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“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”

Vincent van Gogh

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mener une vie normale <French>

to lead a normal life

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Benjamin Franklin:

“Human happiness comes not from infrequent pieces of good fortune, but from the small improvements to daily life.”

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“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.”

Sigmund Freud

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Well.

Let’s just say “normal” gets a really bad rap. It constantly has to fight off “boring” and “same as” and “routine” and … well … let’s just say a shitload of ‘not-so-positive’ sounding words.

I mean, c’mon, is normal really that frickin’ bad?

And what hell is ‘normal’, as in a normal life, anyway?

Anyway. I imagine, as with most things in Life, normal is about balance or ‘proportional’.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … I know a shitload of people will suggest that ‘normal’ is defined by the individual and how they view life but, in general, at one end of the  ‘how to live your life’ spectrum is wacko eccentric person and the other end is bland-milquetoast-boring-to-tears person.

Most of us reside somewhere in the middle of all that. As a corollary to that thought, and tying it to proportional. I would say most of us have individual aspects which reside very very close to both ends of the spectrum WITHIN every day and all we do. In other words, we do thousands of things on a daily basis and some are purposefully bland and some are delightfully spontaneously absurd. Its that mixture which makes us who we are.

Anyway. I tend to believe the problem is in how we most often have this discussion.

When we talk about living a ‘normal’ life it almost seems destined for some boredom and certainly when you decide to sit back with some self-reflection, uhm …, it will most likely be generously dipped in some disappointment. Then, on the other hand, it seems like a choice to live an ‘anything but normal’ life it almost seems destined for some sanity challenges and certainly some self-reflection generously dipped in some discouragement.

Yikes. So your choice is either disappointment or discouragement.

Look. None of us really want to be normal all the time. We want to spice it up a little and maybe do something not so normal for us <albeit, it could be fairly tame, or absurdly reckless, in other people’s eyes>. It is that little choice to ‘step away from what we normally do and think’ that kind of gets us in trouble.

Why? Because most times we ‘step away’ by ‘being spontaneous.’

<note: spontaneous has a dubious relationship with ‘something different than the normal’>

Whew. Truth be told spontaneity sounds awesome <in concept>, but more often than not disappointing. Not many people point this out but spontaneity actually sucks because anything “abnormal” or “not normal” is a great concept, but has a nasty habit of creating more problems than it is worth.

Truth be told routines <which is a characteristic of ‘normal life’> do a shitload to help establish our day-to-day ‘normal’ with a nice side benefit that it encourages us to believe we do have some self-discipline  <because the alternative is that we start thinking we live a completely chaotic undisciplined life>.

Yeah. a lot of these routines look really minor and really mundane if you sit down and think them through.

My advice? Don’t. Don’t think them through. Just let them occur as naturally as breathing because these stupid little things tend to create a larger sense of rhythm or normalcy in your life. And, yeah, even eccentric nutjobs incorporate some ‘normal’ routines in their daily Life.

But here is where proportionality enters the discussion because we want both <although in today’s world it seems like there is no in between>.

It may seem weird, but I tend to believe no one’s sole ambition in Life is to be viewed solely as ‘normal.’ And, yet, we can live a pretty frickin’ good Life ‘normally.’ In fact. Our normal most likely incorporates some fairly ‘abnormal’, or let’s call them ‘unique features’, aspects. Most of us actually incorporate some unique shit into our lives which are simply reflections of our personality uniqueness. But because they are extensions of who we are we overlook them as being ‘normal.’

Let’s face it.

Normal has a shitty reputation.

And it should not.

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“I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more.

I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.”

Anaïs Nin

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This isn’t about ‘fitting in’ or some rigid code of conduct or even seeking approval in what you do. This is about doing shit that makes you happy assuming ‘happy’ means you haven’t been:

<a> laughed at as a fool – just laughed at for having fun,

<b> stared at as if you belong in some loony bin – just stared at because they know you are enjoying yourself , or

<c> doing something insanely stupid just to gain some attention.

Yeah. Sometimes the shit you do may be out of the mainstream, but 99% of the time it is not unacceptable to everyone. It is just is not the normal everyday 100% of the time shit people see or hear.

Whether you like it or not, suggesting ‘normal’ is completely self defined is … well … stupid.

Yes. You should have your own way of seeing the world and the life you’re living.

Yes. You should feel it is normal <as long as it is not a ‘statement’ but rather an natural extension of your ‘self’>.

Yes. You should accept the idea that other people may feel differently about your version of normal.

All that said here is where I think normal and abnormal go into conflict.

Yes. You should understand that normal is actually defined by some standard operating procedures of the people, society & culture as a whole.

And, no, I am not suggesting some of the wacky crap society thrusts upon an individual <society tells me how I should be stuff> but rather the fact cultures, civilizations in a broader perspective, define some accepted rules of behavior – some “what I should do” stuff.

Let’s call them ‘core life action basics.’ These are some normal things which everyone should do and think in a normal day and a normal life.

Here is the good news for people who balk at ‘normal.’

The great thing about culture is it tends to give an individual a lot of room to expand upon these things. You can go about your life wearing whatever clothes you want and saying a bunch of different words as personal expression beyond the core. I call that ‘window dressing stuff.’ In other words I can dress up my core ‘normality crap’ in pretty much anything I want and express it with almost any words I want. The trouble mostly revolves around the fact that some individuals infringe upon the core, change the core and sometimes do things which do not meet what most people would accepts as accepted normal behavior.

Here is not just a Life truth but a civilization truth: a culture cannot permit that ‘abnormal normal’ to become normalized. While we often suggest it takes courage to express yourself in some ‘not-so-normal’ ways it actually takes even more courage to defend core normality.

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“My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.”

Practical Magic

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Anyway. When it comes to this topic the bravest people in the world are not the ones who stand out through self-expression of self-identity, even if that identity is ‘not the normal’, but rather the people who unflinchingly defend normal core beliefs & behaviors and unflinchingly express it in whatever personal identity way they want.

Far too often we slot people on one side or the other where, in truth, we should be also slotting people into that third more significant very broad <or it should be broad> slot.

I imagine the problem with that is that those people are not interesting enough to make splashy headlines nor are they boring enough to be masticated for being milquetoast. And, yet, they were the bravest of us all. They chose to be normal & not-so-normal and fought relentlessly for both. Normal may be a paved road, but it still can be a really interesting road.

Ponder. Ponder being normal and celebrating it.

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just-shower-thoughts:

On my headstone, I think I want, “No one deserved death more.” That way, people will research my life and find nothing interesting, then actually think that for wasting their time.

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“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Plato

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“A person who can think differently and truly on his feet will always find it difficult to sit and fit as an employee in a workplace, for his attitude & approach towards the work will often hit the ego of most co-workers.”

Anuj Somany

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“If u want to work in Corporate, then u should know how to play Chess.”

honeya

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Ok. I was asked recently about a past job I had where I had struggled to be successful. After hemming and hawing a little <I have never really been sure what hemming or hawing was> I answered “the position required a dedicated navigator with navigator skills and I am a sledgehammer with some navigator vision.”

<note: I didn’t understand that until actually into the role & assumed responsibility>

Yeah.

I am a sledge hammer. Always have been and I assume I always will be.

I respect navigators, but they are too slow for my tastes, far too often worried about political correctness and always too skewed toward what is important politically versus ‘what is the right thing to do.’

Ok.

Let me explain navigators and sledge hammers.

In business, there are just some people who see office politics <which all organizations have whether you like it or not> and they have the skills and vision to navigate them to get shit done <they also tend to benefit personally with this skill>.

In business, there are just some people who want to get the right shit done and believe if it is right then … well … it is better to just say ‘damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead’ rather than screw around with navigating people’s feelings and politics.

Now.

That doesn’t mean that sometimes a navigator isn’t more effective and that a navigator, which is tightly associated with someone who can play office politics, is always a corporate whore.

That also doesn’t mean that there aren’t navigators with good moral compasses because there are a shitload of ‘navigator managers’ who are skilled organizational politicians who do not showcase questionable behavior or even distasteful ‘sucking-up’ behavior.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that pretty much any leader worth a shit takes a realistic approach to managing around workplace politics. This does not mean they are ‘political’, per se, or want to play the political game it’s just they understand that you have to navigate competing interests, whatever resources may be available, the nuances of what is viewed as authority <and who has the authority which is most typically “enough to hang yourself’>, the bendable organizational rules and whatever information is available.

And, to be clear, the best of the navigators have a sledge hammer in their tool box <and use it on occasion>.

And, to be clear, the best of the sledge hammers have either some navigational skills or, at minimum, navigational vision <i.e., they can ‘see’ the politics and organizational rubble affecting your path>.

Me?

I am a sledgehammer. I like to get shit done.

Always have and always will.

Okay. I like getting smart shit done. And I really like getting smart ‘right’ shit done.

The nuance between that stuff is clear because if all I did was get shit done, smart & right being set aside, politics and navigating would become almost irrelevant. Because then you are simply a doer <not a thinker or a thinker/doer>. But even as a sledge hammer you recognize that whether you hate it, admire it, practice it or avoid it, office politics is a fact of life in any organization. And, like it or not, it’s something that you need to understand to insure not only your professional success, but the success of the good shit you want to do.

Yeah. Sure.

“Politics” certainly has a negative connotation. It most often refers to strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and relationships within it.

<and sledge hammers abhor this type of politics bullshit>

I hesitate to suggest there could ever be something called “good office politics”, but some organizational expert asshats believe that is the kind of crap you do which helps you fairly promote yourself and your ideas <they call it networking and stakeholder management – I call it the ‘necessary bullshit you just have to suck up and do in order to get good shit done’>.

As a sledge hammer I realized that there were some things that a navigator was good at and I should learn if I wanted to be a more effective sledgehammer.

About the only thing I truly value in a navigator is “social astuteness.” This is the ability to read and anticipate situations – allows you to prepare, adapt and tailor your behavior based on the people and conditions around you.

In my words this is being aware of the people and what they believe in combination with understanding the context and the situation and, ultimately, bending all existing resources to the situation at hand.

Let’s just call this “360degree context” <at least that is how a sledgehammer views it>.

Now.

Being aware is different than acting upon it. Being aware meant that it prepared me, and my groups, to manage the carnage or consequences of slamming your way straight thru a maze.

As a sledge hammer it pays to understand the real map, or maze, of the organization. I believe we all know that internal politics, more often than not, has little to do with the real organizational chart they give you when you sign on. Informal networks are usually the engine, the real power, that makes any organization work.

Someone outlined this important crap to be aware of really well:

    Who are the real influencers?

    Who has authority but doesn’t exercise it?

    Who is respected?

    Who champions or mentors others?

    Who is “the brains behind the organization”?

As a sledge hammer I realized there were absolutely some things that were in my control as I bashed my way through the middle of the maze getting to where I believed an idea, or the business at large, should go.

But, as a sledge hammer, I also recognized I needed to manage my own behavior <this lesson took some time … and learned thru some painful trial & error>. Through watching others and some painful trial & error you learn what works in your organization’s culture.

But you learn really fast … as in REALLY fast … that as a sledge hammer you invest exactly 0% of your time and 0 energy on:

• Gossip & spreading rumors: you learn to shut up and even when you hear something you wait and assess the credibility
• Interpersonal conflicts – you avoid “like/dislike people” discussions and certainly do not get sucked into arguments
• Integrity above all: this is a sledge hammer mantra … be professional, do not cut corners, do things right and always remember the organization’s interests
• No complaining: a sledgehammer accepts it will not be easy and you don’t whine about the tough path you have chosen <because it is the path you have chosen>
• Confidence: a sledgehammer is assertive not arrogant, proactive maybe edging on aggressive without ever sneaking into aggressiveness
• Never personal: a sledge hammer has only one thing in focus … the good of the organization and business outcomes <it is NEVER personal>
• Transparency:  assume everything is gonna be seen anyway so you may as well share it all

Look.

Here is what I know.

When you are a sledgehammer and everything goes right it is not only the best in the world for you but organizationally everyone kind of goes “whoa, that was something.”

<which is kind of cool and makes it all worthwhile>

I will admit.

Being a sledgehammer is a lonelier way to conduct business than being a navigator. It isn’t that you are not liked nor does it mean you aren’t viewed as a team member at the table, but navigators, I tend to believe, are just more social human beings & employees.

But sledge hammers have one thing in common — we are all homesick for an organization where we can not think about anything but getting good smart shit done.

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“I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists.

One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood.”

(via lipstick-bullet)

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“Life is always sweeter when the dice are still in the air.”

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“Life, even at its best, is a gambler’s game.”

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This is a little bit different than dancing on the icy brink, this is more when the game is afoot and certainty doesn’t exist although there will be a certain outcome at some point. This is a finite space and event. These moments are shapeless yet have shape. Things exist within the time and space when the dice are in the air, it’s just that the outcome is unclear. But. There is a beginning (the toss of the dice) and there is an end (the dice stop tumbling).

But before I get to my main point let me say this.

As soon as the dice are tossed there is an inevitableness and uncertainty of which that combination is not everyone mentally thrives, i.e., they don’t think life is sweeter in this moment. As a consequence some people will (a) refuse to believe dice are ever in the air and over-control everything or (b) refuse to actually throw the dice for fear of what happens when tossed. The former believes everything is controllable so no dice should have to be thrown and the latter simply fears the every day chance that weaves its way through any business. to both I say “pick your poison.”

Which leads me to gravity.

Gravity is inevitable. Dice do not remain in the air and eventually gravity brings them to a standstill.

Now. Before gravity takes over the space is actually in a state of oscillation.

Oscillation is a natural state between good & bad, better & worse, righter versus wronger.

That said. As a counter to the oscillation is the fact that all things, left to their own devices, will “irrevocably slide towards a state of maximum entropic dissemblance.” (Metamodernist Manifesto). Therefore, unfortunately, gravity, in & of itself, is ‘worse’. Conceptually this suggests ‘better’ needs to exert some force greater than gravity to not only achieve lift off but to also maintain some velocity/momentum against natural gravity. I imagine I am suggesting vigorously throwing dice in the air is possibly better than begrudgingly dropping dice. Am I suggesting doing so increases the odds of a better result? Not really. But air is air, movement is movement, tumbling is tumbling, and the longer the dice remains in the air theoretically positive oscillation can occur. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that if the dice are never thrown there is no oscillation therefore atrophy is setting in.

That said. Everything in business, process/systems/outcomes, gets compounded in the oscillation. Assuming oscillation exists in the ‘infinity’ loop ‘better’ is at larger risk in downward loop sections as gravity, as gravity does, snatches momentum & drags it down.

Wait.

It gets worse.

Ponder the dimensions of gravity:

• entropy (natural state to stagnate)
• attitudes (failure begets stronger belief of future failure)
• the natural order that there are more ways to fail than succeed (which is somewhat like a gamblers odds in Vegas).

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“Negative things are real enough to be managed, we are bad at predicting positive things for ourselves (even with the help and wisdom of others), and we all create our own spice in life that makes things work for us in our own way.”

Zat Rana

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This means fighting this gravity is:

• a desire for happiness (which most of us view in a misguided way)
• a desire for success (which most of us view in results/achievements rather than progress)
• a lack of desire to gamble with our Life (yet, no risk, no return).

Well.

That’s a depressing formula.

Regardless.

Despite natural gravity, 99% of us do not find simply accepting chance, or bad, results acceptable. Despite all the depressing thoughts I just shared, 99% of us ‘get on with getting on.’

Despite having tossed the dice, 99% of us will seek to impact the oscillation in some way to increase the odds of a good toss.

Well.

Let me continue being depressing.

Unless you can change the dimensions of the dice themselves, i.e., maybe weight a side, all of your attempts to affect the oscillation of the dice is meaningless. The probabilities of any specific numbers arising do not decrease or increase no matter how hard you try and effect the dice while they are in the air.

This is kind of an important point because unless you are just starting out, you have tossed the dice before. It brings in something called the ‘disjunction effect’ or, in other words, how you think about the future tosses of the dice are affected by what happened on previous dices tosses.

Imagine that you have just played a game of chance that gave you a 50% chance to win $200 and a 50% chance to lose $100. The coin was tossed and you have either won $200 or lost $100. You are now offered a second identical gamble: 50% chance to win $200 and 50% chance to lose $100. Would you (a) accept the second gamble or (b) reject the second gamble? Whether they have won or lost in the first gamble, a majority of participants accept the second gamble. However, they are likely to do so for different reasons: In the win scenario, they reason that they can easily risk losing half of the $200 they have just won. In the lose scenario, however, they might take the second gamble as an opportunity to make up for their previous loss. In these two cases, while the choice is the same, the reasons for making it are incompatible. Thus, when participants do not know what is going to be the outcome of the first bet, they have more trouble justifying the decision to accept the second gamble: The reasons seem to contradict each other. As a result, a majority of participants who do not know the result of the first gamble reject the second gamble even though they would have accepted it whatever the result of the first gamble. The authors tested this explanation further by devising a comparison that had the same properties as the one just described, except that the reasons for making the “accept” decision were the same irrespective of the outcome of the first gamble. In this case, participants made exactly the same choices.

(Tversky & Shafir 1992)

My point here is people toss the dice for any number of reasons but they all do so hoping for some reward or prize. The dice don’t care. And that’s the mental game. Its not risk (if you have elected to toss the dice you have accepted in some form or fashion risk). Its chance. And chance is just not something that business is comfortable with. But the truth is that all uncertainty has at least some element of chance. And while chance is a universal characteristic of almost everything in business, business chafes at this thought and will encourage everyone to attempt to manage the oscillation of the dice in air in its attempt to eliminate chance, or, as Talleyrand suggested:

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“The art of statemanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.”

Talleyrand

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Well. The dice are in the air. For that period of time your fate lies in the hands of chance no matter how hard you attempt to manage the oscillation. Uh oh. Chance is the turn of events that cannot reasonably be foreseen and over which we have no control. And while we business folk hate to admit it, there is a constant potential for chance to influence outcomes in everything we do. Like, well, all the time. So, maybe my point is life is sweeter when the dice are in the air, but most of us, in business for sure, only have a sour taste. Yet. The dice don’t care. Ponder.

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“Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least slow down change. But organizations are organized with the intent to destabilize. Because its function is to put knowledge to work – on tools, processes and products; on work; on knowledge itself – it must be organized for constant change.”

Peter Drucker

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“The boundaries, structures and goal states of social systems are not defined physically, but rather by contexts of meaning.”

Werner Ulrich

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Two business topics I have always struggled with are ‘communities’ and ‘leadership.’

I believe a business is a quasi-community, but more often a system of mini-networks <mini-communities?> working in a coherent fashion within a larger system/network.

I believe anyone can lead within a specific context/situation, but not anyone is good at consistent leadership of an entire business <which is about coordinating people and resources>.

But today I tackle both to discuss power and who has the power in a business.

I use community as a reflection of people and systems. Communities, inevitably, are people, yet, they are peoples within people which are systems within a system. Networks, networked, I don’t care. People and systems (hopefully) working in some coherent fashion. Which leads me to leaders and leadership. I believe every community has a leader. I cannot think of one community, even within a democratized organization, who does not have a ‘leader’ or people they would turn to lead in times when it was felt leadership was needed.

So.

Given that, I have some beliefs about leaders:

Leaders are OF a community

Leaders derive power by how well they understand what needs to be done

Leaders need to empathetic to the needs of the community more so than of the individual

Leaders make decisions as mostly determined by forces beyond their control (bounded), but, free to carve out success within what is bounded.

Leaders are dependent upon how well they make this apparent, and useful, to the community.

In other words, the community holds the power whether they know it or not.

Which leads me to free will and determinism.

Organizational free will, embodied in a community within a corporate vision, suggests success is a result of our choices. It also suggests the business is free of constraints as if choices dissolve constraints. Conversely, determinism does not mean the community is completely determined by forces beyond its control, but rather that the situation, or the terrain the business is established on and where it is, bounds its success and organizational life. In other words, business reality is shaped, and lived, within constraints limiting options to make the most of possibilities presented to the business. I would argue that most businesses reside in a deterministic world (for the most part). Yes. People will throw exceptions at me, but the reality is a significant majority of business is determined by the place it exists (geography, community, people) and its reason for being (intent/vision/benefit offered that earns profit). I imagine I am suggesting organizations, and communities in a business, do not actually act with free will. Much of what happens is determined by circumstances.

** note: some people may call this organizational bias.

To conclude this thought I had this scribbled down <without a source>: “free will exists, but the menu from which we choose is determined, and, for most of us, there is no ordering outside of the menu.”

Which leads me to community and communities.

Communities are driven by necessities* (see footnote for how I arrived at necessities). I purposefully use necessities because it more than simplistic survival or needs. Yes. Survival is at the foundation, but the way a community survives can almost be as important to the cohesiveness of the community than survival itself. And while individuals do matter (communities are collections of people) the truth is that in business <and in society>, communities can shift the necessities and desires of individuals. I imagine that last thought nudges a community from survivability to thriveability.

Which leads me to ‘community capital.’

A community owns their ‘capital.’ I believe it is called social capital <“resources embedded in a network, accessed, and used by actors for actions”>. Therein lies their power as they attempt to apply their free will in a deterministic construct. Circling back to necessities, I would argue that we ignore all the organizational mumbo jumbo and ponder the concept of necessity as what drives community even moreso than individuals. I bring that up because absent of any leader it would behoove us to understand the role of that social capital and how the community elects to, or doesn’t elect to, apply that social capital. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the community social capital can be applied begrudgingly, halfheartedly, or with its full force.

Which leads me to leaders.

Communities are represented by a wide array of arrangements in which people organize themselves. And within their distinct structural organization there are countless ways to organize them. Regardless of the structure or how organized I would suggest they are all similar in one way- they have leaders. How leaders are selected, what power they have and how they can use it varies widely, but in the end, all communities have leaders.

This then leads us to the ultimate leadership question – are leaders simply “agents of community necessity” im­posed on them or are they free to take their com­munities where they deem a destination worth leading to?

I would argue leaders are a function of the community they represent and all decisions have to be grounded in the necessity of the community, constrained by that reality, in order to be an effective leader. I imagine I am suggesting a leader is borne of community necessity.

This flies in the face of the ‘determinism’ belief that a leader controls events. My argument is that leaders have some influence on minor issues, but they are trapped on major ones.

** note: I am not “anti-be-nice-to-people” or anti-psychological safety or even anti-empathy, it’s just that I believe all of those things have to be subservient to the necessities of the community, therefore, in service to. If they aren’t you, or a leader, simply becomes a therapist, not a decisionmaker for and of the community. I am pro-necessity or ‘needs fulfiller decisionmaker’. I do worry, on occasion, that happiness, or engagement as a broad concept, is being tied so tightly to organizational success that it is suffocating the larger perspective – influencing events to the benefit of the business.

In part what I am suggesting is that a leader is almost irrelevant except as an agent of the community (operations are necessarily necessities to the community, but of importance to the business itself not). They do what they have to do within the context that exists – or in other words, you really do not have as many options as you may think. Any leader could do that. The tighter the context constraints the easier it is to lead. The more necessity the community exhibits the easier it is to lead. The good leader understands the constraints – all of them – under which the business, community and resources operate and in understanding them makes decisions and takes actions. Conversely, not taking action on the part of the community necessities absolves them of leadership status because failure to do so does not meet the needs of the community. This doesn’t mean a leader doesn’t have some discretion on the details or even indulge themselves on what often seems to be an infinite number of minor issues, but, on the major issues of community, the necessities, the community dictates the action – or the leader ceases to exist.

Which leads me to power.

The more a leader understands the disciplines of ‘rule’ and the realities of the business, the more pow­erful they become. Power does not free leaders to be arbitrary, but drives them to understand what they must do. Reality, or context, creates leaders and then they serve that reality. I believe Machiavelli said something similar in that “a prince can govern only if he understands what he must do and is good at doing it.” Leader power is in under­standing of what needs to be done. Without that understanding they would not have had power. In fact, the deeper the understanding and the more the business seeks to funnel that understanding into the gestalt of the business itself, the more power the leader gains. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this could be good or bad.

Regardless. This does not mean a leader does not have personal beliefs, but those beliefs are subservient to the community. They can be aligned with community beliefs <this can be good or bad depending on whether the community has good intentions or bad intentions> or their beliefs can be simply power <which can be good or bad depending on whether they seek to steer a good community to good or subvert a community to nefarious or dubious objectives>.

But I think it is absurd to suggest a leader is objective or indifferent to the world in order to make the best decisions. A leader is subservient to the community and the context, therefore, their power is only in serving the situation, the context, to the benefit of the community** (see footnote on community versus shareholders).

The corollary to all I am suggesting is that if a community is misguided with their understanding of what will benefit them, they will likely find a leader who will exploit this.

In the end.

After thinking about this a bit, it seems like the business world has things turned upside down. We make leaders and leadership heroic and captains and suggest most communities are some versions of sheep. The truth is that communities have the power and leaders, and good leadership, is using the power they do not have, the community’s, to the benefit of the community <the business>.

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“Order exists because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society sets limits to what those members can do.”

James Q. Wilson wrote in The Moral Sense

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*necessities: Necessity, or necessities, is a tricky word and concept. It spans a spectrum between require, lack, need and want. That said. From a mindset standpoint, as in from a community perspective, they are all grounded in ‘essentialness.’ Buried within all is a sense of “essential to me” in some form or fashion. I bring this up because in this sense the difference between need and want is almost irrelevant. The difference is important; but its relevance to the relationship in understanding the community is almost irrelevant.

Which leads me to yearn.

Yearn points to an inclination that is continually present as a gnawing feeling of a lack of something – either for a clearly defined object or for something more abstract. In understanding the community, in terms of leadership, understanding what they yearn for may be just as important as what they need.

Which leads me to primary versus secondary.

I sometimes refer to this in terms of ‘minor versus major’ but the reality is more secondary versus primary. A community will inevitably have primary ‘necessities’, across the full spectrum, which need to be addressed while an organization itself can generate secondary issues which need to be addressed to thrive in the larger market place. I word it this way to suggest secondary issues can be ‘organizational survival issues’, i.e., very important, and yet not be community primary issues.

**community versus shareholders: Leaders always reside in a liminal space between internal organization and external market (this can include shareholders). I would suggest, for today’s discussion, if a leader fosters the community as an agent of its necessities the shareholders will benefit as an outcome. That does not always mean community outcomes will always equal shareholder desires, just that shareholder desires are not community necessities and using them as one is a recipe for leadership disaster.

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

“Capitalism is the only engine credible enough to generate mass wealth. I think it’s imperfect, but we’re stuck with it. And thank God we have that in the toolbox. But if you don’t manage it in some way that incorporates all of society, if everybody’s not benefiting on some level and you don’t have a sense of shared purpose, national purpose, then it’s just a pyramid scheme.”

David Simon

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“It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”

The Godfather

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

I do not get (understand) investing, VC evaluation and startup support in general. Ok. I get it, it just confuses me. And I say that having:

• Been on both the good and the bad side of a VC takeover: buying out a profitable business seeing an opportunity to make it more profitable by running it better & buying out a business to break it apart to make money
• Been in multiple startup incubators (B2B & consumer) and seen a wide range of technology to non-technology startup ideas (good and bad)

All that said. Don’t ask me to explain how startups get funding, how VCs evaluate & invest nor how some ‘successful’ startups continue to get money <although this piece, “What I wish someone had told me about Venture Capitalists‘, does a nice job>. No matter how many times I’ve been involved in the process or been asked to evaluate businesses, I seem to be on the wrong side of the evaluation ‘brain.’ Why? Well. That has an easy answer. I like businesses that make money as in ‘profit’, not revenue, as my main criteria. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about revenue or the bullshit buzzword of the day, ‘scale’ (which is simply another bullshitty way of saying ‘growth’), but I like to stack profit dollars on top of profit dollars rather than cross my finger a business will cross the ‘making lots of unprofitable revenue’ Rubicon to the ‘hey, all this revenue is now profitable’ side.

** note: the exception would be what I call the ‘enabler idea products.’ These are the products which I usually call, in my non-startup pea like brain, the engine part ideas. They see the world as an engine and they develop parts which can replace existing parts or be inserted into the engine to make it run more efficiently or effectively – software ideas often fit this criteria.

What I will say is that the startup industry has become a master pyramid scheme in which the investors hope that one of the pyramid scheme bets pays for all the other bad bets. And you know what? Sometimes they do. And you know what? More often they do not. They have made capitalism a pyramid scheme. They encourage us to view business, all business and the economy, as one big gambler’s bet. And because they do they have reshaped the larger economy (forcing larger businesses to view innovation as a gambler’s bet too – if not their own business).

You may think I may be misguided or even wrong. But play a game. How many well known ‘successful’ technology startup like businesses are making a profit? Amazon? Kind of. Uber? Nope. Wework? Nope. Shit. Go into the best startup incubators, maybe even audit Techstars (who I like and admire). How many are making a profit (but showcase revenue)? Zero (okay … not many). It’s a gambler’s game. American capitalism has become a pyramid scheme. Can big business benefit? Sure. They can look at the gamblers and then buy the winners and absorb them. It limits their innovation ROI risk, but costs them in the purchase.

** note: I would suggest that many larger businesses are actually more well positioned to develop these more successful ideas but they tend to either (a) have a poor new idea evaluation process or (b) do not approach ‘startup idea innovation’ in a way that enables the focus & investment needed to make it successful.

To be clear. Companies like Techstar basically serves as the big business ‘brain’ that a small startup cannot afford.

That said. Even the exceptions I highlighted, the enabler idea products, are a gamblers game.

Here is where this version of pyramid scheme has an even darker underbelly. Conflicting interests. This new model of capitalism is an attempt to get around inefficiencies and costs imposed by larger business, but creates an ambiguous allocation of rights, and ownership as well as an ambiguous business model. Simplistically, everyone is in to get their money (let’s call it at its worst: greed). Even if the founder/owner truly isn’t overcome with a greed muscle and simply is in it for the idea, there is a dilution of control (under the guise of ‘freedom to innovate that engages a market that doesn’t yet exist’). This is nuts. Fringe business malpractice, but, simplistically, nuts. As I have noted most of the most successful businesses, and profitable ones, aren’t particularly disruptive at their onset nor do they ‘think outside the box’, but rather see the box and reconfigure it. And they make money.

I call this lazy capitalism (when I am being generous) and pyramid scheme capitalism (when I am not being generous).

** note: this pyramid scheme has a variety of bloodsuckers. For example, I have sat in on or eavesdropped on dozens of business people looking to pick the pockets of founders – the social media structuralists, the PR scale people, the ‘organic growth’ disruptors, the brand builders, the startup marketing futurists – who slither their way into founder’s (investors) wallets.

Look. I am all for startups with appealing ideas and driven founders getting the expertise they need quickly and the funding necessary to give them some traction that they may otherwise would have no access to. But over 80% of startups fail because, uhm, there is no market for their idea. and, no, this isn’t because they see a future no one else can see (i.e., they are visionaries), but rather because THERE IS NO MARKET FOR THAT IDEA.

** note: I have never seen an angel investor or any investor sit in on those ‘pick pocket presentations’ I mentioned in my last note. If they did, they would not only hear how stupid (nonexistent possible success, i.e., ‘no real market for that idea’) some ideas they have invested in, but would also watch a pick pocket in action.

The flow of money into the startup world is absurd. I look at that money and can only dream about what it could do if invested elsewhere. But it will not stop. Why? Greed. That’s what pyramid schemes work in the first place. Greed. Easy money. All that bullshit.

There has to be a better way – and there is. Startups have a place in the world and investing in them in which dreams turn into viable businesses is actually good for capitalism. It’s a funded Schumpeter Creative Destruction and I love that. Family companies have, and should have, a new lease on life. Public companies SHOULD be challenged as they try and squeeze out more profits through their operations in a variety of misguided ways. Short term mentality, archaic hierarchies, status quo onerous non-digital business models should be gamed out. All that said. A pyramid scheme non profitable lazy capitalism startup investment model is not the way to do it. An insurgent economy should be a hybrid of smart idea, money making, startups and large public company smart non-standardization (I hesitate to call it agile so let’s say adaptable, antifragile) money-making longer-term business sense making.

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

“A job is the ultimate pyramid scheme.”

Ken Poirot

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

I believe we are seeing a shift in the underpinnings of the business world. I may not agree with all the “its about culture” people or the “purpose over profit” people, but I do believe, and have for quite some time, business is transitioning from an outcome only mentality to more of a “business is more than just business” mentality. I do believe technology is playing a role and while not in the ‘digital transformation’ camp I believe augmenting humans and thinking-conceptually-sensemaking is edging its way into the ‘way we do business.’ Someone said awhile back that business is learning that to ‘outbehave’ is the path to better performance. Within that idea is part technology and part people. Within that idea is where the startup world may find its most fruitful investments – ideas that outbehave created by a mindset that seeks to outbehave the status quo (ethically & service). Ponder.

====

“Control advances with our ability to predict the outcome of natural processes. In as much as predictions are but explanations in reverse, it is possible that they will be as combative as explanations, indeed for without this skill control of an opponent (people) is all the more difficult. In other words, prediction, true or false, is control, uncertainty or ambiguity suggests lack of control and, inevitably, control is power. Therefore, predictions (real or not) create power.”

James Carse

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

Terence McKenna

====

Let me begin with a Life truth which probably screws up us from day one: we are brought up thinking we have more control than we actually do. We are told you can be whatever you want to be, if you work hard enough good things will happen and a number of things which suggest you can totally control your destiny. Maybe even more destructively, we are taught that if we can show people we are in control of things it gives one power over others. That said. It becomes fairly apparent fairly quickly in your youth as you look around that this isn’t really true (other than the power aspect). In fact, its bullshit. If you are really lucky someone will come along and tell you is (a) working on the right things is better than working relentlessly on the wrong things – this can even include your ‘passion’, and (b) the universe cannot be controlled and doesn’t bend no matter how hard we work at bending it.

Look. I am not suggesting not working hard or advocating for a belief everything is simply luck, but I am suggesting that believing you actually have more control than you do is not particularly healthy. In fact, I would suggest “that was inevitable” is one of the most infuriating sayings and thoughts in Life. NOTHING is truly inevitable other than “something will happen.” Sure, you cannot totally control what WILL happen, but you can certainly do your damndest to bend the arc away from what you do not want to have happen. That said. I would suggest that controlling things, in general, in Life, in business and … well … in everywhere, is possibly the least probable objective one could ever make, let alone should make.

Yet.

In some form or fashion, we attempt again and again to gain & maintain some control over all the shit we are faced with day in & day out. Pragmatically this is our attempt to offer some sanity to what can seem like a fairly insanely chaotic life in combination with our lack of desire to believe luck plays as large a role as it possibly does.

All that said. Control, for the most part, is an illusion. It is an attractive illusion but an illusion nonetheless.

Which leads me to what we can actually control (beyond working hard on the right things).

As the world buffets you like a hurricane I would suggest the one thing you can control is your mind and, consequently, what you think. It ain’t easy but it is doable.

• Control when you think.

Not everything takes a shitload of thinking. This is my way of suggesting overthinking is a bad thing. Uhm. So is underthinking. Controlling when you think is about “thinking just enough” – not over or under – when faced with something.  Some would call this ‘maximizing efficient thinking.’ I would simply call it learning how to not overthink or underthink something. This comes naturally to an incredibly small % of people. Let’s make up a number — less than 5% of people. Haggle with that number if you would like, but I offer it to make the point that the majority of people who say “I am a good thinker” <with regard to over & underthinking> are probably not. I should also point out that power accumulates with those who only overthink what is best for them and not what is the best thinking for the situation.

Anyway. You have to learn how to calibrate your thinking. My guess is even if you are a great learner no one truly becomes an expert at this, you just increase your ‘success ratio’ enough that you can sense when you got it right and sense when you got it wrong. Ponder.

• Control how you think.

Our minds are often like people viewing an all-you-can-eat buffet table. Yeah. We will inevitably gravitate to either the desserts or the prime rib. We don’t focus on the most healthy and less glamorous stuff on the table. 

This means you have to control not only your thoughts, but also how you think. You have to sift through what appears attractive versus what may actually be more healthy <the ‘non-rubbish’ as it were> in order to most effectively meet the needs of the thought moment.

By the way. Please note I purposefully chose effective and not efficient. When you think is about efficiency and how you think is about effectiveness.

This is a focus aspect of thinking. Shiny objects are shiny objects and great desserts are great desserts and nutrition is nutrition. Focusing on what is best matters – especially over time.

You have to learn to do this. Some people are actually very good at this. They have a knack for viewing everything all at once and have an ability to discern the less important from the most important without being distracted by shiny and tasty things. Please note “some.” Not a lot. Not many. Some. You can learn to be better at this, but unless you have the innate instincts you will just be good at it and not great at it. this will be one of the few times I will say “good is good enough”. Why? Because being bad at this has dire consequences to your success in life and any ability to control anything that could be controlled. I should also note power can easily accumulate with those who disregard “how” in thinking because in their dull axe world the only ‘how’ pertains to control with the intent of maintaining power. Ponder.

• Control how you select your thoughts.

Once you have focused, you have to select some thoughts to craft your decision, choice & conclusion. This point kind of circles back to underthinking & overthinking.  If you suck at controlling how you select thoughts you will invariably end up mired in overthinking shit <because you chose the wrong things and got bogged down in a less-than-conclusive spot> or underthinking shit <because you found an attractive thought which seemingly, in some linear way, suggested “that’s it!”>.

We all have a rolodex of thoughts in our minds that we have accumulated over time through whatever experiences we have had. Inevitably the mind, in its wily way, flips through it for you and shoves a thought or tow to the forefront – immediately. Some people call this ‘instincts.’ I call it dangerous. The subconscious can be wrong as often as it is right.

Unfortunately, you have to force thinking at this stage. Dive a little deeper than your initial “oh, that’s it.” This is absolutely learnable.

Unfortunately, today’s world doesn’t exactly encourage us to force thinking and learn to do this. We encourage instincts and speed above all.

That is unfortunate.

That is dangerous.

That is unlearnable … and controlling how you select your thoughts IS learnable. Ponder.

So, let me say one last time. Control is an illusion. So, own your truth. Don’t bargain your soul. Remember the value you create is ultimately created from the value you see in yourself. By the way, that’s not controlling the narrative, that’s ownership of self <a version of controlling what you can control>.

Which lets me end where I began – with what we are told to think.

Business is infamous for ‘performance management’ which is simply ‘control them’ in business language.  This permits me to make a point about control. Performance management systems cause:

1. Gaming 81% of the time
2. Information manipulation 74% of the time
3. Selective short-termism 55% of the time
4. Give an illusion of control
5. Negatively affect social relationships 81% of the time

Source: Reviewing and Theorizing the unintended consequences of performance Management systems

All those things are simply an attempt to manipulate control techniques or what happens when you succumb to control techniques. Period. Which lets me end with “control is an illusion.” Period.

———

All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary
All of this is temporary

———

Ok. I was tempted to call this ‘the glimpses of perfection’ <which I also call “the flickering of perfection” somewhere later>. What I mean by that is if you put any real effort into what you do, in business or in Life, you will actually brush up against perfection on occasion. And that’s the maddening part.  Life is pretty maddening in that it often gives us these little glimpses of perfection, but at the same time refuses to let us actually keep it for anything longer than a glimpse.

This is where it all gets tricky. Therefore <because we like … no ... LOVE ... those glimpses> we constantly attack Life & business always slightly tainted by this ‘temporary perfection’.

Why? Because the temporary glimpses, those ‘moments’, they suggest perfection <or a version of it> is achievable. And you try and plan, and replicate, those glimpses so that they become the norm. Unfortunately, we people are imperfect so replicating perfection is almost impossible. We struggle in this wretched in between almost everyday.
Now.

First. Let me be clear. The whole idea of perfection is shit.

Second. That doesn’t mean we cannot achieve perfection <whew … there was a contradictory thought, huh?>

The difficulty resides in the fact that perfection is fleeting and we only get glimpses of it. I sometimes refer to it as the flickering of perfection in our lives.

And you know what? That’s good <that flickering>. In fact I would argue it is often good enough. In fact I could argue it is as good as it gets.

Look. I imagine most of us probably feel like we are ‘doing’ somewhere between okay and good in most areas of life. We are, in our minds, doing a decent job day to day. Some days better than others, but overall decent.

But perfection? Whew. I don’t think so. Maybe at moments … but all the time in life? No way.

That said. Maybe the key point, or issue, most likely comes down to my ‘definition of perfection’.

Here is my take.

I sometimes believe we see perfection as a home to move into.

It is not. It is a hotel <or maybe a motel>. You may stay one night … maybe a week <if you are really really lucky>, but you can’t live there.

Am I saying this as a way of condoning mediocrity?

No. Absolutely frickin’ not.

It is just a reminder that people are not perfect <most of the time>.

It is a reminder that Life is not perfect <all the time>.

It is a reminder that Business is never perfect despite all the best practices, process, system, ROI & corporate cultural guidelines <never perfect contextually>.

It is a reminder that aiming for perfection <all the time> is wasted energy and maybe to take it easier on yourself.

Now. This doesn’t mean you should try to be your best <because you should>, maybe just acknowledge that your best doesn’t equal perfection <at least all the time>.

Uhm. Uh oh.

It is quite possible one would think that “doing your best” should be, well, our best, no?

And if we believe that, well, our best should equal perfection, no?

Unfortunately it doesn’t actually work that way.

That actually isn’t the formula.

This may be difficult to accept, but your best is a jagged line. Jagged as it is dependent upon what you have and when you are doing something – context as it were.

On occasion that jagged line butts up against the ‘perfection line.’

So.

Unfortunately. Under the harsh spotlight of self judgment you may be tempted to judge this as not really your best. Or maybe you make it a caveated best. A derivative of best as it were.

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

“It’s easy to miss and easy to mistake
For when things are really great
It just means everything’s in its place.”

Aimee Mann

Well. You would be wrong. Its not some lesser version as long as you were truly “doing the best that you can.”

Oh shit. Trouble. In actuality many times we are not actually doing our best.

Huh? C’mon. 90% of the time as we go thru the grind of Life & business you know you could do more <if the measure is truly our best>.

Look. I truly believe chasing perfection is an endless pursuit. And, frankly, if you try to do this you only put yourself under unbearable pressure aiming to be the perfect version of who you are. And, inevitably, this relentless quest for perfection can only bring disappointment because not only is being perfect all the time <if not at any time> an impossible task, but it becomes exponentially more impossible <ok … how can something that is already impossible become exponentially so? … its kind of like getting three death sentences …> if you actually attempt to do “it” all the time.

Planning perfection, which is most often a random confluence of factors, is a sysiphean task. Someone can waste far too much time and energy trying to be the perfect ‘whatever’.

Sure. None of us want to be ‘less-than-perfect’ in anything we do, but it is a fact of life. But. Here is some news.

Ok.

No. Here is the fact.

Doing your best isn’t about perfection and it isn’t always trying to be perfect. Because doing your best is about “good enough with what you can actually do”. Doing your best is about maximizing ‘as long as it lasts.’ And that is often not perfection.

Ok.

In the end. Don’t think about perfection as ‘your best.” Best is simply … ‘effort + attitude’. And … just … well … do your best. Choose the moments and truly do your best <and admit the other times just aren’t your best you are just muddling through>.

Why?

Well. I believe every action has an equal and opposite reaction <actually … each action can have a variety of opposite reactions of which it is difficult for you to discern beforehand what will occur but that’s a different post>. Therefore, if you perform any action the results will come, maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some time. So if people could keep their minds thinking what I just typed above and truly do your best at the right time and mentally unattach yourself from the outcome of the ‘best’ actions <and the concept of perfection> I think more people would be happier and they may actually do their best more often. And, maybe more importantly, if you do not try and fool yourself into believing you had done “your best” in certain situations you may be able to manage your life expectation-wise a little better.

Regardless.

Just do your best and, if you are lucky, you will get a glimpse of perfection. We can try and be our best all the time, but perfection is temporary. While that may sound painfully disappointing maybe look at it is “possibilities”.

——–

I dwell in Possibility—
A fairer House than Prose—
More numerous of Windows—
Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—
Impregnable of Eye—
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—
For Occupation—This—
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise—

Emily Dickinson

———

Remember. While your life may only have the flickering of perfection it surely seems like a positive way of attacking Life would be to dwell in the possibilities that perfection will visit again.

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“The world’s thy ship and not thy home.”

Thérèse de Lisieux

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“All of life is a coming home.

Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us.  All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home.”

Patch Adams 

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

Well. I had all these quotes and I didn’t know what to do with them until I saw the image at the opening of this post: “They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving maybe I’m going home.”

I have often wondered why many of us are so restless. We seek things, and travel places looking for ‘something’ and dream dreams. This doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy what we have nor does it mean we don’t accept reality. It just means that there is always an undercurrent of change or “what ifs” or “what could be’s” underneath the surface of our Life. At the same time we are sailing through Life seeking some place we can land which we can not only call home, but actually feels like home.

And maybe that is where the line “home is where you hang your hat’ comes into play. In its simplicity it is actually suggesting that it really isn’t your hat that matters it is when you accept that you can be who you are and that ‘who’ is all you can be that you have found home. And while Thérèse was really suggesting that the material world was simply your journey and heaven, or God, is your destination, the overall thought is truer than true.

Whether you believe in something bigger than you or simply believe there is something bigger within you, you should seek the stars within you to guide you to it all — not some external place or location which may appear to fulfill some aspect of ‘home.’

Your dreams, wishes and … yes … the starlight to guide you in the darkness of not knowing what to do, where to go and how to get thru whatever it is you are going thru is all within you.

Your home resides within you.

You are simply looking for a place to, well, place your home that feels right and true.

That place is unseen.

That place is not really one place <it can actually be many places>.

Here comes the hard part.

Life will not give you any signposts and most of Life will constantly change your direction unseen in the undercurrents of Life.

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

“In the short voyage of a lifetime, we can see the eddies and ripples on the surface, but not the undercurrents changing the main channel of the stream. “

Thomas Mellon

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This all suggests you are in control and you are not in control.

Just ponder the fact we often stand upon the deck of our ship admiring the horizon and enjoying the travel & journey only to have some Life undercurrent disrupt our complacency and some version of ‘living Life laziness’ <i.e., if you’re not careful and become actively involved in Life, Life will actively involve itself in your Life>.

This simply reminds us that circumstances beyond our control often disrupt the illusion of what we have, who we are and where we are.

The unseen undercurrent constantly nudges our mind with questions:

What is our purpose?

How can we take control of so many things out of our control?

How do we reconcile the vastness Life offers us … reconcile the bigness that can often appear within reach … and reconcile our desire to be worthy of Life … reconcile it all against the smallness that is us in the roiling sea on which our ship sails?

Will we ever satisfy our dreams for what could be & what we could be?

Meaningful or meaningless?

We struggle with these questions. And all the while we avoid the questions under the guise of “seeking home.’

Ah. Shit.

Suffice it to say, home is not anything physical, it actually resides in the infinite. As a corollary, this would presume if you accept its infiniteness you should be able to see it also has the potential to be infinitely good.

I believe we inherently know this and inherently know that only ‘home’ will truly satisfy us. And that search, that journey, is the satisfaction. I imagine the unfortunate, uncomfortable, truth is the odds are we will never truly find some ‘home’ in which we can live our entire lives.

The world is our ship.

Life is our ship.

Our home, our stars, reside within us.

Ponder.

==========

“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.”

Edward de Bono

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“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Simone Weil

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“Genius is nothing but continued attention.”

Claude Adrien Helvetius

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

So. Targeting customers in business, for business, used to be about, well, targets.  More specifically – demographics.

Well. Not anymore.

First.

Attitude, or attitudinal targeting, has replaced age & income & crap like that. What I mean by that is if you develop a compelling message that connects with aspirations & attitudes, well, I don’t really care about the demographics of someone <or it becomes significantly less important>.

This means a business goes forth ignoring who someone is physically and, with an intent to connect with or maybe change a mindset <or at least make the mind think> and create some desired behavior, goes out and connects with aspirations and expectations by delivering ‘something’ <it could be a variety of tactics, images & words> with relevance and resonance.

And then it all comes down to tactics <connection points – which is place & timing>.

Second.

Beyond the actual targeting of people <who should I aim my message at> it seems more and more we were actually paying attention to, well, attention. Someone actually called this topic “the attention value equation.”

The equation is fairly simple:

“I give you my attention … I expect to get something in return” = some value

This value equation is almost like a transaction. My attention is the currency which I am going to lay out on the table expecting to get something for it. And the true value? The attention giver actually feels like they got an additional ‘gift’ <that’s the highest order of attention value>.

Now.

Of course, in today’s word this creates some massive, but not insurmountable, challenges.

The opportunity exists in the fact that over 90% of almost the entire business targeting population now is interested in maximizing their ‘mobility.’ I once called this the ‘nomad generation’ but let’s just say that we are being socially conditioned to live much of our daily Life from wherever we are <enabled by some smart technology>.

The challenge is that “live much of our daily Life from wherever we are” is a self-empowered decision where attention is ‘given’ … uhm …‘spent’, if I continue with the equation theory.

Whatever I spend I, well, don’t want to “lose” <get nothing for it>. And while many people smarter than I would step in here and suggest we should treat attention as a gift, I will not. I will suggest that attention is money extended as part of a transaction. But with a twist.

They are paying upfront. You get the money no matter what. They get nothing if you give them nothing <uh oh>. That thought places attention unequivocally into a transaction equation.

And that is the reason why from the ‘attention receiver’ standpoint content marketing is an essential tactic. Because it isn’t really a tactic, it is an intimate engagement in which money has been exchanged and someone wants to receive, at minimum, value for the exchange and , at maximum, some acknowledgement of the intimacy <but this does not need to be done in every exchange>. The danger in taking what I just wrote literally is that someone could view exchanges as one-on-one transactions at some given point in time.

Why is it a danger?

Because it avoids the fact that there is a constant ever increasing flow of information in which people are often not only drowning in that flow but also unsure of how to enter into the flow and not get swept away. It’s the flow of memes, animated GIFs, updates, events, questions, conversations, breaking news updates and every other digital drop of water creating the flood of information.

In addition the giver of attention has a constant flow of attention running through everything available on the ‘must do’ and ‘should I do’ and ‘want to do’ at exactly the same time.

Now.

This is where most marketing people stand up and say “do break thru executions and you will win!” The intent is quasi-correct, but the challenge is steep.

First.

It implies one engagement & connection is sacrosanct.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You gotta start somewhere and treating each moment & engagement as ‘important’ is important. But it ignores the fact that managing ‘touchpoints’ is like staring at beautiful trees while the forest could be burning down.

Second.

Did you know that 4.6+ billion pieces of content are produced daily?

Tweets / Videos / Whitepapers /Email / Listicles / Instagrams / Webinars / Vines /Infographics / Podcasts / eBooks / GIFs / Blogs /Memes

4.6 billion.

<yikes>

Ok.

I mention this because, getting back to targeting and attitudes, if you want to discuss attention & attention value unfortunately you have to discuss data.

Yeah.

Most people who formulate attention/connection communications have an aversion to data.

Now.

I encourage everyone to think about data a little differently. Think of the fact that Data is actually the result of someone doing things over and over again through connections with other people. Maybe think of it as a massive research program of ‘one-on-one interviews.’ And, as with any research, when you compile the interviews you can very easily lose sight of the fact that each data point represents real people who dedicated their real attention at some particular identifiable moment.

But, if you look at data that way, you realize that each moment matters. Each moment is possibly very important. And each word, image, story, factoid needs to be thoughtful and purposefully constructed as part of a larger ‘forest’ we want people to wander and inevitably to arrive at some beautiful clearing we have created just for them.

Access to data has given us the opportunity to capitalize on the most important, sometimes personal and uniquely relevant moments. Frankly, it has never been easier to find the right people or the right moments. Sure … you may have to dig into the <research estimated> over 20 trillion moments of smartphone ‘moments’ each person has each year, but, go ahead and assume 20 trillion will trend or pattern and trends & patterns can offer extraordinary insights.

But.

Most importantly <and possibly what all those ‘big data experts’ fail to see> is that all these data points reflect WHAT SOMEONE HAS CHOSEN TO PAY ATTENTION TO.

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“Attention is the most important currency that anybody can give you, it’s worth more than money, possessions or things.”

Steve Rubel

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Discussing data is a completely different, and complex, topic. But do not disregard data as a means to examine connections and what people pay attention to.

But let me get back to attention itself.

Google getting someone’s attention and you will get a gazillion <46,900,000 to be exact> results in less than one second.

And I have seen dozens of presentations from really smart digital market people on capturing attention. But of everything I have seen I would have to say Ben Parr <author of Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention> caught my attention in Harvard Business Review <HBR> with a couple of deeper thoughts.

• Capture … or … “THE capture”

Anticipation and motivation.

It fuels our desire to “want” food, sex, money or more intrinsic rewards like self-satisfaction and a sense of purpose. The prospect of capturing these things makes us pay attention.

Rewards we can touch, experience, or even just visualize have a greater impact on our attention.

First.

This does not mean we live in a visual world <and a visual is all that matters>. This suggests “strategic use of visuals.”

Second.

This does not mean the visual has to be ‘beautiful.’ Many business people suggest that something beautiful is so attractive that everyone looks. I would argue that is a lazy argument.

Third.

The big thought? “Capture” is at its best when tied to intrinsic rewards <not rational>.

Fourth.

This Ben Parr guy suggests sensory cues actually direct our attention automatically. It’s a safety and survival mechanism that helps us react faster than our brains can think. Thinking about capturing someone’s attention that way permits you to think aurally, visually and any other more subtle way that plays on people’s instincts rather than just plastering some beautiful visual in front of them.

• *** note: there is an entire book, “The Case Against Reality” How Evolution hid the truth from our eyes” by Donald Hoffman on this topic. I highly recommend the book.

• The Expert.

From the same HBR study the author suggests that attention increases with … well … credibility.

Consumers consistently rate experts as the most trusted spokespeople, more than CEOs or celebrities. There’s a scientific reason for this: in a 2009 study, Emory University neuroeconomist Greg Berns found that the decision-making centers of our brains slow or even shut down while we are receiving advice from an expert.

This is a phenomenon Dr. Robert Cialdini calls “directed deference.” So, especially if you’re trying to capture the attention of people who don’t know you, feel free to lead with your credentials, establish your expertise and cite others who are most knowledgeable on the topic at hand.

To be clear, the use of “shut down” in this case means “filter our distractions and focus.” Well. Many digital experts expound upon the importance of ‘personal ‘in digital and mobile communications, but, maybe we should be thinking about establishing ‘expert’ first?

Just a thought.

All that said.

I do believe that while discussing gaining someone’s attention and the value equation it is incredibly easy to focus on one connection and one moment, the truth is that to gain someone’s attention within a multi trillion mobile connection person’s life you have to be relentless, persistent and omnipresent <because the smartphone is omnipresent in that person’s life>.

This is hard to do.

Like.

REALLY hard.

Mainly because to be persistent you need a shitload of content and it needs to be relevant content <remember the credibility, the capture and the intrinsic reward opportunities I outlined above>.

Truthfully? This is a glorious grind. I say a grind because, well, that is obvious. I say glorious because you are constantly seeking to create that one post, article, tweet, video, picture, whatever … that connects, converts and is remembered.

You are constantly seeking to briefly say what needs to be said – with care. And, yeah, you have to do all this. Why? Because if there truly is 4.6 billion pieces of content created daily then you almost have to assume that most people are ignoring anything that could be construed as mediocre content.

Anyway.

I would suggest it all starts with the attention value equation.

While almost everything I have shared today suggests “overwhelming”, the one thing I have been clear on and offers a strong central filter is the attention value equation. All questions you may ask about relevance and interest and connection can be answered by using the value equation.

No value and whatever you are offering is useless.

This also suggests you can put “creating dialogue” on the backburner <because if you don’t gain someone’s attention in the first place and don’t actually offer some value once you do gain their attention there ain’t gonna be no dialogue>. Create connections that are useful, likeable, memorable and shareable … and what people value. And create an overall journey in which the value equation is driven by purpose and intention <that insures no connection is wasted>.

It is easy to say in today’s world you are competing for attention. It is actually a little lazy. While living Life from the palm of your hand may create some ‘noise’ challenges … we have always had to compete for attention. In addition, as I have stated before, the whole “shorter attention span than ever” is bullshit.

Attention is attention – was yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow.

And the attention value equation is the attention value equation – it was yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow.

Sometimes we forget this shit. Most likely because our attention is caught by some stupid cat video and then we sit back and think “oh, that is what needs to be done to gain someone’s attention!”

That is stupid thinking – yesterday, today and will be tomorrow.

Just keep your eye on the attention value equation and you should be good. Ponder.

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“There are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”

Thomas A. Edison

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Ok. Anyone who reads what I typically write already knows I struggle with rules <although I do like discipline & construct>.

And that is why I love his quote.

Edison is a guy who pretty much failed more than any inventor, let alone anyone, and yet was more successful in the end. I continuously read he was often a jerk and egotistical and had all the flaws that make someone fairly intolerable socially despite the fact he was a relentless innovator.

Well. I am gonna disregard that and focus on trying to accomplish something.

Accomplishing things is good. And, generally speaking, if you set some milestones/objectives and play by the rules you will accomplish things. That said. If you truly want to accomplish something stunning, something really big, something that turns the world slightly upside down, well, there are no rules.

Why?

Because the rules keep you from attaining everything I wrote in that sentence.

Rules maintain the norm.

Rules maintain the status quo.

Rules maintain “what is” and never <ok … rarely> generate “what can be.”

What is possible (impossible within the rules) is typically attained when you break thru the boundaries of what is accepted and what everyone feels comfortable with, i.e., the ‘rules’ which have generated past success, and you reach out to something new and innovative.

Rules are dictated by what got you to the success you attained today. As a cautionary corollary, those same rules restrict you from attaining future “new unseen success.”

To be clear.

Does this mean I am suggesting unethical behavior? Nope. I am simply suggesting process & practices rules tend to constrain the new behavior/practices to create something meaningfully new.

Does this mean I am suggesting chaos is good? Nope. I am simply suggesting that rules often restrict you from anything but maintaining the status quo (which isn’t bad but at its core simply means you are stagnant in one sense or another). And at some point someone is gonna come along and break the rules.

I can guarantee that.

And as a leader you will be judged by how you handle that.

Because not all rule breakers are good.

Just as not all rule breakers are bad.

You, as a business, are bad – ok, you suck – if you judge all rule breakers equally.  As in “they broke a rule and that is bad.” You suck because that means you are not only mired in a sea of maintaining sameness, but you have also attained the true status of squelching any innovative thinking that could possibly help you, or whatever you are managing, “break out” and get to the next level.

Am I suggesting this is easy? Nope.

And that is why so many businesses suck.

Because it is easier to maintain the status quo.  It is easier to have everyone follow the rules.

Because then your job is simply herding and not leading. Herders suck because they simply follow rules.

Suffice it to say businesses attain their status because they know how to make exceptions (and maintain the overall organization momentum).

Following rules is easy.

And lazy.

But, once again to be clear, not all rules that are broken is a good thing. Some rules kind of keep some necessary boundaries <on behavior and such>.

So, as are most things in life, there is no formula.

And those who break rules are as likely to have fucked up as they are to have been stunningly successful.

Personally I believe every organization should not only have these people, but encourage them.

Stunning failures with glimpses of success should be celebrated for the attempt of glory. And business shouldn’t chastise, but teach. For in every stunning failure there is an opportunity for a stunning success.

And shame on any business who doesn’t recognize that.