The narrative we run in our head is a choice.
It might or might not be based on objective reality and verified history. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a choice.
There are millions of ways we can remind ourselves about the events of our lives and the systems we live in. But in this moment (and the next) we’ll choose just one or two to rehearse and allow it to alter our decisions, outlook and interactions.
So the key question is simple:
Is it helping?
It’s clear that the story is a choice. You can change it. Not all at once, not easily, but of course, we change our focus. This takes effort, and it’s worthwhile.
And since we can change it, it’s a tool. If it’s not helping, we can change it.
200 years ago, Jeremy Bentham wrote a pamphlet on how we use words to tell ourselves stories. It’s archaic and dense, so few read it any longer. I asked Claude to give us a summary.
Integrity is the act of being in and of itself, from every angle.
As we see the bait-and-switch of the online networks and monopolists, it’s easy to imagine that nothing with integrity stays that way very long. The systems we support almost always end up trading a straightforward clarity about what they do for a facade that’s easy to fall into and hard to get out of.
Big businesses usually succumb to short-term compromises that corrupt the mission that built their brand in the first place.
The opportunity, then, is to find a career path that’s a whole. In calculus, the integral takes an infinite number of tiny slices and reassembles them into a coherent result. Each slice is infinitesimal, almost nothing on its own, yet the accumulation produces something real. We don’t need each moment to be grand. We need it to be of the same function. Showing up consistently in small ways that cohere.
In the movies, there’s plenty of stirring music when the hero has to make their choice. But in our lives, there isn’t a single moment. Instead, there are a million of them.
The way we show up will rarely be perfect. But perfect isn’t the point. Countless tiny decisions add up to a whole. It helps to be clear about the purpose of the work we’re here to do.
In the words of Hugh MacLeod, “The market for something to believe in is infinite.”
PS I just finished the first draft of my new book, THE KNOT, which will publish this September from Authors Equity. If you’re interested in pre-ordering the audiobook and being part of a small beta-test community, I’ve built a page explaining how you can join us. I’ll take this link down once the cohort is full.
A surprising amount of our time is spent sorting things to create value.
They sort the rotten cranberries from the good ones to ensure that the bag at the market is worth buying. And we sort the movies worth watching, the bargains worth pursuing and the news worth reading. Editors, gold miners and detectives are mostly in the sorting business.
Organized education uses sorting both as a motivation tool and a way to ensure that the graduates it produces meet spec.
Not only do we sort, we are often sorted.
Freelancers and job seekers are sorted into groups, and the best ones sort their potential clients and clients before wasting their time.
Lazy sorting is distracting, expensive and often toxic. Relying on false proxies, easily measured but irrelevant, is a common sorting trap.
And getting better at sorting might be the single most effective improvement we can make in our work. It’s not difficult to improve if we focus on it.
Sports analogies often let us down.
A colleague was explaining how measurement was difficult in many organizations, unlike a basketball game, where the time, the score and the stats are clear and obvious.
He said, “everybody wants to win.” Depending on how you define ‘win’, this is demonstrably untrue.
It seems that among professional athletes, everyone does want to win, all things being equal. But all things are rarely equal.
Perhaps a player wanted to celebrate with friends a day or two before the game instead of watching game tapes. Or maybe they wanted to think for a moment, just a moment, about a conflict they recently had, instead of being supernaturally focused. Or it could be that they’re protecting their body or their psyche rather than risking everything right now, in this particular moment.
Under the circumstances, committed professionals often choose to do their best to meet the specified goals. But the circumstances are rarely evenly distributed.
What everybody wants is what they want.
It helps to do the work to understand why things aren’t the same for each individual, and even better, how to create the conditions for culture and systems to make the goals you seek more likely to be met.
When we get smart about what we mean by winning, we can build a more resilient and aligned organization.
Precision requires producing the same results each time. Repeatable, measurable, dependable.
Accuracy means hitting the target.
The only way to consistently be accurate is to be precise.
But there are plenty of precision methods that don’t yield the most desired outcomes.
Simon Winchester’s book on precision is magnificent. As we enter a new age of automation, understanding the thrills and costs of previous revolutions adds a useful perspective.
And you’ll learn about the person who invented shoe sizes as well as the time Queen Victoria hit a bullseye with a rifle.
The world we live in is recent, and was created by a revolution in precision. We’re still working on accuracy.
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