Guesses unlikely to come true

Ideas

30/12

It's that time of the year when we look back, take stock, and review. It is also usually the time for projections, wishes, and resolutions, whose rate of fulfillment is notoriously low, as almost all of us know from experience and, by the way, also from what science has shown us.

However, there do seem to be some advantages to such a forward-looking exercise. Especially if we focus more on the approaches we want to change or implement and less on what we want to avoid or stop doing¹. We can also increase the seriousness of that exercise if we adopt a mindset close to the one that both scientists and humorists use to do their work and art well: finding new frameworks and perspectives for situations.².

In the limit, such exercises serve to reassure us. They are a kind of existential pacifier. We people like the illusion of predictability and control, and we tend to dislike its opposites. Perhaps this is why these are rarely creative exercises, the ones we do with New Year's Eve. It takes a lot of work and a high and particular availability to create and re-create ourselves, actively and consciously. Instead, we compare ourselves to past and supposedly failed versions of ourselves, which we contrast with the examples of people of reference or just with models (of efficiency, productivity, success among other modern obsessions). Unfortunately, for many the result is self-deprecating - "I'm always the same..." - or, at the other extreme, naively positive and hopeful - "this year will be it!".

What if, instead of trying to establish a grandiose and infallible plan, we tried to be more accurate in our intentions and guesses³? After all, isn't that what intuition is all about⁴After all, isn't that intuition: the combination of some signals we pick up with the construction of a "story" that gives us the conviction of "truth", which is just a simple and quick inference based on our experience, on what we think we know? A supposedly grounded guess, therefore.

That is precisely what I propose to do. To guess, intuit or wish for some changes for the future, based on my obviously partial and limited experience of this past year in particular.

Let's solve the "workload" problem

I have never seen this pattern so clearly before: people complaining, in most cases legitimately and appropriately, about the amount of work they have to do. These were people with various responsibilities, from various organizations, of different types and sizes, operating in different sectors. There is simply too much to do. The demand to do everything, quickly, well and without mistakes has been maintained or even increased to cope with the demands of today's world and the world to come, and is already being felt, even without yet existing⁵.

It was also the year in which we received the most requests to help people, teams and organizations deal with workload. We did not win any of these projects. Maybe it's because we have the arrogance and the vehemence of having found the solution to this evil that, although it is not new, seems to have become more acute: lighten the load, which is the same as saying, "work less and better.

Of course there will be consequences if this happens. Of course it will affect costs and results. But these seem to be unavoidable consequences⁶.

More conversations and fewer meetings

"Reunionitis" is a long-identified corporate pathology. This ailment also seems to have worsened in recent years, with the profusion of videoconferencing and with more and more of us working outside the office.

It seems that, because of physical absence and distance, we need to see and hear the people we work with more, even if on the other side the cameras turned off, or the eyes averted, show a lack of attention and interest, as well as presence.

The expression "that meeting could have been an email" becomes more and more commonplace, hearing itself from the mouths of ordinary people, not just productivity gurus. That's good, but it's not enough. More than emails and meetings, I want to believe that we lack moments of conversation, in a professional context. Conversations where we are not just defending a point of view, selling an idea or seeking visibility. Conversations that allow us to connect with each other and, through these connections, to be able to live and work well during the time we spend "together".

For that, profit and growth cannot be the only or the major causes of organizations. If putting people first sounds beautiful but is so often false, try putting people and numbers on the same level, as long as we don't confuse people with numbers.

Let us assume an organic and not a mechanical/mathematical perspective of growth

The world is not going well. We are breaking its foundations⁷. It is not normal, what has become normal⁸. It seems clear to me that the "minimal feasible shocks"⁹the kind of "shock" needed to bring about fundamental, disruptive changes that would allow us to prepare for or avoid tragic scenarios, such as protecting our planet and our species from ourselves, have not yet been perceived or valued as such.

This year I participated in the World Gathering organized by Planetiers and realized that those who are dedicated to thinking and working with sustainability, regeneration, and circularity in mind have already found and take very seriously the "shocks" that are there for all to see. Only those who do not see them do not see them because this blindness protects interests too valuable to be put at stake.

It is time for the corporate world to take these concepts seriously, incorporating them into its material and immaterial foundations. It is time to stop making utilitarian and opportunistic use of ESG¹⁰It is time for the corporate world to take these concepts seriously and incorporate them into its material and immaterial foundations.

Our economic, governmental and corporate systems are based on quantitative, mechanical, growth perspectives. Values are only worth as long as they are translated into numbers. Where only continuous, infinite growth is a sign of "health", progress and success. All these systems are intended to serve people. It is certain that all these artificial systems use people and other types of natural resources. We are organisms feeding a "machine". In Nature, as far as we know, nothing grows continuously or forever. The concept of growth, when applied to any natural organism, implies decline, extinction, and regeneration.

The quest for the Holy Grail has turned into the quest for economic growth. For our sake, immortality is impossible, no matter how much some billionaires would have us believe otherwise. With so much money you'd think they'd be able to beat death, and maybe they'll convince themselves and us that they can. Let's not believe it.

Let's Abulemos the middle management

I have been working a lot withmiddle management and I have found more and more evidence that leads me to believe that these people are screwed. Sandwiched between the demands of "top management" and administrations, and the pressures of "front-line" people, they have to please Greeks and Trojans, a mission that popular wisdom tells us is impossible.

There are two clear sides to this point. Those who argue that these positions should disappear¹¹There are those who believe that these positions should disappear, making organizations moreapartment, teams more autonomous and hierarchies more blurred. On the other side are those who believe that without this layer of middle leadership organizations would never work¹² and that there are serious risks in wanting a flattening of the hierarchical pyramid.

I propose an alternative path. A reform of the people in leadership positions who are real roadblocks to the difficult and significant changes that we need to implement. What is the only thing harder to change than a conviction? It is a conviction of those who sit in a place of power. Try abolishing middle leaders, but fire those above them whose thinking doesn't keep up with the needs of the times and of other people.

Let us define and defend causes, rather than purposes

I have already written about the care to be taken with purpose, which so many people and organizations are desperate to find and pursue¹³. What I didn't write, because I didn't consider the following angle at the time, is that the apparent obsession with "the purposes" seems to derive from others that persist in the zeitgeist, stubbornly. I am referring to the need to "be and be all right," to "positivity." It's also okay if it's not okay. Fortunately this is talked about more. Not always in the best way, but you can't have everything right the first time, can you?

There are many advantages to negative thinking¹⁴. There are even Nobel Prize winners, such as Daniel Kahneman - who won his for his work on decision-making processes and judgment/ reasoning skills in uncertain contexts - who argues that the goal of governments, of countries, should be to reduce or prevent poverty or suffering, not economic growth or increased well-being. The latter only after the former.

Instead of or in addition to setting beautiful, showy, inspiring purposes, let us try to find causes whose advocacy is worthwhile and allows for meaningful differences. Let us develop our "negative capacity"¹⁵. Before looking for a comfortable place that doesn't exist yet, in another attempt to predict and control the future, let's look at the discomfort and suffering that exists "on our doorstep," or even within our own home, and try to diminish or eliminate it.

Let's cut the crap

Please, let's cut the bullshit. So much of what is wrong in the world stems from bullshit and the difficulty in discerning what is and what is not bullshit. I completely subscribe to the idea of Harry Frankfurt who advocates in his book On Bullshit that those who tell bullshit have no interest in or respect for the truth. Those who lie at least value the truth to the point of hiding it. Bullies don't care whether what they say is true or false, they are only interested in making the listener "buy" what is being said.

The corporate world lives on transactions. Too bad it applies the same to ideas and human relationships. It may be too much to ask a "bullshitter" not to say them. But I think we can increase our levels of attention and critical thinking skills to be able to detect and dismantle them¹⁶.

Endnote

The text is already long and, even so, I have left many guesses unwritten, in this useless prospective exercise. In the limit, I have created a list of upcoming articles where I can explore and make even more evident the connections between these and other themes. To you, dear reader, I wish you a good future. Or a less bad one than the past and the present, come on.

Written for Link to Leaders on December 20, 2022, published December 30, 2022.