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“Throughout history, people with new ideas — who think differently and try to change things — have always been called troublemakers.”

Richelle Mead

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As Sam Seaborne says “if I am gonna lose let me lose doing something.”

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“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”

Voltaire

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Losing is part of Life. And, if you are a business troublemaker, you almost have to get used to losing because, if you are worth half a shit as a troublemaker, you will most likely reside in an 80/20 world. 80% of the trouble you make won’t give you any satisfaction if you are seeking a ‘win. So the 20% wins need to be enjoyed.

Now.

I will point out that all that losing doesn’t make you a loser, but that’s not my point today. My main point is that troublemaker ideas create some fairly intense feelings.

Oddly, and maybe incorrectly, I’m going to lean in on Maslow to discuss this.  Maslow’s original formulation identified five levels (three more, including curiosity or exploration, aesthetics, and religion were added later.)

The first level comprised biological needs – such as food, shelter, warmth, sex, and sleep.

The second focused on ‘safety’: protection from the environment, law and order, stability, and security.

The third level concerned ‘love and belonging’, including friendship, acceptance, love, and being part of a group – not only family, but also at work.

Fourth were the needs for ‘esteem’. These included both self-esteem (dignity, achievement, independence) and respect from others (status, prestige).

Fifth was ‘self-actualization’ needs covered self-fulfillment, personal growth, and particularly intense, ‘peak’ experiences. To flourish, the top level of self-actualization must be reached.

I share this because flourish and losing seems like it creates a fairly visceral intense reaction.

This makes me share two thoughts:

Investing in big loss opportunities.

Go big or go home comes to mind. If you are a troublemaker, you will absolutely invest energy in small wins and losses. Let’s call those ‘nudge opportunities.’ But your Maslow self will be defined by the big wins and losses. If you want to survive, you have to get good at 2 things:

• Not investing intense energy on small things. in other words, you only have so much to give and you cannot give it away all the time. Contrary to much popular advice, sometimes ‘just enough’ is essential to success.
• Effectively discerning the big things. it may be obvious, but at the onset little things can look like big things and big things can look like little things. Your survival as a troublemaker may balance on how well you can discern the difference between the two.

Choose wisely.

Embracing big losses gracefully.

Once you decide to go big or go home your personal intensity naturally increases. You are vested and invested in the idea or thinking. Most times at this stage you never think about losing, only winning. Not in ruthlessly competing, but rather in “I cannot envision how anyone could ever not see the benefits of this.” Losing, therefore, becomes either a failure in them (they couldn’t see it) or a failure in you (what did I do wrong). Failing is the worst version of losing. How you lose often defines who you are.

Act wisely.

Anyway.

Hugh McLeod

I began with Maslow to emphasize how challenging both of these things are. The higher you go up on the Maslow pyramid the more personal it gets. That means the importance of gains & losses increase in importance. Which brings me back to my opening 80/20 breakdown. Even the best of the best troublemakers only win 20% of the time.

So.

All I really know is you better learn how to lose well or everyone will think you are an asshole. And, before you dismiss that thought as “who cares, I am a troublemaker”, in the real world troublemakers are dependent upon (a) being in positions & places in which they can make trouble and (b) other people to actually bring the ideas & thinking to life. If you are an asshole, no place will want you and no people will want to have anything to do with any of your ideas and thinking.

Yeah.

How you lose matters. Even if you are a good troublemaker. Ponder.

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“For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.”

–

Eleanor Roosevelt

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“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.”

Iyanla Vanzant

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Business, as businesses should, think about how to improve their business. The good ones balance effectiveness and efficiency, the poor ones triple down on efficiency. But. 95% (I made that # up) of businesses focus on customers, service, process, systems and “best practices” — in their pursuit of efficiency (with head nods to effectiveness). This means 95% typically think of people as interchangeable pieces who can deliver all the service, process and outputs. All the systems are designed to ‘output’ and people simply make the systems ‘go.’

I would argue this is at the root of why organizations begrudgingly train employees. I would argue this is not only a bad ‘grudge’ if you really want to improve your business, but it is also stupid.

I always made a promise to anyone who ever worked for me – “if you ever leave this job I promise you will be well prepared to do well at your next job.” I’m not sure I was particularly good at preparing people for life, but I always said if you had a title/job responsibility with me you would be able to do that title/job responsibility wherever you went.

3 reasons:

• I knew people outgrew jobs & organizations and often organizations sucked at meeting peoples ‘grow’ needs. In other words, there is an incredibly high likelihood a current employee would become an ex-employee. I felt a responsibility to prepare them for their next job believing I/we would benefit for as long as they stayed where they were.
• Word of mouth is the most powerful recruiter. If you give, you get. The more people I sent out to build successful careers of their own, the more people recommended new employees to me or past co-workers sent people to me.
• I didn’t care about training per se, I cared about preparation to do jobs well. That may sound like semantics, but I think its important semantics. I believe businesses get hung up on “training people and receiving benefit.” And they may be right because, if you view training as simply training, you will most likely will not reap any meaningful benefits. On the other hand. If you look at maximizing an individual and enabling someone to do their job well, you will not only build individual strengths & potential, but also receive the direct benefit of them doing the job well. Choose wisely.

Regardless of your own view on this topic, the bottom line is a decision to invest in a person. Not some nebulous, often vapid, “invest in your people”, but rather ‘a person.’

I, honestly, can’t figure out why this is so difficult for businesses to grasp.

Is it lack of trust in people?

Is it a leadership ego thing?

Is it simply a misunderstanding of culture as a ‘we’ thing .. that you can enable & empower individuals and still be a ‘we’ culture?

I don’t know, but I do know any lasting change or effect in a business is not organizational or on systems or even on some broader cultural narrative. People leave, therefore, if your modus operandi is to enforce or impose (this includes ‘best practices’) systems, I can guarantee you that enforcing or imposing is not motivating nor long term effective (nor even optimizing short term effectiveness).

Truly lasting change & organization effect is within people themselves. Effectiveness is emergent. And because it is emergent it is something they not only embody when within the business, but also take with them outside the business (in life, family, community and other jobs). Therefore. To effectively lead people you actually need to view people beyond the limits of the organizational boundaries. This may sound odd, even inefficient. Its not. It doesn’t ignore the job that existing responsibilities demand, but it also enables individual potential to cross and bridge normal divides & barriers. Or, as Peter Drucker said, ‘business is of the community and the community is of the business.” And that is where true benefits reside. We far too often discuss ‘getting out of your comfort zone’ when instead we should suggest there is no zone or even if there is you should just push out on the limits and boundaries and give people the freedom to grow (and the business will grow). When a person is engaged as part of who & what they are they have the ability to engage to their fullest potential.

“Why do you, or they, or anyone get to determine my limits?”

Veronica Roth

Simplistically this is investing in people, not an organization. This leads me to the eternal question in business: “why train employees (people) if all they are going to do is leave? (and someone else will benefit by my investment).”

This is a valid, and important, topic.

At its core is, well, business’s decision to make business better. It’s like believing if you plant healthy seeds they will bloom here, there and everywhere and the entire forest grows.

Believing this demands we view a business in a non traditional way – you don’t ‘push down’ beliefs, behavior, responsibilities, etc. because, honestly, any time anything is ‘pushed down’ the world shudders to a halt as the people who are actually doing the work take the round peg senior leadership has created and try to figure out how to put it in the square hole of reality. In order to do so, most times, instead of convincing leadership they actually need a square peg, the teams design a mish mash version of a round peg that will fit into the square hole.

“In our consumer culture, we are encouraged to assume roles that aren’t truly authentic to who we are. In a way, this culture is its own kind of simulation, one that requires us to make more and more purchases to maintain the integrity of the illusion.”

Stowe Boyd

To be clear. I am not suggesting a ‘bossless’ organization. And while I do believe business has become more complex than in the past, I have always believed maximizing an individual maximizes the business. What was true then is exponentially true as business becomes more complex.

Stowe Boyd said “We’re in a time of rapidly expanding insights about human motivation and connection, but meanwhile our companies continue to be run with a perspective on human psychology and sociology circa 1970.” I slightly disagree. While, as a generalization, it may be true, I would suggest some people have always known this is the best way to maximize an organization — its just that leadership doesn’t trust it to be done that way.

Of course I believe discussing new organizational models is important and, in some cases, a business should have a new business model. But at the core of any organizational discussion it really isn’t about models but rather “how do you think about individuals?”

Because until you answer that question autonomy, empowerment, self management, is all irrelevant. If you do not believe in people, than you do believe in control. Period. Full stop.

If you do believe in people, than you will stop talking about leaders, and what makes great leaders, but instead talk about resource management – how can we get the proper resources into the proper hands at the proper times to maximize each individual and group of individuals.

This expands the business by expanding the individual. Therefore leadership isn’t about direction or control, but rather managing/optimizing expansion. Ponder.

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“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

Jean de La Fontaine

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“But I live elsewhere; it is only that the attraction of the human world is so immense, in an instant it can make one forget everything. Yet the attraction of my world too is strong.”

Franz Kafka

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So. We talk a lot about the fact you cannot run away from things and far less about avoiding.

Yeah.

We talk about procrastination, which is a version of avoiding, but avoiding, in this piece’s case, is more along the lines of ‘ignoring’. Ignoring meant by that you see the world that you want to live in and conduct yourself in and go about ignoring the rest of the world doing your own thing. That is simply a different version of ignoring the real world. Simplistically you are assuming that the world & Life, in general, is indifferent to you therefore you will go unnoticed and just be able to do what you want to do <in  a less unfettered way than if you actually remained engaged in the ‘other world’>.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I will say that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life and the world is pretty appealing. I would also suggest that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life and the world is pretty unrealistic.

There are a number of reasons I say that, but suffice it to say the overwhelming amount of information, even within the narrower walls of a business, is stunning. In the good old days even the worst of things worth avoiding <lies, conspiracies & implications> needed a little time to grow to some size that they became unavoidable. In today’s world those same things need seconds to gain some traction and minutes to grow to some size that they are unavoidable.

Today Google processes 61,000+ search queries a second. That’s something like over 5 billion+ queries a day. This means information is everywhere — regardless whether it is good information or bad information.

Today 99% of all employees in business are online and nearly 50% of the entire world is online and with 5.27 billion people have a mobile device <which, depressingly, means more people have a mobile device than have running water>.

My point here is not about the challenges of being interconnected with so much information driven by technology, but rather avoiding the world is just not a viable option <no matter how attractive it may seem>.

But please do not focus on technology. Technology is simply a means. Without people technology is simply an unused ancient aqueduct. It is people which make avoiding impossible <technology just enables their ability to not be avoided more>.

My version of this is office politics. I hate office politics. Ok. Not just hate … I believe it is people wasting energy and all I want to do is to focus on getting the good shit done.

In a perfect world you can decide to avoid the real world of the office intrigue and just do what you believe is the right thing to do for the business and ‘do.’

It isn’t avoiding by ignoring it is more like avoiding by deciding to ride the parallel rail on a train track.

Unfortunately the business world, and the world in general, doesn’t work that way. No matter how much I may have wished to run on a parallel track it actually works more like an atom in which we all circle the business at some maddening speed in which you crisscross with even the shit you want to avoid.

This gets compounded in several ways … two of which would be:

• Someone will always make what you are doing political even if it is not.

Office politics always contain people who play politics to meet their own ends. That is their means to do so. I believe these people can only see the world through the eyes of palace intrigue and political maneuvering therefore they filter everything done by everyone through a filter of “what do they have to gain by doing that.” That is their first filter level. Yeah. Eventually they may get to the more important “what does the business have to gain by doing that”, but they almost always judge everything being done on a ‘who is a winner and loser’ scale.

• Someone will always find something nefarious in what you are doing.

I will not call this conspiracy thinking but, in general, a business culture more often than not breeds a sense that <a> everyone is out for themselves and <b> there is no such thing as a truly altruistic business motivation.

And while it would be naïve of me to suggest that avoiding those two thoughts as ‘stupid & untrue’ it is a little sad that those beliefs pretty much are somewhere in every organization.

Please note, once again, the people aspect in everything I have noted. You may want to avoid things, but you will find your destiny along the path you have chosen strewn with a shitload of people crossing your path — many uninvited and many unwelcome.

I would suggest that Life is best lived by not ignoring shit and avoiding shit, but rather stepping into the world and deal with it. Sometimes that may mean side stepping some of the shit you don’t want to deal with and sometimes that may mean bludgeoning your way over and through some of the shit you don’t want to deal with, but if you do this you actually have some control over your own destiny. I say that because the problem with trying to maintain your Life on a parallel track, and knowing that inevitably it will be crossed by people & shit you had been purposefully avoiding, is that you will always be reacting to the bullshit rather than proactively facing it.

Look.

While you may not care about business or business politics my point is my point — you cannot avoid the world to conduct yourself in the ways & means you want to conduct yourself. You are stuck with the world, and in the world, whether you like it or not.

Oh.

The other thing you are stuck with is the fact whether you stay on the road engaged with the world or take another road to try and avoid it, well, you will meet your destiny no matter which way you go. Ponder that.

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obfuscate

This is the word to use when evasion is achieved by clouding the issue.

Creating a smoke-screen.

prevaricate, evade, dodge

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“When shrouded meanings and grim intentions are nicely polished up and pokerfaced personae are generously palming off their fantasy constructs, caution is the watchword, since rimpling water on the well of truth swiftly obscures our vision and perception.

(“Trompe le pied/wrong foot.”)”

Erik Pevernagie

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So. There is possibly nothing more aggravating in business than someone not answering “the” question. To be clear on what I am speaking about. The person answers a question just not the one you asked.

I am not going to argue that some questions are not easy to answer. I won’t even argue that we get asked questions we don’t know the answers to, but the situation dictates we make something up <yes … that happens in business>. But abandoning the question completely is complete bullshit.

But you know what?

I think the main reason it is so aggravating is because it is truly a reflection of intentions. There is even a book called The Anthropology of Intentions by a professor, Alessandro Duranti, who kind of tackles this whole discussion of intentions and words. He offers us the thought of ‘intentional discourse’ wherein an individual filters words through their beliefs & desires and their plans & goals to guide the discourse <regardless of whether the rest of the people want it guided that way>. In other words, using another phrase he offers us, by engaging in an intentional continuum people ponder their use of words through self-interest motivations <some good & some bad>.

By the way I am fairly sure I mangled his academic masterpiece, but you get the point.

Ah. “You get the point.” I share that again because while we sit there aggravated at someone who completely avoided answering the question asked we almost always also sit there wanting to invest a little of our own energy trying to assess why they did it. Because, in our aggravated minds, in its most simplistic viewing, avoiding the question is solely about shifting attention – away from something and toward something else.

…………… question deflection …………

Sure. It could be something as simple as steering you away from their lack of knowledge and steering you toward something they may actually know. But, in most cases, a full abandonment of a specific question is complete & utter deflection.

In the intelligence community they call this effort to shift attention as deflection or misdirection. Magicians do something similar getting people to focus on one thing and away from the trick itself. Completely avoiding the question is the business version of a distract-the-audience approach. It is this weird moment in which someone pretends to answer the question by actually answering some other question that magically appeared to replace the question really asked. It’s almost like entering an alternative universe for a while.

Sadly, aggravated or not, the more practiced the deception <the more practiced the business magician is> the more likely you hesitate to step in <and the more you get aggravated as you hesitate> and correspondingly … the more many of these people actually believe deception works.

It is maddening.

Worse? If they are good at it, when someone responds to a question by not addressing the points of the question, thereby avoiding the issue itself, it doesn’t create unrelated discussion to the issue … it simply avoids the issue in totality.

Well. I am fairly sure we have all sat there in a meeting and watched something like this unfolding right before our eyes. The visceral response, the aggravation, we have to this ‘answer evasion’ situation is most likely found in the revelation it is occurring (watching it unfold before our eyes). Philosophically, we can see that through some internal conviction to retain something they feel like they should own <their reputation, their title, their perceived intelligence, their whatever> they justify evading the question.

Conviction. Yeah. I just used ‘internal conviction.’ This means their intentions reflect they are more important than not only the question itself … but you. You are not even dignified with an answer.

It is irksome <at its least worst>.

It is loathsome <at its most worst>.

Look. I give a partial pass to the asshats you can see who have some answer they want to give everyone, regardless of what question is asked, and blurt it out when given the opportunity. They haven’t deflected the question they just ignored it as unimportant to what they want to say and have been planning to say no matter what has been said up to that point. It’s the ones you know heard the question and just ignored it. Or avoided it. Or just didn’t answer it despite the fact they heard every word, every syllable and every intention from the question giver. In other words, they intentionally do not answer the question.

<envision a deep sigh here>

I want people to face questions head on. And what makes this even more aggravating is that you know these people are quite capable of taking things head on.

How do I know that? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the intentions of the question giver themselves. It is a common tactic for the answer avoiders. The natural instinct is to ‘defend’; to answer the attack. Fuck that. I want to say “just answer the fucking question asked.”

How else do I know these people are quite capable of taking questions head on? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the question itself. This is not a deflection tactic. This is a ‘turn the question back on itself’ tactic. And, once again, your natural instinct is to defend or, well, answer the question you are asked.  Aggravating. I want to say “just answer the fucking question asked, you shithead.”

And maybe what makes this ‘not answering the question asked’ so maddening is that we, most sane pragmatic business people, tend to sit back <after saying “WTF”> and try and unravel why it happened and what the hell just happened. Unless you are in an interview scenario <in which you always have an opportunity, one-to-one, to hunker down and hammer out a clear answer> you are most likely in a room with other people and the non-answer has sent at least some of the people careening down a completely different road.

That makes it even MORE aggravating.

One intentional non answer to a question can completely derail a meeting or a discussion. That is intentional discourse. Or how about the other phrase from that academic’s book: engaging in an intentional continuum.

Oh. One last way you know these asshats are intentionally not answering the question is when they cleverly decline to answer the question with the infamous head fake answer: “I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ll work on finding the information for you and then get back to you with an answer” <and they have no intention of ever getting back to you>.

Yeah. You know … sure as shit … they have no plans to work on it and will never ‘get back to you’ unless you call them on it. They are intentionally refusing to answer the question assuming the conversation will move on and, in a laundry list of other shit to do, that this one will either never make the list or be so low on the list they can stiff arm you on answering based on “working on things more important.”

Its bullshit. You know its bullshit. They know its bullshit.

Well.

Fuck you.

Fuck you and the non-answering horse you rode in on.

In my mind a good well-articulated question demands some accountability. The one given the question is now accountable for the answer. They may try and deflect and they may just answer a completely different question, but a question asked exists, it does not disappear. You cannot get away from it.

Let me share a graphic example of why accountability remains whether the question dodger likes it or not.

You open your front door in the morning and there is a nice pile of dog shit squarely in the middle of your front door opening. You either clean it up or you avoid it. The question dodger never acknowledges the pile and steps over it moving on to something else. The shit stays at the front door and over time the smell increases and the flies crowd around. A good question unanswered is just like that. And a question dodger cannot avoid the smell in the end.

All that said. My message to the asshats who completely do not answer the question asked:  You will be accountable to the question and to cleaning up the mess … now … or later <and quit aggravating me by not answering the question, you shithead>.

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Author note:

When I reread this, which took me less than a ½ hour to write, I was a little surprised by how … well … aggravated the tone was.

Some ‘fucks’ and ‘asshats’.

I left it as is because as a 50something business guy who has always attempted to take on what needs to be taken on regardless of how painful it may have been <and career wise possibly less than prudent> I get a little angry about how the business world has become incredibly unkind to the risk takers & truth tellers and seems to reward the less-than-competent and ‘political maneuverers’ more often than it should. That’s my excuse for why I let this one stand as it does.

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“Our souls, which are only now beginning to awaken after the long reign of materialism, harbor seeds of desperation, unbelief, lack of purpose. The whole nightmare of the materialistic attitude, which has turned the life of the universe into a purposeless game, is not yet over. And yet, a weak light glimmers, like a tiny point in an enormous circle of blackness ….”

Vassily Kandinsky in 1912

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Today I speak of soul, purpose, life and business and in doing so I am totally going to misuse this quote which was written about art. This quote spoke to me in a way that explained the sense of desperation I sometimes hear people speak of when speaking of today’s world. And how they speak about their belief that too many in society think that being materialistic and greed is the prevalent sense of ‘being’ throughout society, business and the world.

I don’t really believe people think that way. Or, maybe better said, is I do not believe people want to think that way. I believe the majority of people simply act in a materialistic mode because they sense there is there no other path available, i.e., if they don’t the other guy will and they will get left behind and not get their ‘fair share’ of whatever the prize appears to be.

Let’s call it materialism survival mode in a zero sum game world.

Therefore, the desperation I am talking about is truly a derivative of knowing that there is actually something is better. An understanding that materialism is a path with no real destination, in other words, as soon as you have what you have you want more <sociology calls this “hedonistic adaptation“>.

We want better <most of us> than this. Better just doesn’t seem so attainable these days.

In addition. In this sense of desperation <I wrote “who will stop the madness?”> I admit that I don’t hear people using words like ‘weak light glimmering.’ They just see darkness and madness in the world,

Me?

I see it. I see the weak light glimmering.

I see it in people themselves <in how I described where I believe the desperation evolves from>.

I see it as a generational “thing” <as in ‘turnings’ described by Strauss & Howe and cyclical attitudes and behaviors over generations, i.e., we have been here before attitudinally>.

I see it, most importantly, as the evolution of capitalism <which is the basic economic model for materialism — although we should all note that ‘materialism ‘ is a human attitude & behavior wrought from within and not from without>.

Anyway. The capitalism evolution is neither good nor bad  simply an evolution and what is occurring is the natural friction that occurs during evolution <please note: I do not see this as ‘revolution’>. I could also note that there is natural friction that occurs in any change just that when an entire economic model creates friction it has some larger repercussions.

My belief in this arc of Captalism evolution to grounded in Schumpeter thoughts. If you read Schumpeter it can possibly explain why there is a sense of desperation or maybe a sense of uneasiness and why it is natural to feel this way.

According to Schumpeter there is a natural process of creative destruction  within capitalism based on the affect the “cultural contradictions of capitalism” have:

–          The Process of Creative Destruction.

I)  Capitalism cannot be stationary. It revolutionizes the economic structure “from within”, destroying what went before through a process of competition that affects costs as much as quality. Creativity in consumer goods, methods of transport, of production, systems of organization, search for markets and technology. It is a process that undermines traditional supports existing at a given moment, weakening its own system. Moreover, capitalism devitalizes the idea of “property” <the existence of great and small shareholders>.

*** note: He is simply saying that capitalism inevitably empowers anyone anywhere to build something … and as that is built something has to be destroyed <or replaced> to accommodate it. Capitalism encourages individual thinking and ideation and business building. Interestingly … it is actually anti-establishment and anti-‘maintaining the norm.’ There is no normal in capitalism beyond its ongoing self destruction and reincarnation.

–          II)  Rationality. Capitalism encourages rationality in behaviour. Rationality involves, on the one hand, the “maximization” of particular interests of individuals and groups, the use of the instrumental means in a coherent form, and in the same way a series of readaptations empirically controlled by a procedure of flawed -testing. On the other hand, rationalization rushes into both private life and cultural forms. Consumption wins against accumulation, diminishing the desirability of incomes above a certain level. At the same time, however, when the breaks of certain values associated with ethical or religious tradition fail (the sophrosyne), irrational components of behavior that are critical for capitalism emerge and cannot be refuted with rational arguments, especially when based on long term considerations.

*** Note: Capitalism is a constant struggle between the rational <let’s say ‘profit & dollars & cents’ in this case> and the irrational <let’s call this the human Maslow ‘feel good’ intangible in this case> within people. It is interesting to note he suggests that money is a means to an end. In other words … you could earn a dollar a year and save only a dollar a year and be okay with that if you could consume <buy, eat, live to what you desire> whatever you wanted and needed. Regardless.  This constant struggle occurs and when it is perceived to be out of balance there will be friction as compromise is debated <and neither side wants to let go of what they have or what they think – which are often inevitably linked>.

III)   The Obsolescence of the Entrepreneurial Function. Increasing difficulties for the classical function of management. Increasing importance of specialized groups. The context, moreover, has been accustomed to change and each time a greater number of factors are calculable. The success of business ends up in removing the owners.

*** Note: He is not suggesting that entrepreneurship or small business becomes obsolete in capitalism. What he is saying is that capitalism inherently makes good small businesses into big businesses and as that happens they lose the ‘entrepreneurial function.’ In other words …. Capitalism encourages small to become big and in doing so they destroy what made them successful in the first place <and inevitably they are ‘destructed’ either from within or from without – by small business that destroys them>.

–          IV) Protecting Strata. In the modern era there was a symbiosis between the nobility and the productive sectors. The former occupied the State organization, guided political decisions and supplied officials for the army (the bourgeoisie was only sometimes in charge of local administration). It was a sector that survived the social and technical conditions that produced it. In conclusion: the bourgeoisie is politically defenseless without the protection of non-bourgeoisie sectors, but capitalism, however, encourages the breaking up of the precapitalist framework of society.

*** Note: Capitalism is most effective with a strong middle class and not a massive gap between the haves and have nots. Effective capitalistic societies will strive to reset when the gap is to large and there will be inevitable conflict/friction when this occurs.

–          V)   Intellectuals. Characterized as those who exercise the power of the spoken and written word, they are used to not having any direct responsibility in practical matters and thus, they lack a direct knowledge of experience. They encourage self-conceived attitudes as “critical”, more from a logic of opposition, we could say, than from a logic of government. There exists a parallel between education and the scale of moral values in the intellectual sectors and the administrative or bureaucratic sectors against the values and technical criteria of the economic system as it operates.

*** Note: I find it interesting that while Schumpeter is NOT discussing governmental structures <democracy, republic, socialism, communism> he gets right to the core of the issue in that inevitably officials who make decisions for the everyday person are most often not the everyday person nor do they think like the everyday person. Therefore the economic system may be operating at odds to what they believe is the right thing to do.

There you go. Schumpeter uses these five arguments to discuss the process of what he calls ‘the self-destruction of capitalism.’ Now. Self-destruction is not suggesting capitalism destructs as in ‘ends’ … but rather  that in its ongoing self destruction <or crisis in Hegelian terms> it recreates itself <synthesis> into something new.

Heck. Now that I have written all this I can see why there is so much angst in the world today. I can even see why the business world is talking about “intrapreneurship” <having large companies seek small company attitudes & innovations>, distributed leadership models and, most importantly, Purpose & meaning into work.

Regardless of whether this is evolution or it is a ‘natural conflict’ or not. Conflict is conflict. It is friction. And in this time and place it is friction upon friction.

Not only is the entire system being reshaped <as it is cracked and put back together again>, but the generational attitude infrastructure is also in conflict <of which Capitalism has been a catalyst for attitudes & beliefs>.

In the end.

Why are so many of us feeling uneasy, maybe even harboring some thread of desperation in what we see in the world today?

‘Our souls, which are only now beginning to awaken after the long reign of materialism, harbor seeds of desperation, unbelief, lack of purpose …’

Maybe our souls are simply awakening. Gee. That may feel like desperation but, well, who wouldn’t see a glimmer of light in that thinking?

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“I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable.”

—

Alex Elle

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So. Being yourself is a tricky topic. In business, Life & deciding what you want to do.

I know <I know>.

Seems like “being yourself” should be simple. Like ‘breathing’ type simple.

But it’s not. It’s not because there is a constant struggle between an internal part <’who am I’ type shit> and external <figuring out how ‘who am I’ should actually act in public>.

For example, one of my favorite young writers, Jamie, describes herself this way:

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I’m a writer, pretty much by process of elimination. I am also a professional aspirationalist.

That’s not a word, but I’ve made it into one, since there was nothing that could quite describe me because I didn’t want to say I’m a “professional dreamer” because that sounds like some hippie shit.

I have aspirations, like, lots of them. If you’d like me to create a TV show, get in touch with me. How about publishing my memoir? Get in touch. If you are from The Ellen Show, I will, of course, accept your interview and would be delighted to dance it out with my girl, so long as she doesn’t prank me by making me eat cilantro. In fact, I want no cilantro in anything.

<Jamie Varon>

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Professional aspirationalist. Not ‘professional dreamer’ nor ‘professional pragmatist.’

Ok.

Professional aspirationalist is just awesome.

If I could ever vote for a new term, that would be it. It’s fucking awesome. It captures the essence of restlessness & hope & striving & unlearning &, well, all the things I believe are good and healthy with a person seeking to be better tomorrow than they are today.

What I truly love about it is that she came up with a term to capture her “self.” I love it because being yourself, and even recognizing who ‘yourself’ is, is hard. And when I say hard think even harder than maybe becoming a Navy Seal type hard.

……….. self …….. an entanglement of nuances ………….

It is incredibly hard because the truth is that ‘my truth’ , more often than not, is most likely an evolving tangled web of characteristics which, as it evolves, simply becomes more tangled <rather than untangled>.

Yourself is constantly adapting to new learning, new learning about things and new learning, and unlearning <changed beliefs, opinions, attitudes, perspectives>, about oneself.

That’s why I love professional aspirationalist.

True north on Jamie’s compass is defined. And its not a destination, but rather it is a direction.

Aspirationalist is a moving target. It is restless and unmoving at exactly the same time. It is an adventurer with some pragmatism. It’s not being on Ellen <although she would be delighted to do so> because once that happens there will always be something else.

Being an aspirationalist means not only having dreams, but dreaming … oh … and doing.

Yeah.

Doing. As in doing lots of different shit.

Uh oh.

That also means … well … increasingly more and different dreams <and aspirations>. And increasingly doing more and different shit. Dreaming and doing. Lots of different dreaming and doing.

In the end <to me> being a professional aspirationalist means being a restless soul. Restlessly seeking, traveling, doing, thinking. Professionally constantly in motion <mentally or physically>.

I love it because it captures my personal belief that becoming ‘better’ as a person is experiential rather than tangible <although tangible ‘doing stuff’ is certainly a component>.

I love it because it isn’t for the faint of heart.

And isn’t what truly being yourself is all about? Having some courage to even suggest ‘I will not omit things just to make you comfortable.’

Professional aspirationalist reminded me of this other quote:

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“I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.”

Caitlyn Siehl

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Yes.

Being a professional aspirationalist means you are not a place for cowards.

Anyway.

I wish I had come up with this word, but I am not as talented a writer as Jamie.

I like it for its sense of Life’s paradox. Paradox in that it is independent and dependent at the same time.

I like it for it’s sense of Business’s paradox. Paradox in that success in business is a combination of stillness, at the right times, and movement/restlessness at all times.

I like it because at its core it doesn’t mean shunning the world and simply being a dreamer. It has rich & royal hues of reality threading its way through its fabric.

I would like to believe I am also a professional aspirationalist.

Now.

To be clear <because Jamie is correct the word selection was thoughtful to avoid the ‘hippie shit’>. Pragmatically, we aspirationalists do seek <some> approval and acceptance <ohhhhhhhhhhhh shit>.

Accept what I just wrote <that last sentence>. Don’t fight it <even if you are one of those who say ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks”>.

Because you do care.

Whether you like it or not, whether you think it is right or wrong, whether you think it is a good thing or bad in that it makes you ‘weak’ in some way, just get it set in your head – in some form or fashion – we care.

Don’t worry … we all care <not just aspirationalists>. We all care what the people around us think about us. And by ‘people’ I mean everyone from those closest to you <who would most likely accept you in any shape and form you ended up in … but you don’t want to disappoint them> to society overall <there is some value in gaining credit for who you are and what you do>.

Some acceptance from others feeds our self-esteem & self-worth <and all that Maslow stuff>.

Ah.

Please note I used the word “feeds.” Approval and acceptance is not the only nutrition necessary for a healthy esteem and worth.

It is simply one part of the diet.

Even we aspirationalists need a balanced ‘self diet’. We do not seek sole value from proving ourselves to others. And we don’t accept sole value in and of ourselves.

Being an aspirationalist is … well … the paradox. Independent dreamer with some dependence on external cues as to the value of our aspirations.

We want to fit into the world on our own terms.

Regardless.

What a description:

                       Professional aspirationalist:      I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable. I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.

We need more of these people in our world — in Life & in business.

Me? I will continue living life, trying to do good shit in Life & business, as a Professional Aspirationalist.

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“Show not what has been done, but what can be. How beautiful the world would be if there were a procedure for moving through labyrinths.”
―

Umberto Eco

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“You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t gotten where you want to go yet.”

—-

Taylor Swift

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So. Direction is one of the most stressful discussion in Life & in business. Where are you going? How are you planning on getting there? And, of course, are you sure that is the right direction?

Well.

I never thought I would ever use a Taylor Swift quote let alone use it to make a point. Her quote made me think that “not getting to where you want to be” and “nowhere” can look awfully similar.

But it is not.

Not even close.

The idea of “getting somewhere”, whether in your career, in Life, in personal change, in a relationship, in anything, sometimes seems to dominate our Life. This destination, this ‘thing’ we have envisioned in our mind, becomes sort of a measurement with regard to how we are effectively, or ineffectively, living our life. And in doing so if we are somewhere other than ‘there’ <which may mean we simply just haven’t got there yet>, a lot of people will suggest that means you are nowhere.

That is wrong. Very very <very> wrong.

We spends gobs of time and money trying to answer these questions. If you think about it while it may not sound completely absurd (defining direction insures you are at least not going somewhere completely useless) it can actually look like an incredibly poor investment with a dubious ROI <or what I often call “ROC”: return on choice>.

It can be a stress on your everyday life.

It can be a burden.

It can create an absurdly long list of plans and things to do.

It can also translate into a lot of wasted time (because often where you decide to go isn’t exactly where you end up simply because Life’s terrain dictated a slightly better destination).

I sometimes think this is a reflection of what is wrong in today’s society – this belief if you haven’t achieved something you have achieved nothing.

Most of Life is a reflection of a shitload of journeys and paths and, well, a lot of walking, running, tripping and crawling. Because of that a shitload of people would suggest that most of your life you have been running in place <which sounds silly as I type it> or ‘wandering aimlessly <which also sounds silly as I type it because most times most people are wanting to get to where they want to be> and basically they are suggesting that, uhm, you have expended energy — and got nowhere.

99% of the time those people are just assholes.

Assholes who focus on destinations and not journeys. They only take satisfaction in highlighting specific milestones, objectives and outcomes achieved. They struggle to see the satisfaction in exploration, wandering and the journeys taken to the outcomes.

Look. I am not going to suggest achieving something, specifically, getting to where you want to be is not an admirable and useful objective. Because it is. Getting to where you want to be is aspirational and it implies you want to be better than what you are today. Being better and becoming better is something all of us should embrace.

But I will suggest that simply because you have not got there yet that you have gone nowhere.

In fact, I could argue that simply deciding where you want to be is somewhere.

Yeah. Sometimes just knowing what you want has value in & of itself.

Yeah. In fact, doing something, even something small, is better than nothing and is something other than nowhere.

Anyway. You know what? it’s all exploration even if you don’t care about where you want to go. Why?  You end up somewhere.

Here is the bottom line.

I would guess 90% of us are somewhere other than where we want to be. We may see glimpses of it and we may actually have touched it briefly, but most of us are still in the midst of getting there.

<to complete that equation I envision 5% don’t even try having given up and 5% believe they are there>

90% of us are certainly not ‘nowhere.’ We are simply works in progress trying to get somewhere better than who and what we are today. That means suggesting just because you haven’t got to where you wanted to be is ‘nowhere’ would mean that 90% of us are milling about in some wretched space of nothingness … and that is silly. Most of us are pretty happy and fairly content and typically thinking about being better.

There is a lesson here.

While I imagine Ms. Swift doesn’t philosophize on this thought like Umberto Eco, she has certainly embraced her responsibility & empowerment to communicate the right things to hordes of young people. And for that I applaud her. I do so not only because she is impacting young people’s minds in a good smart way, but because there are a boatload of older people who have been gobsmacked into believing if you haven’t got to where you want to be that you are nowhere <and they do not hesitate to tell a shitload of people that>.

Embracing an ‘outcome is the most important’ Life philosophy is a slippery slope.

I would much rather we embrace a “just because you have not got to where you want to be does not necessarily mean you are nowhere” Life philosophy. You can embrace both but if you begin with the latter you are more likely to not only encourage the right behavior in people you will most likely encourage a more positive view of your own Life.

Lastly.

Okay. All this may sound rudderless. But 99% of the time while this discussion sounds, well, directionless, void of objective & absent of any ‘milestones’, it is none of those things. 99% of the time we have a sense of some destination, we just can’t really articulate it. Now. In a world that has an unhealthy relationship with measurement, achievement & “if it is intangible, can you make it tangible”, that ‘not able to articulate’ is a sonuvabitch to try and embrace.

I sometimes think at end of the end of this type of ‘going somewhere, just not sure where’ journey the people who didn’t try to cram all the plans into the time and simply kept walking knowing they would get somewhere will absolutely find themselves some place better than where they started from and most likely end up somewhere good.

I will say Life can truly be a ‘wonderland’ if you don’t over think it. Sometimes the journey is an exploration and as long as you keep exploring the “somewhere” you get to is richer and, in the case of a business or an individual, maybe a stronger place. Maybe Life, and even business to some extent, is a time to wander.

To explore. To just see what you will see. And see what you will find.

Maybe this is time to remember Calvin & Hobbes: “Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere.”

Maybe Alice in Wonderland, Umberto Eco & Taylor Swift and Calvin & Hobbes have the right idea. Nowhere may be a good destination objective.

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“If you dig deep enough, you’re going to find that everyone’s a sinner.”

Logan Echolls

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This about the fact people are imperfect, rarely 100% good, and the fact we all may be a sinner but still good.

** note: I am not using sinner in a religious framed way.

I agree with Logan (who was a character on Veronica Mars) that if you work hard enough you will find something bad, dubious, possibly unethical, in everyone’s past or even present. But you know what? It doesn’t really have to do with ‘sinning’ or being a sinner.  It is just that we all have flaws. Just to be clear. It is most likely if you dig deep enough you will also find everyone is basically the same and we all have hopes & dreams & insecurities. That said. If we accept the fact everyone is a sinner, our past is flawed in some way in which the standard human being would judge it is ‘guilty of something’ then you have to accept the fact no one is innocent.

“No one is innocent … Life is more about how you bear the guilt.”

Jacques Silette

Uhm.

No one is innocent.

Ponder that.

That means every one of us sinners carry some burden of ‘not innocent’. This seems relevant as:

• more and more people in today’s world are meticulously rummaging through other people’s pasts to find moments in which they were ‘guilty’ of something
• more and more people in today’s society appear to investing a lot of energy suggesting they are guilty of little, if not anything

Well. That is kind of bullshit. No one is innocent. We are all guilty of small, medium and even some large things. Therefore. It within that last sentence of the quote in which resides the larger Life thought.

Your life can be defined by how you bear that guilt.

It is the larger Life thought because “defined by” is actually “choices”. All the choices we make everyday in the little and the small as well as in how we judge ourselves, and our actions, and other’s actions. So we make all of these choices, one by one, dozens & hundreds over time, all the while accumulating some aspects of non-innocence.’ From that point on it becomes how we define it:

Do you ignore it?

Do you make excuses?

Do you deny it?

Do you worry about it?

Do you keep it secret?

Do you use it to motivate?

These are questions that reside within each of us <whether we elect to admit that they exist or not>. These are the questions that define how people bear the guilt.

Oh.

The one that is probably most important?

Do you even recognize you are not innocent?

I think in today’s world where we seem to rush to blame people and judge them guilty of something <often justly> we tend to push our own lack of innocence, in whatever degree it may exist, into some dusty corner of our mind. But I also believe there is an even more dangerous thing many people do and that is justifying their own past behavior & actions as ‘not so bad’ which is basically assuming, well, innocence.

What that means is, I imagine, there are many more people who don’t even know they are ‘not innocent’ of something than there are those who bear the guilt. I imagine this because bearing some guilt is a burden. A burden not just as a weight, but it also can bear some emotional erosion aspects if you are not careful.

While those who bear the guilt can sometimes be eaten away from the inside as they think about it, I would suggest there are many more minds being eroded by the unseen, unrecognized & unaccepted shadow of guilt which dogs each step one takes.

This comes to Life in a variety of ways.

It erodes in a way that when shit happens to them <because the guilt actually affects their behavior in some seemingly small ways> they scratch their head and wonder why.

Some of these people think fate is against them.

Many of these people think Life isn’t fair.

Many of these people never look at themselves, or to themselves, as the issue … just everything else.

Many of these people just look at others as ones who should be guilty <“I never did anything that bad”>.

All of that is sad to me. Mostly because people’s burden of guilt is most likely something manageable if the person would only take the time to face it — face the guilt and eliminate that weightless, but diminishing, shadow following them and choose to carry it instead. I honestly do not know if people ignore their ‘lack of innocence’ or place their sin in a third person way <region does this> because they don’t like the thought of it or they don’t know how to explain it or maybe its simple embarrassment or it could even be they DO see the burden and do not want to accept it.

Look.

We all have guilt for something. None of us are innocent. The something could be big or it could be very small. But that is the funny thing about ‘not innocent’ — its size doesn’t matter.

Normal laws of space & weight do not apply to ‘not innocent’. A sliver of ‘not innocent’ can bear the same weight as a mountain of ‘not innocent’.

We should all take a moment, every day in fact, and remind ourselves, especially before we jump to judging others, that if you ignore the degrees & dimensions of the guilty — none of us are innocent.

But, most importantly, once you accept no one is innocent <self included> what truly matters is how one chooses to bear that weight.

“Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not.”

Henry Frederick Emile

In the end. One of the hardest things in the world for anyone is to embrace their flaws, their sin. Each of us ‘are not’ a lot of things. Recognizing those things is actually pretty easy. We notice them all the time. I guess the difficult part is accepting them. and resigning yourself to ‘not being something’ with grace. Being able to do that is a full measure of one’s character. And maybe that is what ‘being a sinner’ or ‘no one is innocent’ is all about – character. To accept our flaws means to accept some burden possibly demands character. I do wish more people would accept we are all not innocent and begin judging people more on how they carry they bear the guilt of their sin.

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.

It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.

If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” –

=

Howard Zinn

—

“It’s the one thing we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.”

=

Barbara Kingsolver

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I am sometimes surprised at how little we discuss, think and debate the difference between defeat and defeatism.

That said. This is about the future and how our attitude with regard to defeated versus defeatism affects how we not only view the future but actually behave.

This attitude discrepancy, or difference, is important from maybe an odd perspective. The perspective I have that there is often “victory in the attempt” and, yet, without true ‘victory’ or success in the attempt at some point, well,  ‘victory in the attempt’ is simply hollow.

Yeah. Without an occasional victory the ‘victory in the attempt’ becomes empty words and an empty tropism.

I say that because therein lies the truth of defeated versus defeatism.

Defeatism is not even attempting <just whining and wringing hands> while defeated is having attempted and failed <and yet you still have the opportunity to get back up and attempt again>.

Defeatism is … well … ongoing.

Defeated is but a moment in time or a specific situation.

I thought about this while participating in a very despairing discussion among TED people.

Yup. It can be incredibly despairing to participate in TED discussions. For a group of supposed ‘futuristic thinking’ professionals it always seems like the discussions are strewn with:

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<a>      people wanting to blame someone – Bush, Obama, corporations, the entitled, ‘other people’ … the list goes on and on,

<b>      people who believe there is some conspiracy in that small groups of influential people gather in secret rooms sharing secret handshakes outlining how to manipulate the world to their benefit or,

<c>      people who simply believe all is lost, the apocalypse is upon us and the destruction of civilization is inevitable.

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And while it disturbs me that a so-called organization of future leaders like TED has embraced the different versions of defeatism so easily I would also suggest that we the people, let’s call it ‘today’s society;, seems hesitant to hope with regard to the future because it seems like we have embraced despair.

There is a sense of foreboding leading to a variety of reactions to this seemingly bleak situation. Not just to nostalgia for an irrecoverable past, but also a pervasive mood of general malaise.

Unfortunately this is the type of general defeatism that undermines the whole idea of collective action.

It fosters  a sense of “i-ism” or even “I against the world” and inevitably creates am energetic ‘anti-system’ mentality & focus. This defeatism is particularly insidious. It thrives on discontent, focuses on the failures of government and, yet, those actually elected simply obstruct and distract, making governance more difficult than ever, further reinforcing their message of dysfunction.

And this defeatism mentality, which begins with anti-system and devolves into basic rejectionism – rejection of anything and everything -, this spans from what the current issue is to what we should do to rectify this unagreed upon issue.

Therefore everything simply comes to a standstill as all stand and reject.

This mentality of rejectionism lacks real platforms and real policies.

This mentality is not an effective mechanism for improving the situation or the lives of people.

This defeatism, this rejectionsim attitude, rather than prompting action, embraces the tendency to prompt lack of action.

So what should we do?

We need to change our attitude. Everyone is quick to speak about the challenges facing us and reject any and all solutions available to us <as flawed>. In order to inspire change and action we need to move beyond criticizing <or diminishing that which is> and overcome our tendency to forget the good things … the ‘assets’ from which we can actually do something.

Yes.

We, as in USA, have a lot of assets to work with.

We are a country and people of innovators <ranked as one of the highest in innovations and entrepreneurship globally>.

We are a well-educated country. Despite all the “sky-is-falling” prognostications our educational systems, albeit flawed> are still top notch in the same tier as the best in composite world education rankings.

We are a healthy country. Setting obesity & aging aside, we live healthier longer lives than almost any country in the world.

We are a huge robust economy. Despite the screams of ‘sky is falling’ from economic growth pundits the sheer critical mass of the country’s economy and output suggests the country is a robust player, an integral player in fact, in the global economy.

** none of these are meant to suggest there is not a need for improvements, some larger structural improvements, just that all is not bad

All that said it doesn’t seem like we should need a unifying purpose beyond ‘being best’ or ‘being better’ and yet we seem to be lacking a unifying purpose to shove defeatism off to the side and do what needs to be done as a society to make progress. And, once again, we should not confuse rejectionsim as a unifying purpose. That is simply a unifying criticism … not a direction.

Regardless of how we do it … it is essential that something should lead to a change in a somewhat ‘defeatism’ attitude. We are neither defeated nor should we embrace some fatalistic ‘defeatism’ attitude.

That is … well … giving up.

That is being defeated without even attempting victory.

And maybe that is where we get it wrong on this whole defeatism thing.

Maybe we don’t assess victory properly.

We only see victory in actual change.

Look. I am not suggesting there are not some bad things going on around us, but maybe the true victory today is simply not allowing the bad things without some defiance … not defeatism or rejectionism.

“… the future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

 

By continuing to focus solely on the perceived crises and challenges facing us we only reinforce the defeatism. This erodes Hope and subconsciously affects our behavior and certainly inhibits any opportunity for a marvelous victory.

We must show that we are able to influence positively our own future and the future of civilization.

This is the more difficult path. This is not just a ‘moment of defiance’ thing, but living defiantly over an infinite succession of presents.

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“… remember that this is not something we do just once or twice.

Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime. “

—

Pema Chodron

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We contain our own future. Awakening our heart, and soul, to what is right & worth doing is the work of a lifetime.

I sometimes believe that is the essence of our duty & responsibility to Life <and that Life has no responsibility to us>.

I don’t believe in false hope or empty ‘positive thinking’, but I abhor defeatism.

Give me the glory of defeat rather than the despair of defeatism any day.

In the marvelous attempt therein lies the hope that even in defeat there is at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

Interrupting the destructive habit of defeatism is the work of a lifetime … and not for the faint of heart.

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note: I originally wrote this in April 2015, 2 months prior to Trump announcing his candidacy, with hindsight this may actually have been a thought with regard to what enabled Trump to tap into the zeitgeist of millions – defeatism and rejection-ism: the path of negativity.

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“The world is full of stories, and from time to time they permit themselves to be told …”

—–

An aboriginal saying

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I believe that the magic and power of a story can encourage and fascinate you.

In prehistory, outside the cave it was dark, but inside they had a fire and somebody was good at telling stories. Every time I write, I think of the cave.

We are one group, outside it’s dark and wolves are howling, but I have a story to tell.

—–

Haruki Murakami

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Ok. While I sometimes believe the whole ‘storytelling’ topic has take on some fairly absurd dimensions in business (and fortune cookie wisdom advice), I will admit it’s difficult to discuss stories too often.

The fact is that being able to tell a story, okay, tell the story you want is possibly one of the most important skills anyone can have – in life or in business.

Let me stay on the business side of stories.

Throughout my career I have had the fortune to work with the most unglamorous consumer and B2B products & companies you could ever think of <industrial products, commodity like machinery, etc.> and some fairly glamourous products & companies. What they all have in common is that they have a story to tell and when told well it makes them successful — in sales, in market place positioning, in competitive scenarios, in public discussions, etc.

I used to think storytelling was so natural to everyone I assumed everyone would want to tell their story, or maybe better said, talk about their business, their company, their product, as a story.

I no longer think that.

I haven’t figured out if it is that not everyone can actually tell a good story, or, that business has beaten the shit out of people so badly that the default articulation is a list of functional features and pragmatic benefits. What I do know is that business storytelling, in general, sucks. It is absolutely horrible.

Meaningless metaphors and less-than-relevant analogies and misused quotes are scattered among the useful functional and pragmatic in the attempt to elevate that which is usefully boring to interestingly useful. And because that is the case most people either think storytelling is really really hard or that storytelling really has no place in what they are doing.

That is nuts.

The truth is you can take the most boring of boring, the most functional of functional & most ‘seemingly same of seemingly same’ and wrap it within a story and it … well … becomes compelling, interesting and distinct.

The truth is any business contains the essential parts to create a story … heroes, villains, vivid demonstrations or metaphors, life & death and even mysteries and solutions.

The truth is anyone can tell a story <it is possible that not everyone can write a story though>.

In fact I feel relatively confident is stating that a good story to tell makes everyone better & more interesting.

I do not care what industry you work within or what type of product or service you sell or represent your word is full of stories and, most likely, a fabulous story just asking for permission to be told.

All that said. Someone is most likely sitting somewhere scratching their head thinking … “WTF, that sounds good but I have no clue what to do.”

Aw.

You do.

You do know what to do.

Stop thinking about selling your idea or selling your product/service or even selling your company, think about telling a story.

Shit.

I could work for a nuts & bolts manufacturer and be able to put a picture of two nuts & bolts side by side <one mine and one someone else’s>  which look 99.9% exactly the same … and be able to say … “Let me tell you a story about this nut & bolt … because its story is different than this nut & bolt. They look the same but their story is different.”

Oh.

And my story wouldn’t be solely some manufacturing mumbo jumbo, but rather a story about who counted on it and how my nut & bolt was the best friend to someone and … well … you get the point.

Unfortunately we don’t seem to be in the storytelling business in business these days <although we sure do talk about it a shitload>. Instead we bore down on manufacturing specifications, stress quotients, side by side rankings and a whole bunch of technically important functional aspects.

And you know what?

That shit is important.

Really important.

To be sure … if it is my nut & bolt holding a wing on some plane carrying 300 passengers you can bet your last dollar the technical aspects of my nuts & bolts matter. I don’t argue that.

What I argue is HOW the technical aspects are articulated and delivered. What I argue is that if I can make my nuts & bolts look like a city of ideas through some story … I win.

Stories make presentations more interesting.

Stories make bland functional aspects take on some color <which equals value>.

Stories persuade people think <and thinking equals engagement>.

Stories to motivate us to see beyond the simple nut & bolt.

On a parallel path, suffice it to say, what you say is lost, if you do not master how you say the story. Yeah. It just becomes a bland list of words cobbled together.

Storytelling has been a mainstay of the marketing world since forever. And while it tries to sneak into the non-marketing aspects of the business world it often gets stiff armed by functional communicators – “get to the point” people.

This ‘get to the point’ point is nonsense.

Storytelling doesn’t sacrifice the functional and pragmatic and practical … it actually elevates it to ts highest value. I could argue that stories are the essential driver of value, change & persuasion … throughout the history of business.

Look. I would never tell a business to not show the numbers, graphs and facts. It is important.

But strategic use of a good story can make those same bland things surprise people, make them become compelling characters in a story and instead of being cold hard facts laying on a page they can become things that make us think & feel.

Story telling is important in that it engages people, communicates relevant meaningful information, builds value on some things that can often be difficult to build value on and, ultimately, it makes you, your product or service & your company distinct.

Why? Because it has a story to tell.

The business world is full of stories, and from time to time they permit themselves to be told …