====

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“I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable.”

—

Alex Elle

===

So. Being yourself is a tricky topic. In business, Life & deciding what you want to do.

I know <I know>.

Seems like “being yourself” should be simple. Like ‘breathing’ type simple.

But it’s not. It’s not because there is a constant struggle between an internal part <’who am I’ type shit> and external <figuring out how ‘who am I’ should actually act in public>.

For example, one of my favorite young writers, Jamie, describes herself this way:

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I’m a writer, pretty much by process of elimination. I am also a professional aspirationalist.

That’s not a word, but I’ve made it into one, since there was nothing that could quite describe me because I didn’t want to say I’m a “professional dreamer” because that sounds like some hippie shit.

I have aspirations, like, lots of them. If you’d like me to create a TV show, get in touch with me. How about publishing my memoir? Get in touch. If you are from The Ellen Show, I will, of course, accept your interview and would be delighted to dance it out with my girl, so long as she doesn’t prank me by making me eat cilantro. In fact, I want no cilantro in anything.

<Jamie Varon>

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

Professional aspirationalist. Not ‘professional dreamer’ nor ‘professional pragmatist.’

Ok.

Professional aspirationalist is just awesome.

If I could ever vote for a new term, that would be it. It’s fucking awesome. It captures the essence of restlessness & hope & striving & unlearning &, well, all the things I believe are good and healthy with a person seeking to be better tomorrow than they are today.

What I truly love about it is that she came up with a term to capture her “self.” I love it because being yourself, and even recognizing who ‘yourself’ is, is hard. And when I say hard think even harder than maybe becoming a Navy Seal type hard.

……….. self …….. an entanglement of nuances ………….

It is incredibly hard because the truth is that ‘my truth’ , more often than not, is most likely an evolving tangled web of characteristics which, as it evolves, simply becomes more tangled <rather than untangled>.

Yourself is constantly adapting to new learning, new learning about things and new learning, and unlearning <changed beliefs, opinions, attitudes, perspectives>, about oneself.

That’s why I love professional aspirationalist.

True north on Jamie’s compass is defined. And its not a destination, but rather it is a direction.

Aspirationalist is a moving target. It is restless and unmoving at exactly the same time. It is an adventurer with some pragmatism. It’s not being on Ellen <although she would be delighted to do so> because once that happens there will always be something else.

Being an aspirationalist means not only having dreams, but dreaming … oh … and doing.

Yeah.

Doing. As in doing lots of different shit.

Uh oh.

That also means … well … increasingly more and different dreams <and aspirations>. And increasingly doing more and different shit. Dreaming and doing. Lots of different dreaming and doing.

In the end <to me> being a professional aspirationalist means being a restless soul. Restlessly seeking, traveling, doing, thinking. Professionally constantly in motion <mentally or physically>.

I love it because it captures my personal belief that becoming ‘better’ as a person is experiential rather than tangible <although tangible ‘doing stuff’ is certainly a component>.

I love it because it isn’t for the faint of heart.

And isn’t what truly being yourself is all about? Having some courage to even suggest ‘I will not omit things just to make you comfortable.’

Professional aspirationalist reminded me of this other quote:

 ==

“I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.”

Caitlyn Siehl

==

Yes.

Being a professional aspirationalist means you are not a place for cowards.

Anyway.

I wish I had come up with this word, but I am not as talented a writer as Jamie.

I like it for its sense of Life’s paradox. Paradox in that it is independent and dependent at the same time.

I like it for it’s sense of Business’s paradox. Paradox in that success in business is a combination of stillness, at the right times, and movement/restlessness at all times.

I like it because at its core it doesn’t mean shunning the world and simply being a dreamer. It has rich & royal hues of reality threading its way through its fabric.

I would like to believe I am also a professional aspirationalist.

Now.

To be clear <because Jamie is correct the word selection was thoughtful to avoid the ‘hippie shit’>. Pragmatically, we aspirationalists do seek <some> approval and acceptance <ohhhhhhhhhhhh shit>.

Accept what I just wrote <that last sentence>. Don’t fight it <even if you are one of those who say ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks”>.

Because you do care.

Whether you like it or not, whether you think it is right or wrong, whether you think it is a good thing or bad in that it makes you ‘weak’ in some way, just get it set in your head – in some form or fashion – we care.

Don’t worry … we all care <not just aspirationalists>. We all care what the people around us think about us. And by ‘people’ I mean everyone from those closest to you <who would most likely accept you in any shape and form you ended up in … but you don’t want to disappoint them> to society overall <there is some value in gaining credit for who you are and what you do>.

Some acceptance from others feeds our self-esteem & self-worth <and all that Maslow stuff>.

Ah.

Please note I used the word “feeds.” Approval and acceptance is not the only nutrition necessary for a healthy esteem and worth.

It is simply one part of the diet.

Even we aspirationalists need a balanced ‘self diet’. We do not seek sole value from proving ourselves to others. And we don’t accept sole value in and of ourselves.

Being an aspirationalist is … well … the paradox. Independent dreamer with some dependence on external cues as to the value of our aspirations.

We want to fit into the world on our own terms.

Regardless.

What a description:

                       Professional aspirationalist:      I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable. I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.

We need more of these people in our world — in Life & in business.

Me? I will continue living life, trying to do good shit in Life & business, as a Professional Aspirationalist.

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“We all have one foot in a fairytale, and the other in the abyss.”

—–

Paulo Coelho

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My anger at the world coils inside of me. It’s a directionless seething, there’s no name or face to aim at.”

————–

Claire Zorn

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Well. Life demands us to draw a lot of lines.

And more often than we would like to admit it demands we place one foot on one side of a line and the other foot on the other side of the line.

That may not sound … well … right.

Or maybe the best thing to do.

It may even sound like I am suggesting you ‘straddle the fence.’

Nope. This isn’t straddling, this is about being grounded or balancing oneself.

Balancing? If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by the extremes of Life which are, more often than not, found on only one side of a line.

If you don’t place one foot solidly on either side, you can be quite easily consumed by others who seek to consume what you may think you don’t really care that much about <but you should … and actually do when you care to think about it enough>.

If you don’t, you can be quite easily consumed.

I guess what I am saying is that Life demands you pragmatically be active in drawing some lines so that you have some sense of when you are getting too, well, “too”. It helps if you can have some sense of where to actually place your feet that is meaningful.

Maybe what I am saying is that many of us have no problem ‘making a stand’, but if you really aren’t sure where your line is then it is quite possible you aren’t really sure you are taking your stand in the right place.

Okay.

Maybe think of it this way.

It’s kind of like making sure you have things in perspective when you take a stand.

It’s kind of like demanding realistic hope.

It’s kind of like demanding some hopeful despair.

It’s kind of like demanding you believe in some fairytales and some abyss-like darkness.

It’s kind of like demanding lines for yourself so you can deal with the lines Life is going to demand of you.

Look.

I don’t really believe there are angry-only people. They just have so much anger within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

I don’t really believe there are dreamer-only people. They just have so much imagination within themselves that their line is drawn differently than others.

But here’s the deal.

You have to draw some lines.

There has to be some reality to ground some imagination.

There has to be some truth to ground some questioning.

There has to be some principles to ground some rebelliousness.

There has to be some fairytaleishness <I made up that word> to balance out some of the inevitable abyss.

You do have to have one foot somewhere other than where your other foot resides.

I know.

I know.

That sounds a little of whack from conventional wisdom because far more often you hear “both feet on the ground” and shit like that. But if you have two feet on the line … well … you have chosen to stand on a thin balance beam and will teeter your entire life. That is tiring & dangerous. But if you have two feet, one on each side, you have chosen a life of fairytales AND a life in the abyss.

All that said.

Yes.

There are times you draw a line and make a choice to shift both feet solidly onto one side. I would suggest this is a situational decision and not a “living Life” type decision. Situational like:

That is right and that is wrong.

That is good and that is bad.

That is normal and that is not normal.

Those are most likely the moments in which Life says “now, in this time and place, here is the line … on which side to you choose to stand?”

I would suggest sometimes we fuck this up by confusing a ‘Life one foot here & one foot there’ decision and a contextual situational decision. What I mean is that in that time and place you may try and keep your fairy tale foot in place and your abyss foot in place … and mistakenly take on a different type of decision demanding a different type of line.

That would be a bad decision.

The good decision?

In that time. in that place. In that moment. You shift your feet.

Sigh.

I never suggested lines were easy. Just that Life demands we draw a lot of lines. I would suggest that if you do not draw some lines you will find yourself lost in anger coiled within, or maybe constantly living a less than fairy tale life dreaming it all away, or stuck in some dark abyss seeing no way out.

Yeah … lines come in pretty handy at times. Pretty handy in managing Life. I can tell you <for sure> that lines can be pretty handy at helping you decide when something should end … and something should start.

———-

“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>

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“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.

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“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

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 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>.

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“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.

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“We all have a personal pool of quicksand inside us where we begin to sink and need friends and family to find us and remind us of all the good that has been and will be.”

—-

Regina Brett

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“Making the best of things is… a damn poor way of dealing with them.

My whole life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.”

—-

Rose Wilder Lane

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Setbacks. Not all setbacks are created equal and we need to stop drawing false comparisons. In addition not all people are in equal positions , therefore, equal setbacks do not create equal consequences. Look. We all encounter setbacks in our lives. Some people call that ‘life.’

The positive psychologists just call the setbacks “obstacles” as if they were some hurdles you just learn to either leap or get around.

In other words, it is assumed if you stick to your guns no setback is a dead end but rather simply a speed bump.

In other words, we are offered some simplistic discussions about overcoming obstacles.

If you really really think about this … this advice is kind of nuts. Yeah. You may have to think really hard to come on to my side of this argument. You may have to work hard because as soon as you are old enough to comprehend words you get bludgeoned with advice and wisdom with regard to ‘overcoming obstacles.’ In its most simplistic form it is uttered as “if you believe, you can overcome anything” or even the famous “it’s not the mistake that matters it is what you do with that mistake.” You get pummeled with things like this:

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

“Do not fear the conflict, and do not flee from it; where there is no struggle, there is no Virtue.”

Joyram 

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“When you start living the life of your dreams, there will always be obstacles, doubters, mistakes and setbacks along the way.  But with hard work, perseverance and self-belief there is no limit to what you can achieve.”

Roy Bennett

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Well. I don’t doubt the sincerity of this advice but what all of this trite wisdom, mostly offered by wealthier & whiter people whose setbacks are slightly different, okay, exponentially different then not only the everyday schmuck, but those who are in more vulnerable environments, seems to overlook is that A setback is manageable but persistent setbacks are a whole different game.

I love virtue but after a while you cannot sustain yourself, mentally and physically, on virtue alone when faced with persistent setbacks. What I mean is that we treat setbacks as if they were like a cold — with a little time and some fortitude and some chicken noodle soup you can overcome it and move on. But sometimes setbacks are like a virus … this virus is more like ‘persistent setbacks.’

And, yes, Persistent Setbacks are different than what I call “quicksand” or “Quicksand Setbacks.” Quicksand setbacks are more often in a defined period of time and comes to fruition mostly in a helpless unraveling before your eyes.

It’s like in a football game where one fumble leads to an interception which leads to the other team running a punt back for a touchdown. Everyone fights as hard as they can … but the setbacks stream in a way that drives you deeper and deeper into a hole. Most times quicksand setbacks stop and depending on the quicksand you are in a deep dark fucking hole or just a hole <or something in-between>. To be clear. A hole is a hole. It sucks. But most times if you do get your shit together, get your head on straight and maybe get a little help you can get out of the hole <regardless of how deep it is>. And once you get out of a quicksand hole you actually find you have learned some stuff and, well, most times you see future quicksand and avoid it. Quicksand setbacks is about unraveling and what can be unraveled can most typically be sewn back together again.

I would note wealthier people (or anyone with some money safety net) have it easier facing consequences of a quicksand set back but even poor people recognize it is a finite suckedness and suck it up and move on.

And then there are persistent setbacks.

….. and, yet, the opportunities can only be found in darker deeper holes ………..

They are brutal. Absolutely frickin’ brutal.

You face a setback.

You pick yourself up, recover and get going again. And maybe just as you get going again … well … you get another setback.

This one hurts a little more because you knew you had invested and you knew you had done it right … and you still got screwed again with another setback.

You figure “what the hell, I did it once and I can do it again” and you pick yourself up again and get going, recover and you are starting to put the last setback in your rear view mirror and … doh … another setback.

This one hurts. Hurts bad.

But … you know you have no alternative but to get up, try again and get going. This time is a little different though. This time you are a little more tentative. Maybe even doubt a little more. You still put energy into it and you are working hard but this time your head is more on a swivel.

Uhm. And then another setback happens. Most will get up and go again. But this time doubt is your companion and while you are trying your best … you are most likely not really your best.

And then another setback happens.

This is where the trite positive ‘pick yourself up’ people sort of get things wrong. It’s not that you don’t have the desire … you just have lost hope that you will ever get a break or that it will finally be someone else who will have a setback and not you.

Sigh.

I read this quote somewhere:

“Time to bet on yourself, big, huge, gigantic bet on your genius and abilities to change the world for the better because nothing is going to stop you, no force is going to hold you down or get in your way and make you lose your inner motivation again.”

Well.

That sound good, really good, but persistent setbacks are a whole different game. You can be motivated, you can bet on yourself and all of those things <which are usually necessary for any success> but, well, what happens if you have to keep on going back to the well again and again and again?

What happens when Life just seems to provide one more setback after you have just recovered and gained some momentum for the last setback … which you had done after the setback before that one and … well … you get it.

There is only so much anyone can take before they get tired, start having doubts, and then simply lose hope. This is where I believe people with money really don’t understand what it is like to not have money. Persistent setbacks not only don’t give you a break they don’t give you any breathing room AND they actually steal oxygen.

Look. Everyone can pull themselves together after a setback. A quicksand  setback is a little trickier, but, depending on deeply you sink, most people can pull themselves together.

But persistent setbacks? Whew. You aren’t looking for a big break … you are just looking for A break. When in a persistent setback cycle it is relentlessly exhausting.

Your plans all seem to not go as planned.

You can do your best, and it may actually be pretty good, and it can still fail.

You can be really smart, have a smart idea, articulate it smartly, and it can still be rejected or ignored.

You can work harder than anyone else and pour your heart & soul into something and it can still go unnoticed.

And all of that gets exponentially harder to take with each ongoing setback. In addition, persistent setbacks take on a darker hue if you start looking around you and see mediocrity winning and rising, people with money, and some of the least qualified not facing the setbacks you are.

Now. I did some research. And I found how we deal with setbacks depends on how much control someone feels they have over a situation.

The study found that changes in certain brain areas were related to persisting with goals after encountering setbacks. Participants more often persisted with their goals, choosing to try again to earn the same academic degree, when they perceived they had control over a setback than if they perceived that they did not have control over a setback. What’s more, activity in a brain area called the ventral striatum was related to persisting with goals in cases where the setbacks were controllable. Participants who showed greater decreases in brain activity in the ventral striatum when they encountered a controllable setback were more likely to persist with their goals.

 On the other hand, changes in a brain area called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex were related to persistence when the setbacks were uncontrollable. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in regulation of emotions, and the new study suggests this brain area helps people cope with negative emotions in order to persist in the case of uncontrollable setbacks.

In other words, when setbacks are uncontrollable they affect us in a more emotional way. Yup. When persistent setbacks seem to continue in ways that are out f our control, well, they kick the shit out of you mentally.

I say that because I think most of us overlook how persistent setbacks affect the mind. And while I just outlined how I believe it affects an individual there is also an effect on the people around you.

Say you are a parent and you are in this doomed cycle of persistent setbacks. As a child that is all you see. That is all you hear about. That is what you start thinking Life is more like versus what you see on TV with regard to ‘work harder than anyone else and your dreams can come true <or you can do anything you want>.’ There are future generation repercussions.

Let me tell you what I mean by showing you some research numbers I just saw. Among the dozens of research studies post 2016 election I found some number about the working class and education that made me sit up a little and think about this whole ‘persistent setback’ issue and how if it is affects a swath of the population long enough … can affect their larger attitudes.

In an analysis by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic 54% of white working-class Americans said investing in college education is a risky gamble — this includes a whopping 61% of white working-class men <white working-class voters who held this belief were almost twice as likely as their peers to support Trump>.

Ok. That is bad. But it gets worse. This belief is even more prevalent among white working-class Americans under 30. This belief means that they are not buying into the idea that if you do work really hard, if you do study and go to school, you will be able to get ahead. In my persistent setback theory we have an entire swath of America who has given up hope that they can ‘overcome the setbacks and get ahead.”

“The survey shows that many white working-class Americans, especially men, no longer see that path available to them. … It is this sense of economic fatalism, more than just economic hardship, that was the decisive factor in support for Trump among white working-class voters.”

<Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI>

I don’t really want to discuss Trump voters and white working class people today, but I do want to make a point about persistent setbacks and how they affect people’s attitudes. Black, white, Asian, American Indian, whatever … persistent setbacks are an equal opportunity hope killer.

Any setback sucks. I don’t care how old you are … a setback is a setback and depending on where you are in life a setback can be crushing.

All the positive encouragement to pick yourself up and get going again kind of misses the mark. I don’t offer a solution today I am just making a point and bitching.

And all the bitching aside.

Everyone just needs to recognize that setbacks come in all shapes and sizes, not all setbacks are created equal, setbacks can be deceiving in their appearances and if you don’t recognize all that you run the risk of missing what someone else is enduring with regard to persistent setbacks. Oh. And remember.

1. There is a difference in consequences from a similar setback to people with dissimilar financial status.
2. There IS a difference between a quicksand setback & and a persistent setback.

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

—

Victor Hugo

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

—

Edward Bulwer Lytton

==========

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

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

Now.

Those ignorance boxes are interesting boxes.

They come in different sizes and shapes and depths.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is one of Life’s biggest truths.

Curiosity comes with a price … and a reward.

I wrote once:

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

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

• Positive friction.
• Enlightened conflict.

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

Anyway.

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

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

Regardless.

I am definitely a curiosity guy.

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

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

Look.

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

I know someone can know a lot.

As a corollary.

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

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

My site is called Enlightened Conflict.

My motto is ‘seek truth.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Jefferson

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“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

—

J.K. Rowling

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

“How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?”

—

David ‘Doc’ Luben

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

Ok. Have you ever noticed that rock bottom is actually relative?

It is actually not a ‘bottom’, but rather like floors in a high rise building.

Someone can see a homeless person and think “rock bottom” and, yet, that homeless person, if asked, would say “oh, I have been lower.”

Someone can hear a millionaire recount when they were bankrupt and ‘it was rock bottom’ and, yet, two years later they were a millionaire again.

I am not suggesting that a wealthy person cannot see a starving child in a poverty stricken neighborhood as rock bottom  just that they cannot ever envision it is a viable rock bottom for themselves – ‘couldn’t happen to me’ syndrome.

I will not argue that people use their own versions of rock bottom as leverage points for progress and moving upwards away from that bottom. JK Rowling is certainly a great example of that <although … it would behoove us to acknowledge that she is an exception and not the rule>. But if you ever want to truly understand how fucked up we tend to view rock bottom just take a second and ponder the wealthy view and how they discuss ‘entitlements’ and monetary safety nets.

It drives me a little nuts to hear some millionaire talking about the time they ‘lost it all’ and, yet, they sit in some plush chair wearing a hundred+ dollar tie discussing their comeback from rock bottom as a ‘self-made millionaire who fought his way back’.

Uhm.

Real rock bottom doesn’t permit you to go from less than zero to multi-millionaire unless you live in some privileged world or you win the lottery.

My real point is that rock bottom is relative.

The 50something C-level experienced person out of work for several years with dwindling bank balances and no discernible path off of the slippery slope certainly feels rock bottom. But their bottom is measured by what they had and what they lost … and what they believe they will be able to gain again <if given the opportunity>. And “opportunity”, even at their bottom, certainly seems within a ‘hopeful grasp.’

Conversely, the hard working blue collar worker constantly on the edge of poverty or “making do” deems rock bottom as losing whatever they have gained … maybe a house or maybe just an apartment in which the adult has their own room and dinner food 6 days a week for everyone in the family. They may not view “opportunity” as hopeful but rather some small step toward relief from some worry.

The wealthy talk about ‘understanding’ that kind of rock bottom, but they don’t. There is no way they do. In their world rock bottom is significantly different and the path out of that rock bottom hole looks significantly different.

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“She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don’t need and can’t see that everyone else does need.”

Emma Darwin

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

I am picking on the wealthy <mostly because many of them live in some absurd world view in which everyone has the same opportunity to attain the wealth that they have> but everyone views rock bottom thru their own relativity lens.

And, in general, that is okay.

It is mostly okay because it is our own self calibration, and motivation, mechanism to challenge ourselves to get what we want. The difficulty happens when you start applying your own self calibration to others.

Look.

Rock bottom is fairly easy to see if you look around without cynicism.

Look around.

Entitlement programs represent almost 2/3rds of the American federal budget. Almost half of American households receive some assistance from the government. When we see numbers like this most of us get grumpy and many of us think there is some underlying problem <which is difficult to put a finger on>. Simplistically the biggest problem is that nobody thinks they’re the problem.

Shit. To be fair. Nobody ever wants to think they’re the problem.

Unfortunately, the truth is as long as we continue to think of the rising cultural reliance on government assistance as someone else’s problem, and someone else’s fault, we’ll never truly understand it and we’ll have absolutely zero chance of fixing it.

Unfortunately, the truth is that an America assistance culture is far more pervasive than people realize – even beyond the lazy moochers and deserving poor <of which there are certainly lazy moochers but far less than what we perceive>.

Even the wealthy rely on government assistance … just in different ways.

Here is the truth. People want more stuff than what they have and everyone hates losing what they have. Therefore rock bottom relativity centers on that understanding – what I have, what I have lost, what I could gain.

That formula works if you earn $100 a week or $1000 an hour.

The truth is that … well … now everyone feels like they are entitled – even the wealthy — which is driven by a belief everyone is getting rich, or richer, but them. This makes people become resentful, jealous, angry, and a little selfish. They are working hard and they want their share and they are at their rock bottom and see someone getting what they believe they deserve.

Now. People, in general, know this is wrong and people, in general, don’t like this feeling and they resent feeling this way <and acting this way>. They get a little pissed that the definition of rock bottom isn’t some simple ‘same for everyone’ so they start lashing out and blaming other people.

People are milking the system.

People in government <whichever party you want> are creating the problem.

People who don’t look like us are to blame.

People think their rock bottom is more important than everyone else’s rock bottom.

And all people want a simple thing to point at and say ”fuck you, I am at rock bottom and I do not want to be here.”

Here is a truth.

The truth is that it is a systemic issue and, I would argue, our failing to truly understand rock bottom.

I will offer a quasi-contradictory thought to end this.

As a generalization … wealthy people <say 90% of them> have an absurd concept of rock bottom and fairly consistently misjudge attitudes & behaviors of poorer people who really are at their rock bottoms.

Conversely … it is a massive mistake to generalize the non-wealthy and their rock bottoms. While I felt comfortable generalizing with the wealthy <because I believe overall they have more opportunities within their grasp more easily graspable> I am not comfortable doing so with less wealthy people. And I say that to go back to my original opening point – rock bottom is relative and personal.

That point is pretty important.

It is important because we tend to want to create some sweeping program and solution which misses the fact that it is more likely to be successful if we go one-on-one and help individuals assess their rock bottom and help them get somewhere other than a bottom.

What I would feel comfortable making a generalization on is the fact that any less-than-wealthy person at their rock bottom has no desire to remain there.

They may have no clue how to get out of their hole.

They may have absolutely no hope of getting out of their hole.

They may exhibit no behaviors that suggest they want to get out of their hole.

But exactly 0% wants to remain in their bed at the rock bottom of their hole.

We should never permit anyone to make a bed at the rock bottom. Never.

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“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”

―

Paulo Coelho

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

John Szarkowski

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

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

David Amerland

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

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

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

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

I several thoughts:

Hopes and fears

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

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

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

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

Dylan Thomas

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

Collaboration

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

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

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

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

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

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

Organizational structure

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

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

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

Lastly.

Customer relationships

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

In the end.

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

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“What I hate is ignorance, smallness of imagination, the eye that sees no farther than its own lashes. All things are possible. Who you are is limited only by who you think you are.”

–

Egyptian Book of the Dead

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There is gobs of advice information on how to communicate authentically but, in reality, authenticity comes from the soul; it comes naturally. So. I am dubious with regard to the value of the advice ‘how to be authentic’ information.

Anyway. I actually prefer discussing all of this is ‘being genuine.’

I call it genuine because authentic has become bullshit. Authentic has become business. It has become something you can learn to be – like a skill.

That’s nuts.

Frickin’ nuts.

To me it all started going awry through entertainers and people in the spotlight. I imagine every person who dances in the spotlight of fame gets coached and scripted and sculpted for the masses before stepping up to a podium or agreeing to accept the microphone and say something. I call it the ‘polishing of authenticity’. I will also call it, well, ungenuine.  I would also suggest we don’t want scripted from the people we suggest we want to know about or just know.

Ah.

‘suggest’

Here is where Authentic really goes off the rails. While yearning for this thing we call ‘authentic’, we also relentlessly parse each tone, syllable, gesture, word & thought <although mostly that is speculation on our part on with regard to what they really meant when they said what they said>. And that is where this whole thing gets slightly odd <or absurd … if not sad>.

We cannot tell what is genuine and what is not, what is authentic and what is not. That is just batshit crazy.  So we ask for ‘authenticity, seek authenticity, yet remain overly cynical of anyone actually offering authenticity and, worse, critique it fragment by fragment.

I put this in the same category as transparency. The only way to be transparent & believable is to be radically transparent. Similarly the only way to be authentic & believable is to be radically authentic.

Whew boy.

Ponder that.

Ponder how willing you are to be ‘believably authentic’ or, in my terms, ‘believably genuine.’

Ok. Let me make an example. Risking some shit from my readers, let me talk about Katy Perry <or even her ex,

Russell Brand> and authenticity and being genuine.

While people step up and speak as earnestly as possible and share truth and we consistently doubt them, there is Katy Perry who steps up in a slightly wacky persona <which you have to know is slightly scripted at minimum> and within the wackiness, uhm, seamlessly slides into a serious thought <reminder: she was quite articulate & ‘smart’ during the 2016 election>.  People got confused. Well. Some people did. How could this wacky entertainer, sometimes quirky, be smart and articulate and serious.? Well. One would almost suggest she was, uhm, being authentic in all aspects of who and what she is.

Look. I am fairly sure she is one of the more truly authentic people out in the public eye today.

I just think it’s a little out of whack that we doubt the sincere and accept the absurd.

I just think it’s a little out of whack we doubt seriousness and only see the nonseriousness.

I also think it’s a little out of whack how much we listen or do not listen for ‘things’ (cues to judge).

What I mean by that is we listen very very <very> hard for things in which we can turn to and point out flaws & ‘lies’ & things that make the person saying them ‘less than.’ And, yet, we don’t seem to listen as hard for the nuggets they share in which we can look at them and think ‘more than.’ Well. That would seem to say more about us then them, no?

Ponder.

Every time she speaks she is entertaining.

Every time she performs she seems to love what she does.

Every time she has an opportunity … she offers up something bigger & more important.

How is that different from anyone being authentic? Isn’t that almost the definition of genuine?

You speak to engage.

You genuinely agree with what you say and how you feel about what you are doing.

Every time you genuinely feel like you have something to contribute – you offer it.

Yet. The price to being authentic seems to be she isn’t being heard for the really important stuff.

Yet. the price YOU pay to being authentic seems to be you are not being heard for the really important stuff.

What a wacky world we live in these days. Who knew authentic would be so difficult.

Yes. I purposefully chose a lightning rod ‘Hollywood liberal’ to make a point. Choose your own lightning rod and see if I don’t have a point.

Anyway.

Maybe we should listen to the people who get the microphone shoved in front of their face with a little less cynicism.

Maybe we should seek to find a little more trust that some people truly are trying to tell us the truth.

Maybe we need to get better at discerning genuine versus ‘faux authenticity’ (practiced sincerity … as if that is a ‘thing’).

Maybe we need to remember you can only see as far as you think <and only hear as much as you unthink>.

Lastly. A cautionary note for businesses & brands. Brands are not people, but genuine is genuine. Deciding to ‘be authentic’ is not something you ‘decide’, you just, well, are (or you are not). My caution is the natural cynicism people have about authenticity. Because if you noted that point above, and you nodded your head, well, take note that in business that cynicism increases exponentially. That cynicism demands you don’t ‘be authentic’; it actually demands that you are authentic.

Which permits me to end where I began. You can ‘be authentic’ and maybe you can learn some faux skill to be authentic, but if you are authentic you are genuine. And genuine is invaluable in the world of business.

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“Stagnation is self-abdication.”

―

Ryan Talbot

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“The moment we stand still, we begin to decay.”

―

Erich Fromm

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

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

—-

Gen. Mark Milley, Joint Chief of Staff

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

Ok. I tend to believe any reasonable business person recognizes stagnancy leads to inevitable death <although at the same time many reasonable business people also have an unhealthy relationship with tried & true systems & processes, mitigate risk taking to such an extreme level that change almost seems indiscernible and views any change as something that needs to be analyzed from every view imaginable before undertaking it>.

I thought about that when I scanned a fantastic article on WarontheRocks discussing the army strategy of the future. Within it was a phrase that caught my eye – “disciplined disobedience.”

It first and foremost reminded me that businesses can view stagnancy in a variety of ways in their attempt to “not change what works” while seeking “change what needs to be changed” <all of which simply means “something within your business is not dynamic and there are scraps of stagnancy slowing you down”>.

It secondly reminded me that back in august 2010 I wrote something called ‘discontinuity for successful company continuity’  in which I shared an organizational idea called “controlled autonomy” <others may call it a version of a self organized organization or a decentralized organization or a variety of ‘decentralized-like employee empowered’ terms> … and suggested that was the organization of the future.

—————————-

A continuous discontinuous organization?

Controlled autonomy.

Controlled in that there is a vision, a focus and a functional understanding of what is it we do well.

Autonomy in that outside the ‘control developers’ people can do different shit.

Controlled autonomy is certainly an organizational shift from the past.

But even IBM has looked at this concept.

A past IBM research report suggests that the best analogies for businesses in the future may no longer be the command structures of the military but the self-organizing networks found in nature: schools of fish, flocks of birds and swarms of insects.

Well.

I don’t know about the birds & bees thing but I do understand they are suggesting some decentralization (or autonomy at the employee level).

The struggle with this is that this agility I am discussing is a process where the leadership is not omnipotent.

And further struggle continues with autonomy (and the ensuing agility) as there will be enablers and blockers within the organization therefore the leadership must factor in internal organization limitations (and possibilities) when judging the best plan of action.

What that really means is that no matter how you slice it … organizations are ‘tense anxiety-driven’ structures.

Employees typically oppose new ideas because they perceive they are unworkable (and sometimes they are if the ivory tower doesn’t have their shit together) and bad for profits (or it appears to on the ground people they aren’t making as much money).

And yet we also know that employees always have a large stake in the future success of any organization. Some hesitancy is due to fear or laziness but it can also be due to good judgment.

This is where autonomy comes into play.

It’s not just about diverse views in planning (which obviously highlights opportunities and obstacles) but also some permission of diversity in on the ground decision making.

And autonomy in an organization helps address the truth that is there is a difference between ‘intended’ strategy at the corporate level and ‘realized’ strategy on the business level, i.e., what management wishes to occur, and what is in fact carried out.

That is also the dynamic portion of businesses that permits change to meet changing markets.

Sounds awful difficult to control? (or manage) Sure it is.

But that is why a leader should be paid the big bucks.

———————-

Uhm. I still believe that.

At the most simplistic level any business faces two basic demands — it must execute its current activities to survive today’s challenges and adapt those activities to survive tomorrow’s.

This means executing and adapting at exactly the same time. This also means, within your business, there is a constant competition for resources, money & time in order to meet executional demands and adaptation opportunities <therein lies a significant portion of the ‘tense-anxiety’ dynamic of a dynamic organization.

I am not making this up.

Peters and Waterman <In Search of Excellence> argued that organizations must simultaneously be “tight” in executing and “loose” in adapting. I believe they also pointed out that very few do both well.

I have had many discussions with many businesses trying to convince them that an organization can be very good at both executing and adapting and how to be good at both.

It seems that many business leaders sometimes forget that the organization can sometimes forget they can actually be an organization from an aligned ‘doing’ perspective <because we put such an emphasis n vision and strategy>.

What I mean is that most good businesses have naturally incorporated a sense of autonomy and over time the organizational alignment aspects fade into a subconscious background space and individual departments and groups coalesce around the autonomous aspects <it gives them a sense of pride, empowerment & self-actualization as part of the whole>.

Everyone should note that while this is an incredibly powerful engine in a company it can become challenging with employee turnover <because there has to be some plan to assimilate new people into a subconsciously acting organization>.

Look. I believe, and vocally espouse, great alignment in an organization more often than not is actually “purposeful fragmentation.” This is the type of alignment which permits the parts of the organization <departments, divisions, etc.> to maintain some autonomy yet always be grounded in what is ultimately important to the organization.

Sure. I do believe there are things you want an organization to do fairly commonly and certainly can do if you ask the organization to swing into action. And I do believe it is imperative to get these things down and established as ‘rote behavior’ in the midst of an organizational shift/transformation. But organizations have a nasty habit of falling back on less-than-autonomy type leadership and thinking. This nasty habit occurs as we gain experience because our ‘rules & guidelines’ hierarchies fill up based on a larger collection of specific experiences and more feedback on what has and hasn’t worked.

Someone articulated the outcome of this as:

“our mental models grow into complex structures of categories, interlinked rules, and weightings. We become less likely to perceive experiences as totally new and instead try to relate them to previous ones, which we group into existing categories. As mental models become more complex over time, major rearrangements become more difficult.”

Basically, as an organization’s size and complexity increase its degrees of freedom & autonomy decrease. and while I just made a sweeping generalization I would point out something that Scott Page, University of Michigan, who studied why some organizations are complex and hierarchical while others are simple and flat concluded — organizations evolve in response to the problems they have to solve.

All of this leads me back to what the Army Chief of Staff said in the warontherocks article. Two thoughts for any business person who embraces the uncomfortable truth that stagnancy is the path to irrelevant death:

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Consolidated bases and logistics hubs will be untenable, presenting lucrative targets for an enemy with precision firepower. He noted we must “untether ourselves from this umbilical cord of logistics and supply that American forces have enjoyed for a very lengthy period of time.” Army units will have to move, set up, move, and move again — “maybe every two, three, four hours just to survive.” Fixed sites of any kind will be lethal magnets for destruction by enemies who will have a rich diet of targeting information — especially since smart phones will be even more ubiquitous. As he bluntly stated, “If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

• Disobey Orders — Smartly

He called this “disciplined disobedience.” I believe this idea was floated by a past Army Chief of Staff back in the 1970’s but called “selective disobedience.” This suggests that disobeying orders can be justified to achieve the larger purpose of the mission.

[A] subordinate needs to understand that they have the freedom and they are empowered to disobey a specific order, a specified task, in order to accomplish a purpose. Now, that takes a lot of judgment … it can’t just be willy-nilly disobedience. This has got to be disciplined disobedience to achieve the higher purpose.

Milley added:

“disobedience, when done, must be done with trust and integrity, and you must be morally and ethically correct.”

A business competitive field has always been one of chaos and unpredictability <although we have always tried to communicate it as more static in SWOT analysis and crap like that>. And if you accept it is more chaotic and unpredictable it will become easier to understand why far too many organizations frequently lack reliable communications up and down the chain of command. As the Army recognizes, and businesses more often should, junior leaders may have to independently make quick decisions upon which battles may be decided and which may have strategic consequences.

In a controlled autonomy the leaders must become more comfortable with some ambiguity and accepting the fact that employees closer to the point of action/decision will be making unsupervised decisions to achieve the organization’s, and leader’s, intent. Simplistically, as the Army suggests is mission command — empowering leaders with the “why” of their task, but leaving the “how” to their imagination.

Well. Suffice it to say … while people like me love that thought & concept most business leaders are scared shitless of it. Frankly, most senior leaders <centralists by management nature> who seek to implement some autonomous aspects don’t set out to deceive anybody. In their heads they know that high degrees of involvement, participation, and autonomy are key elements in high organization performance. But in their hearts, they still crave orderliness, predictability, and control.

They get trapped in the wretched in-between because a central “plan” cannot dictate and bring order to a haphazard, chaotic, unpredictable, and rapidly changing business world – no matter how much we wish it would.

And. It gets more difficult.

With a continuing stress on “bottom line” or making margins as high as possible leaders fall into the financial analysis trap which encourages anything but autonomy.

Financial analysis can clearly show that consolidating and centralizing support services and functions saves money and increases efficiency <in huge PowerPoint graph slides in the conference room> therefore suggesting autonomy is less than efficient.

What doesn’t show up in these analysis are two things:

<1> consolidating & centralizing is most effective & efficient in servicing a static business (note: business is never static)

<2> the inherent alienation, helplessness, and lack of ability to connect with real time customer & market needs or organizational purpose that centralized bureaucracy often brings

I could argue for controlled autonomy for years. And I could begin with the simplest thought that efficiencies may save gobs of money but the processes to do so can be cost you the intangible people energy and passion engine within the organization <and then add in at least 5 additional powerful reasons you, as a business leader, need to suck it up and embrace some ambiguity>.

Controlled autonomy may not be the proper terminology <albeit it offers a more comfortable liminal space fr a lot of existing leadership> but I would encourage all business people to start using the Army as an example and start using “disciplined disobedience” as a management North Star.

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“I prefer physical exhaustion over mental fatigue any day.”

—-

Clotilde Hesme

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

“There is a construct in computer programming called ‘the infinite loop’ which enables a computer to do what no other physical machine can do – to operate in perpetuity without tiring.

In the same way it doesn’t know exhaustion, it doesn’t know when it’s wrong and it can keep doing the wrong thing over and over without tiring.”

—–

John Maeda

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Well. Employee engagement is the key to maximizing productivity potential. Period. We can gussy up engagement with respect, safety, collaboration, etc, but business is about business and engagement has to do with the business of doing business well.

To be clear. I think of engagement on three levels:

• first is vision. Employees engage better, & have more interest to do so, when they not only know where the business is going, but are engaged with the vision
• second is how you go about doing business. Employees engage better, and have more interest in doing so, when they are rested, when they feel ‘psychological safety’, when they believe they are contributing (meaning) and when they get to do what they do with dignity & integrity
• third is energy. Employees engage better, and have more interest to do so, when they aren’t exhausted (mentally or physically) and are fresh.

You will find an infinite number of articles on the first and second. Heck. Even I have written about them. To me, the third is one of the least discussed and most overlooked aspect of engagement.

What do I mean? We talk about business transformation and ‘agile’ and constant innovation and relentless focus on the customer and, well, it all sounds exhausting. Add in when experts suggest leading an organization is like running a race (its actually nothing like it) and, shit, even I start feeling exhausted. Let’s be clear. Exhaustion and business is bad.

So. That said. Leading a business is more like managing the health of a body in which you do want some exercise and you do want some healthy eating and you do want to insure proper amount of sleep. Suggesting you want to run a business like you are in some marathon is silly and misguided. It is just as misguided to think about an organization like a machine with gears and moving parts and keeping it well-oiled and full of gas and shit like that.

So let’s talk about organizational exhaustion.

If you stay away from silly metaphors about what an organization is, or is not, simplistically you are trying to insure your organization is putting forth a proper amount of effort against the efforts you want it, and need it, to be working against. This is a daily, weekly, monthly and annual leadership objective. Different leaders have different styles working against this objective, but, simplistically, that is the objective.

Now. HOW you meet this objective typically takes some experience.

What do I mean? I assume most leaders do not inherently know exactly how to pace an organization. Pacing an organization takes some experience and some practice, some mistakes and some successes and then you zero in on how to do it well <or just keep getting better at it>.

Using me as an example. I liked a hard charging group when I got to a team/group management level. And I, personally, would be ecstatic if I didn’t have to sleep and I could go 24/7. In the beginning, that was my vision for my groups.

By the way, in general, good intentions/bad idea.

But what that meant was that I probably learned this lesson, pacing and applying effort appropriately, too slowly <and I most likely will have a bunch of past team members chuckling painfully in agreement>. Going hard charging all the time is not sustainable — you just have a constantly exhausted group. Effective hard charging doesn’t mean 24/7 it means picking your moments and going hard.

That said, in desiring to have hard charging organizations there are certainly some lessons learned to limit needless organizational exhaustion. Here are a couple I learned along the way:

• I had to be consistent.

It doesn’t get discussed often enough, but expectations go both ways. As a leader setting clear expectations is certainly expected <and I will mention that in my second learning>, but it really helps an organization if you establish clearly what people can expect of you – behaviorally and attitudinally.

Words surely matter.

Setting expectations surely matter.

Actions surely matter.

But consistency matters above all.

No leader is perfect and no leader will make the perfect decisions, let alone good decisions, all the time. Therefore it becomes incredibly important to just be consistent. Your organization, and specifically people, will become better accustomed to where you will be really really good and where you may be slightly off <and they will naturally accommodate both>. In other words your consistency actually offers your employees some direction for what they should do. Your best people will assess situations and know where you are consistently most likely right on, know the things you consistently overlook and know where you consistently leave some spaces for them to ‘do their thing.’

• Keep some strong threads of consistency.

Threads of consistency permit an organization to not have to think about some things. There were some really simple tactical things that I could control.

• What do you mean <clarity in articulation>
• Where are we going <set a visible North Star>
• What do you want me to do <pragmatic expectations>

If you could keep these three things solid and not have people milling about talking amongst themselves on these three questions, you were staying ahead of the game. It permits your organization to progress and not be stagnant. It permits your organization  to not invest unnecessary energy against those things and apply energy against doing shit.

Of course, a leader doesn’t have to do these things.

Of course, a leader doesn’t do these things at their own peril.

The peril? Exhaustion. frustration. Waste energy. Not doing these things has an expense to an organization and mostly that is defined by two things – time & energy. I would point out that both of those things are not infinite resources to an organization. I point it out because if they are finite than you better have them available to you when you actually need them. And that is why I chose to not use an organization as a race metaphor at the beginning, but rather an organization as a body metaphor.

Look.

As a leader of larger organization you can hide your misjudgments or poor decisions in a variety of creative ways; mostly by shifting resources from one group to another or have another department assume some different responsibilities or by shifting some people into the work gaps or to buttress the best people who are flagging with some support.

But that is also not sustainable.

The organization gets exhausted doing all that maneuvering, in addition, they get exhausted by you doing that.

I will admit that I got better at this as I moved up in responsibility. And, I will admit, I partially got better at it simply because I had more moving parts, departments and groups to manage. That is because I loved working 24/7 and I thrived with the energy of solving problems and, well, just energy. In a larger organization there is always something going on, some project or problem or initiative somewhere within an organization that needs attention or needs a little ‘push.’ This naturally permitted me to let one part of the organization ‘rest’ while another part of the organization ‘ran.’

Oh. Think about that a second or two if you will.

What I just suggested is an organization as a well-rounded circle, or the classical myth of a ‘well rounded person’, is simply a myth. In fact the idea of it creates a false, and sometimes dangerous in terms of expectations, narrative in our heads.  As an organization learns and thinks and gains experience it does not expand smoothly but, rather, raggedly. Day after day, despite the fact it may feel like business is a grind or it may even feel too fast <or too slow>  an organization is constantly running toward some thought and experience, or, leaping from danger or something  disagreeable or some problem or some success and suffice it to say it is anything but balanced. And it is certainly not creating any smooth well rounded growth.

My main point?

There is no such thing as a well-rounded person and there is no such thing as a well rounded organization. A leader may certainly aspire to create a well-rounded organization but, even at your best, the organization at any given point in time is some shape other than a circle.

The good news is that this means organizations also naturally get excited to explore the edged forays into interesting things and, in parallel, get snagged on the ragged edges of unexplored thoughts or even second guesses with regard to the lack of smoothness in what is happening in departments, groups and efforts … as well as thoughts and growth.

Yes.

I will point out that this is why an organization can feel slightly uncomfortable on occasion as employees, departments and groups wrestle with this discomfort, as well as dealing with the ragged edges constantly poking at everyone, but I will also point out that is why the things I mentioned earlier become even more important –the consistency, the clarity and the lack of chaos.

I will also point out that his kind of ‘uncomfortable’ is okay. To a leader it is actually a sign that things are going okay and the organization is not stagnant <and good leaders know how to point out good non-stagnancy to calm uncomfortable>.

All that said. I can unequivocally state that no organization is successful when needlessly exhausted. They can be tired at the end of the day, but exhaustion is a symptom not of ‘a good day’s work’, rather, unnecessary mental stress trying to get things going, understand what to do and what to say and kibitzing over why it is so hard to get what seems like normal shit done.

When an organization is running well, whether the 350 million, 350 or the 35 recognize it, there are many days when the 1, the leader, leaves the office exhausted. And the one is exhausted despite the fact that 349,999,900 people, 341 people or 34 people went to sleep that day feeling pretty good about their day and their needs & wants & hopes took one step forward that day and they are a good tired … not needlessly exhausted.

Oh. Despite the fact the one went to bed exhausted, that one will arise the next day fresh because the organization is ready to go again the next day and not organizationally exhausted (the one – leader – draws energy from a fresh organization).

I will end by pointing out that an exhausted group, an exhausted department or an exhausted organization is the sign of poor leadership. And, most importantly, it is a precursor to signs of inefficiencies and declines in measured productivity.