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“I shall seize fate by the throat.”

Ludwig van Beethoven

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“Destiny is for losers.

It’s just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen.”

Blair Waldorf

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Today I will use Beethoven and Blair <from Gossip Girl> to make a point. Whoa. Whoda thunk Gossip Girl and Beethoven would be used together to make a thoughtful point.

Anyway.

Fate & destiny.

It’s easy to think of these things as some invisible hand guiding our direction in life. It is equally easy to think of these things as out of your control. Let’s just say it is as easy to think of controlling as much as you can as it is to think the world is so complex you cannot control shit. It is sometimes difficult to see links to anything and even coincidence can be baffling.

Personally?

I like the thought that we have some destiny, some fate, awaiting us. That there is some reason for being here.

Every.

Single.

One.

Of.

Us.

The struggle I imagine I have in my head with destiny and fate is the thought of permitting something theoretical like ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ to take me by the hand and lead me somewhere doesn’t sit well with me. I also imagine that part of Life is figuring all this shit out.

And, frankly, I don’t think I am unusual in this type of thinking.

We have a tendency to use terms like fate & destiny in hindsight: ‘it was fate’ … or … ‘it was my <or his or her> destiny.’

And when you recognize that hindsight is the only way to actually see something like fate or destiny you really have nowhere else to go, thought-wise, then to keep moving and not waiting. You end up there because hindsight, if you squint hard enough, will tend to show you some causal aspects. They may not be completely linear but you will spot some decisions, actions, etc., that can easily be seen as contributing toward that fate or destiny.

Look.

You can wait.

Or.

You can do.

You can permit fate, or what ‘is supposed to be’, dictate your future as it deems to design for you.

Or

You can seize fate by the throat and refuse to let that particular destiny exist and attempt to replace it with something of your own design.

Let me be clear.

Life is sometimes meant to be battled, wrestled and yes, even grabbed by its throat, to get what you want out of it. Sometimes you have to be stubborn and always you have to be at minimum an active participant — and at maximum you have to be an active combatant. I will admit. There are no guarantees even if you seize fate by its throat. But then again, there are no real guarantees in Life, so, what the hell. All I can guarantee is the outlines are vague, everything is connected with everything (so you may not see much direct ‘effect’ when you attempt to ’cause’ something to happen> and you most likely will have no idea whether all your ‘seizing’ was of any value until you can be a bit reflective. Well. That doesn’t sound so rewarding, does it?

So let’s try this Beethoven thought on for size:

 

Free me of only half this affliction and I shall be a complete, mature man. You must think of me as being as happy as it is possible to be on this earth – not unhappy. No! I cannot endure it. I will seize Fate by the throat. It will not wholly conquer me! Oh, how beautiful it is to live – and live a thousand times over!

Yeah. He seized fate by the throat, shook it mercilessly, and plunged into composing <the rest of his Life>.

“Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce.”

Beethoven

Not as eloquently put, Blair from Gossip girl simply suggests that destiny is for losers. That’s a bit harsh. I would suggest the probabilities of losing your dreams and good destiny increases if you let destiny play its own hand. Once again, seizing fate guarantees nothing, but increases the probabilities of a fate you desire.

Look. The world is fairly relentless at convincing most of us we are simply small fractions in the whole and that at best we may get 15 seconds, or 15 minutes, of some ‘fame’ which is our window of opportunity for destiny or fate to shine through. The truth is what Mary Parker Follett calls “the law of the situation.” The law of the situation is that the context, and environment, of any given situation dictates decisions & choices, not anything you may have planned. In other words, don’t seize a plan by the throat, seize situations by the throat. Yeah. Situations dictate destiny’s path. You can do no more, or less, by seizing the situation at hand, squeezing it by the throat, and doing what you can with what you have.

Here is what I know.

If you are eager to accomplish great deeds, shit, accomplish any deeds, then Fate sometimes needs to be seized by the throat.

Why does this matter? I imagine we all have to believe in some way we are here for a reason. I kind of think that ‘reason’ is where Fate or Destiny resides.

But it’s kind of up to you to figure out where that fate/destiny destination is.

Just a warning. Fate or destiny are quiet fellows. They tend to keep their thoughts to themselves. They will not tell you where they live nor will they tell you how to find them. you will never be able to sit them down and say ‘what is my fate?’ … ‘what is my destiny?’ … ‘tell me where to go’.

Sometimes you kind of have to reach out blindly, grab the sonuvabitches by the throat and say ‘here is my fate’ … this is my destiny.’

Trust me on this.

If you do that, fate or destiny, as they struggle for some air, will tell you if you are being stupid with what you are thinking or if you are on the right path.

I imagine it is an easier thought to think, theoretically, they are waiting somewhere for you to welcome you when you get there. And to think it would be a shitload easier if the bastards would actually tell us maybe even send a short email suggesting some things.

But they aren’t and they don’t. And will not.

I believe.

All of us.

You are here to accomplish something.

You are here to do something that will ‘echo into eternity’.

It may not be a 9^th symphony.

It may not even be a moment in the spotlight as a Gossip Girl.

But.

You should refuse to settle for anything less than what you believe your reason to be here is.

In the end.

Beethoven did say it best.

“Fate shall certainly not bend and crush me completely.”

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“Where a society is defined by its boundaries, a culture is defined by its horizon. A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. A horizon is a phenomenon of vision. One cannot look at a horizon, it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line, it has no place, it encloses no field, its location is always relative to the view.”

James Carse

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Let me begin by suggesting a company has one of 2 choices to meet its objectives:

– enable innate desire for meaningfulness

– exploit people as resources

Most companies build an environment somewhere in the wretched hollow inbetween with a practical emphasis on the latter and superficial emphasis on the former.

That said.

Technology plays a significant role. It plays a role because it amplifies. It is here that I will suggest that morality, ethics and empathy need technology. Yes. I just said that. The destiny of all those things are dependent upon technology. If that is so then I imagine I could say society’s fate resides in the hands of technology. That may seem backwards in that all of these things reside in humans, not technology. Well. They do but technology will either flatten, amplify or even extend the reach of all. I am certainly not suggesting that technology will guarantee morality or ethical behavior, but I would suggest improving technology increases the likelihood that morality and ethical behavior becomes more pervasive (expansive) all of which are integral to a healthy culture.

Technology, in and of itself, is nothing. Without people, without people generating content, it is a passive tool regenerating itself to its own purposes. Yet. Once humans become involved technology begins to amplify – amplify divides, fragments, groups and tribes. It is within the fragmentation aspect in which we begin to pause on the benefits of technology with regard to society. The fragmentation, the phrasing of ideas, ideologies, values, norms and actual ideological commitments just begin to blur the greater truths associated with each. Fragments get emphasized to strengthens pieces of views all the while blurring larger issues.

Today I propose a business model which proactively seeks anticipatory triggers to predict emergent activity and yet keeps people’s heads on a swivel for the unseen triggers which activate ‘surprises’ or opportunities.  And that is where technology can play a role – a significant role.

It is a business environment in which technology is a distributor of data, and knowledge (Intelligence Driven Software) and data drives strategic decision-making. This means Data drives potential, not just efficiency in decision-making & strategy, but effectiveness. The value of an AI infrastructure, leaning on algorithms, is that knowledge tends to pool rather than trickle throughout. AI (algorithms) become the irrigation system for institutional knowledge, data, individual knowledge and resources. In fact. Algorithms may actually be the order needed to provide the guardrails to an emergent organization.

Note: Some thoughts on the Intelligence Based Software (IBS) Concept

At its core this intelligence software is an iterative knowledge distribution system grounded in both predictive (recognized) patterns and emergent (unpredictable) patterns.

I envision a two stream of intelligence, one predictive and one emergent. The concern with having only a predictive stream, one based on boundaries, is even constantly evolving technology cannot outrun problems or be fluid enough to recognize emergent patterns (even technology doesn’t know what it doesn’t know). So, I envision a software intelligence/information distribution infrastructure which is rigid enough in one stream to consistently distribute useful intelligence, based on recognized symbols/words/topics, to have pattern recognition and, yet, have another stream which is fluid enough to reimagine patterns.

The intent is to find the optimal newness in intelligence, i.e., purposefully build in some intelligence dissonance with the information flow with the objective to both captures defined ontologies as well as escape from defined ontologies. Bottom line. Context matters. If we change the circumstances, we change the inspiration. The intent is to inspire from the known and the unknown.

This is an ambitious idea. it seeks to corral the ambiguity in the larger system of intelligence, as expressed by humans, and share it with people with enough clarity of the complexity challenge that someone, or someones, become curious enough to conceptualize ideas. This idea is an attempt to appeal to the rationality, and irrationality, of thinking minds. Explore the recognizable patterns, the easiest to replicate resources efficiently against, and explore the unrecognizable patterns which may represent the most effective velocity opportunities.

This is where I connect business culture to technology.

I would argue a business needs a culture to even envision the potential of an Intelligence based Software (IBS) structure. What I mean by that is:

(a) simply placing IBS into a business will not generate any meaningful behavior response (note: this is similar to most digital transformation plans),

(b) simply getting people to use an IBS system will not generate any meaningful results, and

(c) meaningful behavior and meaningful results are only achieved if the culture embraces the idea of people being augmented by IBS.

We should always remind ourselves of what James Carse said, “Since a culture is not anything persons do, but anything they do with each other we may say a culture comes into being whenever persons choose to be a people. It is as a people that they arrange their rules with each other, their moralities, their modes of communication.”  While I (slightly) hesitate to suggest people, technology (software) and information, each by themselves, are simply discernible bits of something that are actually nothings, I will suggest in a Conceptual Age frame of mind those things are nothing until they actually “do with each other” and collectively create progress. a culture forges them all together into something worthwhile.

From a larger perspective one could suggest the Cloud is the key to making it all work but the truth is, from a more granular pragmatic aspect, it will most likely be cognitive algorithms (intelligence-based software). Yes. Progress, and agility, isn’t tied to access of knowledge, but rather use of knowledge by individuals and individuals interacting with each other. Its within the collective interaction, culture engaging with a system, from which continuous improvement and progress is found. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that the truth is if you have to “reskill” your employees, it’s a reflection that you have not created an organization in which people are “continuously skilling”. Create a business that is continuously improving, even its employees, and you will never have to “reskill.” In fact. Just create a Conceptual Age organization and you are set (but I am biased).

One of the questions I asked myself is not only can an organization be 100% emergent, but if it actually were could it have a healthy culture (because culture does need some predictability)? Well. I believe yes and no. Yes because people behavior naturally arcs toward predictive, repetitive, behavior and rhythms. So, while the structure may encourage 100% emergent, people will inevitably seek some aspects of predictable. That also explains the no. No replication of systems & process ignores the fact replicable activity is where pockets of efficiency reside and without any replicable behavior optimal organizational efficacy can never be achieved. And maybe this is where I touch on Purpose a bit because I envision someone saying to themselves “well, if the organization has a Purpose, that would probably resolve his concerns.”

Individuals can have a Purpose and, in fact, if tap into Purpose are happier, healthier and more productive.

I do not believe Business has a Purpose in the sense Purpose is typically discussed. I don’t believe ‘shareholder value’ is a Purpose, it is simply an objective (which creates systems in the business to achieve). I believe business has intentions. These intentions can get masked by visions or missions, both of the which can play valuable roles, but I believe a business should lay out its intentions. An intent to contribute to the environment. An intent to act with integrity every day. An intent to engage with community. Within these intentions the people IN the organization then have a variety of paths they can choose to walk on – and clearly see where paths do not lie. I hesitate to call these principles because, well, they seem simply like intentions. With intentions understood a business can have a community of people interested in working coherently (some people may call this culture) and pursue quests to fulfill those intentions.

“Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it.  Values is the fact we trust each other. And, culture?   Culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. That matters because most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

Fredrick Backman

In having intentions and pursuing quests the business rely less on not having to tell people what they cannot get away with and encourage them more to go do what they can do. People gain knowledge, get better at whatever they do (and how they think), there is continuous improvement, progress is achieved (for the individual and the business), quests are pursued and everyone feels a sense of meaning in having contributed. That is possibly the best summary of what I envision a Conceptual Age Organization is.

With all of those positive organizational attributes there is a technology truth: “The computer is a moron.” (Peter F. Drucker) Ok, it’s not, but it has its limitations. On this topic I am reminded of Intelligence Analyst Walter Laqueur in 1988 “A World of Secrets” saying “the need for Human Intelligence has not decreased, but it has become fashionable to denigrate the importance of humans assets because technical means (technology) are politically and intellectually more comfortable.” This came at the height of the struggle going on in the world of intelligence between those who deny the usefulness of agent and those who defended the worth of Human Intelligence in the face of the technological revolution.  At the time the New York Times estimated, from intelligence officials, 85% of all information gathered came from all the hardware sources (ELINT/SIGINT/PHOTINT/RADINT) opposed to information gained by spies (HUMINT).

The ultimate conclusion the intelligence experts reached was “what’s the good of knowing the SIGINT without knowing what the motive is.” In other word, technology shows, humans understand. AI, technology, will never replace humans.

Which leads me to organizational culture, the difference between collaboration and the collective acting coherently and technology. Organizational collaboration, technically, doesn’t need to be led. I will also suggest that collaboration does not guarantee success. Collaboration, done poorly and in the wrong culture, can actually lead to mediocrity. What s much better for a business is a community of people, collectively behaving in a coherent way, pursuing a common quest. Technology can play an integral role.

Technology offers the public transportation of data, knowledge and words – to & from the cloud to the people. At the core of this business model I am suggesting (an emergent conceptual organization) is the relationship between people and accessible knowledge through technology.

The cloud elevates all businesses to the level of the best generic technology. Think of it as the common power grid from which a business opens up for business daily. But the power of the cloud is it elevates the greater potential of any business as it taps into shared information to supplement, & compliment, the institutional data – while maintaining privacy of the institution itself.

While the cloud represents an almost limitless pool of ever-growing knowledge and data, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the cloud, in and of itself, can be just as stupid, if not stupider, than any one individual. More knowledge, used poorly, simply makes one stupider rather than smarter. The collective knowledge is only as good as who uses it.

As a corollary, individuals, and small groups of people, within an institution (augmented by the cloud collective knowledge) get smarter iteratively (even if they misuse knowledge because they learn from mistakes). Conceptually they get smarter than the cloud due to understanding of context.

I say all of this because in a conceptual age, in which understanding concepts and implementing well against them being the objective of the institution, these separate ideas should remain separate & distinct from each other. This must remain so because conversely, the more similar the two concepts get the more stupid both ideas get (arcs toward mediocrity in terms of response to emergent concepts).

“In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.”

Booker T. Washington

Once again. the collective mind, the cloud, can be just as stupid as any one single less informed individual. A large quantity of collected data/knowledge does not guarantee smart solutions in contextual conceptual environments. In general, people create smart solutions, therefore, an emergent organization must balance the collective and individual(s) collaboration to command the highest order of value against emergent opportunities. And, in general, technology creates organizational stupidity when the culture does not embrace it’s thinking potential and simply use it as tools to ‘do’. The smartest organizations will be the ones in which there is a strong culture attracted to the benefits of technology and, specifically, an Intelligence Based Software system constantly feeding them predictive and emergent knowledge to assist them thinking conceptually about the business at hand.

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

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

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

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

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

Regardless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And this is where Conceptual thinking shines.

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

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

I will end with two quotes:

“Augmentation is fundamentally a matter of organization”

 

“Past wisdom must not be a constraint.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said.

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

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

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

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

 

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

————————

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

Ponder.

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 “There is always a ‘but’ in this imperfect world.”

—-

Anne Brontë 

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Ok. When I saw this quote I said … “yeah, there really, always, is a ‘but’ in today’s world.”

I sat back and wondered why.

I have a theory.

‘Buts’ are created by a never ending doom-looped “it’s your perspective versus  someone else’s perspective” world.

Think about it.

What you see as normal looks maybe not exactly normal to someone else. To you, your normal is a solid unequivocal fact and because of that belief, naturally, you say it is ‘so’. It is your normal.

Uh oh. You receive … “but” in response.

================= 

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

Charles Addams

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

Now. This doesn’t mean your normal is abnormal or un-normal or even weird, just that it receives a caveat from someone else because it doesn’t sinc up exactly with their normal. Yeah. It receives a “but.”

To be clear. This is significantly different than the infamous “yes, but” issue <what I call “but debating”> because that suggests you are wrong.

This ‘but’ is simply a reflection that the world is imperfect <and you are doing just fine>.  All this ‘but’ does is to suggest that we normal people normally view the world through so many different eyes that perfection is impossible. It suggests a reality in which normal has a number of rich & royal hues to it depending on what eyes you view it with.

And you know what? That’s okay.

Sure. That makes clarity between people and ‘alignment’ of people a little trickier. But the truth is that if we don’t get too hung up on the ‘but’ aspects we all pretty much agree on the core normality of everyday life, what people think and what people do.

Ah. And maybe that is where we run into trouble. How do we stop getting hung up on the ‘but’?

We inherently like no ‘buts’ when it comes to something like ‘normal.’ We inherently think of normal maybe not as perfect, but certainly something smoother & a little less ragged edgy.

I cannot figure out if we, as people, just haven’t figured out how to accept two diametrically different thoughts – individuals are individuals <and we should celebrate that> which is not smoothing in interactions versus things go a shitload more smoothly if we think and act a little more like each other.

Or.

If it is we conceptually understand that the world is imperfect and that people will not fit perfectly together with regard to beliefs & attitudes, but that realistically we believe we have hammered out ‘normal’ in our own heads so well that we just think that the other people just have not rigorously hammered away on their own beliefs and thoughts enough to get to where we are.

Either way. Both thoughts I just shared can only have one destination — a ‘but.’

Well. Full disclosure: I tend to believe I am a little unusual in that I like hearing a ‘but.’

I tend to believe most people would much rather that the other people just nod their heads wisely, agree or just say nothing, and everyone moves along happily unaware that there was actually a ‘but’ left unsaid.

Me?

A ‘but’ makes me cock my head a little.

Makes me think.

I like to think my view of normal has some chinks in it. Has some flaws. Some imperfections.

In other words. My normal has some places that it can be improved. I am not sure 90% of people like to think something like “normal” can be improved. I mean … what the hell … normal is supposed to be normal, right?

Kind of some standard upon which 90% of people kind of stand on, right?

And you know what? They are correct. 90% of normal truly is normal.

The ‘but’ resides in one of two places:

1) in a crack within the 90% which actually may be improvable in some way <let’s call that the natural imperfections within normal>, or

2) in the 10% which represents the true individuality each of us represents.

Holy shit.

If you look at it that way, a ‘but’ doesn’t seem so frickin’ bad. It kind of seems to make sense… not as aggravating.

Anyway. That’s just my theory. And maybe that’s why I just don’t think a ‘but’ is that bad. I would argue ‘but’ has a tough time in today’s world because it seems to grapple with an unhealthy relationship with perfection. My guess is my theory falls apart if everyone would embrace imperfection a little more. Ponder that before you say ‘but.’

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

“The way we got out of the caves and into modern civilisation is through the process of understanding and thinking. Those things were not done by gut instinct.

Being an expert does not mean that you are someone with a vested interest in something; it means you spend your life studying something.

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

—-

Brian Cox

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

 “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

—–

Martin Luther King

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

I seem to find myself in more arguments and debates and discussions with regard to common sense, gut instinct and actual “learning” <knowledge> than is most likely healthy for me.

My sense is that I am not the only one.

To be clear.

For those who care to research it, in general, our instincts suck.

For those who care to research it, in general, common sense is most typically not that common <or representative of reality & truth> nor does it make sense <unless you are looking back at what has been done and not forward thinking about what could be done>.

For those who care to research it, in general, learned people <either formal knowledge gathering or informal incessant curiosity knowledge seekers> tend to be more right more often and less right less often.

For those who care to research it, in general, sincere ignorance has reached plague proportions.

I sometimes feel like we, in America, mistakenly wandered back into a cave. And in that cave we can find shelves filled with sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity available for anyone to take.

Now. We do not lack for excuses for not knowing shit we should know or investing some energy to gain some well needed knowledge. The conventional excuses are time, distractions, overwork, hectic lives, alternative facts, “I already know”, etc.

The list is fairly long and quite accessible to the everyday schmuck.

So while they may be representative of sincere actions they are also representative of sincere purposeful excuses from the strenuous job of thinking.

From an intellectual standpoint this means we remain in a continuous doom loop of Hegelian Dialectic, in fact, never leaving the loop which means ignorance is always at hand and reality is always out of reach.

From my perspective this doom loop encourages us to stay in the cave we are in and just believe what we believe and use our energy for anything other than thinking because we need energy for anything other than thinking.

What you believe to be true, is it true?

Or do you just believe that it is true because you were taught that it was true and you never looked any further?

 

This is sad. It is sad because we seem to have lost the ability to think. It may be even sadder that we have purposefully decided to abstain from thinking. And, overall, it’s sad because where we should see thinking and thoughtfulness we only see faux intellectualism and random absurd theories. It is sad because all of this suggests our mental limits are some simplistic tripe soundbites and clever labels <which I would suggest are poorly understood heuristic propaganda tools>.

We seem to have forgotten that what most likely got us out of the cave was, well, enlightened conflict. And when I say conflict I mean ‘what you think versus what I think’ & ‘what you know versus what you could know’ because all the rest is simply trappings and ego/identity/power crap.

For it was within the conflict of ideas and debate in which the people in the cave learned, and unlearned, which inevitably got all of us people to leave the frickin’ cave.

As I have written before there is certainly a battle going on with regard to being an expert <and believed> and certainly anything associated with ‘intellectual’ is poisoned in everyday households.

   =============

“An intellectual? Yes.

And never deny it.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”

Albert Camus

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

I could argue we stay in the cave for a variety of reasons, but today I will suggest that true thinking has taken a back seat to greed and self-interest <which is less about thinking and more about outcomes>.

The effect of this is that a shitload of people really have no knowledge of their own. And that leads to a mind & thought process almost solely grounded in common opinion.

Well. If thought is a commodity, than from that point on the objective of greed & self-interest isn’t about thinking it is simply about playing the game well <and winning>. The problem with this is that in any game there are winners and there are losers <even though everyone hopes to win>.

Uhm.

Games are for winners and losers.

Thinking is not a game.

Life is not a game.

Using popular numbers in today’s rhetoric t make my point, in a winner-take-all game, the top 0.1% win, the winners share some of their winnings with the 2^nd and 3^rd place winners <let’s call them the remaining people of the top 1%> and 99% are losers.

I imagine what I am suggesting is that a system that rewards only the top 1% winners ensures that everyone else loses which creates a sense that 99% of people just cannot think effectively  <I am not sure how that is good for the emotional well-being of a society>..

Well. I purposefully highlighted the Hegelian doom loop earlier because in that scenario we can think about how to break this doom loop cycle.

And, yes, this takes some <gulp> thinking.

In my simplistic mind I focus on benefits. What I mean by that is in today’s world no one sees benefits in thinking and only seeing benefits in not thinking and playing some game.

We need to reprogram that which has conditioned us into this fixed and, frankly, limiting mindset.

Here is the simplest thing I can point to – reality.

Reality 1: If everyone, 100%, thinks and debates and creates new ideas and adapt status quo to new realities … well … 100% has a chance to win. And even the 99% who don’t really “win” tangibly will win by being part of the progress <this is not conceptual mumbo jumbo … this is what any business leader with half a brain knows and does with their employee base>.

Reality 2: If everyone, 100%, doesn’t think and maintains the way we do things now … well … 1% truly has a chance to win.

Oh. And once you enter the winners’ circle you actually increase the odds you will win again.

Oh. And once you become a 99% loser you actually increase the odds you will lose again.

I have to tell ya.

Lay this out like that to people and I am not so sure a shitload of people are gonna like option number 2.

Let’s face it. We have become a “non-thinking” society as we have become, as a society, less people and more & more labels of some objectified economic relationship like producers and consumers, buyers and sellers, service providers and service users.

In fact. If you do not have one of those labels, you are an outcast.

Now. In America that ‘outcast’ group is relatively small. Almost all of America participates in consumerism. Globally only a relatively small percentage of global population is participating in consumerism. The majority of population is struggling to meet the very basic requirements of life such as proper food, shelter and healthcare. That said. We have significantly increased intellectual poverty – in America and globally.

Mentally we are now back in a cave.

Mentally we are living in a state of denial and a sincere ignorance towards the fact that we have created a system where thinkers & thinking have little value and even less of a perceived potential reward to the majority of people. The result of that is the majority of the world then competes in a winner take all game in which those in power <past winners> tend create money out of thin air while owning as much as they want.

What this really means is that thinking is unnecessary to become rich.

It only requires a person to be lucky to be born into a past winner family. Which means if you are in the 99% you can be a frickin’ genius and getting rich is still more like a game of chance where the odds of ‘winning’, becoming rich, through talent are very rare.

Well.

That is fucked up.

What we need to understand is that self-interest, competition and gaining profit at the expense of others, and thinking, is not particularly fair to the 100%, but it is also not particularly helpful for any meaningful progress as a society.

What we need to understand is that we are all huddled in a cave – the 99 & the 1. Together.

We must stop following blindly the ideas of what we know but rather open our eyes to what we do not know.

Here is what I know.

If everyone is thinking, everyone is debating, everyone is questioning ‘gut instinct’ and common sense, 100% has a chance of winning and 100% will get better in some form or fashion.

In the world we live in today the thinkers are more likely to lose than some idiots who simply know how to play the game better. Think about that. Yeah. Think. That is fucked up. I want a world with smarter idiots, less sincere ignorance and thinkers to have a chance of winning on occasion.

I actually want a world where no one lives in a cave.

originally published July 2017

————————–

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

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”

–

Robert Frost

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

Well. This is about social media, what you put into the social media world and how you own what you write.

Now. I write a blog.

In fact. A couple thousand pieces and a couple million words worth of writing. In my mind … I have something to say and I say it. Maybe it all means nothing and as Frost suggests … I am one of those who have nothing to say but say it.

Regardless. If I say it … I own my words.

I say this because we are edging into a world where people are of an age that are shifting into leadership positions, positions of influence, who have blogs or have written for blogs. And, uh oh,  they are being demanded to justify their words, thoughts and ideas. In other words, they are being asked to own their words. They may have had nothing to say, but they said something and now they have to explain something about their nothing.

This is all incredibly interesting <and slightly amusing> to me because if you go online you will find thousands of writing advice columns <usually formatted in the heinous listicles and written by self righteous older people> written for the attention of young people warning them of the dangers of what they put online and how it can affect their future employment.

The amusing part? I found none <zero> advice columns directed toward … well … me <self righteous older people>.

And you know why? Because we older folk are supposed to know better.

Sadly.

Some of us do not know better.

There are lawyers seeking higher positions, business people seeking a seat in a C-level suite and even doctors seeking to shift into a more general business world who are finding that their words are following them <and they need to own them>.

And, no, “it was just my personal opinion on my personal blog” doesn’t hack it. If you shared a thought, you own the words in how you shared it, therefore, you own the thought AND the words. Period.

To be fair … I will spend a second in the tricky part.

Is the past a predictor?

Should we waste our time revisiting the blog writings of someone who most likely sat down and vented personal thoughts on things of matter?

And … maybe more importantly … should we be held accountable for words we decided to put down and share on the world wide web?

Simplistically I would say … of course we should be held accountable for the words then just as, of course, what we said then may be different than what we would say now and we need to own those words too <and justify the difference>.

Simplistically I would say … it is indefensible to solely make a stand on ‘you said it because you can’ and , simplistically, it is indefensible to simply say ‘that was then and this is now.’

My point? If you write, you own the words. Therefore, use words with care.

I don’t have time for many blogs, the daily diaries, the motivational tripe, the pieces that don’t really have a point, emotional directionless solution-lacking pieces … these have some value in some ways, but they aren’t really the potent things <albeit … you own those words too so be careful>.

But many blogs are there to make a point. And if you make a point, you own it.

Oh. And … you own the words you use to make that point.

I make no mistake when I post something in that I know when I open my mind and share my words they represent a potent formula that can be drunk with pleasure or peril. I know whether it is a large presentation, a one-on-one discussion or a 998 word post on my blog I am doing so as a public speaker.

I own my words. I own my thoughts.

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

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

Yehuda Berg

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

I am surprised when older people get trapped in business discussions having to discuss things they may have written. I am surprised because I know when I write and share those words I can use these words as a constructive force or a destructive force. And with either path I own what I construct as well as own what I deconstruct.

Now. What also surprises me a little is that older people who have blogs or write opinion pieces are not young inexperienced people but, if you are making a point, you really do know that simply ranting or using some childish phrasing or hyperbolic rhetoric diminishes what you have to say.

And I say that knowing I am free with the swear words and generous with snarkiness.

But what helps me is that I have found over time that conceptually I write in the same framework as I learned how to communicate in the professional world. Stylistically it is me … all me <maddening to some people who visit the site>, but the framework resides in what I have always believed is the most simplistic way to create a simple message.

Sure. I may not communicate what I want to say simply, but underneath the swear words, the snarkiness, the faux intellectualism and the casual use of grammar resides a desire to hit what I have always believed is the message simplicity bullseye <by the way … anyone, blogger, opinion writer and even a communications agency can use this simplistic guide>.

The bullseye.

On one axis, the horizontal, you are bookended in framing.

On one end is whatever issue & solution I can offer — functionally what I have to offer <my experience, my ideas, my thinking> — followed in toward the bullseye by … well … me, the writer, and who I am and what I stand for <so that my thinking gets filtered through who and what I am … lets call that my character>.

On the other end is the need or want – functionally what is needed – followed in toward the bullseye by what the situation, or people, may desire <or think they desire> so that pragmatism gets filtered through the sometimes random irrational minds of people.

The other axis, the vertical, is even simpler … hero, conflict and resolution. It is basic story telling applied to ideas.

I want to offer a hero <it can be an idea> which can enter into a conflict unflinchingly, or flinchingly if appropriate, and offer a resolution. Simple stories work the best and, as one writer articulated it … “incorporate elements of hero, conflict, and goal.”

All this permits me even in my most dry pieces to attempt to offer my version of a story which, as stories are supposed to do, address deeper and enduring emotional levels tapping into personal  “issues” such as self-esteem <conformity versus individuality>, self-doubt and economic wellbeing.

Everyone who writes should have a story. They shouldn’t toss out words thoughtlessly, or worse, irreverently.

Anger doesn’t guide a good story <typically>, but as long as you continue to aim forward the bullseye even an anger driven critique can end up in an okay place when viewed by someone in the future.

And all of that matters if you assume at some point someone will demand you own your words.

The story formula is simple:

1. Pick what matters <a conflict>
2. Offer a distinct meaningfully view, hero and resolution
3. Imbue with your personality & character <which will inevitably be captured in the hero aspects>.

I could argue, and I would, that if you stay within this framework what you write today will be representative of something you want to say tomorrow. You may not want to say exactly the same thing today, or tomorrow, as you did in the past but you will most likely be able to leverage from the past to what you want to say.

I mention this today not just to share my framework for writing, but rather because many people my age, or slightly younger, are being measured more and more by the words they shared online. And more and more of them are finding that they have to choose between what they believe in <most likely reflected in something they wrote in the past> and what they need to say to get what they want in the moment.

That seems kind of nuts to me … that choice I mean.

What I want today should be aligned with what I believe in. I can take a fairly hard stance on a variety of issues, and I have, but I also hope that my heroes & resolutions reflect adaptability to other’s views and the situation at hand. When I do meet new business people or people I haven’t seen in a while and sometimes they bring up something I have written … well … let’s say 5 years ago … I am good. I am okay with it. I may not think exactly what I did then, but my basic beliefs have not changed.

It surprises me when some fairly qualified people have not assumed that stance in what they have written.

And. I certainly have no patience for those who are more than willing to toss out their own past words as “I said that then but now …” or “I wish I had chosen my words more carefully.”

I will not suggest we should all get our words right every time <I surely don’t> but not all words are created equal and the really important ones … the potent ones … the ones that can construct or deconstruct … you should get right.

Well. At least right enough that someday in the future your career will not hang in the balance over a poorly thought out blog piece. Conversely, if you did think it out and your career can hang in the balance over it … well … you made a stand.

And backing off that stand simply to get to where you want to be is … well … not good.

My writing style, or lack of style, aside. I don’t understand ever being ‘trapped’ by owning your own words if you have decided to be “true to thineself” no matter what. I said something then and maybe I could have used better words but the basic thought premise is what I believe. Take it or leave it because getting the job, sitting at some table in a discussion, getting something I want doesn’t mean that thought can be discarded … if I believe it … well … I own it.

I will admit that owning up can be difficult but, as I once said, mistakes or things you have said in the past can be an awful lot like a hurricane … and “I” is always at the center of a hurricane — stay steady and hold the center.

I have no time and I have no patience for older people who do not own their words. And they should be ashamed of themselves for discarding thoughts and words so easily just to get something they want now. Thoughts and words are far too valuable to be that disposable.

==

“Our humanity is not an attribute that we have received once and forever with our conception. It is a potentiality that we have to discover within us and progressively develop or destroy through our confrontation with the different experiences of suffering that will meet us through our life.”

—

Xavier Le Pichon

==

“You’ll have to help yourself.”

—

Lemony Snicket

===

This is about us. People. Individuals. Ok. Let’s call it “the power of I.”

Oh. And the fact we either grow or diminish what we have in terms of “I”. So. That begs the question … what is the power each of us have?

I would suggest that your power is actually a reflection of your character <and its resilience>. Character actually begets all the shit we truly care about: resiliency, personal responsibility, integrity, morality. In addition … it is character that dictates whether, and how, you either progressively develop or diminish.

And therein lies the true power of I.

Yet, we face an inherent ongoing challenge to this power. What do I mean? Character is not solid; it can get chipped.

What I mean by that is once you start taking shortcuts, the ones that appear to make the Life travel a little easier, a little cheat here … a little lie there… maybe a little taking advantage of the system … all of which chips a little of your integrity & character away. Now. That may not seem so bad, but, character is a non-renewable resource.

In addition. Each time you take a shortcut, no matter how small, and get away with it, it becomes even easier to decide to do it another time – that’s the slippery slope of character erosion.

Just think about what I just wrote for a minute.

You can be crappy at reading, writing and arithmetic or pretty much anything that people bitch about all the time, but you can’t effectively survive by being crappy at Life itself. And you certainly cannot get along with a crappy character.

You have to fight the good fight in Life, try and avoid the short cuts, and maintain your character and have faith, and courage, to keep character from eroding in the face of Life. Surprisingly … this is an ongoing fight day in and day out week after week.

Now. That said. Character is a tricky thing to self assess. Interestingly … we all think we know ourselves well, but, psychological studies show otherwise. In fact, <unfortunately> most of us are somewhat deluded about ourselves. And in that delusion we tend to be slightly misguided with regard to what we should do and how to do it <because the basic premise of who we are is flawed>.

This is really really important for us to think about because research has clearly linked social mobility to social and emotional skills. Emotional skills ranging from empathy and the ability to make and maintain relationships, mental toughness, delayed gratification and self-control all contribute to social mobility <and Life success>.

These research findings all point to the same conclusion — that character counts. Now. Research also points out that character is developed not necessarily instilled <experienced versus taught>.

Research shows that people who overcome adversity and realize their full potential tend to exhibit many of the same traits.

Traits that can be thought of as a belief in one’s ability to achieve, an understanding of the relationship between effort and reward, the patience to pursue long-term goals, the perseverance to stick with the task at hand, and the ability to bounce back from life’s inevitable setbacks.

Please note this does not suggest negative experiences increase character but rather that multiple experiences create depth of character (despite being a common wisdom quote, research has never show a relationship with “what hurts you make you stronger”). These various traits all fall under the broad heading of “character and resilience.”

Well. That said. If character is about experience then I get to bitch a little about personal accountability or personal responsibility. Or, in other words, responsibility for your own actions.

Today it seems like a shitload of people suggest their actions, faults, any excessive unacceptable behavior, or any … well … generally heinous or unacceptable behavior … are a reflection of outside influences, society driven/motivated, challenging home growing up, poverty, ethnicity, or any experience that we can identify as ‘generated pain’ which inevitably impacted us in childhood. Let’s title all of that under one big fat heading of “excuse.”

It is almost like no one, okay, far too many, wants to accept responsibility for their problems.

All I can think is that some people, well, this is what they learned. Which makes me ask, well, “who the hell taught them this?”

Anyway. On the other hand I know for sure that some of us learn that when you screw up it is on ‘you’ and no one else. This ‘learning’ teaches us that basically you can be frequently wrong, frequently stupid, frequently imperfect, but if you have been taught to be accountable — to admit it– you may get some shit from people but you will also be known as someone who is accountable for their own actions. You assume responsibility for all the good and bad that you do.

Yeah. This can be harrowing at times and incredibly rewarding at other times.

—————

“If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

Anna Quindlen

—————–

And this leads me to destiny, fate … and resilience.

Well. I believe we make our own destinies. A destiny may await us but we need to go & do things, to make choices, in order to actually get to our destiny.

Every day we are presented with choices.

Some we don’t even recognize.

Some we don’t even see <until they are past>.

Some we see and make a choice.

Our destiny is a reflection of these choices … made and not made.

This means making your destiny is hard because we see, and don’t see, choices and make, and don’t make, choices.

“Of course it’s hard! If it was easy, everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great.”

<For the Love of the Game>

This is a Life truth. Shit. It is true about everything we do <even making the perfect cup of coffee in the morning>.

And that is where resilience comes into play.

Because you will always have disappointments. You will always have dreams that don’t come true. You will always have bad shit happening. And you will always make some bad choices.

And in all of what I just wrote we have a habit of getting stuck.

You get stuck knowing what you already know.

You get stuck on what happened in the past.

You get stuck thinking about shit that you cannot do anything about.

You get stuck on disappointments, dreams that don’t come true and bad choices.

We just get … well … stuck.

Resilience is all about being able to overcome all the simple tragedies you face in life. Not the big dramatic shit just the everyday shit.

=====

Brooke:

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”

Nathan:

As far as I’m concerned, Shaw was a punk.

‘Cause you know what? Tragedies happen. What are you gonna do? Give up? Quit?

No. I realize now that when your heart breaks, you gotta fight like hell to make sure you’re still alive. ‘Cause you are, and that pain you feel, that’s life.

The confusion and fear, that’s there to remind you that somewhere out there is something better. And that ‘something’ is worth fighting for.

=====

Resilience really isn’t about hope or dreams or vision for what you want & desire and doing what you need to do to stay on that path. Resilience is more about recognizing Life is hard and the practicality that if you want to make some progress and develop … you gotta fight like hell to not get stuck.

Simplistically you take personal responsibility for not getting stuck.

And you now what? You have to. Because Life makes it really really easy to get stuck. You can get stuck on so many things it is scary if you think about it. But you can really only get stuck if you let it happen.

Progress is, more often than not, in your hands. Which means your destiny is in your hands. That, my friends, is the power of I; a power driven by the engine of Character. Yes. Character is your destiny.

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

“And our team is mature enough to understand that, to have perspective and to feel fortunate for this opportunity.”

—-

Ron Turcotte

===========

Opportunities. Suffice it to say we all seek opportunities. I would also suggest because we tend to think about opportunities like wishes granted by rubbing some magic genie bottle we associate some fabulous concepts to them:

Fate.

Destiny.

Hard work.

Making your own luck.

Look. I think it’s a little crazy when people say they deserve a chance or deserve an opportunity or even because they ‘worked hard’ that opportunity was deserved in some way. To be clear. I believe society should be fair in that if you present yourself, put forth the effort, you should get an opportunity.

But. While opportunities always exist, you are not guaranteed to get them. Life is indifferent to you. So, yes, sometimes you can do all the right things, work hard, be smart, and while some opportunities may come your way, well, they just will not be ‘the’ opportunities that can make the positive difference in your Life.

Therefore. If you get an opportunity, feel fortunate <and do your best to not waste it>. For some reason I believe a lot of people will find that thought debatable. Maybe it feels a little to, well, passive. But here is the truth. 6billion+ people are all striving for something better and some of those billions may actually want to be in the same place seeking the same opportunities as you and, well, you cannot all be in the same place at the same time even while seeking the same thing.

===========

“…. I just have to ride him accordingly. I don’t think anyone can tell a jockey what to do. I had a free hand when I was riding most of the time, but when they tie your hand and give you orders to be placed somewhere or do this or do that — ‘I want you to lay third,’ or ‘I want you to lay fourth’ — it might be 10 horses in the race, and nine of them have the same orders.”

===========

Or.

===

“We can’t all be in the same place, so when the gate opens, you’re on your own.”

Turcotte

==========

So many times we say ‘this is the way to win’, but, you know what? Everyone is trying to win.

Oftentimes winning is about context and managing the moment.

Someone can tell you ‘this is the way to do it’, but … trust me … in Life you have to use a free hand to win the race.

Lastly.

It is silly to suggest there isn’t some competition in Life. We may not like it and there are certainly unhealthy dimensions, yet, compete we do. And we will also compete over opportunities and because we do so we will view them in a variety of ‘win or lose’ dimensions.

This leads me to Humility. Or maybe the simple acceptance of what happens.

The year was 1965, and Turcotte, then 23, was aboard a horse named Tom Rolfe, whom he had ridden to a Preakness win after a third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. Turcotte made his move too early in that race and ended up losing by a neck at the line to a Florida-bred horse called Hail To All. “It was completely my fault,” Turcotte said. “I knew the horse’s fitness and all that, and I should have waited a little bit longer, and I got the horse beat. I don’t know if I was one of the best (that year), but the best can get beat the same way.”

 Whew. So he admitted … yup … admitted … he was the reason he lost.

Yikes. Imagine that. That’s integrity.

Almost all in the horse racing industry said Turcotte’s unimpeachable integrity may be his most defining and notable distinction. Not competitiveness. Not wins or losses. Integrity.

Well. I think everything else I have written about Life and horse racing is almost irrelevant compared to that last thought.

Unimpeachable integrity.

Opportunities exists and, frankly, the majority of us will almost always feel like we have missed opportunities, messed up opportunities or even believe opportunities missed us in favor of other people. That said. Life, as it should be lived, is always grounded in unimpeachable integrity.

Feel fortunate with the opportunities you get and treat each opportunity with unimpeachable integrity and I imagine you will live a good Life.

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“Intellectual advance consists of the displacement of one paradigm which has become increasingly incapable of explaining new or newly discovered facts, by a new paradigm that accounts for all those facts in a more satisfactory fashion.”

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Ok. I believe the whole concept of ‘thinking’ in business has been commoditisized.

Everyone can think.

Any idea is worth pursuing.

We make doers thinkers and thinkers do and, yes, that makes thinking a commodity.

So, when thinking becomes a commodity, ‘intellectual advancement’ almost becomes the pursuit of fools or just ‘wasted time’ or “over complicating things” <or you can just call the commodity version of thinking: common sense>. Thinking becomes so shallow it doesn’t even come close to any true intellectual advancement instead it veers closer to “let’s think through all the details we need to think about to do what we just thought of.”

Which leads me to the important part of the quote I opened with:

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“To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted, it only must seem better than its competition.” 

The structure of Scientific Revolutions: Thomas Kuhn

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Well. In business ‘paradigm’ is one of those words that imply bigness. Even suggest a paradigm shift and people start shifting in their seats <I almost wrote ‘shitting in their seats’>. “Big” has  nasty habit of making people feel uncomfortable.

Ok. They like it. And hate it. Both at exactly the same time.

What that typically means is that everyone gets excited initially by the bigness of the idea and as time goes on the idea gets chewed up by all the ants who are scrambling around hating it.

So. Before you start killing the next idea that sounds like a really really good idea by slicing it up with a thousand small cuts under the guise of “but what abouts?” remember this:

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 “When people think seriously, they think abstractly; they conjure up simplified pictures of reality called concepts, theories, models, paradigms.”

Samuel Huntington

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Maybe Sam reminds me why I dislike the term ‘big idea.’ I don’t care if it is big, medium or small <or even venti or grande>, all I care is that it is a serious thought.

To be clear, most serious thoughts in business demand some intellectual investment <sorry to tell everyone that>. It is not a flippant shallow thought, but an intellectually well thought out abstract thought. And, let’s be completely honest, a well thought out abstract thought, let’s call it some paradigm shift in this case, is rarely truly simple. At best the articulator has simply conjured up a nice neat simplistic package which makes it seem even more appealing. But, simplistic? Let’s get serious. That ain’t gonna happen if it is truly a paradigm shift.

For a true paradigm shift we would need to accept that it is abstract — that not all the facts are explained.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the business world seems to struggle with that last thought.

We love the idea. We kill it in detail.

It’s unfortunate.

For paradigm shifts, which are important in terms of shifting behavior and attitudes, are concepts. Therefore when we kill them in detail we miss huge opportunity for shifts in attitudes & behaviors.

Nuff said. That last sentence alone says it all. That sums up how most opportunities get killed in business.

Now. I would argue that our unhealthy relationship with detail is driven by a desire to avoid intellectual discomfort. Intellectually driven discussions and conclusions, initiatives, demand some faith. And while a business cannot solely be run on faith there are certain situations which demand some faith. Some people may argue with my word choice, faith, and suggest I actually mean ‘believe.’

I don’t. All business will have moments in which we have a choice; to make a leap of faith or to not make a leap of faith. I think we can all agree you don’t want a shitload of these. But any good business will have them on occasion. That is where intellectual debate & discussion is imperative <because there is nothing worse than a non-intellectual rationale leap of faith> and that is where people will be uncomfortable.

Look. I am not suggesting detail doesn’t matter because it does. Without detail the impossible remains impossible … with detail the impossible has the possibility of being possible. But that’s the thing with ‘impossible’ shit <paradigm shifts> … you will never know all the details if you decide to make the leap of faith.

Sure. You can work your ass off to define all the details you want, but part of ‘faith’ is that there will be an incredibly uncomfortable space occupied by “some shit we have no clue about until we actually do it.”

What made this come to mind was I had a couple of conversations with some new business people and a sales director of an international company. I found myself telling all of them they were in the ‘leap of faith’ business — it is just a matter of context and degrees. You are trying to convince someone to get from where they are to where they want to be <or go>. The point here is that while almost all of us invest gobs of energy and time telling them excruciating detail by excruciating detail how they will be safe with us <and they will have some added value in the end> we will never show enough detail to completely eliminate the fact they will inevitably have to make a leap of faith in some definition we can provide them.

And with that definition it is up to us to offer enough intellectual stuff to show them there is a path to ‘what is possible.’

For some of them you will offer a true paradigm shift and to others it will just be a paradigm shift in that it will be something new to them. I would point out here that a paradigm is a paradigm in the eyes of a beholder so trying to contextualize a paradigm is a waste of time.

Anyway. I imagine my real point is that even if you are in the doing business <and pretty much everyone is> you are still in the intellectual thinking business.

You have to be.

You cannot explain everything. You cannot offer up all the facts. You cannot conjure up enough simplified reality to enable someone to comfortably overlook what is most often complex. What you can do is offer a definition people can find some certainty in <comfort>, and enough details so that, intellectually, you advance the concept of where everyone should ‘go’ so that, well, everyone can make the leap of faith. Because the leaps are where true progress occurs.

It is an uncomfortable place this ‘intellectual advancement’ thing, but paradigms, shifts or perceived shifts, are uncomfortable places so intellectual advancement & paradigm shifts are a match made in heaven.