Goals - warning!

In reading Steve Forbes’ book, How Capitalism Will Save Us ®, I didn’t think I would like it before I started.  I must admit though, he caught my interest.  Warning!  His style is blunt and aggressive.  Come to think of it, an undergraduate at MSU Denver I was in a working group with told me I’m blunt and aggressive.  But I digress… 

As I said, I was skeptical right from the title; right from the Preface.  You see, I have a bias about rich capitalists defending capitalism.  I mean, we don't typically hear a blue collar, “under class” person defending capitalists and capitalism.  I’m more in alignment with this warning for business schools as written in the book Drive®: 

Goals… Business school professors suggest they should come with their own warning label: Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation.  Use care when applying goals to your organization. 

Daniel H. Pink

 “… narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking…”  sounds like today’s corporations headed by… yep… capitalists, true?

On the other hand, when I Googled what the goal is of the free market Steve Forbes refers to, the response surprised me:

 “… to efficiently allocate resources to satisfy consumer demand while promoting economic growth and individual freedom.  By minimizing government intervention, it allows supply, demand, and competition to determine prices and production, which aims to maximize prosperity and innovation.” 

“… promoting economic growth and individual freedom…”  Hard to argue with that!

Forbes doesn’t sugar coat the reality that a free market is brutal; people lose jobs; companies go out of business.  He simply emphasizes that the subsequent employment, emerging businesses, and ultimate impact on Americans’ lives is positive.  He also emphasizes today we are not “… minimizing government intervention…” Steve claims capitalism it is totally better than government over-intervention.  I think Wicker agrees: 

Wicker's Law 

Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some. 

Unknown Sage 

That is how I feel today towards our federal government.  State, county, and local governments, too!  The “revenue” they are absorbing is our tax dollars.  I’ve never heard of a blue collar, “under class” person defending higher taxes, either.  

Do you think Joseph A. Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies ®, is an accurate warning for today’s circumstances? 

… bad government is a normal cost of government. 

Maybe Stave Forbes has a good point about the benefits of the free market goals we should strive for, after all. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Hope…

In the 1732 poem, An Essay on Man, it was written: 

Hope springs eternal. 

Alexander Pope 

Literally centuries before college football or the formation of the National Football League, Pope captured the sentiments that move to the forefront this exact time of year.  You see… it’s football season!  Yay! 

Exceeded only by we Die Hard, Cubs fans, NFL, college, high school, and fantasy football fans are the epitome of Pope’s description of hope.  Except at my Alma Mater.  Even though Knox College is undefeated in the head-to-head match against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame (winning 12 to 5 in 1902), our football program in this century sucks.  

Jean Kerr tries to soften our despair: 

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent. 

Even so, there’s no hope for college football in Galesburg, IL this year.  But for our other teams we have great anticipation.  We sport our team’s logo-wear proudly and hope for a successful season.  More important than even football (if that’s possible), we fill each day with promise: 

Every day that we wake up is a good day.  Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day.  Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good. 

Walter Mosley 

So, if our team falters this season, don’t despair.  Hope will spring again in 2027.  295 years after Alexander Pope’s eternal sentiments. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Generative thinking…

I think and I worry about thinking vs. the “machines” generating thinking, often these days.  Yes, being retired, I have time on my hands HaHa!  Even though I made my career in the technology field, I feel things have gotten (past tense) out of hand.  

In my World War II History class at Metro State University of Denver, I found another who thinks the way I think.  Technology is not only getting ahead of mankind’s thinking abilities, but we are voluntarily contributing to the problem: 

Generative A.I. 

The outsourcing of analytical thinking and reasoning. 

Professor Andrew Muldoon 

Technologists would say they are simply trying to improve things, I suppose.  But then the “Department of Unintended Consequences” rears its head as described in Ian Leslie’s book Curious ©: 

Human memory is inefficient and unreliable in comparison to machine memory, but it's this very unpredictability that's the source of our creativity.  It makes connections we'd never consciously think of making, smashing together atoms that our conscious minds keep separate.  Digital databases cannot yet replicate the kind of serendipity that enables the unconscious human mind to make novel patterns and see powerful new analogies, of the kind that lead to our most creative break throughs.  The more we outsource our memories to Google, the less we are nourishing the wonderfully accidental creativity of our unconscious. 

“… The more we outsource… the less we nourish… our unconscious.”  

Human brain power, or lack thereof, has been criticized for generations – interestingly, only by other humans.  Smart humans perhaps, but I haven’t witnessed a machine do this math (yet): 

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty five percent would rather die than think. 

Thomas Edison 

It makes me wonder what other great thinkers of their time would think about the thinking that goes on in our time: 

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. 

Henry Ford

Well, I think we’ll just have to wait and see if the machines turn out to be better thinkers than we humans.  Perhaps we Neo-Luddites will be proven wrong. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Reflections from an Aging Warrior

The movie, “The Odyssey” is out.  It made me reminisce.  Grandiose expectations, even when achieved, can be a mistake…

Much has been studied and even more written about men of my generation, “trying too hard.”  We were modern warriors in a battle for treasure over ethics; victory over compassion; fame over family; intimidation over cooperation.  I wonder if that affliction afflicts today’s younger, working men.  Women, too.  

Speaking from experience, there can be a “burden of self-sufficiency” and “compulsive work ethic” in our warrioring years.  Some have suggested this can lead to “carrying sadness alone” when warriors fail to meet grandiose expectations, or even achieve them as Odysseus did.  It’s actually worse than that. 

I remember the day a former sales rep of mine, John, called.  Years previous I hired him into the technology sales field when other managers wouldn’t.  He was considered “out of profile”.  I took a chance.  I promoted him onto my Major Accounts sales team at ADP.  I trained him how to hunt.  He became a better hunter than me. 

After outgrowing that position, John left to seek fortune and glory.  He wound up as the #1 rep at Salesforce.com for multiple years.  We stayed in touch periodically; celebrating his victories.  

Then one day, John called.  I hadn’t heard from him in a while.  His voice was different.  I can’t pinpoint it.  He called me to share his most recent victory – or was it.  John just received his first $1 million W-2.  WOW!  What a grandiose achievement! 

Instead of joy however, John somberly asked me, “Gary, is that all there is?”  He was not consoled when I replied, “Yes. As a sales hunter, it’s just the money.”  We haven’t spoken much since.  I think we resigned ourselves to the reality that in our profession, hunting was “all we know”. 

No shame, though.  In the B2B sales profession there are very few true hunters.  Just being a consistent, 100% of quota performer, year-in and year-out, is rare.  I know elite performance is found in many professions.  I don’t know what makes the difference:  

Not every man is built to be in the arena.  

Scottie Scheffler 

Older now, I can finally say that growing up I and others placed too much emphasis on making money.  Pursuit of grandiose expectations, even when achieved, can create disappointment.  In my career, I did things that can’t be undone – can’t be “fixed”.  They are not “learning experiences” because as an elderly man there will never be a next time to “do better”; “do it differently”. 

Can self-forgiveness be found by acknowledging unforgivable deeds?  Did Odysseus find peace?  I hope so.  It’s not because we Aging Warriors have to “live with it”.  It’s actually worse than that.  We have to die with it. 

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.