The war in Israel and our wellbeing

As you probably know, I live in Israel. If you do not live under a rock, you probably also know about the war in my country. I wanted to share some insights regarding resilience, productivity, and leadership.

Normalization of “crazy”

People often ask me to “stay safe”. I do not fully know what it means. We are careful, and we have a dedicated space protected by 10 inches of concrete, and 40 seconds to get there each time there is a missing alarm. There are approximately 4 missile alarms per day.

We are fine. As you probably understand the situation is crazy. On October 7th is our wedding anniversary. I woke up at 6 a.m. to drink coffee and prepare a romantic breakfast. My coffee was interrupted by events echoing my nightmares inspired by old footage of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. For two days I could not work and felt almost glued in front of the TV.

Now if there is a day with a missile attack I feel comfortably … alive. Call it “normalization” or “homeostasis”, but after 9 days of missile attacks, dreadful news,  and horrible images on social media, I am more concentrated on my work than anything else.

Misophonia and productivity

Our focus is a sensitive mechanism. If there is a noise that we must filter, our productivity drops. A person with misophonia cannot work when someone in his cubicle is eating. When there is a war and a constant threat of a missile alarm it is hard to stay productive.

The drop in productivity dealing with not urgent projects in a highly stressful environment is well known. Putting a headphone with ambient noise and doing breathing exercises can work, but it makes it much harder to react when an alarm appears.

I honestly do not know a perfect remedy here. Simply doing less complex stuff helps. My boss relocated to Bulgaria with kids before the air companies canceled their flights. This is smart…

Tunnel vision

Some are dealing with grief, and feeling angry. Others leverage the emergency and act 100% of their time, instead of dealing with their emotions. This hyperfocus is very productive but also very dangerous. A person with so-called “tunnel vision” loses situational awareness. Military leaders and rescue personnel are trained to be mindful of tunnel vision and force themselves to “zoom out” occasionally.

Not being situationally aware initially feels like a small price to pay for superior productivity. It is a huge risk though. We are likely to make mistakes, miss perfectly good opportunities, and eventually generate an impassable mess.

The cost of mistakes can be higher than the cost of not acting. One of the best remedies is switching perspective, possibly zooming out or consulting the future self. Doing this successfully requires training and experience.

Binary fallacy

Experience plays a huge role in reasonable decision-making. Young people between the ages of 19-26 are scientifically very likely to be more sensitive to propaganda and all-or-nothing decisions. Live is not binary. There are many alternatives, and we learn to navigate between all shades of gray. Taking a resolute all-or-nothing stand introduces very high risks that could be avoided, for example by devising a creative approach, or by consulting others.

When we are stressed we are more likely to apply binary thinking. Us vs enemy, safety or death, and so on… This thinking is common during sports games and political events, and it is dominant during wars.

Anyone with creativity training easily understands the solutions. “What if” game, considering alternatives and perspectives, trying to apply systematic inventive thinking, looking for out-of-the-box solutions. Any creative approach is likely to work. We are less likely to be creative when under stress, especially when our loved ones are threatened.

The main idea is recalling the training. When we learn to do certain things and make decisions in air-conditioned rooms we generally are wiser than under fire. If we were trained to do something, then under stress we should do exactly that.

Patience

It would be so much easier to assume that this was a very bad dream and that we would wake up soon. Or maybe that this will end very soon and we have to power through. Wise grounded leadership requires facing uncomfortable truth and patience.

Being a parent is already a leadership position, as the family needs wise guidance. We have a lot of influence on our friends. In dire situations, we actually have more influence.

As responsible grounded leaders, we must be patient, we need to reduce the risks and show everyone a model of dealing with the challenges. I listened to a lecture by a trauma doctor who said “Walk, do not run. If you have to run, it is probably too late to do anything anyway.”

Stress is contagious

Scientists show that stress is contagious. They measure cortisol levels and other stuff. Why stress is contagious is not very clear and not very important. We have 3 kids, two of them teenagers. We need to manage the kids in very uncomfortable situations when they are exposed to social media and very bad images. Since all learning is remote, there is no way to shut down the news. If you know teenagers, asking them not to do something is counterproductive.

The best solution in this case is honesty and leadership by example. We acknowledge that we understand the situation, acknowledge that we are very uncomfortable with it, and show that we can overcome this discomfort and deliver positive and productive solutions.  Just like stress, determination is also contagious. I could talk about the light and the darkness, but I will just recommend that you watch Biden’s speech as an example of leadership.

About me

You know me as a machine learning expert or as a memory and speedreading practitioner, maybe as a polyglot. Less known fact: I was also trained as a rescue engineer. We were trained to act rationally and make correct calculations under fire. I was in active service in 2006 when Hizbollah rockets landed on our cities. Nobody died under my watch.

So we are fine and safe as much as possible under current circumstances.