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Last year I abstained
this year I devour

without guilt
which is also an art

Margaret Atwood, in Circe/Mud Poems

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“When all the world’s a lock, you don’t find a key, you become the key.”

Rachel Caine

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As we wander into 2022, lets take a moment and think about what we learned from 2021 and some things that maybe business should be thinking about for 2022. As everyone knows, I dislike predictions, so this is more reflective and applied reflective thinking.

Which leads me to disruption.

Disruption, inevitably, is about the rhythm of a business. If something changes the rhythm, its disruptive. If it doesn’t, its not. Maybe that’s too simplistic, but it surely does feel valid.

** note: self inflicted discordance, i.e., poorly implemented change, protocols or products, is not disruption, it is simply self imposed dysfunction which ‘wobbles’ the rhythm of the business.

2021 should have made everyone rethink what they think disruption is. Ok. Maybe they should be thinking about the difference between false disruption and real disruption. For years pundits have been plastering “disruption’ and ‘disruptive’ in PowerPoint mastheads, headlines and speaker presentation titles. The pandemic was real disruption, 99% of everything prior was not. This matters because false disruption, mis-viewed, leads to methods of analysis, planning and speculation that will open the doors for even the most farfetched ideas and an ocean of possibilities any business can drown in. It also cloaks the fact most businesses will, well, “être à armes égales” or ‘to fight with the same weapons’ because it isn’t true disruption and doing the same shit with similar tools, just a bit differently, makes everyone feel good.

But. Where all this false disruption has to led to is a business employee world cloaked in anxiety and fatigue, simultaneously amused and intimidated, and plagued by a general sense of impotence. People have been existing under a state of such interminable disruption warfare that it seems normative and dysfunctional. So, while people hope for better things and a better business, they have been bludgeoned so many times with false disruption, and servitude to all that is technology, that hope for better is being annihilated. This is a semi-important thought because regardless of real disruption or false disruption, the main principle that governs any business is its own survival. Since ultimately an institution, regardless of its claims of goodwill, must perpetuate its own survival, everyone who lives within the organization must commit themselves to the survival of the institution in some form or fashion. Therefore, if the institution has stripped hope from the people within then it simply becomes an ‘outcome objective’ entity <with, of course, some trappings of empathy and culture>. This should make everyone think about the uncomfortable thought that each person with a relationship to an institution is expected to some degree to sacrifice himself or herself to the perpetuation of that institution and the systems that create the output which sustains its survival. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this is actually the opposite of what is needed for real business progress as well as human progress (in that rather than have the business benefit people the people find themselves enslaved/ensnared by the systems that enable the business). False disruption simply amplifies that belief system in that if you are impotent to make things better you simply make better what is <the existing system and outcomes – regardless of the means>. Ponder that.

But let me get back to business rhythm with regard to disruption.

All businesses have ‘pace layers’ as well as ‘paced nested systems’ all of which, working in some sense of coherence, generates an overall rhythm for a business. The rhythms are asynchronous yet create arrays of symmetrical patterned behaviors/efforts to the benefit of the business.

What that means is most of what is falsely called ‘disruption’ simply gets absorbed and assimilated within parts of the nested systems<existing rhythms keeping pace>, and the system, as a whole, isn’t really disrupted. It chugs along and the economic objectives are still met (as they are the overriding drivers of what will change and what will not) and because it is simply so-called disruption the slower, foundational, parts ignore it and remain steady because the true nature of things hasn’t really been affected. The internal dynamics of the business may <maybe> shift a bit but the external dynamics, the dynamics WITH the external context when implemented, don’t change in any meaningful way because the market dynamics haven’t really changed. Let me be clear. This mainly translates into a belief that most companies do things that make them feel like they are better <internal dynamics>, but don’t really significantly positively affect what matters – the dynamics WITH the market. I would suggest a shitload of business leaders came to this realization in 2021 and, yet, will continue to do so in 2022.

This is where false disruption can actually do its most damage. Absorption of false disruption is done not through learning, but by economic success. The business simply accommodates the ‘new’ shifting a bit to maintain its economic objectives. What this means is that the organization doesn’t really improve, doesn’t really learn anything truly useful for the future, simply learns the bare minimum to maintain the course. Its an economic company, and model of which outcomes and output are all that matters. False disruption gets devoured by the existing conserving aspects of an institution. That is what we should have learned in 2021.

Which leads me to justification by economics.

Economic justification devours everything. It swallows up change, transformation and even real disruption. Just watch. Economic growth will be fantastic in 2022 and 84% of businesses <you will see why I offered that number in a second> will simply surf the overall growth with basically the old way of doing things and claim success, i.e., economic justification. So why 84%? A Deloitte study released in May 2020 <during lockdown, peak pandemic, and high uncertainty over what the future would consist of> stated just 16% of business leaders expected to invest in the reinvention of their workforce. Yeah. 16%. Status quo devours anything new as long as it can be economically justified.

As we move into 2022 the gap between those who understand what needs to be done and are willing to do it and those who simply hope for a return to “business as usual” is frightening. And while a large number of employees may have a niggling sense this isn’t the optimal path an even larger number of employees, and far too many business people in general, have been constantly and incessantly assailed with the belief that the ultimate moral significance of their individual lives is embodied in and depends upon the mere survival – this includes survival of economic objectives – of the business and its ‘way of doing things’. This means as the systems assimilate most ‘disruption’ they do so not to improve, but in justification of service to the (a) productivity objectives, (2) reward incentives and (c) outcomes which keep attention off of them – economic justification.

** note: I worry about 2022. A lot. The combination of “getting back what was lost” economically and economic justification doesn’t bode well for ethics, values and, in general, better business behavior. In a tragedy of commons business worldview every business will be fighting for their ‘fair share’ in a zero-sum worldview. My only true prediction for 2022 is we will look back and find ‘ethical fading’ was more the norm then the exception. It will be a bad year for ethics and those of us fighting for a better way of doing business.

What this means is that most ‘disruption’ doesn’t disrupt, it gets assimilated or dissipates within existing systems focused on meeting specific objectives and outcomes – not improvement. I will end this section with where I began: economic justification – economics of a business can devour everything.

“There is no ‘complete recipe” for avoiding human extinction by technological means. We can specify only the human qualities required: patience, flexibility, intelligence.”

John von Neumann

Which leads me to framing.

In this case, for today, framing has to do with how one thinks about their business – systems and how systems work against market dynamics (and to fend off economic justification). Far too often we permit framing to be defined as some nebulous idea. And in doing so we talk about framing a shitload, but never really seem to get around to doing everything that needs to be done <implementing it in an effective way>. This doesn’t mean that leaders are not truly trying hard to bring about framing. It’s just that their attempts get trapped in the wretched hollow between ‘ideology’ <conceptual shit> and the practical <which is by no means easy or simple>.

And it gets even more complicated if the leader can only envision what is <the current system> which leads only to tweaks & improvements. The best framing leaders not only see the system that exists, but also envisions a system that does not exist.

** note: “a system that does not exist” is a fairly important thought in that one of the most used conceptual thinking tools is “where are we and where do we want to be”. Envisioning systems, within the present and not in planning, is actually an acceptance – to some degree – that you will never truly clearly see where you want to be. Ponder.

For it is within that understanding in which a good framing leader can break what needs to be broken, keep what needs to be kept and tweak what needs to be tweaked. Inevitably successful framing is a reflection of several things all embodied in a process of information, education, dialogue, and ultimately, the insights generated from the process which will drive the choices. Framing is, in its art form, the law of the situation combining informal and formal organizational systems as the situation dictates <not as management mandates>. What I mean by that is I believe it was in Blind Spots in which the authors state: “formal systems are the weakest link in an organization’s ethical structure.” I believe this is also of any system. Formal systems, for the most part, are not natural, but artificial. Over time the consequences of this artificiality comes to life in terms of laziness, complacency, rote behavior and non-thinking.

2022 is going to run face first into this.

On the other hand, a business’s informal systems have evolved tracing their roots back to the needed mechanisms, and accepted behaviors, of what a system needs to do to guide transactions and efforts to successful (economic) outcomes. I say this because when a formal system is decoupled from, well, reality, say, like with a pandemic, the systems begin to fail. Formal systems are not built to anticipate how people will respond to true disruption, only to accepted market behavior dynamics (within a range). In Nassim Taleb terms, formal systems are fragile and informal systems are antifragile.

This fragility is actually created by what I believe is called ‘bounded awareness’, i.e., the formal system encourages one to only know what one needs to know. This gets exacerbated by pockets of power. As a corollary, these informal pockets of power may also actually be the key to an organization’s survival when true disruption occurs. And this permits me to circle back to framing. Framing ‘unbounds’ existing awareness.

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“No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining, and attacking one another.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov

—

This makes framing complex and simple. Thought leaders from all over the world have created sophisticated frameworks designed to help leaders grapple with strategies at an abstract level. But the reality is that strategy succeeds or fails based on how well leaders at every level of an organization integrate real, useful, insights into day-to-day operations.

It is as complex, and as simple, as that. Framing is, well, as Machiavelli would suggest, power. And there is no school for framing. You either understand the power of framing or you, well, fail. Failure can come in a range of of ways but let’s say, at minimum, it is limiting potential and, at maximum, the business dies. So. Power resides in clear understanding of the moment and the moment that is coming. To be clear. This does not mean you are in control. You are subordinat­ing yourself to the necessary and the situation and power comes from recognizing what is necessary and executing it within the correct context (frame), i.e., the Law of the Situation as it were.

To be clear. Reframing can absolutely be derived from math, data and research, but those tend to be seeking to develop a new formalized system (or tweak an existing one). I delve into the art. The feeling that a business leader has that something could be better. Something you cannot quite put your finger on that no amount of analysis can solve. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, in my biased view, that more businesses should be delving into the art of business more than the science of business.

Which leads me to thinking about 2022.

Truth be told, the pandemic didn’t really affect me businesswise much. In fact, the market came to me and I was as busy as I have ever been. Let me explain. I, for the most part, am in the ‘framing business.’ Business people who feel like there is something that could be better about their business, even if it is being successful, work with me to try and put their finger on what that could be. Typically, it just means a business needs to view their business from a slightly different point of view <kind of like stepping a bit to the side so they can see some things a bit clearer>. I help frame that view. They see the world as locked and I am a key.

That said. This is more difficult than you may think. While businesses have a rhythm, a cadence, for how they interact with the market, changing a business’s rhythm ain’t easy or for the faint of heart. As noted earlier, a business isn’t one steady rhythm, it’s actually a combination of a number of different beats within the organization working in a coherent fashion to effectively work with a market. As long as the business is effectively effective <in some form or fashion>, well, the beat goes on. The pandemic changed the beat, if not stilled it in some way. The market came to me. The pandemic began reframing the business of doing business to business people. Half my job was done <maybe the most difficult part>.

So, yes, it is my belief that inevitably business is about framing <systems and process and outcomes exist within a frame>.

If you don’t frame what you want to do, hopefully frame the market well <the law of the situation>, and what the market will permit you to pursue effectively, you are screwed. That said. While some people devour technology and other devour ‘humancentric’, I devour the space, the liminal space, in-between. It is in this technology/people inbetween space I devour what Taleb called “half invented ideas.” What I mean by that is I have never really seen the need to create something new when a business seeks to find a new rhythm. The odds are some half-invented ideas laying around in someone’s office or mind having been discarded at some point as ‘not efficient or effective or whatever” or, even easier, the ideas lay in books all of us should have devoured by now from Alvin Toffler, Cluetrain Manifesto, Ralph Stacy, Mary Parker Follett, Drucker and more recently Jaron Lanier, Brian Christian, Bazerman, Flynn Coleman.

Look.

2022 is going to look like an awfully good hand to be played for most businesses. This is opposite the larger business truth that business mostly demands doing the best you can with a bad hand. The issue is, and will remain, what will business compromise within the means to the ends in order to attain the ends it desires? To be clear. Compromise is not a dirty word if it means forestalling a situation worse than what non-compromise would create and, frankly, a lot of leadership work in business is involved in simply preparing for the moments when fortune favors you – moments in which you take the win and take everything you can. In other words, you devour an opportunity in totality. And maybe that is my point for 2022. Opportunities will abound for business and businesses in 2022 and it will be easy for a business to be devoured BY these opportunities. I, on the other hand, believe fortune will inevitably favor the businesses who will grow and become better by devouring opportunities through the means which will stand the test of time. And devouring will not demand any false disruption charlatans, just some good old smart, ethical, thinking.

Have a good 2022 and I hope you learned a lot in 2021. Be the key. Devour.

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“Making a product is just an activity, making a profit on a product is the achievement.”

Amit Kalantri

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Author’s note:

I originally published this in 2018 and decided to repost given all the discussion about supply chain issues and inflation/inflated costs. While I believe it is fair to discuss inflation in a variety of ways, I believe it is business & economic malpractice to discuss inflated costs (to the consumer) without discussing how distribution issues effect costs. What I mean by that is even the smallest changes in distribution costs can make overall costs increase additively/multiplicative. Regardless. As I open this piece, “everything is about distribution.” Call it supply chain issues if you would like, but it is just good ole distribution.

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This is about distribution, therefore, it’s about technology, the internet & the transfer of goods & services.

Everything is about distribution. Everything.

Ideas.

Thoughts.

Attitudes.

Things.

Products.

Services.

Monies.

Material.

Data.

Information.

Think of each of these things as containers – containers to be shipped from one place to another. This is different than transactions. Transactions are the outcomes of distribution, i.e., I cannot make a transaction unless it can be distributed.

Now. While anyone can use this new Distribution Revolution world we live in you have to earn the income, revenue & profits, they don’t just come to you, i.e., simply accessing the construct doesn’t mean you will benefit from it. I believe that point is why much of the business world is struggling with what exactly technology is and whether it truly has offered any increased economic productivity. It gets discussed as “just another channel” or a social amplification tool or an efficiency creator or, well, the laundry list of labeling is massive. To me it would make much ore sense if we simply thought of it as a distribution infrastructure change from which people should start thinking about the repercussions to people, organizations & businesses.

Given this view, one would note the internet changed the world in a couple of ways that often don’t get discussed:

• Until the internet came along “everything is connected with everything” was more of a philosophical concept with strings of truth. Now, with the internet, it is truth which we need to conceptually, get a philosophical grip on it.
• Until the internet came along everything was physically distributed now many things can be virtually distributed.

Within this context of these two things, retail discussions, data distribution & digital transformations, are simply smaller battles within the larger Distribution Revolution. We discuss companies as disruptors or legacy businesses all the while neglecting the fact business is always about transactions of value & distribution enables the value items to exchange hands. Business is ultimately about transactions of value, and, distribution is all about enabling the value items (goods & services & payment/$) to change hands as efficiently to as many markets as possible.

Regardless.

Think about the internet as distributing containers – of information, monies, data, goods, services & transactions.

Original container revolution:

The container revolution started by giving businesses a way to distribute existing products faster and cheaper. Over time it allowed business to make and distribute new products and develop new business models. Containerization not only made shipping cheaper & faster it also completely changed the whole structure & mindset of distribution. In 1956 it cost $5.83 a ton to load loose cargo onto a ship in the United States – today it costs around 16 cents a ton (36x less expensive).

The new container revolution:

The internet is doing exactly the same thing. It gives people an alternative way to distribute existing products (physical and nonphysical) and enable businesses to create and distribute new products and develop new business models.

The Container revolution brought trade to previously out of the way places which before had been too costly to distribute. Similarly the internet has made it possible to not only distribute products & services but actual work (outsourcing). The internet can distribute in a variety of ways – physical logistics as well as digitally. This creates an entirely new industry for entrepreneurs to develop products & services which can be distributed anywhere at any time.

Think value on the move.

The essence of distribution is enabling value transactions to happen as cheaply and efficiently as possible beyond simply moving value from here to there, from seller to buyer, the internet actually provides opportunity to add value to the distribution process itself.

FYI. This can also be physical non internet products & services. For example, FedEx/UPS permits you to track your package via the internet. A logistics supplier who distributes nothing they actually create adds value to its own service simply thru distribution transparency.

All that said.

Digital is just a tactic within the revolution. Internet is the enabler of the revolution

What this distribution revolution has done is attack distribution in a variety of ways:

• Digitally unbundling value.

If distribution is value on the move it also means value can be unbundled (which has potential positives AND negatives).

Simplistically value, in the past, was created in a stacked layered way. Value was built layer by layer so that when assessed the value was seamlessly embedded in the total. The inherent strength of this methodology was value was constructed like a building in which parts were dependent on other parts.

In the new distribution revolution, the value is unbundled in a more linear way so that the individual parts can be maximized for its singular value. On a continuum both efficiency (time & investment) and effectiveness (ability to enhance value) can be manipulated on an ongoing basis, therefore, the value components can be constantly adapted to maximize the total value.

Productivity:

Theoretically, possibility of increased productivity occurs in 2 ways:

• Value gets driven up higher, in totality, by maximizing the individual parts with the highest value (this can be contextually different based on unique buying experiences). Productivity gets enhanced by more effective focus on things of highest value.
• Innovation opportunities are identified as discrete parts which can be pursued with the intent to either enhance structural (overall) value creation or intent to pursue a new transactional value creation opportunity (a ‘part’ of the value creation uncovers a new opportunity to produce something new)

• Localized relevance/personalization.

Local, or localized, connectiveness is a powerful aspect of providing value to distribution. People get absorbed, and sometimes overwhelmed, by the global scope of the distribution and localizing is an easy way to make it a little less overwhelming and more, well, personalized. Which leads me to personalization. To be recognized and acknowledged as a unique individual, or a distinct one, within a huge global distribution model, triggers one of the most basic human needs (recognition as an individual). Conversely, this is the underlying belief that while being acknowledged as an individual in a huge distribution world of anonymous impersonal interactions even a little nod to who you are, your identity, your specific needs, elevates basic distribution to personalized.

I would argue this is as far as you need to go (beyond maybe “you bought this so you may be interested in his” type personalization). The latter is acknowledgment you have had a relationship with that distribution but doesn’t overstep any ‘creepy’ boundaries.

Productivity:

We often conflate personalization with customization. Personalization, in general, creates a level of value to the functional & brand value. The productivity opportunity resides in the customization halo of personalization. In other words productivity can be enhanced if the productivity doesn’t simply ”chase” personalization but rather uses the personalization to assess either additional products or innovations which offer complementary products (which you can sell more of at a higher price).

• How does digital transformation fit in?

Digital transformation is a means to an end – an infrastructure decision. It should be viewed as “how can I distribute what needs to be distributed to either enable structural value creation (of what exists) or how it can create new value creation toward corporate vision.”

The value creation insures it meets business objectives and corporate culture (because, remember, digital transformation is dependent upon not mastery or implementation but rather culture – culture at scale means digital simply scales with culture).

In other words, unless you decide what you want to distribute and to whom and when, you cannot effectively implement digital transformation.

Productivity:

Digital transformation, implemented correctly. Offers two productivity opportunities:

• Transactional productivity (sell more of individual products)
• Structural productivity (cross selling of more products at a higher price – or higher profit margin)

• Where does the revolution go? New business models using New old products & services

We need to stop talking about Amazon and retail industry and focus on “how can this new distribution revolution be leveraged to meet our business objective (and what business do I want to create in which the objective can be met thru this distribution revolution>? There are few capacity issues/limitations associated with this distribution revolution so if the distribution helps you meet a viable business objective you know live in a ubiquitous world.

What I mean by this is there is an entire world of existing products & services which can become a new product or service simply by viewing it thru a distribution revolution lens.

Airbnb is simply a hostel-like concept enabled by tech

Uber was the eastern european transportation model but enabled by tech

Old ideas brought to life in a new way as information, value and transactions are exchanged.

Productivity:

There is nothing more profitable than selling more of something you already have and know how to produce efficiently. Theoretically businesses should be able to assess stagnant or dormant brands/products and evaluate whether a new way of distribution would reinvigorate sales & engagement.

Lastly.

• Not the customer Revolution, organizational revolution

I would encourage everyone to think of this Distribution revolution as having an organizational consequence (which will inherently affect customers but it is the deliverer of customer products/service which is impacted most). I would argue this is where the greatest productivity increases will appear.

The main reason we have not seen the expected economic results predicted with technology is lack of alignment between organizational design and technology benefits. One of the largest benefits of an information distribution revolution is the ‘knowledge worker’ (as defined by Alvin Toffler) can now have all the information necessary to make decisions wherever they sit with whatever title they may, or may not, have.

This is where the distribution revolution is easing its way into a distributed decision making & leadership business model. Distributed decision making inherently has economic benefits and increases productivity. The main proof point for this is “The Added Value of Buurtzorg Relative to Other Providers of Home Care: A Quantitative Analysis of Home Care in the Netherlands” (KPMG: Jan 2015).

————

Buurtzorg appears to transcend the usual trade-offs in health and social care: it is cost efficient and yet the ratio of nurses to clients is purposely kept low in the interest of care continuity; it generates a healthy surplus even though it employs a significantly larger than average number of highly-qualified staff remunerated at a higher than average level; it achieves higher than average employee productivity figures without centralised systems of employee control; it achieves higher than average quality of care at a cost level that is below the industry average.

————————

Now. This organizational design actually increases in productivity if more information, and relevant information, is distributed to employees.

This leads me to note simply removing hierarchy isn’t enough. Hierarchy has conditioned the everyday employee to not assume risk and middle management to be, well, anal. In addition current measurement models restrict decision making rather than enhance freedom necessary to make the best decisions at any given point in time. Frankly, most of us are conditioned to be passive and compliant. Successful self-managing companies have very clear structures but, culturally, are constructed with more of a belief in people taking responsibility & being accountable. Applying the Distribution revolution with a distributed decision making organizational model demands a mindset, leadership, culture and the human skills necessary to facilitate a much deeper level of productivity.

Productivity:

Organization change is a means to an end. Change for change sake is wasted energy. Therefore, the distribution revolution leading to organizational revolution needs to have productivity revolution consequences. Internet, to date, has not produced substantive economic growth.

I would argue that is because there has not been an alignment of business & how the internet distributes information, ideas, knowledge & things to date. Some businesses have utilized aspects of technology and distribution opportunities to make some successful economic forays into the marketplace. But I struggle to find a business that has aligned all aspects to maximize economic productivity, enhance value and, well, sell more at the highest price possible.

Conclusion.

Distribution is inherently about the transfer of goods & services. I have simply expanded the definition of ‘goods & services’ based on technology. I believe it is helpful to look at technology as a Distribution Revolution because, as I have been reminded over & over again, technology should be a means to increased economic productivity & enhanced value creation.

When viewed under that microscope it becomes more obvious there is a lack of alignment to best utilize the distribution of goods & services. We will not reap the larger economic benefits until we stop viewing technology as, well, technology and begin viewing it simply as a distribution model from which we align all phases in the distribution from creation to implementation.

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Thanks to Joost Minnaar (Corporate Rebels) and Wiemer Snijders for some valuable thoughts as well as an older J. Walter Thompson white paper on technology.

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“The path is always right beneath your feet.”

Issan Dorsey Roshi

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Ok. This is a quasi-rant on hope.

We often speak of hope in big sweeping terms. We talk about  scanning wide open aspirational horizons for something better. Yet. The boring truth is that more often than not the reality of hope resides right under your feet on a path you currently stand, walk, ride or run.
Yeah. Not exciting to think about. But your choices, decisions and where you elect to place one foot after another is where hope resides.

It’s not found within a thankless society, a selfish culture nor an ever increasingly appearing unstable world … it is within us.

That’s why whenever I hear anyone say “the American dream is dead” I want to say “fuck you.”

And I want to say that not just for some esoteric American dream, but rather for anyone’s dreams & hopes in any country.

Huh?

I just want anyone & everyone to stop fucking with my dreams and my hopes.

Now.

I won’t argue that the world today is challenging enough to make it feel more despair than hope, more bad than good, and that the system makes it more difficult for individuals to attain some of their hopes & dreams, but that is external stimulus; not internal resolve. And I, frankly, don’t want to give my dreams and hopes to some external cloud storage system for care … I want to store them in me.

They are mine to protect and project.

Which leads me to destiny, fate and hope.

Well.

What I am suggesting this means is that I believe we make our own destinies. Every day we are presented with choices. Some we don’t even recognize. Some we don’t even see <until they are past>. Some we see and make a choice. Our destiny is a reflection of these choices — made and not made.

Our hopes and dreams are made right there.

This does not mean our independence is not interconnected in an interdependent fashion in some ways … just that in order to cut through the spiderweb of random things you may be dependent upon you have to independently make choices and decisions.

If you do not?

Well. That makes your own hope also dependent upon this spiderweb of … uhm … shit in the proverbial shithole around us. And who the hell wants that?

This all means that I believe we assume, and have, responsibility — as in responsibility for your own actions <and hence your dreams, fate, destiny & hope>.

Not everyone will embrace that thought.

Today it seems more likely someone will suggest their behavior, mistakes, flaws and even their dashed dreams & hopes are a reflection of outside influences, a ‘lesser than’ home life experience growing up, poverty, ethnicity, or some painful experience that impacted us in childhood.

Some people that is what they learned.

And some people were taught otherwise by their adult mentors. Some learn that when you screw up it is on ‘you’ and no one else.

Some learn you can be frequently wrong, frequently stupid, but if you have been taught to be accountable and to admit to your accountability, you may get some shit from people but you will also be known as someone who is accountable for their own actions. And you will also have assumed accountability, and responsibility, for your own hope & dreams.

I am in the latter group. I assume accountability & responsibility for my hopes & dreams.

So … please, PLEASE, don’t try and tell me my dream has been killed.

You are fucking with my hope.

And you are fucking with people’s minds.

To be clear. Someone trying to fuck with our minds matters. It matters because, well, Susan Neiman, a social philosopher, said it maybe the best:

“As long as your ideas of what’s possible are limited by what’s actual, no other idea has a chance.”

Someone may suggest a dream is owned by a country or a business, but they are wrong.

Someone may suggest hope is in the purview of some mystical leader who can deliver it in some way upon us, but they are wrong.

Someone may suggest both my dreams and hopes are at the mercy of some system or obstructed by some evil activity in my past, but they are wrong.

They are wrong because the moment you actually agree you have permitted your ideas of what is possible to be limited by what appears as actual <and let me tell ya … ‘actual’ is a moving target in and of itself’> … and no other idea … no dream … no hope … has a chance.

My hope is my hope.

My dreams are my dreams.

Quit fucking with my hope.

Quit fucking with my dreams.

They are mine.

And the path to them is right underneath my feet.

The only thing stopping me from taking one step closer toward my hopes & dreams is me.

The only thing getting me closer toward my hopes & dreams is me taking one step forward on the pat … that path right beneath my feet.

Hope is mine. And keep your grubby hands off it.

———-

“Because we are ‘free’ to be hateful, members of traditionally marginalized groups suffer.”

Laura Beth Nielsen

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The other night I watched a documentary called Can We Take a Joke?  which claims to be ‘an examination of Western society’s apparent contemporary intolerance of edgy humor by comedians’. But, instead, it is a thoughtful exploration of how we often take the easier route of attempting to shut down things we don’t want to hear rather than debating those things.

I admit I don’t get ’cancel culture’ (I cannot figure out who actually gets canceled) and ‘woke’ seems like a blanket term for certain types of political correctness. All that said. There is a weird battle among ‘snowflakes’ <another term I think has to do with being overly sensitive but I am not sure> in which everyone seems constantly outraged at something someone else said. It’s a bipartisan shared stupidity. And while it may have its roots in something meaningful it is has been hijacked by performative politics. And that is where it starts getting really weird. Politicians, using words to create outrage have made words, well, meaningless <and that should be a crime>. At exactly the same time they are making the constitution meaningless or, at minimum, warped to whatever outrage they have at the moment.

Free speech offers everyone the freedom to be stupid, say stupid, but not be free of the consequences for stupidity.

I admit that I struggle to explain the boundaries of free speech to anyone. Despite the 1st Amendment, local, state, and federal laws limit all kinds of speech. We regulate advertising, obscenity, slander, libel, and inciting lawless action to name just a few (but for some odd reason, not politics). Hate speech is hateful, but legal. And maybe that is where ‘cancel culture’ steps in. just because it is legal doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have some consequences. it can be legal and we, the people, can ‘cancel them out’ to show their stupidness, hatefulness or basic lack of decency has some consequences.

That said. Just as I suggested with regard to political correctness, what we consider ‘hateful’ has expanded to include some fairly silly things. By the way, just because I used the word ‘silly’ doesn’t mean that they cannot be important and representative of some serious discussions/issues, but, almost any ‘obia’ with regard to people is going to be hateful to some people, and representative of some people. Do I wish it were not that way? Sure, I do. But with 7billionish people in the world and a belief I don’t think everyone should think exactly the same things, there will be some people who will always think differently. I can’t ‘cancel’ them, I can’t suggest they are ‘woke’ and that’s stupid, all I can do is live with them, talk with them, listen to them, and recognize, for the most part, whatever the part I ‘hate’ is just part of who they are. And maybe my point within that is we shouldn’t make anyone voiceless. If we do, how can we hear what they have to say and offer some dialogue around what they say? Silence, voiceless, does not seem an option.

Now. To be clear. Hate speech is rarely just hate speech. In many cases it is representative, and embodies, actual behavior. So that ‘speech’ embodies tangible harm and a desire to subordinate another’s views <if not subordinate a cross section of a population>. Hate speech perpetuates actual behavior – discrimination, division and inequality.

Here is where I will run into legal issues. There is stupid speech and there is hate speech. The difference to me is one that embodies hateful behavior and the other is simply performative**. Stupid is the latter; hate is the former.

Now.

Some legal scholar is going to come out of the woodwork and challenge me. I am all ears and I am up for the debate.

Some non-legal everyday schmuck is going to come out of the woodwork and challenge me with some simplistic empty constitutional meanderings. Shut up. I have no time for you.

To be clear. Anyone can, and should, suggest protecting hate speech is consistent with and even central to Constitutional founding principles. Where I will debate is when they argue regulating hate speech is a ‘slippery slope’ of overreach <I would like to point out that there is no slope, we – as people – are quite capable of making one-time decisions, and choice making is kind of what makes people people>. Hate speech, tied to behavioral aspects, cannot be trivialized. It cannot be because by association the behavior also becomes a freedom – tied to the free speech. I don’t say this as a ‘snowflake’ but rather as a concerned citizen concerned with societal norms and a better society.

We should not remove voices, simply outline consequences if you use your voice.

We should all remember the right to speak already is far from absolute.

We should take note that often hate speech tends to put disadvantaged members of our society in situations with serious consequences.

In the end.

Words have meanings. Words are ideas. Words shape attitudes. Words inspire behavior.

We should debate meanings robustly.

We should debate ideas robustly.

We should debate attitudes robustly.

We should make people accountable for behavior.

Don’t remove voices, don’t make people voiceless, hear what they have to say and robustly – as is YOUR freedom – debate the accountability for what they chose to say with their freedom. Ponder.

===

** performative: this is another slippery slope but let me suggest people with a larger platform have a higher responsibility than other people. A politician should not have the same level of accountability than an everyday schmuck like me – theirs should be higher. Their ‘performative’ is signaling to a crowd of which someone in that crowd could be inspired to act. There should be accountability.

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

“You’re not like other girls.”

“Shut the fuck up … don’t ever compliment me by insulting other women. That’s not a compliment; it’s a competition none of us agreed to.”

(via aussie-with-glasses)

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

This is about competitions we don’t agree to in Life, in a society that creates them and a sense of “self” in which we are constantly trying to find meaning in the competition of ‘doing’.

So. Most of us can go through life doing the best we can trying to get along and, in general, view most things in life as a journey and not some race and … well …, unfortunately, sometimes people, things and society have a different view.

What this means is you are demanded to compete in some competition you really never agreed to.

Let me explain. There are absolutely a bunch of people out there who define themselves by competition. They seek to find validation and actualization through some comparison versus what others are doing <this, basically, is competition>. And then there are people like me <I do not know how many there are of us but I imagine it is a fairly significant %>. While I like winning and, on occasion, a good competition gets the heart rate up and ‘ups my game’, the majority of the time I don’t view Life when I wake up and go to work as a competition with anyone and anything but myself. I simply want to do good things <epic shit if possible> do the best I can and better than I did yesterday. I guess my competition is my yesterday not other people. That said. I am not naïve. I know that everyday I wake up and go to work I am entering into ‘the Thunderdome’ and entering into some competition that I didn’t really agree to.

=========

“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”

Steve Maraboli

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

I don’t like it. But I recognize it. As often as I can, I avoid the competitions I don’t agree to.

By the way, if you google “how to deal with competitions you do not agree to” you will get zilch, zero, no results on that topic.

None.

Ponder that for a second.

All that said.

What this does mean is that you receive compliments, as well as criticisms, based on competitions you didn’t agree to.

And that is aggravating. Incredibly annoying in fact.

It is like you are being judged by the Race Walking Olympic judges, with scores you don’t really care about, because you were just out jogging that day. Day in and day out people who really do not want to compete, other than with their own standards, are faced with having to accommodate competition they didn’t agree to.

What a fucking pain in the ass. I would also point out it sounds incredibly inefficient and time wasting.

Look. I am not suggesting some competition isn’t bad. I am suggesting that we go fucking overboard with regard to ‘forcing competition’ into all threads of Life & society & culture.

I do believe it is healthy for young people to understand that in competition some people win and some people lose and that some people get trophies and not everyone gets one <although getting a trophy is not all there is to success & Life>.

I do believe it is healthy in youth to understand that some people are smarter than others, that some have skills you don’t have and that some people more easily learn some things than you do.

I do believe it is healthy for young people to learn how to compete and that competition can be healthy.

But at some point I think it would be good for society and culture to either turn that switch off or maybe learn how to turn on the dimmer switch because I think part of being an adult is knowing what you are good at and what you may not be good at and deciding for yourself <some would call that personal responsibility> how you want to achieve the best version of yourself.

I am not convinced that society, and business, creating some false versions of competition which almost encourages me to compete in some competition I really didn’t agree to, let alone really want to compete, is a good thing.

I tend to believe people like me think our competition is harsher and more challenging than any competition society can create for me and because of that I tend to want to dismiss outside competitions.

Yeah.

That choice is fraught with peril. Suffice it to say just knowing that there is peril in not wanting to compete in some competition I didn’t even agree to is aggravating. But that is the world we currently live in. We are asked to compete against other flowers when all most of us want to do is bloom.

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

“When the institutions of money rule the world, it is perhaps inevitable that the interests of money will take precedence over the interests of people. What we are experiencing might best be described as a case of money colonizing life. To accept this absurd distortion of human institutions and purpose should be considered nothing less than an act of collective, suicidal insanity.”

David Korten

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

“Money decides how it wants to live.”

Ryan Gravel, City Designer

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

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games

We got everything you want, honey, we know the names

We are the people that can find whatever you may need

If you got the money, honey, we got your disease

Guns ‘N Roses, Welcome to the Jungle

====

Money. It seems like every time someone brings up money it is about haves and have-nots, who deserves it and who gets to keep it. I am going to attempt a different discussion. The definition of money. My view is that money has lost its meaning and in order to make some progress with regard to some of our social ills, including “money decides where it wants to live”, we need to step back and define the meaning of money for the future. We need money so we may as well make sure we all make sense of it the same way so that we can begin to make some better choices with regard to a myriad of issues with it.

Where I begin. Power and money, money and power. They are inextricably linked.

And this is important because, well, it makes you think about who owns the future – the ones with the money, the ones aspiring to have the money, or the ones who do not have the money <and even whether it should matter>. And THAT is important because, well, “money decides how it wants to live.” I believe if we continue on the path we are currently on we run the risk of money determinism, not human determinism. What I mean by that is money becomes the design, and designer, of human society not a tool used by humans to implement the human-designed design of human society. That said. I would be naïve to suggest humans have the power, because they do and they don’t. They do own the future because they can be the architects of fate and the future as well as architects of what money should be, yet, money will always be power until the world, itself, decides to change. Money is power and power is money. That is the world we have today and that is the world we need to deal with.

So, I circle back to who owns the future, who owns the power, who owns the money? And whoever does, can they handle the power and the money they have?

Power subverts the intentions of a free market. Today’s marketplace is a system of competing powers (players) each of whom are seeking an advantage. And while most often that advantage is information <knowledge, wisdom>, money buys information. I say that because if the world, the market, isn’t sane <power distorts traditional view of sanity>, technology will not solve it and money is simply power to eliminate things that are obstacles to more money.

Ponder that last thought.

Ponder it because taken to its natural conclusion it suggests using money for altruistic initiatives is simply a means to eliminate an obstacle <public sentiment? regulations?> to more money. Cynical? Well. That is what money, as it exists, has wrought.

Which leads me to Money has changed.

Money has changed in the minds of people and its absurd to develop ideas, systems or even solutions until we address how money has changed. What I mean by that is “value.” Absurdly the financial industry continues to think of money in simplistic speculative or transactional terms. It would behoove them of they began thinking about how people view its ‘value’ beyond simply 100 pennies for a $1 bill.

Bitcoin, or cryptocurrency, is probably the poster child for this <albeit stocks are not far behind>. One of the most maddening, but insightful, conversations I overheard was about how there was no difference, in valuation, between fiat currency and bitcoin. A younger person suggested they were no different in that neither was grounded in anything tangible – both grounded in perception with regard to value. This argument disregards the thousands of years and transactions, based on hundreds of years of a gold standard, in which fiat currency gained credible value stability – it earned its value and valuation – and equated it to, well, the gamification <called “mining” by the crypto world to create some semblance of valuation credibility through association with how fiat currency was created> from which crypto is created. This is nuts. But it is also how money has changed perceptionwise in the minds of people. Ultimately this is a mindset shift leading to a belief shift leading to, well, behaviors.

Which leads me to cashless.

We have shifted away from using hard cash to using soft cash.

BBHLabs, 2021

We talk about financial literacy all the time, yet, ignore the fact that money has become significantly less tangible to a large swath of people as they have become cashless. I, personally, believe debt has become more of an issue because cash has become cashless. If I do not see a physical transaction day in and day out then almost all my transactions become less real <until paying the piper becomes due and, well, in today’s world the piper is willing to wait for his payment as long as you pay him some bit today>. For a subset of that large swath of people in an age group within households with wealth they have existed on debit cards/credit cards and cashless transactions almost their entire life. This has repercussions because, well, money chooses how it will live and those with money, but have a dubious relationship with the real value of money, are gonna be building the world through those financial eyes. Unfortunately, there is another swath of people who carry a smallish bundle of money around with them who watch their monthly budgets because, well, they have to. It’s a monopoly money universe versus a real money universe. They do not share a definition of money. This is an issue.

Which leads me to paper wealth.

The rise of paper wealth is linked to a variety of things but for this discussion I view it as tied to cashless trends. What I mean by that is as money becomes more intangible and value is some amorphous blob that isn’t tied to anything real, then investing in the intangible seems less risky and simply part of the amorphous blob of wealth available to anyone.

BBHLabs, 2021

The first point I will make on this has to do with hard cash versus paper wealth. If I have a $20 in my pocket, I clearly have $20 of wealth. If I have $20billion in stocks, my $ wealth is actually a bit trickier. Let’s say all the stocks in that portfolio dropped to zero in one day. What’s my wealth? Uhm. $0. Now that may all sound silly, but the truth is that we have begun confusing paper wealth and money. Because paper wealth seems so extraordinary, almost like monopoly money, almost everyone now thinks of investments as part of the monopoly money game and they want in on that game.

The second point I will make on this is the stock market is increasingly an alternative universe from hard cash. Company valuation is completely out of whack and stock prices don’t meet existing actual value but some speculative value <which often seem absurd>.

I imagine when you combine my two thoughts what you get is a monopoly money world in which the Park Place in the game is speculatively valued at the value of Kryptonite <something that does not exist>.

I imagine my grander point is cash has lost its moorings. It is what we believe it to be.

Inevitably all I am really suggesting is money’s “story” has changed and as its story has changed its value foundation has shifted. As it became less “an extension of I” and more “emblematic of success” the value equation shifted. I will end this section by suggesting money is simply a story system. It tells people a story and it gives people stories to tell. And maybe that’s why I have always told the financial folk, “articulate the definition of money for the future”.

Which leads me to zero-sum capitalism.

“When your neighbor grows fat, you grow thin.”

Horace

What you say becomes what you think which becomes what you do.

Attitudes can lead to behavior, but often they do not lead to real action <or are an accurate predictor of action>. I would suggest attitudes toward money or wealth DO lead to real action. More is never enough and there are no rules when it comes to maintaining or protecting one’s wealth.

If you buy into that thought, or thoughts, then we need to become concerned when the institutions of money <people with money> rule the world. We should be concerned because when those people begin to talk about fairness or shared prosperity they do so with a catch. The catch is “as long as it does not infringe upon my pursuit of my money and my wealth.” Without context, that is a fine and dandy thought. But in a zero-sum mindset it suggests HOW I got my money and wealth was fair and equitable and the system of money rewards those who deserve it.

===

“We’ve made it really easy for good people to do the wrong things.”

Josh Tetrick

===

Here’s the rub. Chasing the limitless is both dangerous and freeing in general, but in a zero-sum world it is just corrosive. The truth is chasing limitless piles of money debases its actual value – the only value is more and each additional dollar placed on the large stack diminishes in actual value to its owner <it is simply a prize, not prized>. Chasing anything with no limit can be a freeing feeling, but what I would suggest, in this case, is the no limit actually represents a soulless cage. I could go on and on about how zero-sum capitalism attitude begets zero-sum behavior which begets lousy extremes <because ‘winners’ increase probability of more winning not because of skill/better but because they have, well, more money>. I don’t begrudge people money, but, zero-sum doesn’t exactly create a fair game for all players.

Which leads me to ‘not wealth distribution but rather wealth de-clustering’.

“Money decides how it wants to live.”

Ryan Gravel is a city designer/planner. While he is arguably one of the most positive thinkers and creators of “good” I know, I would argue he is actually a problem solver. In this case he solves the problem of ‘the natural arc to cluster.’ I believe he is in the “human de-clustering design” business of which one of its outcomes, when successful, is to decluster money.

Left to its own devices, wealth clusters and decides how it wants to live. This is true in actual money and housing and cities and, well, everything. Clustering in and of itself is natural and if based on fairness isn’t bad. The problem is within today’s system, and institutions, the wealth is not only clustering, but it continues to get amplified so it grows exponentially versus the rest of the system in which, at best, is additive. You either remove the exponential aspects or make it easier to shift from additive to at least multiplicative. Make the race more equitable or clusters will grow to such a point equity is impossible.

Clustering always existed in capitalism, but it seemed to become more of a business science, rather than simply power-driven, when Milton Friedman’s essay for the New York Times was published in 1970. The “greed is good” philosophy became a business acumen <with theories, practices and models> based on the economist’s idea that the sole task of executives was to enrich shareholders – provided they played by the rules. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out “the rules” became vague outlines as business people relentlessly pursued profit and growth.

====

“The world is not as simple as we like to make it out to be. The outlines are often vague and it’s the details that count. Nothing is really truly black or white and bad can be a disguise for good or beauty … and vice versa without one necessarily excluding the other.

Life is an uncertain adventure in a diffuse landscape whose borders are constantly shifting where all frontiers are artificial where at any moment everything can either end only to begin again … or finish suddenly forever … like an unexpected blow from an axe. Where the only absolute, coherent, indisputable and definitive reality … is death. We have such little time when you look at Life … a tiny lightning flash between two eternal nights.

Everything has to do with everything else. Life is a succession of events that link with each other whether we want them to or not.”

 Arturo Perez Revarte

====

This vaguery includes money. Money is a vague concept in its value. To be clear, I believe this is true even with the rich and the financially-educated wealthy. The “rich club” sees this monopoly money through a lens of some alternative universe in which their level of subsistence is representative of the average.

It’s kind of mental masturbation in order to justify a level of high living and hedonic adaptation. The middle class just sees all this monopoly money floating around and wonder why they aren’t getting their piece of the pie and the poor, using money as a transaction with survivability, see all this monopoly money as proof that the system doesn’t care about them. This all begets a set of divided mindsets on what money’s real value is and who gets the money. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this mindset universe is partially crafted by governments who actually treat budgets and spending like monopoly money and do nothing to be truly accountable for all that absurd amount of money. Vaguery, in general, is rarely good, but in the case of money this vagueness simply creates a sensemaking that is divided, yet, in a shared grounding that money exists in the purview of the few, not the many.

All that said, in general, the majority of people only really have some vague outline of how the world works, how effective or ineffective a leader is and any specific relationship between cause & affect.

This vaguery exists because it takes a lot of work to parse the details, and the appropriate details, and the ‘right’ details to make the outlines less vague and more tangible. Even capitalism is vague. Capitalism promises desirable things – freedom, opportunity and prosperity — but perfectly competitive, fair and efficient is fiction.

In a productivity, growth-obsessed system, while many people are enjoying outcomes, fewer are enjoying wealth. And those who are wealthy invest a lot of energy saving the ‘winners money’ from everyone else <they safeguard the system that created them>, in other words, money protects money <or money decides how it wants to live>.

So, what should we seek? Commercial symmetry. I want to be careful here. No neat graphs, no distribution curves, no models, this is simple symmetry through de-clustering. Rather than accept the lousy extremes, and lousy money clusters, with a wretched in-between of zero-sum precarious mindsets, money should seek some symmetry. This demands a sustainable model of transactions – products and connections (value given – value received equaling a fair monetary transaction). Currently many transactions are, well, simply transactions of less-than-fair asymmetrical value exchanges. For example, an Uber transfer of money is simply a transaction of lesser value than what is fair, in other words, the transaction labor is essential, but relatively worthless. I would argue the social contract is broken in this situation. When a social contract works you recognize what is good for them is good for you and what’s good for others, in general, is ultimately good for you. Economically, this social contract is made up of mini-money transactions. Currently it is an asymmetrical cash transaction world and we need to create some symmetry.

This is going to be difficult.

The underlying purpose of the existing consumerism-based capitalism is not to provide public services or goods, but rather, to control and sell resources, even basic sustenance, like water, and provide a profit for the few who control the resources. In addition, money is actually being used to buy one’s place in society by, well, buying the ticket in – churches, donations, philanthropy, etc. It’s like a Faustian bargain with society funded by money. I could argue our sense of community has even been corrupted by money. In the past capitalism and community spirit walked hand-in-hand, but in today’s world capitalism is just another money maker, or funder, for community. The ‘spirit’ has been chipped away and now it is just another monetary transaction. What this actually does is isolate people from community and, simultaneously, divides the community into ‘those who fund (have money)’ and ‘those who use’ (the money). In addition, it has freed business from any civic obligation <unless they see it as an ROI investment of their money>. This simplistic monetary transaction has trickled into education, home ownership, renting, childcare, well, everywhere. All transactions tainted by that ‘monopoly money’ lack of accountability. That isn’t to say people don’t recognize the outlay of money as real, my point is that even things of substance <education, investment in meaningful materialistic things, childcare> have been stripped of the substance and are simply transactions. Basically, people pay more, receive less, and are told that is the way the world is supposed to work. In other words, we are actually told that money chooses how it lives.

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“The American Dream has a price tag on it. The cost changes depending on where you’re born and to whom, with what colour skin and with how much money in your parents’ bank account.”

Sarah Smarsh Heartland

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Which leads me to where we are and what happens next.

First. A new definition of money.

Let’s just say that the money we use today is more like monopoly money than it is hard cash. What I mean by that is while we use money to pay for the important sustenance things, for the poor-ish those payments are often supplemented by needed government programs so it isn’t really their money, in fact, they never even see the money, and things get paid for. Governments toss around trillions of dollars and businesses pay executives absurd salaries the normal everyday schmuck cannot even fathom and stock prices soar even when the headlines suggest the economy isn’t particularly good. All of which creates that huge amorphous blob of “what the hell is money worth” attitudes and beliefs.

So, in the absence of any real understanding of what the value of money is, it comes down to greed, wealth and things – and the accumulation of <More>. Look. I do not believe money corrupts people; people corrupt people. That said society does encourage us to look at wealth in some fairly unhealthy ways and there are a lot of “shaky people” <as Tom Petty referred to them> who don’t care who they hurt in their quest to have more money than they’ll ever need. But. As I noted when I wrote “The Rich Club” I certainly do not buy into the belief that wealthy people cannot be compassionate or morally responsible or even that they cannot envision the needs of the less fortunate, but I do know that their wealth gives them a very warped view of money and life.

So, what do we do? One of the ongoing debates I have with my friends in the financial industry has to do with this idea – a new definition of money. And when I suggest a new definition of money, I believe it is beneficial for everyone.

We need to stop seeing wealth as money, and start seeing wealth as some version of societal health. I don’t mean everyone be altruistic, but rather wealth is viewed through a ‘envisioning a greater society” or of “we value” rather than some simplistic “I value”. In other words, you use your wealth in making the ultimate grand bargain with everyone else – I can help you and I want to be helped back – kind of the opposite of zero-sum.

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Money, it’s a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today

But if you ask for a raise
It’s no surprise that they’re giving none away

Pink Floyd, Money

===

Unfortunately, Life has everything, and nothing, to do with money and wealth. What I mean by that is money and wealth is a means to an end. For 95%+ of the people … if they think about the people in their life who they like & I love the most or maybe think about whose existence is the most important to them, they actually recognize that it has little to do with money or wealth. In other words, the meaningfulness of life has to do with people, not money. Yet. Money is in today’s warped world fundamentally a signal to self, and others, that you HAVE meaning. But, even more importantly, money is the pragmatic aspect of holding onto the reality we have and reaching out to a reality we may desire. I imagine the debate should be surrounding “reality”, as a human being do you think the reality of the economy is to support you and your dreams or, well, support society. In the latter concept resides a belief that a healthy system and environment permits anyone and everyone to thrive, and survive, not just those who have the most money. The latter concept also demands people to agree on a system, rules and policies that not only provide a construct for desired behavior and outcomes, based on a common language, common agreement & common understanding, but one in which everyone agrees on fairness not zero-sum. My guess is that in a human design society money shouldn’t be status, but value – not only in things but of something.

Second. So where does that leave us? Anti-monopoly money strategy.

I have many ideas on how to do this but I imagine some really smart folk in the financial industry could resolve this if, well, they had the resolve. My guidance would be to avoid Purpose, avoid purpose over profit, avoid some esoteric metaverse concepts and hunker down on making money real, and tangible, and of tangible value in and of itself <not defined by transaction but by its being and essence>.  Generally speaking, it would be nice if we arrive at a definition that suggested if you are a human being, the thing you need to realize is that the economy should be there to support the society, money does not design human society and that humans should design a society in which money doesn’t choose the winners and losers. That, in a better society, money will be equitably distributed to skills, talent and work – not just because you already have it. Or maybe, as Guns ‘n Roses suggest, maybe money shouldn’t be the invitation to some disease in this jungle society we have created. What I do know is money decides how it will live and, therefore, we should care how money defines itself. Ponder.

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“All men dream: but not equally.

Those who dream in the dark recesses of the night awake in the day to find all was vanity.

But the dreamers of day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, and make it possible.”

T.E. Lawrence

———–

“On stormy nights they both dreamt intensively, violently – they often drowned.”

Heat and Light by Ellen Van Neerven

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“What use is idealism when the ideals are false ones?”

Byron

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Hope, optimism, dreaming, even idealism, seems out of vogue these days. “Be realistic,” “nothing is going to change” is the war cry of the general masses or, at minimum, the cynical few. This is the real crisis we face. For the truth is more often than we like to admit our idealistic visions and dreams actually come to fruition, in some form or fashion, in the real world. and what that means is less idealism and less dreaming creates a reduced chance of real progress.

I will say its weird, at least to me, in that how we view people, who is essential and who will be valued <not the same>, is often also the way we view some idealistic thinking and dreams. Ideals and dreams are essential and of value <although not all are created equal>. Now. I am going to focus on business, but the lessons within are also ones of society too. Just ponder it all as you read along.

It was Mary Parker Follett who discussed, in Community is a Process, idealism and realism meeting “in the actual.”

The actual is complex. Shit. “Actual” could simply be complexity itself. Business demands navigating complexity BY AND THROUGH a combination of idealism and realism. We can talk about sensemaking and choice making and embracing uncertainty, but the weapons we wield as we wander through complexity is idealism and realism. Sure. We also focus on greed and profit when the truth is the motives of business are numerous and complex. We want profit and yet we work for self-development, working together, service, completion, progress, esteem, craftsmanship, creation, etc. This is another extrapolation of Mary Parker Follett’s “law of the situation” where each situation has its own order and own complex mix of motives. Idealism, realism and ‘in the actual’ are all part of the weave of complexity of which any group of people working together as well as any individual ‘doing’ will interact with their own weave of motives. Simply saying it is ‘greed’ or ‘just a paycheck’ is lazy. Work is more complex and people are more complex and even the connection between idealism and realism is complex.

And maybe that is why I now suggest an ideology of incrementalism is fraught with peril. While on the positive side it offers potential consistent positive progress on the downside it can be representative of putting off important things until it’s too late to do anything about them. Incrementalism is the worst of both idealism and realism. It sacrifices the best of both while promising the best of nothing.

“The remarkable monotony of the proposed solutions throughout our recorded history testifies to the elemental simplicity of the matter. Generally speaking, they always amount to seeking shelter from action’s calamities in an activity where one man, isolated from all others, remains master of his doings from beginning to end”

Hannah Arendt

Ok. I believe every business has an ambition. In fact. I believe every business has different ambitions all at the same time – money, morals, size, Purpose, etc. that ambition can come in any size but it will always own some combination of idealism and realism. That specials sauce combination is theirs and they hope to attain it or aspire to reach it. it is their ‘hope’ of what can be.

To me.

All hope to me should be grounded in some sense of idealism and reality.

I, frankly, don’t understand when people suggest you cannot have both.

I, frankly, don’t understand when people suggest you cannot have both idealism and realism.

I, frankly, don’t understand when people suggest you shouldn’t have aspects of both hope & pragmatism, possibilities and pragmatism and idealism & realism.

We should want both AND demand both. It is reaching for the stars and reaching realistically. It is keeping your feet in the clouds and, yet, head on the ground.

But that’s how I think.

I think you can be both idealistic and realistic.

I think it is possible to offer a sense of a difficult path forward without creating a larger sense of ‘doom or Armageddon’ to create the sense of urgency which we often deem necessary in order to inspire real action.

And, inevitably, that is what this is all about.

How to inspire people not just to inspire, but to take action?

How to inspire larger ideas and larger actions and the smaller steps inbetween?

This is a tightrope all business people walk.

The difficulty on this tightrope is that there will always be people debating, and criticizing, while you walk on this tight rope. They will argue whether the ambition is big enough. They will argue whether the ambition isn’t small enough. They will argue we need more radical change. They will argue we need less radical change. Shit. They will argue we need no change moving forward, but rather reverse some of the changes made.

And you know what?

Some of that, in all of that, is right. Some of the past is awful and some of the decisions we will make for the future, and in the future, will be awful. Conversely, some of all of that will, well, not be awful.

To suggest that there are easy answers or that the steps forward are clear and simple is stupid. Stupid and foolish.

Just to be clear. Within the “Idealism and Realism” debate can be found the constructive decision which any leader tries to find their own course in leading. We debate all of this shit in our own heads and then we debate it in conference rooms and boardrooms every week. This debate, simplistically, are the doubts that reside between idealism and realism.

We are responsible for past decisions and, yet, try to unburden ourselves so that we can make progress.

Simplistically, just because I <maybe> made an awful decision in the past doesn’t mean I will make an awful decision in the future.

Simplistically, just because I maybe offer a hopeful idealistic decision for the future doesn’t mean it is a realistic decision for now.

Simplistically, just because I try and slow everybody down on some idealistic discussion shouldn’t suggest I am any more ‘canny or wise’ than everybody else let alone the person who offers the idealistic hope that people may gravitate toward — it just suggests that maybe I am trying to balance it all with reality <and maybe incorporate the fact that, pragmatically, I would like to incorporate some possibilities for people today & tomorrow>.

I will suggest, no, I will tell you the harsh truth getting good shit done within ANY size ambition is hard.

Getting shit done means balancing overreach and under reach.

Balancing possibilities and pragmatism.

Balancing idealism and realism.

Balancing the practical and the hope.

Balancing what people think they want and what they need.

Balancing the majority and the minority.

Balancing what is good for one and good for all.

Anything less than that is oversimplification.

Oh. Shit. And then there is context. One can never lose sight of context.

You have to balance the idea, the hopefulness of ‘what could be’, against pragmatically where you have been <what has happened if not what has just happened> as well as where you are.

It is incredibly simplistic to suggest any past decision should be compared to a decision you will make. Just as it would be incredibly simplistic to judge a business leader if they were to take over a large company which was truly heading into a shithole versus a company which had some problems but was, in general, businesswise healthy.

Every transition has its own singular issues. Every situation has its own singular issues. Every business has its own singular issues. And, let’s be clear, every one of those situations has singular problems.

We should all recognize that in the overall life cycle of business problems and opportunities, practical and possibilities, hope & despair, heroes & villains, will appear in different forms – all with the intent to either further our ambitions or steal our ambitions and crush our ideals.

This is not cynical, this is … uhm … reality.

I would suggest reality is navigating idealism and reality mostly by assessing the problems, or obstacles, to your ambition.

Harping on whatever those problems are doesn’t really get you anywhere.

They are what they are.

I could also argue that arguing over idealistic ideas and vision without admitting some pragmatic realism doesn’t really get you anywhere. It is not a binary discussion nor are pragmatism and possibilities, idealism and practical, mutually exclusive.

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“Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.”

John Galsworthy

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Look. We all hate cynicism, but far too often we confuse it with pragmatism and practicality. I would also suggest we all get tired of pragmatism because, well, far too often it sounds small. But I would also point out that we all not only get tired, but absolutely unequivocally hate, unrealized idealism. “Large” unrealized equals zero, nothing, nada. People don’t like a zero, nothing, nada no matter how large the zero, nothing, nada is.

Neither option, looked upon in isolation, is attractive or likeable.

And you know what? We all know in our heads this is a tightrope. We sit down and assess what we have, assess what we could have, assess resources, money, whatever, and figures out, pragmatically, how to get going doing the business of doing business – that desires to attain that ambition.

We may not always get it right and we may not always get done whatever is needed to get done to alleviate the problems, or all the problems, that exist in the here and now. But I would point out that, realistically, you can never alleviate all problems and that problems exist, contextually, no matter if you are idealist or realist, pragmatist or a ‘possibilities driven’, hope or practical person. The only constant is that problems existed to be addressed, exist to address and will exist to address all to eventually be solved ONLY if both idealism & pragmatism and possibilities & the practical are embraced.

Not accepting that as a business truth is foolish.

Not accepting that as a business truth is, in fact, lazy thinking.

Any business ambition demands both idealism and pragmatism. The idealism is the spark of possibilities and imagination while the realism stops you from simply being a ‘dreamer’ or wasting resources tilting at windmills.

Maybe, just maybe, we should be sitting back and thinking about how you can both be idealistic and realistic.

In the end.

I hate almost all binaries but choosing between realism and idealism is the most distasteful to me.

Every business deserves both idealism & realism, possibilities & pragmatism and grander hopes of individual significance. Every business deserves to think, and believe, it can matter – in its family, neighborhood, community, city, state, country or global. Whatever their ‘mattering ambition’ is they deserve the intrinsic motivation found in that ambition – while grounded in some realism.

Once again, let me say, maybe, just maybe, we should stop embracing just idealism, or just realism, and see that optimizing the combination is the path to optimizing the future. And while I typically dislike optimizing (it often feels like compromising) maybe, just maybe, in this case, we should all go into the optimizing “in the actual” through idealism, realism and dreaming. Ponder.

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“Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.”

Marshall McLuhan

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“You are not a Gadget” by Jaron Lanier is chockfull of useful thoughts for anyone interested in social media and how technology shapes us. Tucked within it is the idea of “fighting being designed by software.” Basically in 2010 (and even earlier) Lanier warned us how technology influences not just our behavior, but our psychological makeup. In today’s world that torch is being held by Tristan Harris and Daniel Schmachtenberger and a number of other people.

Which leads me to suggest that I don’t follow the traditional social media rules and, well, I am fighting back.

Hugh McLeod

So, let’s talk about the fight. Basically, anyone who knows anything about how software is constructed, especially within social media, suggests stepping away and increasing human interaction (dialogue and debate). Jaron tosses in a twist by simply suggesting if you are going to be involved on social media you should ‘resist the groove or risk being entrapped’ by the software (algorithms). This comes to life by being intentional you can at least partially escape the traps the algorithms set for us. The easiest way is to make your social identity less easily identifiable. What I mean by that is engage in ways that doesn’t fit into easily identifiable templates available on social networking sites. Put some effort into expressing your voice & expression outside of typical topics to attract people outside typical topics. Post blog posts on a variety of topics with different views. In other words, don’t give software an easy way to design you which makes it more difficult for them to groove a design FOR you. Make “yourself fragments” difficult to be painted a simplistic whole, and, make your fragments difficult to be exploited. By broadening who and what you are, algorithms will struggle to ‘binary you.’

It is nice to remind yourself on occasion that the true whole of you cannot be defined by some simplistic description and, therefore, no specific topic should define you.

** note: that idea is actually contrary to what most ‘career advisors’ or ‘personal branding’ experts espouse. Traditional thinking is focus on a single topic and become known for it. Generally speaking that advice doesn’t suck but with everything we know about algorithms and social media it is also fraught with peril.

In addition, we should all remind ourselves that the true nature of the internet is one of good and possibilities. If we do that, we realize that it is the algorithms constantly nudging us to be lesser versions of who we are, and could be, that is the enemy.

Which leads me to self-awareness.

Social media has possibly been one of the most destructive weapons of self-awareness. This may seem weird because social media is possibly one of the most public tools of ‘self’ in existence. But it has prompted us to:

• • Make the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ 1950’s mentality look quaint. It is true before social media people compared themselves to others, but that circle of comparisons was finite (magazines, community, family). Social media is infinite in comparisons. It is easy to lose yourself when wandering in the infinite.
  • Divide ourselves into fragments, put those fragments under microscopes, and parse out everything bad within that fragment. In other words, it is difficult to apply an 80/20 rule to oneself, I am 80% good & 20% bad/working on it when social media is encouraging you to believe even your 80% has a healthy bad thread interwoven. It is easy to lose sight of your good, let alone good in general, when wherever you turn someone is suggesting something either unrealistic or something bad.

I don’t care how resilient and self aware you are, any sustained stream of negativity, or doubt inducing interactions, can immerses one enough that you can drown. I’d be remiss if I didn’t circle back to my “not defined by one topic” thought to point out while ‘more than one topic’ battles algorithms it also opens you up to more attacks. All I can say is if you elect to play the internet social media game, play it well or die.

Anyway. You can’t abdicate self to the social media.

Which leads me back to intentionality.

You cannot be intentional on this topic without self-awareness and self-awareness demands you recognize how social media, software and algorithms not only can influence you, but do influence you. This is an issue. To be fair, the majority of people do not think they can be influenced by any communications let alone social media. “Advertising doesn’t work on me; it works on other people.” Shit. I even know people in advertising who don’t believe Facebook can influence people <exhibit A would be the 2016 election>. If you do not believe you are being influenced, you will not intentionally do anything to stop being influenced.

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“When we don’t notice we are being influenced, we cannot argue back.”

Paul Feldwick

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Simplistically, you cannot escape a trap unless you see you are in a trap. I believe what I am suggesting here is that even before you become intentional, you have to believe you can be trapped. I say that because if you do not, then your intentionality will most likely be misguided or maybe better said – not aggressive enough. You will be intentional, but intentionally passive. If you see, and agree, there are things out there intentionally trying to influence you – and that on THEIR good days they win – then maybe your intentionality will have the appropriate focus and commitment.

And that is where social media algorithms hate me.

I aggressively, intentionally, fight social media algorithms.

I aggressively, intentionally, make my ‘whole self’ difficult to pin down by algorithms.

I aggressively, intentionally, interact with ideas, opinions and people who by any definition do not espouse my beliefs.

Algorithms do not know what to do with me, and I am okay with that. In the end I have seen the boundaries and, therefore, they are no longer boundaries.  I imagine my larger point is if everyone fought a bit more on social media maybe the algorithms would stop sucking all the good out of social media. Ponder.

—

“Sometimes one just gets tired of fleeing.

The world’s very small when you don’t have anywhere to go.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

———

Fujhi, poudes; escapa, non.

<flee, you may; escape, you cannot.>

——————

So. Meta and the metaverse is now upon us.
Let’s be clear. The main lure of the ‘metaverse’ will be escapism – escape from decisions, reality, uncertainty. People seem to increasingly seek to throw up their hands and step back as they increasingly feel like the world is in more turmoil than ever (it’s not, that’s perception, not reality). And in doing so more people will increasingly seek escapism – from accountability in business decision-making as well as accountability for dealing with Life. So let’s maybe call the Metaverse a fleeing destination.

But. “Fujhi, poudes; escapa, non <flee, you may; escape, you cannot>.” I say that because in today’s world fleeing anything, in life or business, is tough. While it may seem like a great big expansive world, the shit that we have a tendency to flee either has some special ray gun that shrinks the world or it is so much faster than we are that it can appear before us no matter where we flee.

Which leads me to fleeing the stuff that matters.

There’s a lot of navel-gazing these days. I mention navel gazing because I often think navel gazing is simply a version of fleeing. It often constitutes too many conversations about things that don’t matter and not enough about things that do, in other words, fleeing the shit that matters. The metaverse now offers us an opportunity to step into some alternative universe where the stuff that really matters just doesn’t exist. Id be remiss if I didn’t point out that isn’t reality – it’s a metaverse; a fake reality.

What the metaverse, at its worst, offers is an escape when time should be spent spending precious attention, energy, and innovative idea skills solving meaningful problems in the reality.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t engage in thoughtful circumspective dialogue about shit, but the shit we discuss should be the shit that matters.

It often feels like we flee the stuff that matters only to run toward the shit that doesn’t. I get frustrated because it often feels like we flee the hard stuff and use the easy stuff as an easy target. I mostly get frustrated because even if someone does this … well … escapa, non.  You cannot flee. You cannot escape the stuff that matters. The metaverse does not slow down stuff that matters while you escape, in fact, I would imagine it keeps going so when you come back from the metaverse it has all just gained more velocity or more power.

I imagine the next aspect of stuff that matters is decision-making. Its not a big stretch to think that people will use the metaverse to pose questions and seek answers. Kind of like a high technology version of dashboard decision-making. What I mean by this is that business, and life, will only get more complex therefore decisions will become a bit more elusive AND businesses will be most likely encouraging more autonomy. In order to flee increased personal decision making responsibilities within seemingly unsolvable situations, we will use the metaverse to play out scenarios and use it to make decisions. To be clear. Scenario thinking or contextual thinking is good – to inform decisions and choices, not make them. What will happen is far too many people in escaping the work of choicemaking will use metaverse to make sense of things only to find that Reality is a different version of Metaverse and the decision will always be slightly off or misguided. I imagine I am suggesting the stuff that matters in the metaverse will never be exactly what the stuff that matters in reality is.

Ponder.

Which leads me to perception versus reality.

Well. If you are on Facebook or watch any of the 24/7 news channels, you would be relatively sure Armageddon was upon us. Apparently, everyone you have a different opinion with is evil and intent on destroying the world. Algorithms purposefully drive us to the extreme messaging and every headline suggests we are more stressed, more overwhelmed, more depressed, and, well, more of everything bad.

Its not that people become imprisoned by fear, but rather people just decide they cannot cope with all the forces swirling around the world. Reality becomes not just a bummer, but un-navigable.

Let me be clear on this one, fleeing something or ‘things’ <in today’s world> or even ‘reality’ is a common thought for the common person. Its not that we seek to avoid accountability or responsibility, but rather we seek to avoid the, well, lack of boundaries. What I mean by that is reality used to have some boundaries, not so much these days. Raise your hand if you have a smartphone <about 80% of you between 12 and 54 just raised your hand>. Over 90% of us have some handheld technology which permits texting, calling, scrolling, or emailing on a whim. Huge changes in technology and in society in recent years have blurred many of the old, familiar, reassuring boundaries.

Uhm.

Without boundaries where does one flee?

Where does work stop and life begin?

Where does my time stop and your time begin?

In less turbulent times the boundaries were very clear. And this is where the “metaverse” enters into the discussion. In the metaverse I can not only avoid reality, but I can actually craft the boundaries in my imaginary universe.  This is dangerous. These boundaries are actually some aura shell around “metaself”. By the way, no one can see this boundary but yourself – this means you are screwed.

You may think with this invisible force field around you that you may be able to flee the things swirling around you … uhm … escapa, non.  “The things” are better and faster and more resilient and, well, more <as in sheer quantity> than you. Fleeing simply means you will get smothered from behind. You may as well stand there and face ‘things’ and strengthen your own personal boundaries. You can never escape things, but you certainly can deflect things if you stand there and see them coming.

Which leads me to fleeing yourself.

——–

“People are running, running, but there is no place in the world to which they can flee to escape themselves. Ultimately, each one must face himself. “

Paramahansa Yogananda

——–

While I do worry that this metaverse will encourage people to flee reality, I worry a bit more that it will become some false haven to flee yourself. What I mean by that is in the metaverse you can, conceptually, create the “perfect version you seek” in yourself – as a person and in some context. It is not difficult to see people running to the metaverse as it almost seems like today’s world, reality as it were, the self help people and the advertising and the futuristic blowhards, encourages us to think there is something wrong with us. That we aren’t ‘enough’ or passionate or focused or … well … we are lacking in some form or fashion.

Add in the fact that today’s complex issues facing us have no clear right or wrong answers and Life has become a contentious blend of flexible and inflexible boundaries.  Because of that individuals and societies will try to organize all their own personal chaos with boundaries with some intent to keep out all the external chaos. Here is where the Metaverse gets tricky. Whatever ‘metaself’ you create within this Meta universe actually means you will inevitably have to face yourself … uhm … the same self that society & all the expert shit is suggesting doesn’t have its shit together. I imagine what I am suggesting is in Reality or in Metaverse at some point you will create a boundary and reflect upon what is “inside” that boundary. In other words, escapa, non. Whether inside some finite space boundary or wandering aimlessly outside the boundary in some seemingly infinite space, fleeing yourself just doesn’t work. Mostly because where you are, well, you are there. Now. This is what the metaverse promises you – a different place to be where you are. This is a Faustian bargain with reality.

We may not always like what we see when we look in the mirror, but I can guarantee one thing – external critics will ALWAYS find something they don’t like. Fuck ‘em. Don’t flee them just ignore them. And don’t flee yourself, just remember that perfection is mostly found in glorious imperfections.

Don’t flee your imperfections, they make you who you are. And don’t flee to the Metaverse to flee yourself because, inevitably, reality holds all the mirrors.

Look.

I see the potential for good with the metaverse – conceptual thinking, spatial thinking, contextual thinking – opportunities abound to help hone thinking – for Life as well in business. Where my concern resides is most likely with Meta, itself, and how the world is currently arcing – increased ambiguity with perceptions skewed by loud voices suggesting Armageddon. That combination creates a scenario in which even if the metaverse were Utopia, there would be a bunch of doors available for escapism and a bunch of asshats writing algorithms and such encouraging you to go thru those doors.

As Jaron Lanier said: “no matter how petty a flaw might be in utopia, that flaw will be where the full fury of the power seeking will be focused.”

In the end. You cannot escape whatever you are fleeing.

Period.

No debate.

Doesn’t matter what it is or where you are.

Mainly because whatever you think you are fleeing doesn’t reside only in the place you are running from. Those things you elect to flee are the things that most often live in a variety of different places and spaces.

In other words, the world is a very small place when you have no place to go. I say that to suggest even by building an alternative universe, a Metaverse, doesn’t make reality go away. It is there. It exists. And it awaits your return. And, for the most part, it will do anything in its power to remind you reality is reality and the Metaverse is the Metaverse. Ponder, but, escapa non.

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cesiumadventures:

i just have this persistent feeling of “i’m not doing enough” combined with “i don’t have the energy to do anything” and it just really fucking sucks

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“Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing.”
Source: Ford News
11/15/1922

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Ever get the feeling you are doing a lot of ‘somethings’ and, yet, you look around and it sometimes looks like nothing? I tend to believe a lot of people feel some version of this. I have a stack of unanswered emails to people I really would like to respond to and, yet, I always have something to do. I rarely have an open minute, by my choice and I like it that way, but some of those minutes mean not doing something else. And therein lies ‘nothing.’ Nothing IS something. It resides in the choices left behind. I am doing nothing with all these emails and people who I genuinely like and conversations I genuinely would like to have and, yet, I have done nothing with them. They are something and what I have done is something and have created nothing in doing so. This may sound convoluted and slightly absurd, and it should.

It is indicative of the slightly warped pretzel logic we place to justify our productivity madness.

It is indicative of something generally happening in work.

Work never stops, we never stop, other people never stop, there are no stop signs, and yet with all this ‘not stopping’ productivity and productive performance has, well, stopped. Okay. Not stopped, but certainly hasn’t matched the amount of non-stoppedness it appears business is doing. I imagine I could say a bunch of things here but I would suggest the nonstop world costs us some creativity and absolutely costs us some critical thinking.

We are paddling so hard we can’t see where we are going or if we are even making any meaningful progress. It’s not like people aren’t trying to give is more advice on how to actually be productive because if you go to Amazon there are something like 100,000 books telling us how we can achieve more. If you don’t want to read, just pick one of the 1000’s of apps you can download onto your already nonstop 24/7 smartphone internet feed. The ‘hustle culture’ (and economy) is more a hamster wheel than hustle. While any ideal business progress trip should be one in which you reach some far-reaching destination, in today’s world it is just a circular treadmill encased in a cage.

This worship of productivity comes at the expense of everything else. It’s kind of like purposefully implementing mediocrity. Now. Within the productivity ideology they can’t see the mediocrity because their scale is biased – they don’t see the sacrifice; they see the achievements. They don’t see lost outcome possibilities; they see pragmatic outcome gains. This self-defeating behavior means a bunch of people are doing a lot of somethings all the while doing some nothings. There is no ebb and flow of imagination or creativity, it is all directed toward the God of Productivity. This God wields metrics of productivity to measure output and achievements, but also, we as human beings.

Look.

I don’t really need to share some research to be able to say, generally speaking, most workers are overworked <this can be time driven or task drive> which, generally speaking, lessens job performance, hence, productivity. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that technology adds on an additional burden to individual productivity stress – we also now compete against automation, AI and algorithms. We fight against the system and technology – in other words “the black box against us.”

Which leads me to the battle between more and zero sum.

More.

Growth, scale, expansion, higher, all are synonyms for “more.” Business is obsessed with more. If you did something yesterday, tomorrow can only be better if there is more than yesterday. It’s absurd and unhealthy. Let me use the business buzzword of the day, Transformation, to point out even that is never really about becoming better; it is always about producing “more faster” (better is a pleasant addition if it happens). ‘More’ simply begets an obsession with continuous output and THAT obsession arcs toward the worst of Taylorism in which Lillian Gilbreth-ism trumps Follett-ism.

The models of work are rewarded if they generate more regardless of whether it is true progress or not.

The models of work get rewarded if they generate more regardless of whether it is meaningful or not (because meaningful means ‘meet outcome objective.’

The models of work get rewarded if they generate more if they can simply be well oiled, or fine-tuned with more oil, thereby supporting the concept of human machinery.

But maybe even worse than treating people like machines is how business treats their work. I will talk about “achievement attitude” under zero sum, but suffice it to say that if achievements are all people truly get measured on <which feeds into what a person will identify as value and meaning> and More is always yelling in your mind, well, all you will focus on is more achievements – quantity not quality. “More” is a horrible corrosive productivity concept. “More” is actually a horrible corrosive concept for the world <invest some time reading Limits of Growth; Meadows/Meadows>.

Zero sum.

I am not sure, but it’s possible “more” could have worked okay in the models of work if we weren’t simultaneously stuck in a zero-sum mindset. In that mindset universe ‘more’ comes at the expense of someone else and, worse, if someone is getting “more” that means less for you.

It’s corrosive thinking and, paradoxically, reductive in nature. The pendulum in society has swung all the way over to achievement is all that matters. In fact, we are in a society where the Value of a person seems to be either driven solely by their outcomes/results or weighted so heavily by the outcomes/results that the ‘effort portion’ has minuscule value.

That’s … well … uhm … bad. Bad for individual meaning. Bad for society. Bad for Life lessons. Just bad.

It is bad because that means many people will ignore the price they will pay to achieve the outcome because the outcome, in and of itself, will contain all the value.

Yeah.

Think about that.

Taken to an extreme that would mean the attempt has zero value and trying and failing has zero, if not negative, value.

Ok.

That is bad.

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“But he did not understand the price.

Mortals never do.

They only see the prize, their heart’s desire, their dream … but the price of getting what you want, is getting what you once wanted.”

Neil Gaiman

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Which leads me to how zero-sum plays a role. That achievement attitude becomes even worse, for society, because it also suggests “what are we willing to do to get what we want” is a zero sum game.

What do I mean?

Well.

You are willing to do anything it takes to get what you want <the achievement>.

The hell with rules … they are for people who don’t value achievement enough.

The hell with guardrails and guidelines … they are for people who are scared to do what it takes.

This attitude cleverly steals away freedom of choice in that it suggests the only choice is the one that ensures achievement.

“Measures of productivity do not lead to improvement in productivity.”

W. Edwards Deming; Out of Crisis

This attitude strips choices of anything truly worthwhile like dignity and respect and humanity because all of those things are not criteria for what is the ultimate value – the result or outcome. Productivity is inextricably tied to achievement which also suggests productivity that does not attain some objective achievement has little or no value. It’s a horrible way of thinking that actually equates productivity with gamification theory. Horrible.

I say all this because zero sum belief sucks the oxygen out of meaningful ‘doing’, or productivity, by sucking out the true freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances and to choose one’s own way in doing things. There is no freedom because only one type of productivity is deemed the winner and anyone not achieving that is a loser.

In the end.

Some people suggest we need to prioritize new ideas rather than productivity. I am not so sure. I think we should be prioritizing meaningful progress – for both individual and the business. While this version of progress is not attached to any direction or quantity of things, it does accommodate productivity <which I believe if it isn’t worshiped can be a valuable aspect of value creation and meaning>. I would suggest the future is actually not about more, nor less, nor any quantity. But. I am not suggesting a business doesn’t have to sell some ‘quantity’ in order to sustain itself, it’s just that any quantity becomes a result of a focus on progress where doing something means something. This thought also suggests the future isn’t going to be solved by working smarter, but rather a smarter way of working. I would also suggest the current way of working is not a logical result of centuries of logical reasoned thinking about how work should be done, but rather a battle between ideas on a way to work. That last thought becomes a semi-important thought because it suggests we don’t need a new way of doing business, or a new way of thinking, or even some magical transformation, but instead we should be seeking out the ideas that exist and maybe lost a key battle here or there. It is not about a fundamental shift, but rather a revisit to the fundamentals. In doing so we change the concept of productivity and progress in business and that begets a shift in systems, policies and practices. Ponder.