On Connection

In the age of the internet, connectivity is everywhere. There are hundreds of apps and websites all seeking to connect us with others. It seems, as well, that this is something we desire. If we didn't care about connection, Web 2.0 would never have begun, let alone thrived. Yet, is there a limit? Can we be too connected?

There is only one way to find out (for an engineer). Derive the equation for the system and see if there is a maximum. Pretty easy, except that we are dealing with humans, not atoms, so there will have to be some approximation. So, simplifying it down, I propose the Connection Index (CI).

Connection Index = number of connections * average quality of each connection

I also propose that each of us desires to maximize our CI. Since the equation is straightforward, maximization of CI involves increasing the number of connections and/or their quality. It gets complicated when we consider that one of those factors is easy to both influence and measure, while the other is not.

As a result of man's aversion to complexity, we are therefore drawn to the simple factor: number of connections. We know that a single connection makes us feel good, so we strive to increase the number of connections, knowing that more connections leads to greater CI (assuming constant quality). Since we are ignoring quality because it is too complex, we might as well assume it is constant. So we have more Twitter followers, more Facebook friends, and more LinkedIn connections, each one linearly increasing our CI...right?

Clearly, this logic breaks down. A short pause is all it takes to realize that my 350th friend on Facebook does not have the same quality of connection that I do with my wife (at least, they better not). So if the average quality of each connection is not the same, our assumption of constant average quality may not be as valid as we would like to think.

Imagine, for example that you have one connection with your soul mate. Your best friend in the entire world. One connection times a very high average quality equals a high CI. Now add another connection of an old classmate whom you have not seen in 15 years (a common Facebook occurrence). Very little connection quality, dragging the average quality of connections down significantly. But the number doubled, so the overall CI likely went up a bit, since the connection with your soul mate is unaffected by this new Facebook friend. So far, so good...Facebook has increased our CI.

Continue the thought experiment for a while, now. More and more people friend you on Facebook. One introduces you to Twitter and mentions LinkedIn. MySpace looks interesting, as does Tumblr. Google throws in Wave and Buzz. Connections (and the platforms that facilitate them) are multiplying rapidly. Which is good, since more connections leads to greater CI...right?

This is where it gets sticky. All those connections are clamoring for time and attention. On Facebook, your spouse gets equal screen time with your college roommates who compete with your clients on LinkedIn. Simply having a connection requires something of you, and that something has to come from somewhere. That somewhere will eventually be from the time and attention spent on your soul mate, that first and strongest connection. At first, that is no big deal. But soon, a loss of time will lead to a loss of quality in that connection, and CI begins to drop.

By this reasoning, at some point, additional connections begin to reduce the average quality more than can be compensated by the added connection. CI starts dropping, and will continue to drop with more connections, likely accelerating as we try to compensate for the negative feeling of a lower CI with a greater number of connections. (Remember our focus on the easy part of the equation? Plus, it worked up until now, right?)

So where does that leave us? In an ever downward spiral of reaching for something that is fleeing from us faster than we can pursue it. Once CI begins to drop, the only way to stop the bleeding is to defy instinct and stop. Don't add more friends, don't join another network, just stop.

Then focus on the other half of the equation. Rather than increasing numbers, increase the quality. Spend more time with your spouse, face-to-face with friends. Invest in the connections you have, and maybe even cut off some of those that are wasting your time.

The index is what matters. Stop stressing quantity and make the quality happen.

Today, Haiti, Tomorrow...Haiti?

We are all aware of the Haitian humanitarian crisis. Many of us have given to various organizations that are helping to provide relief to a country desperately in need. I want to challenge you, however, to consider aid to Haiti in a new light.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Haiti's per capita income is $1,300 annually, ranking it 203rd in the world (out of 229). Inflation is 15.5% (194th highest in the world) and unemployment is not even reported as a number, rather as "widespread unemployment and underemployment; more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs." These numbers are from well before the recent earthquake.

A tremendous amount of aid will pour into the country over the next few months. After that, our memories will fade, the money will dry up, and then what? Will more than half of Haitians finally be employed? Not likely. Recovery from disaster is hard...recovery from endemic poverty is nearly impossible.

So I want to challenge you to join me and my family in making a commitment that goes beyond a text message. For the past four years, we have been sponsoring Robendy through Compassion International. Robendy lives in Haiti and happens to have been born exactly 8 years to the day before our twins. He lives on the side of the island away from the worst of the damage, but beyond that, we know no more than you do about his current fate. He was our first thought on hearing about the earthquake.

Sponsorship is different than giving to disaster relief. Instead of a chunk of cash now, sponsorship is spread out over time, a steady drip of help to those in need. It keeps us engaged, and though the contributions are automated, we are constantly reminded through letters, updates, and bank statements that we are involved, every day, in what happens in Haiti.

Compassion is not the only organization that has a sponsorship model. Haiti is not the only country in the world with poverty. So I don't really care if you give through Compassion, and I don't particularly care if you give to Haiti. I do care that you make a commitment beyond the headlines. Haiti will need us next year, just like they did last year. Will you be there?


Click here to access Compassion International's sponsorship page.
Click here to access Compassion International's Haitian disaster relief page. 


PS - I did no research into other organizations for this post. If you have one you would recommend, please mention it in the comments. Also, if you have a sponsorship story, I would love to hear it.


(Photo credit to Compassion International)

Manly Men and Womanly Women

I recently discovered The Art of Manliness. The blog is focused on recapturing more traditional roles and characteristics of men, without reverting to any 1950's chauvanistic stereotypes. It has been interesting to read, since the only folks that I had heard about previously trying to clarify gender roles in any traditional manner have been evangelical Christians. This blog appears to have little or no religious leaning at all.

An article that caught my eye recently was titled "What can manly men expect of women?" There was not much of an answer in there, mostly just the question. There may be some interesting responses in the comments, but I have not gone back to read those yet. Here I have nothing new to add other than to reiterate the question in a slightly different way. What does the female equivalent of a manly man look like? Who is a womanly woman today?

The easy answer for some is to quote Proverbs 31. That's fine, but I suspect that doesn't work easily for all women. Just like my manliness is no longer defined by my ability to shoot a deer or trap a rabbit for dinner, making your family's clothes no longer seems like a useful yardstick for womanliness.

I have no answer to this, given my lack of study and/or experience being a woman. With my 18 month old daughter sitting in my lap right now, though, it seems a useful topic to learn more about. So I would love to hear your thoughts. What does it mean to be a womanly woman in the 21st century?

Real-life Friends

Most of us have a lot of friends. We know a lot of people by their first names, we know a lot about what is happening in a lot of others' lives. Most of those people, though, we rarely see face-to-face. Kind of ironic that they call the thing "Face"book, huh?

Following up on yesterday's post, I am thinking about the relationships behind the news. The prevalence of news relies on rapid dissemination, which means the written word broadcast over the internet. Nothing else packs as much factual information into the short time we have to consume it. So as we are innundated with news, it becomes a requirement that we spend more time on reading written stuff (with occasional pictures) than on talking and listening.

Scott (see, I know him by his first name!) posted recently about how friendships are formed. He argues that shared experiences trump shared values every time. Most college roommates and comrades-in-arms would agree. While he uses an online example to show this, I think it is a rare thing for an experience to be shared with someone in another room or country, even in today's connected world.

So in this new Web 2.0 world of social media, who are your real friends? Who have you had dinner with lately, or trusted to watch your kids? Who sees your tears and hears your laughter? Who shares your life beyond consuming your broadcasts?

Our real friends are not our Twitter followers and Facebook friends (though overlap is certainly possible). We all acknowledge this intellectually, but do we embrace it really? Do we spend as much time cultivating even just one real friendship as we do a hundred or a thousand virtual ones? To put a blunt point on it, when it hits the fan, who will visit the hospital, look after your kids, bring you a meal, or just tell you the truth you don't want to hear?

As we enjoy the amazing awesomeness that is the Internet, let us not lose sight of real life. For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world wide web, yet forfeit his real soul?

A Country Christmas

Another holiday, another old Toastmasters speech. Reading this now brings mixed emotions as my family celebrates our first Christmas since Grandma's death. This was always her favorite holiday. While we miss her, she would never want us to hold back the celebration. So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

The air was frigid.  Not bitter, but bracing, refreshing.  I lay on my back looking up at the stars, amazed at their clarity, each one a blazing fire, but somehow the heat was left behind as the light traveled across the vastness of space to meet me in the middle of nowhere.  OK, it wasn’t exactly the middle of nowhere, but it was real close, the middle of Kansas; Barnard, Kansas to be specific.  My grandfather was born there, my dad was born there, my uncle still lives there, and for me, that little town of 103 is Christmas.

As I lay there, a 10-year old boy amazed by stars unseen in the city, Christmas Eve festivities were ongoing inside.  We were, as always, at the old homestead, the home my great-grandfather built over a century ago.  In it he and his wife raised 7 burly boys and one very tough girl, most of who carried on the family tradition of farming the fertile Kansas fields.  My grandfather was the eldest of those 8, and at the time I was stargazing, he was the patriarch of the brood.  Inside, he would have been occupying the recliner of honor overseeing the celebration.

The house was never actually big enough for the original 10 residents, let alone the 60 that were bursting from the seams that evening.  Three or four generations of Wallaces celebrate in that house every year, and though some pass on or move away, others enter by birth or marriage.  The house is always warm, almost claustrophobic, but with a palpable aura of love and family that I experience nowhere else.

Thinking back, it’s not hard to recall the menu that night, because it’s always been the same.  Two or three of the women bustle about in the kitchen, serving hot chili and potato soup that warms both body and soul.  While you’re there, you can pick up some iced tea (unsweetened in the Midwest), lemonade, or water.  Coffee is available later on in the evening.  Turkey and ham sandwiches are made with rolls so white and soft that they hardly require chewing, and the whole thing is held together by dollops of full-fat mayonnaise.  Grandma always supplies the bottomless popcorn tin, a family favorite that is always begun, but never seems to get finished.  Debra can be relied on to supply “shorty”, a family recipe that somehow manages to produce a bread-like food from nearly pure lard.  Although traditionally always requested, you can count on seeing it again at dinner Christmas day.  And long before Jello Jigglers, finger Jello was a staple, red and green translucent cubes that slide down your throat as fast as you’re willing to consume them.  Innumerable cookies, crackers, cheese and the ever-present sweet pickles round out the informal meal.

Later in the evening, when everyone has eaten their full and the soup ladles scrape bottom; I would be back inside for the carols.  In a family with 42 first cousins, several managed to achieve musical talent, and one leads us on the piano as careworn carol sheets are found and passed around.  Everyone is encouraged to pick their favorites to sing, although those under the age of 10 seem to have inordinate influence on the song selection.

Sometime during the singing, you can count on Santa Claus appearing, riding in from the night in his Mercury Cougar sled.  His pillow-gut and polyester beard are not always in the best of shape, but everyone looks forward to his visit and the candy he carries.  It doesn’t matter if you’re 8 or 80, he’s sure to encourage general good behavior and scold the bad (and he seems to find particular delight scolding those older than him).  With a final Merry Christmas and a ho, ho, ho, he departs, off to destinations unknown.

When the night is over, we say our goodbyes and return to grandma’s house, and attempt to sleep before the big Christmas morning.  For now, however, I was content to look at the stars, blazing balls that appear so tiny and bright.  For a city boy, the clear nights of the country are an uncommon and awe-inspiring sight.  But the true brightness, and what draws me back each year, is what was inside; the love of my family, the warmth of tradition, and the simple down-home comfort of a true country Christmas.

Give a little grace

This morning my son woke up "in a mood." He got up earlier than usual. He had lots of demands, but could not be satisfied. He wailed for no reason that I could figure out. The only thing that made him happy was to be held. OK, I can do that, except it makes it difficult to pack my lunch and eat breakfast and all the other things I normally do while he is still asleep. So I put him down briefly, with the intent to pick him back up 20 seconds later. He wailed, and I responded,

"Give me a little grace here, son."

I was not meaning to be profound, but it struck me as I said that how little grace kids give, how much they need, and how I am not very different.

I am quick to assume that others are out to get me, or that they simply do not care. If my wife is short with me, or if my boss overlooks my good work, I take it personally. The fact that she is sick or he was dealing with his father's death never enter my thoughts. I give no grace; I leave no room for error.

Yet on the other side, I always have an excuse. "I didn't mean it." "I was going to pick you up as soon as I poured my cereal." "My calendar didn't sync." "I have a headache the size of whale." Cut me some slack here, I'm doing my best. Just give me a little grace...please.

Remember, grace flows both ways. The only flow you and I control, though, is the one that originates with us. Maybe you have no struggle with this. For the rest of us, though, I challenge us today to just give a little grace.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

I just finished Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker (as an aside, I love starting and finishing a book so fast that it doesn't make it onto the sidebar list). I was pretty underwhelmed by the writing. It seemed a little random and disjointed, without a particularly coherent flow throughout.

That said, it still brought tears to my eyes a number of times. Not because of the powerful writing, but simply because she talks about the dangers my daughter will face as she grows up in the world. It made me want to lock her in her room and let her out when she's 25...maybe.

The book comes down to one message. A girl's dad is the primary force for good in her life, standing between her and the negative influence of the world (peers, media, her own emotions, etc.). Fathers abdicate that responsibility not at their own peril, but at hers.

Sobering stuff. I would recommend it to any dad with a daughter. The book is an excellent and humbling reminder of the power of fatherhood. I would also be curious to hear from women about the influence of your fathers. Does Meeker overplay a dad's importance? Or would you agree with her?

Coming Home Late

Last night I came home late from work. About two hours later than usual. When I walked through the door, the kids were done with their baths, pajamas were on, and 2/3 were on their way toward bed. I hugged them, kissed, them, laid them down, and walked out of their room. Then it hit me.

I was five minutes away from not seeing two of my kids at all today.

If I had delayed leaving work just five minutes, if there had been just a little more traffic, then it would not have mattered to them if I was in Africa...our day would not have involved each other at all. It kind of scared me.

It turns out that I am more fortunate than I thought to get to see my kids for a couple hours every evening. For those of you who miss that involuntarily, I am so sorry. For those that miss it voluntarily, I pity you. You are missing out on the whole point of having kids...your kids.

When I get home tonight, there will be screaming. There will be laughing. There will be fighting and playing and lots of noise. Some nights it is all a little overwhelming. At least tonight, though, I am going to love it.

Coming home

I have been particularly enjoying one of the highlights of fatherhood this week. When I come in the door from work, I am greeted by my 18 month old daughter running to me with a giant grin on her face, laughing all the way. Whatever else happened that day at work, good or bad, is generally forgotten, at least for a few seconds.

Chaos generally reigns in our home, and sometimes it stresses us all out. Seeing a little girl run (well, toddle quickly) across the house, just because I came home...that somehow makes it all good.

What's your agenda?

Most meetings should have an agenda. Why are you there, what are you trying to accomplish, how long it will take. That is just good business.

Sometimes, though, an agenda is the last thing you need. The purpose of the meeting is just to be together, and what happens is what happens. Lunch with a friend, or breakfast with your spouse are often like that. The point is the person, not the meeting.

We run into trouble when we mix the two. No agendas at work lead to wasted time, since the people are not that important, and nothing gets accomplished. Having an agenda when you are romancing your wife is also a bad idea, it turns out (what, you don't want to look over our budget during dinner?).

So think about it before the meeting. If it needs an agenda, get one or cancel the meeting. If it does not, drop your preconceived notions. Just do not get confused.

Safety first...after you show you care.

At Shell, we are big on safety. We have big programs and we talk about it a lot and we are serious about it. We have to be. Our job is to extract, transport, process, and sell some of the most flammable, explosive, and toxic chemicals on earth. Safety matters, big time.

Yet sometimes all the talk falls flat. Sometimes it feels rote, like our leaders talk about safety because they are supposed to, not because they really care whether everyone goes home in the same condition they came to work in. Why is that? How can something so important end up sounding insincere?

I think it is because we all get cynical. All the talk about safety can quickly become a matter of statistics, lost time, and bad press. If that is all my leadership seems to care about, then I am not going to believe they really care about my personal safety...only their own stats. It is only when I believe they care about me as a person will I believe that they care about my health as more than a means of production. Only then will I buy into the safety programs and whatnot.

This is a key lesson for all leadership, it seems. If you want people to care about what you care about, care about them first. When they believe that you have their best interests in mind, or at the very least are aware of their interests, they are willing to listen and perhaps get on board with your leadership. If they think you are not interested in them, it is unlikely they will be interested in you.

Emotional Control

The New York Times recently published an article about yelling at your kids that I discovered through a couple blogs that I follow (Nathan's and Digital Dads). It opens up a nice debate about various forms of discipline, but that is not exactly what it got me thinking about.

I started thinking about why we discipline. There are lots of good reasons, and lots of bad ones. One of the reasons in between is to "control" our children. I think it is good that parents have accountability for what their kids do in public. I do not think it is good if parents expect their kids to be perfectly responsive robots.

In the end, though, we cannot control our children. Like it or not, they are independent (and often willful) individuals. We can intimidate, encourage, coerce, bribe, threaten, punish, and cajole, but never control. In fact, the only thing we can control is...us.

So that brings me back to the question of discipline methods. I am averse (not immune) to yelling not because it is ineffective, but because it demonstrates a loss of emotional control. Spanking is arguably legitimate discipline...if used in an emotionally controlled environment. Uncontrolled emotional spanking is little different than plain physical abuse.

I think that the key to effective discipline is not the method, but the source. It is ok to feel emotions. It is not ok to let the emotions control me. If I am controlling my emotions, discipline will work. If my kids are controlling my emotions, and my emotions are controlling me, discipline fails.

This is my thinking based on 2 years of fatherhood with 3 kids. What's your experience?

Magical Mystery Tour (aka Marriage Key #2)

While I'm in the mode of giving advice I'm not qualified to give, I thought I'd share another key to a happy marriage. (Editor's note: if you are looking for a legitimate marriage blog, check out Simple Marriage.)

I was thinking about the romance of new love. How a couple can talk for hours on the phone or over dinner, endlessly fascinated by each other. What is it that drives that happy couple? I think the key is mystery.

We all love the unknown in some way. We are fascinated by it, romanticize it, dream about it. The known is mundane. Comfortable, perhaps, but generally dull. We know what has happened, what is happening, what is going to happen. There is no mystery in daily life.

Yet that is exactly what a marriage needs to stay fresh. There must be a sense that there is something about our spouse we do not yet know...some dream, some habit, some past experience, some fear. With that sense of mystery, we are compelled to talk, explore, learn, and become one.

The challenge of this is that after a few years, it becomes easy to assume we know everything already. There is nothing new, and no reason to talk for hours. No reason to pursue, no reason to romanticize or dream. When we think that, it does not demonstrate knowledge, it reveals ignorance. Allow me an analogy.

To me, English Literature seems pretty straightforward. Authors wrote books that we read and then talk about plot and character and stuff like that. In fact, I have read Shakespeare and Dickens and Poe and even enjoyed it. I would say that there is actually very little to learn there. Does this show that I know all there is to know about English Lit?

Absolutely not. An English Lit professor would put me to shame with her explanation of the depth of the subject and quickly demonstrate my ignorance. Plus, she would likely then confess that there is more she does not know than what she does. Her knowledge humbles her to realize the depth of her field, which can never be seen by an outsider.

The same is true of our spouses. The more we know, the more we should be humbled about what we do not know. No human being can be completely known in a lifetime. And if you are reading this, I know you have known your spouse well short of that.

You are married to a mystery. Explore it fully, and never forget that there is more to discover around the next bend.

Frustrating kids

I was sobered the other day by my children. They were frustrating me, annoying me, getting on my nerves. Whatever I wanted to happen, didn't, and whatever I didn't want to happen, did. Messes, tantrums, whining, ARGH!

I thought I was even-keeled. I thought I could go with the flow. I thought I was calm, relaxed, laid-back, and mellow. Then I had kids.

Is it their fault? When I am frustrated, does it point to some rebellious, disobedient spirit in them? Maybe. As I thought about it, though, probably not most of the time.

Most of the time, they are being kids. There are three of them between 17 and 29 months old. That is not a recipe for calm...ever. So when I am frustrated, if it is not their fault, who does that leave?

Me.

My frustration says far more about my need for growth and maturity than it does about theirs. How am I being selfish? How am I finding my worth in their behavior? How am I valuing quiet compliance over their unique hearts?

It amazes me what they can teach without the ability to form coherent sentances most of the time. My kids frustrate me sometimes; maybe I can learn to be a better man through it.

John Piper rocks my world

Noel Piper, John Piper's wife, has been posting their daughter's adoption story over the last couple weeks. One of the posts that stood out to me was a reproduction of John's letter voicing his agreement with the adoption. It highlights two challenges for me.

1. A model of Biblical submission and love. Noel states several times that after many hours of discussion, the final decision would be John's - submission. In his letter, John states that Noel's heart's desire is the most important factor in his decision - love. He agrees to adoption not purely out of his own reasoning, but primarily to love and sacrifice for his wife. When was the last time I made a decision like that?
   
2. Consistency of commitment and character. John makes it clear that after honoring his wife, adoption is a way to live a radical commitment to love, racial reconciliation, male/female role modeling, pro-life, and every area of his life's ministry. He is (and they are) willing to put their beliefs on the line visibly, publically, and irrevocably. Have I ever done that?

If I didn't respect John Piper before, I certainly do now. He is far from perfect, I know, but he has established an impressive platform to speak from.

The Key to a Happy Marriage

The title is a bit ambitious and very misleading. If you think that a blog post will give you The Key to a happy marriage, then you are

a) reading the wrong blog and
b) fooling yourself.

There is a key that I am thinking about today, though. Self-awareness. Simply the ability to know what I am feeling and thinking plus why I am feeling and thinking that way. If I do not know myself, why would my wife have a chance?

As an example, imagine I am mad at my wife. If I know that the reason is that she said something that touched a core insecurity around finances, I can tell her that and we can sort it out. If all I know is that I'm mad and she's a jerk, there is not much to work with.

So be aware of yourself. Check your thoughts and feelings, figure out what they are all about, and share them with your spouse. You'll both be glad you did.

Learning from people

I have posted before about the benefits of encountering things outside our normal experience (try something new, selective reasoning, who needs conflict). This morning I was thinking about people like that.

We all are inclined toward hanging out with people like us. Others who think like us, look like us, act like us, believe like us. As a result, there is always a huge swath of humanity out there, even in our own neighborhoods and cities, that we never spend time with. They are still around, though, on TV or at the grocery store, so our minds are forced to put some sort of characterization on them. One of the defining elements of mankind is that such characterizations (stereotypes) are rarely complimentary.

Unbelievers are fools. Believers are kooks. Gays are freaks. The poor are lazy. Blacks are criminals. Whites are racist. Frenchmen are cowards. Communists are evil. Conservatives are Nazis. Liberals are communists.

The list goes on, and on, and on.

Yet many of us have met at least one person from a group that is not ours. Someone who dresses differently and talks differently and believes differently. Nearly always, we are surprised at some level about how...normal that person is. It turns out that very few people are actually fools, kooks, freaks, or criminals. Most everyone is actually pretty normal.

So I want to encourage us all (myself especially) to do a few things.

1. Meet someone not like us. Have lunch, talk, listen. Intentionally expose ourselves to others.
2. Use that person to change our perception of the group. It is tempting, after meeting someone who challenges our stereotypes, to assume that they are the exception. That is possible, but it is not likely. More likely, our stereotype is wrong, and we need to allow that to change.
3. Remember that each individual does not represent the group. After changing our perception of the group based on the new person, keep in mind that the next new person we meet will change it some more. Keep group perceptions fluid (we will never eliminate them completely).
   

Book learning is one of my favorite kinds, but people learning is way more powerful, important, and hard.. Try it and let me know what you learn.

My kids are better than yours (aka - Your kids are better than mine)

Parenting can be brutal. With young kids (which is what I have experience with), the emotional and physical drain is greater than I would have ever imagined. Egos seem particularly vulnerable. When I see other kids, it is easy to see how much better behaved they are, how much more put-together their parents are, how much cooler gear they have, how much more fun they are all having. I am humbled by how easy life is for them and how I must be incompetent to be having such a hard day/week/month.

When I think this way, though, I have to consciously remind myself of reality. Any little snapshot of anyone's life generally looks prettier than the whole of the reality. Other parents are probably looking at my kids and thinking similar thoughts because they do not, and cannot, see my whole picture any more than I can see theirs.

So I want to encourage myself and other parents out there. My kids are not really better than yours, any more than yours are better than mine. My kids are mine. I love them and do the best I can to parent them and we are going to be OK. Stop stressing about other families and love your kids. That's all we can do.

Relationship budgets

Seth Godin recently posted about Dunbar's Number, which is the number of productive relationships most people can generally maintain at any given time, essentially a relationship budget. The number is about 150, despite social networking's attempts to convince us that we have 400, 1000, 2500 "friends."

This got me thinking about organizational design and how a relationship budget could be applied to leaders in a large organization.

Take an executive and give him a budget of 150 relationships. 10 go to his family (spouse, kids, parents, siblings, etc.). Another 10 go to personal friends. If he has been around for a while, he has networking contacts to maintain as well, maybe 50 throughout his industry. That leaves 80 for his job, of which another 30 are devoted to peers and bosses, leaving 50 for subordinates...his span of control. (Note that all numbers here are arbitrary, but the central concept of a limited number of relationships is independently valid.)


The span of control will not only consider direct reports, but also those reporting to them. This means that if you lead an organization larger than this, you will not have a relationship with everyone. Additionally, they will not have a relationship with you.

What are the implications of all this rambling?

• Consider spans of control in light of productive relationships during organizational design.
• If leading an organization larger than you can directly relate to, deliberately and continuosly monitor the transfer of information and the transfer of relationships down the line.
• If you use up your relationship budget at work, there will be nothing left outside. Beware the curse of the workaholic.
• Do not over-reach. Trying to expand too far past your relationship budget will cause everything to collapse.

Are there other implications?  Have you seen this concept used well or poorly in your experience?

First impressions

First impressions are powerful.

I have two sons, spaced 363 days apart. The older was not a "good sleeper" as a newborn. That is, I did not get good sleep for the first eight months of his life. I got good reading, game playing, and movie watching between 10 PM and 4 AM, but not good sleep.

The younger was a different story. He (and his twin sister) liked to sleep from the beginning. We got more sleep from day one with two newborns than we did with the one older one.

So to this day, in my mind, the elder is a "bad" sleeper and the younger a "good" sleeper. Yet when I stop and actually think about the reality of the last week, I realized that I was up three or four nights to comfort the younger one, and never for the older. My first impressions dominate my current reality.

Sleep characterization is a small thing. What are the chances that the same phenomenon applies to other things, too? Will I judge one as fast, the other slow, based on their crawling speed? Is one smart and the other not because of how they interact with Boynton books? I must be careful to treat my kids the way they are, not the way I have prejudged them to be.

How about you? How do you characterize your kids? Or colleagues? First impressions are powerful, and possibly dangerous.