triggers full response; anxiety is triggered at “perceived” threat.
• Smartphones allow us, and our kids, to be “forever elsewhere.”
• Attunement develops in free play as result of “serve and return” interactions, which forge emotional maturity.
• Synchronous, F2F, physical interactions serve as basis for this healthy social development.
• Social media in a powerful purveyor of conformity attraction, serving as virtual peer pressure.
• Antifragile = things that need to get pummeled and knocked down in order to grow stronger.
• Safetyism = safety above all else.
• The human brain has two subsystems: Discover mode and Defend mode.
• Superbly effective experience blockers: Safetyism and smartphones.
• Four Harms of a phone-based childhood… Harm #1: Social Deprivation. Harm #2: Sleep Deprivation. Harm #3: Attention Fragmentation. Harm #4: Addiction.
• 4 reasons girls are particularly vulnerable: 1) Girls are more affected by visual social comparison and perfectionism. 2) Girls’ aggression is more relational. 3) Girls more easily share emotions and disorders. 4) Girls are more subject to predation and harassment.
• Loss of belonging to a loving and lasting community may be the highest price of social media addiction.
• “The Great Rewiring of Childhood pulled young people out of real-world communities, including their own families, and created a new kind of childhood lived in multiple rapidly shifting networks.” (p. 197)
• Our attention makes USthe product that platforms sell to their customers.
• We should consider the Gardener vs Carpenter analogical dichotomy of childrearing.

My favorite quotes:

“… overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.” (p. 9)

 “I see few indications that a phone-based childhood develops antifragility.” (p. 81)

“We should be giving children more of the practice they need in the real world and delaying their entry into the online world, where the benefits are fewer and the guardrails nearly nonexistent.” (p. 82)

“The strongest and most satisfying communities come into being when something lifts people out of the lower level so that they have powerful collective experiences. They all enter the realm of the sacred together, at the same time.” (p. 203)

“We need to start prevention early, in elementary and middle schools, before our children start wilting.” (p. 263)

I’ve read JH before, and been impressed with his thinking each time. A worthy scholar and impactful researcher who seems genuinely interested in shaping better for futures for all of us, particularly our children.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

The wisest leaders I know are masters at empowering those on their team. They provide Impetus to the team by engaging in the following “juicers”…

• Vision — They work with us to craft a very clear vision of the better future we can make together.
• Comms — They provide a relentless drumbeat of communication, internal and external, around that Vision.
• Relate — They choose to know us well and engage with us authentically.
• Study — They are driven to learn more and understand deeply, and pull us right along with them in that learning.
• Service — They model exemplary Servant Leadership, and expect the same from each of us.

Championship is more verb than noun. It springs from intention and daily discipline.

The verb Championship embodies the enactment of several other verbs:

• Optimize — pushing the talents/gifts to the limit.
• LEARN — studying best practices and practitioners, adopting the habits of both.
• Commit — investing the time, effort, and resources to pursue excellence.
• Work — knowing it to be the foundational verb.
• Collect — assembling a similarly focused team of partners and experts.

Trophies are nice but you can’t eat them and they are notorious dust collectors.

Champions smile, take pictures, glow briefly in the acclaim, then………….get up in the morning and get back to work.

Why? Because Champions know that Championship is more verb than noun.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blathering, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.

Business folks often talk in terms of Return On Investment (ROI). We sometimes refer to that concept as “bang for the buck.” The bottom line is this: Resources are finite and almost always limited. That is especially true of human energy.

Energy is in short supply. Personal energy is in short supply. Team energy is in short supply. Leaders’ energy is in short supply.

With that “shortage” in mind, the best and wisest leaders I know are masters of directing their finite stores of energy. These smart, effective, influential, and impactful cookies do the following with remarkable diligence:

• They stay relentlessly focused on the VISION, the BIG PICTURE, the WHY of their lives and the organizations they lead.
• They deliberately work at crafting a Culture of Continuous Improvement.
• They exhibit and demand from others consistent Respectful Behavior toward all stakeholders, both internal and external.
• They insist on constant examination of important metrics (aka meaningful and relevant data) and on having open and honest conversations around that data.
•  They work mightily to assemble and empower teams of folks who are smart, efficient, effective, attentive, and committed to excellence.

Excellence is a state, one that occurs when a person, team, organization, or community chooses to break out of the customary and usual way of doing things. It is always the result of choices made, choices to be different. 

Excellence is never accidental. It springs from a deep aspiration for betterness. Excellence — whether in individual athletic performance or international business success — emerges on the heels of deep commitment, high attention, and extraordinary discipline. Never is it the result of dumb luck or a flip of a coin.  

Excellence is not a permanent state. Even if achieved today, it can evaporate on us tomorrow. How in the world can that happen? 

Excellent turns into Excellain’t when we become satisfied and/or comfortable. When our state of mind changes from how-can-we-get-better to how-can-we-preserve-what-we-have, we have crossed that line. Good news: We can always turn around and cross the line in the other direction.

Excellent or Excellain’t. We get to choose. And, tomorrow, we get to choose again.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.

When humans gather………there’s friction. When humans work together ……… there’s friction. When humans compete ……… there’s friction. When humans attempt great things ……… there’s friction.

The friction is triggered by:

• Who or who does not get the drumstick from the plate of fried chicken.
• Who or who does not get to shower first each evening.
• Who or who does not get the prime property in the inheritance.
• Who or who does not get named deacon.
• Who or who does not get the job promotion.
• Who or who does not get to make the final decision.
• Who or who does not get front-row seating.

Most of us have had Teachers who shaped us. The most impactful ones understand that we DON’T need them for……. the content or to rank/sort us. 

Those stellar Teachers know that we DO need them for…

• Relationship 
• Insight (that comes from their experience) 
• Encouragement 
• Direction/Redirection

Not all of mine were professionally “certified” Teachers. Some were …
Parents and Grandparents
    Bosses 
        Colleagues 
            My Students
                Friends

Still, each was or is a TeacherHero in their own right. They have taught me much, and still are.

Gotta run. Time to pay it back/forward…

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

I admire immensely folks who are skillful at engaging with others. They have the ability to, somehow, make us feel at ease in their presence. 

These engagement artisans have numerous “tools” they leverage to make the rest of us feel heard, seen, valued, and respected. Here are some of the things these engagemeisters do:

• They ask penetrating questions which invite us to reveal our knowledge, feelings, and positions.
• They display transparency and vulnerability in their own words and demeanor.
• They LISTEN intently as we share our thoughts.
• The exude kindness.
• They offer praise and thanks freely.
• They are fully present during the interaction.
• They seek, always, to build bridges instead of walls.

The wisest leaders I know understand that it takes a TEAM to accomplish significant impact. Thus, those leaders are always on the hunt for, and committed to the development of, influencers.

How do they do that?

1. Find and connect with ’em – Pay attention to the “landscape,” looking for those who not only do good work, but seem to draw it out of others. Get to know them. Talk to them. Listen to them. Learn with and from them. Lean into them. Connect dots with both their personal and professional interests.
2. Build their capacity – Provide opportunities and access that align with their gifts and talent. Connect them with others in our network. Create mechanisms by which we learn with and from them.
3. Shape their work – Consistently keep the organizational Vision at the center of our/their attention. Pull and push our Team toward that Vision. De-emphasize or remove elements that impede those efforts. Implement systems that challenge, not threaten, those influencers.
4. Praise and promote them – Notice, acknowledge, praise, promote, and yes, sometimes “lose” them to their ambitions beyond our organization. Influence is reciprocal in nature.

Influencers can work with or for pretty much anyone of their choosing. So, why would they pick us to work with?

The “jam” of influential leaders is heavily weighted toward influencing the influencers.

“The road goes on forever, and the party never ends…”

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, to to nc’s Recursive Learning.

Most organizational leaders have way too much to do. Too much paperwork, too much homework, too much putting out of fires, too much cleaning up of messes, too many meetings, too much “stuff.”

Often neglected are the powerful one-to-one engagements with folks on the team. One-to-one equals TWO.

In my early years as an organizational leader, my lovely bride (now of 47 years) would gently remind me of the following: “Take care of the people, and they’ll help you take care of the stuff.”

Wise words then; wise words now.

There are huge benefits to spending a little one-to-one time with team players. In each of those Divine Appointments we can:

• Underscore their value
• Express appreciation
• LISTEN
• Laugh
• Empathize
• Clarify vision
• Demonstrate care

Those brief two-way conversations provide positive energy to both parties. And both need it.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.