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Bone Rattlers
Peter Senge is a colleague of dear, departed Russell Ackoff. Peter recently wrote a passionate tribute to his friend on the Ackoff Center Weblog and he rang my bell with these bone-rattling quotes:
So long as people think in fragmented ways they will act similarly – Peter Senge
The inherited traditions over generations toward patriarchy, authoritarian views of leadership, and rigid systems of institutional power will not change in a generation – Peter Senge
How long will we preserve the belief that power comes from institutional position versus connection to the creative flow of the universe? – Peter Senge
The forces for change come from “life’s longing for itself,” not from ego-based human striving – Peter Senge
That last quote is really a zinger because I’ve been wrestling with my ego ever since I finally came to the realization that it dominates my (and the vast majority of other people’s) thinking and external behavior. Sadly, I (the real self) don’t have the upper hand on the “I” (the imposter) thought, but some day I hope to do so. Hence, my spiritual quest continues in a seemingly self-referential infinite looping attempt to use the ego to beat the ego into submission.
How about you? Do you realize that you’re not living up to your full potential because your ego is in charge? Do you care, or is everything just peachy keen for you the way you are?
Academic Authors
I read quite a few books penned by science authors. Those that I can actually understand are very informative and entertaining. Every single one of the books always has one or more great stories regarding historical confrontations between different warring factions over who’s theory and experimental data are more “truthful“. If you believe what’s written, some of those confrontations were really nasty.
Isn’t it ironic that people who are deemed so intelligent often resort to (so-called) childish tactics in order to discredit others and prove themselves right? Nah, because underneath the veneer of revered intelligence they’re just regular freakin’ people like you and me. They’re human beings with feelings, egos, and the instinct to survive and prosper no matter what the cost. Gasp!
Science books written for laymen always seem to include words like “prestigious”, “world reknowned”, “Nobel laureate”, and “respected” in order to influence the readers beliefs via appeals to authority. The more compliments that I read, the more cautious I become in evaluating the subject matter. Being the closet non-conformist that I am, I tend to cast those words aside and gravitate toward those arguments and logic that appeal to my inner soul in the form of resonant feelings. How un-scientific of whacky me.
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory. – Leonardo daVinci
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a total hypocrite. I appeal to authority all the time in feeble attempts to promote my views. I do it by inserting quotes from respected people into a lot of my blog posts, uh, like this one. Of course, I’m not using my intelligence. I’m using google.
Thought Recognition
Do you ever find yourself in the throes of an ego-tantrum, and then recognize that your monster ego is in charge, and then still continue feeding your ego with the negative energy it requires to stay viable? I do it all the freakin’ time and it always leads to feelings of post-tantrum guilt. The reason guilt invades my psyche is because of the fact that thought recognition has taken place. If that didn’t happen, then there would be no guilt. In the “old days” prior to starting my search for spiritual advancement, I had no thought recognition skill. Not one iota. Thus, there was no post-tantrum guilt.
So, in this case, is ignorance bliss? Would you rather be ignorant of when your ego is wreaking havoc, or would you rather be cognizant of the fact? Assuming that you chose the latter, do you think you could stop the ego-tantrum dead in its tracks when (external?) thought recognition occurs? If so, what’s your secret?
Ego Appeasement
It’s funny how dysfunctional orgs will demand unquestioned loyalty from the masses in order to help the org grow and develop, but at the same time thwart that goal by appeasing egos to the detriment of the org as a whole. In defiance to what’s best for the community that they lead, top echelon leaders will not merge or disassemble org units if middle managers will have their egos bruised.
For example, if it makes economic sense to tuck or merge an obsolete unit run by a senior VP under a “regular” VP for the betterment of the whole org, the top dogs won’t do it out of “respect” for the titular system of privilege. God forbid that a senior VP report to a regular VP. It’s verboten in CCH-land. Another corpo faux pas is forming an org that may increase profitability but has a VP reporting to a lowly Director. Ain’t gonna happen.
Such is the power of titular hierarchies to thwart their own development.
Throw It Away
I’m currently in the process of helping a friend write his fourth book by providing feedback on the sections that he writes. As part of the creation process, he’s been discarding big chunks of work after revisiting them and finding that they don’t support the message he’s trying to communicate.
I don’t know about you, but I find it tough to throw away any work that I do (source code, models, algorithm designs, blog posts) – even when I know that it’s not good. I interpret this behavior as an ego-centric flaw and that’s why I admire people who can detect and chuck their crap. As the Buddhists say “Attachment brings suffering“.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak” – Hans Hofmann
Oppose A Thing
“Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.” – Alexander Hamilton
If you buy into Hamilton’s quote, then you’ll realize that it explains all kinds of irrational behavior at work by those in charge. Another ditty that explains counterproductive behavior and ludicrous decision-making in mediocracies is:
“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”
When someone is disliked by, or is brutally honest to those in power, even the best ideas offered up by the perceived villain will be rejected. It doesn’t matter if an idea could potentially save the corpocracy tons of money or bring in new business, the idea will be killed in the cradle. Of course, many kinds of clever camouflage and pseudo-rational reasons will be given for the rejection, but the underlying truth is what Mr. Hamilton stated hundreds of years ago.
Who says that business isn’t personal?
Ponerology’s Six Percent
From wikipedia:
Ponerology is the name given by Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski to an interdisciplinary study of the causes of periods of social injustice. This discipline makes use of data from psychology, psychopathology, sociology, philosophy, and history to account for such phenomena as aggressive war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and police states.
A like-minded friend recently pointed out Lobaczewski’ book to me. I read the preface, the foreword, and the first chapter for free on Google books. In the first chapter, Andrzej claims that since the dawn of mankind, 6% of humanity has been comprised of suave, clever, law-abiding psychopaths who have zero conscience – none, nada, zilch. The “no conscience” advantage that these people have had over the other 94% of the populace has allowed the wretches to commit the greatest number of man-made atrocities over the entire course of history. Andrzej also states that this advantage allows them to perpetually rise, undiscovered, to the highest levels of government and industry. Scary stuff, no?
Here are a couple of my favorite passages from the book:
Psychology is the only science in which the observer and the observed belong to the same species, even the same person in an act of introspection. That is why his natural world view of humans can be neither sufficiently universal nor completely true.
Whenever a society has become enslaved to others or to the rule of an overly-privileged class, psychology is the first discipline to suffer from censorship and incursions on the part of an administrative body which starts claiming the last word as to what represents scientific truth.
Both Ends Of The Spectrum
Why does it seem that both the best engineers and the worst engineers always gravitate towards becoming managers? Because of a lack of training in the art of humanistic influence and true leadership skills, they usually (but not always) end up turning into STSJ BMs. The real tragedy is the continuous loss of the best engineers into the ranks of corpo elitism. Why? Because the revenue generating products and services they leave in the dust for fame and fortune suffer the consequences of their departure. Thus, the whole company suffers. Bummer.
Recruitment
Surprisingly, in spite of my relentlessly continuous rants against a sea of CCHs, BMs, and STSJs as far as the eye can see, I’ve been contacted by a handful of recruiters probing into my availability for jumping ship. Either they don’t know this blog exists and they haven’t read any of my blasphemous blog posts, or they have read some of them and they still think I can help their clients make money. The former is most likely, but if it’s the latter, then I’m stunned and I hope their clients have the same 21st century mindset as they do.
Since I’m very happy where I am, I will only consider those proposals that satisfy the following requirements. Of course, they’re presented as a bland, linear, 1970’s list of “shalls”.
- The potential employer shall (R-1) offer me 2X my current 6 figure salary
- The potential employer shall (R-2) offer me an opportunity to work on a vast array of interesting new product developments or existing product enhancements. I reserve the right to decide what “interesting” means
- The potential employer shall (R-3) supply me with all the tools I need to do my job and allow me to work from home 90% of the time.
- The potential employer shall (R-4) pay all expenses for me to travel to and from the employer’s home base if the distance between my house and the home base is greater than 20 miles.
- The potential employer shall (R-5) entrust me with an unlimited training budget to allow me to continuously probe, sense, cut through the camouflage, and evaluate the applicability of new software technologies to the employer’s product portfolio.
- For the sole reason of getting people to listen more closely to what I have to say on matters within my scope of knowledge and expertise, the employer shall (R-6) endow me with some kind of BFT. More than one title would be preferable because it may be the tie-breaker amongst multiple, simultaneous employment offers.
What do you think? Outrageously arrogant and full of hubris? Reasonable and practical? Let me know if you think I should shit-can this post and hope that no internet archive crawlers get a hold of it. D’oh!
Howard, Me, And Polarization
I don’t have the athletic gifts to “be like Mike“, but I do have the right stuff to “be like Howard”, Howard Stern that is. Howie has made millions over the years by flawlessly executing the well known successful strategy of polarization employed by talking heads (O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Franken, Ventura) everywhere. He’s an asshole to a lot of people, but he’s also a hero to a large group who pay dough to hear his potty mouth. I’m similar to Howie in that I’m a polarizing asshole to many, but I’m a hero to no one and there’s no one willing to pay for the verbal diarrhea that spews forth from my piehole. I would gladly take the millions if I had the chance, but I’m fine with where I am right now, in this moment. Unlike hundreds of millions of people, I have what I need and I need what I have.
Oh, I almost forgot. Merry Xmas to all and don’t forget to connect with your loved ones today.
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