Free-Range Thinking

I'm fascinated by the hold that the notion of "thinking outside the box" has on business speak.  I wonder if anyone has taken a moment to consider what the converse of that might be. I would imagine that having considered the converse, TOTB would be considered de rigueur and we could, maybe, stop talking about it as though it were some great and wonderful thing instead of the most natural thing in the world.

What is a box? It's a container.  It is a thing limited in size and capacity.  But what is a thought? It's an idea or notion.  It may be transitory or permanent depending on the thinker's evaluation of the idea.  It is as wide or as narrow as the mind that thinks it.  It can be unlimited in size and capacity depending on how much energy its 'owner' gives it.  So here's my question: why in the world, would I squeeze that which is, by nature boundless into any container that is by its nature, bounded and therefore constricting?

Humans seem to like little sayings that embody general truths or perhaps it is tag lines that we like as they help us better understand the world.  TOTB has become a favorite tag line, a hot phrase that folks use when the limitedness of limited thinking is finally beginning to show in business and organizational performance. So here's my big idea: why not start with unbounded thinking? Why not start discouraging boxed thinking and start encouraging free-thinking, in all times and all places?  Why don't we all just start thinking freely and letting others do the same?

It occurs to me that the idea of thinking outside the box is at its core, about empowerment.  Empowered folk naturally think outside the box because they're free.  They are free to do and be whomever it is they are.  Boxed folk, on the other hand, have to be encouraged to think freely.  So here's my advice: get a box cutter, cut the box to shreds and then just think. And don't be afraid to share the thought.  Waste little time dissecting the thought down to nothing.  Just think.  It's quite liberating.

If free-range chicken is good, can you even imagine how good free-range thinking might be?  Try it some time. That's what I'm going to be doing (more of) for the New Year: Free-range thinking. Now go on and open up that box.

Allergy Season

I have allergies.  There are trees and grasses to which I'm allergic and a few foods as well, most notably crab, which is especially unfortunate.  More than food and flora though, I'm allergic to fast meaningless talk.  Fast talk and fast talkers,  bring on the vapid empty smile and the loud self-talk that keeps me from saying out loud, "For goodness sake, what are you really trying to say?"

The other day, someone reached out to me on a professional social networking site.  This individual started her interaction by referring to me as an A+ professional (what is that exactly?) and going on to say that she was looking to build a team of A+ professionals for a business with which she works.  OK.  So far so good.

Being (i) polite and (ii) mildly interested in the opportunity she was selling, I responded asking for further information. What I got in return was a lot of words, words full of sound and fury, as Shakespeare would say, but signifying nothing.   It took me a couple of reads but I really couldn't figure out what the angle of this *business* was.  Her email was either deliberately vague or just unfortunately obtuse.  Either way, a very bad sign. At any rate, I didn't have sufficient information to make the decision to take time away from the things I must do, to go and find out more about something I might do.  I said, "No thank you".  I assumed that was the end of that.  Wrong!

Consider my horror then, when she writes me back this mildly insulting note in which she asserts that "We can not promise anyone anything who are not at least willing to meet our team, for we can afford to be very selected [I think she meant 'selective'] as to whomever we want to bring aboard."  She went on to say that "[t]he information and mechanics to our firm can be given out at anytime [so why then would you not give me proper information when I asked for it?] and most preferred, through the interview process.  We feel that if the candidate is not willing to meet our team [did I indicate unwillingness or did I simply request more complete information?], and/or does not interact well with our team, then, there is no need to waste time giving out our information to the wrong candidate." Well, let me not "waste your time" then.

I'm so fascinated by people who, when they don't get what they want, can find no other response than to denigrate that which they cannot have. What's that about?  Don't I get a choice?  And having made a choice, what right have you to insult me for choosing other than you? I mean come on, can we try to be adults? Please? Just for a minute maybe?  This all reminds me of a guy I met some time ago.  Things were proceeding rather slowly and laboriously, so I suggested that we weren't a good match.  His response, "That's right cause you are one boring a@# b*tch!" (clearly he hasn't read my blog!).  Because I like to poke wild animals, I responded, "Clearly I was right in my assessment.  No man I would date would speak to a woman that way."  I think I wished him the peace of God after that. 

Never let it be said that I don't give as good as I get. This time though, I'll leave well enough alone.  Sometimes wild animals can be unpredictable and given that we share the same social space, professionally speaking, I would probably be advised to slink quietly away and give her no reason to slash and burn my professional reputation.  *slink, slink* [the sound of me slinking away]

Sense before Self, Wisdom before Wants

I appreciate that there's a lot of pretty stuff in the stores. I'm partial to Talbot's and Ethan Allen myself.  I imagine, if I spent more time in the world looking at the pretty things out there, I might be drawn to shop til I drop, engage in a little 'retail therapy'.  Fortunately for me, I'm not.  I'm not out there and I'm not drawn in to the endless rounds of shopping.  Not even at Christmastide do I feel a need to be spending wildly, but that's just me.

I do wonder though, the extent to which the crazy 'shop, shop, shop' culture (including the 'shop it's good for the economy' nonsense), plays a role in the tendency of executives of all stripes to make illegal and immoral decisions.  Take for instance, PG County (Maryland's) own Jack Johnson.  It is alleged that Mr. Johnson has had a pay-to-play modus operandi in the county.  It is alleged that if one wanted to build a store, one had to offer tangible financial support to his administration (or to him personally).  It is alleged.

None of this is really surprising in a culture that deifies money and the things it can buy.  As I said, I too would love to spend more on pretty things, but at the end (or perhaps the beginning) of the day, when we replace integrity, honesty and decency with an ends-justify-the-means mindset, trouble surely will follow.  That's not news but clearly, it bears repeating.

As for Jack Johnson (a former state's attorney (the chief prosecutor for his state)) and his wife (herself a former attorney), neither of them even has plausible deniability to fall back upon.  Allegedly, Johnson was heard on a federal wiretap advising his wife to destroy a check in the amount of $100,000 and to hide $80k+ in cash on  her person, even as the FBI was knocking at the door.  Surely one or the other of them knew that they were on the wrong path, well before the FBI was at the door? 

So here's the memo: Jail ain't fun and most of those who land there don't generally return to their earlier lives untainted by the trip.  While Martha Stewart was able to move smoothly back into her empire, Mark Madoff (Bernard Madoff's son), who was never even acccused of any wrongdoing, was not so lucky.  Sometimes even the merest taint of impropriety is enough to completely derail a life.  That should be warning enough for the sensible.  Jack & Leslie Johnson clearly didn't get that memo.

Learning to Roar at Home

Some weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a concert/service at my new church, celebrating the 225th anniversary of the birth of that congregation.  I don't know whether the intent was for the concert to be a spiritual experience but it certainly was for me.

About halfway through the program, a young woman sang Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman", the first line of which goes: "I am woman hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore".  The program had been arranged by historical era, so as they were describing the church during the era of the battle for women's rights, this was the featured song.  In the moment, my sister leaned over and said something to me about our great-grandmother's sister, Texelia Pierre, and it occurred to me that I'm one of the fortunate ones who has lived with roaring women my whole life.  It occurred to me that like a lion cub, I learned to roar at home, from the women in my family.

Sometime in the middle 1800s in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, my great-great aunt Texelia Pierre left her (according to family lore) worthless husband because he wouldn't do right.  What that has meant for the females in succeeding generations is that one doesn't simply have to put up with some do-nothing man, or some go nowhere job, one can simply strike out on one's own.  What a legacy to leave to one's female progeny! Would that I had earlier realized the freedom it gave me in every area of my life.

That a black woman in the late 1800's, in the tiny island of Trinidad, educated only with the power to read and write at Elementary level would have the strength, the intestinal fortitude, to decide that alone was preferable to being married to a dolt still astonishes me today.  Not that I wouldn't do the very same, but I'm much more educated than she was and have options that I know Texie didn't and yet it is she who struck out on her own.  Fearlessly.  Me, I'm not so much fearless as fearful.  The lore, if I recall it correctly, was that she became a merchant of some kind but the details were always a little sketchy and I didn't have the good sense to pump Granny for greater detail before she left us.

So my question is, not what's in your wallet, a la Capitol One, but rather, what's in your being? What's in the fiber of your being, handed down through the generations by your mother and your mother's mother, and your mother's mother's mother (or sister).  Apparently, gumption is in mine.  Gumption. Who knew?

Vitriol's Lure

I've long known that I write better when I'm angry.  The thoughts come together quickly, the logic is crisp and the anger gives a certain sharpness to the delivery that I think makes for better writing.  Perhaps though, what I've been experiencing is that passion (of which anger is but one presentation) makes your best more accessible.  Perhaps this explains vitriol's lure?

I've been wondering a lot lately about vitriol particularly because there was so much of it about in the election season and traces of it remain everywhere.
Endless streams of invective are aimed at folk who don't think or frankly, talk, (or, let's be honest, look) like you.  It's wearying and not terribly effective as a form of discourse.  But that aside, what is clear is that vitriol sells.  It sells books, moves the proverbial needle of public opinion and these are the things that matter apparently. 

I have to wonder sometimes whether the intent of some of the utterances we hear and read is to educate or just to irritate?  Folk like Rush Limbaugh make me wonder whether the intent is really to encourage others around to their way of thinking, or just to keep the friendly masses whipped up into a state of lather and frenzy.

My concern isn't directed solely at conservative thinkers, I recently listened to a very liberal gentleman speak (I don't remember his name), and all I could do was suck my teeth and turn away. The source of his distress was that nothing that had been achieved by the current President met his liberal standards.  At the time, all I could think was, "In what parallel universe America do you think that kind of law would have made it through this legislature?"  He appeared to be a complete stranger to that quaint notion 'compromise'.  Listening to him I suddenly realized that this country thrives on the diametrically opposing positions.  It's good for the newsmakers but not necessarily good news for the news readers.

Nothing seems to work in the middle here.  All view points must be on opposite ends of the spectrum.  Bookends.  Votes are cast for extremes of opinion and then extremes go up on the Hill and stake out their space.  Me over here and you, wayyyyyyyyy over there.  No wonder there's so much shouting.  I can only hear you if you shout.  I'm not coming to the middle so that we can actually have a conversation, and you're not coming to the middle so that we can actually have a conversation so let's just see who can shout the loudest.  Lovely.

The other reality is that voters, citizens, residents whatever you call folk on the outside looking on, crave entertainment so in steps vitriol to ramp up the entertainment factor and to vie for the ears and eyes of the voting public. Between the vitriol and the shouting, I've got a permanent headache.

Good luck getting anything done.

Abs over Abstraction

I have insight, The Situation has abs and a multimillion dollar payday.  One of us has got it wrong.

Months ago, I wrote glowingly about the Ford Motor Company and their billion dollar earnings in the third quarter of 2009.  I also wrote in Go Ford!, that it was clearly the vision and approach of the new CEO, Alan Mulally a stranger to the industry, that was primarily the cause.  This past week, I discovered through a series of interesting 'coincidences', that I was right about Ford and Mulally.  Yay me!  I'm happy to discover that my ability to draw insight from information (courtesy my expensive graduate school edumacation) remains keen and accurate.  Too bad about the payday though.

It's great to be proved right. I love it.  Who doesn't?  Unfortunately, at the same time as my insight about Ford and its leadership were being proven correct, in the news (OK it wasn't real news it was entertainment news, but bear with me), in the 'news' came word that The Situation (aka Mike Sorrentino) is making a cool cinq million this year on his abs, his public appearances and the Jersey Shore.  Me?  I'm not quite at cinq million.  Yet.  Maybe insight is NOT the way to multimillion dollar paydays?

I have to wonder, what exactly is it that is valued in this society?  Do note of course, that I'm not saying, 'valuable'.

That which is valued in a society, speaks to what makes sense in the general order of things in that society. So when abs are valued over abstract thinking, you have to ask yourself (or at least I have to ask myself), why go to school and get in to debt to gain knowledge which, while possibly valuable, is not necessarily valued?  I don't need to be educated  to have good abs.  I can get those for free.  (Incidentally, I do have good abs, but they don't seem to be adding a penny to my current compensation package.  Just thought I should toss that in there.)

Take a state like Michigan.  There, it seems to me, current unemployment is a function of the historical competition between the valued versus the valuable.  Because of the easy availability of manufacturing work in the past, folks left high school and went directly into jobs at the nearest automotive manufacturing plants making  $50k - $75k annually with excellent benefits.  In the past, those were considered good choices.  Higher value was placed on immediate good income over the higher lifetime income possible only after one had endured the delayed gratification a college education requires.

There and elsewhere people chose, and still choose, immediate over delayed gratification.  That it seems to me, is because there is higher value placed on $$ in the now, than $$$$ in the tomorrow.  Of course now that the economy in general,  with the manufacturing sector leading the way, is in a mess we see this choice differently but that's a story for another post.  Am I seeing this too simply?  Do I see a simple dichotomy of choices where something more complex exists?  I don't think so, but others might*. 

The President has made efforts to make tertiary education more accessible about which I wrote briefly some months ago.  The goal of those efforts is to take some of the financial motive out of the equation when considering whether or not to go to school.  Even before this, there were options available here that do not exist in other countries and yet, many do not avail themselves of those opportunities.  Why? Because, it seems to me, the media make it abundantly clear that that's not what is valued.  What is valued is notoriety (Lindsay Lohan, Snookie, The Situation, Paris (famous for being famous) Hilton) not knowledge.

The problem it would appear, is not access to school places, or access to funds for school,  but something else entirely. I haven't quite figured out what to call it but it has something to do with seeking validation from external rather than internal sources.  I could be as poor as a church mouse, but once my life of the mind is rolling along, I'm as happy as a clam at high tide on a warm day.  But that's just me.  Once I can write something of interest and value (even if only to me), my contribution to the universe is done for the moment and all is well with the world.  External validation?  What's that good for?  But that's just me.  I am enough.  But that's just me. Lights? Cameras? Mugshots? Don't need 'em.  I am enough.

And so it goes.  I don't know that The Situation or Lindsay Lohan is adding anything to the Universe that is likely to be lasting, but perhaps adding something of lasting value is the least of their concerns.  Both of them can go to Coach and buy a $3,000 bag.  I cannot.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

* Lest anyone say that it was easy for me, suffice it to say that it was not.  I anxiously waited 11 years between degree number 1 and degree number 2 and did a number of crazy things (including running a taxi) to make the resources available to do my second degree.  Very hard choices had to be made.  Given the opportunity to 'do over', I'd make slightly different choices, but the outcome would probably be the same.  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One of those interesting coincidences I mentioned.  Here's CEO Mulally, talking about his leadership style at Ford.  Go Ford!!

Mulally insists on truth telling.  I LOVE IT!



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Ethics vs Innovation. Competing commitments?

What a strange story!  I recently read on a blog an article about the tension between innovation and ethics and all I could think after reading it was that clearly I had missed something.  The author referred to an article she had read elsewhere that had caused her to make the intellectual leap that perhaps there was a tension between the two - innovation and ethics.  The trigger article is: If You Think It's Unethical It Probably Is,  written by Eileen Zimmerman which appeared in the NY Times on October 23, 2010.  You should give it a look. It's quite interesting.

Now that I've read Ms. Zimmerman's article though, I think I really must have missed something and I have to say that I don't quite understand where this tension between innovative thinking and ethics became an issue.  Ms. Zimmerman's article spends a lot of time talking about how to push back (without killing your career), if you think something you've been asked to do, crosses ethical lines.  Never does she suggest that there is a tension, nor indeed does she ever refer to innovation either covertly or explicitly in her writing.

To innovate (per dictionary.reference.com), is to "introduce something new; make changes in anything established".  Implicit in that definition is an understanding that that which is created is rooted in truth.  Perhaps that isn't implicit to anyone but me, but I fail to see how lying could be considered innovative, unless we are talking about taking an innovative approach to the facts.  An old choir director of mine used to joke about people who didn't know the music but would sing their own 'impressionistic renderings' of the songs.  That's innovation too I guess except it was greatly discouraged in the choir, as it should be in business.  Harmony easily becomes cacophony when people play fast and loose with the truth be that musical truth (the notes) or business truth (the numbers).

I am a big believer that innovation is the only way for an organization to stay relevant but I question whether anything that involves lying or otherwise misrepresenting the true facts of business performance could even be loosely categorized as 'innovation'.  I am also not sure that even on the keenest cutting edge of innovation it is necessary to compromise one’s ethics. I am certain that there are areas of scientific endeavor where the ‘edge’ goes beyond anything I can imagine, but where innovation challenges prevailing ethical constraints, processes usually exist to challenge those ethical lines.  Think back to the first IVF and the ethical debates that raged then.  Think now about stem cell research and the raging ethical debates in that field.  Innovation is all about challenging the status quo, but for those wishing to do so ethically, there are ways to challenge without stepping all over moral and/or legal boundaries.

In most businesses, it seems to me, where ethical lines are crossed it is not because of some wonderful, business-saving innovation that runs afoul of prevailing ethical norms (creating some mythical tension), but rather it is usually because of a blind and dangerous (just ask Wall Street) focus on a profit motive.

Once business people take their eyes off ethics and focus wholly and solely on profit margins, P/E ratios and market capitalization, trouble surely follows.  Innovation is not the enemy of ethics, greed is.  The tension really is between money and ethics.  Don't blame innovation.  She wasn't even there when the bacchanal began.

Chaos and Calm

So I was reading this article some weeks ago in which the author posited that leaders need to be both 'clarity agents' and 'chaos double agents'.  I heard what the author was saying, but I really didn't quite agree.  Basically the author was saying that good leaders should create both clarity and chaos in their organizations as circumstances merit.  According to Mr. Dunbar the author of the article Clarity Agents and Chaos Double Agents, when we live in an environment of "volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity" (VUCA as he calls it), we need our leaders to create chaos when there is too much calm.

My problem with this notion isn't the philosophy of it, so much as it is the language of it.  It's great marketing/branding to have this almost alliterative title, but I reject the idea of 'chaos'.  Words have power and alliteration aside, another word (one with a less pejorative connotation), might just make for a deeper understanding of what the author is trying to convey.

Here's what my favorite online dictionary says about the word 'chaos'.

1. state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order
2. any confused, disorderly mass: a chaos of meaningless phrases 
3. the infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe.

Synonyms offered for 'chaos' include: disarray, jumble, turmoil.  Related words include such lovely choices as bedlam, pandemonium. Who really wants to be associated with 'pandemonium' or the creation thereof?

To suggest that a leader deliberately create this thing called 'chaos' in her organization, implies that there is no other way to avoid becoming mired in a comfortable status quo.  According to Dunbar, "the enemy of improvement in performance and enabling the ability to innovate is being comfortable and allowing the status quo to maintain. In the future, successful organizations will be defined by leaders that are disruptive and creative."  While he will get no argument from me on the underlying premise of his thought, it is the use of those last two words together that makes me nervous.  Disruptive and creative?  Therein lies the very pejorative connotation I'm talking about.

I don't think it's playing semantic games to say that to use the word 'chaos' is to lend further credence to the notion that those who would seek to challenge the status quo (that's a better 'c' word right there), are necessarily being 'disruptive' (per dictionary.com = causing trouble, confusion).  The problem with this thinking is that it automatically presumes the transcendence of the existing state and subtly suggests that any challenges to same are necessarily mischievous in their intent.  Isn't there sufficient evidence abroad that status quos need to be challenged?  Moreover, the idea of leader as challenger of settled states also subtly reinforces the age old idea, that only leaders may challenge.  Other sources of challenge, from persons not granted fiat to do so, can be viewed as 'disruptions'.  That's the kind of thinking that entrenches stable states and leads to the eventual demise of previously thriving businesses.

In my response to the author, I wrote that the status quo is to be feared and that organizations and their leaders would do well to entertain ideas from everywhere and anywhere - both within and without their organizations.  Yes, it would be wonderful to have a leader who saw the stable state as problematic, but that isn't always the case.  Further, sometimes it is the leader him/herself, who is least interested in changing the way things are done.  Rather than look to the leader for challenge, an organization needs to create an environment where everyone from top to bottom, is seeking improvement all the time and feels comfortable offering a different perspective.  When the only lens through which different perspectives is viewed is the lens of 'creating chaos', you can be pretty sure there won't be much chaos created.

Words harm, words restrict and ultimately, words can kill action....and organizations.

Cogito ergo sum

I've taken to saying that arch conservative Republicanism is a treatable ailment.  I'm working on a treatment protocol which I will roll out to market as soon as it's ready.  Here's the preview.

FIRST: Conservatism is not a free pass to speak hatefully.  By this I mean you cannot go around appealing to the lowest part of man - the troglodytic part - that needs, yearns even, for a person or group to point to as the cause of all their troubles.  While this may work in the short term, it will yield untold consequences.

It is said that in a court of law, an attorney never asks a question to which (s)he doesn't already know the answer.  The same should be true in politics.  Don't set something in motion unless you know exactly what it is you're setting in motion.  In short, don't be sowing the wind unless you are ready to reap the whirlwind.

SECOND: Underlying principles always rule. 

I certainly understand the worry about the deficit, but let me see if I get this right.  Deficit for war = good thing. Deficit for universal health care = bad thing?  When these ideas are juxtaposed, the underlying principle seems to be simply this: some lives are simply more important than others. If you can't afford or through some unfortunate series of events, cannot receive insurance then, tough, sorry, you lose.  If conservatives have a different argument they should really bring it but right about now, this is all I've been able to draw from what I've heard to date.  No one has said anything that makes sense and that doesn't sound like there's some human utility litmus test which some of us have failed abysmally.  Conservatism is not a free pass to deem some people less worthy than others.

In short: 'Conservative' cannot become a euphemism for 'hater'.  

I'm recommending that conservatives try and come up with some reasoned positions that appeal to thinking people - people like me who are ripe for the picking.  It is far too easy to fall back on traditional 'them vs. us' thinking and speech.  That's pretty much what started the ugliness in Germany and gave rise to Nazism.  Since we know how that turned out, perhaps we shouldn't try that whole "it's their fault we're in deep doodoo" approach here?   That's an approach that encourages hateful behavior which, quite frankly, is beneath thinking people and a thinking nation.

I am myself, fairly conservative fiscally, though you probably wouldn't guess that from anything I've written thus far.  I too believe in responsible spending and in spending what you have and no more.  Debt has its place, but great gobs of it only create stress.  At the same time though, I believe in the sanctity of life.  This means that if I have to balance debt against death, I'm going to have to grit my teeth and live with the debt.  A right to life necessarily means that people also have a right to health care.  If that means that something else has to give (maybe a war here or there, particularly one entered into on spurious grounds), then that's how it has to be.

This political system is, unfortunately, built on a two bookends premise.  Either you're a 'this' or you're a 'that'.  Even Independents are either 'thises' or 'thats' in the voting booth.  If you don't like how the 'thises' are functioning, you vote for the 'thats'.  It seems to me, that there's a middle ground, where people want responsible (not reprehensible) representation; a middle ground where representatives appeal to our highest aspirations for ourselves (which should also mean that our aspirations for each other are equally high); a ground where we spend what we have, make hard choices about what gets cut and each take on our share of the burden for what's left.  That's a pretty conservative credo if I say so myself, and not once did I say, "Death Panel".  See how easy that was?

Home Makeover: Very Extreme Edition

I'm wondering if anyone else is as horrified as I am, at the level of excess being thrown about on Extreme Makeover Home Edition these days.  I have nothing against helping a family out of their difficulties, but the conspicuous consumption gone wild is just too much.

In Sunday night's episode, a lovely family (aren't they all), was given a house 6 times the size of their previous home. Now, I certainly appreciate that perhaps the old home was too small for a family with 4 or 5 daughters.  I get that, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing being good for nothing.

My real problem with Extreme Makeover, is kind of the problem I have with a lot of things in this culture. There seems to be a need to bathe, drown even, people in largesse and then, if it turns out that they don't know what to do with all these gifts, the press (and the public) sit on the sidelines and malign people for their bad choices.  Is this a uniquely American phenomenon? I can't be sure, but it really does beg the question: when largesse is being handed out, for whose real benefit is it? It's the old question of the underlying motivation behind altruism.

To what extent, I wonder, do we give and then have expectations of the receiver?  I've been told that a number of Extreme Makeover participants have had much difficulty with property taxes subsequent to the show.  I don't know whether this is in fact the case, but if it is, are we really all that surprised?  Once you go from a broken down house worth nearly nothing, to a monstrosity worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, obviously there will be tax implications.  I guess no one wondered even briefly, how the home owner would manage to pay said taxes.  Hm.

I'm all for largesse.  I'm all for giving.  But clearly there is a need to give judiciously.  I guess that's my underlying problem with all this.  The idea of judicious giving seems to have no home here.  Kinda like the idea of judicious spending has few fans.  Maybe it's just judiciousness that's not a terribly American concept?

The Power of Lack

A week or so ago, I was talking to a friend about various things, and one theme that emerged from our discussion was this idea that lack, shortage, challenge - primarily financial in nature - can be a source of great growth and self-discovery. So as we were chatting about various 'lacks' in our respective Universes, my friend used this turn of phrase, "the power of lack" and I realized that in  my life, for all the stuff I have been denied through an absence of disposable income, I have been given so much more.


In my family, we rarely had the latest outfits, but we had all our school books.  An opportunity to be educated = Abundance.  We didn't get a ton of Christmas presents, though we certainly got many, but many Christmases, our grandmother had a Christmas Eve dinner party.  An opportunity to share even the Widow's Mite = Abundance.  Everything on the menu was home made including the menu cards themselves.  I'm sure if I ask my sister, she can find one of the menu cards with the little turkeys Granny made us draw one year.  Every item on the menu was named for a person attending the party.  An opportunity to share one's creativity = Abundance.

Our Granny also insisted on having her lady friends over to tea periodically.  I don't know that there was ever a particular event (no anniversary or other celebration), it was just Granny entertaining her friends.  We rudely referred to these events as "old lady tea parties", but we attended gleefully all the same.  We were required not only to serve but also to be the entertainment.  These were my first (unpaid) gigs as a singer and this gift, the ability to sing for others, which my Granny inculcated, is a gift that keeps on giving abundantly.  My sister and I sang, my cousin recited poetry and Granny and I played duets on the piano. 

We may not have had endless pretty new clothes or fancy shoes aplenty, but there was some serious emotional, personal and spiritual abundance in my home.  Perhaps this is what makes it possible now for us to see only opportunity even in the face of myriad challenges.

The question I have to ask myself now is: was there really any lack?  I'm sure my mother and aunt can list bills that they struggled with and things that they wanted to do for themselves that they were unable to do, but in truth, it would seem that all we had was abundance.  It just goes to show, that once you take your eye of the 'stuff' of life, you can find yourself overwhelmed by how much 'life' you really have.  I know I am, overwhelmed that is, by the abundance in my Universe.

Win, lose or draw, I'm leaving it all on the field

I've determined, and I've said this before, that the voices in our heads have to be heard.  On my first Friday at home, I attended a friend's church where the Pastor preached on exactly that.  His title was something of the order of "Listening and responding to the Prophetic Word".  Whether you're a believer or not, I think we have to accept that ideas - whether crazy or brilliant - come to us in a flash and that it is in the response to the flash that we sometimes lose our way. What happens next depends on a number of things, not the least of which is our belief in ourselves and the level of support we feel coming from those around us.

For more than 20 years, I've had this one recurring idea.  It hasn't been my only idea, but it is the one that drives and needles me most. I finally had opportunity to give it voice 12 years ago.  The reason for the lag was that I had had the idea when I was about 20, but was too low on the family totem pole to be allowed a voice (a story for another blog entry altogether).  At 33,  I was able to have it received and acted upon.  It is entirely possible that the fact that I'd been to university and was a successful professional by that time, made my voice *clearer*.  Whatever it was, there was a confluence of unhappy events that made it possible for me to be heard. It's been more than a decade since then, and my subsequent series of ideas have not be welcomed with nearly the same fervor as there has been no confluence of events, sad or happy, to support my insights.

Having finally grown weary of waiting to be heard, Waiting for Godot as it were, I've decided to do my thing without family blessing (again, a blog post for another day!).  When we believe in ourselves and our ideas, we do what we must to make the visions in our heads reality.  We talk to whomever we must, we needle, we cajole, sometimes we shout and then finally, someone hears and we are able to do.  This I have done.

I heard a joke/story recently of an older wise man asking a youngster if he wanted to succeed as much as he wanted to breathe.  [Given that the youngster had just had his head dunked and held underwater, he understood the level of commitment that would be required if success was to be his.]  That's me with this recurring idea: I want it as much as I want to breathe.  I recommend that kind of commitment highly though I'll be the first to tell you it ain't easy, I'll never say that it is, but it is worth it.  My current exhaustion attests to that fact.  I'm just back from the field of play and I'm worn out.  My exhaustion is honestly earned though because I've given it everything I had in me.  I've left it ALL on the field.  Win, lose or draw, I went out and played hard.  I'm bound to get some points for that.  As a matter of fact, I think I already have.

Patch and Pray

I gather that the public is tiring of Mr. Obama.  I actually understand that even if I don't happen to share the perspective.  People seem to have a fairly dim view of his ability to deliver what is most needed at this time: JOBS.  The problem though is that Obama is not the problem, the problem is the system.

Here's what I think: the problem is that for at least a couple of decades, probably three, so that's a good thirty years, the US has hung on to modus operandi that are inimical to the nation's best interests.  By allowing lobbyists to stymie the development of reasonable, balanced regulation; by allowing the beneficiaries of the status quo to hamper the establishment of any legislation that would negatively impact their profitability; by focusing less and less on infrastructure and development, I believe this nation has dug itself a pretty deep hole.  The massive natural gas explosion in a community in Southern California some weeks ago is, I think, proof positive of how far the nation has to go to get itself back on track.

One commentator on the television used the phrase "Patch and Pray" to describe the approach to maintenance of national infrastructure.  He said, "We have been using a 'Patch and Pray' method" with infrastructure for years.  As someone who hails from a country where Patch and Pray is the order of the day, I think I know it when I see it. In a great many arenas in this country, P&P is the way things are done.  The problem with Mr. Obama, is that he doesn't seem to think that the patch and prayer method is a good one for existing national challenges.  More than that, he's not even about to pretend that they are. 

Where fault lies really, is in all of us who are expecting quick solutions to deep and in some cases, intractable problems.  Where the fault lies is with the President who simply hasn't done nearly enough to sell the American public on the notion of personal sacrifice (ie, you can't eat out 4 nights a week or  otherwise spend like a maniac, and still be OK financially in the long term).  This is true both of citizens and of states, and indeed of all these united states.


Americans are very enamored of their freedoms, and I understand that.  I too love my freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility, both to self and to others.  Far too little time is spent teaching, talking about or focusing on the responsibility part of freedom.  This is where I fault the President.  I'm not annoyed that he hasn't created more jobs, nor indeed that the deficit is out of control, nor even that the health care legislation is pretty crappy but better than nothing.  No, I'm annoyed because he has allowed people to develop this sense that he was 'Barack the Magician' who would change (aka fix) everything that was broken once he came down from the mountaintop with his magic plan of action.  Nothing could be further from the truth. He can do nothing without committed foot soldiers ie, citizens who are responsible about their use of resources (both financial and natural) and make an effort to create and add value nationally.


Time should have been invested making sure that people understood some economic fundamentals such as, if it is small business that is the heart of job creation, we need more successful small businesses.  That means ME and YOU.  If small business is the heart of job creation, then that means you and I must patronize these establishments to ensure their longevity.  Time should also have been spent educating consumers that reckless consumption (and not just on overpriced houses in an overheated housing market) helps no one.  It only drives bank profits (which do not generally redound to consumer benefit) and drives consumers to the brink of financial ruin.

Taking a patch and pray approach to national infrastructure is a bad idea.  Taking a similar approach to national development (and yes, America is still a developing nation as all nations seek to be) is even worse of an idea.  Prayer is a marvelous thing, so too is hope.  But neither is a particularly good strategy for responding to national or life challenges.

Doing more with less my hindparts

Who is the idiot that first coined this phrase? It is the most asinine piece of nonsense I have ever heard.

How do you do MORE with LESS?  I'd really like someone to tell me.  Here's what I propose: instead of talking nonsense about doing more with less, why don't we try to figure out how to fill as many competing needs as we can, to some satisfactory degree with whatever the 'less' is.  We can't do more with less, so we really need to stop saying it as though it makes sense.  It doesn't.

My suggestion is that we try to balance the competing interests by holding on to the critical things and sacrificing others.  As a musician this pains me because I know that when it comes to schools, 'sacrifice' usually means kicking music to the curb, but volunteers can do as great a job teaching music as paid teachers can.

'Doing more with less' should mean looking for creative ways of filling old needs, ways that don't require large outlays of cash.  That's more with less.  Sometimes doing more means asking more of participants and less means less free stuff, more self pay or co-pay.  In cases of financial hardship which currently abound, it will mean finding ways to help each other along without making anyone ashamed of their difficult circumstances.

Look I don't have answers here.  All I know is that we really need to run as fast as we can from the notion that we can possibly do more with less.  It's such a stupid saying, I can't believe it has so caught on.  Can you feed a family of 5 with the food supplies needed to feed a single person?  Certainly you can, but no one is satisfied nor is anyone appropriately nourished.  Perhaps we should try to focus on ensuring that there's satisfaction and nourishment, even if it means it's a no-frills meal.  It's a meal.  Needs are met and that's the whole point.

There's a way to make do in tough times that doesn't sacrifice quality, but saying, "Let's get out there and do more with less" isn't it.  This stupid one liner doesn't acknowledge the efforts of administrators large and small, who struggle to keep their programs running on fumes and faith.  What this sentence is, in a nutshell, is an insult to the intelligence of the listener and the effort of the administrator and frankly, it's an excuse to bully and harass staff into working like Hebrew slaves, but don't let me get started on that.

The American Dream

The other day, I was reading an article in the Washington Post, written by the President and CEO of ING Direct - Arkadi Kuhlmann, Friday 3 September - in which he was positing that the American Dream was undermining America.  His basic premise (if I understood him correctly), was that 30 year mortgages are an old fashioned tool for home ownership in a world of advanced financial tools. He further contended that homeowners, should be encouraged (through an eventual elimination of the tax credit for interest and its replacement with a credit for payments to principal) not only to take shorter term mortgages, but also to make efforts to pay down the principal balance on their loans.  Interesting.

To some extent, this makes good sense to me, but I wonder though about obvious requirement to manage one's credit that his recommendation would necessitate.  The core premise of his proposal is that 30 year loans should become much shorter loans, perhaps even as short as 5 years.  He writes, "[o]n a typical $225,000 mortgage, a buyer who gets a five-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 3.50 percent might well pay 4.75 percent for a 30-year loan. The savings would come to more than $11,000 when it's time to refinance the five-year agreement."  While an owner might certainly appreciate the $11,000 in savings, is the s/he willing to pay the price of that 11K?  Because it ain't about to be free.  S/he is going to have to monitor and manage their credit like they're trying to buy their first home.  And they're going to have to be diligent about that credit score, pretty much FOR LIFE under this model.  So the issue then becomes, what happens at year number five if the buyer's credit score is too low to qualify for a refinance on favorable terms?  What if, Heaven forbid, we're in a recession such as we are in now, where almost 10% of the population is unemployed?  What happens then?  Does the 5 year loan simply renew at existing rates (using the qualifying credit score perhaps?) or or does the buyer, now with poor credit, have to renegotiate the loan at whatever rates the banks are offering at the time? Suddenly, that $11,000 savings isn't looking nearly as attractive.

As good an idea as this might seem, it requires of consumers an approach to managing money that doesn't currently exist in this society: FRUGALITY.  That word doesn't have a much of a home in the American lexicon, nor indeed, does it even fit with the way the economic engine of the society works.  The engine of the American economy is the American consumer.  To rewrite that equation would require such significant change to the American psyche that frankly, I can't see it happening.  Perhaps, if this current recession were prolonged (Heaven forbid!) and people were to learn the value of saving over spending; perhaps if, during this dreadful period, people came to understand that a credit card is not a financial buffer, perhaps then it might be possible to inch gingerly in this direction.  But I'm not feeling that happening. 

Mr. Kuhlmann's idea may have great merit, but it fails to take in to consideration the sociology of the society involved.  A new model for financing is a great thing, but it must be based on the context into which it is to be applied.  The context here: spend, spend, spend; go out after 9/11 and spend; we're at war so spend; we're in a recession, I'll send you a check for you to spend; is diametrically opposed to the model Mr. Kuhlmann recommends. 

The reality is that the American consumer spends so much time consuming and being encouraged to consume, that the idea of having to perennially manage the credit score may well be inimical to national best interests.  This is not my personal feeling but when I listen to the talking heads blather on about restarting the economy, what I hear is much talk about consumer confidence - i.e.: consumer willingness to shop.  It's not about the innovation or creativity; it's about shopping.  If this new model of home-ownership were to take root, it would seem to me that it would either, (i) put a serious dent in consumer spending as we would all be more focused on managing our use of credit not simply for the first purchase of the house but through the life of the loan; or (ii) there would ultimately be far more bankruptcies and foreclosures, as people unwilling/unable to manage their spending would find themselves in a nasty bind 5 years out, much as has happened over the last 2 to 3 years.

The unstated premise of Mr. Kuhlmann's idea is that Americans need a radical reframing of how they use their disposable income.  We need to 'dispose' of far less and much more 'retain' far more of it.  Even now, as the economy struggles to regain its footing, the idea that people are choosing to pay down debt and save is already making economists sweat.  I can't begin to imagine what would happen if a movement towards frugality and fiscal responsibility were to take hold more generally.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don't really see that happening any time soon...the iPhone5 is bound to be a must have, as is the next gen iPad and the next gen iPod.  In truth there's always a must have 'next gen' something just waiting to catch me at a moment of weakness.

Here's a link to the Washington Post article:  Rebuild the Path to American Homeownership

Up and down

Several months ago, I started thinking about my dissatisfactions. They aren't legion, but they're a few of them. I started thinking about it because I was chatting with a girlfriend who had the one biggest thing I wanted but didn't have (a fabulous career and a great paycheck) but she too was dissatisfied.  On chatting with yet another friend, I found that friend number two also had a career that she loved, but that the paycheck was insufficient to her needs.  All three of us, smart, capable women, were dissatisfied. I began to wonder whether this was the best we could do.  Were we destined to be dissatisfied?

Some level of dissatisfaction is, I suppose, to be expected.  No life is perfect.  If you are a believer or person of faith, you know that the Creator is more interested in your character than in your comfort, so you expect there to be ups and downs, and you accept that character development often comes by battling through the 'downs'.  The trouble is, why do we all seem to be more focused on the down than the up?  Do we even notice when we're up? Do we know what up even looks like anymore, or what the appropriate feelings are that go with up? Have we simply forgotten how to be satisfied, and I'm not talking about being 'satisficed'* but really satisfied?  Do we know how to be happy with what we have?

I don't think that being happy, and thankful, for what we have today precludes our seeking more tomorrow (or even later today), I just think it means that we recognize the blessings that we've already received and remember to say, "Thank you".  These friends of mine are successful women by many measures.  One is a partner in a NYC law firm and the other a Social Worker.  Both have the careers I would love to have, but are dissatisfied for one reason or another.  I haven't the career I've always dreamed of, but I do have a life of the mind that keeps me extremely happy, perhaps not wealthy but intellectually stimulated and satisfied.  Do I want more? Absolutely, but every now and again, I realize that it's a damn good thing to be able to think, think aloud and maybe even be heard when I do so.  And sometimes, it's enough.

The cause of perennial dissatisfaction, it seems to me, is trying to keep up with some externally established standard.  The standards go something like this: by the time you're 26, you should be married. (Grade for Liesl: FAIL.) By the time you're 32, you should have an advanced degree. (Grade for Liesl: FAIL.)  It's enough to make you dissatisfied with your life.....which it seems, is the whole point.  Dissatisfied people you see, engage in retail therapy.  And that's where the good people of Madison Avenue come in.  They show you all the lovely things that you need to make yourself feel better.  How many people, I wonder, realize the happy coincidence that all the important life milestones - marriage, baby, house and land, car, luxury vacation - neatly coincide with some industry which stands ready to take your hard-earned dollars?

As for me, I'll determine when I'll do what thank you and more than that, I'll determine whether I'll do it at all.  To let someone outside of myself determine the course of my history is beyond ridiculous.  Far more  ridiculous though, is to let some advertiser (who is only trying to get a buck off me for some industry) make those decisions.

So I'm taking a vow of satisfaction.  Whatever you folk are selling, I'm not buying, especially if you're selling dissatisfaction which only some product will cure.  I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to drive a Jaguar XK-8, navy blue, tan leather interior, wood paneling.  Nor am I saying that I would turn down an opportunity to go on a luxurious trip to Italy (primarily to attend an opera at La Scala).  Nor indeed am I saying that I couldn't go hog wild in a Talbot's store.  All of those are very attractive options to me but if I ever do do those things, it will be on terms identified by me and at a time appropriate to my finances.  I won't let marketing shame me into doing stuff I have no business (or no funds) to be doing.  If dissatisfaction drives sales, then ya'll will need to look elsewhere.  I've taken a vow of eternal satisfaction and I'm off the market.  I will keep my eye on Talbot's clearance events at the Outlet though.  That, I can still manage.




Satisficing (definition from BusinessDictionary.com)

General: Aiming to achieve only satisfactory results because the satisfactory position is familiar, hassle-free, and secure, whereas aiming for the best-achievable result would call for costs, effort, and incurring of risks.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/satisficing.html#ixzz0yTxwK1tu

Brevity, the soul of wit (and wisdom)

I've realized that the marginalization of the outlier is standard practice. Average is so much easier to countenance. Unfortunately, it is the exceptional who make things happen and usually they do so in spite of the squeeze forces of mediocrity.

 

We fear what we don't understand and we marginalize that which we fear.  All too often, the outlier is marginalized not because she/he is wrong but because we are afraid the she may be right.

 

Having ignored the brilliant, if outside-the-norm, ideas of the outlier, what do we rely on instead for direction? Usually the run-of-the-mill.  But the run-of-the-mill can only generate run-of-the-mill results.  I wonder, is it the outlier we fear or is it the success that the outlier's ideas may birth that frightens us?

 

What are you people up to?

So Glen Beck has had his rally.  Bully for him. Pun definitely intended.

I guess what troubles me is the tone. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even Glen Beck.  Everyone is entitled to even be hateful.  But as much as I get the whole, 'freedom of speech' bit, when we say things and take a tone that is divisive and downright nasty, we need to be careful.  That goes for both Beck the bully and the Palin the puerile.

I don't mind that you don't agree with the President, but don't also 'repugiate' (Sarah's word for repudiate) the consequences of your words.  There are people out there who are angry, frightened and maybe a little desperate.  And they all have the right to own a gun.  Those are not the people you want to be revving up with anti-government, 'reload' rhetoric.  It's all well and good (it's neither 'well' nor 'good' but that's the expression) to say what you want to say, but you don't also get to distance yourself from the consequences of your sayings.

A Youtube clip of people at the DC rally on Saturday 28 August, 2010, showed one man saying that he expected the President to be coming for his gun (why only he could tell you).  He went on to say that the President could have it, one bullet at a time.  Now, I get that he is free to say whatever he will, but that constitutes a threat does it not?  And that is inappropriate.  It matters not how little love you have for a person.  Making threats, how ever veiled is just not on.  Moreover, Sarah and Glen can hardly pretend that they bear no part in the animus that seems to be taking over the political discourse. They are not solely to blame, but certainly, some of the blame has their names on it.  Sarah in particular, with her penchant for her 'reload' utterance, needs to be particularly careful.  Should anything happen to anyone in power, from the lowliest State representative to the highest elected official, she should be aware that there will be calls for investigations and her precious career as an 'influencer' will come to the end it so richly deserves.

I have no problem with Sarah and Glen having a perspective.  I have no problem with them wishing to 'restore American honor'.  I just wish their perspective were based on (i) something approaching reality; (ii) something approaching rationality; (iii) or perhaps, something approaching some sense that we all matter.  Where were the calls for the restoration of 'honor' when the Bush Administration was using waterboarding to get information out of enemy combatants?  Where were the calls for the restoration of honor when the servicemen and women headed off to the trumped up war?  Where were the calls for the restoration of honor when Ret. Gen. Colin Powell himself had to distance himself from the Bush Administration?  No call for restoration then, or when Bush let the people of New Orleans drown at home.  Suddenly now though, with a man of color in the White House, and an effort afoot to give everyone health care, now we need to restore honor?  I just hope that while they are busy 'restoring' stuff that they please try not to restore second class citizenship for those of us who don't look like them.  Or perhaps that is precisely the thing they wish to restore?  One certainly has to wonder.

I get that the notion of social justice makes Glen and Sarah nervous.  To them and others, it seems to signal that 'others' might actually gain access either to the corridors of power or the halls of education or the wards of hospitals.  It fascinates me that conservative (Christians) would swallow this un-Christian thinking that seeks to limit others' access to the means of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but clearly my understanding of Christ and Christianity is somehow flawed.  That's ok.  I like my way better.

The Happy Medium

I wonder about social media.  Everyone is selling something, an idea, a get rich quick scheme, a weight loss thing, a service.  I just wonder though, with everyone selling, who's buying?

 

Americans have gone from being citizens to being consumers now to being salespeople.  Where's the happy medium where some buy and some sell, with each group doing so some of the time? Instead we seem to be in this weird place where everyone's selling all the time.  I saw an article yesterday about the competition for our eyeballs.  My attitude frankly, is that you can have my eyeballs but my mind you won't get not at any price.  Sorry.  Gotta draw the line somewhere.

The pendulum in this society seems to swing from one extreme to the next.  We've gone from too many buyers mostly buying what they can't really afford, to too many sellers, mostly selling 'product' of dubious value.  A healthy economy it would seem to me, is a mix, a happy medium as it were, where there are sellers and buyers aplenty, making available and consuming products of known and reliable value;  where there is some order to the disorder of the marketplace and where the rules of engagement are well known.  I don't get the sense that there are rules, or that they are particularly well known, but maybe I just don't see the order in the chaos.  Seems more like a festival celebrating Bacchus (the Greek god of confusion) to me.  The market looks to be a bit of a bacchanal to me.

I appreciate that the modus operandi here is to allow the markets to sort themselves out and perhaps that works, but there seems to me to be a lot of noise out there masquerading as 'marketing' for products no better than one of Dr. Dulcamara's* potions. Acai berry anyone?

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*Dr. Dulcamara: a character in Gaetano Donizetti's opera, L'Elisir D'Amore (The Elixir of Love).  Dulcamara is a quack whose great claim to fame is that he sells said elixir to the tenor lead (Nemorino) which the tenor hopes will help him to win the heart of Adina (the soprano character).  Nemorino does win the girl, but it's not on account of the potion, though I doubt anyone would be able to convince Dulcamara that he wasn't responsible for Nemorino's success.

Stuck in Kansas

Let me start off by saying that I don't hate them all, but I do hate enough of the 48 Laws of Power to write an entire blog post about them.

With all due respect to the authors of the 48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene and Joost Elffers] some of their suggestions, some of their recommendations turn my stomach and frankly explain why there is so much jockeying for position and ill-treatment of staff in the American workplace.  But let me not get ahead of myself.  Let me start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.....

Again, all due respect to the authors, I do wonder whether some of what's included in those laws isn't part of the problem with American business today?  I mean, Law #17: Keep others in suspended terror? (I guess now we know why folk sometimes run amok at work huh.)  Or what about this one:  Law #6: Court attention at all cost (reality TV anyone?); or worse still, Law #7: get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.  WOW!

I'm no expert, but I wonder if less game playing might result in more productivity?  I wonder if less attention-seeking might result in more actual attention-getting (for the right reasons)? I wonder if less time spent on trying to "crush your enemy totally" (Law #15) might result in a more cooperative environment where, I don't know, WORK might actually get done? 

Had the authors of the Laws of Power offered up the simple caveat that one needs to actually achieve something, work hard at something, offer something to one's organization, I could possibly get behind the Laws of Power.  Possibly, but not probably.  The truth of the matter is that much of the machination that the Laws suggest is the lazy man's approach to getting ahead.  It's not about achievement, it's about what I can steal from another and pass off as my own. Perhaps that is indeed a law of power and perhaps I'm Dorothy and need to come to the realization that I'm not in Kansas anymore.  All I know is this: every time there is a major catastrophe in the business world - think Toyota's massive recall, BP's massive oil spill, Arlington National Cemetery's massive grave mix up - there's a Machiavellian climber sitting at the top of the food chain, scratching his/her head wondering how ever it all got so mucked up.  Others may wonder, but I've got it figured out, it's because they used (all too successfully) some set of laws for game-playing instead of the laws of work-doing, to get ahead.

I realize that there are people out there whose orientation is towards climbing the social, professional and economic ladders.  I have nothing against that.  I'd like to climb a bit myself, but to focus so fixedly on the climb leads to behaviors that make workplaces awful, awful places to be.  Which explains why folk do terrible things to coworkers when they simply can't take it any more.

I have a suspicion that the authors of the laws are zero sum guys.  They believe that the universe is finite and whatever you get means that necessarily there's that much less for me.  I'm not that way myself, and no matter the challenges I face on a baily dasis (yes I said "baily dasis", it's a Spoonerism), I will continue to believe that your prosperity does not interfere with mine.  I don't, therefore, have to climb over you like a veritable crab in a barrel, to be able to find my way.  But that's just me.  Clearly, my name is Dorothy and I'm still in Kansas.

Unbreak my heart

Actually, that should read, "unexamine my life".  I'm stepping back from all the navel-gazing and intense review of the world around me, and trying for the unexamined life.  Wish me luck!  This may only last a few hours, but we shall see.  One immediate consequence is pretty obvious: this life approach doesn't provide much text for a blog post.  :-)

Tight, expensive shoes

For the last several years, I've recently realized, I've been living a kind of 'tight shoes ' life.  What's that?  That's when you spend good money on a pair of shoes that you loved in the store but then, the first time you wear them out, "Yikes!" pain, pain and more pain.  But instead of tossing them out, you hold on to them hoping against all reason, that things will be better next time around.  They aren't, but still you won't throw them away.  So now, you're investing emotional capital into something that you know in your heart of hearts, will never yield the benefits you had hoped for. 

For me, my relocation to the United States has been a beautiful pair of very, very tight shoes.  I often wonder if I made the right choice to come to this country where, increasingly, I find my brand of logic doesn't seem to *fit*; where my approach to being doesn't appear to *rhyme*; where, quite frankly, I just can't find a good rhythm.  This is not to suggest that there are no others thinking along the same lines as I am, living as I do or walking in my rhythm,  just that I haven't met too many of them.  Moreover, it's not so much the way that I think that's problematic, it's that I don't feel compelled to wish another ill because they don't think as I do.  I'm finding the rancor of debate to be a little jarring and disquieting to the spirit.....and mine is a spirit that ain't that quiet to start with. 

Just the other day, I was saying to someone that I find myself increasingly at cross purposes with the rhythm of this society.  I just don't feel like a fit.  Years ago, when I first arrived, I would simply say that I knew who I was in my home country in a way that I didn't here.  For anyone who has never lived abroad this may seem a strange sentence, but the reality is that the food is different, the flavors, the colors and Lord knows, the portion sizes(!!!) are different.  Then, you get used to that, and then you have to worry about something else.  How you stand, how you carry yourself, how your accent sounds when you're angry or agitated.  All these things play in to the way others see you and often, impressions are everything here.

I am bone deep WEARY of people telling me that I intimidate them.  HOW?  No one really has an answer to this question, but it seems to boil down to one thing: by showing up.  They won't tell you that, but that's pretty much it.  You say nothing, you smile, you stand up straight (I'm 5' 7" and like a 3 inch heel), problem.  You hold your head up high, you speak clearly, you have a point of view and you're not afraid to share it and suddenly it's "You're intimidating".  Jeez.  I have a suggestion.  Why not wait until I use the word "counter-intuitive" in a sentence before you get intimidated?  Why not wait until I say something interesting, intelligent and unexpected before you get het up?  I mean, if I'm going to be branded as 'intimidating' why not actually let me DO something that intimidates?  Let's try that for a minute and then I'll say it with you...."You're intimidating".

Can you tell this one has got old?

My dear Mr. Slater

I'm wondering about Mr. Slater's rant on a recent Jet Blue flight, but more than that, I'm wondering about the nation's response to it.  I'm not sure which is more telling, the initial transactions (the head bump by the passenger or the response to said bump), or the cultlike following Mr. Slater has attracted.  I'm wondering: are we all so miserable at work that someone else's mad rant and storming out of the 'office' is cause for applause?  I'm just wondering.

Did Mr. Slater have a real grievance?  Absolutely.  The passenger was ill-mannered and should have at least offered an apology for bumping Mr. Slater in the head with her bag.  Of course, she offered no apology (because service people are not entitled to basic respect, but that's an issue for another day) and so Mr. Slater probably worn down by one too many ill-mannered passengers, blew a gasket.

So here's my big question: what is it that is happening in organizations that is causing employees to be simmering pots of rage?  It seems to me that the only reason this thing could have resonated so deeply with the populace, is that people are unable to speak their piece in peace in their work environments.  More than that I think that people are being bullied and harassed in awful ways at work and consequently, they are longing for a hero, someone who says one day, "Enough with this crap! I'm done!", enter Mr. Slater with his Facebook fan page with one hundred thousand plus fans. 

If I were an HR practitioner, I'd be looking at the events of the last couple of days and asking myself whether there was something bubbling under the surface at my organization as well.  I'd be asking myself whether my company had any staff who, given the challenging economic times coupled with the stresses of family life, might be on the verge of an explosion of their own. I'd be asking the question and talking to other HR people in the organization to get a sense of whether anyone else felt this was something we needed to be acting on.

My feeling is that Jet Blue was lucky.  Mr. Slater only cursed out a passenger and deployed a safety device unnecessarily.  Other employees under the same pressures might express their distress in ways that could endanger lives.  I'm just saying.

The wave of approval for Mr. Slater's actions is very telling.  Is anyone listening to the story the response is telling us?  I sure hope so.

Exponential curves

I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of other between opportunities 40+ year olds recently.  What fascinated me was the moment in the presentation when "HR departments" and "HR people" were briefly discussed.  Clearly, the vibe I've been getting about recruitment is one that may well be shared more broadly.

The speaker, a woman with 30+ years' experience in Strategic Communications and Marketing was speaking on creating a Marketing plan for one's job search.  During the course of her discussion, she mentioned in passing that even now (30 years after graduating from university), she is sometimes asked about the relevance of her History undergraduate degree and her graduate work (also in History), to her career choice.  I ask you, at what point does the degree cease to matter?  After 30 years doing the work successfully, and rising to the position of VP of Marketing and Public Relations, isn't the degree a moot point?

This raises a question in my mind about the quality of interviewing that's taking place.  I sometimes wonder  whether organizations recognize that a candidate who has a breadth of knowledge in areas outside the specific narrow focus of the company is actually a great find.  All that 'other' knowledge is available to be brought to bear on current problems/challenges within your organization.  All that 'other' knowledge opens up an entirely different way of looking at and solving problems.  Who wouldn't want that?  It seems to me that the challenges organizations and countries face, well from that fact that there isn't enough THINKING going on and when I say 'thinking' I don't mean identical thinking, I mean different thinking, outside-the-norm thinking.  DOING has trumped THINKING and I'm here to plead (a small voice crying out in the wilderness) for thought.

Thought, my fine friends, is where it's at.  I know that to the impatient investor it doesn't seem to generate much, but that's because we've believed the hype that everything is supposed to generate an immediate return on investment.  Sometimes, especially early on, ROI is almost imperceptible to the eye and harder still to measure but the benefits of thought should be viewed as lying on an exponential curve.  If you remember your high school algebra, an exponential curve starts off practically flat and runs close to the x-axis for a time.  Later though, a marvelous thing happens, the curve shoots up into the air, and if you have a really big sheet of graph paper, off into infinity. 

a typical exponential curve (courtesy Photobucket)

So spend a little time thinking, and if you're an organization looking to hire, hire a thinker or two.  You may find that your organization is better off as a consequence.  Doers do.  Thinkers, think and then do and when they do, hang on tight because the curve is about to take off.

First come, first served? Bad idea.

Several years ago, I was invited to be a member of a team for a competition.  I agreed to participate but there were issues, primary among them, a complete lack of external ownership or leadership of the team.  In the absence of external leadership, we tried to establish some internal direction of our own.  Unfortunately, one member of the team (the person who had been called first and presumably saw himself as the leader) flatly refused participate in any preparatory work with the rest of us. We tried several times to encourage him to join us in prep meetings, but he was always too busy.  

The young gentleman never met with us.  When the rest of the team met, we determined that he couldn't be part of the A team.  Given that he had never met with us and got a sense of how we worked, we felt it in the best interests of the team that he serve in a minor role.  Once we got to the competition venue, we tried to tell him this gently but he didn't take it well.  We made the tactical error of delivering this information in a public place (a very bad idea) and he had a royal meltdown.  The wine he had had at dinner probably didn't help his reaction, but let's just say that the way he carried on was quite embarrassing.  He was so pissed, he changed his flight arrangments and returned home the next morning.  Apparently, if he wasn't to be on the A team, he wouldn't play at all. 

Now, this is where the story got interesting because he ran home and reported us.  I have no idea what details he might have reported, but when we got back, we were called in to be upbraided.  The Director advised me that she was extremely disturbed at our treatment of him.  I, being genetically opposed to being upbraided unfairly (an ailment from which I am slowly recovering), asked her whether in his reporting he had advised her of our repeated attempts to have him join us to prepare (and his repeated refusals).  Pause, "Uh, no."  I asked whether he had, in his reportings, advised her of his behavior in the public space of the hotel, when we tried to explain why he would need to serve as alternate as a consequence of his refusal to prepare jointly.  "Uh, no." she replied.  So he had shared only the version of the story that made him look like the wronged party and she, instead of getting the other side, had leapt to a conclusion and doled out punishment without first doing any independent research.

What I learned that day was simply this: first come, first served; first spoke is first believed.  Moreover, having spoken first, you must have been telling the truth.  Why would you hustle to report a lie?  In fact though, it is the liars who have the most to gain by reporting first and inferring truth from eagerness to report is a most unwise approach to management.  The job of management is to troubleshoot interpersonal conflicts that affect team dynamics.  Instead of doing that, what I've found (and this has happened to me more than once now), is that rather than troubleshoot, managers sometimes just take the path of least resistance. 

'First spoke, first believed' is rubbish.  It's a lazy way of dealing with the inevitable conflicts and challenges that will arise on any team.  To presume that the first to speak is telling the truth is to forget human nature.  Children who tell tales usually do so in an effort to protect themselves from the consequences of their own malfeasance.  We should assume that the same is true of adult employees who have not only face to save, but jobs and lifestyles to preserve.  Managers would also do well to consider that he/she who does not report, may have much to report as well, but (s)he chooses to handle conflict by using his/her words, not by running to the teacher. 

In Praise of Administration

Back when I was in high school, before the turn of the century, there was a class being taught which frankly never interested me much.  The class was titled "Office Procedures".  This class was one that was primarily offered to students who were not, shall we say, academically gifted.  It was usually the girls (I went to an all girls high school in Trinidad & Tobago) who wouldn't be successful at Physics or Chemistry, Biology or Technical Drawing who were guided into Office Procedures.  Hah.  Would that we had known then what we know now, everybody would have had to do that class and everybody would still be doing it today.


Over the last several weeks, I think we've all seen the negative effects of bad administration.  We see it in the management of the claims processes in the Gulf region, we see it in the spill in the Gulf, we see it in the mess at Arlington National Cemetery and this morning, we saw it in the Enterprise Rent-A-Car catastrophe in which two young women died because the car they rented had been recalled but not pulled out of circulation by Enterprise.  Closer to home, I have seen it in the six phone calls I've had to make to one doctor's office to get a single letter.  I still haven't got the letter.


I've had cause to say this before but I'll say it again, administration is not some throw away aspect of an organization's activities.  If it were, they wouldn't bother to do it at all.  It is critical to the efficiency of an organization that the right people, with the right skills and the right personal attributes be placed in positions of administrative leadership.  Why organizations treat these positions as ancillary I don't know, but in truth, they are anything but.


An assistant who fails to make appropriate flight arrangements for her boss leaving said boss on the ground while a critical meeting takes place is of no use as a travel planner.  An assistant who fails to see that reports needing to be generated will require paper for printing said reports; binders into which documents must be placed and tabs to separate sections, and fails also to recognize that the appropriate order for supplies must be placed in a timely manner, isn't much help in supporting his/her manager whose responsibility it is to report on company performance.  Certainly, administrative staff can learn these things, but wouldn't it be better if we all got to the office knowing how to think these things through?


When is the world going to realize that the cost of high school dropouts is not just a cost to the dropout, but also a cost to those of us who stayed in!  Since the boss can't do it all, she has to rely on support staff.  If her support staff is ill-equipped to support, what happens then, 'Ole mas' as we say in Trinidad.  Loosely translated: all hell breaks loose.  So go on a quit if you want to, but just bear in mind that you're not the only one who's going to have to pay the price.  You will pay, your family will pay, your community will pay and ultimately, your country will pay.  Concerned about national debt?  Say your behind in school and do something about it.

Whiplash - of the Philosophical Kind

In its response to crises, the Obama Administration generally focuses at the top of the tree.  The President identifies someone of like mind whom he trusts and asks that individual to establish the overarching framework for the reformulation of a particular industry.  The individual then becomes known as his (the President's) Czar for this, that or the other thing.  He’s done this now with the auto industry, identifying an Auto Czar Ed Montgomery; he’s done it with Afghanistan & Pakistan, TARP and cyber security to name a few.  There are other positions that he inherited - Czars for AIDS, Foreign Aid, Poverty, Energy, Drugs.  The list is fairly comprehensive.  What is troubling to me though is that while great attention is being paid to the top of the tree, far less seems to be being focused on the root system which sustains these trees.

We often sneer at the use of the words ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘bureaucrat’ but the fact of the matter is that it is bureaucracy that is the indispensable executing arm of this or any Administration.  To focus too closely on the leader of a particular system (tree top) and not focus at all on the sustaining system is, I think, a recipe for disaster.  Administrations establish philosophy and direction, but it is bureaucrats (aka federal government employees) who execute the established policies.  When they do so poorly, or not at all, chaos ensues.  

Take for instance, the horrible mess that is the Minerals Management Service – MMS. The approach to regulation and oversight during the Bush years was born of the Bush Administration’s attitude to same: less is good, none is better.  The agency inherited by the Obama Administration therefore, was functioning according to an approach to regulation that was on the opposite end of the spectrum from what the incoming Administration wanted.  That being the case, an immediate ‘intervention’ and culture change operation ought to have been mounted. That should have been the first order of business.  In hindsight of course, anyone with an ounce of organizational savvy can see this, but for some reason the effect of culture on execution of policy seems to have been overlooked in the heady days between the election and the current crisis.  Why is that?  That’s a question that’s not getting a lot of airtime, but probably should (for many reasons not the least of which is that I don’t think that MMS is the only Agency likely to be having this kind of philosophical whiplash).  

The mistake here wasn’t that housecleaning wasn’t done (witch hunting in the workplace is still illegal, ask former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez), but rather that no one seems to have taken the time to establish what the new rules of engagement were or to make clear that non-adherence to same would bring severe consequences.  If new rules were in fact outlined but were not followed, the failure of internal review mechanisms needs to be investigated as well, not with a view to firing anyone but with a view to identifying where the breakdowns in the system occurred and ensuring that they don’t occur again.   

Firing folk after the fact is a Pyrrhic victory.  We all may feel a little better once they’ve gone, but it solves nothing in the long run.  Moreover, a firing, much like a public execution, is really only a pretense that something has been done.  It’s the private organizational work that matters, not the public humiliation of a single person…even if the person really did need to go.