====

“Technology may have changed the hardware of your business, but culture is your true operating system.”

Mike Walsh

=====

I believe we typically discuss digital transformation in an inherently flawed way. We speak of it as a business objective and a business infrastructure. I know. I know. That sounds inherently reasonable.

But. Yeah. This is a mistake.

Most often this business objective is all about maximizing what the business sees as ways to optimize specific business strategies, sometimes a mission. In doing so they then build a system and demand everyone to work the system and optimize the system. Once again, sounds reasonable especially if a mission has already been defined and the people have bought into it.

But. Yeah. This is a mistake.

It’s a mistake because nowhere in what I just stated is “optimizing people.”

I’ll get back to that point, but let me finish up on how basic digital transformation discussions are flawed.

Rarely does anyone point out if every business approaches digital transformation as it is typically discussed, it becomes a race to “optimization commoditization” where the value can only be found in one of two places:

• Working the system better (kind of like training so you gain an extra .001 second in the 100 meter dash)
• The edges (continue to overdeliver against customers – which is a losing race because the bar, and costs, continue to rise squeezing profitability more & more – or continue to squeeze production ‘inputs’ like suppliers, supply, etc)

Both of these minimize business potential to the narrowest in possibilities and possible results. In other words, approaching digital transformation in a flawed way makes the ‘differential potential’ minimal – progress & growth but restrained from full potential.

I do not mean to suggest there is no business value in digital transformation just that we approach it incorrectly. I believe the minimalist way, but an important way, to view digital transformation as offering structural value creation opportunity. It has the ability to lift the foundation of the business house so the people within it can “move on up” (to steal a Jefferson’s phrase).

Where I believe most digital transformation experts miss an opportunity (beyond overselling a mis-defined structural value creation potential) is in how one should view digital transformation from a transactional value creation aspect. If you think through the transactional value opportunities, well, maximizing potential value has little to do with technology and the value creation potential resides more in people.

The reality is people represent the highest potential for business and highest differential (both of which optimize & maximize value potential).

Which leads me to –

People (the key to the transactional digital transformation value creation)

Technology should mold to the people, and their skills and potential and quirks, and not the reverse.

The pushback I get is “how can we do that, people come and go and I want to build the business for the future?”

First, I point out technology, or a digital infrastructure, is simply a means to an end. People are the future of any business, not technology.

Second. This question permits me to ask: “have you read Antifragile?” (my second favorite Taleb book after ‘Fooled by Randomness’). Your objective of a business digital infrastructure creates a fragile system. I should note this is similar to Goldratt’s principles that you should develop an infrastructure system flexible enough to adapt to changing context and dynamics in the marketplace.

A digital infrastructure should be flexible enough to adapt to changing people and the dynamics of individuals skills & potential. It should not be a ‘best practice system’ of which most of your people will use in a ‘less than best’ way.

Which leads me to –

Sensemaking and choice making

I can almost guarantee you that no one brings up sense making and choice making when discussing digital transformation which begs the question who will make sense of what digital offers and how will choices & decisions be made?

Far too often digital transformation experts will toss out “culture” and “skilling people” as a head nod to the role people play in the organizational success (and digital transformation), all the while suggesting the system is a ‘plug ‘n play’ construct where people just plug into the system as if people are technology & technology is people. That sounds nuts to me.

What is really nuts is how no one seems to talk about how digital infrastructure can be used to increase better sense making and choice making. Basically, they talk about how people will learn to use the digital infrastructure instead of the infrastructure augmenting people. That seems ass backwards to me.

Maximizing business productivity, progress & profit resides in better sensemaking (ability to make sense of situation) and choice making (effective decisions within good sensemaking).

I mean, how do you use the benefits of a digital infrastructure if you cannot identify the right problem/opportunity (sensemaking)?

Oh. Digital infrastructure/transformation is going to do the sensemaking? (insert me laughing so hard my sides hurt).

If one cannot make sense of what is, or is not, happening then choice making is useless.

Oh. “Data” provided by the digital infrastructure will make the choices obvious? (insert me laughing so hard my sides hurt).

Data only informs, it doesn’t decide. Yeah. Some of those digital transformation people may say that, but it is most often said under their breath after showing a bunch of fancy dashboards showcasing how data can make the choice paths obvious.

It seems crazy to me to have to say this, but, digital infrastructure informs decision-making/choice making, data informs decision-making/choice making, AI informs decision-making/choice making and all simply inform context needed to make sense of what is happening (sensemaking). None make decisions. All offer possibilities with probabilities associated (assuming someone can assess the possibilities and apply some probabilistic thinking).

Most importantly, in the end all will inform people. People will make sense of what they are informed by and inevitably make the most consequential decisions and choices. It seems like digital transformation people should be thinking about how people think. Maybe help them become digital/data/sensemaking literate (not experts, just literate).

But. That’s me. I think how digital transformation is discussed is inherently flawed.

Mike Walsh, The Algorithmic Leader

====

“Technology may have changed the hardware of your business, but culture is your true operating system.”

Mike Walsh

=====

I believe we typically discuss digital transformation in an inherently flawed way. We speak of it as a business objective and a business infrastructure. I know. I know. That sounds inherently reasonable. But. Yeah. This is a mistake.

Most often this business objective is all about maximizing what the business sees as ways to optimize specific business strategies, sometimes a mission. In doing so they then build a system and demand everyone to work the system and optimize the system. Once again, sounds reasonable, especially if a mission has already been defined and the people have bought into it. But. Yeah. This is a mistake.

It’s a mistake because nowhere in what I just stated is “optimizing people” (either in terms of the skills they already offer or potential they offer).

I’ll get back to that point but let me finish up on how basic digital transformation discussions are flawed.

Rarely does anyone point out, if every business approaches digital transformation as it is typically discussed, it becomes a race to “optimization commoditization” where the value can only be found in one of two places:

• Working the system better (kind of like training so you gain an extra .001 second in the 100 meter dash – this is actually a derivative of “differentiation through excellent execution” which is unsustainable as a differentiation point)
• The edges (continue to overdeliver against customers – which is a losing race because the expectations bar, and costs, continue to rise squeezing profitability more & more – or continue to squeeze production ‘inputs’ like suppliers, supply, etc)

Both of these minimize business potential to the narrowest in possibilities and possible results. In other words, approaching digital transformation in a flawed way makes the ‘differential potential’ minimal – progress & growth but restrained from full potential.

I do not mean to suggest there is no business value in digital transformation just that we approach it incorrectly. I believe the minimalist way, but an important way, to view digital transformation as offering structural value creation opportunity. It has the ability to lift the foundation of the business house so the people within it can “move on up” (to steal a Jeffersons phrase) within the same structure.

Where I believe most digital transformation experts miss an opportunity (beyond overselling a mis-defined structural value creation potential) is in how one should view digital transformation from a transactional value creation aspect. If you think through the transactional value opportunities, well, maximizing potential value has little to do with technology and the value potential resides more in people.

The reality is people represent the highest potential for business and highest differential (both of which optimize & maximize value potential).

Which leads me to –

People (the key to the transactional digital transformation value creation)

Technology should mold to the people, and their skills and potential and quirks, and not the reverse.

The pushback I get is “how can we do that, people come and go and I want to build the business for the future?”

First, I point out technology, or a digital infrastructure, is simply a means to an end. People are the future of any business, not technology.

Second. This question permits me to ask: “have you read Antifragile?” (my second favorite Taleb book after ‘Fooled by Randomness’). Your objective of a business digital infrastructure creates a fragile system. I should note this is similar to Goldratt’s principles that you should develop an infrastructure system flexible enough to adapt to changing context and dynamics in the marketplace.

A digital infrastructure should be flexible enough to adapt to changing people and the dynamics of individuals skills & potential. It should not be a ‘best practice system’ of which most of your people will use in a ‘less than best’ way.

Which leads me to –

Sensemaking and choice making

I can almost guarantee you that no one brings up sense making and choice making when discussing digital transformation which begs the question who will make sense of what digital offers and how will choices & decisions be made?

Far too often digital transformation experts will toss out “culture” and “skilling people” as a head nod to the role people play in the organizational success (and digital transformation), all the while suggesting the system is a “plug ‘n play” construct where people just plug into the system as if people are technology & technology is people. That sounds nuts to me.

What is really nuts is how no one seems to talk about how digital infrastructure can be used to increase better sense making and choice making. Basically, they talk about how people will learn to use the digital infrastructure instead of the infrastructure augmenting people. That seems ass backwards to me.

Maximizing business productivity, progress & profit resides in better sensemaking (ability to make sense of situation) and choice making (effective decisions within good sensemaking).

I mean, how do you use the benefits of a digital infrastructure if you cannot identify the right problem/opportunity (sensemaking)?

Oh. Digital infrastructure/transformation is going to do the sensemaking? (insert me laughing so hard my sides hurt).

If one cannot make sense of what is, or is not, happening then choice making is useless.

Oh. “Data” provided by the digital infrastructure will make the choices obvious? (insert me laughing so hard my sides hurt).

Data only informs, it doesn’t decide. Yeah. Some of those digital transformation people may say that, but it is most often said under their breath after showing a bunch of fancy dashboards showcasing how data can make the choice paths obvious.

It seems crazy to me to have to say this, but, digital infrastructure informs decision-making/choice making, data informs decision-making/choice making, AI informs decision-making/choice making and all simply inform context needed to make sense of what is happening (sensemaking). None make decisions. All offer possibilities with probabilities associated (assuming someone can assess the possibilities and apply some probabilistic thinking).

Most importantly, in the end, all will inform people. People will make sense of what they are informed by and inevitably make the most consequential decisions and choices. It seems like digital transformation people should be thinking about how people think. Maybe help them become digital/data/sensemaking literate (not experts, just literate).

But. That’s me. I think the purpose of business, and what you do to your business, is to benefit people. Yeah. And I think how digital transformation is discussed is inherently flawed.

—

“In a so-called information society, minds are not only the most important economic asset — companies with minds make money; companies with money and no minds lose the money — it’s the same thing in everything. The networks are not programmed by technology; technological tools are programmed by minds. So the human consciousness [is the source], because everything now depends on our ability to generate knowledge and process information in every domain and activity. Knowledge and information are cognitive qualities from the human mind. Yes, human minds usually are connected to bodies, which means that you have to take into consideration the overall system of human existence, social services support, etc. But fundamentally, the human mind has always been, but more than ever now, the source of wealth, power, and control over everything.”

Manuel Castells Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

—-

I get annoyed by telling people to get out of comfort zones and I get even more annoyed when someone says it with regard to conceptual thinking.

First. I bet 80%, maybe 90%, of everything you would like an employee to improve upon & learn is within their comfort zone. Let’s stop telling people they have to be uncomfortable. They can be comfortable AND learn shit.

Second. Almost all concepts have one foot in the present and one foot in the future (or within an emerging opportunity). That’s the strength of a concept. It leverages existing resources and institutional wisdom to gain velocity within newly existing opportunities (the best concepts are actually a version of Loewy’s ‘optimal newness’).

Regardless.

Institutions, themselves, have a version of a comfort zone. It is what I call “Institutional Debt” (this is the organizational version of what software industry calls “technical debt” where suboptimal software is created by less-than-well-crafted coding added to software infrastructure not created to optimize the addons).

** note: Tech debt is something accrued when code is written in a suboptimal way. The term originated with programmer Ward Cunningham in a 1992 report

Because of this ‘debt’ Institutions struggle to “see forward.” In other words, one part of their institutional debt is a disproportional blindness to emergent aspects and the other part is a blindered vision on current situation. The organizational has to be organized to constantly augment its situational awareness so that institutional wisdom is not a constraint and incoming wisdom increases the value of the existing parameters. Another part of institutional debt is actually found in the systems themselves and the last institutional debt is how the people OF the institution think about the systems themselves.

As Peter Drucker said, “People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete – the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.”

Conceptual thinking, or iterative strategic thinking, reduces institutional debt.

Institutional debt has obvious problems but the one least discussed is how they create a version of  “wicked problems.”  This is grounded in the truth the more you ignore it, the more it builds up and becomes impossible to ignore. More and more a business which is less focused on emergent opportunities will build debt in outdated ideas, misguided thinking on what’s important and processes which have seen better days (once worked but are having diminishing positive returns).

I believe saying “change is hard” is misguided. Change is actually easy – once you see a reason to change and the benefit of the change.

We fool ourselves into believing change is hard because we confuse it with risk. Much of business change has to do with shedding institutional debt BUT the people actually do not see it as debt – but wisdom.

And this is where Conceptual thinking shines.

There is a massive value in working with other thinkers, who do not think the same you do or you may not even know particularly well, focused on developing concepts against a common vision. To be honest, I cannot figure out of this is an argument for, or against, remote working. What I do know is that people who have a common vision, a common desire and a common view on what progress looks like, will naturally cluster. It is quite possible its easier in physical proximity but that’s a different issue for a different day. All I know is that Conceptual thinking, and actually using concepts to mutual benefit of the business, levels up everyone and everything.

Why do I feel so confident saying that? Conceptual thinking is the anti-matter to Institutional debt matter.

I will end with two quotes:

“Augmentation is fundamentally a matter of organization”

 

“Past wisdom must not be a constraint.”

Institutional debt is fundamentally a matter of organization, therefore, augmenting existing wisdom and thinking is a matter of organization. I hesitate to call this “culture” because I believe it is more attitude and intentions. If an organization clearly states its intentions, and attitudinally believe the organization should be continuously making progress against those intentions, conceptual thinking is the pathway forward for a Conceptual Age Organization seeking to insure it sheds its Institutional debt.

=========

“Security is mostly a superstition.

It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. “

—

Helen Keller

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

“Maybe you don’t go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don’t do. The things you don’t finish. “

—

Chuck Palahniuk

====

Playing it safe.

Those three words send a shiver down my spine.

Safe is an illusion.

Okay.

Maybe, maybe at best, safe is temporary.

I am certainly not suggesting throwing all caution to the wind 100% of the time. All I am suggesting is that far too often people misconstrue safe as, well, safe.

In Life safe can take on a variety of dangerously risky forms. Simplistically the risky forms are all grounded in “hiding” from something.

Hiding from change.

Hiding from danger.

Hiding from someone.

Hiding from fears.

Hiding from problems.

You have convinced yourself you are safe because you have found some safe haven where in your mind you are protected by some moat, wall or, well, you have convinced yourself you are invisible to whatever you are hiding from.

Yeah.

Well.

Maybe for a little while.

And that little while almost always creates some form of complacency. This is where safe becomes dangerous. All the while whatever you are hiding from is persistently pursuing you. and it will find you not by outsmarting you, but rather through its perseverance.

In Life safe is maybe not an illusion, but it is certainly time constrained.

As for business?

I have probably written far too often about how the business world is being undermined by its discomfort with risk, even calculated risk, and its embrace of ‘safe.’ Simplistically it seems like the business world has shoved the entire responsibility and burden of risk into the entrepreneurial and start up world.

“Let them take the risks.”

Conversely this seems to have absolved all existing businesses, small, medium & large, from taking any risk. Therefore, the business ends up living in a constant state of playing it safe, not rocking the boat or convincing themselves that the minor changes they are considering are bigger than they really are.

“Safe” in business insures only one thing … death.

It is inevitable if all you do is play it safe.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, in business is secure or safe. Nothing.

No idea.

No patent.

No ‘uniqueness.’

No point of difference.

None of those things guarantee safety if all you do is play it safe.

Does this mean a business should run scared or even driven by paranoia?

Shit no.

You either embrace the fact you are never safe and simply act as if safe & security are but momentary aspects of a business and behave accordingly, or, you permit paranoia to drive you to some absurd extremes in trying to protect your security <knowing that inevitably it will no longer be safe>.

With the former you simply believe as long as you keep moving you are ‘safer’ <not safe> and standing still makes you more vulnerable <or less safe>. This concept is basically “if I am moving I am harder to hit.” I would be remiss if I didn’t point out here that movement is not always progress and not all moving is good, but, that said, 100% movement is always better than 100% hunkering down. Period.

Anyway.

Go on pinterest, Instagram or any image driven website and you will see zillions upon zillions of quotes, sayings and words espousing life as an adventure and living Life to its fullest.

Great advice.

But advice the majority of people and businesses fail to follow.

Frankly, most people do not want their Life to be an adventure.

Frankly, I cannot think of one business which would like to think of itself as ‘an adventure.’

And, yet, by not doing so, by seeking security and safe, it is actually more dangerous than doing it all as if it were an adventure.

If you believe safe & secure is inevitably just an illusion than I imagine I am simply pointing out you need to pick your poison. Either path, adventure or playing it safe, runs the risk & danger of death. And if that is so then you have a choice to proactively face it or hide from it as long as you can.

That is your choice.

As for me? My choice is adventure and movement. I am not suggesting it is an easier path, in Life or business, but I like the fact I have some illusion of control & controlling at least some aspect of destiny rather than living with the illusion of safety & security.

Choose your illusion and do so wisely. For the end is the same. But choose nonetheless.

“The best is the enemy of good.”

—-

Voltaire

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

“My body is a parlor trick called survival.”

—

Jayy Dodd

==========

This is about comfort zones and being your best.

I think we discuss comfort zones, incorrectly, in 2 ways:

• It’s not stepping out, its pushing out
• It’s not fear of new, its fear of losing

Pushing out.

“Step out of your comfort zone” is the common wisdom. It’s not wise. It’s stupid. Comfort zones, for the most part, are a reflection of what we are good at. Maybe not great but the stuff that enables us to insure we aren’t village idiots. The size of your comfort zone is mostly a reflection of your risk taking attitude. That said. If you ‘step out’, you’ve (a) lost any possible advantage you may have to actually be successful outside and (b) even if successful and happy it is, well, outside your comfort zone and 90% of people are most successful day in and day out IN their comfort zone.

We should seek to ‘push out’ our comfort zone. It’s kind of like boundaries of learning and how that works except this is about what you are comfortable with not how you learn something new. Just accept that trying new things isn’t well rounded or neat & tidy, its uneven attempts in which you selectively attach yourself to something and try it. You push out in one area of your zone to stretch.

Fear of losing.

In a zero sum game attitude world your comfort zone is driven by a specific type of fear – “if I give up too much I will regress, not just lose or get no reward.’

Let’s address the elephant in the room … we all, all of us, believe we deserve some things. Yeah. Deserve. Part of that ‘deserve’ is keeping what we have.as we accumulate things, salary, wealth, ownership, pride, experience, etc., we start believing it is ours – we have earned it therefore it is our to keep. This gets even trickier for most of us because we tend to not let go of anything that has given us pleasure in the past <even if it is no longer pleasurable to us now>. Anyway. We tend to build our comfort zone around those accumulated things.

There are 2 slightly insidious aspects to this.

First is a belief you will always accumulate more simply because you have something. It’s a different version of hedonistic adaptation in that it’s not that because you have something you inevitably want more but rather because you have earned something you will inevitably get more.

Second is, in this particular discussion, your comfort zone doesn’t guarantee mediocrity or sameness it simply suggests you never attain the best version of who you could be. In fact. I would argue in this version of comfort zone you are more likely to touch upon your worst version than your best.

That’s what zero sum does. Instinctually in the daily grind of Life you will act in ways to insure what is in your comfort zone at the beginning will be in the comfort zone in the end. You may not view this is ‘worst version of self’ but it is clearly not going to arc your behavior toward the best version of yourself.

I won’t suggest changing your attitude (although you should) but rather suggest seeking your best version doesn’t mean stepping out of your comfort zone but rather pushing it out … making it bigger.

Zones have a tendency to dull us. Dull us from possible magic. I purposefully called it magic because it does have a sense of good as well as intangible trickery. Once senses are sharpened they cannot be dulled and in a world which has a nasty tendency to dull our senses … well … that may be the best argument for embracing the idea that magic does exist in the world and that is worth the effort to try and find it.

Lastly.

The least discussed aspect in all of our trite comfort-‘zonism’ is survival. Let me point out that not all uncomfortable is created equal and not all exploration is meaningful and regardless of comfort & exploration, situations are often situations of survival. And if that sounds dramatic I meant it to. Comfort zones are the places in which we believe we are most likely to survive the onslaught of Life. It’s our place to crouch and react when shit hits the fan. A comfort zone more often than not, isn’t about living life to its fullest it’s about not dying.

And that permits me to go back to platitudes. I am sure everyone has either heard of or read “Good to Great.” Well. Voltaire only beat that book by about 200 years and he thought up that shit all while trying not to die in a duel or get his head chopped off.

Two points with his quote.

First is my personal soapbox. Just because something is old doesn’t mean it isn’t smart. I didn’t need an entire book to tell me about good to great. Voltaire said it in one line.

Second is the truth behind the thought. You can settle for good or you can do something better. I don’t need a book for that either. But what the books don’t tell you is everything you do is grounded in survival. Do, or don’t do, based on an assessment f whether I survive or what I have survives or what is important to me survives. If that sounds defensive, it should. If that sounds lie it is grounded in what someone could call your ‘comfort zone’, it is.

Comfort zones, in general, are your body’s parlor trick. Your parlor trick for survival. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek to do some uncomfortable things but it does mean you probably shouldn’t be stepping out of you zone but rather pushing it out selectively.

Stepping out increases odds of dying. Pushing out increases odds of surviving. Simple as that.

———-

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

Crazy/Beautiful

——————

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

Robin Williams

—————————–

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

The Twits <Roald Dahl>

——————-

“الجمال لديها الكثير لتفعله مع الطابع

“Beauty has a lot to do with character.”

Arabic proverb

—————

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

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well.

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

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Okay. That said.

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

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

** note: I much prefer genuine over authentic.

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

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

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

————-

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

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

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

————————–

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our internal thoughts conflict.

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

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

This creates a problem for a business.

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

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

• We are large.

• We contain multitudes.

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

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

Yikes.

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

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

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

Authentic is simple because it resides in contradictions.

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

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

===

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

Longfellow

===

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

And, correspondingly, how can beauty be imperfect?

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

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

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

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

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

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

===========

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

Oasis

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

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

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

Authentic is, well, being Flawsome.

After reading about deconstruction and reconstruction thinking with regard to what I believe is how business thinking should be, one could easily become fearful of “frozen.” In other words what I have described to date with the Conceptual Age and a Conceptual Age organization, in which it seems that every person in the organization is being barraged by a knowledge-based software with random information and being asked to make sense of it all, well, it sounds overwhelming. It also sounds like there must be a direct relationship between information received and information used. If it sounds like that then, of course, we all recognize that when people get overwhelmed, they ‘freeze’ – make no decisions. I’d suggest that success within complexity, and complex organizations , is more like ‘obliquity’ – achieving complex objectives indirectly.

So let’s think about how we achieve this obliquity within the Conceptual Age organization business model idea.

It was Daniel Schmachtenberger who said we are “making more and more consequential decisions with worse and worse sensemaking to inform those decisions.” The basis of this thought, in business, is the consequence of a business environment invested in “data dumps” on people who are, for the most part, not particularly data literate. In pragmatic terms we have more knowledge and information than what we know what to do with. The cognitive complexity of most problems, and opportunities is beyond the capability of a single mind. This does not mean everything needs to be met with collaboration (in fact collaboration may actually mean a worse conclusion than a single mind incapable of assimilating all knowledge) but it does mean individuals need to become better at sensemaking and conceptual thinking. Now. There are two sides to this equation. The human mind and what is presented to the human mind in terms of knowledge and information. I will set aside the mind as a given (capable of reaching clarity and data assimilation) and focus on the input. In a Conceptual Age Organization, I am suggesting an Intelligence Driven software parsing out knowledge in ways that engage cognitively within a conceptual, sensemaking, framework. Rather than think about this in an ‘overwhelming’ way I choose to view the possibilities in terms of effective information distribution is all about the mental narrative battle. The challenge, and opportunity, is to distribute knowledge and, yet, eliminate cognitive load. Returning to Daniel Schmachtenberger, it is he who suggests society & civilization is suffering from a damaged information ecology. I am simply suggesting building a business model grounded in a healthier information ecology.

With that in mind, what is a healthier information ecology in a Conceptual Age organization? Well. Let’s accept the fact that all ideas can be weaponized – for opportunities or to make something worse. With that acceptance the organization should seek to create a battlefield on which the combatants, the employees, can be successful. We need to not only create the technological tools, but wield the technological tools in a way which can shape the thinking, and concepts, from which business potential can be achieved. As Marshall McLuhan said “we shape the tools and the tools shape us.”

This is where nuanced algorithm delivery of information matters. There is a “zone” in which information provided will generate a “return on information.”

In 1957 John William Atkinson wrote Motivational Determinants of risk-taking Behavior in Psychological Review. He suggested that if you can choose the grade of complexity <difficulty> of a task most of the decisions are taken in a mid-complexity-level. Too easy tasks or too difficult tasks can neither provoke a strong feeling of satisfaction nor a strong disappointment and vice versa.

Highly motivated people often choose a realistic complexity of tasks whereas low motivated people choose tasks that are finally to easy or too difficult for them.

Now. I would debate JW Atkinson because I believe if I set aside the fact bills have to be paid at some point, I would say he doesn’t give ‘appeal of success’ enough emphasis. Especially if the appeal of success is tied to “doing something” or maybe better said ‘doing something that may truly matter.’

What I mean is that if you consciously decide to ‘go big and win big <or lose big>’ your satisfaction criteria changes and, therefore, you are willing to plow your way through more complexity and difficulty.

That said.

This chart, and concept, is quite similar to the one Ian Leslie outlined in his book Curious about Curiosity.

Low knowledge discourages curiosity in that they don’t know enough to focus the pursuit (its kind of like lack of return on energy). Either we find it difficult to believe it would be interesting to pursue this knowledge or, with no knowledge, it can feel too daunting a task.

This means having medium knowledge, aware but not an expert, increases curiosity (and the pursuit of knowledge). High knowledge discourages curiosity because we feel like we know I well enough there would be diminishing returns if we invested in out curiosity to get more.

Ian Leslie notes that neither of these things make someone incurious, this simply showcases the walls we put up against certain curiosity.

We willingly enter the “curiosity zone” when we know something, but not too much.

This is all a derivative of George Lowenstein’s “information gap” – the gap between what we know and what we want to know – and curiosity is actually a response to this gap.

Now. People being people, if upon entering the information gap our curiosity is faced with too much complexity it will likely veer off on a different tangent.

This is where I circle back to complexity. Complexity and curiosity are linked.

See enough complexity and your curiosity views it as a puzzle to solve, but too much complexity and it becomes a mystery. Puzzles have definitive answers. Mysteries are messier and often do not have clear answers and you have to get comfortable with the truth you inevitably end up with probabilities. The truth is complexity, itself, is a mystery to be managed and navigated and complications are puzzles.

That said.

I would argue the business of the future will use algorithms to deliver knowledge to individuals so that they purposefully step into information gaps, gain the data & knowledge they need to navigate the curiosity zone and make decisions, isolate probabilities and pursue progress (which is typically found in more knowledge and more about navigating the information gaps businesses inherently have).

Look. I don’t think I am different than most people. We all want to ‘do something.’ And I would argue most of us like to solve complexity. that doesn’t mean we want to fight it 24/7 just that we get a lot of satisfaction in facing down the mysteries of complexity and still figure out how to make some progress with, or within, it. I believe we know, consciously or subconsciously, that effectively navigating complexity maximizes, well, everything – life or business. I also believe we understand that today’s complexity is only going to get more complex. I also believe that while complexity can be frustrating and we can doubt we can solve complexity, in general we know complexity can always be navigated. That said. Not everyone has a map nor has the time to figure out the map. But what we do know is that the enemy is complications – complications are roadblocks to potential within the complexity. therefore, simplistically, success opportunities, good decisions, exist within complexity only if complications can be removed.

I am not a personal branding fan, but in this case I think most everyone would like to be able to say “in a complex world we navigate complexity to uncover, and eliminate, complications blocking potential.”

I say that we would all like this because I also believe most people are confident enough to think they can get the resources they need to solve any problem they can actually see (or any opportunity they can see clearly enough).

 

• • • • Complexity is a given.
      • Complexity is expansive.  Tapping into it maximizes potential. It is networked and non linear both of which are what makes a people, or business, successful.
      • Complicated is reductive. It keeps things from potential. It is a linear connection which no longer works efficiently or effectively.
      • Simplicity cannot exist without complexity. It is embracing complexity to the benefit of people, business, systems, communication etc. or. Maybe better said. Efficient bundling of complexity to increase effectiveness.

————————

It is standard operating procedure in today’s world, whether you like it or not, that people are expected to cope with increasing complexity, change and diversity. The tricky part is that complexity IS the nature of things, not things themselves. It was Russell Ackoff who labeled these interconnected systems as ‘messes’. This means looking at things, or something, close enough and it only seems to get bigger in its connectedness (degrees of consequences and connections). This means decisions do not hold true to a cause & effect, but rather shifting contexts with shifting consequences.

Simplistically this means in a complexity world people are asked to tackle a much greater diversity of problems/opportunities. All the while we seek to maintain some of the efficiencies of life (or the business) – the rituals, replicable events, etc. – but to get ahead, or maintain some progress, knowledge and information has to be absorbed to meet the demands of future problems/opportunities.

Complexity demands structure AND flexibility. And while that sounds almost impossible if not uncomfortable, I will remind you of Atkinson “Motivational Determinants of risk-taking Behavior” and Leslie’s “curiosity zone.” We are capable enough, all of us, to navigate complexity if placed in the right mindset and if the appropriate knowledge connects with our curiosity.

Once curiosity is engaged one can see existing patterns as well as new patterns.

** note: this human pattern recognition is tied to the algorithm-based Intelligence based Software idea I have wherein I suggest two threads of information flow – predictive and emergent – are created in aligning Cloud, institutional knowledge and individual potential/thinking.

Anyway.

Let me end on this thought about decision making and complexity.

Discovery has always been grounded in knowledge – the known and the unknown. People knew about gravity before Newton nailed it down, knew Earth circled the sun, effective building of structures and even Columbus knew the world wasn’t flat when he decided to set sail <fairly common knowledge the world wasn’t flat to sailors>. Yet we spend a lot of time seemingly reeducating ourselves on what I would call “institutional knowledge”. We do that a lot in business too.

I imagine my point is that “institutional knowledge exists” <even in basic principles> and we loop back on it throughout the knowledge lifespan challenging it. I would also point out that this knowledge, or any knowledge I imagine, is progressed by how it is articulated. And then proof varies depending upon the technology (or whatever is needed to prove) at that time. I say all that to suggest that there are no real secrets or 100% mysteries. The truth is humans, given the right knowledge & information in the right context (not too complex and in an information gap), figure things out no matter how complex it may appear. And in doing so they take the old thought or knowledge and bring it slightly further along than where it last rested.  That is called ‘progress.’ And that is also my proof that complexity is expansive, if not infinite, because when complications are solved & removed, complexity just expands to accommodate more people, ideas, curiosity and activity.

I will end where I began – “obliquity.” The process of completing complex objectives indirectly. Accepting complexity and tackling complexity are distinctly different things. Acceptance is simply recognition it exists, and go forth. Tackling is an agreement you will wrestle with complexity. To me, a Conceptual Age organization demands acceptance, if not celebration of, complexity but not tackling it. In other words, accepting complexity is an indirect means to an end in that you can seek solutions without trying to solve it.

Ponder.

……. slow down … do not pause ………

====

“… they should try slowing down instead.  In our study of businesses (conducted with the Economist Intelligence Unit), the companies that embraced initiatives and chose to go, go, go to try to gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating profits than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track.

What’s more, the firms that “slowed down to speed up” improved their top and bottom lines, averaging 40% higher sales and 52% higher operating profits over a three-year period.”

–

Harvard Business Review

====

This is about something called ‘critical slowing down.’ To be clear. This is not “make haste slowly” which I have written about before.

In business, and Life I imagine, some people are masters in appropriately reading a situation and assessing timely ‘slowing down’ which enables speeding up.

This is a business management skill, an invaluable skill, and it is incredibly difficult skill to master.

Slowing down to speed up fights against all the natural business instincts. It is a phrase often tossed around in business, one often discussed, one often not done.

It is not done because most people suck at this balancing act (appropriate slowing down and appropriate speeding up). This balancing actually demands one recognize the environmental contextual aspects. Yes. There is a natural oscillation between the two <speeding up & slowing down>. For example, science has shown that climate actually slows down preceding abrupt climatic shifts.

Regardless. Let’s just say that in business slowing down very often becomes high impact high probability events and that the fluctuation between slow to speed increases impact. This fluctuation creates angst and decisionmaking stress because most people tend to see disaster in the swing <which is, in reality, a pace driven transition> because we are leaving one natural state and arriving at another – liminal space.

Let’s face it.

Not many business people are good at undergoing any critical transition let alone a ‘slow down/speed up’ transition.

Why?

Because each aspect in and of itself is a natural state and each begets inertia <at its worst> or chaotic activity <which is close to as bad as inertia>.

Inertia weakens internal stabilizing forces which compounds inevitable change forces.

Chaotic activity sometimes appears good <it is the semi-appealing ‘we are being busy at being busy’>, but that behavior begets multiple variables which evolve unpredictably and ultimately inhibits critical transitions.

Both states inevitably create what most people see as the unintended consequences in which something can get knocked off balance and become ‘extinct.’ And sometimes the consequences can occur without ever showing signs of critical slowing down.

Here is a truth: consequences occur whether they are intended or unintended.

This business truth happens because business systems, more often than not, are a bit more complex, and contain some complications, in their underlying dynamics than simplistic theory or simplistic diagrams attempting to create structure to an organization and its dynamics with the market & consumers/buyers.

I would suggest that you cannot draw a picture for what is <because it is obsolete as soon as it is drawn> and you cannot draw a picture for what will be <because predicting multi-dimensional dynamics is outside the purview of reality>.

All that said. That is why you cannot pay enough to a business person who has the ability to know when to slow down to enable effective speeding up because, whether they are labeled as such or not, they know how to navigate complexity.

It is here I would be remiss if I did not note, more often than not, the ones who claim to be good at this, are not. It is the ones who do not make the claim, the ones who recognize that more often than not it is something you just kind of sense, that you treasure.

All I know for sure is that I have been fortunate enough on occasion to have slowed down in business and had everything speed up afterwards. It feels amazing and the organization & employees, many who balked at the slowing down, absolutely love the freedom that came after the slowing down.

Here is the truly difficult thing about this whole ‘slow down/speed up’ thing.

You know when you get it right.

But you don’t know when you get it wrong or even when you may have missed the opportunity to ‘slow down to speed up.’

And that makes it exponentially more difficult to convince people it is the time to slow down <and the benefit will be speed later> and exponentially more difficult to figure out when to do it <and makes it impossible to train anyone for>.

I hesitate to say it is a ‘gut/instinct’ driven skill because then many people automatically suggest “judgement over experience.”

In addition I also hesitate to say this is solely a knowledge-driven/experience-driven skill because that ignore the ‘art’ aspect of this.

I would say that this particular business skill is one of those things:

<1> you either have the instinct or you do not and

<2> the instinctual judgement is more often than not driven by at least some experience, and

<3> experience increases the likelihood, but doesn’t guarantee, of future good use of your instinctual judgement.

Many business people screw the pooch on the entire slow down/speed up idea and also falsely implement it.

The most often abused slow down/speed up tactic is, well, there are a couple.

1. The project meeting in which all projects are discussed by everyone.

This is close to slow down/speed up, but not the best kind. This is actually “stop, share, get critique, and go.” More often than not this is simple ‘scrape some barnacles off the bottom of the ship’ type management. Sure. It can help speeding up but incrementally … not exponentially.

2. The ‘kick off meeting.’

This is the infamous “let’s take a moment and make sure we are all aligned before we getting going.” What a bunch of baloney. Yes. it makes sense to insure everyone is on the same page when getting started <although I would point out that more often than not everyone doesn’t give a shit about the overall objective just their own components objective and timeline>. But this is not true slow/down speed up … this is more about alignment.

Look. Real slow down/speed up management is midstream management where you have some critical learnings and maybe even some momentum. And you purposefully do not have everyone stop … just slow down … assess … kind of like having a fighter squadron get fuel in flight … and then shoot off on the mission.

Real slow down/speed up business management creates exponential dramatic speed increases and, at its best, velocity. Reality shows that these dramatic shifts don’t really happen as part of a business status quo. They are situational, contextual and often do not happen because a business doesn’t have a business person who sees it, senses it or can steer it.
Bad slowing down never creates good, or effective, speeding up. It just slows people down and most often frustrates employees as wasted time.

Good slowing down creates dramatic shifts – in speed, velocity and in direction.

More often than not they are driven by one person who senses a contextual shift in the dynamics within a situation. One person who doesn’t have a picture drawn to adapt against but can draw a picture of what they see & sense from which others can leverage from to generate speed.

Truth: not everyone can do this.

In fact, while most people, in general, suck at make choices the business people who are really good at making the faster better choices and recognizing when to slow down to speed up are few & far between.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek it just understand that more often than not you will just slow down <and not speed up>. All that said. Remember. Critical slowing down is never about slowing down it is about speeding up your business.

————————-

“I always thought I’d get farther. I’d like to blame the world for what I’ve failed to do, but the failure – the failure that sometimes washes over me as anger, makes me so angry I could spit – is all mine, in the end. What made my obstacles insurmountable, what consigned me to mediocrity, is me, just me. I thought for so long, forever, that I was strong enough — or I misunderstood what strength was. “

Claire Messud

——

“I started at the bottom, and somehow I’m still at the bottom.”

Sisyphus

(probably)

—–

This is about trying and, oddly, trying is a little difficult to discuss.

Try this on for size: ‘trying is good’ versus ‘trying is not enough’. It is within that wretched in between our lives reside. It is almost like trying to assess the difference in importance between the beginning and the end of things.

Yeah. With no beginning <trying in the first place> there is no end <whatever ‘it’ is that makes people suggest it is not enough>. Regardless of whether trying is good or bad, we put a lot of emphasis in Life on trying and that emphasis makes us think a lot about trying: when to try, when to not try, and, ultimately, what is the price <prize, value> of trying?

Well, unfortunately, the price, and prize, is both something and nothing. Well. I told you it was the wretched in between.

Ok. Let’s do the ‘something’ part first.

Frankly, most people don’t even try. They are so scared of ‘no result’ that they do not even make the attempt.

——-

“Nothing that we do, is done in vain.

I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.”

Charles Dickens

———-

“There is power in our intentions.”

some idiot

<pop psychologist>

——-

I say this, and share the quotes, to point out that trying actually does mean something. Something in that it at least gives you a chance. Trying gets you ‘in the game.’ With that thought in mind I would suggest, often, ‘victory can be found in the attempt.’ Trying means something, in fact, it can mean a shitload.

Maybe the largest value of trying is in the learning.

The experience. The mistakes, failures and doomed investment of energy.

That said. While trying certainly can be ‘something’ let’s get to the unfortunate flipside: trying can also ‘mean nothing.’

“Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention. The seagull may intend to fly away, may decide to do so, may talk with the other seagulls about how wonderful it is to fly, but until the seagull flaps his wings and takes to the air, he is still on the dock.

There’s no difference between that gull and all the others.

Likewise, there is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place.

Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by our intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.”

Andy Andrews

Here is the deal with intentions, trying and nothing:

“I started at the bottom, and somehow I’m still at the bottom.”

<Sisyphus>

You may have great intentions with trying but in the end if you do not attain something, or success, you run the risk of being exactly the same as one who actually did nothing. You may still be at the bottom with everyone else … and all you have going for you is that ‘you tried & they did not‘.

That said. Nothing has multiple aspects, but let me do the tangible outcome of doing aspect <or not having done anything> and the intangible self-value aspect.

The tangible outcome is basically no result, or, let’s say certainly no good result. No matter how you judge shit losing or nonsuccess is, unfortunately, losing or nonsuccess.

Look. Life does provide gobs of opportunity, but, at some point trying needs to pay off or it is simply wasted energy or a hollow victory <victory in the attempt>.

The good news? I would tend to suggest <in Life>, in general, iterative trying does not conclude in consecutive losses, it more typically concludes in some victory <even if it is small>.

If it doesn’t? Well. The bad news. Trying is not enough. This leads to the intangible aspect of ‘nothing’ — the self value aspect.

“The trouble is, I am not at peace with myself; I am not always “something,” and if for once I am “something,” I pay for it by “being nothing” for months on end.”

Franz Kafka

Trying that doesn’t culminate in something <anything at all> can mean “being nothing”.

Yikes. That sounds harsh. Well. It is harsh. It is harsh because trying and continuous non success sucks. It is harsh and that harshness affects you <not just outside perceptions>. It affects how you see yourself which means it affects your self value.

Now. This nothing thing is harshly sly & clever. Trying and nothing can come to Life in a variety of ways, in fact, you can even be nothing simply by trying in the wrong way. How crappy is that? You are trying but you don’t even realize there is a ‘right way to try’ and a ‘wrong way to try.’

—

“Sliding down the slippery slope of mediocrity.”

David Ogilvy

—

Or sometimes trying ends up coming to life with unintended consequences <I intended it to end up this way, but it did not> and sometimes even good intentions only come up empty on the ‘good deed’ side of the ledger <oops, not result I envisioned>.

Life is short and if you’re looking for extension, you had best do well.

‘Cause there’s good deeds and then there’s good intentions.  They are as far apart as Heaven and Hell.

Ben Harper

Albert Einstein once said, “Life is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.”

Regardless.

If you are not really really careful, trying can quickly become an odd version of a compromise or negotiation with Life.

You say “I tried” and then whatever the decision or action becomes mentally “an exception”, if it is not optimal or comes to some good deed. And before you know it you are on that slippery slope. And once on the slippery slope … well tu mori <“you die”>.

Life is funny <in a not-so-funny way> that way.

Anyway. Here I am writing an incredibly long rant suggesting trying is not enough and, yet, I have said this following thing a zillion times:

“All you can really ask is for someone to do the best they possibly can.”

Anonymous (and me)

I have no clue who I stole it from but it is mine now. But if I could beat this into the head of every leader in the world I would be willing to staple the piece of paper with the quote on it to my forehead.

I recognize that sometimes we ask so much of people we forget how amazing they are. And, yes, many people do not know what they are truly capable of until they are pushed to aim for something seemingly impossible.

I was a pretty demanding leader.

I set an incredibly high bar for my teams.

I am fairly sure that, in the end, all I asked is that they do their best.

And if it isn’t enough to get ‘the prize’ then we can say we didn’t succeed for lack of trying, and, unfortunately, sometimes that’s as good as it gets.

Ask the best of people and I believe most people will surprise you by doing a little better.

In the end, ‘doing a little better’, 99% of the time, leads to some outcome, therefore I could argue that trying is enough.

———————————

“How passionately they explain the numbers and how much they emphasize the deck is stacked against athletes varies between institutions. It is a message that a lot of coaches don’t want to send.  And it’s a message, frankly, that a lot of athletes don’t want to hear at this stage in their lives.”

=

Mark Nagel

———————-

Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me … ending up together?

Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that’s difficult to say. I mean, we don’t really…

Lloyd Christmas: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary.

The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?

Mary Swanson: Not good.

Lloyd Christmas: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?

Mary Swanson: I’d say more like one out of a million.

–

[pause]

Lloyd Christmas: So you’re telling me there’s a chance … YEAH!

==

Dumb and Dumber

——————-

We are in the middle of a pandemic, we do not know the long term effects of actually having the Covid virus, and, yet, college football season has now begin. I think its time we all had a candid conversation about college athletics because these young men are not getting paid now, most of them will not get paid for doing what they are doing now and the universities are getting paid a lot of money. Maybe we should get a grip on the truth – these are not ‘student-athletes’, these are ‘athletes universities make a lot of money on.’ Yes. Its about the money, not the education. With that said, let’s talk about the future of these college athletes who are making money for someone else now.

First. Let me be clear in using a dumb & dumber quote upfront I am not going to be suggesting college athletes are dumb. If anything, I believe people would be surprised at how worldly and smart and hard working 90+% of college athletes are.

Second. I am actually going to use college basketball to talk about the link, or the lack thereof, between playing college sports and playing professionally.

During the NBA bubble, as we watched some foreign players be quite successful, I was asked how many college players move on to the NBA. I guessed maybe 5%.

I was wrong.

Just using Division 1 it is 1.2%

There are about 350 Division I college basketball teams. Each team offers 13 scholarships. That’s about 4,510 Division I college basketball players in a year. In addition. 265 teams in Division II, 325 teams in Division III and 259 teams in NAIA. That’s about another 11,000 players. Using Division 1 alone … only 1.2% of college basketball players will be drafted by a National Basketball Association team. Less will end up actually playing.

Uhm.

This means less than ½ of 1% of total college basketball players will play in the NBA.

Ok. Sure. “Professional” doesn’t have to mean the NBA because there are a lot of other options around the world, especially in Europe, Israel, Turkey, etc. And, to be clear, there are not a lot of Division III student-athletes who think, or know, they are going to play in the NBA. Overseas professional leagues are pretty numerous <even if they don’t pay as well as the NBA> and the idea of spending at least a year playing in and getting to see another part of the world while getting paid is pretty attractive especially to students focus more on their studies than many Division I athletes – especially those who want to play in the NBA.

All the caveats aside this means 98+% of college athletes never play professionally.

So while we typically watch elite teams play incredibly high level of basketball on TV every week, 98% of them will not play professionally.

Ok. That was a semi stunning thing to write.

You watch these incredibly talented young athletes and assume it will be a given they play professionally.

Yikes. Not so much. Sure. So maybe the elite of the elite may send a small number from one team in one given year and then maybe half of those end up being professional career worthy, but that is the best of the best and over a 5 year span the % drops significantly.

Playing professionally, in any sport not just basketball, is … well … a pretty long shot. Several years ago a guy named Jake New tackled this topic.

==

College athletes vastly overestimate their chances of playing professional sports.  The problem is so pervasive that Mark Emmert, the NCAA’s president, devoted significant space to the issue during his most recent state of the association address, saying that “athletes often have incredibly unrealistic perceptions of their professional prospects.”

According to NCAA surveys, more than 60% of Division I college men’s ice hockey players think it’s likely they’ll play professionally, but less than 1 percent ever go on to the National Hockey League.

About 45% of Division I women’s basketball players think they have a chance to play professional basketball, but only 0.9% of players are drafted by a Women’s National Basketball Association team.

<The NCAA said that it is currently procuring data on a player’s chances of joining other professional leagues, such as those in Europe, but the information is not yet available>

Men’s hoops players are the most unrealistic. More than three-quarters of men’s basketball players in Division I say they believe it is at least “somewhat likely” they will play professionally. More than half of Division II players say the same, as do 21 percent of Division III players. Only 1.2 percent of college basketball players will be drafted by an National Basketball Association team.

==

Now. We <colleges and adult influencers in general> don’t help. While the NCAA actually does a pretty good job marketing the fact that athletes should have realistic expectations and that ‘the majority of college athletes go on to do something better’.

Colleges kind of derail the message by promoting their successes <by the way, not in percentages but rather by individuals>.

For example some colleges list the individuals who have attended the university and gone on to fame and professional playing <not noting that these are actually exceptions and not the rule>.

For example on its recruiting website, UCLA is described as “#1 in Olympic Gold Medals from 1984 to 2008″ and “#1 in professional athletes.” And UCLA is very open in saying that for athletes who do dream of going professional the information can be helpful when choosing a program <note … I used UCLA and some dated information, but I could have used any big time college sports program and maybe not used #1 but some marketing of program success as an example>.

In addition parents and adults and gobs of books promote “if you work hard enough you can attain it” or even “believing you can do it is the path to actually doing it.”

This means that colleges simply feed into what has already been planted in an athlete’s head. Some guy named Gershon Tenenbaum, a sports psychology professor at Florida State University, calls it the “self-bias phenomenon.” And adults clearly exacerbate the situation with some relatively absurd levels of adulation with successful athletes.

I actually believe most young athletes are aware the %’s associated with professional sports is very low <even though they may not be aware of the NCAA research or specific numbers>, but young people are hard to convince — not only do they want to be seen as some statistic but we actually encourage them to be the exception.

Personally I know I have a love/hate relationship with regard to how my own parents managed my love of sports and whatever ability I may have had. They constantly stressed the low likelihood of being good enough to play professionally and were relentless with regard to me not ‘wasting my time’ on sports and focusing on other things therefore I always had a pretty good perspective on my abilities and ‘chances’, all the while I had coaches tugging at me to play and practice and ‘maximize’ the ability I did have.

I am not sure the tug-of-war was the best thing for my esteem, but it certainly gave me a realistic point of view when the time came to hang up my cleats & glove.

But it is not easy.

By the time you reach college level of sports you know you are ‘good’ and have attained at least a higher level on the athletic pyramid. For years an athlete moves on to higher and higher levels of competition and by getting to a college level an athlete actually gets to a level that is maybe 95%+ higher level than your peers.

In basketball a little over 3% of high school men’s and women’s basketball players make it to the college level.

In football maybe 6% of high school football players make it to the college level.

Success breeds some confidence, but the research also suggests it also breeds some delusional thinking with regard to what is possible.

What the hell.

(in your mind): You made it this far, so, why not all the way?

And in today’s world <which is NOTHING like when I grew up> we have elevated youth sports to such a level we almost create a celebrity status to not only successful teams <which inflates the egos of the individuals even if they are not stars> as well as the actual stars themselves.

We, adults, do this because we tend to believe confidence can elevate talent or that a higher level of confidence can help overcome any real odds of ‘yikes, we should lose this one.’

Breeding confidence in a young person is a delicate balance and we adults are anything but delicate with regard to the young & sports. This actually creates the “athlete student” problem <note: I did not say student athlete>. We have created a breed of young athlete that considers academics beneath them because they are “going to play professional sports.”

Yes. This is a delusion for most.

But those who could actually judge talent the best, coaches, have no real incentive to create a work ethic in academics <or social skills, emotional maturity and improving their reading, writing, and analytical skills beyond elementary school in order to “win” at something bigger> unless it is associated with ‘eligibility.’

Sure. We can find some coach exceptions (note: and i actually believe big time coaches have got better at this). But then there are we adults — who fuck everything up.

The head of the NCAA has clearly stated: “explaining to athletes that their passion — and years of hard work — is not likely to lead to a career is an uncomfortable but necessary conversation to have.”

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“How can we help them understand the realities of what that looks like? What can we change to give them a more realistic sense of it? How do we get a handle on that? How can we provide them with a greater sense of the realities and what that looks like?”

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The NCAA clearly advertises: “there are 400,000 NCAA student-athletes, and almost all of them will go pro in something other than sports.”

Let’s be honest. Young athletes don’t always absorb the message. But that is mostly because we adults haven’t learned the delicate balance of managing reality, dreams and confidence.

Reality is tough. Reality is often captured in some harsh truth.

I could simply suggest at the end of the weekend that 50% of the teams will go home as a loser. It would be harsher to suggest that of the 100’s of young men who walk onto the field most likely 90% of them, the elite players on the elite teams, will leave the field and do something other than play professionally.

Has anybody told them that?

Would they play the game a little bit harder or with a little more passion or a little more ‘this is it’?

Shit.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I watch the games and be amazed by the talent and skill and sheer joy of the game and know that most of them will have to figure out a way of making a living doing something other than playing basketball. And. At exactly the same time I will be thinking that we are in the middle of a pandemic, not really knowing the longer term physical affects on each of these superb athletes (even the ones who are more likely to have possible professional sports careers) and know that the universities aren’t doing this because they seem them as students, they see them as money makers.

I love sports and I love watching college sports and, yes, I will watch even in a pandemic. But. Let’s not lie to ourselves. The young athletes we are watching for the most part will be doing something other than the sport they are playing and all of them are playing not because they are students or even ‘student-athletes’ but because they are making money for their schools.