Month: July 2022

Do No Harm

The Hippocratic Oath.

It’s the bedrock of medicine.

Tracing back to ancient Greece, its principles are still followed by doctors today. The text sets a baseline of ethical practices for treating patients.

When translated into modern English, the Hippocratic Oath is 377 words long. But just three of those words seem to garner outsize attention.

Do no harm.

The implication of these words is that physicians must weigh risks and opportunities. The benefit of a particular version of a treatment or intervention might not be worth the costs. Anything that risks harming a patient — even in the service of healing — should be avoided.

Doctors use this heuristic in their everyday practice. So do many other arms of the industry, such as pharmaceutical developers and even regulatory entities in Washington.

There’s a good reason why medical research takes so long to deliver greenlighted treatments.  And there’s a good reason why doctors ask us a litany of questions before making a diagnosis.

Do no harm is that reason.

The Hippocratic Oath has built quite a reputation. But it might have become a victim of its own success.

The oath has worked such wonders in the medical field that other industries have sought to adopt it as well.

Do no harm is now part of the fabric of many types of companies. For instance, Google had the words Don’t be evil within its corporate credo for many years.

The rationale behind this shift is sensible enough. Companies are most effective and efficient when growth charts point up and to the right. Harm threatens that reality.

But in practice, it’s hardly ever that simple.

You see, in the medical field, results live on one axis — that of the patient. Physicians, pharmaceutical firms, and others aim to help the patient recover and function optimally.

This objective is inherently self-contained. Except for cases of infectious disease, the patient’s ailments don’t directly impact the community. So, those in the field can focus on the patient, free of competing interests.

There can be complications, of course — insurance billing quandaries, the price of treatments. But even those purveyors are grounded by a common North Star — the outcome of the patient.

If the patient doesn’t improve, the cost to the insurer skyrockets, and the legitimacy of the pharmaceutical treatment plummets. Neither outcome is good for business, so improved outcomes are critical.

Other industries are not set up with this alignment. The stakeholders operate on different axes and often compete for prominence.

Industry leaders must often walk a tightrope, balancing these interests in search of the most harmonious solution. Much like a blanket that’s too small to cover an entire bed, these solutions rarely make everyone happy.

Given this context, do no harm seems idealistic and nearly impossible outside the medical sphere.

Someone is going to get hurt. The question is who, and how badly.

When you think of famous figures in business, who comes to mind?

Warren Buffet, maybe. Or Henry Ford. Or maybe even John D. Rockefeller.

I doubt Milton Friedman will top that list.

But perhaps he should.

The late economist had an outsized impact on the world of modern business. Friedman’s accolades are vast, including a Nobel Prize. But one piece of his work stands above the rest — a 1970 New York Times article that introduced what came to be known as The Friedman Doctrine.

The Friedman Doctrine states that one priority stands out above the rest for corporations — to maximize return for shareholders. This philosophy — known as Shareholder Theory — posits that profit stands above all other corporate objectives.

In the half-century since this article was published, companies have taken Shareholder Theory to heart. Valuations have soared, innovation has skyrocketed, and many have gotten rich.

Shareholder theory has proven to be a worthy North Star for big business, and our entire economy.

But the gains of this philosophy haven’t been universal. Indeed, many parties have been harmed by Shareholder Theory.

Workers for one. Employees could once expect job security in exchange for performing their duties. But if those duties don’t lead to strong company stock results, those employees can find themselves replaced.

Sustainability is another victim. To maximize profits, companies tend to cut costs. And the cheapest option can often harm the environments of communities along the supply chain.

And social causes also find themselves maimed. Where a company stands on these issues has no import, according to the Shareholder Theory doctrine. Stock performance is where the bread is buttered.

With so many downsides at play, it should come as no surprise that some have vehemently opposed the Friedman Doctrine. And as this activism has picked up steam recently, it’s set up a dilemma for corporate leaders: Do what’s right for the community or do what’s best for shareholders.

Do no harm is out of the equation. Pick your poison has taken its place.

It’s tempting to shrug off the example of the business quandary. It might seem like a dilemma for executives in power suits to decide, rather than something that impacts our own lives.

Yet, we ignore this example at our own risk.

For we are living under the guise of a fantasy. One that tells us we can get what we want without anyone getting hurt.

This is simply not true.

In just about every aspect of our polarized society, our win is another’s loss. The burden of harm gets lobbed back and forth like a ping pong ball, depending on who’s in power and which way the wind is blowing.

Harm is unfortunate, but it can’t be fully avoided.

The sooner we accept this reality, the better. For it will allow us to mend fences with those who’ve been hurt by something that’s helped us, softening the blow for them as much as possible.

This fence mending should be our objective. It’s a North Star that provides some benefits to all, while staying in touch with reality.

So, let’s leave the Hippocratic Oath in the space where it belongs.

Do no harm is a noble ideal. But reduce harm is a goal we can attain.

The Contingency

Break glass in case of emergency.

This directive encases several safety items. Fire extinguishers, first aid kits and train emergency brake, to name a few.

Such an arrangement might seem a bit strange at first. If these items are essential, why enclose them in glass?

It seems like a design bug, but it’s a feature.

For the fire extinguisher, the first aid kit, the emergency brake — these are contingency plans. In an ideal world, they’re never used at all. The barrier between us and them makes that clear.

But does putting the backup plan out of sight leave it too far out of mind?

Not long ago, my parents and I met up down in Houston.

It was our first time traveling together in a while, and it seemed promising. But less than a week before our travels, my mother informed me that a longstanding knee injury had flared up. She would still be making the trip, but in a wheelchair.

This threw everything for a loop. We had arranged for activities — the Houston Rodeo, the NASA space center, and more — without wheelchair accessibility in mind. Now, we had to make sure everything would work out.

As I brought up these concerns, I seemed more worried about them then my mother did. Normally the consummate overplanner, she let go of the reins and fell back on the same refrain.

They’ll accommodate us.

I was incensed.

Sure, Houston follows the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act — making ramps and elevators available for wheelchair-bound people. But we hadn’t followed those same requirements.

We had made decidedly inaccessible reservations, and the impetus was on us to pivot to wheelchair-friendly ones.

Yet, in the midst of all this, my mother was punting. It was simply infuriating.

Eventually, my parents and I were able to rally. We made some phone calls and ensured that my mother could access all venues without hassle. But for weeks after the trip, I remained annoyed at how everything had initially gone down.

I realize now what was going on. My mother was overwhelmed by her situation, and she simply shut down. She stared blankly at the glass-encased fire extinguisher, even as the room started filling with smoke.

But the result this inaction — making the contingency plan on the fly — might not have been so bad after all.

I am an avid runner.

On most mornings, I can be found striding down local roads or getting some speedwork in on the track. As I write this, I’ve already run more than 1,200 miles and three half-marathons this calendar year. And there’s still about half a year to go.

Through all those miles and races, I heard a warning from fellow runners.

Be smart. Listen to your body. Don’t get yourself injured.

I knew the danger they spoke of. Running is a full-body exercise — a synchronized harmony of motions, repeated hundreds of times a minute. The chances of all those movements landing flawlessly are scant.

Injuries are almost inevitable. And while I did my best to follow my fellow runners’ advice — to train intelligently and remain attuned to my body — I knew that I would have to reckon with the boogeyman eventually.

That reckoning came in the form of lower left leg discomfort. I tried to run through it at first. But when the pain persisted throughout the day, I sought medical attention.

I was ordered to stop running for at least a week, and to start icing my leg frequently.

I followed the instructions diligently at first. Doctor’s orders are doctor’s orders after all.

But after a couple days, I was losing my mind.

I missed the endorphin high, the feeling of constant motion, the camaraderie of my running buddies — all of it.

I had not adequately prepared for this moment. Just like my mother with the wheelchair, I had remained in willful denial about this scenario — hoping it would never come to fruition.

But now, my nightmare situation was all too real. And the next move was mine to make.

So, I put together a contingency plan on the fly. I headed to the gym at the crack of dawn each day and spent an hour on the stationary bike. I tried on the sports headphones that had sat unused on my dresser for weeks. I made sure my fueling and hydration supplies were sufficient.

I stayed productive, even as I was down for the count.

Fortunately, my time on the shelf turned out to be short lived. But the lessons from my injury will endure.

What exactly are those lessons I’ll take from my injury experience?

Plenty of them involve the leg I hurt. Load management, treatment, and recovery are all much more top of mind for me now than they were before.

But the most critical lessons involve my mind.

Not having a contingency plan was a mistake — one that nearly left me in a spiral of misery when I was torn away from the activity I love.

And yet, having a fully-fledged plan might also have ended up fruitless.

After all, there is much about an adverse situation that must be experienced to be understood. Left and right turns that can’t possibly be accounted for ahead of time. Happy little accidents uncovered on the road back to normalcy.

If I had encased the fire extinguisher in glass ahead of time, I might have found it to be inadequate. Sure, it would have quelled the immediate crisis. But what about the aftershocks?

I would have needed to improvise either way. So perhaps, the tact I took wasn’t so bad.

The truth is that it’s best to split the difference. To have a plan for when things turn south. And to be ready to rip up that plan when it proves inadequate.

Sure, building something not fit for use might seem like wasted effort at first. But consider that initial contingency plan to be an investment. A baseline to set us up for the on-the-fly version that follows.

This will set us up for success, even in the shadow of setbacks.

So, let’s get to work.

On Redemption

The date was August 15, 2004.

I was sitting in a restaurant in Upstate New York, staring intently at an Olympic basketball game on the big screen TV.

The game — USA vs. Puerto Rico — was taking place halfway across the world in Greece. It was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Americans, but it turned out to be anything but.

The Puerto Ricans showed up to play. Meanwhile, the US squad looked disengaged and disjointed. Players seemed to prefer going it alone to playing as a team.

The results of this selfishness were evident. Ill-advised drives to the hoop. Hurried three-pointers. And a general lack of passing or defense.

By the time the final horn sounded, Puerto Rico had shellacked the US squad by 19 points — the team’s worst-ever Olympic loss.

It was an utter embarrassment. One that foreshadowed the team’s eventual Bronze Medal finish.

Third place would be considered an accomplishment by many nations. But in America, it rang hollow with disappointment.

So, when the Olympics returned four years later, the United States pulled out all the stops. Our nation’s top basketball players and coaches headed to China for the games, and they leveraged advanced scouting and practice techniques.

Those moves certainly helped put the team in a better position to compete. But so did the moniker the team adopted.

The Redeem Team.

A spin on the Dream Team nickname used by the 1992 USA basketball squad, the Redeem Team label made clear what the players were there for. The foibles of the 2004 squad would not be repeated. A gold medal was the only acceptable outcome.

And so, some of the greatest players of the 2000s put it all on the line. They checked their egos at the door and committed to playing as a unit. And they did all of this with a chip on their shoulder.

Other nations had drastically improved at basketball since 2004, and the Olympic competition was steep. But those other squads no match for the United States.

The Redeem Team stormed through the tournament and reclaimed the gold. And they haven’t relinquished it since.

I’ve long been fascinated by the story of the Redeem Team. For it’s one of the most tangible examples of what redemption looks like.

We all too often misunderstand redemption, confusing it with resilience. While both concepts can lead us to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, the comparisons end there.

Resilience demonstrates how we respond to adversity. It looks at how we react to the curveballs life invariably throws at us, regardless of our objectives.

Redemption speaks to how we rebound from a mess we’ve created. It looks at how we react to botched plans, lackluster efforts, and other hallmarks of poor performance.

The Redeem Team sought to pick up the pieces left by that 2004 USA basketball squad.

Most members of the Redeem Team weren’t directly responsible for that disaster, as they weren’t on the squad in Greece. Still, as stewards for the reputation of USA Basketball, the Redeem Team was saddled with the burden of righting the wrongs of others.

They owned that unwelcome responsibility, and they rose to the occasion.

It’s an example we can all learn from.

Roughly two months before the USA Basketball team got embarrassed by Puerto Rico, I was in California on a family vacation.

We started our trek in Los Angeles and Orange County — the first time I’d ever been to Southern California. Then, we trekked south to San Diego.

I was excited as we made our way down The 5, ocean vistas on one side of the freeway and mountains on the other. I’d heard great things about San Diego. My grandparents had even considered moving there, way back when.

But once we got to town, our trip unraveled.

My family went to a San Diego Padres baseball game — only to find our view of the action blocked by a Sherpa with a tall hat, who was sitting right in front of us. My sister caught a virus and vomited all over the rental car as we drove down the Silver Strand. And my mother and I visited Tijuana, Mexico — only to realize upon our return to the US that we’d brought my father and sister’s passports, instead of our own.

By the time we left town, I was about done with San Diego. The sunshine was nice, and the city was beautiful, but I only had bad associations with it.

More than a decade later, my cousin moved to San Diego and invited me to visit. I agreed and booked a plane ticket. But as the trip approached, I started to get cold feet.

This was unusual. I’d always been eager to travel. But the memories of that 2004 trip seemed to override that eagerness.

So, I reframed the conversation. I decided I would treat this trip to San Diego as The Redemption Tour and take a mulligan on many of the activities that had gone so wrong previously.

This rebranding worked wonders. I had an amazing weekend visiting my cousin — replete with another Padres game, a drive along the Silver Strand, a walk along the coastline in La Jolla, and much more.

The curse was broken. Redemption was mine.

There’s a lot of regret in the air these days. A collective dwelling on missed opportunities.

This is only natural. With so much uncertainty baked into this era, squandered chances have an air of finality to them.

Still, it’s important for us to shift our thinking. We must go from fatalistic to opportunistic.

For second chances will come. They might not be exactly what we expect, but they will be there.

If we approach them with a mindset of redemption, we could see improved results.

So, let’s lean in. Let’s embrace our second chances, with a focus on redemption.

We just might wash the bad taste of our prior missteps out of our mouths. And we just might find the satisfaction we’re yearning for.

So Strange

Text me when you land.

For years, these were the final five words my mother told me before I got on an airplane.

They always annoyed me.

Sure, I knew air travel wasn’t 100% safe. But neither was driving. Or walking down the street. Or even sitting at home.

Inherent risks were everywhere. And yet, the odds were still pretty good that I would arrive safely.

Plus, I was already an adult. I craved autonomy. And I didn’t like the thought of reporting to my parents, even if it just meant texting the word Landed.

Nevertheless, I tended to comply — even when I was embarking on a trip that didn’t involve my parents in any way.

Then, one year, my mother surprised me with a new question.

What’s your flight number? I’ll use it to track you on FlightAware.

I gave her the flight information, and that was that. No more demands for an I’ve landed text message. My mother already knew I’d made it by the time I reached the gate.

I was a curious as I was relieved, so I checked out FlightAware for myself.

Not only did the website have the times of takeoffs and landings, but it also had a boatload of other information. Route maps. Speed charts. Altitude graphs.

Enthralled by all this, I started a new habit.

Once my own flights landed, I would spend some time reliving the journey I’d just taken. It gave me closure to know that the city I saw out the window while en route was indeed Memphis, or that the previous day’s version of the flight had also gotten in late.

I would look at the previous legs the aircraft had flown. Was the plane based out of Dallas, or Charlotte? Did it ferry people domestically, or take up routes to other countries?

In an instant, I’d become a FlightAware addict.

And that was not normal.

You’re such a dork.

A friend used to tell me this regularly, back in college. And it always rankled me.

I had a clear picture of what a dork looked like and how one acted. Kind of like the character Milton Waddams in Office Space. And I didn’t want any part of that.

I wanted to be cool, to be stylish, to be normal. Even though I had enough quirkiness to make such a wish nothing more than a pipe dream.

My friend was simply calling it like it was. And yet, I resented her insinuation.

But now, I’m more comfortable in my own skin.

I recognize that such oddities are part of my ethos. And, in a strange way, part of my appeal. As such, I might as well lean into them.

So, I am unapologetic about my FlightAware obsession. I make no secret of my disdain for the word very. (Take good note of it, dear reader, as you likely won’t see it in this publication again.) And I proudly wear blue jeans and black tennis shoes, even in the sweltering heat of a Southern summer.

It is all so strange. And yet, I’m here for it.

On Wednesdays, we wear pink.

This is perhaps the enduring line from the movie Mean Girls.

Meant to describe the rules of the road of an infamous clique, it speaks to our collective love of normalcy.

When given the opportunity to diversify, we instead seek to consolidate. To find the path of least resistance, and to demand adherence to it.

So many of our societal systems are built upon this principle. School and fashion, just to name a couple.

We make it seem as if there is no alternative to being part of the in crowd. And in the process, individuality is cast aside.

In a vacuum, this might seem like an innocent gripe. But this regression to the mean can have insidious consequences.

As a shy, reclusive child, I continually felt as if there was something wrong with me. I felt the need to change my ways, and to conform to the social expectations that surrounded me.

It took me until adulthood to learn that my introversion was a personality type, and not a flaw. Such a discovery has helped me thrive. But I often wonder what would have happened had I felt the freedom to be myself earlier in life.

I’m sure plenty of others feel the same way as I once did — forced off their mark in the name of normalcy. And I feel for them.

But fortunately, things are moving in the right direction.

There is more of an appetite to celebrate our individuality at all levels these days. The peer pressure and cliques remain. But they’re no longer quite as dominant as they once were.

The challenge is no longer finding the pockets of society that welcome our authentic expression. The challenge is now leaning into it.

Don’t do that. It might invite questions.

This is an adage I’ve heard plenty.

The insinuation is that silence is golden. Questions lead to judgment. And judgment lead us to be cast out into the darkness.

When I recoiled at being labeled a dork, I was following this adage to a T.

I wanted to be normal. And I feared inviting unwanted questions.

But every step of my adult journey has taken me away from this pattern.

There was the move to Texas. The decision to pursue a TV news career, and then pivot to marketing. And the fact that I did all this while remaining single and living on my own.

All of it elicited questions. It still does today.

Yet, over time, I’ve gotten more comfortable at answering these questions.

For there is no shame in sharing the truth. And there are no real adverse consequences to my doing so.

The benefits of staying true to myself far outweigh the risks.

So, I will keep my fashion style intact. I will cling tightly to certain grammatical rules. I will nerd out on FlightAware data.

I will do all this unapologetically. And so should we all.

We can all lean into our uniqueness. Our individuality. Anything and everything that makes us so strange.

We can stay true to ourselves, rather than conforming to society’s dominant narrative.

We will be better for this. And so will the communities we’re a part of.

The only thing stopping us from this reality — is us. Let’s change that.