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Pro Humanitate

“For Humanity”

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“Pro Humanitate calls us to consider what we are as human beings and what constitutes genuine human flourishing.”

James Powell, Wake Forest University

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This is about the interconnectedness between intentionality and existential issues. By existential issues I mean the nuanced relationship between the individual, the community (public and in business) and society. I don’t believe it is hyperbole to suggest we, humanity, is facing an existential moment <not a crisis> on a number of issues at exactly the same time. Now, this may feel like a crisis, but I’d suggest its more that it’s a number of issues, many of which feel unsolvable or unstoppable, all occurring at once. This leads me to intentionality. In order to meet the moment, we need to shed the thinking that (a) we need to deal with one at a time, (b) they are unsolvable, (c) I can do nothing that will have any real impact, and, well, implement some intentionality at an individual level, a community (collective) level and societal level. Yeah. I’m suggesting intentionality can bend the arc of existential issues away from stagnancy (or regressive behavior) and actually toward progress.

Now. That said. Let me begin by suggesting intentions begin with perception. Neither the individual, the community (a public one or a business one) nor society can begin to shape intentions without perceiving something of interest. This interest can be shaped or it can be reactive or it can be the natural arc of events. But all demand some attentiveness to be able to not only shape intentions, but also to invest the energy to bring intentions to bear. These are the forces that affect the future of the individual, the community and the society. It is within this battle of, well, intentional wills in which the present and future is shaped and any existential issues are addressed.

Which leads me to progress and people.

Progress always occurs faster than we imagined and slower than we want. What I mean by that is progress is not one single solid mass moving in one direction. It is more a bunch of different pieces of confetti getting blown around with some falling, some rising and some seemingly lost in circular motion floating aimlessly in the air. All this movement is crafted by the clashing of intentions and intentional actions. I imagine the point I am going to try and make today is it is within that clash progress is found – within the battles of skepticism, criticism, pessimism and, yes, optimism, intentional resilience forges ahead. But maybe I should begin with people because that clash is more often people pitted against people. And while I believe that has always been so I also believe it has sharpened in recent history and the present.

The easiest place for me to begin is hypocrisy – possibly the most misused word and idea slowing down progress. A fundamental cause of any disaffection with regard to intentions is the contradictions between what one says and what one does. These confusions can be real <which reflect disingenuous intentions> or parsed reality <less than helpful criticism of real progress>. This split reality is actually real contextually. We say we believe in integrity – except in business. We preach morality – except if you have money. We encourage hard work as the path to happiness – except we see empty of meaning success and dubious economically rewards. All of these things have elevated skepticism so that even when one genuinely has good intentions there will always be another person to point out where the intentions fall short. Yeah. Person versus person. It’s as if someone is always lurking to point out isolated events as failures of intent. This is a false or certainly poor use of ‘hypocrisy.’ I can claim intent, make progress, and still never be able to meet everyone’s judgement against those intentions. This is even worse if you are in the public eye. What I would suggest is that the ones with the best of intentions, and the most resilience, ignore the false hypocrisy claims. But. The larger damage is done to societal and community progress. The constant attack on good well intended intentionality blurs not only the good versus bad, but progress in general. What I mean by that is the objective-making gets so diffused that any progress attempts seem hypocritical and progress itself becomes a joke <skepticism reigns>.

Yeah. From all sides intentionality is barraged by skepticism, desire for real progress and actual disdain for what is perceived as unhealthy/unneeded progress. There has always been a rebellion against progress, but in today’s world that rebellion is fought in an asymmetrical fashion. What this means is that mindset and attitudes can be completely unraveled by one instance of behavior amplified by one person against another.

Which leads me to the existential unraveling.

A central belief, expectation, of every middle class is that no matter where, and how, you grew up you could become president <not that it is such a desirable objective these days but you get the point>- ‘poverty to president’ is kind of the ultimate vivid metaphor. Simultaneously, there was another belief that if a wealthy family made the same mistakes that one in poverty makes they, similarly, would not not prosper. There was a belief in some equity mostly grounded in fairness, hard work and education. Even aspirations were grounded in fairness.

These beliefs are challenged not only by the realities of the existing system, but by skepticism and skeptical people. Yet. Some protect the ideas by highlighting the few who exhibit the beliefs. And then some attack the ideas by highlighting the many the system has failed. Within the wretched hollow in-between are people with good intentions and ill-guided intentions. The ill-intended are intent on protecting that ‘expectation belief mindset’ for fear that if the mindset is challenged people will inherently stop doing the things that nudge luck out of the way on occasion and actually help someone intentionally craft their own fate <this wretched hollow is embodied McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y>. The well-intended seek to fix the system or improve it. This dissonance makes society dissonant. I would argue this is an existential issue.

And within this dissonance individual intentionality crashes into community intentionalities and chafes against some societal intentions. Intentionality falls apart. Doubt seeps in and skepticism overwhelms optimism. The smelly underbelly of this is ‘lack of responsibility.’ If intentionality has no or little reward than responsibility shifts only to ‘zero-sum’ individuality, no collective greater good <or smallish head nods to collective good>. This, in turn, feeds a sense of accumulation as an objective. Let me be clear. Intentionality of accumulation as a sense of success is hollow, soulless, meaning. Anyway. The complaints against someone’s intentionality can seem endless, because they are. They are because mindsets don’t appear to have a sense of commonality which means sensemaking has no shared ground.

And while we talk about how the internet and social media creates an existential issue, let’s take a moment and reflect upon how television has affected intentional mindsets. I would argue that if television reflects our values, principled behavior and what we stand for, the whole system is rotten. And if that system is rotten, we need to think about how we are bound to a system. That is most likely the greatest existential issue, yet, we never seem to discuss it nor discuss it existential nor discuss the intentionality one must take to ‘unbound’ a system and from a system. Systems are bound by mindsets. Oh. We may talk about fairmindedness or equality (or equitable), or meritocracy or any other cage we have built that is a system within which we do and think, but existential systems are sneaky bastards. They establish a foundational mindset which colors everything else in hues that are always a derivative of that mindset. Suffice it to say, I believe we are in the midst of an existential unraveling with regard to societal expectations and aspirations.

Which makes me circle back to television.

I don’t buy into the belief we are now a ‘video/visual’ world, that said, what we see day-in and day-out is so banal, so cheap, so shallow, all it can really do is drag down perceptions. Oh. Yeah. Remember I said upfront, intentions are tied to perceptions <as well as mindsets, attitudes, expectations and aspirations>. If we seek a world of public intelligence, one of the greatest communications tools ever invented is doing nothing constructive to further intelligence. I say that because anyone with genuine good intentions has to be intentional within that context. In a world of empty platitudes real depth of intentions faces a gauntlet of emptiness. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that gauntlet has different dimensions. The television dimension is one of establishing mindsets and attitudes while the social media dimension is one of verbal harpoons and harpooning.  Intentional behavior ignores any and all at its own risk.

Anyway. One not need be a futurist to have a sense there is, and will continue to be, a continuous destabilizing grinding down of the social structure. It will demand intentionality to slow the grinding down and reverse it to building up to what we believe we could, and should, be.

Which, finally, leads me to technology.

The battle between technology, algorithms in particular, and humans is quickly becoming an existential crisis. This existential crisis will demand some intentionality – from tech people and people in general. Now. Some people will suggest this is an ‘accountability issue’ and focus solely on people. I can’t. I can’t because I think that’s wrong (but still part of the equation). A number of really smart people like Daniel Schmachtenberger, Mike Walsh and Jaron Lanier have all pointed out algorithms are smarter than us. I would add that not only are they smarter (an ability to tweak our dopamine and engagement vulnerabilities), but they are relentless.

I, personally, didn’t fully grasp the existential aspect of this until the 2016 USA presidential election. It was the first time I felt (a) the onslaught of algorithm driven messaging and (b) the dogmatic view of a large group of people that they could never have been influenced from an algorithm driven message. The combination gave me pause. I knew from my experience in the advertising world that people generally believe only other people are susceptible to advertising. But advertising is often fairly subtle in its attempt to veer you toward thinking some stupid shit to buy their stupid shit. But 2015/2016 was such an onslaught of obvious lack-of-discernable-reality I thought people would never be duped by it. They were. In fact. I knew it was existential when I actually had an advertising professional suggest there was no way people would be duped by “7000 Facebook ads.’ Someone who should know better, did not.

Anyway.

This isn’t about the 2016 election; this is about existential issues and the intentionality that is necessary to address them.

Social constructivism, the art of constructing our collective fate, demands intentionality at all levels – individual, community and society. It demands a coherence of resilient intentions because diffusion in environment – all these existential issues – quadruples the challenge for any intentionality. One must assume the mantle of responsibility and responsibility requires intentionality. Inevitably this intentionality is the weapon against disorientation. Intentionality gives is a ‘sense of agency’ in which we no longer simply get buffeted by asynchronous waves of skepticism and obstacles to progress but rather we become ships on a sea of progress. We become responsible and accountable and gain at least some semblance of control. But that is just your part. Communities must work together, the collective needs to accept both individual and society as part of the grander narrative and society needs some common sensemaking. I would argue the trick is to mix and match strategies in response to the nature of the opportunity and the behavior, actual and desired, of the population. We need to stop attacking genuine good intentions and intentionality with false cries of “Hypocrisy!!” toward all moments where someone’s intentions fall short of some dubious judgement of someone else’s behavior.

“Usually, one doesn’t not even know the dynamics of the system that one wants to control well enough to program a computer to simulate them, let alone how to control the system in the presences of perturbations.”

Seth Lloyd

The truth is that all the systemic issues I highlighted earlier are human-made and, therefore, can be unmade. But the larger trouble with parsing intentions and having people versus people with regard to existential attacks is that any semblance of control of our current systems, or even just navigation, requires insightful awareness – of self, community and society. This means the capacity to know what to pay attention to as well as what to selectively ignore becomes of significant value. And maybe that is my larger point, we should not ignore existential issues, but selectively ignore some individual asymmetrical behavior tied to symmetrical objectives – i.e., genuinely good intent toward objectives (symmetrical intent) ignoring ill-intended criticism on any asymmetricity found in effort.

In the end.

If we seek humanity to flourish, on a meta or mesa level, at some point you stop feeling sorry for being powerless among a variety of existential issues and begin to understand you are here for some purpose and that humanity needs to be actively engaged and intentional. You learn the powers/skills you have must, or should, be intentionally used to inspire and activate progress. You learn whatever your skills may be are simply keys and no matter how useless you may feel, or the world attempts to make you feel, or even other individuals in your community make you feel <the pessimistic, skeptical and critical>, sometimes the biggest difference you can make for the world is to figure out the right door to open with your key. I would argue that last line and thought can only be achieved if you are intentional.

All that said. As I began, coherence between individual, community and society is what enables progress and even if you open the right door with your intentional key, that doesn’t guarantee that another door needs to be opened. I remain optimistic with regard to people, humanity and society. I believe if we increase our competence with regard to, well, everything, the demand for competent people will always remain and will always be needed to enable progress. Now. I am not speaking of technical competence. Doctors, engineers, software designers, etc., are fairly easy to train to competent levels. I am speaking of competence in moral leadership, ethical thinking and integrity in actions which are a bit more difficult train for. And maybe that is my point. We need to intentionally train for critical thinking competence, moral competence and ethical competence if we are to ever meet the existential issues at hand.

Look.

Amidst this clash of existential issues, it becomes just as easy to tune everything out as it is to obsess over a splinter of a skeptical criticism. It is the diffusion of ‘what matters.’ What this, in turn, elicits is a general rejection of the underpinnings not just of values, but what is valued. A good education gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically mean less. Doing the right thing gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically get less. Being honest, kind and fair gets valued less because it seems to pragmatically mean little. All of this belittles the idea of happiness and assaults our sense of what true meaning is beyond, well, some simplistic pragmatic view centered on “winning” or wealth. All of this suggests societal hierarchy is not something to be climbed, but something inevitable as it currently exists. There are no common values, simply shared false values which are only selectively valued. That means the tug of war between progress and stagnancy tilts toward stagnancy, if not regression.

Ponder.

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Authors note:

This piece had a couple of key inspirations. The first is David Amerland and his book, Intentional, for making me think about being intentional and intentionality more than I have ever before. The second is just television itself. I don’t have a lot of free time and do not watch a lot of television. The other day I had a bit of time and scanned the programming available to me, Netflix and HBOMax included, only to find with few exceptions, the most vapid choices. It made me realize that unless you were quite intentional with your TV viewing the mindset TV portrays with regard to our system in totality suggests everything is pretty rotten.

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euphemism treadmill

Frequently, over time, euphemisms themselves become taboo words, through the linguistic process of semantic change known as pejoration, which University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor dubbed the “euphemism cycle” in 1974, also frequently referred to as the “euphemism treadmill”.

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Linguistic renaissance

Every generation, even decade, finds their own words and definitions

<about 1,000 words get added to dictionary every year and less get deleted every year>

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Other then ‘cancel culture’, ‘woke’ is possibly the most annoying idea bantered about these days. And while ‘woke’ comes to life in so many ways during some incredibly vapid discussions that your head will spin, the majority of the time it revolves around words and the use of words.

Now.

Think about this: It is estimated that there are over 500,000 words in the English language, but the average person’s vocabulary is only between 2000 and 6000 words. This means we use less than 2% of our language.

And while I would guess that within that 2%, in general, we under use the really good words, do not use enough inspiring words, and hold on to the 2% we do use with ragged claws. This is where the euphemistic treadmill rears its ugly head. A word caught on the euphemistic treadmill is one that replaced an offensive or pejorative term, but has itself become unfavorable.

“The more exposure you have to the written word the more literate you become and we tend to get better at things that we do for fun.”

Dr Beverley Plester,  Coventry University on texting

‘Woke’ fucks with people’s 2% – either directly or indirectly. Let me explain. Directly is exactly what it is. You use that word, it has been deemed offensive, and you like that word, so someone is fucking with how you talk <and how you think about things I imagine>. Indirectly is grounded in fear. You don’t use that word but it creates a fear that someday someone is coming for one of your 2%. To be clear. There is an entire industry of people invested in creating fear on “where does it stop.”

** note: ‘where does it stop’ is one of the silliest, stupidest, most banal arguments in existence. It stops when and where you choose to make it stop. Doing the right thing demands both doing and stopping.

Here is where I think the 2%’ers have lost the plot.

Maybe think of ‘woke’ terminology this way.

Yes. Teens use words <sometimes lots used in a nonstop fashion>.

Yes. Sometimes we old folk don’t recognize them as words <albeit we are infamous for making up our own buzzwords>.

Yes. If you get a bunch of older people together they will agree that today’s kids do not understand English, know how to write, are poor communicators and, in general, don’t know shit about grammar.

Yes. This is a silly petty discussion <hence my point on “woke’ words>.

pettiness, which, as the Oxford English dictionary explains, is “an undue concern with trivial matters, especially of a small-minded or spiteful nature.” Psychologists say that this behaviour from people who make mountains out of molehills stems from some unrelated insecurity or unhappiness.

I purposefully use petty because that describes the general attitude over woke words. When it comes to ‘woke’ I can almost guarantee you at some time, in some place, someone is, sometimes quite convincingly <or connivingly>, attempting to show that a real mountain is simply a molehill and a real molehill is actually a mountain. It almost seems like after a good, solid 500-year run, we have evolved from a society of readers to a society of stupid. The printing press launched the first intellectual revolution; the second one was launched by YouTube, twitter and 24-hour cable TV. Given the choice, people would rather view a 1-minute video, showing something out of context, than read for 2 minutes. What this revolution will spawn is lots of bad video, lots of useless content, and much much more idiotic battles over what is simply euphemistic treadmill activity, i.e., the natural evolution of words and meanings.

Personally I can tell you the reason why I don’t participate in a lot of Ted discussions anymore is because there tend to be a bunch of older people <supposedly the sharpest knives in the drawer because they were part of TED> that constantly bitch and moan about how young people are becoming increasing illiterate, we have become ‘too sensitive’ with regard to words, and in order to solve this crisis the solution is we need to go back to the basics <that is code for “the way we learned”>.

Suffice it to say I’d like to tell everyone that the treadmill goes on, euphemistic or any treadmill, and you better get on it.

Today’s youth is not illiterate nor are they destroying the English language nor are they devolving into some nondescript group of blithering nonthinking irresponsible idiots.

So, what’s happening? Maybe the problem is with us older folk.

“Many people have this black-and-white view of language, that some things are always right and wrong, that’s not how it works.”

Katherine Barber, editor in chief Canadian Oxford Dictionary

I feel a need to point out that research says that ‘text speak’ <young people communicating in texts & shortened euphemisms>, rather than harming literacy, could have a positive effect on the way children interact with language. Researchers from Coventry University <published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology> studied children aged between 10 and 12 to understand the impact of text messaging on their language skills. They found that the use of so-called “textisms” could be having a positive impact on reading development.

Bottom line.

The study found no evidence of a detrimental effect of text speak on conventional spelling.

“What we think of as misspellings, don’t really break the rules of language and children have a sophisticated understanding of the appropriate use of words.”

Coventry Researcher

Other reports have produced similar results. Research from the University of Toronto <researching how teenagers use instant messaging> found that instant messaging had a positive effect on their command of language. Two University of Toronto researchers who studied teen text messaging say that not only is the medium not wrecking the English language, but may actually be encouraging what some people refer to as a ‘linguistic renaissance’ as teens re-learn and reshape the meaning of words.

“They demonstrate very clearly that their grammatical skills are intact, and they very effectively mix it with other types of language.”

Regardless. Young people are not destroying the English language and ‘wokeness’ is simply destroying that which every generation destroys – words that lose meaning.

Which circles me back to that euphemism treadmill.

Each generation puts their indelible stamp on the everyday language.

If we believe for one moment that someone in Shakespearean time wouldn’t look at us today after listening to two 50somethings talk, looking at us like we were crazy <possibly unsophisticated>, maybe even from a different planet, and ‘unwoke’ to their generation, we just haven’t thought about it well enough.

I would argue words aren’t getting destroyed but rather we are simply creating a new way of talking <for the better for the most part>.

Which leads me to technology.

A major purpose of social networking sites, and you have to imagine one of the reasons why it is all so popular, is that in many ways they fill our need for external validation.

The web can even make validation grow to levels we couldn’t even imagine 15 years ago … especially in the internet generation where fame <lets maybe call it ‘become more well-known than ever before’> is more achievable than ever.

*** note: I will note that this external validation thought can be used for good … or for bad>

Regardless. Language and words are part of that external validation.

The web has opened up a world in which instead of lurking in a shell wondering if we would ever find a greater self-validation than a close circle of acquaintances, we can now seek external validation among likeminded souls. And just as close face-to- face friends have them; external likeminded people have a similar language. Sometimes it is almost a code speak for an inner circle. And here is where words get shaped, reshaped, created and destroyed; and so the euphemism treadmill churns on and on.

This is where we reshape, and find, a new vocabulary to discuss the world within which we live.

Anyway.

While this is about words, in my own head there are 3 aspects. The thought. The articulation. The proof.

I imagine several really smart insightful people in every generation of every civilization have the smarts to have the thought <that reshapes our mindsets>.

At any time in history the thought is challenged or forwarded by how it is articulated <change words to match the new mindset narrative>.

And then proof varies depends on us, people, and how different segments react.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that time is brutal on all past articulations and words. They get destroyed or re-translated by future generations. I say all that to suggest that there is no “woke” and there really isn’t any ‘cancel culture’ when it comes to words. We are just on the ever-present euphemism treadmill and maybe, just maybe, something in your 2% will end up on the treadmill. Ponder.

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“There is no happiness for people at the expense of other people.”

Anwar Sadat

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We talk a lot about winning these days. The most used is that horrible mis-quoted Vince Lombardi quote “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing” <he actually said “the will to win is everything”>.

I would suggest all the talk is simply a bastardized version of a focus on ‘outcomes’ which is the bane of the business world today.

I would suggest happiness is being tied so tightly to ‘winning’ that its cost, the expense as it were, is suffocating the larger perspective.

This expense can come in a variety of larger perspective forms — character, self-limitation and time.

While this seems like it should be simple, it is not. In fact it is a tricky balance for anyone.

This is actually a discussion on the balance, or proportional, between me <as in the individual> and we <the business, or, how we earn our living>.

Look. I talk a lot about balance in Life and in business.

To be clear. Not “work/life” balance but balance as in good & bad or pragmatic & hopeful or pessimism & optimism. These are the quandaries that seeking success creates from a moral, organizational culture/political and even spiritual perspective. Stuff like that.

Here is a truth not maybe people discuss.

Success should demand some sacrifice.

Uh oh.

If that is true, have you noticed how rare it is that when someone is focused on winning they rarely talk about ‘at what expense’ other than effort?

The fact it is not discussed is a reflection of some decision that ‘the win’ is the only thing that matters and the expense is always worth it <to win>.

This is an incredibly easy trap to fall into.

Why?

I believe it is because most of us really have no clue what we want to do in our lives and with our lives. Yeah. We may have some ‘short horizon priorities’, but anything that resembles a ‘more than minor Life’ is more often than not simply out of our mental framing. This means that it is pretty natural that in a world where pretty much everything seems in flux that we want to have some things that are tangible to measure progress and ‘what is.

And that means ‘winning’ all of a sudden assumes a fairly high priority in one’s Life and in business.

And that means ‘at what expense’ is more often than not relegated to the trashcan because ‘the win’ is all that matters.

It is a downward spiral, or doom loop, to ‘just win.’

Let me be clear.

While I just rationalized how and why this happens … this is fucked up.

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“People do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.”

Adam Johnson

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It is fucked up because all of a sudden this ‘winning’ thing we are focused on begins to infringe upon our Life purpose or maybe instead of saying purpose – the soul of who and what we are.

You may look at winning as a means to survive, but afterwards – maybe not immediately but at some point – you realize you have to be accountable for what you have done under the guise of ‘surviving.’

I don’t really care how you define ‘life purpose’, but, simplistically, most of us want to reflect upon our lives not only looking at some version of success, but, more importantly, at the quality of the success.

*** note: ‘success’ can be ‘doing something meaningful’ or ‘doing something that meant something to someone else (impact)’

And by ‘quality’ I mean “at what expense did I achieve that success?”

Here’s the truth.

We exist for some finite period of time.

During that time we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. The important things are supposed to give our lives meaning and happiness.

Which means, well, what if you get them wrong? what if you fuck up the big important things?

Shit.

What happens if you fuck up the unimportant things?

I say that to make the point this is why moments matter. Uhm. This is why all moments matter.

I say that to make the point this is why ‘how you win’ matters.

I say that to make the point this is why ‘at what expense’ becomes maybe the most important question someone can ask when pursuing winning.

Look. Almost everyone asks “what do we need to do to win?, but ‘expense?’ … not so much.

I imagine my real point is that with such a huge emphasis on winning we need to recognize that everything involves sacrifice.

Everything includes some expense.

So despite the fact the answer in today’s world almost always seems to be “win” <at any cost>, the question everyone should actually be asking is ‘at what expense is tolerable?”

And therein lies the issue.

When someone does actually ask that question money, energy & time are the three easiest expenses. Everyone focuses on these because, frankly, to avoid the bigger potential expenses. They are real, but, a lazy expense discussion.

Self-limitation is the next expense that steps up. This one is fraught with peril. Peril in that if you admit you are not capable of doing what must be done you become a, well, loser. We have set some absurd expectations with regard to ‘the sky is the limit’ and ‘if you want to win you need to do whatever it takes.’ The latter avoids a possible truth that ‘whatever it takes’ may actually be beyond your own self limitations/abilities. But nonetheless, in today’s world, limits are for losers. That is absurd.

The last expense is character. Throw in maybe integrity, compassion and possibly dignity <yours and others>.

This is the expense that ‘winners’ tend to avoid discussing because it dangerously nears “nice guys don’t win’ territory. And as we eye this ‘nice guy’ <or ‘play by the rules’> expense we suddenly step onto the slippery slope of moral relativism. We begin justifying our behavior based on other’s behavior. If someone is cheating, or stretching the rules, or … god forbid … simply being slimy soulless cutthroat competitors … well … then we begin to morph into their behavior because they have established the rules to win.

This is just a race to the bottom.

Anyway. This is the expense that almost everyone avoids discussing because it dangerously nears ‘ethics’ or “what is right versus what is wrong’ <which, when it comes to winning, becomes an incredibly uncomfortable discussion>.

And all of this last expense circles how we, each of us, would answer ‘what does it mean to live a good life?’

This is really all about living ethically and conducting business ethically. This is about what you do and how the objectives need to align with a certain moral code <this can get even trickier because not everyone’s moral code is the same>.

It is certainly ethical to pursue money, status and ‘the win.’ But do we have a moral obligation to pursue those things not at the expense of others or by ‘doing the right thing’?

You actions matter.

How you achieve a win matters.

Winning, or achieving outcomes, is desirable, but you should always seek to identify ‘at what expense?” If you do not do this, while you may be able to count a shitload of wins, they may end up looking a little hollower in the end – the expense may be too high.

For, in the end, the expense is that of character. And that is an expense that no win, no number of wins, can ever generate enough to pay the cost. Choose wisely.

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“If I’m sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”

José Saramago

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“Digital freedom stops where that of users begins… Nowadays, digital evolution must no longer be offered to a customer in trade-off between privacy and security. Privacy is not for sale, it’s a valuable asset to protect.”
Stephane Nappo

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“Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.”

Edward Snowden

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Data privacy is a hot issue for a couple of reasons both based on the foundational thought we, the people, keep getting fucked by our own data. Basically, other people make money off our data by them using our data to get us to spend money. How fucked up is that? Beyond that there are some real pragmatic issues that with all of our data floating out there beyond our control it can be used in some quite nefarious ways. All that said. Some people with integrity are attempting to change it all. The majority of this discussion is focused on regulation, i.e., regulating how companies gather and use our data.

Here is the problem. While most of us care, we don’t <and, more importantly, a bunch of the big tech boys who gather & use the data, don’t actually care>. For a variety of reasons any time people are offered opportunities to try and manage their data, they don’t (or certainly don’t to the extent that would enable some larger structural changes to how much data is accumulated and used).

I speculate this mostly happens because our personal data is one big black box of shit that most of us feel like we have zero control over, sense we may actually benefit from sharing it – on occasion gaining some convenience – and the penalties for sharing don’t seem to be so bad.

Basically, we’ve given up believing we can control, not clear on benefits of limiting, or even understand, pragmatically, what occurs when we tighten our data privacy. That trifecta encourages most of us to just do what we are doing and just sit around and bitch that evil technology companies don’t have any ethics.

To be honest. Even I, who knows enough to be dangerous about privacy and data, when I see the terms and conditions I very rarely accept because I don’t know what it will cost me. What I mean by that is by limiting something I assume it will limit something else. Its kind of like limiting cookies or certain website features, you get less popups (sometimes), but ease of website use seems to get a little wonky. Just to be clear. It is quite possible I am either conflating causation and correlation or even that because I actually took an action, my mind is creating an expected response (which isn’t really there). But. Maybe that makes my larger point. Because I don’t exactly know the consequences my mind will create them, they will most likely be negative, and that doesn’t exactly encourage me to do it more often in the future.

So.  How do we get people to care? How do we get people to think it will matter what they accept or reject will deter the powerful unseen “tech” from doing whatever they want in the blackbox?

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“Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there’s no difference between what is and what could be.”
Chuck Palahniuk

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Let’s think about an indirect approach.

People have to see the value, before caring, before doing anything. So, I have some thoughts on how to nudge the mindset.  I believe there are two indirect things that could affect people’s mindsets.

1. Origin ID.

Its not flashy nor does it appear to be directly related to communicating the importance of data privacy, but in my mind, it begins to establish some validity to one’s own data within the black box. In other words, if all of a sudden, I know for sure the data that I am receiving (information is data) is valid and not some bot, well, then all of a sudden I start thinking “hey, mine has been evaluated and is valid too.” Its an indirect way of establishing some value proposition. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that, collectively, it also begins establishing some shared sense of truth (or truthiness) and that is an excellent foundation for establishing my personal value within that shared sense of truth.

The internet world needs to clean up its validation origin act and this seems like a good place to start the data privacy ballgame.

To be clear. I am relatively sure the moment we validate origin ID (proof everyone is human and verified ID) someone with less than good intentions will subvert the system, but anything has to be better than the current anarchist system. In fact. Maybe that is my last point in this idea. Creating a system that doesn’t feel like anarchy, alone, furthers the concept of data privacy by suggesting it could possibly be controllable. I think this idea is attainable in a reasonable amount of time. The trick to this one is who is trustworthy enough to not only validate but have some records of everyone’s origin ID. My gut tells me blockchain technology offers a viable solution, but someone smarter than I would have to noodle that.

2. Business use (with employees).

This one is trickier than Origin ID but, in my mind, if businesses can show an employee that their data has actual value in their own personal progress/growth within a business it becomes a platform for understanding how their data has value in a grander narrative. Maybe think about this as ‘if I can show on a smaller more personal case study than communicating a larger case study is the logical next step.’ Personally, I think its nuts that a business does nothing with data of their employees to better understand, better develop and better assess each employee’s potential growth opportunities. I think its even nuttier that it doesn’t happen in organizations talking about “digital transformation.” I mean if you are going to create a digital infrastructure wouldn’t you want to connect it with, uhm, the digital imprints of the people/humans who will be optimizing that infrastructure? And, yet, while I think its nuts, I also think this particular idea is years away from being implemented.

** note: I actually have outlined a Knowledge Distribution business model where AI-driven information flow is customized and tied to personal data of each employee suggesting it is something like a Human Nanofactory and offered something called ‘technology-distributed information’.

In the end.

While the world desperately needs a globally coherent plan of action for data privacy, it will not happen until the people of the world actually care and want it and will actually do something when given an opportunity. Along that point, I bet if you asked 100 random people they would (a) probably think data privacy is a good thing and, simultaneously, (b) have it number 101 on their list of 100 things they need to be thinking about.

I say it that way to make the point that this is actually a good equation for the future of data privacy. The ability to make something more important to someone increases exponentially if their existing mindset is that something is most likely a good idea. All we have to do is to make them care and, in my mind, it should begin by making their own data more tangible to them. Like, origin ID and the business they work at showing how their data can be used. Look. I am sure there are hundreds of better ideas than the ones I offered but I feel relatively confident my ideas would go a long way to getting people to care. So just think about it.

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“Change does not take place by trying coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient [or client] abandons, at least for the moment, what he [or she] would like to become and attempts to be what he [or she] is.”

Arnold Bessier

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This is a companion piece to my thinking on “we are all a bit purposefully ignorant.” That said. Let’s be clear. For the majority of things, no person ever gets to know the whole of a truth. If you don’t believe me, just think about how time has effected many of the ‘truths’ you have held throughout your lifetime. Shit. Even experiences you had, things you knew to be ‘true’, can often take on a different narrative once you know everything that occurred before, who was involved, what was involved, and the consequences that followed. Things that seemed self-evident take a back seat to things you thought were trivial at that time. Shit. This is even true about honesty (and lying). You may discover you have become a liar not because of you intentionally lied, but rather because of things you did not know that become known.  I say all of this to suggest history, and beliefs, are not truly fixed but defined, and redefined, as time breaks down their construct. Well. That is true if you let it be true.

Which leads me to beliefs, and history, can be pretty resilient.

We have a tendency to have a self-sealing logic <Chris Argyris> with regard to our beliefs. Self sealing is when we find information that confirms our beliefs and ignore some ‘truths’ which could challenge our beliefs. In other words, once we settle in on a belief, especially if we view it as a ‘governing belief’, we seal it off from additional information.

To be fair. Most people like stability with regard to their beliefs. And this means beliefs kind of seem to gain some strength the longer they are perceived to have lasted. In addition. The more uncertain the world becomes, or we believe it becomes, the more likely we will latch onto even some conspiracy theories (or dubiously grounded theories) to moor our belief world. These ‘governing beliefs’ become kind of like the color filter which hues everything you see from that point on. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out superficial beliefs are relatively easy to change, but governing beliefs can be stubborn motherfuckers. They gain some emotional “I care about this belief” aspects and caring is not only the engine to do something, but also the glue to hold on to something.

Obviously, the problem with self-sealing beliefs is new information should shed some of the boundaries around existing beliefs.

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

Marshall McLuhan

Now. We have access to new information all the time, but the truth is that the brain is an inherently limited storage unit <and computer>. We rarely know as much about a given topic as everyone else in a room put together, and even if we do, our perspective is partial and biased in a variety of ways. That ‘room together’ thought is important because research has shown that human connectivity <dialogue and interaction> is the most powerful tool in shaping, and reshaping, our beliefs. It is within interaction, exposure to new ideas and thinking as well as the discussion of new ideas and thinking, which can reshape what we have in our brain. Alternatively, as Jaron Lanier has pointed out, more people can make us more stupid. Depending on who your ‘connectivity’ is with, you can easily fall into pack behavior, identity signaling and a variety of ‘I have found my tribe’ characteristics. It is a version of “group sealing beliefs” which only feed into conformation bias for ‘self sealing logic’ and ‘self-sealing beliefs’. It’s a vicious loop to get trapped in if you are not careful. Oh. And most people are not careful. Why? Well. Its easier to wander around the world with self-sealing beliefs, find other with similar beliefs, and scratch your head <or get irritated> when someone doesn’t see what is obvious to you.

All that said. I imagine my point is almost everyone’s belief systems do some shapeshifting within a contextual environment wherein we get influenced by other mindsets, i.e., beliefs, attitudes which effect ours at times in our Life.

“Defensive routines are thoughts and actions used to protect individuals’, groups’, and organizations’ usual way of dealing with reality.”

Chris Argyris

Look. We all need beliefs. They shape who we are, how we think and even what we do. We couldn’t really survive without any beliefs. At the same time, beliefs are constraints <constraints can be good and bad>. Those constraints can make us both more efficient and effective while, at exactly the same time, make us less efficient and less effective. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that beliefs wielded like a dull axe guarantees a dull person. That said. The interesting thing I don’t believe people think about enough is that governing beliefs are typically grounded in some ‘needs.’ What I mean by that is as we need things, not just want, we craft a belief system around how to get them and filter ‘stories’ as we get them. Our beliefs assess reality in terms of filing away reality and assessing the ‘non-knowable’ stuff as it moves into reality. This is partially why governing beliefs can be so damn stubborn – they shape the reality we ‘see’.

Which leads me back to ‘obvious.’

Earlier I mentioned something about ‘obvious to you, but they don’t see it.’ I cannot remember where I read this, but, “the obvious is not obvious.” What I believe they meant by that is your belief system crafts your ‘obvious’. That means someone else is using their own belief system to craft their own ‘obvious.’ Uhm. The probability that your obvious perfectly matches someone else’s is fairly low. Obvious has shiftable dimensions and yet we tend to think of it as a whole concrete thing.

Shit. We think of stories as concrete things and the truth is most stories we accept as simply constructs of things we believe. Our belief structure is, well, constructed. It’s a narrative constructed of a tapestry of stories. I mention stories because that means self-sealing beliefs are constructed by stories we tell ourselves. Now. We may claim these stories are real and these stories are truth, but, well, for the most part they are stories OF stories which we like to tell ourselves so we can justify our ‘self-sealing beliefs.’ Ponder that for a moment or two.

I think I’ll end there to state – “you set a thief to catch a thief.” You tell a story to kill a story. In today’s world far too many of the self-sealing beliefs are unhealthy and I think we need to become better ‘healthy storytellers’ to help reshape some of the more unhealthy ‘self-sealed belief stories’ in existence. To be honest, I am not sure self sealed logic or beliefs is a good thing. I know why we do it, I am not sure we should do it. My sense is self-sealing beliefs can quickly become dogmatic thinking and in a dynamic world in which the world itself reshapes almost on a minute-by-minute basis, it would seem like our belief systems should be a bit more malleable. But, hey, that’s me.

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“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

Albert Einstein.

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“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.”

John Philpot Curran

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On page 5 of The Cluetrain Manifesto tucked down at the bottom of the page you will see these words written by Christopher Locke: “As would soon become obvious, the Net was a powerful multiplier for intellectual capital.” Not long after he follows it with its uncomfortable partner, “voice”, in that the other thing the Net did was give voice to anyone, intellectual or not.

And therein lies the wretched hollow we live in within this world of 24/7 internet access.

And therein lies our eternal vigilance – our vigilant pursuit of information.

I suggest vigilance because no matter how siloed your ‘tribe’ is there is no way that you will ever know everything that everyone knows even in your tribe/group/connections/etc. Just think about that for a second. And I choose a second because if everyone in your circle googles something they will get over a million responses in one second and the odds they will choose different things than you to read has an extremely high probability. You cannot chase all the information available and even if you have some excellent parameters on how you filter your intake you will not know as much about any individual topic as someone you are talking with.

To maintain some sanity, we are all a bit purposefully ignorant.

Technically, purposeful ignorance occurs when a person knows the truth, but chooses to ignore it, or the person refuses to abandon false beliefs and pursue the development of further knowledge.

According to the Urban Dictionary willful ignorance is: “the practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs.”

But, to me, there are four levels of purposeful ignorance:

• accepted ignorance: I have an attitude, perception or belief and I go about my life doing nothing to engage my thinking and expand what I know <unlearning avoidance is what I call this>

• confirmed ignorance: with the intent to show everyone that I am not ignorant I actually proactively engage in news & opinion offerors … uhm … but I only do so with those who have the same attitudes, perceptions and beliefs that I do <learning how to better articulate what I already think is what I call this>.

• ignorant ignorance: I actively engage with people who have different views and maybe even have some discussions and give the impression I am open minded, but even while nodding my head sagely I am simply building additional walls around what I already believe and think <listening without listening is what I call this>

• selective ignorance: I only have so much time in a day and so much brain space and I will actively attempt to be smart on some things at the expense of being ignorant on others

The third of those three is the most heinous type of ignorance. You actually have the opportunity to learn and you choose to not learn diddleysquat. It is heinous to me because there are gobs of well-intended people who are smart, but just don’t actively engage in learning new shit because, well, they prioritize other shit. In other words, they have time, but don’t learn. Useless dangerous people.

So. Let me get to the ‘selective ignorant.’

The truth is almost every single one of us have moments of purposeful ignorance. At its worst it is a conscious choice to be ignorant rather than challenge our own thinking and acknowledge a truth about reality. At its best we have simply bucketed some things in our minds as ‘decided’ in order to short cut some things and invest energy in others <and we all do the latter>.

And I even give some people a break on this topic.

Psychological research tells us that some people are cognitively complex while others prefer cognitive simplicity, in other words, some people are open to experience while other are closed minded.  Some people are cognitively flexible while others are cognitively rigid.

I could suggest that those who are cognitively simple, closed minded and/or rigid are much more likely to engage in the ‘accepted ignorance’ level of purposeful ignorance that I noted earlier, but they are not stupid people by any stretch of the imagination. They most certainly have the ability to be ‘smart’ <or broader in thinking>, they are simply people who would rather be comfortably ignorant rather than ‘intellectually smart’.

In addition, Urban Dictionary suggests that some people are “cognitive misers”, i.e., they do not to examine things intellectually if they don’t feel they have to. Let’s call them lazy.

And another valid reason is, well, conformity. While this sounds ‘sheeplike’, it is not always. We all engage in some aspects of conformity because it helps us not only fit in, but provide us with some daily stability which permits us to engage our energy elsewhere. That is why a shitload of people tend to believe what those around them believe because questioning those beliefs would lead to conflict, possibly rejection and, well, energy investment.

And, look, there are some nice benefits to conforming. Conformists have the greater potential to find a mate, or mates, to climb the social ladder of “success,” to have others speak well of them and to enjoy the benefits of a social support system.

And, with all that said, you know what? I can live with that.

As much as a curious, always seeking truth, person like me finds purposeful ignorance to be an egregious and utter lack of responsibility to living Life to its fullest and being engaged in Life, in general, I accept that there are some acceptable versions of purposeful ignorance <and, yet, I will do anything I can to break thru to these people and engage in some thoughtful thinking>.

I absolutely believe that learning and unlearning, is a lifelong process and ultimately leads to a fuller, richer Life <and society> I will participate in learning/unlearning through my own discussions and I will engage with anyone, anywhere, on any topic, at any time. But I am clearly in the fourth group, albeit grudgingly so.

Let me end by saying I am an “anti-ignorance optimist.” I understand that deeply ingrained purposeful ignorance is incredibly difficult to change, but I also never, ever, underestimate people’s capacity for change. I will continue to be interested in the views of others, even where I disagree with them, and I will always be interested in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do.

I think this is a healthy way to approach things because, to me, this is the ultimate negotiation of ‘what will be.’ In other words, how we, as people, achieve the best possible outcomes for ourselves and society. Yeah. 99% of the time better thinking will lead to better doing.

“The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little.”

Sigmund Freud

Anyway. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that anyone can change the world – even if it is only the small part of the big world that you can control. And maybe the point of this rambling post isn’t that anyone can change the world just by thinking and speaking the truth, they need to be able to close the deal. While we are all a bit purposefully ignorant that’s no excuse for not attempting to change whatever ignorance exists. Maybe it is within our vigilance we can make a dent in ignorance and nudge the world toward a better place.  What I do know is one who seeks vitality against decay, one who struggles against indolence with relentless energy, one who understands the journey to enlightenment is one that never ends, is the one who never has stagnant ignorance. And maybe that is what we should all purposefully attempt – a lack of stagnant ignorance. Ponder.

“Life is a struggle between vitality and decay, energy and indolence”

Winston Churchill

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”

Mark Strand

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Innovation can embody some seemingly innocuous inspirations. This is also true of social behavior and social dynamics. What I am referring to is that a nonlinear “exaptation” occurs.

In biology ‘exaptation’ are variations on the usual variations of natural selection. Unlike adaptations, which are changes to an organism that respond to environmental conditions, exaptations are novel, unexpected applications of these new traits. For example, wings evolved as an extension of reptile’s webbed forelimbs wherein evolution was in search of a stronger limb, yet, somewhere along the way the ‘newly winged’ discovered its capacity for flight.

“An organ initially constructed for one purpose may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose.”

Charles Darwin

I say all of that to talk about technology. And I don’t mean anything specifically within technology, just technology itself. I read somewhere years ago that the most profound change brought about by technology will not be some new program, AI or even involve some whizbang software, the most profound change will reside in our generic expectations of technology itself. Through its ubiquity the broader shifts will occur in corollary effects that trickle in, and out, and throughout, everyone – the subtle gradual changes that shift the foundation upon what we know and what we think (about Life and ourselves). Living in our technology-created-“memory palaces” (or information spaces always nudging us) will inevitably engineer a social transformation which, in turn, inevitably cascades into the pragmatic functions of life itself – education, healthcare, business, etc. In other words, maybe technology will offer us ‘exaptations’ of which we cannot envision. And maybe worse is that some of these exaptations we cannot envision, will make our lives easier, but worse.

Norbert Weiner, Alvin Toffler and Marshall McLuhan all invested a lot of energy and brain power thinking about this and even telling us in the 1960’s and 1970’s – but I am not sure we actually listened. We fell in love with all the technology things and widgets and embraced, for the most part, how we adapted. But. What they were warning us about were of exaptation.

Which leads me to effectuation.

A causation approach focuses on a predefined goal and then goes about finding the means to attains the goal. An effectuation approach focuses on the means at hand and then have them coalesce with the intent to achieve some outcomes which inevitably achieve some goals (not all predefined).

Effectuation is most often discussed within business and how entrepreneurs shape performance. I bring it up because I fear someone truly thinking about what I am bringing up will jump to designing a goal and pursuing it (causation). I fear it because in a dynamic environment like technology and society, by the time we attain that goal, the goalposts will have moved – most likely dramatically. The truth is that this technology-society battle we are fighting is currently asymmetrical and technology has the leverage. I am not a fan of the word ‘scale’, but the reality is technology is scaling exponentially AND with velocity, faster than human brains can scale, and attempting to address it solely with causation approaches is doomed to fail. The real conclusion anyone should take is to embrace effectuation. Take what exists and use it, and the skills that developed all those things, to materialize real progress in real time and outcomes occur making predefined goals irrelevant. Its kind of like nudging at scale.

Anyway.

As the saying goes, ‘the street always finds new uses for things,’ and with technological ubiquity in most lives, we should be paying attention to ‘the street always finds exaptation while we are not looking and maybe technology will encourage people to fly when they have no wings and, well, we will crash’.

Yeah. There is a lesson lurking in that bad metaphor I just shared.

Ponder.

“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.”

―

Peter F. Drucker

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“I trained for a world that doesn’t exist … I feel I have no future …”

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I clearly support integrity in business, good business practices, diversity and even positive business actions that impact society and community. That said. Sometimes business conversations go sideways when discussing these things. Its almost like business people don’t really know how to talk about them so they invent things like “purpose” or start talking about creating a positive culture or anything other than the business of doing business. Politicians are even worse. Their lack of understanding of what business really is and how it is done <even the ones who claim to have been in business> is frightening because they actually craft policies that can affect business.

All that said. 100% productivity and 100% being productive.

If a business person were asked what is a successful business, they may throw out either (a) some business jargon or (b) some mushy mumbo jumbo. But the true answer is “being as close to 100% productive every day as possible.”

Let me break that down so there is no confusion.

100% people show up.

100% are healthy (and their family is too so they can focus).

100% are productive.

100% of their potential to contribute to productivity is used.

100% feel like they are doing something productive.

100% of the productivity has some recognized value to whomever will end up using it.

I am sure I could add a couple, but that seems to get the point across. If all that happens the business itself is potentially optimized to its 100% potential. I could even argue that it even nears the possibility that every employee (100%) will be more likely to feel like they have contributed in some way (because a 100% productive and impact would actually be something to be proud of).

If I said this to a business person they may haggle with some things, but in general they could see the prize (and value).

If I said this to a politician, they would look at me like I was from Mars.

To be clear. I continue to believe a business person, with no government experience, can never successfully manage a country. So, while a lifetime politician will always struggle to understand the underlying attitudes and behaviors of a successful business, a business person cannot simply apply business learnings to actually running a country. In my mind I believe someone who understands attitudes & behaviors & motivations is one most likely to be a successful leader. And this doesn’t mean understanding anger or frustration, but rather what motivates, inspires and makes people move rather than stand and bitch. In fact, leadership doesn’t mean standing around, or at some podium, blaming all the problems America has on ‘other people’ or shouting at the top of your lungs saying “I can solve these problems.” Most likely instead of pointing out the problems, we should seek the opportunities that exist <and there is a shitload> and explain how to exploit them.

Shit. The founding fathers of America did just that.

They didn’t sit around bitching about problems and wringing their hands over seemingly insurmountable obstacles nor get angry because answers & explanations did not seem to exist or maybe seem unattainable at the moment. They argued over which opportunities represented the best opportunities for the better progress of America.

They didn’t have all the answers, but they certainly knew the objective – identify and exploit opportunities. Oh. Yeah. Most were also business people.

Anyway.

The easiest way to explain this 100% thing is actually healthcare.

I believe it is the right of everyone to have healthcare not because “it is basic human rights” <even though it seems like it should be>, but rather because I have run a company and its good business.

A healthy employee base is happier, shows up more often <less absenteeism>, is more energetic and, ultimately, more productive. Period.

I have to envision the same logic applies to a citizenry <and add in the component that a healthier unemployed base is more likely to become employed … and a healthier poverty base is more likely to get out of poverty>.

 Yes. These are not empathetic reasons; these are pragmatic reasons. These aren’t some simplistic “insurance will be cheaper and everyone will have it and we will not let people die on the streets” type reasons. This is about opportunity, equality and productivity. This is about maximizing the productivity of America <of which business benefits when that happens>.

All those politician job promises and economic growth promises and even those vapid promises to the poor and inner cities would be more likely to succeed, and the people able to contribute, if they were happy and healthy.

If we could just avoid that wretched ‘is healthcare a right or a privilege’ discussion and just state that America is an economic engine I think the conversation <and maybe even the solutions> would be better off.

Back to business.

Business owners would kill to limit absenteeism and increase productivity when an employee is at work.

The day I can get all 180 employees, or 18, at work, 100% healthy, is the day my business is most productive. Heck. The day I can pluck a new employee out of the unemployment box who is healthy, and has a healthy family, I am a happy business person.

That is what healthcare does. Extrapolate that out to America itself. The day I can get 180 million working people at work, 100% healthy, is the day that America is at its most productive. Extrapolate it out even more. The day I can get 330 million people healthy, doing whatever they need to do that day, is the day that America is at its most productive <it’s kind of like attaining economic singularity>.

While healthcare is certainly a moral issue it is also an economic productivity issue. If everyone in America is healthy, then our economy is healthy. Frame the discussion this way and it gets us to stop talking about ‘mean’ and ‘cruel’ and start talking benefits.

This discussion lends itself to education, business culture, mental health, childcare, opportunity in general, how government conducts itself, the military, diversity, well, someone smarter than I can bring the idea to Life in any tactical & policy discussion you want. All of those things feed into the corner office in any Csuite as potential answers to “how can I enable and insure maximum productivity.” They are not soft socialist freebies; they are tactics to optimize strategic productivity and growth. And maybe the hidden message in that pragmatic view is “the health of the business and the health of the people and the health of society/community are inextricably linked.”

Now.

Someone is gonna say “100% isn’t possible.” I am gonna say “shut up.”

One of the great lessons in life is if you move toward something you are more likely to get closer to it (regardless of what “it” is).

100% captures the inexactness of life and it is meant to. 100% is the reason we should do half the shit we talk about in business.

If we get diversity right, we get closer to 100% productivity.

If we get a better working environment right, we get closer to 100% productivity.

And, yeah, even if we get that nebulous culture thing right, we edge closer to 100% productivity.

Now.

Some asshats are going to come out and point out the successes created without having what I am suggesting. And you know what? They may be asshats, but those stories are real. They exist. The problem is they are exception and business is not effectively grown by attempting to make the exceptions the rule, they are successful, instead, by examining why there are only exceptions and removing obstacles to make it more the rule. Where they truly are asshats is they use these exceptions to justify an obviously flawed system.

100%.

This isn’t “trophy for everyone” thinking nor is this to suggest everyone is equally talented, what this suggests is if you provide the foundation for 100% of the people, 100% of the people are more likely to be the best they can be. In other words, at their most productive. I wish more people would talk about this stuff this way. Ponder.

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“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – start thinking about learning as a continuous cycle rather than one off interventions to power ongoing development.”

Fosway Group

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“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”

Peter F. Drucker

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Google “how to change someone’s mind” and you will get more hits faster than any brain can ever absorb. In talking about teaching people to learn something today I will leave you with any of those articles to show you a path <albeit you will be confused> and forge ahead in a direction – teaching people to want to learn, not to teach them something new.

How would you enable and encourage to do so?

Business people talking about “learning organizations” all the time and education people talk all about “constant learners” and I imagine if you asked most people, they would suggest they like to learn. So why the heck isn’t it happening?
Well.

There is no simple answer but let’s begin with framing. Learning isn’t about being smart or being stupid, it is just about learning. Period.

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     “Educating yourself does not mean that you were stupid in the first place; it means that you are intelligent enough to know that there is plenty left to learn.”

Melanie Joy

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I don’t give a fuck what you read or what you learn. There are as many lessons in a well-crafted comic book as there is in a novel. Most business books are trash and you can learn more about business thinking through reading a great detective book. You get my point. Learning isn’t linear or about parallels, but rather analogous. Circling back to my main point, what you read or learn is not an indicator of smart or stupid, in fact, its an indicator that you are a learner. Period.

“It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.”

Alec Bourne, A Doctor’s Creed

Which leads me to learning what you like.

As I have pointed out ad nausea learning is not about creating some ‘well rounded person’, but rather exploring what interests you. This means you learn unevenly. Learning advocates need to get their heads out of their asses and stop worrying over ‘rounded’ and encourage ‘uneven.’ This is a twist on curiosity in that I am suggesting teaching following what you are curious about not encouraging people to be curious. My belief is grounded in the fact people are encouraged to do what is positive, not negative. If I can feed into the learning dopamine part of the brain, I am more likely to get people learning than if I bludgeon them with less-than-satisfying learning experiences.

Here is the less-than-popular thought – this means not encouraging people to step out of their comfort zones, but actually encourage them to foster their learning comfort zones. Yeah. I think if we can teach people that learning is grounded in becoming better at what they are currently good at, simply by expanding current knowledge/skills/whatever, in any size/pace/whatever, they feel comfortable with. This actually means learning resides in our grasp and belief of what learning is, and how it feels to us, rather than what someone else suggests learning is. Maybe more importantly this suggests learning isn’t focused on what we do not know well or do poorly <and certainly not what someone suggests to us we do poorly or know poorly> but instead cultivate the good thinking we have done to date. This, in my mind, cultivates some version of ‘flow’, at least in a learning sense, which inevitably opens the mind up to possibilities, imagination and even productivity. I have said for years that learning isn’t about changing; its about opening. If we can teach people that opening up their minds to explore, even on some very focused topic, is good and fun and engaging, it increases the likelihood at some point in time they will explore something unexpected <without anyone telling them they should explore it>.

As to that last point. Let me be clear. Nudging learning is not a bad thing. Just as Amazon prompts people “if you liked this, you may like this”, I probably send “oh, you may like this” notes probably a dozen times a week via social media and in almost every conversation I have. That is my version of ‘teaching people to learn’ not by telling but maybe nudging them into a different learning space.

In the end.

Maybe what I am saying is we don’t need to teach people how to learn, but rather remove the obstacles to learning. Learning is a positive thing. I do not know one person in the entire world who does not like to learn something new. This means we don’t need to teach people to learn, and it certainly means we should stop telling people what they need to learn <implying they are stupid or learned the wrong thing>, but rather get out of their way and tell them to learn what they want .. and maybe give a little nudge on occasion to expand the learning space. Oh. Oh shit. As I reread that last sentence that would mean we, as in you & I, will have to have learned enough to offer up an analogous nudge rather than some simplistic parallel nudge. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … maybe the key to teaching people how to learn begins within ourselves. Ponder.

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“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.”

Anatole France

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“… congratulated the staff for churning out so many A-star grades, but I told them to get in touch when the kids were about 50 and tell me which institutions they were inmates of. If you train people to push for the sake of pushing, they’ll live their lives chasing the golden rabbit and ultimately find no satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong, I know we all need a little stress to get us going. But if we keep our foot on the gas pedal all our lives we can kiss bye bye to our sanity.

If I were queen for a day, I’d teach kids that sanity exams are the ones to pass.”

Ruby Wax

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“The new sustainability standard is being Net Good. Net Good. Everything has a cost, in energy, emissions and entropy. But there can still be ways to bring enough ‘good’ in some parts of your business to cancel out or justify any inevitable ‘bads’ from the raw impact of your operations.”

John Grant, Greener Marketing

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the purpose of business is to create, and offer, value without extracting, or exploiting, things that are valued.

therefore. value is collectively created.

things we value that shouldn’t be exploited:

relationships

integrity

health

ethics

community

and, of course, natural resources that sustain humanity.

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Well. If we business folk are honest, 80% of businesses are pretty horrible in how they make the things they sell. They exploit labor, do things that aren’t particularly good for the environment and flora/fauna, and in general, are pretty horrible. Now. I was fortunate enough to get a reader’s draft of John Grant’s fabulous book “Greener Marketing” in which John’s point, among several, was we are past modest expectations and business needs to decide what constitutes leading edge ‘better ways of doing business’ thinking and behavior. He culls it down to ‘not bad’, a commitment to minimise negative impacts, and ‘net good’, the world is a better place for your business existing.  Loved the book, loved the concepts, heartily support everything he says. That said. I am setting my sights a bit lower for business. Call me pragmatic, call me cynical, or just call me experienced. By all means set objectives and aim for all the ‘net zero’ you can cram into your pockets. But for the bulk of businesses out there I propose simply ‘do better’ and ‘do less harm.’

“the first imperative of Greener Marketing which is to be Not Bad. This is an extension of all the sustainability work companies have done. Reducing negative impacts on communities and ecosystems. And in the process reducing risk and improving reputation. Not Bad is a commitment to minimize negative impacts. With no skeletons in your closet. No child labour, no excessive carbon emissions, no carcinogenic ingredients. But it goes beyond harm reduction into innovation. Embracing new technologies, market segments. Technologies to achieve this may not even yet exist. But you will only find them in time if you set the objective and start the search now. The private sector is great at this sort of thing. Setting a stretch goal then devising strategies to reach it. Companies can also be good at transparency and owning up when they don’t achieve their targets. Given the pressure from governments and publics, companies can no longer afford to be just Not Bad and to report some reduction in the harm that they do. The new sustainability standard is being Net Good. Everything has a cost, in energy, emissions and entropy. But there can still be ways to bring enough ‘good’ in some parts of your business to cancel out or justify any inevitable ‘bads’ from the raw impact of your operations.”

John Grant. Greener Marketing

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Now. My thinking doesn’t just have to do with sustainability and environment responsibility, but the larger narrative of business itself. Every business should be aspiring to ‘do better’ in terms of bettering the way we conduct business, treat people and be a part of society.

This do better belief is partially a reflection of the transparency world we are in at the moment. I don’t just mean business purposefully being transparent, but rather internal organizations have individual voices IN public to expose transparency. In other words, tell your story or it will be told for you. To be clear, transparency is a double-edged sword. While business sells benefits (things that get used) and not sausage making (how they make the things) the only way to get to root causes of harm and ‘not good’ is transparency. You will not fix everything at once nor should you (in most cases), but we shouldn’t fool ourselves with “net zero carbon’ plans and selective environmental initiatives or even some well-articulated values statements or some grand Purpose. If business is truly honest with itself, we are still being horrible, just less so. And that is also okay (up to a point).

All that said, a business can no longer be benign. While many people today will be indifferent to all the horrible sausage making being done for all the products they are buying giving them some benefit, the future would appear to tell a different story. Businesses that exploit their horribleness will be exposed in some form or fashion. Businesses that cover up their horribleness will be exposed. Suffice it to say, exploitation doesn’t really add any value and at some point, one can envision enough non-exploiters, or those attempting to exploit less, where people will have a discernible choice with actual user benefit never compromised.

As an extension of my belief a business can no longer be benign, the truth is the world is cluttered with things we don’t really need nor are particularly useful. While I would love business to focus on decluttering; that is a fantasy. So, if we, the business world, must continue making and selling unnecessary things we may as well do so doing the least amount of harm as possible. This is not a Purpose; this is simply doing better and being a bit less harmful. Not a real reason to celebrate yourself or make some grand statement to the world (or even your own business) its just a statement of progress and a desire to be a bit better than maybe you were.

I believe it was Michael Porter who offered business the concept of “creating shared value”: finding business opportunities in social problems. This is actually a derivative of an older Drucker thought that social problems create business opportunities. Within that fairly coldhearted capitalist concept is actually a ‘do better’ business mission.

In the end.

I am not sure if I set the bar too high for business – to purposefully be in and of society – or set the bar too low for business – just do better and do less harm. What I am sure of is that somewhere within those two thoughts resides a better business world.