Like Hammers

merlin:

Perhaps, a final word on FSM.

Excerpted from an email responding to a very nice person who makes a lovely-looking writing app.

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Economic dags’

Too many organisations have inbuilt ecosystems of people built around waste and inefficiency, people with mouths to feed and bills to pay, people whose self interest is served by perpetuating the waste and inefficiency, or just simply by perpetuating the problem they’re their to solve.

The incumbent ecosystem will rise up when challenged and seek to prevent the eradication of the waste and inefficiency because their comfortable livelihoods rely on the status quo being maintained.

These people are the incumbent economic freeloaders and hangers on, these people are the economic dags.

(Dag, a clump of feces stuck to the wool of a sheep, also used in Australia as a term of abuse)

Mediocrity

A lot of people are writing about mediocrity lately. Maybe it’s a sign of the times. All sectors are struggling so no wonder the hard questions are being asked. Whatever is happening out there the subject of mediocrity is on my mind.

I’m having to ask, and try and answer, lots of hard questions about myself, my work life and most importantly what I should be doing about the freakin’ situation. This is the hardest job I’ve ever had.

I’m here to advise

I hear it all the time: “We’re only here to advise”. This stinks to me. It says “I’m here to point out the fucking obvious but not give you a solution”. What’s the point of existing if that’s your corporate attitude?

As appropriate.

“As appropriate..”

Ending a statement with “as appropriate” smacks of mediocrity. What does it actually mean? It’s either appropriate or not, right? Why bother caveating?

I tell you why…. It’s a catch-all get out just in case. It’s a cover you can use if things start to go wrong and you need an exit. What a weasley phrase, I despise you.

We’re addicted to easy

We’re addicted to the lowest common denominator, the path of least resistance, the choice that involves the lightest cognitive cost.

This is just plain laziness and boredom. We’ve become addicted to a comfy feeling of making the least personal impact choice. No one seeks out the toughest assignment or the hardest options until it’s bad enough that you care enough.

It’s not bad enough that you care enough.

How bad does it have to get before you really, truly give a shit? I mean at what temperature will your blood really boil to the extent that every angry word you speak is accompanied by a shower of scalding hot claret?

I see alot’a people whinging, but not many doing anything about it. Don’t waste your time, energy and attention. If it’s really that bad then care enough to actually do something constructive to either improve the situation on the ground, or get yourself the hell out’a there. 

We choose………

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 12 September, 1962

Big Society

GrantSharkey    “The Big Society is useless without the Massive Culture of Caring and the Gigantic Civic Duty of Giving a Shit. #bigsociety”

That pretty much sums up the problem. Vast majority care only about themselves, rather than their community. I love the idea, but in practice I find it hard to understand how this will actually work, especially under voluntary conditions.