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Who Are Those Guys? (by Paul W. Smith)

 

 

There are two kinds of people in the world.

Statements like this always grab my attention.  Life is complicated enough, and people are to blame for it.  When all my struggles seem to be getting me nowhere, I can always fall back on Occam’s razor; the simplest possible solution will prevail until a better one replaces it.  So for now, there are two kinds of people…

There are people who work hard, and others who are lazy.   There are people who are driven by money, and those who are content with whatever they have.  Smart, dumb – scary, friendly – passive, assertive – considerate, selfish – there are people who care about me, and there are those who don’t.  The hardest thing, in any given situation, is to figure out which two types of people confront me, and to get them quickly into the right stereotypes. 

Since the economic crash of 2008, I have sensed a subtle shift in the way people talk about their jobs.  Whether the conversation is about a current job or a former one, this shift is always apparent.  One name keeps coming up - “they”.  From what I can tell, “they” are dumb, scary, assertive and selfish.  “They” seem to have an agenda, and it is not a caring one.  When bad things happen, “they” get the blame.  After hearing this so many times, I can’t help but wonder who these guys are. 

Who’s In Charge Here? (and Why?) (by Paul W. Smith)

This holiday season, my family and I watched the movie Horrible Bosses.  The film features Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, and Jennifer Aniston in three distinctly different incarnations of the title role.  I last saw Farrell as the easy-going country singing star Tommy Sweet in Crazy Heart, and Aniston has had a girl-next-door role in most of the chick-flicks I have been subjected to.  To say that they push their acting talents in a different direction (in Aniston’s case, WAY different) is an understatement. 

Kevin Spacey portrays a more traditional caricature of the tyrannical, unscrupulous, totally self-promoting executive.  While the other two horrible boss characters are pure entertainment, Spacey’s Dave Harken will surely tweak many sensitive nerves.

The topic of leadership in general, both for the leaders and the led, is a relevant one in an age where we seem to have dug ourselves a very deep fox hole, and are struggling to crawl out.  Leadership can be a difficult quality to grasp.

All You Need Is This (by Paul W. Smith)

We are musicians, you and I. 

From the moment of our very first breath, we have been playing our song.   Some of us start out a bit out of tune, but eventually find our pitch.  Others will command attention from the first downbeat.  We will create hooks, rhymes, and catchy tunelets that others cannot get out of their heads as they ride the subway or mow the lawn.  Nothing will keep us from playing our music.

In the 16^th – 19^th centuries, our English ancestors spent much of their lives singing.  The English Broadside Ballads, as they are now known, were inexpensive, widely distributed sheets, telling tales of love, sex, politics and tragedy.  They were meant to be sung, and people did just that.  They sang at work, at the pub, while wandering around in public, and at home with their families.  Music was everywhere; it was an integral part of life, an expression of what was on people’s minds and hearts as they went about their lives.

Hundreds of years have passed, and we are still making our music.  These days we walk around with wires dangling from our ears, mumbling along with a tune inside our own private space.   Once upon a time we wandered through life with a song in our hearts, now it is in our NiCad-fueled, cloud-connected, sleek-smooth personal digital devices.  Technology has bonded with our souls in a perverse, primal way….

Busy Intersections (by Paul W. Smith)

In an all-too-familiar scene, a group of engineers sits around a conference table.  At one end of the room, a single presenter stands and flips through a mind-numbing deck of PowerPoint slides.  As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that an unforeseen problem has emerged.  The line has stopped, production has halted, quarterly revenue is at risk and stomachs clench in unison as raises, bonuses and even job security appear to be slipping away. 

Those present have been chosen for their training and experience in the appropriate, related disciplines - manufacturing, test, design, supplier quality – all are properly represented.  A few six-sigma black belts are sprinkled in for good measure.  As the slides flash by on the screen, each and every expert is quietly reviewing the data, comparing them with their own knowledge and experience, and creating associations between matching factoids.  Before the presenter has finished, everyone has the story neatly lined up alongside a past experience for which they know the solution.

The Next Great Thing (by Paul W. Smith)

 “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” (Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office).

The authenticity of this apocryphal quote is still debated; it has been traced back as far as an 1899 edition of Punch .  Whether the humor magazine originated the joke, or was mocking Mr. Duell, remains a mystery.  Either way, there is always a portion of the population that believes the supply of available great new ideas is dwindling.

In the current economic malaise, business folk everywhere are searching for that next great idea. CTO’s are frantically scheduling technological breakthroughs, the juice for the revenue forecast.  Meanwhile, pundits speculate on whether America has lost its innovative edge.

Don’t Get Left Behind! (by Paul W. Smith)

 

 

“CAUTION!  Moving walk is coming to an end...”  My kids know this by heart, and recite it right along with the mechanical voice every time we pass through Denver International Airport.  The problem is that the moving walkway is never going to end….

August 6 would have been Lucy’s 100^th birthday.  She spent 20 years in Hollywood as an unknown, auditioning but failing to get the part of Scarlet O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind.” At the age of 40 she finally hit it big with the debut of “I Love Lucy” in 1951.  She was the first woman to own her own film studio (Desilu), producing such TV favorites as Star Trek and Mission Impossible.  Lucy is one of the most talented comedians to ever inhabit the planet; if you are feeling blue, ditch the diazepam, pitch the Prozac, and watch a few old Lucy episodes.

“The Chocolate Factory” is one of the funniest television skits ever.  Initially, things on the factory line are going just fine, and Lucy and Ethel are feeling pretty confident.  As the pace begins to quicken, they panic, finding various ways to fool the boss and avoid being fired.  Just as the ruse of eating surplus chocolates (or hiding them in their hats) seems to have worked, the boss speeds up the pace.  No matter how fast they work, or what tricks they employ, there is no way that the girls will ever keep up with the system.  They are doomed to fall behind.

Gone with the Tide (by Paul W. Smith)

 

 

My family and I recently returned from a two week vacation in Spain, where we explored some of the charming small towns along the Costa del Sol.  One of the must-see destinations was the Museo Picasso in the Andalucian city of Malaga.  Although I confess that I still don’t “get” Picasso, there was an unmistakable aura of historical importance in each of the many gallery rooms.  Great art is like a great brand, I concluded; it is unique, unmistakable and stands the test of time. You don’t need an art degree to tell the difference between a Picasso and a Monet. 

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”  The golden arches, the Nike swoosh, that mysterious circular green siren on Starbucks cups – each connects us instantly with the unique identity of its owner.  We have come a long way from the days when a brand was a burn-scar to help us separate our cattle. 

I am old enough to remember the days when the only requirement for launching a job search was an impressive resume.  I am told that people actually studied these documents, and even made hiring decisions based on things like experience and education.  Today, serious job seekers work with a career coach, who will exhort them to “Build your brand”.  This brand is more or less unrelated to the person described in the resume, which no one reads anyway.  The implication is this; there is a completely separate existence between the public you that is being marketed, and the real, private you. 

It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This (by Paul W. Smith)

 

From time to time throughout my life, I have released a deep sigh and muttered softly, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”  Holding my newborn child for the very first time, being Phinally Done with graduate school, or sipping a great Pinot on a Maui beach – these are a few that stand out.  The fact that these moments are somewhat rare does not mean that I am an unhappy person.  Without the valleys and the plains, there could be no peaks.  I somehow innately believe that the lesser times will pass, and the great, life-validating moments will return.

The real power of that title phrase, however, depends a great deal on what you happen to be doing at the time it is spoken.  The feeling that things can’t get any better can also be the first step of a descent into despair. 

In the 1997 film “As Good as It Gets”, Melvin (Jack Nicholson) is a misanthropic, germophobic OCD sufferer who lives in New York City and writes best-selling novels.  When a confluence of life events puts him into an emotional tailspin, he rushes to his psychiatrist, only to be tossed out for lack of an appointment.  As he exits the waiting room, he turns to the other patients and says “What if this is as good as it gets?”

The Solution to Everything (by Paul W. Smith)

 

In the 1991 film City Slickers, Mitch (Billy Crystal) is a man struggling with a midlife crisis and Curly (Jack Palance) leads a cattle drive/vacation where Mitch seeks renewal and purpose.  As they ride side by side Curly, a tough, taciturn man, turns philosophical…

Curly:   "You know what the secret of life is?"
Mitch:   "No, what?"
Curly (holding up a single index finger):   "This."
Mitch:   "Your finger?"
Curly:   "One thing.   Just one thing.   You stick to that, and everything else don't mean sh#*!"
Mitch:   "That's great, but what's the one thing?"
Curly:   "That's what you've got to figure out."

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, protagonist Arthur Dent learns of a race of hyper-intelligent beings who built a computer called Deep Thought.   This machine’s sole purpose, which it has been working on for millions of years, is to compute the answer to the “ultimate question” of life. After much buildup, the answer is finally revealed to be 42.  Deep Thought next predicts that another more powerful computer will be built to calculate the question.

You could mention Albert Einstein and the Unified Field Theory at a cocktail party, or you could achieve the same effect by wearing a propeller beanie with the word “Geek” printed on the front.  A few people can connect the word “Einstein” with “general relativity”, but most will go no further than “genius”.  In the same year that my mother was giving birth to her only child, Einstein described his unified field theory in a Scientific American article.

From March Madness to April Apathy (by Paul W. Smith)

 

 

Winning isn’t everything.  It’s the only thing.

Whether our team routs the opponent, or pulls off a miraculous, last-second buzzer-beater, we are captivated by the spectacle, and giddy with vicarious endorphins.  But there is a subtext, one with a more profound, widespread impact on our lives, which is generally given scant attention.  I invite you to join me in a different perspective…

It is November 10, 1982 and Stanford leads Cal 20-19 with four seconds left in their annual football classic.  What ensues after Stanford kicks off is legend; simply typing "The Play" into You Tube will show it at the top of the list.  Cal was forever branded as the archetypal winner that America loves, but as you watch the video, pay attention to the white uniformed Stanford players (at around 38 sec). 

Sports fans and athletes alike know the feeling well.  It is a change as predictable as the seasons, following the last game of the World Series, the final play of the Super Bowl, the buzzer that introduces us to a new NCAA basketball champion.  After a few somber, token interviews with the losers, the media spotlight swings quickly to the clouds of confetti, the high fives, and the winning players talking excitedly about how they wanted it so much more than their opponents.