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“I feel like I’ve swallowed a cloudy sky.”

=

Haruki Murakami

—-

Ok. I am a principles person. By that I mean I believe, and have found, that most business principles have a timeless quality to them. The majority of the best of the best principles offer solid fundamentals.

That said. I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a business meeting, often with very smart business people, and someone pulls out <verbally> some marketing, or any business process/idea/way-to-think from over a decade ago as if it represents a principle rather than a process <which is implementation OF a principle>.

As I sit there and listen, well, I feel like I have swallowed a cloudy sky.

<note: it feels a little uncomfortable>

It’s not that the old principle is wrong it has just been improved upon from an implementation aspect.

My whole issue in this situation is a version of unlearning.

Anyway. By a ‘version’ I imagine I am thinking it is maybe more unbundling and shedding some of the outdated features and learning some of the newer features rather than simply unlearning something.

I fully understand that most business people are under constant pressure to learn more and to learn quickly and to mostly focus on the shit that is most important to them. Therefore, they will also tend to absorb one of their ‘non expertise competencies’ in the most simple sensible fashion possible.

But here is the issue in today’s business world.

The future belongs to the people who can unlearn stuff faster than the rest WHILE leaning into the timeless principles.

In other words. The ability to apply principles in new contexts.

I know I didn’t say ‘adapt’ or anything except ‘unlearn shit.’ I did that because it is almost impossible to learn something new until you have created some mental space by letting go of something else.

** note: it is a skill to know what to let go and what to hold on to.

So I am suggesting you cannot do that <adapt> unless you learn how to do this <unlearn>. You either learn to unlearn quicker, on everything that reflects context, not just your core competency or … well … you will either be too slow <because that one part is like dragging algae on the bottom of a sailboat> or you will fail <because even that one part can blow up the entire engine>.

I know.

I know.

What I am suggesting is hard.

REALLY hard.

Because, as I noted earlier, discerning between principles and implementation of principles is often difficult to discern let alone explain in combination with the fact this will sometimes means letting go of something that has worked really well for you for a long time.

Now. To be clear.

I do not think that just because something is an ‘older idea’ that it is not usable. In fact I believe we have shed more good thinking under the guise of some bullshit ‘pop business culture’ soundbite type thinking than is good for us. But there are aspects of old thinking & ideas that can be updated.

I don’t suggest this simply or flippantly. I do so because I see the value of new thinking, but from a more practical aspect – the business world has changed in some dynamics that should make us not simply reapply a slightly tired business thinking ideas.

Once again. This is all hard. Really hard. It gets harder because the business world is demanding us to ‘think new faster.’ Most simply this has created the perception business life has become even more fragile than ever before which increases the stress upon us to do things faster (which encourages is to reapply past ideas & thinking that may have worked).

The perception is buttressed up by some contectual facts. A Yale professor noted the average lifespan of a company listed in the S&P 500 index of leading US companies has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century. <67 years in 1920s to 15 years today>. I’d also not in 2020 around ¾ of the S&P 500 are companies that either did not exist in 2010 or were below the awareness radar.

So how do principles stand the test of time. Well. Relevance is the name of the game. Which means context matters and adaptability addresses the most basic business truth that much of what used to work will not work now and what works today will most likely not work in the near future.

Old business models and old business thinking has been shaken to the core which has two obvisous consequences:

fundamental principles are mistakenly tossed away as outdoated (a mistake)

new (loudly spoken) ideas are confused with real principled thinking (a mistake)

This is not just because of ‘old people.’ This is thinking survival. You store away thoughts in your head and prioritize what you just use, and reuse, and what you unlearn and what you learn anew.

Look. I know I still hear people quote ‘good to great’ tripe <when I wish more people would pull out Covey’s ‘Habits of’ instead> so I know we get confused on what to hold on to and what to let go of.

I know I was just in a meeting where an incredibly smart person discussed the traditional purchase funnel <see image to left> and he was kind enough to chuckle when I pointed out that model type thinking had solid aspects, but there were significantly newer models which reflect the dynamics of today’s word better.

I guess I need to remind myself a couple things:

1. 1. I live, eat & breathe new thinking and new ways of doing things.
   2. Most people do not.

This doesn’t mean I am better than anyone, it is just that I am always seeking the ‘right way to think in a particular situation’ rather than ‘best practice for all.’ And I am involved with such a wide variety of industries and business and business people that ‘one way does not fit all’ and context, or contextually applying principled thinking, can often make a principle look not like a principle, but rather look like a new idea.

Today’s business world is all about living in a non-stagnant world. Business has always been restless … it just seems more restless.

Stay still and get run over.

Something you learned in the past, which is logical & makes sense, seems counterintuitive to ‘unlearn’

Or as John Maynard Keynes said:

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping the old ones”

We are all creatures of habit and custom ingrained by decades of repetition.

In addition. Smart people have a tendency to hold on to sensible smart ideas.

Escaping old ideas is hard.

REALLY hard <especially if they were good>. And sometimes seems counterintuitive to let go because “I found something that works and I want to maintain it as long as I can.’

Sounds smart.

Sounds sensible.

Uhm. Now hear the sound of your business getting crushed.

All that said.

What made me start writing this post?

An old friend of mine wrote the following words on his linkedin site and I liked them <albeit I did find a typo … to his chagrin>. It is about branding and advertising … but the concept behind the words ring true thru any business category:

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I want to encourage our industry to evolve beyond the tired branding principles that haven’t changed since Oglivy made his bones over 30-years ago.

If you find yourself baffled by double-speak and special language that only brand experts seem to understand, trust your instincts and find a firm who is fast and whose counsel makes rational sense.

A client told me about his experience with one of the agencies in his stable:

“… it’s like talking to the Mandarins that keep all commoners from the Forbidden Palace … I don’t speak their language … the process takes too long … and I have other things to do ….”

Getting to the Forbidden Palace of Brand shouldn’t take three months and war chest of fees that would be better off in working media.

This, I know, will upset an industry cobbled together on pre-recession consulting contracts just to come up with a snappy line, color palette, and logo.

If you find yourself sitting in yet another meeting where somebody poses the question: “But who are we really, and who do we want to be when we grow up?”

Run.

You can shape your brand in less than four weeks. You and your company knows who they are and your consumers know who you are. The faster you come to leverage points and missed opportunities, the faster your retail or sales organization can get back to doing what they do best — SELLING.

You need to unleash a burlap sack of caffeinated ferrets into your marketing world to get things done, excite your organization, and make sales happen.

That’s where I come in … head caffeinated ferret at your service.

Mandarins need not apply.

===

Look. I know it is difficult to stay in touch with the newest best thinking. I also know it is difficult to stay in touch with the principles. I even know it is difficult to discern what is good new thinking and what is shitty useless new thinking.

But.

Tired business thinking is tired business thinking.

Sorry.

But it is what it is.

Thinking with fresh legs will pass tired thinking any day.

All I know is that, personally, every time I hear someone speak tired business thinking I feel like I have swallowed a cloudy sky – its pretty but useless. I do believe the business world does need to reenege with some of the timeless principles but at the same time i believe the business world need to reinvigorate those principles within a contextually dynamic world.

Maybe I am also suggesting we need to begin teaching some classes on the differences between principles and ideas. Ponder.

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Portuguese:

saudade

… a longing for something so indefinite as to be indefinable.   Love affairs, miseries of life, the way things were, people already dead, those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land – all things born of the soul that can only be felt. 

==

Anthony De Sa

———–

“He marveled at the indifference of the world, the way it kept on, despite everything.”

==

Anthony Doerr

————-

Ok. I am fairly sure everyone desires the greater intangible things in life: the things, or thing, you just cannot put words to but you know is out there and you will “know it when you see it or feel it”. Unfortunately, well, the intangible also tends to be elusive.

It is also very very difficult to clearly define or put words to it <hence many people choose to focus on some specific milestone or objective>. I would suggest the intangible is elusive because the world is indifferent to our desires. What do I mean? The world is relatively uninterested in offering the intangible in tangible form. The world simply tends to fork over tangible crap to us and it is up to us to peel it all back and bask in the intangible good stuff found within.

But that takes time and is more difficult.

Therefore. We tend to seek tangibles.

And more tangibles.

And then more tangibles.

This means that we are almost destined, despite that in our soul we deeply long for something indefinable, to settle for tangible proof that we are showing some progress.

I do not really care what the proof is … just that we settle for it.

What Is Elusive? The definition of “elusive” is:

elusive: evasive, slippery, difficult to find, catch or achieve

Speaking of desiring proof – that is why we often create deadlines. Deadlines are powerful things as we face our longing for the indefinite <and the definite>. More often than not we use the deadline to insure we do not waste too much time on something we are not sure can be easily defined. But think about what a deadline really is.

Today the term is now used, mostly, to refer to “the time by which something must be completed.” In the historical sense a deadline refers to the boundary around a prison which, if prisoners crossed it, they’d be shot by the guards. Wow. Okay. So while deadlines are everywhere in the business world and we no longer get shot it does seem like we just get shit when we cross a deadline.

Now. Psychologists have done a boatload of research on the effect of deadlines on people. Invariably the majority of people actually improve performance as a deadline nears. They explain this by something called “the Yerkes-Dodson law.” This law suggests performance increases as arousal <excitement, stress, tension, nervousness> increases. Well. At least up to a point from which performance declines as the person, and senses, are overwhelmed.

Basically this suggests we become more aware of consequences of failing to complete what we want to do as time slips away and act upon that awareness <with some focus because the consequences of not meeting the deadline while may not include being shot certainly includes a load of shit>.

In addition. Deadlines tend to eliminate procrastination mostly because we dislike the unpleasant feeling of consequences of not meeting a deadline.

Note: Stick with me because this all has to do with our longing for something indefinite.

Ok. Now comes the next horrible thing that happens as we pursue what we truly long for. We have a deadline in our heads and we encounter something called the planning fallacy. We suck, extraordinarily so, at estimating how much time to allocate for things because our brains, in general, are quite overly optimistic with regard to our own capabilities. Therefore we underestimate time. In addition we do this because our brains have a nasty habit of looking back on past poor time allocation and failed deadlines and blame external causes <and yet the next time the thought will be that this time we will be unencumbered therefore meet our deadline successfully>.

All of this circles back to that ‘arousal’ consequence, which we hate, as it rears its ugly head one more time as our optimistic assumptions crash into the actual reality of the situation. I bring it back to ‘arousal’ because all that painful consequence stuff occurs WHEN YOU ARE PURSUING A TANGIBLE GOAL.

The waters get even murkier if you are setting some deadline on how much time you want to spend on pursuing this elusive indefinite thing. But. We are truly optimistic folk. Well. At least some of us are. What one person thinks of as elusive and indefinite another sees hope and opportunity. And depending on where you are in Life your feeling can change. The one consistent steady thing is that at all times there is a longing for something more, some longing for something so indefinite as to be undefinable.

So what can we do? We have to take responsibility for our lives and choices and this indefinite thing. We cannot subvert the longing and suffocate it with the tangible.

To be clear <part 1>. The longing should not dictate our lives and behavior, but it also should not play a role in our lives and actions.

To be clear <part 2>. That isn’t easy. Life can throw a bunch of curve balls and … well … some high hard fastballs. The biggest fastball Life throws at you is what I call “Life comparison shopping.” You shop your life against other lives.

In the good ole days it was called “keeping up with the Joneses” <using one’s neighbors as a standard of comparison for the consumption of material goods>. This sounds silly, but we are human, and it is hard not to notice when your neighbor buys something. But they are not the only standard of comparison. Television shows, magazines, websites, and pretty much anywhere you consume information inundates us with stories about what other people have, wear and do.

Yes. While we know we shouldn’t care mostly because, while we may not articulate it this way, we know conspicuous consumption is ubiquitous.

But.

Tangible proof is, well, tangible proof.

The tendency to compare yourself to to other people is fundamental and is going to occur whether or not we intend it. And, yes, in some cases, social comparison is useful. In the absence of objective standards of success, social comparison  helps us to evaluate and improve ourselves. And yet, at the same time,  sometimes social comparison suggests you are inferior in some aspect <wealth, intelligence, appearance, etc.> which can create some feelings of envy or ‘lesser than.’ Okay. This is where the tangible proof path absolutely frickin’ kills us on this pursuit of something undefinable.

“Lesser than” feelings erode the belief you can ever attain what you long for <I mean your head says “c’mon … if you cannot even be good enough to do that how can you be good enough to attain something you cannot even define .. all you can do is just discuss as something you ‘long for’?”>.

Then we remain on the middle path too long. We start missing out on the dreams. We shelve the longing and inevitably that which is undefinable remains undefined and that which we long for simply becomes an immature pursuit for only those who are dreamers. You justify this decision, and personal behavior, as you walk the middle path by always thinking that eventually you will get around to pursuing this longing … and eventually reach this undefinable thing that will makes you happy.

And then time is gone. And the longing, which is easily dismissed as “shit, I couldn’t even define it anyway”, is still there but the opportunity is gone.

Look. Pursuing something so indefinite as to be indefinable is tough. It is not for the faint of heart. To do so you need to accept that while some results are very tangible others are less so. The secret is to get your head straight from the outset on how ‘performance’ is to be measured then build in the means for measuring activity. I say that because I think the measurement is much more important than setting a deadline.

I mean, well, how can you set a deadline on something you cannot even define? <someone smarter than I would have to figure that out>.

In the end I use this quote:

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“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.”

Jimmy Reid

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Part of being a human being is this inherent longing for “something.” Maybe it is captured in that one word:  saudade.

“all things born of the soul that can only be felt.”

I am not suggesting we shouldn’t do the day to day stuff that needs to be done nor am I suggesting that deadlines aren’t quite useful for some day to day shit, but I am suggesting that stuff shouldn’t be done at the sacrifice of our longing for “all things born of the soul that can only be felt.”

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“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.”

(The best laid schemes of mice and men / Often go awry.)

“The poem denotes the narrator of the poem is plowing his field when he cuts through a mouse nest. The poet shows regret and apologizes to the mouse before he goes on a tangent which reveals the deeper meaning of the poem. The connotation is that even when you mean no harm and have pure intentions, you can destroy somebody else’s well laid plans.”

Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”

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“You’re little but you’re big.”

Pretty Little Liars

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Ok. We are mice <hence the phrase ‘rat race’>. We may like to think of ourselves as the ones plowing the field but, alas, we are simply mice in the field.

What do I mean by that?

More often than not, most of us usually have no, or very little, control over our lot in Life.

More often than not, most of us are little people doing little things in the big scheme of everything that is happening.

More often than not, most big things that go awry were little things when viewing in the rear view mirror. In other words. We do little things all the frickin’ time that ultimately have a bigger impact than we could ever imagine assuming we were even paying attention to the little thing we did.

And, yet, despite  all of that  we are planning creatures.

We plan our weekends, vacations, and lives. We plan little, medium and big things.

Some of us plan every detail and polish each detail to perfection. Some of us decide on a plan that involves not having any plan. At either end of that spectrum we are planning our time so that we can get the most out of it.

On weekends we plan our time that we might do what we want to do and get done what must get done.

On vacation we plan to see new things and we actually plan relaxation <which seems kind of crazy>.

On life we plan where we will be in five years what our career path should be and what we plan our personal live to look like.

Shit. We even plan our spontaneity.

Suffice it to say.

What you are planning to do with your life may be one of the biggest things in your life. Okay. Maybe not but it is certainly one of the most discussed things in your life.

And for young people?

Yikes.

Everyone really wants to know what your plan is. What do you want to do with your life <and all the steps in your plan leading up to whatever that ‘do’ is>? These are all big questions and it sounds quite nice to have big answers and a nice big neat plan.

Well. The unfortunate Life truth is that for all of our planning nothing is more certain than the fact that something will go wrong and ‘the plan’ is no longer a viable plan.

Even worse? More often than not some little unplanned thing occurs and whole big plan goes awry.

The main issue in big plans and big planning is the fact that little things are ever changing. And, worse, they are changing all the while oblivious to the neat orderly plan you had in place.

Now. Even with all this change I imagine you have a choice — plow through the change with an unchanging plan or let your neat plan take on some less neat fluidity.

Which begs the question, if big plans cannot be solid because of all the little things changing … then what use is a plan?

Well. Plans and planning do matter.

And big plans, done well, do matter.

And “done well” can be defined as things change so does the plan <that is if you do your big planning right>.
In fact as things change, well, other plans are formed. To be a good planner I guess you have to pay attention to how things are changing and then adapt the plan to fit the situation.

Boy. That sure does sound like a lot of work making a plan only to change it to another plan.

======

Murphy’s laws

• If anything can go wrong, it will

• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong

• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway

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Anyway. This is not an indictment against big plans and big planning.

In fact I would suggest that you know you are a big planner <as in one effective at creating Big plans> if all the little things that go wrong do not make your big plan go awry they simply make you adapt while maintaining progress toward the ultimate objectives.

In the end. Remember. Little things can make big plans go awry. Shit. Little things can make anything go awry. Unfortunately for most of us schmucks more often than not what we think is little is actually big and what we see as big is usually little. And maybe, just maybe, that is why 99% of plans go awry. Ponder that.

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Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be.

Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go.

Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

–

Cheryl Strayed

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“The whole is simpler than the sum of its parts.”

–

Willard Gibbs

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While attaining leadership positions is often a difficult weaving and winding path strewn with obstacles, losing your leadership role is pretty easy. It is easy because, well, while the compass to actually being successful leadership has a clear center line <uniting in a common cause> the path has to be wide enough to accommodate all the lanes necessary so that the organization can fit on the path <you cannot leave some behind and you cannot just take the “we few” along for the ride>.

Alignment in business is always a difficult thing.

Shit.

Alignment in any group environment is always a difficult thing.

Alignment is a multi lane highway, not just offering a center line, which needs to be continuously paved with a deepening trust and cooperation. But, suffice it to say, nothing kills trust & cooperation faster than lack of trust in competency. In other words “not knowing your shit.” Words need to meet actions, actions need to meet decisions and decisions need to meet the greater needs & wants of the whole not just the parts.

All leaders, all of us, have made promises as we assumed responsibility. Some were hard promises and some were hopeful promises. As we shifted into leadership maturity we learned, often the hard way, how to shade the promises properly. What I mean by that is while in our minds something was a hopeful promise, in our employee’s ears it was a real promise <albeit … the savvier ones were skeptical>.

Ah,skeptical. I will suggest the ‘skepticals’ are the most important employees in an organization in terms of “mutual progress” and the ultimate success objective. Skepticals are the ‘swing employees’, i.e., the ones who held your organization together or tore it apart.

The skepticals listened to how the hopeful promises were shared. The skepticals discerned whether you … well … “knew your shit.” This is more the attitudinal part.

The skeptical also view with an eye toward  another aspect. What you actually do, or did as things proceed, with your hopeful promise. This is the functional part.

While any business leader worth half a shit only offers ‘hopeful promises’ which contain at least a glimmer of possibility those words then have to shift into “what we are gonna do to attempt to make that glimmer a reality.”

Oh. Yeah. This is the plans, the what we are gonna do, that kind of pragmatic practical shit.

This is where skepticals really own your ass.

They are the careful readers of promises who sit back and ask themselves whether they want to believe such a thing badly enough to overlook its improbability. They are the ones who can actually drive the organization through improbability towards probability.

Yeah. Even more so than the delusional rabid believers. Why? Because the ‘believers’ are far too often blind to the real obstacles and wildly bludgeon their way toward some objective no matter how improbable the objective. Believers have a nasty tendency to create carnage.

It is the Skepticals who create a path which is sustainable.

Skepticals are always, well, skeptical of the ‘new thoughts’ you share with them and relentlessly compare it against not only what they know but also against whatever other information is out there <they are the ones who maddeningly demand “have you done this before and where”>. Skepticals are always, well, skeptical enough they focus on what I believe the Intelligence Community calls ‘expectability.’

Skepticals understand that when promises are made there is a significant difference between ‘it might be true’ versus  ‘you can’t prove it’s not true.’ They are quite good at recognizing when you are misleading versus when you are honestly trying to get the organization somewhere … even if it does seem slightly improbable.

Look. No one can be sure of anything 100%. And an organization is never 100% aligned when a new leader steps up to assume the responsibility. Therefore you, everyone, assigns a rating to information. And an organization with a strong skeptical segment most typically turns to these skepticals, not the believers, for some guidance on how to rate the leaders words & promises. Outside of the rabid few, an organization is usually not willing to run right out of the gate with a new leader <and we who have led know that>.

You assume as you step to the front of the room that the Skepticals look at you with an uneasy sense you are simply playing your role and not really worthy of the role. They seek to get behind what they, skeptically, view as the mask of who you are and what you offer.

You learn quickly that you, and consequently the organization, are doomed out of the gate if they end up frustrated. Frustrated either that they cannot discern what is behind the mask or frustrated that what they can see looks less than what is needed to deliver upon the promises made or frustrated by what they view as “making shit up” versus “knowing your shit.”

I know everyone knows this, but a leader can get fired for any number of reasons. The ones most overlooked are:

• Failure to convert skepticals <attitudinally>
• Failure to convert skepticals <functionally>

Converting Skepticals is always the key to organizationally unity <sorry, no, it is not breeding excitement among the fewer believers nor is it attempting to placate the non-believers>.

I say that to make another point.

Skepticals reside in the promised land for a leader. One foot in hopeful promise and one foot in practical promise. Most good leaders recognize that there is a significant difference between war against the status quo and war against stagnancy. Status quo, most typically, has aspects of shit that keeps the trains running. In other words, not all status quo is bad and throwing out the baby with the bath water is never good.

And, therefore, you learn very very quickly as a leader you just cannot lie and that hyperbole kills you with Skepticals. You realize it is dangerous, to the organizational success and your own success, to embrace any kind of absurd unblinking willingness to look your people in the eye and flat out lie to them. You just cannot do shit like say “things are going great … just the way they planned” when to the skeptical, and possibly the organization as a whole, it sure appears like “there is a lot going wrong.”

This believability gap can very quickly shift from a simple hiccup on the path or crack in the alignment plan to a crevasse of dysfunction. Regardless. None of that suggests alignment or unity. It all undercuts competency and creates concerns with regard to capabilities, planning and implementation … all of which are the foundation on which any leader stands upon <even more so than vision and hope>.

Discrepancies force people to choose between what they hear and what they see and what they actually know in their own experience.

A leader can only create an upside down world for so long before the skepticals decide to make it right again – whether the leader wants it to be that way or not.

In the end?

Ignore the Skepticals at your own peril. Any successful leader will tell you focusing on Believers will not only put your own career in danger … but it puts the organization, as a whole, at risk.

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

Why are we so full of restraint?

Why do we not give in all directions?

Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

————-

Henry Miller

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Wimp. Gutless. Chicken. Wuss. Mamby pamby. Spineless jellyfish.

Pick your word.

That is what business has become.

Yeah. I know. Harsh.

Go boldly is just not a phrase you hear often in business anymore.

Not even whispered.

Heck.

Not even kiddingly.

Instead we use words like ‘managing risk’ or ‘planned change’ or “restrained response is necessary” or “we need to follow the process” or … well … any other chicken shit scared-to-do-what-needs-to-be-done word or phrase.

Now. To be clear.

Everyone talks about being brave — “let’s be bold”. Yeah. Everyone sits in meetings and waves their hands enthusiastically or look around sternly making statements and actually talk about bold thinking and bold moves and, well, being bold. Attend any planning meeting or transition meeting or change meeting, in fact, pretty much any meeting in a business office and at some point someone will throw the ‘let’s be bold’ card out onto the table.

What happens next?

Everyone looks as Bold sits there on the table within the reach of anyone. Sitting there on a plate like everyone’s favorite donut .. all the while everyone looking at it is on a diet.

Oh, so tasty.

Oh, I can’t touch it.

This most typically happens in some snazzy meeting room and when someone starts talking about the direction of the business and change, but it also comes up when talking about some new initiative, some new ‘creative thinking’ or … well … anything that may appeal to younger employees or anyone who truly wants to do something good, or spectacular, on the business. 

Conceptually … the desire is there. So why is there no real bold behavior?

We are in a mamby pamby business world.

We are in a ‘let’s stick with the tried & true <safe> to maintain whatever growth we just celebrated in our last meeting” <which was most likely really crappy but justified by a verbal ‘better than the competition’> world. We are in a “let’s be edgy but don’t scare off any potential customers” <which those people most likely aren’t a viable revenue stream anyway> world.

Unfortunately for these spineless shits sitting around conference tables … reality in today’s business world is that we are actually in a “smart bold actions at the smartest time” <but … uhm ,.. apparently no one is smart enough – bold enough? – to identify the smart time>.

It sucks.

We are now living in a “rationalize minuscule change as bold actions’ business world. It is demoralizing as well as a less than effective business strategy.

All that said.

This lack of boldness strikes deepest during transitions and change. And I can logically explain why.

Change in business scares the shit out of any manager & leader.

Okay.

It scares the shit out of 99% of business people <mostly the older more experienced>.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … change sounds great, but in practice it is a shitload like chaos. You plan, but as soon as transition hits its full stride the plan is … well … no longer a plan.

Ok. It is the remnants of a plan.

This means many managers are left with scraps of a plan in their hands and this means that many managers are left to make their own decisions and left to their own devices. This also means that many managers find out they are gutless chicken shits.

Why do I say that?

In their minds ‘go boldly’ is defined by “implement the plan.” Boldly implement the plan to the nth degree.

Without a plan? The cold fear of the unknown and being unsure freezes boldness.

<sigh>

Wimps.

We have become a business world of wimps.

And this lack of a bold muscle can cost you in a variety of ways.

If you do not go boldly you will not only never find success, frankly, you will also ever find “you”, as in yourself, as in “what I am capable of.”

By the way … bold does not mean ‘stupid’. Bold simply means attempting to control your destiny – your personal one and your business one. And in doing so … well … you are letting the chips fall as they may by managing the chips as well as you can.

In Greek this is called Kairos. Kairos is the ability to adapt to and take advantage of changing circumstances.

The concept suggests you have an opportunity to manage what fate has in store for you … if you manage the circumstances as they arise.

And how does this relate to ‘be bold’?

Well. Kairos suggests that fate has a whole array of possibilities to shove your way – not just one in particular. Uhm. That means, if you buy that thought, depending on what you do and how you act and what you say … uhm … Fate just may end up offering you a possibility other than what it thought it was going to offer you a moment ago. This also suggests some boldness increases the odds in your favor with regard to fate. I personally do not think this is ‘fate favors the brave.’ I believe it is less about bravery and more about simply boldly acting upon what your experience suggests is the way to go as a way of managing your Fate.

I could argue that 90%+ of business people do not balk at the idea of ‘being bold’, but balk at actually being bold.

I could argue that the % may even go up higher during business transition <change> times.

Yeah. Even with a real challenge and the authority and space to operate “bold” is unfortunately very very low on the list of business behavioral attitudes.

What is high on the list?

“Restrained response” …

“Restrained behavior”

“Restrained risk.”

I have one word for you.

Wimps.

“Restrained” is for all the fucking wimps.

Look.

We need more smart bold non-wimps in today’s business world.

We need less chicken shit, scared to move, business managers and more bold managers who seek possibilities with a 360 degree view … without restraint … and the desire to do the right smart thing in any direction.

Lastly. Better than any whizbang cultural “happiness mojo” initiatives, being bold, embracing bravery within the business actions, will increase the energy of the organization, attract young people & increase overall productivity as well as engagement (which is the real prize in a business).

=========

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.

—-

Niels Bohr

——-

“The future is purchased by the present.”

—

Samuel Johnson

===========

“If the people in this room were right just 1 percent of the time, we’d all be telecommuting from Tahiti, eating dinner in pill form and having literal sex with our virtual selves.”

The Futurist (James Othmer)

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

Around the new year everyone gets into the prediction business. Basically, a shitload of people become “futurists.” Well. I wrote in 2011 the whole ‘futurist’ career was bullshit and suggested I could never be one. Let me begin by explaining where “Futurist” began.

The “Manifesto of Futurism,” written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was published on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro on February 20, 1909. It proclaimed the desire of the author, and his fellow Futurists, to abandon the past and embrace the future.

The point here on the whole concept of a “Futurist” is that their very existence is disdainful of the present.

Anyway.

Should we have an eye to the future? Absolutely. To not do so is to remain stagnant with regard to thinking.

Should we ignore the present? Absolutely not. If there was ever a time that a Futurist discussed the present, now would be the time.

Future thinking is purchased in the present. In other words, something existing within the present – most likely some type of behavior is the future opportunity. Saying that permits me to say that I believe Futurists, or the label/title, is kind of silly. Suffice it to say looking at trends and envisioning ‘what could be’ doesn’t need a title. And you certainly cannot earn a living doing it if you get paid for successful futuristic prognostication.

Why? Because the probability of being right is very very low. Pretty much every so called futurist <excepting maybe Toffler & Drucker … who never called themselves Futurists> has had an incredibly poor success rate in outlining future trends & behavior <and sometimes even attitudes>.

“The futurist was never cutting edge or far ahead of the curve. He was often only just a few minutes in front of the pack, or a couple seconds ahead of the global zeitgeist, or at least of the middle american one. It is rare, and a gift, to be able to see something was going to be big in a mainstream way months and sometimes years before your hipsters, your early adapters, your so called thought leaders embraced it.”

The Futurist

Moving beyond simply slamming futurists, in my mind I believe futurists shouldn’t predict they should inspire thinking <which could beget the future>. This kind of career activity is sort of like NASA, i.e., unintended innovations and learning.

The truth of a trend spotter or a ‘futurist’ is that they steal <reassemble> the thoughts of others and repurpose them for slightly different purposes under the guise of ‘recognizing disparate facts that impact the bigger picture.’ Once again, I do not begrudge them. That takes a skill (I highly recommend both Mike Walsh books, Dictionary of Dangerous Ideas & The Algorithmic Leader as he is what I envision a Futurist SHOULD do). Its just that many of the so-called Futurists take advantage of a world where it is acceptable to not to know the answers to the questions that the world asks every second of the day. It’s okay to not know what you want, where you want to go and who you want to become.

It’s okay to wonder.

It’s okay to question and ask.

And it is okay to not to know<although those listening then take it as gospel>.

And what’s not okay is to stop wondering. So the faux Futurist steps in and uses all of those to create answers (to unanswerable questions) and create a made up future world everyone can think about.

Ok. All that said.

Here is a truth <and Futurists clearly understand this>. The people they are talking to don’t really want wisdom. Those people just want shortcuts to getting more. Therefore if the message doesn’t match the ‘more’ desires ultimately it doesn’t engage the listeners because it doesn’t contain the inevitability of something positive.

It may sound cynical but nowadays a message needs a sense of some guarantee that prosperity will never end <that is a thought from the book>. And therein lies my biggest issue, the fact that trend watchers are seeking future prosperity versus discussing empowering present prosperity.

That “seek future vs. empower present” is the issue we should skewer 99% of so-called Futurist, predictors, over.

The truth is that the future is actually found in the now. Uhm. I mean that future ideas are actually found in the now. Note that this ‘now’ is not just in thinking, but in doing.

Thinking about what is happening now <attitudes>.

Thinking about what is being done today <behavior>.

Say what? How can it be futuristic if it is just a derivative of something in the present?

Well. To me real futuristic trending type thinking has to have a slightly pragmatic foundation residing somewhere in the minds of the rising generation. The real, the truly meaningful, behavior shifts occur not within a generation, but within transition of generations. Therefore any pie in the sky type thinking has to be made up of some pie that <simplistically> the kids of the present have an interest in eating of. For any future type ideation will live or die not with existing attitude generations but more so in evolving attitude generations.

To be clear. People’s attitudes do, and can, evolve as they age and experience things <and they are exposed to new and different attitudes and behavior>. But that isn’t futuristic thinking, that is simply critical mass thinking (I recommend Mark Earls “Herd” for this).

It’s a different ability. That is someone who can look at existing trends and attitudes … mostly looking at those that reside in fractions or in the minority of minds … and figuring out which ones will actually gain enough traction to attain the critical mass to ‘evolve’ the majority of attitudes.

I say that but also suggest that this is often a Sisyphean task.

Attitudes are imprints. They are almost like tattoos. Once established they are almost impossible to remove.

Think about how the past minority point of views have shifted to a majority more mainstream view acceptance and, yet, there still remains a solid steadfast unrelenting minority attitude system in place. Evolution of attitudes is like glaciers. And they also tend to follow generations … and not single generations. Early adopter generation transitioning to a vocal minority generation to a majority acceptance generation and ultimately a generation who not only has the attitudes but behavior is established.

Ok. Last thought on predictions.

Toffler co-wrote the 1970 book Future Shock and also Power Shift and also The Adaptive Corporation <all of which I have sourced so often it is embarrassing>. And while some of his writings were off base and some a little bit of a stretch, most of his writings were incredibly insightful and we are living much of what he outlined then – today. He predicted the rise of the internet, the impact of the internet on the workplace, how technology would affect sociological norms as well as labor needs and he even discussed the decline of the nuclear family.

In general, he foresaw the larger impact related to technological advancement.

And far too often we ignore what he wrote and had the foresight to point out. My point is far too often today’s experts and pontificators act like what is happening today is some seismic shift reflective of an earthquake happening before our eyes.

They are wrong.

What is happening today is the tsunami occurring on our shores from the earthquake which occurred under some deep ocean decades ago. And that is what Toffler outlined for us. And that is what I wish far more people would invest the energy researching to better understand why things are happening in the here & now (not just Toffler but the underlying attitudinal shifts).

As I write I can look up on the closest bookshelf and see my well worn copies of Future Shock and PowerShift. Toffler writing should be mandatory for anyone who wants to discuss current trends and current business issues. And you, and I, should demand that they do so. To not do so is to commit professional malpractice. At its least worst it reflects intellectual laziness to discuss what is happening today without the proper background.

Well. Paradoxically … future ideas are actually best found in looking backwards — at those who are coming up behind … the young. Futurists have to look forward, but seek truth in the young. Their predictions will never come true if there isn’t a pragmatic realistic foundation to be found within the youth. With no traction, the idea, shit, any future type idea will die.

As I type that it sounds so obvious, yet, it seems like futurists and trend identifiers seem to focus on today’s people and gaze at the horizon.

Shit. What do I know.

I am not a futurist. I am not a predictor. I like to live in the present & make sure I have a future to be doing something in. I also know that past behavior is NOT a predictor of future behavior. So what do I know? Predictions are shit.

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

“liberty, equality, fraternity.“

——-

 “liberty and justice for all.”

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

So. I just spoke with a good friend in France and we ended up discussing politics. Ok. Not politics, per se, but rather how politics is conducted and how the ones trying to get elected tell everyone not to be confused on the issues … then proceed to tell everyone shit that confuses the real issues <and us> … and then people who are, in general, confused about what the people they are voting for really stand on some issues as they duel each other with tactics <but smear each other with overarching lies>. 

That is par for the course in every election these days.

Someone can be called racist … and they are not.

Someone can be claimed to “let anyone across the border” and they have no plans to do that.

Someone can be called a liar … and they actually stretch the truth less than the one making the claim.

Someone can … well … let’s just say … excepting an ardent, focused, few … for the everyday schmuck it can be really quite confusing.

Unfortunately, all the confusion does is mask the truly important decision.

For France it is the doctrine of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’

For USA … despite Thomas Jefferson and other’s temptation to head down the same path … we settled on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all.

Yet. It never seems like we talk about this enough.

Politics seem to revolve around what I, as a business person, would call tactics. Immigration, health, jobs, security, etc. Yeah. Important shit, but tactics to meet the objective. And all this talk about the tactics truly seems to confuse us, the voters & citizens, about the overarching objective.

And politicians shamelessly use and stretch the meaning of tactics to morph them into something that the objective demands when, in reality, it does no such thing.

That may be the most heinous thing a politician does these days.

We should almost demand each of them to put up the objective — what the country, the ‘one nation’ <not “under God” … just ‘one nation’> stands for and demand that every time they make some ludicrous claim or offer some distorted thought about past country behavior that they explain to us how it meets the objective. In other words. Tie all the tactics to the grander idea that all the people really believe in.

Uhm. Oh yeah. Just a quick reminder to my American readers on the whole “under God” aside I just offered.

The US founding fathers centered everything, Constitution and Bill of Rights, on one core idea — liberty and justice for all. While some important stuff surrounds that core, they are the trappings of what makes up the core.

I say that because our founding fathers did not write the pledge of allegiance. Nor did the pledge we all stood up and speak in our childhood schoolrooms originally include “under God” <even though the original was created by an ordained minister in 1892>. It was only in the spring of 1954, after US Congress had voted with some controversy, to insert the phrase into the Pledge of Allegiance — partly as a cold war tactic against “godless” communism.

——————–

The original Pledge read as follows:

‘I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ He considered placing the word, ‘equality,’ in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.

[ * ‘to’ added in October, 1892 ]

—————–

All Americans should remember that core of the pledge of allegiance is the ‘republic for which it stands,’ which, I could argue, is the concise phrase for One Nation – an ‘’executive summary’ if you will of the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. The pledge unequivocally states that to make that One Nation idea viable we must specify that it is indivisible. This is a word, and a thought, used by Jefferson, other founding fathers, Daniel Webster, Lincoln and almost every visionary leader the country has ever had throughout speeches & writing.

No one should be confused by what the core of the country doctrine is … nor what the Founding Fathers desired … liberty & justice for all … one nation … indivisible.

<and shame on any politician who suggests otherwise>

Anyway. About the only thing I am sure of during an election is that there will be rampant confusion among those who are actually voting and unrelenting adamant fervor of what everyone should not be confused about <tactics>.

As a nation France stands square on the doctrine of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’ Until someone comes along and says “no, that’s not right, lets change it to bla bla bla …” that is what makes France ‘One Nation’.

Not baguettes.

Not great coffee.

Not mastering the art of wearing a scarf.

Not even a semi-haughty attitude on occasion.

One nation.

The moment a country ignores that which makes it one and gets confused by what some politician suggests is an important tactic that doesn’t really match up with ‘oneness’ it no longer is a country with a doctrine or a soul. It remains divided by tactics and empty of an objective.

As a business guy. As I read that last sentence, for a business, I hear the tolling of the death knell.

Without oneness a nation is no longer a nation. And a tactic, NO tactic, will never insure oneness … only an idea can.

Outside of America, France is my favorite country in the world. I always think, and wish for them, liberty, honor and lack of confusion … because clarity is the path to oneness.

And be clear … the idea which makes France one is ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’

And be clear … the idea which makes USA one is liberty and justice for all or, if you would prefer, e pluribus unim (out of many one). Don’t let any tactic or any blowhard promise take your focus off of that. In the end the one thing we should demand of any politician, any leader, is to attain the objective of oneness, of unity, of liberty for all. Absent that we are just talking tactics. And, in business, that’s a fool’s errand and we are not a nation of fools.

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

“The only thing that has ever made me feel old is those few times where I allow myself to be predictable.”

Carlos Santana

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

General Mark Milley:

“disobedience, when done, must be done with trust and integrity, and you must be morally and ethically correct.”(Disciplined Disobedience)

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

Well. There is no lack of articles on generational gaps in business and, yet, almost every one of them focuses on simplistic “generational characteristics”, “old versus young” and “what millennials want” and shit like that. Sure. Useful but I would argue all young people have always wanted a version of the same thing “do good meaningful shit without all the old people bullshit.”

Anyway.

What no one seems to talk about is the core frictional axis in today’s business generational issue: business philosophy<embodied in how ideas are created & implemented>.

That said. While I will certainly piss some people off by suggesting 50somethings are slowing us all down <impeding progress> I will do so by hopefully using some rational arguments rather than simply ranting.

The foundation for my belief will center on 2 things:

• Compensating
• Compensation

Of course this is, in reality, about ‘letting go holding on’ <with a dose of ‘please move on’>. That said. 50somethings are the biggest impediment AND catalyst for progress.

Let me explain.

Impediment. They cannot let go. They are holding on with a stranglehold sense of fear to what they ‘know.’ I recognize that this is actually a topic on some elder generational life truths:

• No one can do it better than I can.
• It was always better when I was younger.
• It is always worse now than it was before.

Every generation as they get older believes this. Every generation of businesses has a bunch of people sitting in their corner offices looking askance as the young skip down the hallways tapping their proverbial fingers on their desks wondering how to corral all those young whippersnappers to do it the way they did it.

And it can get worse.

The old folk think they are living in the present <their perception> by implementing what is comfortable <the past> therefore their behavior is incredibly difficult to impact because their mind is telling them what they are doing is actually different than what they are actually doing.

Ok. Now that I have blasted 50somethings as being stubborn bitter curmudgeons and the biggest impediment to change, I will take a minute and also note, given the right attitude, 50somethngs can be the biggest enhancer/catalyst of progress. There is a relatively small percentage of 50somethings who have the ability to straddle generations <attitudinally> and have the ability to insert themselves into the younger generation’s minds and desires to strengthen the engine of progress rather than stall the engine.

Please note … I am not suggesting these 50somethings have to be as good as the young at technology or whatever new innovative techniques out there yet to be discovered, in fact, it may benefit them to not be or even try. Their value is in their heads and experience and the nudging of ‘what can be’ using selected knowledge from ‘what was.’

Let’s call it ‘selective best practice learnings.’ Topmodels suggested it was the happy few who could explain things. I have to tell you. I think the market place needs more of these “happy few” 50 year old+ employees than ever before (and I am gonna tell you why). Now. I am not suggesting all 50+ people are the same. And this generalization may be translatable to other age groups but let me suggest there are three groups:

• Over 50 and all they know and believe in is what they were taught when they were in their 20’s.
• Over 50 and they have all the knowledge they need to be on their own and like being on their own (I call these builders)
• Over 50 and have accumulated iterative learning over the years and have a unique combination of old and new (and like renovating)

(note: I wrote a post about Builders versus Renovators)

The first group is lost in the past. They will struggle because their thinking and ideas and even their vocabulary can be out of date. They will suck at transformation or renovation. Their hope is finding someone who needs to work on their internal construct of how to get shit done. But mostly these are the people when we were young we thought were ‘out-of-touch’ from the real world (or chuckled to ourselves because they would throw out up to date buzzwords acting like they knew what was going on).

The second group has accumulated enough knowledge and expertise and confidence where mentally they have flipped from ‘working for someone’ to ‘working for myself.’ They have recognized their ability to build. And they like building (which is different than transforming). They would suck at transforming because they want to run the place and not simply be an enabler for the organization to shift. (Ralph also talks about this within his newsletter as “fear of flying” and learning about yourself). They could possibly be out of touch or they could be leading edge entrepreneurs. But it doesn’t matter because they are now going forward as their own boss.

The third group? They are renovators. Companies should be fighting over these people. They are old but not old. They are experienced but still learning. They have a solid thinking construct but flexible in application. They may have their quirks (because I believe all of us older people start feeling more comfortable in our own skin and therefore are a little less worried about ‘fitting in’) but also tend to be more interested in the result than worrying about step by step how they get there. They can actually make the current buzzword understandable by using past functional learnings to explain them.

So. When I say “fighting for these people” I don’t mean to suggest that companies should be stockpiling these people at the expense of young energetic fresh thinkers and doers. I am simply suggesting that companies need a good tier of these boomer types to transform themselves when, frankly, a lot of companies need to be ‘transforming.’ (and my definition of transformation is leveraging from solid good older characteristics an injecting some new characteristics). I am also not going to suggest there should be a direct correlation between % of boomers in population and % of boomers in the makeup of business organizations. That would seem kind of silly to me.

But the numbers are pretty compelling that organizations should seek that third group of over 50ers (let’s be nice and call them boomers). In 2009 The PEW Center released a study outlining the current generation gap is the largest in the almost 50 year history of the study. Today, an astounding 79% of Americans believe that there is a generation gap in the ways young and old think and believe. Truly the only way to bridge that gap within an organization and eliminate generational divisiveness is to have boomers who can effectively communicate with and motivate all age groups.

There are not many of these 50somethings out there.

—————–

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

L.P. Hartley

—————————-

I equate it to the fabulous few who can travel to a different country and seamlessly blend into the attitudes & behaviors of the new country.

Generations are, in general, slow to change and adapt in a normal every day situation. Today’s 50somethings are exponentially challenged with change and are not dealing with it very well <i.e., not letting go very well>. I believe it was a French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who developed a psychographic method to establish different socio-cultural groupings <I believe it is called the Sinus Milieu>.  Anyway. Basically it is a model that challenges us to think about behavior, preferences and cultural practices. The main premise behind the model is called ‘the lock-in principle.’ The principle simply states that if we get used to something we do not want to change our habits <or attitudes an beliefs> even if we are presented with something new or different that might be better. Simplistically it consistently shows <to a point that it is almost an unequivocal behavioral truth> that habit is stronger than the desire for improvement.

This thought partially explains that while 50somethings actually share the same desires as young people they are reluctant to let go of what they “know.” this gets compounded by two things:

1. With the advent of data & technology, the working business model has transformed from a “idea construction” model to a “idea destruction/reconstruction model“.
2. With the internet the gap between older experienced based knowledge and younger theoretical based knowledge has become sliver thin.

JEREMY SCRIVENS

“Over the past ten years, businesses have used Lean, Six Sigma, business process engineering and other techniques to drive costs out of a business. They have also succeeded in driving people nuts. Something really important happened two years ago. The percentage of people who loathe their jobs has been rising and the number of people who love their jobs has been falling. Two years ago these lines crossed. If we don’t find a way to reverse that trend then we are truly stuffed.”

Sliver thin? This is the compensation and compensating thoughts I shared upfront. 

• compensation

While this is about management style as well as purpose ultimately this is about money … not only how we personally get paid <earnings & wealth> but also how the company gets paid <profits, revenue, growth, etc.>. The current 50something management generation is literally and figuratively the generation that got squeezed. This was the generation who had to learn how to do more with less. This was the generation who was also demanded to generate more profits and sales increases … with less.

If there is anything this generation understands better, it is the concept of the squeezed dollar.

Now.  Let me explain. As business evolves and the economic environment surrounding industry evolves the needs of the business leader changes. It is natural to adapt to what the economic environment demands <or be killed if you don’t>. The burden of this business generation? The squeezed dollar <versus the bloated dollar of the previous generation>.

The current generation of business leaders has had to thrive in a ‘squeezed dollar’ environment.

• The squeezed dollar is the unfortunate fact that because of the boomer generation leaders’ wonderful success … the financial community demanded the same results … but the consumer demanded transparency.

Therefore in order to maintain continuous sales growth <which is actually a relatively ludicrous concept> and continuous profitability the current business leader had to find ways to squeeze the same profit/growth out of less dollars <cutting staff while cutting prices while cutting … and cutting … and … well … cutting>. I say all this because this economic pressure creates a certain type of management style in order to be successful. 50somethings learned on the job and actually were quite successful maintaining the boomer ‘earn as much as I can’ attitude <a version of extravagant desire for more> as well as working leaner … on the edge of what an organization is actually capable of.

Compounding this is the next challenge.

• Compensating

There is always a fragile relationship between generations … old holding on to what they know and have while the young are trying to pry things from the old … trying to get them to let go <of ideas, responsibility, things, etc.>.

From a ‘wisdom’ perspective the current generation gap is different, and more challenged, at the moment <although it has been this way in the past … just not within our experienced past>. While this wisdom gap between adults and the youth <in Life and in business> has always existed I will call this unique current gap challenge ‘the war on the adult advantage’ <or false knowledge versus real knowledge> for the sake of my discussion.

False knowledge. This is harsh <and an over generalization> but adults have always made shit up. We pass our opinions and beliefs along as facts … as real knowledge based on real life experience. Let’s call this the ‘years advantage.’ Most likely it is a ‘focus group of one’ knowledge but in the past adults could own this advantage the majority of the time. And at its worst … it is simply a defense mechanism to deflect youth energy away from something we would prefer them not to be focused on or thinking.

Real knowledge. Adults almost always had a real practical technical ‘how to do it’ advantage … mostly because in this case we had seen & done it. And done it many times so that it was almost with true expertise <or at minimum we had the process understood and efficient>. Nothing beats practical hands on experience <remember that old folk>.

The internet has squeezed both.  Today false knowledge can be challenged immediately.

And real knowledge?  Well. With some professional proficiency an adult will always maintain an advantage but with the advent of the computer and technology … many adults have actually LOST the advantage. Ultimately … the internet has squeezed this entire advantage perspective <actual wisdom as well as the learning process itself> to the head of a pin.

Only those adults truly agile and adept at thinking are maintaining this advantage.

But, in general, the 50something response?

We are threatened. The two main pillars of advantage have become toothpicks. So we hunker down. We take an increasingly bunker mentality and batten down the hatches <ok … no more tired metaphors>.

What do the 50somethings inevitably have to hold on to <and put a death grip to never let go of>? Whatever slim margin of advantage we can own, the unassailable portion, is ‘how we learned to do it’ — the process and the mentality and the ‘work’ on HOW we learned what we learned that got us to where we are.

Heck.  We got here this way … so any other way is a short cut <or not the right way>. Uh oh. Why is this an issue? Well. My good friends at topmodels.com helped me out again. They refer to it as “why faith is replacing knowledge.”

“… our world is getting more complicated all the time. Black and white, good and bad, right and wrong have been replaced with complicated constructs that leave most people in the dark.

As the world around us becomes increasingly fast paced and complex, the amount we REALLY know – what we can really grasp and understands – decreases all the time. Today it is more or less taken for granted that we do not understand many of the things that surround us, such as mobile phones and ipads. And even if somebody tried to explain the DNA code to us, we would probably be out of our depth.

We are increasingly surrounded by ‘black boxes’ … complex constructs that we do not understand even if they are explained to us. We cannot comprehend the inner processes of a black box but nonetheless we integrate their inputs and outputs into our decision making. The amount that we simply HAVE to believe, without understanding it, is increasing all the time. As a result we are tending to assign more importance to those who can explain something than to their actual explanation.” <The Decision book: 50 models for strategic thinking

Krogerus & Tschappeler>

Well. That thought scares the shit out of 50somethings. It stands against everything we were taught.

Faith versus actual knowledge? How can you truly understand if you don’t understand <all the innards and stuff>? The young are replacing <some> knowledge with faith … and the old are not letting go of ‘stop and learn the knowledge.’ There is certainly a balance … but 50somethings are not interested in balance … they are interested in having ‘no faith’ because they perceive it as having ‘too much risk’ or ‘not the way we did it.’

<insert ‘get over it’ here>

There is a massive opportunity for 50somethings if they can get their shit together and quit ‘compensating.’ If they simply quit cocooning simply to maintain their adult dignity <their wisdom factor> and seeking to simply maintain whatever slim perceived advantage they can have over the youth <not actually increasing the gap but simply strengthening the fine thin line between the two>.

Today? It is a more hardened thinner gap than in past generations.

The future is always ‘now’ to the young because the future exists in their ideas. Whenever the future ‘happens’ it becomes the present and then immediately the past <kind of my explanation for the excessive restlessness the youth in business have>.  50somethings need to learn to let go and hold on for the ride <as a conductor>.

Ultimately … the old have lost their traditional grip over the young and are holding on harder than ever before. They are over-compensating to maintain control <or their advantage>.

Bottom line on this topic. It really comes down to two things … attitude and respect.

Attitude.

The right attitude <combined with some respect> is the requirement for adapting to change and generations.

With the passing of time each of us changes … experientially and psychologically. In certain situations, younger people do not like accommodating themselves to traditional experiences and in others older people are reluctant to accept the new. In order for a person to change themselves, it is necessary that they not only be convinced of the appropriateness of this change but they also have to have the right attitude. The attitude matters because … well … this shit doesn’t happen overnight <despite the fact everyone seems to think if you don’t make changes immediately you will get crushed>. In order for everyone to adapt organizationally everyone, both generations, need time.  Time to assimilate the new and the old and create the necessary experience as well as process it to make … well … progress.

Respect.

Oddly, I will suggest it isn’t that the young should respect the old, but rather the opposite. I believe the 50somethings need to get their proverbial heads out of their asses and develop some respect for the young and what they can do <that we cannot>. Show them respect and I imagine they will show us respect <if we have the ability to deserve it along with the right attitude>.

In the end.

There is a lot of talk amongst older folk on “changing” and “adding purpose to businesses” but my prediction?  Existing leadership <and middle management> will screw this up mainly because they will only see the short term as an opportunity to get an older, more mature, cheaper employee and not recognize the longer term issues that will arise. They will screw it up because they will focus on ROI & not ROY:

• Lack of ROY <return on youth>: youth and young people are the cheapest innovation engine in any organization. While typically overlooked in an innovation model their innate ability to provide a fresh perspective through fresh eyes is invaluable. Organizations may not recognize their current loss with the ‘lack of youth’ within their organizations but it is having an impact. It has a domino effect within an organization. Without the ‘hidden youth engine’ more pressure will fall on older employees for innovative ideas … and these employees are more focused on ‘safe behavior to maintain employment’ and … well … you can see where this ends up.

Focusing on what we perceive as ‘generational differences and ‘youth attitudes’ <and not the organizational issues> I believe we older folk will not manage this issue well. Mainly I believe this because we will tend to focus on numbers & jobs and not some key psychological aspects <some Maslow stuff>.

There is truly no generation gap with desire to what we want <purpose, meaning, joy of task, being better, hope>, but the real gap exists in the minds of HOW things should be done.

As noted in my construction versus deconstruction posts, it is a new business world out there today and navigating the transition is where the best minds of the older generation should be focused. I could argue we are currently in the business world’s liminal space <uncomfortable, uneasy transition space> and if you agree, well, then we are simply on our way to someplace new & better. I could also argue we need a new business model for a new business world and fortunately for everyone the young are more capable of implementing this new model than any existing generation.

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“There are those who say all crimes can be ascribed to one of two motives – love or money – but I don’t believe that. In my experience everything we do is predicated on one of two other things: greed and fear. Oh, sometimes they get mixed up, but mostly you can keep them separated. We feel greed for what we don’t have and fear because of what we might lose. ‘

—

John Connolly

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I tend to believe most people are actually fairly good at making a decision, but, I also believe most people actually suck at how they view the decision itself. If that is true, well, all we have to do is work on how we think and view these better, make it better, and all the good decisions within us will just happen.

But, and this is a big but, effective decision making resides in viewing the decision well. Yeah. I am actually suggesting HOW you view a decision, not the decision difficulty itself, is the most important thing. Yeah. I am suggesting perspective may be the most important aspect of keeping yourself from decision sucking.

Let me explain our typical suckedness <because it is fairly explainable>.

Decisions <small, big, inconsequential, consequential, monumental & insurmountable>.

We, in business, always want things to be really important and really big so that we can showcase our value in the decisions we made within these important and big decisions.

This creates a variety of issues. We make the small decisions look big. This is bad because … well … businesses are rarely driven by any truly big decision but instead a massive quantity of smaller decisions. Most leaders know & understand that. Most middle management kind of knows that but hates admitting it.

We make the truly big decisions look like frickin’ Mount Everest. This is bad because they then take on a rich & royal hue of insurmountability. Middle management does this to pass responsibility on to the shoulders of those who get ‘paid to climb Mt. Everest’ and bad leaders do this to cover their ass <I mean, c’mon, how many people really can climb Mt. Everest?>. All in all this makes decision making tough. Especially the bigger ones that need, and should, be made.

In addition there this this weird thing we do with decisions called past sight.  Because almost all decisions take on more importance than their actual value we seek things to create some comfort. 90% of the time we find this comfort in things done in the past. We use past sight to reflect upon ‘big important decisions.’

Uh oh.

Let’s be clear. In present sight many of those decisions were just decisions — not insurmountable not monumental nor were they even ‘too big’ and they may not have even been a ‘big important decision’ <with the larger repercussions that past sight is now showing>. They were decisions. In past sight we have sifted thru the chaff and uncovered the wheat.  Metaphors aside I would suggest that time is better spent sifting thru the chaff today than using past sight.

But this is about where business people typically suck. Suffice it to say while we mismanage most decisions we certainly misidentify the bigger more difficult decisions to a point where they can often be insurmountable <and therefore no one makes the difficult decision>.  There are 5 aspects to how we make decisions harder than they have to be:

• The Consequences of Making a Decision.

In times of significance, that space in time may decide if you follow your instincts or let another factor prevent you from making the right choice. Peer pressure, overwhelming doubt, fear, and all those demons that like to whisper in our ears. You might make the wrong choice. Or the right one. But those little devils return to doubt even your hesitation and contradict themselves by pointing wildly at the other option.

Kids need to learn that sometimes making a decision (or doing nothing) has an effect on the freedom of choice they would have otherwise.

• The Consequences of not making a decision.

It should be one of the deadly sins. Maybe more dangerous than lust, pride, sloth, greed, envy, gluttony, and wrath put all together. (Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit there.) Hesitation is the cause of many regrets and failures, as evidenced through numerous clichés in literature and media.

Because in that moment, before making a decision or taking an action, the consequences of what follows may lead to the remaining sins. And I don’t mean that hesitating before choosing whether or not to eat ice cream will result in accusations of gluttony for the cold dessert. Nothing so drastic as that.

• Learning why you may not have made the right (or best) choice.

Asking yourself if you could have done something differently. Maybe learning that there were other “just as right” choices. this has a nasty habit of not only diminishing our energy against a decision already made but feeds into overthinking, freezing. On the next decision.

• Coming to Terms with Mistakes (or less than the best choices).

Learning that although you might not get what you expect, you learn and find something new. Regrets and fears are worse when it’s about something you didn’t do but, in general, while we talk about mistakes as being earning moments reality tends to simply view them as mistakes. Truth is too many mistakes only encourages less risk taking. We don’t want kids to become deranged risk-takers taking any choice that appeals to them, but rather it is important to make mistakes and use them for critical thinking aspects.

• Relating thinking and decisions to others.

While critical thinking often focuses on personal choice & view, it is good to consider how the outcome of the decision will affect other people. Sure, sure, sure. Everyone says they do, but the reality is more an 80/20 rule – 80% my view & 20% what that view means to others. Let me just say learning the dynamic that exists between individuals, the group, the relationships and repercussions of decisions not just on self but in totality is a constant work-in-progress if you accept that responsibility.

All that said.

I would argue all of those aspects have slipped into everyone’s mindset with regard to what decision they will make and the criteria used to actually make a decision. I would even argue these same things come into play when viewing a trend (because you don’t look at trends just for entertainment, they are used to guide decision making) which most good decision makers try and look at (because you want to see how any one decision fits into a larger arc of context).

Regardless. I tend to believe most people are actually fairly good at making a decision, but I also believe most people actually suck at how they view the decision itself. If that is true, well, all we have to do is work on how we think and view these better, make it better, and all the good decisions within us will just happen. Yeah. I said the exact same thing upfront. I just wanted to emphasize. And i also wanted to point out while easy to type, its incredibly difficult to do.

Decisions are a responsibility. Treat them as if they are.

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“We work harder and aspire the most.”

A rich person <Ipsos research interview>

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“It’s a fact of modern life that there is disparity and ‘Is it fair or unfair?’ is not a valid question.

It’s just the way it is, and you have to get on with it. People say it’s unfair when they don’t do anything to change their circumstances.”

A rich person <Ipsos interview>

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“Quite a lot of people have done well who want to achieve, and quite a lot of people haven’t done well because they don’t want to achieve.”

A rich person <Ipsos interview>

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“She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don’t need and can’t see that everyone else does need.”

—-

 Emma Darwin

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This is about rich people and their perceptions with regard to themselves as well as the rest of the non-wealthy world. To be clear. I don’t begrudge the wealth, the uber-rich, their wealth. That said. I have conducted research in the past with wealthy people (several levels of wealth) as well as lower income/poverty people and, well, if it weren’t proprietary I would write gobs of articles expressing “this is why wealthy people are disliked.” Today I get to lean in on a publicly shared piece of research from Ipsos (to make the same point).

Beyond research, having earned my share of wealth at one point in my Life, I have glanced off of the uberish-richy Hamptons, Palm Springs, Monte Carlo and south Florida world a couple of times in my life. I would suggest they live in a fantasy land, an alternative universe, from the rest of us. In this land of theirs they have a view of the world, and the people who do not live in their world, which is, frankly, kind of warped.

I do feel semi-qualified to share my view on this because while I have certainly had enough wealth to own a nice house, go on nice vacations and not worry about paying bills, I have also sat up at night worrying about how the rent would be paid the following month and using credit cards to get through stretches of time.

I thought about this for the first time in a really long time after I read a story about how the wife of the US Treasury Secretary <Steven Mnuchin multi millionaire businessman and Yale graduate> posted a picture on Instagram which she hashtagged all the designer labels she was wearing.

And then some woman, @jennimiller29, replied: “Glad we could pay for your little getaway #deplorable.”

From there another multi-millionaire wealthy person slid down into the wretched hole of douchebaggery:

“Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable!” Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country?”

 While that was just being a lower level asshat … she couldn’t just stop there:

“I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours. [Curled bicep and a face blowing a kiss emojis].”

 Oh … and …

“You’re adorably out of touch. Your kids look very cute. Your life looks cute. I know you’re mad but deep down you’re really nice and so am I. Sending me passive aggressive Instagram comments isn’t going to make life feel better.”

“Your life looks cute.” <suggesting … how quaint and ‘play the lottery every week’ your life is>

I could point out what a fucking uber rich narcissistic self-adulating pompous grown up rich kid this woman was for lashing out at some ‘less than’ person who dares criticize her, I will not. I will not because we should be clear. We just got a small glimpse of a discussion that happens day in and day out in anyone of the uber rich social circles as they hob nob with each other <kibitzing about the adorable peasants>. The only differnece is this wealthy person got busted. And it only happened because these wealthy assholes <people> mostly stay in their cocoon echo chambers and this one’s husband had the audacity to take a public servant position outside the cocoon.

Anyway. I will absolutely suggest that the majority of us have no clue what the other ‘haves’ <even if they are really have–nots>experience. We live in our own worlds and, in general, have little clue what the lives of people are like in income levels we do not share.

That said. The privileged wealthy are really out of touch <note: I will say that having any significant amount of money changes everyone’s perceptions>. This privileged wealthy class looks at accountability in a warped way. Accountability always seems to be measured by accumulation of wealth and the trappings of wealth. That is their measuring stick. And in their petty little gilded world it is the only measuring stick. Unfortunately that measurement doesn’t work outside their little world. And all it does is show they didn’t go to the same math class as the rest of the world, well, almost none of the same classes the rest of us went to.

Now. To get some of my wording right today, while I was fairly sure what ‘wealthy’ <nice word for rich> meant, I wandered into my go-to book on words Hayakawa’s Use the Right Word.

Wealthy:

synonyms: Affluent, flush, loaded, opulent, prosperous, rich & successful.

In fact rich is not considered a flexible term <unlike wealthy> because it is an either/or word – you are either rich or you are not. Seldom is one spoken of as being ‘moderately rich.’ In addition … rich, unlike wealthy, is widely used in extended senses to mean full, pregnant or abundant.

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‘… a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.’

Oscar Wilde

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 And, in fact, rich people are also inflexible. They are more focused on their own goals and desires. Research even shows that they also ignore people a little more <focused more on the trappings, materialistic aspects of their Life>.

“If you have more power and status, you may not have to care as much about what people are thinking and feeling; and also, if you’re in a resource-scarce environment, where things are a little more unpredictable and maybe a little more dangerous, it would be very adaptive to pay attention to others, how they’re feeling and what they’re going to do.”

Research: one-on-one interview research study conducted by Ipsos where they spoke with rich people <earning $1 million a year to $10 million a year>.

What they discovered was a startling demonstration of ignorance. While they earned a lot of money and may of them made their money managing their people’s money they knew next to nothing about other people’s incomes. When asked to relate themselves to the rest of the population, these high-earners completely misjudged the magnitude of their privilege.

How much, we asked our group, would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? They put the figure at £162,000. In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825, the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK’s 32m taxpayers earned less than that. As for the poverty threshold, our lawyers and bankers fixed it at £22,000. But that sum was just under median earnings, which meant they regarded ordinary wages as poverty pay.

While people may haggle over some of the research thoughts the real takeaway should be the rich’s obliviousness to reality outside of their opulent cocoon.

Yeah. The arrogance of the entitled rich is usually contained within their snake pit cocoon. In their cocoon anyone outside it is ‘poor little people who are quaint and aggravatingly jealous and don’t understand’ and within it is a mosh pit of excessive upmanship. Simplistically, anyone outside their cocoon must be a ‘lesser than’ who can never understand what it is like within the cocoon.

They tend to be ‘opulent’ more than prosperous. They imply personal success, regardless of whether they put in the hard work to attain their riches or not, is found in the trappings, the imagery, more than the intangible aspects of character, attitude with regard to work & fair play and kindness beyond ‘donations & charity’.

And they use all their ‘trappings’ as a portrayal of ‘success’ to the rest of the world outside their cocoon. What I mean by that is it is incredibly hard to conceive of a rich person not considered successful by most people even if they have no redeeming value outside of opulence <and, yet, we can conceive of someone being highly successful but not rich>. Simplistically, most of the hard work rich people do is to work hard at looking rich.

Which leads me to the ‘sacrifice equivalency.”

Whew. This one is always a little hard to swallow.

Because the rich measure everything by money they measure sacrifice in the same terms. Sacrifice has little to do with self, in and of itself, but rather what was sacrificed from what the materialistic self could have gained.

It is a warped view of sacrifice stripping it of its most redeeming qualities to some naked monetary transactional measurement.

In their snake pit world it is a measuring stick.

In the real world it is a hollow definition of sacrifice.

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“The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.”

Charles Dudley Warner

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I say that because if you reread Mrs. Mnuchin’s post I would imagine, if you use the measuring stick I just offered, you would say she was offering a valid well intended response based on her world view and in doing so she clearly outlined the fact her cocooned world has very little to do with the real world.

I could say I feel sorry for her, but I do not.

I hate that belonging to different social classes means we struggle to relate on a daily basis.

I hate that America’s top one percent of earners is earning 81 times the average of the bottom 50 percent.

I hate that research shows how the wealthy and the working classes really do live in different cultures and, therefore, see the world in different ways.

I hate that research shows, ironically, rich people rated themselves as more empathetic — a “better-than-average effect” — when in reality the opposite was true.

The results “show that people who are higher in socioeconomic status have diminished neural responses to others’ pain. These findings suggest that empathy, at least some early component of it, is reduced among those who are higher in status.”

<Michael Varnum, neuroscientist at Arizona State University, a 2015 study on empathy>

I hate that success & wealth is significantly Life pre-programmed and that general mobility is a myth.

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“We now live in a separate economy, we live on a separate level to the vast majority of people in the country. We don’t send our kids to the same schools, we have more choice over schools, we have more choice over health, we have more choice over where we live, we have more choice over where we go on holiday and what we do for our jobs. And we live in a completely different world to the people we live next door to.”

a more thoughtful rich person at the end of the Ipsos interview

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Look. Every one of us lives looking at Life thru the lens of what we know. Someone who has only lived in poverty can only see poverty or ‘slightly more’ and someone who has money & been uber rich can only see wealth <and what comes with it>. And even those in-between are kind of trapped in what they know. I even think the manager who earns $145k a year is more often than not oblivious to the Life choices of their $45k a year employee.

Shit. Even I who has wandered between comfortable wealth and ‘holy shit I have no money’ views lowest income differently than someone who has only lived in lower income. How? I always believe I will not be there forever.

If something is all you have had, and is all you know, then that is what you are going to be in your head.

That said. All of us know that success in Life can be found by persistent working, never forgetting to pursue some dreams and being kind & caring while doing it. Unfortunately some of us forget that, but the rich people almost always believe they are the former <because they have wealth as proof>, think of dreams as tangible materialistic things and see kindness as anything to do with sharing their wealth, i.e, the framing for everything is associated with their wealthiness.

I tend to believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equal and not everyone is on an equal playing field. I don’t say that so some people should feel persecuted just as I do say that so some people recognize that they had better, easier opportunities than others.

There is always a way forward incorporating kindness … always. You just have to find it and relentlessly decide to find it. Unfortunately, it takes as much work as work itself. I would note this is not empathy (in my mind) this is about gaining perspective. You cannot put yourself in someone else’s shoes but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put in the work trying to see what Life is like from where they are standing.

I have to conclude, using the Mrs. Mnuchin public comment, that most rich people just don’t want to put in the necessary work.

I have to conclude, using the research, most rich people are just douchebags out of touch with what we everyday schmucks deal with.

I have to conclude, using personal experience, the Rich Club doesn’t even like its own members and, in general, believes they reside in such a lofty place it is unreachable for mere mortals.

I have to conclude, given all the information, the Rich Club has no clue what Life is really like.

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“Pride and excess bring disaster for man.”

Xun Kuang

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