The Metaphysics of Work

I didn't know until someone pointed it out, but it seems Hugh over at Gaping Void and yours truly are channeling each other. Here's Hugh...

I said in The Hughtrain that people are becoming more spiritually more demanding. And they want products that better reflect this.

Which means your brand will have to do a much more clever job of articulating all the "good stuff": Values. Purpose. Belief. Integrity. Compassion etc.

Sadly for the typical Madison Avenue ad agency, this stuff is not the preferred currency. They prefer to go with what they know best: Vanity. Greed. Fear. Lust. Paranoia etc.

We'll see how much longer they can get away with it.

Nice choice of lexicon. And no, not too much longer, Hugh. The screech and flourish about morality and values of the 2004 election was an odd, refractive example of the coming train wreck.

It's not that values don't or won't matter. They will, exponentially so, as our lives grow more electronically connected, yet simultaneously sidestepping and highlighting, not eliminating, the need for that vital social-animal leftover: physical proximity. No. Values have weight, it's simply that the conversation nationally is about as satisfying as the ones that we engage in commercially, professionaly, 9 to 5: They have all the traction of snail snot. As I posted in his comments:

Hope or Fear?
Joy or Jealousy?

Making the former requires humans, philosophers. The latter, robots and technicians. Robots are easier to calibrate, hence their appeal but also easier to copy, hence their weakness. Yes, a clash of Ideals and of measurement systems indeed. Buckle up.

Geez, have I been clearing brush for the Hughtrain all this time? Clang, clang, clang went the trolley...

Then I tagged this link just to tweak Hugh's revelation a bit:



If you're a regular reader you may have seen reference to the above table from time to time. It's part of a handy alphabet we built at our little idea manufactory to aid in the search for strategy and solutions for businesses that people won't easily forget, or shun. Nor want to.

It was born out of hairpulling frustration.

As a Creative Director, often on the hook for reviving challenged brands or ones fast-turning irrelevant, I'd come to see that all the marketing buzzwords slung at me by brand managers, bosses and what-not were meaningless. They may have mattered for 15 minues in 1985 but, now, nobody cared. Branders were really spraypainters and spacklers. Uniquely self-organizing things like markets were victims of modernity and of the measurers that modernity births. Truly weird, because the most righteous capitalists and free marketeers will rail for the unimpeded flow of capital and ideas, for "truly free markets," and then... they'll proudly show you an org chart of their outfit that would give a socialist morning wood. The suggestion of market forces at play, of an "invisible hand" allowed to work, within their little kingdom would elicit cries of " We can't do that! It would be anarchy!"

It's funny and tragic at the same time. Funny because St Augustine is said to have mumbled a similar strain once upon a time: "Give me chastity and sobriety, just not yet."

And there you have it. Two mindsets, each looking for connection and consistency, but tangled up in their words and frames of reference.

The failures and the numbers proved it. The cries for "Different!" were met with, "Ohh, not that different." Real difference (ironically, as in, closer to true and meaningful) made folk uncomfortable. Not personally, mind you. We all had those kinds of deeper conversations with our friends and co-workers over coffee all the time. Hey, we're not the robots mentioned above. No. It was in mixed company--bosses and employees, or between marketers and consumers--that we got scared of our selves and our feelings. And of our anxiety over, pardon the term Hugh, the Gaping Void. So, we faked it. And we kept doing, saying and hearing the same things over and over again.

There had to be a better way, sed I. No, actually what I said, or really, what me and a couple of partners said was, "WTF?"

Hey, it was the turn of a century--what better symbolism for exploration and expletives? So off I went, digging through old books and buying new ones. Talking to marketers, ministers, medics and moms. I culled a good 15 years worth of tattered notes from client projects both failed and successful, and added scads more.

And a pattern evolved. Whether I was talking to HR folks or wrench turners, CEOs or CSRs, happy customers or pissed off ones, there was a bit of harmonic convergence happening.

Conversations about how many bags of groceries had to fit into the trunk of hypothetical Mini-van X-100 evolved into conversations about Intrinsic Goods. They turned into how this car "made me feel like a better mom," how this $1000 Generator "makes me feel more able as a husband and father." Or, not. How a Daytimer® Brand planner made some people feel "taller" when others couldn't care less. Something wacky happening here. A nursing staff related their interaction and experiences of their world with the same street lingo of a Crip or a Blood: It's about respect. Insults linger. Get out of my way. Keep it real.

Whoa. Nurses looking for their "props"?

And why not? Hey, nurses are people too. People looking for self-regard, self- and group affirmation. People who get real mad at folks who pee in their corn flakes, rain on their parade; at those who stifle their righteous search for growth and individuation.

Duh! They wanted to be "A bigger better me." Just like you and me. They had a mental statue they carted around in their heads and hearts, an idealized view of who they ought to be.

It was crazy. Suburban moms and high-rise executives, forklift drivers and suicide hotline volunteer--they all had a chip on their shoulders: Something, some one, some entity was getting in their way. They couldn't see it, necessarily. They all had perfectly rational answers for why they filled the role they did, what its defining social and professional requirements were. And they had their pat answers handy. They knew their role. They weren't so handy at locating what mattered to them, what motivated their identity--that "bigger, better me." Their identity--why they voted Republican or Democrat, hated Macintosh or Windows, loved Survivor or 60 Minutes or Anchor Steam Beer or Wrangler Jeans--that was a mystery to them once you got past the boilerplate answers. They were mysteries to themselves. But, when you hit it--when they got it--watch out.

Now that I've probably completely lost you, an attempt at clarity from last year's series on Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand...

Why is “value” important and what is it?

Who can’t agree that “value” as a concept is central to growing our businesses—capturing market share, improving margins. But what the heck is “value”? But how can such a subjective concept be so central to our economic success, and yet so misunderstood and so difficult to replicate?

If you want a useable answer, don’t ask an economist. Go find a philosopher.

Seriously. Find a philosopher, perhaps one familiar with Immanuel Kant, whose explanations helped me actually get a grasp of what I intuitively always knew, but could never explain without seeming like a blithering idiot.

The key to understanding is, as it turns out, intuitively simple. It just requires us to drop our spreadsheets for a while and get abstract—to use that which causes us, you and me, to feel good about ourselves. And just as night follows day, to recognize that bad coexists with good and how ignoring that fact only gives you half the answer.

First, let’s recognize that “Value” is a Good thing. Capital “G” good. Not a good thing like, “Wow, this chainsaw cuts really well, it’s a good chainsaw” That is a practical, utility-based sense of good. Lower case “g” good.

Okay, how many kinds of good are there? Just two for our purposes here.

An “Instrumental Good” is good for something. Like that chainsaw. It’s transient, it is “Good for today.” A better product, say an improved chainsaw with laser beams, may come along tomorrow which measurably diminishes the previous ones instrumental “good”-ness, its practical usefulness. For example, the Telegraph was once a huge Instrumental Good which long since lost it’s practical value.

An “Intrinsic Good” is always future-based and fixed in it’s worth. And that worth is very high. You might say, “it was a Good thing yesterday, and will be tomorrow and forever”. This kind of “Good” ( or value, or character, or trait, or virtue) is simply Good in-and-of-itself. You don’t argue with it, you can’t argue with it because it’s what you believe. It is part of who you are, and we very seldom argue successfully against our own values.

Love is this kind of Good. The same goes for Truth, Beauty, Justice, Compassion, etc.

Sounds fairly abstract doesn’t it? Well, let’s take that last one, Compassion, to illustrate how this seemingly high-minded worldview can be useful to businesses in search of understanding and advantage.

If you’ve ever sat on hold for 45 minutes to get a product problem resolved, only to be told” Sorry, can’t help you”, or “Not my department” you know the feeling that ensues: For most of us it goes beyond frustration into anger. For those times we’ve destroyed a day waiting for the cable guy, only to have him not show up at all, well that moves things into capital “A” type anger.

Why?

Because you’ve been worse than disrespected. You’ve been insulted. Someone has implicitly said, “Your needs are not important.” Your feelings are irrelevant, your humanity is taken away from you: nobody cares. The visceral response for many customers at this point could hardly be stronger if someone had called their mother nasty names. Now, if you’re not the recipient of this service nightmare you might be tempted to say “Hey, why so mad—it’s only cable TV, or a moldy loaf of bread, or….” The reason? Because this time, it’s not business, it’s personal. The kind of emotion involved here could be called an Intrinsic Bad. Anger is just that. We respond because our personal sense of justice has been abused. An Intrinsic Good shared by all, Justice, has been violated. It goes without saying that this cycle is not one we wish to see inflicted, never mind repeated, in our business operations.

Luckily, there’s an antidote and it has nothing to do with a barrage of memos, threats or incentive plans you can devise. It’s another Intrinsic Good: Compassion.

Yeah, I know: Huh? Stop for a minute and think of a time when someone offered you an unexpected kind gesture. Maybe they stopped to hold the door for you, or let you merge into traffic when nobody else would. Maybe they thought ahead for you, and you benefited, and you didn’t even have to ask. At those moments, the hair on the back of your neck stands up, doesn’t it? Physiologically speaking, endorphins in your brain trigger that feeling, that rush.

The cause for the good feeling? That’s Compassion talking. Someone has validated your sense of Justice and your Faith in your fellow humankind. (Yes, Faith is an Intrinsic Good.) Someone has recognized your needs, your value as a person: you merited someone else’s sincere interest and effort. And you really liked it.

Imagine that feeling harnessed in service of your efforts

Compassion is a big Intrinsic Good and its experience is common to all of us. It’s also the central element to one of the most dangerous or rewarding aspects of our business efforts: Service. Yet Compassion is nebulous, isn’t it? How do you measure the hair on the back of customers’ necks? Manage it? Mandate it?

Easy. Talk about it. Relate its relevance and power in real terms. Make it a central value of your organization. Not by mandating or formulizing it. That would be impossible. However, making it “happen” is not.

Talk about intrinsic goods like compassion and their place in your plans. You can incorporate them by shifting the language and expectations of what your company is about and how its members evaluate themselves. Remember what we said about skipping the economists? They’re really gonna hate this part: invite your people, all of them, to write company strategy and policy based on Intrinsic Goods. Have them craft a Shared Purpose that uncovers the things that can make their company, and their actions as employees, an intrinsic extension of their own personal ambitions and beliefs. The benefits are many, and you’ll be surprised to learn that, as a recent business book title goes, Pride means more than money* to your people. And, as you're guessing by now, work has a metaphysical vocabulary. Yeah, Faith does move mountains. But mostly because it inspires people to bring shovels, buckets, spoons and, even, to loan you their dump truck. Or, at least, rent it to you at cost.

The truth is, numbers are inherently “unsticky” as human motivators today. Even CFO Magazine is slagging off "best practices" as death senstences for innovation and growth. CIO magazine, via author Nick Carr is saying things like "Why IT doesn't matter." Anyone familiar with crusty Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy will inherently understand why this has been so for quite some time. Meaning is the real currency—for customers and employees alike, and things like Merit, Energy, Ambition, Truth, Purpose and Community count far more than TQM, ISO or 6-Sigma. The flavor of the month financial and management gimmicks are tools—transient Instrumental Goods—like that chainsaw or the Telegraph: They’re good today, and hairy goats tomorrow. We fall in love with them, then disregard each because, in the end, they ask and answer the wrong questions and rapidly lose their edge. They don't love us, and so we don't love them back.

How do they lose that edge? Where is the love? Well, since those tools promote immediate gain at the expense of human connection and those vital Intrinsic Goods, they end up asking for interest and energy we won’t commit fully because instrumental things can’t touch those affirmative values that say “I’m becoming a bigger, better me” by working for or trading with company XYZ.

Yes, tools and results matter. But as leaders we have to walk a fine line between execution and inspiration. We are not our tools. When we forget this we become one-dimensional, one-note and inert. That’s intrinsically Bad because employees and consumers can smell in-authenticity a mile off.

We’re in one of those phases right now: Profits are growing, job horizons are not; expedience rules and it’s making everybody antsy. Never fear, it’s not the first time. History proves that the Bad forces out the Good for a while, and the lesson is learned, forgotten and relearned, just as night does follow day. Out go Conglomerates, Junk Bonds, S&Ls, Andersen, Enron, Tyco and outsourcing, In come the Ethics Seminars and the articles about getting back to basics—doing well, by doing Good. Capital "G" good.

And capital "P," no longer only for Profit but, also, once again, for a Philosophy of the thing.

The only question is are you in, or out, Mr. Value Creator?