Pulling at Threads Part 6 – Know Yourself

There is no better way to land this plane than to tackle the topic at the root of it all: knowing yourself.

‘Easy,’ you say. ‘I know who I am and I know what I like.’

Are you sure? At no other time in our existence has there been a better way to highlight what I am talking about than right now. Do you know yourself as well as Facebook knows you? How about Amazon?

Does that feel uncomfortable? It should.

There is a complacency that we feel, particularly those of us in the United States, as we sit in the sheltered confines of the tent that we have placed around ourselves. This tent has been fabricated by our expectations, pleasures, commercialism, information, education, obligations, sensory perception, and popularity, among other things.

Rules for Living Life, A Secular Interlude

The challenge of writing a blog lies in balancing the hubris to think you should put your opinions out there and the humility to write what an audience will read, not simply what you want to say.

I suppose that is not completely true – I could simply continue to write what I feel like writing since this is not a source of income, but there is an inescapable reality that as I write from a more spiritual place rather than a secular place, the page-views and comments I receive dwindle.  

Not that I am writing this for validation, but those metrics are a mechanism to remain self-aware of what I am writing relative to what this audience would like to read.

While I remain committed to completing this series of blogs by outlining all ten of my Rules for Living Life, I do think it is time to take a quick break from the more spiritual side of the rules and let you know how these rules started.  

In case this is the first blog of this series you are reading, this post is part of a series of blogs discussing a set of rules I have I put together for living my life based on merging a set of business rules with my understanding of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.  If you missed the previous five blogs, you can start at the beginning of this series here.

As I mentioned in previous posts, these rules originated during a particularly frustrating work meeting that I was obligated to attend. Though the topic of the meeting has been lost to history, the feelings I had at the time are still strong: the meeting was about fixing problems, but there was no fix being generated. It was another out-of-control spiral of blame, deflection, recrimination, self-promotion, and inaction. Those with the answers sat quietly, fearing blame for the cause, while those most impacted flailed around to find someone to help them. And the loudest voices gave the least guidance.

Maybe you have been in meetings like that.

I had a few subordinates at the time, and I resolved that I needed to help them understand this was not how a business worked.  I wanted to find a solution to our internal culture and the ways that it impeded our growth. I opened up a new page of notes on my iPad and pecked out a title:

Solution Matrix

Invigorated, I quickly came up with a list of ten items that I felt would make up my “Solution Matrix”.

1. Be enthusiastic: Enthusiasm is contagious, so is despair.
2. Get your hands dirty: Fix problems, don’t find problems.
3. Build someone up: Assign credit, not blame.
4. Be accountable: Accountability is a key indicator of performance.
5. Communicate effectively: Communication is a drug, when used properly it can improve anything, but it is dangerous when it is abused.
6. Give immediate feedback: Timely feedback is gold, history is just a story.
7. Lead: Leaders must lead.
8. Help the team succeed: Personal success is the fastest way to cause a team to fail.
9. Focus: Focus on the objective and don’t be distracted by the obstacles.
10. Know your objective:  You will never achieve what you don’t set as a goal.

I played with the explanations, I tweaked the rules a little bit over the years. But every time that I did, I always put them back the way they were.  

At their heart, they are a good set of guidelines for conducting yourself in the business world, but I have trouble applying them outside of the office. In a way, I think that stems from how they originated. They were built to solve problems at work, and so they are focused on doing that. And two of them focus on focusing on what you are doing.  Funny how that worked…

But did they work? Candidly, I had very mixed results. I have coworkers who read this blog that can feel free to comment on their effectiveness, but I would say I have been fundamentally ineffective at changing the culture at my workplace.

It was this failure to effectively influence our culture that sent me back to the drawing board to reconsider the entire concept of the matrix. It was this failure that made me realize I was not gifted with all of the answers to the world’s problems, so I had better seek out someone with a better track record. Someone who did such a good job giving guidance on how to live, he literally became a definition of time.

So I went to my Bible and I read. And I went to the bookstore and I read. And I went to histories and I read. And I thought. And I prayed. And I prayed more. And after all that, I think I came up with a better list.  

But I will leave that for you to decide.

Thanks for reading and remember: we’re all walking through a darkened city at night with a penlight. None of us are seeing more than a small piece of the landscape…

Why Does Technology Suck?

Watching TED Talks is a personal vice.  YouTube feeds me a constant stream based on my browsing habits and click-bait weaknesses.  During my lunch hour I often open one and eat while listening to ‘experts’ espousing the latest ideas worth spreading.

Recently there has been a spate of talks based on the evils of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and how we humans will survive in a machine-dominated, dystopian future.

I like these talks, the same way I like Fox News, but am not worried.  Or rather, I am worried, but not worried about the impending crash of civilization.

Why?  Well, currently I am sitting on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, D.C.  While that may seem irrelevant, I would like to review my flight so far:

1. We were held on the ground for forty minutes because it was windy and the computers controlling the landing and takeoffs of the airplanes increased the separation scheme.  Over sixty minutes later, we finally took off.
2. I purchased Internet access for $24.95 and tried to open a Google Sheet.  When I make a change to that sheet sometimes it changes, sometimes it does not.  Sometimes it just causes my computer to ponder the change.
3. During the ENTIRE the time I have been writing this, I am in the process of sending a three-line email from my Gmail account with no images or attachments.  It is still “waiting to send.”
4. My power outlet does not work, so as I wait, my battery life is eroding.
5. The last time I updated the sheet, my computer locked up for 4 minutes and 34 seconds as my friends at Apple pushed me a set of software updates that completely absorbed my bandwidth.  Automatically.
6. While that email still has not shown me that it has sent, I have received “chat” messages from recipients talking about the email and the response that I have already received from the recipient.

So if technology cannot support an Internet connection or a power outlet on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, flying a flagship route for a major airline, why should I be concerned that machines will take over the world?

The reality is that we have to accept we are the owners of digital Model T’s.  We are the generation that pays more to accept less and help fund the connected world that we will leave our children.  Oh sure, I can digitally connect my house and turn on the lights or change the thermostat when I’m away, but I have to buy an Echo ($100), plus a Nest thermometer ($234), plus the wireless electric plugs for the light ($25), plus the wireless router ($100), and the home internet connection ($40/mo), and a smartphone to access the internet (iPhone X, of course, @ $999) while I am away from home, plus the phone’s usage plan ($140/mo).  That is $1638 to change the temperature on the thermostat before I get home.  Or turn on a light.  Is it worth it?  And how will I know it actually worked?

Of course it is worth it when we turn that little dial on our cell phone in front of our friends: look what I can do!  But we are paying for this.  Just like when those people paid for a Model T without having a road to drive it on, fuel stations to fill it up, or mechanics to keep it running.  They bought them because they were cool, and because they bought them people built those roads, opened gas stations, and went to school to be mechanics.

I just wish the technology industry would stop trying to convince me that they know what they are doing.  I would like to see an honest commercial for the Amazon Echo:

Happy guy smiles at the camera, “Alexa, play me a song!”

Excited female voice, “Okay, I will charge the credit card I have on file $99 for Amazon Prime so you can access our music library.”

Puzzled look, “No, play the song on Pandora!”

Silence.

Deep frown, “Alexa, play me a song on Pandora”

Smug female voice, “Sorry, I can’t access Pandora.”

“Shit!” Looks for phone to grant Alexa access to Pandora.

As he logs in, Alexa quietly laughs in the background as she downloads his listening history and revises his targeted ads, altering his entire browsing experience.

I do not know how to stop this injustice except to keep paying and hope that it gets better.  Except my cell phone bill was cheaper five years ago.  And I cannot help but think that the reason some of the highest market values on Wall Street are tech giants ISN’T because they are making things cheaper and passing that savings on to us.

No, like a crack dealer, they give us a little taste for free and then start charging.  And charging.  And they tell us we need more, for just a little more.  And we pay.

I heard once that only two types of retailers call their customers “users:” drug dealers and tech companies.  Coincidence?

Somewhere in the back, a Google Home is listening, and laughing.  And my email is “Still waiting.”