Judgmental

Twenty-Five years ago, our oldest daughter, Page, was born in Dallas!  The next day my wife and I “decided” to move to San Francisco.  The area’s beauty was breath-taking, but I had a lot to learn.  The first items were the cost of living and the dinner party topics regarding the internet and Stanford.  The other major item I needed to address was my judgmental opinions of people who had a different opinion.  It wasn’t long before I met Armistead Maupin.  He cured my shallow opinion on gay people because of his heart, intellect  and our common Southern roots.  Recently our country fears the outbreak of COVID-19.  Our advice is to seek the advice of a knowledgeable Dr. instead of social media self-proclaimed experts.   Our blog this week is about how we can address our judgmental opinions to personally and professional grow.  I’ll begin with an inspirational TED Talk with the disclaimer that I’m not Black and I’m not gay.  Neither are a valid excuse to not expand our personal or professional scope.

Horowitz Experience

Andreeson Horowitz is one of the most successful VC firms in the world.  The performance of their investments is a huge contributor, but they are not judgmental when hiring professionals.  While many of you won’t have the time to read Ben’s new book What You Do Is Who You Are his book tour and podcast with Brian Koppelman is a good alternative.  As Ben references in the book and in his podcast Andreeson Horowitz has a diverse workforce without imposing any quotas.  They are NOT judgmental.  

Beware Quotas

My corporate job established diversity quotas that drove my bonus.  I blindly followed them because I wanted to get paid.  The unintended consequences were not on my W-2.  They were the water cooler discussions about why someone who didn’t fit the corporate mold was hired.  Sounds like a judgment to me.

Matrix Games

If our military leaders were judgmental, we would have lost World War II.  The back story about how we discovered a way to sink German U-boats is chronicled in the new book A Gameof Birds and Wolves.  The group that discovered the strategy was a group of women!  During WW II women were second class citizens.  If our leaders had embraced that opinion, we wouldn’t have sunk any U-boats and our biases  would have had dire consequences. 

I fear new relationships and COVID-19.  Don’t judge others and don’t think the virus is a Media Hoax.  Please wash your hands and stop rubbing your face to prevent COVID-19 and get to know others that don’t look like you so you won’t be as judgmental as I was.