“If you facilitate multiple memories of the future, you build up your organization’s sensitivity to potential ‘weak signals’, the hints on the breeze that it’s time to pivot and pursue a direction you’ve already sort of explored.”

Dr. Jason Fox, Leading a Quest

===

‘Rather than simply work within existing parameters of operational excellence (incrementally optimising your business model to meet customer needs), pioneering leadership sees you embarking upon quests. Such quests allow us to systematically explore complex and uncertain futures. We don’t set goals in the hopes that a particular future will manifest — rather, we explore multiple possible futures, and prepare proactive stratagems to capitalise on each.’

Dr. Jason Fox

• – Authors note: I used ChatGPT to help with the distinction between some concepts, also, thanks to my friend Dr Jason Fox who actually spurred this thought.

=====

Let me begin where I will end. Clarity is a quantum thought. Yes. I just said that. What I mean is clarity is multi dimensional. Clarity is a constant oscillation of connected things, therefore, fleeting and situational.

That said.

Clarity gets conflated with a variety of things. How to do something (process), what to do (rules) and why to do something (clear understanding of the goals, objectives, and tasks at hand, as well as a clear understanding of the resources, constraints, and stakeholders involved).

Agility gets conflated with a variety of things. How to do something (process), what to do (rules) and why to do something (prioritizing and choicemaking).

Yeah. They get conflated by the same things.

Clarity doesn’t eliminate ambiguity, but rather accommodates ambiguity and therein lies its connection with agility. Clarity can enhance agility by offering a solidish pad from which agility springs from. Agility then offers the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and to respond effectively to new contexts. I believe we can all agree that when there is some clarity in a situation, it is easier to make decisions and take actions that are aligned with the goals and objectives. This, in turn, can enhance agility by allowing quicker shifts of energy and resources as well as adjust strategies as needed.

Basically, clarity and agility are related in that clarity enables agility by providing clearer direction and understanding of the situation, permitting quick effective adapting to new circumstances.

Which leads me to “is clarity the same as sensemaking?”

Well. There is some space between clarity and sensemaking. Clarity refers to having a clear understanding of a situation or information, while sensemaking refers to the process of creating understanding out of complex, ambiguous or uncertain information. While clarity is important in providing a clearer understanding of a situation, ‘clearer’ is relative. What I mean by that is if you buy into the belief we reside in a quantum world with multiple possibilities existing at the same time, it is incredibly rare clarity will completely reflect the totality of a situation. That is actually where sensemaking becomes important to help interpret the information and make sense of it. Clarity and sensemaking are related, but refer to different aspects of understanding information or situations. It’s sensemaking wherein one interprets information, patterns and meaning of a circumstance. Both are important concepts, but both have severe limitations in a quantum world.

Which leads me to sensemaking’s relationship with uncertainty.

The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there’s a fundamental relationship between our knowledge of a quantum particle’s position and momentum. The more we know about the particle’s location in space, the less we know about how its moving, and vice versa. In other words, the more accurately one property is measured, the less accurately the other property can be known.

Sensemaking has an uncomfortable relationship with uncertainty, but certainly has a relationship with the uncertainty principle. Sensemaking always resides in a tug of war between multiple properties. Sensemaking is the process of, well, making sense of things out of complex, ambiguous, or uncertain information, Uncertainty is sensemaking’s constant companion because there will always be some lack of knowledge, information, or predictability about a situation or event. I imagine I am suggesting sensemaking is the solution to uncertainty’s problems. OK. Not completely a solution, but certainly an essential tool if you need to get from here to there in the fog of uncertainty.

Its sensemaking when you can identify patterns, gather information, and develop insights that can help to reduce uncertainty and provide a clearer path forward. Ah. Information. The world has become a bit complicated here. The main thing here is the world has become anti grand narrative and has become a world of information niches and limited action spaces. Yeah. Despite more and more information available, the world has forced everything into fragmented boxes which makes it incredibly difficult to stop the slide into myopia. From there it just becomes a narrower and narrower world where you retreat after getting bludgeoned in the cage match between the information fragments. Uhm. In a quantum world that is the kiss of death.

Which leads me to momentum, velocity and movement.

Momentum, velocity and movement are the outcomes, or the potential outcomes of clarity and agility.

Clarity offers paths of motion, places to rest and moments to accelerate.

Clarity is actually, well, synthesis. It is an ability to create a useful bit of knowledge without actually knowing everything. The clarity offers the lily pad of traction for the true engines of agility – fluidity and flow.

• – Fluidity

Fluidity is an inherent attribute of movement. What I mean by that is business never unfolds in a neat tidy linear set of circumstances. Each situation is the temporary result of a unique combination of circumstances, presenting a unique set of problems and requiring a derivative solution (unique-ish), and, yet, no situation can be viewed as an isolated event. Each circumstance is actually a blend of what came before and what will come after — shaped by the former and shaping the conditions of the latter — creating a continuous, everchanging flow of activity with fleeting windows of opportunities, unforeseen obstacles, and cascading issues. I would even argue fluidity permits one to navigate between alternative realities. Fluidity does not dictate any terms. It is subservient to the ‘reality’ it touches and permits a business to exploit the continuous flow of events and, depending on the level of clarity, gain momentum, engage velocity or maintain positive movement.

• – Flow

Flow is the continuous, smooth flow of value from a business to the market. Generally speaking, it is the optimal operating condition. Flow is more important than ‘scale’ in that it is what navigates the asymmetrical paths, and realities, to ‘more.’ More often than not scale is more rigid, a replication of what exists, while flow is a more natural melding with whatever emerges. You cannot have flow without clarity and you cannot have optimal agility without flow.

I feel the need to add in a point on technology because technology offers (a) the possibility to ‘see’ things in a quantum universe that the human eye cannot see or the human mind may struggle to envision, and (b) the velocity to advantages (even tiny ones) and can certainly enhance fluidity and flow. Conversely, it also offers velocity to disadvantages and stupid shit (even tiny ones) and can enhance inefficient fluidity and misdirected flow. I say that because technology increases fluidity and even poisoned liquid flows. So, when we speak of fluidity and flow, we need to pay attention to what we agree our ‘clarity’ is. This gets tricky because far, far, too often we speak about the ‘next natural step for this system/business,’ but fluidity is rarely about steps and more about evolution in motion. Therefore, words like “framework” or ‘navigation’ or ‘redirect’ become more important concepts. Even things like collective intelligence and collective wisdom and collective principled behavior become even more important because clarity is a shared (so is sensemaking). One person’s clarity, honestly, doesn’t mean shit to the future success of a business (albeit it could bring about some catastrophic failures), but collective clarity is powerful and collective clarity, at least conceptually, has the capability to ‘see’ multiple possible realities.

Which leads me to the importance of humans for clarity (and not AI).

The issue with humans using AI-generated data is the results of their work feed the foundation models that generate the results which need improvement by humans in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle.

Incorrect results are embedded and exacerbate in the models, if not checked by humans. This can get worse quickly because foundation models are then used to generate real strategies and tactics. Then we are off on the catastrophe race as desired goals become circumvented and the downward spiral continues. It can get worse. Foundation models learning from data that is actually created by other foundation models increasingly degrade with every model iteration and possibly even worse is that it occurs at an exponential velocity creating a doomed downward cycle. The reality is the only thing that can circumvent or just pull the plug on these issues are humans. Humans with clarity of objectives and vision and the ability to make sense of the situation. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out Norbert Wiener clearly stated this problem in 1962.

This section may sound like it contradicts the section before when I suggested ‘technology can see things that the human mind cannot.’ It doesn’t. technology can unearth gobs of thngs humans cannot even envision, but it is also humans who must maintain control. Humans are the strength, and weakness, simultaneously, in a quantum world. Maybe that is why some sense of clarity is important.

Which lead me back to human behavior.

Human intelligence is a simple relationship between what we perceive what we want and what we do. What this means is that a human is intelligent to the extent that what we do is likely to achieve what we want – given what we perceive. This suggests that not just behavior, but intelligence, also varies according to what one perceives in its environment. This would also suggest experience, or memories driven from experience, which could possibly be effects of culture or social context, only accelerate or amplify the decision-making process. Cognitively, this happens because the brain protects the individual through fitness of incoming information, i.e., what ‘fits’ into what we believe and want, rather than truth passing along learning and information which could be used to increase the likelihood of success in that context. I share this particular section to remind everyone both true clarity and true sense making are shared concepts. In other words, true clarity or true sense making cannot truly occur in an individual form or just with an individual it can only occur in a collective state. That last sentence is increasingly true, and important, if you think we live in a quantum world with multiple realities to navigate.

“in the blackest darkness even a dim light is better than none.”

Which leads to me to end with a nerdy thought.

Clarity is a quantum thought. Yes. What I mean by that is clarity is multi dimensional. Ok. It’s even beyond that. Clarity, at its best, captures the essence of multiple realities. Maybe I am suggesting clarity is like a Donella Meadows leverage point in a quantum system. All of that may seem counterintuitive to traditional thanking on what clarity is, but clarity is just a vivid moment within a blurry flux. To gain clarity it demands the recognition that life shapes environment which then shapes life which then circles back shaping the environment. Yeah. And in multiple possible realities. Yeah. I just destroyed the foundation of linear thinking. Yeah. I even destroyed the whole concept of cause and effect. Yeah. I just suggested everything begins to take on quantum characteristics. As Masanobu Fukuoka put it:

“Nature is a fluid entity that changes from moment to moment. Man is unable to grasp the essence of something because the true form of nature leaves nowhere to be grasped. People become perplexed when drowned by theories that try to freeze a fluid nature. Behind every cause lies countless other causes. Any attempt to trace these back to their sources only leads one further away from an understanding of the true cause.”

But this also means clarity exists in a quantum state of potential. It means clarity exists in a state of dynamic change, nonlinear, but instead one of emergence; ultimately demanding agility. So maybe the ultimate relationship between clarity and agility is that, when done well, means the business navigates what is called the ‘assemblage space’ which is the rough map of what we see and what we don’t – across all possible realities. So maybe the assemblage space is a quantum space? Regardless. I believe clarity is a quantum concept. Ponder.

“Man is a rationalizing animal not a rational one.”

Robert Heinlein

===

This is about culture even though it is not about culture. What I mean by that is I saw for the billionth time “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” something Drucker never said, most likely would have never said, and is kinda nuts to say. Ironically, Purpose is more likely to eat strategies then culture. Anyway. Let me talk about what that statement really says and what it should say: “systems eat misguided strategy.” What I mean by that is culture is what people do together and what they do together is usually reflective of the system in place. But it gets a bit worse. The truth is the Will of the Institution eats culture and strategy is simply actions a business takes to feed the Will of the Institution.

Look. The reality is that most employees, including managers and leaders, are rationalizing animals. What I mean by that is most people, within an organization or institution, will use the system as it exists to, well, exist/thrive in the role they are in. that includes strategies. Most rationalizing sane people simply seek to optimize what exists. That’s kind of what most C-level people do. They may not like the system, but it is what it is, the competition is most likely optimizing a very similar system, so you gotta do what you do so the business survives. Maybe that is culture, maybe it is not, but it is 100% a description of a system.

Which leads me to the conflict between the system and the people.

This is a piece in and of itself, but for today let’s talk about angst and anxiety. What the typical business system, under the guise of culture, has done, as a mechanism of growth at all costs, is actually to stifle the future. What I mean by that is business system growth is not the same as personal human growth. Therein lies the most basic conflict and the one which creates the most angst and anxiety. This conflict may certainly lead to disengagement, but I think that word is too sweeping. Someone may disengage mentally, but will be fully engaged with the system. That is actually what many institutions encourage; work the process and the process will reward you. Pretty simple. So simple, in fact, most employees line up and embrace this, or, what I call “the Will of the Institution.” They do so not because they like it, but it’s the system in which they are placed. Strategies may be defined and implemented with the best of the intentions, but if they do not match the Will of the Institution, well, it will get eaten – not by culture but by the Institution itself. By the way, that’s where most radical thinking goes to die. Regardless. There is almost always conflict between individuals and the institution where the institution seeks to impose some “will.” To be sure, the systems produce profits so there is no apparent rationale from leadership perspective to attack the system, but individuals are nibbling away at the system trying to make it (a) possibly reach higher value creation potential or (b) possibly make it more palatable to the potential of the people. Within these institutions, if enough people are nibbling away (because there needs to be enough movement in order to stop inertia) a shift will occur. Once again, this isn’t culture, this is just people fighting within a system and strategy is typically not the weapon they use.

Which leads me to point out that behavior is an outcome of system design choices.

Institutions are infamous for talking about ‘culture’ when they really mean systems and process. Goals and accountability are outcomes of the system. The system is always designed to shape an operating model systematically encouraging a range of choices, often very bounded, designed to shape desired performance and whatever the Institution perceives is the value that should be delivered to generate the profit/financial performance desired. And while it is true an individual can shape the system just as a system shapes the individual, the power is not equal. Individuals nudge systems, systems bludgeon individuals. This means, by default, the system inevitably shapes the social aspects of the institution. I guess that is ‘culture,’ but it is actually a system strategy that eats any positive organizational culture.

Which leads me to machines and people.

Systems, as the Will of an Institution, are basically an attempt to make the entire business, and all its pieces – including humans, into some type of replicating machine; a production line as it were. Technology has only encouraged institutions to think this way. Machines and technology have augmented our ability to ‘distribute’ thoughts, ideas, social connections and a variety of things that add value in the marketplace of people and business. This is captured in Metcalfe’s Law: as the number of people involved in any communications technology increases, there is exponential growth in the amount of communication paths. This is known as the network effect and it has both good and bad properties. I imagine my point here is as connections and connectivity expands, Institutions will seek to create stronger and higher border walls. The main ‘wall’ they build, within some twisted culture worldview, is objective setting. For example, ROI. Or. Profit. Some simplistic stripped-down objective which can be wielded as a dull axe to the culture and systems analysis. It matters because ‘maximize the return on investment’ tends to encourage ignoring the things not so good for society so an ROI-focus meets some specific business objectives. Sure. Sometimes a business will pony up some higher Purpose, or some  societal-focused objectives, but most are just a sub-objective meant as a ‘culture importance’ head nod. Anyway. ROI, or things like that, absolve the Institution, and the system, of anything but that objective. Yeah. A system is less than careful in discussing humans and humanity because it simply views humans and connectivity as ‘social machines’ to be built and optimized of, and by, the system. As a corollary, the builders of systems, i.e., the Institutions, use technology and to a lesser extent machines, to create and use people, as passive recipients with aggressive intent – to produce specific results. People become part of the machine simply by being part of the system and an Institution will gladly step forward and call it ‘our culture.’ It is a reinforcing system in that individuals act both in, and upon, institutions and they embody, realize, and reproduce those institutions through their daily activity. This does not make technology and the machines dependent variables within the system, but tools with which to craft social behavior and dynamics and culture. I would be remiss if i didn’t point out much of what happens in today’s technological world, and culture building, occurs independent of human awareness, yet, humans are still accountable for much of the system itself.

• ** note: as an aside, if this piece makes you grumpy, you have a responsibility to reflect upon your actions/thoughts even though technology may have encouraged the action/thought.

So, while business models are the structures and systems of a business which creates value to offer to a marketplace, it is the business systems which make people subservient to some process and incentivize them to the will of the institution so that while being paid as an individual, they must worship the institutional process/structure/system/culture to do so. Strategy gets eaten at the altar of this.

Which leads me to culture’s relationship with a system.

Business lives in a world of relations, connectivity and connections, i.e., business is not performed in a void. An enlightened business, one which accepts being accountable beyond simplistic profit self-interest, needs to understand how dynamic systems work, social relations work and how everything they do is connected to the community and, ultimately, society. They need to understand that business is not just a sum of its relations, but also the people that stand in between, or intersect, are just as important. The reality is that systems, even when focused on the greater good, tend to never be totally successful because they ignore, well, people.  What I mean is that while we talk about technology/machines to help us better manage value, the economy, and society, we should also, simultaneously, talk about how humans can better manage value, economy, and society. People are only scratching at their potential and systems are not crafted to enable potential maximization – of individual, companies, society, or the economy.  People can babble all they want about culture eating strategy all they want, but the real issue is the way business is used to running is mismatched against an increasingly dynamic, complex, business world and the existing systems, for the most part, reflect that mismatch. Progress is almost always defined in additive, multiplicative or exponential terms. The reality of humans is that they have exponential potential, but current systems arc toward additive results and subtractive meaning. Therein lies the conflict business must resolve for a better future. So maybe stop talking about culture eating anything and start investing energy in systems development so your strategies are effective. Ponder.

===

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”

H.L. Mencken

==

“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.”

Mignon McLaughlin

I have always disliked using the word ‘radical.’ To be fair, I tend to dislike any word that can be twisted in some hyperbolic fashion. The truth is radicals, and radical, is inextricably linked to the idea of revolutions and, well, revolution often gets twisted in some hyperbolic fashion. So let me speak of radicals, being radical, and revolutions in a non-hyperbolic way to show that radical ideas are rarely truly radical, yet, over time they will encourage a radical departure from ‘the norm’. Hence, in reflection, it will look like a revolution occurred.

To get started let’s go to one of the most demonized radicals of all time – Saul Alinsky. In 1971 he wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals: a Pragmatic Guide for Realistic Radicals.” The reality is that most of his ideas were not particularly radical nor was he much of a radical. He was a community activist seeking to empower the ‘community’ to take back some power from the institutions. Needless to say, institutions didn’t like this and, therefore, he was a radical and his ideas and thinking were ‘radical.’

Which leads me to why radical is so scary.

Radical implies anti-status quo. Anyone residing, with benefits from, within the status quo hates ‘radicals’ and fears ‘revolutions.’ Simplistically, its all trouble and that trouble is created by troublemakers. Suffice it to say, trouble is found in the nuance. As John Lewis said “making good trouble” is what progress is all about. Shit. I would argue good trouble is found in the basis of doing the business of good business. What do I mean? Hearkening back to good ole Saul Alinsky, almost 10 years ago I used his ‘radical ideas’ to make a point about how to conduct business successfully in my piece “a pragmatic primer for business radicals.” That said. Revolutions are never particularly selective in their affect. Therein lies the fear of. Revolutions start with some, fairly simplistic, ‘radical idea’ – which is actually a fairly simple well embraced existing concept – and then, well, you are never really quite sure where it will go and expand its effect into. And that is what makes revolutions so scary (and radicals).

“Every important institution in the public life of the nation – education, employment, unions, churches, entertainment, housing, politics, commerce, investment, welfare, transportation, public accommodations – is immediately affected by this revolution, and this revolution will not spend its course until every such institution surrenders to its objectives.”

Revolutions are social events with social dynamics and, well, institutions are made up of people who interact and these institutions are only effective if they do things in a dynamic way. I imagine the scariness resides in ‘losing power’ or ‘losing control’ (2 things inextricably linked) and any true radical, and radical idea, is always interested in changing the way a system works or does things, i.e., challenge existing power and control. With that I bring in the next scary person – Marx. To be clear. Simply because I reference Marx or admit to reading Marx makes me a Marxist or even a Communist. That may sound radical, but its not. anyway.  Virtually all revolutions revolve around the individual right to self-define one’s situation and possibilities for behavior and the definition of the boundaries and rights of the greater ‘We’ that self is associated with. I would suggest any of the famous ‘radicals’ emerge from the basic belief that people are enabled to self-create their own rules of maximizing potential. Just as a reminder, nobody ever creates rules from nothing in an empty space, i.e., the system or the status quo exists and inflicts their rules on individuals. Reminder. Karl Marx said human beings make their history themselves, but they do not do so voluntarily, not under circumstances of their own choosing, rather under immediately found, given and transmitted circumstances. Yeah. So, radicals seek to change the underlying circumstances.

Which leads me to who is a radical.

I have said, many times, anyone can be a radical.

“Look. I believe everyone is a potential revolutionary. What I mean by that is I believe everyone has the ability to be a revolutionary given the interest to engage. Sometimes you join a revolution or sometimes the revolution is within oneself. From a personal perspective you must ask whether school, community, work, life, etc. produces what we wish humanity to be made of and, if it is not, what we wish and what do we need to change – AND what your place is within that. The reality is many things can change society, but I would argue it always begins in one place – the world as it is and you. You can wish it was different, but “the world as it is” is kinda stubborn.”

 I would argue a radical with a valid idea is how progress is nudged along. I would also argue that the power of any radical, and radical idea, is found in evidence; not feelings. In today’s fragmented world this becomes a relatively important point because proof is relational in character and the success as an instrument of mindset & behavioral change is dependent on the criteria the audience assesses the evidence. We often assume scientific proof transcends culture and politics, but that is not true in today’s world. Well. That is not true for people blinded by the status quo and the existing institutional ‘rules of believing.’ The reality is there is no self-evident truth and radicals create contexts where truths do become more evident.  The challenge is, when assessments of evidence are subordinated to system or institutional considerations, the evidence almost has to be framed as radical in order to be heard. Maybe my point here is a radical is someone who seeks to open the closed existing universe to other possibilities. A radical points out how freedom is oppressed, how ideas are oppressed, and maybe most importantly, how potential is oppressed. I use oppressed because that is where ‘revolution’ comes in. It is within this idea where different ideas battle each other for a future unifying truth where people can be organized to change the system which changes society.  Radicals are effective at sensemaking. They narrate an idea which enables some common sensemaking in order to have effective collective and overall choicemaking. I would argue at the core of any revolution is the idea that within the status quo, the existing system, a person isn’t really free, doesn’t really have full freedom, and doesn’t really have the opportunity for full potential. Radicals are troublemakers in the sense they seek to break out of the existing cage. To be clear, I don’t think seeking freedom is radical.

===

“Every revolution promises paradise.”

William Stringfellow

Which leads me to ‘what is the solution revolutions and radical seek?’

Maybe the solution resides in making sense of the same planet, and community environment, we all live on and in. The reality is 99% of people have a reason for why they think the way they think. Maybe if we better understand what people think now about the world, where they would like the world to be and why the world hasn’t got there, we can begin having some pragmatic conversations about, well, the real world.

Let me say, while this is a sweeping generalization, the main way to connect with someone quickly is to do something or say something that appeals to “me.” Me as in self-interest, self-esteem, self-view and self-actualization.  That may sound like a selfish world view, but it really isn’t. It isn’t as cold & harsh as “what’s in it for me?” as the foundation for all attitudes & behaviors, but rather it is a nuanced world view of individual survival within a larger world – a world which can seem quite uncertain. If I think I am seeing the real world crumbling or spinning out of control in its orbit, and I only view people as far right or far left radicals where I am the only one who can think independently, I then see it as a threat to my interests and ultimately my survival <survival can be physiologically or culturally>. Therefore, I am going to want to be part of a world in which an orbit is established, general prosperity & fairness <however that world may establish it>  exists, and a place where it appears my world view and wealth survival is insured. To be clear. This may sound like ignorant close-minded thinking or simply stagnant status quo thinking or simply ‘conserving and no progress,’ but it is not that clear cut. There is a bit of tug of war between what to conserve and what to gain progress on. I say that because “what’s in it for me?” sounds too small for what I view as ‘alternate world thinking’ or even ‘revolutions,’ but any ‘radical idea’ always has to address ‘what’s in it for me’ to gain any traction. The pragmatic truth is self-interest always incorporates some progress because all people always want the future to be better than the present which demands some progress. And maybe I add that because I think far, far, too often radicals are seen as “I” people when in reality the true radicals, and the true revolutions, are collective self-interested people working together for a greater collective change.

Let me end with a Limits of Growth thought: systems pursue their own Goals. Yeah. Systems, and institutions, tend to pursue goals which are not necessarily good for the common wealth and mental well being. Radicals tend to point that out and revolutions tend to want to rearrange those systems. And maybe that is why we should celebrate troublemakers just a bit more. I think we all know the more a society postpones problems, the more likely it is to run into multiple simultaneous, and larger, problems later. In other words, postponing the problem makes it worse. Radicals don’t want to postpone addressing problems. Ponder.

Dr Jason Fox, How To Lead a Quest

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

“We see only what we are ready to see … taught to see … and ignore everything that is not a part of our prejudices.”

Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot (1800’s)

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

So. I think we all know people who have some fairly strong world views. They can be political ideologies, cultural views and even behavioral beliefs. Those world views tend to warp how they see things. Everything becomes a blue hue if they have a blue worldview. Or maybe they simply always find the ‘blue’ in everything they read & see and pluck it out as proof of some aspect of their worldview. It’s a subtle default. It is also a subtle (okay, sometimes not so subtle), bias. I am not suggesting it is always bad, but it is certainly a default mechanism which can skew how one sees the world. Now. What is bad is that it is a self-confirming loop. The default feeds upon itself constantly solidifying the view. I imagine over time that it becomes so solid it becomes difficult to defuse the default. Once again. If we think about people, we know we can identify them. Once again, if we all think about the people, we know we can also see they don’t see that same default mechanism in place. The looped way of seeing & thinking becomes a self-affirming logic. Sounds rational and unbiased. “I read contrary views to see the world through other’s eyes” they say (as they ignore the fact they are always wearing blue tinted glances as they squint at things they subtly disagree with).

Anyway. What led me to think about this is I (finally) picked up my copy of “Open to Think” which Dan Pontefract was so generous to send me and, as good books do, it made me think about thinking. In particular it made me think about default thinking.

Now. I’ve worked with three of the foremost “how to think” methodology/ideology companies – P&G, Publicis & J. Walter Thompson. All crafted default thinking methodologies. From that point on they diverged in how to utilize the default thinking frameworks, e.g., ‘how to fill the framework.’

I could argue I have thought about how I think, what I think, how people think, what they think, attitudes, behaviorism construct, etc., more than is healthy for me. So. When I got to page 80 where Don states “creative thinking is the default cognitive mode we employ when our minds are clear” (Moshe Bar, 2016, Bar-In University), I chuckled. It’s true and it’s not. Creative thinking, in my mind, is when things clear (not are clear) – its kind of like the sky opening up into blue during a thunderstorm. Now. It is true that this is where default thinking crashes into creative, or any deep, thinking. Those of us who have actually been trained on how to think (using time tested methodologies) have this weird concoction of default/non default creative thinking. Our thinking slots into a methodology, or a combination of methodologies, as we sift thru what to heuristically not clear our mind on and what to clear our mind for. As I have said, and written, several times, I do not believe we are in any crisis relationship with time & distractions. We have always had more than enough stress on our time and always had distractions. Therefore, we have always had focus challenges. That said. There are certainly aspects of today’s world that amplifies potential distractions – perception wise (what social media shoves down our throats with regard to ‘measured time’ & realtywise (we do get constantly barraged with bits of information of which our ‘measured time’ mentality minimizes uses of the bits).

But. Our minds do like to work and ‘clearing it’ doesn’t mean not thinking, its mean clarity.

Its kind of like our inner productivity mental compass. However. What I would suggest is an industrial (Taylorism skewed) mentality through all institutions (schools, work, life) in combination with a fabric of societal thinking exacerbated by social media telling everyone how to be more productive, productivity of thinking has taken on some fairly absurd, and insidious, dimensions.

With social media/internet defining productivity at the expense of everything else, it has flipped the formula where productivity – or ‘doing’ – now trumps actual outcomes and how much you do becomes a more reasonable measurement of usefulness than what you actually do. In other words, it de-emphasizes impact to, well, measurements of measured time. Yes. This applies to thinking too.

So, unless you get lucky in that your thinking has a positive enough impact within a specific short term measured time you may never get judged on true impact (how thine thinking echoes thru eternity).

Moving on.

Don Pontefract, Open to Think

Default versus discovery, movement versus stillness, however you want to think about how you think, the truth is effectiveness, and satisfaction, does require some ‘stop & do.’ Constant learning, constant discovery, constant restless thinking sounds good (& even feels good), BUT we still desire (demand?) some proof or outcomes or its all seeming “moving for moving sake.” This is where default gets tricky. In order to satisfy our proof desire (in relation to our thinking) we may seek proof points thru default thinking. It does three things:

• • • Supports our own thinking (cognitive personal ‘loops’ – confirmation of what we think we know) which is kind of a version of ‘imitation satisfies demand that already exists’.

    • Encourages progress (even if it may be misguided) along whatever path we are exploring

    • Efficiency: default is a heuristic mental trick to get us from “here to there” in terms of effective usage of our time (thinking & learning).

All that said. Defaults can be good. Think of them as waystations on the Metro. They can assist in navigating liminal spaces. They can insure you efficiently board a train which effectively guides you in the right direction toward future possible destinations. Not to sound like a broken record, but defaults can help us navigate pragmatism & possibilities (link). Yeah. I continue to argue that everything, thinking included, revolves around managing & navigating, imagination & possibilities and pragmatism & doing. You may encourage your brain to pursue possibilities (convincing yourself you are open minded) but the pragmatism kicks in to drive thinking closer to what you currently believe. Yes. Navigating pragmatism & possibilities with your own brain can be a real sonuvabitch.

Not only that but externally there are a bunch of people trying to ‘hack’ into your thinking process.. So when some fortune cookie wisdom peddler offers you a nifty meme thought or ‘listicle to success’ understand they are trying to implant a ‘default’ mechanism into YOUR brain. I am not suggesting that all of someone else’s default thinking is bad for you. But I am suggesting YOU should decide, clarify and recognize your own default mechanism before you bolt on anyone else’s. thinking, despite what some people may suggest, does not have some formula. However. It does have some principles – stepping stones to place your mental thoughts on.

** note: Dr. Jason Fox is particularly good at discussing the positives & negatives of defaults & heuristics. He asks: “What default practices exist in your organization that are no longer serving you well?” we should ask ourselves, as individuals, the same.

This is not as simple as we may think. We are constantly using phrases & images that sound deep and meaningful while completely missing the bigger point or using a soundbite or image to showcase the issue without delving into the true complexity of reality. When you take one-liners out of context, or make complex issues into little phrases it makes for a great sound bite, but often seriously misleads people.

Anyway. I have always been fascinated by how people think. What always makes me scratch my head is why seemingly smart and intelligent people think, say and believe crazy things. Mostly I chalk it up to lazy thinking <hopefully not actually ‘not thinking’>.

Look. I know we all do this at least some of the time. Daniel Kahneman <“Thinking Fast and Slow”> points out that human brains are hard-wired to process and function in ways that are easy and fast. Uh oh. That means our brains are actually, most of the time, not really thinking <although in our own minds we all think we are constantly thinking>. For efficiency purposes our brains tend to process information in one of two ways.

– automatic response to input

– actual thinking

The difficult one is the latter — thinking can be difficult, tiring, vexing and time consuming, therefore, thinking ain’t easy. Therefore, our brains typically default to the fast automatic response mode. We do this unconsciously.

Ok. Then <you may ask> what happens when we do actually think?

On key issues it seems like our default beginning point is ‘motivation’ as in ‘what is in it for this person.’ Therefore, we are automatically thinking the worst and then forcing ourselves to actually consider the best scenario.

What a wacked way of thinking about things.

Its particularly wacked when you actually look at the research or deign to actually speak with people. We, people in general & the everyday schmucks, actually WANT to do the right thing more often than not.

And that is the evil of fortune cookie wisdom. It can actually double default – default real thinking and default real empathy (or pursuing a somewhat more difficult journey despite it being the right thing to do). This is all done under the guise of ‘reducing complexity’ when, in reality, we should be reducing complications and seeking true understanding of complexity.

Last thought. Festina lente. To me, it would be silly, and naïve, to preach patience or ‘clearing the mind’ in todays world for 99% of the people. Sure. Maybe on a selective basis it is a viable thought, but for most people its not only NOT relatable but not very pragmatic. Movement is simply a given in 99% of people’s lives in today’s world between personal “do’s”, commitments to business & others and the general onslaught of what Life demands. In fact. I would suggest survival can be a full-time job and stopping may mean threat of survival. Therefore. Festina Lenta. Slow down to speed up and find thinking velocity (which, I could argue, is thinking nirvana). Clear a space in your mind, don’t clear your mind, compartmentalize and make sure you slow down on some things without really taking your eye off of the other things that could kill you. It is an art, a practical art. Most of us think on the move amidst the natural distractions of Life. And this attitude means you get lost of practice (within the 30,000 decisions we make daily) and inevitably if you ram your way through some default thinking, keep an open mind enough, you actually get better at seeing things beyond simplistic defaults all the time.

Look. Our beliefs shape our thinking and our thinking creates our defaults. It’s kind of a looped relationship. So, to constantly shape our thinking, we should always be reshaping our beliefs. I will note that despite popular opinion, reshaping beliefs is actually fairly easy and happens all the time. They key? Constantly providing the mind (the thinking body) new nutrients to thrive. Think about more things beyond your defaults.

Anyway.

Circling back to the beginning.

Blue filter. Blue glasses. A group of Americans reading this immediately attached ‘liberal’ (Democrat) to how they read that. Another group of people attached ‘sad’ to their view. It was their default. Their bias. Their filter. Ponder that.

In the end. Not all default thinking is created equal. My default thought is ‘pragmatism & possibilities.’ Imagination spans the walls of thinking which means my type of thinking is not ‘outside the box’, but rather box expanding. To me possibilities without pragmatism will never gain traction, therefore, doesn’t really contribute to anything. I know my defaults, I know my bias, I know my thinking cage, but in my knowledge, and recognition, it lets me see some things beyond the basic defaults and fortune cookie wisdom and sometimes see beyond my normal sight. And isn’t that all we can ask of anyone when it comes to thinking?  Ponder.

————————-

Reading:

 Don Pontefract: Open to Think

Dr. Jason Fox: How to Lead a Quest

===

“If the world isn’t sane, technology will not solve it.”

Jaron Lanier

===

“The new technology mimes the prime procedure of human learning and knowing.”

Marshall McLuhan 1968

===

The title of this piece is a play on Kevin Kelly’s book “What Technology Wants.” The alternative title to this piece was I thought a lot of wrong good things.

When technology first arrived on the scene, particularly in terms of ubiquitous networks, social media, emails, anything internet based, I felt like many problems would be solved, civilization would just get smarter, we would make better societal decisions, and the world would just become a better place. I never believed that everything would be solved and we would attain some utopia, but like many of us, I was envisioning a better world because of this ubiquitous technology. And while many things have improved, and certainly foundationally, we still have the opportunity to significantly improve globally and societally, some things have certainly gone wrong. In many cases very wrong. I’m not sure I got the following things wrong, but I certainly overlooked what could affect the arc of the goodness. So, to paraphrase Marshall Mcluhan, let’s now take a quick tour of the walls knocked over by technology.

The first thing I can point to is money. Somehow, I seem to forget that, well, ideas are usually beneficiary agnostic and typically created with a specific benefit in mind that the people who use them will seek to make money from those ideas. So, inevitably what happens is the sincerely good ideas for society that cannot make somebody significant wealth may not completely go away, but they certainly do not end up at the forefront. Therefore, the other ideas, regardless of whether they’re good for society or not, are wielded as tools of gaining wealth. And as we all know wealth is amoral. It does not care how you attain it. I’m not sure that I’m naïve, or was naïve, I think I felt like technology itself, and maybe even ideas, had more power than humans. I think this point alone should remind all of us that the future really is not about technology, the future is in the heads and the minds of humans.

The second thing I got wrong was most likely driven by the fact that I am not a technology person despite the fact I talk about how technology affects society, humans, progress, and economics. I did know the technology would be subverted into economic endeavors. It made sense to me mostly because I felt like many of the tools that were being developed could navigate the efficacy path and actually improve communication, work and information flow. But, as I pointed out in the first thing, as soon as technology enters into the economic sphere money subverts its use towards, well, money. But that’s not the point of the second thing I was wrong about. I thought that the knowledge evenly distributed, and information evenly distributed, would make the intellectual tide rise higher. And as intellectual tide rose we would, generally speaking, have better sensemaking skills, we would make better choices, and some of the better things for society would just become more obvious to more people. I’m not suggesting that I felt or believed that technology would make democracy ubiquitous across the globe, but I did feel regardless of an individual country’s ideology, within those constructs, better decisions and better choices would be made. The world would not be perfect, but it would certainly be better. My lack of understanding of technology itself and algorithms and what we now call artificial intelligence bit me in the ass on this one. Information was never evenly distributed and, in fact, incorrect information tended to be more amplified and distributed. And, worse, I didn’t recognize incorrect information absorbed would become an attractor for technology to actually feed more incorrect information to anyone who initially absorbed the former. And while I’m a student of Alvin Toffler, and I clearly understood his point of view with regard to cognitive overstimulation, I imagine I did not see his point with true clarity until reality struck. The reality that the ubiquitous information machine was just simply too overwhelming for almost everyone’s brains to cognitively to assimilate in any useful way in addition to the fact technology wasn’t going to help us along the way. I never envisioned technology would step in and amplify a significant number of incredibly crazy stuff which created the cloud over the incredibly non crazy smarter stuff which would have made a better society.

The third thing I missed was how innovation relentlessly pursued incremental consumer quasi-improvements and wants instead of actual needs. Yeah. At the core of this is of course making money. That said. I imagine I focused too much on the potential good things rather than the sheer quantity of the less-than-useful versus not-the-best-but-good. Technology innovations tended to be incremental, asymmetrical, and relentless. Their work was not done in giant leaps, but in relentless, small, almost unnoticeable, increments. Platforms were developed to absorb the onslaught of new technological widgets, but even the platforms became overwhelmed. Maybe that is one of my points. If the technologists were incapable of figuring out how to manage technological innovations, what chance did the everyday human have? As a subset in this was how I didn’t envision the speed of obsolescence. What I mean by that is in the race to get things to market even the really good things technology did and offered became obsolete in the blink of an eye. Because most of the technology was actually incremental it became incredibly easy to make them obsolete with other incremental improvements. This had cascading consequences on both business and people. Business, once they had made a financial commitment, their commitment was for the most part unmoving. Their commitments, for the most part, couldn’t easily absorb the new innovations so they simply, pragmatically, accepted where they were as an improvement from where they had been. They had to accept better, but not the best, all the while wallowing in the anxiety that someone, somewhere, was better. As for people, once they learned something, there was something else they had to learn – at speed. There was no time to develop an integrated routine. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out all of this is good things happening, i.e., truly better technology – with some bad consequences. Asymmetrical adoption, inconsistent application, shifting foundational knowledge, it was almost like quicksand of general cognitive stress and anxiety that we were always behind. My point is while technology has wrought a lot of wrong, the underpinnings are still good, i.e., there is a lot of wheat amongst the chaff.

Still. But. I thought a lot wrong about good things happening.

Still. But. I am actually suggesting my thinking wasn’t wrong about technology, it was more about size and speed. What I mean by that is small things are different than when they are large. A tribe is, well, a tribe, but a mega-city is a mega-city – made up of multiple tribes interacting, cultures within cultures and communities within communities. I forgot social dynamics. This isn’t about complexity, or complicated, or even chaos, this is simple social dynamics. Platforms started for small, like-minded groups. They had some set of shared expectations, but when the ‘small community’ grew past their original audiences into wider audiences, and often at exponential pace, money took over some of the internal ‘scale’ aspects and expectations were subverted and no one had any time to say “hold on a second.” Regardless. Any smaller community will be affected by interaction with the larger community – especially if that larger community spans the globe. Any smaller community will be affected even if they rage against the larger machine because, well, the machine has learned to feed off that rage (Liv Boeree).

===

“The universe has no single secret. It does not even hold a single nest of secrets to which some one study holds the key.”

Mary Midgley

===

Which leads me to what I want from technology (and, hopefully, what we all want).

The only way for “us” to bring about a better future is through some sort of technological humanism.

To make that case — ultimately a case for restraint and more considered progress – we should build an optimistic story of how humanity would use technology to solve problems and thrive and that it can be integral in bringing in about visions of a fairer, more equitable future. I don’t believe technology is “the savior”, but I still believe technology can be integral to a better future.

“Survival now would seem to depend upon the extension of consciousness itself as environment.” Marshall McLuhan 1972

Yeah. I’m writing this and I’m not a technologist, but certainly of a generation that was technological optimistic, curious and ready to implement, with best intentions and some pretty good tactical objectives, some amazing things.

I tend to believe, at that time, most people thought technology was created to solve problems and in solving those problems society and the world would just become better. That didn’t exactly happen and I would argue that somewhere along the way society’s natural inclination for dystopian thinking overcame any quasi-utopian futuristic objectives, i.e., we focused on the bad consequences rather than the good consequences, so that all technology was seen as having a negative effect. As usual, a healthy future is found somewhere in between.

To be clear (part 1). I always, unequivocally, thought move fast and break things was only the harbinger of some unforeseen, but inevitable, doom. To be clear (part 2). I don’t think we are residing in a world of doom, but we certainly haven’t attained the drastically improved society of people living in harmony that many of us envisioned would occur. Part of the issue, as I have noted a number of times in the past, is that many of us were confident a better society would simply emerge. We were wrong. Not that the good parts of society do not exist, but maybe because technology had a nasty habit of over-empowering the more nasty parts of society. Or maybe we never really defined what we thought a better society was nor even offer up a vision to everyone, so that (1) technology overtly created things that would nudge us toward it and (b) show a scenario to society at large that they would incrementally nudge themselves toward somewhere within the 30000 decisions they make daily. This mistake was we treated everything as positively emergent. And in that space, I was wrong. Horribly wrong (a pragmatic business lesson lurks within there).

All that said. I imagine one of my larger points would be that rather than dwelling in the despair and the dystopian view of technology, maybe more of us should take a step back and remember the technology can offer all the positive benefits that we dreamed of at the very very beginning. Technology has never lost its ability to create a better society. Technology has never lost its ability to ensure a smarter, more intelligent, more critical thinking, public. Technology remains an incredibly useful and powerful tool to enable a better society. I say all that despite all the negative things that technology has wrought.

Let’s be clear though. The future does not really reside in technology. The future resides in humans. Decide what we want society to be, what we want civilization to be, how to be able to make people better thinkers, better sensemakers, better choicemakers, is a human choice. I am not suggesting a one worldview. I am not suggesting some global government. All I’m suggesting is that humans can decide what a good human should be. And then we design technology to enable that.

Even with all I have said today, while some technology has created some problems, we clearly are very dependent on the advantages and benefits it has provided. I imagine tucked in all the issues is a truth that the solutions technology provides outweigh the problems it has created. That doesn’t mean we should only focus on the benefits nor does it mean we should focus only on the problems, just that we should maintain some perspective.

Personally, I believe we society people and technology are in the liminal space – possibly the space defined by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock. What I mean by that is all the shock aspects that he outlined are exploding in this time in space that we live in. Or as Czech president Vaclav Havel said:

“It is as if something were crumbling, decaying and exhausting itself – while something else still indistinct were rising from the rubble.”

With that I will end with Marshall McLuhan.

“Perhaps the terrifying thing about the new media for most of us is their inevitable evocation of irrational response. The irrational has become the major dimension of experience in our world. And yet this is a mere byproduct of the instantaneous character in communication. It can be broad under rational control. It is the perfection of the means which has so far defeated the end, and removed the time necessary for assimilation and reflection. We are now compelled to develop new techniques of perception and judgment, new ways of reading the languages of our environment with its multiplicity of cultures and disciplines. In these needs are not just desperate remedies but roads to unimagined cultural enrichment.”

Ah. “Roads to unimagined cultural enrichment.”

I imagine I purposefully end on an optimistic note because in the end I believe technology has the means to offer more good than bad. Ponder.

“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.

What mood is that?

Last-minute panic. “

Bill Watterson

—–

Occasionally, you learn a new word which is worth learning. Rastrophiliopustrocity:

 a barrage of creative random thoughts, images, and ideas that spontaneously overwhelms the brain, which then becomes immediately exercised when other parts of your brain engage within spacious awareness from an empty point.

——

Oh my. What a thought.

Barrage of creative random thoughts engaging from an empty point.

First.

I believe a creative spark needs some fodder. It doesn’t arise from nothing because, well, nothing begets nothing. There has to be something from which a spark can occur. Or as i quoted in my ‘rabbits and ideas post’ … “… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.”

Second.

I have yet to see a process that ensures great creative. Yeah. I just said that. Having been in the creation of creative output business for years I have seen far too many creative generating companies <tangible work as well as ideas> that revolve around some mystical ‘process’ for creative output. These processes get put up in beautiful charts outlining step by step, in nice tidy steps, how past great ideas have been consistently generated. Take note that the mystical processes are most often endorsed by the pragmatic boring logical anal people randomly strewn throughout these creative organizations <who want to define creativity so that in some way they can appear to control the creativity and output>. They are typically endorsed <and embraced> by people who want to manage their creative output like manufacturing plants.

Drives me nuts.

Here is a creative business truth. A rigid process is counterproductive to the creative process.

It is counter to the sometimes haphazardness, oft untidiness, of true creative thinking and will stymie if not stifle the best thinking. In addition, a rigid process often eliminates what we all know happens all the time <which is counterintuitively not a bad thing> that, uh oh, we often revise an original strategy document because of a creative idea.

Yeah. Uh oh.

This is the insidious uncomfortable ‘revising strategy once you have seen output’ discussion. I have had this debate so many times I think I could write a book <or I guess I could watch a slo-motion video of my head exploding>. What happens when a strategy changes in this way is it makes people think that creative thinking drives strategy. What also happens is that I laugh, throw something sharp, if I don’t have anything heavy, and say:

“No, it’s just like a boomerang. You throw the boomerang out (the original strategy/insight) and it goes out and there is creativity as it passes through the mix of sun and clouds but it ends up coming back to the same place. but the trip thru the clouds and fresh air and rain can enhance the original strategy. “

I also point out that means that boomerangs that aren’t properly thrown go astray. This means that boomerangs that end up in some tree means that idea isn’t ‘the one.’

Okay.

Bad metaphor but anybody who believes a well written strategy or insight is perfect and shouldn’t change is nuts. It is simply well written. And by being well written it inspires, it creates the ‘spark’, the overall creative thinking which ultimately generates the end ideas. In fact, a well written brief – or strategic idea/lily pad – should offer just a bit of gravity for rastrophiliopustrocity to occur.  Yeah. A great thinking process enhances the likelihood you can uncover a great insight (no more, no less). Not an “actionable insight” or some “big idea insight,” or even the heinous ‘bid idea’, just some great insight or thought that inspires thinking. Please note I said “enhances the likelihood” not guarantees (people who sell process rarely point that out). A process, or even an insight, doesn’t generate the output it simply provides input that enables output. Or maybe it is inspires …  rastrophiliopustrocity.

BUT.

Now that I have espoused on the limitations of process, let me suggest a process benefit which all creative generating companies want, need, and rarely get.

Alignment.

Huh?

What the fuck does that have to do with generating creativity? or a creative spark?

Well.

It doesn’t.

However.

A good process provides an opportunity to solidify an aligned objective and manage expectations.

That alone can make a process valuable. Yeah. Do not underestimate the importance of alignment with regard to creative thinking and ideas. What I mean by that is more good, and great, creative thinking dies within presentation and articulation and ‘agreement’ than anywhere else. Far too often creative sparks get smothered in presentation and discussion and go off to die.

So alignment and input actually paves the way for actually DOING great creative thinking. All this means is that process is EXACTLY like research. It is to inform not to make decisions and not to create.

Now.

With regard to process, I have seen a trend in the creative creation businesses that with timelines getting tighter and people wanting things faster that a lot of businesses use an initial client/agency immersion session as a creative briefing session.

Yeah. They are seeking shortcuts to the end creative output.

What they do is include all creative creators and non-creative creators in one room along with some moderator who typically guides the discussion with strategy or creative thinking in mind.

Personally, I think its nuts (although I will offer a non-nuts version of this in a bit).

You cannot, and will not, arrive at a ‘spark’ or an ‘insight’ in an initial immersion session. You can certainly ask divergent questions, do deep dive curiosity creating questioning and even maybe circle some interesting spaces. But it ain’t happening here.

To be clear.

Even with all the good potential I just cited this is high risk and high return territory.

Depends on how good your moderator is. How good your team is. How good the questions are and whether the right people are in the room.  As well as a confluence of factors <because as noted earlier … what works one time may not work another time>.

Oh.

And another thing. It also depends on whether the listeners hear everything that they are supposed to hear <and everyone hears the same thing>. Another thing <part 2> it depends on whether you have people in place who can quickly assimilate information and have good, if not great, ability to come up with smart, insightful good initial ideas.

And to be clear.

While many people in the creative business flippantly say that ‘often the initial idea and thinking is the best’ more often than not; it is not.

Anyway, the idea I just shit on is more often is simply a good starting place.

Ok. Here is the non-nuts version.

After some immersion and discovery and some information download, a creative agency puts a small group of ‘thinking’ people in a room and think. Pose possibilities, poke and prod, think out loud and craft some different ideas.  Sure. In these short cut type meetings, I have seen the best of the best in action and even then, arriving at a clear non debatable insight, or whatever you are aiming for, is not a 100% guarantee. More often you end up circling the answer, but struggle to pin it down because, of course, doing so means making choices. And, while earlier choices in the session are easy, toward the end of the meeting session when you are seeking a conclusion … the choices are difficult.

But the reason this isn’t nuts, is because it often provides the ‘gravity thought’ or what I often call ‘the lily pad of a thought.” Its kind of like a running start. The smart group of people sift through the chaff and isolate some potential wheat. I will suggest that this type of meeting, if you have the right people, definitely speeds up the spark process and creative process.

Anyway.

Process provides input, but should never be construed as the ways & means to creative spark.

Third.

Creative spark is really simply divergent thinking.

• Thinking where you seek more verbs than nouns.
• Thinking when you seek to stand for something instead of everything … or nothing.
• Thinking when your mind just says … well … fuck it.
• Thinking that the conventional is simply atrophy.

—

“Honestly, you just take a deep breath and say fuck it.”

Johnny Knoxville

—

Real creative sparks, the ones that matter, are really a combination of a “fuck it” <ignore conventional thinking and conventional ‘wants’> and “where did that fucking idea come from” type moments.

Oh. And maybe a little bit of some personal ‘fuck its.’ What I mean by that is an individual decision to leave the conventional and take a chance.

I say this because while I am not a creative artist or writer per se I have encountered creative sparks.

They can be overwhelming.

In fact I can honestly say that they are more often overwhelming than they are any blinding flash of insight or thought. It comes down to weaving your way through the barrage of thought that seemingly crashes out from this black void in which you have seen nothing, or certainly nothing clearly, that the creative idea arises. Uhm … rastrophiliopustrocity in other words.

Anyway.

There will always be a need, a time & a place, for creative thinking. Therefore, we will always be seeking to uncover how to generate a ‘creative spark’ on demand. We will always seek some magical process that ‘creates’ sparks and ultimately creative.

The difficulty is that creative sparks come from that black void called ‘the creative thinking space.’

There is no formula for a creative process or creative thinking. What works for one person doesn’t for another. And maddeningly what works at one time will not work in another time. Therefore, creative sparks are elusive to rhyme or reason. No. They defy rhyme or reason. And that is maddening to everyone, but mostly to accountant types, manufacturing types and ‘management measurement gwonks.’ And the ‘play-safers.’

All I can say is rastrophiliopustrocity. Ponder.

the only war that matters is the war

against the imagination

the only war that matters is the war

against the imagination

the only war that matters is the war

against the imagination

all other wars are subsumed in it

There is no way out of the spiritual battle

There is no way to avoid taking sides

Rant, Diane di Prima

===

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people

themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control

with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to

inform their discretion by education.“

Thomas Jefferson

===

“The world may be going to hell but there’s lots of really neat stuff you can buy.”

Wired magazine 1993

===

• Preface:

1. this is a draft so it may be a bit bumpy in places and repetitive throughout,
2. as I note every time I criticize capitalism, I am only seeking a better version of capitalism, which I believe exists, not get rid of capitalism.

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

Today I am suggesting capitalism stifles the type of imagination necessary to envision a better version of capitalism. I will also suggest a reinvigorated imagination is the needed weapon to attack the present-day capitalistic system and its issues.

That said. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest capitalism is at the root of business’s lack of employee’ engagement’ issue as well as a number of other societal social engagement issues. While wealth has been created, I believe it is useful to step back and consider the dehumanizing effects of the economic system. Beyond the system’s tendency to default to a ‘treat humans like machines’ mentality, the set’s objectives increases apathy, sapping jobs of meaning and mattering, imbue overall ethical decay, all of which lead to an inability to take the right action, in the right situation, at the right time by a person. I imagine the question becomes can we use our imagination to see how we can work as free and responsible human beings and still be enmeshed within a global economic system, i.e., encouraging system objectives that humanize rather than dehumanize. Let’s be clear. The institutions and businesses within the capitalistic system, spanning local communities (financially and attitudinally) to global arenas, dominate to such an all-encompassing complex and embedded level that it may feel like resistance through this imagination I am suggesting seems futile. To many people it feels like our fate is sealed, there is a sense of powerlessness, therefore, since there seems to be no hope for a better way of doing things people become apathetic, escapist or just materialistic – all of which the capitalistic system actually encourages. Today I will suggest that rather than resign ourselves to the apathy, helplessness, and despair, it seems to me that if we were to reengage our imagination, we could easily envision the hope of a better version of a capitalistic system – and make it a reality.

Which leads me to imagination versus innovation.

I would argue, and will, the biggest casualty in a capitalistic zero-sum world, and of a populace accepting of a zero-sum belief, is imagination. We have lots of stuff and we are constantly encouraged to have stuff (and make stuff), but that orientation creates an unhealthy objective blindness in which imagination becomes subservient to the system of infinite growth. To be clear, I am suggesting imagination is different than innovation. Innovation, in capitalism, is mostly an incremental affair. The existing economic system is one in which innovations occur to further the strategies, objectives, and profits of a business; not the to the profit of society. In many cases the innovation – and the R&D investment dollars – a firm wants done is aligned against its own product and process systems, its strategy for getting and staying ahead, and its self-identified needs. this is an extremely pragmatic, competitive, orientation albeit a business will most likely cloak it in ‘possibilities’ terminology. Imagination, on the other hand, creates the great leaps. The ideas and thinking that can reshape systems and the ways things are done. I would suggest that innovations simply increase the velocity of infinite growth (the capitalism ideology) which only increases the speed in which we crash into the finite resource wall. Imagination is what we need to redesign the systems in order to optimize the finite world, not the growth objective. That doesn’t mean there will be no growth, just that the growth is in prosperity and quality of life and not wealth and, well, just growth. Even Schumpeter (Creative Destruction Schumpeter) recognized most innovation was wasteful and that this type of capitalistic competition is inherently wasteful. So why do we agree to waste the imagination which could possibly envision a new better way to generate the prosperity that everybody wants while optimizing the finite resources available to us from the world? I propose the pathway to the better way is a reimagined imagination which will not eliminate capitalism, ** but rather create a better version.

• ** note: capitalism is not an ideology like socialism, therefore, socialism is not an alternative economic system. In addition, a capitalistic society will have social programs, i.e., features of socialism.

Look. I am not attempting to create radicals, but often I attempt to prompt some radical thinking. Why?

I don’t know exactly when it started creeping into the society mindset, but at some point we inched away from a simple social contract and began to think the world was too complex and decided that the social aspects should become financial, capitalistic, and transactions based all measured by money and ‘growth’ measures just like business. It gives us a sense that we had some control in a world where everything seems out of control. The problem with that was we began to believe everything is uncontrollable and it feels like the only people and businesses that DO have any control are the ones focusing on “more” – growth, wealth, profits, etc. As a consequence, the “how” was subservient to ‘more’ and the ‘more people’ felt like they were not only winning, but controlled their own fate in this uncertain world. There was a general sense if we focused on ‘growth is good’, ‘more is better’ and ‘their more means less more for me (so it’s a war over a finite more)’, society would prosper and, in particular, our society would prosper more than ‘theirs.’ That’s, uhm, rationalizing a fairly unhealthy system and mindset, i.e., rationalizing a fairly dystopian view.

Which leads me to the struggle in-between imagination and rational.

As society careens between dystopia and optimism it seems like many people believe our only hope of being saved is found in capitalism. Although today’s capitalists and their relentless pursuit of power and profit seem to set society’s standard for rationality, I would argue most everyday people are driven by dreams, hopes and a desire for some type of, uhm, redemption. What I mean by redemption is that living in a capitalistic society forces many people to compromise a shitload of moral and ethical things. At some point I imagine many people would like the system to offer some redemption, or salvation, for those slippery slope decisions. To that end, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that capitalism and religion have evolved together and that business is permeated with aspects of religious concepts (and vice versa). We routinely expect far more from capitalistic output than convenience and comfort. We demand deliverance. Deliverance for something better as well as deliverance from the problems that we have. That deliverance is grounded in myths forged by the system itself. In fact, this is just one aspect of how the capitalistic system manipulates/controls society. People have always constructed collective myths in order to give a sense of meaning, and rationale, to their shared experience. These capitalistic myths guide us and inspire us and enable us to live in an increasing uncertain, uncontrollable, world. But if myths help us, over time they can harm us by blinding us to real and urgent (if you take into consideration environmental finite challenges) needs. On occasion we should step back in the hope that we might learn to correct ourselves of some of the myths at the core of the capitalistic worldview in order to begin to redirect our imagination toward more world and human ends without sacrificing some of the prosperity we have gained or even desire.

As a consequence, maybe we would stop having to seek redemption for the lives we live.

Maybe a better direction is found within continuous and cumulative progress; not growth.

Maybe we should reflect a bit about how the system has reduced our innate nature as humans. Humans are not natural exploiters of the environments they live within, they are nurterers, yet, industrial capitalism reversed the relation between humans and nature by making humans extractors and exploiters through machines and technology.

Maybe we should reflect a bit on our obsession with reductionism and our increased valuing of the concrete over the abstract.

My guess is that all my ‘maybes’ are driven by my desire to inject imagination in a system increasingly bereft of anything but a “more” objective blindness. My guess is that capitalism actually encourages us to feel powerless to do anything other than what the system propagates.

Yeah. I would argue our sense of powerlessness is actually created by our lack of imagination. To be clear our lack of imagination is encouraged by the institutions themselves. The system is designed for the results it’s getting and the system attempts to design our minds to encourage us to believe that these are the results we should be getting. I say that because if we want to create different results, we will not only have to redesign the system, but we will have to redesign our imaginations. I won’t deny that the task ahead may appear daunting, but if you look ahead, gather your imagination, it doesn’t become difficult to be able to envision a better way of doing things. That doesn’t mean the better way is a radical difference for the sake of radicalness (i.e., disruption), but the only way to redesign the system is to actually break it before it collapses in on itself. Just stating it that way suggests it’s not radical thinking. It’s certainly not radical to head off what is impending; that’s reasonable and logical. Once again, I circle back to imagination. Imagination which is the ultimate power. More than money, more than authority, more than even the existing system, the most powerful thing in the world is imagination. I say that just to remind everybody (1) this is concrete, not abstract, and (2) why the institutions fear it. The struggle isn’t against the rulers. I would even argue it’s not even against authority in the system. I would suggest that the struggle is against ourselves – our despair or lack of hope and our lack of imagination. Those are the things that we are struggling against. Once we win that struggle, we’ve crossed the bridge where we can create the system that is best for us and the planet – a version of capitalism which recognizes it’s not a zero-sum world and progress is not always dependent upon growth. I believe empowered imagination will usurp the original purpose for which the original capitalistic system was created and I would argue even those of us who benefit from the existing system we will cease contributing to the problems of the existing system and simply through envisioning what could be better we’ll begin addressing the underlying flaws of the existing system little by little. If that’s radical, so be it.

Which leads me to control.

Control comes in a variety of forms, but the most pervasive type of control is the capitalism narrative – and myths. Those of us who have become dependent upon the modern capitalistic society, which is offers us goods and services and conveniences, can’t imagine living without them. We can’t imagine a world where all of these amenities, which we no longer see as amenities but as givens, uhm, given to us by capitalism are not only available, but actually have. Of course, there is a partial truth to this, but simply because capitalism was the economic game we played to get here, doesn’t mean it is the only game in town or that another game could have gotten us to this same place – without all the waste and destruction. To that point. The ideology that supports capitalism requires the belief that limitless economic growth is both possible and desirable and will lead to a higher standard of living for everyone (rich and poor). It certainly can, and has a history of doing so (sort of), yet, that claim includes a number of serious flaws. While the tide has certainly risen higher for almost everyone in some form or fashion the wealth and prosperity has not been shared equitably. Indeed, any claim that economic growth brings benefits to everyone can be challenged simply by looking at the actual effects and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. Yes, a lot of wealth has been created, however, the inequities are extreme. Anyway. I believe we all know that we live on a finite planet with limited resources, what I believe that we struggle to imagine is that the economy can’t grow indefinitely. As Kenneth Lux said:

“We live in a finite planet. Human beings are defined as being made up of infinite wants, and the task of an economic system is to fulfill that infinity, then such a system will go on endlessly churning out goods in an attempt to reach what is from the beginning an impossible goal. When the infinite production of goods meets up with the finite planet there is bound to be a collision.”

This is the illusion of unlimited economic growth. The goal of most national economies is to achieve unlimited growth of GDP through the continuing accumulation of material goods. Since human needs are finite, but human consumption is not, economic growth can usually be maintained through the artificial creation of needs through capitalism, i.e., materialism. The goods that are produced and sold in this way are often unneeded and thus are essentially waste. The continuing illusion of unlimited growth on a finite planet is the fundamental dilemma we need to resolve. Yet. Businesses fed by globalization continue to grow bigger and bigger, and faster and faster, using up resources while pushing governments to gear everything towards economic growth and decrease regulations. The businesses make ever greater profits under the guise of keeping the global economic system growing and growing and going on and on. Our lack of imagination keeps us from seeing where we are headed. Economic globalization is often presented as benign as simply a matter of trade development, complex global interactions (and cooperation) and financial flows. While functionally true, in reality power and control permeates the global system at every level. That isn’t to say that the appeal of this capitalism that promotes consumption as desirable isn’t beneficial because it is beneficial enough to keep the system of corporate globalization going and, people, generally speaking, satisfied. But could it be a better system? It is that question that is at the core of imaginative needs. In the end I imagine the worst thing about all of this is our lack of imagination keeps us from seeing any logical place to make it all stop.

“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.”

Thomas Friedman

Which leads me to say capitalism exploits all communications techniques to manipulate emotion and control reason and imagination of any other system (or way of living).

Yeah. In some sense I am suggesting a sly bit of mind control. To be clear, mind control, or ‘brainwashing’ at its worst, has much subtler techniques than the Chinese water torture. In fact, technology has become an increasingly effective tool for mind control and affecting what people think. This is best articulated by Jaron Lanier (Who Owns the Future) and how technology constantly nudges the mind in small degrees every day until it achieves the larger effect. Anyway. My point here is capitalism has a narrative and it uses all tools available to further that narrative. One could argue capitalism’s greatest communication victory has been its ability to define the conditions, and related narratives, of the social realm. Economic activity has increasingly provided the north star desires for people’s fantasies. Capitalism and consumerism have provided the attitudes which frame the questions and answers of grander discussions of human need and desires and paradoxically, as a consequence, also frame a restriction of possibilities. This, I would argue, is the meta narrative of industrial capitalism – a version of social control. I will admit that I am suggesting a coercive power. And it’s not just narratives. Economic power is a control mechanism that encourages everyone to believe pursuing profits at the cost of people’s mental lives and ecological destruction is okay if we are benefiting from the system (note: most people do not recognize the mental harm cause). The ultimate consequence of this narrative is it encourages society, people, to leave the system as is. To be clear, the capitalism narrative is a means of control in and of itself by making clear that those who cannot or will not play by the system’s game, and its rules, are expendable. What do I mean? Part of the insidious aspect of the capitalism narrative is that in order for capitalism to work wealth must be accumulated in economies must grow and if you are not accumulating or growing you are part of the problem. Oh. And it always encourages you to feel like the game is ALWAYS being played so if you are not playing, someone else is. This is a subtle encouragement of a zero-sum baseline mindset, and is the basis for the hamster wheel metaphor and it is also the basis for general apathy and despair – it is an infinite game in which we only have finite resources as humans.

One could argue this unsustainable cognitive warfare (mind control war) creates a general breakdown in society and the social contracts within which people interact. Paradoxically, there’s an underlying encouragement to not put constraints on this capitalistic system because it has convinced us to believe it is the only path to “more” than what we have today.

Which leads me to dissonance.

Beyond the apathy and the despair, I would suggest we actually feel dissonance. What I mean by that is dissonance occurs when everything you have been told crashes into what is reality. The easiest example I can offer is what we are told abut a foreign country, maybe Russia and somewhere in the middle east or even Latin America (if you are American), but then when you actually meet someone from there or maybe visit you see they are actually people just like you, the cities are a lot like the cities in your own country and, well, they really aren’t anymore a shithole than some of the places in your own country.

The story within the story, creates an identity crisis WITH capitalism. Capitalism tells narratives that conflict day in and day out with reality. And while capitalism argues at a meta level, the arc of history, people live in the mesa level and see how capitalism actually works. This dissonance is a version of mental anguish and the story we should be paying attention to is the capitalism attacks on our mental state. I would argue using our imagination will throw off the mental shackles of the existing capitalistic narratives and myths.

Which leads me to the game <a derivative of gamification>.

“A game is a machine that can get into action only if the players consent to become puppets for a time.”

Marshall McLuhan

We need to stop thinking of economics and the system we make money as a game because it is the first step to stop being played by the capitalistic game. Games are contrived and controlled extensions of group awareness. The more seeming /perceived autonomy a player has (context) the less they notice how contrived/controlled the game actually is. This game, materialism (or accumulation of wealth), contains no limiting principles, yet, the resources necessary to maintain, and fulfill, materialism is limited. But the capitalism game invades the private lives of people, communities, and business. It meddles in the politics of life and certainly is wielded as power by those in power to control mindsets, attitudes and behaviors. But the control is clever. The memories of what we are told ‘is best’ are fuzzy at best, yet, the objectives of best are clear. The capitalism control shapes ideas into familiar and meaningful contexts clearly outlining the punishment, threats, and rewards for the e minimum necessities of life which, in a capitalistic society, are the stepping stones to maximum comfort of life. There is no imagination necessary because capitalism has drawn the color by numbers world to success and wealth. But that is the capitalism game. And when we are in the game, we become mentally apathetic and more prone to simplistic capitalism narratives (solutions) in order to navigate the game. What that means is we use capitalism in order to relate to meta problems. This is exactly the wrong direction to go.  The combination of certain social forces grounded in capitalistic thinking ranged against the mind will inevitably lead to the destruction of the democratic way of life and the planet itself.

Our largest most powerful weapon against this is imagination.

Full of hope, we need to use our imagination to attack the system-wide narratives which have corrupted the better angels of business and how we think. We need imagination to bring about the most fundamental and far-reaching changes, in terms of restoring basic honesty and integrity, and dignity to each other and to the world’s resources. As Vaclav Havel said. “We still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics science and economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of our actions if they are to be moral is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success.” What he is saying is that it is not enough for a nation to liberate itself from a flawed ideology or a theory, but rather if you can liberate yourself from a bad idea, it is necessary to find another good idea. we need imagination to identify that idea.

To be clear. Industrial capitalism is flawed. Innovations have certainly made the existing system more efficient in production, but less so with resources. capitalism is associated with considerable waste. That said. The system is designed for the results it is getting and it is paying off for those for whom it is designed. In order to be able to redesign the system resistance needs to be organized by the people and for the people. And by resistance, I mean something William Stringfellow said:

“Persons live most humanly. To death means yes to life.”

If that is radicalism so be it.

All I can really say is “bring on the imagination.” The system will shout their argument that capitalism “can’t be beat,” but the persons who seek to live most humanly should be imagining ‘what are the alternatives?’ We can all see the wastefulness of capitalism, but currently appear to lack the imaginative strength to envision a better way. Surely there is a better way to enable a healthy system where there is real competition among people with different ideas, where there is widespread access to knowledge in order to develop the smartest possibilities, where there are incentives to meet market needs not just wants, and where we cut losses when it is clear we should.

We should acknowledge the existing system doesn’t actually determine winners and losers in any meaningful or efficient way.

We should acknowledge this engine of progress has generated remarkable results, but also acknowledge those results, and the pursuit of those results, changed the nature of the capitalism engine itself and, therefore, the results objectives may need to be changed.

I imagine we should also acknowledge that in response to the changing nature of the capitalistic system, some in business have attempted to change – with new kinds of organizations, new ways of doing things, new ways of connecting and new ways of thinking about work itself AND we should be paying a bit more attention to this.

We should acknowledge this is more a social process, not just a business capitalistic process, and, inevitably, a cultural evolutionary process.

We should acknowledge that businesses watch other businesses, workers watch other workers, communities watch other communities and, yes, even nations watch other nations – and learn.

We should also acknowledge that the capitalistic system itself will be watching it all and will hold on to its power with ragged claws encouraging everyone to believe that the zero-sum narrative is more important to everyone’s survival, and thriving, than anything they could learn in this new imaginative space.

And with that we should acknowledge the reality is there are few absolute zero-sum economic situations (even though people see them everywhere and it negatively effects economics) and if capitalism is done well, economic growth – not through extracting and exploiting – makes everyone better off.

If that is radicalism, so be it. Bring on the radical imagination.

Ponder.

“In society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation

of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the

reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest

communication techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor

===

==

“serving as the trustee of the society which the world thrives on”

==

This is about Purpose in business, but, prepare yourself, while this doesn’t slam Purpose with regard to what is called purposewashing (a valid criticism), it will discuss how Purpose can be hacked toward some quasi-ethical slippery slope vision.

Let me begin by saying regardless of who you are, I believe most of us believe everyone should have a vocation, a calling, a purpose, that is fundamental to our life, and contributes, to their meaning in life. Which leads me to a business Purpose.

The trouble begins when Purpose is applied to an institution – a business. Now. It shouldn’t be a problem because at its core, business’s job has always been in the service and enhancement of human life in society through products and services they offer. Yeah. This suggests that organizations and businesses (and governments I assume) should ideally serve humans by providing various social structures, and products, necessary for humans to thrive. And if they have truly embraced a Purpose they have. Unfortunately, however, this mission is best served by, and for, the individual – not a business. So what ends up happening is a business establishes some ‘purpose’ and then the individuals in that business start serving the purpose of the business, uhm, and not the purpose of the person. Pick your poison, but it is either objective blindness or simply enslavement to the organization (Purpose).

That may sound harsh, but that’s the worst-case scenario wherein a business sets a Purpose and a person, assuming their status increases by serving that purpose, follows it. you don’t even have to think that hard about it to recognize that is an inversion of what Purpose is supposed to be.

That said. If we are honest, if you work, your individual Purpose will be intertwined with your vocation so we need to be aware of the potential downsides of a business’s Purpose. So. Let me make this discussion even worse. This may sound controversial when discussing Purpose, but we tend to neglect the fact that a business Purpose (can) corrupt all decisions, even those that may appear benign. What this means is if you have embraced Purpose, yours as well as the business’s, you are deluding yourself if you believe your own moral standing will discriminate between decisions and choices because it is impossible to escape the burden of the Business Purpose which applies to everything you do. Let me say it this way. There is no way a person may escape from the full burden of the power of Purpose over his or her whole existence. Yeah. That was harsh.

I am not suggesting it must be this way, but businesses are businesses and people are people. Some good intentions, some bad intentions, some lack of engagement, some assumptions, and off we go on the Purpose train. I bring this up because all I am suggesting is Purpose if often just a new cage business is designing for its workers.

Which leads me to I and We.

As Mark Earls often suggests “we need to ignore the illusion of I.” I begin there to state that ‘we’, the I’s, are social beings and who we are is a reflection of our interactions and connections. So, regarding business purpose, if it is a social construct we then need the emergence of a new kind of human, living in a new kind of human society and working in a new kind of humancentric business. That thought is a derivative of Hanzi Freinacht’s transvidual concept. Anyway. For today let’s call it embracing a “We view of business.” That’s a semi-important thought. I imagine I believe, in some form or fashion, we currently live in a world in which so many people’s lives are distorted by some nebulous Purpose that we basically have no idea what humans and humanity is truly capable of becoming which makes us ripe for being taken advantage of by some business. Let me expound a bit on that thought. I believe each person has massive squandered untapped potential in today’s business world. A Purpose (can) make this struggle even more difficult. From a business perspective we must ask whether the workplace shapes the kind of people we wish society to be made of and, if it is not, then what should a business change. Yeah. I am suggesting, and believe, that business can not only shape society (through people), but also change society. Yeah. I am suggesting business is more than ‘profits & growth.’ Yeah. Business can shape the “we” if it stops gaming the “I.” The reality is many things can change society – including Purpose. Education, business, and, yes, even technology, but that change runs in both directions. Changes in society can impact any of those things just as changes in any of those things can impact society – the causality is bidirectional. Within a recognition of the “We” aspect resides any hope for business Purpose.

Which makes me circle back to Purpose.

This may sound odd after pointing out I feel purpose is an individual endeavor, but inevitably the key is how do we create the social conditions so that all the changes we desire can occur (remember, I stated earlier we are social beings). I say that because it kind of appears like many people are currently starved for visions of the future which accommodate individual Purpose. So if we long for better visions of the future and society (and we should), we need to stop looking to some crafted business Purpose for that future — especially because most business purposes are intended to simply be a higher order narrative for making money and profits.

To be clear. I have consistently had a non-radical vision of what Purpose is; and is not. I believe individual purpose is an incredibly important topic in that it taps into meaning and mattering and I believe the Purpose of business should be just one thing – the purpose of business is to benefit people. That shouldn’t be a radical thought. With that in mind I will suggest that, if we navigate a business Purpose well, the new worldview that emerges from a more meaningful effort in life and business is quietly radical. We shift from thinking about some future state to attain and simply apply ourselves to the present, as it emerges, to shape a better future. That seems, well, good. Maybe even gooder than some nebulous business purpose. Ponder.

=====

“Statistics are no substitute for judgment.”

Henry Clay

====

ah. “When statistics get in the way of a good decision.” Let me get this out of the way upfront. I like numbers. I have an Economics undergraduate and accounting and statistics  accounted for several of my <of the few> good grades in college.

I like that if you weave your way through numbers they can tell you things that can inspire the ‘real’ thought.

I like the fact that numbers can sway an “I think” based opinion to a “here is what I know” based opinion.

That said. I purposefully used Henry Clay (so think maybe 1800 as to date of the quote) so that some contemporary statistical wonk doesn’t come out of the woodwork saying something along the lines of “statistics have only evolved in the last 20 years” or something crazy like that. “We have never had better data to make decisions from than today!” <with the exclamation mark> is a statement that was as true in 1800 as it is in 2000’s and as it was in 100 BC.

This is an eternal issue.

People have looked at statistics since the time good ole Adam started calculating how many apples fell out of the tree to figure out how often he was gonna get laid. Henry Clay just had the luck to be quoted on it.

So before I begin my rant let me say, yes, I get decision-making is a cognitive process where the outcome is a choice between alternatives. And that numbers can play a role. I also get that people have different preferences as to how to approach decision making and that there will always be a varying degree between thinking and feeling and numbers and experiential. And I do believe all decisions, at least the worthwhile ones, have to incorporate some sense of logical decision-making. Logic in that we seek to exclude <or marginalize> emotions <as well as personal biases> and try to use only rational methods <perhaps even mathematical/statistical tools> with the intent to isolate what is typically called the decision utility.

I get all that.

Oh. And, by the way, I hope no one tries to dump the whole your view is driven by whether you are “left brain/right brain” mumbo jumbo on me because science has already proven that is an urban myth. There is no right brain left brain.

And. There is no “numbers are facts” crap.

Yeah. On that last one.

==========

“Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything.”

Gregg Easterbrook

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

Sure. Numbers don’t lie. But they also don’t tell you what to do.

Now, in saying that, let me suggest why I believe this statistical ‘torturing numbers’ issue has been an issue for eternity.

The thought: many people don’t want to make decisions. Okay. Maybe people just get nervous with accountability and use statistics to make the decision; not inform a decision.

Why? There are boatloads of reasons, but suffice it to say that without using numbers you are getting paid (or at least judged) not just on decision-making skills, but on your judgment skills. That means accountability is solely on you (the person).

Think about that. But also think about this (as you get judged). The following is an explanation on decision making using statistics:

Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Statistical Decision Theory

I’d like to start today’s lecture with a reminder about something I said a long time ago when we finished our survey of population viability analysis. Population viability analysis is best seen not as a way of garnering precise predictions about the fate of a population but as a way of ensuring that all relevant life-history variables have been considered, that they have been considered efficiently, and that we have a reasonable sense of the trajectory that the population is likely to follow if current trends continue. It provides a way of structuring our thinking about the problem. That’s precisely the way I think we should regard the approach to decision making that I’m about to describe.

One of the most difficult tasks facing conservation biologists, as I have emphasized repeatedly, is that decisions must often, perhaps usually, be made in the face of woefully inadequate data.

<ba bla blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa>

So. From that incredibly dry mind numbing analysis of statistical decision theory they dropped this little bombshell in toward the end of the ‘how to use statistics’:

There is the recognition from statistics that there are two types of errors we can make in evaluating an hypothesis:

–          We may say that something is happening when it isn’t (Type I), or

–          We may say that something isn’t happening when it is (Type II).

Say what?

=====

“The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.”

Robert Heinlein

(I wish I had written this in response to the statistical theory thingamajig)

Ok. What that means (to those of you solely dependent upon statistics). You may use the statistics to prove something is or isn’t happening and it may not be happening or it is happening <anyone now wonder why statisticians are avoided?>.

Anyway. I will back off the ‘accountability through numbers folk’ for a second. Trying to give statistical-using people the benefit of the doubt, let’s think that maybe when you are stressed out, frankly, any option seems pretty good — especially one which seems factual (numbers seem more factual to people despite the fact that once you start combining them they become less factual). I imagine it is like someone dying of thirst and drinking from whatever looks like the safest pool.

Uh oh. But some pools are poisoned.

And, unfortunately about this stress theory of mine, when the adrenaline from the stress wears out, you realized that the statistics you leaned on for the decision YOU made — were all bullshit (or someone points out they were bullshit when you actually invest some energy trying to explain them later).

And you are screwed. Screwed because of statistics (although people will inevitably try the “but the numbers told us what to do”).

Ok. Here is the good news (relatively speaking). You can do something about the stress decision making leaning on numbers thing.

Most people, given enough experience, become aware that stress can do a number on your decision-making skills.

How do I know? Well. Of course someone has done a study on it. Scientists have some statistical based thinking about exactly how stress screws up your ability to make decisions. According to ScienceDaily, psychologists Mara Mather and Nichole R. Lighthall (who completed a review of the literature on stress and decisions) they found that, even though you’d think being stressed would turn people into pessimists and therefore more careful, stress actually makes us focus too much on the upside of our decisions. Says Mather, “Stress seems to help people learn from positive feedback and impairs their learning from negative feedback.”

Uh oh. That sucks <maybe you cannot do something about the bad stress decision making thing>.

Nuts.

I guess my point in bringing up the study is that maybe under stress it is easier to grab on to statistics to make a decision <all the while thinking positive thoughts> and therefore avoided the judgment call on your own.

Uh oh (again).

Look. I was wrong. You can do something about this judgment thing. Judgment isn’t easy, but at some point you are accountable <or you should be> and hiding behind statistics just won’t hack it.

As Yoda would say “the answers are within you.” The key to making a smart decision is giving yourself the time to gather all the information you need <and, yes, that can include statistics> and move forward with whatever proactive thinking method approach you have some confidence in and make a decision.

A daunting decision doesn’t have to put you in an analysis paralysis death grip.

Use a logical decision-making method to help you evaluate your choices and pull the trigger.

And make a decision.

And not let statistics make the decision for you.

Here is the net on statistics: It helps us formalize and categorize our thinking to make sure that we have considered all relevant possibilities.

Quantitative analysis should be viewed as explorations of possibilities; not hard predictions.

I believe being able to use numbers, and statistics, to explore possibilities is truly a skill <or an art>.

Not everyone can do it. Ok. Well. That’s not true. Anyone can do it, it’s just that not everyone can do it well.

Knowing what to do with the numbers is an art.

In fact, just to circle back to the main topic of this post, let’s call it, well, judgment.

Yeah. Judging numbers. This means learning how to weigh the importance of one number versus another as well as learning which numbers are unimportant. To be honest, not many people have mastered that art.

But. That doesn’t mean everyone should get bogged down in statistics and numbers because if you do, yup, you can torture any decision you want out of numbers.

And, frankly, you are lying to yourself if you believe that is a decision. That is simply being a coward (in the decision making world). You have deferred decision to ‘numbers.’ And inevitably you are deferring accountability.

Sound harsh?

As harsh as this?

“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.”

David Ogilvy

Harsh.

Sound like truth? Yup. Suffice it to say everyone should use numbers and statistics to inform decisions, but, inevitably, all good decisions demand some level of judgement. Ponder.

===

“However, even if we accept that citizens are not primarily causally responsible for our poor information environments, it could be argued that they nonetheless have a remedial responsibility to mend them.”

Solmu Anttila

===

This is about technology, maybe partially about generative AI, but more about technologies impact on culture and how we think. Let me begin with technology’s improbable intelligence. Yeah. I believe we should feel comfortable suggesting AI is intelligent. I say that recognizing I think the really smart people get caught up in the wrong discussions. As I’ve noted in the past the whole argument about whether artificial intelligence is actual intelligent or not is dancing on the head of a pin when the everyday schmuck like me, or anyone who uses a computer on a daily basis just for everyday work, the computer is pretty intelligent, artificial intelligence is anything but artificial, and we’re pretty glad that it’s a little bit more intelligent than we are because it elevates us. That said. I’ve always liked a thought that Norbert Wiener offered us in 1960. He briefly mentioned we should reject a certain attitude of people toward technology. What is that attitude? It is the assumption that machines cannot possess any degree of originality. And, yes, I associate intelligence and originality. Regardless. The assumption is shaped around the understanding that nothing can come out of a machine which has not been put into it. beyond originality, the output, this also suggests technology must always be open to human intervention WITHIN a process (not just post hoc). But going back to originality, the reason Weiner emphasized his thoughts on originality is because, at that time, many people diminished the concept of machines, or technology, outrunning human control, therefore, diminishing the idea that machines could gain control. Yeah. improbable intelligence has two interesting aspects: originality and control.

Let me discuss control first. Going back to Weiner he believed that machines can, and do, transcend some of the limitations of their designers and that in doing so they may be simultaneously effective and dangerous. He made this statement with a couple of thoughts in mind:

• a concern that technology would take on elements of whose behavior we cannot comprehend sooner or later.
• a recognition the technology often acts far more rapidly than humans are capable of and are far more precise in performing the details of their operations.

And while this may not be true intelligence what it does do is transcend humans in the performance of tasks – both doing tasks and thinking tasks. Which makes me circle back to the thought technology could theoretically take control over mankind. I don’t believe that is meant in a whole cloth way, but rather because technology moves so fast, so precisely, and in such an overwhelming way in terms of information flow, that people’s attempts to augment technology as they recognize issues, those attempts will be irrelevant, and ineffective, because technology never stops moving and the old issue has been replaced by a newer, more dangerous, issue. In other words, technology will always be ahead in this race. I imagine the grander point to be made is the only way to avoid complete disaster is if understanding of the technology equals the performance of the technology. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is true of intelligence: human intelligence must be equal to technology intelligence (improbable as that may sound). Yeah. Improbable, no? Human speed makes effective control of technology a pipe dream. By the time we can react to our cognitive conclusions we may have already run off the cliff. Yeah. It is highly likely that given the fast pace technology assimilates and generates output it would either (a) be impossible to foresee the undesirable consequences or (b) be incapable of assessing the onslaught of output effectively against any strategic objective or (c) our ‘control’ decisions are obsolete by the time implemented. this ends my point on control, or, better said, our lack of control of our improbably intelligent technological partners.

Which leads me to originality.

Generally speaking, we mangle the concept of originality and totally misuse the concept with regard to technology’s output. How do we mangle the concept? Everyone should just assume that nothing is original that almost everything is a derivative of something that already exists and what really matters is what you do with what exists and can it be used in an original way. But, with regard to technology, Norbert Wiener points to a misconception that technology’s output will never be original because it is dependent upon the information that has been input. But if we apply the true definition of originality, the one I just pointed out about using what exists in imaginative ways, technology can certainly meet that originality definition. In addition, it can reconfigure data at a faster pace than humans. I stated that to suggest that technology can offer originality faster. Ponder that. Maybe the time has arrived to acknowledge a bit more liveliness and creativity, if not originality, in our technologies. And maybe if we do so we, people, can become a bit less mechanical (think in machine terms). I say that because maybe, just maybe, if we concede a bit of originality to technology and maybe if we stop thinking of ourselves in machine like terms, we may begin to view people as having the ability to evolve in tandem with technology.

Ponder that because there are absolutely some good consequences as well as some bad consequences.

Which leads me to the improbable.

It seems like we have entered an era where we have become significantly more accepting of the improbable. That doesn’t mean that in the past, and I mean centuries in the past, people’s beliefs didn’t dance around the edges of some improbable things. But typically, traditional thinking, let’s call it reason based thinking, was grounded in some basic societal agreements within which the improbable things stood out distinctly enough that the majority of people, well, recognized they were improbable. Technology has changed that. With all the information bludgeoning us the reality is the improbable has, perceptionwise, gained a degree of possible. It’s not that everybody agrees that it’s probable, they just don’t completely dismiss it. and technology appears to be the megaphone of the improbable (intelligent and unintelligent). In the cacophony of information available to everyone there will always be a voice shouting that some fact makes all other facts irrelevant and that you should be paying attention to this ‘fact’ and if the source of it has some semblance of credibility, it starts edging its way into the possibility zone. I believe it was HL Menken who said there is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it. That has a grain of truth in today’s world. seemingly experts mingle with ordinary people  in terms of accepting some fairly improbable things despite having access to more good information than ever before. Technology elevates the improbable voice while also making some significant truths and thoughts invisible and therefore they become less relevant.

Which leads me to improbable intelligence becoming an authority.

Since the dawn of time people have believed in some authority. The only thing that has changed has been what that authority is and in today’s world it has become a revolving wheel of which we will pick and choose the authority that we want to believe. And while much of early authority intelligence was of dubious intelligence – royalty and religion – science pricked that improbable intelligence with probable intelligence. And that is where technology has assumed some authority; by dismantling the entire authority system to such an extent that we can’t discern who to believe in, therefore, what to believe. The world we live in is fairly incomprehensible to most of us and discerning the improbable from the probable, with some certainty, is beyond most cognitive abilities. Technology’s improbable intelligence plays a significant role in that almost no fact, actual or imagined, surprises us for long because what is an unacceptable contradiction to reality has become blurred. Technology has encouraged us that there is no reason not to believe – in anything. Technology’s improbable intelligence has taken on the role of probable intelligence. I cannot remember who shared this metaphor, but let me share it.

Prior to the technological world that we live in today which certainly had technology in the industrial sense life for most of us was like an unopened deck of cards. You could open the deck of cards and after flipping them over one by one you could be relatively comfortable of what the next card was going to be. But what today’s technology world has done has shuffled the deck so while every single one of us is familiar with the deck and we’re familiar with the cards that are within the deck, just because we see a card we can’t be confident of what the next card will be when it’s flipped over.

Anyway.

I imagine my point today is to say arguing whether AI/technology is intelligent or not, whether it is original or not, seems like wasted energy. While we argue, it assumes the role of the expert in original thought and reason and, well, intelligent dialogue. It has already outpaced even the best minds in society. So maybe we should accept the fact it is quite probably intelligent and quite probably going to run over many of the societal good things we embrace and start being a bit intelligent ourselves in solving what is quickly becoming an existential societal issue. Ponder.