—–

“True freedom is where an individual’s thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honor – no matter the personal price.”

=

Bryant H. McGill

——-

This is about managing people, chaos <that is inherent with groups of people> and leadership.

I have written several times about my college job, quasi-security guy with a company called Contemporary Security Company <CSC>, and it made me think about another good business lesson I learned. I call it corralling chaos.

Maybe it is simply managing people.

Whoa.

Comparing chaos to managing people?

Yup.

Look. Unless you want to hire a bunch of clones or do some mind meld trick upon hiring someone, you are going to inevitably have a wide variety of specific skilled people, a mosaic of personalities and characters and, well, humans being human within your purview.

Anyway. I learned this very quickly as a youngster at CSC. And, by the way, I didn’t learn this because I was some brilliant leader or insightful organizational behavior person at the age of 18 … I learned it out of simple survival. Once I became a supervisor I definitely had a ‘Bruce team.’ A small group of guys who I always selected <or they selected me> to be surrounded by to manage and utilize.

In hindsight I was a little different than some of the other supervisors. I liked using the same guys even though the assignment was different. I liked tweaking each guy’s ‘comfort zone’ to show them how to adapt. I think I subconsciously recognized that it probably helped me out under a variety of assignments in that these guys … and these guys were wired differently … wouldn’t take a cookie cutter approach to how they handled things.

Not only did they see that things could be done differently <than maybe what their first instinct was> but also they became comfortable with some things out of their comfort zone.

The best example I have is two guys who were with me whenever possible.

They were book end personalities.

Lamont.

African American. Sharp & smart. Took life seriously. Scowled a lot. Maybe 6’ 1” and 280 pounds of hair triggered whirlwind of aggression. You only walked up to Lamont from behind very carefully. I vividly remember walking up behind him and tapping him on the shoulder … and he spun around with a semi graceful martial arts form <… c’mon, how graceful can a 280 pound guy be> … crouched and coiled to part my head from my shoulders.

I also vividly remember his eyes were laser-like and seemingly completely clear of anything but ‘destroy.’ Without relaxing … he said ‘little buddy … you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that’ and then he uncoiled.

Dave.

White suburban kid. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer. 6’ 2” and chiseled 220 pounds or so. Played defensive end at Orange Coast junior college. Easy going … smiled a lot. The first time I met him on the job I saw him wade into a drunken brawl of maybe 6 guys and singlehandedly blow it up with maybe only one punch thrown by him <which admittedly put that guy out of commission>.

These two guys became the bookends that held most of my teams together.

Lamont was like an assassin.

Dave was like a bull.

Lamont I restrained.

Dave I released.

Both could intimidate in their own way, but their instinct was always to act with power of action and not words.

My bosses struggled to understand why I always wanted them — no matter the assignment.

Lamont was often seen as uncontrollable <therefore they hesitated to want to put him in more ‘delicate diplomatic’ situations>.

Dave was often seen as ‘not too smart’ <therefore they hesitated to want to put him in situations where he may have to think on his feet>.

Beyond the fact I saw how these guys could be used effectively I probably more recognized that situations my bosses ‘foresaw’ within an assignment more often became unforeseen actions & consequences.

Security at some event with zillions of people wandering around <many drinking> all with an attitude that ‘hey … I paid to be here … so I can do pretty much whatever I want’ is inevitably one of much randomness.

Interestingly … that describes the business world fairly well <without the drinking>. Managing people isn’t really about plans & planning, or even having a plan, it is more often about how to deal with what happens when the plan breaks apart.

Look. Plans and planning and all the things under those headings <business plans, contingency plans, succession plans> are all good things … uhm … until they aren’t.

All the plans that once bring order, continuity, and control often become rigid obstacles to progress and adaptation.

Lamont, Dave … shit, whatever personality I was supervising, I found that most people are trying to do what they believe is in the best interest of the organization.

I also found the trouble was often they may not have the same point of view on what that is. And, yes, that leads to some version of chaos.

You can have two people conducting themselves with the best of intentions and trying to do the right thing.

Both options are valid.

Uh oh.

But the conclusions they reach end up in direct conflict with each other.  This creates confusion <with each other as well as those around them seeking cues on what to do>.

A lot of the supervisors around me did two things.

One.

Bitched & moaned about ‘the guys they managed’ and said ‘they just don’t get it.’

Two.

Picked people for their team that they could ‘control.’

Me?

I guess I decided to take responsibility for getting out of the chaos. I assumed from day one that it was me responsible for allowing chaos.

I also assumed I couldn’t control anyone — certainly not someone like Lamont or a number of other highly wired individuals I liked to have on my team — but I did assume I could point them in the right direction <with regard to attitudes & actions>. I picked guys for my teams who could get shit done. And get shit done within some principled behavior guidelines.

I kind of assumed my role was to ‘be still amidst the chaos and active in repose’ <Indira Ghandi>.

Be a compass as it were.

Look.

I certainly didn’t understand all the real thinking behind good management and leadership at that age.

What I do know now for sure – good leaders provide a compass.

A good leader helps others think through implications that can impact the broader team’s goals and objectives.

Once people have orienting values and principles, their ability to think and operate independently accelerates.

Good leaders hold people, themselves included, accountable to a set of values and principles. And leading is often measured by how you deal with the times which inevitably occur when the leader needs to confront a difficult decision that puts principles to the test.

Corralling chaos is all about getting comfortable with being slightly uncomfortable.

My guys recognized that always sticking to the plan without fail provided a false sense of security. They knew from experience that there needed to be some flexibility with “how” the “what” is implemented.

They embraced the purposeful discomfort and I rewarded the purposeful discomfort.

I left room for serendipity.

I left room for what is called “interaction with an unintended outcome” <Scott Doorley, Stanford>.

Some smart guy, Atul Gawande, states there will always be people who excel and thrive in complex and chaotic environments. People who “have a better capacity to prepare for the possibility, to limit the damage, and to sometimes even retrieve success from failure.”

Well. I agree with that and I don’t agree with that.

I agree that some people are better than others at the ability to quickly assess situations and take decisive action based on their experience and instinct.

I don’t agree that anyone and everyone can become better and hone this ability. In fact … part being a good leader is trying to figure out how to maximize this ability within employees <because it enhances autonomy which increases organizational efficiency>.

I have no clue if I am particularly strong with the ‘capacity to prepare for unintended consequences.’

What I do have a clue on is that no matter how strong I may be … I can’t prepare for everything and can’t solve everything and I can’t be everywhere at all times.

I liked having a variety of skilled people available … no matter how difficult they were to manage.

Why?

It increased the likelihood the team could handle any ‘unintended consequences’ as they arose.

CSC taught me a shitload.

It taught me very quickly that when supervisors complained that people are working against each other, that they are not aligned, that they don’t seem to ‘get it’ … that they are full of shit.

It taught me first & foremost that a supervisor needs to look in the mirror.

Anyway.

Is chaos a bad word to use when discussing people management?

Aw.

Probably.

But here is what I do know.

I would rather corral chaos than ‘light a fire under someone’s ass.’

Is that a management style?

Sure. I imagine so.

I imagine it is actually a management or leadership choice. And when I look in the mirror with regard to management style I am okay with what I see. And I thank my CSC job for helping me be okay with it.

—-

If interested, after you read this post, you can visit his past CSC ‘learnings’ posts:

—

<learning to say no>

https://brucemctague.com/big-fred

=

<practicing actually means more relaxed>

https://brucemctague.com/the-wall

=

<action has its time>

https://brucemctague.com/there-is-a-time-to-talk-and-a-time-to-act-part-1

=

<gaining perspective>

https://brucemctague.com/what-you-do-not-see-at-a-concert

—

—-

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

Dale Carnegie

—-

Ok. I had a pretty cool job in college. I worked in the early 80s for a company called Contemporary Security Company (the guys who stand on fields and in front of the stage wearing t-shirts that have CSC on them doing “crowd control”). I have a zillion stories from those three years, but I will only tell one here.

At this CSC job,, unless you were about 6′ 4″ 220 you started (and ended) doing bottle check when people came in stadiums or worked popular bar mitzvahs. Well. I am maybe 5’8″ in shoes, but stocky, and didn’t really want to be stuck checking and chucking liquor at U2 side gate entrances at barely minimum hour wages.

Which leads me to The Starwood.

At the time there was a club called The Starwood in West Hollywood. It was a zoo of a place with live bands on one side and dj dance floor on the other. Lots of drugs and drinking and in general debauchery. Pretty much no one in their right mind at CSC wanted to work that job (6 main security guys and one supervisor every night). This meant every weekend CSC management was scrambling for staff.

I figured it may be a way to stand out. I volunteered. The first time. “Nope. You will get killed.” Second time volunteered. The same response. Third time? Their desperation kicked in: “Be there by 6 to check in.”

So I get there. The supervisor who was pretty much there every weekend (a big guy named Laurence who had played football at USC) took one look at me and said “why the fuck did they send you?” After some debating we ended up with me as one of the doormen and giving guys on the floor a break throughout the night.

From that point on I ended up working weekends there off and on maybe a year and a half. And it quickly led to me gaining a supervisor role.

How the heck did this happen?

All because it seems like I understood the balance between talking and acting. Now understand that at The Starwood we probably averaged “an incident a night per security guy” .. every single night. The best Starwood example I can describe about talk versus act came maybe in about month two there. We were short a guy and I was on the main floor. There was a really tall guy really drunk and really being an asshole. He was maybe 6’6″. So I wandered over and tapped him on the back (I wanted to tap a shoulder, but I didn’t think asking him to lean over so I could reach it would be appropriate) and told him to quit being an asshole or he was going to have to leave.

Now. Let’s be clear. I didn’t mind a good fight now and then when I was younger, but I did find that 95% of the time I could talk our way thru to a solution. My guess is figured this out after realizing a cracked bone in your hand REALLY hurts.

Back to The Starwood.

So my initial attempt at diplomacy created a fairly succinct response. This guy turned around and laughed and said “little man, I think I’m gonna be an asshole and stay.”

I punched him as hard as I could right in his stomach (I would have aimed for the stomach even if it wasn’t the only thing I could actually reach).

As he kneeled on the really nasty dirty floor, looking for some oxygen I think he dropped, I yelled in his ear “nope big man, you’re leaving”.

We kind of moved him along out the door at that point and that was that.

To be honest. That job taught me a lot about business. And this lesson was if you are the smaller guy sometimes it is more important to stop talking and just do something.

Interestingly, that little event also stopped all talk about whether I was big enough or tough enough to work at The Starwood. As a matter of fact, any talk about me working at any event and, in fact, some senior supervisors would begin asking for me.

Now. I am not proposing you go around punching people. But I have to tell you. I have no doubt in my mind if I had not taken the offensive, I would have ended up in a world of hurt.

Which leads me to I see lots of companies talking and talking and, well, talking. And while not quite The Starwood (where that kind of action would mean you physically got the shit kicked out of you) it is interesting to note while they are talking (and talking) some other company is punching the crap out of your company. As a manager (this is the lesson I learned) sometimes your company needs to come out punching. For two reasons:

• You may not be the biggest or the bestest, but if you can sneak in a really good punch, you may be able to take ‘em.
• People look at you differently if you actually make the punch (and even more so if you do it at the right time)

Ponder.

==

“Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.”
Patrick Rothfuss

==

This is a CSC (that security job I had in college) lesson. The idea is practice makes perfect (and try that lesson out on a short attention span 19 year old college boy). So. While you have probably heard the practice makes perfect thought a zillion times before try out this story as maybe a different way of learning it.

I have always been a rehearse type of guy in business. I cannot remember the last meeting/presentation/discussion/podcast I hadn’t written down what I wanted to say or plan out some things to say. And said those thoughts out loud rehearsing portions and how things sound. I think a lot of people believe I think fairly well on my feet, but the reality is I have thought and thought and, well, thought and rehearsed things in my head a variety of ways and times prior.

So. Where did this get instilled in me (because I am fairly sure no one likes practicing)?

I give credit to The Wall. That would be Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

In my college security job there were just some things you sucked up and did. I was backstage supervisor (I got to supervise the gate for everyone to get in and out of backstage). To do that job meant I had to attend rehearsals for shows, in this case, all three rehearsals for The Wall show (which proceeded the 7 straight nights of shows at the LA Sports Arena). Okay. Let me be clear. That means I saw and heard The Wall show 10 times. Yes, I see inflatable pigs in nightmares sometimes.

But here is the deal.

While the band practiced parts of songs these rehearsals were full rehearsals – from the first note to the last. Screw ups and all. And with the tricky choreography. The stupid wall and the movies were set to the music (so Pink Floyd guys may do some different things on stage, but they had to have the timing of the playing pretty much the same). The show culminates in a moment midway where David Gilmour is playing Comfortably Numb at the top of The Wall just as the last blocks are being placed (it was very cool by the way and David Gilmour has a wonderful playing style) and the Wall is completed. What I am saying is that all three rehearsal days banged their way thru the stage set up, note by note, getting it right.

Here is the deal. Opening night the show and the music was perfectly in sync. And while the rehearsals were fun when all of a sudden the arena went from 25 random spectators and the band doodling around in dolfin shorts to thousands of people stuffed into the arena, enthralled with this musical logistical extravaganza, it kinda sent a shiver down my spine. I can’t even imagine the thrill the band had that night as it all unfolded as planned (and rehearsed).

Bands make it look so easy I think we sometimes forget all the work they do beforehand to get it right.

• ** note: probably the coolest rehearsal I ever worked was Journey’s before an LA Coliseum arena concert where Steve Perry sat on the sound table beside me singing into a microphone watching the band work thru Lovin Touchin Squeezin and the light guys worked out the light switches on stage. He did this right after the sequence I mentioned in my “things you don’t see at a concert” piece.

Anyway. Pink Floyd. They had 7 shows (plus the three rehearsals). You know. They could have worked their way into a groove. Nope. 3 full rehearsals and rocked it from note one in show one. By maybe by night three I could tell you without seeing the stage where they were in building that stupid Wall by what was playing. By night seven I wasn’t comfortably numb. Just numb. And tempted to shoot myself I was so tired of it. But also by the last show I could tell you exactly what was going to happen not by the music, but by what time it was. The band wasn’t looking at a clock, but in their heads they knew exactly how much time they had. This was rehearsed and amazing. And, oh by the way, it didn’t look “practiced or stiff” (which is the typical argument young people have for not wanting to rehearse). Instead, because they knew it so well they could relax and figure out where they could ad lib a little.

Despite the numbness at the end of it I saw the value of rehearsing. And I never lost that lesson I collected at that time. I figured if Pink Floyd was doing it, it sure as hell wasn’t too good for me.

It is interesting. All those bands do it. You may not realize it, but it is driven by pride in their work. They want you to recognize the important stuff – their music – and rehearsing insures nothing stupid gets in the way of that.

It is interesting. All those great speakers in business do it. You may not realize it, but it is driven by pride in their work. They want you to recognize the important stuff – the ideas – and rehearsing insures nothing stupid gets in the way of that.

This is about music and some things I learned doing my job in college as a security guy <for a company called Contemporary Security who I have nothing bad to say about> walking around in a cool yellow tshirt that said “SECURITY” on it telling people what to do at concerts and sporting events and trying to only get into altercations I knew I could win.

To be clear. I loved this job and enjoyed the guys I worked for and with. Good organization and, in general, good culture and fellow employees.

In addition.

On a professional “acquiring skills for later” level I learned a lot at this job; some basics that if I had not paid attention to would have represented missed opportunities for learning. I learned shit i have applied in business to this day. I have shared a number of these learnings from this job.

Anyway. I hadn’t thought about this job in quite some time. And then I saw that Steve Perry <ex-lead singer Journey> performed in NYC for the first time in a long time. it reminded me of one of the best moments that you don’t see at a concert.

In the good ole days there were things called stadium concerts. These were day long concerts where a full lineup of great bands would queue up and play one after another and the best of the best would end the day.

Ok. They still have these. But now they are events <like Bonnarroo or Glastonbury> when, in the way back machine, pretty much every big stadium in America had these events.

The one I remember was in the Los Angeles Coliseum and Journey headlined <I think there was also The Babys – with John Waite and Johnathon Cain … who had not joined Journey yet, Aerosmith, The Motels and a couple other bands I cannot remember at the moment>.

Because I didn’t have anything else to do that day I volunteered to work the sound check the day before the concert as they set up the stadium <yes … they set up things the day before so that as the gates opened up on show day at some ungodly early hour the bands only needed to have their ‘set up’ put in place as they entered stage>.

On that day each of the bands just strolled in and did what they do to warm up and make sure the sound system was set up the way they liked it. And each band does it their own way.

That day I was standing at the sound system which was set up maybe a third of the way back in the stadium directly in the center of the field in front of the stage. A mass of confusing boards and little blinking lights and knobs and such all managed by maybe two guys chugging black coffee like they had been in a desert for three days and who looked like they should be in a homeless shelter.

Random people walked around the stadium and my job was to make sure any of the random people who did not actually belong near the million dollar valued sound system didn’t accidentally come by and twist a knob or something.

After Cheap Trick had rolled thru their sound check (a separately amazing experience), it was Journey’s turn to tune up and do sound check.

Please remember.

I am old.

This was before they had wireless mikes so everyone was wired up and was limited by how far a cord could go and their ability to not get tangled up in their cord.

Neil Schon and the drummer just kind of got things started.

And if you haven’t seen musicians playing nothing, and everything at the same time, you haven’t seen and heard music at its best. It just this rambling incohesive brilliant musicianship.

Oh.

And then Steve Perry wanders on stage in jeans and a tshirt holding a mike just watching the other guys play.

And without saying anything all of a sudden the band eases into a song almost one by one, but all together, and Steve Perry casually eases in with vocals in his distinctive clear voice.

It’s the kind of thing that is so stunningly easily beautiful that you just have to stop whatever it is you are doing and stare.

Time kinds of stops.

You are in the middle of a stadium and while people are still moving and there are the regular noises of people doing what hey need to do … and yet … there is nothing else but the music.

To be clear. Even people who are used to this recognize special moments.

People around me stopped.

Even the sound guys, who you knew had heard his dozens of time, stood still for a moment as it all synced up on stage.

The moment passed, but the band seemed to shift seamlessly from one song to another and on occasion stopping to tune something or just talk amongst each other.

They had been doing this for a while and, me being me, had stopped paying attention and was kind of mindlessly listening. And all of a sudden something felt different about the music and I started paying attention. The music sounded different.

I turned around and Steve Perry was standing maybe 10 feet away from me facing the stage … singing.

Now, remember, this was before wireless microphones. He had been wired up to walk all the way from the stage, maybe a 1/3rd of the way into the stadium, walk with his microphone to the sound system, and hear what it sounded like from the audience perspective.

I don’t remember the song. I wish I did.

I do remember a nonchalant Steve Perry, his voice crystal clear, pitch perfect, watching as the rest of the band clustered on stage watching each other work their way thru the song. I remember Steve Perry stopping and watching as Neil Schon effortlessly worked his way thru a solo and then seamlessly picking back up with vocals as Neil slid out of the solo and back into the song.

I remember Steve Perry looking over at me <ok … maybe he was looking at the guys in front of all the knobs and boards> and smiling, as he sung, and give a thumbs up because he liked what he was hearing.

Look. With my CSC security job I saw a lot of shit that most people do not see at a concert, but this was a special moment. Watching professionals be professional and doing the little things like switching some perspective to get a sense for the grander experience, well, you can learn a lot of you pay attention.

I am sure warming up and sound checks created great moments that most people never see all the time.

To me this was just another little glimpse into what makes great bands and great musicians great.

So.

Professional learning? Beyond the obvious practice & rehearsal <for the musicians and the ‘support for the presenters’… perspective.

Yup.

Perspective.

How often in business do we fall into our own little groove and fall into sync with the people around us and … well … we think all is good. We think it is good because it feels good. Perry stepped out of the onstage groove and got perspective. He wanted to see what the people saw and heard. He wanted to hear what the sound guys heard.

Oh.

And he took himself out of what I would perceive is a good comfort zone. All by himself, away from the others he is most likely in subconscious sync with on stage, he sings … they play. He … well … disconnected from the comfort zone in a way.

That, my friends, is stepping out of the comfort zone for perspective.

I stored that learning away in my ‘future professional thoughts to to remember’ in my pea like brain.

I still use it today. Even when things are going right … and they feel right … and maybe even because they are feeling right, I like to figure out a way to gain some perspective.

And, frankly, we all need perspective.

Anyway.

To end this. I wanted to share a clip of what this behind the scenes looks and sounds like from the good ole Journey days, but I couldn’t find one of Journey.

So I thought I would share this fabulous clip of Stevie Ray Vaughn during a sound check. I was fortunate enough to see Stevie play maybe three times before he passed away.

Regardless.

This is a reminder of how good these musicians really are. 

—–

“Stevie just waking up then warming up. Insane how good can you really be that tired? This was filmed Jan 1986 by Greg Savage of Savage Guitar Design.

How can that guy just walk up, plug in and play like he’s been playing all day long? The man was a natural.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Sound Check

——–

==

“Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

==

“there’s no clarity.
there was never meant to be clarity.”
Charles Bukowski

==

You would think it would be fairly easy to figure out what is important but beyond some massive generalizations – family, time, survival, etc. – discerning what is important and what is not in the onslaught of scraps of information thrown at us is difficult.

I thought of this as winter looms. Just as Death breaks things down to the bare essence, winter does the same. And maybe that is the connection. When things are at their barest, when we are drawn closer to endings rather than beginnings, we inevitably ponder the not only what is important but also possibilities. And in an increasingly technology embedded world clarity – the traction for sensemaking, decision making, progress – seems even more elusive.

I would argue that clarity in a data/AI/technology driven world will come down to human conversations. Words & dialogue. I say this because if we seek to committing to discovering what is important, and making sense of shit, that commitments have structure: request, negotiation, agreement, explanations. All those things are actions we must have with the somewhat overwhelming world in which we live. They are dependent upon clarity, trust, transparency, and people will still depend on speech for effective communication to gain those things.

As we all know, good ideas don’t sell themselves. They need to be herded thru a gauntlet of doubters, skeptics and “change is bad” obstacles. It isn’t easy. I would suggest nothing truly good in Life comes easy. My point here is that clarity does not sell itself. If you want to offer clarity you need to make your ideas strong and relevant to your audience. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out clarity trumps beauty of speech. If you seek clarity, the important stuff does not sell itself. Usually, it is buried behind a bunch of unimportant stuff trying to sell itself. Within that sentence/thought lurks the greater challenge, danger, in the onslaught of lack of clarity – doubt.

==

“Disinformation isn’t designed to make you believe something false but convincing; it is designed to make you doubt everything true and demonstrable; to make the very existence of unimpeachable facts null and void”

==

Doubt kills clarity. If you doubt everything, you will never truly find clarity.

With that said, I sometimes wish everyone would take a basic research class and get a grip on the basics of something like conjoint versus discrete research.

Conjoint experiments are where attributes are left to vary freely to create all sorts of product concepts/ideas that may or may not necessarily be represented in the marketplace. In other words, in a conjoint you assess fragments and assemble them into a clarifying thought. The issue here is that sometimes your clarity is not exactly what exists. This is neither good nor bad, just are challenges depending on the context.

On the other hand, a discrete choice experiment is actually aimed to more closely align with actual product definitions in the marketplace where there are some fixed alternatives. Some people like this because it feels more realistic, pragmatic, and clarity is a bit easier to grasp. The issue here is that the answers will almost always simply be a derivative of what exists therefore limiting views of possibilities. This is neither good nor bad, just are challenges depending on the context.

To end that thought I believe the world needs people who are good at both or at thinking just one of these ways. I believe that because as we think there will be some pragmatism and possibilities lurking within the dialogue.

Regardless. All of this means to those of us who love facts, believe in facts, we need to get better at not shouting, but rather articulating truth which is typically a combination of those facts. We can’t just laugh at ‘facts don’t matter’ people, but get angry & fight back smartly, insightfully &, well, artfully. We fact people just need to be better at showcasing lily pads of clarity so that people can become a bit more effective at sensemaking which, ultimately, assists people in choicemaking. I will say, to be fair to everyone, finding clarity in today’s world is almost a job. But if we truly seek to find out what is important, we will most likely have to put in the work. All of us.

“The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for a free and independent life.”

Claude Bernard

==

“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”

Holly Black

==

“The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves.

We live in denial of what we do, even what we think.

We do this because we’re afraid.” 

Richard Bach

==

“People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”

Joe Abercrombie

==

“ You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more. “

Morpheus

===

“Have you ever analyzed things to the degree where you can’t really remember the difference between what’s real and what you’ve created in your head?”

Edie Sedgwick

==

It is a crazy, sometimes scary, world out there at the moment. No, I am not talking about crime or inflation, I am talking about the fact there is a robust alternative universe in America these days; divorced from reality. In this alternative universe, well, let’s just say that it is the reverse of reality. Up is down, they are the victims and you are the enemy of good.

There are some commonalities within this alternative universe.

• Say a lie over and over assuming no one will notice it’s a lie.
• Say a denial over and over despite actual proof.
• Say you don’t remember even when shown over and over again you said it or did it.

This alternative universe is mostly thriving because of politicians. It is politicians, and the special interest groups funding them, that are crafting this odd alternative universe.

Which leads me to how words, or, maybe better said, the adoption of a word frames the alternative universe. It often begins with a truth (word) that is descriptive and actually pejorative to them (the ‘us’) and they actually wield against the ‘them.’ Maybe it’s simply ‘word appropriation’ wherein its’s a warped us versus them in a playground style of “its not me, its you” wherein while ‘us’ has actually done something labeled as ‘traitorous’ or ‘insurrection’ or ‘liar’ or ‘radical’, they simply begin applying that descriptor onto the people who originally used it. Its nuts. And it creates a mosh pit of some false equivalence (which is an alternative universe in and of itself). It may not be grounded in anything they just sling the word back so that in their alternative universe their citizens can say ‘its not us, its them’. Hijacking words is probably the ultimate alternative universe tactic.

Which leads me to I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that having a huge mouthpiece who specializes in word salad (Trump) helps in this rhetoric-confused world because within the word salad is always something to pluck out as worthy of this alternative universe. I would suggest to live in this universe you have to be Truth allergic, but it just takes a bit of suspension of belief to reside here.

Yeah. Trump is at the center of this universe.

Yeah. Two things happened that brought me back into the Trump/politics world.

The first is this Trump moment in a Piers Morgan interview:

This is laughable. He lies like breathing. He even lies about his lies. But somehow in this alternative universe Trump speaks “truth to power.”

The second is the likelihood Trump will regain his twitter account now that “free speech” Musk is running the twitter insane asylum. It is not difficult to envision Trump using Twitter as his toxic brain waste dump, creating the cray cray twitterverse which embodies the alternative universe. Not far behind I can easily envision returning to the television where a panel of journalists/news anchors simply laugh out loud over a preposterous trump tweet lie … and move on. Yeah. The alternative universe is so absurd and he has normalized lying to such an extent they don’t even bother to respond or comment — just laugh at the absurdity of it all.

And all the while, as they laugh and dismiss, the people in this alternative lap it up as truth (where everyone on TV laughing is lying).

• Black is white.
• Up is down.
• In is out.

In this alternative world Trump creates an alternate truth and somehow, we are actually letting it become real and, to some people, it is a real universe. This cannot be normalized nor can it be accepted. The Trump shit show has to be publicly reviewed as constant bullshit and not a viable reality.

Which leads me to the fact Trump is a pathological liar. Shit. Even the heinous Piers Morgan thinks so.

Let me be clear. Trump and his merry band of liars, are now taking the perception business to a whole new level of absurdity. Let us be very clear on some basic Truths:

• Alternative facts live only in an alternative universe.
• Perception is not reality.

As someone who has dabbled in marketing professionally, “perception is reality” truly galls me. It is an ugly lie. And it is even uglier because in an untrained, inexperienced mind, or a misguided lack of moral individual, it can be used to defraud people – unintentionally or intentionally.

Perception is perception.

Reality is reality.

And perception is reality only, and ONLY, if you permit it to be so.

The alternative universe can only last as long as this alternative universe can stave off the real universe. Just as alternative facts can only last as long as the real facts can get their shit together and get in the game. I would note that Trump’s alternative universe, while grounded in lies, is fertilized in aimless rambling about anything that happens to pop into his brain and is convenient for him to say at the time. He is not typically deliberate about his lying, he is simply authentically living in his own alternative universe and explaining that universe to us. The universe itself may be one bigly lie, but his explanations are truth about the universe TO that universe.

Trump is a rambling, bombastic, amoral narcissist. He’s never pretended to be anything else. What you see is what you get. His integrity resides solely on authentically communicating the big Lie <although … in his mind … in his universe … it is the big Truth>. Oddly this seems to mean, at least to a lot of everyday people, that an authentic liar has more integrity than a calculated communicator. He is genuine in that his perception is actually his reality <just ponder that scary thought for a moment>.

It is bizarre. Fucking bizarre. Trump and his merry band of liars use a variety of truth-blurring techniques <i call it “chaff”>. Their objective appears to not only be to control by creating doubts about what is real and what isn’t, but also to create an alternative universe in which whatever he does actually looks like it makes sense. They stave off reality with a formidable capability to manufacture stories wholesale for the alternative universe population, independent of reality. When forcefully challenged they can “build the wall” into existence via mass disinformation. Through narratives of ‘reality manufacturing’ they can maintain their universe and empower the cray cray to be crazy.

To be clear. Perception is not reality and trying to create a universe based on perceptions is a hollow world. but it gets difficult when a president, from day one to, well, ad finitum, to constantly be trying to convince us reality is not reality, perceptions are what he and his merry band of liars say are truth, alternative facts exist and there is some alternative universe that he, and they, can only see <but its good>.

This is nuts, scary, and dangerous. Trump was a historically dishonest presidential candidate, a historical dishonest president and his merry band of surrogates <liars> have displayed a persistent commitment to lying – needless lying or necessary lying. And it becomes even more dangerous because Trump and his cult play on what some people “feel.” Trump anchors his alternative universe on some warped perceptions, some attitudes, and therefore those who elect to follow will follow the pied piper <allegiance to him above all> and not to any ideology, values or principles <not even the US Constitution … because he becomes the sole arbiter of what the Constitution “means to say to us”>. Trump is not a normal phenomenon and his alternative universe of false perceptions and alternative facts should not be normalized by something as simplistic a “politicians have always lied” and “we can never trust the media” mostly because, at least in the case of Trump and this alternative universe, it’s a false equivalence (and alternative universes are not equivalent – one is real, one is not).

Look. Politics has always had a tenuous relationship with truth, but even in that environment there are limits. As Jonathan Last wrote in the conservative paper The Weekly Standard: “you can obfuscate, you can misrepresent, you can shade the truth to a ridiculous degree, or play dumb and pretend not to know things you absolutely do know. But you can’t peddle affirmative, provable falsehoods.”

Here is the surprising truth to add.

Journalism has always had a good relationship with truth, but even in that environment there have been missteps which create a false narrative that journalism, as a whole, is dishonest. The majority of journalists are not dishonest, every viable publication in existence has a standard of honesty and proof and, while they may tend to a more liberal skewed perspective, truth is truth and facts are facts and they treat both with reverence <because their existence relies on that>. I would note that the belief I just wrote does not exist in the Trump cult alternative universe; there, journalists are evil.

Which leads me to a world with a thriving alternative universe is not a place for cowards.

“Trust nobody?

That is the plight of fools and cowards.

You will slowly suffocate with every breath you take.

To trust is to live.”

Words matter. Definitions matter.

While the Trump cult claims the right/power to define “America” they do so while also claiming to be “strangers in their own land.” See how that works to empower an entire agenda? And how media reporting on disaffected rightwing Americans plays into those definitional assumptions? In this line of narrative, the default assumption in this alternative universe is “this is your America and everyone else is taking it away from you.” If we accept that, as a consequence we automatically are painted as unamerican or “hate America” simply by not agreeing with their definition or even their alternative universe (where their up is actually down). Our truth (reality) are lies to them; and their ‘truth’ is a lie to reality (and us). So, while TV people laugh, we should not. society cannot thrive living in alternative universes with alternative citizens YET with the same objective (a better America) and the same flag on their ID. With an entire universe of fools, it is not a place, and time, for cowards. Ponder.

I admit. I don’t typically give a shit about gas prices or pay attention to what the price is. It kind of is what it is and I need to put gas in my car. All I know is that it is expensive <but not as expensive as other countries> and chews up gobs of my monthly budget.

Anyway. I came across this fantastically simple article and map explaining gas prices across the united states. And, well, I was enlightened.

I imagine I knew basically what makes up the price I pay, but certainly not the detail. I do know that gas companies make gobs of money. And I also know that if you ever want to pick an easy target when discussing gas prices you can choose pretty much any gas company out there.

But. Some of the detail behind the prices we see at the gas stations is interesting.

In the United States <I do not know what it is in other countries> we pay a flat federal gas tax on every gallon of gas our cars suck in.

18.4 cents for every gallon.

Next.

A gas company maybe makes a 1.5% profit margin on each gallon of gas sold <I believe that is the net gallon calculation so it is a fairly small number, just lots of gallons sold>. As comparison, this is very close to the margins a grocery store receives.

Lets say it is maybe 5 cents or so per gallon.

Next.

This means all state and even county gas price variations are driven by state and local taxes.

And.

States and local government actually make more than the gas company.

Lots more.

The highest gasoline tax in the country is in California, where it now exceeds 70 cents a gallon. Combined with California-specific fuel-blending regulations that drive up refining costs, these taxes help make Golden State gasoline prices the most expensive in the country.

Several other states, such as New York, Connecticut, and Hawaii, are close to California in terms of the fuel-tax burden their residents bear, though none has yet joined in crossing the 70-cent-per-gallon threshold.

<if you would like to see the API’s map state and local level specifics here is its interactive version >.

<this post was pulled from the original article – A gasoline tax map that explains a lot: February 7, 2014 by Ken Cohen>

I just thought this was interesting. Ponder.

—

“Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

—

There is a difference between the future of work (a combination of productivity, mattering/impact and the business vision) and the future of business (a combination of globalization, geopolitics and business’ responsibility to people, society and the earth, i.e., its role in shaping capitalism). This doesn’t mean they aren’t related, but I do worry that those focusing solely on the future of work are simply making an incredibly flawed way of doing business more effective at being flawed. That said. When asked about the future of business I do begin on a pragmatic level and how a business should work because work itself has a feedback loop relationship with the future design of business. Almost everyone now agrees with what every thinker suggested in the 1980’s and early 1990’s that ‘agility’ is the key to business success.

Which leads me to fluidity and flow.

The reality of the future of work is a bit simpler than we tend to make it. It centers on two key features of agility; fluidity and flow.

• Fluidity

Toffler stated in 1985, “[business] must execute its current activities to survive today’s challenges and adapt those activities to survive tomorrow’s.” That is fluidity; bring to bear resources (people & material) to survive and thrive. Most businesses struggle with this because of command & control, silos, centralized management and lack of ability to not only share resources easily but shift the most appropriate people (from one department) to the optimal team. But it goes a bit deeper than that. Fluidity is an inherent attribute of progress and to the connectivity necessary for collective impact. What I mean by that is fluidity is about conversations, connections and creation not just of an individual, but individuals in action together. This is an important concept because it represents what is necessary in the present for the temporary results of a unique combination of circumstances presenting a unique set of problems/opportunities and requiring an original solution that represents work/labor ‘applied effectively’ AND edges into what is necessary for the future. What I mean by that is no temporary situation can be viewed in isolation, but rather each temporary situation merges with those that precede and those that follow, all simultaneously but maybe not equally, so fluidity is shaped by the former and shaping the conditions of the latter. Labor is then a continuous fluid activity with fleeting opportunities and unforeseen events. Since labor is a fluid phenomenon, its conduct requires flexibility of thought and fluidity in behaviors/actions. Successful labor depends in large part on diligence and the ability to adapt — to proactively shape changing events to the advantage of the business, and its vision, as well as to react quickly to constantly changing conditions. This can sound exhausting, but the cadence of labor fluctuates from periods of intense activity to periods limited to information gathering, reflection, or capability development. This means fluidity is found in the competitive rhythm, i.e., conflict, between entropy (or desire to replicate and standardize) and emergent, i.e., the intentional fluid organizing to optimize events to suit the purpose of the business (and the individuals). I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is fluidity between self-interest (impact) and collective interest (impact) and generated value which leads me to Flow.

—

“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

—

• Flow

Flow is fluidity working in sync, but when I speak of Flow, I typically mean it in terms similar to what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests as in terms of state of mind, people energy, for optimal performance.  Flow has several states, but let’s say that the desired business objective (which fluid labor makes possible) is, the continuous, smooth flow of value from the business (collective labor) to the market. So, Flow is the people mindset that creates the intrinsic energy for that effort. Oddly many people think of this as ‘labor at scale’ when it really is simply ‘a system in flow’ and, worse, many businesses believe incentives, gamification and ‘motivational efforts’ are how to attain this. Economics, and individual meaning, almost always arises from flow and achieving an organizational flow state is when the flow state is attained by & of the people. The tricky part is that the system, the whole, is made up of layers and nested systems with their own pacing. This thought is kind of important. Flow can be asymmetrical and it can also contain a variety of speeds (see: Pace layering). I often refer to organizational flow as ‘cadence.’ What I mean by that is a business tends to have a rhythm when it is in flow which is a reflection of the combined individual worker pacing. Flow is actually when all layers of the organization find synchronicity – not same speed or pace. Flow at an individual level is almost irrelevant if it isn’t multiplicative to the energy of the system as a whole. In fact, I could argue individual flow can hamper organizational collective ‘flow’ if the individual self-interest is not in the greater system interest. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that often existing business ‘rules’, including incentives & performance metrics, encourage a belief in individual flow over collective flow. My point here is that organizational Flow is individual labor at a collective level. Which leads me to commitment to the Future.

• commitment to contribute to the future

==============

They say it all breaks down to keeping your feet on the ground

My sole intention is keeping my head in the clouds

They say that I can’t last a day in the real world

I say you wouldn’t survive one night in mine

Asking Alexandria

—

This is where a business decides how they want to conduct business so that their business has a role in shaping the future. This is when a business should do some soul searching on their commitment to aligning the individual employee, the company, the community, society and, ultimately, the world. This is functional, emotional and aspirational. I have said for decades that the ultimate aim for any business is “better”: better moment, better outcome, better day, better life, better world (pick your better or combination of better). To be clear (part 1). A business cannot claim to aim to make the world a better place no matter how bad the business might be for people or society, a commitment is a complete commitment or, at minimum, a commitment to progress, i.e., becoming better. To be clear (part 2). I, personally, believe Purpose is establishing too simplistic a cage for a business to successfully exist within. I believe, as someone who thinks about the future of business, a business should purposefully decide what they want their commitment to the Future is. I have unequivocally stated that all business should have the same commitment, the purpose of business is to benefit people, but as long as a business decides to make a commitment that embraces that concept in some way, the business world should do fine. For example, an airline, or all airlines for that matter**, could commit to “social connectivity,” i.e., breaking down barriers that divide and unite humanity.

• ** I do not believe a business gains differentiation off their commitment or even “Purpose,” differentiation and distinction is gained by “How” they develop strategies and execute toward the commitment.

Once the commitment has been established a business can hunker down on the “hows” which can be environment, gender equality, social responsibility, a cause, or all of them. My main thought is this permits businesses to be flawed, as in their ‘hows’ do not have to be perfect, just showing progress (better today than yesterday), as long as their commitment remains, well, a commitment. Which leads me to how to make sure progress occurs in a business. Well. Suffice it to say, 99% of the best businesses have figured out how to successfully keep their feet in the clouds and their head on the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it looks like I got it twisted around, but I did not.

• Good businesses are always walking with the future in mind.

Always traveling toward possibilities, always seeking ‘what’s next’, possibilities drive movement. Feet in the clouds.

• Good businesses are always closely listening, and thinking, to the drumbeat of the feet of what is happening around them, i.e., the possibilities.

Ear to the ground, so while possibilities are driving movement and progress, pragmatism, or reality of what can be done, insures everyone in the business is keeping their head in the game today; but smartly and with fluidity. Head on the ground.

I have called it mastering pragmatism & possibilities, but it is the ability to have your feet in the clouds and head on the ground. I believe this shifts a mindset from being destination-based, or solely pragmatic based, to a more fluid & flow-based mentality in which the business is driven by movement (possibilities) but pragmatically adapts to possibilities (opportunities). Maybe most importantly, because I am discussing a commitment to the future, while you may identify what commitment to contribution to the future you want to commit to, strategy and execution will be based less on “what will the world look like in future?”, because you have actually elected to shape the future, and more on “how do I best align with the unfolding present?”

I tend to believe if more people thought about it this way businesses would have more hope and more achievable possibilities than they could ever imagine. I tend to believe the future of business would be better in terms of a more positive contribution to the individual, society, productivity, and general meaning in the world (not at the expense of profit or growth).

If we are honest, the way business is being conducted presently, embodied in feet on the ground & head in the clouds, doesn’t really seem to be working that well.

Businesses seem to be more woefully stagnant <albeit ‘talking’ change> and have more despair and lack of hope with regard to their possibilities than ever. And, yet, they are desperately implementing “change initiatives” and organizational changes all of which, in my mind, are simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. That isn’t to say the best organizational practitioners won’t enhance fluidity and flow and possibly even edge into a ‘commitment to the future’ space, but I am in the ‘future of business’ business. I struggle to believe optimizing humanity can occur, in any business, until the business itself decides what commitment it wants to make TO humanity. In other words, with a commitment to contribute to the future, the business is simply clinging to wisps of straw. Ponder.

===

“Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

===

“I think if human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn’t life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don’t they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you’d meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to – like talking to dogs.”

Douglas Coupland

===

Halloween. Sometimes I sit back and ponder how adults have destroyed one of the simple joys in childhood – Halloween. I absolutely understand that sugar is bad, and there are some trappings of Halloween that can be misguided, but adults have put their fingerprints of silly fear and overthinking on one of the simplest things – children dressing up as a joy of expression, walking around neighborhoods receiving gifts from people they don’t know and wandering through a celebration of personal expression home-by-home. Seriously, you cannot be a human and not smile as Wonderwomen, fairies, Spiderman, Mulan, pirates, etc wander by your house.

Halloween reminds me that sometimes we adults, in the attempt to constantly teach our children lessons, forget that sometimes the best lessons are the ones when we leave the simple joy unfettered.

This means Halloween isn’t anti christian.

It isn’t about the worship or glorification of witchcraft.

It even isn’t about greed and how much “booty” you can get walking from house to house.

It is the joy of dressing your house up with pumpkins and fake spider webs and “boo” stickers in the house windows and multiple bats on stakes carefully arranged in the front lawn.

It is how a 13 year old girl stops being a moody tween and being with her mom side by side carefully crafting the perfectly designed front porch for everyone to see and experience when they trick or treat.

It is the little boy and his dad carefully building the skeleton’s grave in the front yard with its ball and chain and his own pirate hat he lends the skeleton just for the occasion.

It is the full house display, built 3 weeks before Halloween night, and constantly changing as the children add or subtract things as they think of it.

It is the motion activated creepy music dangling spider that the wind makes play in the morning as the girls run out to the school bus <and they laugh>.

Yup. Halloween is simply an event where, if we adults permit it, we get an unfettered view of the simple joy of childhood.

I know I am guilty of over thinking on occasion. And I do believe we adults are often over sensitive to lessons and political correctness and insuring our children “understand” things and, on a parallel destructive path, using Halloween to put fear into other adults’ minds (which we can assume they pass along to their children) for some political reason.

Sometimes it’s nice to let children be children and let them enjoy the simplicity of childhood.

Halloween continues to be filled with fun; walking in the chill of autumn wearing costumes which permits an uninhibited make-believe night be a ‘real dressed up’ night, and, of course, the semi-hedonistic joy of the full sack of candy. If we permit it, once a year, Halloween invites us to reenter the world of a simple childhood. Some may choose to view Halloween with some sinister connotations but to most of us it is simply a time of fun dressing up with friends and laughter.

Enjoy Halloween for exactly what it is … the pure and simple joy of childhood.

===

“The farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we’ve come to need Halloween.”
Paula Curan

Earlier today I reshared my thoughts on the lack of civility in political rhetoric and how that fosters an environment of violence – either unacted upon violent thoughts or actual violent actions. I even wrote ‘the politics of resentment’. Which leads me to Trump. Violence has always bubbled below the surface in America, but where I lay a large burden of the blame on Trump is for using it as a tool of “America Greatness”, i.e., the violence is done by patriots passionate about their great America. It really was not that long ago that in 2015 and 2016 the Trump cult was being shaped with violence.

It seemed like just another day and another violent Trump rally. The incidents kept piling up.

Chicago protest fights. A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami.

At that time I said this version of America is not the America I know, the America I want nor is it America anywhere near great. While I remain steadfast on the latter two, on the first I was wrong. I now know the Trump America and it is violent.

It makes me angry.

It disturbs me.

Just to remind everyone, one of the most disturbing moments, one which truly made me angry, was angry as I watched a protest in Chicago devolve into what could only look like a riot to the entire world.

Another reminder. A Republican, at that time, said: “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.”

I am angry because Mr. Trump knew what he is doing. He was playing with fire. Playing it as close to the fire as he could without getting burned <or burning down the house> because in his own pea like mind he has decided that this warped version of passion will energize change and ‘winning.’

Just as he has shown a complete disdain for a ‘good win’ versus a ‘bad win’ he also shows no signs that he understands the difference between ‘bad passion’ and ‘good passion.’

That is the sign of an incompetent ignorant lazy leader.

I am angry.

I am not angry at America or its people or even most of Trump’s followers; I am angry at a person who wants to be the emperor who has no clothes. He offers only platitudes of ‘deals & wins’ as solutions to any issue he is asked about and, worse, simplistically twists the “us versus them” narrative into “we good people & they bad/evil people” platitudes.

He skates on the slippery superficial surface of emotion and an enhanced feeling of irrelevance <or being marginalized> from a minority of the populace who has now found a voice.

I remain angry even to this day.

And I get even angrier because Trump, to this day, assumes no, none, nada, whatever version of “zero” you want to apply here … responsibility for anything.

It is never his problem. It is never his issue. It is never anything but ‘the bad people’ <media, people who do not agree, Muslims/Islam, Mexicans, immigrants, stupid elite, etc.>. It is never him.

This despite the fact he is the common denominator.

And this also means, to Mr. Tump, he is never responsible for his words.

We are all responsible for the words we say. Everyone.

That said.

It most likely took me far too long to understand this, but while freedom of speech is an equal freedom for all & everyone, the responsibility tied to that freedom is not equal. Responsibility increases upwards. The larger the forum, the more impact as a leader I have, the larger the actual managerial/actionable responsibility the leader has AND the larger the responsibility to the speech portion of my freedom I have.

Trump acts, and has always acted, like he has no more responsibility with regard to what he says than the guy sitting at the end of the bar after a 10 hour day drinking his 5th draft beer with his buddies bitching about the world.

======== Trump supporter ==========

A leader has a responsibility to listen to his/her people but any good leader knows you don’t incite latent negative emotion within an organization … you show you listen, unite and give specifics on how the organization will progress from that point on.

Lastly.

I am angry because I have run across these faux business leaders in business and they are the worst of the worst. They are hollow of anything. And blanket their hollowness with superficiality or faux emotion. And, most importantly, they make nothing great.

Trump is particularly skilled at manipulating his version of the public to his own ends. And, in that, he doesn’t even recognize his divisiveness <which is frightening for someone who was leader of the free world>. I believe he doesn’t recognize the divisiveness because he lives in an alternative universe in which everyone else is wrong and the problem and protestors never have a valid reason and anyone not in ‘his crowd’ must be unpatriotic.

Mr. Trump, assuming he actually desired to be a president, never understood all citizens are his crowd. You either decide to try and unite by listening and convincing them of your path to ‘greatness’ or I imagine you just let them rot somewhere as you, and your followers, shun them. And, well, that’s what he did. And by shunning them, while fostering a violent attitude, he gave implicit permission to be violent as long as it was targeted to those he shunned.

I cannot remember in my 60something lifetime anything like this.

And, yeah, I am still angry.

And, if I am honest, a little nervous certainly unsettled and, well, maybe a little scared.

This feeling did not come easily.

And I know exactly when it happened. It was a March morning in 2016 when I discussed my anger at Trump’s lack of assuming responsibility after the Chicago rally incident and it happened as I said “I have never seen this before in my lifetime.”

Because I do know where I have seen it before. This is the divisiveness of dictators and autocrats. I hesitated to use examples from the past, but the names came very very close to crossing my lips. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be that close to comparing Trump to some of the worst of the worst leaders from past history. And what got me that close to uttering the examples is that instead of making a call for discussion and debate he insists on calling for silence and authoritarianism <absurdly under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’>. To be clear, I no longer hesitate to draw these comparisons. To be clear, as he harkens back to the ‘good ole days’ he even seems to encourages violence <under the guise of “we are so weak and need to be strong again”>.

This is bully logic.

Trump disavows violence and yet encourages it. He encourages a consistent ‘strong message’ <however you, the followers, would like to deliver that message to ‘them’> of silencing dissent, silencing debate, silencing real solutions, silencing critics and silencing competitors. And he fills their silent space with bombastic platitudes of deals & wins and divisive rhetoric.

While he’s narcissistic, self-absorbed, power hungry/crazy and driven by either greed or ‘winning by any measure” I almost think we are seeing a public case study example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

This is a cognitive bias in which a relatively unskilled person suffers illusory superiority. This translates into mistakenly assessing their ability and believing their skills, and themselves, to be significantly better than what it actually is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. When Trump looks in the mirror he sees only something superior to everyone else … maybe even superior to America itself.

Anyway.

I am not a huge follower of politics but it seems to me that consistent violence at the scale of 2016 was rare in American politics, but now it has almost become the norm.

And I am still angry at Mr. Trump.

Angry at his overall lack or personal responsibility. Angry at his disdain for the power of words. Angry at his lack of understanding of freedom of speech as it pertains to leadership. Angry at his lack of desire to try and convert dissenters, but rather silence or eject/reject dissenters.

Angry at his hollowness <because I want a leader who is full of a robust vision beyond deals & wins>.

And, mostly, I am angry at what he has done to America.

He never had any interest in making America great, he simply encouraged us to hate.

And hate is the foundation for violence. Ponder because this is important.