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songgaar means “go back” or “the future” in the tuvan language.

burungaar means “go forward” or “the past” in the tuvan langaue.

<Tuvan words>

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

Yes.

I typed that correctly.

Tuvans believe the past is ahead of them while the future lies behind. The thought? They constantly look to the future, but it’s behind them … not yet seen.

To most of us this is confusing. Aw shit. Thinking about the past, present and future is confusing anyway.

We are told to not live in the past.

We are told to learn from the past.

We are told to treat the present, each moment, like it is the last.

We are told to plan for the future.

We save money for future needs while sacrificing some present needs <or wants>. We look to the past with an eye toward how we could improve ourselves in the future while doing things in the present that will inevitably confuse people around us, most likely have a number of people be hesitant to accept whatever changes we are attempting to sincerely attempt and ultimately make us unhappy, in some form or fashion, with ourselves in the present.

Well.

Now that I have typed that, frankly, I am not sure that we are ever going to be happy attempting to do all that we are supposed to do with regard to the past, present and future. Heck. I am not sure if I am being selfish focusing on the present, dumb for ignoring the past and irresponsible for not investing my energy planning for the future.

In addition, I fear that while I had a thought in the present by the time I typed it I had stepped into the future and the thought remained in the past.

<my head hurts>

Ok.

I do not know any Tuvans <the Republic of Tuva is located in southern Siberia on the edge of Mongolia>.  So they can probably truly explain the thought. My attempt will be, well, mine.

I like the concept of what they believe. I imagine, unlike many of us, the future to them doesn’t have all the trappings of ‘better’ and ‘more’ and ‘personal improvement.’  I would guess in the present they don’t seek motivation or clear off time to meditate nor wonder what the meaning of happiness is. I hesitate to say that their view of life is simpler because it implies we have a more complicated life. And we do not. Nope. We only make it so by worrying about status and how other people view us and what our title is and what type of car we drive or, absurdy, whether we are happy or not. Oh. And retirement. I imagine they don’t worry about planning for their retirement.

Anyway. Maybe their lives are more focused on the present and doing the best that they can within some frame of time they call “now” <which may not be a speck of time but rather a longer living moment>. It permits them to say that their future needs, yes, needs to contain elements of the past to align who & what they are. In addition, it seems they think by focusing too much on the future they are, well, sliding backwards.

Now. There is a thought, huh? Investing energy, or too much of it, on ‘future thinking’ could possibly be detrimental to moving forward?

Wow. Love it.

Ok. Here is a thought.

Most of us are smarter than we think. Not maybe in terms of sheer brain power but rather with regard to “making decisions in the present that will benefit us in the future.” We spend so much time planning for the future and assessing decisions yet to be made that all that time <which I would suggest could be called ‘the present’> just slip on by. In general, I tend to believe most of us know how to assess ‘now decisions’ and their possible effect on our future <within an acceptable margin of error>. That doesn’t mean we will always make the right decision. In addition some of us may get suckered into making similar wrong decisions more often than others <not having had that statistics class that taught us that each decision is mutually exclusive therefore the odds do not increase in your favor as time goes on>. Time teaches you that <by the way … that is called ‘the past”>.

Well. That was complicated.

So try this. To move forward you must look to the past.

Simple as that. No more. No less.

Chew on that thought.

Ok.

About Tuva.

The Republic of Tuva is the former Tannu Tuva, a country in south Siberia first annexed by Russia in 1914 and then absorbed by the former USSR in 1944. Tuva extends from the coniferous forests of the taiga in the north to the rolling steppe of the south. 82% of the lands of the country is hilly and the rest 18% are covered with savannas. Tuva has a lot of variety within its geography containing grassy meadows, boundless steppe, medicinal springs, beautiful lakes, mountain rivers fed in spring by melting snows, dusty semi-deserts and snowy chains of mountains. Tuva is near the geographic center of Asia and Tuvans are historically nomadic herders, moving their aal—an encampment of yurts—and their sheep and cows and reindeer from pasture to pasture as the seasons progress.

Regardless.

When I saw these two words I wanted to share. Interesting how different cultures view different aspects of the past & future. More importantly, maybe we can learn something from their view.

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

“The burning space between one letter and the next …”

–

Edmund Jabes

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

Well.

I don’t know why but I am always a little surprised when I am reminded that really small changes can make monumental differences. Nowhere are we reminded more clearly than in languages and words where one letter can make a big difference.

Makbul  is “the Favorite.”

Maktul is the Executed.”

<makbul and maktul is of Arabic origin and is Turkish>.

I discovered this example in a fabulous book by Roger Crowley on the siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto called Contest for the Center of the World <Ottomans & Christians in late 1500’s>.

Makbul Ibrahim Pasha (“the Favorite”), which later changed into Maktul Ibrahim Pasha (“the Executed”) after his execution in the Topkapı Palace, was the first Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire appointed by Suleiman the Magnificent.

Which makes me think about morality and mortality.

And wield and yield.

Exercising authority or influencing versus giving up or relinquishing.

Regardless.

I call it the burning space between one letter and the next. An incredibly small space which can burn with meaning … in Life <and business>.

Now.

I know I am misusing the quote to make a point today.

Ok. Well. I’m kind of misusing it.

Edmund Jabes used the quote in the Book of Questions <a meditative narrative of Jewish Experience and man’s relation to the world> and, if you like thinking, this is your kind of book. However. If you want answers look elsewhere, this book is solely about questions. It is solely about the quest for answers and offering few answers. I like that because the quest for answers is often found in something so small, something so seemingly inconsequential, it can be overlooked. Something like, well, a letter.

“nothing that small could have been the cause of that.”

Ah. One letter.

The favorite … the executed.

I imagine this thought of the importance of one letter can make you ask a lot of questions where the answers are monumental in comparison to the one letter. Interestingly, meanings are monumental in the scheme of things so it should feel bigger than one letter.

Suffice it to say, truth can be found in the empty space as one letter deconstructs an entire thought and meaning only to be reconstructed as something entirely new with the addition of a new letter.

On such a fine line … small change … many things hang in balance.

It is a reminder of many things. We often think of the difference between doing what is right … and wrong … as a deep clear cut crevasse. Well … often it is not. Often that crevasse is simply a faintly drawn line in the dirt which you could step over blindfolded. And yet … on the difference … that faint line … that inconsequential letter … hangs the balance of something big.

On such small things … a small gesture … a small decision … such things like morality and mortality hang.

The favorite and the executed.

Within the burning space between letters resides the fate of many things.

It is that small critical moment when the road taken can lead to somewhere completely unforeseen.

Life can turn on such a small thing. Aggravatingly so. I say aggravatingly … because we want the big things to be foreshadowed by some big consequential moment or decision or whatever. Yet, the balance of Life often resides in that burning space between the letters.

The seemingly inconsequential moment where one letter is replaced by another.

And business? Well. I know I am guilty of forgetting this in the business world. You seek answers in big consequential moments and decisions … seeking epiphanies in big words, big decisions and big, or lack of, ideas. And yet too often the answers reside in the seemingly inconsequential small space, small words, small decisions or seemingly small ideas.

Makbul.

Maktul.

The favorite.

The executed.

Morality.

Mortality.

One letter.

In such inconsequential things life can turn.

In such inconsequential things, well, are often the echoes in eternity.

Kind of makes you think there is nothing inconsequential, no?

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“It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.”

–

Carl von Clausewitz

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“Don’t die hesitating.”

–

Unknown

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

Ok.

‘More people die hesitating’ is a metaphor <I think>. But I like it. Hesitation is pretty much the bane of everyone’s existence. We hesitate in Life and we hesitate in business. Surprisingly, more often than not, our hesitation is actually a reflection of calculation than it is any real fear of action.

Yup.

We think too much.

We more often than not hesitate to assess, calculate our next move and ‘be smarter’ as we move forward.

Unfortunately that hesitation also means we become a sitting duck for Life to shoot us where we stand. This is a corollary to “if you are stationary, you will not survive.” Its a corollary because that quote mostly refers to stagnancy and , in this case, this is simply non movement moments in a typically moving frame of reference. What this means is if someone is paying attention and you hesitate, they can kill you. Or. If you hesitate in the midst of chaotic movement you may get smashed by some other object simply because you didn’t shift out of its way.

Anyway.

Life, and business, is fairly consistent with regard to how it allocates Time to us. It places shit in front of us … moment after moment … minute by minute … hour by hour … and says “decide.” This means time is allocated with something within it not ‘nothing.’

What that means is there is rarely any space allocated for hesitation. In other words, there is rarely time for hesitation.

Regardless of whether you look at life as short … or as long as how much stuff you fill it with … you are demanded to use Life as well as you can and more often than not you are penalized if you hesitate.

Whew. When I read what I just wrote I am tempted to conclude we should not hesitate … like … EVER.

I start leaning even more in that direction of thought because I tend to believe if you look upon your Life and find reasons why you may not be where you want to be, besides some general incompetence, you will most likely find a time & place where you hesitated. But we shouldn’t conclude that because hesitation in exactly the right moment can actually save you from making some misstep or mistake.

What I will say is hesitation trips you up all the time <and sometimes in some very stealthy sneaky ways>. Hesitation is always standing nearby waiting to give you a gift that keeps giving … and most likely a gift you didn’t ask for nor want.

Here is the reality.

Sometimes you shouldn’t pause and think in general.

Sometimes you shouldn’t pause and think, specifically, … “maybe I should not do this because …”

 Sometimes you just gotta go … whether you are ready or not.

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“You’re never going to be 100% ready and it’s never going to be just the right time, but that’s the point.  It means that every moment is also the right moment.  If you want it, you just have to do it.”

Zoeerose

====

All moments offer an opportunity to hesitate.

All moments offer an opportunity to judge yourself poorly or judge your ‘odds’ poorly.

All moments remind you that nothing is ever perfect in Life and Life actually demands you take imperfect scenarios and constantly make imperfect decisions & choices.

===

I was dying to

hear

someone say

That I didn’t need

to try so hard to be perfect,

That I was enough

and

it was okay”

—

Kuffr

===

I imagine I agree that, metaphorically, more people die … their dreams, their aspirations, their ‘good things they deserve’ … because of hesitation than anything else.

I imagine I think the root of most hesitation, beyond true thoughtfulness, is assessment of preparedness … and in general … we suck at that assessment <we seek as often as possible to get as close to perfection – to limit risk – prior to moving on>.

I imagine I should just close by saying that, generally, hesitation is dangerous.

It could kill you.

It could kill your dreams.

It could kill what could be.

But.

Here is the good news.

With the sheer number of possible decisions & choices Life throws at you every day you will have an opportunity to not hesitate in the very near future <assuming, of course, your last hesitation didn’t kill you>.

What I can tell you is that you should hesitate with care because hesitation, more often than not, may not actually kill you but will kill something that matters to you (what you want, a dream, hope, progress, etc.).

=====

Q: Who hurt you?

——

    A:     My expectations

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“I’ve survived a lot of things, and I’ll probably survive this.”

—–

J.D. Salinger

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

So.

Seek and you will find may be one of the most misleading sayings of all time.

<I say this with apologies to Matthew who said in the bible … “ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” … in other words .. God can always be found, but must be sought out>

Except for faith, seeking doesn’t guarantee you will find shit. That is not to say there isn’t beauty in the seeking. Seeking is actually like a free ticket on a rollercoaster ride of thoughts. Every day you step onto the rollercoaster where it is an entirely new ride with an entirely new thrill with new heights and ups, downs, overs and unders. Whether you consider this a thrill or not <or simply ‘angst’> you also encounter the thrill of losing, finding, uncovering, discovering as well as expectations met and unmet. Yet, I would like to note, 99.999% of the time you survive the rollercoaster and get up the next day and get on again.

Seeking, in and of itself, can be maddeningly exhilarating and disappointing.

I have always believed you should not only surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and thinkers, but you should also surround yourself with dreams and doing and believing and thinking. But, as a seeker myself, suffice it to say, I have screwed myself over many more times than anyone else ever has or will <if I were to judge myself on the ‘find’ aspect>. I try and find some solace in the discovery scientific research suggests that seeking something actually more often translates into not finding.

Holy shit.That sucks.

This means the more we search for something, the more likely we are to NOT find it. No wonder ‘seek and you shall find’ is a bullshit piece of advice. This actually means seeking, in some form or fashion, may stand in the way of our discovering the truth <ponder that for a second>.

Why could that be? Well. Seeking has some goal in mind. Seeking has something it wants to find. But maybe most importantly … seeking is more often than not rooted in some expectations. And these expectations create some tensions which inevitably hurt you <although they are mostly survivable>. Life typically creates several bars of expectations we all have to navigate as we seek not only answers but being the best version of ourselves.

There are societal expectations. These are most usually absurdly high expectations of which few actually attain. And even if attainable are not attainable on any consistent basis. Therefore, even if you do attain it most likely is a brief glimpse of ‘meeting some absurd expectation which makes me feel fucking great if but only for a moment or two.’

There are personal expectations. Surprisingly these are actually more realistic expectations. Most of us know who and what we are and, in general, know what we are capable of. We set some expectations which are ‘high’ <because we all like to reach and grow and be better tomorrow than we are today> but they are not as absurdly high as the societal expectations. The good news? We attain these on occasion. And we feel pretty good about it <assuming we ignore the absurd societal expectations … and people permit us to ignore the societal expectations>.

There are, well, reality expectations. Reality is reality. Reality ignores what you wish and what you want and simply says “in this time & place this is what is attainable.” Basically reality doesn’t give a shit about what you want or how you set your expectations or even acknowledges any society bullshit … it just is what it is.

By the way we far too often ignore this last one.

Regardless. Expectations are a real sonuvabitch. But if you agree with what I just wrote they are a multi dimensional sonuvabitch. Trying to align these three things in your head is really difficult. Your brain ends up in a weird three way tug of war where truly the only thing that happens is it hurts.

Look.

I am a seeker. I seek information and knowledge and learning in an insatiable quest for more. And maybe because my greater expectation resides solely in ‘more’ I really am not hurt that often in any expectation game. What I mean by that is ‘see and you shall find’ implies … well … some destination … some specific ‘thing to be found.’ With ‘more’ as my destination … well … I have no specific destination.

Aw, shit, what a bunch of philosophical mumbo jumbo bullshit that looks like when I reread it.

Let’s just say expectations are a sonuvabitch. Period. Expectations most likely create more personal pain & angst than anything I can think of off the type of my head. That said. Expectations, most often, are survivable.

Aw shit, what do I know?

Well. Probably not much more tan what I have shared. But I would suggest that in the end your soul, the essence of your character and who and what you are, has the ability to see the subtle beautiful triumphs over expectations that the eyes often miss. So maybe close your eyes on occasion … maybe then you will see how what you simply saw as ‘survive’ was actually a triumph over expectations.

Please note … that is a good thing.

===

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly.

It’s your masterpiece after all.”

Nathan W. Morris

====

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“We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality.”

—-

Kenneth E. Boulding

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

So.

This is the partner piece to “Numbers are losing their Mojo.”

It is the partner piece because, while numbers are losing their mojo, more and more people in business are substituting data for traditional numbers and want data to make their decision for them.

Yes. I could point to the overwhelming amount of data <numbers> now being cranked out as the reason why this issue is reaching a business crisis level but I will not. The truth is that all big data does is amplify the situation – more and more business people suck at making decisions, suck at assuming personal responsibility for decisions and suck at thinking thru the true meaning of the numbers available to them <as a version of what I said yesterday — suck at seeing the real shadows of the numbers>.

Just as the fact we need to get our shit together with regard to telling the stories that numbers truly tell us <rather than do shit guided by ‘instinct’ and ‘what we feel’> we need to get our shit together with regard to how we use numbers & data to INFORM decisions and not MAKE decisions.

(note: this argument used to be “research should be used to INFORM decisions and not MAKE decisions”)

This discussion gains importance because in today’s world it isn’t just ‘big data’ but it is analyzing research, spreadsheets, hell, just the sheer # of everyday numbers that overwhelm you in the everyday standard operating procedures in business.

We need to be teaching that not all 2’s are created equal <not all numbers are created equal> and that even though a number may be big, or even small, just counting it doesn’t mean it counts. We need to be teaching young business people that what counts is what the numbers say … as in ‘what do they express’.

Here is the truth about numbers.

Numbers, data & research more often than not, are simply directional signs toward truth … but rarely do they tell the truth in their simplicity. Okay. They rarely tell the whole truth. And they never are a substitute for judgement.

I sometimes fear on occasion we are crafting a generation of business people who view numbers as the answer for everything.

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

“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.”  

David Ogilvy

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

To be fair, this is not the younger generation’s problem, it is more a leadership & management issue.

We absolutely have reached a point in business, in particular within organizations of any critical size, where risk is a swear word. And even if you take the risk you are putting your job on the line. With all that hanging over heads you do grab onto a lamp post whenever you can spot one.

And, let’s face it; numbers are strewn throughout whatever street you decide to walk upon so, if needed, one is always available to show to explain your decision.

It is up to older managers to teach the nuances and how to use numbers to inform the final judgements.

But it is quite possible we could live with this if this is all that was happening.

The other thing that should strike fear into the hearts of businesses is how older managers, overwhelmed with all the ‘big data’ available and younger people  who easily rummage through all the data available combine to, with mostly good intentions, seek numbers to find out what to do next.

They do not translate what the numbers mean but use actual numbers as directional signs on where to go next.

This is dangerous.

Now. Someone will say “no, it is not dangerous, as long as you know the objective.”  ”Wrong” is what I would say back. For them to be right they have to assume that the best path toward the objective is the straightest line possible.

Well.

If I am a commodity product or service or maybe even the lowest price product or service <and, remember, there can only be one lowest price in any category> this could possibly be true, however, if “value” enters into any discussion with regard to what you are doing or what you are selling … the straightest path may not be what you want … or need.

To be clear. What I just typed … what I just shared … rarely is discussed in today’s business world. Why? Well … first … anything that suggests “not fast” or “not optimal speed” suggests ‘less than efficient’ which in today’s world is “bad.”

<or “sad”>

Second … to discuss value in this way sounds … uhm … complex or complicated … and if there are two words that could be construed as swear words in today’s business world it would be those two. simplicity, at the expense of anything and everything else, is the go-to place for a shitload of business people and , in particular, business people who would like numbers to tell them what to do.

Anyway. Once I suggested numbers are losing their mojo. Today I am suggesting business people may not be using numbers & data in the most effective way <to maximize the benefit of the organization, product or service>.

And tomorrow I will not be writing about numbers but I can tell ya that numbers will still be misused and misdiscussed.

And we better figure that out soon or businesses are gonna get screwed.

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

Originally published February 2016

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

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I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact.

That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions.”

—–

Alexei Panshin

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“Christmas is like candy; it slowly melts in your mouth sweetening every taste bud, making you wish it could last forever.”

–

Richelle E. Goodrich

====

Delighting the customer. Creating ‘happy moments.’ In the grander discussion of creating positive experiences in business, usually part of some misguided customer centric thinking, we seem to gravitate toward “special moments” in which we elevate the appropriate people’s happiness to a level in which they can actually recognize whatever happened was good.

We forget happiness is actually a Life formula in that we tend to make Life a zero sum game in experiential moments over the long haul. In other words. We naturally temper our happiness highs and seek to do things to actively fill up any emptiness a ad moment may have created.

This formula leads me to the post-happiness event let down. Someone once called this “happiness hangovers.”

I imagine any of us in the business world have felt this after a big meeting or some big trade show or some big thing we have prepared for and had some element of ‘showtime.’

That’s the same kind of funk we fall into after a holiday.

There are a couple of reasons this happens. One scientific and one mental.

Science.

The dopamine let down. Scientifically we juice ourselves up with dopamine in order to ‘meet the moment.’ Think of this as the feeling you get every time the email notification on your phone goes off… but every 15 seconds for almost 12 hours straight. Each ‘email has arrived’ notification sends a quick dose of dopamine to the brain, we get jolted <love the high> and then immediately receive another. When we are focused on this specific goal we get the rush of dopamine flowing through our brain and once the goal is achieved your body naturally reduces the levels of dopamine.

The body re-balances itself.

The dopamine high goes from high then to low. Eventually it re-calibrates to something finally normal <assuming there is something normal>.

Bottom line result? We feel bummed. We feel drained. That is the happiness let down scientifically.

Mental.

The positive feelings let down. According to psychologist Gary Stollak, psychology professor, most people have a “happiness set point.” Let’s call that a “5” on the self happiness meter.

Therefore when we get up for something and it concludes satisfactorily we rise to a high. Our happiness meter goes to 10 <maybe 11 if you are a Spinal Tap fan>.

Unfortunately your happiness meter balances out. That is partially why your happiest highs are often followed by depressed lows. The worst part of this aspect is what we fill the empty space, where that happiness used to hang out in & has now exited <the 11 to 2 gap>, with. We fill it with doubts, questions, regrets, what ifs, whatever else we could add in that diminishes the true happiness and high. Mentally it’s almost like we cannot accept the happiness was so good, so high, so as soon a the high itself is over we begin to look for imperfections & flaws with which to suggest “well, maybe it wasn’t that high.”

Bottom line result? We go high, we go low and, hopefully, normalize. That is the mental happiness let down.

Regardless.

My point in business and creating positive experiences is that it is impossible to always be high therefore there will inevitably be a low and you should seek to reset, or resettle, as quickly as possible. Effective resetting maximizes the feelings of the high and minimizes the low experiences.

This is hard because highs are, well, high and the aftermath is so anti-climactic versus the moment itself we tend to try and fill the space with stuff associated with the event trying to drag it out for as long as we can in order to put off the bad stuff I already pointed out.

For example, Christmas?

Leave the tree up.

Leave the lights up.

Maybe still play the music.

For example, Business?

Retell the highlight moments.

Replay portions & parts of the high.

Gather similar experiences <and even people> to relive aspects (shared experience).

While this happiness extension may seem like you are going backwards the intent is 2 things:

1. Its sole purpose is to alleviate happiness let down. Nothing more. Nothing less.
2. It is a purposeful attempt to address the fact we continuously try to invent things that approve of their dispositions. We hate to let it go even though our body is telling us we should. This usually occurs with the last lasting experience, therefore, the letdown. And maybe that is what hurts us the most.  Our bodies have left it behind and yet we continue to try and stuff our body with the trappings of what was.

Happiness let down. We all experience it. I imagine the question is – is it really bad for us to do it?

Well.

Research has linked the let-down of perceived stress with an increase in flare-ups of pain and other ailments. One study found that people experience more panic attacks on weekends, and a 2015 study from Taiwan found that holidays and Sundays have more emergency room admissions for peptic ulcers than weekdays do. A 2014 study showed migraine sufferers, in times of stress, didn’t impact migraine occurrence … but a decline in their perceived stress from one evening entry to the next entry was associated with increased migraine onset over the following six to 18 hours<they called this a “let-down headache”>

All that said. Once something is done it is never really completely gone and we deal with the ‘let down effect.’  And while we hang on relentlessly to the trappings even though the event is done and gone at least now you know there are real scientific and behind we are so silly.

Look.

While I have written about the fallacy behind “manufacturing happiness’ or the whole idea of ‘purposefully creating happiness’ I do tend to believe you can affect the degrees of happiness. It certainly helps if your happiness is more likely dependent upon some realistic expectations or maybe viewing the little moments within the larger grind that is known as Life instead of seeking some larger more grand utopian vision of happiness and big events to define happiness.

Let’s say that of now. This is where I end. Business has to manage the discrete moments of now in order to maximize happiness.

There is no code or formula for this. But I can almost guarantee if you acknowledge happiness hangover or happiness let down you will most likely end up doing something that helps.

——

“Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned.

They are not units but fractions.”

=

Woodrow Wilson

——

Well.

In business and in Life people like consistency.

We actually like rules. And we really <really> like some guidelines for how to do things, what to say and when things should be done.

Oh. And .we love, yes, LOVE to look to the past for answers or the ‘formula for what to do or how to act.”

Ah. That sneaky ‘learn from the past or be doomed to repeat mistakes’ advice.

True, but not true advice. What makes it not true?

Context.

Future truths, or solutions, only partially reside in the past. The other part lives in the present and what is swirling around that moment.

Which brings me back to the opening quote.

We like to see things as units and yet they are simply fractions. Some people stand on fractions and act like they are whole solid foundations.

Be wary of those people.

They are not really seeking truth just answers, okay, well … maybe just an answer.

——-

“Fear not the path of Truth for the lack of People walking on it.”

Robert F. Kennedy

——-

I admit. The trouble we constantly run into is, yeah, context. We are always contextual, mosaics of the moment, and this is troubling for anyone seeking simple answers. Frankly, most of us would love a simple answer now & then <if not all the time>. But some people thrive on simplicity and black & white.

Please do not read into what I just wrote that these people live a colorless life. Everyone has color and everyone certainly has pieces of light within and without. 

====

“We are mosaics. Pieces of light, love, history, stars … glued together with magic and music and words. “

Anita Krizzan 

==

All I am suggesting is that magic, or the contextual aspects, in Life creates a certain intangible aspect to everyday situations. And while this intangible thing is a nagging aspect in common everyday life & business … at critical points, let’s call them ‘semi-critical moments or junctures’, the contextual intangible aspect is nerve wracking.

Nerve wracking because we want a simple solution in semi-critical moments. And context demands some complexity. It demands looking at fractions and not the whole. This means we constantly struggle with the fact <the Truth as it were> we, as individuals, businesses, countries and societies, are simply fractions and not the unit.

I would also suggest decisions, business & in life, are simply fractions and not a self-sustaining unit.

Yet, we try and make most of our decisions as if everything is aligned and unmoving — kind of like taking a snapshot and taking action.

Uh oh. This is double trouble.

This means, contextually, whatever action or decision you take or make will be relevant to what was … not what is. 

———-

“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. 

That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”

Milton Friedman

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In closing out this thought I would like to point out that this thought, while it seems like a stronger Life thought, is maybe even more importantly a business thought. Far far too often in business we ignore the fact each decision is contextual seeking comfort by sitting around saying “let’s look to the past for the answer.” I admit I find it slightly odd because in today’s business world every single mistake or hiccup/interruption in the status quo is labeled a crisis and crises tend to produce real change. We shouldn’t be seeking comfort in the solution but rather an uncomfortable solution which enhances the possibility of comfortable results.

On the other hand. Maybe that is my explanation to the oddity. Because what we label a crisis really isn’t true crisis we tend to just depend on whatever ideas are lying around. And the most typical ideas lying around are “what can we learn from the past.”

If you ever wonder why great decision makers should be paid some inordinate amount of money … reread this. Great decision makers see the past, the present & the future and envision the mosaic better than most of us <certainly I>.

They understand the situation is simply a fraction of what is.

This should also help explain why so many people make incredibly bad decisions.

Every moment, every situation, every success and every failure … is contextual. In fact contextual exists in almost every situation in such a wide vivid mosaic perspective that ‘learning from the past’ almost seems like an inordinate waste of time.

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“We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.’

We think we are most ourselves when we are most passioate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.”

―

Will Durant

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“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

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So.

This is about leadership & leading with an idea.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can lead are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to lead” is simplistic tripe.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can articulate an idea for people to rally around and follow are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to share ideas in a meaningful way” is  simplistic tripe.

That said. Today I will talk about leaders and ideas and articulating ideas. Let’s call it “the business idea” leadership challenge. For those of us who have had the fortune, or misfortune, of walking the halls of management in business we have all crossed paths with all the scary tactics and rhetoric associated with leaders who cannot articulate an idea if they actually tried <and most do try>. These are the leaders who do not really have the ability to articulate an idea well enough for the idea to gain traction and be implemented.

……………….. the idea ………………….

I sometimes believe what makes a good leader is the ability to articulate an idea so that <a> people can grasp it, <b> people can envision it as “something” tangible enough to want to hold it and <c> people can attach some emotional connection to it <ranging from ‘I believe’ to ‘passion’>. But many leaders just struggle with idea articulation and use a variety of tricks to present an idea in a way that encourages people to … well … believe in the idea.