==

“We don’t want to be known for creating brilliantly crafted failures.”

Don Perkins

==

In business, one of the difficulties in caring about what you do and how you do it is that solutions are rarely just a, well, solution. Inevitably you desire to craft a brilliant solution. This is particularly true in advertising communications, but communications in general. Sometimes elegant, sometimes brutal, sometimes sleek, sometimes ponderous, but always brilliantly crafted.

That said. Here is an unfortunate truth. While simplicity is always nice, it is more often not practical <or reality>.

Business is complex.

Therefore.

Solutions tend to be complex.

Therefore.

Solutions often need to be brilliantly crafted to summarize the rich and royal hues of that complexity.

And, yes, there are some extremely qualified people, not advertising hacks, who get so caught up in building beautiful solutions that they lose sight of reality and purpose, but they are truly in the minority.

We are truly not in the business of building brilliantly crafted failures, but we are in the business of crafting smart work that works. In fact, the test of intelligent work isn’t the output, but the correct input.

Which leads me to Chatgpt and the wayback machine.

Let’s go back 40ish years ago. I would go to a local market and 80-90% of the advertising communications I saw was crap. Unprincipled, trite, the kind of stuff a good Creative Director or Communications leader would have thrown out in a first round. It was maddening as a classically trained communications person to see the crap that was running. More often than not you would find it was someone’s child, a friend, maybe the neighborhood kid who was good at drawing or writing who was creating the crap (and the businesses thought it was fine). This was that time’s “training from experts is overrated” tier of advertising and communications and, circling back to an earlier thought, their input wasn’t the most intelligent therefore their output could be kinda stupid. It was horrible and there was a lot of it.

Let’s go back 20ish years ago. The internet and smartphones snuck into culture. What happened? Not a whole shitload in terms of quality. In fact, all it really did was highlight the local gems of communicators (that 15%ish) and, to my dismay, harden the hacks. What I mean by that is the hacks did what almost everyone does now, they sought out likeminded hacks and confirmed their beliefs or maybe they simply cherrypicked some good thinking (usually under the guise of simplicity) to buttress up their hackedness. Circling back to an earlier point, the hacks just didn’t google the right questions therefore the answers they got weren’t the most intelligent and therefore their output was kinda stupid.

Let’s go to the present. Chatgpt. I am no futurist, but let me tell you how it is going to fall out. The brilliant crafters will most likely use Chaptgpt as an additional tool for ideation (not creation). The hacks will use it for creation. and within that wretched hollow in between, which has existed as far back as I can see, will reside the conflict of the future of communications. I tend to believe the brilliant crafters will inevitably win mostly because the test of intelligence isn’t the output, but the correct input and brilliant crafters ask great questions which typically lead to great answers.

Which leads me back to brilliantly crafted.

The internet squeezed everything, what I mean by that is the depth and breadth of information available narrowed the margins between brilliantly crafted and just crafted; and crafted and hack. The lines got a bit vaguer and the hacks took advantage of that. And they will do so with Chatgpt. And you know what? You will still go to local markets and see maddeningly stupid trite uninsightful work. And you will still see the classically trained principled crafters of communications creating, for the most part, brilliant communications. Yeah. I will suggest if you believe you are in the brilliant crafters category you are gonna have to work even harder to create the distinction between you and a hack (no matter how frustrating that sounds), but I would be remiss if I didn’t repeat that distinction is found in intelligent input of which principled craftmanship has the market on.

Which leads me to intelligence augmentation.

I have purposefully harped on ‘intelligence isn’t the output, it’s the correct input’ because any output is only as good as what is put into it. This is a universal truth when it comes to humans and minds. Once again going back into the wayback machine, 1962 in fact, Doug Engelbart wrote a piece called “augmenting human intellect” thus beginning the thought process that technology is built to augment people.  The concept was revived not too long ago in “How to become a Centaur.”  The point is technology is not to replace things, but to augment people. Advertising people, as will all people, will either intelligently use it or use it as a dull axe. And maybe that is where I think advertising and communications people really need to spend some time looking in the mirror and assessing what they believe they have to offer. Well trained professionals understand the craft of communications. There will certainly be some better at bringing that craft to life than others, but generally speaking, implementing principles will elevate the communications of any work. The hacks may stumble into principles, but for the most part they work off of ‘feel’ and ‘instincts’, the main characteristics of people making up shit as they go. Once again, they may hit the pinata even though blindfolded, but they ain’t gonna consistently outperform the principled crafter. Is Chatgpt going to help the unprincipled? Maybe. Maybe not. But it can’t solve the largest issue which is “its not what you say, its how you say it” and, well, that is a human’s job. Chatgpt is only as good as what you say to it.

To end.

Here is a truth. We, humans, actually do our own version of machine learning and algorithms in our own heads. And maybe that is why I feel so confident that hacks, or unprincipled amateurs, will not win because Chatgpt is optimized almost like if you can sync the individual machine learning with the Chatgpt machine learning – maybe call it an alliance of mental technology. This may sound weird, but the brilliant will find a healthy symbiotic relationship with Chatgpt while hacks will become parasitic to it (the former is better than the latter). And therein lies a Marshall McLuhan thought. The medium shapes us and if it is shaping something built to be shaped, i.e., “I am aware of my own internal Chatgpt, the more likely good shapes occur”. As a corollary, the stupid become stupider (or their output just seems more off & off) and eventually the non-stupid will notice. Yeah. What I am suggesting is a bit counterintuitive, Chatgpt will make the stupid stupider and the intelligent intellegenter. Ponder.

==

Sometimes life happens slow, then really fast.

==

“It is hardly surprising that dead rabbits are pulled out of the hat when nothing but dead bunnies have been put in.”

William Nordhaus, economist

==

The opening image sets the stage for discussing new products and innovation to point out that the term “new products” can be a sweeping term covering a long list of possible market introductions.

I’ve been thinking about new products and innovation (one would hope they are related because I’ve been watching Silicon Valley – painfully chuckling at times) and read this fabulous piece: Web3, the Metaverse, and the Lack of Useful Innovation.

Throughout my career I have worked with technology incubators, large company new product groups and just basic businesses who created new products and brought them to market.

Which leads me to say I have seen more bad ideas then is most likely healthy for me.

But new products are really important to existing businesses in that profits from new products tend to account for a substantial amount of the bottom line of businesses (note: there is a point to be made here about efficiencies and squeezing out profit from existing products in the market but that is for another day). We have all seen the simplistic surveys online showing “reasons why new products fail” as if CPG companies haven’t studied new products in depth. It’s a bit crazy. So, having pulled out an old folder with a bunch of notes scribbled in it about new products from my experience with P&G and other companies, let me say some things about innovations and new products. To be clear. I will share some dated information that I am too lazy to update mostly because I am 90% confident, in principle, the conclusions are the same today as they were then.

Suffice it to say successful new products all deliver a meaningful and perceivable benefit to a large enough market to be sustainable financially and are different in some meaningful and perceivable way from alternatives. The main principles that form the foundation for successful new product programs:

1. know what your product stands for and make its benefits superior
2. discover latent consumer insights which are tied to a specific need
3. ensure the product benefits align with latent insights
4. ensure market readiness
5. make sure it has the ability to scale out (have enough of a market)

Most of that seems fairly basic, yet, the hard realities are that a great majority of new products never make it to market. And those that do face a failure rate somewhere in the order of 25 to 45%. The figures may vary depending on what industry and how one defines a new product and a failure. Some sources cite the failure rate at launch to be as high as 90%, but most of those figures tend to be wild overstatements based on dubious surveys. My guess is the true failure rate is about 35%. Regardless of whether the success rate is 55% or 65%, the odds of a failed launch is fairly significant. I would be remiss if I didn’t note the news gets a bit worse because this doesn’t even include the majority of new product projects that are killed somewhere in process long before launch, yet, have already involved considerable expenditures of time and money. One old study revealed that for every seven new product ideas about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Another study revealed that for every 11 new product ideas, 3 enter the development phase, 1.3 are launched and only 1 is a commercial success in the marketplace. The commonality between those two studies is only one success.

Which leads me to new product failure is fairly easy to identify through a number of reasons:

• Poor planning: it doesn’t really fit into the company strategy, expertise or distribution strengths, or margin, or ROI, market analysis is inadequate, poor timing or the company fails to face up to competitive strengths
• Poor management (tied to poor planning): product doesn’t fit the company character guiding these activities, no management sponsor, no management information system to effectively communicate throughout process, wrong department leads the introduction program, budget and time constraints due to something unanticipated or management direction is vague
• Poor concept: the concept itself doesn’t appeal all the time in the form of execution being evaluated, no unique benefit or one that is unique enough, maybe offers too many benefits and has no simple strong reason for being; maybe it does have unique benefits but fulfills little need; poor price/value relationship; out of sync with the market, maybe too innovative/different
• Poor execution: personality becomes point of difference rather than function or intrinsic benefit; maybe product defects, technical problems, or product over engineered, over/under package; misbranded; mistargeted; mistimed for character of market
• Poor use of research: most often this is because research is done backwards, i.e., attempting to prove out a technology (search for a benefit) rather than assess an existing need
• Poor technology: this typically drives poor execution in that the product, functionally, doesn’t offer a significant enough meaningful benefit
• Poor timing: new products can be too early to market (ahead of natural adoption acceptance) or too late to market (following without a significantly superior benefit)

But. That said. Simplistically, new products fail when consumers do not want to buy them. This is why if you are involved in new products, you really should be problem solvers rather than just idea generators.

Which leads me to a lesson to technology folk.

Technology is actually learning a lesson that the Consumer Packaged Goods industry learned a long time ago. More products can mean more sales, but you have to be smarter about your new product that you offer to the public. In 1964 there were about 1,300 new product introductions in supermarket/drug stores. In the early 1980s the packaged goods industries were introducing around 3000 to 5000 new products a year. By the 1990’s, we saw this number jump to about 18,000 to 20,000 and now we were over 25,000 a year. To be clear. Maybe only about 10% of new product introductions are truly new; for the most part they are extensions or additions to existing products/product lines (see opening image). The incredible thing about this phenomenal growth during that period (1960 to 2000ish) is that failure rates, while high, did not increase. It seems like consumers were finding space in their lives for five to 10 times more products per year than they were in maybe 1980. This suggests that the market likes to experience experiments as well as have been convinced specialty or ‘niche use’ has efficacy value. It’s like the culture has grasped the nature of change and finds value through experimenting with new products. But every business needs to remember with as much as 40%+ of new product ideas hitting the trash can, it’s just tough to swallow the failure rates and invest real money. In fact, I remember a number that there was an estimated 46% of all the resources allocated to product development and commercialization by US firms are spent on products that are cancelled or fail to yield an adequate financial return. There was an old study with some rough splits of innovation costs across stages in the new product process but basically it suggested for every $1million spent on product innovation, roughly only $150,000 is spent on exploration and screening research or even idea generation, i.e., the initial attempts to qualify the idea. This is kind of nuts. This also suggests ideas searching for a market rather than a market defining an idea. This whole section is something technology folk should ponder long and hard.

Which leads me to markets decide the fate of a new product.

There was an old study looking at General Electric products and the conclusions with regard to technological and market variables that decided their fates. The products had several things in common that created a well-defined product prior to the development phase and into market introduction:

1. Market needs were recognized and R&D was targeted at satisfying those needs
2. When a technological success did not meet a specific market need the product was adapted to suit an identified need (or dropped)
3. Involved managers communicated the possibility of a technological breakthrough clearly to all other departments whom, in turn, facilitated the identification of a real market need
4. Communication existed between engineers, scientists, and all other departments involved

But the bottom line, which I think some technology startups ignore, is the lessons that CPG has given the new product world that are timeless:

1. A unique superior product in the eyes of a customer (not the creator), one with a real differential or distinct advantage in the marketplace**
2. A strong market-orientation building in solid market knowledge and sound market inputs, and an undertaking of market research and effective marketing launch tasks done well
3. Technological synergy (both development and production technology) and competence in the technological tasks fundamental to the success of the product

• ** in the wayback machine with P&G we knew that new products with overall superiority (as indicated in consumer testing), met their objective 1.5 to 2 times more often. A strong product also almost doubled the repurchase rate.

Which leads me to efforts and assumptions.

In the early stages of any new product project, we make many assumptions in order to justify the project.

• We make technological assumptions: we assume the product is technologically feasible; we map out a probable route to the technical solution, manufacturability at a certain cost is assumed and so on.
• We make marketing assumptions: we estimate market size, growth, and need; we expect that the product’s features or performance will really be superior to competing products, and that while the world may not beat a path to our door the world will at least open the door of possibility of purchasing. We make competitive assumptions.

Based on all these assumptions someone gives a “go-to-market” decision and then most efforts tend to be devoted to verifying and validating the assumptions (rather than adapting as we learn more). That said. One of the most interesting factoids I remember from my way back machine with P&G is that about 75+% of total efforts ($ and work time) goes into technological and/or production activities while only about 15% is devoted to marketing activities (most of which goes into the launch).

I imagine my point on almost all of this is most new product innovations fail because, well, a business imagines a market, imagines a need and imagines a real benefit offered, and the market tends to choose how to spend its hard earned money not on imagined, but reality. Ponder.

———

“It’s a very powerful thing when someone sees you as the person you wish you were.”

Veronica Mars

–

I believe all of us try and be the best version of ourselves. Maybe not all the time, but as often as we can.

I also believe that most of us question whether we are the best version of ourselves.

I imagine Life is inevitably lived somewhere in between.

We get glimpses of the best version of ourselves.

It’s an odd, sometimes uncomfortable, journey. There are places you found your best self only lose it and then find it and lose it again.

But.

In a frustrating way, it gives you hope.

Frustratingly, in many ways, we seem to struggle really hard just to grasp the basic elements of the best version of yourself. One would think being the best version of yourself should be easy.

Uhm.

Unfortunately.

Most often it is not.

And maybe that is what bravery, or personal courage, is all about.

Having the courage to forge through the adversity of Life and trust the best version of yourself to arrive at some point <again> and, hopefully, at the right time and place.

That said.

Please recognize I hesitate to believe that there is such a thing as a constant version of you being at your best.

Everyone goes through highs and lows and “best” is sometimes relative. The problem is most people hide their ‘lows’ so well you can end up looking around and end up feeling bad about yourself because you think you’re the only one not being the best version of what you could be.

I say that because “hope” resides within that thought. Once you better understand that ‘best self’ exists somewhere, well, there is always hope that the best is attainable.

All that said.

Here is where I get back to the opening quote and say this is why the people who see you as the person who you wish you could be are invaluable.

These are the people who take the parts you have thrown away.

Thrown away because you were convinced they went the best version of you.

Thrown away because you didn’t see them as part of the person you wished you could be.

They take these parts and pick them up and sometimes they hand them back to you and say “uhm, don’t throw that way” or sometimes they tuck that part in their pocket to give back another day or sometimes they sweep those parts up and put them together in a way you never saw them before and just show you what that version could be.

——-

“I want the parts that you’ve tried to throw away – the parts that you were convinced no one could ever want.”

connotativewords

——– 

What you wish you could be is a pretty powerful thing. A pretty powerful feeling.

It is something everyone should have.

It is a good thing.

It is aspirational and motivating and hopeful. And, yet, it is also frightening, disappointing and potentially corrosive to your esteem and who you are.

Ah.

But that is why the people who see you as you wish you could be are powerful people.

 Don’t ignore those people if you are fortunate enough to have one in your Life. We all wish we were better than we are and Life has a nasty habit (along with social media i imagine) to remind you when you are not better so the people who break through all of that and, on occasion, point out ‘seeing you as you wish you were’ are often the stepping stones that get you through some fairly hellish moments in Life. Ponder.

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

“When you’re young you feel like you have to prove a point, and you scream it if you have to.”

Miranda Lambert

——-

Whew.

It is a wacky world we live in. It is one huge cacophony of “squeaky wheels” squeaking over what is important to themselves. Clearly some people are squeaking about the larger collective issues, but there appears to be an inordinate amount of people squeaking about conspiracies, personal opinions and false narratives. the former have the larger interests in mind and the latter seem to be a bit more of ‘self’ in mind. I blame my generation for propagating the ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’ mentality but, that said, it makes those of us who prefer ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’, well, want to scream.

I believe people are getting tired of all the squeaking.

This doesn’t mean the pendulum will swing back to sanity at rocket speed, or even fast at all, in fact it will move more slowly than people like I want mostly because people my age will continue squeaking <the squeaky wheel was their generational wisdom> and espousing the merits of being squeaky.

Suffice it to say this will be another one of those generational tectonic shift things which older people will espouse some wisdom <squeak> and younger people will chafe at the wisdom believing squeaking is just noise and that real issues need meaningful discussions.

The real issues mean you still have to pick your battles, but you still have to speak out when speaking out matters. And, yeah, you gotta scream if you have to.

Basically the desire to scream something is a formula:

having a feeling that something is important

+

frustration

=

the possibility to desire to scream

Many times this desire to scream from young people is driven by wanting to find answers rather than just fucking squeak about shit. We older folk can be quite frustrating at times for young people with our disregard for their questions. Far too often we brush them off as naive or lean back in our comfortable chairs and sagely say “… just wait … you will see and understand” .

But the impatience of youth wants answers now mostly because they struggle to not only see the importance of the squeakiness, but they struggle to see the present as indicative of a better future they want. They know they deserve some answers because they understand that finding some enlightenment, some understanding, permits them to progress a little better off intellectually or knowledge wise to address the next thing in life and shape the future rather than squeak about the present.

It gets frustrating because without some answers the obstacle remains (or remains in some vague outlines) and, well, it makes you want to scream.

I am fairly sure most of us older folk do not address their impatience with any ill intent; we just see impatience and we want to teach patience. I guess the odd thing to me is that we older folk espouse this whole squeaky wheel thing <which is kind of absurd advice in the first place> and then when someone cares enough to squeak and, just like that nagging noise under the hood every time we start our car, we ignore it <until some light pops up on our dashboard>.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that for older folk the desire to scream is … well … shit … almost the same as a younger person <go figure>.

Desire to scream is mostly not about some bravado or self righteousness; it is more about demanding that there are answers to important fundamental issues or demanding to be heard ON the real issues instead of all the squeaky shit.

And maybe that is what screaming is all about. Demanding. Maybe it is about kicking some damn doors down because the damn door needs to be kicked. Sometimes life, and business, gets so frustrating you just wanna start kicking down doors.

And you do.

Well.

Sort of.

Lets say … you try and kick down the doors but at minimum you scream and kick.

Why?

Because it matters. Really matters.

And it matters to you that other people should think it matters to THEIR OWN interests. It is not an “I” things, its a “we” thing.

Now.

I wrote awhile back about ‘protesting for yourself.’ Today’s thought is a slightly different version in that you are protesting for knowledge & progress.

Sure.

It is about yourself, but it is more about going on the offensive rather than defensively protecting yourself against the squeaking issues.

In this case you scream to be heard. You scream because you gotta try. You scream because while things happen that doesn’t mean silence is that answer.

——————–

Rule 1. bad things happen.

Rule 2. You cant change rule number one.

Rule 3. You still gotta try. Even though bad things happen and you cant change that you gotta try.

 Even with all the anger, violence, stupidity & senseless waste … you gotta try.

Wayne Arthurson

——————————–

Anyway. I am clearly in the ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’ camp.

I believe the whole ‘squeaky wheel’ advice simply encourages nonsensical and less than important squeaking. I believe it encourages noise just for noise sake. I believe it encourages morons to be more loudly moronic.

But maybe that is my point today. You gotta do one things to get to do what you think is the right thing to do. Yeah. In order to effectively ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’ you also gotta pick your battles, i.e., when to scream.

Because in a world in which we receive 100’s of texts, 100’s of emails, face 100’s of squeaking people all in a matter of 100 minute increments, sometimes you have to just stand there and scream.

And while it is partially to prove a point it is more about a point needs to be made.

Pick your battles wisely and when you do, scream.

But when you do pick a battle … don’t be afraid to scream.

==

“They display all the distinctly reductionist habits of expecting to come to ‘know’ the problem and objectively find the ‘right’ solution by dividing the problem into discrete elements to be tackled by experts who ‘know’ how to do it. Any range of solutions can be tried because, if they go wrong, they can be reversed with little consequence for the system. They will expect, consciously or unconsciously, that once the ‘real’ solution is found, the problem will go away and they will now have an ‘evidence-based’ decision that can be applied again should ‘the’ problem emerge again.”

Fostering Complexity Thinking in Action Research for Change in Social–Ecological Systems

==

When I scribbled the “where did business go wrong,” I realized I could write a book in answer. Today I will focus on one thought – how business was stripped of substance which, inevitably, is about reductionism.

When discussing some of the issues business is facing, or has created, inevitably a lot of the discussion will be around “is capitalism good,” a lot of misguided conflation of materialism & capitalism and greed. Personally, I tend to shelve all of those believing business is about people making decisions for other people and whether those decisions are made to benefit people or dollars (ROI, stock market value, etc.). If business has gone wrong, it isn’t because of some system (because people created the system) its because people have got it wrong. So let’s focus on people.

The reality is the state of work has improved pretty significantly over the past century or so despite rampant Taylorism (partially because Taylorism DID improve overall business conditions for the worker). Today’s work, generally speaking, is less tiring and of shorter duration. The challenge is the other side of the Taylorism coin sapped work of substance, workmanship and meaning. Business, for the worker, became a relatively aimless pursuit of promotions or milestones where a worker often found themselves feeling relatively useless within a callous business environment tied to a clock. The way business was conducted only created worker resentment (in terms of meaning and later in money as inequalities increased) as one’s labor fell further and further away from any kind of personal craftsmanship. The reality was business began demanding different qualities in people than people would normally have brought to their work. This dissonance mandated the absence of the intrinsic humanness and the presence of only the extrinsic tools and labels. Work became subordinate to “necessity” and the ends (not the means). Along with this have arisen new technologies. These technologies have effective new uses, but they also come with new risks and challenges to business. In fact, many of these non-manufacturing/machine technologies raise questions about if and how not only AI technologies should evolve, but how all technology should evolve with regard to its effect on people. One could argue the only way to be able to design a better future of work, we will need to not only understand the threats but need to understand the AI systems themselves and how they work ON and With people (we should do the same with machines too). This will almost be a mandate as AI tools begins to help us make more and more types of decisions. As exciting as this technology is with great potential for good it also has the potential to disrupt the work as we know it today, hence, the workers as we know them today. If we are to steer the technologies between the benefits it can bring and the challenges it can create, business needs to seriously think about and build a set of mindsets, behaviors, attitudes, and standards that can guide the development of these technologies. You may note I did not suggest government regulation for policies because while they will be important in the future the most important aspect of the future of business and technology will be the involvement of humans themselves.

Which leads me to the stripped down version of business we have today.

In a world in which we tend to want to oversimplify things, far too often “business instincts” get stripped of any context or the rich & royal hues most typically associated with ‘good business instincts.’ In fact, instincts tend to be associated more with speed than effectiveness. In addition, we also strip leadership down to its barest and far too often suggest the importance of ‘’good business instincts’ as some superior skill <and instincts are not a skill but an attribute> inherent in good leadership. Basically substantive business decision-making has been stripped of reflectiveness and effectiveness in the interest of speed and efficiency. ‘Stripping down’ has led to ‘fail fast’ and ‘you are only successful of you are moving.’ What this means is business has stripped itself of its largest consistent value creation – people. Yeah. A slew of people talk about the next age of capitalism or ‘moving beyond industrialization’ as if industrialization was the issue. It wasn’t and isn’t. The issue is humans and their mindsets with regard to what work is and what business should be about. We can certainly let the tools decide those questions and a bunch of people are going about doing so – digital transformation, the “AI Age,” customer capitalism, creation economy, pick your buzzword poison. But I believe it would be a mistake to allow tools – who do not have human’s best interests in mind – making civilization shaping type decisions. In the end what stripped down business has done has hollowed out some meaningful substance and removed any slack so that when shit happens, it happens really fast with little to soften its blow. This has consequences not just on business, or the business, but the people.

—

Sometimes life happens slow, then really fast.

—

What business has done, as a machine built with a specific purpose to continue with growth at all costs, is actually burn the future in the present – ‘burn the future’ being not only global resources but human energy and intrinsic desire to contribute. To be clear. Progress, in and of itself, is not a bad objective, nor is growth (progress’s cousin), but over the past 100 years or so business has slowly stripped progress of its morality – or at least any serious moral reflectivity – replacing it with unqualified quantitative increases in transactions measured as prices paid in money. Growth, similar to technology, is uncaring of what is good for humankind. It is a measure, an objective, an ideology, bereft of morality in its means as it trudges toward its desired ends.

Which leads me to clarify growth as an issue.

It is lazy to suggest worshiping growth is where business went wrong. Growth, in many aspects, is good. The ‘wrongness’ is actually found more in, well, a constant desire for consistently more. What I mean by that is once you have attained a 15% margin, that becomes the standard. Lower means “you are doing something wrong” and higher means “you have done something well (and we should do more of it because this is the new standard).” If you grew 3% last quarter, less than 3% is bad. If your stock price hits X++, anything lower is bad. And maybe even worse is that within a growth mindset, maintaining where you are is bad. Everything is a stair step upwards or, well, you are getting worse in this business world. That is nuts. It is nuts because in order to maintain this kind of growth mindset you need to make sacrifices elsewhere (as I noted back in 2013 in how the generations have impacted how business has been conducted) and in business’s case it has spiraled in a negative direction. Suffice it to say, productivity kept on getting stripped through “do more with less” in order to maintain the profits that had been established in a different time, different environment, and different context. The context changed, but the “growth” standards did not. This mindset, which drove a shitload of unhealthy behaviors and working cultures/attitudes, clearly contributed to where business went wrong.

Which leads me which leads me to how business stripping has had real societal consequences.

Business has a nasty habit of believing their business is their business and not the business of anyone outside of their business. However. Whatever business does and how they conduct their business has consequences in the marketplace, in the community, in culture, and in society. When business strips itself down to only the essentials internally it puts higher stress on external performance and less slack to deal with inconsistencies. While risk taking is the obvious sacrifice in this game, the larger impact is on how the business approaches the market and how the market responds. Stripping the business down to its bare bones creates an almost survive or die mentality with regard to how it deals with the marketplace. This means that encouraging consumption – even if it takes persuasion to some fairly uncomfortable moral places.  In addition, encouraging people to believe materialism is the pathway to happiness becomes the norm and essential to feeding the business. As a consequence, this shapes the actual conduct of the business. This happens because the margin of error is minuscule and success is almost an imperative. Societally this manipulation of purchase, attitudes, and societal beliefs is driven by the business because it has no slack. When you have no slack, you give no slack. It is a take or be taken world. It’s not even zero sum, it is less than zero. The impact in society and communities and at the kitchen table goes way beyond any simplistic “shareholder value” impact. Business doing wrong by people begets people believing wrong, in some form or fashion, is right.

Which leads me to say we have a long way to go.

Many of my peers, 50 & 60somethings, do not think business has gone wrong. Well. Assuming you didn’t want to talk about “woke” or “purpose” or social involvement where they clearly think that is business going wrong. But if you want to talk profits, revenues, and growth, well, they struggle to see what I would see. I get a lot of ‘blindness’ to misogyny, systemic racism and even a warped view on what is ‘work.’ And I almost get disbelief with regard to the malfunctioning of business and the linkage between business and society? Well. That’s crazy talk.

I say that to suggest at the C-level of corporations things are going pretty much in the wrong direction. Culturally, below the C-line, my bet is that a lot of things are happening in the good direction. The revolution to make business right is already happening—it’s just that we don’t always see it. And maybe it’s good that we don’t see it yet, until the very moment where it makes a lot of things shift, and the commitment to creating thriving sustainable businesses that create thriving sustainable societies can’t be stopped by people thinking business has not gone wrong. Maybe what I am suggesting is that the wrong in business will reduce everything to such a meaningless level that the good in business will be able to step in with a more meaningful future. Ponder.

Business, as well as Life, demands participation. Someone may choose to be indifferent, but all that means is that someone else is not only making decisions for you, they are affecting the arc of your life and, consequently, your destiny. To be clear. This is a fact. The affect may not be direct, but the point is that even if you work hard, are persistent, have clear objectives, if you are indifferent all the external factors will increase the gravity of the environment you are doing all of those things within. In other words, unless you are at your best everyday, maybe a little lucky on occasion, the arc of your destiny is going to get dragged down to all the things you were indifferent to. And while all of that matters if your own life and destiny matters to you, if you participate in the deadweight of indifference you may actually be facilitating the twisting of society’s fate. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, again, this is not just true of Life, but business. And while I do believe this discussion gets warped in some incredibly unhealthy ways, business should not ignore the discussion and being indifferent really isn’t an option.

==

“I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent.
The indifference is the deadweight of history. The indifference operates with great power on history. The indifference operates passively, but it operates. It is fate, that which cannot be counted on. It twists programs and ruins the best-conceived plans. It is the raw material that ruins intelligence. That what happens, the evil that weighs upon all, happens because the human mass abdicates to their will; allows laws to be promulgated that only the revolt could nullify, and leaves men that only a mutiny will be able to overthrow to achieve the power. The mass ignores because it is careless and then it seems like it is the product of fate that runs over everything and everyone: the one who consents as well as the one who dissents; the one who knew as well as the one who didn’t know; the active as well as the indifferent. Some whimper piously, others curse obscenely, but nobody, or very few ask themselves: If I had tried to impose my will, would this have happened?
I also hate the indifferent because of that: because their whimpering of eternally innocent ones annoys me. I make each one liable: how they have tackled with the task that life has given and gives them every day, what have they done, and especially, what they have not done. And I feel I have the right to be inexorable and not squander my compassion, of not sharing my tears with them.
I am a partisan, I am alive, I feel the pulse of the activity of the future city that those on my side are building is alive in their conscience. And in it, the social chain does not rest on a few; nothing of what happens in it is a matter of luck, nor the product of fate, but the intelligent work of the citizens. Nobody in it is looking from the window of the sacrifice and the drain of a few. Alive, I am a partisan. That is why I hate the ones that don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent.”
Antonio Gramsci

==

In today’s current political environment, which bleeds into society as some fairly absurd niche arguments about what is right or wrong and important or unimportant, the people become more and more distant to traditional parties or traditional ‘community break lines.’ This impacts business whether you like it or not; whether you want it or not. Being indifferent to this, acting like you are detached from this, simply means an already ‘delicate and dangerous’ situation becomes even more fraught with peril – for your business.

==

“At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny”.”
Antonio Gramsci

==

I have argued for years a business cannot detach itself from society, responsibility to societal issues and much of the larger narratives and discussions taking place. Detaching yourself from it under the guise of “my job is insure my business makes a profit and offers people employment” is not a sustainable stance nor strategy. I hate indifference. Inevitably a business needs to pick a side. To be clear. That sometimes simply means taking a stand on what you are not, not saying what you are. If you don’t believe it is your job to carry the flag ON an issue, that’s okay. But you do have to make it your job to say “but I will not stand by THAT flag.” Ponder.

====

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”

Cheshire Cat

====

Finding your way is most likely one of the most desired, and elusive, things in business and life. Now. We talk about this a lot, like a shitload of a lot, but truthfully very few truly find “the way.” That doesn’t stop us from proclaiming we have, or we are on our way (our journey) or even suggest the search for finding the way is actually finding the way, but the grander point the Cheshire Cat makes is many of us probably actually do, but don’t recognize it (for whatever reason).

Uhm. I was tempted to use “most of us” rather than ‘many of us’ in that last sentence.

Finding the way is tough. Not because we don’t have goals and objectives and even dreams. Mostly because things in life are rarely black or white and the outlines of what we really “want” are often a bit vague. What this means is not only is the way winding, but every frickin’ day is a winding road (to quote Sheryl Crow). Many of us know there is ‘something better’ out there, but finding THE way to that betterness is difficult mostly because ‘winding’ don’t permit you the luxury to see that far ahead, certainty is situational and the horizon often is blocked by a forest or hill.

Which leads me to where I believe the Cheshire cat really knew his shit.

Some ‘don’t ever want to’ for fear of the unknown. On a personal note, despite all the things that I have done that may appear risky I can develop as long a list, if not longer, of things I didn’t do — for whatever reason (some good, some bad). It reminds me of something:

–

Sometimes I think about why there aren’t more people running, sprinting towards greatness. Why there aren’t more people continually evolving into something better, stronger, and happier. I wonder this a lot as I read or listen to stories about miserable jobs and unsatisfying home lives and dreams that have been left to decompose. And, I think I’m starting to understand why some people just stay, as they are, and stop aspiring for betterment. I think I get it. I think I see why it’s not a matter of capability, but rather a matter of personal choice.

–

Look. Some people start hurling themselves down drastically different paths, but most people just aren’t that hasty. In fact many people just don’t want to because hurling yourself can be scary. Sprinting towards greatness would be easy if “the way” was a straight track instead of a winding way.

So what we do is try and make ourselves comfortable. Lists. Milestones. Quarterly goals. We convince ourselves these are way stations on our way to getting somewhere. They are not. they are simply parking benches along some path someone else has built where they suggest you sit and rest and think about how you’ve attained something (but, if you look closely, you’re not really sure it was something you wanted to attain in the first place or if it is even representative of progress you truly value).

Anyway. I am not suggesting anyone hurl themselves anywhere. And I am also not suggesting you should be incredibly frustrated if you don’t find the way. Maybe the ones who do should just feel very fortunate and the rest of us should restlessly pursue A way. However. I would say everyone should be a little reflective of the whole ‘parking benches/milestones’ thing I mentioned. It becomes incredibly easy to use deadlines as some tangible proof of progress. This is a mistake. More often than not that is simply, in Farnam Street words, speed versus velocity. You may not know if you are on your way somewhere or not but you should always be sure you have some velocity, not just some speed.

Which leads me to pursuing ‘the way.’

—

Alice: would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here.

Cheshire cat: that depends a good deal on where you want to go,

Alice: I don’t much care.

Cheshire cat: then it doesn’t matter which way to go.

Alice: so long as I get somewhere.

Cheshire cat: oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk for enough.”

—

I will admit I am not a linear “from here to there” type of person excepting if it eliminates something that could get in the way of restlessness. For example, I would gladly pay extra for a bullet train to get me from one city to the next so I could wander more in a destination. I would gladly do a short sprint building a ‘good enough’ website so I could focus resources on something else. I believe in complexity theory these may be fractals (linear moments linking some things within multidimensional complex systems). I don’t really care about the overall direction as long as I get somewhere and the linear shit is simply a means to an end. I would imagine this restlessness can sometimes be ‘purposeless’ (or directionless) restlessness. This suggests that even if you don’t have an objective, or a direction, or a purpose being restless will get you somewhere someday. In other words, moving increases the likelihood you will get somewhere rather than standing still or being stagnant.

Okay. Simple when you think about it that way, huh? Look, as noted earlier, you may not find your way in your roaming restlessness. And you may actually fall in love with just being restless. But you may find yourself overwhelmingly happy wherever you end up (even though you may not have been specifically aiming there). Now. Some business people reading this may think “this guy is nuts.” And they may be right. But I would argue most business leaders, the good ones, may not be able to specifically articulate where they want to go, but they have a general sense of the scenario they envision their business in that would equate success (this could be called defining a Vision). It not a specific destination. It’s not a specific road or way. It’s just a specific thought. In that definition restlessness is significantly more productive than investing gobs of energy & time trying to make that thought into some road map to some destination.

• *** note: that logic works in Life too.

Ok. I guess the point of this is that sometimes finding your way isn’t necessarily a specific ‘way.’

Or maybe even a well defined way.

Or even the ‘way’ you were thinking was the one you wanted.

But. If you keep going, you are more likely to find ‘the way’ then if you become frozen worrying or thinking about which road to take. Ponder.

==

“Imagined futures are only stories, but stories run the world, or at minimum lay the tracks for its passage, without which it would move in a different direction entirely.”

Sam Paterson

==

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

E.F. Schumacher

==

Establishing a business Vision seems to be a lost art these days. It has been replaced by the misguided Purpose and, well, it really hasn’t been a very productive decade or so for business thinking. I can’t really blame Purpose because it simply filled in a hole that some absurd Vision discussions had created. Let me be clear. A good business vision is very similar to the concept of a “grand strategy.” What I mean by that is it creates an ideal mental destination from which strategies spin out of and iteratively evolve to support. That said. The purpose of a vision is to not only to set out a better destination, but also to create lasting advantages. This means a larger vision should enable coherent strategies which can be used over time. If a vision is soundly conceived, the overall guiding principles may remain the same over a period of years or even decades, but the precise combination of strategies and tactics used to pursue those goals will undoubtedly shift as conditions change and competition reacts. As a corollary, this demands some leadership resilience second guessing a larger vision simply because a strategy or an idea was a bad one.

Which leads me to say I’ve heard many arguments against a Vision, but I would argue refusing to do one does not allow a business to avoid the dilemmas that make the task so difficult, in fact, I would argue it will only exacerbate confusion and contradictions. A business must embrace the daunting conditions within which to place a Vision and place a higher premium on the intellectual groundwork which underpins a Vision. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out one of the issues with ignoring a larger vision is that you find that you make decision making by gravity, i.e., a decision becomes part of a ‘law’ of activity, wherein points of traction get confused and conflated with lasting strategy. That said. It helps to think of vision as a process and not a blueprint. It should not be a doctrine of ‘if this then that’, but rather be a framework from within which a business can define specific strategies and make coherent decisions.

Which leads me to a Vision is an essentially optimistic undertaking.

It rests on the idea that states one can combine vision and rationality with some sort of power against and a dynamic marketplace. It suggests that leaders can salvage order from chaos and impose some sense of meaning on events. At its core a vision isn’t just about some ideal, but about asserting a degree of control and coherence in ones dealing in an uncertain world. It demands that you find some strategic insights about the world that can be confronted and leveraged and then translate those insights into specific strategies and tactics to attain objectives that fulfill your optimism. Once again, one of the objectives is lasting advantages. This demands there’s a business must learn and adapt in order to find the right mix within the context of the time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there will always be some second order consequences but that shouldn’t limit ambition or optimism. There are clearly limits to what a vision can accomplish in an adverse environment and context, but a vision provides focus (as long as that focus doesn’t create distortions or myopia). The optimism is buttressed by the duality of confidence to be decisive and the humility to be constantly questioning all inevitably rooted in navigating the natural tensions of a dynamic market:

• between the quest for coherence and the reality of complexity
• between the need for foresight and the fact of uncertainty
• between the steadiness and purpose that are necessary to plan ahead and the agility that is required to adapt over time

Which leads me to Vision is also about wielding power.

The purpose of a vision should be the task of bringing together all aspects of the business power to achieve an important objective. To be clear this does not mean to simply turn all available capabilities towards achieving victory, but rather effective use of resources at the right time. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that achieving a Vision is not an end in and of itself; it is simply the means of securing a better place for the business and its people. A vision is ultimately the intellectual architecture in which to wield the power at hand by giving form and structure to specific strategies and tactics. Reduced to its essence a vision is the logic that helps businesses navigate a complex and dangerous world permitting a business to devise a coherent purposeful approach.

Which leads me to implementation.

“The primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become confused and entangled. Not until terms and concepts have been defined can one hope to make any progress in examining the question clearly and simply and expect the reader to share one’s views.”

Carl von Clausewitz

When it comes to implementing a vision there is never enough of anything to go around. Money, people, intelligence, time, assets, and other finite resources are always insufficient to neutralize every threat and exploit every opportunity. If business leaders are to avoid strategic exhaustion and eventual business decline, they must maintain a firm understanding of core interests and deploy their resources accordingly. A coherent vision offers a conceptual center of gravity and ability to keep fundamental interests squarely in view in dealing with a range of complex and competing demands. Wielding power is inherently multidimensional. Means must be integrated to serve great ends, but ends must be selectively defined to preserve a business’s means. This is challenging because this Vision occurs in a world where almost nothing sits still so the calculations underlying the vision must inevitably shift as well. The overall goal of the vision may remain constant, but its various subcomponents decisions on how to how best to allocate resources should be reassessed consistently. In this sense vision requires not just a capacity for systematic thinking, but also flexibility and an ability to adapt. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a vision then both influences and is influenced by the behavior of others.

Which leads me to context and situations.

Conceptually, context is everything, pragmatically, the situation is everything and all exist within a Vision. A context has infinite aspects while a situation has some finite aspects. i am consistent in how I point out that 99.9999999% of situational decisions are finite in nature – WITHIN a relatively infinite world of possibilities (unforeseen consequences beyond a horizon). So, pragmatically, a situation demands ‘decision sight’ in order to diagnose the most effective strategy (and, yes, I am suggesting each decision is a strategy in and of itself) and the Vision offers a ‘sight line.’

• ** note: I believe in a dynamic, or complex, system – of which I believe 99% of business resides within – almost every decision has some strategic consequences. This does not mean there isn’t a hierarchy of strategic thinking just that each decision is a strategic decision within a grander strategy/vision, i.e., a common objective or vision in mind.

All of this creates some specific demands of people, the organization, and the system itself as well as reflecting on underlying assumptions. Many people discuss bias or mental models, I tend to focus more on reflection as a means to a better decision-making end. People make some 30,000 decisions a day so some default thinking is necessary simply to get shit done (let alone maintain some sanity). But. You also have to be able to discern the moments to proactively reflect on underlying assumptions. I believe it was Andrew Grove of Intel who called this ‘learning to effectively worry.’ You worry, a bit, about some of the basic assumptions commonly made and whether they work within the situation at hand – or do they put a modeling constraint on which, in this situation, can be set aside. I tend to believe what I am suggesting is a bit easier if you have a good Vision (or grand strategy).

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, intelligent direction and skillful execution.”

Dr. John Ellis – Valvoline

I like thinking of Vision as a grand strategy. It offers some pragmatism to the endeavor. When it comes to thinking about a vision as an endeavor too often it is thought of as a grandiose transformative project to remake not only the business, but the dynamics of the market the business exists within. It is often positioned as a panacea that will wipe away the complexity of business. This is just begging for disappointment. In view of the current economic business dynamics, as well as experiences that all of business has had over at least the last decade or two, grand transformative changes are few and far between. But this doesn’t mean that we can allow vision development to go by the wayside if we ever expect to transcend the uncertainties and challenges of a constantly changing business environment. Look. I have suggested Utopian thinking is good for business and we need more of it. I have suggested Idealism is needed if business wants to be better. But at the core of all my ‘optimistic thinking’ is always pragmatism. The possibilities explored through optimism must be grounded in some pragmatic realities.

Which leads me to state that at its worst a vision can provide an intellectual reference point for dealing with all challenges and the process by which dedicated business people can seek to bring their day-to-day actions into better alignment with their enduring businesses interests. At its best a vision, well, can actually shape the future you desire. Ponder.

==

“Light bulbs die, my sweet. I will depart.”

Mr. Magorium

==

I enjoy truly good movies in that they take metaphorical characters to the extremes to make a point. And I love it when they do so to make a point about life … and living life which leads me to Mr. Margorium’s Wonder Emporium. It’s an odd movie, but it is an odd delightful movie about Life.

And metaphorically speaking they box you in with the characters:

• – the cynical practical responsible ‘grown up’ (lovingly called Mutant) who has lost the joy of imagination (let’s call it the magic in life)
• – the child who represents the joy that can be found when you are open to life’s magic
• – the mystical adult (Magorium) who lives in an adult world with a decidedly un-adult view (and is slightly an outcast)
• – and the hopeful future (Mahoney) entering the adult world with the spark of magic within, but has trouble seeing how that spark fits in an adult world (lets call her ‘hope eternal for that which is magical in life’).

Let me begin with the ‘hopeful future’ and the resistance Life has a habit of shoving in the face of those maturing into adulthood. Life, left to its own devices, will more than likely try and smother ‘hope’ with ‘harsh reality.’ what this does is make things just a bit darker, a little less brighter and sparkly. which leads me back to the movie. Mr. Magorium suggests to Mahoney: “you have a sparkle”, i.e., something reflective of something bigger trying to get out despite Life suggesting otherwise.

His advice?

You have to live … “I have.”

Short line. Big thought. And maybe the biggest tipping point decision one has to make moving from youth to adulthood. And it is a biggie of a decision. Many of us don’t really do that well with this decision.

Anyway.

Between these 4 characters you wander through pretty much every aspect you have in your own pea-like brain. And while the movie is meant for kids it is also fun and a bit thoughtful for adults <if you pay close attention>.

Mr. Magorium who has decided it is time for him to leave this world and let Mahoney run the shop <symbolic for youth to adulthood>. Magorium is awesome. He is a man with crazy eyebrows and a pet zebra and has owned his toy store for over 113 years. Obviously this isn’t an ordinary toy store (note to self: is any really good toystore anywhere truly ordinary?). This is a magical toy store that has a temper tantrum when it hears the bad news Magorium is dying. The problem is that only Magorium knows that he’s dying. He’s not sick or weak, and he doesn’t foresee some violent or accidental death. He just knows <and this may be one of the best parts> because he once found the perfect pair of shoes and fell in love with them so entirely that he bought enough to last his whole life.

And now he is on his last pair.

Therefore, his life is over.

And with that he states ‘light bulbs die … he is simply departing’.

What a wonderful thought.

He is departing ‘a whole life.’

Don’t we all wish we could end that way? And maybe there is a part of us who like the concept of departing rather than dying.

And maybe make us think a little, through this incredibly strange character, why is his life whole (that is pretty much what the movie is about and showing how others can also live a whole life)?
The easy lessons (kind of). He does not judge, but sees things with fresh and open eyes. He doesn’t condemn actions simply encourages to act & think differently. He treats time as a gift of freedom to think and remember and understand that which was, that which is and is willing to recreate that which is … well … impossible … to transform time.

Its not just having an imagination; it is an attitude.

“you have to believe it to see it.”

And when I heard that I went back into my files and pulled this Buckminster Fuller thought: “seeing-is-believing is a blind spot in man’s vision”.

Both are correct. It is a failure of imagination if you solely believe something must be seen to be believed. Ok. Maybe not even a failure of imagination maybe something worse. It is almost a belief that nothing new, nothing seemingly impossible, is possible.

So. This sometimes silly movie makes you think about all of this is and about learning to, well, unlearn some things. To free yourself from all the things that you ‘know’ and the things which may keep you from undiscovered roads. And that sometimes believing in something is more important than anything else. And asking you to remember that all things which happen to you endlessly beget new thoughts that could change your life (and it’s a never ending process).

And if you do that?

Well. Life is magical.  It’s kind of like a magical toy store as it is.

And with that thought you hear the best advice of all:

“Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”

Yeah. Life is an occasion.

In the end that is what the movie makes you think about. The magic within you, within any of us and that we need to rise to our magic, our sparkle, our Life … or lose it.

And that is the point for Molly Mahoney who also represents “hope eternal” for all adults (the metaphor).

“What Mahoney needed was the opportunity to prove to herself that she was something more than she believed.”

Silly movie with a non-silly lesson.

You need to believe in you. And, I guess, believe that you have some magic somewhere inside you.

It is a neat lesson. It is an important lesson. And a lesson provided in a pretty magical way.

+++++++++++++++++

“the die is cast”

(iacta alea est)

Julius Caesar

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

So. I was tempted to call this ‘now or never part 2.” I say that because after a “now or never moment“ there is a, well, a post choice/decision.

That decision is the fact there is no turning back.

Well. Let’s just say the moment represents  that “we have made our choice and the die is cast.” <‘die’ as in dice>

Julius Caesar said this today, January 10th, some 50ish years before Jesus as he crossed the Rubicon, defying the Roman Senate, and starting civil war. Caesar was stating that he was making an irrevocable decision. And, as dice is a game of chance, he will have to play them as they are cast.

I imagine none of us are Caesar and the majority of us will never have to make such a huge choice as Caesar, but I do think more people should think this way with regard to choices.

Too often I feel people think a choice is simply … well … but of ‘the moment.’

Too often I feel businesses think a choice is simply … well … but of ‘the moment.’

Too often I feel like far too many people think in the next moment we can toss away the last choice and just make another choice.

Sure. That may be the case sometimes, but, as noted in ‘now or never’, not all the time.

Not all moments are created equal.

Not all choices can be changed, tossed aside or “un-choiced.”

Some choices are truly forks in the road where you cannot go back and start over. Some choices, well, ‘cast the die.’

I do believe most of us would be better off if we believed more of our choices should be thought of this way- as ‘the die have been cast’ choices. Why? I believe in our current “people need to adapt & be agile” to be successful attitude, we far too often think a new choice is a reflection of agility & “smart adaptation.” In doing so we run the risk that the initial choice cannot be tossed aside because it truly was a ‘fork in the road’ choice and, whether we want it or not, or like it or not, the die had been cast.

But, hey, that’s me.

Ok. One more thing. Let me take a minute to discuss an “irrevocable decision.”

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

“It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.”

In Search of Lost Time, Volume II: Within a Budding Grove

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

‘Now or never’ is a state of mind which is but a window in time. In other words, it is there and gone. And it is within those windows in which irrevocable decisions are made.

To use the quote, it is within this window you throw the dice. Yeah. You actually throw your dice into what I will call “unknown-ville.”

Yikes. No wonder we hesitate to decide a choice is of the ‘die is cast’ mode. I say that because “irrevocable” is a lot like “forever” or maybe “never.” I mean that big, all encompassing, fraught with peril, audacious-type thoughts are captured in those little words.

And that is why many people do nothing in now or never moments.

Far too many just hold the dice. Why? Because it is scary to make an irrevocable decision.

It is kind of scary to know you will have thrown the dice and will never get to throw them again. And have to play them as they lay. Regardless how they lay.

Yup. That the die have been cast.

But know this.

If you do nothing when it is now or never, Life will cast the die. And Life will make the irrevocable decision.

Personally? I would rather cast my own dice.

Nothing against Life but while I imagine it would be a fun pal, I do not know it well enough to trust it with my fate.

When I make a choice I think, and accept, “the die are cast” and deal with what is before me. Ponder.