Interesting As It Is

What Friends?

I've often wondered about the tacit contract friends make with one another when they realize they've become friends. It's not like marriage, where at some point the couple recognizes that the relationship has become a thing, a thing with legal and tax implications, and the loving couple chooses to make their vows public with a declaration of their love. In a traditional wedding the couple actually asks for a kind of endorsement from friends and family, and support from the community. But friends have no such public recognition, there is never any kind of public acknowledgement,  it's purely personal, often understated, and yet friendships are certainly more influential than most marriages.

In the Facebook age we now have a dynamic instrument to show the rest of the world how many friends we have, and how everyone is connected. Facebook is a kind electronic contract with friends, add them at any time, and then take them away any time. It's a simple divorce, with no costs or associated embarrassments. How many of us have discovered we’d been stripped of our friendship credentials on FB without notice. It's a lowly feeling being outcast, dismissed and discharged from the electronic commons,  without so much as a comment.

Facebook has little to do with real friendship. The OED defines Friend as "One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy." I don't believe that would apply to most of the people, many of them nearly strangers, that are counted as "friends" on my page.

In the past if we wanted to cultivate our friendships, we had to do something like write a letter, make a phone call, have coffee or tea or take a walk with them, to put forth some manner of effort. Friendship, after all, requires something from us because it's intimate, and we actually need be there at some point, to be a good friend. But now, text and FB'ing has replaced a great deal of our personal contact and communication, and none of it intimate. Sure, we may read a "news feed" from our friends, but there isn't any context to the writing, it’s impersonal at best, no contact necessary and virtually no effort required.

I also find that I don't miss some friends the way I used to because I track their updates, see their pictures,know who they are associating with and where they are traveling. When I do see them, there is less sense of anticipation for catching up because, it seems, because I already know what they’ve been doing. The obvious upside is that I do know what people have been doing and so there is less a chance I might miss the important events that are the measure of good life friends.

How many friends one has on their FB page is a kind of measure of popularity, or worth. If you have thousands, or tens of thousands, it’s impressive, and it’s something you could actually monetize. It gives you bragging rights!  The poor people with lowly numbers, or no Facebook page at all, are seen as stuck in the dark ages, cave dwellers with no community.  It’s all good if your marketing a product, but then, those people who are your "fans" and your "friends" really aren't "friends" after all.  
This morning my Facebook page says I have 769 "friends". What a crock of shit. I have about 30, and of those only about 15 are close to me, and of those 15, about 7 know everything about my life. That seems to be a good number...at least for me, I can call all of them in a matter of minutes.

Elbert Hubbard once said  "A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."
Though I've been an imperfect friend at times, impatient, unavailable and distracted, my friends are more important than my career, more vital to my happiness than stuff I can buy, and are necessary for a life of quality. I don't believe friendships are always easy, and sometimes friends do drift a part.  But the reward of effort is that flesh and blood friendships beat Facebook counts anytime, day or night, and they’ll be there even when the power goes out, or you lose your connection.  Flesh and blood friends are present, they are accounted for, and we can depend on them.  After all, it’s better to have friends that matter and that will be here tomorrow and beyond, not just ones that can be monetized or dismissed.

The Value of Swearing

I was reading Bob Sutton's blog regarding the "The Evolutionary Value of Swearing", and thought about my own experiences with swearing. 

I was raised with the notion that swearing was always impolite, and that it was never appropriate to cuss in public. It wasn't until the 9th grade when I met and became friends with Tom Amundson, a tall and often angry guy who introduced me to the art of being impolite, through language. Tom was a master of swearing, and his use of the language was the verbal version of a bull(shit) in the china shop.  Tom didn't just use a single swear word, when he swore it was a non-stop shock and awe oil spill of expletives, strung together for maximum impact. Tom's ability to swear was nearly poetic, jazz-like. It was his anti-authority attitude, and his use of slang that opened my eyes not only to swearing, but to language itself. Swearing for Tom was an act of freedom and choice, and it had an affect on the adults around him. I followed Tom's lead, and found that swearing gave me a tool for describing my frustration, blunt instruments dispatched to beat up on the things I saw as unjust, warning flares to teachers and adults that I had my own ideas and to leave me alone. 

But, in the halls of the corporate world, swearing is frequently viewed with muscular destain. One might drop a "shit" here and there in a meeting and most people will not pay much attention to it, however, words used that relate to sex, or sexual behavior with animals or a member of your family will be seen as some kind of crime.  Words are words, it seems to me, but the images they provoke in us seem to be the problem. We can refer to the boss as an "asshole" or a coworker as a "dipshit"  and it's generally not terribly offensive (unless you really like the boss). But drop the fuck-bomb and you'll likely end up with a court date and community service. 

I'll continue to swear amongst my friends, my wife swears with zeal, and my father and I enjoy a long history with slang, particularly as it relates to politics. But I've learned that swearing in a professional setting has little strategic value. I wish it were not so...it would just be a lot easier to call out the bullshit when I see it. 

Numbers.

Chris Guillebeau's addictive blog “The Art of Non-Conformity” has a nice article on why we all focus on the numbers?  People ask him why he wants to travel around the world and go everywhere, to focus so much on the numbers?   He answer the question by saying that tracking the numbers makes his pursuit more interesting, more fun, and helps him to keep perspective. 

My new book is being written with that answer in mind, with the idea that we can use all kinds of numbers to drive freedom and choice, and not to take them away.  As a practice, I prefer using numbers and lists as the fuel for my own efforts. Like many creatives, I am easily distracted and have a lot of interests, so it is simply too quite easy for me to prance from this to that, and end the day having accomplished very little. So, to manage that tendency (I’m not alone...) I’ve moved to super simple list making, with numbers. For instance, I will write 5 pages in my book today, and 25 this week.That's 1300 pages of writing, or at least two books. The small number seems doable, the big number seems desirable!  Not a big audacious number, but doable. Even if I don't feel like writing, I write. I might write a page in the morning, a couple of pages in the afternoon, and another couple that night. Do I ALWAYS write 25 pages a week? No, but I have the number, and if I fall behind, I pump some energy into it when I have a few minutes free on my weekend. The framework functions to drive my process, and serves as a reminder that I have something fun to do...write!  

Life and death numbers. Now that I'm a T1 diabetic I'm even more focused on numbers. What's by BG in the morning, before and after every meal, and how many carbs does a meal have? It's a useful analogy, because if I don't pay attention to the numbers, the big and the small, I put my life at risk.  If I don't pay attention to my professional, creative, and career numbers, I put my financial goals at a risk. Using numbers, big ones and small ones, is now driving you. 

Yesterday, I created a spread sheet to capture and track my ideas. It’s like a bank account for my imagination, and when an idea. Try it for a week or so...pick something you're going to track, record, and accomplish. Make it small enough to do, and big enough to be interesting.

Oh...I have to go, those 5 pages won't write themselves. 

The Art of Imitation.

Braden Kelley's "Blogging Innovation" has an interesting article this morning, on creativity, suggesting that creativity is as much about copying, and allowing external influences, as pure inventiveness.  Writer Yann Cramer points out that people who proclaim "I am not a creative", are really pointing out their reluctance to copy, or to be influenced by another's work.  He writes, "To innovate, start by copying, again and again.."

When I was in London working on the Top Performer video, I saw and video taped dozens of performers throughout the city. It was clear from the beginning that most of the performers were using material they'd copied from other performers.  There were, however, some performers who were strikingly original and their material not only didn't appear to be copied, but any other performer would have found copying their material to be difficult. 

Imitation can be a learning path, a way of getting ourselves into the game through alignment with those around we admire. As a young performer I worked with Penn and Teller at the Renaissance Festival in Minnesota. I was so influenced by both of them, by their wicked sense of humor, their approach to working with the audience, and their fierce originality.  I emulated them, copied their approach, matched their timing and mimic'd their energy without taking any of their material as my own.

The human imagination has a great capacity to be inventive, and it is deeply influenced by the people and events we come in contact with. When we see, read, talk or work with someone we admire, we can use that influence to inspire us. We might "copy" someone else's work to get us going, but what makes us original is in how we interpret material and events, and how that influence moves through us towards an expression that becomes our own signature. 

Go into the big world and knock around, take your journal and write down what you notice, what gives you energy, and what ideas start to emerge from the static. 

Think. Listen. See.

I spoke at a conference last week for association executives. I really enjoyed the people and the room that I was working, and my words and ideas seemed to be well met.  These people manage big and small associations, and are often the kind of folk that would hire me to speak at their yearly conferences.  I spoke for 45 minutes and delivered a strong presentation, which garnered a lot of interest, and I'll likely book some business from it.  

After I spoke, a gentlemen came up and wanted to talk to me about my presentation. He was a tall man, with short hair and nice suit. He seemed quite nice, but I could soon tell he was an academically trained executive. He used a few acronyms and peppered his speaking with expensive sounding terms, and dropping the usual language suspects into the conversation "We just completed a 360 last year, and this year we're running a Six Sigma program..."  I began to tune him out, because it all felt a bit lifeless.  

We create the workplace by who we are being, and how we speak when we're there. The conversations we have create the culture, and the language we download and use defines what kind of conversation we're going to have. Hey, I'm all for science, of all kinds, and I know that leadership is a kind of science. But I also know that much of the color, the texture and the imagination is drained out of workplaces that become overly dependent on academic-speak, and three ring binders full of useless filler. 

The workplace is where we spend most of our time, and it seems to me that the language we use should foster the imagination and encourage creativity.  When we speak, we can be particular, concise and clear, but also recognize the power of language to create new conversations, spark some energy, and lure our often flattened imaginations into the dizzy din of words that provoke us to think, to listen and to see.  New conversations that capture new ideas is what we need most these days, without them, we'll continue to be stuck in the endless loop of academic mumbo-jumbo, political expediency, which leads to the worst state of all, static numbness. That's when we know the language of leadership has become too big, and too exclusive,  and it makes the rest just too small.

Ella's Gift

I celebrated another birthday yesterday with house full of friends, over to enjoy burgers on the grill, some summertime salads, and strawberry shortcake. I'm not a big fan of birthday celebrations, mostly, because it isn't a date that means much to me.  When my mother was alive it meant more, because it was date full of memories and it mattered to her.

What do like about birthdays, is that friends want to come by, hang out, and have cake.  Now that I've crossed the apex of my life and am officially eligible for discount offers with the AARP, getting gifts from friends seems a silly formality.  While I am always grateful for the thought, I get a bit uncomfortable with material offerings. None the less, my friends brought some fine gifts, and I am happy they still like me enough to give me something.

Last night I got one gift in particular that I will remember for years to come.  My friend Linda, a talented graphic designer and performer, brought her young daughter, Ella, to my little gathering. Ella is more than a handful of kinetic energy, is wise beyond her young years, a naturally talented performer and comedian and often demanding. I love Ella because she defies definition, constantly surprises me, and one might easily imagine she'll become a star.

Shortly after all of us had finished our hamburgers and apple salad slaw, Ella announced she had prepared a gift for me, a performance, and now that everyone was seated and she had the attention of the room, she wanted to give me her performance gift.

Ella, born with the performers eye for staging and drama, stood up on the coffee table in the middle of my living room, faced the audience of my friends and with her hands at her side sweetly sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" acapella. There was no choreography or stunt work, nothing precocious, just her lovely singing. When it was over we all applauded and cheered, congratulating her on the performance. It was so simple and sweet, and it was the best gift she could have given to me.

It is times like these that the adults in her life will help to define who she'll become. It was such an innocent gesture, yet somehow boldly compelling. I know adults that would not dare to risk so much, opting out because of a fear that they wouldn't be good enough.

When we talk about creating workplaces or a world in which our creativity is safe and talent is given spaciousness to explore its voice, success is determined not only by the performers act of boldness, but also in the manner in which we respond and how we encourage the performance. 

When Ella stood to CLAIM her place in the middle of my living room, she was beginning to define her future, and through our applause we were defining our own. 

Infinite Offers

I read James Carse interesting little book, "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility", and was struck by his provocative notion that we are either playing our life as a finite game, where we are committed to winning and there are winners and losers, or we're playing the infinite game, where it isn't about winning a game, but about continuing to play.  

The corporate world is, with few exceptions, deeply embedded in the finite world of creating winners and losers.  It is a game where domination and capture is the goal, and "crushing" the competition is the triple home run.  It's the world of big job titles and corner offices, and pricey status icons that imply winners and losers. 

The infinite approach, however, is about focusing energies on building sustainable relationships with our customers and coworkers. In this frame there isn't the emphasis on job titles and corner office politics, instead it's focused on ensemble, and recognizing our capacity to keep the game going by creating options and open relationships, and forgoing our quest for conquering. 

The Top Performer recognizes that while gags, gimmicks, and tightly written scripts can be useful for entertaining and delighting audiences, it can also force a perspective that minimizes the audiences involvement and interaction. This is a fine model, and it's what the best theater and many service encounters are built around. But it's when things go wrong, or another possibility emerges that challenges our direction, or there is a complaint or contrasting opinion, that we might consider using the infinite model. Rather than "solve the problem" or "resolve the issue" we can see problems, diversions and breakdowns as gifts, or "offers". In this sense, we see the "heckler" in any situation as an expansive offering, an invitation to embrace our mutual creative capacity and innovation. 

Many years ago I remember performing for a large group of people at a renaissance festival in Arizona. I was in the midst of interacting with a woman, who had a stroller with a young baby. I had taken her camera and was about to take her picture when a heckler approached the crowd and changed the focus. Rather than play the finite game by closing him down, or letting him defeat my performance, I embraced his offer. I pulled him into my performance, stood him next to this woman and her child, and then assembled a dozen other people to also be in the picture I was going to take. Instead of being a heckler, he became a willing member of the performance, he had fun and played along with the portrait, and as a result of his involvement he made the moment better for all. 

You see, we have so many choices available to us in almost any encounter. The finite game is about minimizing others, narrowing the choices, assessing blame, or demonstrating strength. Finite, is about amplification, infinite is resonance and ensemble.

As you go about your day today think about what game you are playing when you interact with others. Think about the ways in which you seek to bring an end to the game, often so you can win. TThink about how you might turn that game around, and think about an approach that might keep the game going, that expands the great creative potential, not just in ourselves, but for everyone we meet with, work with, live with and serve. Expansion provides everyone with greater freedom, and freedom allows more offers to be made, and that is reason enough to give it a try. 

Authenticity just isn't real.

The great and noble Dr Phil once wrote "Be Your Authentic Self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and tell you who you're supposed to be." I'm not sure what world he lives in, but being concerned with what others think of us is, to some extent, hard wired into our personality. But, authenticity is in vogue these days and apparently, by Dr Phil's definition, we are living authentically when we don't give a single damn about what anyone else has to say about us, in other words, being as asshole. I've heard Dr. Phil is very authentic.

The "authentic self" standard is now being used liberally in workplace culture circles, in training and development, and human resources training. As if we don't have enough standards to live up to in the workplace, now we have to BE AUTHENTIC on top of everything else. And what does it mean to be authentic? What does inauthentic look like? Can anyone really tell us what that means?

I am one of those people that used to talk about authenticity in the workplace. I liked the word, and thought I understood what I meant. But I've come to recognize what a foggy idea human authenticity is. Who decides what being authentic is? What is the metric for human authenticity?  Is there a subjective criteria for evaluating a persons level of authenticity?

I've been in "leadership" meetings where the whole idea of "authenticity" was tossed about to describe people who were in agreement with a leadership dictate or direction. Those people who were seen as complainers, outsiders, or prickly deviants were often labeled as "inauthentic." It was an utterly useless criteria and lead our understanding of one another exactly, nowhere.

Authenticity should have nothing to do with agreement or harmony. It should be relegated as a term in art collecting and applied to authenticating the originality of artifacts and collectibles, and not applied to human beings. Better yet, we can decide for ourselves if we're being authentic or not, and never anyone else mind.  It might be more useful to think about our integrity and originality, both of which can be subjectively evaluated by our peers, and both imply actions we could take to have greater integrity or to be original.

So, here's where I am these days, not that it matters to those inauthentic people who may disagree with me, it's enough to just show up and be yourself, whatever that may be for you, and more important to be with your integrity. Authenticity, after all, is something we must decide and apply to ourselves. Why not spend less time gnashing the teeth over our own, or someones level of authenticity, and more time just hanging here and now with whomever you're with. Cut them some slack why don't you?  And don't worry about whether you're being authentic, it's a goofy, though fashionable ruse. Frankly, if you think about it, none of us are that important anyway, except, of course, Dr. Phil, he's so authentic.

No news is good news.

 Watching most network news programs is an act of attitudinal self-mutilation.  The endless string of news stories blasting on about oil slicks, wars, unemployment, government spending, another Lindsay Lohan arrest, or any story about the economy, seems to have a negative impact on my mood.  Oh goodness, I KNOW there are shitty things happening around the world, and I really do understand that it's not all spring flowers and sunshine, but if I didn't have a news agency putting the ugly in my back yard I likely wouldn't know the world was so screwed up.  After all, while most of my neighbors and friends have tightened their financial belts, things seem to be...well..spring flowers and sunshine!

I know that many people are suffering through local issues, such as the nightmare of black oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, but most of us in advanced economies around the world, particularly in this country, are doing more or less fine. We can claim otherwise, but the world hasn't gone to hell in the hand basket. It depends on who you are listening too, and what choice you make about what to do with that information. Instead of buying the malarkey that is being fist fed, perhaps going on an occasional news fast is something to consider. Turn off the news, don't read the newspapers, skip your daily dose of Huff Po or Drudge, and be quiet for 15 minutes. Shut up!

Give that a go and you might be surprised, or not, that the real world is generally ambivalent about us, and about you in particular.  Have some tea, drink a soda, listen to Bob Dylan, cop-a-squat, chill and be chilled....cuz, sometimes no news is good news...very good news.