What if... stay with me here... we married standards with effectiveness?

A brief thread... (1/n)

Hair standards for women have been awful. Just ask @gilltheamazon or @evo_kositz or @Accidental_E9 or like any woman in uniform. (/2)
But women’s hair isn’t the only generally arbitrary appearance standards.

A worthwhile natural experiment can be tattoo standards. (/3)
In the short time I’ve been in service, tattoo were:
-not allowed if exposed in Class B
-universally waived to include neck and hand tattoos
-allowed but photographed (all not just gang/racially suspect)
-acceptable for enlistees but not officer candidates (/4)
Did the Army’s effectiveness drop when tattoo standards were relaxed?
Did we become more effective when they were tightened?

The easy answer is no. Arbitrary standards are, wait for it, arbitrary.
(/5)
The silliest example I saw? A high performing paralegal NCO had to delay her start at WOCS so she could get a quarter inch star tattoo laser-removed from behind her ear.

This begs the question, what impact did that have on the Army’s mission or her performance? (/6)
But there are standards for a reason, so where there are standards, let’s articulate the reason.

So like beards. While this famous Norwegian officer can rock a beard (and ponytail), there is an articulated reason as to why American Soldiers cannot sport a beard (/7)

More from Life

1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.

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