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

obfuscate

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

Creating a smoke-screen.

prevaricate, evade, dodge

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

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

(“Trompe le pied/wrong foot.”)”

Erik Pevernagie

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

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

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

But you know what?

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

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

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

…………… question deflection …………

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

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

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

It is maddening.

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

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

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

It is irksome <at its least worst>.

It is loathsome <at its most worst>.

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

<envision a deep sigh here>

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

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

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

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

That makes it even MORE aggravating.

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

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

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

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

Well.

Fuck you.

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

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

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

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

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

====

Author note:

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

Some ‘fucks’ and ‘asshats’.

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

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

———————

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

James Russell Lowell

———————-

“I would rather die right then live wrong.”

———————–

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

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

• • A caste system: where winners rule over losers

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

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

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

Regardless.

Let’s talk about winning.

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

 

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

“No more box.”

And he walked to his corner.

 

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

But.

Here’s the deal.

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

Yup.

Duran wasn’t hurt. He was disgusted.

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

Was he right or wrong?

Shit. I do not know.

In his head he was right.

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

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

He wanted to know who the best fighter was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–          A ‘whatever it takes to win’ win

–          An intellectual win

–          An ability win

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

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

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

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

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

Senior business people have no excuses.

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

A whatever it takes to win.

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

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

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

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

Typically, really competitive people fall into this group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The intellectual win.

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

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

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

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

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

An ability win.

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

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

This one is near & dear to my heart.

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

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

Well. 

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

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

Sugar Ray Leonard

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

The numbers?

The intellectual win?

The ability win?

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

Know when to say “no mas.”

Know when to say ‘fuck this.’

Know that ‘winners win’ is bullshit.

Look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing… oh my, how the world still dearly loves a cage.”

–

Harold & Maude

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

Bert:

You know, begging your pardon, but the one my heart goes out to is your father.

There he is in that cold, heartless bank day after day, hemmed in by mounds of cold, heartless money.

I don’t like to see any living thing caged up.

Jane:

Father?

In a cage?

Bert:

They makes cages in all sizes and shapes, you know. Bank-shaped, some of ’em, carpets and all.

——

Mary Poppins

=========

Nap time.

School.

Recess.

Classes.

Clubs.

Businesses.

Hierarchies.

9 to 5.

Zoo

Prisons.

Aquariums.

Bias.

Expectations.

Norms.

Cages. All cages. Our world, personal, society and business, is constructed cage by cage.

Not only do we put things in cages to ‘protect ourselves’, but often we are quite receptive to put ourselves in them. Well. That is an uncomfortable thought.

We find a variety of words & terms to call them anything but cages: boundaries or rules or systems or process or structure.

Why? Because referring to them as cages implies being trapped. And. Let’s face it, trapped is only good when it comes to others and ‘bad things’; not us.

That said.

This whole cage thing is business, us (our lives) and society.

Ourselves.

• Professionalism

—

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. “

Virginia Woolf

—

In “How to Speak Human” the author points out that at one point in the past having a profession demanded “being professional’ and the industry of ‘professionalism’ was beget. So not only did your skill dictate who and what you are but what you said, how you acted & what you wore dictated your level of ‘professionalism’. This may actually be the Rubicon where perceptions became as important as reality. Perceptions are addicted to cues, heuristics, labels, even buzzwords. But. Cues, heuristics, labels & buzzwords are simply bars on a cage. Ponder.

• Productivity

Businesses, in general, are cages, but productivity in all its forms is the torture chamber of those cages. Daily output, hourly time management, deadlines, milestones, ROI, even sprints, are just miniature cages. We can try and blame Taylorism, but the truth is business likes these cages. Okay. Love. Business loves cages <as a corrolary: freedom scares the shit out of business>. These cages are built intended to find ways to constrict inefficient behavior (thinking & doing). All these cages constrict personal freedom, responsibility, choice, decision making, even thinking. Ponder.

—

“A cage went in search of a bird.”

Frank Kafka

• Process (efficiency)

“By embedding a core set of behaviors in its people, and then giving them the freedom to practice them, its teams would be naturally motivated, proactive and ultimately successful. Principles rather than processes are what matters.”

Mike Walsh

Efficiency deserves a cage museum all for itself within the Productivity cage world. While productivity is a natural cage for business, efficiency is a prison. Its sole purpose is to squeeze out any freedom to maximize profit. Period.

This prison has a new warden – technology. And while we try and embrace the idea technology creates freedom the dark underbelly is control. Ponder.

• Process and Systems
  

This is where technology comes into play.

“digital recognizes no digital business unit.”

Satya Nadella

We all know clever leaders will use algorithms, technology, to create a sense of decision making freedom all the while building a new cage, i.e., freedom to do what the algorithm says to do. The insidious part of this particular cage building is it represents an inherent belief employees will not do the right thing unless told what to do.

Leaders will use technology & algorithms to salve employee’s worst fear – uncertainty. In the past they demanded numbers & research & data to stifle creativity by suggesting those things ‘eliminated uncertainty’ <niote: they didn’t, at best they simply increased some probabilities>. Beware. Algorithms now loom as the new cage leaders will offer people as ‘certainty’. Ponder.

• Power
  

The darker underbelly of this false certainty offering – power inequality.

Currently, an increasing share of the value of the world’s goods and services comes from the input of machines rather than people. Therefore, the riches of world’s production goes to the owners of the machines, rather than the workers. The 10 richest individuals have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world. Half owe their fortunes to information and communication technology. Technology is driving further concentration of wealth. Suffice it to say, the more leaders sell us on algorithms and technology the more likely we are being put in a cage, while they are free to fly. Ponder.

• Structure (part 1)

Businesses love organizational structure <with emphasis on structure>. This structure comes in many shapes & sizes. While ‘hierarchy’ is the enemy du jour, I could argue that as soon as we name a model and attempt to ‘implement’ it we are in the process of building a cage (just ponder).

Regardless. Organizational design traditionally is framed in terms of exclusivity:

Should we build structures around products, markets, or functions?

Should we organize globally, regionally, or locally?

Should we have profits centers, divisions, departments, excellence centers, or any configuration to isolate specialty?

Should we centralize or decentralize?

As these questions are resolved, organizations are created in which there is much greater clarity because the structural choices eliminated, or at least minimized, the complexity (source: The Individualized Corporation).

Imposing simplicity on a world that is inherently complex comes at a cost. Cost? Yes. The cost is actually ‘value.’ In the drive for simplicity an organization ceases to make creating value its main objective and focuses on consistency, order and efficiency <with doses of effectiveness>.  This is the greatest organizational cage we never discuss: the simplicity cage. A business inherently seeks to cage complexity and dynamic systems in a variety of somewhat creative ways all the while stifling the wings of freedom found in complexity. Ponder.

• Structure (part 2)

It is possible Mike Walsh has framed this perfectly:

“Question of control. Do you design a perfect model of what high performance looks like and get your teams to conform to that ? Or do you give people the freedom to do what they think best?”

Which leads me to 2 business ideas pushing back on efficiency cages:

Conform or emergent.

Businesses of the future have a choice – invest in conformity or embrace in an emergent philosophy. This may sound black & white, but this decision, in my eyes, is an “in for a penny, in for a pound” type decision. I rarely take this stance. I do so now because half decisions will lead to half measures which will inevitably lead to no progress. I used to believe the pragmatic way was half measures; controlled autonomy, but I have increasingly shifted my view toward full shift. Ponder.

People management (motivation)

For years management has feared an individual reward system especially with the advent of collaboration and ‘team.’ This has led to a motivational cage designed to fit elephants & ants & eagles & aardvarks.

To be clear. Reward can be found in a variety of ways: titles, $, freedom, empowerment, selective leadership, intrinsic or extrinsic. And that’s my point. Most motivational cages are designed by limiting how people get rewarded. While I believe motivation, in & of itself, needs its cage redesigned, if connected to the ‘conform or emergent’ decision it’s quite possible motivation can be designed without a cage. Ponder that.

• Personal (Maslow stuff)

Here is the truly crazy thing about us people <and why we seem to like cages a bit>. We find real freedom a little difficult to embrace.

No shit.

No boundaries … no ‘box’ … no fences … those things scare the shit out of us. Its part survival instinct (people just feel safer and more comfortable when we can survey the landscape and find a ‘good cave to find refuge in’, uhm, a cage) and its part fear (wasted opportunities, accountability for mistakes, lack of progress, etc.).

“Birds born in cages believe that flying is a disease.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky

So what do we do?

We build cages and climb into them day after day. And then we ask people to step into them with us and say “okay, you will now live in them too and it is good for us.” Now. The tricky thing is that not all cages have obvious bars. Because the cage you have put yourself in to live your Life may simply have bars called “hesitance’ or ‘fear’ or ‘not good enough’ or ‘not supposed to do’ or even ‘what is normal <or the social norms.’

These are cages & fences & bars we create for ourselves.

These are all things which actually make us willing … yup … WILLING to stay in the cage. These are all things that give us an excuse to play it safe because we see flying as a disease. And while I could put the entire blame on us, I will not. A lot is about conformity and fitting in. business & society create these unspoken demands to conform. Fit in or not be normal is the code. This attaches itself to our natural instinct to be part of a greater tribe/collective identity (something bigger than us). as with many things there are degrees (cult to situational team) but a cage is a cage.

I will note you end up living caged by some version of fear (although it can look an awful lot like ‘smart & comfortable‘ when inside the cage) and that, my friends, is not a life fully lived. Or maybe <less harshly> it is simply a life minimized by a cage.

Don’t worry. Here is the good news <albeit sad news>. If you choose to live in a cage, you will find a shitload of people in there with you.

—

“Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.”

Tennessee Williams

—-

All of this actually creates some personal conflict, lets call it ‘human nature.’ While this cage is filled with a shitload of people, you will always feel some sense of restlessness <even though everyone in there has actually chosen to be in that cage>.

We look at birds & cages and think.

And think a lot. And think a lot about the fact that a flock of birds in flight is perhaps the most expressive image of freedom. Oh. And they are not in a cage. And some of us think of the warning Sancho Panza gave Don Quixote …

“… there are no birds in the country except wild birds that are tamed and kept in cages.”

Wild makes us excited and scared just as cages make us feel comfortable and uncomfortable.

That is the Life paradox <or one of them>. Look. I am certainly not suggesting this discussion with oneself is easy. Ponder.

“Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”

Anais Nin

• Society
  

—

“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”

Terry Pratchett

—-

Society is just a maze of cages. Let me highlight two:

Factory mentality

Business cages inherently bleed into how we think about ourselves outside of work; especially in the productivity revolution. It’s almost like we started believing society would become easier, more efficient & enhance individual happiness the more construct we put to things. In other words, society started believing there should be a construct built to produce better, more well-rounded, people. Well. I believe we would all be better off if we simply ditched the whole idea of a ‘well rounded’ person. Maybe if we didn’t just think of individuals as some conceptual ‘unique’ and embraced the fact everyone learns at different paces and has a desire to learn things, well, unevenly we would start thinking of society as some collective and rather a collection of individuals who coalesce contextually.

The Joneses

Comparison is a motherfucker. And we would all be foolish to ignore the fact comparison, in some form or fashion, plays a role in our psyche. It is what it is, you just manage it as well as possible. That’s called “Life.”

If you look close enough it can appear we, all of us together, have built a society where in order to survive we must in effect build our own cages.

Huh? It sometimes appears that people have essentially caged themselves into having to conform to a rat race “being a winner is what counts’ system where they are required to spend the majority of their lives grinding their way through a shitload of joyless activities to earn whatever they need <and want> to support their existence <however they define existence … from survival to decadence>.

Boy. That was depressing to write.

Society, in relation to ‘cages’, is a mixture of human liberties which is actually a combination of “I” and “we.” A coexistence, a balance, of individualism and collectivism <pluralism>. A balance between selfishness and sharing.

Society tosses us mental cages like candy. Many of them look really appealing and some even taste good for awhile. Ponder.

Anyway. I think it would be silly to think none of us didn’t exist in some cage or another. We all do.

Many of us may chafe at that thought, but if we are really honest with ourselves, it is a Life truth.

That said. I do believe we naturally like cages as a society. Or, maybe better said, society naturally imposes some cages on civilization. The constraints seemingly suggest less conflict. It suggests safeness and calmness.

<sigh>

And, yet, we cannot really go around building cages for everyone all the time.

You just have to try and build a better world. And let better people <people just trying to be the best they can> roam that better world.

—

To do something like that you need to shed some cynicism <that everyone is selfish and it is a ‘me, me, me’ world.

To do something like that you need to shed some fear <that all risk will inevitably end up with bad results>.

To do something like that you need to embrace some hope <and embrace a little optimism>.

To do something like that you need to stop judging others a little bit more.

All of those things are simply decisions to open up a cage … or break the bars of some cage.

 —

“… guests go to sleep.

May your dreams be blissful; forget that darkness falls on the cage we struggle in.”

Alexander Blok

—

In the end.

Here is what I hope. Despite the fact we are surrounded by cages and constantly being urged to reside in cages I hope that there will always be some wild ones nudging us to always seek to escape the cages.

Maybe not anarchy, but stretch the bars of the cages so we can see more and, well, be more. Maybe become more aware, or more enlightened, of what resides within the cages we have created … as well as what resides ‘with-out’ these same cages.

“So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.”

Sylvia Plath

You have to see a problem before you can solve it. And maybe, just maybe, we need some wild ones to show us the cages. And maybe, just maybe, the wild ones, the ones flying, make us not only aware of cages, but also flying. Ponder that.

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“The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”

Hippocrates

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“Ninety percent of paid work is time-wasting crap. The world gets by on the other ten.”

John Derbyshire

We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism

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

How many times have we sat back and said “I can do that job”?

Now. To be clear. I am going to talk about this from a business-to-business perspective and not the corner of the bar-to-‘some job’ perspective because from the corner of the bar, after a couple of beers, any of us can do any job better than the person who is currently doing it.

This is an “I have been in the workplace, I feel like I have had some success and … well … shit … I can do that job” perspective.

OK. I am chuckling a little, c’mon, let’s face it, I don’t care who you are and where you have worked, you have eyed what another person is doing and thought you could do it. At some point, if you have had some success, all jobs start having some commodity-like characteristics which tease you into believing shifting from one to another just isn’t that difficult.

Ok. To be fair. I have never lacked in business confidence. I do not believe there is a business problem that cannot be solved and I also believe <with some realistic pragmatic goggles on> that there is not a problem I cannot solve if I hunker down and get all the information I need. This can make me aggravating to work with on occasion because, well, I make no apologies for “how I may repair things”.

But that shouldn’t be confused with believing I can do any job.

Ok.

Yeah.

I admit.

I am certainly guilty at points in my career where I have certainly thought “I could do that job” over a wide array of responsibilities and unrelated industries.

** Note. I rarely thought I could do it better … just that I could do it.

……….. my MBA at Wake Forest experience ………..

I would say that my MBA experience, a great experience with great professors at Wake Forest, encouraged me to think this way. It was a case study program which inherently encouraged thinking skills over black & white discipline skills. I tend to believe a good MBA program insures you know enough about a specific discipline to be dangerous if you overestimate your own knowledge, but effective enough to be able to understand the discipline to apply it in a general management scope.

Now.

In general, I think this attitude, on the positive side, permits you to make the leaps you have to make to jump into new jobs, new responsibilities and new positions.

In general, I think this attitude, on the negative side, can make you overlook some skills other people have as well as … at its worst … can put you in positions in which you will fail in a spectacular fashion.

I imagine as someone gets promoted, as I did, every step up showed me that there was a shitload I didn’t know overall, as well as about the responsibilities of a specific job, but at the same time it also continuously reinforced that I could “do that job.”

Success in business is a double edged sword.

Conversely.

………. what you know versus what you do not know ………

As someone gets promoted they also can see that some people got their jobs not because they necessarily had the experience or skills for the job, but simply because they had the appearance they could do the job.

You watched as these people invested gobs of energy trying to “fake it until they actually make it” or, worse, they realized they were in over their heads and invested even more energy simply maintaining a facade of bullshit to hide their hollowness.

I would also note that given your experience on the last thing I just shared that also encourages someone to believe they could, well, “do that job.”

The higher I got and the broader my experiences, my sense of “I cannot really do that job” increased with regard toward the jobs I really shouldn’t do. It didn’t diminish my sense of ability to handle increased responsibility, it simply made me more reflective of other skill sets and the reality of certain jobs.

To be clear. There is a certain group of people who never reach this realization. They tend to be either sociopaths or oblivious narcissists, but they do exist.

Anyway. My real realization on this topic came when I reached a general management position <and did some consulting>.

It was there that I recognized jobs are like icebergs. 90% of a job you never see until you actually do the job. And to successfully do the part you don’t see needs a couple of things beyond the obvious ‘I need to be competent with regard to the specific skill itself’ aspect:

Attitude alignment

source: Tom Graves, Services and Disservices

This attitude goes way beyond the simplistic “I can do the job.” This attitude is more with regard to what you are actually good at.

As I have stated before I am more a renovator than a builder.  That is a mindset. My attitude is just put me in a room with all the puzzle pieces and I can rearrange them, maybe polish off a couple, maybe smooth out some edges that no longer fit well and put a different puzzle together that works better than the one that exists.

And then there are people who say ‘I envision a puzzle and build the pieces.”

Those are two different attitudes that, certainly, have some overlap but also, certainly, drive a different type of style and ability to succeed in one type of job versus another type of job. I believe many people are successful in their jobs, and new jobs, because they have the proper insight into themselves and position themselves well to take advantage of this insight.

I would also add that a leader who can see within a person’s ‘skill set’ to recognize this attitude will also be the type who can hire incredibly effectively. Not all leaders and hirers can. Some simply see the façade and surface abilities and believe they are easily transferable and hire them believing anyone can do the job if they have that appearance of a type of surface skill set.

The less-than-obvious skill set

… example of under the radar understanding (Juran Institute) …

Each skill, each specialty, has layers to its depth & breadth. Let’s say this is the “art” of the skill <I sometimes refer to it as “the shadow of your skill”>.

When you are a junior person you are demanded day in and day out to craft your pragmatic ‘non-artistic’ skills. You learn how to screw screws into holes efficiently and hammer nails into their proper places effectively.

As you gain seniority you are demanded to start incorporating the art aspects of your craft. I like to explain this as you have to learn to be more of an architect of your department, skill and specialty. By the way, not everyone can do his and not every department head is good at this and it tends to start filtering out those who move on to the next level … general management.

And if you move up even more into general management you are demanded to gain some skills in the “art” of combining all the skills into the overall progress of a company beyond the simplistic “are each department doing their fricking job.”

Ponder this.

In general the biggest difference between thinking you can do a job and actually being able to do the job is your less than obvious skill set. For example … I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a conference room with a CFO who has displayed a skill set that made me think “shit, this company is lucky to have them” not because they knew all the accounting mumbo jumbo, but because they knew how to wield account skills in ways that  the company benefited beyond accounting.

Pick your C-level title and I would say the same thing.

At the corner of the bar you have no clue whether you have this ‘less than obvious skill set’ and if you actually have the experience you may only have a sense of whether this skill set exists. This is an intangible, however, 90% of the time this intangible arises from some relevant experience <maybe not within that specific discipline but a discipline nonetheless> … so your experience does matter.

So.

I decided to write about this today because, frankly, as a business guy I know you cannot do a job simply because you say “I can do that job” and that experience really does matter and that simply because you believe something … <sigh> … does not make it so.

I will say that I have learned this lesson the hard way and it permits me to be able to call a bullshitter a bullshitter and to be able to point out that some roles & responsibilities dictate at least some relevant experience in order to be effective & efficient. Just because you think you can “do that job” does not mean you can actually “do that job.” It takes some self-awareness to know that.

The lack of self-awareness has a ripple effect.

In a bar your lack of self-awareness can create a range of responses – some chuckles, out right laughter of disbelief and maybe even some aggravation if it inches into what some of the people actually do sitting at the table.

In a business your lack of self-awareness can create some real business repercussions. Not only may you be out of your depth, but you may actually start making some poor hires who are also out of their depth and that kind of shit gathers negative momentum <down the slippery slope of less-than-competent results>.

In business you get fired for that shit.

In business that kind of shit gets the entire business in trouble.

Anyway. Not everyone can do a job. That’s the message of the day.

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

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

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

Inspector O

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

Robert Heinlein

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

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

Brian Cox

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

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

Bruce McTague

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

That is the sad truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

Even global economic growth infringes upon our national identification.

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

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

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

Terrorism.

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

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

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

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

It is a complex task.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well.

I certainly do.

---

originally posted July 2016

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“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”

—-

Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Whew. This quote is often used and used with such a tone and inflection that does more damage than good. What I mean is that in discussing Life with someone, particularly in reference to their Life <business or personal>, if you are not careful how you use these words it can either:

<a> come across as condescending,

<b> come across as blatant ignorance as to someone’s situation, i.e., it is often used toward people in low income, low education geography as ‘inspirational words of wisdom, or even

<c> come across as flippant tripe.

Regardless.

I imagine it is a Life truth that pretty much anyone can play a good hand <or at minimum be less likely to screw it up>. Unfortunately, pretty much no one ever <or rarely> gets dealt a perfect hand. Almost everyone gets dealt some bad cards and some people just get dealt shitty hand after shitty hand. What I will say is that the institutional systems are clearly not equitable and simply working hard and playing an incredibly poor hand you are dealt well does not guarantee success, but, you gotta play the hand you are dealt.

That said. Suffice it to say playing a poor hand sucks.

But just because you are in a situation you don’t want to be in, well, in Life you really can’t fold. You need to work with what you have.  Sometimes you, if you are really good, you can take a poor hand and play it out much better than someone with a much better hand.  You are just more clever or smart or thoughtful & industrious.

Anyway.

Rather than discussing Life in general I want to use this quote to talk about business. Because, frankly, business is very rarely a matter of holding good cards, but rather of playing a poor hand well. If you are worth even half a shit in business you can play a good hand <and, in fact, you learn to not waste a good hand>, but if you are worth even half a shit in business you also know you very <very> rarely get a good hand.

Pretty much every hand you get dealt is flawed in some way and, in fact, often it is a poor hand.

Almost every successful person I know has been dealt some bad cards in their business lifetime. Sometimes some really bad cards. Cards you simply want to toss off to the side in disgust. But you don’t toss them. You keep them in your hand and think about what the fuck you can do with them. These people figure out how to take those cards and use them to put together a victory. They don’t give up when others thought their hand was unwinnable. They found ways to use those cards for the benefit and growth of the business.

They owned the hand and figured out how to win. By the way, that is business in a nutshell.

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

“We are all dealt a hand and we have to decide how to play it.”

Voltaire

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We all go through things in our business life that we don’t always like.

Things that we have no control over.

Things that others have in place that we have to deal with <and can’t change>.

Things that put us in a place and position we can’t change.

All that said.

You can’t fold.

We have to play the hand that we were dealt. You have to choose progress over waiting for ‘the perfect hand’ <which – sorry to say – does not exist> or even waiting around for a better hand to be dealt.

I am writing this because while I have found many business people use great cards to increase the chance to win the hand I have also seen that it doesn’t really guarantee them a victory.

In fact <part 1>, more often than not, having a less than desirable hand doesn’t mean you automatically lose. There are other factors that go into winning <or finding some success>.

In fact <part 2>, I would suggest that more often than not, a less than desirable hand wins.

The best business people know you don’t get to trade cards with anyone else or pay extra to upgrade your hand so they work the hand they have as well as it can be played.

Look.

Each of us is dealt a hand when we come into work every day. I say that because it is important to remember most of the circumstances around you are out of your control, you don’t decide what circumstances you walk into every day and it does no good to complain about them or expect that they will determine your success.

That said.

<1> Many people think that a great hand, good circumstances, will guarantee their success <and increase the likelihood of happiness>.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

<2> Others will use their less than desirable circumstances as a crutch for why they don’t succeed. They take a look at the hand they were dealt and fold immediately.

They are foolish.

The hand you were dealt cannot be changed, but the way you play it can.

When you go through shit as we all do we all also have the choice how that ‘hand you were dealt’ is played … and inevitably you will do what you believe is best.

Or the best of the worst choices.

Or making the worst best.

Regardless.

You are simply doing what you think it right. And you know what?

In retrospect, if you line up all the choices you made, it will be difficult to see how some of the choices in the left hand column are right … if some of the ones in the right hand column are right. Why? Because you played the cards you had <which were imperfect in the first place>.

But you don’t get to do it over. Part of growing up in business is simply learning to live with regrets and choices made. In an odd way business is a little different than Life in this whole ‘play the cards you have been dealt’ thing.

You will actually find that business is made up of mostly bad choices. Or maybe better said … making the best of the less than best choices. All you really try and do is to keep your balance between them.

In addition … you will actually find that in business, versus Life, is every hand … even if it is bad … even really bad … still has the potential to be a winning hand. And because it is business … as we view the hands we are dealt … I imagine we seek some learning from the past. In other words … you will want to look at some past hands and examine how others have played them.

<note 1: often we do this to some absurd levels>

<note 2: this is sometimes called “procrastination” or “avoiding making the decision”>

Well.

Don’t waste your time.

Fundamental business human behavior doesn’t change over time. You can explore the functional and/or ethical choices <because people inevitably do get affected by how you play your hand> made by others in the past … and we often want to super-examine those made in the most extreme circumstances … but I cannot envision they were any more or less capable to deal with the situations than we are. You can go backwards and judge their decisions and you can be criticize … or applaud … their decisions.

But inevitably the questions lurking behind all that you examine is … what if it had been you? What would you have done in their shoes in that moment?

That’s it. Not their learning, but rather what you would do with those cards in that circumstance. And you know what? I do not need to go backwards in time to figure out what I would do now. Frankly, I will not be any more comfortable knowing that I am doing something that someone else did in the past or something different than someone else did in the past, I have to seek comfort in my decision and my choice.

In the end.

In business … in life … you play the cards you are dealt the best you can. No excuses.You just play ‘em.

And you know what? You will get deal another hand and you play that one the best you can. And maybe that is what this quote tries to tell us.

The last hand doesn’t affect the current cards you hold in hand. And it shouldn’t affect the way you play the next hand. And you certainly don’t get judged by how you played the last hand in the cards you are dealt. People may look at you differently but the cards make no judgment.

They simply get dealt. And you play ‘em.

In the end.

As stated earlier, in business you are more likely than not simply making the best of bad, or less than optimal, choices, therefore, business is pretty much all about playing poor hands well. Ponder that.

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Originally posted in 2012

Hugh McLeod

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“There is an intrinsic value in doing something without being the best at it.”

Susie Gephardt

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“The increase in value of the world of things is directly proportional to the decrease in value of the human world.”

Karl Marx

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“eventually the system’s problem becomes a human problem and every human problem becomes a system problem”

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“You and your brand are as good as the value you bring to the marketplace.”

Bernard Kelvin Clive

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In discussing business organizations I’ve seen so many pyramids, ‘team of teams’, squads, Molecules, organisms, mini-networks (formal & informal) diagrams my head hurts. Suffice it to say the crux of all them are:

• • • Small teams are effective

    • Unconstrained connectivity (exchange of information) increases effectiveness

Then the complexity theory folk throw an additional curveball into the mix suggesting ‘nothing is causal in a complex system’ which means, well, I am not sure what that means other than its not very, pragmatically, helpful. I may not be able to inextricably link a specific longish term effect to a ‘small team causal action’, but I can certainly attach some effects to some causes (if I couldn’t I wouldn’t do anything). Nothing is inevitable, but there are always consequences to actions.

** note: I understand the non-linear effects within a complex system, I am hesitant to suggest nothing is causal if you ever want someone do do anything.

I begin with those thoughts because network value is found when the network creates value and the number of ways a network can create value can make your head spin.

Conversely, the number of ways an organization can destroy network value can make your head spin.

And while strict hierarchies are (can be) the main organizational culprit I would also suggest leadership attitude destroys most value.

For example.

One of my favorites is the leadership belief in the fallacy of ‘best talent on the assignment’ philosophy.

Uhm. Have you ever noticed it is always a small group of best people all the time? So basically, everyone is attempting to put the same people over and over again on whatever is deemed the ‘assignment of the day’ (which is not always the one that is either most important or will offer the best ROI to the business). Anyway. As McKinsey suggests in “Linking Talent to Value”  it would appear every business should rank each of their employees (kind of a bad version of ‘stars & worker bees’) and then use their best in some form of a flying squad to solve whatever it is they want to solve.

“identifying and quantifying the value of the most important roles in an organization is a central step in matching talent to value. These critical roles generally fall into two categories: value creators and enablers. Value creators directly generate revenue, lower operating costs, and increase capital efficiency. Value enablers, such as leaders of support functions like cybersecurity or risk management, perform indispensable work that enables the creators. These roles are often in counterintuitive places within the organization. Typically, companies that consciously set out to pinpoint them find about 60 percent are two layers below the CEO, and 30 percent are three layers or more below the CEO.”

McKinsey

The ‘best talent’ mumbo jumbo rears its ugly head in business in two main ways:

• • The worker bee conundrum: worker bees are typically a self-fulfilling prophecy in organizations. Someone gets assigned a role, compensated for meeting milestones/objectives within that role, and if you are good at hitting those milestones, you get more shoved at you .. over and over. Eventually they see you as a ‘productive worker bee’ and you see yourself as a worker because that’s what you do and get compensated for. You become a ‘best worker’, not one of the ‘best people to get assigned to the highest value creation’ slots.

  • The specialist/generalist conundrum: this is actually an organizational version of potential reductionism. The leadership assigns narrowly defined jobs (stay in your lane mentality) believing focus maximizes, well, efficiency for sure and some effectiveness <although that’s a dubious claim>. Its kind of a glorified machine mentality. Glorified in that the leadership claims your specialty skill is valued beyond a part in a machine, yet, this ‘glory’ unravels in that compensation has a ceiling and, well, they treat you like you can be replaced at any time. Then there are the ‘best’, who are typically generalists, who can seemingly craft value out of thin air in any situation. They get assigned to everything whether they are actually the best to bring out the most value or not. yes. This conundrum to management is actually a self-perpetuating doom loop.

Needless to say, neither of these two scenarios maximizes network value. Oh. It may work on occasion and in most cases the business will succeed well enough to think it worked, but it doesn’t even come close to maximizing network value. Most likely the result of this ludicrous organizational management is unbalanced results, repetitive work existence for the majority, absurd compensation for few, and mediocre outcomes. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this is because these ‘solutions’ are about managing people and not systems. What I mean by that is they see a system as stagnant (it is not) and seek to plug ‘n play people into a system.

Living with this is living with mediocre success, yet, leadership attitudes manifest itself in this activity over and over.

Now. Getting rid of what we do not want does not guarantee getting what you do want, let alone not guarantee even worse than what you have now. All I am doing is pointing out that existing business leadership talks about optimizing network value, but actually do not do any such thing.

Network value is about individual contribution and team contribution and organizational contribution. All connected.

Network value is all working with some agility and some replicable and some speed and some slowing down. Network value is complex and dynamic.

Network value is people, nested systems, working within a system. Network value is systems thinking.

I cannot remember where I found this but “the defining properties of a system are properties of the whole that none of its parts has.” Network value emerges as a defining property of the system as a whole. That alone dismantles the concept of “linking talent to value.”
Ideally, everyone in a system (business) should participate in the design of value in order to optimize network value. That said. This does not suggest everyone do so all the time at the same time, but rather, over time, everyone has participated in some way.

In order to approach this an organization has to establish some, well, principles. Principles, paradoxically, provide both enabling constraints as well as energy focus. Team identification, team development, team practices, team objectives and team ‘breakdown**.’

** note: while we spend a lot of time discussing creating teams at speed, we rarely discuss how quickly the team should be disassembled.

Please note that everything I have said about network value has involved people – human beings.

That said.

It is next to impossible to speak about network value without having to discuss the heinous ‘digital transformation’. It implies digital is the objective when the reality is that anything digital – technology – is a means to an end for a business. The end is “value creation.” And, in my mind, that value creation is inextricably tied to either a learning organization (ongoing learning) or simply humans, people, re-imagining things. That said. Technology certainly has a role in enabling that human network value creation. Technology should be an integral aspect of the future value creation and networked value creation. What I mean by that is business is inherently about connections – the more effective, efficient and dialogic the connections the higher the value generated and technology makes humans, well, networked. To be clear. This means talking of technology not as a network but rather something that makes humans a network (or networked).

As a reminder, networked value creation can occur structurally or transactionally.

Structural conceptual thinking, implemented as networked value creation, is not that difficult and has been done for decades.

Transactional conceptual thinking, combined with the actual networked value creation, is hard – very difficult. It’s about envisioning opportunities/issues, envisioning resources/ideas/abilities and envisioning how to put it into action. In other words, its difficult.

I have shared a number of thoughts on how, and what to build as an AI/technology knowledge distribution infrastructure, but suffice it to say the ‘digital transformation’ isn’t really digital transformation it is a shadow structure of a desired enterprise model (focused on optimizing people’s potential). Period.

I would also note just as some thought fodder that this AI infrastructure within this business model is, conceptually, like the additive manufacturing of organizational design. It approaches the organization from a granular perspective seeking to ‘additively’ build up productivity and desired outcomes.

Anyway. In order to optimize network value, the organization needs to fundamentally, continuously, change the way people THINK about how they produce & do business and encourage, and prompt, them to actually DO the change. Efficiency is easy to change. Optimizing network value explores HOW to conduct business to demand a change in beliefs, attitudes and mindset. This means the data and knowledge must constantly nudge reality perceptions because most ‘reality’ is driven by the resources needed at the time. Knowledge needs to “anti-hack” natural business heuristics which hide realities of ‘what could be.’ Managing what people will see informs attitudes and perceptions of reality and things change, perception wise, when prompted with new knowledge, then people change.

** note: some of the best thinking you can find on this can be found in OpenSpace/Beta philosophy from Silke Hermann and Niels Pflaeging. Read “Change is more like adding milk to coffee.”

I will note that an added benefit of a malleable organization (this concept was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in 1970’s Future Shock) driven by emergence is that it shapes itself to opportunities at different paces. The reality of any organization is each component in a system, people included, feel comfortable moving at different paces. So instead of demanding a consistent pace throughout the organization has different individuals, and teams, working at different paces – coherent in progress, but inconsistent in its pacing. While this may appear to be inefficient it actually not only increases effectiveness against any specific opportunity, but also makes the organization more resilient (anti-fragile) overall with an ability to absorb challenges and opportunities in stride.

Which leads me to organizational collaboration <which is a concept closely tied to network value>. Organizational collaboration, technically, doesn’t need to be led. Organizations should actually be more like an ever-moving Rubix cube in which at the appropriate time the appropriate pieces align to collaborate to resolve whatever needs to be resolved. All the squares are always in flux doing their own thing until the situation demands some pieces get together to be aligned.  Collaboration shouldn’t need conference rooms & meetings, but rather the culture simply breeds a belief when something needs to be solved you go find the best people (not best talent) to help solve it. Let’s be clear. That is simply wishful thinking. As organizations grow, they become incapable of natural collaboration; it becomes some version of forced collaboration. Once again, I have shared thoughts on this in the past and I believe in an emergent organization you can use algorithms, and knowledge prompts, to facilitate and nudge toward collaboration (but, more importantly, conceptually thinking).

Which leads me to enabling constraints. Network value creation is not some rugby scrum, it needs some constraints.

The first constraint is actually leadership. One could have read up to this point and believe I am suggesting a democratized organization, I am not. I am suggesting a malleable organization which demands some overarching leadership on 2 fronts:

• Vision (or future planning): if you pick up “The Fish rots from the Head” (a fabulous book on board responsibilities) you would see what I am suggesting here at the Board level. I believe it needs to be embedded in the organization especially if you desire a more malleable network construct.
• Team Guides: I, personally, call this position “unstuck leadership”. If you desire to have more random teaming you most likely need less random leadership. You need someone who knows the ins & outs of resource allocation as well as has avenues to critical decisionmakers at critical times.

I will say that there is a significant different between good coordination (coherence) and controlled coordination and the organizations seeking network value will find leadership, practices, systems and technology to enhance the former rather than the latter.

The second constraint is, well, possibilities.

Despite the fortune cookie wisdom that there are infinite possibilities, there are not. We may have more possibilities than we think we do, but they are certainly not infinite. In fact the possibilities in any given time and situation are quite finite in a variety of ways.

• • • Time inevitably squeezes your possibilities quite often into an almost suffocating finite space.

    • Ability, or capabilities, inevitably squeezes your possibilities quite often into a fairly pragmatic sphere of finite space.

    • Context, or the situation itself, squeezes your possibilities quite often into a less than infinite, or maybe better said “a variety of different sized infinities,” choice space.

We do possibilities, with network value creation, a huge disservice by suggesting ‘infinite.’ At any given time, you, and the organization, are absolutely surrounded by possibilities. But possibilities do not always lie directly ahead of you or in the direction you face. Possibilities swirl around you in a multi-dimensional fashion.

Therefore, possibilities can reside in any direction.

Therefore, progress can reside in any direction.

But this is not infinite. It just may feel like it is infinite simply because of the complexity associated with context and what your mind can realistically grasp. I believe we would be much better served to admit that possibilities are finite to any given individual and even within a network <albeit the boundaries expand>.

In the end.

Underpinning network value will be 4 aspects:

• • Personal: people are a complex mix of generalist capabilities and interest residing in a specialist happy world. The world is usually good at rewarding the specialty skill a person offers all the while not rewarding the ancillary interest and skills often lying dormant within a person. In other words, the world is quite happy offering support to only parts of people and not the whole. I would suggest the most meaningful life is one in which the whole of the individual has permission to not only be exploited, but ‘used.’
  • Potential: people are walking vessels of untapped potential. Business almost dictates some choices which inevitably leave a significant portion of each individual’s potential untapped. Conceptually, any business that can permit an individual to tap into potential, or maximize potential, will benefit (while benefiting the individual).
  • Productivity: while it may be uncomfortable to say in a world shouting “you are not defined by your work” it would be silly to suggest our work did not define parts of who and what we are. Work, which represents a significant part of our lives, is an expression of a huge investment in time and energy. Therefore productivity, or our actual output, is one of the most tangible measurements of all that time and energy. I would suggest that if you maximize your potential not only does your productivity increase, but the quality of the productivity increases.

** note: quality of productivity can be measured on two aspects – actual quality of the output as well as quality of the input. What I mean by that is I, individually, will feel better or be more invested in what I produce if I feel like I have invested more, and different strengths/interests, INTO that production. It is not a big leap to believe that inner investment will translate into a better product itself. In other words, the individual productive incurs intrinsic and extrinsic value.

• • Progress: results are tricky. This is why gamification was/is so appealing. But we know from research that finite progress (milestones, sprints, etc) are a doom loop of chasing things in which people get trained to chase output instead of outcomes. People inherently gain greater satisfaction if they show progress – better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.

It is when a business can align all aspects it will maximize the potential of each person and network value.

Business, being business, has overthought network value to a mind-numbing level. Quadrants, mapping, team design, you will find dozens of books and articles showing you ‘how’ to tap into network value. Its almost laughable the lengths we have gone to do something I believe Ralph Stacey suggested back in 1992: “people, left alone, will more often do what needs to be done <sic>.” If you want to maximize network value, get out of your people’s way.

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“Not even the human

imagination satisfies

the endless emptiness of the soul. “

Allen Ginsberg

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nicesuggestions:

    let the stardust inside your veins shine bright and light up the lives of those around you

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Potential is an amazing thing.

Well.

Amazingly good and amazingly bad.

It pulls, it pushes and it ties you down, all at the same time. All the while creating thoughts of what could be as well as thoughts of “am I enough.” And it certainly teases the human imagination to think about the endless possibilities within one’s soul & purpose.

Potential asks for great things from people. Sometimes it whispers the ask and sometimes it shouts the ask. Regardless. Once heard, potential demands some things from that person. Suffice it to say potential becomes alternatively an individual’s burden and an engine. It forces a test of ‘self’ with regard to potential, in this case, is your engine strong enough to carry the burden? Now. The engine has almost as many moving parts as a car engine does. It isn’t just belief, thinking you are capable of whatever it is you want to be capable of, it is also the hard work, the skill and the opportunity management in Life. You have to engage all parts to make the potential engine run effectively.

But, and this is a HUGE but, you have to wrap your head around this wacky thing called ‘potential’ the right way or you will not do so well.

What do I mean?

A shitload of people view ‘I am not living up to potential’ as some fucked up personal code for ‘not being recognized for how good I really am.’ Yeah. In order to understand potential it demands having some personal perspective.

I admit.

I want to actively vomit when I read shit like this:

I’m not living up to my maximum potential.

The biggest thing blocking my path right now is myself and I want to change for the better. I have big dreams, but it’s sad to be in the condition I’m in where the light and power is there but it’s not yet burning to the max.

I just want to say … “c’mon, get a grip <and grow up>.”

Look.

There is a difference between dreams and reality.

There is a difference between what I can do and that sometimes wacky perspective with regard to ‘what I can actually do <often called ‘potential’>.

There is a difference between pragmatism and possibilities.

Some people seem to think potential is like some magical wand they can wave to create some alternative dimension where anyone can do anything they dream or want to do. I am not suggesting potential doesn’t exist in everyone <because it does>, but it isn’t something you tap into and “make it burn to the max’ it is a, well, burden. And you either choose to carry it well or permit it to weigh you down.

But we should all get it through our pea like brains that we all carry this burden <albeit in different sizes and shapes> and how well we carry that burden pretty much depends on our perspective with regard to our potential <and potential itself>.

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“Greatness demands that I understand that I am not nearly as big as I thought myself to be, but that I am capable of becoming far bigger than I ever imagined myself to be.”

Craig D. Lounsbrough

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But “living up to our potential?”

Now that’s bullshit.

Yeah.

The idea that we somehow have a certain amount of potential that we must live up to is a bullshit. A total bullshit fortune cookie wisdom soundbite. I tend to believe the same people who say they are not living up to their potential are the same people who pretty much have no fucking clue with regard to what living means and what is important in life.

I believe 99% of people understand Life is very hard.

We all have some fundamental desires and goals which set the basics for our horizon thinking <even if it is waking up and having the optimism needed to aim for the horizon which on that day is simply the end of that day>. And with that thought … well … we get out of our fucking beds and go do some shit.

Some of the shit meets the fundamental needs. Some of the shit is just shit. Some of the shit is good. And some shit, on some days, seems to tap into what we truly believe we are capable of. Let’s call this ‘what we believe is our greater potential.”

It is that last shit that can screw us up.

We want more of that last shit.

We see it as “our true potential” and “why shouldn’t we do that, and be that, all the time.” It makes us happy to think we could do more of that shit. And, most importantly, it makes us believe we have better shit within us we could do if given the opportunity.

“You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it. “

Audre Lorde

But you know what?

Maximizing Life and your potential may quite possibly look exactly how I just wrote it out.

Waking up, doing some shit shit, doing some good shit and doing some shit which maxes out our potential.

Maybe that is Life.

And if you don’t think what I am suggesting is true?

Well.

Maybe get your head out of your ass and think about it <instead of listening to all the other assholes screaming about all the potential you are not maximizing>.

Maybe take a moment and acknowledge that potential as a concept is a fairly delusional concept. Acknowledge that most likely it is a concept not created from within but by someone or something without creating some perception.

Maybe acknowledge that potential more often than not implies you are in some fucked up race to be better than someone else.  Life is not a race. In fact. It is not even a competition.

In a race ‘potential’ always seem to become relative to everyone else in the race. how fucked up is that? I mean … what the hell … its your potential.  So maybe acknowledge that if you stop looking at Life as a competition you can most likely stop worrying about whether you finish first or not or even compare yourself versus other’s “use of potential.”

Lastly.

Just go ahead and acknowledge that ‘living up to your potential’ is a fucked up phrase you hear in your youth from older people suggesting you are capable of being the best or at least better than maybe what your reality suggests would be more realistic in your own head. And, if you think about it, this phrase more likely than not comes from people who have no fucking clue what you really want to do in your life and with your life <mostly because you have no fucking clue what you want to do in your life and with your life>.

You want to know how to live up to your potential?

Do the right thing <as often as you can>.

Do the best you can <as often as you can>.

Show respect to others. Show some kindness in moments where kindness may seem difficult to show. Show some dignity in the moments of loss … and success.

Live with some honor.

And if someone whispers “oh, you have so much more you could do” just look at them and shake your head. They don’t get it. By doing what you are doing you are maximizing living Life. All the rest of the crap is shit that can possibly earn you some more money and maybe even win some fancy awards, but they won’t earn you the really important stuff – maxing out Life itself.

Now that is what potential seems to me.

Yeah. Potential seems like … well … letting the stardust inside your veins shine bright and light up the lives of those around you.

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“The most dangerous moments are not when people are their poorest but rather when their expectations of significant improvement are raised … and end in frustration.”

de Tocqueville

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I once wrote a piece called “trickle down inequality” outlining the effect of trickledown effect of inequality.
The wealthier you are you get, or gain access to:

better healthcare.

better education <and opportunities>.

better start.

better everything.

You live longer, are healthier, are better educated, have better jobs and, ultimately, have better opportunities. In other words, the odds are forever in your favor.

I think it’s about time we took a look at how business is contributing to this and, maybe most importantly, how it affects hope.

Business has become weird <or maybe just weirder>. Hierarchies in the past were neat distributions of wealth. Even if incompetent people got promoted enough competent ones also did that as salaries, and wealth, got distributed you bitched, but didn’t feel like there was unsolvable inequality. That has changed. And just as extreme inequality attacks the underpinnings of democracy it also attacks the underpinnings of good business.

Let me explain.

Salaries/compensation.

Business espouses meritocracy until its blue in the face. What they neglect to mention is how they manipulate the meritocracy. Wage growth is usually discussed in some fairly superficial ways. We casually discuss ‘everyday worker’ wage growth and then quickly flip to the crazy high CEO compensation packages we see. The devil is in the details. For a very long time when businesses grew the poorest actually benefited the most. I am too lazy to research the details, but suffice it to say that when business grew the lowest incomes actually did better than the highest incomes <proportionally speaking> in reaping benefits. That meant economic growth was actually equitable and equalizing. That is no longer occurring. What has changed is how productivity is measured and compensated. In the past if you were more productive <economic output**> there was a fairly tight relationship to your compensation, no longer.

** note: Mariana Mazzucato has a fabulous Tedtalk on how economic output/productivity is out of whack

What that really means to us every day schmucks is that economic mobility came to a crashing halt. I could be smashing it out of the park from a daily productivity standpoint and all the business system did was say “you are doing what you are being paid to do.”

This happened for several reasons but let me focus on specialties or ‘roles.’ It’s not really reductionism, but has some aspects of it. It’s more a reflection of the machine-like mentality most businesses hold onto with ragged claws tied to the ‘measure everything’ focus. At my most cynical I could suggest business doubled downed on specialist/specific role mentality because it became easier to simplify compensation and employee competition/assessment. I knew who did more, best, in a very narrow measured space and could keep the best and get rid of the worst <note that this didn’t translate into a fair compensation just more for the best in that little space>. Unfortunately, this business philosophy often simply rewards the tallest midgets. This philosophy creates value, just not the type of value creation that makes people sit up and pay attention – its structural value creation which, in today’s business world, is not seen as the highest value creation necessary for “growth hacking”, “scale-able growth” or “hypergrowth” <all bullshit phrases>.

** note: I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this does not maximize either outcome potential or personal meaning. Reinforcing daily repetition <compensating an encouraged grind> increases disengagement and splitting value creation between everyday productivity and ‘occasional value creation’ opportunities doesn’t achieve the synergy necessary reform optimization.

As a counterpoint the ones the leadership have designated as the few scale-able value creation wizards have no discernable boundaries for wealth compensation.

In other words, the majority of productivity is mired in ‘livable compensation’ and the minority is given riches beyond the imagination.

Just to conclude. Some inequality has always threaded its way through business. There have always been employees who received higher compensation with no meaningful discernible value creation advantages <call them the Peter Principle employees>. But in the past, we could live with them as they went on longer vacations to Disneyland while we enjoyed Six Flags or the local lake. It became an issue when they started pulling up to their reserved parking spaces in Porsches while we kept driving a 10-year-old car because it was paid off.

Compensation inequality in business has repercussions in the community and society. People bring their business compensation home … as well as business perceptions of whether they deserved that compensation. What this begets, in the community, is cocooning of the ones who see themselves as the value creation wizards <hanging out with each other> and the productivity value creation grinders <hanging out with each other>. And they grow farther and farther apart while doing so.

Which leads me to.

Gamification.

A weird thing has happened in business psychology. While many businesses have admitted organizations aren’t really simple machines <albeit they keep many machine-like principles in place> they have embraced a slightly more ‘natural system’ belief. Let’s call it ‘organisms’ or ‘biological’ or whatever metaphor you want to apply to suggest adaptive and non-machine-like. Well. Natural systems continuously adapt, but human systems get gamed. I am not talking about selfishness/self-interest, per se, but rather a business system invariably uses some gamification to try and prompt the results they want and humans will game the gamification in order to access the rewards <incentives, not getting fired, promotions, etc>. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the majority of people who will game the gamification the best will most likely not be the best team players, best ethical people or best of your non-psychopath employees.

I am not suggesting business organizations don’t have some attributes of a natural system, but I am suggesting humans are not animals or insects and human systems will act differently than natural systems <particularly in business>. As someone at the Santa Fe Institute said “humans are not bees or ants.”

Business is in the business of doing business. Ignoring that is absurd. For decades business has gamed the stock market, financial statements, CEO compensation, etc. To not recognize how that self-gamification hasn’t contributed to an expanding societal inequality is ludicrous. To not recognize how that self-gamification hasn’t contributed to a decreasing ethical equality is ludicrous. How business is conducted, and gamed, bleeds out into the community and homes. Its absurd that business does not assume some responsibility for inequality <on a variety of issues> as they game the system and their employees.

Which leads me to

Hope.

Extreme inequality tests people. It tests character and integrity and honor and … well … good versus evil.

Extreme inequality provokes a generalized anger that finds targets where it can — immigrants, foreign countries, American elites, CEOs, government in all forms. Extreme inequality saps the will to conceive of ambitious solutions to large collective problems, because people lose hope that anything meaningful will be done to resolve them.

Look. Few gain true wealth. And that is actually okay. And, in fact, at most times people are okay with that. It is only when the extremes become, well, too extreme that the psychology falls apart. Extreme inequality hardens a business into a class system which means that extreme inequality corrodes trust among fellow employees, making it seem as if the game is rigged.

Extreme inequality screws with our hope, but when there is a fair and balanced dispersion of wealth everyday Hope is healthy. Hope starts getting attacked when the inequalities become so extreme as the rich and the poor become entrenched and there is an overall lack of opportunity for economic mobility <and social mobility>.

Balanced wealth.

Probably the most misunderstood and misdiscussed topic with regard to capitalism and a healthy economy.  A balanced wealth society far too often gets discussed as ‘inequality’ which then suggests we should be seeking wealth equality <which we do not>. A healthy capitalist society has income tiers in which some have less and some have more. But the less and the more, the have nots and the haves, need to have a balanced relationship. And the balance reaches into all aspects of society <which makes this topic even more complex>.

Inequality has always existed and it is part of the accepted American culture.

But it was a “balanced inequality.” It was a balanced wealth, fair dispersion, societal structure.

Now. Some people confuse economic mobility with ‘fairness.’ Fairness implies giving something to someone. Business, at its core, isn’t based on giving; it is based on earning. Earn respect, earn trust, earn relationships and, yes, earn money.  Therefore, economic mobility is the idea that if you work hard, play by the rules and do it all with purpose that you have the ability to move up from where you are. A failed economic mobility system is one in which you do those three things and either you don’t move at all or, worse, fall backwards.

Leaning in on that point, the main pervasive foundational belief is not actually about being fair, but rather if you work hard, you will be successful – if you are highly productive you get compensated.

Unfortunately, this is not true. Most of business these days does not provide wealth to hard-working individuals.

Yet. Most employees unconsciously form a wealth hope based on this attitude. Many employees will wonder what they did wrong but over time they will get a sense that the system itself should be blamed. Let’s be clear, our business system, for the most part, is not inherently fair. The reality is that under our business system the probability of success, regardless how much you may have worked, is fairly similar to lottery odds. Wealth, with rare exceptions, is not created by hard work, but is a result of merciless ambition and having initial wealth.

To be clear. Most of us do not have that initial wealth nor do most of us have some mercenary type ambition <do not confuse that with having dreams and aspirations>.

To be clear. Most people haven’t given up on hope and dreams, they are angry because they believe someone, or someones, are screwing with their hope and dreams.

Extreme inequality fucks with our hope.

I would argue business needs to move out of the profit-only business and get in the Hope business <not Purpose>. Business needs to offer solutions to which we can attach our hope to that we can tangibly attach our hope to. This will not just solve inequality, but <from their selfish perspective> it will make their business less fragile and more productive.

In the end.

The way business conducts itself echoes throughout homes, communities and society. To think business isn’t responsible, or plays a significant role, in inequality is absurd. So, while business may be showing profitability, high stock prices and growth, i.e., meet the measurements of business success, they are for the most part doing so not meeting the measurements of societal success. In fact, their success is killing society success. Yeah. I am suggesting money matters but I am doing so in a different way – tied to fairness, equity, productivity, all of which lead to meaning and mattering. Because isn’t that what inequality is really all about? Meaning and mattering? If business, where many people gain a significant portion of their identity, doesn’t offer up personal meaning <of which a component is equitable distribution of wealth based on productivity> then how can any society expect to create the attitudes necessary for healthy grounded meaning? Okay. You could, but it would be more fragile. And maybe that is my point. When business doesn’t get this right, it creates some unnecessary fragility to society. Ponder.

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

“Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but, seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit.

I’ll just say this: Nobody can guarantee that it’s going to be okay, but — and I don’t know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there’s a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed.

And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it’s just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.

I don’t know.

But when you’re concerned that the miserable, boring wasteland in front of you might stretch all the way into forever, not knowing feels strangely hope-like.”

—

Allie Brosh

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“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”

―

Markus Zusak

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

This is about the grind, why the grind <for most of us> is not a bad thing, yet, many people are trying to convince you that your grind is misery (despite it making you happy).

The grind. I imagine most of us look at day to day work as having a fundamental grindness to it. Not exactly mundane, but a sense of “working your way through what needs to be done.” Yes. If you like what you do, it isn’t a bad grind. Even if you aren’t sure you like what you do, you put up with the not-so-good grind aspects because there are glimpses of ‘not grind surprises’ and your grind provides a number of outcomes which give you a sense of satisfaction <at its most fundamental level> and a sense of meaning <at the highest level>.

All that said.

The grind is actually rhythm. It offers a basic cadence to life and our work. This cadence is very personal, although a business should pay attention to it, and often is incredibly foundational to a successful career.

We get a paycheck. We have responsibilities. We have to do lists. We get annual reviews. We have bills to pay. We have financial responsibilities (some accepted as part of Life and some reflection of poorer choices).

All of those things do not seem complex, but it is complexity cloaked in the simplicity of a grind. If I were a contrarian, I could suggest this is the ultimate elegance of simplicity. That said. I would note we take all this complexity, under the grander narrative of ‘the grind’, and we establish a rhythm which for the most part doesn’t keep us up at night because, well, it works. Call it a coping mechanism, call it “life efficacy”, call it what you want, but make sure you see ‘the grind’ for what it is.

To be clear. This is not a rut.

** Note: ornière, rodera, keréknyom,   kiima  <rut> or être en rut, in een sleur, essere in un solco, olla kiima <be in a rut>.  Rut as in ‘an elongated hole.’ Oh my. So being too consistent or predictable is living in a hole? Yup. And here is a reminder about holes, they typically

<a> have slippery slopes leading down to the bottom>,

<b> it is really really difficult to stop sliding down a slippery slope once on it and

<c> you need someone to pull you out of the hole once you are in it <or you stay in it>. Just ponder.

To be clear. “Grind” is simply the rhythm of everyday life managing the good aspects and the not-as-good and what we take in and what we give out.

This rhythm offers some consistency.

And, yes, most of us like some consistency in our lives. We like some consistency and some predictability to provide a solid backbone to our lives.

This is not consistency just for comfort sake (which is actually the hobgoblin of small minds).

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now. The grind is surprisingly difficult to explain because it often walks a razor thin balance of several things <please note … this is not research but rather Bruce quasi-vapid thinking>:

– Consistent/predicted behavior <a planned list of things to do>

– Planned spontaneity <think vacations or scheduled parties or outings>.

– Random spontaneity <shit that just happens>.

I would suggest <using my research brain knowledge> that this razor thin balancing act. I will also suggest this fragile combination is maybe an 80%-15%-5% <with a +/- 2.5% margin of error> Life mix.

Yup.

Me, a lover of not being too predictable, accepts the fact that having the majority of Life be familiar and consistent and predictable as good. Because with some people, using my margin of error, less than 2.5% of your entire Life can actually consist of any true spontaneity and you could be one of the happiest non-hobgoblins on the face of the earth.

Oh.

Please note that I believe “planned spontaneity’ is possibly the biggest oxymoron of this generation.

** note: We are so obsessed with time and ‘maximizing each available moment’ for fear of ‘wasting anything’ that we actually plan our free time. This kind of seems nuts to me.

I sometimes believe that in our objective driven world focused on predictability <and measuring success> makes the grind even more fragile because, if components of that grind predictability are removed, it is almost like playing a constant game of pick-up-sticks. In other words my grind immediately is no longer simply a grind, but chaos. But that is where predictability rears its ugly head. Predictability and consistency is often measured in today’s world as not only the process, the routine or rhythm, but also in the result.

And maybe that is where I do begin to edge into consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.

I would be foolish to suggest we don’t all aim for more positive results than negative ones because we all want to be happy and positive results do beget positive feelings.

But if you live your life solely focused on ‘only doing what will make me happy <or has the highest probability of happiness> based on predictable behavior, well, that actually makes your grind, even with the best of intentions, even more fragile.

Regardless. Life has a habit of squeezing you and when it does it actually exposes the fragility of the grind.

―

“You know, sometimes in life you can get kinda stuck and you feel like you should have changed chapters by now, but you can’t.”

Wish I Was Here <Aidan>

——————-

I imagine what I am suggesting is ‘the grind’ gets a bad rap. I am suggesting that the grind, while it often seems a solid, indestructible, aspects of life is actually quite fragile. I am also suggesting that those two things, in combination, is a dangerous misunderstanding.

You know who knows this? The grinders. The ones who find the joy in making shit happen and the ones, in particular, who like to grind out good shit. The grind CAN produce continuous improvement and continuous progress. The grind does NOT have to be incrementalism or compromise or simply digging a bunch of semi-useless ditches. In fact. The grind is often the path leading from being who you are to who you want to be.

The grind is knowing there is a better version of you and refusing to get stuck being the current version of you. The grind may not look like the fastest way, or the flashiest way, to being better, but it FEELS like a solidly effective way of ensuring in the end you will have got closer to a better version. It is within this fact that the grind, despite its less than illustrious title, makes you happy.

And maybe this is where the fragility of the grind has its most important aspect. Grinds, and grinding, is progress and, yet, the system, the society, and a shitload of false prophets, suggest the grind will not lead to riches (money or meaning). All of these ‘influencers’ suggest disruption is the path to all the things you need.

** note: I could argue proponents of disruption, at least the lazy simplistic ones, are the greatest enemy of happy grinders. They see the grind as status quo, not structural value creation, and see disruption as the only way to optimize value creation.

What a load of dangerous shit to be shoveling.

I will not suggest shaking the etch a sketch a bit isn’t satisfying on occasion or that it can be a key to some successful paths, but I will also not suggest that the grind cannot be satisfying and a key to some successful paths if you view it correctly.

Look. When you are told you shouldn’t enjoy the grind, when you are told the grind is the choice of fools or ‘small minds’, then you will inevitably begin believing those things are true – and they are not.

In fact. Believing these things increases the fragility of the grind because  when you stop enjoying things in Life <which, by the way, suggests you used to enjoy things or something and are now easing into some wasteland of maybe not misery but … well … nothingness>, or ‘anything’ I imagine, then you start seeking enjoyment anywhere you can.

This sounds weird to me.

There are a shitload of people who enjoy the grind, there are a shitload of people who think they should enjoy the grind, but keep getting told the grind sucks.

There are a shitload of people who grind out a shitload of successes – often some really creative things (because the grind is not the absence of creativity and imagination).

I imagine my point is the grind is fragile. It is fragile because it gets attacked all the time and everything offered in its place really does look seductive. I think we should be pointing out that not all grinds are created equal and not all grinders’ achievements are bad. And maybe remind ourselves that the grind offers some benefits and a shitload of people are happy with those benefits.