Lauren&rsquo;s having turned 18 yesterday and set to become a college freshman in the fall gave me all the [nostalgic] feels this week, throwing me back to the first time I was a freshman.&nbsp;
I also happened to be spring cleaning my office and came across dozens of ancient photos, each of which further rocket-fueled more than three decades of memories and cast me deeper and deeper into a wormhole. Or is it a spider hole? Or a rat hole? Or a rat&rsquo;s nest? Or ratted hair? Or maybe it&rsquo;s a rabbit trail? Eesh. Similes I can remember, but I can never seem to keep my metaphors, analogies, or allegories straight. Hopefully you get the idea: I&rsquo;m down a hole or trail of some sort and you&rsquo;re comin&rsquo; with me!&nbsp;
As fate would have it, of the MANY common injuries, illnesses, or ailments likely to befall a high school senior (mononucleosis, anyone?), I had the distinct privilege of contracting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, dropping from 165 lbs to 117, missing graduation and summer, then driving southward to the sleepy metropolis of Waco, TX using one of my two crutches to mash on the accelerator because I&rsquo;d thrown my back out doing rehab in July to regain muscle mass.
How&rsquo;s all this for irony?&nbsp;
Senior Year &rsquo;88 is therefore a somewhat squishy memory for me, vaguely fugue-like from about March forward, and I remember it primarily as a blur and total bummer because it lacked closure on every front: few goodbyes, fewer explanations, then presto-blammo, wacky Waco here I be!
All this being the case, whenever I do think of high school, it&rsquo;s 1984 that tends to hit my memory bank the hardest.
For 2020 freshmen, what a year to be launching, yes? I mean, gee, if only the year coulda been more auspicious, more eventful, more pivotal, more memorable, more momentous somehow.
&ldquo;May you live in interesting times,&rdquo; right? And it&rsquo;s barely June!&nbsp;
But back to 1984, and a quick time-capsule for you&mdash;
FASHION: Freshman year began awash in a sea of squeaky parachute pants, Vans, Air Jordans, Doc Martens, Ray-Ban wayfarers and mirrored aviators, Panama Jack and OP tees, ropy gold chains, countless rubber wristlets, preppies, new wavers, punks, skaters, metal-heads, skinheads, Benettonites, hip hoppers, rockabillies, and fanatical leotarded aerobicizers.&nbsp;
TV was dominated by: Cagney &amp; Lacey, Cheers, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Family Ties, Highway to Heaven, Hill Street Blues, Knots Landing, Magnum, P.I., Miami Vice, Murder, She Wrote, Newhart, Night Court, Remington Steele, Riptide, Scarecrow &amp; Mrs. King, Simon &amp; Simon, The A-Team, The Cosby Show, The Fall Guy, Trapper John, M.D., and tiny guy Webster.&nbsp;
The big MOVIES were: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Against All Odds, Amadeus, Bachelor Party, Beverly Hills Cop, Blame it on Rio, Breakin' (and Breakin&rsquo; II!), Cannonball Run II, Children of the Corn, Conan the Destroyer, Dune, Firestarter, Footloose, Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Irreconcilable Differences, Johnny Dangerously, Missing in Action (Norris!), Moscow on the Hudson, Police Academy, Purple Rain, Red Dawn, Revenge of the Nerds, Rhinestone, Romancing the Stone, Sixteen Candles, Splash, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Starman, Supergirl, Teachers, The Cotton Club, The Evil That Men Do, The Flamingo Kid, The Gods Must Be Crazy, The Ice Pirates, The Karate Kid, The Killing Fields, The Last Starfighter, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Natural, The Terminator, The Woman in Red, Thief of Hearts, Tightrope, Top Secret!, Unfaithfully Yours, Up the Creek, Weekend Pass, and Where the Boys Are '84.&nbsp;
At the roller rink, top TUNEMEISTERS included: Adam Ant, Bananarama, Billy Joel, Billy Ocean, Billy Squier, Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Christine McVie, Christopher Cross, Corey Hart, Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, DeBarge, Duran Duran, Elton John, Eurythmics, Genesis, Hall &amp; Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, Irene Cara, John Cougar Mellencamp, John Waite, Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, KC &amp; the Sunshine Band, Kenny Loggins, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Kool &amp; The Gang, Laura Branigan, Lionel Richie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, Nena, Night Ranger, Olivia Newton-John, Pat Benatar, Peabo Bryson, Peter Schilling, Phil Collins, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Ray Parker Jr., Rick Springfield, Rockwell, Rod Stewart, Run-DMC, Scandal, Shalamar, Sheila E., Steve Perry, Stevie Wonder, Stray Cats, The Cars, The Go-Go's, The Jacksons, The Pointer Sisters, The Police, The Rolling Stones, The Romantics, Thompson Twins, Tina Turner, Van Halen, Wang Chung, Wham!, Yes, and the long-beards themselves, ZZ Top.&nbsp;
In the NEWS: AIDS, Ethiopian famine (and Band Aid to help solve it!), Apple&rsquo;s Macintosh (and Sony&rsquo;s first 3 &frac12;&rdquo; disk, plus the introduction of commercial CD players!), the Summer Olympics (and the Soviets&rsquo; boycott), the first untethered space walk (Space Shuttle Challenger, followed in August by Space Shuttle Discovery), and the overall feeling that George Orwell mighta been on to something in his dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, though, admittedly, by today&rsquo;s standards, 1984 feels rather quiet and quaint, if not altogether na&iuml;ve.&nbsp;
It occurs to me that today&rsquo;s freshmen might as well be launching amidst their own dystopian prophecy of sorts, perhaps Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s masterwork being the order of the day, as it is fast becoming a Brave New World indeed, though hopefully for the [much] better.&nbsp;
Coincidentally&mdash;in case you have time for a couple final factoids and a dozen metaphors that endeavor to tie the whole room together!&mdash;Huxley died within hours of C. S. Lewis (November 22, 1963), though, understandably, too few of the citizenry were able to fully commemorate their passing and reach closure when it happened, as a progressive young President on the other side of the sea also happened to lose his life that day, in his case when the motorcade crept past the Texas School Book Depository and changed the course of history forever. Again.
History often has a rather odd way of sensemaking and putting things into perspective for us, does it not? Three renowned, notable Men of Letters had lost their lives in a single day, and two more thought-leaders would die violently at the hands of small-minded bigots in April and June of 1968.&nbsp;
Of this I am certain, though: The struggle is real, and it continues until The Very Bittersweet End.&nbsp;
Transitions, changes, passages, epochal eras, and especially upheavals rarely come on time, are frequently messy, disorganized, and open-ended, and can also be jarring when not outright violent. The status quo rarely goes quietly into some good night, nor does it simply fade away. In my experience, new order comes kicking and screaming loudly into the world and tears lotsa social fabric along the way.
What is &ldquo;fashionable&rdquo; is, by definition, temporal. It comes and goes, becoming something frivolous and perhaps even small by comparison, especially in retrospect. We learn first-hand that time marches on&hellip;waits for no man&hellip;and we cannot step into the same river twice. To not learn this would be ignorance, denial of truth, and intellectual/social/spiritual death.&nbsp;
Granted, I cannot predict what firefly fashions, sights, or sounds may catch our eyes or ears in the future, but I do agree that though the arc of the moral universe is long, it does bend toward justice, and progress will eventually carry the day.&nbsp;
But perhaps more importantly than all this, I believe in the scriptural promise that a child shall lead the way.
This being the case, I can think of no more auspicious, eventful, pivotal, memorable, momentous year than 2020 to launch our offspring out into the world to seize the day.
I pray they can blaze a better trail than we have, and eventually show us the way.
#LeadOn

Metamorphosis

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<div class="_uaw clearfix _uaw" style="text-align: left;">&ldquo;You just have to decide whether you are Tigger or Eeyore.&nbsp;&nbsp;You have to be clear where you stand on the Tigger/Eeyore debate.&rdquo;</div>
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&nbsp;
Ten months before succumbing to pancreatic cancer at age 47, Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Randy Pausch made it clear where he stood on the Tigger/Eeyore debate in his final lecture, which ultimately sold 4 &frac12; million copies in the U.S. alone when committed to paper as The Last Lecture.&nbsp; The runaway bestseller has now been translated into 46 languages. 
 It seems the world loves Tigger, in part because he&mdash;like each of us at our very best&mdash;bounces rather than breaks.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s the ultimate proprietor of the proverbial lemonade stand, always making the very best from the worst life has to offer.
 In a world besotted with news, soundbytes, spin and social media, we are similarly saturated in hyperbole and hysteria, much of it negative.&nbsp;&nbsp;It&rsquo;s difficult to turn on and tune in without soon wishing to tune out.&nbsp; Terrorism, &ldquo;fearbola,&rdquo; the long tail of 2008, Congressional gridlock, wars without end, crime, thoughtlessness, selfishness, shallowness&hellip;it&rsquo;s understandable that after prolonged exposure to virtually any newscast, one finds him or herself slowly devolving into Eeyore. 
 Be they good or bad, our attitudes and behaviors&mdash;like yawning and laughing&mdash;are often contagious, and all the more so when they are extreme.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not the lukewarm and middlers who influence us most, it&rsquo;s the superstars and the slugs, the hot and the cold, the zealots and the absolutely catatonic who seem to motivate or demotivate us the most.&nbsp; The tiggers cajole, challenge and champion, often bringing out our best, while the eeyores serve as cautionary tales, reminding us what happens when one loses his passion, purpose or hope. 
 Any time one finds herself discouraged, daunted or down, it&rsquo;s helpful to consider &ldquo;The Six P&rsquo;s,&rdquo; each and every one of which was demonstrated by Pausch and admittedly run like an undercurrent throughout the entire philosophies of Pooh himself, but which you&rsquo;ll similarly find in any optimistic archetype, from Terry Fox and Viktor Frankl and King George VI and Helen Keller and Winston Churchill to Clara Barton and Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony and George Washington Carver and Teddy Roosevelt, who captured the sentiment of tiggerness so perfectly on April 23, 1910 when he spoke at the Sorbonnes in Paris, saying, in part:
&ldquo;It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.&nbsp; The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.&rdquo;
 Both optimism and pessimism are incontrovertibly contagious, but the former bolsters our immune system, while the latter simply makes us&mdash;and those around us&mdash;ill.&nbsp; But if one were to journey toward optimism, by what stars would he chart his course?&nbsp; Is there such a constellation?&nbsp; Indeed there is, as demonstrated by the aforementioned superstars, so many others like them, and enumerated here:
 1. Perspective. The primary difference between the dour and the dynamic is perspective.&nbsp; It is from perspective that we see the following flow. 
2. Proportion. When bad things happen, the pessimist (Eeyore) blows things out of proportion.&nbsp; The optimist (Tigger) keeps things in proportion. 
3. Pervasiveness. For the pessimist, one bad thing becomes universal, leaking and tainting everything it touches.&nbsp; The optimist partitions &ldquo;that one bad thing.&rdquo; 
4. Permanence. For the pessimist, bad things become lasting, while optimists see them for what they generally are: temporary. 
5. Personalization. Pessimists are blamers, waving their accusatory finger at others, and pointing out the window at those whom they perceive as responsible for their own problems.&nbsp; Optimists are owners, taking responsibility for their choices, the consequences, and staring in the mirror at the captain of their ship (or, as described in Invictus and recounted by Nelson Mandela day after day for the majority of his adult life, &ldquo;the captain of my soul&rdquo;). 
6. Power. Pessimists behave as if they are hapless and helpless victims to a buggy code that lost a zero or one somewhere along the way, while optimists assume control of their own software and rewrite it to achieve a new and better outcome.
&nbsp;
We do well to remember Tolstoy who wrote, &ldquo;Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself&rdquo; because, ultimately, regardless our role, each and every one of us is in charge of us&hellip;and is an influencer in his/her own right.&nbsp; A force for good, positivity and possibility, or for negativity, criticism or despair. 
 Far better, it seems, to be realistic, of course&mdash;but optimistically so.&nbsp; After all, the perils of pessimism are well-documented and undesirable all the way down the line.&nbsp; Doom and gloom may sell tickets and lather crowds, but they never win elections, rarely rally, and have a very poor track record for catalyzing communities or companies toward any sustainable change or culture.
 But Pausch, or Tigger himself, why, they seem to have tails so springy and levers so long that&mdash;time and again&mdash;the world is moved.
&nbsp;
*** Please forgive any errors, omissions or abruptness; this post was conceived around midnight, completed on an iPhone, and uploaded while being jostled in line at TGI Friday's in an airport. But I CHOSE to upload it nonetheless, so any shortcomings are mine and mine alone.
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The Perils of Pessimism & The Power of Positivity

This past week I spent some time with a&nbsp;company renowned for being a &quot;high tech systems integrator.&quot; 


It got me thinking just a couple degrees differently, so I thought I&#39;d pay the perspective forward. 


So often, an organization focuses on increasing trust, improving performance, incorporating best practices, etc.&nbsp; Yet generally, these efforts occur within isolation, in silos. 


It reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein&#39;s efforts: try as he might to &#39;create life,&#39; he inadvertently created a monster.&nbsp; &quot;The law of unintended consequences,&quot; to be sure. 


My advice? 


A rising tide lifts all boats, so step back--take some time--and work, as Michael Gerber <a href="http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1281983018&amp;sr=1-1">wrote</a> so eloquently, &quot;on your business, not just in or for your business.&quot;&nbsp; (Do the latter two and&nbsp;your business is master.) 


Ask yourself, &quot;If I were to start anew, from a blank slate, how would I design my organization?&quot; rather than, as Frankenstein did, &quot;If I stitch this onto here and attach&nbsp;that to the other thing...I wonder if I can &#39;create life?&#39;&quot; 


Gerber&nbsp;articulated so thoroughly that it&#39;s rarely about what we use on hand...the &#39;additive&#39; nature of mashing things together.&nbsp; This rarely proves successful and frequently convolutes. 


Far better to reconceive your company as if you were&nbsp;the unbiased&nbsp;systems integrator:&nbsp;&quot;What do I need?&nbsp; What do I have?&nbsp; What do I lack?&quot;&nbsp; And then,&nbsp;come to terms with&nbsp;scrapping anything and everything in order to design, sequence and overlay most efficiently. 


I know it&#39;s hard, because we&nbsp;all love our binkies.&nbsp; But as a wise man once shouted, &quot;You can&#39;t expect me to revolutionize transportation and insist that I keep the horse!&quot;

The Value of Systems Integration

While literally countless important questions swirl around us every day, there are few that stimulate me as much as, "What makes a great leader?"
It's a loaded question, of course, because embedded within it is&nbsp;another question, "Are leaders born or made?"&nbsp; (The short answer, for today, is&mdash;"Yes."&nbsp; But more on that Russian doll another time.)
Leadership is such a perennially important issue and this year is no different.&nbsp; Every generation believes its time is unheralded and novel, and ours is not unique: we&nbsp;continue to live&nbsp;in undeniably tremendous times&mdash;an era of explosive growth, ceaseless change and limitless potential.&nbsp; (But again, the same could be said 4,000 years ago...2,000 years ago, and again during the Renaissance...it is no less true today.)
As always, we need great leaders and greater leadership if we are to continue progressing in fields and practices as diverse as geopolitics, science, economics, finance,&nbsp;spirituality (yes, spirituality), innovation and sustainability.&nbsp; From natural to man-made disasters in Alaska, New York, Sri Lanka and India&nbsp;to Thailand, Haiti&nbsp;and Louisiana, the importance&nbsp;and effects of leadership (or its absence) are&mdash;if we are fortunate&mdash;a broadcast away.&nbsp;
In future blogs, I commit to writing more extensively about leadership at large, but today I will limit my thoughts to the importance of formal education (e.g., the University) as a mechanism and greenhouse for creating and growing tomorrow's leaders and will then conclude with a&nbsp;rough&nbsp;table differentiating poor from great leaders.
My preliminary comments are <a href="https://charlierose.com/guests/6283">inspired today by John Sexton</a>, President of New York University ("NYU").&nbsp; My later comments are inspired by <a href="http://www.johnmaxwell.com/">John Maxwell</a>, author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (among other books).&nbsp; 
Though I believe there are indeed few 'new things' under the Sun, to the extent these men's ideas are held tenably together, I am to blame.
&nbsp;
Universities for Tomorrow
Describing the University for Tomorrow requires a few thousand dissertions and years of research, to be sure, so I will simply take a slipshod whack to get your mind whirring.&nbsp; You, along with millions of others who are already studying this opportunity, can do the remaining 99.9999%&nbsp;by filling in the gaps.
Fact #1: 70 of today's 85 oldest organizations are, in fact, universities.&nbsp; (Vatican City and Parliament are examples of the other 15.)
Fact #2: If you want to create a vibrant 'center of thought,' create a great university and wait 200 years.
Fact #3: The universities-within-walls which brought us this far will not lead us into the future.
<a href="http://nyuad.nyu.edu/">What NYU is doing in Abu Dhabi </a>is right on the money: it's primarily about people, programs, teaching and research (and just so happens to serendipitously be what my doctoral program was, but on steroids to the&nbsp;100th power).&nbsp; I attended the modest Union Institute &amp; University, the first&nbsp;"University without Walls" and participated in classes&nbsp;hosted in&nbsp;Brattleboro, Montpelier, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Miami.&nbsp; We regularly&nbsp;embraced eccentric&nbsp;professors on sabbaticals from the Ivy League&nbsp;who operated 'unfettered' from many of the restraints they described occurring in Cambridge, New Haven, Providence, Princeton, Philadelphia, Hanover, Ithaca and NYC.&nbsp;
...but I digress...
What&nbsp;encouraged me about Mr. Sexton's comments was the notion that&nbsp;tomorrow's university is an open, diverse, ecumenical, organic circulatory system of ideas and best practices that&nbsp;will focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;creative, exploratory thought and nuanced discourse.
I couldn't agree more.&nbsp;
Indeed, any university, even the ones mired in the past&nbsp;(the ones we revere, historically)&nbsp;are mandated to help students learn to think (and critically) for themselves.&nbsp; But&nbsp;my impression, far too often, is that university life can quickly become&nbsp;High School 2.0,&nbsp;packed to the gills with&nbsp;memorizing facts, completing rote work, regurgitating information or defending knowledge.&nbsp; Unquestionably, we should&nbsp;possess societal standards of 'minimum knowledge,' but&nbsp;I&nbsp;expect this work to occur more fully in grades K-12.&nbsp; The undergraduate years can round-out this process, but the fact that today's ACT and SAT tests still&nbsp;emphasize standardized knowledge, facts, reading, mathematics&mdash;and some writing (though many admissions boards admit they don't quite know what to do with this&nbsp;element yet)&mdash;I remain concerned that our perspectives are deficient.
While the United States is proceeding toward national standards in 48 of the 50 states, China is migrating toward a more exploratory curriculum designed to create great THINKERS and INNOVATORS rather than fact-regurgitators.&nbsp; The ideal approach is, of course, a hybrid that includes the best&nbsp;of both.&nbsp; We need a hygiene-oriented 'bare minimum' (which should be rigorous, not minimalistic; a 'threshold knowledge base' if you will) combined with strong creative and critical thinking skills.&nbsp; IQ has never been a predictor of leadership success and it never will be.&nbsp; Similarly, while&nbsp;standardized admissions are&nbsp;undoubtedly sufficient at predicting university success, they are representative solely of&nbsp;the coursework&nbsp;comprising undergraduate schoolwork&mdash;which illuminates my point and&nbsp;the&nbsp;'smallness' of what we expect today.&nbsp; Moreover, IQ&nbsp;and standardized metrics will never&nbsp;wholly predict&nbsp;a leader's ultimate&nbsp;societal contributions,&nbsp;service to humankind or&nbsp;general performance, so whatever the University of Tomorrow intends to look like, it must quickly learn to shed historic metrics in favor of indices that get at meaning, contribution and potential.
The single greatest determinant of student performance in the classroom is the teacher's expectations.&nbsp; Knowing this, we should ourselves have the highest expectations for tomorrow's teachers, educators, instructors, professors...and each and every one of them should be well-versed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">Pygmalion Effect</a>.
Finally, the university of tomorrow should be a bastion of&nbsp;deep discourse, not soundbytes.&nbsp; Mr. Sexton described at length the disadvantage that today's thoughtful politicians start from when they find themselves embroiled in conflicts with opponents adept at dumbing down exceedingly complex issues.&nbsp; The media loves sticky slogans (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid">"It's the economy, stupid."</a>), but we must have an appetite for prolonged, nuanced,&nbsp;systemic dialogue if we are to more fully understand issues, one another and create students and leaders capable of doing the same.
&nbsp;
Poor&nbsp;vs. Great Leaders
Perhaps contary to popular opinion, the leader at the helm of such a university is not terribly dissimilar from the sort of leader who thrives in enterprise.&nbsp; In the comments of John Sexton and the work of John Maxwell, I see similar threads regarding how students, university officials and tomorrow's leaders interact with the world around them.&nbsp;
In this light, I conclude today's very embryonic blog with the following table&nbsp;differentiating 'poor' and 'great' leaders.&nbsp; I trust that it might prove handy somewhere along the line.
More on these and adjacent thoughts in the weeks to come.&nbsp;
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Leadership, the University & Poor vs. Great Leaders

On May 20, 2010 I caught a neat <a href="https://charlierose.com/search-results/?query=Nathan%20Myhrvold">episode of Charlie Rose </a>on PBS&nbsp;featuring an interview&nbsp;with Nathan Myhrvold of <a href="http://intellectualventures.com/Home.aspx">Intellectual Ventures</a>.&nbsp;
(Maybe you remember Nathan;&nbsp;he has been 'everywhere' the last couple years describing everything from IV's "mosquito-zapping laser" to their proposed "water hose&nbsp;in the sky,"&nbsp;theorized to&nbsp;minimize global warming.)
IV has been compared to "Davos...in Birkenstocks."
Whether you're creative, love people who are or fancy yourself a polymath, you'll totally dig Nathan. (Pun intended, given his fascination with paleontology and archaeology.)
It's fun, if only for a few minutes, to imagine how someone like him&mdash;and his "lab crew"&mdash;see the world.&nbsp;
Here's a great <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true">article</a> about Nathan by Malcolm Gladwell, along with a giddy <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_on_archeology_animal_photography_bbq.html">presentation</a> at TED.

Creativity & Genius: Nathan Myhrvold

Decisions, decisions, decisions. 


We make countless decisions each and every day...every hour...every minute. 


And most decisions aren&#39;t that hard.&nbsp; We go with our gut, we experience &#39;behavioral shorthand&#39; and know how, for example, to wind our way to work each morning without even thinking about it or, in the case of tougher decisions, we think, we pray, we seek counsel.&nbsp; 


But you know as well as I do that some decisions are very, very difficult.&nbsp;&nbsp;Unimaginably gut wrenching.&nbsp; Consider the sort our President is wrestling with this very week.&nbsp; Or the sort our Supreme Court wrestles with each and every day.&nbsp; Or the sort a grieving adult-child faces as&nbsp;her dying parent is placed on life support.&nbsp; 


And some of these decisions are in the oven for months...for years.&nbsp; Indeed, they are very long in the making. 


To describe this protracted &#39;deciding,&#39; I use the analogy Decision Hill. 

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The first segment of Decision Hill is the ascent.&nbsp; This is the acknowledgment that a decision, generally a complex, multifaceted one (and&nbsp;often an emotional one or one that will have &#39;tentacles&#39; affecting others or &#39;collateral effects&#39; beyond our immediate imagination) needs to be made.&nbsp; Consider a neophyte playing chess with a grandmaster or a naive child wandering alone in the dark.&nbsp; Neither is fully aware of the errors of his/her ways, much less the unknown and&nbsp;potentially devastating consequences that might follow an initial, innocent, well-intentioned&nbsp;mis-step.&nbsp; In fact, consider the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy...or the pre-strike intelligence the NSA&nbsp;possessed on terrorists&nbsp;before the horrors of 9/11 in NYC.&nbsp; Neither of these examples represent one huge&nbsp;or glaringly obvious oversight on anyone&#39;s part so much as an incremental, microscopic accumulation of residue...of tiny error after tiny error which, in the particulate, seem invisible, yet in the aggregate, seem enormous. 


The ascent takes a very, very long time. 


We wrestle with complexities.&nbsp; With our emotions.&nbsp; With possible outcomes.&nbsp; We recall the past, we look to the future, we strategize, we visualize moves and countermoves, we think of the people who will be affected by our choices, we fall to our knees, we seek others&#39; counsel, we T-chart the pros and cons, we flip coins, we toss coins in fountains, we wander and wonder, we rule things in and rule things out, we sleep on it, we eliminate outliers and finally...finally...after the grueling and the slogging and the swinging and the fighting and the traversing many meters to the top...we arrive, crestfallen, at the apex of Decision Hill. 


And we straddle the tippy-top of this mountain.&nbsp; We feel its enormity beneath and around us.&nbsp; We accept the hollowness within us.&nbsp; We long for the connectedness and renewal around us.&nbsp; And we stare into the fog and darkness and storm and wonder if the heavens are with us.&nbsp; 


And we decide. 


In an instant. 


After the weeks and months or even years that preceded, we finally, exultingly, make a choice. 


And this choice brings us -- in that singular moment -- from our ascension...to the second segment of our climb...the tipping point. 


The slow boil is now a gas. 


And with the clarity that cuts through the&nbsp;night like a knife through warm butter, we turn our eyes finally and fully toward the future. 


The angst of deciding is behind us. 


And we feel luminescent.&nbsp; And buoyant.&nbsp; And&nbsp;human again. 


The weights slip off our shoulders, the bodice around our chest is loosed, the vice around our mind is broken, the chains around our ankles and neck and wrists are shattered, and we fall forward toward our destiny. 


Like the child awaking to a pure and powdery snow on Christmas morning, it is the dawning of a bright, shiny, wondrous, clean, perfect day. 


And we fall face-down upon our sled, grab the handles with&nbsp;shaky hands, and&nbsp;are restored and renewed.&nbsp; We are officially in segment three: the descent. 


Beloved gravity will do the rest.&nbsp; Slowly, crunching...then quickly, now skittering...we gather speed and momentum and inertia and velocity...and we arrive, startlingly soon,&nbsp;at the bottom of the hill and find ourselves rocketing toward our future, snow spraying up all around us, ice crystals stinging our cheeks, laughter peeling all around.&nbsp; 


And like the shirtless, sledgehammer-wielding strongman at the summer fair, we are ready to&nbsp;slam forward&nbsp;into all the tomorrows that&nbsp;stretch out before us. 


I want to encourage you today: It will get easier.&nbsp; There is a top.&nbsp; There is another side.&nbsp; Even -- especially -- in the darkest moments of the darkest hours of the darkest days of the darkest seasons -- light shines on.&nbsp; It always will.&nbsp; It always has.&nbsp; That&#39;s the benevolent nature of light.&nbsp; It travels effortlessly and ceaselessly and swiftly across the darkest regions of the known and unknown universe to warm your skin. 


That&#39;s all there is to it.&nbsp; 


Your charge...indeed, the only toll for your journey is pure -- and simple: 


Believe 


and 


Keep Moving Forward 


God speed.

Decision Hill

Yesterday, Blockbuster <a href="http://www.marketnewsvideo.com/?id=200909Blockbuster091509&amp;mv=1&amp;start=&amp;rpp=">announced</a> they&#39;re likely to close 20% of their stores...approximately 960 in total. 


They intend to install 10,000 kiosks (like <a href="http://www.redbox.com/">Redbox</a>) around the country. 


Call me an idiot, but I think this is one of the worst ideas I&#39;ve heard in recent memory. 


If one wanted to revolutionize transportation at the turn of the 20th Century but insisted on keeping the horse...Henry Ford and countless others would have kept us in the stone age.&nbsp; But no, they realized there was a better way.&nbsp; And it wasn&#39;t ponies. 


Kiosks are more of the same. 


Hulu, Netflix, even public libraries understand this.&nbsp; Now that&#39;s saying something. 


The answer, Blockbuster, is not to perpetuate infrastructure.&nbsp; After all, Redbox already has over 15,000 kiosks.&nbsp; Why try to out-amazon Amazon or out-wal-mart Wal-Mart?&nbsp; No, no, no.&nbsp; That isn&#39;t the way forward. 


The way forward is to envision where the market is GOING and then BE THERE when it arrives. 


Think online, download, cloud computing, Kindle, iPhone apps...anything, please,&nbsp;other than&nbsp;more &#39;boxes on streetcorners.&#39; 


We don&#39;t need a better record, 8-track, cassette, or&nbsp;dvd.&nbsp;&nbsp;Au contraire.&nbsp; What we need is a more seamless, frictionless, infrastructure-lite pull-thru delivery paradigm that keeps us coming back for more...without getting out of the car, swiping a credit card, or carrying a box to and fro. 


What we need is what the FTP was to the&nbsp;five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy. 


Bring it.&nbsp; Please.&nbsp; And then some.

Lackluster Idea by Blockbuster

I&rsquo;m on an airplane now, straddling three cities in two days, and just wanted to share a few thoughts before they broke free like so many logs trapped in a tide pool. 


In the early 90s, I had the great fortune to serve as one of several facilitators for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_war_games">War Game</a> hosted by Kodak in New York.&nbsp; In attendance were executives from Hallmark, Wal-Mart, Apple, Sandia National Laboratories and, of course, Kodak.&nbsp; Former PepsiCo CEO (then Apple CEO) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sculley">John Sculley</a> was there, along with other key industry leaders and thinkers.&nbsp; 


The topic was futuring, and I remember like it was yesterday &ndash; the CEO of Kodak stood before this group of eighty luminaries and commented, almost offhandedly, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t envision the day when consumers won&rsquo;t want to hold a photograph in their hands.&rdquo; 


Ooops. 


I was stupefied.&nbsp; Even little &lsquo;ol me could see how wrongheaded this was, and I was a green outsider with nary three years&rsquo; experience.&nbsp; Granted, the digital era was just upon us &ndash; cell phones were still the size of shoe boxes and Polaroid photos were cool at parties, but nonetheless, the outlines of the future were clear enough &ndash; hence, the War Game. 


Fast-forward a decade. 


Down from 57,000 to 10,000 employees or so &ndash; with the photography market primarily digitized now &ndash; Kodak failed to realize they were in the &lsquo;memories&rsquo; business.&nbsp; They mistakenly believed they were in the &lsquo;photograph&rsquo; business.&nbsp; The 2009 demise of Kodachrome color film (a seventy-four year success) is representative of their tragic and disappointing fall. 


And the Ray-Ban that was once owned by Bausch &amp; Lomb failed to realize they were in the &lsquo;fashion&rsquo; business, mistakenly believing they were in the &lsquo;highly engineered eyewear&rsquo; business.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s why today, the Ray-Ban we all grew up with is now owned by&nbsp;Italian behemoth, Luxottica.&nbsp; (Oakley and the like cleaned RB&rsquo;s clock in the late 90s and Luxottica gobbled up B&amp;L&rsquo;s namesake for a song.&nbsp; But hey, maybe that&rsquo;s okay; it&rsquo;s easier to profit from salt-water solutions than try and manage unnecessarily complex, multinational eyewear&nbsp;manufacturing sites.)&nbsp; To add insult to injury, Luxottica has now purchased&nbsp;Oakley, too, making the Italian&nbsp;manufacturer the largest eyewear company in the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 


By the way,&nbsp;Avon and Mary Kay are not in the &lsquo;cosmetics&rsquo; business, they are in the &lsquo;hope&rsquo; business.&nbsp; As long as they remember this, all the better.&nbsp; 


I see at the magazine stand the latest Fast Company issue noting that Nokia (who entirely upended Motorola by providing digital phones when analog was all the rage) is realizing they should be a &lsquo;media&rsquo; company, not a cellular phone manufacturer. 


Bingo.&nbsp; Welcome to the epiphany, guys.&nbsp; Enjoy competing with Apple, who realized this long ago.&nbsp; And with NBC/Universal/Hulu and Google and Microsoft/Yahoo! and so many others who also populate the field.&nbsp; It will be tough slogging for all players.&nbsp; But it&rsquo;s a game worth playing and one that must be played in order to survive. 


I wonder who &ndash; which company &ndash; &lsquo;known&rsquo; or &lsquo;unknown&rsquo; will upend the media market for the next decade.... 


There are few, if any sanctuaries from the battles; no tide pools for organizations who want a breather. 


So on and on it goes &ndash; organizations realizing more and more what business they should be in, or actually are in. 


I wonder where Amtrak would be if, decades ago, they had thought to be in the &lsquo;transportation&rsquo; business rather than the &lsquo;railroad&rsquo; business.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 


Whether you are the Girl Scouts of America, the University of Michigan, NASCAR, or the Catholic Church &ndash; you better know what &lsquo;business&rsquo; you&rsquo;re in1.&nbsp; What do you produce?&nbsp; Whom do you serve?&nbsp; What do you provide?&nbsp; What (gag me with a spoon) is your &lsquo;value proposition?&rsquo;&nbsp; 


Whether&nbsp;we like the jargon or not, we avoid the question(s) at our own peril. 


(And don&rsquo;t bother being the world&rsquo;s best buggy-whip maker.&nbsp; That market&rsquo;s taken, and it&rsquo;s a limited one.) 


So how shall you proceed? 


As usual, start with the simplest question: &ldquo;If we went away, who loses what?&rdquo; 


Whether your organization is a synagogue, a national park, or the world&rsquo;s best widget manufacturer, all must &lsquo;serve some purpose&rsquo; and &lsquo;answer some calling&rsquo; and &lsquo;provide some value.&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; Consider the market, unmet or unarticulated consumer/client/customer needs, and what benefit(s) you can provide in effective, efficient, unique, meaningful, or advantageously sustainable ways. 


Because remember, the day will come when people won&rsquo;t need to hold a photograph in their hands and, when it does, it&rsquo;d be nice to know you&rsquo;re still in the picture. 


 
1Relax &ndash; I don&rsquo;t mean this &lsquo;literally&rsquo; as in &ndash; &ldquo;Business&rdquo; with a capital B and &lsquo;for profit&rsquo; and all that.&nbsp; I just mean &ndash; know what you&rsquo;re doing and why and for whom.

The Opposite of Extinct

Among several others, I had a couple of specific, very interesting conversations in the past week (one with a CEO, the other with a researcher) that I thought I would pass along today.&nbsp; In both, the opportunities and challenges associated with innovation and commoditization arose. 


These&nbsp;visits were unrelated to one another, and days apart.&nbsp; But in both sittings, I was told, &quot;It&#39;s important for an organization to&nbsp;innovate more quickly than it is consumed from behind by its own commoditization.&quot; 


I just love that. 


We&#39;ve all heard this sentiment for years, but rarely so pithily.&nbsp; It is all the more important today, in this economy, as the desperate, shortsighted, or lazy&nbsp;are inclined to simply mimic whatever is working.&nbsp; I believe the evidence is everywhere... from car manufacturing to failed credit default swaps.&nbsp; Easy &#39;initial money,&#39; when predicated on a sandy foundation of mimicry and commoditization cannot survive the stresses of change, diluted profits, or shifting consumer desires. 


Here&#39;s to a more innovative America, and world. 


Create on!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Innovation & Commoditization

Like ants in a mound, we all sense the vibrations of impending change.
In particular, I am feeling in my bones, perhaps for the first time ever,&nbsp;bona fide (sorry for the pun) traction in the Green Movement. Similarly, I also sense the early tremors of a tectonic shift in Workplace Expectations in smaller, more nimble organizations.
The minority of "crackpots" are now becoming the mainstream, and with them... the trains are beginning to steam-up, rumble, and leave their respective stations. The 'get on board' or 'get left behind' decision-point is now becoming less theoretical and more tangible.
On the topic of the green movement, the media is dripping with books like The World Without Us, The Earth After Us, and The Last Human and 'thought-experiment-documentaries' like Life After People are springing up through the cracks of every sidewalk. Long overdue regulatory emissions and fuel economy standards have just passed, and now more and more grocery stores are charging a tax for consumers who use paper or plastic sacks at checkout. (Even Michael Moore has joined the proverbial greenpeace parade, with his latest entreaty on what should be created in the wake of GM's bankruptcy.&nbsp; <a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2009%2f6%2fGoodbyeGM%2cMichaelMoore.pdf">GoodbyeGM,MichaelMoore.pdf (15.29 kb)</a>)
On the topic of shifting workplace expectations, there is a trove of research -- two decades old now -- that has tracked and highlighted and forecasted all the varying expectations between 'generations' in the workplace. Given the recession and an average 40% loss in wealth among those with retirement plans, the 'social contract' between employees and employers is under assault and will result in a renegotiation of what truly matters.
I am running into more and more people, often in their sixties and seventies, who spent some fifty years away from their families to create a nest egg which barely remains. "Why?" is pretty much all they can ask. The 'deal' they made with the devil was a house of cards and, as the economy melts down, much of their 'earthly treasure' has become tragically diluted.
For all the parents who worked tirelessly, barely seeing their spouse or children in the mornings or evenings or on weekends, "why?" indeed. The then-logical, selfless, and sacrificial decision by these millions to create income as a means to secure financial and familial stability has been wholly undermined by a few reckless risk-takers in the most opulent buildings in NYC.
As a result of coming to terms with 'the casino sets the rules,' more and more employees are accepting that 'the house always wins.' And so, as Wall Street lands on featherbeds of bailout dollars and safety nets while Main Street shutters its windows and closes too many doors, individuals are taking stock and starting to reclaim what they can -- their lives -- for the benefit of their families and&nbsp;the sake of their own sanity.
I witnessed it just last night on <a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/17398">Charlie Rose as he interviewed Claire Shipman and Katty Kay</a> about their new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_6?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=womenomics&amp;sprefix=womeno">Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success</a>. In it, many startling admissions that, hitherto, would have been blasphemous. But in the harsh sunlight of 2009, many people will say, "Of course." Read it and decide for yourself, but I predict it will be one of a raft of such books to follow in coming months. Books about owning reality, speaking truth, and reclaiming one's life on her or his own terms.
I am also hearing and reading more and more about such things as ROWE, Results-Only Work Environment as espoused by <a href="https://www.gorowe.com/">CultureRx</a> and embraced by clients like BestBuy. This is a trend I have seen coming for years, and it goes hand-in-hand with expectations held by many Generation X-ers, Y-ers, and Millennials (20-somethings). Few within these generations will agree to be chained to a desk, tracked or monitored to within an inch of their life, or to serve as a cog within a large, cold machine. Most of them will commit to accomplish results and be accountable, but not in exchange for balance, community, or altruism. And most of them studied <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=george+orwell%2C+1984">George Orwell's 1984</a> as required reading&nbsp;somewhere in high school.&nbsp;
With all implosions and explosions, there is debris and fallout. And following forest fires, be they accidental or prescribed, there is regeneration and new life. New growth is the 'creative' that follows 'destruction.' What will the Recession of 2009+ yield? Only time will tell, but if the hairs on my arm are any indication, Bob Dylan's line was spot-on: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowin'_in_the_Wind">the answer, my friend,&nbsp;is blowin' in the wind.</a> People are questioning.&nbsp;
As is the case every hundred years or so, this will likely prove to be a season, nothing more. In time, the pendulum has a tendency to swing back.
But it is also possible that rather than a Season, we are dealing with a Genie or Pandora. And they, once out of the bottle, lamp, or box, prefer to stay out.
Either way, I'm sure the questions and changes are welcome. The way we worked throughout the Industrial Revolution is neither sustainable nor compatible with what is coming.&nbsp;
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, with new and fervent questions come better answers. And this, in the words of the "venerable" Martha Stewart, is a good thing.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; - Albert Einstein
&nbsp;
</blockquote>
&nbsp;

Creative Destruction

For those of you who were kind, curious,&nbsp;and committed enough to devour <a href="../../blog/post/the-redemption-of-an-angry-team">my last blog</a> in its entirety, today I am serving a tiny and tasty morsel for dessert.&nbsp;
This very morning, I had the most wonderful time attending a Professional Women's Networking Breakfast and sharing some ideas on the topic of Resilience.
Throughout, and particularly afterward, I was overwhelmed by their own resilience, positive spirit, degree of engagement, stories of inspiration, and general entrepreneurship and drive.&nbsp; These dynamic women&nbsp;are clearly tackling the world with a zest for life; the morning was absolutely buoyant.&nbsp; &nbsp;
One of the most common topics that arose in the 'post-presentation' dialogues was Purpose &amp; Calling.&nbsp; A number of the attendees inquired, "Where can I learn more about 'purpose' and 'calling?'&nbsp; I am personally at a crossroads, and eager to read and learn and discover more about myself and where I am destined to contribute, collaborate, and work."
In answer to this perennial question, I offer up the work of Richard Leider as a great "go to" resource.&nbsp; Dick is a best-selling author, executive educator, life coach, teacher, speaker, and counselor.&nbsp; His most well known books&nbsp;include&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Power-Purpose-Creating-Meaning-Your/dp/1576750213">The Power of Purpose</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Claiming-Your-Place-At-Fire/dp/1427088047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1242927399&amp;sr=1-1">Claiming Your Place at the Fire</a>,&nbsp;and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Repacking-Your-Bags-Sense-Purpose/dp/1567313698/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1242927399&amp;sr=1-7">Re-Packing Your Bags</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;He is a calm spirit in a blustery&nbsp;gale, a temperament which serves him&nbsp;well -- especially given his profession.&nbsp; I&nbsp;consider him one of the most pivotal mentors I ever had in my earliest years as I stared-down several&nbsp;proverbial 'forks in the road.'
If you&nbsp;have, are now, or ever do face your own 'fork in the road' moment, bookmark the following&nbsp;two resources.&nbsp; You'll be glad you did.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/13/ldrplus.html">Are You Deciding on Purpose?</a>&nbsp; (An easy, breezy interview from Fast Company Magazine)&nbsp;
<a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2009%2f5%2fPurpose%26theGoodLife.pdf">Purpose&amp;theGoodLife.pdf (1,016.52 kb)</a>&nbsp; (A rich, scholarly study on Money, Medicine, and Meaning as&nbsp;subsidized and published by MetLife)&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Two&nbsp;roads diverged in a yellow wood,</td>
<td><a title="1" name="1"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And sorry I could not travel both</td>
<td><a title="2" name="2"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And be one traveler, long I stood</td>
<td><a title="3" name="3"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And looked down one as far as I could</td>
<td><a title="4" name="4"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>To where it bent in the undergrowth;</td>
<td align="right" valign="top"><a title="5" name="5"></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Then took the other, as just as fair,</td>
<td><a title="6" name="6"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And having perhaps the better claim,</td>
<td><a title="7" name="7"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Because it was grassy and wanted wear;</td>
<td><a title="8" name="8"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Though as for that the passing there</td>
<td><a title="9" name="9"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Had worn them really about the same,</td>
<td align="right" valign="top"><a title="10" name="10"></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And both that morning equally lay</td>
<td><a title="11" name="11"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>In leaves no step had trodden black.</td>
<td><a title="12" name="12"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oh, I kept the first for another day!</td>
<td><a title="13" name="13"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Yet knowing how way leads on to way,</td>
<td><a title="14" name="14"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>I doubted if I should ever come back.</td>
<td align="right" valign="top"><a title="15" name="15"></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>I shall be telling this with a sigh</td>
<td><a title="16" name="16"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Somewhere ages and ages hence:</td>
<td><a title="17" name="17"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I&mdash;</td>
<td><a title="18" name="18"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>I took the one less traveled by,</td>
<td><a title="19" name="19"></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>And that has made all the difference.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;Robert Frost

Purpose, Meaning, and the Good Life

What a difference seven months make.
In October, as the unwinding of our world's economy became crystal clear, so many perceived it as 'temporary.' "The prey must make its way through the python, then all will be well in the end," they seemed to say.
And perhaps that is entirely true. 2010, 2011, 2012... I suppose things could return to 'normal' by then.
But I think not.
I think what's done is done, what was was, and we've entered a New World Order. I believe the 'unwinding' was, in fact, a re-calibrating.&nbsp;
I believe the waterline of the former market was, for all intents and purposes... former.&nbsp;And we may not see Dow Jones at 14,000+ for another generation. Call me a heretic, an idiot, or a doomsday-sourpuss-naysayer; I've been called worse. But I believe the snake oil salesmen who are selling fiction disguised as hope are unrealistically optimistic or altogether deceptive. (I see the difference as their 'knowledge' x their 'intent.')
I attended an economic conference several weeks ago, and ALL the economists were prophesying, "This will blow over in a few months. Q3 2009 will see a return to business as usual," guess-hypothesis-theory-lie. I'm sorry; I just don't buy it. While I fully understand FDR's lamentations about 'fear itself' and the need for positive psychology to lead the market, I believe it's time to come to terms with reality and adapt rather than hope for stable sand castles found primarily in Utopia.&nbsp;
I imagine the market as we knew it before --&nbsp;with easy loans,&nbsp;bottomless debt, and raging home sales --&nbsp;is a thing of the past.&nbsp;
Is the bottom near? Perhaps, though I agree with Warren Buffett's sentiment that we probably won't experience it until the Government stops reaching in and tweaking the knobs. At some point, probably where 'rescue' and 'reality' intersect, we will indeed experience a legitimate transition, but I don't think 'bottoming, leveling out, and climbing' are synomymous with 'back to business as usual.' (At least, not for everyone. One of the great ironies of this current economy is the disparity between the haves and have-nots. While many people and clients and states I interact with are STARVING, many others are THRIVING. On the one extreme I hear, "The sky is falling!" while on the other extreme I hear, "Crisis, what crisis? We have so much money we don't know where to spend it all!")
Some might argue that I am sounding a bit like Chicken Little, but I believe that history and conventional wisdom will reveal that I am among an unintentional chorus of Shepherd Boys who would rather be wrong. And by unintentional, I mean to say, "non-economic types" who wind up being in the majority and on the side of right, not because of knowledge, but because of intuition.&nbsp;
I believe we're entering an era of Business as Unusual or, said another way, The 'New' Economy is The Economy.
2,600 years ago, the Greek slave, Aesop, wrote well over 200 brief fables, and many of them specifically for children (though they apply to most everyone). Among them is The Shepherd Boy &amp; the Wolf, more commonly remembered as The Boy Who Cried Wolf.&nbsp;The theme of the story is best recalled in the final line of the fable: "Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth."
Only time will reveal whether the 'renowned and expert economists' are right (and Q3 2009 will reveal a miraculous, magical,&nbsp;and unheralded 'market bounce' that eventually leads us back to earlier Dow Jones health, employment, and worldwide productivity as before) or&nbsp;if those who said once and twice (without&nbsp;knowing why), "the world is changed for a generation" will be deemed right.
Again, I would&nbsp;prefer to be wrong.
At this point in life, most of us have endured one sort of surgery or another. I equate today's Shepherd Boys as those who scratch at our scar tissue. What was once sensitive and irritated (October 2008) is slowly becoming thick and numb (May 2009). The 'jump' in our step has faded a bit, we've ignored the alarms for too long, and many are awakening and coming to grips with a potentially new reality. A sense of, "Okay. Um. So, this REALLY isn't going away next month? It wasn't just a drill? All righty then, let's see... what shall I do now?"
History has an enviable way of efficiently and accurately sorting the misfits and malcontents from the rest. I know most of us would LOVE to see a return to a pre-9/11 or pre-2009 economic world order, but the hairs on the back of my neck just don't sense that coming anytime soon. Do yours?&nbsp;
Meanwhile, whether it's only a few years or an entire generation plus, I suppose we should return to our work, reprioritize, rebalance, and find ways to survive through and thrive within a minor economic winter. There is plenty of work to be done, there are many fields still lacking qualified applicants, and as Nature reminds us, life is binary. It's either 'find a way to Grow' time, or 'embrace the slumber that has no end' (e.g., die).&nbsp;
I elect to fight, as I'm sure you do, too. It's buckle-down time. Not for an illusory and fabled 'comeback' of lore, but in pursuit of creating a more sustainable future for our children, our customers, our constituents, and all those we hope will follow.
Onward. Perge. Semper fidelis. It's on. Let's roll. Bring it. Go time. All that jazz.