Robert S. Becker: An interview by Bob Morris

Robert S. Becker PhD founded Becker Multimedia, simulations and serious games — to enhance job competencies and performance. He advises clients on learning strategy, leads the implementation of instructional technology and produces engaging interactive multimedia content. He also helps propagate organizational mission and vision by applying his expertise in employer branding, customer experience management and internal marketing communications. With regard to involvement with professional associations, he is Education Chair for the Chicago Great Lakes Chapter of the Explorers Club. Also, he holds board positions with Chicago chapters of ASTD and ISPI. He also leads the Serious Games SIGs for IGDA and GDDA.

In another area of professional involvement, Bob is now at work on an online curriculum of continuing medical education (CME) accredited by a prominent school of medicine in Massachusetts, designing blended learning for a logistics company serving the railroad and trucking industries, designing web-based interactive marketing for a German manufacturer, and designing inaugural mobile learning for a widely dispersed retail company. Past engagements have spanned diverse industries from utilities to banking. He earned his BA and MA at New York University and his PhD from the University of Reading in England. Before founding his company, he was a professor of English and funded research scholar. He lives and works in Oak Park, Illinois.

Here is an excerpt from my interview of him. To read the complete interview, please click here.

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Morris: Which person has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? Please explain.

Becker: The Child is father of the Man. My children have had the greatest influence on my personal growth. After my years of questing they helped me realize that I am not the most interesting per- son on the planet. They changed my dream world into a life of devotion.

Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development?

Becker: If professional development evokes gifts in addition to competencies, stature in addition to rank, wisdom and goodness in addition to power, then Sir Rupert Hart-Davis has had the greatest impact on my professional development. He was my friend and mentor.

Morris: Was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course that you continue to follow?

Becker: That would be my denial of academic tenure. It coincided the inception of instructional technology, self-paced training, personal computing and online information. I was already fascinated with instructional systems design, so I jumped through this shiny new looking glass.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education proven invaluable to what you have accomplished thus far in the business world?

Becker: My formal education is both a handicap and a blessing. A handicap because the study of literature and history looks back, whereas business relentlessly scans the horizon. A blessing because my scholarship provided core discipline and resilience, which are much needed in business.

Morris: What do you now know about the business world that you wish you knew when you first went to work full-time?

Becker: I admire the intellect and skills of business people. However their ethics can be patchy. I try to treat myself, my colleagues and clients as professionals, but many business people are unprofessional by choice as well as training. I’m frequently reminded.

Morris: Of all the changes that have occurred in the business world since then, what do you consider to be most significant? Why?

Becker: Digitization of content. It vastly increases the speed and quality of work and enables even ordinary people to achieve a measure of greatness. Digitization unleashes a lot of stupidity too, but a rising tide lifts all boats so we must be patient.

Morris: You and your associates at Becker Multimedia have devised one of the most interesting websites I have yet encountered and I am also very impressed by the blog at which a wealth and diversity of superior content is provided. Please explain the process by which (a) the website was designed and then launched, (b) the specific objectives were set for the blog originally, and (c) the extent to which subsequent modifications have been made.

Becker: Beckermultimedia.com rose from the critical feedback of gifted colleagues in an AIGA Mastermind Group. They looked at my previous website and hated it. So I started over, writing and designing everything myself but with the goal of pleasing tough critics. It worked out pretty well. They gave me a passing grade.

The purpose of the Blended Learner blog has always been the same: to decode my professional attitudes and values. These both inspire and limit my work, often without me realizing it. I try to blog what I believe so that I can understand my work better.

Morris: What are the defining characteristics of a “blended learner”?

Becker: The Blended Learner blog is a kind of oracle. I write the way a Delphic priest would moan or rant in another era: focusing on what I know and believe, being brief, varied and spontaneous, trying to produce truthful insights. The thoughts I bring to the Blended Learner are quickly formed, but they take longer to write because I sweat the expression. Prime examples of Blended Learner style is my five recent posts, Zen and the Art of E-Learning Design followed by the Four Qualities of E-Learning (quality in the sense that Robert Pirsig uses the word). These essays surprised me as I wrote them and that may mean they are good.

Morris: You and I hold in high regard recently published books on business design, notably Roger Martin’s The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage, Tim Brown’s Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, Tom Lockwood’s Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value, and Roberto Verganti’s Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean.

Here’s my question: How do you explain the recent and increasingly substantial interest in such books and what they discuss?

Becker: Two words: Steve Jobs. Well, let me rephrase that. The design genius of Steve Jobs that is channeled by Apple. For 30 years Steve brought the ineluctable force of design to industry and commerce, and with great success. It’s rare and people want more of that.

Morris: Now I wish to ask several questions that follow no discernible order, I realize, but offer you an opportunity to tee off on some issues worthy of discussion. First, which 2-3 films do you think most effectively dramatize important business lessons?

Becker: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room has important lessons for our time, though we cannot seem to learn them. It shows how talent can be twisted and soiled as it becomes both less vigilant and more compliant and servile.

Morris: Of all the literary works (i.e. epic poems, plays, and novels) that you have read over the years, which 2-3 offer the most valuable insights concerning important business subjects, such as leadership?

Becker: George Moore’s novel The Brook Kerith is an imaginative biography of Jesus Christ. In documenting events up to the failed crucifixion and Christ’s “real life” afterward, Moore traced the phases of modern leadership development in rational, secular and humanist terms.

Morris: The business narrative has become very popular, especially since Spencer Johnson misplaced his cheese. In your opinion, why do so many authors such as Eliyahu Goldratt and Patrick Lencioni rely on storytelling basics (setting, characters, conflict, tension, plot developments, etc.) to share their insights about the business world?

Becker: Myth and metaphor have unrivaled powers to inform and influence people. Joseph Campbell, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff explain how they work. Great stories are carriers of myth and metaphor. We think we are reading for what or how, but we learn from why.

Morris: Of all the great leaders throughout history, which do you consider to be the most effective [begin italics] communicator [end italics]? Please explain your selection.

Becker: As a leader of empire, an inspiring orator and master of prose narrative, Winston Churchill may be the more effective communicator of all great leaders. I’m a little reluctant to name him because his colonial values are obnoxious, but that doesn’t enter into this question.

Morris: Given the proliferation of social networks, electronic devices, and other multimedia resources, do you think people are communicating more effectively, less effectively, or about the same today than or as they did (let’s say) 7-10 years ago? Please explain.

Becker: Younger people are communicating far more effectively than anybody did a decade ago. At its best their content is richer, more immediate, meaningful and active. Of course there’s a lot of noise or drivel in the ether, but that’s fairly easy to ignore.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

Bob cordially invites you to check out the resources at this website:

http://www.beckermultimedia.com/home.html

Still another 10 snappy quotations

The Yale Book of Quotations

Here are 10 more snappy quotations that caught my eye. You can use each of them in a variety of different situations (e.g. emails, proposals, formal presentations, reviews, blog posts). If you have others to share, I hope you will do so.

And again, I highly recommend The Yale Book of Quotations, brilliantly edited by Fred R. Shapiro and published by Yale University Press. FYI, none of those that follow are included in it.

1. “Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.” Malcolm de Chazal

2. “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” Abraham Maslow

3. “We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.” William Butler Yeats

4. “The best way to do is to be.” Lao Tzu

5. “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” Charles Burowski

6.  “If Passion drives, let Reason hold the reins.” Benjamin Franklin

7. “Cherish each other’s hopes. Be kind to each other’s dreams.” Henry David Thoreau

8. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso

9. “Every great film should seem new every time you see it. ” Roger Ebert

10. “I wish you fair skies and a tight grip.” E.B. White

10 Quotations for “All Seasons”

The Yale Book of Quotations

Here are ten quotations that caught my eye. Why? Because I will have dozens of opportunities to use each of them in a variety of different situations. If you have others to share, I hope you will do so.

And again, I highly recommend The Yale Book of Quotations, brilliantly edited by Fred R. Shapiro and published by Yale University Press. FYI, none of those that follow are included in it.

1. “There are no accidents in the universe.” (Source?)

2. “I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.” Mark Twain

3. “Thinking has become a disease. It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly – you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. That is the disease. You believe that you are your mind.” Eckhart Tolle

4. “Sow a thought, and you reap an act. Sow an act, and you reap a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” Charles Reade

5. “To understand everything, let go of what you know.” Old Indian saying

6. “Happiness is when what we think, what we say, and what we do are in harmony.” Mohandas Gandhi

7. “All we achieve and all that we fail to achieve is the direct result of our own thoughts. We are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” James Allen

8. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” Henry David Thoreau

9. “It’s not the answers that show us the way, but the questions.” Tennessee H. Harris

10. “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Goethe

Bob Morris on Lasting Contribution: A Book Review

Lasting Contribution: How to Think, Plan, and Act to Accomplish Meaningful Work
Tad Waddington
Agate B2 (2007)

Frankly, I did not know what to expect as I began to read this book but soon realized that, accompanied by Tad Waddington, I had embarked on a journey of discovery to learn the answer to a very important question: How can I make a contribution that lasts? Waddington asserts that “lasting contributions are caused. Simply put, you cause a lasting contribution to happen. The problem is that the way people usually think about causality does not serve them well when it comes to thinking about taking action.” Waddington notes that some 2,300 years ago, Aristotle argued that it is useful to think in terms of four causes: material (i.e. of what a thing is made), efficient (i.e. how something is made), formal (i.e. what a thing is), and final (i.e. why a thing is). “This book was written to help you not in the way a hammer helps you to build a house, but in the way a blueprint does. It prepares you for action.”

Waddington devotes a separate chapter to each of the four causes, explaining its nature and functions, citing examples of it in all manner of situations, and suggesting its relevance to human experiences shared by most of those who read his book. The “blueprint” metaphor is especially appropriate because each person who embarks on the aforementioned journey of discovery is, in effect, preparing to serve as architect of his or her own life. Here is a selection of brief excerpts that provide at least some indication of this book’s scope and flavor:

“The efficient cause is concerned with taking action to get results, particularly in a complex and dynamic world such as ours…Effective action in a complex world requires considered action – knowing when and how to take action and when not to. But on what do you base your actions? The material cause addresses the issue of your most important resources.” (Page 18)

“The material cause involves the resources that you can use to bring about a lasting contribution…In many ways, the material cause is less concerned with your material assets than with how you cultivate yourself…Consequently, it is important to cultivate yourself so that you can seize the opportunities offered…Next, you need to make full use of your arête [i.e. your virtue or excellence in terms of perception, expertise, and mastery]. The formal cause is that way.” (Page 30)

“The formal cause is the DNA of action. It is the recipe for success, the rules of the game…the blueprint that tells you how to construct the causal chain from your values to your results. It is the road map that informs how to get from here to there. But where is there and why go? The why of action is addressed by the final cause.” (Page 44)

“The final cause embodies your values. It gives motive force, because it comes from what you value. The stronger the value, the greater the power of the final cause. The more clearly articulated the value, the better you can embody it through action…As the end (in the sense of goal), the final cause is, paradoxically, the beginning of how to make a lasting contribution. It motivates the entire process and raises your mundane actions to a higher level. But how can you be sure that the four causes are a sensible way to think about making a lasting contribution?” (Page 54)

Waddington addresses this last question in Chapters VI and VII, then shifts his attention to various empirical problems that are frequently encountered, and then to suggesting why making a lasting contribution to the world is a “worthy goal” and a “self-evident good.”

For me, some of the most valuable material is provided in the final chapter in which Waddington discusses six exemplary individuals. However their lasting contributions may differ in terms of nature and impact, all of them have the four causes working effectively together in combinations that (obviously) vary in terms of their respective values, objectives, and resources.

Norman Borlaug (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970) is of special interest to me because of his efforts to triple wheat production in Mexico and achieve a 60% increase in wheat harvests in India and Pakistan. ” He then expanded his efforts to eliminate famine in Asia and Africa. According to Paddington, Borlaug’s lasting contribution was a “hardnosed pursuit of pragmatic results. His efficient cause was to work on his crops all day every day, year after year.”

Tad Waddington urges each reader to make a lasting contribution because it can teach the value of doubting (indeed challenging) conventional wisdom that insists such a contribution is impossible; also, because it will guide and inform ethical actions and give more meaning to one’s life. Most important of all, as Borlaug and others so convincingly demonstrate, such a contribution can have substantial and enduring impact on the lives of countless others.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Self Reliance, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden,  James O’Toole’s Creating the Good Life: Applying Aristotle’s Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness. Also, Michael Ray’s The Highest Goal, David Whyte’s The Heart Aroused, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and his more recent A New Earth, Bill George’s Authentic Leadership and True North, John Whitehead’s A Life in Leadership, and The Leader’s Legacy co-authored by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.

Book Review: 50 Self-Help Classics

50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life
Tom Butler-Bowden
Nicholas Brealey Publishing (2003)

In both this volume and in 50 Success Classics, Butler-Bowdon has selected and then provided a rigorous examination of carefully selected works which have had, for decades, a profound impact on those who read them and then applied the principles which their respective authors affirm. In this instance, inspiration and guidance to transform one’s life. There are several reasons why I hold this volume in such high regard. Here are three.

First, Butler-Bowdon has assembled excerpts and focused on key points from a wide variety of works which include (with authors listed in alphabetical order, as in the book), Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Robert Bly’s Iron John, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler’s The Art of Happiness, Wayne Dyer’s Real Magic, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, Abraham Maslow’s Motivation and Personality, Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul, Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Obviously, some of this material would also be appropriate for inclusion in 50 Success Classics.

Second, I appreciate the fact that Butler-Bowdon also enables his readers to focus on specific themes of greatest interest to them by suggesting combinations of selections per theme as follows:

The Power of Thought: Change your thoughts, change your life
Following Your Dream: Achievement and goal setting
Secrets of Happiness: Doing what you love, doing what works
The Bigger Picture: Keeping it in perspective
Soul and Mystery: Appreciating your depth
Making a Difference: Transforming yourself, transforming the world

The diversity of Butler-Bowdon’s primary sources is indeed impressive even when grouped according to a common theme.

Third and finally, he makes clever use of a number of reader-friendly devices throughout his narrative, such as “In a nutshell,” “Final comments,” and a brief bio of the author at the conclusion of each selection. I also appreciate the inclusion of brief quotations wherever they are most relevant.

In the Introduction, Butler-Bowdon observes that a self-help book “can be your best friend and champion, expressing a faith in your essential greatness and beauty that is sometimes hard to get from another person. Because of its emphasis on following your star and believing that your thoughts can remake your world, a better name for self-help writing might be the `literature of possibility.’ Many people are amazed that the self-help sections in bookstores are so huge. For the rest of us, there is no mystery. Whatever recognizes our right to dream, then shows us how to make the dream a reality, is powerful and valuable.”

What he offers is by no means a buffet of motivational “hors d’oeuvres.” On the contrary, the content selected is solid and skillfully presented within an appropriate context. I am convinced that many of those who read this book will be encouraged to read (or re-read) many of the primary sources in their entirety. If Butler-Bowdon’s efforts accomplish nothing else, that will indeed be sufficient to earn the praise I think he has earned…and justly deserves.

Q #196: “Are we there yet?”

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

I wish I had a $10 bill (or even a dollar) for every time one of my four children and ten grandchildren asked that question during an automobile trip. It is a reasonable question. It is human nature to have feelings of impatience, boredom, anticipation, frustration, etc.

We also ask this question (albeit silently) when embarked upon a project that has not as yet been completed, or during the composition of a book review or a Q&A such as this. As I think about this question, I am reminded of a sign I once saw in a neighborhood tavern in my hometown, Chicago. It said FREE BEER TOMORROW. When I first saw it, I instinctively decided to return the next day. Then I quickly realized that it made no sense. Then I appreciated the wit of the person who devised it and had a good laugh…and another glass of draught beer for which I later paid, of course. Most people are always “here” (wherever that may be) and will never get “there.” Others always seem to be anywhere but “here,” either dwelling in the past or in a future less unpleasant.

Imagine that we are in an automobile traveling at 60 mph when a child asks the question, “Are we there yet?” The vehicle proceeds 80 feet a second so “here” and “there” constantly and rapidly change. If Albert Einstein were with us, he would perhaps suggest that time is relative. So what?

In his various books (notably The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment), Eckhart Tolle urges us to appreciate where we are now, at each moment, and to take full advantage of the blessings that we have rather than defer until later. Henry David Thoreau frequently makes that same point in Walden and various essays.

True, we were once “there” at any point in the past but it was a “here” then to which we cannot return except as a memory. Similarly, we can never be “there” at any point in the future until it is another “here” in the chronology of our experience.

Individuals as well as organizations need to understand “the power of now” and to realize how important it is to take full advantage of opportunities, many (most?) of which will never occur again.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #120: Who is Ernest Becker and what is his relevance to today’s business world?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Ernest Becker (1924-1974) was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer. He is probably most famous for one of his nine books, Denial of Death, published in 1973 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 (for general non-fiction) two months after his own death from cancer at the age of 49. During the past 20+ years, I have met only three people who have read all or portions of Denial of Death. So, what is Becker’s relevance to today’s business world?

His relevance is explained by what I consider to be his most important insight. Briefly explained, Becker acknowledges that no one can deny physical death but there is another form of death than can be denied: That which occurs when we become wholly preoccupied with fulfilling others’ expectations of us. Presumably Becker had a strong sense of his own mortality while writing Denial of Death. He fully understood the importance of meeting one’s obligations to others. In other books as well as articles, he discusses human duality in terms of man’s simultaneous awareness of both physical existence and symbolic significance. So what? Actually, in my opinion, a great deal. These three questions raise issues that many (if not most) of us in the business world contend with each day:

1. What is the value to me of what I do? Hundreds of major research studies involving millions of people throughout the world confirm that feeling appreciated and believing in the value of the work they do are among the needs that are most important to them. At work and in our personal lives, we need to feel we feel (and be made to feel by otgers) that we are appreciated and have value.

2. How can I meet all of my obligations at work and in my personal life? This question raises balance issues. Experts on this subject point out that some obligations are more important each day than are others and thus require more attention. Relative importance can change, sometimes suddenly as when there is a crisis. The best advice suggests trying to balance only what is most important at work and at home and focus on those obligations of greatest importance to both.

3. When meeting those obligations to others, am I also meeting obligations to myself? If not, then we are demonstrating what Henry David Thoreau describes in Walden (1854): “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob