Culture – Page 10 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

September 14, 2022

Ordinary

Over recent months we’ve seen some extraordinary behaviour from big institutions. Employers knowingly break the law. Airlines and holiday companies sell flights they know they can’t deliver. Energy retailers bill small business customers amounts they know are impossible to pay. Policemen murder women. Or shoot first and ask questions later. A holiday park is prepared to evict its guests to observe a bank holiday. Politicians no longer pretend to tell the truth or even talk sense. Journalists publish easily verifiable lies to create false outrage.

Thankfully, ordinary people are not like this. Ordinary people rush to help when someone collapses in the street, or asks for help on Twitter. Ordinary people go out of their way to keep a promise they’ve made. Ordinary business owners agonise over having to lose people. Ordinary business owners pay their suppliers on time and almost always over-deliver for their customers.

That’s because ordinary people operate in what you could call the ‘natural economy’. We know the world doesn’t run on money, but on the promises we make to each other. We know that even money is really just a promise.

Let’s celebrate and cherish the ordinary. That’s where a better future lies.

September 7, 2022

Starting a conspiracy

Now that the weather is turning autumnal, I’ve decided I need to work on getting a little bit fitter.

So every other morning I get up early, walk a couple of miles to one of my local parks, and use their outdoor gym equipment. Well actually, just the rowing machine thing, because I’m trying to get some upper body movement in.

Then I walk back again.

This morning was my second visit. The chap who was there the first time saw me coming and said “you after that machine there?”, and when I nodded, got his towel out and carefully wiped the seat for me, to get the dew off.

That wasn’t just a kind gesture, it was a ‘welcome to the club’, a little bit of encouragement, a nudge to start a habit. Because now I have to continue, so I don’t let him down as well as myself.

Who knew you could start a conspiracy so easily?

August 31, 2022

Re-creation

Back in 1960 Albert B. Lord published a book called “The Singer of Tales“.

In it he shows that in a culture without writing, epic poems and stories are not shared by memorising them word for word, line for line. Each and every performance – even from the same speaker, is a reconstruction, a re-creation.

A storyteller is able to do this because they work within an enabling framework, in the form of some key constraints. For example:

The storyline is well-known by everyone, so things have to happen in the order they are meant to happen.
The heroes and heroines are well-known to everyone, they are recognised by certain key characteristics, summed up in familiar phrases. These phrases must appear, attached to the right people in the story (or perhaps mis-attached for comic effect) for it to be ‘true’.
A poem must follow a particular rhyme and rhythm or metre. This severely limits the number of words it is possible to use, and therefore the number of words the reciter has to hold in memory.
The storyteller operates inside a culture, which has certain expectations about how the world works. These must be reflected in the recitation if it is to be successful.

The point is that even though each recitation effectively starts from scratch and is actually different from every other, it is perceived by both the speaker and their audience as being a word-perfect, faithful repetition of the last time they heard it. Every telling is perceived as identical to all other tellings, because against all the criteria that matter, it is.

Once we have writing, everything changes. Writing is of course a way of putting knowledge ‘in the world’, rather than ‘in the head’. But there are drawbacks. Multiple versions of an epic poem get written down, but from now on they are read, not re-created. All too often a single version becomes canonical – the one against which all others are judged. We gain in practicality, but lose sponteneity, creativity, surprise.

It seems to me though that it is possible to have the best of both worlds:

The bones of a storyline are written down so everything happens in the right order;
Key roles are written down so they can be identified and clearly signalled;
Stock phrases and formulas are given to act as starters for ten until practice has enabled a person to generate their own;
Cultural boundaries are clearly stated – “the least that should happen is…”, “Remember this part of our Promise of Value here”.

That’s what makes a good Customer Experience Score. Enough constraints to ensure the experience is perceived as consistent, plenty of room for a given person to make that experience personal. Written down so everyone can learn it, practice it and improve it. On purpose.

August 25, 2022

Inoculation

I’ve missed out on so many diseases – whooping cough, diptheria, rubella, polio, tuberculosis – as a result of being inoculataed against them at an early age. And I am very grateful.

Now it seems that people can be ‘inoculated’ against spreading misinformation too.

By showing people youtube videos explaining the techniques used to manipulate them into liking and sharing, it seems people are more able to spot the manipulation happening in other videos.

That’s good news I think.

The bad news is that these videos are being developed by Google, who will decide which societies are ‘in need of’ inoculation.

The techniques are well known and have been used for centuries by politicians, newspapers and advertisers.

Perhaps, instead of relying on the kindness of Google,we could inoculate people early, and just start teaching this stuff in schools?

July 26, 2022

Reality TV

Since, as usual at this time of year, there’s been nothing on TV, we’ve been catching up on ‘Connections’ with James Burke. A fascinating ‘alternative view of change’ first broadcast in 1978.

Watch it here, at Internet Archive while you can.

What the series shows is that change (or as some like to call it ‘progess’) is not linear at all.

Discoveries are sometimes made on purpose, but almost as often they are made by accident, as a side effect of looking for something else, or as a failed experiment, or by someone coming at it from a different perspective. Often they were ignored completely, until enough of them were in place for others to put them together and create something new.

And as we know from the history of steam power, gunpowder and moveable type printing, if the social conditions weren’t conducive, they were often simply abandoned or used for pure amusement for centuries.

Serendipity, obliquity and culture play such an important part, that it’s almost impossible to predict where future change will come from.

What we can do is keep ourselves aware of the bigger systems, cultural and scientific, which are the drivers and sources of change – ecology, physics, capitalism, politics, the carbon cycle. That way, we can at least have an idea of where the impacts of change might be felt, and decide if we want it or not.

That means learning about how our world works. It takes effort, and often a bit of digging to find the material – which in itself tells us something about the system we currently live in.

‘Connections’ is the kind of reality tv we used to make. The kind I’d like to see more of.

July 20, 2022

Connect the dots

Back in February, I got involved in a project called ‘Connect the Dots’, an ancillary to The Carbon Almanac.

The idea was to take the well-researched facts, issues and solutions from the Almanac and connect them together visually, so that someone can see how they interact. More importantly, so someone can see how a single action can have multiple impacts.

We started with Solutions, because in spite of what we see and hear, they are already out there. People are already taking practical, unheroic, collective steps to change the systems that we have turned into traps.

We’re having a rest for a week, and then we’ll come back to it, perhaps with more people joining in. So it will continue to grow.

Yesterday the project went live.

Find it under ‘Extras’ at The Carbon Almanac.

It’s not finished – it never will be.

It’s not perfect – it never will be.

Hopefully it is inspiring enough to prompt more people to take action.

Together.

Connecting the dots.

June 27, 2022

Purchasing power

Eggs may not seem like a big deal, but when it comes to dealing with climate change, every little helps, especially when done by a lot of people.

Here are 4 egg producers doing something towards reducing the impact factory egg farming has on our planet.

And here are a few questions you can start to ask about all the small things you buy:

Where is it made?
Where is most of it actually made (before the label’s added)?
Who by?
How is it made?
Where do the inputs come from? How are they produced?
Where do the outputs go? How are they made harmless?
What alternatives are there?

It’s not too late to take meaningful action to save our future on the planet.

Before you can act, you need to be informed. The market won’t do this. Especially when it isn’t working properly and a few mega-companies control huge swathes of production.

We have to inform ourselves. Then tell our friends.

I learned about these egg producers through ‘The Daily Difference‘ from The Carbon Almanac. Why not sign up yourself?

Contrary to what we’re told, it’s not too late, provided we all take action.

June 23, 2022

Regenerating business

What is it that people want?

Agency – to make their own ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe.
Mastery – to learn and master (even teach) new skills.
Autonomy – to be free to choose how they make their dent.
Purpose – to do this for something bigger than themselves, that has meaning beyond the sale.
Community – to do all this with ‘people like us’.
Status – to know (and for others to know) where we stand in our communities.

We want to be citizens. Collaborating with purpose on something bigger than ourselves.

What if, instead of building our businesses to sell stuff – that might create a fleeting sensation of one or more of these things, we built them as a means to enable people to genuinely achieve these things?

We could repair and enrich our world instead of impoverishing it.

It’s not too late for Disicpline to make Daring possible.

June 22, 2022

Subjects, Consumers, Citizens

If humans are naturally empathetic, flexible and co-operative, how come it feels like we’ve lost that?

Because we fall for stories. Stories where our empathy and flexibility can be used against us.

I’m into the last of my 4 new books: ‘Citizens‘ by Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad, and I’m so glad I’m reading it after Sarah Hrdy’s one.

According to Jon and Ariane, we’ve trapped ourselves in certain stories – stories that we didn’t create, but which had enough advantages for us in them to be accepted.

The first is the Subject story – one man at the top of our tribe has the right to tell everyone else what to do. The rest of us are subject to his will, whether we like it or not. The deal is meant to be that in return, the man at the top will take care of us, make sure we are fed and housed and can live our little lives. The downside of this story is that there’s not much room for movement. Your place is fixed and you know it. The upside is that you can sneak in quite a private life on the side. For an interesting exploration on how this story might have come about, I recommend ‘On Kings‘ by David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins.

The second is the Consumer story – we are not a subject, we are a free person! Free, that is, to choose between whatever options are given. The deal here is that we can be whoever we want to be, as long as it involves buying stuff. The more, the better. We aren’t encouraged to think about how that stuff is made, by whom, or what effect it might be having on other people and the planet. We aren’t encouraged to think at all. Our job is simply to consume. The Consumer story likes community, likes tribes. Tribes encourage people to compete with each other in buying stuff. The upside of this story is that as a Consumer we can fully express our indivduality in a myriad of ways. The downside of this story is that we feel disconnected, lonely, unfulfilled somehow, and there’s only so much stuff you can fit into one lifetime.

The third story is the Citizen story. In this story we are empathetic, co-operative, flexible. We recognise that we are part of something more than a community or a tribe, that we are individuals who are also part of a society. A society we make, and could just as easily make differently. In this story we make and re-make society from the bottom up, collaboratively, deliberately, consciously. The downside of this story is that it takes a lot of effort, it means taking responsibility not just for ourselves, but for others, and it means participating with others in a messy process. The upside is that this is our natural story, and the more we practice it, the better we get at it.

How do these stories play out in your business?

Are your clients or customers simply Consumers? Or are they Citizens, helping to shape the little society that is your business?

Are your people Subjects? Knowing their place. Living their ‘real life’ outside the workplace, doing just enough to keep you happy? Or are they Citizens, helping to shape the little society that is your business?

And you? Are you a King, worrying about who’s after the top spot? Or are you a Citizen, building a little society that will both outlast you and remember you as its founder?

Citizenship makes Daring possible.

June 21, 2022

Connections

Back in 1978, me and my family were entranced by this BBC series in which James Burke explained how rather than being a simple forward march of progress towards some future pinnacle, history was actually a web of connected accidents. People built new ideas and inventions on the ideas and inventions of others, who had created these things for completely different reasons. Connections made that were never ‘meant’ to be made leading to new connections, and new inventions. Often with what seemed like spookily appropriate timing.

Fast forward 50 years, and I’m enticed into a little online group called ‘Connect the Carbon Dots’ by a mention of this TV series.

In our group, we’re taking the facts, issues and solutions in the soon to be released Carbon Almanac, and connecting them to each other, in a visual, interactive web. So that someone interested in ‘how to store carbon in soil’ for example can see why that’s a good thing for global warming AND how it also impacts food security, erosion, and pollution.

Looking back, that documentary may have been the start of my life’s work!

Everything’s connected. Everyone is connected. Everything’s a process.

You never know what’s going to happen next, but there’ll be an interesting thread to follow.

And life is actually more joyful when you look at it that way.

PS it’s not too late to join in!

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Culture