Inclinations Frozen On Paper

In 1987 psychologists used me as a test subject and analyzed my handwriting as part of considering graphology in a suite of talent-selection tools being considered by the community-destination marketing organization (DMO) I was leading at the time in Alaska.

This occurred a decade after studies began to link signature size with high self-regard and then narcissism but the technique has a long history and has been validated by thousands of researchers.

At the time my handwriting was analyzed, it was reported that 3,000 American corporations were already using the tool to screen new hires, a number that has reportedly transcended 5,000 today. 

However, I was skeptical it would work on me, given a gradually worsening movement disorder called “essential tremor.” The condition had first manifested itself in my right hand when I was a teenager.

By the time of the analysis it was even worse in my left or writing hand.  But the analysis, which is conducted “blind,” worked and very accurately.  Experts, usually psychologists who are trained in graphology, study handwriting as a form of unfiltered body language  but “frozen on paper.”

As we mature, the rules we all learned in school for handwriting gradually become informed by aspects of our temperament, personality, inclinations and unique neurological patterns.  Forensically and in courtrooms, handwriting is much like a fingerprint.

In fact, experts using handwriting analysis have even identified a number of movements common in criminals.  Linked here for instance, is an analysis of the handwriting of executed domestic terrorist and mass bomber Timothy McVeigh done by the company HRC.

In addition to potential as a tool for talent selection, handwriting analysis is used in team building, assessments of leadership or promotional potential, substance abuse detection and even relationship compatibility, the latter of which would have come in handy during my lifetime.

We ended up selecting other tools, but re-reading the analysis of my handwriting nearly 25 years later in retirement reveals in retrospect just how accurate it was.  It confirmed indications of my education level and upbringing, but also pinpointed an inclination to sensitivity, even self-defense.

It identified my tendency to challenge conventional wisdom and an openness to fresh ideas as well as an intensity, a need to participate in change.  It also delved into aspects of my nature such as understanding and tolerance.

The analysis foretold a tireless determination in the pursuit and conversion of ideals to reality, and a strong ego without being narcissistic.  Even more significantly, the analysis accurately notes some vulnerabilities that come with these tendencies.

Earlier in her life, when angry or hurt, my daughter has disputed the part about me not being narcissistic, and always with good reason.  Coincidentally, one of the first studies correlating signature size to self-esteem occurred the year she was born.

At extreme levels, narcissism is a personality disorder but at another level it is a stable personality trait as I learned from a report published a few months ago by researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina, which is located in a community just south of where I live in Durham, NC.

Narcissism has been linked to large signature size since the late 1970s but this new study also links narcissism and large CEO signature size to poor performance and also, paradoxically, to larger compensation.

Narcissistic CEOs are not only conceited but overvalue their abilities.  They bring about poorer group decisions “because they dominate the decision process without incorporating feedback or ideas from other group members.”

Ironically, though, these CEOs are also considered more capable by the same group members they dominate during decision processes, resulting a type of closed-feedback-loop.  This is why toleration of dissent is much better than peer loyalty as a gut-check on narcissism.

The study crossed my mind recently as I was leaving a Rotary luncheon at the Durham Convention Center.  My attendance is spotty as best, often bringing puzzled expressions from new members as they spy my past-president name badge.

Dr. Dan Ariely, who teaches at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, had spoken at the luncheon about experiments that show that people are more likely to be dishonest if what they are doing benefits friends and associates.  I suppose this is enabling a sort of group narcissism.

A friend kidded me unmercifully as a little of my own narcissism eked out as we left the building.  Instinctively I glanced quickly back over my shoulder at a portrait that was hung in the Center three months before I retired a few years ago after 21 years as guardian of Durham’s community’s brand and sense of place.

As stand-ins for thousands of people who are even more deserving, a depiction of me in the portrait is shown against the Durham skyline next to Mayor Bill Bell who continues more than three decades as a public official and downtown advocate Bill Kalkhof who is also retiring this year after nearly 20 years of services.

I can’t remember the size of their signatures, but I know they have given their all to Durham, as I tried to do, often at significant personal sacrifice.  I am honored to be in their company.

As I file and store away personal papers, I can see the effects of essential tremor on my signature over time. Eventually, to control the movement in my hands, my signature grew in size.

Many years ago, it became impossible to manage anything other than a large “R” with a line after it.  Today, I can’t even make the “R” and even the line is illegible.

Along with the disappearance of my signature, I guess any narcissist tendencies I may have had must have receded in retirement because my daughter frequently kids me with a big smile by saying,

“Who are you and what have you done with my dad?”

My Genesis of Career Values

I seeds for my career in destination marketing were planted during the first 33 months of the 1970s, while working my way through BYU in a windowless below-ground level nook of the administration building, situated next door to the dispatchers for campus police.

Universities are microcosms of communities, and I’ll explain later how this was also when the seeds were planted for me about the importance of community appearance including a passion for trees.

Back then we were a staff of two, then three, and later four or five of us who handled campus tours, administered the president’s box during football games and actively marketed the campus across the nation as a site for camps, workshops, summer youth conferences and events which included assisting their production.

My job title was conference coordinator.  The Office of Tours and Conferences back then fell under the director of University Relations, a division that fell under University Communications which had been headed until the year prior by the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey, then only 36 years old.

I quickly earned a supervisory role, and following a detour for law school, this experience would anchor what would become a 40-year career as a community-destination marketing executive for communities in Washington, Alaska and North Carolina.

The general idea of the then-Office of Tours and Conferences was to fuel demand for campus food services, housing and campus facilities to sustain year round employment and to engage professors and grad students during what were at the time very low volume summer school sessions.

Apparently the ground-work paid off because as I graduated it was spun off and today there is an entire three story visitor center (a tower of which is shown in this blog) located at the main campus entrance devoted to tours, public affairs, alumni affairs, guest relations, reunions, community relations and even a speakers bureau etc.

Up the hill north and east of Lavell Edwards Stadium is now a dedicated conference center where staff still in continuing education now coordinate and produce workshops, camps, special events and professional and association meetings.

It is a long ways from that basement hovel, but the most remarkable physical transformation since I graduated is the presence now of incredible landscaping and towering trees, part of a makeover that was initiated just as I left.

One of my last classes at BYU was a field botany class during the early summer session focused on trees.  BYU has always been a top undergraduate research university so my professor for the class taught us much more about the value of trees than just how to identify various species.

While I was growing up, BYU had undergone a tremendous building boom that had expanded the number of buildings from 6 to nearly 300 on a relatively flat plateau in the shadows of Y Mountain, a peak in the the Wasatch Range of the central Rocky Mountains.

The campus was manicured and grassed but found lacking at the time in overall landscaping, especially trees. This was not lost on two other people as I graduated in August of 1972 including Roy Peterman, a classmate, and fellow-Idaho native Jack Wheatley and his wife Mary Lois who as I graduated were just dropping off their eldest son for his first semester.

Peterman and I graduated from the same department, he in psychology and me in history but we each found our 40-year careers while working for the university part-time.  He worked in grounds keeping becoming director in 1978, I found my calling in community-destination marketing.  Both involve fostering and preserving sense of place including scenic character.

The Wheatley’s are more contemporary with our respective parents.  Jack was born in Pocatello, at the opposite end of the fault line of my youth.  He and his late wife built a business in Palo Alto, California in residential and then commercial real estate including construction of buildings on the campus of Stanford University there.

Neither had ties to BYU.  He graduated from West Point and she from arch-rival University of Utah.  But by the time they dropped their eldest son off to attend BYU, they had shaped a deep appreciation not just for buildings but the extraordinary value landscaping brings not only to both the built and natural environment but to human inspiration.

Wheatley’s are the name sakes for an incredible Institution housed in the same building as the visitors center at BYU.  In part, The Wheatley Institution’s purpose is to foster the teaching of ethical business behavior in universities.

They have also single-handedly donated thousands and thousands of trees to populate the 560+-acre BYU campus along with overall landscaping inspiration and design for waterways, walkways, outdoor art and natural areas that foster learning and creativity.

As a result, even though hundreds of additional buildings have been erected there since I graduated, the BYU campus has since become a spectacular example of the powerful force of biophilia on our lives.

The term was coined a decade after Jack and Mary Lois began to transform BYU’s campus with trees, art and gardens.  Biophia is now the well-proven concept that scenic preservation “optimizes productivity, healing time, learning functions and community cohesion” (Go Cougars!) as well as economic development.

Jack Wheately’s understanding of the importance of natural and scenic aesthetics is unique among engineers, builders and real estate developers.  He served during the Korean War with the US Army Corp of Engineers before achieving extraordinary financial success in commercial office building and leasing including R & D facilities in Silicon Valley.

Much of this occurred in the ten years before he turned his attention to scenic preservation on BYU’s campus in the early 1970s.

Maybe in part it was the influence of his wife, an art major.  Maybe it came from studying the evolution of the beautiful Stanford campus, or maybe it was from meeting the needs of tech entrepreneurs who seem sensitive to the tie between creativity, innovation and natural environment.

Regardless, if we could only clone Jack and infuse all commercial developers with his humility, understanding and commitment to biophilia, maybe community’s would no longer need to seek establish minimum requirements in order to protect their sense of place and environments.

Infographic - Comparative Jolt

To view at original source, click here!

Throwing Blind

Something important about organizational management occurred to me a few weeks ago while watching my two grandsons, ages 7 and 9 respectively, duel it out on the incredibly realistic Madden NFL 13 video game they play on their upgraded Wii U.

The video game itself offers great lessons in strategic thinking because a player’s point of view is elevated.  That isn’t how it appears to players in an actual football game.

It made me think of Hall of Fame quarterback, Steve Young, who my grandsons refer to now as “one of the talkers,” referring to his role as a commentator.

He didn’t see a football game from the stands for the first time until long after his days as a All American at BYU and guiding the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl in 1994.

Young acknowledged recently that during his playing days he was only six feet tall.  That’s my height – the height I used to be - albeit he was thirty or more pounds heavier.  He was always listed at 6’ 2” but that was with his shoes on.

He wrote recently that he couldn’t see when his receivers were open so he had to learn to throw blind, trusting that teammates such as Jerry Rice would be exactly where they had practiced on each play.  I remember when my boyhood heroes, Johnny Unitas and Raymond Berry said the same thing.

Unless an organization has a very simple, one dimensional mission, it is like a football team.  Strategically, every individual involved must understand and execute a role so that the team as a whole functions much as though they were one person, always in synch.

In fact, each team member must earn the trust of the others so that any one of them can “throw blind.”  Any executive can be popular with co-workers.  The real challenge in organizational management is to recruit individuals who are willing and able, and then to persuade them to surrender individual differences to earn success as a team.

It is what my long-time friend Coach K describes as “the fist:”

“There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable.”

Steve Young is an inspiration, not just because he starred at Brigham Young University a decade after I graduated from that institution.  Actually, he had been very heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina not far from where I live now.

North Carolina used a run-option offense, much as Young had orchestrated during high school career in Connecticut.  He had never really learned to pass except in emergencies.

But he deliberately chose to attend BYU even though it was earning a reputation as “Quarterback U” due to its vaunted passing offense under Lavell Edwards.  However, BYU didn’t initially have Young in mind as a quarterback when he was recruited.

Virgil Carter had starred at BYU as I was finishing high school but during the years I attended the school wasn’t known for football.  The only player I recall from those years was Golden Richards who went on star as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys in two Super Bowls.  Who could forget a name like that?

Edwards, who had been an assistant coach at BYU for 16 years, took over as head coach a few months after I graduated from BYU in 1972.  Beginning with Gifford Nielsen followed by Marc Wilson, BYU began an ascent as a football power, eventually winning a national championship in 1984.

An All American, Wilson was succeeded by Jim McMahon who inspired one of the greatest comebacks in college football history before leading the Chicago Bears to a Super Bowl.  Both set numerous NCAA records and each finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting.

Young began his career at BYU ranked a lowly 8th on the depth chart behind McMahon.  He set out to become a great passer, eventually succeeding McMahon and setting records of his own.

He went on to win six NFL passing titles before retiring with the league’s highest passer rating following a series of concussions.  He still holds the record with six touchdown passes in a Super Bowl.  Not bad for a guy who started college 8th on the depth chart.

All together during his NFL career, Young passed for more than 33,000 yards and 232 touchdowns while running for more than 4,000 yards and 43 touchdowns including this incredible 49-yard zigzagging run after avoiding a sack.

Young’s 1990s style is epitomized today by run-option quarterbacks who can run or pass.  As impressive as throwing blind is that each of his receivers at every level had to learn to catch the ball, thrown by a left-handed quarterback which means the ball was rotating in the opposite direction.

I guess you could say he was a pretty good CEO too.  But Young succeeded because he could trust his teammates, and they were successful because they could trust one another to each do their job in pursuit of an overall strategic goal.

Forgotten Urban Forest History Lessons

Several days ago, the organization American Forests named the 10 Best Cities for Urban Forests.  It actually names only the best among the 50 most populous communities, but useful none the less.

Charlotte, the only city large enough to be eligible, made the list giving those of us who live in other parts of North Carolina, a best practice laboratory.

What is more interesting than the ranking of cities is the organization’s excellent history of urban forests.  In the United States, this is another of the benefits we owe to immigrants.

They planted trees around their urban homes to remind them of their homeland.  It wasn’t until the Progressive Era of the late 1800s and early 1900s that Americans began to value urban trees,  primarily for aesthetics reasons with a focus on native species.

The far greater value of urban trees for ecosystem services such as climate and flood control, water and air quality and soil conservation wasn’t widely understood by scientists and economists until recently.

However, the seeds for urban forestry in America were planted by Andrew Jackson Downing who became the “father of landscape architecture before dying in 1852 at only age 36 in a tragic fire aboard a ship steaming up the Hudson River.

Today’s officials primarily give lip service to urban forestry, while far too many urban foresters fail to “see the forest for the trees” while focusing only on the tiny portion existing on public property.

It has been more than a decade since American Forests released a study about the importance of reversing the national urban tree deficit, documented then as 634.4 million trees lost to development and other factors.  A study released last year acknowledged that the nation’s urban forests are still declining by four million trees a year.

Durham, North Carolina where I live has surrendered more than a million trees to impervious surface in the last 30 years.  Net those that naturally regenerate, a zero loss strategy including much better and well-enforced tree ordinances would require planting 243 trees a day.

Pathetically, Durham officials probably don’t even realize that they currently budget enough to plant only a little more than that amount in an entire year, barely enough to replace what is lost each day to development, a pattern found in far too many other North Carolina communities.

Long forgotten are the lessons learned a hundred years ago about the crucial importance of green infrastructure such as urban forests.