===

“We don’t always know why we do things, but we can always create a reasonable story to explain it.”

===

I wrote this in 2011 around my 500th piece on Enlightened Conflict. I pulled it up because, well, almost a dozen years later and my mother still isn’t sure why anyone would listen to me on a range of topics.

That day in 2011 I celebrated my 500^th post and, well, remembered number 1. And my mother.

When I told my mother I was going to start writing about things and build a website she hesitated a second and then asked me “so why should people care about what you have to say; or believe what you say?”

Interestingly, I was faced with a similar question in the workplace right around the same time.  It was kind of a “feel you make things up” comment and “why should someone care about your opinion?” Both kind of made me sit back because at that time I had about 30 years experience and a fairly extensive resume of things done.

On two fronts I faced an issue I guess I haven’t faced in years I would guess.  For years based on my experience and curiosity based knowledge gathering personality, I have been able to stand up in front of some of the smartest business people in the world and have my point of view seriously considered.  Without question.  And acted upon or facilitated the discussion that needed to take place.

That said. Both situations are versions of the infamous credibility question.

And I guess in both situations I was a little dumbfounded (but I guess, in the case of my mother, a fair question – even though I am her son … the other still had me scratching my head a little).

Well.

Let’s see.

Let’s talk a little about credibility. Mine or anyone’s I would imagine.

I am reasonably smart.

I can add up to ten without an abacus (although using an abacus confuses me).

I know not to put my hand on the hot water pipe (although I did against my parents’ instruction when I was about 6).

I know the difference between there and their (but I do have a nasty habit of dangling prepositions at the end of sentences).

I do know to capitalize the first word in every sentence, but I tend to write everything in lower case (don’t ask me why … I have no answer).

I know that the web is worldwide now (and possibly intergalactic we just haven’t found anyone to confirm usage in another galaxy yet).

I know Perez Hilton and Paris Hilton are not related nor sisters.

So.

How about education? (I wonder if that counts towards the whole credibility thing).

Geez. I have a degree. A couple in fact. But I am still unclear how I got them and admit I was pleasantly surprised they offered them to me graduation day. That said. I have met as many idiots with Harvard degrees as I have brilliant minds (so maybe a college degree isn’t the code). And I have met people with only high school degrees who have PhD level common sense versus people with PhDs and high school common sense.

And experience?  Geez. I have met senior vice presidents who had administrative assistants who were smarter (but not as politically savvy).

So what the heck is the code for credibility?

Christ. I have no frickin clue.

A great resume? Ok. How many people highlight times they may have received a bad review or a time they may have been passed over for a promotion?

So. Maybe not so much.

Great recommendations? Ok. How often do you ask an enemy to write about why they hate you?  (none is the answer in case you didn’t know).

Great grades in school?  Ok. What happens if you didn’t go to school? Or maybe had two bad semesters?

I further struggle as I pose hypothetical situations in my head.

If I were an economist, would I would be more credible if I had a statistics degree?

Would I have a more credible opinion on law if I had a legal degree?

Well.

Hate to break the news to people but non economists can have some pretty articulate and smart thoughts on the economy.

Oh. And while someone may not be able to quote Finch versus Mockingbird 1888 tort reform (boy, I bet I just hacked that one up) there are a lot of people who can tangle with a legal trained mind (I would exclude supreme court justices cause I kinda think they are in a league of their own).

Wow.

Moms are tough enough as it is, but this is a humdinger of a question.

So here is what I do know.

I cannot answer the credibility question for everyone.

But here is how I define it (and hope I am judged the same way).

Ultimately it comes down to the face to face encounter (face to face can be in person or in a piece of their writing), i.e., what someone says face to face or in what I read from them.

I seriously cannot judge without that stimulus.

Sure. I guess I am not surprised if I read something from someone and it is really smart and articulate and they say they graduated from Yale or Stanford.

The trouble is I am equally unsurprised if I find they list Devry as their higher education.

I believe people have opportunities to collect moments of learning (and some don’t collect).

People have opportunities to do different things (and some don’t do).

I guess what I find most credible is a combination of depth of useful learning on a topic (doesn’t have to be a degree, just learning, and useful in that it contributes to progress) and perspective (call it a counterbalance knowledge).

Ok. I guess an asteroid physicist if all they know is the physics of an asteroid they would be credible.

I imagine credible comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. But in the end I imagine i end on one word – depth. It is incredibly easy to skate on the superficial surface of almost anything. Credible people can swim and dive and even save some people from drowning. They have depth.

In the end.

So what do I tell my mom? (and I guess people at work if pushed)

Why should anyone believe what I have to say? Heck. I don’t know.

On day one with my website I didn’t have shit to say (do not have that problem at work).

Today? (maybe about 11 months and 500 posts later – now 13 years and 3,000 posts)

Gosh.

Maybe what I say makes sense.

Maybe I offer up a logical reason to believe.

Maybe in my own little world people have actually listened to what I had to say (so for some warped non linear logic flow I reason that other people will listen).

I have some education (but others have more and less).

I have some experience (but others have more and less).

Maybe all that matters is if I say something that makes sense and I can defend it, well, who cares if I am credible as long as my ideas are credible.

Maybe I have some depth.

Maybe the answer is: “Mom, people should listen to me because my ideas and thoughts are credible.”

Whew.

I hope that is all that really matters.

Hopefully after everything I have written and published I have achieved some level of credibility.

On the other hand if I don’t, I can also hearken back to post #1 which suggested all that was important was that I write for me and if no one came to my party I wouldn’t be disappointed for I had not waited for people to attend to have fun.

I had a party all by myself.

==

Sometimes life happens slow, then really fast.

==

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

William Nordhaus, economist

==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which leads me to a lesson to technology folk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which leads me to efforts and assumptions.

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

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

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

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

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

“When you’re young you feel like you have to prove a point, and you scream it if you have to.”

Miranda Lambert

——-

Whew.

It is a wacky world we live in. It is one huge cacophony of “squeaky wheels” squeaking over what is important to themselves. Clearly some people are squeaking about the larger collective issues, but there appears to be an inordinate amount of people squeaking about conspiracies, personal opinions and false narratives. the former have the larger interests in mind and the latter seem to be a bit more of ‘self’ in mind. I blame my generation for propagating the ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’ mentality but, that said, it makes those of us who prefer ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’, well, want to scream.

I believe people are getting tired of all the squeaking.

This doesn’t mean the pendulum will swing back to sanity at rocket speed, or even fast at all, in fact it will move more slowly than people like I want mostly because people my age will continue squeaking <the squeaky wheel was their generational wisdom> and espousing the merits of being squeaky.

Suffice it to say this will be another one of those generational tectonic shift things which older people will espouse some wisdom <squeak> and younger people will chafe at the wisdom believing squeaking is just noise and that real issues need meaningful discussions.

The real issues mean you still have to pick your battles, but you still have to speak out when speaking out matters. And, yeah, you gotta scream if you have to.

Basically the desire to scream something is a formula:

having a feeling that something is important

+

frustration

=

the possibility to desire to scream

Many times this desire to scream from young people is driven by wanting to find answers rather than just fucking squeak about shit. We older folk can be quite frustrating at times for young people with our disregard for their questions. Far too often we brush them off as naive or lean back in our comfortable chairs and sagely say “… just wait … you will see and understand” .

But the impatience of youth wants answers now mostly because they struggle to not only see the importance of the squeakiness, but they struggle to see the present as indicative of a better future they want. They know they deserve some answers because they understand that finding some enlightenment, some understanding, permits them to progress a little better off intellectually or knowledge wise to address the next thing in life and shape the future rather than squeak about the present.

It gets frustrating because without some answers the obstacle remains (or remains in some vague outlines) and, well, it makes you want to scream.

I am fairly sure most of us older folk do not address their impatience with any ill intent; we just see impatience and we want to teach patience. I guess the odd thing to me is that we older folk espouse this whole squeaky wheel thing <which is kind of absurd advice in the first place> and then when someone cares enough to squeak and, just like that nagging noise under the hood every time we start our car, we ignore it <until some light pops up on our dashboard>.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that for older folk the desire to scream is … well … shit … almost the same as a younger person <go figure>.

Desire to scream is mostly not about some bravado or self righteousness; it is more about demanding that there are answers to important fundamental issues or demanding to be heard ON the real issues instead of all the squeaky shit.

And maybe that is what screaming is all about. Demanding. Maybe it is about kicking some damn doors down because the damn door needs to be kicked. Sometimes life, and business, gets so frustrating you just wanna start kicking down doors.

And you do.

Well.

Sort of.

Lets say … you try and kick down the doors but at minimum you scream and kick.

Why?

Because it matters. Really matters.

And it matters to you that other people should think it matters to THEIR OWN interests. It is not an “I” things, its a “we” thing.

Now.

I wrote awhile back about ‘protesting for yourself.’ Today’s thought is a slightly different version in that you are protesting for knowledge & progress.

Sure.

It is about yourself, but it is more about going on the offensive rather than defensively protecting yourself against the squeaking issues.

In this case you scream to be heard. You scream because you gotta try. You scream because while things happen that doesn’t mean silence is that answer.

——————–

Rule 1. bad things happen.

Rule 2. You cant change rule number one.

Rule 3. You still gotta try. Even though bad things happen and you cant change that you gotta try.

 Even with all the anger, violence, stupidity & senseless waste … you gotta try.

Wayne Arthurson

——————————–

Anyway. I am clearly in the ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’ camp.

I believe the whole ‘squeaky wheel’ advice simply encourages nonsensical and less than important squeaking. I believe it encourages noise just for noise sake. I believe it encourages morons to be more loudly moronic.

But maybe that is my point today. You gotta do one things to get to do what you think is the right thing to do. Yeah. In order to effectively ‘speak softly, speak confidently, speak meaningfully’ you also gotta pick your battles, i.e., when to scream.

Because in a world in which we receive 100’s of texts, 100’s of emails, face 100’s of squeaking people all in a matter of 100 minute increments, sometimes you have to just stand there and scream.

And while it is partially to prove a point it is more about a point needs to be made.

Pick your battles wisely and when you do, scream.

But when you do pick a battle … don’t be afraid to scream.

==

“Some conversations are not about what they’re about.”

Anne Carson

==

“Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.”

Marcel Proust

==

Sight is not always about the eyes, often its about thoughts and thinking. What I mean by that is we see what we want to see before any words are spoken and then we place the words we hear into that view. This is dangerous. It is dangerous because framing creates blindness and we ignore the fact experiences are personal <unless there is enough similar critical mass to make it quasi-universal>.

The reality is most personal experiences are 360degree universal and:

• Research of one is not research.
• The odds that the person relating the experience <in business management> actually reflects mainstream American <or any mainstream consumer> is so low that, well, even Las Vegas wouldn’t take them odds.

Bottom line?

In order to have real vision, the type of vision that permits you to see people as they truly are and to see a future which is truly possible, you need to realize that your experience is most likely not universal. This may seem like a no brainer, but I can’t tell you how often this basic rule is ignored. WE, even the most savviest behavioral people in business, ignore it all the time <albeit in degrees; not wholesale>. I think a large part of it is that is because people personalize their experience <or their wife/husband’s/group of friends> that they cannot fathom that no one else feels exactly the same way.

Which leads me to some consequences from poor sight.

We are all connected by invisible glass in one window called the Life window. When we hurt someone or when we pass judgment on someone, we are affected as well. Sorry. Life, for some reason, just likes to keep everything balanced. What that means is you are probably better off (or more likely to be happy) if you attach what you care about (and Life objectives) with good intentions for other people. If you look at it selfishly, when your objectives benefit other people there is less difficulty in achieving them. Oh. And others will assist you. If you don’t look at it selfishly, well, just assume more good shit will happen in your life if you do good shit (and think good shit about other people). This is a semi-important thought in that we wander into conversations more worried about what “they want” and “what is their angle” and it inevitably skews our sight. I am not suggesting naivete, simply suggesting that you are more likely to have a mutually beneficial conversation if you don’t pass judgement and act with honest good intentions.

Which leads me to a conversation with yourself about desires.

Desires sometime have a weird filter that makes things not look as they really are. What I mean by that is not everything we go after is what we truly want. Sometimes we only think we know what we want and sometimes we don’t know what we want until we get it. Maddening? You bet. But everyone has this sight. Unfortunately, this sight is most typically found in the main room of your mental house so you look through it a lot. I would suggest this sight is always a bit smudged and makes your own horizon vision a bit fuzzier. The consequence of this fuzziness is you begin to get tempted to go to other people’s mental houses and look thru their “desire sight” and hope for some guidance. Sorry. No can do. Your Desire sight is your Desire sight.  I kind of think they are like snowflakes; no 2 the same. You will probably not have a more aggravating thing to deal with. Too bad. Everyone has it.

So. There you go. I would suggest some conversations are not what you think is universal, and yet individual in different ways. At best you should try and wipe each conversation as clean as you can because, well, the prize is that a conversation clears someone else’s vision enough to see you as the person you wish you were.

–

“It’s a very powerful thing when someone sees you as the person you wish you were.”

Veronica Mars

–

That is a powerful insight. The conversations in which we get glimpses of the best version of ourselves. And maybe that is my point today. If you develop new eyes, maybe you see your best self. Ponder.

==

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

Sam Paterson

==

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

E.F. Schumacher

==

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

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

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

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

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

Which leads me to Vision is also about wielding power.

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

Which leads me to implementation.

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

Carl von Clausewitz

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

Which leads me to context and situations.

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

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

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

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

Dr. John Ellis – Valvoline

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

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

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“Light bulbs die, my sweet. I will depart.”

Mr. Magorium

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I enjoy truly good movies in that they take metaphorical characters to the extremes to make a point. And I love it when they do so to make a point about life … and living life which leads me to Mr. Margorium’s Wonder Emporium. It’s an odd movie, but it is an odd delightful movie about Life.

And metaphorically speaking they box you in with the characters:

• – the cynical practical responsible ‘grown up’ (lovingly called Mutant) who has lost the joy of imagination (let’s call it the magic in life)
• – the child who represents the joy that can be found when you are open to life’s magic
• – the mystical adult (Magorium) who lives in an adult world with a decidedly un-adult view (and is slightly an outcast)
• – and the hopeful future (Mahoney) entering the adult world with the spark of magic within, but has trouble seeing how that spark fits in an adult world (lets call her ‘hope eternal for that which is magical in life’).

Let me begin with the ‘hopeful future’ and the resistance Life has a habit of shoving in the face of those maturing into adulthood. Life, left to its own devices, will more than likely try and smother ‘hope’ with ‘harsh reality.’ what this does is make things just a bit darker, a little less brighter and sparkly. which leads me back to the movie. Mr. Magorium suggests to Mahoney: “you have a sparkle”, i.e., something reflective of something bigger trying to get out despite Life suggesting otherwise.

His advice?

You have to live … “I have.”

Short line. Big thought. And maybe the biggest tipping point decision one has to make moving from youth to adulthood. And it is a biggie of a decision. Many of us don’t really do that well with this decision.

Anyway.

Between these 4 characters you wander through pretty much every aspect you have in your own pea-like brain. And while the movie is meant for kids it is also fun and a bit thoughtful for adults <if you pay close attention>.

Mr. Magorium who has decided it is time for him to leave this world and let Mahoney run the shop <symbolic for youth to adulthood>. Magorium is awesome. He is a man with crazy eyebrows and a pet zebra and has owned his toy store for over 113 years. Obviously this isn’t an ordinary toy store (note to self: is any really good toystore anywhere truly ordinary?). This is a magical toy store that has a temper tantrum when it hears the bad news Magorium is dying. The problem is that only Magorium knows that he’s dying. He’s not sick or weak, and he doesn’t foresee some violent or accidental death. He just knows <and this may be one of the best parts> because he once found the perfect pair of shoes and fell in love with them so entirely that he bought enough to last his whole life.

And now he is on his last pair.

Therefore, his life is over.

And with that he states ‘light bulbs die … he is simply departing’.

What a wonderful thought.

He is departing ‘a whole life.’

Don’t we all wish we could end that way? And maybe there is a part of us who like the concept of departing rather than dying.

And maybe make us think a little, through this incredibly strange character, why is his life whole (that is pretty much what the movie is about and showing how others can also live a whole life)?
The easy lessons (kind of). He does not judge, but sees things with fresh and open eyes. He doesn’t condemn actions simply encourages to act & think differently. He treats time as a gift of freedom to think and remember and understand that which was, that which is and is willing to recreate that which is … well … impossible … to transform time.

Its not just having an imagination; it is an attitude.

“you have to believe it to see it.”

And when I heard that I went back into my files and pulled this Buckminster Fuller thought: “seeing-is-believing is a blind spot in man’s vision”.

Both are correct. It is a failure of imagination if you solely believe something must be seen to be believed. Ok. Maybe not even a failure of imagination maybe something worse. It is almost a belief that nothing new, nothing seemingly impossible, is possible.

So. This sometimes silly movie makes you think about all of this is and about learning to, well, unlearn some things. To free yourself from all the things that you ‘know’ and the things which may keep you from undiscovered roads. And that sometimes believing in something is more important than anything else. And asking you to remember that all things which happen to you endlessly beget new thoughts that could change your life (and it’s a never ending process).

And if you do that?

Well. Life is magical.  It’s kind of like a magical toy store as it is.

And with that thought you hear the best advice of all:

“Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”

Yeah. Life is an occasion.

In the end that is what the movie makes you think about. The magic within you, within any of us and that we need to rise to our magic, our sparkle, our Life … or lose it.

And that is the point for Molly Mahoney who also represents “hope eternal” for all adults (the metaphor).

“What Mahoney needed was the opportunity to prove to herself that she was something more than she believed.”

Silly movie with a non-silly lesson.

You need to believe in you. And, I guess, believe that you have some magic somewhere inside you.

It is a neat lesson. It is an important lesson. And a lesson provided in a pretty magical way.

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“the die is cast”

(iacta alea est)

Julius Caesar

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So. I was tempted to call this ‘now or never part 2.” I say that because after a “now or never moment“ there is a, well, a post choice/decision.

That decision is the fact there is no turning back.

Well. Let’s just say the moment represents  that “we have made our choice and the die is cast.” <‘die’ as in dice>

Julius Caesar said this today, January 10th, some 50ish years before Jesus as he crossed the Rubicon, defying the Roman Senate, and starting civil war. Caesar was stating that he was making an irrevocable decision. And, as dice is a game of chance, he will have to play them as they are cast.

I imagine none of us are Caesar and the majority of us will never have to make such a huge choice as Caesar, but I do think more people should think this way with regard to choices.

Too often I feel people think a choice is simply … well … but of ‘the moment.’

Too often I feel businesses think a choice is simply … well … but of ‘the moment.’

Too often I feel like far too many people think in the next moment we can toss away the last choice and just make another choice.

Sure. That may be the case sometimes, but, as noted in ‘now or never’, not all the time.

Not all moments are created equal.

Not all choices can be changed, tossed aside or “un-choiced.”

Some choices are truly forks in the road where you cannot go back and start over. Some choices, well, ‘cast the die.’

I do believe most of us would be better off if we believed more of our choices should be thought of this way- as ‘the die have been cast’ choices. Why? I believe in our current “people need to adapt & be agile” to be successful attitude, we far too often think a new choice is a reflection of agility & “smart adaptation.” In doing so we run the risk that the initial choice cannot be tossed aside because it truly was a ‘fork in the road’ choice and, whether we want it or not, or like it or not, the die had been cast.

But, hey, that’s me.

Ok. One more thing. Let me take a minute to discuss an “irrevocable decision.”

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“It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.”

In Search of Lost Time, Volume II: Within a Budding Grove

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‘Now or never’ is a state of mind which is but a window in time. In other words, it is there and gone. And it is within those windows in which irrevocable decisions are made.

To use the quote, it is within this window you throw the dice. Yeah. You actually throw your dice into what I will call “unknown-ville.”

Yikes. No wonder we hesitate to decide a choice is of the ‘die is cast’ mode. I say that because “irrevocable” is a lot like “forever” or maybe “never.” I mean that big, all encompassing, fraught with peril, audacious-type thoughts are captured in those little words.

And that is why many people do nothing in now or never moments.

Far too many just hold the dice. Why? Because it is scary to make an irrevocable decision.

It is kind of scary to know you will have thrown the dice and will never get to throw them again. And have to play them as they lay. Regardless how they lay.

Yup. That the die have been cast.

But know this.

If you do nothing when it is now or never, Life will cast the die. And Life will make the irrevocable decision.

Personally? I would rather cast my own dice.

Nothing against Life but while I imagine it would be a fun pal, I do not know it well enough to trust it with my fate.

When I make a choice I think, and accept, “the die are cast” and deal with what is before me. Ponder.

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“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”
Isaac Asimov

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“A golden ray of sun. Rebellious, it seeks out a storm / As if in storms it could find peace.”

Mikhail Lermontov

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Most things in life are much more like chess than we like to admit. Things rarely happen in straight lines, moves are not always straightforward, there are multiple players on the board with a variety of skills, and there is almost always something playing against you (seen and unseen). What we possibly understate, however, is that life is more like multiple chess matches happening at the same time. Its kind of a different way of suggesting the world is complex, dynamic, and more like a system than a machine. What it also means is 99% of the time life continues even after checkmate because that is one game and there are numbers of other games still doing on.

Which leads me to doing the right thing.

We tend to view ‘doing the right thing’ as the path to growth at scale. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that doing ‘the thing’ is less often a ‘thing’ but things strung together, i.e., a pattern. And patterns are tricky bastards. What I mean by that is groups are notorious for identifying patterns thru consensus and build up general concepts from experiences (agreed shared experiences in this case) creating less-than-optimal growth – its just mediocre if not dangerous as it is oblivious to future contexts and/or consequences. We all have this ability to identify patterns, make associations and use the knowledge to navigate life. The tricky part is this ability is dependent upon patterned experiences as well as the environments in which those patterns were identified and that, often, stratifies some bias. What I mean by that is it creates an implicit assumption that whatever is will continue to be. As a corollary, this creates an implicit assumption that one game is just like another game and avoiding checkmate in one game is similar to another game. That is a dangerous assumption.

I will say that business’s (and, increasingly, individual’s) unhealthy marriage to data analytics tends to reward this type of dangerous thinking. It is dangerous because it fundamentally extrapolates the ‘patterns of what is known’ and offers what is commonly seen as a sensible set of assumptions. Well, that is, they are sensible until they run into unforeseen or ‘what was unknown at the time of the analysis’ and they either just don’t work or work less effectively than what was planned. Suffice it to say that once we have learned a pattern for something and have experiences, the usefulness of the identified patterns (regardless of the environment/context and regardless of whether it was optimal usefulness or simple usefulness) makes us stop learning. We do not seek to ‘re-learn’ anything, but rather actually seek out that pattern (or what could be construed as something close to that pattern) as a default bias to thinking as well as behaviors/solutions. This is pattern recognition and just as with almost anything good, it can also be bad. Bad because, well, if life is a series of chess matches played at the same time, not all games will follow a pattern you may know; let alone like.

Which leads me to Follett’s theory of integration.

Mary Parker Follett’s theory of integration suggests the person as continuous with community and that things are in constant relation to each other – acting on and being acted on at the same time. This is a pragmatic and possibilities view of Life. Pragmatically you are part of a system, a community of people and matches, wherein “the group and the individual come into existence simultaneously” offering possibilities that as an individual one would struggle to reach without the community of matches. Follett suggested our being in the world as a process of “progressive integrations” with others and with the world around us – a process of “ceaseless interweaving of new specific responding”. This means life is an ongoing process of moves and countermoves each integrating experience, knowledge and attitudes into decisions and behaviors. Well. That sounds like chess, no? Anyway. She understood that whenever one engages with others, the person as well as the other have been mutually influenced. She also stated: “our happiness, our sense of living at all is directly dependent on our joining with others. We are lost, exiled, imprisoned until we feel the joy of union.”

And maybe therein lies my point for today. While we may seek patterns to lean on and data to offer us easier answers than Life typically demands, maybe we should feel the joy of the chess match, the matches, the checkmates, and seek out the storm for maybe, just maybe, true peace comes from within the storm or, well, the chess match. Ponder.

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“It doesn’t fit the narrative”

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We, people, use stories all the time. We use them to express what it is like to be human, to define what is good and right as well as show what could be. What I think we sometimes overlook is that all these individual stories are nested in a cultural/societal narrative. This is an important thing to remember because the overarching narrative provides the structural value, or deficit, of the individual story. In addition, I could suggest that a narrative provides the ‘order’ so we can see the stepping stones to a future we want. It provides the structure for memories, plans, possibilities, and a future within which additional human stories can exist. We can use that narrative to suggest futures in which humans do not thrive, but even in doing that we also show the importance of humanness.

All the jumbled individual stories iteratively create an intricate web of micro-narratives providing substance to the macro narrative. Its not linear, yet, it will feel to all the individuals that there is some ‘defined’ path so that it doesn’t feel like total chaos.

Which brings me back to “it doesn’t fit the narrative.”

Narratives are ‘worlds’ and worldbuilding is the design of an imaginary world, beginning with space and time representations, but “potentially including complete cultural studies of inhabitants, languages, mythologies, governments, politics, economies, etc.”. In this case imaginary is not a bad thing. It is representative of the vague outlines of civilizations and societies. That said. They are not firm solid things, yet, they have an origin, whether we see them or not, and unfold non-linearly all the while conveying a sense of a connected whole. I say this because if something happens to you, an individual, and it neither matches with a narrative a person has created in their head or a narrative borrowed from media or even crafted with a stilted view of reality, well, that person ends up simply not believing it. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative. The story isn’t quite aligned with the created narrative. In fact, it may not even be coherent with the narrative. I say that because mental narratives can be very thin novels. And that is important because story coherence conveys a sense of a connected whole wherein the community creates a narrative of the world which is supported through the actions they make (which create individual stories). Yeah. I purposefully made that sound absurdly self-perpetuating because that is how this whole “it doesn’t fit the narrative” works. If the story perpetuated doesn’t fit the narrative, the narrative cannot be wrong so the story is wrong (even if the story is solidly real).

Which leads me to narratives and stories.

While there are a number of examples of dystopias, there are far fewer examples of what it takes to build desirable worlds, if not utopian ones. Life requires a full spectrum of stories and narratives. Stories that inspire, but also stories that are honest within reality’s narrative – of good, bad, and somewhere in-between. We need to go beyond the binary of utopia and dystopia narratives, towards more nuanced images of the world so that we can effectively tackle the future. If we do that, it seems – at least to me – that we would say ‘it doesn’t fit the narrative’ a bit less and unlock all kinds of new stories that the world needs a bit more.

Ponder.

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“Pooh looked at his two paws.

He knew that one of them was right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember how to begin.”

House at Pooh Corner

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So. I opened with this Pooh quote to talk about first words.

Not first impressions, but first words.

Sure. They can be directly related, but I firmly believe first impressions are significantly less important than last impressions. What I mean is that 99% of the time I can redirect a first impression more toward the desired last impression.

First words are trickier. And, as with most things in Life, not all first words are created equal.

There are first words which are just not articulated well. These you can recover from. These are the ones that we all think about afterwards and say “shit, I wish I had said ‘this’ rather than what I said.” And you know what? You can.

But then there are the first words which everyone knows are your true feelings. The ones which put an indelible stamp upon your character. These are, well, almost impossible to recover from. And, truthfully, you cannot recover from something which is a true reflection of who and what you are. You can stumble, mumble or offer a variety of jumbled words, but you is what you is and your first words reflect who you is.

And that is why I thought of Pooh on this topic.

You receive a question.

You think.

And the other person, or people, can actually see you think.

 You know that there is a right answer and a … well … left answer. You look at both paws and just aren’t sure which is which.

Therefore, you answer from your truest self.

It is a character answer.  

Simplistically , when I view another person’s first words when trapped in a “which paw is which” situation I attempt to bucket it into one of two buckets. Are the words a reflection from an “I” perspective <which tend to defend the “I”> or are the words a reflection from a more global view <which tend to defend what other’s may think>?

Why?

Because, to me, great character is most often driven by an ability, or desire, to view the world in someone else’s shoes. This doesn’t mean character shouldn’t be a reflection of self and what is important from your own ethical & moral compass, but rather it means you are always challenging your sense of self against what matters, or has meaning, to other people.

I will admit.

I am sure a part of me wrote about this today because of Trump. He made me, and still makes me, think about how words are used. Time after time Trump ‘first words’ response make me not only think he is hollow empathetically, but also incredibly incapable of viewing the world through anyone’s eyes, and Life criteria filter, other than his own. I often reflect back on his response to Mr. Khan’s emotional, but articulate stance on the patriotism of Muslim Americans. Trump’s response, his words, were so unenlightened, portrayed an absurd lack of empathy let alone showing a depth of obliviousness to the real issue at hand and so defensive, well, suffice it to say that first words matter and often create an indelible imprint as an impression of who and what you are. Where Trump truly is a master is in the follow up to his first words, his attempts at either managing the words or actually arguing you didn’t hear what he actually said.

That said.

I imagine he will send out a variety of tweets trying to explain how his first words were misconstrued.

That said. First words are first words. And first words matter. First words are a true reflection of character maybe 99% of the time.

Look. We have all been asked a question and sat there looking at each paw wondering where to begin. Just listen to me on any podcast and you will envision me looking at paws – a lot. But.

99% of the time, even if we do not get the words exactly right, the words will be in some form or fashion a reflection of how we truly feel.

99% of the time, even if we do not get the words exactly right, the words will be in some form or fashion a reflection of our character.

I do not sit here today writing to suggest anyone should be more careful with regard to what they say first. I do not because I believe most of us are pretty careful with our first words.

I will, however, suggest that everyone should pay attention and think about the first words that they hear. Not to say that someone cannot revise something said at first but rather because not all first words are created equal.

And the first words said by someone who cannot remember which paw is right and which is left and isn’t sure where to begin?

Well. Most likely those first words will be a reflection of who and what they truly are. Ponder.