A Goofy Foot in Mouth

I just finished reading No Easy Day which is the autobiography of a SeAL who was part of the mission to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden.  I should have read this a few years ago when it came out.  This might be one of the best books I’ve ever read.  Ok I listened to it.  6 disks that kept me engrossed the whole time.  I picked it up last Thursday and finished it on Sunday.  While this is a great military story with some nice inside baseball details, I think there are some really good life and business lessons in there too.

A few things I didn’t know: SeAL Team 6 refer to themselves as “DEVGRU” which is a shortened version of the long name of United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group. ST6 was named artificially higher than the number of teams in existence (2) at the time to make the Soviets think we had more teams than there actually were.  SeALs apply to DEVGRU and if selected go through an additional 9 month program beyond BUD/S called “Green Team”.

Business Lessons

The author talks a lot about “the good-idea fairy” where planners and analysts swoop in late in a process with good ideas about how the mission should be executed.  He details suggestions to bring a bull horn to the raid for crowd control or the need to carry a flashing police light so they can push one of the Bin Laden cars out into the street and put this light on it so neighbors think it is a police action.  The good idea fairy is everywhere in business.  Whenever you vet a plan, someone inevitably tries to add value after the fact.  While reviews are a useful part of planning, I doubt anyone hasn’t seen it go too far when decision makers lack the courage to act and make a call.

There is a great description of different approaches to a mission.  Sometimes you “fly to the X” and come in loud and powerful with a lot of speed.  You have no element of surprise when you come in on a helicopter.  This is juxtaposed to “flying to the Y” where you land far away in a quiet place and approach the X with stealth:  Thus keeping the element of surprise.  How often is it smarter to fly to the Y and move to the X with diligence and care?

I particularly like a story of the Green Team PT test.  The author was coming in from a deployment in the field and was not in very good shape.  While SeALs are expected to far surpass the minimum standards, he barely passed.  At his interview he took responsibility and explained that this will never happen again.  I like the fact that every test, every experience is a training moment and something can be learned.  Even in the middle of on-going operations, you have to keep your fundamentals solid, sharp and well exercised.

Political Stuff

Without doubt my favorite part of the book was the ramp up to the Bin Laden raid.  I didn’t know this, but a single squad was not chosen for the mission.  Instead, guys were picked from all the squads.  As described it was an almost “Dream Team” of operators who were all at the senior level.  After they all met each other and received the mission briefing, the author asked, “Who’s gonna carry the sledge?”  It was always the new guy’s job to carry the sledgehammer.  He talks about how any of the squads could have carried out the mission, there was nothing complex or special about it.  But to prove to Washington that they could do the mission, they had to rehearse over and over on a model that everyone agreed had an amazing level of detail.

When you remember that our Commander in Chief is a basketball player, this totally makes sense.  You can throw any 5 stars on a basketball team and they can be a ‘dream team’ in minutes.  There is no ‘team’ in basketball, there are 5 guys with giant egos pounding their chests in a completely anti-cathartic rumble of scoring that repeats itself over 100 times in a 60 minute game.  Who can’t picture this guy saying “I want the best of the best before I approve this mission.”  It seems to be how the White House operates too; there is no team, there is no need to gel as a unit the way football, soccer and hockey players do.  It’s like the football analogy where quarterback and receivers could look at each other and get on the same page before a play starts.  We hear this described as ‘timing’ from getting reps in practice.  Similarly, one part of the book describes how there is no secret Navy SeAL hand signal language like you see in the movies.  They train together and are so prepared, that they know what other team members are going to do before they do it.  A squeeze on the shoulder from the guy in the back is all that is needed before you clear a room.

This last part is a great life lesson.  SeALs don’t really plan a mission with a lot of detail because no plan survives first contact with the enemy (Steve Blank says that no business plan survives first contact with customers).  So what you do is you prepare and train so that you have seen and experienced so many different contingencies in the past that reacting to something new feels natural and rehearsed.  Experience doesn’t have to be exactly relevant to the situation at hand.  Rather, experience prepares you for situations that have no preset plans.  Moving decisively while experiencing something for the first time, is leadership.  Good thing the leader of the most powerful military and largest economy in the world has multiple years of experience as a community organizer.  That’s normally the FNG you make carry the sledge.

I am a big Mark Suster fan and follow his blog regularly. I pretty much agree with everything he says and even if I don’t agree with things, I definitely take them to heart. Mark talks a lot about the sales process and just completed a series based on a strategy he employed at his last business (sold to Salesforce). The strategy is named PUCCKA and is an acronym for a multi-step process. The last step is “Ask” and is about openness from salesperson to the buyer and ‘asking’ for guidance in the process. I have read this before in other posts but there is one line that I disagree with in this last post that sort of pulls together this general theme. The line is a follow on to the process of how to find a “Champion” (one of the C’s) with budget authority for your product in the firm. I agree with the notion of a champion, but I don’t like this part…

If they don’t want to share that information with you then they’re not your champion and you must continue in search of one in order to be worth investing resources in this account

Here’s why.

In a large firm buying a new product, someone has to do research. That is usually a product manager, someone at the director level. It can be someone more junior, but that tends to be rare. Directors don’t do real work, they just create silly slides in PowerPoint. A director controls a low 7-figure budget. So an enterprise solution is never going to be something she can authorize. The reason is that with that budget, you are so locked into your deliverables that there is no room to buy ANYTHING else. Maybe some developer tools or small one-off licenses, but nothing for the enterprise. So while that may be the original contact for the sales person, they can’t approve squat. According to Mark, after you realize this, the salesperson should move on.

A VP has a high 7, maybe low 8 figure budget. That’s enough for little things to get lost. You might be able to choose a SAAS offering instead of building a custom module for some component of one of your products, but nothing big.

An SVP is commanding a solid 8 figure budget and at that level you can start to make build vs buy, people vs PO choices. But you can be sure that the SVP is not making these decisions on a whim. As I like to say, nothing is real until you see it in a PowerPoint deck. These guys are so busy, they might forward an article to a staffer, but they aren’t thinking about product architecture or the roadmap on a daily basis.

So what does every Director want? To make VP. How do you get there? You pitch the SVP. And if you stick your neck out and get a win, you might be rewarded. You have to be the hero. Think a sales guy is going to get a meeting with an SVP? No F’ing way. Not without her seeing a pre-evaluation in a deck presented by someone in the CoC (Chain of Command). Why? Because no SVP installs software and rolls it out, her people do. You trust the opinions of your people.

Now as a sales guy, you can skip over mr director and go right up the CoC if you want. And you can present your fancy ROI numbers, but that is all BS without knowing our hardware platforms, support model, business staffing, volume of data, etc. Who is going to do that legwork? Yup the hungry guy looking for the letters (“VP”). The funny part is that as soon as you skip over the person who actually wants your product, here’s what happens: That SVP sees your presentation and asks for competing products/estimates/options from her staff. When the ‘recommendation’ deck comes along recommending a vendor, you really think I am going to give the thumbs up for your product after you treated me like crap? Nope. Sale gone.

So what should you do as a sales guy? Find a director who wants your product and make them a hero. If I watch a webinar and give you my email address, send me the damn deck! Let me steal the slides. You want to pad an estimate so everyone can trim a pound of flesh? Fine, but give me a frickin number. Give me clear guidance on a hardware profile based on my volumes. Show me configuration screens and how to work a sample use case. Give me the screen shots. Make it real. And most importantly help me build my deck! PowerPoint is like the magic weapon creating the hero in the cartoon version of corporate America.

I understand this is a subtle difference between finding a champion and helping to build a hero out of a champion, but I really think it is important. Mark refers to someone with “authority to either make the decision or to get somebody who holds budget to make the decision”. I think he glosses over the part about getting someone with authority as just part of bouncing around looking for the champion. I agree with knowing how to target deers. But every hunter knows, if you actually get to see a deer in the wild, you better have done your prep work and you definitely don’t let it get away. Finding a better buck is not that easy: You might not see another for a long time.

A hero always has a sidekick and even the sidekick gets praise from the mayor. Does it really matter which you are as long as you get your commission?

A few weeks ago I was able to attend the naturalization ceremony for my friend Joe as he became a US citizen.  I’d never seen one before.  There were over 80 people in Concord, NH coming from 42 countries.  It was a pretty special day and was great to see the families in observance and how proud they were to see someone become a citizen of the United States.  I too was proud as I have been pestering Joe to file his petition ever since Kenya passed its new constitution.

Joe is the pinnacle of what immigration reform opponents want in an immigrant.  College educated here, works in a STEM field, extraordinarily smart, good family, goes to church, etc.

When we look at Immigration Reform: Guest worker program, paying taxes, keeping top college grads and entrepreneurs here, securing the border, I can’t imagine that any of these are real showstoppers for anyone.

But I do understand resistance to ‘path to citizenship’.  Illegally entering the US is a serious federal crime.  Since some states prohibit convicted felons from voting, it seems crazy to then say that all these people that have committed a crime, should suddenly have a path to earn our nation’s supreme right.  At the same time it is conceivable that someone convicted of fraud in a state court would not be able to vote.

Time for a dose of rationality.  Who really thinks that all the degenerate scum that will suddenly be granted permanent residency status will really embark on a 13 year adventure to be a citizen?  Would I trade that possibility for the certainty of all the other benefits of immigration reform?  You betcha.  And what if the border with Mexico isn’t 100% secure?  Then as a House oversight member I would insist on hearings to see what companies were hiring undocumented workers in border states.  People don’t risk their lives, running all night across an unsafe border for the weather, they come for a job.

Standing for your principals doesn’t mean that you can’t compromise on those things that you feel are important but are less important than other issues.  That is the nature of compromise.  I hope the House acts rationally and passes immigration reform if for no other reason than to show that it is not more dysfunctional than the Senate.

A few months back I wrote a post about gender inequality, the effects of objectifying women and their success in the workplace as a result.  I wrote about my perceptions of success and the criteria needed to get ahead.  I stand by those remarks but today my good friend Anita pointed out that there are still areas in which gender bias exists and that I was naïve to not see them.  While it is good for me to gain new perspectives from people I respect, I will take a different approach on the prescription to correct this ill.  As I walk through the approach, I think this will fit nicely in the Rational Republican series.

I was basing my perception of women succeeding in the workplace on non-technical disciplines, which is ironic because I work in technology.  I am trying to start a Women in Tech mentoring program in partnership with a local school near our campus in NH.  My email blast was fairly well received as 7 of the 27 female technologists I contacted were interested in participating.  Anita and I discussed that no VP level associates were in that mix.  The conversation moved to why this is the case and Anita pointed out two things that were really interesting.  First that while the top levels of an organization may be progressive in this area, that very often does not trickle down to the levels that would be in a position to promote women past the senior and director levels.  Second, those that do move ahead are women that put in the kind of 70-80 hour weeks similar to that of men who are successful.  Many women choose not to engage in that work:life dynamic, and so they inevitably are left behind.  This seems to be more prevalent in Tech, though I know female computer geeks that put in 80+ hour weeks, and I hope will someday aspire to the VP level. (Sara)

This second point really got to me.  As I think about the successful women I admire, they truly are logging extensive hours.  Several VPs in the finance area do, I know the leadership does, and Megan (also a VP) certainly does, especially during audit season.

OK, now it is time for me to branch out.

While this problem manifests itself in the workplace, the problem is not with corporate America.  If you do more work, you should succeed.  That is what we want, reward for effort and results.  Trying to legislate against an imbalance of power and equity that is a result of that axiom is very bad for a nation built on the notion that if you work hard you will win.  As Anita and I talked, I realized that the problem is not the macro-economic evil corporation, but the grass-roots American male and father.  Anita noted that the examples of men that are moving ahead quickly, most often have wives that take care of the details in such a way that those men can focus on work and not their family responsibilities.  The problem is men, but not men in the workplace, but men in the home.

I know for a fact that my career has suffered because I am not able to put in the kind of hours that I need to move ahead.  When Megan needs to crank hours she works weekends when I am able to cover.  In my role, and most others, to succeed you most often need to be on-site, not only getting stuff done, but selling the fact that you get it done.  That takes hours.  When a spouse has a partner that covers all non-work activity so that he/she is able to focus on work, that inevitably will lead to success.  This works both ways.  I have chosen not to be an absentee father during the week for several reasons.  Primary is the fact that as much as the girls make me crazy, I still want to be an integral part of their lives.  It is painful to me when I sense that they are NOT getting my fatherly perspective on things.  My favorite text exchange with Taylor exemplifies that point.

Tay relies on me for certain perspective that Megan can’t give.  That is a good thing and I am happiest when I see that she really wants me to be part of her world.  Haley needs the structure and the consistency that is much better delivered from me than Meg.  There are areas in which I excel and areas in which Megan is FAR superior.  Fathers should want to be more involved with their kids’ lives.  But the real benefit to society is when both partners find a way to support each other and agree to mutual career success.

But I will not let the women off the hook so easily.  The “mutual” part means that you agree on a parenting strategy and then execute against it.  If you come to agreement, you have to trust the other to execute even when you are not there with the same sense of intensity from both parents.  Oh and by the way, the ‘agreement’ part is on the SAME strategy.  How often do the ‘experts’ say that consistency is the most important part of being a successful parent?  Parental trust has to be more than token expressions and then overt complaints when you disagree with an approach.  That violates the very nature of a partnership.  I would argue that fathers (in two parent households) that decide to spend time at work, very often do so because they are not allowed to participate at home.  Women have to acknowledge that there is a certain ego in the notion of “motherhood” that automatically assumes a superiority of skill in all things parenting.  This is not the case.  Juxtapose this notion against the prevailing attitude in the workplace that ‘men are tougher and thus better managers’.  If that assumption is outrageous, then mothers as ‘better parents’ is just as obnoxious.

Clearly there is fault all around, but I argue that inequality in the workplace is an unintended consequence of inequality in the home.   Or vice versa, I really don’t care which came first.  I know you want to yell at me right now, but before you do, just think about it for a second.  Is there even a possibility that this might be true?  And if you are female and just dismissed my comments outright, thus subscribing to the notion of absolute superiority of mothers, didn’t you just make my point?  If you are male and repulsed by the notion that for your wife to achieve equal success that you might have to do your share of work around the house (including dishes, dinner, laundry, cleaning, diapers, soccer duty, etc) then don’t complain about feminists who are frustrated by earning 80% of your salary.  Come on, think about that for a second.  Still naïve?

What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?   A good start.

I am a fan of the law and the Supreme Court in particular, but I still hate what many lawyers have done to over complicate the law and regulations in particular.  2100 page Obamacare?  800 page Immigration reform?  2300 page Financial reform?  Laws that are “of the people by the people for the people” should be simple enough that you don’t always need a lawyer to understand them.

I read a story the other day that Blackrock, the world’s largest money manager and one of the largest creators of ETFs had laid off 300 employees in March.  This is a result of a cost saving reorganization plan put in place last year.  On May 3, the CEO announced that the company will hire 300 lawyers to help it cope with global banking regulations.

We criticize CEO pay and management ineffectiveness, but here is a company that manages huge amounts of our pension and retirement assets, trying to safeguard our financial future by providing specific products that were created with very low costs (ETFs), to protect our returms.  They came up with a plan to save money further, which may in turn have led to even lower fees as downward pricing pressure has effected management fee bps across the industry.  The 300 were most likely lower level associates that got pink slips, you think they make as much as 300 corporate lawyers?  Don’t I have to conclude that in this case government regulations are widening the income gap?

What did they realize after years of trying to figure out what is going on?  That banking regulation across all of the world’s monetary systems has become so complex that the largest holder of banking debt/equity needs to hire an additional 300 full time lawyers over the course of 2013 just to address the regulatory mess.  Some of that mess results from laws passed whose regulations have not even been written.  Basically companies are playing a game in which the rules for how to play are in flux.  Imagine moving your rook across a chessboard only to find that the rules have changed and you can no longer move it backward.  As you evaluate your next move, how do you consider acting when you know there will be more rules changes?  When you see that so many corporations have cash sitting on the sideline and are too afraid to hire and invest, do you really think Elizabeth Warren, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the rest of the regulatory rules making committees really had our best intentions in mind?

Four years after the financial collapse, the market has returned to pre-crisis levels.  But hiring and investment has not.  I wonder if we could put a price tag on the lack of economic development, growth, tax revenue, personal income, etc that has been caused by the slow economic recovery over the past few years.  It is uncharacteristically slow for a ‘recovery’ and is undoubtedly partially caused by uncertainty in the market with businesses not investing.  I’d like to compare that ‘cost’ to the macroeconomic cost of what another 9 month financial crisis price tag would be and then ask people if they really want to spend all this time living in stagnation so that lawyers can try to legislate and regulate for a crisis we can’t really conceptualize.

If I asked you if you would want to endure years of construction and $millions of cost trying to build a strong enough roof over your yard so you could go out and enjoy the fresh air without having the risk of being killed by a meteorite, would you say “yes”?  Oh and that super fancy roof will do nothing to protect from flash floods, gangbanger drive-by’s, hurricanes or other natural disasters.  You still want to buy shares in this here Brooklyn Bridge?

There’s a reason they call it “risk” folks, get out there and take some.  Oh and be sure to tell every political lawyer you see to go take a swim in the Atlantic.

Marathon Monday is a tradition.  This was the first year in 5 that I was not with Loren at the Sox game followed by cheering the runners on Boylston.  It was strange to see pictures of the gang and I wasn’t there.  This isn’t some conspiracy rant on my part and I don’t have regrets or feel any karma, it just feels strange to have not been in Boston with Loren, Ryan and Shannon.

The simple story is that we go on vacation next week and I couldn’t burn the extra day of vacation.  But throughout the day I was texting with friends along the route, and watching the progress of runners on the BAA site.

I have never run Boston, though I would love to.  The fact is I am not that fast and couldn’t qualify.  I could run for a charity, but even that is hard to do nowadays.  Most don’t realize but getting a number for Boston is actually pretty hard.  I’ve stood along the route watching the runners pass, seeing the looks on their faces as they approach the finish line.  I never really understood that joy until I ran some longer races and you hear people call your number, cheer you on, and ring cowbells (it’s true, you can never have too much cowbell).  The atmosphere is electric.  I’ve run smaller races so there are long stretches where you don’t see anyone.  I can only dream of what coming out of Hopkinton is really like or that final stretch as you pass Fenway.

I don’t really have any profound thoughts about the day, just sadness for the families, anger at the perpetrators and disappointment that such a vaunted institution is now stained.  I did hear something interesting this morning on a radio program.  The DJ said that ‘the terrorists have got it all wrong, every time they attack, we become more resolved.’  There is a lot of meaningless chatter out there right now, but that struck a chord.  I also heard the crowd cheer throughout the national anthem at the Blackhawks game, that was pretty powerful.

I would like to add a little of my own commentary on the notion of terrorism.  Today the President called it a terrorist attack, but yesterday it was not and that really bothered me.  Two hours after the event, it was pretty clear that this was not an accident.  If someone or some group aims to indiscriminately hurt, maim, kill or instill fear in people through violence, that is terrorism.  Political motivations are not needed to justify the word.  If you try to harm innocent, unrelated, unaffiliated people you are a terrorist.  A bully in the playground is aiming at one or a few specific people, that is not terrorism.  Murder and other violent crimes, is not, because there is a separate intent, either at one person, or an intent to do/ get something.  Acts of violence at an abortion clinic are targeted at anyone, and the intent is to scare people from going there.  That is terrorism.  A gang-banger who shoots blindly into a house on a drive by is a terrorist.  His intent is to instill fear.  All the other classic terrorist actions are still included, my intent is to help define the word, not spell out every single use case.

Best wishes for the victims and their families

Some people quote poets, some great books, others quote politicians.  I am not that well read, so I quote movies.  If you have never seen the movie Malice with Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman, well you aren’t missing much.  But I happen to love this scene, where Baldwin’s character, a brilliant surgeon, tells the lawyer suing him for malpractice, that in the operating room…”I am God.”

Unfortunately, I think God Complex syndrome might be contagious within the ranks of religious conservatives.  Bob Portman came out in favor of gay marriage the other day, and the Supreme Court just heard oral arguments.  But regardless of what they all do, I have had this post in my head for a while now.  And for the record, I didn’t come to this realization because of them or because I have gay family members…all of that is a copout.  I like to think this is a rational analysis of a question, the second I have tried for a social issue.  We’ll see how it goes.

So as you might guess, I wasn’t going to just rely exclusively on some web site for background, I decided to go to the texts.  I didn’t read the whole thing, but here is what I found in my copy of the Bible that was given to me for my confirmation on May 20, 1988.  No I don’t remember the day, it is signed by Suzanne Paley.  Page 6, Genesis 2.24 after God creates woman “Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.”  The Book of Mormon starts much later, with the First Book of Nephi, so there is no equivalent to Creation.  Yes I have a copy, drives Megan crazy, but I always talk to those guys when they walk through the neighborhood.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower has the same line on page 9, with a slightly different translation.  Yep, have one of those too.

I have read and heard that the big problem is with the word “marriage”.  Religious conservatives say that a marriage is between one man and one woman for the basis of procreation.  I am not sure that argument holds, since Adam and Eve “became one” before they had eaten the apple.  In that case, God created Eve because no “fitting helper” could be found among all of the animals that were brought before Adam to name.  Therefore, the family unit wasn’t even considered.

Getting married for the sake of a family doesn’t make sense either; what if a woman has passed menopause?  What if a couple decides not to have kids?  What if one party is sterile?  I have heard arguments in the reverse that kids are best served in childhood by a mother and a father in one house.  The notion of love is secondary.  What of an abusive father?  What if the couple neglects the child?  Would we turn to Brave New World style childbirth permitting?

I go back to the notion of “marriage” as a religious institution and a contract between a man, woman and God.  I am fine with that as a definition of marriage in the Judeo-Christian classical sense.  But if that is the case, then the Court should strike down the ability of the government to certify a contract with God as a breach of the separation of church and state.  In that case, the state is allowed to grant civil unions and that only.  This institution should be between any two adults who wish to form a legal union based on mutual affection (I reserve the use of the word “love”).  Spousal and all other legal rights formerly known under the institution of “marriage” should be conveyed on the couple.  Clearly we grandfather all existing marriages under the institution of “civil union”, although the wedding industry would surely love it if we all had to do it over again.

If a religion wants to grant a civil union as the legal component of its definition of “marriage”, the state can deputize those religious organizations to that responsibility.  Catholicism may decide that a “marriage” is only between a man and a woman, but some other religion may choose to define “marriage” differently.  A freak religion could even grant “marriage” or any other word as between any two parties (say between a man and a muscle car), but that would not then be afforded the rights of a “civil union” as legally defined by the government.   We allow beliefs in any craziness, so long as it doesn’t supersede legal authority or harm others.

My intent here is not to make some big deal about what “marriage” is or is not.  In my opinion, the time spent writing this post is already wasted from a civics perspective, because we have WAY bigger problems than this.  Therefore, I say it is rational to recognize a public notion of an adult two person union that needs legal benefits while at the same time there is a private religious notion of a union that is based on something different.  I have heard people argue that we must protect the institution of marriage as a sacred bond.  That’s fine with me if people want to think that way in their own private world of religious piousness.  A violation of that commandment (if it even is one) doesn’t hurt other people similar to the fact that violations of the laws of keeping Kosher, doesn’t hurt other people.  In these cases, there is no reason to think that you are so important that you MUST enforce these laws on others.  I worship God and my relationship is with him, not you.  Do people that feel this way really think that the all-powerful and omnipotent God needs help in enforcing his law?  Why would someone deputize themselves with some sort of God-complex, that they need to impart their (God’s) will on everyone?

Remember the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah?  When God sent Abraham into the lawlessness, he said he would save the cities if even just ten righteous people could be found.  So all we need to do is make sure we are represented before God by these righteous religious followers, ten per town.  Lucky for us, their sheer presence will save us from God’s wrath and certain destruction.  In the mean time, if a gay couple chooses to violate one of God’s laws in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone else, I tend to think that if God is really bothered, he can pretty easily destroy them on the spot.  If he chooses to deal with it later, well then rest assured, all you pious zealots can say “I told you so” from heaven while all of the “sinners” rot in hell.  There, you win.  Now can we get back to debating important stuff?

Last week for school vacation we all went to Killington for some skiing. The four of us were riding the lifts together and skiing closely in some fresh snow. We decided to take Juggernaut which is this long flat green off the top of the mountain. The snow was hanging heavily on the evergreens, it was snowing lightly, but in the upper 20’s. A nice and pretty run to round out the day. It was about 2:50 pm so getting late.

At one point the trail doubled back and there was a little short-cut through the trees to the other side of the trail. Haley loves these so she scooted through and we all joked on the far side. A little further down we thought there was another switchback. Haley ducked into the forest. Within 30 feet we realized the trail did not cut back. As quickly as I could skate back up I dove in behind her. She was nowhere to be seen. The trail had been bushwhacked with multiple tracks and so I called for Haley and did my best to follow her likely path. The forest is dense and the trees so laden with snow, that sound does not carry. After several minutes, I was worried and called Megan’s phone. She did not have Haley either and so we agreed to head down and meet at the bottom where she might hopefully come out.

I saw two skiers on the trail and asked them to keep a look out. Megan and Taylor searched and yelled from the trail. When I got to the bottom, no Haley. My phone had died but I got in touch with ski-patrol in the lodge. It was now 3:20. I borrowed someone’s phone to call Megan and as I walked outside to get a better signal, Haley ran out of the lodge crying, and rushed up to me for the best hug ever. She had remembered her training; got herself to the bottom, made herself safe, and looked for help. For Megan and I, that was probably the worst half hour of our lives

The next day I was riding the gondola with a mountain ‘ambassador’ and two other guys. A call comes in over the radio about a lost child and the two guys joked about how stupid you have to be to lose your kid. The ski patrol guy proceeds to joke about how often it actually happens. I of course sat in silence. I taught Taylor to ski 10 years ago and Haley 7, we have done over 100 days without incident, but in that moment I had become That Guy.

I live my life every day with the intent of never being That Guy you see on TV. The guy you pity, or laugh at or think is an utter moron. I often ski with my harness and a rope in case I get stuck on the lift. I look both ways when driving over train tracks; because who wants to be That Guy that got hit by a train because the lights didn’t work. I sit facing the door in conference rooms and restaurants. After Katrina I have 40 gallons of fresh water and 20 gallons of gasoline (for the generator) at the house at all times. I leave extra space between me and the car in front of me on the highway. I always have a corkscrew, Advil, fuses, diagonals and duct tape in the Tailgate box. I don’t like surprises, and I never want to be on TV for something I could have prevented.

No matter how much you prepare, no matter how small the probability of calamity, you have to expect that it will eventually strike. Our Haley adventure proved that. I never expect to be the victim of a home invasion either, but I put NRA stickers on every exterior door and I sleep with a 9mm in a safe next to the bed. I practice pushing the electronic combination buttons in the dark, switching off the safety, grabbing the extra magazine, and chambering a round. Even if I had George Soros or Michael Bloomberg money, I still believe in taking personal responsibility for myself and my family; I will not let us be at the mercy of someone else.

I will not be That Guy who walks through the house to fight a burglar with nothing but a bat in hand. I will not be That Guy who has to hear something happen to his kids or wife because he is physically unable to fend off multiple assailants. I don’t ever want to be anywhere near the scenario like the husband of Kimberly Cates.

When you believe in taking care of yourself, you don’t need some apathetic liberal telling you that the police will come and save you. I don’t want to think about the 3-5 minutes between when I call the police and when they get to my house, if I am even able to make the call. It is certainly not rational to think that that inaction is taking responsibility for my own safety. And I don’t need the vice president telling me that when the dogs bark in the middle of the night that I should get a shot gun and walk outside to who knows what kind of surprise and then proceed to empty my weapon in the air (what happens when the shot comes down?) How do you keep a shotgun readily accessible next to your bed and still safety it? Does Joe intend that I should keep two shells in the chamber at all times because it is hard to load shells while your hands are shaking? How do you walk around the house to make sure your family is safe with a shotgun? My hallways are 42 inches wide, a shot gun is at least 36 inches long, how do I take a turn with the butt tucked in my shoulder?

Everyone accepts a certain amount of risk, sometimes we try to eliminate it. Mitigating personal risk is just another form of taking responsibility for your own safety. After the skiing incident, Megan decided that Haley needed a bright yellow coat so we could see her more easily in the forest. I vowed not to be complacent on the mountain. After 911, everyone agreed we needed more security at airports. Both Presidents decided we needed to go on the offensive and attack terrorism at its source. The point is that there are different ways to try to minimize risk. Owning firearms is the way I do it in my home. Those that shoot know that it can be difficult to hit a target, especially in the dark, while you are moving, and the target is moving. I don’t need someone telling me that when there are multiple assailants in my house and I miss a few shots, that it is not really an inconvenience for me to eject the magazine, use my free hand to insert the second, release the slide, reset my grip, aim and then shoot. I am sure a bad guy would be willing to wait for me to do that while he is at most 19 feet away. That is the longest span between two walls in my house, Chuck and Diane. You can try to say “game off!” while you dial the police…tell me how that works for you.

Does it really matter what a firearm looks like? For my anti-gun friends that don’t know this, what makes a gun look like a mean “assault” rifle with those scary jagged edges is actually just a mounting system (“rails”) for accessories like a scope or flashlight. It’s like a roof rack, but certainly doesn’t make a rifle behave any differently.

For 30 minutes I imagined Haley being out in the cold, lost in the forest all night. I would have searched for her endlessly, wandering hundreds of acres until my hands and feet snapped off with frostbite. But the whole time I would be completely helpless to actually ease her pain. Let’s face it, as parents that is all we want to do: Give our children a better, easier and less painful life than we had. To safeguard the girls, I would love to employ a Secret Service detail to watch over them 24/7. But even if I did, there is no way that I would completely outsource care and safety to someone else. That is MY responsibility. I do everything I can to never feel anything like those 30 minutes. Just like all of us, I plan for contingencies, things that I can’t imagine, things I hope will never happen. I will never be That Guy in my house because I will never allow anything bad to happen to those girls. Those that really are serious about personal risk, take rational steps to eliminate as much as we can. I have done that. I might recommend that you take more responsibility because you are oblivious and lazy. You may conversely tell me that me I am overzealous, but don’t force me to do less.

A good friend of mine has an uncanny ability to completely ignore things that don’t fit with what he wants in his simple world.  I could give examples but it would give away the anonymity and possibly get him in trouble…not that he would even notice.

Sam and I talk about it all the time.  How nice it would be to have that talent.  I use the word “talent” very specifically, because this is not a “skill” that you can be taught.  It’s something you are born with.  For many of us it doesn’t work, you can try to ignore things, to ‘let it slide’ to have the “gift of blankness” but it never lasts.  And the reason is, we care.

It doesn’t matter if the issue is big or small; wanting help from your partner around the house, the way you believe children should be raised, how things should be organized in a cabinet, or how not to waste food.  When you care about something, you are incapable of passivity.  To tell the truth, when you make the effort to not care, it hurts.  It feels like you are selling yourself out.  There is a reason they call it “biting” your tongue.  It is possible for short periods of time if there is payback, but this is not sustainable.

For me this is a particularly intense problem, because I care about so many different issues and those that know me, know that I have strong opinions about each.  I am often swayed by the opinions of others and I enjoy hearing diverse opinions, if for nothing else than the sake of intellectual argument.  But the manifestation of “caring” for me always boils down to the need for some sort of public policy.  Policy does not have to be legislation, but when you care about something, you need to feel that you are doing something about it.  Making a difference is pointless unless something becomes different.

That was a four paragraph intro to my next topic, which really doesn’t fall into the Rational Republican policy series, but is definitely a theme.  I was called a “feminist” last night for posting that Beyonce should have worn more clothing at her Superbowl halftime performance.  That is a first for me.  While I think it was said sarcastically, it was definitely meant as a playful insult.  As I think of the gender gap from the last election, I wonder how it is that the feminist movement (lowercase “f”) became so taboo that being branded one has become insulting.

Raising girls certainly places the world in a different context.  Which means that statistically, more than 50% of men should feel the same as I.  The fact that they don’t, actually forms the basis of this argument, but more to that later.  Watching Beyonce last night punctuated my frustration here, and while I know I should shut up, this stuff bothers me…I care.

As the performer licked her finger and ran it down her cleavage Haley noted “Do they know that kids are watching this?”  She is 10, and while I can handle the gyrating dance moves,  it was the outfits, followed by the Two Broke Girls disaster, and bookended by GoDaddy commercials that really makes you wonder about the message we send to young girls.  This is especially poignant from an industry that claims to seek more female fan participation.  Is it strange that I am called “old” by my peers yet I am the one who really hates objectifying women like that (a historically ‘old-timer’ trait)?  Yes Yes I know it is everywhere, and one Calvin Klein ad doesn’t create parity.  Nor does it make the practice right.  The goal of feminism is equality of the sexes, but how can you measure equality while acknowledging that objectification adds to the success of an action by one gender?

Beyonce gave a good performance with solid choreography.  Was it better because she was wearing leather lingerie?  As a friend noted, seeing all female dancers and female musicians was a positive image for my girls.  But will water cooler talk today center on anything other than how hot she looked?  Did anyone ever say that James Brown gave a better performance because he looked “hot?”  Should we buy from GoDaddy because some chubby geeky kid made out with a hot blond sitting next to Danica Patrick? (repulsive fake sound effects included)  Should attractive women that cry get out of speeding tickets?  How do cheerleaders actually add to a football game when they encourage cheering at the wrong times (2 minute warning and end of quarters)?

Am I taking this too far?  Maybe.  But I am so sick of Lilly Ledbetter, how many women are appointed to a president’s cabinet and how few women CEOs there are, but we don’t talk about this stuff.  Like it is some mystery why people argue there is sexism at a macro level, yet so many great examples when it is moot at the micro level.  Queen Latifah is a great example (U.N.I.T.Y. or Ladies First).  Juxtapose her lyrics to Beyonce’s.  Great performance and great music, no need for being trashy. 

We teach kids about earning ‘extra credit’ in school.  When raw sex appeal leads to a higher qualification of talent, is that not another form of ‘extra credit’?  In effect, we are teaching young girls to leverage their sex appeal, that it will give you a leg up.  If I have an edge over a male colleague, you think I am not going to use it?  Do we honestly expect attractive women in the same position to not use that leg up?

If you acknowledge these possibilities then you also have to understand that when evaluating a woman’s (singular) work on its own, you then have to discount the relative worth, because of sex appeal grade inflation.  Of course this is patently obnoxious, but is there a rational response to this dynamic that wouldn’t naturally follow this course?  Why do you think we are where we are?

As I noted, the fact that these trends continue indicates that there are fathers of girls who irrationally don’t want attitudes to change.  I am a fan of beautiful women, but not as it pertains to them doing their job (unless directly germane, like modeling).   Who you are is a measure of what you do, not how sexy you look while doing it.  The two should be separate and distinct.

How can you want your daughter to grow up in a world where flaunting her body will contribute to her success?  Is that really a measure of her self-esteem and worth?  For women, if you recognize that your value is discounted because men (and some women) weigh your performance based on looks…then call out women that perpetuate that horrible trend!  Tell Beyonce to put some clothes on and find value in her voice and dancing skills, not her curves.

I am a white male Republican, which means that calling out men’s hypocrisy here might be the death sentence of my political career.  But eliminating the gender gap can only be executed by fighting the exact stereotypes that led to its creation.  It is all the more powerful of a movement when those that had previously perpetuated that travesty find religion and now are zealots in battling it.  For the stereotypical Republican male that doesn’t get subtlety, let me be painfully blunt, this is our Sister Souljah moment.  We should embrace it, because in the end, we really do care.

Any decent leader must actually find a way to affect change, rather than just talking about how great that change would be.  When I was president of the temple watching membership dwindle with an outrageous annual budget deficit, one of the first speeches I gave was about how we needed to change because we are dying as a congregation.  Not only the journey, but the destination would be worth it.  And I scoped out a destination that built on community and culture.  At every turn, I was thwarted by people that had no interest in change and a rabbi that couldn’t fathom it.  I resigned with 4 months left in my term:  A leader must bring about change or he/she is not leading.  Lead, follow or step aside: In that case, I didn’t have the energy to lead.

Republicans are in the same spot.  They see a President incapable of leading, who somehow wins the vision battle without actually creating a vision.  They figure if a winning ‘vision’ strategy is to negatively criticize your opponent, then be the better criticizer.  That is 2004 Carl Rove thinking.  We should be better than that.  Don’t be Axelrod and spew stupid alliteration slogans on the Sunday talk shows.  A Rational Republican looks to the things that are furthest in the future, figures out a fair way to balance various demands for that future and then promotes a vision.  Tactical plans form the basis of legislation to get us there.  That is how you win the debate for hearts and minds.  Nothing has more effect on the future than environmental policy, because this planet isn’t going anywhere.  So I will tackle this one first.

Clean air, clean water, clean cities, healthy animals, that’s the easy stuff.  Work with industry to make those goals a reality.  Use social media to trumpet companies that do well.  Create certifications for environmental virtue (like LEED for efficiency) and then advertise for the companies to make them want to do good to get the free press (aka sales).  That stuff is easy, you just need a marketing plan and to enforce laws in partnership with industry rather than as adversaries.  Above all, create clarity about what you want and how companies can work with you to get there.  Regulatory uncertainty means corporate meetings (lawyers, product, finance, compliance, physical plant, manufacturing- that’s a lot of people), meetings lead to delayed decisions, delays mean waste, waste means falling profits, falling profits mean layoffs.  If our President spent a single day in a corporation, he might know that.

Climate change can be just as easy, when you think about and espouse it in ways that emphasize the need for everyone to do their part.  The important thing is to make a big deal about how little it should hurt.  Don’t come out with Cap & Trade, fuel efficiency standards and criticize oil companies as a strategy.  Come out with broad goals, and make one of them really easy, and then push that one hardest of all, the others come along for the ride.  Don’t make fun of the other side, this isn’t a battle of ‘I am smarter than you’ or ‘my scientist can beat up your scientist.’  Be a grownup.

The planet is getting warmer.  I saw it in Juneau, AK at the Mendenhall glacier.  They built the visitor center at the edge of the ice 50 years ago.  Now there is a lake and the ice wall is over a mile away.  What really doesn’t matter is WHY the planet is getting warmer.  It could be greenhouse gases from cars, people breathing, pigs and cows pooping or the lack of algae in the ocean.  All I know is that if I close my closet door and breath inside for an hour, the air gets stale and warm.  If I run my car in the garage for a few hours and sit in there, I will die.  These things are bad.  But you know what, it could be solar activity and this whole thing could turn in 10 years with a solar cycle.  It doesn’t matter, if you can’t predict the future, solve the problems in the present.  Anything that minimizes greenhouse trends, will help.  If I am breathing crappy air in the closet and cut a 1 inch hole, that is still better than no hole.

So here is my simple 3 point strategy

1)  Eventually, we need to think of carbon oxidation in the context of its fully loaded cost and effect on the environment.  I don’t know how to do this formulaically, but methods can be negotiated.  Be smart, don’t do it as a tax or a forced trading market.  Forcing a company to pay penalties to the government is not going to go over well.  Make it so that companies can ‘pay’ the load in the form of R&D spend on more efficient energy research.  For small companies, let them contribute to a VC fund that invests in clean energy.  At least they get to own an asset that might help them transition to the future.  Taxes kill, “investments” build future, isn’t that the liberal mantra?  Advocate for every source of energy; wind, coal, natural gas, oil, hydro, solar.  But make sure that the relative cost between them becomes equitable based on the effects on the environment.  At some point, someone will figure out that ‘free’ sources are more profitable than ones you have to dig up.  More profit means a bigger bonus; remember this is about people.  People act like people, corporations do not.  So don’t treat people like they are corporations.  Note that THIS is your aspirational goal, this is not pragmatic, do not focus on this out of the gate.

2)  Use the bully pulpit to criticize waste.  Waste is everywhere and everyone can share in eliminating it.  I have no stats to back this up, but the US must waste at least 15% of all energy on a daily basis.  Changing attitudes could recover some of this cost with no real adverse change in lifestyle.  Imagine say 10% less energy consumption every day, and you didn’t have to tax, cap and trade, or penalize.

• Instead of criticizing oil companies, how about the moms that sit at soccer games in the parking lot with the car AC or heat running.
• Or cops that leave the car running while on traffic duty.
• Or the companies that make remote car starters so you can warm your car and waste 5-10 minutes of gas for a 20 minute drive to work.
• Where is the focus on recycling, you should see the bin of bottles and cans I take home from a tailgate.  Paper, junk-mail, cardboard…if it has a numbered triangle on the bottom, throw it in a blue whale.
• I peel the foil label on Megan’s silly Kuerig drink cups and recycle those.  I recycle coffee grounds and have the reusable k-cups.  I throw vegetable scraps and other food scraps in a compost pile.
• I yell at Taylor for long showers
• I am constantly turning off conference room lights at work as well as lights at home.
• Close the fridge and don’t preheat the oven.  You know why recipes tell you to preheat?  Because they don’t know how long your oven takes to get warm, so they can’t give you an accurate cook time.  Use your brain, make the adjustment.
• Get a programmable thermostat and heat wisely.  The heat in our bedroom goes down to 55 during the day in the winter and comes on just before we go to bed.  I use an electric blanket to preheat the bed so the room seems warmer than it actually is.
• Use a push-mower instead of a riding one and get some exercise at the same time (you can still hold a beer- trust me).  Use the clippings to cover the dog poop on your compost pile instead of throwing it in the trash.

There are so many more examples: This stuff isn’t tough, it doesn’t even take effort, it is just an extension of the outcome of things you do right now anyway.  Want a legacy?  Change the way people act, show them that it can be cool to be responsible.  Use gamification to promote competitions, make it an activity, part of your normal day.

3)  Advocate for smart energy use of existing technologies rather than dreaming of carbon sequestration or super-batteries or hyper-efficient solar panels.

• Green Mountain Power is turning cow manure into power by processing the natural methane.  “According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the decomposition of cow manure produces 7 percent of the United States’ methane, a gas that is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.”    Check this out…If methane digesters were installed on most California dairies, they would protect the climate as much as taking more than one million cars off the road – about 5% of the state’s total
• Cape Wind on Nantucket Sound was a no brainer.  I don’t care if the Kennedy’s view from Hyannis is hindered or 10 seagulls get hit by turbines, wind power is free and carbon free.  Fighting it for so long is a bunch of NIMBY crap.  Everyone has to chip in, just do it.
• Same goes for people in the northcountry of NH complaining about hydro power coming down from Canada.  Would I rather “trees not towers”?  Of course, but everyone wants the lights to come on when they flip a switch.  Everyone has to compromise and as much as I love the beauty of the mountains, I understand that I have to give something too.

A CEO would work with what he/she has in the tool shed to solve a problem.  A community organizer is free to give lofty speeches dreaming about how great the world would be if the problem were solved.  I like dreaming too and hope for a Star-Trek-like positive utopian future where the Earth is clean and peaceful and everything is happy.  Matter/anti-matter reactions have the potential of producing infinitely clean power, but if I got on a soapbox calling for a “Manhattan project” to search for dilithium and warp-core reactors, would I be based in reality?  Would I actually be solving a problem?

These aren’t crazy ideas, they are Rational.  They aim to antagonize waste and laziness not people who are doing their best to get ahead.  There is more than enough of that laziness to go around.  Somehow we now have these distorted egotistical attitudes that tell us that it is OK to be lazy, because we are going to win no matter what .  Well we aren’t and a leader would prepare us for that eventuality.  She should give us a kick in the butt that says the only way things are going to be better is if we MAKE them better.

The environment isn’t something you can just wish into nirvana.  And a leader has to do something to make it work that is rational and realistic for the times.  You have to understand where we are right now and where we want to be.  Right now, things are getting warmer.  And you know what really bothers me?  Warm means no snow.  No snow means no skiing.  We need more snow.  Fix the problem.