Category / leadership

by Nathan Coumbe

Bringing about our own extinction

David Meerman Scott published a fascinating article a few days ago. It compares modern AI companies to Enron and that company’s financial scandal that broke in 2001. 

But one paragraph in particular stood out to me that warrants quoting in full:

Altman says there’s a chance that so-called Artificial General Intelligence (which is still years or decades away) has the possibility of turning against humans. “I think that whether the chance of existential calamity is 0.5 percent or 50 percent, we should still take it seriously,” Altman says. “I don’t have an exact number, but I’m closer to the 0.5 than the 50.” (Source)

Terrifying, right?

I would argue that if you are creating something that has anything other than a 0% chance of wiping out humanity, you probably shouldn’t do it. 

For example: marketing Pepsi to be consumed in massive amounts, while definitely bad for humans, doesn’t run the risk of causing mass extinction.

On the other hand, bringing Tyrannosaurus rex back to life definitely has a greater than 0% chance of doing just that.

Now, I’m not a doomsday prepper by any stretch of the imagination… But when someone tells me there’s even a small chance that what they’re making could turn out like The Matrix, I start to worry. 

It’s as if they never watched I, Robot or read Jurassic Park (which is actually about runaway technology, not dinosaurs). 

These companies have a responsibility to guarantee that this doesn’t happen. We already made this mistake with nuclear weapons. And that threat still looms large over our heads, especially right now during the Russo-Ukraine War. 

We have enough threats to deal with. Let’s not create more of our own volition.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from Jurassic Park:

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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by Nathan Coumbe

Good for the hive

There’s a Chinese proverb folks seem to have forgotten:

“What is good for the hive is good for the bee.”

Yet a lot of Americans today seem to be focused on the the bees…

“What’s best for me? I don’t care how it affects anyone else.”

“How can I maximize my short-term pleasure?” (Implied in this is, “And increase my long-term pain?”)

“This new policy is good for me, so what else matters?”

If the bees acted that way, the hive would die. And we’d have no honey. 

But we’d also have no crops. People would starve. We’d lose access to essential medications—even fibers for clothing.

Maximizing individual short-term interests rarely leads to anything good for most people.

It’s because we live in a world of systems. And systems are greater than the sum of their individual parts. They also have 2nd-, 3rd-, and even 4th-order effects. 

Ask yourself, the next time you’re voting, writing a new policy, or drafting a law:

“Is this good for the hive?”

by Nathan Coumbe

If I do nothing else…

I hope that I can inspire other people to find their voice and make the impact they were born to make on the world. 

There are few ideas I’ve come across that have resonated more with me than Stephen Covey’s 8th Habit:

“Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.”

I want to help make people better. That is all. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Would you sign your name to it?

There’s a great episode of Parks and Recreation where Ron Swanson gets a typewriter. Throughout the episode, he writes multiple open, honest letters to people and organizations whom he disagrees with. 

At the end of the episode, you find out if he’s been signing his name to all these letters. He believes that if you believe in something strongly enough to write about it or say it to someone, you should stand by it.

Openly. Honestly.

The Internet, especially social media, is giving us the ability to do everything and say anything we want anonymously.

We can blog or create YouTube videos under a pseudonym. This can be a great thing for decent people trying to make things better but who are afraid of putting their work out under their real name. 

But instead, this option has been abused by people who just want to vent, criticize, and abuse rather than help, serve, or improve. It’s created a growing group of people who just want to watch the world burn. 

So today, I’m begging you: take a lesson from Ron Swanson. If you wouldn’t sign your name to it, you shouldn’t post it. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Undoing bad leadership

Often, employees are so burned by the people who lead and manage them that when they’re offered a real opportunity to make a difference, they scoff at it.

They assume there are strings attached. Or that it’s not a real opportunity, but instead, a way for them to pawn off their problems because they just don’t want to deal with it.

There’s a lesson here for leaders and managers of all types: 

You have to prove to the people in your care that you have their best interests at heart. To do this, you have to consistently act in such a way that they come to believe you by your actions, not your words. 

This is why Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

“What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”

You won’t have their trust in the beginning. 

What you want to happen won’t happen the first time. Or the second. Nor the third. Maybe not even the tenth. 

And unfortunately—but not unexpectedly—if you have a track record of burning your employees, it’ll take even longer. 

But that’s what you signed up for when you took on the role of a leader. You chose to show up continuously until you got the enrollment you seek. 

It’s not easy, but it’s definitely worth the work. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Respect must come before respect

You can’t treat children as less than human, then expect them to give you respect in return. 

Just because they aren’t yet adults doesn’t mean they don’t deserve dignity and respect. 

“Children should be seen but not heard…” That was the mantra many adults from my parents’ generation lived by (though, thankfully, not mine).

They have tiny, yet insightful opinions. They possess creativity and vivid imaginations you’d kill to reclaim. 

And their questions are incisive enough to make even the wisest philosophers question their views.

The Golden Rule applies to our kids as well as our peers… 

by Nathan Coumbe

Rules for politics

Rules for politics I wish more of our elected members would follow:

(These come from Harry S. Truman)

“In all this long career I had certain rules I followed win, lose or draw.

I refused to handle any political money in any way whatever.

I engaged in no private interests whatever that could be helped by local, state or national governments. 

I refused presents, hotel accommodations or trips which were paid for by private parties…I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate… 

I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers, and the people of my country, state, and nation.”

USA 20 cent stamp with a picture of Harry Truman

Truman wasn’t perfect by any means. But the rules he set for himself would go a long way to making our political leaders more effective… And less corrupt.

by Nathan Coumbe

Make people better

What’s the purpose of a leader?

If you subscribe to Ryan Holiday’s “Daily Stoic” newsletter, you’ve probably seen he’s done a week-long feature on leadership and Stoic philosophy.

One email he wrote earlier this week stood out to me… I’ve been able to think of little else since. It’s about the sole purpose of being a leader. Here are some of the quotes used in the email:

“Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts. —Seneca

Another one here from Seneca:

“Nobody can live happy [sic] if he cares only for himself, if he turns everything to his own benefit: you have to live for others, if you want to live for yourself.”

Then, near the end of the email, he sums up an idea from Marcus Aurelius:

“As Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations, people are our proper occupation. ‘[My] job is to do them good.’ When we make others better, he writes elsewhere, ‘we perform our function.’“

Summing up his newsletter, he makes this statement:

Leaders make people better.

We’re all leaders. And we’re all philosophers.

So let’s make other people better.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What does coaching mean to you?

I heard the best description of what a coach does this week on Michael Hyatt’s podcast, “Lead to Win”:

“I love developing people and helping [them] to see the best potential in them and call it out. And that is what coaching is all about.”

That quote is from Michele Cushatt, Chief Coaching Officer at Michael Hyatt & Company. (You can check out the episode here.)

Her definition of coaching leapt out at me… I had to listen to it at least three times. 

Most of us have an image in our head of a coach as a cheerleader… Maybe it’s someone who tells you “great job” when you finish a task or make a little progress. 

Or maybe “coach” conjures images of someone putting you through drills or practices to help you develop a skill. 

Coaches can and should do those things. But that’s not the essence of what coaching is…

A great coach sees the potential in another person and calls it out! That’s the key. They bring forth what’s already inside someone else. 

They help someone become the best person they can be. The person they are destined to become.

Do you have someone in your life doing that for you? If not, can you find someone?

Or is there someone you know who’s got tons of potential but can’t see it? Or hasn’t developed it? 

Why can’t you take the role of coach and call it out to them?

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by Nathan Coumbe

The correct thing? Or the right thing?

Sometimes we have a choice between what is correct and what is right.

What’s “correct” is often bureaucratic or compliant with rules and regulations. Often those same rules and regulations fly in the face of common sense, decency, and the dignity we owe others.

When a customer’s computer catches fire with no fault on their part, obviously due to a manufacturer’s defect, we have a choice. We can do the correct thing: quote the manual and say there’s nothing we can do. Or worse yet, we can say:

“You should have bought the warranty.”

Or we can do the right thing: acknowledge the problem and take responsibility. We can help the person who put her faith in us and our product or service.

Correct or right—it’s a choice.

We must improve our ability to make the proper choice when the time comes.

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