Red Diamonds Newsletter: the Road to the Elegant Solution; Overconfidence Cost; Opportunity in Crisis; Social Media Mobbing Insights; Bias Interrupters Improving Opportunity; a Name Change
By: Red Diamonds Newsletter, Michael Toebe
Tags: Solutions, Relationships, Bias, Investing, Business

Red Diamonds Newsletter: Michael Toebe, writer and publisher

A weekly newsletter on communication, decision making, behavior, trust, conflict, risk, professional relationships, resilience, reputation and wiser, more successful crisis management. Red Diamonds regularly includes interviews with bright, accomplished minds.

This Week’s Contents

A Short Conversation: The Elegant Solution and What Prevents It

(Rick Russell, founding partner of Agree Dispute Resolution, Inc.) Overconfidence and What You Don’t See

(Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates) Opportunity in Crisis When Sound Leadership Performs

(Rebecca Corbin, founder and CEO of Corbin Advisors) Social Media Mobbing and What Drives It

(Rob Henderson, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge) Bias Interrupters and the Good Being Created

(Rachel Korn, research director at the Center for WorkLife Law) Podcast Name Change Comments or Questions

(A Short Conversation: Red Diamonds Newsletter)

“If you don’t look for the elegant solution you won’t find it.”

(Rick Russell, Agree, Inc.)

How often do we stop, pursue and commit to crafting the elegant solution?

Do we even know what it is or looks like?

Let’s talk with someone who would know, as this is a worthy pursuit.

This week’s A Short Conversation is with Rick Russell, a founding partner of Agree Dispute Resolution, Inc., a conflict management practice.

What Russell sees often in strong disagreement is the common propensity for false beliefs.

“We carry about with us several unhelpful paradigms or myths of how the world works,” he says. “One of the most pernicious is ‘life is a zero sum game,’ meaning that every piece of value in your pocket must come out of mine and vice versa.”

This mindset is highly common and equally problematic and Russell shakes his head at how often it is believed as fact.

“Demonstrably not true,” he says, “yet this truism shackles the thoughts of many people when negotiating or problem solving. They do not look for a win-win solution because, based on their ethos or accepted wisdom, this solution cannot exist.”

This type of thinking, belief system and mindset can become entrenched and difficult to question or respectfully challenge, making conflict or crisis increasingly arduous to successfully navigate.

“Another of my favorites is where people insist on thinking in terms of either-or, false dichotomies,” Russell says. “Relatively few situations are, if examined critically, actually either-or. Most situations when studied with an eye and an ear to inquiry will be shown to ‘yes…and..’”

As to why we gravitate so often to either-or, black-or-white decisions to problems or conflicts, Russell infers it’s less challenging to our brains and that leads to it becoming a natural path of least resistance habit.

“Either-or is attractive because it yields up simple questions and encourages people to take sides,” he says. “ ‘Yes-and’ challenges you to recognize one’s own interests as well as those of the other, which may be one’s values too, just at a different priority.”

He points out how often the either-or framing of conflicts happens and where it occurs.

“False dichotomies are used all the time to stir people up and generate controversy. If you want some examples, you can look for these simplistic polarities in the front pages of most newspapers or blogs,” he says.

Russell believes one big step in the right direction for us in our conflicts is the commitment to and practice of the aforementioned ‘yes-and’ thinking, communication and approach to conflict and problem solving.

“If we can retain the discipline to think of the world as ‘yes..and’ it leaves one open to keep looking beyond the simplistic and to appreciate the complexity and nuance where most elegant solutions are to be found.”

Note: an in-depth article will be written on the full interview and published in the coming weeks in the Red Diamonds Newsletter.

“The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you’ll be.” Ray Dalio

Founder, Bridgewater Associates

(Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates)

Intellectual humility is a strength and high character. Arrogance isn’t.

Have you interacted with, or maybe been this person yourself, who is convinced they know what they don’t really know?

Think about what someone is missing, not seeing, not understanding, because they are disinterested or resistant to being receptive to learning.

What could we be missing today because of our overconfidence or arrogance?

We see this happen in business, government, law, medicine, education, entertainment, sports, governance and compliance: not wanting to know what is important or critical to learn.

That’s the close mindedness Dalio is talking about and it’s as preventable as it is foolish.

What steps will we take today and consistently to protect ourselves from becoming close minded and putting our well being and others at risk?

“Leadership rises in crises like these and every management team can build credibility and capture maximum investor mindshare through effective, agile and compassionate execution and clear, transparent communication.” Rebecca Corbin

Founder and CEO

Corbin Advisors

(Rebecca Corbin, founder and CEO of Corbin Advisors)

Writing in IR magazine, Corbin’s advisory article Five tips to maximize earnings impact through strategic communication listed the quote above and it’s an important one to briefly examine.

She’s correct in that leadership is clearly revealed in crisis. It either rises as she writes, and shines brightly or it shows itself as poor to incompetent.

For all the stress and anxiety in crisis, there is opportunity presenting itself. People are paying attention to leadership and that means credibility, trust (and maybe careers) can be further built, reputations strengthened or grown and rewards gained.

Corbin wisely, expertly explains it when she comments “effective, agile and compassionate execution and clear, transparent communication” being the requirements to trust, strong reputation, success and financial well being.

Social media is a powerful communication tool. It is also well used to incite a riot. The cancel culture is real and a powerful swarm of vociferous attackers. What is behind it and what can be learned for prevention, protection and problem solving?

(Rob Henderson, Ph.D. candidate, University of Cambridge)

Rob Henderson, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge, talks about it in this recent piece, What Drives Social Media Mobbing, published in Corporate Compliance Insights.

Understanding is a strength, power and benefit to both plan prevention, risk management and when necessary, respond more successfully.

Did you know there was such a thing as bias interrupters? I confess, I didn’t.

(Rachel Korn, Ph.D., Director of Research on Organization Bias at WorkLife Law)

Yet I have learned much about them and the opportunity being created in the workplace, thanks to Rachel Korn, Ph.D., the Director of Research on Organization Bias at the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

WorkLife Law is a research and advocacy organization “that advances gender and racial equity in the workplace and in higher education,” its website writes.

Opportunity is being created where it has been lacking. Korn talks about it with me in Bias Interrupters Improving Opportunity.

Learn what problems bias interrupters are designed to solve and how challenges are indeed being solved. It might not be how you think.

The Reputation Talk podcast has experienced a name change and will now go by the name the Red Diamonds Podcast: Michael Toebe.

The reasoning being the podcast talks about much more than reputation. It touches on topics of communication, thinking, decision making, resilience, problem solving, psychology, conflict, courage, reputation and crisis.

I hope you will give it a listen sometime as it is often bite sized and even when it runs beyond that, it is still a short-segment podcast.

You are always welcome to comment on it or send in questions.

Michael Toebe is the writer of the Red Diamonds Newsletter and also hosts the Red Diamonds Podcast: Michael Toebe (found on numerous podcast platforms). He is a specialist for reputation, professional relationships communication and wiser, more successful crisis management.

Send comments and questions to Questions4RedDiamonds@gmail.com.

Until next week…