Leadership
The Egg and I
Ever wonder about the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s hard to escape the current media about eggs, salmonella outbreaks again! I confess that part of me is a chicken, more than a bit concerned about the eggs. Although the broadcasted data says my eggs are likely to be safe, the current outbreak is disturbing. Egg farmers everywhere are sharing the chilling thoughts of what fear can do to our buying behaviors. A bad egg amongst the good can spoil the lot. It’s not just about eggs, is it? So, what would we be willing to pay for the good eggs? I know all about the value of data in decision making, the power of an objective lens, the better understanding of what risk really means, how it improves performance, and that is all good. That is, in fact, good as long as we have evidence that the data is good, timely, and reflective of what we really need to know for good decisions. So, how do I make up my mind about the eggs, particularly when my grandkids want some “cheesy eggs”? Cooking them thoroughly is supposed to kill the microbial varmints, but the old, “just in case” whispers in. I’m making decisions with second hand information with a cost versus perceived risk imbalance. Does that happen with other decisions we make at home, work, or play? (The golf course counts here)
It’s complicated since good eggs look the same to me as bad ones. What I need to know is inside the shell, and I don’t have the tools or knowledge to check. Here’s the challenge. I only know that eggs are bad by the damage they’ve done to someone and if somehow the word gets out and if the media decides to share it and if I happened to catch the news. Those are lots of ifs. Someone has to crack the shell and eat the egg. I don’t have testing data on the carton, and food safety failures are nothing to ignore. The wonders of science and high tech supply chain systems make eggs plentiful and really cheap. I suppose that applies to lots of other stuff that’s really cheap. So if we were in the egg business, we would want our customers to enjoy our eggs safely, always safely, and come back and buy some more. A history of great safe eggs is important and I would want to make sure only good ones hit the skillet.
But, this is not really an egg problem; it’s a quality management problem. The golden rule of “thou shall not use your customer as your inspector,” has been broken. That’s a rule that is foundational to ethical business practices. When we make a sale, accept an order or sign a contract, we are in fact making a promise that our customer will get what they expect, based on either a standard, a contract, or what we advertise or put on our “boxes.” Accepting a specification is the same as making a promise, and those that don’t intend to keep it but still sell the “stuff” are “fibbers” as my grandkids might say, or something much uglier in our adult language. It’s a real problem in industries where all the suppliers make the same promises and claims.
So, how do we make promises to our customers? How do we keep them? Do we rely on customer failure data to know, or do we know that the likelihood of failure is unlikely? How unlikely? Do we need someone with a badge and a club looking over our shoulder or is our respect our customers, employees, and investors a big enough motivator? There is really no difference between eggs, or cars, or cough syrup, or toys, or the innumerable products and services we provide. A promise is a promise and when we break one and harm is done, it’s on our name and reputation.
• Do we know what we’ve promised, or more importantly, what our customers believe we’ve promised?
• Do we lead and manage from the big print or the fine print?
• When was the last time we checked our processes? Are they about always keeping the promises? To whom?
• When did we last evaluate how effective and efficient our controls are? How likely are we to keep the promise?
• How and when do we decide what is “good enough” for our customers?
• What evidence could we produce on demand that would support our promises and earn the trust of our customers?
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” Aristotle
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
It’s absolutely fascinating how much leverage going green has gained. It’s hard to miss the marketing, packaging, and commitments that continue to grow and show. Many of us make green choices daily, some bigger, some smaller, and some to feel better, all with positive impacts. My observations are that, in consumer goods, the visible focus is on producing “from recycled” materials or from producing from benign components or processes. But what about all the really big stuff we build, produce, or operate?
The globe is dotted with far too many closed facilities, done with their productive lives, some nasty, awaiting a future that may never look green. Nobody likes them and they serve as reminders and warnings for decision makers. It is easy to presume sinister capitalists or overzealous weapons producers as the blame, but it is hard to escape that it’s a lot about economics and prosecution of the national will and multiple interests. Economics is a bit like physics in that processes will frequently follow the paths of least resistance. Similarly, extraction and harvesting economies have denuded the landscape, inviting regulation and in some sectors and countries, restoration efforts, but not yet without irreversible consequences. Getting to green may require multiple generations and someone to pony up on the costs. There is no Utopia, and the noble natives of the planet Pandora exist only in fantasies; and illusions that these harmonious societies ever existed are unsupported history. It’s challenging, because what got us here may eventually constrain us from getting there. What got us here was our capacity to solve problems and overcome obstacles, motivation notwithstanding. How we frame what are problems and opportunities drives important directional decisions.
After all, decisions are typically biased by the productive capability of what we make, build, or operate. What that means is that there is far more weight and attention given to the costs, effectiveness, and efficiencies of fabricating, constructing, and operating than to what happens at end-of-life. For lots of the big stuff, end-of-life is typically far into the future, messier to deal with, and makes the review and approval process more “difficult.” I’ve tested this hypothesis multiple times over many years, and the responses are consistent, end-of-life and decommissioning are not a big factor in the design discussions. Perhaps that is changing.
Over the last 50 years, some of the ugliness that we contend with as enterprises, governments, and consumers has to do with the direct costs and externalities ensuing from unplanned outcomes or effects at end-of-life. Granted, many plans and proposals have language addressing full life cycle costs, yet the evidence of subsequent actions have not aligned. A lens that I’ve found to be helpful is that what we get is precisely what our design, fabrication, and operation is supposed to give us. If it is not giving us that, then we have to investigate, the design fabrication and operation, where the errors or defects were generated that result in what we’re getting. It is as true for what we’re doing today as for what yet awaits us when we have stop or abandon the process. We’ve already designed, built, and operate with end-of life costs, to a good or poor degree.
The challenge ahead is not simple, simplistic, nor easy. Our economic systems create powerful forces and motivators. I really love the life that technology enables and don’t really want to give it up. I have many friends who build and operate some of the really big stuff and they are good, intelligent, highly principled, and ethical people. They care about the welfare of our world and their legacy as much as we do. The challenge is striking the balance between a more certain today and a sometimes very uncertain tomorrow. It gets really hard, when our positive economic rewards are about what we do in the present. They are immediate and positive, versus far into the future and negative. Which would you pick?
For visionaries, this creates an opportunity. The storms of growing public sentiment and distrust of some industries creates an awesome opportunity to design and differentiate with a smarter end-of-life offering. Smarter end-of-life creates value, reduces compliance burdens, fosters complementary lines of business, impacts investor perceptions, and can have a transformative effect on vision, values, and behaviors. For revisionists, a different family of motivators is often necessary. Carrots have longer lasting benefits than sticks.
Sometimes, the military does this well. The really good conquest and occupation strategies are done and executed against a well developed exit strategy. Forethought enables us to manage the present from the future.
“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.” Sun Tzu
Who’s Not on Board?
Not that long ago, a major mobile phone carrier had an effective advertising campaign with a catchy slogan. Yet, I found their slogan troubling. It was troubling in that their banner, “We have fewer lost calls” left with me an impression that “we’re not as bad as the other guys” was written with the intent to establish a positive differentiator of quality and reliability. My reaction then was that the goal was to be the best of the bad, or cream of the crap. Upon reflection, I realized that the problem was with me, and in fact, the carrier’s message was the right one. This carrier was actually speaking the language of quality, not of spin (as I confess was my reaction). Quality is measured by the likelihood of failure against a specification. In their case, our case, it was a message that what mattered to the customer was continuity of service and there is a probability that that service will be interrupted, and the best do it fewer times. The carrier must have studied Dr. Noriaki Kano and realized that in some cases, the best can mean fewer defects, and failures against a basic requirement can only bring dissatisfaction. For the basic requirement of service availability, a service unavailability measure is the right metric and satisfaction is not achievable, that is, zero defects can bring only zero dissatisfaction.
This last week, we witnessed what appeared as truly bizarre behavior from Apple. The new flagship, the iPhone 4, has a troublesome performance problem with the reception. The very beautiful phone integrated the antenna into a smooth metal casing, creating a problem when the phone was held in a particular, albeit very normal, way. Some would argue that the decision process for the product launch suffered from an unhealthy bias wherein form trumped substance and engineering warnings. It’s saddening, coming from an exciting and innovative producer of form and substance. What was befuddling was the chairman’s response to the defects. It began with hubris with what appeared a dismissive tone that trivialized the problem …. Customers don’t know how to hold our phone properly, what’s all the fuss about; it’s the bad media at play. As the evidence mounted of the reception calamity and the web took over, sharing the data, the next stage of responsiveness focused on an attack on the competition, asserting that other smart phones shared the same problem. From here it sounds like it’s about “my” product and brand, not the customer pain. That strategy was a big boo-boo. Motorola, HTC, and RIM did not remain silent, each stating that their designs did obey the laws of physics and sound engineering, after all, customers wanted continuity of service.
Today’s connected world is a dangerous place to forget that respect for the customer and respect for the competition are essential for sustainability of brand value and economic goodwill, just ask Toyota. I’ve always loved Apple’s creativity in form and substance. I also believed that Toyota put the customer first. Funny how often bigger does not beget better. It’s called entropy, another engineering insight often forgotten.
On reflection, I wonder how much of the problem had to do with poor engineering and how much with a culture of “enforced optimism” or some variant of the “emperor’s new clothes?” The evidence to date on the catastrophic BP oil rig explosion and the subsequent environmental opening of Pandora’s Box seem to support the dangers of “enforced optimism” leadership behaviors.
How often does the “enforced optimism” show up in planning (pick any type), budget sessions, objectives, progress reviews and reports, investor sessions, group decision making, scheduling and commitment setting, …., other stuff?
Thoughts?
Oh, Can You See By the Dawn’s Early Light?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
So begins the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain signed by the United States Congress on July 4, 1776. We in the US, celebrate July 4th as Independence Day this weekend with festivities, fireworks, picnics and devotionals to those whose lives were dedicated and often taken to secure these unalienable rights. In fact, the words could serve as anthem to peoples all over the world as a never ending objective and pursuit.
The instrument declared states as the independent parties, and in doing so established, “that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”
The Declaration of Independence was a consequence of a people rebelling against abuses with no responsiveness to appeals or due recourse for resolution. It is interesting to recognize that the only activity specified that is specific to an individual is the right to establish commerce. The document enumerates abuses by the Crown and intolerable and unendurable behaviors and, not surprisingly, many can be traced to actions to serve commercial objectives, those of the Crown and to the detriment of the colonists. (It took a subsequent Constitution and Bill of Rights to establish governance.) But, to continue the thread, business strategies are in fact conquest strategies and occupation strategies, and governments align to these to different degrees. Political colonies have typically as occupation entities to be harvested.
The consequences of the boldness of the Declaration of Independence and subsequent execution have enabled many of us to pursue happiness, enjoy liberty, and create life with hope. Three important dimensions are forever present in my mind:
1. Declaration was followed by sacrifice and vigilance to earn the liberties and the responsibilities to sustain them. Declaring that we are or we will be better or great can warm the tummy for a bit, but it is execution and on-going management that makes it real. Projects exist to create processes and processes must manage to the objectives of the entities. This applies to governance of individuals, organizations, enterprises, societies, religious orders, groups, and nations.
2. As the world changes and our prosperities grow, our opportunities are a powerful magnet for others seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Although many believe that these rights come as a consequence of national versus global birth, perhaps through education or lack thereof, it is the right to earn them that effectively determines what we do and whether life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is achieved.
3. The first two create obligations and responsibilities, societal and commercial. Recognizing the unalienable rights do not come as a geographical or political birthright … not because of where we were born, but rather, because you were born is important, particularly if we are to be civil in our behaviors among our global community. We must not act in a way that denies the right to the pursuit of opportunity to earn happiness, personal or commercial, simply because we can at this point in time.
I cherish the opportunities life in the United States brings every day, and am grateful that my loved ones can pursue their own dreams. I honor and respect those that live and die daily to protect these opportunities and am ashamed of those that deny them to others, here or abroad.
Today, independence is more complex, perhaps because prosperity has redefined for many what the pursuit of happiness is or ought to be. Somehow, I find it is easier to find clarity in challenging times, and rewarding to reflect on the earned independence we enjoy and the responsibility to continue to earn and never deny.
Happy 4th!
We Trusted You!
Watching the US Senate Congressional hearings this week, I almost felt as if I were at the cinema watching a fictional drama. One of those movies where the villains were conspiring to wreak global havoc and the world was rescued by a heroic figure that brought it to light. I wish it were fiction, but alas, there were no heroes, and in fact, there may have been some villains indeed, and many of us can attest to the havoc wrought on the global economy. Sadly, the villains were people who had the trust of many and that trust was abused. While this issue seems to cut across multiple arenas of betrayed trust, be they elected, ordained, or contracted, they all manifest tribal behavior. This behavior has a broad range of nuances, but a common gene is present, the gene that creates hubris and disrespect for those they were supposed to serve and protect. This betrayal of trust will bring on anger and wrath that will swing the hammer of cynicism and regulation, and that is a shameful consequence. It is a saddening consequence for the overwhelming numbers of good, principled, decent, serving individuals, be they legislators, priests, automakers, or bankers.
But the hearings this week were with the top of the Goldman Sachs house, and the anger it has unleashed has only begun to unfold. What we witnessed was tribal behavior, one with its own language, heroes, culture, and their own paradigms of what is right or wrong. I won’t use the word values because that word is often aligned with positive and ethical behavior, and it does not seem to fit what we observed. Tribal behavior is fascinating, particularly, if you can be a spectator rather than a participant. It is almost inescapable in organizations where cultures that emerged are shaped by organizational or functional objectives, recognition, rewards, and a sense of entity that breeds an entitled behavior. These inescapable affinities are so powerful that they can create intellectual inbreeding, powerful paradigms, and degenerative “we versus them behaviors.” When really bad, winners display hubris and disrespect for others, and losers retreat into denial, protectiveness, or nostalgia. Scary, isn’t it?
Maybe we’re at the cusp of a new era. Historically, sea changes can start just like what we may be witnessing. Some are called revolutions because the rate of change accelerates from the gradual movement from one set of parameters and behaviors to another. The current economic parameters are undeniably multipolar and there is the juxtaposed coexistence of strength and fragility. A thread unraveling in Greece or Spain can tug hard at our pessimism and constrain our appetite for opportunities. Overlay that multi-polarity and interconnected fragility with contempt and mistrust of those who should be trusted to advise and guide our investments, a retreat into investment shrinkage is not hard to imagine.
Years ago, Warren Buffett warned us that the complex instruments that had no value, but derived their price from other instruments and risk analyses, would eventually bring catastrophe, even without disreputable actions. The Goldman Sachs hearings demonstrated legally scripted double-speak, tribal arrogance, and a belief that anything goes, as long as cleverness trumps all. What was not evident was any sense of social responsibility or remorse for undeniable harm done. History has not treated such behaviors with forgiveness.
As we look ahead, what about our organizations?
• Do our customers trust us?
• Do we earn that trust?
• How do we make decisions that have social or societal consequences?
• How do we strike a balance between principles and profits, growth and damage, today and tomorrow, or financial rewards and ethical responsibilities?
• Are our values clear to our employees, customers, and communities? Would an impartial observer conclude likewise?
• How much regulation have we earned? At what cost?
Thoughts?
How Did You Get So Ubiquitous?
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill, House of Commons, August 20, 1940. Many recognized this as the timeless phrase describing the valiant effort by the British Royal Air Force Fighter Command during August 18th, 1940. It has come to represent the Battle of Britain and lives among the legendary victories, Agincourt, Trafalgar, and Waterloo. The Battle of Britain was very different, strategically, tactically, and operationally. The Battle of Britain developed a fascinating strategic application that becomes ever more relevant, Strategic Ubiquity.
Under the genius of Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding, the RAF Fighter Command overcame overwhelming odds against the behemoth German air forces. Dowding did so through technology, stealth, organization, managing awareness, resource dispatching, and mostly agility. I will leave the details to those willing to invest in further reading as many hundreds of books abound. The principle of Strategic Ubiquity manifested the ability to “be everywhere” with much fewer resources than thought possible. The strategy also generated a world class pull system for delivering aircraft long before the Japanese could spell Deming or develop what we apply as Lean. Again, this is a different tickler for the curious. This strategy incorporated leveraging the agile integration of cross-functionality and achieved measurable synergy, one plus one equals three; even more for the curious …
At this time in military history, great powers (military or commercial) relied on quantity, power, and mass as a strategic hammer with which to overcome the opposition. More, everywhere as deployed resources, that could battle it out until consumption won out or size scared the opposition into submission. RAF Fighter Command under Dowding harnessed the power of more information, deployed to the right people, specific to the purpose of the specific people, and in time to act. It was “predict and prevent” rather than “detect and correct.” Downing’s resources, his “chicks”, always feigned to be too few, but were able to be where they were needed, when needed, with as close to real time data and awareness as then unimaginable. The few, through agility, were able to execute against the many. The strategy did not completely lift Clausewitz’s “fog of war”, but did much to see through it. It was not a software thing, it was a process thing. It was an agile thing…
Strategic Ubiquity is something very doable. With the right focus, discipline, and follow-though, the leverage created by technology can be game changing. There is a way to think about it, plan it, deploy it, measure it, and sustain it.
Agility is much more than an athletic term and ubiquity is more than being everywhere. Strategic Ubiquity is about being at the frontiers where and when the business battles are fought, not everywhere where battles may be fought. A few (300) agile Spartans along with a few thousand supporting Greek city-states in the Second Persian War picked the straits of Thermopylae for good reason. Agility put the right resources with the right focus, discipline, follow through and technology to achieve a strategic objective of delay. It was not Strategic Ubiquity circa 550 BC, but Dowding’s Fighter Command made it happen in the summer of 1940.
Today’s dynamic business environment demands capability on multiple fronts and challenges how to plan, build capability, and then have sufficient agility to win. It’s harder and too expensive to be big enough to be everywhere. Garrisons, be they business or military are places where waste is born and bred.
‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’ Sun Tzu
No Way!
Sherlock Holmes
How quickly do we label something as “impossible” when evaluating risks, alternatives, or focus for investigation? Does our frame of reference filter out what we can’t imagine or refuse to believe? How much does the race to conclude cost us when we’re under the gun? How much does personal belief, level of ignorance, or cerebral capability affect our judgment? Sadly, even when all that stuff is working well, what makes us forget while under duress? After the recent earthquake, Why didn’t the Chilean navy issue a tsunami warning that cost so many lives, even when they had a plan and process to do so?
I don’t know for certain, but I am certain that there are lots that I don’t know. In fact, history seems to make the most assertive comments about what is impossible sound like idiocy. “Everything that can be invented has been invented,” said Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. A similar conclusion was uttered in 1843 by a predecessor at the Patent Office. A search on Google will unearth a myriad of similar comments including “640K ought to be enough for anybody” from Bill Gates.
Last year online sales surpassed in-store sales on Black Friday (the in-store sale make or break day). Does anybody recall all the chatter about online sales would never work because they were insecure? I’m glad that Jeff Bezos at Amazon and Pierre Omydar of eBay were steadfast in pushing forward. In-house IT departments have from time to time refused to support technologies that they did not sanction, a behavior that often lags the speed of business (Twenty years ago we ignored the scare tactic and pressed forward installing Word rather than continue to suffer with the less perfect WordPerfect). Some caution is warranted, careful evaluation is appropriate, but functional preferences are not. Technology seems to outpace most things we know and we can be easily scared by the clever. Anyone recall the go to market strategy of a very big blue mainframe computer maker focused on scaring customers away from moving to distributed computing (pc’s)?
Nothing in history, even the industrial revolution, comes close to the rate of change we currently experience, nor the way technology is changing everything we do, and much of what can be done for us or to us. For the most part, the world is better for it, Thoreau lovers notwithstanding. Technology is redefining how we will succeed or not and it does so faster than we can imagine. Maybe we need to get better at imagining? Or perhaps relax the jump to pull out the “that’s impossible” spray paint. A great habit to lose is reaching into the nostalgia bag and saying, “We tried that before and it won’t work here ….”Because it certainly won’t work as long as we believe that past failures define our current capability or possibilities.
Next time I hear No Way, I might imagine, Way!
Thoughts?
Excuse Me, I’m Having a Eureka Moment
Years ago a colleague asked me to define what a successful consultant, coach, or mentor does to help their client. “Hmmm”, I thought about the question, “we work in a process of managing epiphanies! We help others discover what is, perhaps has always been, but not necessarily in focus”. It certainly was not original thought, but I believe that it is nonetheless true, and we owe much of that to Socrates. Socrates, a Greek philosopher, mentor of Plato, helped others to find truth, or fallacy in thought by asking great questions. Great answers pick the destination and great questions lead to discovery.
For many, asking great questions is a learned habit, one that may require overcoming other really strong habits. One of the strongest habits to break is our desire to have good answers. If we have great answers, then better. If you’re successful and you’ve grown in responsibilities over time, having great answers has been important. Having great answers is a way to demonstrate capability, competence, smarts, knowledge, foresight, preparation, diligence, initiative… lots and lots of favorable traits. In fact, people who work for you know that they can always count on you to have a great answer. Is that good? Does that increase or decrease the options, degrees of freedom, genius contribution, ownership, and fulfillment? How about the overall quality of answers? How do we know?
“We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.” Blaise Pascal
Is it possible that the more others count on our answers, the less likely they will come up with good ones themselves. Is that a good thing? Let’s start with some data gathering (on ourselves, our leaders, and our team members.)
- What are our answers given versus questions asked ratios?
- Are we sounding boards or decision buttons?
- Do we welcome better answers or do we see them as competition?
- How often do folks wait on our answer before executing?
- How well prepared are our folks for great questions?
- How often do we hear “I understand or I got it” versus “Eureka”?
What is critical thinking? How do people gain critical thinking capability? How is that different than always knowing the answer? Which is inductive thinking and which is deductive thinking? If you could only pick one, which would you choose to have in changing times?
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” Socrates
Trident in the Storm
“There is opportunity in every storm”, is a phrase I often use. Storms disrupt, are not completely predictable, and affect many of us simultaneously and uniquely, since there is only one of each of us and the effects to us are different than for any other. We experience storms directly and indirectly. In all cases we get outcomes, some that are not evident, need to develop, and then emerge. Some are awful and some are wonderful, for businesses, enterprises, families, people, societies, economies, lots more.
The English benefited greatly when the Spanish Armada was destroyed in a storm, none too soon since attack was imminent. Winds from a storm and great strategy enabled the Athenian fleet to destroy the Persians during the Battle of Salamis in the second Persian Wars (that’s the one that involved the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae …) The outcomes from each have profound effects on what the world is today and even the fact that you’re reading this at all and specifically in English. Storms, opportunities and outcomes and inextricably linked with an every shifting mix of deterministic and random effects. What we do before, during and after these storms will drive outcomes, just like what others do create outcomes that we experience. Inaction and action drive outcomes. Spectators to a storm are impacted, but perhaps with a lesser influence on opportunities.
For many of us the economic storms of the last 18 months have created havoc, redirection, disorientation, and many positive opportunities as well. We’ve learned much about ourselves and even more about others we know and many we’ve trusted. Disappointments may make us wiser and wisdom may make us wealthier in work and life choices. At our shop, we have taken the linkage between storms and opportunities to heart and action. We are delighted to announce that our enterprise, Trident Leverage, is continuing its growth and is now Trident Leverage Group. We are now a full partnership of Kevin Bazinet, Dave Dippre, and me as the Managing Partners. With our growing consulting and business development team, we are excitedly addressing the opportunities that only these storms could have provided.
We believe that our choices matter, particularly during storms. We’re excited at what’s ahead and invite you to join us in making 2010 the year where nightmares become dreams and dreams become reality.
Stuff and Stuffing
What really matters? If we judge by media coverage, I get discouraged that somehow our society loves news without depth and events without substance, writers without message and knowing who the next talk show host will be in a post Oprah world. But that’s not really what is going on, but rather what advertisers pay to entertain us. What really matters is defined by the choices we make and don’t make, the books we read and don’t read, the lives we change and don’t change, and what we give or keep for ourselves. Yes, the holidays are ahead and we’re focusing right now on ….? That’s the question for me. What does matter during the season ahead?
This week, there is lots of buzz about the upcoming Black Friday; the day people abandon civilized behavior for the sake of a deal. For many, it may be the only day that affordable gifts may be within reach, or shoving range. For merchants, the day that books move from red to black, maybe. It is the demarcation from the day of eating stuffing to the season for buying stuff.
Along the way, myths have become messages that have redefined values and priorities. Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday. The story is told that European settlers in Plymouth were starving from collective incompetence in farming and survival skills and were rescued by Squanto, a native who taught them farming and shared bounty. As a result, a big meal between cultures shared the bounty and thereafter, the big meal became part of our culture. The truth is closer to Squanto was a remnant of a large native society virtually eliminated by European borne diseases who remained near the area that once was his village. The real story is pretty sad, but today it represents an opportunity to gather and reflect on what is good about life and those we love. The myth redefined the message and that message is good.
There is another part of the message that did not make the Butterball on the table. There are a whole bunch of others where bounty does not exist and a growing number for whom the future looks dismal. Be it real hunger for food or emotional hunger for support, Thanksgiving may represent a day of emptiness rather than fulfillment. Black Friday may represent an opening to a holiday season fraught with memories of giving and pockets empty of opportunity.
Let’s remember friends, family, loved ones and the growing many for whom this season may be a dreaded darkness. Let’s find a way to reach out and define what and who we are. Happy Holidays.
