===

“Trust and pay attention to the law of karma that regulates cause and effects … those who are full of worldly desires cannot do anything for other peoples sake and cannot be helpful even to themselves … load your bodies with hard work and your mind with duties.”

–

Tibetan yogi milarepa

==

So.

I could very easily use this quote to make a point about how someone can better live their life but instead I will actually talk about business … and managers.

To be clear. This piece is a nice companion to my ‘salvation by society‘ versus economic salvation piece.

Now.

I won’t be silly enough <or foolish enough> to suggest that to be a good manager you need to completely absolve yourself of ‘worldly desires.’

However … I will suggest that there is an important point to be made here by Milarepa with regard to management and the influence a manager can have on society <sounds big but remember that subtle actions can influence larger behavioral trends>.

Here is a business <society> Truth. The manager who is focused on personal ‘worldly desires’ or even corporate ‘worldly desires <i.e., profits, efficiency, etc.> cannot be the best they can be to help other people … and even themselves … and society.

Look. I think we can all agree that souls <or salvation> cannot be made of dollars and cents or cars or houses.

That said.

I cannot figure out if it is chicken or egg.

What I mean by this is it the fact organizations don’t give a shit about anything other than bottom line therefore middle managers <the leaders of our future> are so focused on “ambition thru solely focused on acquisition of spending power” or if it is culturally there is such a focus on “spending power as measure of success” that the outside cultural norms define action within the business world.

Suffice it to say … regardless of the damn chicken or its egg … we are breeding a culture of middle management that is losing sight of some pretty big issues.

Or.

I imagine they fully understand the bigger issues but they are drawing a line between work and non work <i.e., what I, as an individual, can actually do and affect the world in the office>. And, oh by the way, I am not talking about ‘better for the planet’ or some nebulous ‘cause’ but I mean bettering the people on the planet. Bettering through character & social values compass definition.

Ok.

I think most middle management <putting on my glass is half full hat> really do want to be better people at work … and do want to better people <and positively affect society thru work which, by the way, where we spend the majority of our time anyway>.

However, I also think they feel powerless to do anything. Or maybe they feel like they will be demoted … passed over <net result of therefore not maximize their individual spending power> if they incorporate something other than financial interests.

Doesn’t matter which thought you subscribe to because the net result is the same – it isn’t happening. Oh. Excuse me … there is one really big net result.

What is happening in the workplace is affecting us culturally. It effects attitudes (in general) and ultimately effects behavior (in general).  Yeah. It affects attitudes & behavior OUTSIDE of workplace. We in the work world would be foolish to believe “it is just business.”

Stupid in fact.

Work is so integral to people’s lives these days the work/outside of work attitudes and behaviors are blurred. In fact … with few exceptions they are one and the same.

And, please, don’t anyone throw me the ‘I am a different person at work than I am outside of work.’

Maybe pieces & parts but not the whole.

Contrary to popular myth you cannot ‘flip a switch’ with regard to attitudes and behavior between work and outside work life. We would be foolish to believe so. One bleeds into the other (and I don’t mean ‘doing work stuff’ this is ‘how and what I think stuff’). That said I think we should think of it more like a large fuse box instead of a light switch.

Our ‘being’ of attitudes & behavior has a large fuse box for all of them. If you flipped them all you would just shut down. You can shut down a room or two, or stop the washer & dryer, but the power is on.

Regardless of whether you agree with the metaphor or not suffice it to say we all seek alignment in attitudes & behavior throughout the 24 hours of a day because it is just damn easier. I don’t have to think about what I am supposed to think, or do … or what is right, or wrong … or what is acceptable, or not acceptable.

The work place simply provides stimulus for overall attitudes & behavior … albeit a large stimulus.

I say all that to get back to my opening quote.

‘Worldly desires’ is a deceptively tantalizing objective … fraught with ‘no salvation by society’ peril.

Personally I believe we should be instilling more of this belief within today’s organizations and managers. And I believe we can do so without sacrificing ‘the bottom line.’ It is just that we have forgotten our moral responsibility (or possibly we have just forgotten the affect, impact, which we can actually have as business people on culture?).

Personally I also believe that in our current world of “things” not “society values” that we confuse “being cause related” with “bettering a society.”

It is mental masturbation.

Businesses have convinced themselves into feeling good because they are focused on a cause and, yet, within the organization they expound a ‘bottom line mentality.’

I am glad they feel good as an indiviaul company … because it sure isn’t being shared culturally in any meaningful way.

In the end.

I believe there has to be a shift in business for us to be able to meet an overall ‘greater good’ of a better society.

Ok.

I don’t remember where I found this quote … “doing the right thing doesn’t really mean being correct … it is actually being righteous.”

Maybe, in the end, all I am suggesting is that business remember being righteous matters <and can still be profitable on a dollars & cents level and on a soul level>.

Framing the Right Questions

Persistent CEOs almost always get the information they request. It might not arrive as fast as they’d like, but eventually it gets there. Their bigger problem is getting information they haven’t demanded because they don’t know to ask for it. And unfortunately, it’s not just obscure corners of underperforming operations that CEOs are oblivious to. Often, it’s some brewing development that will redraw the lines of competition for the future.

One way to describe these unanticipated risks is “unknown unknowns”—a phrase former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made famous in 2002.

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

“Before beginning a hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.”

–

Winnie the Pooh

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

“Chaos is what we’ve lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.”

―

Terence McKenna

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

Well.

I have written extensive pieces on effectively managing change in business, probably been asked to speak about managing change in business a dozen times and, yet, I am not even close to being an expert and every time I return to the topic I learn something new.

This time I learned something new in a Harvard Business Review article called “Bursting the CEO Bubble” by Hal Gregersen and how  change leader can become “un-insulated” from the information they need to implement the most appropriate change.

Almost every new leader is new because the business they are assuming responsibility for wants some change <I struggle to think of a new leader being placed to ‘maintain the status quo’>.

So lets say, just to hedge y bets, 98.37% of new leaders are being asked to create some sort of change … the change can be big <transformation type change> or it can be small <fine tuning type change> … but suffice it to say … change is change and change is demanded.

And while many people will say all this effective change fashizzle we talk about is all about vision … I would argue it is more about insights. I say that because we all know we want our car to go as fast as it can and do so successfully over whatever type of terrain we are aiming to traverse … but you gotta get under the hood to assess the engine to make it all happen.

I use the engine analogy because I am often asked about how leadership insights are revealed and I, personally, believe it is foolish to advocate anything like a linear process in uncovering them … because not only is there no real linear process to uncover them but … well … most things work like engines in which hundreds of parts need to work together to make shit happen well.

Yeah. That is not linear – do this and this will happen — stuff.

A change leader is demanded to bring some sanity to the horizon … not reckless chaos.

Insights spring from a multitude of sources that are often difficult to define or systemize and can often look quite chaotic. I say that to point out that trotting out some ‘tried & true process’ is no guarantee of any success … in fact … it may guarantee failure <because change is amorphous in nature and process is solid in nature>. What matters most are the qualities and the inherent skills one must possess to gain the necessary insights — seeing the possible and being the change, as a leader, we want to make in the business.

All of what I just wrote is important because change is not just change.

Huh?

Well.

Far too often we permit change to be defined as some nebulous idea. And in doing so we talk about change a shitload … but never really seem to get around to doing everything that needs to be done <implementing it in an effective way>.

This doesn’t mean that these leaders are not truly trying hard to bring about change. It’s just that their attempts get trapped in the wretched hollow between ‘ideology’ <conceptual shit> and the practical <which is by no mean easy or simple>.

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

For it is within that understanding in which a good change leader can break what needs to be broken, keep what needs to be kept and tweak what needs to be tweaked.

Inevitably successful change is a reflection of several things … all embodied in a process incorporating information, education, dialogue, and ultimately, the insights generated from the process which will drive the choices.

Which leads me to ‘asking questions’ <because the only way you can gain insights is by actually asking questions>.

I don’t know why but it seems like there is a growing fear to ask questions these days … especially by leaders. And I really don’t know why.

McKinsey just did a whole study on how leaders should be better listeners and ask better questions.

Say what? A whole study? WTF. Why not just have an entire seminar called “common sense.”

That said.

Here is the most basic aspect of any good leader … information begets insights which inform decisions. It sounds really basic … so basic I think we often overlook it.

We discuss instinctual decision-making.

We discuss effective decision-making.

But rarely do we discuss the fact this insight-to-decision relationship <or at least … not often enough>.  And because of that we sometimes ignore how we gather information, assess information, discern information and use the right information to ultimately make a decision.

Yeah. What I am suggesting is that information may actually be more important than past experience <existing ‘answers’ you may have to offer>. Suffice it to say … the best change leaders almost slowdown in gathering information, and ask questions, to speed up <in the decision and its effectiveness>.

Maybe we don’t talk about this because if we did … and described it that way … it sounds … uhm … slow.

Questioning.

Listening .

Responding.

 

And, yet, to be effective a change leader has to ask different questions in order to get new answers to the problem sitting right in front of them <and, no, there is no secret handbook … or published book … or even some website article which  can give you all the different questions to ask – albeit you can find some of this false advice if you search>.

But it was this new HBR article, and MIT study, which reminded me that in order to be successful when dropping into a new company, and effectively survive, you have to be able to uncover the crucial information … the stuff you can get from a spreadsheet or in some board room.

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

I think the default strategy and direction with any organization is towards efficiency. It’s all about the assumption that we already know what to do and we’re doing the right thing, so let’s just be more efficient with it. When that starts happening, people stop asking questions and it can easily turn into a situation where leaders don’t want to get questions coming at them. A number of the leaders I interviewed said that they got hired, and promoted up the ranks because they were able to give quick, smart, relevant answers to people. The problem is, when people move into that CEO role, they not only need to know how to do things that are currently being done, but they’re defining the future. That takes a completely different behavioral-set, mindset, and skill set. Many organizations don’t realize that, and when they get into that pure efficiency mode, solving and poking and challenging the status quo is not part of the mantra.

Those CEOs asking better questions and speaking out about what they don’t know are obsessive about client, customer, and user needs. When a leader takes that fundamental position of customers first, and they actually mean it, they’re simultaneously taking the position that problems are first, not politics.

Hal Gregerson

executive director of the MIT Leadership Center

=========

While I have often suggested that a good change leader is like an assassin … that implies “effectively killing the problem.” Upon reflection I think that diminishes the importance of the research & planning which leads to the ‘assassination.’

You have to hunt down the necessary information. So maybe I should suggest it is a hunter assassin characteristic.

You have to come in and go on the hunt for new information … ask … and listen effectively.

I imagine I am pounding away on this point because most change leaders gain a new position to give answers … and they are used to not only talking but giving answers. And, most likely, because they did get the position there are a shitload of people in organizations more than willing to let the new change leader talk and give some marching orders <answers>. The current business environment seems to encourage action and less reflection <before acting>.

And a portion of that ‘environment’ pressure is correct. Many times we wait too long and act too slowly. But I would argue that fast movement or more considered movement … if you haven’t asked the questions you will not be successful.

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

“No plan survives meeting the enemy.”

General von Moltke

==========

““On s’engage et puis … on voit.”

“First engage in a serious battle and then see what happens.”

Napoleon

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

For if you are trying to build out a plan to stand the tests of implementation or commit to ‘adapting to implementation issues’ … you have to know the proper insights.

My personal attitude is that I assume I am wrong about many things. I say that as I share a quote I agree with 100%:

———————

“The difference between successful executives and unsuccessful ones is not the quality of their decision making. Each one probably makes good decisions 60% of the time and bad ones 40% of the time—and maybe it’s even 55% to 45%. The difference is, the successful executive is faster to recognize the bad decisions and adjust, whereas failing executives often dig in and try to convince people that they were right.”

——————————–

Anyway.

Change leadership is not just about a good plan nor is it just about effective adaptation … it is about having the flexibility to accommodate the unforeseen. You don’t know what you don’t know.

And leadership, in general, translates into a natural isolating bubble created by the position and the power that comes with it.

This bubble naturally creates a layer between what you know, and do not know, and what you should know.

I can tell you one thing — unequivocally. If you are managing change and stumbling into what you didn’t know … and not having the insight to adapt to what you didn’t know … your survival, and the survival of what you are managing, is under significant threat. In other words … you will die <get fired> or the company will die <in reality>.

Change is complex.

The best of he best, and smartest, management thought leaders have created sophisticated frameworks all designed to help business leaders grapple with their own change strategies at an abstract level.

But the reality is that strategy succeeds or fails based on how well leaders at every level of an organization integrate real useful insights into day-to-day operations.

It is as complex, and as simple, as that. And it is by asking questions where you will find your insights.

It is as complex, and as simple, as that.

——–

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”

==========

Émile Auguste Chartier <Alain>

———

Well.

I love this quote.

One idea is really <really> dangerous ground to stand on <part 1>. Dangerous in that it may be the most solid ground you have ever stood upon … and yet … you may leave it seeking another idea, and place, to go.

One idea is really <really> dangerous ground to stand on <part 2>. Dangerous in that it may be the most unstable ground you have ever stood on … shit … it may simply be a lily pad in the middle of a volcano … and yet … it’s ‘moment of stability’ seduces you to hold on to the idea like it is a gift from God.

Ideas, in general, are dangerous creatures. But ‘one idea’ is particularly dangerous.

Suffice it to say if you aren’t in the <multiple> ideas business as a company you are simply in the ‘doing most effectively’ <which is actually “we all do well so please pick me by my price”> business.

Ideas are the lifeblood of any business.

And ideas … at least good ones … are one of the most elusive objectives anyone can think of. You can set up the best of the best methodologies, you can train, you can encourage, you can give everyone funky crayons <and remind everyone that because we all grew up with crayons anyone can be creative – which is a slightly absurd encouragement in its own right> … but suffice it to say … a good idea just happens <and you hope like hell they happen when you actually need them>.

I believe most creative idea generator people are highly attuned to the where and the how they come up with ideas <therefore ‘forced idea thinking environments’ are not effective>.

Oh.

I also believe that that entire ‘how to’ knowledge is mostly nontransferable to others.

That said.

There is an interesting guy named Chic Thompson who, while I think he says some mumbo jumbo type stuff with regard to ideas and coming up with them, has suggested two things that I believe are good for people to take note of when discussing the whole ‘coming up with an idea’ discussion:

–          How you mentally approach ideas.

He says things like … rather than ask your students “what did you do at school today?” you should instead ask something like “what questions did you ask today?”

He also argues that changing the way we approach questions, problems, and solutions can reshape the outcomes <this sounds basic yet ‘idea creating methodology seems to fly in the face of this thought>.

In addition … I believe beyond rethinking the ‘how to’ generate ideas we also have to learn the mental assessment of risk and response. By that I mean I think ideas should typically be slotted so that mentally not only do we ask the right questions while thinking about an idea … we also ask the right questions in discussing an idea.

Someone came up with this chart <which I have recreated from some notes I made years ago>:

<sorry for the crappy chart but I suck at creating these things>

I buy this. People who come up with ideas are typically quite comfortable letting things germinate and have them bubble up. On the other hand … non good idea thinkers like a ‘point & shoot’ process … and even more importantly … like the comfortable ‘know we/I can do’ type idea.

Idea generation can often feel slightly chaotic … and … well … it is. However … within that chaos a good idea generator tends to be able to reach in and pull something good out of all the swirling shit.

Uhm.

A lot of people don’t like that a process that looks like that.

Next thought from that Chuck guy.

–          Ideas take time and a sense of relentlessness

I like to call it restlessness intertwined with a willingness and resilience to bear a shitload of failures <bad ideas> to find the solutions <good ideas>.

Apparently it took Chuck roughly 40 years to see an invention come full circle to its original solution in the right environment. Which led him to note … “when something goes wrong, something goes right … you learn from trial and error.”

40 years?!? <insert a ‘yikes’ here>.

Sorry folks … but an unspoken truth in the idea business is that 90% of great ideas are lost simply because when arrived at … it just wasn’t ‘their time’ … and when it DID become their time … they were in some landfill because they had landed in some trash can months, if not years. ago.

I say that <getting back to the one idea thought> because not only do we often suck at agreeing on the ‘one idea to focus on’ in the moment … we also tend to throw away a shit load of great ideas simply because it is not their time.

<note: in business … if you pull out an idea that was thought up months ago … or years ago … it cannot be used because it is … well … an old idea … or ‘it cannot be relevant because that was then and this is now’ – note: both those comments are dangerous because they are rooted in logic but absurd in practicality>.

Einstein was once asked what the difference was between himself and another person. He suggested that when challenged to find a needle in a haystack … others would stop when they found one … he tears apart the haystack looking for any and all that could be there.

Thompson’s version of that is he always suggests “always look for a second answer” when you imagine solutions to problems in a unique way. He was <is> a big proponent of young people bringing unique and fresh perspectives to discover creative outcomes.

I buy this.

Great ideas are typically born from other ideas. The original idea may be good … but they tend to be soft around the edges … and they need to be sharpened. I know that while I often like my first idea I will tend to ‘steal’ additional aspects from lesser ideas to strengthen another idea. It helps to look for and see all ideas and answers <albeit … in today’s business world many people struggle to discern crappy ideas from good ideas which inevitably means a good idea generator likes to protect a good idea by not offering ‘options’>..

Look.

Discovering creative outcomes & ideas typically comes down to unique and fresh perspective.

This means looking at things differently <which typically doesn’t translate into ‘methodically’>.

There are a boatload of tricks on how to come up with ideas.

“Thinking in opposites” … uncovering what can be flipped to get the right solution.

“Start off with what’s positive and then go to the negative” … then focus on making the negative positive <or how it represents some opportunity>.

I would be delighted to tell everyone what to do here … but I will note … because I cannot. What makes me hesitate to endorse any ‘idea generation protocol’ and ‘what questions to ask to stimulate effective ideas’ is that most ideas are actually thought up <insert a huge DOH! Here> in the shower or on the toilet.

Yup.

There are a bunch of surveys <informal and formal> and in general they have the following list of ‘where do you come up with your ideas’ when asking known & proven idea generators:

1. When showering or in bath
2. Commuting to work
3. Sitting on the toilet <note: this is good because it seems like per research we spend about 3 years of an average lifetime in the bathroom>
4. While falling asleep or waking up
5. During a boring meeting <note: this can also be an ideation or brainstorming meeting>
6. Leisure reading
7. Exercising

Most good ideas do NOT come from brainstorming meetings … or any meeting at all.  And they rarely come at your desk.

Ideas tend to come from the stimulus of the setting <and what that setting does to your mind … relax & think at the same time>. Therefore … the corollary is … the loss of ideas comes from the stimulus of the setting.

By the way.

While there is absolutely a relationship between creative & ideas … not all creative people are good idea generators. That said. You increase the likelihood of good ideas if you encourage creativity.

And there is a reason I bring this up. While we give ‘everyone is creative’ a lot of lip service the reality is that we tend to squeeze the creativity out of people as time goes by.

Read this and be prepared to be depressed:

———

George Ainsworth Land, author of Grow or Die, gave five-year-olds a creativity test used by NASA to select innovative engineers. Ninety-eight percent of the children scored in the “highly creative” range. When these same children were retested at ten years old, only 30 percent were still rated “highly creative.” By the age of fifteen, just 12 percent of them were ranked “highly creative.”

What about the average adult population? Only 2 percent of the adults who took the NASA tests were rated as “highly creative.” Therefore, our lifetime creativity, measured in terms of our ability to generate a number of new ideas, is at its highest point at five years old and lowest around forty-four years old. It seems that creativity is not just learned, but unlearned as we advance through life.

——–

Shit.

My main response to what we just read <after I pulled myself out of the depths of despair … because I am WAY past even the lowest ideation point> is that all our ‘planned ideation processes’ kill creativity … they don’t enhance creativity.

<I believe I just suggested killing an entire industry>

In our ‘outcome focused business world’ where ‘let’s use process so we can be as efficient as possible with regard to everything we do’ <ideas included> the process most efficiently kills creativity.

All that said.

I will end with 5 Ideas secrets <these are not mine … they are from some expert who I have forgotten … but I like these secrets>:

–          Creative Secret #1: Ideas are the currency of your future

–          Creative Secret #2: You come up with only 1% of your ideas while at your desk.

–          Creative Secret #3: By age 44, your creativity score is at a lifetime low and doesn’t go back up until retirement.

–          Creative Secret #4: The world isn’t going to slow down

–          Creative Secret #5: Good ideas are scary.

Oh.

And the last secret?

Go to the bathroom as often as possible. It increases the odds you will have an idea.

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

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

——–

“My own business always bores me to death, I prefer other people’s.”

——-

Oscar Wilde

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

Well.

This is about business using some Oscar Wilde thoughts.

Mistakes.

Whew.

In today’s world, while we talk about ‘encouraging mistakes’, the last thing we do is encourage them. In fact. It appears to me that our answer to everything associated with any version of “mistake” or ‘not going right’ <and there are degrees spanning from cataclysmic to simply aggravating> in today’s business world is to fire someone.

We are incredibly good at shifting attention away from our own mistakes as fast as we can to attention <a hot, bright spotlight> on someone else’s mistake.

We try and act as if we have never made a mistake ourselves.

The uncomfortable truth is that many of us have become quite good at the casual dismissal of our own mistakes by saying and thinking things like:

“My own mistakes bore me … I prefer to skewer other’s.”

We trivialize our own mistakes to a ‘boring’ inconsequential category and enhance other’s mistakes to some cataclysmic level.

Look.

I have gobs of business experience. And gobs of mistakes.

But that’s not the point.

Most of my experience and success, quite frankly, was built not off my mistakes but rather other’s mistakes. What I mean by that is my resume, my career, my successes is almost exclusively built upon some ‘ability to fix things’ <history is written by the victor I imagine are the words I am seeking>.

I am a renovator more so than a builder.

To be clear. My mistakes certainly didn’t bore me <although they were incredibly aggravating> because they always taught me, above all, personal responsibility. Responsibility for not only my mistakes but also for whatever I could get my hands on or be involved with.

What this translated into is that while other’s invested a shitload of energy skewering other’s mistakes … I went ahead and fixed them.

Mine, theirs, people alive & dead and anything I could get my grubby little fixing hands on.

Regardless.

Firing people because they make a mistake drives me nuts. I assume it would drive Oscar nuts <oops … he did go nuts …>.

Nothing in business is simple. I mean … shit … even doing the right thing can be a complex decision & action.

Business is, and always will be, complex.

I say that because we have an extremely aggravating habit that whenever we face a problem or an issue or a mistake … we treat it as if it were simple.

What’s up with that?

Let’s face it.

I don’t care how much experience you have nothing, or very little, is simple. Almost every situation, mistake or success is contextual. That means two things:

• History is, at best, only offers some guideposts to a solution & not a “how to” manual.

• Experience in business is relative.

Just because you have done something, and had successes, doesn’t mean you are good at it nor will it reflect an increased likelihood of success in the future. In fact … the best experience isn’t successes but what we have learned from mistakes.

Oops.

How the fuck do you put THAT on a resume and get a job? <you cannot>

All I know for sure is that I have a well loved list of mistakes I have made in business.

All I know for sure is the best people I have managed have a well loved list of mistakes they have made in business.

All I know for sure is that I, and those ‘best people’, have been fairly successful.

Figure that Life equation out.

Which leads me back to Oscar … and, oddly, his fairy tales. Oscar wrote his fairy tales … well … differently. Wilde’s fairytale transformations typically turned on loss. A mistake. A non success.

The true twist? The loss was most typically tied to a lack of imagination.

Is this a fairy tale lesson too adult for children?

Shit. I don’t know.

What I do know is that business is NOT a fairytale and more mistakes are made from a lack of imagination than anything else. As a corollary, that means fixing mistakes is inherently about having, and using, imagination.

Ok.

In the end.

Oscar had a gift for words. And while I am sure he knew what he was doing as a wordsmith … sometimes those who are so gifted in this way don’t really know what they are doing. In other words they fix things, offer solutions and, well, they cannot offer you some formula or maybe the reasoning is a little hazy or it is quite possible to get from here to there you have to make a least a little leap of faith.

And you know what?

That’s what makes the business world great. Not everyone has the same DNA. Not everyone can do the same thing. Not everyone makes the same mistakes.

You need people to create, others to build, others to run & maintain … and you even need some who fix shit <and mistakes> & can try to convince you in order to fix it, well, you need to make a little leap now and then.

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

“When you make a choice, you change the future.”

―

Deepak Chopra

===========

“Oh, yes. Choosing… it has always hurt. And always will. I know.”

―

George R.R. Martin

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

Ok.

This is about Intelligence … and making choices.

Why do I put both of these together? Well. Do you know the origin of the word ‘intelligence’?

<because I did not>

Intelligence is derived from the latin verb intelligere … which actually means “to choose among.’

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm … so that means an intelligent person isn’t a smart <high IQ> person or one who has reams and reams of knowledge and factoids stored away in their pea-like brains <although I envision it could increase the likelihood of actually being intelligere>.

It actually suggests that the ‘intelligent’ are those who can discriminate fact from fiction, truth from lies, which half of a half-truth is the important half … and I imagine those who can discriminate … even if only between the bad and the worse.

Oh.

And, of course, that means intelligere is founded upon the concept of choice. And not jut the ability to discern the choice but also the character, and fortitude, and smarts … to actually make choices.

In addition … intelligere demands one have the curiosity to have at hand that which is needed to actually create, and have, ‘the among’ available.

Uhm.

The ability to ‘choose among.’

Once again … we seem to face the uncomfortable truth that things are rarely black & white, choices are inherently unclear and a simple “if this then it must be that” linear choice is almost never at hand.

Intelligere is … well … not easy.

Look.

I don’t know that I really have a point to make here today.

I simply found this interesting. It made me think about what I perceive as ‘intelligence’ in people.

I know I had always simply thought people who were smart were intelligent. And, frankly, I didn’t think much beyond that.

But.

Assessing intelligence not just as being smart but rather what you do with those smarts?

Whew.

I like that.

===

“Believe those who are seeking the truth.

 

Doubt those who find it.”

 

————

Andre Gide

=====

Well.

If I could earn a salary being a truth seeker I would sign up today. In fact. I believe we need a job like this.

I think we need a job like this because … well … Truth is significantly more elusive than I tend to think we believe. Truth is rarely simple … certainly not as simple as we would like it to be and even more rarely tied to what could be misconstrued as “common sense.” Truth is often complex, nuanced & tinged with contradictions.

And because I believe what I just wrote … I am always wary of those who come out blazing by speaking “the truth.”

Why? Things are rarely black & white. I also imagine I say this because my truth attitude is tempered by the fact I have been called optimistically cynical.

While my incessant curiosity always has me pursuing new & better & different knowledge <which inevitably create unlearning> I guess I question everything upfront. This means I filter thru everything I hear & rarely accept it as “it is what it is,” I imagine this is my cynicism part <or maybe one would hope as I have become older I can judge what to question and what to accept upfront>.

My optimistic side?  I always believe great things come of the cynicism filter <rather than use cynicism to drag things down>. Maybe this style of mine insures I feel more confident in what I know versus what I don’t know as well as draws my thoughts & thinking a little more away from opinion & more towards truth, fact & real knowledge.

By the way. I would like to believe more people <and society … and business … in general> would benefit from a filter like that.

Regardless.

I would like to believe I am one of those people who is constantly seeking truth. I may not be, but, it is certainly a good objective to try to attain. And I would welcome anyone on to my truth seeking team <as long as they truly were open to “unlearning to learn”>.

I do know that I believe as long as you are ‘seeking’ … you are being persistently curious … and … well … there are worse things to be.

I do know that I believe we need more persistently curious truth seekers in today’s world.

Anyway.

Truth seeker.

Well.

That is certainly a title I would like to put on a business card. Tough job but, whew, I would do take this job in a second.

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

“We should place confidence in our employee.

Confidence is the foundation of friendship.

If we give it, we will receive it.

Any person in a managerial position, from supervisor to president, who feels that his employee is basically not as good as he is and who suspects his employee is always trying to put something over on him, lacks the necessary qualities for human leadership – to say nothing of human friendship.”

—–

Harry Humphreys

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

“The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work.”

—-

Agha Abedi

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

Well.

Leading and managing people is possibly one of the most rewarding things you can do in a business career.

Firing people is possibly one of the most unrewarding things you can do in a business career.

Unfortunately these two things are inextricably linked.

I could argue that once you assume responsibility for firing someone … you learn more about yourself, and I imagine others learn about you, than from almost any other responsibility you assume as a leader.

No one likes firing people. Well. No one who is any good at business leadership. I don’t care if you absolutely hate the person you are firing, if the person has actually committed a fireable offense and you are in the right to fire them, or even if you fire someone for good reason … suffice it to say … it never feels good to fire someone.

And because of that … a good business leader never delegates the tough termination. And they never send someone to terminate a direct report.

Generally speaking … you fire anyone who is a direct report, or you were directly responsive for hiring, face to face.

Yeah.

This may not be, logistically, the easiest thing to do but it is part of the burden of responsibility. It is the mantle you wear and it is what you are obligated to offer the person being terminated – dignity & respect.

Anything less than that and you are shirking your responsibility.  Anything less than that is … well … chicken shit. And you are a chickenshit business leader if you do not do these things.

Sure.

What I just shared is a hard lesson but one business people learn in young management.

I will never forget the first person I ever fired. Paul.

An absolute great guy in absolutely the wrong position and possibly career. But that doesn’t mean it was easy to terminate him. While I was 99% sure it was the right thing to do <and my boss and her bosses agreed> there was an extraordinarily loud 1% in my head that kept me awake that night.

Inevitably he chose a different career and went on to become an SVP of sales.

And he was kind enough to drop me a couple of notes to tell me it all worked out for the best.

But I will never forget firing him. I can honestly say I never forget anyone I have fired <and that is a semi-long list after years of management>.

However.

I would like to think my leadership career is measured more by the people I did not fire.

Not firing, in a larger organization, can be harder than you think.

I think I spent more time explaining to the most senior people why I would not fire some of the people I managed than I did ever discussing almost anything else about employees with them.

Well. That is … it felt that way.

The crap that floats upwards into senior leadership about individual employees is amazing. The littlest mistakes and quirks seem to take on exponential size when it arrives at the most senior people — and they do not hesitate to share their disproportional views.

Regardless. All of those views cut into the ‘trust belief’ … are they respected within the organization, do they have the trust of the organization and can they be trusted with their responsibility.

And that is when you earn your stripes as a manager. You do not cave in to the ‘easy thing to do’ but rather stand up for your people and let the chips fall as they may. Oh. And you learn it is totally worth it to not take the easy way out.

Let me be clear.

No one is perfect. I was not a perfect employee nor was a perfect manager. And, yet, when judging employees there sometimes is the ‘perfect measure’ of which becomes the absurd standard.

Yes.

We should judge senior people more critically but we should judge them fairly.

Anyway.

I didn’t fire a lot of people. And I can think of at least 4 who made me incredibly proud that I didn’t … despite some pressure from others to do so.

All 4 of these have sent me notes at different points, not thanking me for not firing them but rather for simply giving them a chance, believing in them and seeing something in them that they knew <because all employees know when they are under ‘the human resources microscope’>  many others didn’t.

All 4 of them have been professionally successful and, more importantly, are solid good human beings. Neither of those are because I didn’t fire them but rather vindicate the non-firing decision.

All that said.

Firing someone, despite the pain of actually doing it, is often the easy way out and is certainly a way to avoid looking at your own flaws.

Flaws? I sometimes believe one of the hardest things you can learn in your career is that your best is not particularly special.

Learning the fact that your talent, in reality, is matched by a shitload of people.

Learning that your best is relatively easily matched by a shitload of people.

It is an unfortunate truth that:

• Talent is talent.
• Smarts are smarts.
• And expertise is almost always relative.

At any given point in Life and your career you can look around you and, if you are self aware, you will note you are rarely the most talented, rarely the smartest one in the room and rarely the only expert.

Even on your best day you may not actually be the best.

I imagine that is a tough thing to get your head wrapped around.

But I also imagine if you do wrap your head around it evaluating employees and how you fire them is affected.

I always watch how someone terminates an employee.

You can learn a lot about people in that situation … and you can learn a shitload about how someone feels about dignity, respect and responsibility in how they terminate an employee.

===========

Postscript 1: under the general heading of “chickenshit” from a business perspective I will comment on a Trump firing:

There are hundreds of different viable reasons to fire someone and if you have the responsibility to hire & fire and it is ‘at will’ you can do what you want. But HOW Trump fired James Comey was chickenshit.

It wasn’t face to face with a direct report <or even face to face with anyone … just a letter delivered by a non-government employee>.

While there appeared to be no sense of urgency to terminate the action was taken with an absurd sense of senseless urgency which permitted Comey the indignity of being blindsided, in the middle of a commitment to the people who reported to him and not even in town.

This was a chicken shit way of terminating an honorable employee. It is indicative of Trump’s lack of character.

Postscript 2: Under the general heading of “this is some crazy shit” from a business perspective:

Firing someone for lack of confidence when the people who you are actually working for have a general lack of confidence in you is slightly surreal.

This may actually be the ironic point of this little postscript rant.

The stated “Donald J Trump fired his FBI Director because of ‘lack of confidence’ is … well … crazy shit.

Well. If that is a true criteria and I were to look at some national polling data I could argue Trump could be fired on the same criteria by the American people.

Most leaders do not defend their firing decision through childish name calling.

“Crying Chuck” .. “Richie” in quotes <instead of Richard>. Calling people diminishing names. Childish crap like that. I have been criticized as a leader for people I have fired, as well as people who I didn’t fire, and when appropriate I responded with some “why I did it” information but I never deflected my choice & decision onto others by suggesting they were not qualified to criticize … and I certainly always treated peers with a modicum of respect.

Tweet response rather than standing up in person

Sniping from the sidelines is not leadership.

Period.

‘nuf said.

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

“Sureness will always elude you.

The detective will always circle around what he wants, never seeing it whole. We do not go on despite this. We go on because of it.”

—–

Claire DeWitt

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

<note: this thought piece skews toward learning & teaching our youth but is relevant to all ages & how we learn>

So. Everyone who knows me knows that overcoming ignorance is my thing <I always hesitate to use the ‘soapbox’ word so it’s ‘thing’ here>. In fact … I was tempted to call this post “enlightened Ignorance” <because I love contradictions>.

That said, I found a guy <Jim McGee on Future Tense blog> who has actually not only thought about learning & overcoming ignorance as much as I have but has also created some interesting diagrams which better articulate the dynamic between “learning and ignorance” then I ever could <plus … the diagrams look like something I would have scribbled on a piece of paper>.

What Jim did was to articulate this idea of “boundaries of ignorance” and “circles of knowledge” in a really interesting way. The foundational idea is that by expanding the circle of knowledge you are simultaneously expanding the boundaries of ignorance. In other words, the more things you learn, the more things you become aware you don’t know.

Now that is an awesome incredibly simple concept.

The thinking behind this concept? In the beginning of your knowledge gathering life <probably think mainly children> ignorance always outpaces knowledge and learning <side note:this is just one of the places where I believe people like you and I can make a difference – think about in viewing this first diagram and young people>.

Let me be clear. By ‘people like you and I’ I mean older people with more experience and a better understanding of how expansive true knowledge can be. Why do I say this? Because if you think about this circle diagram concept it means that gaining knowledge can be frustrating.

Frustrating? Frustrating in that every time you learn something ignorance still lies outside your existing knowledge base. This translates into a state of being perpetually dissatisfied <or the glass is never completely full with knowledge> which obviously can be either encouraging or discouraging with a person’s attitude to continue learning. This diagram also makes you think about the role of schools <and do they help or hinder or minimize or maximize>.

Schools fulfill their role in this process by focusing attention on the inside of the circle and keeping youth carefully inside the boundaries. What I mean by that is the credentialing system of education looks backward at what you are supposed to have learned in its testing and measurement of success. I imagine the good news is that a good school environment helps keep you from falling off the edge into material you are unable to understand or appreciate <and in the process hopefully limiting a type of discouragement>.

In addition.

A huge purpose of schools is to introduce students <of any age> to appropriate vocabulary in a logical order … so you can progressively move on to additional learning <this is the same in business>. For example, it’s difficult to skip to more complex physics until you have basic physics understanding. Or. It is difficult to read Tolkein if you haven’t mastered Dr. Suess.

Yet. The danger, or maybe better said, the potential limitations of formal schooling <even when well done> is too much focus on what you already know. In other words, if a person <or child> isn’t pushed out to the boundaries, opportunities become limited for significant new learning. This thought gets compounded by the fact today’s schooling tends to overly protect students from failure and, therefore, from opportunities for deeper learning.

Therefore. Learning and attacking ignorance <and the boundaries of ignorance> is a place where parents and outsiders <beyond teachers> can make a HUGE difference.

I do believe as we get older we come to appreciate, or at least understand, the importance of failure in real learning.

This is important learning beyond educational building blocks and assists in ongoing career development activity and personal intellectual growth. We need to insure children don’t get discouraged with two things:

——–

(1) slow paced learning as they learn necessary foundational elements <they get discouraged because their curiosity never gets sated>

(2) failure to learn everything <they get discouraged because by remaining in the ‘ignorance zone,’ despite having invested energy in knowledge gathering to actually get in that zone, they never feel a satisfaction of ‘something completed’>.

——–

With that thought …. we get to Jim’s second diagram where the circle of knowledge has inconsistent edges/boundaries. Yeah. It is uneven. When I saw this diagram I thought it perfectly reflected not only how people expand their learning knowledge outside a school construct but also my own personal challenge when it comes to increasing knowledge and ignorance.

The problem I have personally always had … is I run the risk of collecting information book by book and article by article and with each one my point of view slightly sways in the direction of what I read. I imagine, upon reflection, over time I have gained a better understanding of my own learning flaws and I tend to treat each piece of new learning as simply a breakthrough in my ignorance and I start gathering information around that particular piece of learning to round out my thought and point of views instead of solely being invested in the ‘breakthrough thought.’ In some variation I imagine most people are like this. This would also mean … uhm … there is no such thing as a well-rounded person.

So. All that said.

Assuming I could actually create a diagram without help from someone who knows how to build diagrams, my personal third diagram would probably be the rounding out of some of the points above. In other words … the spike is the initial breakthrough which inevitably leads to a curiosity driven rounding out of fuller understanding and knowledge. Beyond that rounding out I would imagine there is an inevitable new ‘spike’ somewhere else assuming I had read or heard something that piqued my curiosity. Therefore, and I believe this is the neatest thought, this is a perpetual process with spikes and rounding out but in the end the circle just keeps getting bigger and bigger. In my mind <and personal motto> … this suggests ‘seek truth’ just expands the mind with no end destination ever truly landed upon.

Anyway.

Jim makes a great point in his blog — you become more expert and informed on certain topics at the expense of others. The well rounded circle that might have theoretically characterized the end of classic education system but reality suggests it should be replaced with the profile of an expert (or increased passion on a topic) in some particular domain. Therefore, you will never end up with a perfect circle but rather an ellipse or some wacky trapezoid <or something>. I would also suggest that at the end of high school a teen will have the first diagram and just one spike out <I am making a generalization but you get my thought>. Most kids have some passion that they become comfortable with and expand their knowledge to a point that they are pushing the ignorance boundary out on that topic.

Ok.

Before I leave that thought. I believe every kid is passionate about something. And I believe it is up to us adults to find it <not the kid>. Once again … I do believe we more experienced <older> people have a responsibility here <note: as do more experienced manager in a business organization>.

It is a tricky challenge … but we should be encouraging other “spikes” in the boundary <note: I hesitate to call it rounding out because if you believe this diagram – as I do – we are seeking to look to create the sharp salient effect on the circle and then round out the salient>. As noted earlier we adults are in a balancing act role of encouraging and managing inevitable discouragement <because of the never ending aspect of curiosity>.

We need to think about this. Really think about this.

While it is a fascinating thought process that if we do not take time to think about we are likely to mismanage.

In the end?

We need to recognize that our smallest actions can make a big impact. And that is a responsibility.

Regardless.

Do I believe there should be tools, techniques and specific tactics to take advantage of this “boundary of ignorance” and guide ongoing learning? Shit. I don’t know. I am not an education expert.

I am sure someone can come up with some voodoo technique that gets people to enhance their knowledge base. For me the success lies within the understanding of the process. For when people understand these diagrams and this thought process I believe we are on our way to success. For, as I noted with the first diagram, the issue sometimes comes down to discouragement/encouragement. In our current world people are very focused on “attaining a goal” and what this “boundary of ignorance” suggests is you can never attain the goal.

The cheese gets moved every time you get close to getting it. Maybe the trick is to make learning become visible so you recognize the next step is to further cluster more learning around something that interested you <and encouraging that gathering/clustering>. But. I am not sure how to do that.

So. Here is what I do know <or believe> from this:

–          School systems are built to create a rounded foundational learning and accumulate enough knowledge to “attack” ignorance as you get older.

That is good. And it probably pays for parents and influential people in kid’s lives to understand this. And encourage kids because there is a high risk they will sometimes get frustrated with the basics and want more.

–          In general … learning is discouraging <that is a big thought we need to wrap our heads around>.

Until maybe you attain Albert Einstein status on quantum physics you can never reach your goal. Or maybe better said you are always reaching for something and finding out there is something more to reach for. In people’s formative thinking/learning years it is helpful to remember this.

–          Personal understanding is important.

I recognized pretty early on my learning challenge. Each book contained a thought that could drive my newest “thinking” or point of view. I discovered a way to deal with it.

Do I still fall into the “tunnel vision learning” trap? Sure. Who doesn’t fall in love with a well articulated logical idea on occasion? Am I trapped for long? Nope. I know now to seek out additional learning on thoughts to round off the spikes.

–          Single topic pushing out versus multiple topics pushing out.

There is no formula. I know for a fact my own parents were scared shitless that when I picked up a science fiction book, and then another, and then another, that all I was going to read and learn about was that. But then I would find something else and then that would be my new eternal focus. Ok. Eternal until the next interesting factoid smacked me in the head.

Other people push out on multiple topics at the same time. The only thing I know for sure? Encouragement.

I don’t like the way my own parents encouraged my curiosity <it was a negative approach … “you shouldn’t just read about this .. you know there are other interesting things in the world”> … but, regardless, the intent was good.

Go get more.

More is good.

Okay. Maybe that’s the bottom line to this thought.

More is good.

More learning begets more enlightened ignorance. Question everything. Even your own knowledge.

So. In this case, oddly enough, maybe I am suggesting ignorance is good. Good in that the more you don’t know makes you want to know more. Ok. Maybe it’s the more you know makes you want to know more.

Anyway. In the end … despite the fact I abhor ignorance & fight ignorance everyday from my little corner of the world … after writing this … well … maybe I should say “Up with ignorance!” because it fosters more learning. Go figure.

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

“Life is a test of endurance, strengths, challenges and patience.”

–

Kim Hoth

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

“We are many, many people and yet we are one. What we do today with our thinking, what we do tomorrow with our thoughts, what we do with our actions and our interactions with people determines the course of the universe itself.

You are not powerless. You are not without power.” 

 –

Little Crow

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

Well. I have written several times about how businesses fear doing what it truly takes to survive <for some good reasons & some bad reasons>. I was reminded of this because I just saw an article that said “GE is broken. Fixing it will be long & difficult.”

My 1^st thought?

They will fail to fix it just like Kodak failed to fix itself and … well … there is a long list of companies faced with ‘broken’ and failed to fix itself.

Oddly enough the reason is simple.

They weren’t willing to make the hard choices and were not willing to do what needed to be done.

== 

“Stop discussing how serious the problem is, and get serious about finding an immediate solution to it.”

Terry Mark

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

This permits me to share my favorite business lesson. One from September 14^th 1812. The beginning of the lesson? On September 14^th 1812, the Russians set fire to Moscow in the face of Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops.

Yup. The governor of Moscow herded out most of the Moscow residents and then burned almost 80% of the city.

Just as a reminder to all non-historians this began the demise of Napoleon’s reign. This action not only permitted Russia to defeat Napoleon by forcing a debilitating retreat back to France, but it also began the demise of the Grand Armee of France. The point of this is, well, how far would you go to solve your business problem?

What happened on this date should make us all think about what we in the business world would sacrifice to win.

Look.

Do you imagine there was consensus in this Moscow discussion & decision? <hell no>

In fact. Can you imagine the first person who stood up and said “hey, I have an idea, how about we purposely burn Moscow so they can’t have it?”

<of course all said in Russian, probably after several liters of vodka, to the Czar and probably a couple of Cossack bodyguards … who have some very sharp swords>

Someone had some guts – lots of guts. I hesitate to believe many people in today’s business world have that type of guts.

The tough decisions are … well … tough. Hard choices are … well … hard. And I can guarantee they seem to get even tougher & harder when your survival is at stake.

—————

So would you be willing to burn your burn your business to win in the face of overwhelming odds?

——————

Far too often we try to keep our options open. Straddle the fence as it were. Keep some of what we value in place and do “radical” shit with other parts. 90% of the time that is simply mental masturbation. 90% of the time that is simply suggesting your Frankenstein strategy will help you survive … when what you actually need is a “6 million Dollar Man” strategy.

Sometimes you have to kill the structure to rebuild something better from the ashes.

I say all this because I believe more businesses, whether they believe their survival is at stake or not, should be sitting down and having the hard discussion … what ARE you willing to do to win?

Heck. Maybe most importantly. When you look at your situation do you even recognize how desperate your situation is?

<remember … someone in Russia recognized, and had the balls to say something about, the fact they were about to get their ass kicked>

I mention that because the business landscape is strewn with the wreckage of businesses that did not envision their own demise.

Next. Think about ‘burning the city’ as a solution.

I believe we can all agree that someone “stepped out of the box” with a solution. Ok. They actually stepped ‘into the box’ and said “let’s destroy the box.’

And let’s be clear. I have to imagine neither of these points, as stated above, were popular, well-received nor accepted as a 100% agreement “so what we will do” type of moment.

Anyway. Survival or not, one of the most difficult things a company can do is address their situation in the market. It is just not a fun discussion <usually lots of fingers get pointed in a variation of a circular firing squad>.

In general I believe most companies and businesses are pretty good at assessing their situation in the marketplace. I, for one, have been in a number of those types of meetings where everyone sits down and honestly assesses the difficult position they are in. In other words, you can see the hole you are in or heading into.

I also have been through too many meetings where that same business just isn’t willing to do what it takes to resolve the situation.

Hey. I am not suggesting this is an easy discussion <but at least we don’t have Cossacks with really sharp swords standing around us while we are discussing what to do>.

So.

Are you willing to put 80% of everything you have up in flames to win? I guess it depends on whether you believe the situation merits it. And that is a toughie for sure because we are certainly a country and group of optimists and in general we always believe there is a positive horizon. All that means is we tend to lean back in our expensive chairs in some expensive board room and think, well, c’mon … if you believe there is some positive horizon then burning ‘the city’ isn’t necessary.

But. What if it is necessary? Would you recognize it? Would someone in your group recognize it?

Oh. And if someone did would you listen?

Look. I don’t have the answers. And I am clearly a “burning the city” type of person. I am quite fine with destroying to create <not just destroying for the sake of destroying>.

You may not agree with me, but I would point out burning Moscow sure as shit helped guarantee the survival of Russia.

In the end?

Keep your eyes open. And keep your mind open to solutions. Most of the time we see the danger but, in our optimism, seek creative ways to navigate the danger all the while ignoring the fact danger has no finesse and is a sledgehammer. Ponder. Sometimes the extreme solution, while scary, is the right solution.

========

“The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.”

—

Lee Iacocca

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

“I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.”

—–

Henry David Thoreau

==========

Ok.

Let’s get the harsh truth out upfront. I am a 50something and I believe the older generation, mostly old white men, hollowed out business to the shithole point we face today.

That said.

Let me spend a minute on old white men <and I have the right to do so … because I am one> to explain why I believe this.

While a generalization, because there are exceptions, old white men have hollowed out the business world in their quest for “winning at any cost” and “maximize win-to-cash <making $>” ratio. These men have guided business to a level of so-called “greatness” through a variety of ‘great’ business acumen thoughts & business culture attitudes which were hollow attitudes and, ultimately, created fantastic looking hollow achievements.

In doing so they successfully hollowed out business.

Now.

The other aggravating thing I am doing today is, while I could write this without making this point, everyone should note that Trump is the poster child of this hollowness <and I will aggravatingly point it out over and over again>.

He has been the guiding light into this dark world of money grubbers with questionable moral compasses. You want some specifics? Here you go. This is how they have hollowed out business:

Capitalism

Capitalism is not inherently bad. In fact … it is an incredible engine for growth, innovation and increased wealth & standard of living for any and all.

But old white men hollowed capitalism. They took out all the good and added all the greed. I could partially defend old white men and suggest that they were simply participants in the arc of business history … but I will not. Peter Drucker pointed out the beginning of the arc in 1989 <as I noted in Salvation by Society> and we old white men could have eyed the arc and … well … stopped it. Instead old white men viewed the arc as an opportunity to not be burdened by morality & soul rather an opportunity to build personal wealth.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Branding

Brands are fabulous creatures and not inherently bad. They offer us every day schmucks a nice heuristic way to make decisions and isolate differentiation in which we can make true choices.

But old white men hollowed brands. The easiest way to point this out is that we stopped talking about brands and started talking about branding. Old white men started looking at brands as vehicles of wealth and not vehicles of differentiation. Brands should evolve and not be constructed or built like some building of cold steel and cheap Styrofoam ceiling tiles. The whole concept of ‘building a brand’ is one of the most insidious concepts to infiltrate good and meaningful marketing and communications.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Profit.

Profit is not inherently bad. Used wisely it contributes not only to personal, or individual wealth, but spurs on business growth in terms of innovation and employee development AND social involvement. But old white men hollowed the soul out of each dollar as they squeezed every cent of profit it of it. Profit is good only if it is not tainted by <a> greed and <b> at the expense of giving back <in terms of true societal salvation type things>. Businesses represent an important weave in the fabric of society and the moment a business ignores that weave and focuses solely on the profits of the entity itself … well … the opportunity arises to let the soul of each dollar made bleed out into the ether. And, yes, dollars can have a soul. Making money shouldn’t feed stock holders it should feed society.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Wealth dispersion

Making money and creating wealth is inherently a double positive: proof of the value for your efforts and increased standard of living <not just in materialistic comforts but in real living>.

Old white men hollowed out the middle. This is more a byproduct of their business acumen more than anything else because I cannot really point out any specific behavior they consciously took to do this … but … suffice it to say that more went to the old white men and less to the ones who actually made the money for them.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Communication.

Effective communication has been, and always will be, complex and complicated. But effective communication inevitably feeds into the minds and enlightenment of the listeners. If you dumb down communication inevitably you dumb down the listeners.

Old white men hollowed out communication. I imagine as they hollowed out everything else they found it inherently more productive to gain their objectives by hollowing out communication. Everything became soundbites, powerpoint bullet points and ‘elevator speeches.’ Effectively communicating complexity took on less importance than puncturing the mind with a quick sharp stab <and then walking away>. Old white men mastered the art of emptying communication to a point where businesses end up walking on the slippery surface of irrelevance <cloaked in a beautiful robe called “what is important for you to know.”>

That is Trump in a nutshell.

ROI.

ROI <return on investment> is a fabulous tool. It offers us every day unimaginative pragmatic schmucks an almost heuristic way to judge some fairly complex and complicated things in business.

But old white men hollowed ROI of anything intangible and along the way scraped away some of the most meaningful things associated with investment in their desire for simplistic “this led to that.” Certainly some investments have linear outcomes and results. But not all. And these hollow men in their black & white pursuit of profit, efficiency and outcomes became color blind.  Old white men started looking at people as equal to numbers & dollars and not organic organisms of less than linear productivity <in terms of Life actualization as well as business actualization>. These hollow men fell in love with numbers and began diminishing the value of humanity.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Racism

Racism in the workplace is a stealthy virus invading the organism in ways that can create an unhealthy organism which sometimes seems to never attain its full potential despite producing results.

Old white men enable this virus to exist by hollowing out the meaning in any racism discussion, and real substantive actions, in business.

These old white men rose through the ranks of business surrounded by other white people, & few minorities, simply believing it was so because it was a reflection of those “who deserved to be here” (assuming everyone COULD be here if they worked hard enough). When in leadership positions & told about racism issues they didn’t really believe it, reluctantly doing things they were told they should do all the while thinking “it’s just political correctness”. The times old white men got trapped in diversity meetings & told 5 things they did & said that were racist in their heads they said “they can’t handle truth, they are too sensitive.” What this all led to was hollow efforts at addressing racism. They grudgingly implemented some initiatives, while publically espousing their enlightenment, but privately thinking it was a waste of time, energy & monies. All the while they believed white people never got any more breaks than anyone else or that there was never any inherent ‘privileges’ bestowed upon white skinned people.

What the business world ended up with was a generation of old white men who are the worst of racists – racists convinced they are not racist. Ultimately, any substantive efforts to address racism in business were hollowed out by old white men who didn’t really believe in them.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

Lastly.

Behavior.

I hesitated to call this “the hollowing out of morality” mostly because that sounded a little harsh and I tend to believe the reality within this particular hollowness is more pragmatic. That said … it doesn’t make it any better just that I didn’t really want to get into a morality & ethical finger pointing game.

Behavior

Leadership is a complex mix of personal, professional and pragmatic. When wielded well it is a beautiful tapestry of effectiveness, however, beauty is often in the eyes of the beholder when actual effectiveness becomes

the measuring stick. As a reminder, old white men leadership grew up in a business of dictatorship leadership behavior or, at its best, benevolent dictatorship.

Old white men grew up in the hallowed halls of hollowed leadership management. This means that their ‘management twitch muscles’ inevitably provide reflexive business decision making based on this.

The easiest way to point this out is that businesses have developed a myriad of cultural initiatives and, yet, old white men leadership tends to simply treat them as “feel good politically correct” initiatives. They view them as “society dictated” thinking and not “business dictated” thinking. Therefore, a hollowness was inherent in the organization between how the old white men leaders attitudinally approached the business, how they viewed behavior and how the organization actually behaved.

Old white men began talking longingly of straight talk, when people knew their place in business and ‘carrot & sticks.’  Old white men started looking at businesses in disdain as vehicles of political correctness and not stark effectiveness. The truth is that many of the old white men simply didn’t buy in to a better way of doing business and, therefore, when put in a corner & challenged revert back to the hollow management style of “do what I tell you to do and shut up.”

To be fair, old white men did not create this hollowness … they simply propagated it.

That is Trump in a nutshell.

All that said.

These old white men, in their heart of hearts, inherently do not care about a ‘better America’ from a soul perspective nor do they care about any aspect of ‘being a better person’ but solely attach ‘better’ with wealth, importance and wins.

I get angry.

I get angry because I do not believe ‘hollowness’ is the path to greatness. It certainly has not helped us reach greatness up to this point.

And I am angry because I have believed this, and known this, for decades.

And I am even angrier because we are now led by a hollow someone with a hollow platform, hollow plans, hollow skills, hollow dignity, hollow composure and no soul <that I can see>.

Look.

This can be solved. And it can be solved by … well … old guys like me.

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

“At any other time it’s better.

You can do the things you feel you should; you’re an expert at going through the motions. Your handshakes with strangers are firm and your gaze never wavers; you think of steel and diamonds when you stare. In monotone you repeat the legendary words of long-dead lovers to those you claim to love; you take them into bed with you, and you mimic the rhythmic motions you’ve read of in manuals. When protocol demands it you dutifully drop to your knees and pray to a god who no longer exists. But in this hour you must admit to yourself that this is not enough, that you are not good enough. And when you knock your fist against your chest you hear a hollow ringing echo, and all your thoughts are accompanied by the ticks of clockwork spinning behind your eyes, and everything you eat and drink has the aftertaste of rust.”

―

Dexter Palmer

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

Old white men created the problems and … well … as so well said in the movie The Return of the Pink Panther … “you set a thief to catch a thief.”

Older people can reverse the problem in one fell swoop.

I could do it with a small merry band of contrarian older people (women & men) who have chafed in this hollow existence could bring some good healthy substance back into this wretched hollowness.

This is a unique time in history in which business, country and politics have intersected.

This is a unique time for older business people to right the wrongs of all they have wrought up to this point.

I certainly hope this happens, as an old white man myself, simply for the sake of redemption for all of us old white men.