====

“We’re making our decisions … or so we think. Yet in truth, ignorance, greed, and the scourge of immediate gratification are often the things that are making them. So if we’re going to truly live well, maybe the first thing we need to decide is who’s deciding.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough

====

All of this goes to show that without the initiative that comes from immediate responsibility, ignorance will persist in the face of masses of information however complete and correct. It persists even in the face of the meritorious efforts that are being made to go beyond presenting information and to teach the use of it by means of lectures, classes, discussion groups.

Results are not zero. But they are small. People cannot be carried up the ladder. Thus the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance.”

Schumpeter

====

Technology suffers from nearsightedness. Yeah. I said that even as the technology futurists discuss 5G, metaverse, blockchain and more.  The trouble is while we get dazzled by some imaginative fantastical futuristic headlines, the reality is most technology business models are driven by lack of imagination and building toward immediate returns and feeding immediate consequences. What I mean by that is every innovative widget they develop is paid for with algorithms that drive immediate returns and immediate consequences. This is the underbelly of an instant gratification economy in that it is fed by (a) drive immediate engagement and (b) exploit human tendencies to engage. In other words, monetize immediacy. This misguided objective setting is exacerbated by purposefully conflating people’s needs and wants by exploiting the wants <not necessarily the needs> and isolating individuals over the collective <i.e., give me what I want even if it may not be best for all’s needs>.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this technology nearsightedness is shared by many industry and policy decision-making leadership. As an example, energy independence today means reaching for whatever energy source exists today. In general, decisions are made to meet existing infrastructure not any future possibilities ignoring longer term consequences with labor patterns, environmental structural issues and even the fact today’s dollars are being invested in structure being outdated on a daily basis. In other words, each dollar is diminishing in investment as soon as it is used rather than investing in future structure which actually increases in value.

But I focus on technology today because they are playing mindbender with time frames to cloak unhealthy short-term consequences. It’s almost like the long-term considerations are too remote in the future <or they are naïve enough to believe “problems solve themselves”> to be concerned at the expense of present-day income/revenue.

The problem with this type of time horizon myopia is that technology is an exponential accelerant versus many other additive accelerants. What that means is yesterday’s 10-year time horizon can often become a 10 month or even 1-month time horizon. This means that time horizons have become so radically altered that having an immediate return/immediate consequence business model simply adds gasoline to an existing fire.

It’s a fault, a shortcoming as it were, in their capitalistic DNA. This fault is an impediment to technology being wholly effective or even truly desirable in a total-value-provided view. This shortcoming infects almost everything they do. Every innovation for the future of technology is cursed with this immediate return myopia. So while they speak of farsightedness and future, they are doomed by economic shortsightedness.

To be clear. This isn’t flawed thinking on their part, it’s a fault, a characteristic of how they think. Flaws suggest detracting from completeness <or the best>, fault points to things that actively impair progress from completeness or the best it can be. It is something that exists and inherent to the nature of who they are, what they do and how they think. This fault means technology, and technology businesses, will continuously only offer us empty innovations – empty of real meaningful long-term returns – which will continue to empty, and mar, society as a whole.

Look. They could refuse to think this way. Yeah. Refusal is always an option. It’s just that refusal comes with consequences. If you make a choice, then you’re responsible for the consequences – short & long term – of that choice and they are not willing to accept the consequences. Technology time horizons must be extended but, to be clear, to plan and behave with a more distant future in mind does not mean dictated, prescriptive, strategies and initiatives. I even say that with infrastructure in mind which demands a constructed (efficient & effective) future. Some agility does not demand shortsightedness, it actually demands situational awareness along a continuum of progress points. I would also note that being ‘future-conscious’ is not about having some Purpose. It is actually more likely to contain more transactional elements like integrity to a societal objective and sacrificing some simplistic black & white “cause & effect immediacy” and incorporating some rich & royal hues of expanding thinking and sensemaking.

Anyway.

I believe it was Toffler who stated “every society faces not merely a succession of probable futures, but an array of possible futures, and a conflict over preferable futures.” I would add we should parse this discussion out to ‘want-fit futures’, ‘need-fit futures’ and preferable futures <the latter most likely being some combination of the two former>. In my mind this is not futurism, but rather ‘future-fitting.’ This may sound like I am dancing on the head of a pin, but the truth is we need to fit into a positive possible future and we are more likely to do so if we engage in the belief that getting humans, and humanity, from here to there is dependent upon showing a future they can fit in <a place in which it can feed both wants and needs>.

Regardless. Assessing the possibility, and probabilities, of future states demands assessing all dimensions of the future. What I mean by that is Pace Layering. Leisure patterns are different than geopolitical patterns and energy patterns and, yet, they are all connected <even in some fairly obtuse ways>. I bring this up because if technology focuses solely on immediate returns and immediate consequences, they, well, screw up pacing. This means an asymmetrical world becomes even more asymmetrical. Asymmetrical is actually the norm but the concern on this is that a complete lack of alignment leads to complete dysfunction. So, while it may feel dysfunctional now <society, etc.> the truth is it is most likely simply discordant pacing, not out of whack asymmetrical pacing – but that can change if technology continues to pursue it immediate’ business model.

Circling back, we need to increasingly focus on the interconnectedness of disparate events and consequences and devote increasing attention to the social consequences, to the individual and society, of technology. The mostly negative social and cultural effects of technology are becoming increasingly obvious and while there are likely a myriad of reasons, let me circle back to ‘immediate returns, immediate consequences’ as a mindset.

Look. Business has always been trapped in a short-term mentality and I tend to believe people have increasingly become more ‘immediate return’ focused <by the way, this may be a Halo Effect thing where it a is a looped consequence relationship>. That said. Technology is exploiting this AND amplifying it. We need to change the narrative. Change the mindsets and rearrange attitudes and beliefs. In doing so we can change reality.

In the end, I would suggest the technology elite shortsightedness view of immediate returns/immediate consequences, is a constraint, not just a fault.

As a parallel thought, while removing the constraint within an organization releases value potential/opportunity, the similar is also true in the marketplace itself. Knowledge should always be applied against removing existing constraints in the marketplace and in doing so value is achieved. And, in fact, the higher the order of constraint the higher the possible market value. I would argue, at least for today, an immediate return/immediate consequence attitude is a higher order constraint. This is a big issue and I don’t believe we talk about it in big enough terms. We point fingers, wave hands around and, in general, think of this as some issue too big to get a grip on. It is not. If we grip immediate return and immediate consequence and, consequently, throw it in the trash, we can permit the market, and technology, to pursue a healthier objective and vision. Ponder.

====

“To learn to see- to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

===

“The list could surely go on, and there is nothing more wonderful than a list, instrument of wondrous hypotyposis.”

Umberto Eco

—-

“We made a drywall list of keyboard buttons we would like to see:

PLEASE, THANK YOU, FUCK OFF, DIE, OOPS…MY MISTAKE, DO SOMETHING COOL AND SURPRISE ME.”

Douglas Coupland

——-

Archaic as it may sound, writing things down may be more important today than ever before.

Yup. Crazy, huh?

Writing shit down does matter.

Which leads me to how many times do we hear about someone complaining about how they missed a deadline or forgot to do something?

Well. If you interviewed all the guilty parties the overwhelming answer would be. 

“TIME! 

THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME!”

 Yup.

There is the culprit. That bastard Time.

It pretty much is a consensus in business, and Life, that the only thing that creates missed deadlines and missed ‘task doing’ is lack of time.

If you think about it just a bit, that’s kinda nuts. Ok. Maybe it is just a bogus excuse.

The reality is the issue is not Time but rather, uhm, “everyone is always looking to do an unreasonable amount of things in an unreasonable amount of time.”

All that said. I say “nuts” to that.

Critical deadlines are part of business and will always be a part of business. If you can’t live with crazy deadlines, get out of business. Go be the person behind the counter at the bike rental place or a government employee at the driver’s license department or a park ranger.

Now that I am done being an asshole let’s assume you have a real job in a real office with real responsibilities.

This is where the whole writing shit down topic becomes relevant.

You may have heard of the Yale <or Harvard Business School> study of goals in which only 3% of the graduating class had specific written goals for their futures. Twenty years later that 3% was found to be earning, uhm (clears throat a bit), 10x that of the group that had no clear goals.

Oops.

That is an urban myth so please do not screenshot that portion and expound upon goals.

No actual study done. In fact. Fast Company published an article about the alleged study: “If Your Goal is Success, Don’t Consult These Gurus”: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/cdu.html . So all those “list business consultant gurus” and the gazillion self help list making books are full of shit.

However.

Just to be fair <not to the expert blowhards, but to lists> a clinical psychologist at Dominican University in California has conducted research on goals.

1. Types of goals:

Participants pursued a variety of goals including (in order of frequency reported) completing a project, increasing income, increasing productivity, getting organized, enhancing performance/achievement, enhancing life balance, reducing work anxiety and learning a new skill.

Examples of “completing a project” included writing a chapter of a book, updating a website, listing and selling a house, completing a strategic plan, securing a contract, hiring employees and preventing a hostile take-over.

2. Goal Achievement:

Group 5 achieved significantly more than all the other groups; Group 4 achieved significantly more than Groups 3 and 1; Group 2 achieved significantly more than Group 1.

  3. Differences between all writing groups and the non-writing group: 

Although the previous analysis revealed that Group 2 (written goals) achieved significantly more than Group 1 (unwritten goals), additional analysis were performed to determine whether there were also differences between the group that had not written their goals (Group 1) and all groups that had written their goals (Groups 2-5). This analysis revealed that the mean achievement score for Groups 2-5 combined was significantly higher than Group 1.

Conclusions:

1. The positive effect of accountability was supported

Those who sent weekly progress reports to their friend accomplished significantly more than those who had unwritten goals, wrote their goals, formulated action commitments or sent those action commitments to a friend.

2. There was support for the role of public commitment

Those who sent their commitments to a friend accomplished significantly more than those who wrote action commitments or did not write their goals.

3. The positive effect of written goals was supported

Those who wrote their goals accomplished significantly more than those who did not write their goals.

——————

 My point here is simply that lists can help in a variety of ways. This study shows some evidence that a combination of accountability, commitment and writing down one’s goals demonstrates writing shit down enhances the likelihood of goal achievement.

But here is the most interesting point. Its not really about accountability, its more about eliminating stress. Yeah.  List making has its highest value not in actual productivity, but actually with stress reduction.

Stress?

Yup. There is a guy named James Fallows who wrote in 2004-something the fact that our brains may not be able to remember shit when it gets overloaded and, yet, at the same time the brain also can’t forget. Basically that is the cognitive paradox – overload and locked & loaded.

Regardless.

That sucks.

At some deep and not very efficient level the brain is always chewing over all the things you should have done, but haven’t. Worse? As it chews away it tends to remind you of them at the worst time – typically in the middle of the night.

What this suggests is that most of our stress comes not from having too much to do, but from trying to keep track of it all. Which explains why, when you’re feeling so overwhelmed and you finally sit down and make a list you tend to experience a sense of relief. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this sense of relief occurs even if the tasks just written down remain as unfinished as when you began.  Yup. But now your brain has a plan to chew on. Basically you have offloaded the job of remembering them to an “outboard brain” which then permits your actual ‘inboard brain’ to relax a little.

Regardless. Here is the deal.

If you are in a business you can make lists until you have an entire wall covered with nothing but lists, but, frankly, all the shit on your lists and why they never seem to get done are typically a reflection of the systems around you, or more specifically, the lack of systems as well as people who do not follow the system. Yeah. I just gave everyone who isn’t getting things done an excuse.

I am kinda okay with that excuse because, let’s face it, most companies just have crappy systems. Mostly because most business is done verbally or via email and true project management gets relegated to behind “all the shit we have to do now.”

Please do not misconstrue anything in what I say because project management is hard.

REALLY hard. Especially in a business organization.

Which leads me back to the main point of today’s piece:

EVERYTHING IS PUT INTO WRITING.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

It keeps you organized, because you no longer have to keep stuff in your head, but you can externalize it to a piece of paper, and later you can process it.

Why write it down?

It’s pretty simple. I don’t need research nor any guru to tell me the key thought.

Although there is no proven limit of how much stuff you can remember, there is always an opportunity cost. You cannot focus on too many things at the same time. Writing shit down is a powerful simple way to focus your attention, keep track of shit, and create a permanent record for the future.

Here is another factoid that should encourage you to write shit down: the Act of Writing Helps Your Memory.

Yup.

Have you ever noticed that when you write a shopping list, you can remember almost all the items on it without glancing at it? Or when you have a bright idea and scribble it in your notebook, you can remember it all day? The very act of writing things down helps to get them lodged into your long-term, not short-term, memory.

Look. Writing shit down on a consistent basis seems like a Time burden and often seems to not bear any obvious benefits. But, beyond achieving goals, lists can actually saves time.

——

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Goethe

——

Lists can save you time because they can help you decide what to do. I say that because not everything on a list is of equal value. Suffice it to say there are want to do’s and need to do’s. It was Stephen Covey who did an excellent job outlining how to think about things on your lists. This matrix is the creation of Stephen Covey <which he discusses in his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”>.

Central to this matrix is organize and execute around priorities.

If we classify activities by urgency and importance, you arrive at the matrix above. Urgent means it requires immediate attention. Important has to do with results, it contributes to your mission, values or high priority goals. He advocates spending as much time as possible in Quadrant II, feeding opportunities and starving problems. The time you’ll need to add to Quadrant II will come from Quadrants III and IV. As you begin to spend more time in Quadrant II, the issues in Quadrant I will begin to dwindle.

Which leads me to writing shit down and the quality of idea output.

Simplistically, off target ideas are bad ideas.

<yes … there are bad ideas>

Many people equate success in ideas to how nice the idea looks or feels or how quickly it was “turned around.” Some people equate success to quantity + speed to generate. And, yeah, I cannot argue that those things are important in today’s ‘cram 10 pounds of shit into a 2 pound bag’ and slightly frenetic <if not verging on chaotic> business world, but bad ideas are bad ideas and quantity & speed are not enough.

In today’s world just getting shit done doesn’t hack it; it has to work. It has to produce results. Turning crap around around in record time only means that you are an excellent crap producer. You check a whole bunch of shit off your lists, and you may show up in monthly meetings pointing out how much shit you have checked off your list, but at some point someone is going to point out all you have done is generate shit lists.

But, back to poor ideas.

I’ve been around the ideas part of business for almost forty years. In the process of doing thousands of ideas assignments, I have learned there are basically two things that contribute most to good ideas:

quality input

=

time

Good input is critical to good ideas and the proper amount of time for the input ingredients to cook to create the idea pretty much will make or break the quality of your output from your list items. I would like to note that adequate time may be one of the most underrated important factors in the ideas process. Yeah. The difference between bad ideas, good ideas and great ideas is always about having the opportunity to look & think about what you did yesterday. I can guarantee an idea given a chance to be finessed, to be rethought a little will be a better idea in the end.

Time <some … not an infinite no deadline amount> makes an idea better.

Anyway. I thought about this after seeing another one of those lists of ‘5 things successful people do’ and, humorously, making lists almost always seems to be on that list.

It’s kind of crazy <in my mind> because we Americans are, and always have been, list makers.

—

“Americans are good with to-do lists; just tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.

Throughout our history, we have proven that.

Colonize. Check.

Win our independence. Check.

Form a union. Check.

Expand to the Pacific. Check.

Settle the West. Check.

Keep the Union together. Check.

Industrialize. Check.

Fight the Nazis. Check.”

Marianne Williamson

—-

In the end. What is the best reason to write shit down?

You avoid verbal project management <which is a 98.32764% chance of failure if verbal>.

If you want something, or something done, write it down.

Nothing should be done on a verbal basis.

Things get lost when not written down. Thoughts, ideas, input, well, anything.

There you go …  writing shit down means the shit has a less likelihood of getting lost. Ponder.

———

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”

John Maynard Keynes

———————–

 “man trapped in the world of machines, unable to grow as a human being and become himself.”

Clockwork Condition (the unfinished sequel to Clockwork Orange)

———-

This is not about collaboration in the traditional sense. I tend to believe most collaboration discussions are misguided <utopian> and most actual collaboration leads to consensus and a less-than-optimal conclusion. That said. Every organization would benefit if every employee was able to maximize their potential which, in simplistic terms, means everyone contributes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone ‘contributes’ now, but what I mean is everyone contributes to the whole of the system and not just their part. I imagine what I am suggesting is dialogue throughout the organization which creates an exchange of information, knowledge, ideas and execution.

“If you really want a Learning Organisation you must build the capacity to change the internal dialogue. It is dialogue that has created who we are and only a change in our dialogue will change that. Networks will decide on their topic of conversation based on their sense of identity.”

Atkinson

Through interactions with the knowledge, and each other, the organization itself continuously improves – sometimes in small increments daily and sometimes in velocity driven shifts with emergent opportunities – and the people continuously improve. But it is also not just improvement in the traditional sense it is also improvement in terms of efficacy. One of the most overlooked and underdiscussed aspects of successful business is the alignment of resources to ‘the idea’ <strategy>. A paper trail certainly offers a schematic of who and what is available and when but the truth is it is only through conversations, and dialogue, where the nuances <which can make or break any strategy> can be discovered. Additionally, I would also note that an innate sense of organizational identity is crafted by the individuals within the organization through each and every interaction, iteration and action. But when everyone contributes there will be a constant tension found in the pushing & pulling and the tug of war between those who see the world pragmatically and those who envision the possibilities which keeps shaking the business etch a sketch. All of this happens within the frame <boundaries> of the organization culture and principles. Yes. All of that happens when everyone contributes. It is a constant feeding frenzy of what is and what will be fed by what people want & need driving new ideas and new ways of doing things and better ways of getting things done and … well … a better version of who you are as an organization.

And therein lies the power of purposeful possibilities: finding the “better” within what is.

This is a version of always seeing what will be, what could be, driven by ‘what is.’

I call this ‘better inside for a better outside’.  The better inside is obvious. This is purposeful adaptation and a constant fine tuning of how things are done and products & services offered.

But we cannot, and should not, forget that all of the ‘better inside’ feeds a ‘better desire’ outside.

Pragmatically customers want a better product, better efficiencies, better effectiveness and a better benefit offered.

From a possibilities standpoint your customers, even the business decision makers huddled over productivity reports and P&L statements desire something better than a good numbers report. Sure. That is the day-to-day ‘meet the needs state’ type stuff going on in their heads but at some point, they lean back in their chairs, either in the office or in the comfort of their home, and they desire, maybe even need, to see something better to validate themselves as human beings beyond simply ‘doing their job well.’ They want to feel they have done something better, offered something better or contributed something better, or, being dynamic themselves beyond their own practical purpose. When everyone contributes there are a greater sense of meaning and impact which is easier to articulate in your own head as well as to others that aren’t involved in the business but involved in your life. Contribution has a nice ability to translate well everywhere.

Anyway. My next point on everyone contributes. There are a lot, a shitload, of crazy smart business people out there. But there are not a lot of crazy smart business people who seem to be willing to do something crazy like ignore the business books which articulate principles and focus on ‘blueprints for success.” I imagine my point is that most businesses don’t consider ‘advantage’ as temporary. They see it as planned or when it actually happens, they treat it as sustainable.

And ultimately that becomes their downfall.

Windows of opportunity close. And often they close quickly. And maybe that is where the ‘sustainable’ belief really screws most businesses. They jump through the window of opportunity, and let’s say they even treat the stark contrast opportunity correctly, they then act like they are going to stay on that side of the window.

Wrong.

Bad decision.

Windows of opportunity are meant to be jumped through, opportunity maximized, and then you jump back before it closes again. I will say this. Windows CAN be held open for a bit, but only of everyone contributes. Because windows of opportunity, for the most part, are unplanned, so if people and resources flow to the opportunity that opportunity can be exploited and expanded upon. The corollary to that is if everyone CAN contribute it is more likely you get a better clue as to when to stop <which is actually one of the trickiest things in business>.

Anyway. My next point on everyone contributes is, well, lets call it the collective mind or the relationship between people and accessible knowledge through technology.

The cloud elevates all businesses to the level of the best generic technology <note: I do not know of one company/business who does not have access to Cloud technology>. Think of it as the common power grid from which a business opens up for business daily. But the real power of the cloud is it elevates the greater potential of any business as it taps into shared information to supplement, and compliment, the institutional data – while maintaining privacy of the institution itself. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out here that “people” <memory, knowledge, skills> represents institutional data in a significant way. That said. While the cloud represents an almost limitless pool of ever-growing knowledge and data, let me say that the cloud, in and of itself, can be just as stupid, if not stupider, than any one individual. More knowledge, used poorly, simply makes one stupider rather than smarter. The collective knowledge is only as good as who uses it.

As a corollary, individuals, and small groups of people, within an institution <augmented by the cloud collective knowledge> get smarter iteratively (even if they misuse knowledge because they learn from mistakes and discuss). Conceptually they get smarter than the cloud due to understanding of context and experience. I mention this to provide the possibilities and problems. When everyone contributes there is just a likelihood that everyone gets smarter as they will get stupider. Ponder that.

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

Booker T. Washington

In the end. We are in the midst of change. I will not call it disruptive because I simply think it is transformative. The context and dynamics of the world have shifted and business, as business does <albeit kicking and screaming>, will shift to optimize against the new dynamics. I would argue at the core of this transformation is an increased ability to learn AND need to learn. Paradoxically, the learning most impactful will take place on the periphery or edges of the businesses. This shift is even more important because I view this transformative change not as incremental change <slow & steady>, but rather discontinuous <asymmetrical> evolution which can radically reconfigure opportunities <and problems> from the expected ones. This means knowledge dissemination isn’t simply about distributing information/knowledge, but what kind of knowledge critical to the business model AND the discontinuous opportunity. This means shedding some of what one knows and adding some new to create an optimal strategic decision. It is an art of knowledge that arises from analytics of the context, instinctual sense of interconnectedness <and dependence>, lateral thinking and imagination. It will demand that everyone contributes everything they are capable of – not just some title or existing responsibility. This also requires some change in how we think about thinking. As Brian Arthur, Santa Fe Institute, says “retreat and reflect: allow the inner knowing to emerge.” In a world suggesting we need to move faster we need to give thinking, and thoughts, space. Far too often we try and squeeze our thinking believing if we strip everything away the truth will be uncovered. The truth is we would be more likely to think of something useful if after watching and listening and gathering information if we stepped back and let all those thoughts and scraps of information roam in the empty space a bit. In addition, it helps if you think on the periphery looking in rather than from the middle looking out. What I mean by that is we can far too often get caught up in attempting to wrangle things we know which sometimes means the solutions or ideas simply work in that moment (becoming less optimal from that point on – natural degradation). Instead, if you perch on the edges, the periphery, you can see how an idea plays out in the empty space as well as if there is anything beyond the periphery that may change your view. How do you do that? Well. Have everyone contribute.

Ponder.

—————–

“We get together on the basis of our similarities; we grow on the basis of our differences.”

Virginia Satir

=======

“I am the sea and nobody owns me.”

Pippi Longstocking

======

i would fight myself if i could

(letthechipsfallwheretheymay)

========

So. “Not being owned” sounds like a simple thing. Yet. Over and over <and over> again we permit something, or someones, to own a part of you.

It can be direct or it can be indirect.

It can be consciously or subconsciously.

To be clear.

This is not a society thing <albeit society is a nasty twit on occasion>; this is a self thing.

And this is not a corruption thing <albeit money is a nasty twit on occasion> … this is a self thing.

So what do I mean by a self thing?

One of the very very few things you can actually control in life is “self ownership.”

Owning who you are as a person. Owning your integrity. Owning your character, dignity and moral compass. And, I imagine, owning your behavior & attitudes. These are all things clearly in your control. These are all things, clearly, you own.

Now. This ownership isn’t easy. It isn’t because what you own, well,  there are a shitload of people and things and Life are constantly seeking ways to steal it. Yeah. I said steal. They try to wrest all of, well, “you” out of your control so they can steal it and replace it with something they would prefer (or want).

Please note: I will also say owning a good security system will not do shit for you.

You need to learn self-defense. And by self defense I actually mean defending against your self <and not someone or something else>. You have to choose to fight – that is your choice.

Fight against some nasty instincts <which more often than not head you in the wrong direction>.

Fight against temptation <of which the world has an endless array it constantly parades in front of you>.

Fight against some internal mind games <think doubt, fear, acceptance, etc.>.

Regardless. Many of us flippantly state “I am my own person and nothing owns me” and, yet, under the glaring spotlight of truth & reality we will find that more of us is owned by someone or something than we would like.

So what do we do when that happens?

Many of us shrug our shoulders when faced with this harsh truth and say “those are not the important things” or “that’s just Life.”

Well. Here is some harsh truth you better get a grip on. It is not ‘just Life’ and they are not just ‘little unimportant things.’ It is your Life and they are your things.

More of us should stop, take a moment, and think about whether we want to react to external ownership efforts <stealing> or proactively “fight myself” over the right to own myself. Yeah. Sometimes you not only have to be aware of what you own, you also have to be aware enough to fight your instincts to let them be stolen. Let them? Yes. We do it far too often because its either not important enough in that moment or maybe just too hard to fight at that moment. Be careful. Be careful because those moments can add up fast.

Anyway.

Each of us is the sea and no one owns a sea. Do not be owned.

Ponder.

===

“There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one’s maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.”

Buck Rodgers

====

While I have always been a Tom Peters fan, especially his book Thriving on Chaos, I have always chafed at The Search for Excellence. Ok. Let me be more specific.

First.

In Search of Excellence was the first book I faced in my career that became a ‘formula’ for business people I worked with. Normally sane thoughtful independent thinking business people (mostly men) would pull out the book or point to it on some shelf and would say “we need to do this.” Without question it became the first business bible, of many business bibles to come, of what everyone needs to do to be excellent. And while I could debate some aspects of the book itself suffice it to say, its good, has some great ideas, but is not a bible.

Second.

Excellence. While excellence seems like an innocuous helpful objective, when placed into a typical maniacal business environment (business pursuit of profits) excellence as an objective can become quite unhealthy. Its almost like perfection. Seeking excellence, and even perfection, can often make things better, but when they become objectives everyone gets measured in an “absence of” way <both are actually unattainable so when measured everyone will appear lacking>. When I was younger it was impossible trying to convince people excellence was a dubious objective at best. Later in my career as I got better at pointing out how good ideas can be misinterpreted and misused and become misguided objectives, I took this battle on more often (more on that later).

Then I found this snippet from a research paper (source lost):

In the eighties and nineties, N. Aubert and V. de Gaulejac (2007) argued, that the “ethics of excellence” in people management created the moral foundation of a system striving to control the totality of a person. In convincing employees that, by working for the firm, they were working for themselves, a complete blurring was made of professional and personal ambitions, and companies emerged as institutions capable of mediating individual destinies, supporting self-development, objects of true love, and in the end the only instrument able to fulfill the need for immortality of the self.

This work ethic creates particular interactions between people, interactions marked by the constant necessity to become visible. This quest for visibility takes the form of a new social game in which everyone is striving to capture the attention of others. In a sort of Goffmanian ‘parade’, self-branding and “newsing” oneself are ways to occupy the mental space of others and to stay on top of the competition. For businesses, being always present on personal communication channels, on webplatforms, etc., is a way to colonize the minds of their managers and to reduce their capacity to imagine another world.

The point here is that searching for excellence, when wielded as a management tool, became not only a power play, but as it became a standardized tool it became an imagination/innovation diminisher. As with most things business does, they decided to make the search for excellence more a ‘paint by numbers’ concept rather than a malleable concept to be applied differently in different contexts. What the idea lost was what Mary Parker Follett called “the law of the situation.” In other words, the situation, the context, dictates the application of an idea or concept – even excellence.

Third.

Excellence aside, there are a number of good well intended ideas that have driven many a good business person off the beaten path to success. Copying and standardization are the worst things that can ever be done to a good concept. I have known that for many many years and have therefore been a pain in the ass for many many years.

I have been a pain in the ass for years.

In mid 90’s I published the highly unpopular “customer is not king/queen” arguing that all it would do is create an entire industry of businesses chasing customer’s whims & wants consistently undermining expectations. My agency was not delighted. But it did.

In 2005 I published the ‘inside/out manifesto’ arguing to achieve highest order of value is thru organization knowing who it is, unequivocally accepting that, with a product as an extension of who they are (successfully addressing a need) matched with customers who want that combo. Branding people were grumpy.

In 2000’s when my agency introduced The Big Idea brief I skewered it as encouraging people to believe the only ideas of value were Big and encouraging clients to only be happy with so-called Big ideas & it would create a false culture in which we made ‘small’ shit, even small shitty ideas, look Big. Agency not happy. But it did.

In 2008 I skewered The Experience Economy (although I think it is one of most important business books/ideas of this generation) arguing it would spawn an industry of vapid ideas & meaningless products wrapped in experiences all the while espousing premium value. It has.

In 2010 I began harpooning customer centric arguing it only leads to unmet promises, false expectations & hollow value (internally & externally) within hierarchies. It demands distributed organizational autonomy or it creates no value. It has & it still does.

In Search of Excellence, Good to Great, Tipping Point … pick a book with a viable idea and it has been abused. The biggest abuse resides in taking one’s eye off the single most important thing – successfully implementing any of these good ideas to the highest order of value are contingent upon a consistently good product consistently delivered. My biggest issue is how all this stuff diverts people from the hard work of developing a meaningful product & creating value in it.

Let me end by circling back to a thought that may have not been highlighted enough. The Law of the Situation (Mary Parker Follett). I love ideas from smart people, I love books and I love learning new things. But. Everything is contextual. Everything. The law of every idea is overruled by the law of the situation. No idea’s maximum value can survive the context without some adaptation. In other words. Each situation has its own order and own concept. I imagine my point is that you can study excellence,  accountability methods, leadership principles, but, inevitably, all that matters is the Law of the Situation. Ponder.

==========

“I’ve been injected with false hope so many fucking times I’ve lost count”

via concealthefeeling

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“We all suffer from dreams.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

Well. I am unequivocally a hope guy.

I believe leaders should be dealers of hope.

I believe hope is stronger than … well … pretty much anything.

I believe no one should be empty of hope.

I believe everyone deserves someone to give them hope when hopelessness seems the only thing available.

That said.

While, technically, false hope is a simple definition, realistically, there are a couple kinds of false hope.

Ok. Actually a shitload of derivatives of false hope.

In my words there would be, on one end of the spectrum, the more heinous version of ‘offering a fantasy unrealistic thought’ all the way over to the other bookend of ‘grasping for some glimmer of a semi-impossible reality.”

And then everything in between.

Hope, in even a false way, has many dimensions. And within any and all dimensions I would suggest even a sliver of hope has an exponential value beyond its mere size. It is quite possible that is where false hope becomes a little dangerous – that exponential value beyond its actual size.

Even with a glimmer, hope can shine so bright it can blind you to the relentless onslaught of truths and realities. The truths which are more likely to showcase the horizon you are not only gonna be stuck looking at, but visiting at some point <which is not the horizon you had actually hoped for>. But false hope is maybe even slightly more dangerous than that <if anything could be more dangerous than be blinded by reality>.

It actually is more likely to blind you on the important little shit than the meaningless bigger shit. False hope inevitably drives someone to focus on the bigger more audacious, and less likely, objective. This translates into the fact that same someone is more likely to overlook the smaller more important shit that would actually have increased the odds of attaining the hopeful objective.

How does that most often happen?

You are more likely to make some smaller, more impactful, poor choices and decisions hanging on to the sliver of false hope like it is a security blanket from the dangers of the reality you know must be out there.

By the way. That is the main difference between real hope and false hope – in the nuts & bolts aspects.

Real hope. Real hope, which truly has aspects of reality embedded within, actually permits you to navigate reality’s obstacles as you pursue the real hope of something. The real truth is that real hope does not blind, it actually opens your eyes. That said. Contrary to belief the most dangerous false hope is not the one which is complete fantasy it is the type that actually has some reality embedded.

Yeah. False hope is not always some fantasy.

Yeah. False hope is not always something with “no knowable chance of coming to fruition.”

Yeah. As I stated in the beginning someone who purposefully propagates a true fantasy, something so unrealistic, well, that really isn’t false hope that is propagating a lie. And exploiting a lie is a heinous act <but that is NOT false hope>.

So, to be clear, false hope can be propagated not as some false promise or lie, but rather in a weird ‘well intended way.’ Say, for example, someone has been elevated to a position who is unqualified and untested … but has some tested competency. They sit down at their new desk with all the intentions to succeed and all the words to suggest everyone should believe they will figure it out and succeed.

Well. Let’s say they have strong well intended hope that they will do the job and deliver what they promise.

That is a trickier version of false hope. It is propagated from someone who quite possibly has some false beliefs with regard to their own capabilities, but true belief in a good objective.

Uhm. But what if they do figure it out?

Well. They have delivered on hopes therefore, in some weird equation of Life, a false hope has becomes a real hope delivered.

Look. My point is hope is hope.

And unless someone is lying just to get everyone’s unrealistic hopes up, any hope is better than no hope. You can either not have hope, or have false hope, or real hope <albeit ‘real’ and ‘hope’ is a tenuous relationship>.

To be clear … all actions should be determined by reason, logic and practicality within a construct of strategic hope. That is the main Hope equation.

But hope is, well, hope. And it is hope for a reason. You want something better and at exactly the same time you are not omniscient nor a future prognosticator therefore any and all hoe is fraught with some potential falseness an some potential truth.

Hope, in and of itself, is and has always been an abstract concept.

Fortune, luck, hard work & preparation can guide someone toward hope or away from hope.  Hope is never, and I mean NEVER, representative of certainty. Therefore to accept any hope, false of true, you have to accept the existence of possibilities – good and bad.

To me, in my pea like brain, all false hope implies is that the odds are against you and success is slim, yet, people believe they can overcome any and all obstacles. And, in that point, is where I could argue that false hope is as good as any hope out there.

For in that statement if that is what makes someone get out of bed in the morning and go out and try to do something good or even just try, well, that’s not false that is real.

Having led people I do not use hope flippantly even though I believe in hope as a leadership responsibility.

I do believe people want truth.

I do believe people want to feel safe.

I do believe people want someone to accept some of the burden of the bigger more visionary aspects of Life.

I do believe people want to contribute, personally, within progress toward a specific hope for something better.

I do believe Hope, false or true, is hope.

And we all deserve hope.

===========

“People aren’t interested in the truth.

They’re interested in what keeps them safe.

They’re interested in being looked after. They’re interested in a tale being spun… Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about.”

Melina Marchetta

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originally published December 2016

===

“What people don’t understand doesn’t exist.”

Jan Carlzon

——–

“Chance favors the connected mind.”

Steven Johnson

===

Ok. We chase a lot of things in business in search of ‘advantage’. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Differentiation is one of those rabbit holes.

Now. I have a warped perspective <it includes rabbit holes> with regard to differentiation and differentiating in the business world. I think it’s a shit objective. Ok. It CAN be a shithole objective. But suffice it to say I believe chasing differentiation is … well … yes … often a rabbit hole.

To be clear. I don’t dislike differentiation and I believe a well differentiated sustainable idea can dominate a market. But. Chasing differentiation seems to take on some fairly absurd efforts to attain the objective. In addition. I worry about differentiation as an objective because it points people in the wrong direction. If I were to kill this whole differentiation thing, I would begin by saying “define, define, define.” Define yourself with such a clear distinctive thought that permits you stand up and say ‘here is who I am.’

Here is the deal. Sometimes you may look similar to someone else. But more often you will look like ,well, you. And in a sometimes complex fragmented world where everyone is shouting how different they are <and people are becoming more & more cynical> distinctness can win. And more often than not you will also be, well, different. In addition. In today’s world about the only sustainable differentiation isn’t a thing, it is knowledge, thinking & what you have done with what you learn.

Regardless. The meaningless rabbit hole. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can make some fairly absurd decisions with regard to thoughtless specialization, nuanced differentiation and niche definition. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can gleefully land on some ‘spot’ and declare differentiation victory only to have it all negated because of lack of alignment throughout all aspects of operations. Attempted, or false/meaningless, differentiation is useless and distracting and a rabbit hole.

Bottom line on differentiation is the reckless pursuit of it encourages us to lie to ourselves, i.e., convince ourselves of ‘true difference’ when it is simply meaningless differentiation. And therein lies the worst of the rabbit hole. Pretending to not see the truth, or maybe <to be kinder>, to pretend it is what it isn’t.

—————

“… the person who pretends to not see the truth is committing something much worse than a mortal sin, which can only ruin one’s soul – but instead committing us all to lifetimes of pain.

The truth is not just something we bring to light to amuse ourselves; the truth is the axis munid, the dead center of the earth. When it’s out of place nothing is right; everyone is in the wrong place; no light can penetrate. Happiness evades us and we spread pain and misery wherever we go. Each person, above all others, has an obligation to recognize the truth and stand by it.”

Jacque Silette

—————-

That last point is semi-important because many business people simply ignore truth as they pursue this elusive <and debatably poor objective> thing called differentiation. Far <far> too many business people embrace acceptable doubt and the possibility that a stupid belief might have something going for it in the pursuit of ‘differentiation’ all the while completely ignoring something that makes you distinct <but possibly not different>, or, let’s call it ‘an obvious and rational truth.’ People ignore it because they believe it will get you nowhere.

Trust me. These are the meetings and discussions in which I often sit dumbfounded and silent and thinking ‘wow … the rabbit hole just gained a whole new crowd of loons.’

—-

“…I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time.”

A Clockwork Orange

———-

Our relentless pursuit of differentiating most often than not leads to an unimportant product feature <not what customers consider valuable>

–——-

“Differentiation is a unique quality, perceived or real, of a good or service that distinguish it from a competing good or service…”

Your Dictionary.com

——–

Look. I fully realize that the need to be distinctive and competitive are the reasons why the company needs to think about differentiation.  However, differentiation can take on so many faces there is no reason you should end up chasing down some rabbit hole for some elusive ‘this is what you MUST seek’ objective as defined by one expert <only to have another expert state unequivocally you need to chase another completely different shiny object>.

Suffice it to say, I can almost guarantee whenever someone brings up differentiation it is more often than not simply code for “please enter this rabbit hole.”

Next. The perfection rabbit hole. On a parallel course is a similar group chasing perfection often ending up in the same rabbit hole as the differentiators <can get awful crowded in that business rabbit hole>. The pursuit of perfection is an insidious rabbit hole. Its stench seeps into the darkest corners of an organization. And while the stench is enough to make anyone’s stomach heave most organizations have people with no real ability and yet strive to maintain an aura of ability under the guise of ‘seeking perfection for the good of the organization.’

More good employees are actually LED into the perfection rabbit hole than employees who actually CHOOSE to dive into the perfection rabbit hole. That said. Organizations are built over this particular rabbit hole. Every organization. It is the unfortunate burden of every organization to deal with the pursuit of perfection.

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

—————

Maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and business. Some of the things we seek most in business, whether it be differentiation or perfection or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your business, always seem to take longer than what you want. We get impatient. And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this un-real reality objective>.

Note:

we SHOULD be more thoughtful about this more often … mostly because if we do not far too many of the wrong people get fired <the right ones> and too many of the wrong people <the wrong ones> get praised and encouraged to maintain the ‘pursuit’ for the good f the organization.

Regardless. Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>. And Life bleeds into any and every organization.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people? Rabbit holes. It gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within.

But here is where Business and personal Life diverge.

In personal Life you are responsible for the stupid choices you make. Choose to enter a rabbit hole and the issue is all yours to own. In business you can actually get shoved into a rabbit hole whether you want to or not.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone leading a discussion about ‘how are we different’ and ‘what’s our differentiation?” I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone in the hallway espousing the need to pursue perfection I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

 All I can tell you is that when I am in a meeting and someone is discussing both differentiation and perfection I don’t swivel my head, I just sigh, because I know I am already in a rabbit hole.

That is business … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

==

“Stop looking for happiness in the same place you lost it.”

via creatingaquietmind

==

“Well I guess it’s only life,

It’s only natural we all spend a little while going down the rabbit hole. “

The Shins

==

“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.”

Lynda Barry

==

Ok. We chase a lot of things in Life. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Happiness is one of those rabbit holes.

Whoa !

WTF.

Happiness is a rabbit hole?

Well. Suffice it to say happiness is a tricky thing.

Having it is awesome.

Seeking it is … well … a rabbit hole.

The search injects us with most of our everyday stress which means most of our stress has nothing to do with what we have, but rather what we don’t have <seeking what we want in other words>.

And while wanting a new car or some shirt or the cool new phone is a tangible ‘want’ <and not even close to sending you down a rabbit hole>; happiness is much more elusive. In fact. Much more elusive than you would imagine <or want>.

First. Our brains struggle to remember happiness in a realistic way. Semi-happy moments in the past take on a Life of their own and become exponentially happier in the memory. Yeah. Happiness has a wary relationship with reality.

Second. Our brains relentlessly tug at and tease out the minutiae found in unhappy moments. This, ultimately, translates into the fact we cannot seem to forget unhappiness and inevitably, because of that, do anything – include some absolutely absurd things – we can to avoid it.

Therein lies the rabbit hole. Life is not meant to be avoided.

Shit.

Life cannot be avoided <whether you try to or not>.

What do I mean? While we seek to control our own destiny and write our own fates … others grab our Life while we aren’t looking and write whole chapters for us that we can only look at and say “WTF” just before the inevitable ‘not written by us’ happens.

———

“Life is like a library owned by the author.  In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick

————

And all that ‘not written by us’ stuff keeps on getting in the way of what we want to write about happiness for our Life as well as it gets in the way of erasing the unhappy shit. This particular rabbit hole, this relentless pursuit of happiness, makes Life particularly difficult.

———-

“It hasn’t been easy, and it never will be. After all, every day is also a chance to slide back into the darkness. To live in ourselves and our regrets, instead of this moment. To run away from those that would help us and let self-hatred drive us back into isolation, despair, and destruction.

Nick Spencer

——

Every day is not easy and actively pursuing happiness shoves our happy ass in a slippery sloped rabbit hole faster than you can blink an eye.

Ok. As a corollary to chasing happiness, lets maybe call this the other rail on the tracks down into the frickin’ rabbit hole, is chasing simplicity <often believing this ‘elusive simplicity’ will lead to happiness>.

Is this a paradox in Life? Shit. I don’t know, but I do know the more we seek simplicity the more complex things tend to get and … uhm … the less happy we become.

Whew. Boy oh boy, talk about the slippery slope leading down to the rabbit hole of self-hell. Seeking simplicity is it.

Simplicity entices you day by day and even hour by hour. And each day you do not attain simplicity the more and more you look at it as some type of failure and you try harder and harder for something I am fairly sure you just cannot attain. Or if you can attain it … well … it doesn’t come from a book or some formula or even some sage advice from a friend, it is something more earned by living and attempting and finding.

Simplicity seems so simple and yet it inevitably takes much much longer to master than you feel it is supposed to.

Simplicity seems so damn easy that we, well, get impatient when it doesn’t happen.

Let me state that differently. We get impatient with Life. Uh oh. It’s not like we can dictate the pace & flow of Life <I will come back to this>.

The next problem?

Even if you actually DO attain some simplicity you are aggravated it took so frickin’ long. This is compounded by the fact that simplicity is one of those weird things that as soon as you attain it you start hearing other people say “geez … why did it take you so long to figure THAT out?”

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

—————

<I use this quote to close the rabbit holes business post too>

And maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and Life and reality.

Some of the things we seek most in Life, whether it be happiness or simplicity or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your Life, always seem to take longer than what you want. And we get impatient.

And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience … we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this non-real reality objective>.

Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people?

Rabbit holes.

Life gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within this hole with slippery walls and minimal handholds to help us climb out of it.

Well. That summarizes reality … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

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“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days.

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling… “

Aldous Huxley

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Life truths.

Hard and lightly.

Haste with patience.

Forward diagonally.

Happy and sad.

Success and failure.

Right and wrong.

Thinking and doing.

Dreams and hard work.

Whew. This means that the truly great things in Life may be a coin you can put in your pocket — a coin made up of two sides and two faces.

Yeah. Life is usually a combination of opposites fighting a tug of war moment to moment. I bet no one told you that when you were growing up.

Far too often we are told the secret to life is one thing.

Far too often someone is not telling is the truth <or maybe they don’t really know the secret to life?>.

Th truth is Life <and business also> is a wonderful, maddening blob of inconsistency.

The only way to survive , and not be totally boring, inept or a hermit, is to steal a little of something from both sides and do your best to proportion it all out in the end.

Proportional?

I need some sadness to recognize true joy <only I certainly don’t want to dwell on sadness nor walk around as Happy the Clown every minute of the day>.

I want a leader who is energetic and demanding and cajoling, pushing, shoving, pulling, inspiring people toward a horizon < but I want the moments of idle strength and compassion intertwined>.

I want to work hard … so hard the muscles, brain and/or physical, are strained and hurt … and get to maybe get a glimpse of one of my dreams on occasion <so I can dream a little when not working hard>.

I want people to play hard and play to win <in any endeavor> … but do so with grace in victory & loss, with sportsmanship & fairness and respect for the game.

I want, well, it doesn’t matter what I want. Pick your ‘hard-lightly’ Life combination. I guarantee you will find the most interesting people, most interesting experiences, most interesting moments, most interesting anythings are a reflection of this ying-yang combination. Life is meant to be lived, and experienced, hard & lightly.

Now. By the way.

Just because Life is meant to be lived this way doesn’t mean it is easy to actually live it that way. Living hard, or living lightly, is not only addictive, but also often generates a sense of ‘lostness’ when shelved for a bit.

Why lostness?

Well. It is mostly fear that we will not refind or regain it therefore we hesitate to ever let it go from the way we currently live our Life.

So what do we do? We ‘take a break.’

We ‘get away from it all.’ In other words instead of seeking some ‘how we actually live’ balance in our lives we just step away from the way we live our Life by simply not going lightly <if we typically go hard> or not going go hard <if we typically go lightly> and we don’t do anything other than how we live our Life so, ultimately, we just choose to do nothing to ‘recharge.’

I would suggest that you don’t need to ‘take a break’ to recharge, but rather if you seek the proportional ‘yang’ to your ‘ying’, well, you will find additional purpose as well as your ‘ying’ takes on an entirely new image n your eyes & mind.

• *** note: proportional versus balance: I purposefully use proportional rather than balance because on an individual, person to person, basis it is rarely a 50/50 split – even over time. everyone customizes their life between hard & lightly as is appropriate to their personality, ambition and life desires. once again, this is rarely 50/50 and everyone should just seek what their optimal proportional mix is.

Regardless, just approaching Life one way means you miss out on what is most interesting in life – going hard & lightly.

Aw shit. Look. All I really know if that if you can figure out how to go hard and tread lightly at the same time, you will most likely be successful in business & in Life. You will most likely be appreciated, respected, sometimes liked and certainly not hated. I know … I know … the ‘tread lightly’ part is really really hard if you like to live Life going hard.

But.

As I just told someone go hard for the things you want and dreams you seek to reach toward and if you continue to do these things for you, knowing that your moral compass is set correctly and that your instincts with regard to ‘what is right’ versus ‘what is wrong’ are good, you will be happier and the people around you will rarely be disappointed.

Ponder.

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“We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.”

Ransom Riggs

====

“The best way to expose our ignorance is to hold on to biased ideas and opinions, because we fear giving the upper hand to the other side.”

Charles F. Glassman

====

Business is a tricky combination of adapting and consistency.

Suffice it to say discerning what to keep and build some consistency, and what to change or adapt, is, well, the key to creating a successful business.

Letting go of shit is difficult. We all know that.

But. Knowing when to hold on to something is just as difficult.

Simplistically:

<1> many organizations are burdened with older employees who tend to hold on based on their experience, and

<2> many organizations are burdened with younger employees who tend to let go of existing ideas and opinions based on their lack of experience.

Both sides are stubborn, fearing to give the other the upper hand.

And that is where business really needs to get its shit together. This whole ‘upper hand’ thing.

Because success isn’t about compromise it is more often about good ideas winning no matter where and when and who they come from.

When someone or a generation feels like they have the power, or run the risk of losing power, they do stupid things. Obviously, the business pays the price, not the person doing the stupid things. That is why adapting and selecting what to be consistent about should be about anything but power. It should be about creating a culture & organization in which old & new is debated and ‘the good of the organization & business’ decides what to hold on to and what to let go of.

Far too often the power structure in a business <and this can be one individual wielding an inordinate amount of power or an age group/cohort fighting for their space> holds the ‘fairy tale’ success formula, uhm, until the price for believing them becomes too high.

Sigh.

Unfortunately that moment is often too late to ‘fix’ what has gone wrong.

Regardless. A business’ success, and flaws, is typically driven by a couple attitudinal things  <a> a general feeling that you could be doing better and <b> the virtue of the participants.

Doing better.

There is gobs of pressure put on a business both internally and externally. Internally <be successful or be fired> and externally <the market is brutal on any business which does not show growth>. Even if the business has been steadily improving someone will be hammering away on either how terrible things are or how much better it can, and should, be.

Virtue of participants.

A business, in order to function efficiently and effectively, is dependent upon the virtue of the participants. A lack of virtue engenders wasteful transactions, wasteful actions and breeds an overall monitoring cost which can paralyze an organization from any movement or adaptation.

Both of those things I just shared are power. They both have the power to do good, and bad, for a business. What I mean is that the price for believing, disproportionately, in doing better is virtue-driven – that can make the price too high to meet simple ‘doing better’ objectives.

Power, ultimately, resides in, and will always, identifying what should remain consistent and when & where to adapt. All of that is organizationally driven and not individually driven. And yet … it is the individual who must assess all actions & behavior with the intent to always seek when ‘the price in believing something becomes too high.’

In the end I would simply note that the strongest most powerful thing you can do for a business is to understand that doing better with virtue can work.

This is not a fairy tale.

Just know there are no shortcuts and it isn’t easy — you have to work for it.

You have to find ways <just having it as objective will not work>. You have to somehow do something, sometimes anything on occasion, all the while keeping your head on straight and go do something that saves … well … the business <which is kind of like saving the world>.