Learn a New Word: The Glass Cliff

Over the weekend reports dropped that the NFL's Cleveland Browns, long a league doormat and in need of yet another new head coach for next season, were interested in interviewing former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for the open role. While later reporting seemed to indicate that in fact Rice was not likely to be a candidate for the Head Coach spot, it has not stopped a pretty tremendous level of reaction in the sports world. While those various reactions (the Browns are nuts, the role of Head Coach is evolving, Why not look in a novel direction for this hire, it can't get much worse for the Browns?) are all interesting in their own right, it was a term in the Fortune piece linked above that caught my attention - The 'Glass Cliff'.

I had never seen this term before, and since as the author of this blog I have to assume what I think is what you think too, I thought it a valid entry as the latest 'Learn a New Word', even if I am really the only one who is learning this for the first time. 

Ok, here's the definition/description of The Glass Cliff: (from a piece on Vox)

The glass cliff is a relative of the “glass ceiling” — a metaphor for the invisible, societal barrier that keeps women from achieving the highest positions in business, politics, and organizations. The glass cliff is a twist on that: Women are elevated to positions of power when things are going poorly. When they reach the upper ranks of power, they’re put into precarious positions and therefore have a higher likelihood of failure, meaning there’s a greater risk for them to fall.

It is a really interesting concept that is backed up both by some empirical research, as well as by what many of us have seen or been impacted by in our own careers. One prevailing theory is that when things are going poorly for a company or any kind of institution, and there is the need for new executive leadership at one of these organizations, the very fact that things are going poorly deters many if not most of the typical (read white male) candidates for the open executive position. Since these kinds of leadership positions become harder, relatively, to fill than others, more women and people from underrepresented groups become candidates and relatively more of them get hired. But, since the organization is already in trouble, the chances for these newly appointed executives to succeed are not that high, and more of them end up failing than they would if they were joining more healthy organizations.

The above linked Vox piece has a number of great recent examples of the Glass Cliff phenomenon, (Mary Barra at GM, Carol Bartz then later Marisa Mayer at Yahoo, Jill Abramson at the New York Times) and ends with what may be a definitionally classic 'Glass Cliff' appointment - Jill Soltau the new CEO at beleagured retailer JC Penney - a company that has been deterioting for years. Whether or not Soltau will be able to revive the company is anyone's guess, but there is no doubt she's walked into an incredibly challenging set of circumstances - standing on the edge of the figurative Glass Cliff.

Ok, that's it for me, back to try and find something new to learn, especially something I should have learned a long time ago.

Learn a new word: 'Foldering'

From the world of 'the lengths people will go to in order to keep their employers, law enforcement, and/or the government from snooping on their digital communications' comes today's Learn a New Word - 'Foldering'.

Not familiar?

Neither was I until I saw the term pop up in one of the (many) legal scandals and issues swirling around in the Federal Government lately.

Here's the definition of 'Foldering' from our pals at Wikipedia:

Foldering is the practice of communicating via messages saved to the "drafts" folder of an email or other electronic messaging account that is accessible to multiple people.

Foldering is sometimes described as a digital equivalent to the dead drop.Like the dead drop, it has no usage outside of clandestine communications.

So you want/need to send someone an email, but want to (try) to make sure that no one but the intended recipient gets their eyes on its contents?

Well, since we know employers can see your sent emails and so can big tech like Google or Yahoo (once they get an order to turn over data from the Feds), you try this 'Foldering' tactic.

You set up an email address, create your intended email, but instead of sending the email to your recipient, you save the message as an unsent Draft. You then share the email account's login credentials with your recipient, (hopefully not in an email), and then they simply log in to the account, read the draft message, and then update the draft message (again without sending).

The two of you then go back and forth updating the message(s) in the Drafts folder instread of actually sending any email - thus the term 'Foldering'. Once the needed information is shared, someone deletes the draft - the idea being that by not ever sending the message it is less likely to be ever discovered by outsiders.

But the practice of Foldering while not that common, appears to be pretty well-known by Federal authorities who tend to interpret the act itself of indicating some kind of questionable or sketchy behavior. It isn't illegal per se, but it sends a red flag to information security and law enforcement types for sure.

I don't know if this really has too much of a workplace connection, unless your workplace is, well 'unusual', but it might be something you want to check on with your IT folks once in a while anyway. Maybe your kids too. Except your kids probably don't use email.

Learn something new every day. Like a new word. Like 'Foldering'.

Have a great day!

Learn a new word: Introvert Hangover

I've had two solid weeks of business travel, events, a ton of meetings, interviews, podcasts, some personal travel and more and by the end of that run, last Friday or so, I was feeling really burned out. Not exactly 'tired' even though I was definitely tired, but more like I just needed a break from people - interacting with them, being in a crowd, making small talk at dinner, even dealing with the hundreds of emails that have piled up, a fair number of text messages and looking a backlog of Twitter mentions and messages. I just needed some time to step back from what seemed to be just a relentless, suffocating sense or feeling that 'someone wants your attention' that has not let up in some time.

And while I have, from time to time, had a similar feeling after a spate of travel, events, and meetings, I had never known that for folks like me this feeling of being burned out and needing a break from people, from social settings, even from electronic communications actually has been given a term - an Introvert Hangover.

From a piece over the weekend on Business Insider explaining the phenomenon:

If you identify as more of an introvert than an extrovert, you'll know that means you are more energised by spending time on your own, or in very small intimate groups of people you trust. It doesn't mean you are a hermit or dislike social situations — you just often need time to recharge alone after them.

This time to regroup is sometimes called an "introvert hangover" because after a lot of social stimulation, whether that's in a small group or a noisy overstimulated context, an introvert's nervous system gets overwhelmed.

Essentially, an introvert brain functions differently than an extrovert brain. An extrovert has a very high threshold for dopamine, so they require constant stimulation. An introvert has a very low threshold, so they reach their limit much sooner.

Also, while an extrovert can approach an event objectively, an introvert has a lot more going on internally. For example, they notice all sorts of details, are self-conscious about themselves and the mistakes they are making, and draw a lot from their long-term memory bank when speaking. All of this is emotionally exhausting, so it's no surprise they need to take some time to regroup afterwards.

But an introvert hangover isn't exactly a bad thing. For most, it means curling up with a book or a film, or doing a relaxing hobby like drawing

I know that this idea, this concept of an Introvert Hangover could sound kind of silly to some folks, I would argue that those folks are either extroverts, or are introverts that have managed to architect their lives so that they don't often run into extended periods of over stimulation, or near constant contact with other people and social settings. After thinking about how I felt this past weekend, and other times in the past where I have had long runs of 'public' activities, I kind of think this Hangover idea is a real thing. It's definitely not the same as being just tired. It's more, 'I need some time to take care of my own stuff, I need to not have to talk to anyone for a little bit, and I need to re-charge, not just physically, but emotionally too.'

Why bring this up?

Well, besides being a really apt and accurate description of what i was going through, it also serves as a great reminder to be aware and empathetic of other people at work, in our personal lives, even family members that also need a 'break' from people from time to time.

It doesn't make them bad people, it doesn't even make them anti-social or unfriendly, it doesn't mean they don't care - it just means that for their own mental health they need to step back from time to time.

So if you have one of these people in your life, try to understand that sometimes an unreturned text message or an email or phone call that isn't responded to right away isn't some kind of personal insult. It could be that they just need a little time-out, a little re-set, and the chance to get prepared to get back out there again.

That's it - have a great day!

Learn a new word: Abstinence Violation Effect

No, it's got nothing to do with THAT, get your minds out of the gutter for a minute.

I admit to not being familiar with this term until seeing the accounts of the demise of former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo's new venture - an app called Chorus. Chorus was a kind of a social fitness app where groups of friends would sign up/join up together, share their goals for exercise and other healthy behaviors, and remain motivated to keep up with these goals leveraging their friends on the app to keep them going (and accountable).

The idea for Chorus was that once your fitness goals were social and semi-public, you wouldn't want to let down your team and friends, (and risk some level of open embarrassment), by slacking off, or not keeping your commitments.

But as it turned out, at least for Chorus users, this wasn't enough to keep users of the app from continuing to engage with their goals and their teams. Once users began to fall behind, maybe due to illness or travel or work or because exercising is a real drag sometimes, they simply stopped checking in on the app altogether. You could say they ghosted their fitness teams. They would not come back to the app once they had felt like they failed, (and everyone else on the team knew).

Turns out this phenomenon has a name, (who knew?), called the Abstinence Violation Effect which can be described as when people hide from their support group (exercisers, people trying to quit smoking, people who buy too many pairs of sneakers) when when they fail to meet the group's expectations, instead of turning to the social group for help during these periods.

The Chorus app users who had lapsed in meeting their fitness goals never really came back to the app, and since everyone who has ever tried to stick with an exercise regimen has likely lapsed at one point, the demise of the app was pretty explainable.

Why bring this up, i.e. why should you care?

Probably just to serve as a reminder that just having a support group in place and available isn't enough for a person who really needs help - to exercise, to quit a bad habit, to start a better habit, etc. Just being there isn't going to help the person who has really withdrawn.

Setting smaller, tangible  goals along the way, with regular check-ins and rewards for effort and progress is probably going to give the user, (and the team) a better chance to remain engaged with the overall goals and with each other as a group.

The support group isn't there to 'help you get healther' it is there to help you walk 5,000 steps this Wednesday, to buy some healthy snacks on Friday, and to go with you while you attend a yoga class on Saturday morning. These kinds of small, incremental, but tangible kinds of things can help both parties remain connected and accountable to each other.

It is really easy to ghost a support group whose purpose is to 'help you get healthier'.

It is much harder to pull a no-show at a Yoga class on a Saturday morning when your workout pal is already there at the studio waiting for you.

Interesting stuff. And in case you were wondering, yes, I have purchased too many pairs of sneakers.

Have a great day!

Learn a new word: Conway's Law

Have you ever noticed the tendency for large, complex, and difficult to navigate organizations to create to create large, complex, and difficult to navigate products, services, and policies?

Alternatively, have you noticed, (I am sure you have), how many startup companies (especially tech companies), who lack size, complexity and bureaucracy in their organizations tend to create much simpler, easy to use and intuitive kinds of products and services? 

It kind of makes sense, even if we never really consciously thought about the connection between the organization, its size, methods of working, and structure and the outputs of that organization. But it is a phenomenon, in technology certainly, that has been observed for at least 50 years, and it has a name - Conway's Law - today's Word of the Day.

Mel Conway, a programmer, came up with concept in 1967, and by 1968 it was dubbed his 'law'. What does the law actually say? From Mr. Conway's website:

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.

Later, the Law was expanded to encompass not just the idea that an organization's communication structure would influence (and mirror) the systems that the organization produces, but the broad 'culture' of the organization has a significant impact on its products and services.

Think of a corporate website, which often has separate sections of information that copies the internal organizational makeup, not necessarily aligned and architected with how site visitors want to consume information. Or an enterprise technology product that offers complex and lengthy workflows for transaction entry, routing, and approval that tends to reflect the creating organization's own internal processes and hierarchies that do not always reflect what their customers want.

These kinds of examples show Conway's Law in effect - the way the fundamental elements of how an organization operates internally show up in the products they build, the services they offer, and more broadly, how they 'see' the relationship between themselves and their customers, shareholders, and community.

I have written in a few places that when making decisions around HR and other enterprise technologies that HR and business leaders should evaluate the culture and vision of any potential technology provider just as closely, (if not more closely), than they evaluate the capability and functionality of a particular piece of software.

Capability and functionality can change over time, and in mature markets tends to run together amongst established providers. But organization culture changes much more slowly, if ever, and no matter what new elements of functionality are introduced to the solution, the essential nature of the provider (and the priduct too), is likely to be pretty well entrenched.

Have a great day!