It helps me to create little rules that provide default decisions for common and unusual situations. A couple of years ago, I wrote down my little rules for working life. Since then, I’ve collected a few more…

Communication

• Speak the unspoken.
• Have difficult conversations.
• Find something remarkable, and remark on it, every day.
• Not everything needs to be said.

Decision-Making

• Be intentional: for me, it takes reflection and constant conscious effort for my words and actions to reflect my values.
• Consider your influencers (the people who influence you), and choose them as intentionally as you can.
• Have a plan. Learn something. Change the plan.
• Play the long game. Sometimes we have to do stuff that we don’t care about in the short-term, in order to meet expectations from people who decide if we get paid or if we get privileges. Even while we do the stupid short-term things, we can sometimes set ourselves up for some potentially awesome, or at least potentially meaningful future.
• Focus on the outcome. Imagine what happens after you reach your goal. Then what? Often the real goal is the next thing, or the thing after that.

Getting Unstuck

• When you hit a wall, step back and learn. Learn more about the problem. Who else sees it as a problem? Who made this wall anyhow? It’s probably there for a reason and the problem might be an unintended consequence.
• Get to know the people. The system is made of people, and usually those aren’t the same people who made the system.
• Write stuff down. Sometimes what you think you heard wasn’t the same thing other people heard.
• Wait a week and ask again. Or a month. Or just listen for the moment when someone else raises the same problem, and chime in.

“Curiosity is the most under utilized tool of leaders” — Amy Edmondson
“Don’t fight stupid, make more awesome” — Jesse Robbins
“Make new mistakes.” — Esther Dyson, 2008 post

In my recent trip to Krakow, I bought a little blue stuffed dragon for my niece. I became curious about the legend of the Krakow dragon and wanted to find a children’s story to listen to and maybe learn a little Polish and found a fun, modern interpretation: Smok.

The news from Charlottesville is not an isolated incident. The US President responds that there is violence “on many sides.” This is false.

In Charlottesville, the police were present in riot gear, but the rioting white people were treated with kid gloves, a stark difference from Fergusen police reaction reported by @JayDowTV who was there.

These people feel comfortable declaring it a war: “And to everyone, know this: we are now at war. And we are not going to back down. There will be more events. Soon. We are going to start doing this nonstop. Across the country. I’m going to arrange them myself. Others will too, I’m sure, but I’m telling you now: I am going to start arranging my own events. We are going to go bigger than Charlottesville. We are going to go huge.”

General McMaster, US National Security Advisor tells us “I think what terrorism is, is the use of violence to incite terror and fear. And, of course, it was terrorism” (NBC via Vox)

A Christian minister writes this plainly on his post, Yes, This is Racism. We each need to declare what we stand for in this moment and always.

We are not with you, torch-bearers, in Charlottesville or anywhere.
We do not consent to this.
In fact we stand against you, alongside the very beautiful diversity that you fear.
We stand with people of every color and of all faiths, people of every orientation, nationality, and native tongue.

We are not going to have this. This is not the country we’ve built together and it will not become what you intend it to become.

So you can kiss our diverse, unified, multi-colored behinds because your racism and your terrorism will not win the day.

Believe it.

— John Pavlovitz