Three Places to Thrash

When faced with a project there are three places to thrash:

Early—before the project begins.

Middle—as the project is proceeding.

Late—as the project ends.

When you (or your team) thrashes early, brainstorming becomes a way to develop new ideas. Speed and immediacy become the primary goals of early thrashing: Speed to actionable ideas and immediacy to the implementation of action, moving toward accomplishing end-of-project goals.

When you (or your team) thrashes in the middle of a project, brainstorming becomes a place to hide. Hiding emotionally, “getting to know your team,” or struggling to decide about the efficacy or practicality of an idea, become the unstated, primary goals. Speed becomes less important than looking good to peers, and groupthink really kicks in at this point, bogging down the implementation process.

When you (or your team) thrashes at the end of a project, brainstorming becomes a place of panic, anxiety, and on some teams (or with you) a place of abject fear. The combination of pressure to ship something out the door encourages a mindset and attitude focused around speed (but for negative reasons) and impatience with people and processes. The implementation process recedes in the face of the attitude of “just get it done.”

Thrashing—that is brainstorming a direction, deciding on an approach, planning a process, managing opinions and conflicts, and implementing a plan for action—should be done early, rather than late if you’re really interested (or your team is really interested) in shipping a product, idea, or service out the door and direct to the market.

Courage in the “Ah-Ha” Moment

The moment when your mind opens, a new idea resonates with you at an emotional frequency you didn’t know you possessed; this is the “A-HA” moment.

Dismissing an idea that doesn’t open your mind, that doesn’t resonate with you at any emotional frequency, actively rejecting the effort of the other party to convince or persuade you; this is a form of hiding.

Chasing the moment when the idea opens your mind, chasing that moment of resonance above all other moments in an interpersonal interaction with a situation you didn’t previously understand; this is a form of hiding.

The people who chase the “A-HA” moment blindly (the dopamine high) or the people who reject the idea that might lead to the “A-HA” moment (the resistance) both need to worry less about thrashing around with dopamine or resistance, and move their emotional energy to courage.

Courage to be open.

Courage to be honest.

Courage to be clear.

Courage to know the “A-HA” moment is there, but not needing the moment to manifest immediately—or desperately.

This courage is in short supply. But it always has been.

Connection-as-a-Product (CAAP)

If connection is the product of the future, the problem is not going to be connecting; human beings connect naturally–and arbitrarily.

If connection is the product of the future, the problem is not going to be developing the tools and technology to mediate, facilitate, develop and encourage those connections; human innovation is already beginning to drive that development.

If connection is the product of the future, the problem is going to be determining the value of that connection.

The assumptions, decisions, and even the drivers, that encourage the development of markets, regulations, policies, and procedures, at scale are absent in the face of something ephemeral, long-term, relationally based, and seemingly arbitrary from person to person.

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about this differently:

What are we charging our customers and clients for?
What are we paid to do?
What do our clients and customers believe we are paid to do?
What is the value of education about connection to our customers and clients?
What is the value of connection for our customers and clients?
What is the value of the tools around the act of connecting with our clients and customers?
What do our clients think they want from each other?
What is the market value of our network, to our customers and clients?
What is the risk profile of our market, our clients, and our organization?

Answering these questions, along with carefully considering the inherent (and growing) value of storytelling, self-awareness, and conflict management (not resolution—that requires skillsets you might not want to acquire) will open the door to creating a macroculture of connection.

Avoiding these hard questions and hoping that another innovator, entrepreneur, or visionary will come along and create the web of support that the system of connection-as-the-economy requires, is foolhardy and dangerous.

If connection is the product of the future, the problem is going to be answering the questions, in brave ways and then acting on the scary answers.

Exchanging the Truth for a Lie

The second most compelling question after “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is “What is truth?”

When we fail to do the hard work of renewing our behavior and changing our mindsets, we exchange the pursuit of the truth for the lie of preserving the status quo.

Science cannot tell us what truth is. Only what the facts of the matter are.

Art cannot tell us what truth is. Only create representations of the shadows of truth.

Philosophy cannot tell us what truth is. Only make claims about the pursuit of the truth.

Marketing cannot tell us what truth is. Only package the search for it and communicate the process of getting there.

Religion cannot tell us what truth is. Only provide us with a set of rules, regulations and structures to pursue the truth, if we choose.

Governments cannot tell us what truth is. Only render consequences when violations of truth become so onerous that they cannot be ignored and call such consequences justice.

People cannot tell us what truth is. Only tell the stories of their pursuits—and successes and failures.

So: What is truth?

If renewing your mind to get to the answer to this cornerstone question of existence were easy, then everyone would do it.

And conflicts—mismatches in frames, perspectives, and behaviors—would disappear just as quickly.

Do the hard work first of pursuing the answer, and the Truth will find you.

How Crazy Do You Want to Act to ‘Win’ at Nuclear Poker

Playing poker with another party who holds the keys to nuclear weapons (literal, metaphorical, or figurative), and has given indications based on experience that they will be willing to deploy them, is a dangerous game.

The stakes are high, but not for the obvious reasons of total physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological annihilation.

The stakes are high for three reasons:

No one really knows another party’s motivations, needs, or interests. Unless we ask. And far too often our inherent selfishness in pursuing outcomes that benefit us exclusively, blinds us to the simple need to do some discovery about the other party.

Sometimes, only one person has cared enough to explore another party’s motivations, needs, or interests.

But then they use this knowledge cynically, to manipulate and exploit other parties who are more ignorant—and more selfish.

The far rarer case is that the party who has the knowledge and cares, shares; unselfishly, openly, and with the purpose of avoiding—or minimizing—disastrous outcomes.

Egos, self-interest, and selfishness tend to override rationality and logic in even the most innocuous negotiations. When potential destruction is the thing on offer, all bets are off.

The fact is, people at the individual level are irrational and emotional and in moments of high stress, tend to make short-cut choices that relieve tension in the amygdala, but create further problems down the road.

If the other party isn’t talking to a rational actor (such as it is) on the other side of the negotiation table, or leads with principles rather than interests, the changes of an undesirable outcome increase tremendously.

The appearance of being willing to do what the other party is either to scared, to demoralized, or to invested in alternative outcomes (their own BATNAs and WATNAs, for instance) to do, is sometimes enough to “win” the high stakes game of poker played with nuclear weapons (literal, metaphorical, or figurative).

Unfortunately, this sets a precedent in the mind and approach of the “losing” party around the potential for blackmail, coercion, or something even worse—subservience and the appearance of weakness.

The person who is willing to walk into a nuclear negotiation and deal fairly, transparently, and unselfishly with each party in the conflict is the one who wins the day today and tomorrow.

And not just a moral victory either.

Avoidance is a Worthwhile Strategy for Addressing Conflict

Avoiding a conflict is sometimes a strategic move.

We avoid conflicts for the obvious reasons that dealing with them makes us scared, threatens our sense of security, or we feel as though we don’t have the competency to address them in a way where the outcome will work for us.

But, then there are the non-obvious reasons to avoid conflicts.

One of which is to have the conflict in another way, in another way, with a party that has already been weakened emotionally by engaging in a previous conflict.

This is practicing avoidance as a negotiation strategy.

Another non-obvious reason to avoid conflict is that telling the story of avoidance has more resonance with another party we are currently embroiled with, rather than telling a story of resolution and success.

This is practicing avoidance as a storytelling strategy.

Still, another reason to avoid a conflict is that we don’t care how the conflict works out because the conflict “working out” is a short-term strategy that changes the balance of power for the other party in the conflict. And quite frankly, we don’t really care about how they work out their problems.

This is practicing avoidance as a long-game, future-oriented strategy.

The non-obvious strategies matter more in the long run than the short-term reasons we articulate, defend, and promote to other people, the other party, or even quietly to ourselves.

More deliberation—and articulation—of the long-term impact of avoiding a conflict as a strategic move, will serve to move the use of avoidance from a tactic we’re embarrassed to employ and lack the appropriate level of self-awareness to explain, to a strategy that has real benefits for ourselves and others.

Scale Problems

Teutonic organizations believe that size makes up for persuasion.

Small organizations believe that persuasion makes up for size.

The problem in both organizations is scale, not properly understood.

Because your organization, your team, your personality, or your project is large, that doesn’t mean that persuasion is something to be abandoned. Persuasion at scale to get me to follow the rules, be compliant, or go along with the program, must not be abandoned in favor of the use of power and authority.

Because your organization, your team, your personality, or your project is small, that doesn’t mean that persuasion is the only thing to consider. Appealing to power or authority to get me to follow the rules, be compliant, or go along with the program, is sometimes a tool that works to ensure future engagement.

Be sure of three things to determine the balance in your organization:

Be sure of how your size (small or large) is perceived by others in the market.
Be sure of how your persuasion tactics have been effective (or haven’t been effective) in the past.
Be sure of how you have used (or misused or failed to use) power and authority in the past, and in the present, to move the market.

Otherwise, when your organization follows a rule or regulation to the letter, creates a method of persuasion that falls on deaf ears, or makes a move that benefits the organization but not your customers or fans, don’t be surprised when the push back is unexpected.

Anxiety, Worry and Hurry

Worry about things you can’t control and outcomes that are dependent upon other people responding (or reacting) is at the heart of anxiety.

Our modern struggle with anxiety comes from three areas: Our desire for immediacy of outcome (or resolution); Our lack of internal resilience; Our impatience with process as a method of accomplishing goals.

We narcotize our worry, or anxiety, with food, alcohol, drugs, violence (self-directed and other-directed) and even lately video games, social media, and coloring books.

The thing is, sitting with worry, and then learning to have faith and let that worry go, is the only way to find the peace that we are craving.

The process of getting from worry to letting go of worry can be mediated and adjudicated by meditation, prayer, and journaling (we forget past victories over worry unless they are recorded…memory is a slippery thing) but when we combine the desire for immediacy, control, and impatience, then hurry sneaks in.

And we are too busy to remember past victories. Too busy to engage in a letting go process. Too busy to do anything but worry.

The ways out of this are easy, but they require self-knowledge, self-direction, and self-regulation to work.

Not more distractions.

Building a Memory Palace of Lies

What happens when how I remember an event doesn’t match how you remember an event?

This mismatch in memory—and framing of those mismatches—leads to people constructing palaces to specific memories in their minds. These palaces are filled with feelings, ideas, thoughts, and conclusions that may not be objectively accurate.

And that may be viewed by the other party (who remembers events differently) as a palace of constructed out of lies.

One of the issue with outsourcing our memory of events (and even our memory of truth) to online algorithmically based programs, is that the program remembers quite accurately. But it remembers what its original creator (or “first mover” if you will) programmed it to remember.

And just about as accurately.

Here’s a deeper issue: When I appeal to an outside authority to adjudicate the disagreement between my memory of events and your memory of events, and when that authority has been programmed by a third party with their own attributions and biases, at what point do we stop appealing to authority?

And let bygones, be bygones.

The power of memory truly lies in allowing people to construct their own memory palaces in peace, to remember the past with nostalgia, and to forget (and be forgotten) not as an escape from consequence—memories provide plenty of that on their own—but as a way to experience grace.

Captain of the Rescue Boats

The person who walks around while the Titanic is sinking, and calmly begins rearranging the deck chairs, organizing the evacuation, and gets everyone off the ship before it sinks becomes, by default, the future captain of the rescue vessel in the North Atlantic.

That person also becomes a new Noah.

Here is a list of 26 icebergs (non-exhaustive, your list (and mileage) may vary) where, as the Titanic ship of state known as global society collides with them and begins to sink, you can be the default captain of the rescue ships later:

Climate change
Fear of change
Growing use of A.I. based technology
Biodiversity disappearance
Lack of sufficient explanations that people can understand for necessary changes
Financial systems collapse
Refusal to be held accountable
Developing world debt
Connection economy of the Internet
Rethinking of Labor Value
The electrical grid in the postmodern world
Lack of access to creation on the Internet
Lack of courage in individuals to take risks
First world educational system
Scarcity of emotional labor
Child abuse and victimization
Lack of true, courageous statesmanship
Human trafficking
Increased spiritual hopelessness among the old
Increased spiritual hopelessness among the young
Lack of self-efficacy
Growing ability to hide from what matters
Thinking harder about the answers to binary questions
Lack of interest in self-awareness
Lack of ability to emotionally care
The increasingly intractable nature of conflicts

There are other ones out there as well. There’s no lack of icebergs. There is, however a lack of people calmly prepared to be captains in future rescue boats.