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Sometimes life happens slow, then really fast.

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“It is hardly surprising that dead rabbits are pulled out of the hat when nothing but dead bunnies have been put in.”

William Nordhaus, economist

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The opening image sets the stage for discussing new products and innovation to point out that the term “new products” can be a sweeping term covering a long list of possible market introductions.

I’ve been thinking about new products and innovation (one would hope they are related because I’ve been watching Silicon Valley – painfully chuckling at times) and read this fabulous piece: Web3, the Metaverse, and the Lack of Useful Innovation.

Throughout my career I have worked with technology incubators, large company new product groups and just basic businesses who created new products and brought them to market.

Which leads me to say I have seen more bad ideas then is most likely healthy for me.

But new products are really important to existing businesses in that profits from new products tend to account for a substantial amount of the bottom line of businesses (note: there is a point to be made here about efficiencies and squeezing out profit from existing products in the market but that is for another day). We have all seen the simplistic surveys online showing “reasons why new products fail” as if CPG companies haven’t studied new products in depth. It’s a bit crazy. So, having pulled out an old folder with a bunch of notes scribbled in it about new products from my experience with P&G and other companies, let me say some things about innovations and new products. To be clear. I will share some dated information that I am too lazy to update mostly because I am 90% confident, in principle, the conclusions are the same today as they were then.

Suffice it to say successful new products all deliver a meaningful and perceivable benefit to a large enough market to be sustainable financially and are different in some meaningful and perceivable way from alternatives. The main principles that form the foundation for successful new product programs:

1. know what your product stands for and make its benefits superior
2. discover latent consumer insights which are tied to a specific need
3. ensure the product benefits align with latent insights
4. ensure market readiness
5. make sure it has the ability to scale out (have enough of a market)

Most of that seems fairly basic, yet, the hard realities are that a great majority of new products never make it to market. And those that do face a failure rate somewhere in the order of 25 to 45%. The figures may vary depending on what industry and how one defines a new product and a failure. Some sources cite the failure rate at launch to be as high as 90%, but most of those figures tend to be wild overstatements based on dubious surveys. My guess is the true failure rate is about 35%. Regardless of whether the success rate is 55% or 65%, the odds of a failed launch is fairly significant. I would be remiss if I didn’t note the news gets a bit worse because this doesn’t even include the majority of new product projects that are killed somewhere in process long before launch, yet, have already involved considerable expenditures of time and money. One old study revealed that for every seven new product ideas about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Another study revealed that for every 11 new product ideas, 3 enter the development phase, 1.3 are launched and only 1 is a commercial success in the marketplace. The commonality between those two studies is only one success.

Which leads me to new product failure is fairly easy to identify through a number of reasons:

• Poor planning: it doesn’t really fit into the company strategy, expertise or distribution strengths, or margin, or ROI, market analysis is inadequate, poor timing or the company fails to face up to competitive strengths
• Poor management (tied to poor planning): product doesn’t fit the company character guiding these activities, no management sponsor, no management information system to effectively communicate throughout process, wrong department leads the introduction program, budget and time constraints due to something unanticipated or management direction is vague
• Poor concept: the concept itself doesn’t appeal all the time in the form of execution being evaluated, no unique benefit or one that is unique enough, maybe offers too many benefits and has no simple strong reason for being; maybe it does have unique benefits but fulfills little need; poor price/value relationship; out of sync with the market, maybe too innovative/different
• Poor execution: personality becomes point of difference rather than function or intrinsic benefit; maybe product defects, technical problems, or product over engineered, over/under package; misbranded; mistargeted; mistimed for character of market
• Poor use of research: most often this is because research is done backwards, i.e., attempting to prove out a technology (search for a benefit) rather than assess an existing need
• Poor technology: this typically drives poor execution in that the product, functionally, doesn’t offer a significant enough meaningful benefit
• Poor timing: new products can be too early to market (ahead of natural adoption acceptance) or too late to market (following without a significantly superior benefit)

But. That said. Simplistically, new products fail when consumers do not want to buy them. This is why if you are involved in new products, you really should be problem solvers rather than just idea generators.

Which leads me to a lesson to technology folk.

Technology is actually learning a lesson that the Consumer Packaged Goods industry learned a long time ago. More products can mean more sales, but you have to be smarter about your new product that you offer to the public. In 1964 there were about 1,300 new product introductions in supermarket/drug stores. In the early 1980s the packaged goods industries were introducing around 3000 to 5000 new products a year. By the 1990’s, we saw this number jump to about 18,000 to 20,000 and now we were over 25,000 a year. To be clear. Maybe only about 10% of new product introductions are truly new; for the most part they are extensions or additions to existing products/product lines (see opening image). The incredible thing about this phenomenal growth during that period (1960 to 2000ish) is that failure rates, while high, did not increase. It seems like consumers were finding space in their lives for five to 10 times more products per year than they were in maybe 1980. This suggests that the market likes to experience experiments as well as have been convinced specialty or ‘niche use’ has efficacy value. It’s like the culture has grasped the nature of change and finds value through experimenting with new products. But every business needs to remember with as much as 40%+ of new product ideas hitting the trash can, it’s just tough to swallow the failure rates and invest real money. In fact, I remember a number that there was an estimated 46% of all the resources allocated to product development and commercialization by US firms are spent on products that are cancelled or fail to yield an adequate financial return. There was an old study with some rough splits of innovation costs across stages in the new product process but basically it suggested for every $1million spent on product innovation, roughly only $150,000 is spent on exploration and screening research or even idea generation, i.e., the initial attempts to qualify the idea. This is kind of nuts. This also suggests ideas searching for a market rather than a market defining an idea. This whole section is something technology folk should ponder long and hard.

Which leads me to markets decide the fate of a new product.

There was an old study looking at General Electric products and the conclusions with regard to technological and market variables that decided their fates. The products had several things in common that created a well-defined product prior to the development phase and into market introduction:

1. Market needs were recognized and R&D was targeted at satisfying those needs
2. When a technological success did not meet a specific market need the product was adapted to suit an identified need (or dropped)
3. Involved managers communicated the possibility of a technological breakthrough clearly to all other departments whom, in turn, facilitated the identification of a real market need
4. Communication existed between engineers, scientists, and all other departments involved

But the bottom line, which I think some technology startups ignore, is the lessons that CPG has given the new product world that are timeless:

1. A unique superior product in the eyes of a customer (not the creator), one with a real differential or distinct advantage in the marketplace**
2. A strong market-orientation building in solid market knowledge and sound market inputs, and an undertaking of market research and effective marketing launch tasks done well
3. Technological synergy (both development and production technology) and competence in the technological tasks fundamental to the success of the product

• ** in the wayback machine with P&G we knew that new products with overall superiority (as indicated in consumer testing), met their objective 1.5 to 2 times more often. A strong product also almost doubled the repurchase rate.

Which leads me to efforts and assumptions.

In the early stages of any new product project, we make many assumptions in order to justify the project.

• We make technological assumptions: we assume the product is technologically feasible; we map out a probable route to the technical solution, manufacturability at a certain cost is assumed and so on.
• We make marketing assumptions: we estimate market size, growth, and need; we expect that the product’s features or performance will really be superior to competing products, and that while the world may not beat a path to our door the world will at least open the door of possibility of purchasing. We make competitive assumptions.

Based on all these assumptions someone gives a “go-to-market” decision and then most efforts tend to be devoted to verifying and validating the assumptions (rather than adapting as we learn more). That said. One of the most interesting factoids I remember from my way back machine with P&G is that about 75+% of total efforts ($ and work time) goes into technological and/or production activities while only about 15% is devoted to marketing activities (most of which goes into the launch).

I imagine my point on almost all of this is most new product innovations fail because, well, a business imagines a market, imagines a need and imagines a real benefit offered, and the market tends to choose how to spend its hard earned money not on imagined, but reality. Ponder.

Business, as well as Life, demands participation. Someone may choose to be indifferent, but all that means is that someone else is not only making decisions for you, they are affecting the arc of your life and, consequently, your destiny. To be clear. This is a fact. The affect may not be direct, but the point is that even if you work hard, are persistent, have clear objectives, if you are indifferent all the external factors will increase the gravity of the environment you are doing all of those things within. In other words, unless you are at your best everyday, maybe a little lucky on occasion, the arc of your destiny is going to get dragged down to all the things you were indifferent to. And while all of that matters if your own life and destiny matters to you, if you participate in the deadweight of indifference you may actually be facilitating the twisting of society’s fate. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, again, this is not just true of Life, but business. And while I do believe this discussion gets warped in some incredibly unhealthy ways, business should not ignore the discussion and being indifferent really isn’t an option.

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“I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent.
The indifference is the deadweight of history. The indifference operates with great power on history. The indifference operates passively, but it operates. It is fate, that which cannot be counted on. It twists programs and ruins the best-conceived plans. It is the raw material that ruins intelligence. That what happens, the evil that weighs upon all, happens because the human mass abdicates to their will; allows laws to be promulgated that only the revolt could nullify, and leaves men that only a mutiny will be able to overthrow to achieve the power. The mass ignores because it is careless and then it seems like it is the product of fate that runs over everything and everyone: the one who consents as well as the one who dissents; the one who knew as well as the one who didn’t know; the active as well as the indifferent. Some whimper piously, others curse obscenely, but nobody, or very few ask themselves: If I had tried to impose my will, would this have happened?
I also hate the indifferent because of that: because their whimpering of eternally innocent ones annoys me. I make each one liable: how they have tackled with the task that life has given and gives them every day, what have they done, and especially, what they have not done. And I feel I have the right to be inexorable and not squander my compassion, of not sharing my tears with them.
I am a partisan, I am alive, I feel the pulse of the activity of the future city that those on my side are building is alive in their conscience. And in it, the social chain does not rest on a few; nothing of what happens in it is a matter of luck, nor the product of fate, but the intelligent work of the citizens. Nobody in it is looking from the window of the sacrifice and the drain of a few. Alive, I am a partisan. That is why I hate the ones that don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent.”
Antonio Gramsci

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In today’s current political environment, which bleeds into society as some fairly absurd niche arguments about what is right or wrong and important or unimportant, the people become more and more distant to traditional parties or traditional ‘community break lines.’ This impacts business whether you like it or not; whether you want it or not. Being indifferent to this, acting like you are detached from this, simply means an already ‘delicate and dangerous’ situation becomes even more fraught with peril – for your business.

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“At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny”.”
Antonio Gramsci

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I have argued for years a business cannot detach itself from society, responsibility to societal issues and much of the larger narratives and discussions taking place. Detaching yourself from it under the guise of “my job is insure my business makes a profit and offers people employment” is not a sustainable stance nor strategy. I hate indifference. Inevitably a business needs to pick a side. To be clear. That sometimes simply means taking a stand on what you are not, not saying what you are. If you don’t believe it is your job to carry the flag ON an issue, that’s okay. But you do have to make it your job to say “but I will not stand by THAT flag.” Ponder.

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“Imagined futures are only stories, but stories run the world, or at minimum lay the tracks for its passage, without which it would move in a different direction entirely.”

Sam Paterson

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“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

E.F. Schumacher

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Establishing a business Vision seems to be a lost art these days. It has been replaced by the misguided Purpose and, well, it really hasn’t been a very productive decade or so for business thinking. I can’t really blame Purpose because it simply filled in a hole that some absurd Vision discussions had created. Let me be clear. A good business vision is very similar to the concept of a “grand strategy.” What I mean by that is it creates an ideal mental destination from which strategies spin out of and iteratively evolve to support. That said. The purpose of a vision is to not only to set out a better destination, but also to create lasting advantages. This means a larger vision should enable coherent strategies which can be used over time. If a vision is soundly conceived, the overall guiding principles may remain the same over a period of years or even decades, but the precise combination of strategies and tactics used to pursue those goals will undoubtedly shift as conditions change and competition reacts. As a corollary, this demands some leadership resilience second guessing a larger vision simply because a strategy or an idea was a bad one.

Which leads me to say I’ve heard many arguments against a Vision, but I would argue refusing to do one does not allow a business to avoid the dilemmas that make the task so difficult, in fact, I would argue it will only exacerbate confusion and contradictions. A business must embrace the daunting conditions within which to place a Vision and place a higher premium on the intellectual groundwork which underpins a Vision. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out one of the issues with ignoring a larger vision is that you find that you make decision making by gravity, i.e., a decision becomes part of a ‘law’ of activity, wherein points of traction get confused and conflated with lasting strategy. That said. It helps to think of vision as a process and not a blueprint. It should not be a doctrine of ‘if this then that’, but rather be a framework from within which a business can define specific strategies and make coherent decisions.

Which leads me to a Vision is an essentially optimistic undertaking.

It rests on the idea that states one can combine vision and rationality with some sort of power against and a dynamic marketplace. It suggests that leaders can salvage order from chaos and impose some sense of meaning on events. At its core a vision isn’t just about some ideal, but about asserting a degree of control and coherence in ones dealing in an uncertain world. It demands that you find some strategic insights about the world that can be confronted and leveraged and then translate those insights into specific strategies and tactics to attain objectives that fulfill your optimism. Once again, one of the objectives is lasting advantages. This demands there’s a business must learn and adapt in order to find the right mix within the context of the time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there will always be some second order consequences but that shouldn’t limit ambition or optimism. There are clearly limits to what a vision can accomplish in an adverse environment and context, but a vision provides focus (as long as that focus doesn’t create distortions or myopia). The optimism is buttressed by the duality of confidence to be decisive and the humility to be constantly questioning all inevitably rooted in navigating the natural tensions of a dynamic market:

• between the quest for coherence and the reality of complexity
• between the need for foresight and the fact of uncertainty
• between the steadiness and purpose that are necessary to plan ahead and the agility that is required to adapt over time

Which leads me to Vision is also about wielding power.

The purpose of a vision should be the task of bringing together all aspects of the business power to achieve an important objective. To be clear this does not mean to simply turn all available capabilities towards achieving victory, but rather effective use of resources at the right time. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that achieving a Vision is not an end in and of itself; it is simply the means of securing a better place for the business and its people. A vision is ultimately the intellectual architecture in which to wield the power at hand by giving form and structure to specific strategies and tactics. Reduced to its essence a vision is the logic that helps businesses navigate a complex and dangerous world permitting a business to devise a coherent purposeful approach.

Which leads me to implementation.

“The primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become confused and entangled. Not until terms and concepts have been defined can one hope to make any progress in examining the question clearly and simply and expect the reader to share one’s views.”

Carl von Clausewitz

When it comes to implementing a vision there is never enough of anything to go around. Money, people, intelligence, time, assets, and other finite resources are always insufficient to neutralize every threat and exploit every opportunity. If business leaders are to avoid strategic exhaustion and eventual business decline, they must maintain a firm understanding of core interests and deploy their resources accordingly. A coherent vision offers a conceptual center of gravity and ability to keep fundamental interests squarely in view in dealing with a range of complex and competing demands. Wielding power is inherently multidimensional. Means must be integrated to serve great ends, but ends must be selectively defined to preserve a business’s means. This is challenging because this Vision occurs in a world where almost nothing sits still so the calculations underlying the vision must inevitably shift as well. The overall goal of the vision may remain constant, but its various subcomponents decisions on how to how best to allocate resources should be reassessed consistently. In this sense vision requires not just a capacity for systematic thinking, but also flexibility and an ability to adapt. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a vision then both influences and is influenced by the behavior of others.

Which leads me to context and situations.

Conceptually, context is everything, pragmatically, the situation is everything and all exist within a Vision. A context has infinite aspects while a situation has some finite aspects. i am consistent in how I point out that 99.9999999% of situational decisions are finite in nature – WITHIN a relatively infinite world of possibilities (unforeseen consequences beyond a horizon). So, pragmatically, a situation demands ‘decision sight’ in order to diagnose the most effective strategy (and, yes, I am suggesting each decision is a strategy in and of itself) and the Vision offers a ‘sight line.’

• ** note: I believe in a dynamic, or complex, system – of which I believe 99% of business resides within – almost every decision has some strategic consequences. This does not mean there isn’t a hierarchy of strategic thinking just that each decision is a strategic decision within a grander strategy/vision, i.e., a common objective or vision in mind.

All of this creates some specific demands of people, the organization, and the system itself as well as reflecting on underlying assumptions. Many people discuss bias or mental models, I tend to focus more on reflection as a means to a better decision-making end. People make some 30,000 decisions a day so some default thinking is necessary simply to get shit done (let alone maintain some sanity). But. You also have to be able to discern the moments to proactively reflect on underlying assumptions. I believe it was Andrew Grove of Intel who called this ‘learning to effectively worry.’ You worry, a bit, about some of the basic assumptions commonly made and whether they work within the situation at hand – or do they put a modeling constraint on which, in this situation, can be set aside. I tend to believe what I am suggesting is a bit easier if you have a good Vision (or grand strategy).

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, intelligent direction and skillful execution.”

Dr. John Ellis – Valvoline

I like thinking of Vision as a grand strategy. It offers some pragmatism to the endeavor. When it comes to thinking about a vision as an endeavor too often it is thought of as a grandiose transformative project to remake not only the business, but the dynamics of the market the business exists within. It is often positioned as a panacea that will wipe away the complexity of business. This is just begging for disappointment. In view of the current economic business dynamics, as well as experiences that all of business has had over at least the last decade or two, grand transformative changes are few and far between. But this doesn’t mean that we can allow vision development to go by the wayside if we ever expect to transcend the uncertainties and challenges of a constantly changing business environment. Look. I have suggested Utopian thinking is good for business and we need more of it. I have suggested Idealism is needed if business wants to be better. But at the core of all my ‘optimistic thinking’ is always pragmatism. The possibilities explored through optimism must be grounded in some pragmatic realities.

Which leads me to state that at its worst a vision can provide an intellectual reference point for dealing with all challenges and the process by which dedicated business people can seek to bring their day-to-day actions into better alignment with their enduring businesses interests. At its best a vision, well, can actually shape the future you desire. Ponder.

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“It is pure utopian abstraction to say that nothing prevents the existence of individual needs. On the contrary, human nature does.”

Jacque Ellul

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“If today industrial civilization seems to us something less than Utopian—if it appears, in fact, to be oppressive, dreary, ecologically precarious, war-prone, and psychologically repressive—we need to

understand why.”

Alvin Toffler, third wave, 1980

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Today I will argue that an increasingly complex dynamic world is a good argument for revisiting Utopian thinking. Complexity, and its close cousin uncertainty, tend to encourage some rational, more conservative, thinking. In other words, you will hear “we need to be pragmatic” a shitload more often the more dynamic and complex a business environment may be. But here is the truth. Connectivity and interdependence have possibly made things a bit more complex, yet, it has also opened up opportunities to, well, possibilities. The interdependence, from a pragmatic view, makes almost any utopian thinking somewhere within several degrees of a grasp. Yes. I just said Utopian thinking and pragmatism together (wrap your head around that contradiction). Personally, I believe Utopian thinking is an underrated aspect of humanity – a hopeful belief for not just better, but some best version of something.  And I say that as a clearly pragmatic person. And when I bring up Utopia, I remind everyone the word “utopia” means “no place” so utopias are not necessarily meant to design specific paths to a desired space, they are meant to show us what’s wrong with the present state and strive toward possibilities. Now. The danger of the possibilities of Utopia, of course, are the false choices found within spectacular abundance of possibilities found within an everchanging dynamic environment. But recognizing that danger shouldn’t translate into acceptance of limitations, but rather see limitations as dynamic themselves.

Which leads me to suggest any utopian thinking, even when grounded in reality, are utopian insofar as they ignore the perceived gravity of history and its struggles. What I mean by that is if you look a little too closely at history, the past appears to have an inevitable arc dotted with failures deemed inevitable (in hindsight). This taints future thinking in application. So, while utopian thinking, and Utopia, actually demands some pragmatism and certainly some real actions it also demands the ability to see new arcs, new patterns and new possibilities within new contexts (a failure in the past is a failure n a context and utopia is found within new contexts).

I say this not to suggest your Utopia fate is tied to the destiny designs of contexts, but rather that contexts are meant to be actively engaged. A “laissez faire” business is about as realistic as a “laissez faire” society; it’s a lazy idea which the strong or the lucky will exploit to establish unquestioned authority over others. Or, as Jaron Lanier suggests, “power will exploit flaws/gaps even in Utopia.”

 

“I await with patience a catastrophe that is slow in coming.”

Albert Camus

Prying apart dystopia.

One of the arguments for thinking about a Utopia is that you need to pry apart dystopia to get there. Pragmatically speaking the current system is made-up of three distinct parts that are connected: there is the machine of production, the distribution of that production to the people including transportation, and finally humans themselves. Today, distribution is not of the machine, but for the machine. This becomes important as more and more humans become part of the machine itself. What this means is that distribution, simultaneously, becomes in service to a machine-human world looping inextricably survival of both to both. Obviously, that doesn’t sound utopian even if it is not dystopian. As a consequence of this Borg-like system where humans gathered around machines was it actually forced humans to come to the machine – what I mean by this is an outcome was big cities. That continued to close the system thereby only emphasizing the dystopian features even while the machine encouraged everyone to think it was the path to Utopia. I could go on and on about other characteristics of what has become a dystopian, even if somewhat effective, world. here is where I circle back to the beginning of this segment – the three components. If we seek to not only envision, but create, a Utopia we must pry apart what appears to be inextricably linked and create a new world. Hopefully a better world.

Utopian thinking is all about hope.

It used to be science fiction was filled with Utopian adventures using the imagination to wonder of the possibilities for humankind. Now, even science fiction, has veered into the bitter, pessimistic, universe of dystopia. In many of these scenarios technology, instead of being portrayed as the engine of progress, increasingly appeared as an unstoppable force of destruction – of human freedom, human joy and human sense of meaning. These mental scenarios have bled into the psyche of society, and business, and has convinced a lot of people hoping is useless. In fact, today you can be trapped in between a futuristic world view of dystopian nature fed from an uncontrolled growth attitude and a present in which a number of loud voices are decrying growth (degrowth, Limits to Growth, etc.). it creates a sense everything is going wrong and the dystopian future, and catastrophe, is a fait accompli so why hope, let alone work, for something better.

And then there is work itself. Prior to the industrial revolution work wasn’t particularly great, but at least there was a sense of self extension, i.e., ‘I produced with my own hands’.  From there industrialization created the machine/human system leading to unemployment, to grinding monotony on the job, to overspecialization, to the indifferent, if not unempathetic, treatment of the individual, to low wages. All of which appear to be unresolvable within the framework of the current system. What I mean is that if those problems have remained for 200 years, under capitalist/socialist/communist constructs, there is cause to think they may be inherent in the mode of production. This breeds hopelessness and a sense of futility. I say all of that to circle back to the first sentence in this segment – this truly can all be resolved with imagination of possibilities. Yeah. Imagine Utopia. Yeah. It is as simple, and complex, as that.

“In order to create a smoothly running society, we need to both protect the here and now, and problem-solve and look effectively into the future. So it’s a good idea to have that in balance across society.”
Hannah Critchlow

Pragmatically addressing the possibilities within Utopia.

It really is this simple:

• What is your utopia? What is the utopia?
• What is keeping us from that utopia?
• What are the probabilities of these things changing?
• What could change each probability?
• What are your fears and hopes with regard to those probabilities?
• What can we do to impact our specific fears and hopes?

Where can you poke the world to increase the chances of creating the utopia you envision?

I like this “Time Machine” idea from Tom Kerwin, the creator of Pivot Triggers:

• Take a trip to the great future

  • Set the scene: “We get in a time machine. When the door opens, it’s <date> (whenever you’d see the results of your initiative) and it’s gone better than we ever dreamed! What’s it like?”

  • Ask people to write down what it’s like on stickies.

  • Together, cluster similarly themed descriptions and add a green sticky to summarize each cluster.

Or try this example. Maybe in some additive manufacturing conference room the largest obstacle, with a low probability of changing in the short and medium term, is sunk traditional machinery costs in manufacturing plants. Maybe they create a division that buys machines. It’s a not-for-profit division created solely to remove an obstacle, it becomes a business (and I imagine there is some accounting voodoo that comes along with purchasing depreciated machinery) and they go into business as a parts reseller, or use the metals for something, or lease the machines to smaller businesses, or whatever not-for-profit business model necessary to make their business utopia a bit closer, and feed a positive loop with purchases within the business world.

Anyway.

If the choice is between dystopian and utopian, we would be fools to not choose Utopia.

“There are only so many ways one can be told that the future is going to be dark. At some point, there has to be concrete imaginaries readily available for anyone who wishes to cancel the apocalypse.”

Joey Ayoub

As we move beyond the present and seek some future Utopia, we are doing more than shifting from one digital transformation to the next, but rather revolutionizing the space within which we exist – decision by decision, choice by choice and step by step. If our assumptions are even partially correct, individuals will vary more tomorrow than they do today, and business will vary more tomorrow than they do today. Why wouldn’t we seek to place individuals and businesses in a Utopia in that tomorrow if there was even a sliver of a chance?

In the end, there are pessimists and optimists. There are cynics and idealists. There are believers and non-believers. There are heroes and cowards. There are truth tellers and liars. There are resistors and collaborators. They come in all shapes and sizes. But if we sincerely seek Utopia maybe, just maybe, we will find a space in which the Utopia for our business resides within a space which both the business and humans thrive.

Think about this when you ponder Utopian thinking. Not to get too wonky, but, try this: quantum business. There are multiple planes of reality, you just choose one. And maybe that is why seeking Utopia is more important, and possible, than ever. The more complexity, the more dynamism, the more interconnectedness, the more quantum features business portrays, the more likely Utopia is attainable if you are savvy, show some agility (in action and thinking) and not get stuck on a “plan.” Utopian thinking should be undergirded by Amara’s three laws of futures:

• (1) the future is not predetermined
• (2) the future is not predictable
• (3) the future outcomes can be influenced by our choices in the present

What I will say is that there is no hope for a Utopian outcome, nor hope for a safe transition to a decent space is possible until we address the need for institutional transformation. This is a big ask, is terrifying, is exhilarating, and is the way beyond both entropy and dystopia. The attitude of the future must be matched by a changed attitude for what the business of the future could be. Which leads me to end with James Carse: “Only that which can change can continue: this is the principle by which infinite players live.” We play to continue the play. That is the way to Utopia. Ponder.

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“Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward.”

Abraham Verghese

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“It’s the one thing we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.”

Barbara Kingsolver

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Thinking about what legacy you want to leave behind can make you start thinking a little bit about what you may want to stubbornly stand for and demand of Life and what you may decide to compromise with Life to insure you have something, i.e., some progress to show at the end. A significant part of this grand bargain we negotiate with Life is how we decide to compromise with those around us and those who affect the arc of our lives.

Ah.

That word “compromise.”

Therein lies maybe one of the most difficult topics of the current generation.

The topic is that the concept of compromise, meeting someone half way, giving something up and getting something back, is now a nebulous concept.

Why? Because I am not sure I know where the hell half way is.

And I tend to believe a shitload of people are standing with me, on one side or the other, not really sure where the hell half way is.

And if you cannot even see the middle ground how the hell can you figure out how to make a stand on it?

This gets compounded by a massive online communal world in which we all live side by side where even the marginalized people <real or perceived>, nutjobs & experts, now have a place to gather into likeminded groups and share as much a space as mainstream views. For good, or for bad, online any group of people can organize & mobilize & challenge the status quo … or pick & choose which status quo fits their view. The internet amplifies discourses critical of, well, any status quo you can think of.  And, as anyone could expect, all the critical discourse triggers a corresponding equal backlash from those who fear an uprooting of their beliefs <and the self identities that are inevitably attached to these beliefs>. Needless to say much of that backlash is a bit unhealthy and a lot unmoored to accepted reality.

It just becomes one huge mosh pit of criticism and cocooning of likeminded people.

Likeminded people – all who are angry.

Within all of this situation & anger civil discourse tends to be tossed in the trashheap. And maybe worse is the fact there is this ‘digging in’ aspect where we refuse to see any merit in other people’s opinions. Sadly, I can only conclude that we have lost the ability to converse, discuss, debate and have a dialogue with one another.

It seems obvious <at least to me>, but if we could figure out how to come together and compromise, that we could go a long way toward not only creating a better version of society in general, but it may give me, and all of us, at least a fighting chance with regard to where we make our own personal stand and where we compromise and how we attain the future that we contain.

As long as people cling to unbending attitudes & beliefs, the divides between us will not deepen, but will remain an unbridgeable divide.

I tend to believe most of us want better that that.

I tend to believe most of us would be willing to work to make this a better and more civil world to live in.

And if you do not embrace this thinking?

I would remind everyone that America is representative of a great compromise. The U.S. Constitution is possibly the greatest Compromise ever negotiated <it created a nation>.

But as a first step to bettering this entire situation we need to figure out how to better define Compromise.

Far too many loudmouthed people have ripped the meaning out of the word, twisted the value of the word making it seem valueless, and ultimately created an environment in which  we demonize the entire process of trying to reach compromise.

Compromise no longer means understanding your differences and working together toward a common goal, but now it seems to represent weakness, losing and not being strong enough to get what you want. This attitude and unwillingness to work together creates a dysfinctional society where the unwavering stance seems to be “don’t compromise, stick to your guns, don’t give in to the other side”.

Sigh.

Look.

I find it hard to believe that the majority of America is really that selfish and that stubborn. Sure. I know the people most passionate about any issue tend to be the ones less willing to compromise on them. And, yeah, I would guess most of us are fairly passionate about ourselves – what we decide to stand for … as well as what we will decide to sacrifice within compromise to attain some progress. But within this wacky world where no one seems to want to compromise anything on anything … well … shit … some of us are trying to think a little bit about what you may want to stubbornly stand for and demand of Life, and what you may decide to compromise with Life, to insure you have something – some progress to show at the end.

It seems like the situation we are in has arisen because we have permitted the stubborn voices of the radical marginalized <real and perceived> to drown out the pragmatic voices, the majority, of realistic positive compromise. If we want society to start working again we need to embrace compromise — and let it retain the positive definition which has served it well through time.

To end this I will go back to the beginning.

The “I” aspect.

I tend to believe all of us, with the intent of finding the best version of ourselves from which our ultimate legacy will be defined, will seek to find the balance of being stubborn and demand that Life bend to us and our principles and compromise where we make a grand bargain with Life in order to continue progressing.

Uhm.

If we believe this, then why wouldn’t we want this in Life and in business and in politics and in … well … everything.

There was a book that discussed this. In The Spirit of Compromise <Amy Gutsman and Dennis Thomson> they note that Americans support general compromise as an idea and like the idea of ‘other people’ working together to get stuff done <statistics support this in a variety of studies & polls>.

However. The authors then note that support for compromise breaks down when it addresses specific issues <Americans are much less likely to support a compromise on a specific issue>. What this means is that, as with most things in Life, we enthusiastically embrace the conceptual behavior and balk at the actual behavior.

I shared that to say compromise is complex and simple.

What I do know is that we contain our own future and building that future demands that we will have to make some compromises.  That is simple.

Making the specific choices is complex.

And while I am mostly interested in my own future and making my own compromise choices, I tend to believe we would all find the better version of ourself contained within if the society as a whole were more willing to refind the value in compromise. Yeah. I just suggested our best version is not an “I” thing but rather when we are part of the weave of societal fabric, i.e., “We” thing. Ponder.

===

“No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention.

Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole life will feel some day.

This is all practice. “

—

Chuck Palahniuk

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“It’s never as good as you want it to be; It’s never as bad as it seems.”

—

William Chapman

====

Well. Chuck Palahniuk writes some really deep shit. Stuff that really makes you think. That said, I have to admit, when I read the opening quote a lot of things about living Life, in business and personal, made a helluva lot more sense to me.

Maybe it’s just me, but, it seems like most of Life is tainted by sense of constantly missing ‘something’ … as in something maybe better than where we are and what we are doing and feeling or in what we have done. It isn’t always this huge disappointment. It’s just like a little nagging sliver in the palm of your hand.

All the while this sense is interposed with glimpses of … well … what is actually better. We, being we humans, naturally don’t accept the sense we missed something. Therefore we begin becoming more & more careful with how we invest our time and more careful about what we do <or don’t do>. Basically, we start treating our lives carefully assuming that if we do so, we will have less sense of something missing and more glimpses of ‘the better we feel like we are missing sometimes.’

Boy.

Are we wrong.

Boy.

We sure are investing a shitload of energy chasing something I believe Life simply dangles in front of us to tease us with thoughts of ‘what could be.’

It is quite possible we should learn to accept the nagging sense of missing something as … well … good. Good as in it makes us a little more alert for ‘things.’ Maybe it just makes us pay attention a little more.

Maybe we should accept the feeling isn’t lostness nor the thought that maybe we were not on the right path in Life.

Maybe we should just accept it as a characteristic of a good life.

Anyway. All of this leads me to a quote, and a thought, I vehemently disagree with:

======

……. me reading this quote ……

“People who succeed tend to find one goal in the distant future and then chase it through thick and thin.  People who flit from one interest to another are much, much less likely to excel at any of them.  School asks students to be good at a range of subjects, but life asks people to find one passion that they will follow forever. “

David Brooks

<The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources Of Love, Character, And Achievement>

=======

That is just bullshit.

Life does not ask people to find one passion that they will follow forever. That’s like saying that I love ice cream, but I am only going to eat chocolate ice cream for the rest of my life because it is my favorite flavor.

What a potentially boring life.

What a potentially ‘missed opportunity’ life.

The whole ‘passion’ discussion makes my head hurt so badly I start rubbing my temples so hard that then the sides of my head hurt too.

Let’s be clear. It is not passion <although glimpses of passion is always fun>. Life asks you to do the best, be the best and pursue what you believes makes you the best of what you could be … that’s it.

That’s what you follow forever.

Is success achieving that ‘one goal in the distant future?’ Maybe for some. But ‘people who succeed tend to find one goal and chase it’ is bullshit. What happens if I suck at picking that one goal or maybe my sense of direction sucks as I ‘go thru think & thin’ getting to the horizon <only to find I am standing in nowhere land>?

Look.

I am all for people pursuing goals.

I am all for people being passionate.

I am all for pursuing thru thick & thin <assuming what you are pursuing is ‘real’ and not some fantasyland>.

But I am not all for putting the blinders on, the bit between the teeth and then run like hell toward some goal on the horizon. I do believe you should be inspired in your actions … but inspired is very different than passion.

Passion.   I have a passion … it is for something.

Inspired.    I can be inspired by many somethings and moments and experiences and … well … you get it.

Here is a Life truth. The people who tend to succeed are inspired … by one thing or by many things … doesn’t matter. They are just inspired people. 

===

“All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired.”

Chuck Palahniuk  

===

All that said. Let me circle back to the beginning. No matter how careful you are, no matter how much and how hard you pursue something … you will still have a sense of having missed something. Everyone has an undercurrent sense, a feeling, of missing something.

Look. We all pursue one thing — happiness. We may couch it in some ‘idea I have’ or ‘money’ or “purpose” or, well, anything else life has to offer, but we all want, and therefore seek, happiness. I would suggest what Chuck suggested we think about is not really acceptance of ‘lesser than what we want’ but rather accept the balance Life offers us.

The balance in that we will almost naturally have some sense of ‘something better’ no matter how careful we are in managing our lives or the pursuit of some goal.

The balance of actually getting a glimpse of that ‘something’ and not having rushed thru some important moment versus the missing feeling.

Well. Having said all that.

When I read the opening quote I had a better understanding of why so many people are unhappy far too often.

Because if we DON’T accept the sense of missing something as part of living a full Life … well … that means you will spend your entire life chasing that sense <to suffocate it in some way>. If you do that, well,  that pursuit will inevitably suffocate your Life <and that is an unhappy Life>. Ponder. Maybe I am missing something. And maybe I am not.

==========

Originally posted October 2015

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“We find the true person only through group organization. The potentialities of the individual remain potentialities until they are released by group life. Thus, the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of democracy is group organization.”

Mary Parker Follett, The New State

===

I just had a conversation about employees with a good friend of mine who runs a business where “A clients need A players” came up. To be fair, he quickly said “I know you believe all employees have at least some A-level qualities/skills.” I do. Generally speaking, I believe most businesses squash the A-level ability in most people and the waste of human potential is immense. Certainly, some people have specific skills better than other people and ambition fluctuates person-to-person (ambition should never be conflated with skills), but, there is such a waste of human potential particularly in what many call ‘the workers’ or the blue-collar jobs or what leadership typically deems “the doers.” The bottom line in the discussion I was having was “I can’t tell you if you should be hiring anyone, or even who, if I don’t know if you are maximizing the people you have.”

But let’s get to potential.

In the 1980s Professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester defined the six main reasons people work: play, purpose, potential, emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia. Since then, most research has suggested the first three motives tend to increase performance, while the latter three hurt it.

• Play is when you are motivated by the work itself. You work because you enjoy it, e.g., creating learning programs or problem solving how to break through to each person. Play is our learning instinct, tied to curiosity, experimentation, and exploring challenging problems.

• Purpose is when the direct outcome of the work fits your identity. You work because you value the work’s positive impact on, or for, other human beings.
• Potential is when the outcome of the work benefits your identity. In other words, the work enhances your potential.

Since these three motives are directly connected to the work itself in some way, they will improve performance to different degrees. If we want employees to have the cognitive ability, flexibility and agility needed to solve complex problems and collaborate effectively (whether face-to-face or remotely) as well as being able to develop and apply qualities such as critical thinking and creativity, we need to consider what we can do to enable those abilities to flourish and thrive and potential seems to be a rich mine for personal progress.

Which leads me to leadership (or nudging).

The conscientious nudger seeks to design systems and processes to help people make better choices for themselves. That said. Any choice architecture begins with sensemaking. For example, losses loom larger than gains in our minds and this steers motivation within sensemaking and choicemaking. Potential is found not only in curiosity & learning but in accepted risk and acceptable losses. All of this can be crafted in effective sensemaking. What I mean by that is if everyone makes sense of situations in the same way, or with similar characteristics, the choice architecture (and its boundaries) is crafted by the sensemaking and not through any leader (this is called The Law of the Situation). Therefore, the leader simply nudges people with a common sensemaking framework toward potential solutions, nudges curiosity and nudges probabilistic thinking so that people can explore – which is where potential is always found.

 

“Having a better theory of emergent organization would have a lot of practical benefits, allowing us to generate or simplify sets of rules that will result in productive ends.”

John Miller, Science of Complex Systems

==

Unfortunately, too many leaders inhibit people from asking questions that once seemed too absurd to consider and thus they prevent people from probing for patterns and insights that once resided in the realm of the unknowable. Potential explores limits and imitations. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge limits but in doing so it should not amount to a dismissal of potentials.

Which leads me to principles.

Any time we seem to discuss A players, B players or any types of players we inherently create a warped competitive environment. I am not suggesting a business shouldn’t encourage some competition but it should be competing without feeling like it is competition or you are being competitive – you compete with stagnancy & entropy. This is when you are simply attempting to maximize your own potential and skills assuming your best will be, well, your best – win, lose or draw. This also assumes you believe your best will demand everyone else to bring their best so that even in a competitive environment if you ‘lose’ it Is simply because everyone played it the best they could.

So let me offer some principles:

• Human potential represents an organization’s main source of productivity

• Technology augments people, people don’t complement technology, potential emerges from augmentation

• An individual’s potential is not defined by one skill, but rather all skills/abilities (of all depths/dimensions) an individual has

• The highest organizational productivity, progress, profitability is found through maximizing opportunities efficiently and, simultaneously, effectively maintain productivity, progress & profitability

I tend to believe if you follow these principles you will just have team players, no A, B, C or whatever, and you will increase the probability these players will maximize their potential and, as a consequence, the business successes will increase. Ponder.

First. Because I am involved in business I am constantly inundated with the buzzwords associated with the “new and unique” and all the pontificators (jesters) who spout them and how people are constantly suggesting the world is changing – like it has never changed before.

Second. Because of the age I am at I am constantly inundated with how people of my generation suggest <state> how today is more difficult for people than ever before.

I admit.

I kind of chuckle when I hear all this.

I often seem to create a maelstrom of conversational misery when I state things like “change is the constant companion of every generation” … or say something like “it isn’t any more difficult for this generation it is just different.”

Frankly.

Most people my age think I am nuts when I say it.

Shit.

Most people any age.

Or think I am out of touch with what is happening around us.

Ok.

If I were sensitive, I would care. Or more likely I would care if I didn’t find quotes like this.

“… my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age in which we live. No nation can now shut itself from the surrounding world and trot around the same old path of its fathers. A change has come over the affairs of mankind.  … intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe.”

This sure sounds like something you may have heard on CNN or BBC from someone talking about what is happening in the Middle East or Russia.

Or maybe on CSPAN talking about the shifting global economy.

But.

Think 1850 (or abouts).

Think Frederick Douglas in a speech in NYC.

Think about the fact that each generation has faced some radical change and thought process and attitude.

Yup. The more things change the more they stay the same.

What also stays the same? Each generation gets “left behind” as another races toward what will be.

This creates friction between generations.  It is friction created because the generation always being left behind is the older one.

The one that is supposed to be smarter.

The one that is supposed to know the best.

Well.

Is this a generalization? Sure. But the truth? Mostly.

Pieces or parts smarter and know the best?  Yes. Sure.

On the whole?  Nope.

To be fair.  A minority of those being left behind actually enjoy the ride. They empower the youth. Fuel it. Guide it. Not restrict it. Those few get to enjoy a longer thrill ride.

But they are few.

On the whole the majority of an older generation holds on for dear life <a stranglehold in fact> to what they know and makes them comfortable. And it would possibly be okay if they did that and remained silent, but instead they complain about what is lost within the following generations and try and slow change.

It is too bad.

For by focusing on what is lost they neglect to have the amazing opportunity to see what is gained.

Regardless.

In the end.

Change comes upon us whether we want it or not.  As Frederick Douglas said in 1850: ‘you cannot ignore the intellect of the world.’

True in 1850.

True in 2022.

True in 2172.

Which leads me to business.

The business aspect of this thought is older generations holding on to older thoughts, or worse, older processes.

This is the craziest aspect.

Big business is always (ALWAYS) slow to change. It is part of their personal survival-thinking DNA.

But its actually death-thinking DNA.

It is death thinking because it is stratifying thinking and stratified businesses lose value in a daily basis.

Creative Destruction is all about the small (entrepreneurs) disrupting and destroying the status quo and that of ‘the big’ and through the destruction they begin recreating what is right and good for the economy.

So. After reading that you may think “old” entrepreneurs would be part of the minority “happy few change agents” (the few who recognize that the more things change the more they stay the same).

Well.

Nope.

Most typically they are actually the worst ‘non-change’ offenders.

Yes. All generations exhibit more conservative less risky behavior as they age. But. Successful entrepreneurs, turned successful independent business owners, seem to most often exhibit this conservative (on steroids) behavior. My guess it is driven mostly by fear of losing what they gained (by the way, thinking this way isn’t exactly a stupendous growth strategy nor a healthy business environment if you want to have younger people as employees). But I also believe there is an aspect of refusal to let go of things that brought them that success.

It is slightly strange, but that which made them successful they now disregard, and have discarded, under the guise of “maturity” or ‘mature businesses need to be managed differently than growth businesses’.

Oh.

And it is all compounded by their belief that past failed attempts should be avoided (even if someone has a thought on how that “failed” scenario could be viewed differently and therefore maybe the learning from that experience may have been flawed).

Now. I am not suggesting all past experience should be ignored. Or that successful entrepreneurs need to completely relive their aggressive risk (but smart) behavior that carved out their success. But older business owners need to let go of some ‘beliefs.’  Not because they are wrong, but rather because they are wrong ‘now.’ (note: yes, context matters, even with beliefs)

In addition sometimes new people provide new perspective on their growth (success & failures) experience.  The new people possibly have just seen “from the other side” and discern different learnings. They see what Taleb called “half invented ideas” and know how to fully invent them.

It is fresh perspective.

And most independent business people lose perspective as time goes on because they have cocooned themselves within their “successful behavior” <and their successes>.

Regardless.  Let me end with several overarching thoughts.

Each generation faces radical adversity.

Each generation facilitates extraordinary change (beneficial as a whole).

Each older generation is extraordinarily reluctant to release that which is comfortable to them (and what they “know” … or believe to know).

And, lastly.

We older folk, manager types, should reflect upon this.

Why?

Because we are managers. And we are managers of those who will beget what will be better than what we have done or created.  We are mangers of the future. That doesn’t diminish what we have done. And we should embrace the fact we have created an environment for others to go farther than we were able to go.

We wonder why managing young people is so difficult?

Well.

It is not because of some pop psychology generational differences.

It is because we are holding them back (in general). It’s like trying to tame mustangs in the Wild West. Except we, unlike the savvy old cowboys, don’t reflect on the beauty of the wildness of the mustang as we try and tame them. We simply see the wild untamedness and believe it is a shame they are so wild.

Older managers, to be successful, need to admire the beauty of the untamed.  And not seek to break the mustangs but rather guide their energy to enable them to take the herd to the heights it deserves.

A poetic metaphor (bad one)? Maybe.

But certainly something worth pondering.

All I really know is if you look close enough, pay attention to what really matters, the more things change the more they stay the same.

====

“How many people long for that “past, simpler, and better world,” I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?”

R.A. Salvatore

====

This was going to be another rant, or criticism, of 50somethings. but, I watched a fabulous documentary on cartoonists and cartoon strips called “Stripped” which details the past, present & future of cartoons and it made me scrap my rant and begin over again.

The documentary made me think of 50somethings and how today’s “flux” found in the massive business transition taking place is affecting this generation gap unlike any other generation gap in memorable history <we can look back in time and see others but not any we have lived thru>.

I imagine while this may be about ‘letting go, holding on’ I think it is more just about recognizing the sense of ‘lostness’ that can be found in any flux.

Look.

Facing progress is one thing; facing massive cultural change is another. One permits someone to ease their way into the progress and, in some cases depending on what you do, you may even be able to ignore the progress and still maintain the life and work life you currently enjoy until you decide to stop working. On the other hand, massive cultural shift cannot be ignored. In addition the people within the shift are bombarded with an uncomfortable sense of ‘what is happening ?’ … because there is no well-defined horizon <the shift will define it in the end>.

Anyway. In the documentary some of the older more established <very popular> cartoonists just looked … well … lost. And, frankly, I think a lot of 50somethings are lost in the cultural flux created by the technology-driven/hand held technology driven Life.

This doesn’t mean that 50somethings don’t embrace the features <the smartphones, the tablets, the wi-fi> … it is just that they struggle to see or accept all the benefits.

Oh. It reminds me there is no “guide to being lost” manual you can pull off some shelf.

Regardless.

In this flux time many 50somethings want their cake and eat it too.

Want the new, but don’t want to lose the old.

Now. This ‘holding on’ aspect is truly a reflection of not only ‘it was always better when I was younger’ <and it is worse now than it was before>, but also an underlying desire to have something solid underfoot … like ‘the benefits of the way it was done before’.

Admittedly … this holding on aspect can take on some aggravating & ‘difficult to deal with’ aspects … like … they sometimes think they are living in the present <their perception> by implementing what is comfortable <the past> therefore their behavior is incredibly difficult to impact because their mind is telling them what they are doing is actually different than what they are actually doing.

Sound complicated?

You bet.

So complicated this attitude is next to impossible to change or impact.

And it gets complicated even further by the fact this 50something generation has made a lot of money doing it ‘their way’ <kind of proof for the method>. Regardless. For once I am actually defending the 50somethings. Not sympathy … just some understanding. This just isn’t a normal every day future, this is an uncharted future. One I which more of ‘the past’ is being shelved than we have seen for many generations.

===

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

L.P. Hartley

===

It is like going to a foreign country where they may use the same words but many of them have new meanings.

They may live in a culture which values different things.

And, well, say you have been drinking coffee all your life … and … they only drink tea.

That said.

So, when facing the difference, you may know you are in a different country … and you may want to respect the way they do things … and you may want some sympathy, or help, as you get lost … uhm … but … after a period of time you start reflecting on ‘how much better this foreign country would be if they would do it our/my way.’

That’s natural.

And inevitably, as time goes on, and you get farther away from what you were comfortable with and what you know, the more you feel … well … lost.

Now.

Where I don’t have sympathy or understanding is I do believe many 50somethings are lazy. Not in terms of working hard but rather they accept what they know at the moment as ‘what is’ and remain cynical of all that “is not.” And, worse, they believe their laziness is earned, earned from years of accumulating information and knowledge and money as well as earned because it was successful.

And then?

The 50somethings place a value on this ‘thing’ they feel they have earned over time as if it was some product that had been manufactured and was ready to be sold.

The problem?

It is almost like 50somethings have forgotten that if someone is paying you a $100 they should feel like they are getting something more than $100 worth. Maybe worse they think the past learning <even though a lot it is no longer relevant> has a higher value than it does. The product has become semi-obsolete.

And.

Uh oh.

Maybe the worst? It seems like they have forgotten that knowledge actually naturally diminishes without some constant nurturing <therefore the value is actually depreciating over time>.

When will 50somethings recognize that they really have earned little <okay … less than what they think> of real value to the emerging world unless they unlearn some aspects of what we know and reapply what we do know to encourage a better future.

Well. Let me go back to defending the 50somethings and their lostness.

Unlearning is tough <and unsettling and often scary>.

Massive flux is tough <and unsettling and often scary>. Many 50somethings are just lost. They know they have value but the current value looks an awful like ‘none to limited’ value as everything swirls around us. I would also point out that I do believe many 50somethings would gladly reapply what they know to make things better if someone could just show them the path or tell them where to go and what to do.

Uh.

‘Show them the path’ and ‘tell them what to do’ , attach that to my point on ‘believe they have earned’, and you have the formula for holding on tightly.

If unlearning is tough imagine how tough it is to give up control when you believe you have earned the privilege of controlling.

I was reminded the other day that I don’t often give 50somethings credit or the benefit of the doubt.

They may be right.

The documentary reminded me that ‘lost’ is an incredibly bad feeling and when felling it … well … it often doesn’t bring out the best in people.

Which makes me ask.

If we invested the energy to help the 50something generation feel less lost, would we all benefit from how they responded when they knew where to go next?

Nostalgia, or viewing the past as something better, is one issue, but ‘lostness’ is something completely different.

Maybe I have been looking at this wrong all along.

All I do know for sure is that I may give my 50something friends a little more benefit of the doubt.

Look.

If you even partially agree with me on his ‘lost’ thought … think of the numbers … think maybe 75% of 50somethings working in the cartoon business, television business, stock trading business, travel agent business, book business <libraries, publishing>, newspaper business, well, this could become a fairly long list … a shitload of 50somethings in a shitload of industries with a shitload of quality experience … is in a shitload of hurt.

They are, well, lost.

They know their craft well. And, yet, they don’t know the world their craft lives in anymore.

This is no excuse for the curmudgeons holding on tight to the past and the way things used to be done … it is simply an explanation for why so many of them are gripping the past with white knuckles.

“Because of the different rates of change of its components, a building is always tearing itself apart.”

Stewart Brand

—————-

“The unapparent connection is more powerful than the apparent one.”

Heraclitus

———————

Is everything moving faster? Is change occurring at a mind-numbing pace? While it may feel this way, and at almost any conference someone will be espousing this, the non-hyperbolic evidence suggests different. Gravity is still gravity, a minute is still 60 seconds and actually meaningful innovation has slowed to a crawl (in innovation terms). But the feeling of faster, and having to move faster, remains.

That said.  “Since 2016 the Earth started to accelerate.” Yeah. This is reported from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. So maybe its possible we just feel earth spinning that fraction of a second faster (note: doubt it). Beyond the earth, the acceleration of innovation we have experienced in recent years, although real, has not appeared to have increased productivity growth as much as the hype would suggest. Some people would call this issue ‘speed versus velocity.’ Regardless of what you call it, the business consequence of this is you can constantly feel at any given point we are stuck in the past (or the status quo) while discussing what’s next – all the while feeling like you are constantly missing out on something you are fairly confident everyone else gets and you don’t. There is a natural reason for this; reality is made of layers.

Which leads me to Stewart Brand and Pace Layering.

The idea is that there are multiple levels of pace in the world spanning from nature to fad/commerce speeds.

“The outer layers—fashion and commerce—move fastest while the inner layers of nature and culture move much more slowly. Because they’re all moving at different speeds, the system is better able to react to shocks. Some parts respond quickly to the shock allowing slower parts to ignore the shock and maintain their steady duties of system continuity.”

Stewart Brand

Circling back to the point on rate of innovation, pace layering can even be applied there because many people would argue speed of innovation has increased, yet, the majority of those ‘innovations’ have a short shelf life (source: Professor Bram Timmermans, co-editor of Industry and Innovation). So, innovations can exist on different pace layers too. What this means is when we talk about business, we are constantly trying to parse out what is on the outer fastest pace, the fads, fashion and hyped, and what is on the slowest pace – culture, people, and nature. In other words, discerning what is important and what is not. Generally speaking, business doesn’t handle this discussion well.

To be fair.

It’s quite possible in a complex world with so many dynamics your brain can quickly turn to fluff that we attempt to simplify things into the graspable.

It’s quite possible that’s why business is often discussed in 2-dimensional framing and ‘this or that’ decision-making.

It’s quite possible in doing so we over simplify and end up in some simplistic-summary-world or an oversimplification which appears useful, but is useless.

It’s quite possible we heighten “we must do this” as a technique to overcome an overwhelming sense of uncertainty.

That said. The reality is the world is not changing faster than ever, it just feels that way. Certainly, many things are fundamentally moving faster and its possible that all levels of pacing are moving slightly faster, but to suggest nature (biology) moves at the same speed as culture is nuts. BUT. It creates a sense that everything is not only moving faster, but things are moving too fast to grasp. It creates a sense we are living in a totally liminal space and, frankly, when we feel that way, we will hold on to whatever appears to be stable.

All of this gets compounded because, within all this complexity, people will inherently pick & choose what they want making “the more things change; the more things stay the same” a simplistic trope encouraging everyone to ignore purposeful change as a necessity because stability simply becomes not only a means to remain sane, but also because it is unclear what change is the change to do.

So what do we do?

Vision, tactics, coherence, and possibility plans. The reality is business, and in particular marketing, demands action now. Most actions bridge then and next absorbing aspects that worked then and embed brand value into the needs of the now with an acknowledgement of building future value. The trick is always to not get too caught up in the now, in other words, blinded by the outer layer of fads and cultural whims and short-termerism which sacrifice brand value creation. This demands some vision to navigate the layer noise.

I believe it useful to think of the layers in terms of technology and people. Why? The truth is technology almost always wants to work faster than most people want or can. Maybe worse is that technology engages people on a superficial level, which can create some activation, therefore neither embedding the full product value nor engaging in a substantive way.

Which leads us to “possibility plans.”

In general, a business is better when they have plans, but not all plans are created equal. Plans should be built to work toward something rather than working to do something. “Doing something” creates fragile businesses through ‘objective blindness’.  Here is a counterintuitive thought, plans are good because broken plans represent disciplined opportunities, therefore, well made plans are more about possibilities than they are simple execution. Remember. The best laid plans always fall apart. Always. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a plan. And even a plan for when the plan falls apart. And maybe even another thought on another plan. All those things involve change. And then of course there is the plan you hadn’t thought of that actually becomes the plan you actually do. Simplistically, all of those broken plans are about possibilities. Possibilities are change at its best.

The truth is the best business people don’t waste time stopping or slowing down to try and glue a plan back together again. They keep moving and make the best of what pieces are still within grasp. Maybe create some new pieces of the plan to replace some that broke off. They keep an eye on the vision or the goal and let some pieces catch up later if they can. Yeah. Success in navigating multiple levels of pace is you don’t stop to fret over broken plans, you simply seek out new possibilities (in fact often finding innovative fresh thinking on the move) and leave behind anything not key to achieving the goal (and that can be people and materials) always plucking out the possibilities that may exist on a different plane and different pace (but are pluckable at that time & place).

• ** quick note on the feeling of not keeping up. Far too often in a world shouting at you that speed is the only thing that matters, people will grab onto things that are only going fast. This is a mistake. In fact, broken plans may actually reflect dispensing of pieces & parts that are going too fast. Your plans should reject ‘too speedy things’ – fads would be included in this – as being too asynchronistic for what the greater objective narrative is. I am not suggesting this is always the case – you can eject too slow, too burdensome components also – but simply maintaining something because it is ‘fast’ is absurd.

Possibility plans are not exactly linear, but evolving. This is true because of pace layering. The best plans interconnect the different paces cognitively, tactically and within the vision, i.e., coherence. The plan fits into the flow of business activity.

Navigating the pace of now and next, well done, captures possibilities.

Navigating the layers of a business’s pace, well done, captures present & future, now and next.

Navigating the pace of the organizational strategies, well done, captures what if’s, what nexts, what (and where) could be’s.

In the end navigating the pace of now and next effectively means your business is not tearing itself apart, but rather building it up. Ponder.