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“The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.”

Paul Valéry

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“The moment you decide an event is impossible and therefore stop directing your attention to it is the moment when it will take place.”

General Petro Grigorenko

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“This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: ‘At the time, no one knew what was coming.”

Haruki Murakami

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Well. I have lots of discussions about the future with people and it continuously surprises me on how confident people are with regard to what will, or will not, happen. In fact, I find it slightly incomprehensible until I remember that the incomprehensible, in all its forms, has a certain allure.

The incomprehensible has a certain freshness of inevitable believability that some people are addicted to <and blind to the possibility it will never happen>.

Uh oh.

The incomprehensible has a certain inevitable un-believability that some people are married to (and blind to the possibility it could actually occur>. The incomprehensible appeals to both those convinced it will never happen and to those who are convince it will happen.

Now. That said. We attack the incomprehensible in a variety of ways trying to comprehend it.

Research/experimenting

Innovation methodology: stage gating as an example

Pick your “assessing likelihood of incomprehensible” methodology but, well, 90% of new businesses fail, over 60% of new products fail and The Law of Unintended Consequences guarantees the unforeseen is almost more likely to happen than the foreseen. Yet. Even all that knowledge doesn’t slow us down one bit with our love/hate relationship with the unknown, i.e., the incomprehensible. We love the thought of finding something that seemed incomprehensible. We love that ‘holy shit’ feeling.

Here is the weird thing. Despite our love of the incomprehensible we plan our days to the minute, plan projects and tasks in excruciating detail and ‘plan out’ to eliminate any risk and uncertainty and, well, incomprehensible we can feasibly plan out. I would point out that all this really does is foster the timeless tradition of second guessing and seeking blame as soon as the incomprehensible occurs.

Regardless.

The incomprehensible always remains fresh because, as a Life truth, it consistently confirms to us that at no time no one knew what was coming.

Yup.

You can be pessimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

You can be optimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

But, in general, before being proven anything, you are guessing. Sure. You can make an educated guess, and the odds may be higher or lower based on what you decide to do, but someone is lying if they say “I knew it was going to end up that way” or “we should have seen that coming.”

That’s bullshit. We do not know. We often guess <sometimes well, sometimes not so well> under the guise of planning. Maybe worse is we often guess under the guise of ‘scrutinizing history.’

Uh oh. A fact.

‘History teaches by analogy, not identity.’

Henry Kissinger

People tend to mistake a study of history, or a historical moment, for proof of what is to come and, in fact, it sure does look like a frickin’ smart thing to do when going backwards in time and connecting dots <even when the connection is tenuous at best>. But, just a reminder about what Hank said: History teaches by analogy, not identity. This means that the lessons of history are never automatic or formulas for the future. The truth is that they can be apprehended only by admitting a range of multidimensional factors <unique context matters>, assessing the significance of each factor <individually and in combinations – I believe that is called “complimentarity”> and that the answers we obtain will never be better than the questions we pose.

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“From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzlemaker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other.”

Georges Perec, Life A User’s Manual

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Like it or not situations exist in time more than in space. At any given moment a moment is but a collection of individuals and things bringing to bear all their collective experiences and things. Reassembling that multi-dimension of ‘collective’ is next to impossible. What this means is that when viewing the past incomprehensible, trying to make it comprehensible, you will find it is contingent to a unique set of factors.

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“For the lessons of historical experience, as of personal experience, are contingent.

They teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force recognition of comparable situations.

Henry Kissinger

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Uhm. Cannot force recognition of comparable situations.  This is why I scratch my head when some people are so sure on the future. If the incomprehensible is contingent upon a unique set of factors than you would have to be able to look into some crystal ball which unravels what will BE unique (that is impossible isn’t it?) to see what the future configuration of contingent factors is.

Well. That’s nuts. No one can do that.

In the end.

I believe all of us would probably like to have a better sense of how to plan for the future and to better understand the best and proper actions to take to maximize the future in some form or fashion.

Therefore we do the best we can, most often that means examining the past to assess actions affecting the future, trying to understand consequences for our decisions yet to be made. The intent is good and true.

However. We should never confuse honest intent with ‘what is right.’

We simply hear the echoes of footsteps but never meet their owners until they actually enter our lives. And, frankly, you cannot control all that ‘are coming by and by into our lives.’ At each point in time no one knew what was coming, therefore, no one can truly know what is coming. I imagine it is helpful for us to remind ourselves on occasion that just when we are absolutely positively 100% sure that something is impossible or incomprehensible — it occurs.

Just remember this about the incomprehensible. We don’t know what we don’t know AND we don’t know half of what we really do know. It is difficult to accept the fact that today, in the moment, in the middle of change, no one … let me repeat … NO ONE has the right answer. We are simply asking the right questions at the moment and doing our best to adapt as we learn.

And therein maybe lies the greatest lesson about the incomprehensible – change is about adapting.

Sure. Having a vision is good and there are multiple ways to reach the ‘end game. But, in the end, change is change and the incomprehensible is the incomprehensible. Plus. If we knew exactly what the change was and what was needed and what was truly incomprehensible and what wasn’t, well, we would be really smart sonuvabitches, wouldn’t we ? Almost incomprehensible to think that though. Ponder.

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Prouver que j’ai raison serait accorder que je puis avoir tort. -Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“Proving that I am right would be admitting that I could be wrong.”

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“No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.”

Calvin Coolidge

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“Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.”

Bob Parsons

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Originally posted in 2017

Let me take a minute and discuss “fraternite” in business.

Just a reminder but “fraternite” is one of the  French values of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité (“liberty, equality, fraternity/brotherhood” the national motto of France).

Anyway. Business. Inevitably a great organization exhibits both efficient AND effective progress. What typically creates that combination is part discipline, part structure (systems), part leadership, all glued together by “fraternité”. That ‘glue’ is most often discussed in the American business world as ‘a vision’ or maybe ‘a purpose’ or even ‘culture.’ We do so because we Americans hate any kind of lack of specificity. But the truth is that the most common bond of a great organization is a more nebulous concept, i.e., one of “fraternité”.

Or.

“Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he cannot achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity.”

Napoleon

Oddly enough, while this sounds like relatively common sense, I kind of feel like business itself needs a revolution to overturn the current thinking to accommodate what should be common sense.

What do I mean? Current business is kind of in a wacky spot. It talks a lot about vision and purpose and culture as if they are “things” — like maybe a lighthouse anyone can see as they bob around the chaotic sea of business life to find a way home. By the way, I would argue that is a very individualistic thought — “I can find my way home” type thought – and not really a team thought <but that could quite easily be debated>.

Regardless. Fraternity is more like “everyone not only knowing what they need to do to keep the ship afloat but actually pitching in whether needed or not because they love the ship itself.” That may sound like some wacky nuance, but I have to warn people that revolutions can kind of gain some momentum off of some fairly wacky things on occasion. By the way, this thought is a more nebulous “I feel this way” aspect of organizational culture and, as noted many times, if it cannot be measured or indexed or scored.

** note: most older leaders into today’s business just don’t like that kind of shit – things they cannot measure or score.

Anyway. Not to beat this metaphor to death, but I do believe we need a semi-revolution in the way business organizations are created and run and managed. I think we may need that revolution because “fraternité” as a core principle just ain’t the way business is run today. And, yes, it should be viewed as a “core” principle because … uhm … when discipline falls apart, when structure falls apart, when leadership falls apart what keeps you on the battlefield and fighting is … yeah … “fraternité.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people talk about a “community” or “company team” or some other nice sounding platitude which sounds a lot like “fraternité”, but its mostly lip service. Its lip service because fraternité is a ‘collective’ thought and most businesses reward and incentivize individuals.

Anyway. On a bigger organizational level I worry about how an idea like this is getting suffocated by generational issues <younger people desire something and older people think they know the best> and maybe an outcome-is-the-only-thing-that-matters worldview versus a belief business should incorporate altruistic aspects. Both of those conflicts are HUGE issues. I have written about in 1200+ word thought pieces on both of these but, on the former, the best piece I can share is from Corporate Rebels “Cut The Crap: The Made-Up Nonsense About Generations At Work” which states all people want meaning at work (regardless of age or generational label).

I actually believe we need some revolutionary thinking on the latter. To me we have a bunch of people who look at business and turn away to non-profit because … well … I fear that they only believe they can change the world through more altruistic pursuits and not traditional business. And, yes, they are important and good pursuits but, from a larger perspective, business drives the world. Business makes shit that makes lives easier and healthier and impacts the home and life in ways that it is difficult to imagine let alone outline in a few words <and the business office/working groups creates behavioral cues which ripple out into culture>.

Somehow … someway … we need to insert the ‘believers of principles and principled behavior’ into the business world with all of their ambition and hope and remind them, empower them and enable them that they can change the world.

That they can make the world a better place. They can make society and people and lives better. And they can do it in and through business, not just altruistic career opportunities. If we do that, and do that well, I tend to believe we will build more organizations driven at its core by a sense of “fraternité” rather than a bunch of documents setting out some guiding or shared values, vision and purpose which everyone says “okay … let’s do that.”

What I do know is that … well … read the following quote:

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“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.”

Alan Greenspan

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I do believe we need to be drawing some lines in business. And I don’t mean company handbook type lines or even some well-crafted ‘lines’ in “how we conduct our business” or “who we are” but maybe they are more lines with regard to some unwritten principles.

I say that because when you can gather a group of people together who share a strong set of principles they will walk straight into a hail of bullets to not only survive, but to get good shit done.

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“Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Oscar Wilde

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Now. Business absolutely makes dealing with your principles a constant struggle. It can kind of suffocate your principles in between the pragmatic aspects of getting shit done <discipline & structure> and how that shit is designed to meet specific objectives/results and the faux burden of some vision or grander purpose which “you know is important to us therefore it should be important to you”, i.e., extrinsic importance not intrinsic importance. Frankly, when suffocated by these bookends you don’t have a lot of elbow room for any type of true, intangible, unsolicited camaraderie.

The fraternité is more forced than natural. Obviously, when it is not natural it is not as strong.

In the end.

Fraternité in business. I believe we have forgotten this. And while I do believe many of us have forgotten how to draw lines with regard to our principles I tend to believe business, in general, has simply decided to just draw lines <in a box in fact> and say “there you go”, i.e., there are your principles and rules for camaraderie.

That is kind of whack.

Look. I can honestly tell you that being a senior leader in a business and organization you like <you do not have to love> may be one of the greatest experiences anyone can ever have. What makes that experience truly great is when you are fortunate enough to foster something intangible, something that really cannot be measured, and something which doesn’t earn you some performance bonus at the end of the year … it is when you stumble upon the sense of fraternité.

I am sure some organizational guru will send me a link to “steps to build a fraternité organization” and … well … good for them. I tend to believe this is one of those intangible things that is created less by some “how to” guide or some formula and more by simple good intentions combined with some good discipline, construct and leadership. To steal another word from the motto, by creating a fraternité organization you inevitably create liberté for the organization to be the best version of what it can be.

This is what I thought about today and “liberty, equality, fraternity <brotherhood>”. With that I imagine I should end with where I began … no enterprise can exist for itself alone. That is the foundation for a fraternité organization. Ponder.

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“Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun; We dance along Death’s icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?”

Richard Francis Burton

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Well. This is about attitude and business and the occasions in your work life when you have the opportunity to dance on the icy brink of Death.

Oh. And I will make the point that dancing is … well … dancing <brink or not>.

Now. Unfortunately many people don’t look at dancing on any icy brink of death that way. They look at where their feet are instead of what their feet are doing. They get freaked because they are being asked to dance along Death’s icy brink.

Let’s be clear about this moment. You may be on the icy brink of Death <in some business situation>.

And yet.

The sun is out.

The spotlight is on.

My point? The icy brink moments are not the dark days. They are absolutely not the plodding grind it out days. Nor are they the days burdened by mistakes or failure. These are the days where, as you dance on the brink,  everything is clear and uncluttered and bright and warm and, well, let’s identify them as the moments where you sense — “this is it.” Yeah. This is “it” … one of those moments where you go big or go home.

These are the moments which business people dream of <or you should>.

You know what I mean … THOSE moments.

Everything clears, and is clear, and you have the opportunity to dance. To do your thing. To, well, suffice it to say many of us in business dream of these moments. It is here I will point out these moments are actually often few and far between.

Yet. So often, far too often, people hesitate to take the opportunity to dance.

Instead.

People mourn.

People weep.

People wail.

People gnash their teeth in despair.

People “wilt.”

They don’t see the opportunity to dance. They only see that their feet stand on the icy brink of Death. They only see uncertainty and <possible> death if they slip.

Now. Let me be clear. No really good business person actually aims to dance on the icy brink of Death. But that’s not really the point. Much of business is simply managing the moments that arise. You see the moments and some shit you can control as well as know most you cannot control. And the majority of the time these moments to dance, your moment, is not created by any plan you have developed but rather in spite of your plan. No plan goes as planned. And therein lies the dances that occur on the icy brink of Death.

And I say that because a shitload of people don’t dance because they are too busy regrouping around the ‘plan’ to see what went wrong. They gather around to discuss why the hell we have this <unfortunate> ‘opportunity’ to dance ON THE ICY BRINK OF DEATH <they moan>. Then sit around the table and gnash their teeth … and wring their hands … and seek to blame someone.

In other words, do anything but dance.

And you <as in the people who do not shrink in these moments>  want to frickin’ dance.

Well. Those who want to dance in those moments? Those are the people you are looking for in business. They do not focus on the uncertainty of dancing on an icy brink, they are only certain they know the dance.They are the ones  who see dancing as dancing — where they dance is almost irrelevant to them. They aren’t clueless as to the location of the dance <therefore they are careful where they put their feet> but other than that they don’t care where the dance is — just let them dance.

They enjoy the sun, the clarity, they ignore the moaning and wailing, and they frickin’ dance.

My point?

Pretty simple. In business all that matters is being able to dance and enjoy it. Because if you enjoy it, you will be successful. If you focus on where you are dancing, well, I imagine in some way you are claiming dancing is best, or better, in some places rather than others. These people, I would argue, seek the wrong things & actually can be a little dangerous to your business.

But. The people who just like to dance anywhere? Whew. I believe those who don’t care where they dance are the best of the best. The business people you kill for. The ones you pay a little extra for to keep around.

But that’s me. That’s how I think about this.

I know I have seen some great dancers, mostly younger, who never get an opportunity to dance on the icy brink of Death not because opportunities don’t exist, but because senior management does:

<a> anything but dance when on the icy brink,

<b> anything to get away from the icy brink or

<c> anything to explain why the opportunity to dance was actually occurring on the icy brink <or all of these or any combination of these> rather than there is an opportunity to dance.

Once again. Good business people don’t seek dancing on the icy brink of Death. But neither do they not dance there if the opportunity arises.

Anyway.

Just think about it. Because in the end dancing in business is not only exhilarating in that it’s usually the stuff that gets the heart pumping and when good stuff happens but, well, that’s kind of why you are working for gods sake … those moments.

I mean, if you think about it, all the rest of your working life is nothing but … well … no dancing.

So why miss any opportunity to dance, no matter where it is?

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“Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s real.  It never does with dreams.

They aren’t anything anyway but lifesavers to cling to so you don’t drown.  Life is an ocean, and most everyone’s hanging on to some kind of dream to keep afloat.”

Tim Tharp

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Well. Today is for the dreamers.

Let me begin by saying it’s kind of a tough world out there today for dreamers and dreaming living in a world where pragmatism, outcomes and measurement are put on the pedestal of Life.

In fact.

I could argue that today’s world not only discourages thinking about dreams, but it screws up how we do think about dreams when we actually think about them. Dreams used to be … well … dreams. Ok. Bear with me because sometimes it is difficult for me to find the right words on this.

Dreams, in the past, seemed to be more about wishes and desires and imagining what could be in some intangible sense. I don’t mean unicorns or rainbows type stuff and it also wasn’t always pot of gold at the end of some rainbow, but it had a sense of something better.

Today?

In today’s world dreams are more often about something tangible.

I dream of winning something.

I dream about having gobs of money.

I dream about some outcome or something received.

I dream of an award.

I dream of achieving something (specific).

It is no longer dreaming something intangible.

Like.

I dream of being an Olympian <not winning something>.

I dream of being on the front cover of Time magazine <not gobs of money>.

I dream about being the best I can be <no reward or award attached>.

Look. I actually believe I am on to something <for once>. I believe this is a “thing”. That said I started thinking about dreams and dreaming and went out and I researched exactly what a dream is:

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Dreams (imaginings, desires) are the potentials that are too intense to be imperceptible. Having intensified to the objective reduction threshold, a desire collapses into an action.

The nobler an individual, the higher the objective reduction threshold and the more organizedly complex the imagination.

Wikiquotes

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Step one:

‘potentials too intense to be imperceptible.’

Step two:

‘a desire collapses into an action.”

I point that out because in our outcome driven world inevitably a dream is pushed into a corner being bludgeoned with “what are you going to do to attain that dream !!??!!”

Look. I am all for taking steps to attain your dream, but the definition suggests that the intense dreams <think the ones that are truly worth paying attention to> inevitably collapse into an action.

In other words.

I don’t make a plan, the dream begets a plan.

In other words.

Reality is shaped by a dream <we don’t shape reality to ‘force’ a dream into being>.

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“That’s the problem with dreams” he said, “Reality just can’t compete.”

e.m.b

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Life, and reality, pushes and pulls us in many directions.

And, more often than not, Life, and reality, places more stop signs in front of us then ‘this way to your dream’ signs. That means to have a dream that is big enough to reshape reality is … well … uhm … means that the potentials that are too intense to be imperceptible.

It isn’t about money.

It isn’t about some sating some ego driven idea.

It is about having intensified to the objective reduction threshold, a desire collapses into an action.

And that is where dreamers know something that non dreamers do <part 1> … nowhere in this definition or Life equation is ‘fear.’

Far too many times dreams get attached to thoughts like ‘not pursued due to fear …”

And that is where dreamers know something that non dreamers do <part 2> … nowhere in this definition or Life equation is ‘courage.’

Far too many times dreams get attached to “people who had the courage to pursue …”

Dreams have nothing to do with fear or courage. In fact dreams, the real meaningful ones, are out of our conscious control. They are a force in and of themselves. They beget the action by sheer force of intensity. Big, small or in between dreams, the meaningful ones, may have more power than anything else in the world. And while much of the world looks at dreamers as wistfully delusional … it is more likely than not purposeful willfully delusional.

We dreamers dream with purpose. Not for outcome, but of what can be. And when we get a dream right, or maybe better said, when the dream is right for us … well … there is no obstacle too big, no fear too great and no courage is needed, because the dream itself is the energy forward.

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“Well, maybe it started that way. As a dream, but doesn’t everything. Those buildings. These lights. This whole city.

Somebody had to dream about it first. And maybe that is what I did. I dreamed about coming here, but then I did it.”

James and the Giant Peach

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This is really hard to explain to non-dreamers. But. It doesn’t really matter <it never really does with dreams>.

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The dreamer dies, but never dies the dream,

Though Death shall call the whirlwind to his aid,

Enlist men’s passions, trick their hearts with hate,

Still shall the Vision live! Say never more

That dreams are fragile things. What else endures

Of all this broken world save only dreams!

Dana Burnet

—

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“The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

Thomas Merton

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“At any given point you have the power to say, this is not how the story is going to end.”

Anonymous

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Well. I sometimes believe one of the toughest games we play in life is the tug of war between reaching and settling.

Ponder. We do it in business all the time.

“What is our reach goal? … okay … let’s make it a little more realistic.”

Uhm. Is that a reach goal … or a settling goal?

Every day and in almost every situation not only are you mentally, as an individual, assessing ‘reach’ versus ‘more certain attainment’ <which is an evil version of settling>, but everyone around you is sending conflicting signals – “we want to reach a little farther than we think we are capable of … oh … but not too far“.

WTF. This is enough to confuse anyone.

You either reach far or you don’t.

You either set a settling goal or you don’t.

But, for fuck’s sake, don’t make my head hurt more than it has to on some decisions and choices because you want to feel like ‘we have pushed the limits’ in some false way.

Look. I’m not suggesting this is easy. Our natural temptation is to settle for a little less than a true reach because then we are more likely to meet expectations and less likely to be disappointed. I would guess <no research to back this up> we settle in some form or fashion 90% of the time. I really cannot argue with doing shit this way.

It is simply a tactic to maintain our sanity as we attempt, in reaching our desires & dreams, to limit the roll of the dice between chance & choice. We do so because we know disappointment lurks around every corner of every choice we ever make. And, let’s be honest, the disappointment can show up in so many frickin’ ways it almost seems like meeting a reach expectation comes only in black & white … while disappointments can show up in a myriad of colors <a reverse of how it should and actually is>.

I would like to note here that it really doesn’t help that we constantly get crap advice like this: ‘I encourage people to create something that ONLY you understand. That ONLY you get, because that can make you feel like you have some sort of purpose.’ Look. I absolutely buy the fact a reach goal should be personal or at least contain some aspect of personal so that it just isn’t some bland milestone objective someone else has pointed you at.

But. Well. If you are gonna reach for something, truly reach, part of the prize at the end of the reaching isn’t holding something that only you ‘get’, but rather something you gain that others also see value in. In poetic terms, you want something that covers you in colors that others can see. 

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“And now I’m covered in the colors”

Halsey

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And maybe that is where settling really screws us.

We don’t reach far enough to access the true colors to cover our achievements in to make it worth looking at over and over again.

Regardless. We live in a black & white achievement and outcomes world, not a color world.

While we talk a good game with regard to good character and humanity and ‘purpose driven’ passions almost within the first 5 minutes of any discussion you are gonna get “what do you do” and “what have you done.” If all you can do is talk about “reaching shit” then … well … you are useless as a non-achieving dreamer.

But.

If you can point out a string of specific outcomes and achievements most people don’t ask or wonder if they were easily attainable or the fact you attained them was because you had ‘settled for something less than a reach’, all they do is think of you as a useful achieving productive person.

And therein lies the horrible fate of ‘reaching.’ While we hate the fact that meeting the expectations of others means something, well, it means something. We can try to live a Life not worrying about other people and their expectations but unless our ‘doing compass’ miraculously always points us in the right direction and unless our ‘reach’ is impeccably judged correctly every time and unless the cat’s cradle web of choice & chance happens to fall into perfect symmetry we are doomed to have to face someone’s expectations at some point.

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“It’s time for you to live your own life without worrying about the expectations of others.”

Unknown

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Every day we get tugged side to side … reach or settle.

Every.

Frickin.

Day.

Here is what I know. If you settle for everything, your story will be illustrated in the blacks & whites of certainties, achievements and outcomes. You will try and color the black & whites in some odd colors to spruce them up, but (sigh), they are black & white.

If you never reach for anything, you will end you story with chapters of regrets and ‘’what ifs.’ You will have touched only grays and your access to ‘colors’ will be limited. If you reach for something and fall short, your story will have two key chapters:

the first is one filled with the failure to reach & the disappointments

the second is written by how you react to the reach disappointment – avoid future disappointment or seek to try & do better.

If you reach for something, and get it, you will never be the same again. You will have touched colors and seen that life is much more than black and white.

Please. Don’t anyone read anything too much into the ‘what I know’ portion because while the last one I wrote sounds exactly like what everyone wants, there are no guarantees in Life.

Reaching comes with a cost.

Settling comes with a cost.

And sometimes the cost is not dictated by you but rather by some choice & chance metric <which you have little control over>. And sometimes the prize, the benefit, can only be seen by you <a different version of cost>.

I imagine all I really know for sure is that, in general, we settle for far too little far too often. Ponder.

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

–

Eleanor Roosevelt

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

Iyanla Vanzant

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

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

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

3 reasons:

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

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

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

Is it lack of trust in people?

Is it a leadership ego thing?

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

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

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

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

Veronica Roth

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

This is a valid, and important, topic.

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

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

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

Stowe Boyd

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

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

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

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

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

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

………. if your efforts suck … the universe will configure around your suckedness …

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“Happiness makes time move too fast.

Unhappiness makes time move too slow.

Yet, time, is indifferent to what you want and moves the same pace all the time.”

Me

======

‘How long do projects take’ and ‘is that enough time to get something done’ are possibly the most discussed topics in business conference rooms around the world. “More time” is possibly the most used phrase in those meeting rooms. Which gets me to “100” and what was known as Napoleon’s Hundred Days campaign to point out how much shit can be done in 100 days as well as how precarious effective doing can be.

Oh. First. History. After kicking the crap out of almost every country and general for over a decade or so Napoleon abdicates his throne and on May 4, 1814 Napoleon is exiled to an island no sane person had ever heard of <Elba>. After kicking around on this miserable little island for a while Napoleon realizes that retirement ain’t as cracked up as people made it out to be and in February 1815 he says “the heck with retirement … I miss the whole leadership thing <that I was pretty darn good at>” and scrams off the island.

March 1, 1815: Escapes Elba, Napoleon returns in South France

March 7, 1815: Napoleon rallies the French army

March 20, 1815: King of France, Louis XVIII flees, Napoleon takes control, begins “Hundred Days” campaign.

What happened in the 100 days <the cliff notes version>:

Napoleon did what he always did when he was in trouble and what he was <frankly> great at, he went on the offensive. With his newly raised army of around 75000 troops, he attacked Belgium, where the British and Prussian armies were camped. His hope was that he could separately destroy these armies before the Russians and Austrians arrived. The British army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army was commanded by Marshal Gebhard Blucher. The French army engaged the Prussians first at Ligny, on June 16, 1815. The battle was either a slight win for Napoleon or just relatively indecisive <although imminently winnable by Napoleon should a domino or two fallen his way> and both sides regrouped.

Napoleon decided next to attack the English, then at Waterloo, a village near Brussels.

On June 18 1815, the British and the Prussians defeated Napoleon. The British/Prussian victory signaled the end of a more-than-ten- year period filled with war <and a boatload of Napoleon victories>. At Waterloo, Napoleon had 72,000 troops, Wellington commanded 68,000 troops, and Blucher 45,000 <this becomes relevant later when I point out that “they” had more resources than “he”>. Suffice it to say there were a boatload of good and iffy decisions made by both sides, but maybe the biggest was because the ground was muddy on the day of the battle Napoleon made the critical decision of waiting for the ground to dry before attacking Wellington’s forces in the afternoon. This delay allowed Blucher’s forces to reach Waterloo in time to make a difference in the outcome of the battle. While the French made assault after assault on the British, they were slow to make progress, and Blucher’s Prussians advanced against the French army’s eastern flank.

Marshal Ney, one of Napoleon’s best commanders <called ‘the bravest of the brave’ although, in general, he wasn’t the most thoughtful general>, orchestrated a combined attack of soldiers and artillery, and came very close to breaking Wellington’s line. However, Napoleon could not reinforce Ney’s attack, since he was forced to divert a large number of troops from fighting the British, including his crack Imperial Guard, in order to face the Prussians.

Now. Second. Let me try and make several points relevant to business and projects.

100 days.

A shitload can happen in 100 days if you know what you are doing, are a good leader and have a great support <management> team. In fact you can gather almost 100,000 personnel and the materials needed to sustain them and move them hundreds of miles and get them to perform at the highest level if you really have your shit together.

My first point. 100 days is a lifetime if you use it well. Businesses can dither around and make excuses, but if you cannot get something done in 100 days you should probably be looking for some other business to conduct. If someone <Napoleon> can swing almost 100,000 men into action and in a span of three or four days of battle at the end of 100 days almost win a victory when outnumbered and outresourced, it seems pretty logical that we in business can certainly make a widget in 100 days.

My second point. 100 days doesn’t have a huge margin for error when doing something big and important.

Everything has to happen fairly efficiently and everyone has to be aligned. It helps when you have a tried & true team in place. The right people at the right place at the right time. Not just the workers,  but the management too.

In today’s business this is the trickiest.

100 days is a lifetime if you have the right team.

100 days and you can still have victory <not just show up or ‘get it done’> if you have the right team.

100 days never seems like enough if you lose … ponder that … because I see too many times when it doesn’t end well that a business will sit around and say “if we only had more time!” and suggest 100 days was not enough.

Bullshit. It wasn’t the time. It was the team <or the system or a combination thereof>.

Which leads me to maybe my most important point.

The importance of the <management> team:

It seems rarely mentioned but Napoleon not only glimpsed victory at Waterloo … it was his to be had. I will let all the military experts tear apart the minutiae in the decisions made that day. From a business perspective the key to the loss <to me> was simple. Napoleon didn’t have his tried & true chief of staff, Marshal Berthier, on this campaign. Napoleon sorely missed the legendary Marshal Berthier as chief of staff, and Marshal Soult <his replacement> was a good, but not as good, substitute.

Oh. And there was a domino effect on the entire management team as people shifted to assume slightly new roles.

Napoleon was the master at making on field decisions and yet permitting independent decisionmaking — empowering his best to do their best. And, let’s be clear, Napoleon possibly built the greatest team outside of the 1927 New York Yankees <murderers Row>. By Waterloo several stood on the sidelines, were dead or were managing from a different role than they were accustomed to. But. Napoleon’s management team, his marshals and generals below the marshals, were the best of the best.

Now. It is possible Napoleon should have shifted his management style to accommodate the shift in the personnel, but that is speculative thinking <because if he shifted his style who knows how that would have affected everything else>.

100 days would have been nothing if the team was in place.

Whoa. So I am suggesting one person … and not even ‘the leader’ can make that big a difference?

You bet. In business this chief of staff person is:

<a> reviled by the young employees as old, conservative and an order taker for the leader,

<b> loved & hated by middle management as they love the fact this person deciphers the vague, but inspirational thinking of the leader and gives them the specifics on what to do, but hates that this person is not the most creative thinker in the room and is always bitching about why you cannot have the resources you claim you need to do the job you are being given, and

<c> appreciated by the leader because this person can decipher what you are really thinking, get people to do it and while maddeningly conservative <versus the leader> they have a tendency to stop the leader from doing something too incredibly stupid <or risky>.

This person is key to the success of a great leader and an organization. Napoleon saw things on a battlefield that no one else could ever see. He could see things before they happened. But that kind of person <as a general or in business> needs someone to coordinate and corral the incredibly talented independent thinkers & managers who will actually implement the vision. And it takes a while to learn how to decipher a truly visionary leader.

Soult was a good general, but probably a novice decipherer. In addition by shifting Soult into chief of staff all the other marshals began assuming different roles & responsibilities.

You get it. You need someone to decipher as well as you need someone to implement and in a 100 days it helps if the people who know what to do are in familiar roles.

How a leader is judged:

Yes. This matters in getting things done because, well, if you lose you are a loser and are inevitably second guessed.

Napoleon was arguably the greatest general in history <if you want to be nitpicky you could say the greatest offensive general in history>. I am probably wrong, but I struggle to think of one battle in his history that Napoleon had more resources <men & artillery> than his enemy and yet he constantly drove on the offensive … and won.

No leader has ever done more with less than Napoleon.

At Waterloo he had just won a phenomenal battle at Ligny two days before, after one of the greatest blitzkriegs ever mounted. During his lightning advance, he had managed to separate two major armies who knew he was coming, and inflict simultaneous defeats on both of them. At Waterloo two of the greatest commanders in all of history faced each other. Wellington, master of defense, was in an entrenched position that he had chosen, and counted on the arrival of Blucher. Napoleon considered the Prussians under control by Grouchy, and had von Bulow not arrived in Napoleon’s flank and rear, the French would undoubtedly have won, and we’d be reading about Napoleon’s finest victory, Ney’s brilliant attacks etc.

Oh. But he lost.

Winning and losing is often defined by the slimmest of margins. Sometimes even by chance. But most likely it is defined somewhere within the organization and how the organization, and its people, take action.

That is somewhere within the dependence upon solid visionary direction and independence to react to the situation.

101 days wouldn’t have given Napoleon a victory. It wasn’t time <or the lack of it>. It was more likely the management team <or possibly his lack of effectiveness in communicating what he wanted to a new management team>.

Napoleon is typically judged by his two historical losses … Russia and Waterloo. Geez. Can’t a great general <leader> get a break?

Answer: Nope.

Leaders typically get defined by how they end and not all the good <or not so good> done inbetween. If you want to get things done, this is the burden in doing so.

Anyway.

100 days is a good reminder of what a great leader can do in 100 days as well as how slim a margin moving quickly gives you between victory and loss. But, please, please don’t tell me something can’t get done in a 100 days.

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

obfuscate

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

Creating a smoke-screen.

prevaricate, evade, dodge

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

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

(“Trompe le pied/wrong foot.”)”

Erik Pevernagie

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

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

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

But you know what?

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

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

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

…………… question deflection …………

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

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

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

It is maddening.

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

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

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

It is irksome <at its least worst>.

It is loathsome <at its most worst>.

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

<envision a deep sigh here>

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

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

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

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

That makes it even MORE aggravating.

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

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

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

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

Well.

Fuck you.

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

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

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

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

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

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Author note:

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

Some ‘fucks’ and ‘asshats’.

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

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

———————

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

James Russell Lowell

———————-

“I would rather die right then live wrong.”

———————–

“Winners win.” This is a popular theme across LinkedIn, twitter and, well, social media in general. Every time it pops up at the end of some thought I cringe. Not all of those who win are created equal. Shitbags win, too. Which leads me to say not all who win really ‘winners.’

In fact. It is a self-evident phrase, a backwards looking results phrase, which emits a slightly odious taint:

• • A caste system: where winners rule over losers

  • A system of winning: an emphasis on being a winner tends to beget a ‘win at all cost’ mentality

  • An implied system: anything other than winning is of less value (it could have some value but never as much as a win) and anyone who wins has something that a loser does not have (it doesn’t have to be good, just something)

Let me begin with winning is a finite game pursuit – someone wins, someone loses. Bluntly, the only way to win is to end something and in that end, one arises as alive and another, or others, lie dead in the winner’s wake.  This has a number of problems but from a people perspective, with business outcome perspective, the visionaries, long term strategists or ‘future proof’ performers tend to be Infinite players. Infinite players do not seek wins, they seek progress, new beginnings and new iterations. In fact. They create games for winners to win. I begin with that thought with an understanding that most of the world, and business, operates in a zero-sum game universe where we compete for wins, victories and what would be taken away from us if we didn’t approach it this way.

Regardless.

Let’s talk about winning.

Let me begin with Roberto Duran – “a loser.”

 

“No mas, no mas,” Roberto told the referee.

“No more box.”

And he walked to his corner.

 

Now. As a boxer Roberto Duran was known as an intense warrior in the ring. His nickname was Hands of Stone <Manos de Piedra>. He was the lightweight champ and had lost only one decision in 72 bouts <or something close to that>. It was said that he never thought he could ever lose. And, yet, in possibly the biggest fight in his career, he walked away, he ‘quit’. A big check in the win/loss column <on a number of levels>.

But.

Here’s the deal.

“No mas” didn’t mean ‘I quit.’ It just meant ‘fuck this.’ It was purely a comment made in disgust.

Yup.

Duran wasn’t hurt. He was disgusted.

Once Duran realized Leonard wouldn’t play ‘quien es mas macho’ he just walked away. Winning, if he couldn’t fight the way he thought a fight should be fought … well … it just wasn’t a fight to him.

Was he right or wrong?

Shit. I do not know.

In his head he was right.

In many other people’s heads? He was wrong – it made him a quitter in their eyes, you know, “winners win” no matter what.

But maybe it’s not as simple as that. Maybe this is all about winning the way you want to win. Remember his words: “Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three punches.” Look. Duran was the champ. He probably was smart enough to figure out a way to win the way Sugar Ray was fighting the fight <which wasn’t fighting that evening, it was avoiding>, but that wasn’t the win he wanted.

He wanted to know who the best fighter was.

He wanted to be hit and see if he could take it.

He wanted to see if Sugar Ray could take his best hits.

When Sugar Ray decided he wasn’t going to allow that to happen Duran just said ‘not only do I not want to play this game but I don’t want to win this way.’ In other words: “no mas.”

To be clear. Other people who think winning is all that matters will think he was full of shit and I am full of shit. It doesn’t really matter because, well, that’s my point.

My point is we will all, at some point, have to make this same type of decision – in sports, in Life, in relationships, in business. We all have to decide how important how we win is to us.

How you win, or play the game, is a very personal decision. It really ends up being your choice with regard to your attitude <which ultimately influences your own behavior … even when that behavior is within a group or business organization>.

Conversely, when it isn’t your choice how to play <i.e., someone else is dictating how you play> and you really do not want to play that way, well, there is trouble <in River City my friends>.

Ok. Please note I am going to make some generalizations soon to make some points and I fully understand there are degrees within each generalization.

Regardless. Let’s say there are three types of wins and winners:

–          A ‘whatever it takes to win’ win

–          An intellectual win

–          An ability win

And while this is probably relevant to Life, in general, as well as sports <obviously> and personal, I am going to discuss this idea in a business environment. 

Why? Because I tend to believe this is one of the most difficult attitude & behavior decisions someone has to make in business. Organizations ask, and demand, many things of you and you have to reconcile all of it with your own attitude and inevitably your actions <behavior>.

As a junior person this is very difficult to manage, but my suggestion is that you get things set <with the best knowledge you have> in your own head and then look to the leaders behavior. Watch the senior people and how they treat going after a win, the process in win decision making and then how they define & evaluate the win.

Make sure it matches up with what you have decided attitudinally.

If you do not, you run the risk of being constantly put in positions where you do not like what you are not only being asked to do, but what you are doing.

Senior business people have no excuses.

No if, ands or buts. How they win defines them as a business person.

All I can say to them is accept it <whichever type you are> and know that others may view ‘winning’ in a different way.

The only point I have to really make to leaders is that once you accept how you go after a win then begin recruiting people who think as you do. If you do not, then you will be forcing your attitudes & behavior upon others who probably do not want to, let alone like to, do it that way. And I can also promise you when it comes to evaluation time, as a leader, you will be continuously disappointed in their performance.

** note: I am aware that this advice, on occasion, breeds some fairly toxic business cultures but I would suggest that this keeps the ‘win at all cost people’ in their own pasture so that the other types of winners can foster their own business cultures. In addition, it is my personal belief that, in the end, the ‘win at all cost people’ will lose to the others.

Anyway.

The three wins <my perspective> and how they are different aspects of ‘adept, adapt & adopt.”

A whatever it takes to win.

I actually refer to this as an empty win. This is typically the type of win done by someone who says afterwards “all that matters is the result” or “it’s not the journey it is the destination” or “winning is everything.” It is empty because the person runs a very large risk that how you actually got to the win is ignored and everything gets measured <in their personal character measurement> on a scorecard.

I admit. I don’t like these types of wins.

But there is a personality type out there, and some very successful people, who take pride in how many checks are in the win column and could care less how they got to them.

To these people all wins are quality wins because, well, it is a win.

Typically, really competitive people fall into this group.

I call this “adept” winning. You compete because you are adept at reading what it takes to win and doing it.

“Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.”

This person isn’t adapting because they understand winning is about lining up the necessary variables each time. So, they aren’t adapting, but rather simply building each time to win. And they aren’t adopting anything because while some things can be reused it is mostly one time usage, transactional, winning. These types of winners are very difficult to replicate through training. And these types of winners have to be very careful in how far they will go to win.

They have bigger boundaries of accepted behavior because of the adept attitude and because of that they can stray to the boundary margins of character, laws, principles and dignity. 

But it is the win numbers in this group that is most satisfying.

Just to put things into perspective. Out of all three groups I have listed this one probably will chalk up the most quantity of wins in the end.

The intellectual win.

You truly outsmart someone <or outsmart the problem or situation>. You out think or tear apart the challenge in such an innovative way that your competition can just look afterwards and say … “wow … that was smart.” Heck. It doesn’t even have to be innovative. It could simply be effective navigation of a complex system and dynamic situation. This is as good as a physical <ability> win, but unfortunately many people do not evaluate it that way.

In fact many of the intellectual winners kind of wish they had some other tangible contribution because thinking is intangible.

This type of winning is ‘adapt & adopt” winning. You compete by adapting your thinking to the situation and adopting new ideas/thinking <it’s a contextual win>.

These types of winners I tend to believe are just born this way. Yes. Some aspects can be trained, but these types of winners just seem to have an innate ability to see things, have excellent situational awareness skills, assess what matters versus what doesn’t matter and assimilate the “what matters” information into either unique, or refreshingly different, useful ideas and thoughts. 

This is a very satisfying win because you out thought someone AND the situation.

An ability win.

This is ‘mano y mano.’ You bring your best and I will bring my best and let the best win.

Here is the deal. Sometimes your best isn’t the better. And you lose. Oh. But what a loss. 

This one is near & dear to my heart.

I admit that I got really really lucky early in my career in that I was encouraged to go for this kind of ‘no frills’ winning and use losses to make my best better so that each consecutive ‘game’ I was able to stay true to what I was good at and it got better and better. Maybe it was partially I was stubborn on my definition of best or maybe I figured out what I was good at <even if it wasn’t the best of the best … just good while still being my personal best> early on and figured that if this was what I was good at, well, then I would only rise as high as my ‘best’ would take me. To be clear. As I pointed out in the ‘whatever it takes’ win, I imagine my win scorecard would be less full than theirs. They, I imagine, have a higher quantity of wins.

Anyway. This type of continuous winning is “adopt & adapt” winning. You compete … learn … adopt some new skills <skill level or new skill> and then adapt within your existing skill set to the next challenge. This means your muscle group gets stronger and stronger. This type of win is extremely satisfying. I also envision this group has the lowest actual total wins. They are the highest quality wins just not a shitload of them.

Well. 

I would argue that is the real differentiator in quality wins, how good you really are. And I guess that is going to be my point having used one of the best boxers of all time. He was one of the best.

“Manos de Piedra”, is true, Hands of Stone. Every punch, and I’m not exaggerating, every punch that he hit me with, from the body to the head, felt like bricks, stone, rocks”.

Sugar Ray Leonard

And not all of us are of that level of ‘best.’ In fact, not many people are. So, you have to figure what is most important to you in the win.

The numbers?

The intellectual win?

The ability win?

Choose and embrace that is what makes you … well … you … in the business world.

Know when to say “no mas.”

Know when to say ‘fuck this.’

Know that ‘winners win’ is bullshit.

Look.

Do I give Sugar Ray credit for figuring out how to win by avoiding the Hands of Stone? Sure.

Would I have done it that way? Nope <and I probably would have lost>.

Do I give Duran credit for just saying ‘no mas’ after 8 frustrating rounds? Yup.

He was the champ. He cared more about how he won the championship than the championship itself.

Now that, my friends, is a lesson that many of us should take to heart in business.

Figure out what you want, and how you want to do it, and find your place in the business world doing it because, in the end, your wins will define what type of winner you are.

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“I lived according to the prevailing myth.  Everyone lives by myths.

Prettied up they are called truths … basic truths, natural truths, self-evident truths. What I knew or thought a year ago is beside the point. The problem is today. Even if the past was a lie, what am I supposed to replace it with? Another lie? All that’s necessary is to pull the old one out and put a new one in like a circuit board?  

Inspector O

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

Robert Heinlein

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“The way we got out of the caves and into modern civilisation is through the process of understanding and thinking. Those things were not done by gut instinct.  Being an expert does not mean that you are someone with a vested interest in something; it means you spend your life studying something.

You’re not necessarily right – but you’re more likely to be right than someone who’s not spent their life studying it.”

Brian Cox

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“… if no one knows anything then why can’t I know something?”

Bruce McTague

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Well. Increasingly we are hearing more and more people publicly questioning the expertise & knowledge of experts. It has come to a point where significant public figures have even stated things like “we have had enough of the experts.”

Uhm. When this occurs, and enough people actually believe it, well .. geez … if no one knows anything than why the hell can’t I know something becomes the overarching perception <if not attitude>.

You know where this belief has always existed? The corner of the neighborhood bar. I am sure we have all experienced it. Sitting around with friends, maybe at the corner of the bar, bitching about the world and talking about what we would do to fix it. At that table … and at that time, well, we can solve everything that the experts, the leaders, the grand decision makers seem to struggle solving.

Most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, we dumb it down to some simplistic surface conclusion which sometimes is partially right. Often we apply a ‘common sense’ filter which, if we are honest with ourselves about this too, does not really reflect the complexity of reality. If we are honest with ourselves <once again>, more often than not we are wrong. Now. Its not that we aren’t smart. It just may be we are a little intellectually lazy.

Ok. That was harsh. Try this. Maybe we just don’t know enough or have enough experience. Maybe it is because we have not spent a lifetime studying it or we assume our personal professional or whatever experience is indicative of the knowledge necessary to be ‘right.’ And maybe we rely a little too much on what I have called “fortune cookie wisdom” <quasi-intellectual soundbite wisdom>.

But … whew … in the moment … in the discussion and debate and obvious common sense, we could run the world, the country and the biggest business venture out there. It is a fun moment. And we feel smart and even more importantly we feel as if we could do whatever it is as well as the person who is doing it. For a moment, just a moment, we look around at all the Harvard MBAs and all the policy experts and all the high falutin’ experts and we are as good and as smart as they are.

Sigh.

But we are not. It may seem like it. But we are not. Yet, at every bar, at every table, every Steve, Sarah, Sue and Sam thinks that they are.

That is the sad truth.

I actually believe this belief is driven by a version of the 80/20 rule. Assuming you are fairly worldly, fairly well informed and fairly enlightened, you probably get 80% of it right. And, boy, that 80% feels good. It may even feel “right enough.” But, in general, its just, well, 80% right. In general, just 80% on the important stuff just is not good enough. That is the difference between an amateur and a professional or an expert. That 20%. Some would argue it is simply the nuance, but in most of the larger more grand problems and issues we face it is that 20% that makes something go incredibly right or incredibly wrong.

And, uhm, I hate to tell everyone … but … most of us are not capable of that 20%.

That said. Realistically the last time everyone possessed the same skills in a society to participate within a leadership role at 100% equal was maybe several million years ago when all of us humans ran around as hunter/gatherers. Once we evolved into larger social groupings, and inevitably created cities and population clusters where some people had to make decisions for the greater good of the whole some people naturally evolved into governors and governing <leadership> and the expertise needed to assume those responsibilities. And while we can bitch & moan about the ineptness of leadership, in general, leaders lead and others follow. Yet, we everyday schmucks get confused and believe we would be smarter, if not as smart, as people in the positions of leadership.

Part of the problem is the problems themselves. Most problems contain contradictions and truly are complex with lots of moving parts. Heck. Everything is complex, not just the problems.

** note: that last point contributes to corner of the bar wisdom. solutions, or good past decisions, tend to look simple in hindsight and we ignore the complex interconnections which begets the result we are pointing to <while at the corner of the bar>

For example. As we discuss country issues we discuss natural contradictions within a complex world <both domestic & international is important> as well as the fact the American people often embrace contradictory goals <just wander through any PewResearch report to confirm that thought>.

What do I mean? Well. For example. While any citizen of any country wants to be ‘great’ – defining ‘great’ is a complex puzzle. At the corner of the bar more often than not we ignore the contradictory challenges with more simplistic solutions for what would be great <under the guise of common sense actions or ‘seems to make sense on the surface’ attitudes>. Sometimes this ‘common sense’ assumes ‘oh, everyone would agree with that’ when, in reality, the majority of people would debate it <that is actually complexity in a nutshell>.

I would like to note the exceptional corner of the bar pontificators position themselves incredibly well to exploit such contradictory opinions. For example. “Make America Great Again” is a simplistic slogan that embraces some aspects of patriotism or nationalism pride and is broad enough that any individual can define ‘great’ from their own perspective including both a harsh insular ‘past driven’ edge to a much grander ‘future possibilities’ thought.

That said. At the corner of the bar we more often than not rule our thoughts based on passion <fear, individualism, frustration & anger> supported by reason. The experts reverse the equation ignoring passionate response <fear, individualism, anger> and basing ideas & solutions on solid reasoning and rational thought <and things called “principles” & laws>. I will not spend any time on laws, but, while we at the corner of the bar sometimes shake our heads wondering what common sense <or lack thereof> created some laws we accept they are laws because in some way we all know it creates a construct of ethics.

But let’s be honest. The neighborhood bar is in … well … the neighborhood. It is where we kibbitz over non neighborhood things.

In general it is healthy semi-intellectual debate which makes us feel intellectually good.

In general we take a fairly ridiculously narrow view of how the world works.

Anyway.

The experts who have been talking about this stuff. For today’s discussion I am going to lean on two relatively short, but broader insightful reads – Huntington’s “clash of civilizations’ written in 1993 for Foreign Affairs magazine and then Foreign Affairs magazine’s reprise of the article in 2013 with a number of short “here is what I think” articles.

Rereading the well written thoughts makes you not only realize that the intellectual of those of us at the corner of the bar may not be at the level of stupid, but that there are a shitload of really smart people discussing these topics not at the bar.

Basically, most of us struggle with globalization and nationalism. It’s not that we do not want either or reject one over the other it is that we struggle to see, feel and understand the balance. One expert called this uneasiness we feel ‘casual collapse.’ It is the seemingly ongoing blurring of many beliefs, rituals, formal requirements and laws that define specific societies and us.   And we feel a little helpless in stopping this ‘casual collapse’ because of that darn thing called ‘the internet’ <the cross-cultural sharing of information and knowledge> all compounded by all those darn people shouting nonsense on that darn thing called ‘the internet.’

Now. All this is happening without causing any particular larger collapse of anything. It is just a casual collapse of things as they used to be. And it is happening despite any government edicts or programs designed to slow the change <collapse> or older generations tied to some past cultural aspects efforts. It is an inevitable collapse driven by the fact as everyone becomes more knowledgeable about ‘what is happening and what people are thinking’ half way around the world they begin questioning the status quo conventional thinking where they are. It becomes a blending of local cultural thinking and a more global perspective.

And the whole issue is exacerbated by a faster additional natural progression created by the urbanization of emerging countries.

Why does this change anything? There’s an obvious link between the broad spread of more liberal attitudes and increasing urbanization globally <in 1980 Africa 28% lived in cities – today its 40+% – 40+ million people>. As new urbanites find themselves further distanced from traditional social and familial structures, and are exposed to a wider range of alternative goods, services, lifestyles, opinions and experiences, their tolerance to alternative thinking and behavior grows – as does their interest & attitudes. The web simply accelerates what would have been happening naturally.

I am certainly not suggesting this will happen overnight. As trendwatching suggests “compared to much trend thinking, casual collapse moves at a glacial pace.” Basically, whether we like it or not, globalization has forced the world to be at odds with itself. We are not a world of countries and states living in solitude, but rather one in which we overlap linked, and delinked, by varying degrees of history, culture, religion, language, location and institutions.

This causes a natural reaction against a sense of uniformity. We naturally chafe at the thought of “being the same as everyone else” <while still viewing aspects we like & want>. And therein lies the greater conflict – while economic life takes place on a global platform human identity remains national & local.

Yeah.

The identification of local <and nationalism> will always continue and will always create the same angst we feel at the corner of the bar as we watch the zillion TV’s typically sitting in the bar suggesting globalization is infringing upon our corner of the bar.

Even global economic growth infringes upon our national identification.

What do I mean? Economics depends on education and communication which leads directly to conflicts over language and comparisons over education levels. All the while … a global economic view encourages everyone to believe the world is their oyster – anyone can aspire to any economic position. The reality is that everyone does not have an equal likelihood of upward economic mobility <locally, nationally or globally> and not simply because individuals have different innate capabilities <but that is a different post>.

At the corner of the bar we need not worry nor address the balance we focus on what we need and what we want – not necessarily the greater good.

And then there is the scary factor we local experts face over a beer.

Terrorism.

There is clearly a relationship between globalization and violence. Unfortunately, this stage of globalization <its current stage of maturity> doesn’t necessarily spread peace & understanding. Instead it tends to foster conflicts and resentments <global media makes it possible for the most deprived or oppressed to compare their fate with that of the free and well-off as well as showing one nation what another nation is achieving>. In today’s world globalization tends to provoke revolt and dissatisfaction.

All that said. The one thing we common everyday schmucks can certainly do at the corner of the bar is to analyze the present, embrace some of the past, but we cannot predict the future.

The future is yet to be written by a world that is anything but simple. It is a world where society is often uneven, always complex and often local societies overlap with a global society all the while burdened by public institutions seemingly incapable of navigating local and international needs. This often leads us to simply divide the issue into a solvable part versus unite the complexity into one seemingly unsolvable issue <because it is easier to solve a part rather than a complex whole when you are at the corner of the bar>.

And that is where most of us at the corner of the bar truly fall short. Enriching people, minds, bodies and spirit, is the ultimate objective of any problem & issue and the most difficult task in the world.

It is a complex task.

It requires the best of everyone, the best of civilizations and the best of leadership & thinking all not emphasizing the differences, but reinforcing the common objective.

A country, a culture, a civilization … is a messy creature.

A country can be kind & generous as well as cruel & coldblooded as they pick their way through the natural chaotic world.

Me, and American, believes the United States clearly has the capacity to influence which future is most likely. However, for anyone to predict the future confidently would be naive <or outright lying>. But globalization is not a simplistic concept. But nationalism is not a simplistic concept. Being a president, or any leader of a significant organization, is not a simplistic concept.

Inevitably leading is not just about hope or promising something better, it is a pragmatic pushing of  opportunity to the people who need it the most and want it the most <thereby maximizing what opportunities do exist>. And opportunities abound … in fact … there may actually be more opportunity in the world than problems <but you would never know it by listening to conversations at the corner of the bar … or on TV>.

Look. In a world where I have no idea how my mobile phone or the internet work <or my car, television, or microwave, or … whatever> and, yet, they consistently work, everything seems so unknowable that amateurish expert wisdom actually seems … well … attainable.

In other words. If no one knows anything then why can’t I know something?

C’mon, let’s be honest, corner of the bar discussions typically devolve into the simplistic and our solutions skate on the superficial surface of reality. We should not, and cannot, devolve into a world where there are no experts or believe that experts don’t know more than we do.

Simply being an expert doesn’t mean ‘perfection’ – not making mistakes or being wrong <because that would predicate they could actually tell the future>. But let’s be honest, we want people smarter than us – the people sitting at the corner of the bar – making the really important decisions.

Well.

I certainly do.

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originally posted July 2016