==========

“On s’engage et puis … on voit.”

“First engage in a serious battle and then see what happens.”

———-

Napoleon

======

“Understanding why was more interesting than understanding who.

The story of why things are the way they are is heartbreakingly beautiful.”

———

Keegan Allen

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

“The fire which enlightens is the fire which consumes.”

—-

Henri-Frederic Amiel

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

Well.

I almost called this “existing answers versus new answers.”  If you think about it, curiosity is a multidimensional “thing.”  I do know Curiosity is possibly the most important characteristic of anyone who is good at what they do <in Life & in business>. But “good” comes in a variety of shapes & sizes and sometimes those shapes & sizes are crafted by one thing: “do we care more about the question or the answers?”

What I mean by that is finding truth, or the best answers, is very rarely a linear process. Therefore the question & answer sequencing to that truth is not linear. Oops. I tend to believe most people use question & answer in a “that begets that” way.

I would argue that is a reflection of believing the answer is more important than the question. And when you do that all that means is if you get the first question right <and a shitload of us do not> the truth is arrived at like in a sequence of dominos. That’s not the way logic works <although we like to discuss logic that way>.

Discovering creative outcomes & ideas <i.e., answers to questions> typically comes down to attempting to maintain perspective and looking at things differently <which typically doesn’t translate into ‘methodically’>.

I would note here that “mental models” are not “mental methods.”

Models are not just ways of thinking about things but, as a generalization, you think with a curiosity in an inevitable change in thinking. This all gets embodied in a process of information, education, dialogue, and ultimately, the insights generated from the process which will drive the choices.

Which leads me to ‘asking questions’ <because the only way you can gain insights is by actually asking questions>.

I don’t know why but it seems like there is a growing fear to ask questions these days  –especially by leaders. I have a number of theories why it’s happening but let’s just accept it is happening. I say that because not asking questions leads to, well, worry <or the verb: ‘worrying’>.

In the short term, absent of question/answer work,, worrying makes your brain feel a little better — at least you’re doing something about your problems. The mind is only happy when it’s working. So it worries <useless energy> or it asks questions. Even the latter is tricky because neuroscience suggests you will be happier even if you don’t find an answer.  Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the searching that counts and all the scraps of potential answers you pick up along the way.

So why not ask it to work on the right things? Worrying over shit is wasted energy ayt least questions/answers has the possibility of energy used well.

This permits me to talk about searching. Because how you search for answers <the questioning> will impact how well, or how much you suck, at how you view the answer <and ultimately the decision I imagine>. Yeah. How you view the decision is actually more important than discussing the decision itself.

We don’t discuss this insight-to-decision relationship enough.  Because of that we sometimes ignore how we gather information, assess information, discern information and use the right information to ultimately make a decision. This is relevant to ‘not asking questions’ because if you don’t ask questions you will inevitably lean in on past experience <which is, in this context, existing ‘answers’ you may have to offer>. I will not invest a lot of energy on this because it’s obvious that leaning in solely on past experience is not only fraught with peril, but just plain stupid. Gathering information from one source is always dangerous it just becomes increasing dangerous if your past experience is the sole source.

Regardless. My last point.

Suffice it to say, the best question/answer leaders almost slowdown in gathering information, and ask questions, to speed up <in the decision and its effectiveness>.

Maybe we don’t talk about this because if we did … and described it that way … it sounds … uhm … slow.

Questioning.

Listening .

Responding.

(repeat as needed)

Yeah. It can be slow. It can also be fast. I would argue it should take as long as it should take and no longer. I would also argue that while the past can play a role it will also not be likely to provide “the” answer. It can inform but will not be the answer.

In the end. What I would argue is that:

• Without questions you gain no new learning
• Bad questions lead to wasted energy, bad answers & more fear (it’s a doom loop)
• Questioning & gaining answers has no speed control. it moves at whatever pace is necessary, neither fast nor slow. Directing speed seems silly.
• Recognizing mental models can help limit bias
• Embracing mental models can help unlimited thinking, questions and, inevitably, answers.
• If you thrive on destinations, you will never be happy with questions and answers lifestyle. Each answer begets a new question, therefore, true question & answer is on a never ending infinite loop.
• A mind likes to work. If you do not fill it with questions and answers it will worry at anything, even nonsensical things, like a bored dog with a bone.

We all need new answers all the time. The only way to get a new answer is to ask questions and learn. In other words, be curious.

“The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavor to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the contrary, by teaching every man to think for himself.”

=

William Godwin

——–

Thinking for yourself. A topic, if you dare to discuss with an old person, that often facilitates a belief that suggests because of the internet, and games and a whole host of other issues; the young cannot think for themselves.

Well. I have one word for them. Bullshit.

I have some research on this which disproves this perception or belief.

Unfortunately, at the same time, I have some incredibly bad news for everyone <young & old>.

The research points out the majority of us do not like to think for themselves — at all. They think thinking is painful. I almost cried when I read this research. I was absolutely depressed afterwards.

Now. I don’t think thinking is a pain, but apparently 2/3rds of people hate thinking.

How painful? <pretty frickin’ painful>

————-

“What is striking is that simply being alone with their thoughts was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid.”

the research scientists

————

Yup. I almost cried. How can something so valuable to me <and seems like it should be of at least some value to the majority of people> would be so abhorrent that they would select an electric shock rather than think?

I don’t have an answer to that my friends. But I wish I did.

 ————

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of recent psychology experiments proving the human aversion to thinking is when tasked with sitting in a chair and doing nothing but thinking, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose to give themselves electric shocks to pass the time.

————-

Yup. The researchers, with the objective to check whether people might actually prefer something bad to nothing at all, gave participants the option of administering a mild electric shock … instead of thinking.

While it is painful for me to make this point … I want to be clear on the choice made versus thinking in this test.

They had been asked earlier to rate how unpleasant the shocks were, alongside other options, such as looking at pictures of cockroaches or hearing the sound of a knife rubbing against a bottle. All the students picked for the test said they would pay to avoid mild electric shocks after receiving a demonstration.

 Oops.

In the test 12 of 18 men gave themselves up to four electric shocks, as did six of 24 women.

I cried now.

Please.

Thinking has to be the least expensive, with the easiest access, activity anyone can ever find. It is so easily accessible I imagine it is easy to reach a conclusion that if people found it truly stimulating, being lost in thought, I guess you could assume then they would surely do it more often. But the fact is that most people will do anything to avoid sitting down and having a dialogue with their internal voices.

In fact it seems the majority of people find unstructured, uninterrupted thinking as a horrible experience.

Why? My guess is that there is no guarantee where all that thinking might go. In today’s world that sounds purposeless. It sounds like there is a possibility of no outcome, output or achievement. Or a waste of <valuable> time. No ROI. Or simply valueless. Or maybe simply to dependent on random for outcome.

I guess the good news is <said sarcastically> that this information could  suggest mental illness is limited <in quantity of people> because, much of what we call mental illness, is simply a loss of control over thought. In other words. We can’t stop ourselves thinking what we don’t want to think, or we put so much energy into not thinking certain things, that all thoughts just get bent out of shape. In any case we find ourselves suffering unable to escape from the horror inside our heads.

While that sounds like something most of us are quite familiar with <in lesser degrees than true mental illness>, by avoiding any type of thinking something like 2/3rds of people avoid any horror in their head..

That said. People have always been fairly industrious with finding ways to not think, mostly, by doing things. Doing helps us not have to go thru the pain of thinking. In the past we made shit <woodworking, building stuff with our hands, etc,>, we sewed, we farmed, we hunted and we had lots of sex <and had more kids to take care of>. In the research that ‘doing’ came to life in an electric shock.

But why should thinking be such a pain? The old fashioned psychoanalytic answer <which has flaws but is a shitload smarter than the trite mindless ‘blame it on cellphones/technology’> is that culturally we have become more dependent on what, I hesitate to call, an aggressive greedy drive.

I believe I would rather suggest it is a self-actualization <problem solving> aspect – in the form of a tangible foreseen outcome.

Let’s call it self interest in terms of ‘proof of behavior.’

Unfortunately thinking usually means something disorderly and less immediate cause-effect. It is something intangible <or maybe no guarantee of something tangible> therefore less likelihood to conclude in ‘specific proof of behavior.’

——–

“We take flight mentally when we rise above our habitual ways of thinking about things and experience new insights.

This is what it means to open our minds.  Emotionally, we take flight when the strength of our passion exceeds the strength of our blockages; the floodgates open and we are free to feel fully.

Spiritually we take flight when we locate that part of ourselves that is beyond the constraint of linear time and the world of form.

It is in this place that we experience the essential boundlessness that defines the experience of flight. Taking flight is always about freeing ourselves from form, if only temporarily. When we literally fly, in a plane or on a hang glider, we free ourselves from the strength of gravity’s pull.

As we open our minds and our hearts, we free ourselves from habitual patterns of thought and emotional blockages.

As we remember our true nature, we free ourselves from identification with the temporary state of our physical forms. The more we stretch our wings, the clearer it becomes that taking flight is a state of grace that simply reminds us of who we really are.”

Daily Om

——-

Thinking is about taking flight <mentally>. And ‘proof’ often goes counter to flying because
proof” is more relatable to ‘keeping your feet on the ground.’ And I wrote that to get back to the infamous ‘kids don’t think enough’ and ‘youth is too whimsical and not practical enough’ and ‘technology is making people mentally lazy.’

Lets be clear. This is a cultural, metal mindset, issue and not a cultural, or generational, trend issue. The findings that the researchers <at Virginia and Harvard University> report is NOT a reflection of cultural trends weaving their way through society unnoticed and affecting the mental development of young people at a particular stage in their lives <despite what us older folk want to say>. Suffice it to say that in more than 11 separate studies, the researchers showed that people hated being left to think, regardless of their age, education, income or the amount they used smartphones or social media.

Uhm.

Let me repeat that … “people hated being left to think, regardless of their age, education, income or the amount they used smartphones or social media.”

This is not a young person issue. In addition the lead researcher said the findings were not necessarily a reflection of the pace of modern life or increased use of mobile devices and social media. In fact those things might be popular because of our constant urge to ‘do something’ rather than nothing.

<whew … chew on that thought for a second or two>

Why do I get stunned when I find people really do not want to think? Most people take shit at face value.

Most people don’t really think even when they do think <they accept opinion easily>. And then they blame those who make you think <purposefully>.

Huh? I don’t want everyone to be an intellectual. But, whew boy, I find it depressing that over 2/3rds of people don’t want to think.

I am going to go away now and cry.

—-

 —————————-

“Every single one of us is good at something. Some of us just give up on what that is before we even discover it. “

=

William Chapman

—-
“I told her once i wasn’t good at anything.

She told me survival is a talent. You never need to apologize for how you chose to survive.”

=

Clementine von Radics

— 

“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.”

=

Ottmer <the futurist>

— 

Well. Let me begin by saying, well, being better is better.

Or better said: better is good.

In addition. Being good at something is good.

Those are two basic Life thoughts. Simple thoughts, but kind of important thoughts. Important because they are pervasive throughout civilization, culture, attitudes and certainly drives behavior.

Now. The most basic aspect of this whole thing of people wanting to be really good at something and, I imagine why people want to be passionate about something, is that they have experience with lack of passion. I say that last thought because <here is a Life truth> the reason why we’re not passionate about stuff we’re not really good at is because we aren’t <cannot be> passionate about stuff we suck at.

Yup. Think about that. Passion is inextricably tied to ‘not sucking’ <or ‘being good at’>.

Here is where it gets a little screwy. Being good at something is a minefield mentally.

Huh? What do you mean <you ask me>??

How many times have you heard some version of the following phrases?

• “Everyone has a special skill!“

• “You just need to practice!“

• “You haven’t tried everything yet!“

• “You better work out what special skill you have and then use it for the rest of your life because if you don’t you’ll live in a dumpster fighting with cats for food!“

That trite advice is fine for people who are good at things, but what if you just suck at everything?

<or at least have sucked at everything you have tried to date>

Well. Here is the good news. It is next to impossible to suck at everything. It is much more likely that “… some of us just give up on what that is before we even discover it.”

As a corollary, in reality, it’s impossible to be good at every single thing you try.

Oh. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you suck. It’s all about perspective and how you define whether you’re good at something. For instance, are you basing how bad you are at something on your own standards or are you comparing yourself to others? If it’s the latter then you need to stop and remind yourself that we are all individuals. You’re not inferior or inept, you’re just different <kind of like snowflakes … okay … maybe not>.

Suffice it to say that insecurities and doubts limit your potential <regardless of whether you suck or are actually good> so if you intend to succeed at something you must first get rid of them.

Ah. But here is the curve ball Life throws at you <or is it a screwball??> — while you are figuring out what you are good at a whole shit load of incompetent assholes around you are trying to convince everyone what they are good at <of which they are actually not good at what they think they are>.

Yup <part 1>.

Incompetent assholes rarely know they are <a> incompetent & <b> assholes.

Yup <part2>.

Incompetent people don’t know they are incompetent <in other words … they don’t think they suck>.

——

When asked, most individuals will describe themselves as better-than-average in areas such as leadership, social skills, written expression, or just about anything where the individual has an interest.

This tendency of the average person to believe he or she is better-than-average is known as the “above-average effect,” and it flies in the face of logic … by definition, descriptive statistics says that it is impossible absurdly improbable for a majority of people to be above average.

It follows, therefore, that a large number of the self-described “above average” individuals are in fact below average in those areas, and they are simply unaware of their incompetence.

——-

It seems that the reason for this phenomenon is obvious:

–      The more incompetent someone is in a particular area, the less qualified that person is to assess anyone’s skill in that space, including their own.

–      When one fails to recognize that he or she has performed poorly, the individual is left assuming that they have performed well.

Anyway. What this means is that the incompetent tend to grossly overestimate their skills and abilities.

—

“He felt he was himself and did not want to be otherwise. He only wanted to be better than he had been before. “

Leo Tolstoy

—

The Department of Psychology at Cornell University made an effort to determine just how profoundly one mistakenly overestimates one’s own skills in relation to one’s actual abilities.

They made the following predictions before the studies:

–       Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria.

–       Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacognitive skills, in that they will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize competence when they see it–be it their own or anyone else’s.

–      Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to gain insight into their true level of performance by means of social comparison information. In particular, because of their difficulty recognizing competence in others, incompetent individuals will be unable to use information about the choices and performances of others to form more accurate impressions of their own ability.

Rather than showcase the study and the results let me just say … they were correct in their assumptions.

Look. While I have spent a lot of time talking about incompetence and the incompetent, there is nothing more beautiful than watching competence in action. Especially if they are just good, not great, and have the awareness to build on their good in pursuit of … well … not great … but something better.

—-

“No one is good at everything, but everyone is good at something.”

any after school 1990’s special

—-

“Sucking is the first step to being sorta good at something” 

Thorin Klosowski

—

And maybe that is why competence <or being good> is so beautiful to watch … it is the pursuit.

The pursuit? Being good at something mostly means you weren’t as good, or even sucked, at some point. This means the true competent people keep pushing.

Being good at something means no dumb questions, no dumb answers and no low <or stagnant> standards. And that is where I believe the whole concept of ‘being good at something’ should be grounded.

It’s not passion.

And, frankly, it may not even be something that comes easily to you.

It is more about holding yourself to some higher standard.

It is about the desire to keep pushing.

It is about being responsible for not quitting.

—-

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you, never excuse yourself.”

Henry Ward Beecher

—–

In the end. Set aside ‘higher standards’ or ‘accepting you are good at something’ … in the end I respect … well … caring.

Giving a shit.

Or maybe call it … ‘nerdy as fuck about something.’

—-

“I respect people who get nerdy as fuck about something they love.”

Leah Raeder

——-

Caring enough about what you do is a good thing … and it makes you good at something.

It’s not passion.

It’s maybe not any real ability.

It’s just about the fact that you care.

By the way. Getting back to the first quote I used.

This also suggests, on those tough days and tough stretches in Life, simple survival is a talent because it means you care about Life.

Uhm. And that is a good thing to be good at.

Care about Life and never, never, apologize for how you choose to survive.

——-

“I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters.

They get excited over one smile.

They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound.

They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up.   Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.” 

= 

Beth Clar

——

This is about responding.

First. What does RSVP mean? In the context of social invitations RSVP is a request for a response from the invited person or people. It is derived from the French phrase répondez s’il vous plaît, meaning ‘please respond’ <”respond if you please”>.

Sticking with the formal aspect of an RSVP … there are some guidelines. 

———

If RSVP is written on an invitation it means the invited guest must tell the host whether or not they plan to attend the party.  It does not mean to respond only if you’re coming, and it does not mean respond only if you’re not coming (the expression “regrets only” is reserved for that instance).   It means the host needs to know who is going to attend, get a definite head count, the planned event … and needs it by the date specified on the invitation.

———–

Second. RSVP also has to do with Life, not just parties.

Think about it. Life, in many ways, says ‘please respond.’ My fear, and belief, is that many of us simply haven’t read the rules of etiquette and do not respond.

Look. I often write about how Life is difficult and how Life is tricky and how Life has a warped sense of humor.

But. Life can also be quite respectful and act with true etiquette and grace. I don’t mean big pomp and circumstance moments, but little moments in which doing the little things well matters. Uhm. Like an rsvp for example.

—–

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody notices, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

John Lennon

—–

I sometimes worry people no longer understand what RSVP means. In social event scenarios as well as Life.

Assuming the best, and that the reason guests don’t RSVP to an invitation is a case of ignorance, not rudeness, let me suggest this.

People have a tendency to not respond because … well … it is safer.

Less chance of conflict. And it may seem like the easiest path but think about it from this quote’s perspective.

—–

“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.”

Cheri Huber

—

Sure. I could simply believe most people don’t get involved with Life because they are too busy.

Or they are ignorant of the fact their absence is not noted or meaningful.

But I can’t. I can’t because I don’t believe it is true.

I think we do it, subconsciously or consciously, because it is safer — we get to avoid possible conflict.

Oh. The risk in doing this over & over & over? We become disengaged with Life.

But. Here is the good news. Life will keep sending you invitations. Over & over & over again.

You just gotta RSVP every once in a while.

To be clear. You are not always being invited to a ‘big party.’ Sometimes the RSVP is just for something small.

Saying that permits me to circle back to where I began … willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound.  They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes.

Over time, though, the small changes add up.

That’s why you RSVP to life.

Small changes add up.

Small moments add up.

Small gestures add up.

It is true that Life, in general, is indifferent to you and what you want. However. What Life does do is create event after event which you DO get invited to. That means its up to you to respond. And, yeah, I do believe RSVPing matters even in this scenario. Just showing up is good but not as good as telling Life you are gonna show up. Why? Because it increases the odds Life may actually NOT be indifferent when you show up.

My advice? Just make sure you RSVP to Life one response at a time.

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

“You cannot live without establishing an equilibrium between the inner and outer.”

—–

Paul Auster

=========

“I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My own personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me.”

He sighed.

“The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”

–

Jacob

=======

“The idea that talent is directly proportional to your trophy cabinet is one I oppose.”

—-

Alex Turner

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

Ok. I have been extremely consistent over the years with regard to my belief that I think balance is the key to almost any successful endeavor – in life & in business.

Suffice it to say I am a big balance person. And, yet, the other day during a business discussion it occurred to me that I may not be using the right word or even have the concept correct.

I may actually be a ‘proportional’ advocate.

Let me explain. Business, more often than not, is about assessing the correct proportional value of a topic, fact or idea and assigning the correct proportional response to that value.

Sure. That may inevitably arrive at something we could call “a balanced response”, but to get to the so-called balance we need to think about proportions.

I imagine, in my head, this means we need to stop viewing things as a zero sum balance, but rather as proportional to the situation in hand.

Now. I did some research and back in 1975 a guy named Piaget described the essential characteristic of proportional reasoning as it must involve a “relationship between two relationships.” I am not really sure what that means, but I am guessing it means that proportional assumes some dimensional aspects while balance is simply a relationship between two more concrete/discrete things.

He also suggested that proportional involves something called “additive reasoning” which, to me, explained my misrepresentation of balance.

Balance suggests an either/or trade off — something like teetering on a balance beam.

Proportional suggests a more spatial trade off or, maybe, ratio based trade off. What I mean by that is I can add one thing as part of a compromise and its true value is a zillion and give up one thing as part of the same compromise and its true value is 1/10^th of a zillion (despite the fact their actual costs may be different).

I balanced my response, but gained a proportional advantage.

There is even something called ‘the constant of proportionality’, but that becomes too complicated for my pea like brain so I will let you google it and see if you can explain it.

I imagine my real point is that most of us, most likely, are proportional thinkers and not balance thinkers <although we say we are balanced>.

More often than not we invariably assess things through assimilation and the synthesis of multiple things <numbers, ratios, tangible, intangible, and … yes … even missing information & components>. Our decisions are a messy mix of analyzing a series of unequal and equal things shaping them into the proper proportions to make a, well, proportional response. This can all make sense but it doesn’t really make it any easier for us. its not easier because balance is easier to assess and judge, balance is almost always associated with ‘fair’ while proportional often looks like something won & something lost and balance gets confused with linear zero sum game decision making.

All that said. Here was the bigger epiphany to me on why we should explore the more difficult pat of proportional thinking.

While balanced may seem like a simple improper term the truth is the more one focuses on balance the higher the likelihood I would actually end up doing the wrong things.

Huh? If you focus on balance you will inevitably try and force equality in all things. That may sound good, but it ain’t really reality. Simplistically it means you are focused on the wrong outcome & objective.

Instead, if you focus on the best proportional response to every situation, you may not end up with a one-to-one balanced relationship on any one comparison you review <which creates issues in its own right>, but you will end up with a balanced relationship on any given series of comparisons.

That last paragraph may actually showcase why most people focus on balance. In a simplistic measurement business world we are almost always demanded to show one-to-one or linear explanations.

Balance does that.

Proportion does not.

This means to embrace being proportional means you will have to accept the burden of explaining the more difficult to explain, to showcase asymmetrical as actually being simple and dimensional can actually reflect symmetry. Nothing in what I just shared in that last paragraph is easy. Particularly in today’s business world.

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

“Divide the target in proportion to the available resources”
―

Sunday Adelaja

==========

All I really know is that, whether I like it or not, I am actually a proportion person and not a balance person. It only took me over 25 years in business to figure that out <no one has ever suggested I am a quick learner>.

Think about it. You may actually be a proportional person too. More importantly, maybe you should be.

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

“Whenever you take an action, decide by both your brain and heart in equal proportions. Balance them as far as possible.”
―

Bikash Bhandari

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

I laughed when I saw this one. Sure. It’s kind of creepy, but it makes the point. Some things just aren’t possible.

Yeah, it is an unfortunate truth that hard work, or diligently trying to look like you are working hard, sometimes just isn’t enough.

Yeah, honestly, you can work your ass off towards something and it still isn’t possible.

The reality is that some things are truly impossible for some people (because if you don’t have the talent for something, you just don’t have the talent to even get close to the impossible).

Now. I am not opposed to hard work. And I do believe hard work:

(1) can improve upon existing abilities

(2) can overcome some deficiencies in actual talent.

Yeah, I guess it’s good to encourage kids to believe anything is possible if they work hard enough, but, well, I don’t know. I worry sometimes we establish some unrealistic expectations about what is possible.

Look. I do know Walt Disney said “It’s fun to do the impossible.” But he wasn’t talking about becoming an Olympic Greco roman wrestler. He was talking about something he was talented in doing and using that talent to show people new boundaries to what could be done.

Regardless.

Do I believe children should have a limitless imagination? Sure.

Do I believe they should think anything is possible? Sure.

Did I laugh at this illustration because it was so simple in pointing out the truth behind what is possible versus impossible? Sure.

I imagine my point is imagination is limitless but reality has some limits.

I imagine my point is that imagination is what pushes reality’s limits, but, at some point, your own reality will dictate some limits of what you can imagine.

Life is tricky. Shit. Business is tricky. Maybe what makes it all tricky is that its complex, not all correlation is causation, not everything imagined can become reality and not all of reality cannot be changed with some imagination and, well, almost nothing is simplistic binary “if this, then that.”

Look. Imagination is a good thing. Working hard is a good thing. And both good lessons.

I just hope we remember all those lessons before jumping out a window to remind us that hard work won’t teach us to actually fly (or defy gravity without a parachute).

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

“… instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.”

—

Marcel Proust

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

There are probably a zillion interpretations of this thought, but here is mine.

I am a nomad. In part it is because I am a roaming soul seeking new landscapes. Ok. Maybe I am just restless and comfortable with a general sense of impermanence. All of which make me sit back and wonder why.

In part because it is quite possible I fear if I stay in one place too long I just don’t have the ability to see things with new eyes. A fear that all the colors I loved in the beginning will simply fade to grays.

In part because it is quite possible I haven’t found a person or a reason to not be a nomad.

Now. All of those things I mention remain reasons why I envy my friends who are really happy people and not constantly moving (physically). They have had the ability to find a home and love it as much year to year because each year they find something new to love. And they also love the parallel comfort in what they fondly call home.

So somehow someway they have found both comfort & newness (yahoo ! … a contradiction I can love).

Just because they are ‘not roaming’ physically, they are not stale in any way. Their home is not tiresome or bland in any way.

In similar ways I am envious of my friends in long term marriages and relationships.

They don’t seek new landscapes. It seems each year. Each month. And for some each day. They look at the one they love with new eyes seeing not what they were but who they have become.

As well as whom they are. And constantly find new ways to be comforted in the comfort of their relationship and yet see the relationship with new eyes. And because of their ability to look with new eyes their love gets stronger in some ways and it also (I think) helps them bridge the tough times that anything that stays together for long periods of time inevitably face.

Regeadless of how you want to view what I just wrote I would point out this is an ability. Maybe not a skill but certainly a Life ability – remain in ‘one place’ and , yet, have the ability to see it as “many places.”

Anyway. Then I came across something a 20something wrote on their site:

I am home now with the heart full with the dear friends with whom I travelled both physically and mentally. I am home and do not want to let go of the momentum, the openness, and the opportunity to touch others the way they touched me. I am home. Smiling. Warm by those I met and the ones I am still to know. Never so fully aware of the importance of touching and keeping in touch. But how can I explain this attraction for things that are just there, seemingly without purpose, or for those so alive and that so effortlessly stitch themselves to the heart?
For me, there is wholesomeness in the connection to the organic and to the silent life of things, to the fabric of being, all color or the fading of it, the unknown story.

I thought it was well written and captured the essence of the Proust quote. Developing new eyes isn’t just what you can see, but it is the ‘connection to the organic and the silent life of things.”

Maybe that is the inherent ability to be able to not be a nomad and still see things as fresh.

Well. Living life is not a formula. That is for sure.

But what Proust suggests is you can avoid feeling stagnant without feeling restless or have to seek new landscapes.

Be restless in stillness.

It is probably more difficult to do than simply typing it like I just did.

But I also imagine that if we just looked a little closer at things around us … and I mean REALLY looked … you would see something new every time you looked. And still, if it is important to you, you have the comfort of standing in a place you know and love.

Man oh man. When I write something like that I have to ask my self: what is better than having comfort and new all at the same time? It’s kind like finding the optimal newness in Life. That is what good ole Marcel suggests we can all do … if we look with fresh eyes and look anew at what we already have.

An admirable trait of the truly great is their ability to recognize the limitations of their actual talent in combination with their ability to not waste their talent. They recognize they have some talent, have some humility about that talent, & relentlessly pursue using the talent they do have.

That said.

Simply because they may have risen above the talents of the ordinary has not stopped them from believing they are not that extraordinary. In fact, maybe what I admire most is how they dwell on their ordinariness. Or maybe it’s that they recognize the potential fleetingness of their talent and what people perceive as greatness.

—–

“I know just how it feels to think of the right thing to say too late.”

=

Robert Frost

—–

C’mon. Can you believe this?

This is the guy who probably wrote some of the most amazing poetry of all time.

This is the guy who in 1961 JFK asked, for his inaugural ceremony, to give a poetry reading.

This is the crazy talented wordsmith sonofabitch who, blinded by the sun’s glare on the snow covered Capitol grounds, found himself unable to read the poem he had prepared.

So what did he do?

This is the guy who recited “The GiftOutright” from memory.

It opens with:

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours …

People watching noted other people frickin’ cried over his words.

Read it yourself.

Imagine being there.

You would be moved to tears yourself.

And this guy suggests he couldn’t think of the right thing to say? Well. Makes me feel a little better about the time I not only stumbled over words, but was a blithering idiot.

Oh. How about this?

——

“I have no particular talent, I am merely extremely inquisitive.”

Albert Einstein

——

I think like this quote so much because I cannot envision how one of the greatest minds of all time would suggest he has no particular talent.

Now. I am sure he had an ego (who wouldn’t if you thought of things people had never thought of before … consistently).

But. “I have no talent.”

C’mon.

When is the last time you heard one of your management people say this.

When is the last time someone said this in an interview?

When is the last time you heard anyone say this?

C’mon.

Could you imagine good ole Al sitting there in his rumpled suit and the interviewer asks official question number 4 “please tell me what you think you are good at?”

And Al reaches up and tries to smooth down that crazy hair of his, hesitates, and says “well, I have no particular talent, I am merely extremely inquisitive.”

(cut to interviewer making note to self “cut interview short. Not ambitious enough. Cannot identify any talent. Waste of time interviewing.”)

Look.

Robert Frost was said to be an irascible bastard to be around.

Albert was seen as kind of loony (and apparently didn’t know any barbers) but nice guy.

But given these two quotes I am sharing they both recognized that they weren’t always the bee’s knees (I have been looking for an opportunity to use that in a post one day). I personally believe we could use a good dose of this attitude <some humility> in today’s workplace a little more than the current dosage may be.

I guess I also think our country’s leadership could maybe take a sip of this humility too.

Regardless. Some people will point to humility being a consistent characteristic of a great leader. And they may be right. All I really know is these quotes are a good reminder that, no matter how talented you may be, even the greatest of the great minds took it all that ‘talent’ in stride. Let’s not call it humility, let’s call it “perspective.”

Maybe these guys, for all their quirks and eccentricities, had character. And for that, above any talent they had, they should earn our respect. As any talented person, who handled themselves this way, would deserve respect.

I do believe all of us have some greatness within, therefore, we all must have something underneath that greatness. I call the underneath “the great equalizer.” It equalizes people into a common denominator regardless of what, or how great, their greatness is. Just note. A lot of people talk about ‘finding your passion’ or ‘greatness’ but maybe we should be talking more about what lies underneath greatness. Because maybe, just maybe, that is greatness.

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

“We’re in a time of rapidly expanding insights about human motivation and connection, but meanwhile our companies continue to be run with a perspective on human psychology and sociology circa 1970.”

Stowe Boyd

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

My quick response to the “No Boss, no Thanks” piece. I believe there is some misguided thinking (central authority is necessary, buck stops somewhere dependent upon one person, democratic decision making is inefficient/slow), but it was this particular part that galled me:

“Third, while technological miracles such as the internet, cheap and reliable wireless communication, Moore’s law, miniaturisation and information markets have induced sweeping changes in manufacturing, retail, transportation and communication, the laws of economics are still the laws of economics. And human nature hasn’t changed. The basic problem of management and business – how to assemble, organise and motivate groups of people and resources to produce goods and services that consumers want – is still the same. Since the industrial revolution, entrepreneurs have been organising extremely complex activities in firms that are neither completely centralised nor completely flat. Imagine the complexity involved in operating a national railroad, a steel mill or an automobile assembly plant in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These were all ‘knowledge-based activities’ and were conducted in teams organised in various structures. Are things so different today?”

First.

Yes. Things are ‘so different’. The uthors have completely missed what is the same and what is different about today’s business. I would suggest they read my piece, Distribution Revolution,  on what I believe is functionally the same and it also outlines what I believe is different.

Second.

I would highly recommend the authors pick up a copy of Toffler Future Shock, Third Wave and even Powershift, if they have the time, because they would find the answer to “are things so different today?” in books written in 1970 & 1980 if they cared to look. In fact. Part of my whole aggravation with this article is I feel like we have been debating the same ideas Toffler offered us since 1970.

Anyway.

If you ignore everything else I write, pay attention to this. Maximizing people’s potential doesn’t mean doing away with managers; it just means you maximize the potential of people AS managers. I am not naïve enough to believe we will do away with titles and experience based ‘management’. But. People are managers and managers are people. Period.

Anyway.

Let me use some Toffler to point out where the authors of the article went wrong.

context: accelerated world

Solving business challenges can be complicated, but business itself is complex (& always has been). Business people cannot afford to confuse complicated and complex. Now. What technology did is accelerate the complexity. The business atoms were placed into a supercollider. In fact, it accelerated business dynamics beyond the structure of a hierarchy or even centralized “buck stops somewhere” managers. That said. I think we confuse speed and acceleration all the time to the detriment of organizational design and behavior. Organizational design almost seems to inherently have a desire to decelerate to permit some sense of “its okay, you can feel comfortable with the speed of business” where I think we would be better off addressing the larger issue Toffler outlined: overstimulation. Acceleration tests our attention, cognitive skills and ability to discern what is important and what is not – which is actually a ‘speed’ versus velocity discussion. The article, by suggesting the basic business world is the same, ignores that, in a grander context, it is not. In fact, the article is incredibly misguided because it would appear to encourage insular cocooning rather than suggesting the challenge is to fully engage & manage overstimulation. I am not suggesting acceleration & overstimulation is not an issue, but I will suggest it is a reality and hierarchies (centralizing overstimulation) is not the way to increase the likelihood of business success. If I were to choose one aspect I wish organizational psychology would address, this is it.

Which leads me to connectedness.

everything is connected with everything

When I read simplistic tripe like “The basic problem of management and business – how to assemble, organise and motivate groups of people and resources to produce goods and services that consumers want” I can understand how hierarchies have been so resilient to a better way of doing things. In the past it was arranging lego blocks, now it is arranging molecules. Toffler discussed this in a variety of ways, but the most interesting was “porous organizations” in which teams assembled, and reassembled, in order to meet specific challenges. He outlined this in 1970. Nowhere in that concept did he discuss no bosses, but he did suggest in 1990 (Powershift) that the biggest challenge to this idea would be power. The new business normal faces two dynamics: power & interconnectedness. Needless to say, they are connected.

Which leads me to connecting.

the world as a merry go round

We seem to ‘design’ organizations on the playground then demand it to jump on the merry go round. Or, worse, leave it on the playground and suggest business is about plucking opportunities as they spin ‘round the merry go round. The best organizations will jump on the merry go round with the resources they have on hand and meet the demands of the business. The truth is the centrifugal force of the accelerated merry go round demands different configurations at different times. This will demand a variety of ‘bosses’ (albeit I dislike that word). Management is contextual. Unless you happen to have a Swiss army knife person (they exist but are fewer than most businesses have) this means everyone will lead & manage at some point. If the authors don’t understand this I fear they don’t understand today’s business world.

Which leads me to untidiness.

discomfort with untidiness

Businesses inherently love tidiness and hate untidiness. They associate predictability & certainty with being tidy and inefficiency & failures/mistakes with untidiness. Unfortunately, for business, mediocrity (or even slippery slope to irrelevance) resides in tidiness and spectacular success resides in untidiness.

While we like to think of organizations as a ship sailing into a tumultuous sea it is actually a fleet of smaller ships being pushed & shoved by tides and waves through storm & calm all trying to go in one direction together <without crashing into each other>. Each smaller ship has a captain and a crew <often skilled in managing that particular ship if needed>.

The ‘No Boss’ authors seem to associate ‘building a dynamic organization’ or even ‘motivating employees’ by inevitably suggesting one big ship making progress in some direction (although they give a head nod to a matrix organization). If you don’t like that metaphor just accept this: the “No Boss” authors seek tidiness. They are wrong.

I say all that because you invariably need to grow your business unevenly. Yup. Sorry. A business isn’t, probably shouldn’t be and most likely cannot be <and be successful> ‘even.’ Or smooth. Or without any ragged edges. It needs to be grown unevenly <which is actually a natural growth rather than some manufactured growth>.

“Sureness will always elude you.

The detective will always circle around what he wants, never seeing it whole. We do not go on despite this. We go on because of it.”

—–

Claire DeWitt

Which leads me to freedom.

discomfort with freedom

Business, for decades & thru hierarchy, has always been built around selective freedoms – maybe ‘controlled freedom.’ Business people, in general, are much more comfortable building stop signs than they are highways.  Toffler spent almost an entire book outlining how technology will create a freedom ‘shock’ (Future Shock) and an entire book on the shock to the power structures (Powershift).

“No Boss” reflects a fear of freedom & loss of power. Period.

Which leads me to belief.

belief.

Unfettered freedom CAN lead to chaos. So we come up with a number of behavioral & motivational tricks to attach to versions & steps to implement aspects of distributed leadership mostly because we ignore what we know about individual behavior and we have a healthy skepticism toward managers & management in general.

Gamification, carrots & sticks, incentives, milestones are all derivatives of hierarchy thinking trying to adapt to a relentlessly uncertain world. They are attempts to build in some certainty. Yet. Behaviorally we know the most powerful motivation has nothing to do with ‘defeating’ a system/objective/goal, but rather it’s about ‘belief.’ Defeating is someone wins, someone loses. Belief is like hope. It draws people toward it.

That said. It’s a twofold belief challenge.

Business owners, managers as such, need to believe in people. They need to believe if given the opportunity to make choices, do the right things, the arc of people behavior (driven by intentions) will bend toward productivity & profitability. Note. This means business community needs to embrace a lack of output smoothness (a perception & reality challenge in & of itself).

========

“I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

The Catcher in the Rye

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

As a corollary. People need to believe in people (themselves). While we may innately know we can make decisions, assume responsibility & do the right things, the business world has not encouraged people to think that way. In fact. It has often penalized us for thinking that way. Many people almost don’t believe they should have responsibility or that they will not benefit by doing the right things. If we can align belief, than construct, as it currently exists, falls apart naturally (as not conducive to the belief) & people will inherently access their potential because barriers to believing they have that potential are stripped away.

Yes. Some of the ‘tricks’ may be useful but looking at the gobs of absurd articles & books with regard to organizational psychology it appears we have missed they are all means to an end and maybe we should seek to identify the end and encourage managers and people to believe in the power of belief.

I ended with Belief because at the core of “No Boss” is a belief that control, in some dimension, is necessary. I wrote in my “Purpose of Business is to benefit People” piece   that this is a reflection of not believing in people. I don’t blame the authors here because, well, there are a shitload of business thought leaders who not only do not believe in people but don’t believe “belief” is enough to guide people.

In the end.

The “No Boss” article is exactly what I hear from 50somethings holding onto the existing business construct with ragged claws.

Self-governing organizations are nothing new, even the Greeks were big fans, and Toffler began the vague outlines of how technology would widen the cracks in what we already knew – hierarchies were standardization models and people, and business, tend to thrive when non standardized. All that said. “No Boss, No Thanks” is tripe. Business drivel. Stowe Boyd called it “misunderstanding the nature of management” ; I call it just another example of fear of freedom couched in some poisoned fortune cookie wisdom. It ignores the most basic principles laid out in Toffler’s Future Shock & Third Wave that business normal was being shaken like an etch a sketch. And, in particular, it ignores Toffler’s third book, Powershift, by thinking power will always reside within some aspect of centralization & centralized thinking. It will not. They confuse centralized thinking with coalesced thinking. Centralized is inside out and coalesced is outside in where it is a reflection of, as Stowe suggests, ‘everyone is management.’

I’m certainly not as smart & insightful as Alvin Toffler, or Stowe Boyd, but even I know this “No Boss” article reflects not only a misunderstanding of distributed leadership but, more concerning, a misunderstanding of ‘business normal’ as it exists today.

Postscript:

I encourage everyone to revisit the Toffler trilogy. He shares a number of interesting thoughts:

• The Electronic Cottage: where remote work force becomes integral part of organizations
• The New Worker: where responsibilities become agile & diverse

=======

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but thoughts about it.

Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.”

–

Eckhart Tolle

====

I am not a big fan of simply saying “it is what it is” mostly because … well … most times it is much much more than that. However. Sometimes. Yes. Sometimes it “is” simply because it, well, is. At these times I would note we get unhappy. Usually not because of the situation, but rather because of the thought behind it.

<please note: I imagine I have just bastardized Tolle’s real thinking, but it fits what I want to say>

Anyway. I attribute the our true unhappiness behind the thinking of “it is what it is” to one of two things:

–          Occam’s razor:

This is the thought that “the simplest explanation that fits the facts is usually right.”

I like to think it is called Occam’s razor probably because the thought cuts straight to the truth, but ‘experts’ suggest the term razor refers to distinguishing between two hypotheses either by “shaving away” unnecessary assumptions or cutting apart two similar conclusions.

Whatever.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is all there is. It is what it is.

And we hate not only Occam, but his frickin’ razor.

–          Illogical pragmatism:

Some things just cannot be explained. It sounds illogical, but, pragmatically, any explanation is illogical. Or just illogically complex. Therefore, there is no explanation. Pragmatically, it is just what it is. Illogical as it may sound. And while we like pragmatism, we hate anything illogical. And we particularly hate if the pragmatic is illogical.

That said. Very few things frustrate us more than when there is no explanation for something. It drives business people frickin’ crazy.

Oh. What do business people hate maybe even worse? That Occam thing. The simple concise explanation. The understanding that simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones is not an idea we really like in business. Yeah. We talk about simplicity in a fond way, but most times we hate it. More often we struggle to accept the simple and revel in the complex.

This love of complex really has nothing to do with solutions but rather we like having things explained to us. That is typically where things get complex. Simple explanations are, well, unbelievable <crazy, huh?>.

Now. I actually believe we manage this fairly well in everyday life, but really suck at this in business.

Whew. “It is what it is” at work? Never. Or maybe at best … rarely.

My point? Most things have an explanation. Let’s say maybe 90% or so.

Most things obviously have real definitive explanations and some things have enough of an explanation that they have some edge or tangibleness to them, but it’s the stuff in the middle that requires a more subtle explanation or even an admittance of sheer uncertainty of “why is this as it is.”

Ah. That’s 10% or so.

Well. Sometimes things just “are.” And explanations are too complex … and frankly … unnecessary <albeit frustrating to not have one>.

Sure. We should be diligent with regard to inevitable straying into a complacent belief believing that things ‘just are’ and there is nothing you can do <or should do> to change it to make it better or to actually avoid true explanations where they are merited. And while it frickin’ kills me to suggest “it is what it is” … some things just are, and no matter how much you wish they were different, they’re not.

That said. We have difficulty in trying to understand that there can be some things that fall in the non-explanation category <that wretched ‘middle’> that it is neither in the good nor the bad category <by the way … not being able to explain does not make it inevitably bad>.

We seem too often to have to have an explanation to satisfy us. And it’s this sense of ‘satisfaction seeking’ that we should be wary of <or maybe it simply leads us astray and we should be wary of getting lost – insert ‘weeds’ here ->.

The unexplained is very unsatisfying. Someone wrote this:

“The Unexplained” has a somewhat sinister connotation to our adult minds because it puts us on shaky ground. Our reason has nothing to hang on to. When circumstances are not to our liking, we are likely to use phrases like, “I demand an explanation” or “You’ve got some explaining to do!” Of course this has not so much to do with shedding some light on the situation as it has to do with making ourselves feel safer, more secure in the midst of something which has inconvenienced us.

We can even become suspicious, paranoid, fearful and neurotic if our dependence on explanations is too strong and we cannot actually find one.

In my words … it can kind of drive us nuts. We need to realize that sometimes we put way too much emphasis on trying to figure out what is right and wrong … or even worse … seeking an explanation for something that just ‘is.’

Look. With so much unpredictability and seeming chaos in business <because shit moves so fast> sometimes the explanation really doesn’t matter.

It just is.

It is the way it’s supposed to be.

It is just the way it happened.

All the over analysis, over thinking, over planning, over explaining doesn’t accomplish anything. While it may make us feel better putting an ultimate <but incredibly convoluted and complex> explanation on something, sometimes it doesn’t accomplish anything <useful>.

In fact all that thinking trying to identify ‘the explanation’ can freeze you to a point where you get stuck over thinking  — all in the attempt in trying to rationalize everything.

You can get overwhelmed not by the situation <or the amount of situations> but simply by the lack of explanation.

You can get overwhelmed not by the chaos of complexity, but rather by the act of ignoring, or even arguing against, the simple solution <the fact it ‘just is’>.

So much of our stress and anxiety comes from our attempts at finding an explanation or even a simpler ‘is it good or bad’ definition to the challenge or situation. Yeah. We like things to be a certain way <mostly not simple>. Yeah. We like the feeling that things in life should be generally good. And, yeah, explanations help us define good or bad <or at least help us define blame or resolution or whatever>. Yeah. We just like explanations. Simple, complex, any size shape or form … we will take anyone we can get.

Regardless.

The bottom line? We are reluctant to accept things that cannot be defined or explained. We hate “it just is what it is” things.

Look. Explanations are good … and bad.

Good in that it helps to have some boundaries and guidelines and … well … definition <or Life would just be some nebulous blob … disgusting thought, huh?>.

Bad in that some things are simply undefinable therefore forcing an explanation into a ‘it is what it is’ scenario creates some unfair & untrue conclusions.

Anyway.

Some things are simpler than we make them out to be.

And  some things just cannot be rationally explained.

And sometimes it just isn’t worth investing the energy trying to rationalize it.

It is what it is.

And it drives us frickin’ crazy.