Category: Leadership

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Prepare for Turbulence

Turbulence. Frequent flyers can tell you tales about sudden and unpredictable changes in air pressure and airspeed that caused the aircraft to shake, wobble, or drop unexpectedly. I’ve been on many flights like that. When the turbulence hits, passengers will gasp, yelp, or add other colorful commentary to the situation. I just laugh or cry uncontrollably like I’m on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. 

In December 2022, Southwest Airlines hit serious turbulence. But this time, it wasn’t just in the air. The crisis was at the peak of the holiday travel season and is referred to in the news media as the Southwest Airlines holiday travel meltdown. What had gone wrong? Severe weather had resulted in some of the first flight cancellations. That meant planes, pilots and crews were not where they needed to be. The software systems Southwest used to track all of that was woefully outdated and was unable to respond to the weather disruptions and massive holiday travel load. Flights were getting delayed or canceled due to business process problems, missing aircraft, or missing crew members. It continued to spiral down. Their technology couldn’t handle the fluid turbulence of rapidly deteriorating conditions. Eventually, the carrier was forced to cancel more than 15,000 flights. Passengers and crew members alike were stranded, frustrated and furious.

Turbulence leads to learning. Last week in Las Vegas, Lauren Woods, CIO of Southwest Airlines, took the stage in front of a crowd of technology leaders at the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit. She explained how the meltdown was the result of antiquated systems and processes. They were too slow and never designed to handle this level of change. But navigating turbulence forces you to learn and grow. They streamlined their business processes, insourced their IT and migrated their systems to the cloud, leveraging a serverless multi-regional highly resilient approach to build their new fare search, airline, and crew scheduling systems. They saw a 400% speed improvement over their previous solution. The crew scheduling system was replaced with a new tool with advance algorithms and specific capabilities to manage disaster scenarios and quickly adapt to scheduling turbulence. It could quickly track and optimize flights, planes, and crews. They called this new tool, Crew and Aircraft Integrated Recovery and Optimizer (CAIRO). The result? When recent turbulent moments hit, their system was able to respond quickly, adjust to unexpected conditions and ultimately deliver their passengers and crews to their rightful destinations. Southwest now has the lowest cancelation rate of any airline, thanks to this investment.

Turbulence happens. Are we ready for it? What is going to shake up our cabin and disrupt our businesses? Whatever it is, we need to prepare for it. That means investing time and resources into making our process and systems more reliable, resilient, and ready. Are we ready? Where do we have opportunities for improvement? Let’s talk… before the turbulence hits. It’s time to fasten our seatbelts and prepare for takeoff.

Have a safe flight!

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A Blueprint of Encouragement

The floor creaked when I walked into the foyer. Above me hung an old gas lamp that had been converted to electricity. The spirt of the flames cast warm pools of light on the old wooden floor. I glanced to my right and saw a row of desks and an executive office suite tucked away in the corner. A familiar laugh burst through the door, along with my dad. “Jay-boy!” He exclaimed. Enduring, but slightly embarrassing, especially for an eleven-year-old. His long arms wrapped me in a bear hug way. “Let’s get you set up!” He led me around the staircase, past the kitchen area to a door that plunged down into the basement. It was lit with overhead office florescent fixtures, but the dark walls seem to absorb all the light like a cave. We walked around the corner to a small room with a huge machine that took up the width of the room. 

My dad flipped an electrical switch, and the beast came to life with an intimidating hum. Big hidden fans started quietly whistling and winding up like a jet engine. My dad got busy twisting knobs, adjusting metal shields, and moving across the metal monster like he was playing an instrument. “Here we go!” He twisted a metal valve. What was that? My wonder was soon removed as the answer came to me like a punch in a face. Ammonia! My eyes started watering immediately and I coughed. My dad burst out laughing. “You’ll get used to it! Help me with this.” He directed me to the metal drawer and pulled open a black plastic package. He pulled out a large sheet of paper that had a faint yellow tint all over it. 

“Here, align this drawing on top of the yellow paper.” He instructed as he put a translucent engineering mylar drawing over the top of the paper. “Make sure it is perfectly aligned and then feed it into the light roller here.” I noticed that the machine was starting to glow. It seemed to have a blue tint. I could feel the heat radiating from the clear glass cylinder. I followed my dad’s direction, aligned the sheets, and fed them into the machine. It rolled up and over and appeared in the tray just above the light. 

“Notice how the yellow is gone where there was no line work.” It was true! The light had burned off the yellow. He continued, “Feed the yellow paper into the developer. Keep it tight against the conveyor belt.” We curled the once yellow paper into the top part of the monster. It took its time but finally started feeding out into the top tray. The ammonia round-two hit me again. I’m pretty sure I had tears coming down my face by now, but I couldn’t stop looking! The paper was full of blue lines. “See, that’s the blueprint. That wasn’t too bad, was it?” My dad asked, ignoring my gasping and wincing from the smell. “I need to go back upstairs to make some calls. Run the rest of the prints for me.” He started walking out of the room and glanced back at me. I must have had my mouth open because he burst into his signature laugh. “You can do it! I know you can. I’ll be upstairs if you need help.”

Now it was just me and the ammonia dragon. I shook my head and half-heartedly encouraged myself, “That’s right, you can do it, Jay-boy.” Well, it turned out not to be that difficult. I managed to get all the prints he needed and would subsequently run hundreds, no, thousands of prints on that machine over the years. It was magical every time, or maybe it was just the ammonia.

That metal dragon retired many years ago. That old office house is gone, demolished to make room for a new highway. My dad is gone too. I miss him but will forever remember his trust in me. “You can do it, Jay-boy.” It was fuel to face the ammonia behemoth at the time, but more importantly, it taught me the power of encouragement.

Have you encouraged someone else recently? I need to do more of that. We can all use some encouragement and so can those around us. Take a moment today and think about someone you know, a team member, a loved one, or a friend. Encourage them. I know you can do it, and hopefully you can do it without ammonia. 

Have a great week!

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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky.”

Where I grew up, elementary school was grades 1 through 6 and when you graduated from 6th grade, you were promoted to Junior High school. For the first time in your educational career, you were introduced to the responsibility of managing your class schedules, electives, and hallway lockers. Do you recall those days? At thirteen years of age, uncoordinated, unpopular, timid, and slightly attention challenged, it was often a recipe for disaster for me. But I somehow managed. I even signed up for my electives. I picked journalism because they got to use a computer, but beyond that, I had no idea what to pick. I rolled the dice and signed up for band. 

I decided to try the trumpet as my instrument. As with every member, we were given special attention by the instructor. We began practicing on day one and it was a sonic disaster. Squawks, buzzes, squeaks, and raspy rattles were heard across the auditorium. I questioned my decision more than once but kept practicing along with my peers. With our instructors help, we finally began to learn proper posture, embouchure, breathing and finger placement. Like some sort of miracle, after a while, real notes started to appear. We were no way close to competing with Louis Armstrong, but we could really blast “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” like nobody’s business. 

I recall how we all thought we had move up into the major leagues when we hit almost every note and occasionally even had the timing right. Some notes were extra special. They require a bit more skill to hit so when you finally did, you liked to hold it a bit longer, perhaps too long. With a help of a metronome, we eventually moved past the “finally got it so hold it” tendency. The trumpet concerto finally had those stars twinkling. 

The band teacher assembled everyone together. We had been practicing and performing separately but now it was time to play together. Our trumpet section joined the flutes, clarinets, trombones, saxophones, and percussion. The entire band came together and was ready to perform.

Have you ever been in a car accident? There is a weird feeling where all control is pulled away from you and the world boils in chaos all around you. Well, that is how it was when we first started playing together. It was awful! We were all blindly playing through the notes on the sheet music in front of us, unaware of being out of sync and out of tune with everyone else. 

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” the instructor tried to wrangle the stampede. “Let’s start slow. Hold each note until I tell you to move on. Watch me!” The conductor raised his baton, and, on the downstroke, the room erupted in the “Mary” note. It started rough but as we held it, something amazing happened. We finally heard each other for the first time. It was actually quite remarkable. The instructor smiled. Seeing us each awaken to this new connection he moved on to the next stroke, “had”, then “a” and the double beat “little.” When we finally reached “go” there was a bit of awe in the room, and we were even a bit emotional. We had done it! It was no Concerto Magnifico, but it had unlocked a key lesson in life. Paying attention and listening to each other would allow us to make beautiful music together. 

We all have a part to play. We carry different instruments in life. We each have unique abilities, talents, passions, and perspective. Something incredible happens when we come together, listen to each other, and focus on a common outcome. Our individual notes become a chorus, resonating, and amplifying each other into something that we could never achieve on our own. Individually, we are all amazing wonders, but together, we are magnificent, like a diamond in the sky!

Play your notes with all your heart! But listen. Connect. Feel the majesty of what we can be together. Let’s keep playing!

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Wind the Clock

TransAsia Airways Flight 235 had just departed from Taipei Songshan Airport in Taiwan on its way to Kinmen Airport in China. Moments after takeoff, an alarm sent a wave of panic through the cockpit. Engine number-2 had failed. At only 1,630 feet, there was very little room to act. Panic mode hit the crew. In a rush to react to the crisis, the pilot made a fatal mistake. Instead of adjusting the controls to remedy the failed number-2 engine, he accidently reduced power and subsequently shut down the operative engine number-1. Stall warnings filled the cockpit. He was unaware of his mistake and continue to try to regain control. But the loss of power from both engines was unrecoverable. The aircraft rolled and barely missed hitting an apartment building but struck a taxicab with the tip of its wing. The outboard section of the wing was torn off when it struck a concrete guardrail. It continued its roll and eventually struck the water upside down, breaking into two main pieces. Sadly, most of the passengers and crew would be lost. 

“In an emergency situation, first, wind the clock.” James Tatum, an SRE leader on my team, pointed me to this sage advice used in military flight training. While a lot of the controls are now digital, it used to be the case that that in the array of displays, switches and buttons, there would be a manual clock timer in the cockpit. As the pilot was trained through many emergency situations, they were given the advice to “wind the clock.” It didn’t do anything or remedy the problem. Instead, it was to fix the pilot so they could fix the problem. The idea was to say, take a moment. Pause. Relax. Gain situational awareness and formulate a plan before acting. If the crew of Flight 235 had followed that advice, there is a possibility that they would have avoided the fatal error and could have recovered the situation, saving the lives of their passengers and fellow crew members.

Emergency! Panic! Our world is full of that. We are all going to face emergencies, crisis situations and crucial moments where our decisions must be immediate and correct.

As SREs on-call, my team is intimately familiar with demands of the job to restore services, react quickly to incidents and remedy failures. How do we react to alarms? When the call comes in, the pager siren rings or the dashboard goes red, what do we do? Before acting rashly, pause for a moment. Assess the situation. What is really broken? What is the best course of action? Proceed with thoughtful and calm determination.

Life is going to throw problems at you. You will need to react, and your actions will matter. But before you do… wind the clock.

Dashboard cam footage clips of Flight 235 hitting a taxicab and crashing in the water.
Clips from Dashboard Cam that captures the crash of Flight 235 – https://x.com/AirlineReporter/status/562823846290808835
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The Blue Screen of Summer

This weekend I heard, “This week has been the longest year ever!” I think we can all appreciate that sentiment!

First, thank you all for your tireless efforts to help mitigate the impacts of the global CrowdStrike related Microsoft system outages last week. As technology first responders, many of you were on the case, triaging the incident and looking for cures, even before many of us were even aware. I saw my teams swarm the incidents, creatively look for mitigation steps, and support each other to ensure we had the fastest path to resolution. I know many of you were on till wee hours of the morning getting our highest priority systems running and some are still working other impacts, even today. Thank you!

Second, in addition to globally impacting events and news that hit this week, we are starting to see an uptick in COVID cases and other illnesses. If that includes you, please take the time to rest and recover! For all of us, this is a good reminder that we should take care of ourselves. Make sure to prioritize your health and well-being.

The dog days of summer are upon us! What are you doing about it? My family and I have been taking walks around our neighborhood just after dusk, just when the heat of the day has lifted, and the cool night sky starts to appear. It is so refreshing and renewing. I encourage all of you to find something like that to do each day. It can be so helpful to ground you and recharge your spirit. Of course, make sure you are getting enough sleep, plenty of water and eating well. The stress of life and the heat of the season can wear on you, often with little or no warning.

I have a challenge for you. Stand up and stretch. Take a breath and if you can, grab a cool glass of water and gaze outside. Notice the summer glistening sun and those tiny details painted across the terrain. Exhale. You are part of this summer celebration. Appreciate this moment, the refreshing pause and connection with all creation in all the seasons. Take another deep breath, taste the life-giving oxygen, and savor the prospect of our glorious future.

We are here to make a difference. Take care of yourself and each other!

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Wiring for Outcomes

“Come back in half an hour,” the host at Brix Italian Restaurant in Belleville, New Jersey, said with a sympathetic smile. The catering order for the wedding rehearsal dinner for about 100 people was not quite ready. When I had been sent to pick it up, what I didn’t know was that the restaurant was waiting to make a call back or see a “real person” show up for the order before starting on the final preparation. My daughter and I fancied a trip to Starbucks while we waited. I know, those of you who know me, are shocked to hear that. When we returned, tins full of food and utensils were waiting for us. We packed up the food and delivered it to the dining hall just in time to discover that there was an error with the order. Several, actually. My brother-in-law started on a list of “Oh no! Where is this?” questions. Critical items were missing, demanding a journey back to Brix. Arriving back at the restaurant, I learned that there had been several miscommunications between the person ordering and the host. Both sides misunderstood things. A few calls and transactions later, and another trip to Starbucks (of course), and we were ready for final delivery back to the venue. Urgent text and calls were coming in. We were late. We carried in the last dishes as the first guests started to arrive. It worked out, eventually.

Two weeks ago, my family and I made a trip to New Jersey to attend my niece’s wedding. My wife had helped her sister plan the event. As you can see from the story above, I had the audacious task of being the gopher, picking up supplies and orders. I wasn’t involved in the planning or decisions; I was just following orders. I didn’t mind. I got to spend time with my kids, even if it was just doing errands around the city. And yes, on many occasions it involved a coffee stop. But during this whole experience, I couldn’t help but see the inefficiencies and problems with this system. I was getting instructions to do things without any context as to why. Blindly following orders often means information gaps, inefficiencies, and lower quality, suboptimal outcomes. I saw that play out a dozen times. 

Information is gold, but if you don’t have access to it, it is no different than any other rock in the mine. Empowering the person doing the work with the information they need to do the work is critical. For example, if I had understood the dietary plans for the rehearsal dinner or had been given insight into the rest of the menu, I would have been able to make decisions and double check the order before even leaving the restaurant. We were not operating as a team, but as siloed functions. The same thing happens in organizations. We often create towers of expertise and create transactional methods between those groups to get the work done. But sadly, there is often catastrophic context loss between those silos that results in a lack of clarity, misunderstandings, and errors. Tickets bounce back and forth between groups like ping pong balls. Multiple meetings are scheduled to close the gaps. Deliveries are delayed. Estimates are breached. Service is reduced. Teams are frustrated and outcomes are barely adequate. Sound familiar?

I’m a big proponent of aligning full-stack teams around outcomes. Enable low latency collaboration through proximity. Embed expertise close to the problem and enrich those team members with the greater context. In my example, if I had been embedded in the planning team, I would have understood the nuances needed to ensure alignment with the goals. When supply issues at the restaurant resulted in the need to pivot away from the written requirements, I could have easily and quickly made the changes that would have aligned with the menu goals because I was part of those plans. The same applies to our engineering teams. Don’t just understand the tasks in the user story you pull off the backlog, understand the why. When the technical or demand landscape changes, the engineer is empowered to apply problem solving skills that are relevant and contribute to the final outcome. By being embedded in the product team, each team member, regardless of their functional expertise, understands the goals, the common purposes, and each is able to quickly adapt and solve for unexpected complexities and changes. Gene Kim and Dr. Steven Spear call this “wiring for a winning organization.”

“Part of wiring an organization to win is to ensure that leaders at all levels are able to create conditions in which people can give the fullest expression to their problem-solving potential, both individually and through collective action toward a common purpose.” 
- Gene Kim and Steven J. Spear, Wiring the Winning Organization

I’m a big fan of embedding engineers into business and product teams. It promotes proximity powered empathy engineering, unlocking information flow and enabling all the engineers and the rest of the product team to move fast. With context powered agility, team members can react to complex and problematic occurrences with elegance and innovation. I’m also fully aware that we all still have work to do. There are gaps we can close and other things we can do to make things better. If you find yourself driving around New Jersey blindly delivering wrong things at the wrong time, I can relate. Let’s collaborate! Let’s rewire and make it better. Oh, and of course, let’s stop by Starbucks on the way.

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Be a Leader

What is leadership? It must be important. Everyone’s looking for it. We have a never-ending supply of books, articles, and conferences on the subject. But is there a simple answer? I confess, I don’t have one. I won’t pretend to be the expert in leadership, but I am a student of it, and it is amazing what you learn on your trips around the sun. I think we sometimes equate leadership to popularity or fame. The loudest voice may be identified as a leader, but is it, really? Some say leadership is in your DNA. You are born with it. Some say, it is thrust upon you by your circumstances or perhaps your training. I don’t dismiss that, but I also think it is bigger and broader than that.

I believe anyone can be a leader. Leadership is not about rank or a journey to the top. It’s not about power. It’s not about entitlement, position, or authority. No, instead, leadership is about caring for others. It is about stewardship, it is about nurturing, supporting, and shepherding the world’s greatest treasure: human beings. Our family. People. The most important thing on planet earth.

While people are brilliant, creative, and passionate, we are also complex and messy. We make mistakes. We trip, we stumble, we sometimes lose hope. We need humble leaders to inspire, encourage, and coach us. They help us see beyond ourselves. They help us look over the horizon and face the unknown. They nudge, empower, care for, and benefit us more than themselves. We model them, respect them, trust them, and follow them. They are true guides, true servants, and true leaders. The world needs more leaders. 

Now it’s your turn. Be a leader. I believe in everyone is a spark, an empathetic guide inside seeking to emerge and help our fellow travelers along the way. Let it out. Look for souls that need help. Dream into their lives as much as your own. Take them to the places they always wanted to go, but never had the ambition to try. Challenge them. Care for them. Encourage them. Be a leader.

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Four Keys to Happiness

It is undeniable. Some people aren’t happy. In fact, I have heard that 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy. Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself. 

All joking aside, are you happy? Do you feel content, satisfied, joyful and serene? Look, I get it. There are times we aren’t happy. Happiness is a complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses many psychological, emotional, spiritual, and social factors. It is a complex gradient that varies over time. That intricacy means it can be as hard to predict as weather in the Midwest and often, even more difficult to change. But don’t lose hope, it can be changed!

I’m not an expert on this subject, but I am a perpetual practitioner of happiness. I can’t help it. There is so much good to experience. Life is an incredible gift. It is packed with so many things to savor and enjoy. Every season of life opens a new chapter of surprises. These are meant to be enjoyed, not just survived. In my experience and studies, I have run across several keys to happiness. Here are four that I’m thinking about this week:

  • Hope – Something amazing is coming! I’m convinced that practicing optimism, focusing on positive aspects of our current and coming situations will help breathe life into those future realities. There is something magical and even transforming about faith. It changes us and begins to radiate out from us to others. It can even change the world. Be hopeful. Be optimistic.
  • Gratitude – There are few things in life that will provide an immediate return on investment. Thankfulness is one of them. With all your heart, express sincere gratitude to someone else, and watch what happens. You will feel it. Your brain will release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, propelling you towards feelings of happiness and well-being. Wired into us is the need to be thankful. We are optimized for gratitude, yet we often fail to express it. Please, if you are reading this, stop right now and find someone you can appreciate. Express your gratitude. Notice how that changes things. And if you did that, thank you. And I mean that, with all my heart.
  • Engagement – Setting goals and pursuing activities that align with your values, interests, and talents will unlock overall well-being and happiness. You have a purpose. Your life will make an impact. Every human life is immensely valuable and precious. You are holding yours in your hands. What will you do with it? One of life’s greatest joys is being who you were made to be. You are unique and you are needed. You were made to be the part you play in this grand composition of the universe. Play your role and engage in the activities made for you, the hard work and fun work, with all your heart and mind. Are you engaged? If not, let’s talk!
  • Focus – Practice mindfulness. Be present and absorbed in the current moment. Each day is full of everlasting moments. Like Easter eggs, they are hidden all around us. We can walk right by them and miss some of life’s greatest joys. Pause, stoop down and pick up each moment. Focus on it, examine it, and savor it. Isn’t it wonderful? Let the detail and intricacy wash over you. Meditate on this moment and practice all the above. Be optimistic, thankful, and engaged. Don’t let this moment pass you by.

Happiness is a gradual, ongoing process. Setbacks will come. Don’t give up. Plant the seeds of hope, gratitude, engagement, and focus. The harvest of happiness will come soon enough.

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Clutter

Office with clutter and bookshelves full of books.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I confess, I’m a hoarder. I have boxes full of junk that haven’t been visited in over 10 years. There are ancient RCA, S-Video, Coaxial, and even Apple 30-pin iPhone 4 cables, just in case I ever need them again. I have broken electronics and computer parts for the same reason. My nostalgic tendency means I also collect piles of mementos from trips, photos, and even birthday cards. I love physical books and have shelves packed full of them. My digital life is just as bad. In fact, I don’t think I have ever really deleted an app. I collect them like souvenirs. Are any of you like that too?

Clutter. I’m sitting at my desk today in awe of the piles of things around me. Books, magazines, post-it notes, half-completed forms, empty boxes, and some left-over décor from the holidays. I was about to comment on the several coffee mugs sitting on the desk, but that isn’t clutter, that is essential equipment for survival. But still, so much clutter.

My mind is full too. I have to-do lists, incomplete thoughts, spurious worries about implausible events, un-actionable regrets, doubts, and a collection of unhelpful grudges in the corner. My mind is full. Time to relive that embarrassing moment? Worry about something? Think about something you can’t take any action on right now? You might have forgotten it or left something behind, time to worry about it. My mind keeps sorting the useless junk, going back and forth, wondering if it can collect more. It’s like trains of thoughts going in circles. Stop! 

The mental clutter is a bit noisy at times, isn’t it? It can be overwhelming. Do you ever have that? If so, it’s time to clean house. Yes, it’s time for some Marie Kondo magic of tidying up. Go through the clutter… Start with what is around you. What can be tossed. What needs to be kept? Start with what is in reach in front of you. As the haze clears, expand to the office area or room you are in. Be careful, it may get away from you! Don’t try to do it all. After all, we still need to visit the most important place of all. The mind palace. Those trains in your mind that are doing circles around each other, tell them to stop. Look around. Can you do anything about that thought? If not, cast it aside. Wrap up those worries, regrets, and grudges. Pack them in tight, thank them for their better days and ship them off to the garbage. Sweep out the useless fears and self-doubt. Is it getting better? 

Distill, reduce, minimize, and simplify. Clutter happens. In fact, it seems to collect around us like dust with little or no effort. It takes energy to remove it, but happiness awaits! I encourage you to join me in spending a few minutes this week purging the clutter, taming the thoughts, and sweeping out the mess that saps our energy. Find that clarity. Enjoy it and appreciate it! Oh, and set a reminder to do this again next week.

Have a great week!

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Turn up the Temperature of your Thinking!

How to Approach Problems with a Creative Twist

The kitchen sink wasn’t draining. The Super Bowl was about to start, and a pile of dishes and pre-game food prep was queued up on the counter. “Well, this is great,” I said to myself. I could hear SpongeBob commenting about the pre-game show. Yes, that’s right, we tuned in to Nickelodeon, as all sports enthusiasts would do.

Several years ago, I bought a drain cleaning machine to help clear roots out of our side yard area drain. It’s one of those drum type with a motor and a 75’ auger cable. It has paid for itself ten times over for things like this. I went to the garage and wheeled it to the super small clean out drain opening. I fed the cable into the drain and watched the sink start to slowly drain. As I have done in the past, I added a garden hose to increase the water pressure and ensure the line was clear. The sink was draining. The crisis was over. Well, or so I thought. As I began to pull the cable back out, something happened. It locked up. I tried pushing it back in, but it wouldn’t budge. I wanted to get a look, so I needed to pull the water hose out to see. Oh no! It was stuck too! I pushed, pulled, and even switched the auger direction. Nothing. Then it happened, water started backing up too and was spraying all over me. I felt like I was in one of those cartoon sitcoms where everything goes wrong. I started imagining if I just cut the hose if that would help, but then that would likely permanently clog the drain. I sat there on the back patio, staring at the problem, covered in drain goo.

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are complex systems that use artificial intelligence to predict answers based on context. You provide a statement or question prompt, and it will attempt to answer it. It is like an elaborate function call. The input is the prompt. To derive the output, the model feeds the input into its neural net. The network produces a set of possibilities as to the “next word” (token). Some of those next word options can be equal or similar in probability. It randomly picks one of them. A model parameter that you can use to influence that randomness is called “temperature”. The higher the temperature, the more diverse and unpredictable the output. Using 0.7, as is the default for ChatGPT, provides the model with some creative freedom (including some hallucination). A setting of 0.0 will create nearly identical responses. Turning it up to 0.9 or even as high as 2.0 will produce pure creative output, possibly with little technical relevance.

I’m not a large language model, and even my intelligence may be suspect. At least that is what I was thinking, sitting there in the pile of goo. But maybe I just need to turn up the “temperature” on my thinking. I stopped for a minute and thought about those math problems that you just couldn’t solve. After 5 pages in, you were still unable to reach the conclusion. You were stuck. The only way to proceed was to reframe the problem itself. Start over. Pick a more improbable path and see where it takes you. That’s what I needed to do. I looked at my “stuck drain” problem and decided to turn it over. Literally. I twisted the hose and the cable together. Pop! I heard the cable unwind deep in the wall. It was unstuck and began draining again. And all in time to see the Super Bowl kickoff at Bikini Bottom. I mean, that is, after a shower.

Do you ever get stuck? Does that frustrating problem seem to have no solution? Well, turn up the “temperature” of your thinking! Reframe the problem and approach it from a completely new angle. Explore the less probable path and see if it unwinds the knot and sets the problem free.