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Every weekday morning, across the country, parents fall into the same routine. A line of SUVs and minivans snakes around the school. Engines idle as mothers and fathers inch forward, phones in one hand, coffee in the other. Kids sit in the back seat scrolling on their own phones, waiting for their turn to be unloaded by a staff member in a reflective vest. One by one, the doors open, backpacks are lifted, and the vehicle pulls away. The factory-like process is orderly, efficient, and utterly dehumanizing. The school drop-off ritual is a powerful curriculum, teaching kids that they are packages to be delivered and picked up, and that they require constant adult supervision. In 1969, about 48% of children walked or biked to school. By 2009, that number had dropped to just 13%, according to Walk, Bike & Roll to School statistics. Today, the figure hovers around 11%, largely unchanged for a decade, per Rutgers University. Even among children who live within a mile of school, walking or biking has fallen from nearly 90% in 1969 to just 35% in 2009. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Whats going on? The shift didnt happen because children stopped being born with legs or because they stopped wanting independence. Schools were moved to the edges of town, often on cheap land surrounded by parking lots and wide arterial roads. Roads were engineered to maximize long-distance automobile throughput and minimize short-distance walking and cycling. Parents were persuaded that it was unsafe to let kids walk or bike, even though most child fatalities happen while they are passengers in vehicles. Logistics management Line up, inch forward, unload. It looks like logistics management because it is logistics management. We have turned the beginning of a school day into a miniature supply-chain operation. This logistical worldview carries profound consequences. Physical health: Walking and biking to school once provided children with reliable daily exercise. Today, U.S. teenagers walk about 5 miles less per week than teens did in the 1990s, The Wall Street Journal reports, and rates of childhood obesity have tripled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mental health: Independent mobility builds confidence. A child who can walk to school learns to navigate space, manage risk, and take pride in independence. A child chauffeured twice a day learns dependence, passivity, and helplessness. Safety paradox: Parents believe driving is a safe way to get around, but an average of three children are killed and another 445 injured every day in traffic crashes, National Highway Transportation Administration’s traffic safety data shows. Packages dont talk back, dont take detours, dont linger to climb a tree, don’t stop to pet a dog, and don’t notice the smell of honeysuckle on the way to class. Car dependency trains kids to be passive and dependent cogs in a machine. The irony is that the very efficiency parents cravefaster lines and predictable behaviorincreases congestion, frustration, and risk to everyone on the roads. The alternatives We dont need a time machine in order to reintroduce childhood independence to our culture: Walking school buses are groups of kids who walk together, accompanied by one or two adults. This approach offers safety in numbers while teaching kids independence. Bike buses or bike trains do the same with cycling, helping to normalize two-wheeled commutes for kids. School siting reform could reanchor school construction back in neighborhoods, instead of exiling buildings to distant parcels accessible only by car. The morning line is more than a nuisance; its a ritual of indoctrination. Every inch forward in that queue trains children to see themselves as cargo, delivered by others, rather than as capable individuals navigating their world. But if we flip the script, if we give kids back some autonomy, the benefits ripple outward. Parents reclaim sanity. Communities reclaim healthier, calmer streets. And children reclaim one important thing the car line strips away: freedom. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Who discovered the lightbulb? If you answered “Thomas Edison,” you’re not aloneand you’re also not quite right. Despite conventional wisdom that associates great inventions with lone geniuses, breakthrough inventions are team efforts. Incandescent light bulbs existed before Edison was born. His patent built on prior versions of the light bulb, aiming to make it practical and affordable. Even then, it wasnt a solo achievementEdison collaborated with a team of skilled collaborators, known as the Muckers, whose contributions have largely faded from memory. Yet it was Edisons name on the patent, and thats the version of history that stuck. Were suckers for lone genius narratives like Edisonsthe brilliant scientist, the fearless military general, or the savvy CEO. The version of history we glean from popular books, movies, and the internet attributes greatness to single individuals. But individual greatness is rarely the whole story. Research shows that teams are the main creators of new knowledge across most industries. New ideas dont emerge fully formed from the mind of a single personit takes collaboration and teamwork to develop them to their full potential. In reality, the engine behind sustained successwhether in science, business, or governmentisnt a singular mind. Its a well-designed team. The illusion of individual success We tend to over-attribute both success and failure to individuals. Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error: we explain peoples behavior by their traits, rather than their context. If a product flops, we blame the CEO. If a startup takes off, the founder is a genius. We rarely ask about the teams that surround them. It gets worse. Even inside groups, people regularly overestimate their own contributions to collective endeavors. In one study, researchers asked each team member to estimate what percent of the groups success they were responsible for. The total? A whopping 235%. Thats a lot more than 100%! Our individualistic tendencies lead us to build groups and organizations around the wrong assumptions. If you believe success comes from star individuals, you hire stars and hope for fireworks. But for complex problemsand most of our work now is complexit takes more knowledge and skill than any individual has to solve it. Thats why we need to put the conditions in place for individuals to combine and build on what each alone can bring. What good teams do differently In my research, Ive found that high-performing teams arent built through charisma, happy accidents, or trust falls. Theyre designed for success. There are four key elements of group structure that maximize your chances of creativity: Composition: Many teams are composed haphazardly, based on whos available and office politics. But the best teams are small (i.e., three to seven members) and have a task-appropriate, diverse mix of knowledge and skills. Goals: Its hard to achieve a common goal when members have different ideas about where theyre headed. Thats why clear, measurable, vivid goals are a critical antecedent for building teams that can outperform individuals. For instance, innovation at NASA spiked when John F. Kennedy swapped the vague goal of, advance science by exploring the solar system, to the vivid goal to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Task design: Teams can bring ideas to life when they have well-designed tasks that require a variety of skills, give members autonomy over how to conduct their work, and allow members to see progress toward their goals. For creative work, poorly designed tasks are repetitive and control the process, like a manufacturing assembly line. Well-designed tasks give teams whole pieces of work and the freedom to explore, such as the design firm IDEOs effort to redesign the shopping cart to better fit the needs of users. Norms: Too often, groups are places where members fall into bad habits. In many organizations, workers are used to sitting passively in meetings. They worry that experimentation and suggesting new ideas will be scornedor even punished. But the most innovative teams actively fight these norms. Leaders actively encourage members to share their ideas, experiment, and learn from one another. And the battle against norms toward conformity and the status quo never ends. IDEO, for instance, plasters reminders of these norms on the walls of their buildingsthings like defer judgement, encourage wild ideas, and build on the ideas of others. The real edge We live in an era that celebrates ideas: TED Talks, startup pitches, visionary founders. But ideas dont execute themselves. And many great ideas die in bad teams. The reverse is also true: A good team can turn a mediocre idea into something extraordinary. Not because theyre smarter, but because theyre structured to think together better. The great innovations and businesses of today were never built by a solitary lone genius. For all the credit Steve Jobs gets, he couldnt have built Apple and its collaborative innovation engine without the help of his cofounders and teammates. As you dig deeper into stories of great innovations, you almost always find a great team just under the surface. The next time youre tempted to credit a lone genius, remember the people behind the curtain. The collaborators, the editors, the dissenters: the ones who made the idea betteror made it real. Good ideas matter. But good teams matter more.
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E-Commerce
Getting dressed for work takes some effort. You have to buy the right clothes, choose what you want to wear each day, and think about how the way you dress affects the way people see you. Some people like to use their clothes as a way to call attention to themselves, while others are not interested in having their clothes make a statement. While there are always some special occasions at work when you want to think carefully about what you wear that day, there are probably many days when you would like to be able to get up and choose an outfit quickly, because there are more important things you have to do in the morning before you head out the door for another day. For that reason, it is helpful to develop a uniform for yourself. That is, a simple look that allows you to make at most a small number of choices that allow you to get dressed and ready. Of course, your uniform need not be an identical set of outfits the way Steve Jobs adopted a black turtleneck and jeans (famously copied by Elizabeth Holmes). Here are a few considerations as you develop that uniform. Stand out or blend in In any environment, there is a certain amount of similarity in the way people around you dress. Those patterns of style set expectations about what people with different roles within your organization typically wear and how that is affected by other factors like gender. Your choice of uniform affects whether other people are likely to notice your clothes. The more that you dress similarly to others, the less that your appearance is going to be a factor that makes you leap out of the environment to others. To the extent that you select clothes that display a more individual style, you are inviting others to notice you because of what youre wearing. You should decide whether youre comfortable with the impact of the decision you make. When you wear something that you feel will call attention to itself, that can influence how you feel when walking the hallways, going to a meeting, or even sitting in a public area having lunch. If you dont like that sort of attention, then a unique outfit is likely to make you uncomfortable. If you dont mind the occasional smile from coworkers or comments about your clothes, then a more individual style can be a welcome point of conversation. Of course, you do want to be aware of the difference between friendly conversations about how youre dressed and comments that veer toward harassment. Talk to a supervisor or your HR rep if you get comments that make you uncomfortable. Everyone should have the chance to display their individual style without fear of unwanted advances. Dress up or dress down One of the dimensions of difference across people in a particular role is whether they tend to dress more formally or more casually relative to their peers. Casual dress tends to lean toward outfits that are more strongly associated with leisure rather than work. More formal dress is often associated with people higher up in the work hierarchy. Casual dress evokes a less serious attitude about work. That doesnt mean that people who dress casually work less hard. But, they are dressing in a way that creates the impression that work is not a strong driving force in their lives. As a result, casual dress is often easier for people to get away with when they have more power within the organization. That power enables them to overcome the initial impression conveyed by their outfit. When you have relatively less power (or are trying to make a positive impression about your workplace attitude), then dressing more formally than is required is an easy way to leave an initial impression of your dedication to the work you do. When in doubt, find a guide Choosing a work uniform (particularly if youre new to an organization or a role) can create some stress. Before investing in your clothes, take a look at other people around you. In particular, notice the ones whose sense of style you admire. What is it about the way that they are dressing that leads them to look comfortable in their surroundings? You need not copy the people whose uniforms you admire. Instead, you want to learn from them. Think about how those people are conveying something about themselves through their work attire. Then, think about what you would like to say about yourself. If youre like most people, you may be able to answer the question of what you want your clothes to say about you, but you may have more trouble figuring out how to get your clothing to say it. Thats where you should seek help. If youre very lucky, you have a friend who knows a lot about clothing who can take you shopping to help you develop your uniform. If not, find a clothing store with a well-trained sales staff. Talk to the staff about how you want your clothes to make you feel and what you want to communicate to others by your look. Let them help you pick out a couple of combinations that will convey that message. Of course, the stores that have great staff are often (somewhat) pricy. If youre shopping on a limited wallet, then pick one or two outfits from that store as a baseline for the rest of your work uniform. Use what you learned to pick similar things at a store that fits your budget. Also, remember that your ideas about the ideal uniform will change over the years. That is going to reflect a variety of factors including your growing confidence in yourself over the course of your career, changes in your role within an organization, and changes in the amount of money you feel like spending on clothes at different points in your life. As a result, you may go through this exercise periodically to reset your look.
Category:
E-Commerce
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