Consequences.
You should be able to explain the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your decisions before you make them.
Even the ‘unconscious’ decisions.
The ‘unconscious’ decisions are often the most damaging to you and others.
The ‘unconscious’ decisions are only ‘unconscious’ because you’ve never had to explain their consequences.
That unexplained temper or prejudice are because you’ve never had to explain it’s because you’re afraid.
A Series of Dishonesties.
One dishonesty leads to another and another and another.
Until there is a consequence that makes no sense and is disproportionate in its size and harm to what immediately preceded it.
Because it is made with the combined energy and momentum of a series of dishonesties.
There’s no Right.
There’s no right - only degrees of Wrong.
Every decision is wrong.
The aim is to be more Right than wrong.
Declaring that something was ‘right’ is like rounding up a fraction to a round number.
With every wrong - we learn more about how to be Right.
It follows that the more we’re wrong - the more we learn how to be Right.
Compounding.
Your boss hires your skills.
Introduces you to someone with different skills.
You combine skills.
Go away with new skills.
Bring those skills to others.
Compounding.
Language as Rank Slides.
‘Some locations have been inundated by an ingress of floodwater.’ - Official.
If the majority of the audience listening to the official was asked to define ‘inundated’ and ‘egress’, they may struggle.
Language such as ‘inundated’ and ‘ingress’ commonly deployed by bureaucrats is not intended to communicate a picture.
It’s intended to let us know that someone cleverer and more experienced than us who causally uses such language does so because they have experience in inundations of water ingressing and both are part of their everyday conversations.
Language can be like rank slides the epaulettes indicating seniority.
That’s Just the Way Life Goes.
Interviewer: One of the themes that runs throughout the book is that John was creating some truly beautiful and visionary music at the same time as he was being abusive and damaging to people around him. How did you balance those two competing forces, particularly when some of your interviewees tell completely different stories about the same event?
Graeme Thomson: That’s often the case, and when I started writing biographies, that used to trouble me quite a lot, that people’s versions of events could be so conflicting. I worry about it less now, because that’s just the way life goes. And in a way it’s not my job to tie it up in a neat bow. I think you just present what you believe is the truth of the matter to the reader, and then you try to get out of the way of it.
Our duty is to present what we believe is the truth, and allow others to make of it what they will.
Art v Design.
“Art begins with an idea; design with a task” - German Court ruling on trademark violation.
Talk Produces.
“Their talk produced action.” - Winston Churchill meets Albert Einstein in 1933.
Talk.
Action.
The Passenger View.
The airline passengers texted their loved ones goodbye from 33,000 feet, believing they were about to crash and die.
From their seats in the cabin, the ‘erratic’ descent felt to them like that.
Meanwhile, the crew conducted the abnormal control behaviour procedure, disconnected the autopilot, descended the aircraft and diverted to the closest airport for an overweight landing.
Engineers replaced the elevator servo motor.
Often the opinions from the back seats are never the reality at the front.
Going Nowhere.
A rowing eight sits on the river.
Oars dipped in the current.
Each oarsman gently stroking the water while the coach speaks to them from the speed boat alongside.
Enough effort to keep them from drifting downstream or moving upstream.
Enough effort to go nowhere.
Like so many workers in so many organisations.
Bearing.
In the military, you hear the term ‘bearing’, usually paired with ‘dress’, as in ‘dress and bearing’.
A soldier with good posture, alert, aligned with her fellow soldiers when formed up in ranks, who marches in sync with them, is said to have good ‘bearing’.
‘Bearing’ is one’s orientation to the world around us.
‘Situational awareness’ is a related term, and a person with good bearing usually has good situational awareness.
Words matter.
Know When You’ve Got the Ball.
If you’ve got the ball, then you’re the decision maker. - Basketball coach
If you’ve got the ball, it’s your decision what to do next.
You can take advice from the bench, or those around you.
But it’s your decision.
Know when you’ve got the ball.
Something to Debunk.
Malcolm Gladwell proposed the so-called ‘10,000 Hour Rule’ that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.
Since doing so, people have set out to debunk it.
If Mr Gladwell hadn’t planted his flag in the ground and claimed his theory and drawn his critics, we may never have learned more about the path to mastery.
It’s Terrific!
It’s good because the boss declares it to be good so we nod and smile and say ‘It’s terrific!’ and glance for the boss’s smile of approval.
‘It’s so terrific!’ we parrot, and therefore it IS terrific.
A passer-by peeks into the organisation, looks around, and thinks ‘This is NOT my idea of Terrific. But …I’m just a visitor so maybe I’m missing something that they know.
A new arrival joins the organisation, immediately thinks ‘This is NOT Terrific,’ and starts saying so.
‘You’ve not got the experience to know Terrific here,’ the sycophants rebuke.
So the new arrival pauses their opinion long enough to grow accustomed to the new Terrific.
Or leave.
Policies.
The path on the left is a Policy.
It’s a decision made for us in advance.
‘You can be assured that if you take the steps to follow this route that you will arrive where you want to be.’
The track to the right of the prepared path is where some people have deviated from the Policy.
An aerial view shows the alternative track rejoins the prepared path just beyond the rise.
The route down the middle is for those who trust their judgement over that of the experts Policy authors.
No journey is the wrong one if it advances you towards where you want to be, namely:
For those who take the prepared path, it affirms their submission to and confidence in the judgement of others.
For those who take the brief deviation, it affirms for them that the prepared path is always the best.
For those who strike out on their own, it affirms their agency and autonomy and adventure.
Transparent.
As federal and state officials investigated the attack, they said part of their focus would be on how the driver was able to barrel into the crowd. Gov. Jeff Landry said, “We intend to be transparent in assessing any defects that may have existed in the system so that we can address it.”
Transparency makes you vulnerable.
If your Widget is your Reputation or Ego, you will never be transparent.
Transparency exposes everything - including faux pas in choice of words (responding to a terrorist driving into a crowd):
“We’re aggressively running down every lead ...”