———-

“There’s a beauty in all my imperfections and he’s the one who holds them up for me to see.”

Crazy/Beautiful

——————

“Nobody is perfect. Everyone has their own little idiosyncrasies. Some people call those imperfections, but no, that’s the good stuff. “

Robin Williams

—————————–

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

The Twits <Roald Dahl>

——————-

“الجمال لديها الكثير لتفعله مع الطابع

“Beauty has a lot to do with character.”

Arabic proverb

—————

Let me begin where I will end … there is beauty in imperfections.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well.

That would imply being authentic is all about being as beautiful as you can be – imperfections and all.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Okay. That said.

Why the hell don’t brands, companies & marketers not only accept this, but embrace it. We talk about “authentic” and “being human” and, yet, businesses run scared of anything less than being some perfect droid of humanity <you cannot be a droid & human>.

It’s like they want something, but are not willing to accept what they want. Look. We’ve danced around this authentic concept in business for a while. Far too often it reaches some absurd levels of “how can I be authentic” which is weird. You are either authentic or you are not <and you shouldn’t have to be purposeful in doing so>.

** note: I much prefer genuine over authentic.

I believe the absurdity is centered on the fact businesses have an uncomfortable relationship with authenticity. They talk authentic/human, which means embracing imperfections & flaws, but are scared shitless of anything less than perfection & flaws with ‘customer service’ <or anything for that matter>.

In other words. They seek to be authentically perfect <an oxymoron>.

It is usually here where I pull out the 2012 Trendwatching Flawsome trend where they stated: “brands that behave more humanly, including showing their flaws, will be awesome.”

————-

While many trends are all about the new, it’s always worth remembering that success in business in the end is more about being aligned with consumer culture than just being aware of ‘new’ techniques and technologies.

While 2011 saw new levels of consumer disgust at too many business’ self-serving and often downright immoral (if not criminal) actions, stories of businesses doing good (Patagonia! Ben & Jerry’s!) remind consumers that personality and profit can be compatible.

In fact, in 2012 consumers won’t expect brands to be flawless; they will even embrace brands that are FLAWSOME*, and at large (or at least somewhat) human. Brands that are honest about their flaws, that show some empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor and dare we say it, some character and humanity.

————————–

I agreed with that trend then and I agree with it now. A Flawsome authenticity should be what every sane business should seek – internally with employees & externally with customers.

But they just can’t seem to get there mentally. Companies want authenticity, they want ‘human’, but don’t want the imperfections.

Brands don’t find imperfections interesting, they find them concerning. Why? Far far too often we use imperfections to point out those things we so flippantly refer to as ‘flaws.’  Here is a thought. Maybe we should refer to imperfections as “beauty marks” and stop being defensive about them.

While I would argue there really is no such thing as perfection for the sake of today’s discussion, let’s say there is. I do so with Walt Whitman in mind:

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Within the multitudes lies the most interesting imperfection of all — contradiction. More often than not we look upon ourselves as imperfections but something, or more often, some things simply contradict.

Our internal thoughts conflict.

Our opinions conflict … with each other as well as with others.

Our actions can contradict <nice at some point & not so nice in a similar situation>.

This creates a problem for a business.

In business, perfection, for some odd reason, seems tightly tied to consistency. Some tenuous smooth link between what we desire, what we are, how we act and what we think. And any time this smoothness is rippled in any way somehow imperfection has entered into the equation. And, there you go, that is a bad thing for most business people.

Day after day I remind any company, any brand, any CMO:

• We are large.

• We contain multitudes.

• We are human <because business, inherently, are made up of its people>.

And within this large multitude there are loud voices, quiet voices and silent voices. All of which speak to us and for us. All of which use perfect words, use perfectly sensible well intended actions, to perfectly fuck up our smoothness.

Yikes.

All that perfection still creates imperfection. If you want to be authentic, that is the overall thought everyone kind of needs to get their head wrapped around. In the circular world of imperfection, or perfection <because they are actually one and the same simply different sides of the same coin> the most interesting in us, and of us, is always something of a contradiction.

I purposefully used appearance-like quotes to open this thought piece and have purposefully avoided discussing appearance in discussing beauty, perfection & imperfection. I did so not to tritely suggest that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ but rather instead to point out beauty is complex & simple and made up of the things you do & don’t do – not external looks & perceptions.

Authentic is complex in its make up of its largeness and multitude.

Authentic is simple because it resides in contradictions.

Even simpler in that it rarely, if ever, resides in some smooth unrippled feature – whether that feature be physical or within character. But maybe that is why imperfections are so difficult for us, as in sense of self, to manage. Contradictions are not easy. Interesting, but not easy. Not always easy to grasp and not easy to understand.  And in our unease we dwell on the imperfect feeling — on what is actually our perfect interesting aspect of who and what we are.

It is a battle, a debate, a whatever, I believe most everyone, most any businesses seeking authenticity, faces in some form or fashion.

===

“Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and applause of the many, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.”

Longfellow

===

 Look. There is always, and I mean ALWAYS, beauty in imperfections. It is sometimes not easy for someone to see because it is a contradiction – how can an imperfection be perfect <which equates to beauty>?

And, correspondingly, how can beauty be imperfect?

Well. All I really know is what I said before – all imperfection has some beauty.

I could also suggest that if you think of character, which is most likely the most important aspect of total beauty in a person <even impacting appearance>, that without some contradictions you will certainly be smooth, consistent & unrippled and less interesting <boring as a matter of fact>.

And who the hell wants to be an authentically boring business <or person>?

Anyway. I am done babbling. For what it’s worth <most likely not much>.

I believe contradictions are beautiful. Therefore wherever I see contradictions, within someone or in someone’s appearance, I see beauty. And I can honestly say that if you even want to tie your desire of “authenticity” to storytelling … I can unequivocally tell you that people are attracted to stories with some  tension and resolving some conflict.

There’s a set-up, a conflict, a villain that must be overcome and a resolution with a hero at the end. Using conflict creates the opportunity for a hero, even a flawed one, who can provide a solution <even with its imperfections>.

===========

“True perfection has to be imperfect, I know that that sounds foolish – but it’s true.”

Oasis

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

Here is what I wish businesses would grasp about “authentic.”

Authentic is being who you are, not planning how you will be.

Authentic is, well, being Flawsome.

……………… typical Bruce index card ………….

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

“Creatives need constraints like a good architect needs the laws of physics (and in particular, gravity). It’s by working within the constraints that, ultimately, we creatives test our limits and push ourselves to grow.”

SJ_Murray

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

“In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.”

Samuel Johnson

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

One 3×5 paper index card and a writing utensil (my preference is a pencil). I

would say 90% of any of the ideas I have ever had that have been worth a shit have occurred in that constrictive space using that ancient writing tool.

That said. This is about ideas and thinking. I am a scribbler. And a sketcher. And a pencil guy. I carry around a stack of index cards & constantly sketch out thoughts for people. I can confidently say my index cards are strewn around the world. I am sure some are used for dart boards, some for a good laugh & some actually was a seed for some idea.

To me, index cards means I cannot rely on, well, anything. The space demands that I use it however the idea demands. It is an exercise in brevity & clarity and forces some economy to the idea or thought.

When pinned up on some board the idea or thought has no place to hide. Shit. The thinking has no place to hide. If that space can display the core of some value proposition (which, inevitably, that is an idea), thinking has won the day.

Now. In my defense there is an entire book on ‘The back of the Napkin”   (I bought and then donated to some business library) and Jessica Hagy wrote a book called Indexed (which I never actually bought)  and Hugh McLeod wrote Ignore Everybody (a fabulous book) and has built an entire company/business around ideas succinctly communicated – all espouse the value of a constrained ideation method.

All that said.

While I have used index cards for decades the whole idea of constraints & old school simplicity came to mind the other day where I had a great conversation with a young person and at the end of it he said “I envision you live your life free of constraints and the rules that inhibit the majority of people.”

I hesitated <slightly taken aback> and responded “I’m sorry I gave you that impression … I think Life, as well as business, is best lived within a construct and while I believe society and some experts try and establish some silly rules … rules, in general,  are good and boundaries typically enhance creativity.”

Yeah. I believe Construct is good.

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

constraints maximize pragmatism & demands productive imagination to explore possibilities.

“Creatives need constraints like a good architect needs the laws of physics (and in particular, gravity). It’s by working within the constraints that, ultimately, we creatives test our limits and push ourselves to grow.”

@SJ_Murray

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

So let’s talk about the relationship between construct, constraint and constrict. Constructs can either, or both, create constraints or constrict. Typically, that is not a reflection of the construct but rather the constructors (people) or the managers of the construct (people).

constraints maximize pragmatism & demands productive imagination to explore possibilities.

Constructs can be either good or bad because constructs, in general, define some finiteness in a complex infinite world.

Note: I believe construct is incredibly important for the future of business. I believe the key to the future is a business which can think conceptually and implement well against those concepts. It will be a natural way of combining emergent & deterministic strategies against concepts represent the most valuable opportunities.

Think about football fields, rodeo rings, Broadway stages, yes, even index cards, any finite space creates a construct for someone to maximize the space … in a multi-dimensional way. Thinkers take the 2 dimensional traditional constructs and seek to build within any and all dimensions.

Sounds weird, but finiteness offer freedom.

As a corollary … no finiteness encourages aimless unfocused wandering.

Note: ‘no finiteness wandering’ could be construed as freedom by some, but it isn’t really. Freedom in and of itself only has value where it is attached to some purpose or construct or intent. No finiteness freedom sounds good <on occasion>, but inevitably is extremely dissatisfying.

I’m not suggesting unfocused wandering doesn’t have some value, but rather that the great ideas and thinking don’t come from the unfocused, but rather the focused.  I am actually suggesting there is a massive difference between construct, constraint and constrict. When I refer to finiteness and boundaries I have also very clearly stated ‘nonrestrictive.’

Restriction: Too restrictive is most often a reflection of someone or something imposing philosophical and/or ideological control over others. More often than not tight space ‘finite builders’ leaders see people as a single unit, or engine, in which all the people are parts rather than autonomous individuals. They believe that if any part acts outside of the boundaries the entire unit could break. They build their boundaries not seeking to enhance creativity and innovation, but rather to control each individual’s behavior in order to ensure that what you do as an individual does no harm to the whole. It is meant to rein in and not let free and meant to create conformity and unity <albeit it is actually “oneness’>.

It is a faulty premise … and a defensive constrictive premise.

Why is it faulty?

—-

“… provide an extended definition of creativity that embraces potential cross-cultural variations in this construct.

Creativity is defined as a 4-criterion construct, which includes attributes of novelty, utility, aesthetics, and authenticity. Novelty attribute stipulates that a creative work brings something new into being, which presents a new conceptual framework and/or modifies or violates an existing one. Utility attribute stipulates that a creative work is what a producer or a recipient considers creative, what represents an important landmark in spiritual, cultural, social, and/or political environment, and what addresses moral issues. The aesthetics attribute stipulates that a creative work presents the fundamental truth of nature, which is reflected in a perfect order, efficiently presents the essence of the phenomenal reality, and is satisfactorily complex, expressing both tension and intrinsic contradiction. Authenticity attribute stipulates that a creative work expresses an individual’s inner self and relates one’s own values and believes to the world. These attributes establish a comparison matrix, which can be used to evaluate and compare the levels of creativity of works from different areas of human endeavor.”

Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin

———-

Constraint: Creativity of the mind is exactly the same as creativity of innovation. It is multidimensional and needs a balance of constraint and freedom in order to maximize potential.

The best creativity, thinking & ideas, happens within a construct offering constraints. Well established boundaries, ones that supply some constraint without being restrictive, create an environment in which the mind can roam freely within a realm provided some focus for that freedom.

True creative freedom is found within finiteness not without.

As I said in the beginning … “Life, as well as business, is best lived within a construct and while I believe society and some experts try and establish some silly rules … rules, in general, are good and boundaries typically enhance creativity.”

Anyway. While index cards certainly offer constraint (forces you to focus, or simplify, a thought) the real value is in the puzzle piece management, i.e., being able to envision how a thought fits into the grander narrative/scheme of things

Life, business, thinking in general, is a million-piece puzzle of which we gather the pieces one at a time. While our minds naturally store away everything we see and read and experience, an index card permits us to catalogue those pieces, no matter how tiny, onto a small canvas. The index card is a method of processing information, collating it, filing it away for when it is needed.

Let me be clear Life, and business, and thoughts; each is a million-piece puzzle. Period. Full stop.

Some people gather pieces and assess and others just don’t have that ability and use just the pieces that seem the most important.

Neither is good or bad in and of itself.

But I will say what is good is assembling those puzzle pieces in a constrained space. I don’t care if its index cards, notepads, whatever. If you can assemble puzzle pieces and assemble a thought within a space <canvases seem to be the construct du jour although I tend to use x/y axis> you can almost guarantee that people will be able to see the idea and its value.

But let me end this with a contrarian thought to what I just offered: assembling those puzzle pieces in a constrained space.

What if the entire idea of a constrained space is false?

What if all those post it notes and index cards are simply potential pockets of certainty within an infinite, boundless, world of uncertainty mired within complexity?

I thought about this staring at a whiteboard with index cards arranged on it. What if instead of viewing them as possibilities or information on some canvas (which is a construct) we see them as possible certainties in a lack of construct uncertain world? What if I viewed these index cards as finite games to be played within an infinite game? None of this suggests the value of using index cards and having construct to place some smart constraints on thinking & doing is valueless. In fact. It may even suggest that focus and clarity is even MORE important because they may actually represent the only real certainty you can find to place in a constantly changing complexity context. Ponder that.

====

“Once you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples.”

Pema Chödrön

====

This is about Change and its relationship to what we believe, or, the stories we have and tell.

I was reminded of this topic (again) because of 2 things:

• Another fine Leda Glyptis article “tell it cos it’s a good story”
• Another fine Mike Walsh podcast on Six Pixels of Separation (where he discusses his surprise on how quickly change is occurring)

To me, they are interrelated – individual stories within larger industry stories, i.e., things we believe and have emotional investment in, and how that relates to change.

Let me tell you how (and why maybe we should be paying attention).

It becomes incredibly easy to discuss change with ‘digital transformation’ or ‘disruption’ or any variety of business industry buzzwords. Mike says something that has also creeped into my way of thinking “the longer this <pandemic> goes on the more embedded some change will be.” He is correct, but not in a simplistic monolithic way as many futurist procrastinators suggest. I would suggest this is more like Neils Pflaeging’s beta codex model (“change is more like adding milk to coffee” view) at scale for 7 billion people, 200 millionish businesses and 125 millionish micro/small/midsized businesses. Pick your derivative, but if you ever want to discuss one-to-one change, this is it.

It becomes incredibly easy to discuss change in individual behavioral terms, but it is quite possible we need to speak of change in terms of narratives within narratives <individuals within a larger system> within which there are tweaks of behaviors & attitudes. This would mean it isn’t really systemic change, but rather individual change creating a systemic change. As Venkatesh Rao pointed out this whole pandemic shitstorm has collapsed the grander narrative from which, I would argue, an emphasis on individual narrative, micro business narratives and individual business narratives in general, increase in importance (when the whole falls apart the pieces seek to strengthen themselves).

The Narrative Collapse:

In this case all we learned was the fragility of life – in totality. This creates an overarching impact (a structural aspect to 100% of people) that we are now living within which could be described as a Narrative Collapse. We have conceptually lost the plot.

That said.

Why do individual stories matter?

I truly believe Change really isn’t as difficult as we make it out to be. We do it all the frickin’ time. I do believe the way we go about change – how we discuss it in monolithic terms and how we ‘implement’ it and what we ask people to do/think – is, in general, absurd. Maybe if we think about it a little differently, we would become more receptive to the unevenness of change which would possibly stop us from trying to implement change (a deterministic approach) and instead make change emergent.

Any time ‘emergent’ comes up people get a little uneasy and begin applying labels, constraints and, in general, restrictions (which are inherently reductive). Think about the fact Change is, inevitably, narratives within narratives and stories within stories. Our largest issue isn’t with change itself, but rather the arc of the storytelling, particularly in business, bends toward simplistic labels and titles. It’s often like we are stuck in an executive summary world when the world would benefit from reading the entire story to be told.

It seems like we would be better off, and happier, if the stories within the stories were told, and heard, yet they need to be tied to the grander narrative (if not explicitly collapse the larger narrative label). Simultaneously, those who control/communicate the larger narrative need to link it to the stories within the stories. The sum of all the parts or maybe the ‘e pluribus unim’ of story telling.

It is a collection of stories within, and of, a larger narrative.

It is a collection of individual stories within, and of, a larger narrative.

Note: this is NOT personal branding. Brands are not people and people are not brands.

So how the hell could something like this be applicable to an organization?

Well. When all the stories and narratives are woven together, collective meaning is created and individuals and organizations thrive. People feel valued, create value and the organization offers value. More importantly, people, who want to be the person who they aspire to being, get closer to that aspiration by fulfilling more of their potential. Regardless of your industry & business, we need to always remind ourselves that the organization is made up of humans, not machines, even if they actually use machines to produce things or augment themselves so they produce more. This becomes even more important as we speak of value & value creation.

This grander narrative aligns everyone to the value (not the values). The values are outlined not through some document, but by respect for other’s story and a desire to meet the larger narrative. We feel good by doing good things to enrich collective and individual. Because I own my story, I have a sense of control. In other words. Because I contribute to the larger narrative, I also feel control. And yet because my story resides within many other stories, I also feel comfortable delegation so that other’s stories can also thrive.

All of this creates:

Energy.

Optimism.

Self interest.

Greater good.

Productivity.

Meaning.

This collection of stories creates a positive bond between people, and organization, based on both rational and emotional. Our doing feels good and it feels good to be doing. Without going into psychology and neuroscience all of this also reduces stress, fear, worry, loneliness and increases attention, engagement happiness.

In the good ole days this may have been called ‘esprit de corps.’  In today’s world this would be an organization which is constantly changing or, well, emergent. And just so this doesn’t sound like chaos I will remind everyone that individual narratives contain some deterministic aspects – rituals, process, systems, etc. Think of these things as default bias (and not all bias is bad) or heuristic decision-making. If you think of that sort of things as ripples from individuals, teams, meetings, organizations and industry you will get a sense that an organization will naturally evolve in deterministic AND emergent ways. Why? Because business is inherently human, inherently a collection of individuals with stories (and all the things that come with it) dealing with other individuals with their own stories constantly glancing at the larger narrative checking to make sure they weren’t falling off the grid.

Note: this is a prelude to my thinking on a Conceptual Age Organizational model tied to what I believe we are moving into businesswise – The Conceptual Age

All that said.

I could argue that the entire pandemic, in collapsing the larger narrative, has done more for personal story development than any webinar ever given by GaryV. It has forced billions of people to rethink their own narrative and their story, and their story’s meaning, within larger narratives – the business they are in as well as the world. In other words. Change is being facilitated one by one. Like milk in coffee.

Stories within stories. I will end with noting that there is no control within this concept other than at the individual level. Organizationally that means power resides within the individual story and change occurs when. Collectively, individual stories align in a coherent fashion within a larger narrative. Ponder that.

===========

“One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”

—

Victor Hugo

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

“Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.”

—

Edward Bulwer Lytton

==========

Well. Whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, we are all ignorant. Now. Our ignorance can come in a bunch of different sizes – supersized, snack sized and everything in between – and sometimes even selective (know a lot about something and little about other things). That said. We are all ignorant.

Look. It is impossible for us to know everything about everything (let alone even a specific topic), therefore, we have ignorance boxes <different topics> in our heads just sitting around collecting dust waiting to be pulled off the shelf.

Now.

Those ignorance boxes are interesting boxes.

They come in different sizes and shapes and depths.

In addition. Ideas are an interesting seed to plant in the ignorance box.

Why? The roots of ideas will inevitably end up in conflict with the box they have been planted in.

That is the inevitability of the invasion of ideas … conflict.

That is the inevitability of the invasion of curiosity … conflict.

One territory, let’s call it ‘the country of what you do not know’, is always being invaded by an army of ideas and thoughts <some true and some untrue>.

Yeah. I focus on invasion because there are winners and losers in this whole ignorance, knowledge, curiosity & ideas battle of which you, yourself, can be victor or vanquished <that is, basically, the battle between ignorance – which suprisingly has a lot of ammunition – and something seeking to kill that particular ignorance>. The only thing you can be sure of is you will always be in conflict and always be at war.

That is one of Life’s biggest truths.

Curiosity comes with a price … and a reward.

I wrote once:

‘far too often we place curiosity in some unequivocal good or bad space … “curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning” or “curiosity killed the cat” … but, truthfully, curiosity embodies both good and bad. And I say that as one who is unequivocally in the camp of “knowing more of anything is good.’

The constant invasion of ideas seems to revolve around two things near and dear to my heart:

• Positive friction.
• Enlightened conflict.

The first is based on curiosity plus friction equals better ideas and thinking. This means the friction has a net positive effect. I could even argue that even bad thoughts that are well thought out and well articulated is positive friction. Ok. I imagine  could argue any thinking is better than no thinking.

Anyway.

The second is that  any conflict of thought & ideas will enlighten in some form or fashion. I tend to believe the arc of conflict leads to true knowledge. But “arc” is the key word. I think we get a little hasty with regard to people and thinking and this constant war. We forget it is a battle by battle thing and not a ‘battle which embodies the outcome of the war.’ We look at someone who we deem as ‘ignorant’ rather than viewing them in the midst of battle and somewhere on the arc of true knowledge.

I can honestly say there are few people I will not debate with, discuss with or have a discourse with. I will discuss anything with anyone and listen and respond. Yes. I will “go to war” in other words. Yeah. Other than purposeful ignorance I tend to view ignorance as simply the opening gambit in the battle of the day.

Regardless.

I am definitely a curiosity guy.

And, well, I guess I am definitely a conflict guy <when it comes to ideas and thoughts and issues>.

And I love the thought that I am not actually seeking ideas or ‘working hard to learn’, but rather ideas and thoughts are constantly seeking to make battle with us … constantly invading our space, our ignorance, and … well … we go to this war because it is a war worth fighting. It is a war for knowledge.

Look.

I have heard many people say “I want to know everything there is to know on this topic.” I often wonder if they are up for the battle that will need to take place to make that happen. And I am relative;y sure they haven’t really thought through what it would actually take to ‘know everything.’

I know someone can know a lot.

As a corollary.

I absolutely know that you can know enough to be dangerous.

That said. I am 100% unequivocally clear that knowledge is a never ending battle. Even on one topic you probably don’t have enough hours in a lifetime to know everything there is. I guess that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but suggesting you know everything is not only silly but may actually be a reflection you do not understand the extent of the conflict at hand.

My site is called Enlightened Conflict.

My motto is ‘seek truth.’

And I do feel as if I am constantly fighting a war and fighting on the side of Truth.

Do I believe I know truth let alone all the truth? Absolutely not.

But. As any warrior would tell you, I get closer to be the best I can be as a warrior every time I fight. It is the conflict which fights ignorance and seeks to enlighten in victory or maybe just survival of the battle of the day.

Maybe that is why the two quotes I opened with interested me.

The conflict of ideas does not have to reside in any open debate. You don’t even need another person. Ideas invade in any number of ways. They plant themselves in boxes you have forgotten you even had. They grow to a point where you cannot ignore them anymore and begin to battle existing ideas you have to get out of the box they were planted in. It becomes a war between what you knew and what you now know.

I would point out that in winning a battle you have destroyed a box and enlightenment occurs. Uhm. but then begins the building of a new box. See. It is a never ending war between what you know and the constant invasion of ideas. It is a worthy war.

==========

“Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

Thomas Jefferson

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

“It is perchance without reason that we attribute to simple-mindedness and ignorance to the readiness to believe and to be convinced.

For it seems to me that I once learned the belief was, as it were, an impression that was made on our minds, and that, the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something on it.

As the scale of the balance must necessarily sink when weights are placed upon it, so the mind must yield to clear proof. The more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument.”

—-

Michel de Montaigne

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

Murphy’s Third Law

Nothing is ever so simple as it first seems

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

Ok. As we near what I hope is end of a one term presidency I still cannot believe we are discussing whether Trump is actually a competent president. He is a stupid, narcissistic, incompetent person. Period. I know junior business people smarter and better managers than he is. Now. I will not begrudge the people who can rummage around among the things that have happened within hist presidency for things they like or thought were good, but, I would point out they happened despite him – not because of him.

……….. listening to Trump nonsense ………..

While I have always known Trump was a crappy business person with crappy instincts <he only has one gear & cannot adapt>, let me tell you how I got to where I am thinking now and some things you should know.

Yes. There are times I listen to something Donald J Trump says and I am torn between laughing so hard my sides hurt and banging my head on the table. The recurring ‘somethings’ we keep hearing are his statements that “no one knew it was this complicated” or the other version … “its not that easy.” I remain mystified on how he can so consistently sound like he is actually learning something for the first time <even though a high school sophomore knows it>.

Look.  I am not the president and I cannot even fathom the sheer weight of responsibility & decision-making. But in my fairly common career I have seen the inner workings of the complex healthcare industry, the inner workings of what it takes to make a global organization set standards & meet standards, the inner workings of a complex energy grid industry delivering electricity across the country, the inner workings of complex manufacturing, the inner workings of a successful complex customer service initiative in a global hospitality brand … shit … even a small business is complex and, well, almost every industry between sales, service, production, financial management, operations, regulatory, multi-channel distribution and management is complex with complications keeping it from running as smoothly, and as well, as it should on a daily basis.

Suffice it to say there is never ‘one part’ you can focus on. There are always lots of moving parts — some in your control and some not in your control, therefore, there is never simplicity.

So when he gives us a smug look of concern and says “whew, this shit is complicated” … I say … well … no shit Sherlock <and think of Scooby responding to something Shaggy said>.

Look.

99% of business leaders know everything is complex … nothing is simple.

80% of people, everyday schmucks like me, are fairly sure everything is more complex than it often appears to be <and how we talk about it>.

But apparently our 1 president is convinced that everything is straightforward, simpler than others were making it out to be and he is not only the “only one who could solve it” but also the only one who has the smarts to simply snip the Gordian Knot of complications associated with, well, running a country.

What a stupidfuck thing to say … and think.

As I noted in my “last stand of the old white men’  piece, I know we have had most of the intelligence & critical thinking in us scraped out by the ”simplicity is everything” knife, but you would think that the creators of this ‘hollow communications initiative’, the 60 & 70somethings, would not really believe the shit they’ve been selling us for years. You would think that they wouldn’t really believe that everything can be communicated in an elevator speech or three bullet point or some PowerPoint slide.

Ok.

Ok.

Maybe most do know that, but Trump seems to have missed the message.

He is an immature idiot.

————–

Communication.

Effective communication has been, and always will be, complex and complicated … and a good thing for society. Effective communication inevitably feeds into the minds and enlightenment of the listeners. If you dumb down communication inevitably you dumb down the listeners.

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

That is Trump in a nutshell.

—————–

Anyway. I don’t need my president to be a Mensa member. Shit. They don’t even have to know big words or have a good brain or even be a stable genius. But I do need them to be intellectually curious, interested in learning and have at least a passing interest in history <or historical precedent>.

If I were generous toward Trump I could suggest much of what we are watching, in painful real time, is that he simply didn’t know what the hell he was talking about <the facts of the issue> and now he does.

** note: (after 3+ years) who the fuck am I kidding

If I were less than generous, I would hearken back to the Montaigne thought I shared upfront the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something on it. The more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument. I offer that thought because  one could quite easily be convinced someone who publicly states “no one knew it was this complicated” <when pretty much everyone already knew> would be someone who had a ‘more empty and without counterpoise mind.’

If I had lost all my generosity I would be tempted to suggest that Trump is a double whammy <a> a blank slate mentally and <b> only sees round holes where he looks.

Huh? Simple minds see problems as simple ‘holes’ to be filled by jamming in whatever peg is at hand.

I am sure Trump has no real policies <let alone an ideology>, just a bunch of pegs he has had in hand for the past 40 years <yes, the same pegs> to jam into holes. But it gets worse. The pegs are so poorly constructed and so weakly held that, literally, one would assume the final decision filter is really the only thing he holds dear – his ego, his ‘brand’, his wallet.

People should ponder that last thought as they discuss a scary, possibly misguided,  belief that Trump’s tendency is to take up the position of the last person he spoke with on any given issue – because that is too simplistic.

His dazzling combination of little knowledge, no practical organizational management experience, a lack of ideological commitment to anything and an ongoing puzzlement that things just aren’t as simple as he believed <or he believed anyone believed> suggests America is in for a rough ride <short term and long term>.

Why? Because the empty mind will sink against the weight of <a> the first argument which <b> meets his ego/brand.

Sigh.

“No one knew it was this complicated.”

I am at a loss for words … so … the more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more easily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument. <Michel de Montaigne>

I used to try to not call Donald J Trump an idiot out of business respect <you assume anyone who has run a business knows something you don’t know> but, whew, he made it more & more difficult every day so I stopped trying and now just call him an idiot.

Here is what I know <and I am not the president>.

The world is a complex place and all Trump does, and has done, has made it a complicated place. Ponder that as you vote this year.

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

Logan Echolls

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques Silette

Uhm.

No one is innocent.

Ponder that.

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

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

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

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

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

Do you ignore it?

Do you make excuses?

Do you deny it?

Do you worry about it?

Do you keep it secret?

Do you use it to motivate?

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

Oh.

The one that is probably most important?

Do you even recognize you are not innocent?

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

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

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

This comes to Life in a variety of ways.

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

Some of these people think fate is against them.

Many of these people think Life isn’t fair.

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

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

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

Look.

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

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

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

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

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

Henry Frederick Emile

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

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“We’re just a bubble in a boiling pot.”

———–

Jack Johnson

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

“There’s an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. “

———–

Stefan Zweig

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

Every once in awhile you find that someone has articulated an idea in such a simple wonderful way you have to stand and applaud. 212 is an example. While 212 is a marketing agency’s name it is the actual number and what it means that speaks volumes.

212 degrees is water’s boiling point.

The agency creative director (one of my best friends) of the agency I referenced earlier states it perfectly:

“we can be the difference between 211 degrees, when all you’ve got is water, and 212,or between something happening or not happening.”

That, my friends, says it all. Not just for a business, but pretty much frickin’ everything. This also has everything to do with the difference between speed & velocity.

You can spend your time and life sitting around somewhere between 0 and 211 degrees.  And it doesn’t really matter if you are freezing your ass off at 3 degrees or be hotter than shit at 198 degrees — nothing is happening (other than you are uncomfortable or maybe fooling yourself into believing something is happening). Shit ain’t happening until you reach out and figure out a way of getting to 212.

That, in a nutshell, is speed.

Then something truly happens.

Life boils. Action happens.

That, in a nutshell, is Velocity. A real change happens in that you have shifted from speed activity to velocity activity. All in one measly little degree.

Couple points:

Between 0 & 211.

Don’t fool yourself into believing that something is truly happening in your life simply because you feel something (cold or hot). You may be running hard (speed) but, for the most part, you are still just water in the pot. Real change happens when it boils (velocity). The tricky part is somewhere above 120 degrees or so you start feeling comfortable. In that comfort zone you can easily be speeding along or just be comfortably stagnant. Be aware. They can look & feel very similar.

Anyway. I purposefully use heat as the indicator for 2 reasons.

Uncomfortable. While velocity itself is exciting & challenging the shift from non boiling to boiling CAN be uncomfortable. Its a shift. Some people feel the discomfort as “uh oh bad” and some feel it as “yeah, now the action occurs.”

Action. Placid water to boiling water. That is when you know something is truly happening in your life. You shift from just water in a pot that is something someone could take & drink from to something that people approach warily & can actually use to cook something up. Speed makes you feel like you’re cooking, but velocity actually permits the action of cooking. In my terms, you have achieved the velocity tipping point.

One degree.

Life is tricky. Heck. Velocity is tricky. How tricky? The difference between speed & velocity is often one degree. Its not really a tipping point its more along the lines of applying heat properly for the appropriate amount of time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out you can be speeding along at 205degrees for a long time and it will feel hot but you will not be able to boil diddleyshit. Speed can feel like Velocity. Oh. And. My real point is one degree can make a helluva difference.

About that difference.

There is no “about to boil” sign. The shift from speed to velocity just happens. There is no warning sign. There is no dopamine hit just prior. Nothing. It just happens. I point that out to remind everyone you are never really sure if you are 183degrees or 205degrees. It boils when it boils.

Not all velocity is good. Unfortunately we don’t always make the best decisions and best choices. Therefore, you can shift from speed to velocity and vector quickly into the bad or the good. I point that out because velocity, in & of itself, feels great so you have to be careful the velocity feeling doesn’t mask the truth you are speeding off on a bad tangent. 

Anyway. 212degrees. Ponder. Ponder because it is the difference between speed & velocity.

==

“There are no secrets in life just truths that lie beneath the surface.”

–

Dexter

===

I love this quote. To me it seems to put a highlight on the inner struggle we seem to have between:

• trying to make life so ‘mysterious’, or convinced there is some invisible hand out of our control manipulating things, and (simultaneously)
• a lack of desire to control, or assume responsibility for, our own life.

I would suggest that at it’s harshest this is simply ‘shirking responsibility.’

Yeah.

Some people choose to call it destiny.

Sometimes people suggest it is “god’s will.’

Some people are comfortable calling it fate.

All of which imply there is some excuse to not doing things, or getting things, ot attaining thing in Life. All of which imply there is some secret to life that unless we are Sherlock Holmes we will never know or understand.

Its all bullshit.

The fact is that life is just truths ‘that lie beneath the surface.’

And if you are willing to hold your breath a little while and dip down under the surface you can see truth.

Ah.

But truth is a scary thing <particularly when it comes to Life from a personal perspective>.

It means recognizing strengths & weaknesses <real ones … not societal ones>.

It means recognizing perfections & flaws.

It means recognizing past failures and lies.

It means recognizing what is real hope and what is false hope <being truly realistic>.

It means recognizing that we have some limits to what will be <and limits vary at what point in Life you assess the boundaries>.

It means, well, there are no secrets, just some harsh truths which unlock Life.

Look. I imagine we all hide from some of the harsh truths and inevitably retreat into some layer of ‘self lie.’ And while it may not be out & out lying the fact is we adapt socially to maintain some façade of what we “wish we could be.”

Freud suggests that we have a “hidden self” lying in our subconscious that is often too much of a struggle for our conscious minds to handle. To me that’s kind of his version of ‘there are no secrets, just truths beneath the surface.” Now. Because of that we do some cognitive gymnastics creating defense mechanisms twisting reality just enough to create justification to ourselves for our behavior.

Freud <no matter what I may think about some of the wacky things he said> is correct.

We all have either a hidden self or aspects of our self we would rather ‘hide from’ just because we would rather not face them.

Part of our defense mechanism is creating these mysterious “secrets of life.’

Well.

Sorry, my friends, there is no real secret to Life. Just truths hidden below the surface, if you are willing to look … and face them. That means, uhm, the secrets of Life are actually found in truths. Maybe that’s not a secret to Life but rather a non-secret we simply do not want to face.

Ponder this new year. Maybe stop seeking some secret and seek truth and it will, well, set you free.

=========

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

—-

Niels Bohr

——-

“The future is purchased by the present.”

—

Samuel Johnson

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“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.

 =================

“The belief that the commonplace is really worth looking at, and the courage to look at it with a minimum of theorizing”

John Szarkowski

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

This is about business culture collaboration in business, organizational structure and customer relationships. What do they all have in common? If you treat them in a transactional way, you will not only have limited value you will have fixed value.

“Transactional relationships have a fixed value (i.e. the end goal) and an expiration date (i.e. when the end goal is achieved – or not). There is nothing beyond them. Change value for values and a transformation takes place because it adds a common, shared fluidity to them.”

David Amerland

This may sound obvious, but I would bet 90% of middle management exists in a transactional relationship world (albeit couched in structural, cultural verbiage). Heck. I would bet 75% of senior leadership thrives in a transactional relationship mindset.

We talk a good game on ‘soft skills’ and ‘the importance of culture’ and any number of non cause-effect measurable sales/revenue topics, but the reality is most of business is transactional – do this by then, what is ROI, KPI index, etc., i.e., simplistic cause-effect. Why? Its easier. Its ‘measurable’ (albeit sometimes dubiously measured). This is incredibly dangerous. Dangerous because in a complex business world an effect could be the result of multiple causes and an individual ‘cause’ can create multiple, often ripples, effects.

Here is the issue. A lesson I believe marketers, customer-centric, branders, organizational, etc. should ponder more often. While cause-effect is simpler, reality is much more fluid.

The former is finite value. The latter is infinite value.

I several thoughts:

Hopes and fears

Look. We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears. This important from a finite AND infinite standpoint.

Somewhere along the way they began to see fears as assets and hopes as liabilities. That’s because, in a transactional world, fears drove measurable finite game type results and hopes seemed immeasurable in finite and too distant, transactionally, in the infinite

The fear of ‘death’ (failure) is the affirmation of the finite.

“From where you are you can hear their dreams. The dismays and despairs and flight and fall and big seas of their dreams.”

Dylan Thomas

Somewhere along the way business, addicted to measurement & short term results (the finiteness of business), fear became the organizational emotional energy. That is bad. That is transactional. That is a fixed value relationship with people and time. I will say fixed value is limiting and un-fixed value is limitless.

Collaboration

I’ve always argued forced collaboration was waste of time. Why? Because, in today’s business world, more often than not its transactional.

We have entered a new age. I could argue as business organizations modeling has entered into a new age (grudgingly so), collaboration has also. Unfortunately, business, as business does, has mostly failed to shift attitudes, and modes of, toward collaboration as their organizations have shifted. We continue to supply the same flawed remedies for a new disease.

The truth is that real collaboration creates opportunities to escape the constraints and perceived barriers to address complex issues and access expertise on a broad scale. Yes. Using technology, business can certainly re-imagine collaboration. But (and this is a big but) to create the conditions in which collaboration can occur a business has to shed a transactional relationship with collaboration. Yeah. I just said that. Yeah. I seriously doubt any business will embrace that.

The truth is that, as Hamel & Prahalad said (in Competing for the Future, 1994), management needs to shift as systems shifts – and business has failed miserably on this front. One of the consequences to this failure is a continuing failure in Collaboration.

The promise of collaboration, in a technology world, is that it can occur across functional teams within an organization or across organizations. To realize the promise of collaboration, leaders and collaborators alike, need to learn to think strategically and critically about the most appropriate ways to choose tools, adapt processes and work in virtual spaces. Part of that challenge is there is no formula in that the tools, and collaboration itself, changes how we work as well as we change how the tools work for us.

I will admit that components of collaboration should meet ‘finite game’ business needs (leaning toward a transactional need), but collaboration should be emergent, therefore, not transactional in and of itself, but rather opportunistically result driven.

Organizational structure

As Stowe Boyd said: ‘Designing culture’ that has taken hold in the short-circuited world of startup entrepreneurialism. It’s now a given – not subject to discussion or reflection – that

1. organizational culture is an object, a thing subject to design and crafting,
2. leadership should decide what the business culture ought to be,
3. and impose that idea on the organization like an architect designing and constructing an airport, a hospital, or a shopping mall.

I am making up this %, but I would bet 90% of business culture is grounded in a transactional web of connective tissue. There will be values & ethics & a bunch of vision/Purpose-like narrative, but productivity, or proof or performance, is what connects it all. For good or for bad, the default state of any business is ‘we produce or die.’ Yes. That is, at its core, a transactional relationship. Yes. That means business, by default, seeks a fixed value state (which seems kind of nuts when viewed). Organizational structure IS shifting, systems are shifting, but I would argue the transactional tissue is viewed as the glue by leadership. That, my friends, is like putting a governor on a potential Lamborghini engine. That, my friends, is nuts.

Lastly.

Customer relationships

Business has talked about ‘loyalty’ forever. The value of ongoing relationships. Yet. If you tear off all the pretty packaging almost every business views customer relationships through a transactional relationship lens. Its grounded in a “maximize each interaction” mentality. That, in and of itself, ensures a transactional fixed value. Just ponder.

In the end.

All successful organizations adapt by effectively deciding what is necessary to preserve and what should be let go. This is next to impossible to do if the business survives on ongoing transactional relationship mentality – thru culture, thru collaboration, thru structure, thru customer relationships. Period.