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

“I’m always finding humans at their best and worst.

I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.”

————–

Death

<in “The Book Thief”>

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

So. This quote is said by Death. Yeah. Death is suggesting he considers humans beautiful, as well as ugly, all the while resting comfortably in his chair awaiting the opportunity to end it all.

I admit.

The thought seems slightly counter-intuitive, but I like thinking the thought that Death is a lot more complicated than we may think.

I like thinking that Death sees us … and assesses us … and maybe even judges us a little … as not one-dimensional things to say ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down.’

I like thinking of death as not some grim reaper but rather a thoughtful person who has a job to do. One who contemplates the fact that some days will be good and some days just won’t be so fun.

I like thinking of Death One who can see the best and worst … acknowledging that good things can happen to bad people and bad things can happen to good people.

And, I imagine, I like thinking of Death as … well … intelligent and not simply some mindless executioner wandering about seeking his next victim.

For sure this quote reminded me of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote about intelligence:

“The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

I believe it was Keats who called this ‘negative capability.’

As he explained <or tried to > “it is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

In other words, you understand, or least come to grips with, that there is a shitload of inconsistency and uncertainty in Life and, yet, you deal with it and do what you need to do.

<that’s my translation>

The truth in Life is that we really don’t have to be one thing because you’re not another thing – or not be something if you are something <you get it>.

It may seem impossible if you appear to be a contradiction and, yet, be quite a successful, happy, productive bundle of contradictions. I will suggest, no, state, that not only do you not have to be one thing forever, but you can actually be a couple of things now … at the same time … in this time & place.

I sometimes believe individual happiness is found more often than not in our ‘negative capability’ intelligence. In other words … how smartly we can navigate the contradictions in Life as well as the contradiction of what is within who & what we are. If we don’t learn negative capability then we must seem to inevitably seek to isolate being one thing and one thing only as a judge of whether we are living Life well, productively and with focus.

And maybe that is why I believe Death was, and is, intelligent — it has mastered negative capability. Death has embraced the contradiction of being one thing and yet living another seemingly contradictory idea. If Death can see beauty in that which it will inevitably have to end with its own hand surely we can see good in bad … as well as be both bad & good ourselves.

Regardless.

It seems like there is a lesson in here for all of us. And maybe the lesson is, unfortunately, not that simple.

Death looks, on the surface, as one thing … and yet … is most likely something other.

Death does one thing … and yet … most likely thinks many other things.

We view Death as one thing and avoid him … and yet … should we meet him on the street on his way to meet someone other than us … he may greet us with a smile. While Death’s perception challenge  is actually called “affective fallacy” <confusion between what it is and what it does>, this is a challenge we all face in Life.

I imagine, in the end, the lesson is a simple one … sometimes Life just isn’t that simple.

Ok. Ditch the ‘sometimes.’

Life is never that simple.

We are more than one thing … we are a sum of all our parts … we are part of everyone we have met <and will meet> … and we are, at our core, a reflection of a multi-faceted character containing aspects of all which we desire to be as well as some aspects which we view slightly glumly as ‘the aspects I do not desire to be … but am.’

We either embrace the contradictions or … well … we will most likely suck at dealing with Life and living Life.

Anyway. What I do know is that I wish someone taught “negative capabilities 101” because we should all sign up for that class. It would be a better world if we were all competent in negative capabilities.

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

“When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting.

When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”

Neil Gaiman

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

—

“To paraphrase someone smarter than me, who still knows nothing, the philosophical task of our age is for each of us to decide what it means to be a successful human being.

I don’t know the answer to that, but I would like to find out.

=

James Othmer <from the book ‘The Futurist’>

—–

Being a successful human being. I don’t know the answer to that and I would like to find out.

What do I like about this?

It isn’t necessarily a positive statement, just a hopeful one. With a dash of ‘realistic’.

Yet. Absolutely aspirational.

It is about seeking without being overtly motivational.  It is almost acerbic … but truthful and openly honest in its regard to ‘self.’

This also brings to mind something called ‘mental contrasting.’ Mental contrasting is contrary to positive thinking. In fact, the research suggests convincing yourself to be positive <all that positive psychological mumbo jumbo> is suggesting to yourself that life is meant to be easy which actually just makes it appreciably harder.

As I have pointed out in past articles … the best way to make personal progress is to balance optimism with some pessimism. Please note … that is different than ‘realism’ in that in the balancing you take some fairly risky steps based on optimism and the pessimism keeps you focused on some practicality. Realism is just some mumbo jumbo non-stance for deciding to reside in the wretched hollow of what is in between optimism and pessimism <doing nothing and taking no chances>.

What does mental contrasting have to do with ‘being a successful human being’? It actually means the whole idea that ‘picturing the future you desire makes it more likely you’ll attain it’ is wrong.

Again and again research has shown that making a fantasy of something you want can make it harder to achieve in reality.

 Imagine yourself having a productive week … and you’ll accomplish less.  

Imagine receiving a windfall of cash … and you’ll be less motivated to engage in the kinds of activities that might bring you money.

Now. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of positive daydreaming if it makes you feel good as long as you don’t expect anything more than feeling good.

But the search for the answer of what it takes to be a successful human being is way more complicated than some trite soundbite.

It’s not passion.

It’s not happiness.

It’s not really any one word known in the human language.

It’s a feeling.

And maybe that’s where I struggle with all the trite ‘self-help’ and motivational and Life coaching stuff because here is all I really know about becoming a successful human being.

Sometimes you come to a place where there are no right decisions and all paths lead to bad ends.

It sucks. But … there you are.

And you still must choose your way.

Now. You may think you do not know how to make that choice, but you do. Often you think you don’t know how because you look at it all in the wrong way. The question is rarely “what should I do? … but rather ‘who do you want to be.’

And , in fact, you do know how to choose because when you think about it a little, but really hard <maybe in the harsh light>, because you recognize you cannot control everything that will result from your actions … you can only control the actions themselves. Therefore you shove all the other crap off to the side and ask maybe the only question you need to ask at this ‘make a choice’ point:

If you died down one chosen path … how would you want to be remembered?

Now. It is here I offer an odd thought. Ok. Maybe something not really mainstream type thinking.

Realistically many times part of choosing a path is ultimately having to walk down a path you have never walked before and hoping the shit you will face, you will face well. Uhm. But you cannot be sure because, well, you have never faced it before.

Therefore I bring up a version of dreaming. Back to that thing called mental contrasting.

Mental contrasting actually seems to retain the most useful part of positive fantasizing. Mental contrasting helps you envision and clarify what you want by mentally reminding you how good it can feel to attain something. But it also builds upon the motivating power of knowing what you have not yet attained … that you have some serious ground to cover.

Does this prepare you for the ‘who you want to be’ hard choices? Shit. Nothing truly prepares you for that, but at least you have thought about it and hopefully that eliminates some of the more unpleasant surprises. Mental contrasting also is a very individualistic dreaming type exercise. Putting you <mentally> in positions and clarifying what you need to do.

I say that because being a successful human being is an “I” thing not an external thing.

—

“I don’t need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own.”

Ani DiFranco

—

Anyway. In the end. Trying to decide what is a successful human being is hard and, most likely, indescribable. Yup. Indescribable.

Oh. There is a Russian word for that.

===

Ничто́

It means … well … nothing, not a thing, (not) anything <pronounced: [neesh-TOH]

===

There are no words to describe a successful human being. Yeah, yeah, yeah … we toss around a lot of words — purpose, meaning, etc. — but they all seem ‘less than’ they should. Why? Well. Because the concept of deciding what it means to be a successful human being is an indescribable thing. That said. We will continue to try and put words to it so that people have something to aim for. Find some words so that at the end of the day a person can hold up and point to.

Aw. Nuts. Yeah … I say ‘nuts’ to that.

Let’s stop trying to describe what is indescribable.

Being a successful human being is defined by you, with no words, because it is made up of your choices & your character.

And while we would LOVE to label it with a nice simple word these are the type of things that are bigger than any word you can find in a dictionary.

All I really know about becoming a successful human being is you just gotta make some choices along the way in your search for that undefinable thing called ‘success as a human being.’

Do I know the answer to what it takes to be a successful human being?

Shit no. But I surely would like to find out.

originally posted February 2015

=========

“Don’t dwell on what went wrong.

Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.”

–

Denis Waitley

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

“You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward. “

—

Conrad Hall

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

So. This is about shifting gears professionally.

What made me think about this? I recently watched a professional acquaintance who shifted gears.

Oh.

To be clear.

He shifted up.

He had a good business, good business model and a good business sense. In my eyes he was cruising along in maybe 2^nd or 3^rd gear <good … not bad … and not great> … and then … well … he found another gear.

To be clear. When I first saw his business, he was maybe in 2^nd gear not really rocking the boat or rocking the world but steady consistent and moving forward and solid business. Looking from the outside in I never saw spectacular, but I saw steady. I saw, well, 2^nd gear.

He didn’t know it, but, behind the scenes, I would never hesitate to recommend him, maybe not typically for those who needed to shake the etch a sketch, but 100% for those who just needed a good engine tune up. Over the years he steadily shifted up to maybe 3^rd gear always steady and solid <good, maybe very good, just not that extra little great>.

But then that changed.

One day I saw his business newsletter and … well … I sat up a little straighter and read it a little closer.

And read it again.

It felt like he had shifted gears.

It now felt like 5^th gear stuff.

I got the next newsletter.

Definitely 5^th gear.

He had shifted gears professionally.

I tend to believe this happens a lot as you get older. We shift gears. We reach a point professionally where you have it pretty good, you have some good experiences which have taught you a shitload of different things … and you sit back and scan it all <comparing it to what you have done>.

This is where the shift occurs.

Now. Some decide to downshift. And. Some decide to shift up.

To be clear.

There is a huge swath of people in the business world who simply go in to earn a paycheck, their only gear is the one that does their job <mostly well or well enough> and their career progresses in that one and only gear. I would note, just for the record, day to day business relies on these essential people and their steady gear attitude <so stop giving them shit or look down on them in any way>.

This is not about them.

This is about the business people who want more. They want to use another gear then other employees and for the most part throughout their career … they do.

Inevitably these people reach a point, maybe some success, maybe a title, maybe it is just some more good experience where they, well, decide to shift gears.

And, yes, this is where some shift down.

These ‘shift downers’ have decided they have been working hard and they see the other relatively happy one gear people and say “I am going to slow down.”

Some people call it selling out. Younger people look at these older people as ‘wasted space.’

I just call them people who believe they deserve to down shift <so stop giving them shit or look down on them and look to maximize their experience>.

This is not about them.

This is more about the business people who wanted more and then see that maybe they could actually “be more.” These are the business people who shift up.

And you know what? Shifting gears seems like the appropriate metaphor here because ‘the analogy of ‘shifting gears’ is used to identify and explain the key factors (agents) involved in driving career formation, and describe the level of interconnectedness between these drivers.’ To shift up, in order to respond to the pressure, the gears have to be in sync, work simultaneously and coordinate the rest of the body around them.

And that is what happens. You have accumulated a lot of knowledge, expertise and experiences <practical functional stuff> and then you decide to incorporate some personal clarity to the horsepower. It is almost like you find some clarity in yourself professionally which permits you to better identify the largest and most influential parts in the gear box. And then … you shift gears.

I feel qualified to write about this because I did it. I shifted gears up. And I have seen others in my generation shift up and down.

I will admit that it has taken me awhile to not have disdain for people who down shift mostly because it is so far out of my DNA I, frankly, couldn’t understand it.

But I do now.

I certainly see the value of ‘down shifters’ and believe any organization would benefit from having a mix of good, qualified, experienced, downshifters.

As for shifting gears up?

Whew.

Seeing someone in my business generation do it is a joy.

Mostly because, in general, the shift is tied to a decision that our generation may have not always been the best for the business world and possibly injected some flawed thinking with regard to business acumen & principles. This means that most ‘shifting up’ is tied to trying to address those ‘wrongs’ or at least try and inject some ‘righter thinking.’

I get some shit from people because I am hard on my entire business generation … everyone.

Look.I think more of us should be.

To be clear. I don’t expect everyone in my generation to decide to shift gears up but I would like more of my generation to at least understand some of the consequences of our behaviors & principles.

And for those who decide to shift gears upwards? I hope they get a chance to implement their new horsepower because today’s business world can make it pretty difficult for people in my generation, who truly have something to offer and are willing to not be attached to the old ways of doing things to actually get to do what they truly offer.

(your job as a manager is to make it easier for people to believe in themselves and what they do)

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

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

e.e. cummings

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

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.

Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

—

Golda Meir

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

Today I am rambling about the psychology of managing employees, specifically, an aspect of managing that I would call “believing and non-believing management.”

No. This is not about motivating employees.

This is more about unlocking employees – unlocking potential.

This is more about that seemingly nonstop discussion you have with employees where you curb the overreaching confidence in some and instill some confidence in others.

To be sure. If you talk with enough people who have managed groups & companies and you will notice that at some point someone will bring up “I have to be a psychologist.”

To be clear. Do business managers have to be psychologists to be effective? No. Not really. But playing the psychologist role on occasion certainly doesn’t hurt.

I am fairly sure what I am discussing has some high falutin’ organizational behavior ‘management principles’ published and formal white papers with long esoteric discussions on employee personality types and some personality testing voodoo.

I am fairly sure, okay … certain, it is possible to be a competent if not good leader without understanding all that personality crap. In fact I could argue, and I have argued, that personality tests trap individuals into some defined box in which if any of their behaviors don’t fit that box from that point on they will be mismanaged because they aren’t doing what the box said they would do.

Anyway.

Most good managers clearly understand that different people are motivated by different things and that different things can inhibit the potential of each employee.

Suffice it to say, in my mind, it really all comes down to one basic management principle: possibilities & pragmatism management. Unlocking each employee’s potential is almost always a balance of pragmatic doing and getting them to envision what they are possible of.

Simplistically, your objective is always to free your employee to be their best and do their best.

Now. Sometimes this means stripping something away and sometimes this means adding something.

And that is where my whole ‘believing & nonbelieving management’ comes into the discussion.

More often than not while you are teaching & coaching skills and pragmatic ‘here is what you need to do’ crap you will find yourself facing an employee who is either bursting with belief in themselves and their abilities or semi-frozen in an ‘unsure of what to do and if I can do it’ attitude.

Both need some attitudinal adjustments.

The ‘belief’ employees run the gamut from the young employee who is sure they are smarter and better than you <or others around them> to a senior sales guy who hasn’t met a sale he couldn’t make <doing it his way if only the company would get out of the way>.

The ‘nonbeliever’ employees also run the gamut from young & inexperienced to older doing it for the first time or even mid level employees dealing with something completely unrelated that has pricked their confidence bubble in some way.

And, no, I certainly do not consider any of this ‘cheerleader engagement.’ In fact I would suggest that any manager who does needs to rethink their thinking because this is all about believing & not encouragement.

Yeah. Managing people certainly can contain some aspects of ‘enthusiasm management’, but one of the most basic manager self-survival techniques you learn <or die> is how to manage without too much investment of self. Therefore I have always viewed this aspect of employee management as simply assessing their ‘believe level’ and adjusting appropriately to enable the true potential to be there when it counts.

As a manager you always hunker down on the pragmatic aspects of what needs to be done first.

Always.

It is kind of your heuristic trick to assess any attitudinal challenges to getting the frickin’ pragmatic aspect done.

But you always keep an eye, and an ear, open during the pragmatic assessing the ‘possibilities of whether the shit will actually get done and done as well as it can be done.’

This is the place where you look at the employee and assess the ‘belief factor.’

Some are easy to read. Some are a little more difficult. And, no, I cannot offer some trite generalism here.

Exuding belief believers can come in all shapes & sizes & behaviors.

Nonbelievers can come in all shapes & sizes & attitudes.

And it can get even trickier.

Tricky because the same employee who was bursting with blind belief one day will be the same employee sitting in front of you the next day discussing a completely different project or task … semi-frozen in non-belief. What that means is everyday, you (as a manager of believers & nonbelievers) cannot assume the person you dealt with yesterday will be exactly the same person they are today.

Yes. I just said that.

That sounds incredibly painful and inefficient, but it’s not of you believe you are in the believing management business. why? Well.  Zach Mercurio has an idea how to navigate this.

Research shows a 400% increase in employee productivity after meeting just one person impacted by their work.  That’s one way (and an effective way). But the point is you are seeking to not inject confidence  or belief, but rather to encourage belief to emerge naturally. This is emergent motivation or fostering intrinsic energy. That is believing in oneself and when you align it in believing n what you are doing AND aligning that with belief in the business vision and who and what the business is achieving, well, you have maximized the believing business.

I would also note a couple other things Zach Mercurio has stated (relevant to the believing and non believing business):

• 83% of people say meaning in work is a priority
• Regularly show people how their work helps others
• Connect people to the beneficiary of the work
• Show people how they matter
• Place contribution over achievement.

The interesting thing in this is:

• Technology is not about believing, it just enables people who believe in something, desire meaning, to do things to the benefit of people.
• Achievement and meaning are inextricably connected. While doing, with a purpose, is important it, ultimately, needs to have a benefit and, maybe most importantly, a benefit to people in some way. I point this out because it is this combination, or equation, that equates to contribution.

Look. The fundamentals of effective management are pretty much the same everywhere.

But this ‘possibilities & pragmatism management’ thing I am discussing takes some commitment. It doesn’t take being a psychologist you just have to be committed to managing the individual ‘believe’ gauge. And this means being committed to both stripping away some unnecessary <or risky> belief and bolting on some belief where needed.

Unfortunately this can sometimes take a fine subtle touch … and most of us everyday manager schmucks aren’t always subtle. Nor are we particularly talented at balancing both possibilities & pragmatism.

I imagine I wrote this not to offer any “how to” guide to anyone. I wrote it because I just faced it and thought about it.

In one day I had to ponder the talented more senior sales person almost blinded with belief charging ahead <not particularly aligned with what the company thought was best practice> and an extremely talented younger person threaded with the burden of nonbelief.

In one day I had to ponder how to deftly encourage a little less blind belief and thrust some belief upon another.

And that is most likely a typical day for a manager.

I didn’t care about personality type.

I didn’t confer with any HR people.

I didn’t go online searching for ‘communications techniques.’

I didn’t do so not because I didn’t want to … but because managers mostly don’t have time for that shit.

You gotta deal with what is in front of you and get shit done and get the best out of your employees.

My last point.

For all the talk of technology, algorithms and ‘digital transformation’, technology cannot make someone believe or non believe, only people can.

Period.

Believing and non believing management.

Possibilities and pragmatism management.

Kind of two sides of the same management coin.

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

“Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.”
―

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

Well. I admit. I get in trouble with some of the ‘radical transparency people sometimes because I hesitate to agree that the most effective organization is an organization in which everyone knows everything.

Yes. I do believe every person is capable of leadership.

Yes. I believe every person actually does lead (contextually & situationally).

Yes. I believe if you want to encourage individual leadership within decision making you should, and have to, be as transparent from a leadership perspective as possible.

No. I do not believe you tell everyone everything.

Yes. This is where i get sideways with a lot people.

Here is a truth that many people do not like to hear.

This may sound obvious, but leaders do not always tell the truth.

This may not sound obvious, but leaders do this on purpose because not always telling the truth is sometimes, truthfully, the best & right thing to do. This leader can be in business or in the government or, frankly, any situation.

Now. I am not suggesting they always lie nor am I suggesting they do not know what the truth is <or how to tell it>, but I am suggesting that there are times & situations that we, the everyday schmuck, shouldn’t hear the truth.

Therein lies a leader’s uncomfortable relationship with truth and truth telling.

Leaders are often demanded to manage the narrative <not control it>.

Managing the narrative can be based on a variety of solid rationale points which may piss us every day schmucks off later on <when we inevitably learn the whole truth>, but within the context of how and what is happening the leader has actually done the right, and best, thing by not telling the whole truth.

Sorry.

That is the truth.

Look. Leaders have a shitload of responsibilities, but let me highlight two with regard to truth and truth telling:

– All people.

You lead all people not just one group or one department. You end up being very careful in what words you decide to attach to whatever you want to talk about.

No. This is not political correctness.

This is managing the overall effectiveness of the larger group. If a word, or group of words, disenfranchises a group from the rest of the organization or greater whole not only does the whole suffer but the smaller group can receive undeserved negativity.

All people.

The burden of responsibility that a leader bears is to all, not just parts of all.

– Moderation.

This may seem counter intuitive, but leaders spend much much more time tamping down excitement <to make it realistic> and tamping out fear <to make it less debilitating> then they do creating energy and ferve.

That doesn’t mean that they do not inspire the masses … just that the majority of their relationship with those they lead is more about rational and not emotional – the responsibility to temper emotions and emotional responses.
Moderation.

The burden of responsibility that a leader bears is to mitigate emotional responses.

So. These are responsibilities.

These are actually reflective of behavior intended for the greater good and not to hide something or any nefarious reason. It is solely in the best interest of the greater whole. And, yes, while we everyday schmucks bitch & moan about no one should be making decisions for us or a desire <or right> to being part of the decision … we really do not.

Mostly because while we all think we can be a leader … 99% of us cannot.

To be clear. The obligation to tell the truth is heightened depending on what one is proposing, yet, it always gets balanced by the obligation for the greater good. This is the truth telling balancing act, a high wire act most of the time, every leader walks — every day.

Which leads me to wanting to share a couple more truths. Uncomfortable truths.

Truth 1. Sometimes a leader gets it wrong.

Good intentions or not sometimes what you didn’t say, or even what you did say, will come back and bite you in the ass. And there isn’t shit you can do to explain why you did what you did. People tell you how to do your job. People call you a liar. People call you stupid. People call & tell you … well … a shitload of things that make you feel like shit.

But you know what? You are a leader. You forge on and do better the next time.

But. Let me be clear. Just because you get it wrong doesn’t mean you will automatically tell the whole truth every time from that point on. Leaders always … always … look at what they say in a contextual fashion. I will not tell the whole truth if emotions are running high and will incense to a state of irrational behavior. I will not tell the whole truth if it will drive further despair <when hope is needed>.

Truth 2. Even when you get it right … you can never tell anyone why you did it.

You can’t tell people that emotion makes rational people irrational and “I didn’t tell you everything so that emotions could ease”. I stubbornly didn’t say something, agree with something or use a particular word or phrase because, well, I wasn’t sure you would attack some other group of people <take out your emotions on someone>.

You are a leader. You carry the burden of what you did and take solace in the positive outcomes when you do get it right.

That’s it. This topic has been on my mind for quite some time.

Mostly because I believe we should think about this more often as we view our leaders <and see the uncomfortable amount of shit that our leaders get piled on them>. Partially because I believe in an autonomous democratized decision making organization model. Totally because business mostly exists in a hierarchy model and for the most part we need to manage the existence in which we live in.

Now. This is certainly not written to applaud lying. I do not condone blatant lying. But I do believe there is a time and a place to not tell the whole truth.

That is the burden a leader bears.

Now. Far far too many people think they either are a leader, as smart as a leader or could be a leader.

Harsh truth? The majority of people cannot be a <good> leader. And. Not everyone can or should become a leader.

It takes a certain type of skill, lots of character & courage and … well … the ability to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. Sometimes what needs to be said is the whole truth and sometimes what needs to be said is selective truth.

This is the uncomfortable truth leaders know as … well … truth.

I imagine some o the thoughts I shared today will make some people uncomfortable let alone vehemently disagree with. That’s okay. All I ever ask is you think about it and maybe see this as an uncomfortable truth.

===

another thing I wrote about the Burden of Leadership

===

==

“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.

====

“Was this not what you wanted?”

—

remnant-thoughts

===

I saw this quote/question posted on tumblr site and I had to stop and think. And, ultimately, the phrase got stuck in my head like a bad 70’s song with a catchy beat. Ok. Even worse than a bad song I associate this phrase with a typical incredibly stomach churning feeling. The words “was this not what you wanted?” more often than not creates an angst driven internal churning. Needless to say … not many good feelings get tied to this phrase.

That said. My thoughts crisscrossed between business and Life.

This is the business version of “was this not what you wanted?”

Ok. I don’t care if you are just starting out in business and are sitting in your manager’s office handing them something or you are the most senior of senior managers, if you are faced with a situation where you find the words “was this not what you wanted?” coming out of your mouth it is, well, not good. It generates a sinking feeling which is a combination of real tangible <I wasted my time and will now have to work on this more> and real intangible <I didn’t meet expectations>.

This all may sound oddly surprisingly – the fact that doing what someone wants is a perilous path in business. You would think that following orders could never be perilous. But, yet, it indeed often is.

First. The main peril resides in the fact many people do not really know what they want <hence the stunningly tortuous “I will know it when I see it”>.

Secondly. Sometimes, well, the initial ‘here is what I want’ is very wrong, in fact, sometimes even frightfully wrong. And I say that on even the most basic tasks you are tasked with. Managers are humans too <although they sometimes act like aliens> and many times they unthinkingly <or less than thinkingly> want some specific task checked off a to do list and set you off on your merry way to ‘do what I want you to do.”

Now. All that said. It would be incredibly easy for me to suggest that giving people what they want is a business career destined for failure. I will not. And I cannot.

Consistent delivery at work is most likely the most valued attribute an employee can offer. Without it you provide less tangible value as well as maybe the most important failure – your manager has less trust and therefore knows they have to invest more energy & focus on you. That is the kiss of death for an employee.

While doing what is wanted taskwise can be a surprisingly movable target, if you can master it, you become an extremely valuable employee or business partner. Yeah. Valuable <do not ever completely commoditize or devalue the importance of consistency>. However. Consistent delivery can also be a negative to an employee <insert a mental “yikes” here>. That is because it does have a nasty habit of nearing ‘commodity-like’ behavior. The implication being “anyone can do that.” And while that is more often than not a wrong perception, it is a perception nonetheless. What all this means in what I just shared is this is a very very fine line you walk – doing what is wanted consistently and, yet, avoiding the horrible ‘was this not what you wanted’ scenario.

There is a bunch of advice, some good and some bad, with regard to how to avoid the ‘was this not what you wanted’ scenario, but that’s not really the point. The point is, no matter how good the advice, you are stuck in the wretched hollow in between need and want. And in that wretched hollow you are guessing. You have received specific direction on what is wanted tangibly <uh oh … is that just the ‘basic delivery’ – and I want more – or is this the ‘desired actual delivery’?> in addition you have most likely also received some open ended “don’t just do … I want you to think about what you are doing” thereby creating some nebulous ‘want’ objective.

To be clear on the latter. Some managers cop out on that by saying “I didn’t need you to think on this one I just needed you to do what I told you to do on this.” It is a cop out. And if they are honest with themselves, it is a lie. If you have said once, at any time and any place and within any project scenario, “I want you to think an offer some additional thinking” that creates an unsaid halo over everything else that comes after. And, frankly, managers grab this halo and shove it in your face whenever they choose.

Anyway. Unlike in Life <where this can be fairly resolvable because it is internally driven discussion> in business this is not resolvable despite what experts may suggest. There will always be a wretched hollow in between need & want. In business terms that is most likely called “added value.” In business you are constantly navigating value provided. And that value is always partially need and partially want driven.

What I can tell you unequivocally if all you do is give someone what they ‘want’, more often than not you will end up far too frequently delivering stupid shit that doesn’t help the situation. It would be simplistic to suggest that success in business resides solely in giving others the things they need, and not the things they want because, as noted earlier, business truth typically lies somewhere in between.

—-

“Don’t give them what you think they want.

Give them what they never thought was possible.”

Orson Welles

—

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. Most of the time business people don’t know what they want. And while that may sound like they are stupid, it is not driven <most of the time> by stupidity. It is more often than not driven by an inherent belief that everything can be better. It is also driven by an inherent belief that ‘better’ is something they have either not thought of or have not had time t think of <hence the desire to have you think because somehow you have the time to think when they don’t>.

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. This is because … well … there is a bigger picture and a smaller picture. Some business people have a grasp of the bigger vision but are sketchy on the details of how to attain the bigger picture. Some business people have a grasp of the littler vision but are sketchy on how to attain the more nebulous panoramic bigger picture.

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. That is because most business people are not particularly good at navigating big and small at the same time. and by “most” I mean junior, middle and senior business people.

This is not to suggest you should simply accept “was this not what you wanted?” as standard operating procedure. This is also not to suggest that you shouldn’t feel the sinking feeling every time you say it in business <because that feeling NEVER goes away … and I kinda think it shouldn’t because it is a reflection of meeting expectations which is a good measure for a good business relationship as well as personal assessment>.

This is to suggest the phrase is a reflection of the constant line you walk between the head and the wallet in business. I will also suggest that walking the fine line between need and want, sometimes this is the line between strategy <future value> and execution <present value>, means you are constantly teetering between good performance and bad performance.

And that is, frankly, harrowing. It is harrowing not just personally, but in the larger picture. You cannot have a long term strategy without delivering on a short term strategy. And you cannot be successful long term if all you do is deliver day in and day out focused on a short term strategy. This is true of a larger business as well as personal career.

I do not have any simple trite expert advice to offer today <unlike some of the tripe you will find online from so called experts>. Personally I have always focused on “what they need” without sacrificing “what they want”. I feel I can do so because in my experience most business people rarely are 100% wrong in stating what they want because most times they know more than I do about what they are in the business of doing.

Even that said, I have sat in hundreds of offices and businesses and said “was this not what you wanted?” — painfully I may add. I may have figured out a way to say it differently but in the end it is all just the same.

And it sucks. But its gonna happen.

—

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

=

Charles Darwin

—————————-

Survival. A topic we all care about. This quote should make everyone think about Life as well as with their business. I love this quote mostly because those with ‘brawn’ scoff at those with ‘brains’, and the ‘brains’ scoff at the ‘brawn’, when survival (and that doesn’t have to mean life & death, but rather success or failure) is being played out.

Regardless of the side someone is on, both brawn & brain believe they have the advantage regardless of the situation in terms of survival. But. Chuck (as Darwin was called to his closest friends) suggests you don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer nor do you have to be the strongest tool in the drawer to survive. You just have to be flexible. Responsive to what is happening. Have a willingness to adapt to the situation.

Flexibility is certainly an advantage if you have the desire to succeed at anything you do (ask any coach). We all face times when we have to deal with situations that do not “fit in” to our routine or our ‘comfort zone.’ I say “tough noogies” (not sure exactly what that means, but I bet you get the point).

Adapt or die.

Just ponder. One of the most frustrating things in life is when you have done your best and yet things still go wrong. Or maybe you didn’t get to where you wanted to get to (what you were ultimately aiming for).

You have to be flexible.

You have to adapt.

You have to have the ability to fit into a changed situation … or … to modify your behavior & actions accordingly to fit the changed situation.

And if you don’t? If instead you stubbornly hold on to some things that don’t work, and stubbornly repeat mistakes (because it matches best practices or “what worked in that past“) this inflexibility will cause failure (or simply not reaching what it is you were aiming for which is a derivative of some type of failure). By the way, in other words, continuous behavior along those lines means you will not survive.

Ultimately you have to decide to do things differently to experience different results.

Easy? Nope. It can be uncomfortable. It can be emotionally draining.

We know that when we are asked to change again and again, the physical and psychological reaction, which is actually excessive stimulation to the system, puts our ability to adapt under massive strain. All the change produces stress and carries with it a physical and emotional price tag. The more radical the change — the bigger the price tag.

Excessive stimulation has at least three levels: sensory, cognitive and decisional. To help us function <or survive>, each of us has developed strategies, or destimulation tactics, to lower the level of stimulation when we feel uncomfortably close to the limits of our adaptive range. We use these tactics every day, often unconsciously. Yet. By becoming conscious of them we can increase their effectiveness. By examining our own responses to overstimulation we can learn ways of consciously influencing change. We can begin by influencing small events, then expand our influence to larger patterns of experience. All these mental tactics are designed to detach from the shit … and rise above all that you are today so that you can be the best you can be tomorrow.

To do all of this you need to be aware. You need to not only be prepared to recognize when change needs to occur (typically there is a threshold on where you need to stop fighting the change or risk falling so far behind you cannot catch up or just be ‘eliminated’ at that time … oh … that survival thing) but you also need to be ready to change.

Look. Everyone has the capability to change. In fact I have a nifty chart which shows how most people accept & accommodate change.

Its pretty simple but shows that we need to work through the different levels of response to effect change. I would imagine there are several points to be made but here are the two from me:

–          you learn as you move through each phase at each point actually changing how you think about future problems/challenges to further change

–          you can get stuck anywhere in any phase at any time (the nifty chart actually helps show how easy it is to NOT change because you get stuck somewhere).

So. As change is introduced to you & your life you are forced through all four levels. I would imagine the most important thought would be to attain the fourth level as quickly as possible.

Anyway. Survival, and change, pretty much always depends on the most basic first step – believe that you are able to make the changes.  And take the first step.

Without that? You have the thought, but no action.

And the result of no action? Lack of survival again.

All that said. I tend to believe a lot of people will read the Darwin quote and seek to find meaning within ‘survival of the fittest’ bigger picture. I have some strange advice (coming from me).

Think small.

Think day-to-day.

Think “me.”

Think that survival is about adapting to the environment around you.

Think adapting means “initiating a new order of <personal> things ….”

—

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.

For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only luke-warm defenders in all those who profit by the new order.

This luke-warmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had an actual experience of it”.

Machiavelli

=

Bottom line.

Always think about how can you adapt.

By the way, I am not suggesting (and I believe Chuck Darwin wasn’t either) 100% change to adapt (although some situations demand it). Successful change typically begins by pinpointing anchors of stability (one you either have or can develop) which help to make the transition change not only viable, but more likely successful for you.

Regardless. Make change your constant companion and friend.

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

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

—

TS Eliot

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

“Do I dare disturb the universe?”

–

TS Eliot

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

Both lines above come from TS Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In the 130 line poem Eliot explores Life from the depths of the ocean floor where one scrabbles out a living on ragged claws to the heights of the universe and the immensity of Life that resides in between.

Uhm. Okay. At least that is what I see and think when I read it.

Unfortunately <or fortunately> I am no literary expert and therefore do not have the ability to tear his writing apart evaluating what they call ‘literary allusion’ <… pulling from Donne, Dante, Shakespeare and Marvel to Chaucer, Hesiod and the Bible. A reader has to take these allusions on board to get the most out of his poems, though on the surface they are fairly accessible>.

Therefore. I can only tell you what I think after I read it. That must mean ‘what is on the surface’ is what I imagine the experts would suggest I am doing. So take what I share with a grain of salt.

Ok. I admit that TS Eliot poems tend to make me think — stark language steeped with cynicism and a hint of urgency driven by desperation, but always with an introspective look at Life.

This poem is about a person’s desperation that time in Life is running out and he hasn’t made his mark on the world.

I believe most of us have an ongoing thread of ‘am I being meaningful’ in Life. It is ongoing from the time we begin wondering what we will do in Life through the moment we step out of school and into the real world and continues as we do what we need to do day in and day out to survive and be the best we can within the circumstances we exist in.

But. I do tend to believe with age we begin to obsess a little more over the whole idea of ‘being meaningful.’

That is what the poem makes me think about. A man looking back on his Life, and at his life, and desperately assessing what could have been.

In my pea like brain the whole idea centers on adequacy.

Adequacy: Equal to what is required or expected but not exceeding it by much. Adequate is suitable to the case or occasion. Nothing to rave about but meets what is needed.

I purposefully chose adequate to share my thoughts because it suggests we have what it takes to do what we need to do in Life, yet, is adequate enough?

Most of us muddle through Life with small glimpses of something bigger. Maybe it is slightly beyond our grasp for some reason we cannot truly understand, but the glimpse remains etched in our minds in such a way we tend to come back to it again and again in our thoughts.

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

Is this what we fear as we ponder our lives?

That Death mocks us as it awaits our arrival?

The arrival could be years away … but it can be seen mocking even from afar. I imagine the thought behind the mocking is found within us in that I was afraid I was not good enough, did enough or been enough of what I could have been. The thought I wasn’t adequate to be anything more than what I was.

There is a self-consciousness with constant introspection and anxiety about mortality and fragility of ‘doing something’ in life.

The poem digs deep into a self reflected desperation, which I don’t see as all consuming, but rather a moment of deep thought. A thought so deep that Life begins to become overcome with feelings of self-consciousness and regret and echoes of a hundred indecisions and a hundred visions and revisions.

The hundreds bombarding you in that one moment.

Luckily we tend to shed these moments well and move on. When we don’t we tend to be haunted.

Are we haunted by the Life led?

Or by the Life which we never led?

Regardless we are haunted. This kind of soul searching for meaning is often simply seeking a richer association with Life than simply scrabbling with ragged claws. And in that search and introspection of adequacy we often seem to dare to peek at unimaginable heights. The heights which we are uncertain we are adequate enough to not only explore but to survive and prosper.

Which leads to my favorite part of the poem.

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate,

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

 In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

 And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Do I dare?

Do I dare to walk among the disdain I expect from the people who talk of Michelangelo?

Am I good enough to accept that I will have my time just as you have yours?

Am I only adequate to use ragged claws to survive the day to day depths of life?

Am I adequate enough to actually dare to do, and be, more .. to actually disturb the universe?

And then there is the immensity of Life that resides somewhere in between.

I tend to believe while we do not dwell on these types of questions most of us ask them of ourselves at one time or another.

Ok. I will admit. It is poems like this that one ponders whether they have made a mark in the world.

Have they done something meaningful or maybe more importantly … ‘am I meaningful.’ And I don’t mean to people <because someone always cares about you> … I mean meaningful to something bigger … Life.

It is only the arrogant who say ‘yes I have.’

The majority of us just wonder.

And there is a discomfort in not knowing.

Discomfort in not knowing if you have not only been adequate or whether you would have been adequate doing more.

Discomfort in not really knowing how ‘big’ we could be.

Discomfort in the belief that our ‘adequate’ made us little.

Discomfort in not really knowing if you could have been better … done better … and made a better difference.

In the end. I gotta tell ya. Having a tombstone read “he dared disturb the universe” would be quite a legacy.

Anyway.

To close. A thought from Marianne Williamson which seems to tie well with the poem.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

Dare to disturb the universe.

——–

To read the entire poem.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock – T.S. Eliot:    http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/eliot02.html

==========

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

—-

Clotilde Hesme

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

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

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

—–

John Maeda

=========

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

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

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

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

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

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

So let’s talk about organizational exhaustion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• I had to be consistent.

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

Words surely matter.

Setting expectations surely matter.

Actions surely matter.

But consistency matters above all.

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

• Keep some strong threads of consistency.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look.

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

But that is also not sustainable.

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

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

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

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

My main point?

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

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

Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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