[Strategy] If I Were You…

“If I were you…” is the worst beginning to providing feedback to anyone.

The statement merely says, if the person giving the feedback were the person receiving the feedback then this is what the feedback would be.

This is a poorly considered bit of critical shorthand, because if the person giving the feedback were the person receiving the feedback, then nothing would change.

This is a poorly considered bit of persuasive shorthand, because if the person giving the feedback were the person receiving the feedback, then that person wouldn’t be persuaded to change in any meaningful way.

This is a poorly considered method of shortcutting through another’s experience to get to “empathy” and to get around the other party’s defenses.

The thing is, if the person giving the feedback were the person receiving the feedback, they would be acting in the same way that the person receiving the feedback is.

Better to say, “If my brain were in your situation” or “If my behavior could be inserted in between you and the problem,” and be done with it.

[Strategy] The Era of the Chameleons is not Ending Fast Enough

Human interactions, impacted and shaped by the economic, political, and social effects of the Industrial Revolution, used to highly value—and continue to reward—the skills of the chameleon.

You know the chameleon at work.

This is the person at a meeting who, when a person says “This is clearly black in color,” they nod their head approvingly.

This is the same person who, twenty minutes later at the same meeting, when another person offers their color opinion and says, “This is clearly white in color,” they also nod their head approvingly.

Then, a person walks up to them after the meeting that was supposed to be about colors (but was about acquiescence) and says to them, “One person said the color was black. Another person said the color was white. I think that they were both wrong and the color is grey. What do you think?”

And the person, the chameleon agrees that the color is grey.

You know the chameleon at work.

This behavior, this inability to stand up, stick out, take a stand, or state an opinion, for fear of being fired, flattened down, or left out, was a critical management benefit of our past Industrial Age. It was a function of a work culture based in top-down, command and control directions and the presence of a lone voice of authority to whom to appeal. This behavior was rewarded with promotion, bonuses, and extra trips. This behavior was so regular and so pervasive that it was lampooned by comedians; it lay at the core of televised situational comedies; and it was studied by psychologists.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the chameleons that currently in the workplace, the color is neither black, nor, white. It isn’t even grey anymore.

The dominant color of change, conflict, and innovation is plaid.

And when a chameleon must adjust to the presence of plaid—particularly the chameleon at work—it tends to not survive the experience.

The era of the chameleon is ending, but not nearly fast enough.

[Opinion] Developing the Present

When in economic development conversations with government officials, investors, and concerned community members, the tension is always revealed at a certain point in the dialogue.

Usually it comes in the form of either (or both) of the assertions below:

In the past, one person (typically a politician, or group of politicians) provided the authoritative voice that told every other person, political party, or community member what was going to happen.

In the present, one person (typically a politician, or group of politicians) no longer exists with the authoritative voice that tells every other person, political party, or community member, what is going to happen in the future.

And then, typically, there’s a moment of silence and a sigh.

The tension between the imagined past (or actual past, as in the case of Walter Cronkite versus Lyndon Johnson) and the current day reveals a nostalgia for centralized control, a reduction in the clamoring of voices for attention in the public square, and the desire for speed in change.

Was there an authoritative voice in the past that stated “how it was going to be,” or was that also an illusion?
Was there a centralized authority that “flattened” choices in the past, making everyone in a community conform, or is that just a myth that we tell ourselves in the present in hindsight?
Was there more progress yesterday than there is today, because yesterday people in the community knew not to ask for permission, and instead followed orders?

The conflict—or tension—between remembering a simple imagined past (nostalgia) and living through an uncomfortable present, won’t be resolved by a centralized voice—if it ever could be.

Instead, the development of new ways of persuading, convincing, caring, and telling stories that resonate must combine with patience to accomplish an economic future we can all experience the benefits of.

[Advice] The Edges

Consuming content and ideas passively, instead of creating content actively.

Reacting to an idea immediately, instead of responding with critical thinking.

Seeking assurance of safety and stability, instead of anchoring in ambiguity.

Collaborating without courage, instead of connecting in all the ways that make us uncomfortable.

Desiring information without wisdom, instead of demanding an exchange of clarity with conscience.

Passive-aggressive manipulation without candor, instead of active engagement with conflict.

These are the edges that people in all organizations, from government run organizations to private entities, need to make an active decision about whether or not they are pursuing.

Our societies, our culture, and our future depends on figuring out the edges.

Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode #6 – Darren MacDonald

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 6 – Darren MacDonald, Investor, Film/Movie Buff, World Traveler, Local Raconteur

podcast-earbud_u-season-four-episode-6-darren-macdonald

[powerpress]

Intercultural context, humility, and world travel.

Capitalism, expanding your worldview, entrepreneurship, one-way traffic, and the country of India.

Our guest today on the show, Darren MacDonald, is a local venture capital investor, film buff, and world traveler. This interview stands out as a “call back” to our very first episode of the Earbud_U Podcast, where we debuted by featuring Darren’s unique, humorous and engaging point of view.

And we’re doing it again here.

In this episode, Darren talks about finding his way from the Taj Mahal to Mumbai, his travels in India, and how to expand capitalism into other areas and explore new ideas.

One idea that we talked about extensively in this conversation was about hope. Now, hope is not a strategy, but it does lie at the core of many questions, yet to be answered, in the world of entrepreneurship globally:

How do we get hope to people?

Hope to places from Mumbai, India to St. Louis, Missouri.

Hope to places where all hope–economic, social, and even spiritual–has left.

Hope is the eraser for despair. But before we get to hope, we’ve got to identify what the problems are, why they are important to solve, and who actually has the bandwidth to solve them.

This is the first part of a two-part conversation with Darren and it’s a lot of fun, while also being sobering, inspiring, and sometimes, just downright goofy.

And there’s nothing not hopeful about any of that.

Connect with Darren through all the ways you can below:

Check out our first interview with Darren here: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/blog/earbud_u/earbud_u-episode-1-darren-macdonald/

Follow Darren on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upwordz

Connect with Darren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenmacdonald/

Connect with the Southern Tier Capital Fund: http://stcfny.com/

Connect with the Southern Tier Capital Fund on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stcapitalfund

[Advice] The Fundamentals

When analyzing a problem to move forward towards a solution, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the fundamentals of the problem.

We place a lot of importance in understanding, revisiting, and honoring the fundamentals of a problem, because they come, not from conceived wisdom, or even perceived wisdom, but from received wisdom.

Of course, this wisdom is received from a past when the fundamentals weren’t fundamental, they were merely subjective reality, based upon the circumstances of that time and place.

Or, this received wisdom isn’t really wisdom at all, but merely regurgitated conventional wisdom, which has two marks against it before it even is spoken into existence—yet again.

In the now, when confronted by a problem that seems to resembles one we faced in the past, we hearken back to that received wisdom, and being trapped by hindsight bias, we demand that fundamentals be reinstituted.

But this is just a clever version of the idea of returning to a past when everybody got along, there was no strife, and the fundamentals were sound.

Here’s the thing:

Demanding a return to the fundamentals can be a callback to received wisdom, but only if the current problem resembles a past one in any kind of way. And problems involving people, rather than processes, are constantly in flux.

Creating a solution to a problem based in the fundamentals can be a foundation to work from. But they can also be the concrete that traps a person, a community, a society, or culture, in a species of cloudy nostalgia for a past that never really was. And once trapped by such nostalgia, those same people, communities, societies, and cultures, are inevitably surprised when an outlier comes along who fundamentally doesn’t care about the concrete of the fundamentals.

Advocating for fundamentals based in received wisdom can be biased, not only because they reflect the prejudices of our personal attributions to past events, our personal desire to minimize dissonance in the present, and our personal need for stability and security in the future, but also because our personal hindsight is always perfect. But in reality, getting to resolution and discovering what fundamental actually worked to solve which problem in the past, was always complicated, messy, mistake-prone, and not assured of success.

Making a rhetorical appeal to return to fundamentals is inherently flawed when the current circumstances don’t even remotely resemble previous circumstances.

And having the courage to throw the past fundamentals out and establish new ones, will always increase conflict, rather than decrease it.

[Advice] Culture Matters

Culture matters.

At the core of most conflicts around immigration, emigration, and refugee movement, are issues stemming from cultural differences between peoples.

We make assumptions due to attributions about other people’s culture. And we do the same about our own.

Social proofing, social sanctioning, and social cueing dictate that we work doggedly to reduce the level of dissonance in our individual lives, but also at the societal level.

And, of course, we believe that if someone else were just doing something about the situation, rather than us, it would be all better.

The thing is though, people from other cultures—immigrant and refugees included—believe the exact same things that people who are “native” to the countries they desire to go to believe in.

There are a few ways out of these conflicts, but none of them are short-term, none of them are easy, and none of them are pleasant:

Listen honestly to what people are actually saying who come from another cultural mindset. This is the hardest one which is why it’s listed first. Listening at mass comes through social and other forms of media, but it also comes through laws, regulations, policies, and procedures. When we listen honestly, we begin to hear and recognize context and subtext.

Learn to say “no” firmly, respectfully, and be prepared to defend the “no” with clarity, courage, and candor. The fact of the matter is, some refugees from some cultures and some immigrants from some cultures are no more a “fit” in one country than they are in another. But when a “no” is given that sounds like rhetoric, prejudice, or ignorance, it is unconvincing and seen as being based in prejudicial opinion. And the fever pitch to enter the country whose leaders have said “no” without sufficient explanation of why, rises inexorably.

Implement solutions that strike at the core of why culture matters: ideas, perspectives, beliefs, and values. If a nation (any nation) is not led by politicians whose values and beliefs match the people that they represent, then there is going to be a lack of desire to implement core solutions to cultural conflicts. This is a tough reality to face, which is why elections have consequences. If culture matters (and it does in considerations of refugee and immigrant populations) then the culture of the politicians and the nations that they lead should match up, both in word, and deed.

Cultural beliefs, values, and ideas, are part of the framing of many conflicts around the world. When there is a mismatch between cultural frames, there will be conflicts. It’s nice to consider building bridges across cultures, but the reality is much more complicated and fraught with danger.

[Opinion] Reading Tea Leaves

We like the prediction business because as human beings, we dislike uncertainty.

If we can know what’s going to happen next, we feel a sense of control.

If we know what’s going to happen next, then we put trust in our own ability and efficacy in order to “fix” whatever problems might arise.

If we know what’s going to happen next, then we feel as if there is a chance to gain safety and security in an insecure and chaotic world.

Psychics, soothsayers, and seers; analysts, pollsters, and pundits; politicians, priests, and professors; well-meaning prognosticators, all.

But see, the tension that lies deep down is between the soothing predictive words of person standing in front of us (or the person on our computer based devices) and the suspicion that we have, resonating from a deeper place of intuitive knowledge, that such predictions are false.

But since we can’t know the future, but we can prove the present, we buy into the lull of certainty that prediction gives us, and we err on the side of prediction, rather than dancing with the uncomfortableness of uncertainty.

Patience.

Being aware of, and secure in, the present.

Letting go emotionally of events that happened in the past.

Not needing to be in control of everything, all the time.

These are emotional skills that, once honed to a fine point, make human beings less susceptible to the predictions of well-meaning prognosticators.

Because the only thing that is guaranteed to be knowable, is that tomorrow will come, no matter how we feel about it.

[Advice] To What End?

What matters the most?

Asking the right questions, or listening to the right answers?

What makes the most impact?

Personalized individual behavioral changes, or massive societal shifts?

When expanding and rapacious technological advancements and the human ability to ignore a crisis until it is impossible to manage its effects merge, the ability to bravely tear down an old system and replace it with another system, is the only skill that matters.

But if we don’t know what matters the most and if we can’t agree on what makes the most impact, then we can’t answer the last question, which becomes the most critical one to get right:

What outcome do we want to end up with?

[Advice] No More Accidents

Here’s an observable fact:

Many people (though not all) are just fine with the outcomes they are getting from their communication styles.

Many people (though not all) are comfortable with the disagreements, differences of opinion, conflicts, verbal fights, tensions, stresses and other outcomes that result from engaging in dysfunctional—and sometimes damaging—communication on a daily basis.

Many people (though not all) are just fine with letting communication happen by accident, taking a reactive—rather than responsive—stance and not really thinking about the impact that a word, a phrase, or even an idea may have upon another person.

Many people (though not all) are just fine not thinking strategically about how they communicate, rather than focusing obsessively over whether or not what they communicated got across to the other person.

Many people (though not all) find it to be more emotionally, psychologically, psychically, and even physically, comfortable to sort of just “go with the flow” and not to engage intentionally with communication patterns in their own lives—at work, at home, or even at school.

Yesterday, following a training in a local workplace, a woman told a story.

She said: “There was a supervisor working here who left recently. She said that everyone here was mean to her. She told me before she walked out the door, that I needed to ‘think outside the box more.’

I don’t know if she meant the comment to be hurtful or not, but I was hurt by it, and I have been thinking about it ever since. And it’s really hard to change the box you’re in if you can’t even see it.”

Many people (though not all) are ready to change their responses to observable facts, once they become aware of the facts they’re in.