Wave At The Packard

In his compelling book Play – How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul Stuart Brown tells the story of how the managers at Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) noticed that the group of engineers who had been hired in the 1960’s, engineers who had “put men on the moon and built robotic probes to explore the solar system, were retiring in large numbers.”  Replacing them was difficult.  Though there were plenty of candidates with superior academic credentials, these same candidates, unlike their elders, “couldn’t spot the key flaw in one of the complex systems they were working on, toss the problem around, break it down, pick it apart, tease out its critical elements, and rearrange them in innovative ways that led to a solution.”  Why?

The people at JPL ultimately discovered that “those who had worked and played with their hands as they were growing up were able to ‘see solutions’ that those who hadn’t worked with their hands could not.”  The older employees had spent more time in their youth, messing about, “(taking) apart clocks to see how they worked, or made soapbox derby racers, or built hi-fi stereos, or fixed appliances.”  Not so for many of the recent engineering school graduates.  JPL eventually “made questions about applicants’ youthful projects and play a standard part of job interviews.” 

This story brings to mind a former student of mine, Mike Toborg.  At the private school where I taught at the time (the newspapers always like to say “elite” or “tony”) Mike was a faculty kid.  Most of the families who sent their kids to this school would have been appalled to have a car sitting on blocks in their driveway.  Not Mike’s family.  His father, one of the wiser teachers I’ve ever worked with, would keep a watchful eye as Mike worked on an old Packard inherited from his grandfather, or a Chevy Camaro, and yet another old Packard, a gift from an uncle.

I heard from Mike recently.  He’s living in Munich, working as an engineer for a company named IAV. IAV is one of the leading providers of engineering services to the automotive industry. His business card says: Software and Algorithm Development in Powertrain Mechatronics.  When BMW, or Audi, or VW needs some help they call IAV.  IAV sends over Mike, or a team of guys like Mike to solve their problem.  As Mike wrote to me recently, “Working in the software controls of the mechanical things of a car is pretty cool. You use a pc to interface with the computers that are in the car that control the engine, transmission, ABS brakes or whatever, and see what they are reading in for information from sensors, how that information is processed in the algorithm, and then how that algorithm/computer controls the car. I still find it interesting that you can type some lines of code differently, or put different parameters in the equation for a transmission shift process, and the car drives differently.

“The whole software/algorithm I kind of view as a modern 'Rube Goldberg' contraption. Something happens in the car, the engine spins above a certain speed and a counter starts counting up and up, and when it reaches a certain number, it flips a switch so the next gear is selected etc., etc. As far as creativity, I think in this branch, you need to be cognizant of what the mechanical/physical things are doing, and then be creative to make that Rube Goldberg contraption.

“Oh, and the German word for tinkering is 'schrauben' which directly translates to 'to screw'.”  

Mike was smart, a good student, though hardly driven.  A good sense of proportion, due in part to that wise father I mentioned.  These days he lives in Munich, enjoys hiking, mountain biking, and snowboarding.  Plus, taking the Packard he got up and running out for a spin in Munich.  If you’re in Munich and happen to see a Packard driving around, give a shout.  Chances are it’s Mike Toborg. A recent post on Facebook said: “spent the day tuning upshifts in the V10. Cool.”  Play – How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.  And maybe even leads to a career.

Playing To Learn

Susan Engel’s Playing to Learn, an Op-Ed piece in the February 2^nd New York Times is right on the money.  It points us away from stuffing our children like Strasbourg geese for test success, and toward an education that values listening, collaborating, following their curiosity, and creating things – “from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games”.  Read it.  Spread the word. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02engel.html

David Mallery

I can’t remember where I read recently about something called Dunbar’s number, 150, which according to Wikipedia “is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”  Mr. Dunbar never met David Mallery.  Long before e-mail or Facebook, David somehow stayed in touch with the thousands of people he taught, mentored and influenced in his wonderful life.  Letters, cards, phone calls.  I’d call spontaneously and be greeted with, “Bill Williams, you fine fellow, how are you?  I still see you up in that tree at Westtown.”  Westtown was an annual seminar conducted by David for teachers.  Not just any teachers, but the “Aces”, as he called them.  It was an annual weeklong celebration of teachers and teaching that David hosted and led for over forty years.  I was high up in that tree well over twenty years ago as part of an activity, and that was one of David’s ways of remembering me.  Westtown was only a week in this man's busy year, busy life. Yes, one can, and should go to his Facebook page now to see some of the tributes about him, but David’s network was created and largely maintained the old-fashioned way, making it all the more remarkable for the care and concern he gave and the joy he spread so remarkably.  

David was ever available, ever gracious, ever wise.  A beacon at times of stress in my career, a celebrant at times of success.  The ripples from his good work will spread infinitely. A sorrow to lose and a joy to remember.

For more about David, go to:

http://prorev.com/2010/01/passings-david-mallery.html

http://bothhandsonthewheelvais.blogspot.com/2010/01/david-mallery.html


http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/82341592.html

"Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement."

I was fortunate enough to hear Dan Pink speak in New York recently about his new book DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Both in his book and in his talk Pink stresses the importance of autonomy, the common need to direct our own lives. At one point he writes, “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.”

Within a day or two, quite by chance, I’d come across three striking examples that prove Pink’s point. Conversations with two friends -- one a high school dean, the other a mental health professional -- and an article by a law professor in the Sunday Times Magazine all pointed in the same direction: give people some control, some sense that they can participate in decisions made about their lives, and they will perform better than if their behavior is forced. It seems like such a simple and obvious concept, but there are many bosses and managers (and especially, from my personal experience, high school administrators) who don’t seem to grasp it.

Three populations are under discussion here: convicts on parole, patients in a state mental health system, and high school seniors. To a greater or lesser degree, all have mandated state supervision. I suppose one could argue that high school seniors aren’t legally compelled to stay in school any longer. They could walk off the reservation. To mix metaphors, they are so used to a fence that they don’t realize the electricity has been turned off for a while.

My friend, the dean, had a recent alumna return to congratulate him on his respectful and compassionate guidance. (As a firsthand observer of his effort, I heartily concur.) She commented on the fact that though she’d been late to school often, he’d never punished her for it. He responded that he felt timely arrival at school was an issue for parents and students to reconcile. They needed to determine for themselves how important the issue really was. He reasoned that as a dean he had more important things to do regarding student welfare than to fight over minor infractions regarding arrival time, especially since in his institution, there was ample time between the designated arrival time and the beginning of a student’s first class period. His choice to pick his battle earned him the respect and cooperation of his charges in his larger day-to-day dealings with them, and ultimately their well deserved and enthusiastically expressed admiration for him at the end of the school year.

My friend, the mental health professional, is faced with a different challenge. He’s being asked to establish an outpatient facility for mental health patients who have been previously institutionalized under tight security, in part because they are self-destructive. They’ll swallow things like razor blades and batteries if they can get their hands on them. I asked why placing them in an environment where they were less strictly supervised wouldn’t pose a problem. His response: these people tend to do better in a less coercive environment. Part of their self-destructive behavior is in reaction to being forced to lead highly monitored, regulated lives. When given a bit of control over their behavior, they respond favorably and are less likely to harm themselves. They abuse themselves as a form of protest. With less need to protest, there is less need for the abuse.

The Sunday Times Magazine piece, Prisoners of Parole, was by Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen described a state trial judge in Hawaii, Steven Alm, who was frustrated by the number of cases appearing before him involving repeat parole violations. “Working with U.S. marshals and local police, Alm arranged for a new procedure: if offenders tested positive for drugs or missed an appointment, they would be arrested within hours and most would have a hearing with 72 hours. Those who were found to have violated probation would be quickly sentenced to a short jail term proportionate to the severity of the violation – typically a few days.”

Prior to implementing his new procedure Alm assembled a group of repeat offenders and warned them that they were to abide by the rules of probation or they’d be arrested on the spot and immediately do some jail time. They were given the rules. The choice of how to behave was theirs to make. “Within a six-month period, the rate of positive drug tests fell by 93 percent…with a fall of 14 percent for probationers in a comparison group.”

Rosen continued, “Classical deterrence theory has long held that the threat of a mild punishment imposed reliably and immediately has a much greater deterrent effect than the threat of a severe punishment that is delayed and uncertain. …Alm discovered another reason why the strategy works: people are most likely to obey the law when they’re subject to punishments they perceive as legitimate, fair and consistent, rather than arbitrary and capricious. ‘When the system isn’t consistent and predictable, when people are punished randomly, they think, My probation officer doesn’t like me, or, Someone’s prejudiced against me,’ Alm told me, “rather than seeing that everyone who breaks a rule is treated equally, in precisely the same way.”

No one is suggesting that the inmates run the asylum. Autonomy runs on a spectrum. I am suggesting, however, that those supervisors, bosses, managers and administrators willing to yield some control of those under their authority might find the dividend to be well worth their time and effort.

The 6 Myths of Creativity

Dan Pink refers to Teresa Amabile several times in his brand new book DRIVE (which I highly recommend, by the way). You might enjoy The 6 Myths of Creativity, that first appeared in Fast Company in 2007.

Go to: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/creativity.html?page=0%2C0

The YES People

I return often in my teaching and directing to Michael Shurtleff’s book, Audition. I find it a wise and invaluable book about both acting and life. One of his points is that The Negatives Are Always Written. Shurtleff writes: “It is a curious wonderment of playwriting to find that the negatives are always written in a play and it is the actor’s job to provide the positives. This means that no is strongly and literally written:

 No, I don’t want that I want to leave.

 Leave me alone.

 I won’t do what you want.

 “The actor’s job is to see through the negative to the other side of the coin, to find the yes that is always also in the scene.” 

Similarly, it is easy to remember (for me at least) the people in my life who have made my life difficult: the bullies I’ve gone to school with, the bullies and liars I’ve had for bosses, the petty tyrant supervisors, ubiquitous knee-jerk naysayers, the fools I’ve not suffered gladly, the people I’ve butted heads with…gladly and righteously. Not only is it easy to remember them. It remains easy, indeed a trap, to continue to fuss and fume over bygone encounters. Much as I might like to, I’ll never fix these people. I remind myself from time to time, to counter the impulse to spin my wheels over negative people by recalling the positives, the people who in one way or another have said “YES” in my life. My time is better spent honoring those who have been unabashedly supportive: a high school coach, a head of school mentor, teaching colleagues, my first-grade teacher, acting teachers, hockey buddies, former roommates, former students, seminar leaders, not to mention close family and friends. These wonderful people have popped up in timely ways in all stages of my life, right through today. They are the ones who remind me that I am valuable and sustain my faith in what I have to offer. I do well to remember these people are wellsprings and inspiration for my creativity. The negatives are always written in. It is the actor’s job to provide the positives. It is my job in life to remember, to use the YES people as resources, and to thank these positives in my life. Sometimes, make the time to make a list of your YES people.

Who's the Puppet? Who's the Master?

I met with a former student of mine this week. He’s a recent college graduate, which means that these days he’s doing seasonal work putting together puppets in a toy store. He’ll be looking for another job right after Christmas. He is a most talented young man, a writer, whose plight isn’t unique. Several of his friends from college are working at the same toy store with him. They’ve all just graduated from a small, private, liberal arts college with annual tuition and board in the neighborhood of $53,000. My student friend claims that the most interesting students on campus were the scholarship students. In his opinion, they were the ones who cared the most about their education and put the most into it. Their drive gave the place energy. He lamented the fact that due to the current Recession, his alma mater was not able to offer as much in the way of financial aid. Hence, a more homogenous, more dull, though financially more secure, student body.

On the same day as our meeting, I happened across some interesting facts on YouTube. Assuming accuracy on YouTube’s part, the 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ’s is greater than the total population of the United States. To quote YouTube, “India has more honors students than the U.S. has kids!”

I don’t know about the near term, but in the long term, all those bright, hungry Indian students might keep some of our kids in the toy store… selling toys designed in India.