Electing to Practice the Future

It's easy to just respond in the moment — but think about how your choices might affect the future. This post first appeared on the Duha One substack .

Leadership Moment: Elections Have Consequences

With the US election around the corner (tomorrow!), it can be a useful opportunity to practice a skill leaders need: the ability to predict the future, and then evaluate later to see what they can learn from. Organizations are often faced with a choice—sometimes one path, sometimes more—and they have to elect which path they’ll take. Leaders within the organization may advocate for one path or the other, and, the greater the stakes seem to be, the harder they’ll advocate for “their” side as being what’s best for the organization. They’ll likely look through rose-colored glasses at their preferred option, yet cast a critical eye at the opposite option.

Much later, they rarely look back and ask themselves, “How was I wrong? Could I have been more charitable to my opposition, and more skeptical of my allies?” To do that, they’d need a rubric—an impartial scoring function—on which to evaluate their own predictive model. Often, we don’t know when a decision will be made, so transitioning from advocate to oracle doesn’t come easily. But the US election is tomorrow (although we may not know the results for a while), so the next 36 hours or so is a fine time to write down a few predictions.

What makes a good prediction? The best predictions are measurable, using either quantitative outcomes (using indexes or , or relatively simple qualitative ones (binary options, like “a law will be passed like X”). They shouldn’t be comparative between your two (or many) choices (“If my choice wins, it will be better than the other choice”), because you can’t compare reality against an alternate reality.

Take the opportunity to commit, and learn from your commits. Don’t just forget what you believed over the next four years.

Appearances

Recent

Oct 29: We Need to Hire a Unicorn But We Only Have Budget for a Donkey

Nov 1: Super Cyber Friday, Hacking Your Cyber Brand

Upcoming

Through Nov 14, I’ll be in Tel Aviv if anyone local is looking to catch up.

Dec 11: CyberMarketingCon CEO Summit , Navigating the Investment Landscape for Cybersecurity Companies

One Minute Pro Tip: Accept Gratitude

Like many people, I have a hard time accepting thanks. I don’t know if part of it is not being willing to create a debt (if you’re thanking me, maybe you feel you owe me, and I don’t want that?), or just a standard cultural of deflection and minimization. But this past week, as I’ve been meeting people in Tel Aviv, it’s been harder to deflect. Almost every meeting starts with the Israeli thanking me for coming – not to the meeting, but to Israel (there’s a war going on, if you haven’t heard).

I’m one of the very rare travelers here—for work or tourism—so I can’t deflect with “it’s no big deal.” I’ve had to practice my response over a series of meetings (“I came because I wanted to show my support” seems to fit the conversations best), and it’s made me realize not just the value of practicing, but to move past a formulaic response (“You’re welcome” feels weird) and into saying why I did something as a way of receiving gratitude—it’s an acknowledgement without creating an awkward social phrasing. Give it a try.

Archive Flashback

Dance when everyone is watching … and rebuilding trust .

Leadership Q&A

Leader S asks, How do you know, looking from outside, when an executive is the problem, and when it’s their team that’s the problem?

It’s a hard question, especially from the outside — often because the best sensor you have is reporting from the executive in question. But here’s my rubric.

First, it’s always the executive’s problem: if they have a bad team, they’re the one who brought in that team (or, if they’re new, and inherited the team, they’re the one who hasn’t done anything about the problematic team). So, given that initial test, I move to the second test: what is the executive doing about the team? Are they investing in up-leveling the team, either by replacement or development? If so, there is a good chance that we’re just watching the middle of the process, and not the end of it, and maybe it is the team that’s the problem.

But maybe the team has recently had turnover, and the problems have gotten worse. Is the executive reporting that the departed team members were the problem? If so, and the problems in those areas have gotten worse, not better, maybe it was really the executive in the first place … and perhaps a high-functioning team member left in frustration.

Either way, it’s a difficult question, and there isn’t usually an easy test—but whoever is the problem, it’s the executive who needs to...This post continues on the Duha One Substack.