Mike Befeler's Blog, page 26

Baseball, the Dodgers and Reading

The Dodgers winning the World Series brings back memories of my childhood when I was a rabid fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I listened to games on the radio and just happened to be home sick when they won the World Series in 1955. In 1956 the Dodgers went on an exhibition tour to Japan and I watched them play an exhibition in Honolulu where I grew up. I also collected a number of autographs when they arrived at the Honolulu airport.

How does all of this connect with reading? As a reluctant reader, one time in the school library I was fooling around rather than reading. The librarian approached me and asked what interested me. I said, “baseball.”  She took me over to a section of the library that contained books about baseball. From then on I became hooked on reading.

More About Leadership

As I continue to read and think about leadership, I came across a statement attributed to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. To paraphrase, the attributes of effective Presidents in times of turbulence include: empathy, humility, resilience, willingness to acknowledge errors, and self-reflection.  I would add to this list: listening.

Leadership: Power, Love and Truth

With an election in progress, I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership. I’m also reading a book, which I highly recommend: How to Lead, Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changersby David Rubenstein. This book is thirty interviews with people such as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Colin Powell, Anthony Fauci and  Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussing what makes an effective leader.

I’d also like to share here a post from my friend Minh Le who makes a compelling argument about the need to balance poser, love and truth as a leader:

 The love-power-truth triangle in leadership, and how it applies to our national election this year.One of the most fundamental requirements of principled leadership is a thoughtful balance between love, power and truth in its treatment of people. Love without power is wishy washy and weak, but power without love is abusive and sadistic, advised great leaders over the centuries. Love and power without truth will cause a leader to follow a wrong path and bring their followers to disaster, as many cultish leaders have demonstrated in the past. Truth without power will be ineffective as scientists and public health officials repeat recommendations to be safe from Covid-19 while watching the country become a hotbed of infections because the people in power choose to make mask wearing or social distancing a political issue instead.

Our election process is really about all three elements. To be elected in a principled way, a leader must be seen as caring/loving toward citizens, courageous in the use of power in pursuit of worthwhile outcomes, and a model for truth and integrity in his/her day-to-day conduct.

When a party is stuck with a leader whose entire life has been about the pursuit of power at the total expense of love or truth, its members become frantic and desperate as the polls indicate that they are going to lose in a big way, a landslide. That leader’s tactics become more frantic and desperate and his/her followers tend to follow down the same path. Unfortunately the electorate is much better informed and more thoughtful than the party would like and these tactics backfire, causing the party to be in downward spiral.

 I empathize with some of my family members and friends who are in despair because they think their side is losing and the country is going down the wrong path. I understand that anxiety and will remind these family members and friends that to cling to power while showing zero compassion and a total disregard of truth is simply not sustainable. Having had power for so long makes it hard to see it taken away from you, but it is not a total loss, only a chance to re-examine the errors in your thinking and learn from them.

 I will make them this personal promise. I will not gloat when I see this country move in the opposite direction of the last four years. I will be present and paying attention and will continue to urge the people in charge to use power wisely, without abandoning love and truth. I will remind them that our society’s priorities like a pendulum will swing back and forth over time in search of balance. I will remind everyone that a great society tries very hard to meet the needs of all of its citizens and if we are out to destroy all of our enemies we will eventually have no friends left.

 To those of you belonging to a group with a single agenda I would advise that it cannot be the only one that matters for the entire society. When it conflicts with the agendas of other groups of people, care must be exercised by a skilled leader to find win-win or compromise solutions to resolve the issue in an intelligent way. Beware of manipulative con artists who promise that they alone can fix the problem because they are the smartest and most powerful. Beware of promises of simple solutions that allow you to win while large numbers of others must lose, Choose instead someone who has learned humility by life’s challenges, who recognizes that the best solution comes from gathering together many different points of view and working through the apparent diversity to find a unity in a most coherent solution. Look for proven commitment and skills in leadership, as it is a difficult job which cannot be done successfully by amateurs or reality-TV stars.

 Lastly I would say that the younger generations deserve a great deal more admiration and respect. They have much more at stake with a more uncertain future, and they are now better educated and informed than we were in the past. The older folks (my generation) continue to have an enormous control over society, even as we lose touch with the world as to how it really shows up for the younger generations. As much as many of us older folks have tried to be open and flexible, I suspect there is much more we can do to seek to understand and continue in thoughtful ways to empower them. I predict the best turnout this year in a long time for the younger voters among us, and I will celebrate that as a great sign for the future of this country.

Vote

We face an extremely important election this November. No matter what your political persuasion or beliefs, I urge you to vote. We need to have a large turnout to show how the country as a whole  feels about the two candidates.

Should Authors Make Political Statements or Not?

I have writer friends who constantly make political statements on social media and others who avoid political statements completely. I’m in the middle. When I see or hear something egregious, I call it out on Facebook. But many of my social media posts are about writing and my grandchildren. I feel it’s important to take a stand and point out issues and solutions, some of which will not be popular with people who are extremely polarized. I will continue to do this, but I will not resort to only political statements.

Bouchercon Conference

Bouchercon is the largest conference for fans and writers of the mystery/crime/thriller genres with typically 1500 to 2000 attendees. This October it was scheduled to be in Sacramento, CA. but because of the pandemic, it has become a virtual conference taking place on Friday and Saturday October 16-17. I will be on a panel on Friday, titled "With a Little Help from My Friends" with Fleur Brandley, Carrie Voorhis, TK Thorne and Eileen Rendahl. This will focus on characters who help the protagonist sleuth.

Are People Basically Good or Bad

I pose this question for all of you to think about and answer for yourselves: are people basically good or bad? We see human-caused disasters and these are balanced by the unselfish acts of people. How do you come down on this basic question about human nature? I did an informal poll on Facebook a few weeks ago and the majority of responses came back that people are basically good. These were from mainly author friends who tend to be liberal thinkers. From my own conclusion, people of a more conservative bent tend to see people as bad: you can’t give poor people money because they’ll spend it on booze and they’re lazy. I know it’s hard to answer this black and white question. I believe that people are basically good but there are clearly exceptions and we can’t be naïve. We need to have a police force to protect us from predators and psychopaths. Still, I think most people want what’s right for their family and society. I will continue to think positively while paying attention to the exceptions.

The World of Zoom

How quickly things change. Back in February of this year, I hadn’t even heard of Zoom. Now I’m using it almost daily. I had used Skype but now find Zoom much more user friendly and easier to use. I’ve used Zoom to give author presentations to service organizations and book groups, to meet with family members, to get together with friends, to have a virtual play date for our grandson, to participate in a remote funeral service, to attend writers events and to allow our grandson to attend first pre-school and now kindergarten. It’s become an important tool during the pandemic.

Zoom kindergarten

My grandson started zoom kindergarten this week. He had a chance to get used to zoom classes with zoom preschool in May and June. The school had a drive-by for the kids to wave to the teachers the day before school started. Now he is learning remotely for at least the next month.

More About Zoom Author Events

In the past I have done a number of remote presentations to book groups through Skype or phone conference calls. All of these were with me on one end and a group of people on the other. Last week I gave my first Zoom presentation where everyone was online from different locations. Once I started, it felt natural to be talking to people, as I could see some of the faces on my screen. Since my presentation relies on humor, it was more difficult to get a reading on the audience’s reaction to my speech. With two more presentations scheduled in the near future, I’ll continue to monitor how this process works.