Who's driving? And - where on Earth are we headed?
And who's got the frickin map? Yeah!
I seriously believe that the pointy–headed people in space – are the people who must be in charge of the worlds GPS – and I'm convinced that they have it rigged! They have somehow limited the number of destinations available to us humans. They've made darn sure we don't go to places that they don't get money from. All of it done, of course, in the name of a better life for us all – a three car kitchen, a slimmer tummy - a far better pizza. Yes I know there is more.
Importantly for me though - who is judging the benchmark for 'better'? Can any one person answer a question like that? Who is better than who, which is better than what and why. Everywhere you look everything is compared and ranked. From beauty pageants to performing dogs and talent competitions for 4 year olds. Everything. And to me it all just seems to get not better.
But who created the model for these comparison anyway? Who designed the diabolical framework? Is anyone thinking what is happening as a result? Is anyone awake on the bridge of this inter galactic death ship? Is there a bridge? Where did this race to the bottom get started? It's either those weird dudes up there, or us - or it just happened out of thin air right? Over a long time. A very very long time.
We hear it all around us.
The instructions. Like machine gun fire - "Reduce the time it takes to do anything and everything please - It's job 1 - It's vital. Life or death. Do it now." The cry comes from the boardrooms - "We need to be better! No, I don't know what that means precisely but just do it. What? - OK then - better means get us to increased turnover, increased performance, lower cost, more meaningful customer experiences – and while you are at it – add more differentiation to it all!"
WTF.
Oh and put an end to war, poverty and injustice. Make it all better.
And woven within it all - "Let's have more passion, emotion, love and equality – they sound good. I will get more votes – more ticks. Yes, and bring me a slice of that pizza. That's better."
While any one of these – without the possible exception of the pizza – is a very well worth while objective, the degree of real thought that gets put into any of them is often miserly. When you add all of these things up and try to solve them at once it is a very complex set of patterns and issues indeed.
For many companies - and sadly - these conversations have become the equivalent of small talk at dinner parties. Ignored, banal and pointless – something to be avoided at all cost. And anyway whatever the work that results, it gets compared to some arbitrary set of measures beamed in wirelessly from Beetlejuice – which at any minute could go supernova anyway! (According to Professor Brian Cox)
I know.
Some people are very good at small talk. Professional. I despise it and I am not. I loathe it. Why? Well it's not only meaningless it has become the single biggest barrier to making valuable progress to civilized life. Depending on your definition of civilized life. Small talk has become - in and of itself - the way the majority of the world now seems to talk to each other. Ignorant, banal and pointless. Small. XS.
It is has no connection to anything of importance and so the decisions that get made are made in a deep fog - a wool of meaninglessness – and they carry weightlessness. No weight. No wait!
Can we change these frames – these utterly mental models?
Well erm… yes.
As long as we are prepared to suffer a medium (even long-term) onslaught by those so called 'people in charge'. Those (usually) very grey people with the fixed paradigms bolted into their craniums – the occasional slab of cast iron sticking out of their necks. We have to be prepared get secretly angry and violent – not easy to perfect this. I'm still trying.
Every one of our principles will be exposed right down to the raw - they will be burning red – acid and vitriol will be poured into our ears while our eyes will be physically abused with a pointless diagram or two. It will be a highly emotional water boarding in a mental Guantanamo.
Our standards will be challenged by literally everything we disagree with and abhor. Inequality, self serving, profiteering, lying, shallow, deceitful and all of it in the name of official policy. We
need to remain smiling and civil - charm personified - while drinking from this fire–hose of abuse, ridicule and prejudice. We will be forced to stand upright and personable while reeling from a whirlwind of differing and confused contexts delivered by people who have no real appreciation of themselves and the shame they are bringing onto the English language and our species as their forked tongues speak.
Reducing the Signal To Noise
Even writing about all this worries me. People will think I'm negative. I'm not – quite the opposite - I am trying to reverse it in small ways as an 'Army Of One'. I know there are millions of people who think the same way or similar and doing a lot more than me to turn the tide. I do worry though that unless we all get joined up more meaningfully that I’m just adding to all the blather. I'm going now.
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