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Malcontents
Everyone’s heard of the stereotypical, disgruntled, malcontented, long time employee (SDMLTE) who “can’t wait to retire”. Why is this Dilbertonian image a stereotype? Because it’s so ubiquitous that it’s unquestioningly accepted by the vast majority of people as “that’s the way it is everywhere”. Well, is it? Do you really think that every organization on this earth has a surplus of SDMLTEs? Call me idealistic, but I assert “no”.
I opine that there are few (very, very, very, very, few) companies whose old warhorses, graybeards and bluehairs are uncommon, happy, content, long time employees (UHCLTE). Compared to the moo-herd of corpocracies that litter the land, these scarce diamonds in the rough have a huge UHCLTE to SDMLTE ratio. I’ll also profer that as a company gets larger, its UHCLTE to SDMLTE ratio decreases. That’s because as a company grows in size, bad management increases while great leadership decreases within the citadel walls – regardless of what the corpo stewards repeatedly espouse. Bummer.
Let’s Be Careful Out There!
Based on a recommendation from fellow whack-job W. L. Livingston, I’m currently trying to read “The Theory Of The Leisure Class” by Thorstein Veblen (cool name, eh?). Man, this guy’s a tough read. The vocabulary that Thor(?) uses and his huge paragraphs often cause my CPU to overheat and spew blue smoke, but the self-imposed intellectual torture is worth the pain.
I love exploring the ideas and thoughts of guys like Veblen because they are so far off the beaten path and mind stretching that they cause new, but previously unused synaptic sub-networks to be instantaneously created in my brain. For me, spiritual and intellectual growth is painful but inspiring. The acts of continuously trying to widen my horizons, destroying old and obsolete mental models, and exposing myself to the ideas of others makes me feel vibrantly alive.
When you consciously choose to explore and probe weird and non-standard ideas that go against the norm, you’ve got to watch out for yourself. Internalizing and then subsequently espousing your new learnings in public can be detrimental to your health. If people are really set in their ways and you don’t take their feelings into account, you could trigger the fight or flight response in them. In one-on-one exchanges, the blowback that you experience may not be so bad. However, publicizing your new thoughts in a meeting with a group of clanthinkers can cause you considerable external and internal damage.
“Let’s Be Careful Out There” – Sergeant Esterhaus
Oh Goody, A New Discovery
It’s funny how virtually every person has the tendency to constantly seek out references that confirm and validate his/her “beliefs”, while at the same time ignoring evidence to the contrary – no matter how strong the disconfirming evidence is. As a member of this non-exclusive club myself, the latest self-medicating anti-hierarchy book that I’m reading is called “The Age Of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management“. The content on changing corporate governance is interesting, but the multiple references to spiritual teacher and mystic G. I. Gurdjieff are what really kindle my curiosity.
Over the past 10+ years, I’ve read the works of many well known spiritual teachers in an attempt to counter my tendency to rely solely on a logical and mechanistic engineering mindset to travel through life. Since Gurdjieff is new to me, I’m gonna look into his work. Thus, the next book in my reading queue is titled Gurdjieff.
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Collapsing The Wavefunction
I’m in the process of reading a third book on quantum physics. It’s called “The Self-Aware Universe”, and it is written by physicist Amit Gotswami. According to Q-physics, no localized object exists until a conscious observation is made. The universe is comprised of non-localized, infinitely distributed “waves” described by Schrodinger’s wave function equation. The wave function equation characterizes the “waviness” of matter and it displaces Newton’s F=ma as the universal law of motion. Even though Newton has been convincingly dethroned as the king of “materialistic reality”, Q-physics is consistent with Newton’s classical physics for “big” objects, which are all comprised of quantum waves. Thus, for (almost) all practical purposes, Newton’s laws can be leveraged in the macro world to “control” and enhance our environment to some extent.
When a subjective and conscious observation is made and discrete objects are “detected” at a point in space and time, the instantaneous collapse of the wave function occurs. The figure below woefully attempts to graphically depict this mysterious and miraculous process. On the left, we have “no”-things, just an infinite collection of waves. On the right, we have a bunch of (supposedly) independent “some”-things after the collapse. If, as most rational and educated people think, conscious observation is subjective and person specific, then why is there so much consensus on the post-collapse appearance of the world? In other words, why do most people see the same set of objects after they each independently and subjectively collapse the wave function? If you’re thinking that I have an answer for this subjective vs. consensus enigma, then you’re mistaken. I’m dumbfounded but enamored with the mystery of it all. How about you?
Suppose that you and I separately “collapse the wave function” and (miraculously?) agree on the appearance of the external world the engulfs us. Referring to the example above, assume that we transcend the first communication barrier between us and we agree that a post-collapse triangle exists, a rectangle exists, a pair of ellipses exist, etc.
Now assume that the group of objects that we’ve manifested (created ?) is comprised of people and some type of observable behavior emanating from that group is “bothering” us. Also, assume that we want to influence the group to change it’s behavior so that we are less distressed. What do we do? We consciously form a personal System-Of-Interest (SOI) and we try to understand what’s causing us the distress. We try to make sense of the dynamic interactions taking place between those people encircled in our own personal SOI and then we act to change it. Here’s where our original consensus starts to diverge. Since, as the figure below illustrates, our personally created SOIs will most likely be different, our interpretation of who and what is causing us our distress will be different. Thus, our ideas and thoughts regarding corrective actions will be different.
Note that even though we initially agreed on the number and types of objects=people present in our collapsed wave function worlds, the number and nature of the connections between those people are likely to be different for you and me. In the SOI example above, my SOI on the left contains three people and yours on the right only contains two. My SOI on the left doesn’t include the pink ellipse in the “problem” sub-group but yours on the right does. Your SOI doesn’t include an interface ‘tween the gray ellipse and blue diamond but mine does. Thus, our interpretations of what ails us will most likely differ. Add a third, fourth, fifth, etc., SOI to the mix and all kinds of diverging interpretations will emerge.
Now, apply this example to a work environment. If I’m the “boss” and you disagree with my interpretation of the problem situation, but are “afraid” of speaking truth to power because of standard stifling corpo culture norms, then you may just go along with my interpretation even though you’re pretty sure that your interpretation and solution is “right”. Since I’m the boss, all knowing and all powerful, I’m always “right” – even if I’m not. 🙂
Analysis Paralysis Vs. 59 Minutes
“If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions” – Albert Einstein
If they didn’t know that Einstein said the quote above, MBA taught and metrics-obsessed “go-go-go” textbook managers would propose that the person who did say it was a slacker who suffered from “analysis paralysis”. In the Nike age of “just do it” and a culture of “act first and think later” (in order to show immediate progress regardless of downstream consequences), not following Einstein’s sage advice often leads to massive financial or human damage when applied to big, multi-variable hairball problems.
The choice between “act first, think later” (AFTL) and “think first, act later” (TFAL) is not so simple. For small, one dimensional problems where after-the-fact mistakes can be detected quickly and readjustments can be made equally as quickly, AFTL is the best way to go. However, most managers, because they are measured on schedule and cost performance and not on quality (which is notoriously difficult to articulate and quantify), apply the AFTL approach exclusively. They behave this way regardless if the situation cries out for TFAL because that’s the way that hierarchical structured corpo orgs work. Since the long term downstream effects of crappy decisions may not be traceable back to the manager who made them, and he/she will likely be gone when the damage is discovered, everybody else loses – except the manager, of course. Leaders TFAL and managers AFTL.
Past Present Future
How do you “allocate” your thinking time? Do you spend the largest percentage of your time fearing the future? Regretting the past? Constantly switching between worrying about the future and regretting the past? Experiencing and feeling the wonders that are happening in the present moment?
Let’s say that you are self-aware enough to realize that your thinking state is dominated by circular rumination over what has happened in the past. What techniques/practices can one employ to redirect more of your thinking time to the present moment? Can one actually “control” their thinking state?
In my case, I tend to spend most of my “thinking time” regretting the past and missing out on the grace and glory of the present moment. In the cases where I do recognize that I’m continuously spinning on the stale past, just the act of “thought recognition” brings me back into the present moment. However, just as soon as I transition into the present moment, I unconsciously switch out of that tranquil state and go back to the same old, same old. I’ve made, and continue to make, many half-assed attempts at meditation in order to spend more time in the present moment, but I’ve frustrated myself out of diligently practicing this ancient art of self-actualization.
Gym Notes
I go to the gym everyday (before work) and exercise for an hour. While exercising, sometimes lots of ideas magically appear in my mind. I read somewhere that an average of 50000 thoughts manifest in a person’s head every single day. Depending on what your definition of a single thought is, that’s about 1 thought every 2 seconds.
About a year ago, out of the blue, the simple but idea of bringing a small notebook to the gym came to me, so I did. Ever since, then, I’ve captured lots of ideas from the ether, jotted them down on paper, and followed through on many of them later. On some days, the ideas would flow so freely that I would spend quite a bit of time writing them down. Often, it would take me an extra half hour to workout, or I’d often forget where I was in the workout and repeat some exercises. On the other hand, there would be many days where I’d leave the gym and my notebook would be empty. I’d write NADA on those pages.
Looking back on those days where nothing was/is written down, I’d realized that I was always using my internal mental energy to complain about, or criticize, something or someone in a seemingly endless loop. My ego mind was blocking my “conscious awareness” from shining through and revealing itself through productive and creative thinking. The clouds obscured the ever present sun.
I still bring a notebook with me every day to the gym and I still have (many) days where I leave with the word NADA written in the page du jour. That’s life.
Lost In Thought
The Space Between Thoughts
Bing, bing bing. One thought after another arises out of somewhere (do you know where?) and manifests as an image or string of associated words in our head. Where do thoughts come from, and why does someone think the specific thoughts that they do? What determines the frequency of thought production? Is it good to be engulfed in a state of high frequency thought production? How is wisdom related to thinking?
As the figure below shows, I think that wisdom arises out of the space between thoughts. If you agree with me, then being ensconced in a high rate of thought production is in general, not a good thing. There’s no time for wisdom to shine through the continuous train of thought.
How does one lower the frequency of thought so that we can experience wisdom? I think that we can lower the frequency and create holes to appear in the thought train by not attaching any emotion to each thought. Since we’re human, we all attach meaning to each thought and we experience the feeling that accompanies the thought. If we don’t amplify that feeling into a personal emotion, we perform a 180 degree turn and look inward at our true nature . We then experience what we really are at our core – the pure awareness; the nothingness out of which all objects are created. The glorious process of creation itself.
Wisdom is not intellectual understanding, it’s experiencing/realizing. It’s “the peace that passeth all understanding”. By creating gaps in our thought train, we give ourselves opportunities for wisdom to arise.
How And What
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – George S. Patton
One of my pet peeves is when a bozo manager dictates the how, but has no clue of the what – which he/she is supposed to define:
“Here’s how you’re gonna create the what (whatever the what ends up being): You will coordinate Fagan inspections of your code, write code using Test First Design, comply with the corpo coding standards, use the corpo UML tool, run the code through a static analyzer, write design and implementation documents using the corpo templates, yada-yada-yada. I don’t know or care what the software is supposed to do, what type of software it is, or how big it will end up being, but you shall do all these things by this XXX date because, uh, because uh, be-be-because that’s the way we always do it. We’re not burger king, so you can’t have it your way.”
Focusing on the means regardless of what the ends are envisioned to be is like setting a million monkeys up with typewriters and hoping they will produce a Shakespear-ian masterpiece. It’s a failure of leadership. On the other hand, allowing the ends to be pursued without some constraints on the means can lead to unethical behavior. In both cases, means-first or ends-first, a crappy outcome may result.
On the projects where I was lucky to be anointed the software lead in spite of not measuring up to the standard cookie cutter corpo leadership profile, I leaned heavily toward the ends-first strategy, but I tried to loosely constrain the means so as not to suffocate my team: “eliminate all compiler warnings, code against the IDD, be consistent with your coding style, do some kind of demonstrable unit and integration testing and take notes on how you did it.”
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