
Last week’s post and our Zoom conversation on Wednesday have triggered a host of insights and questions about the role of vocation in today’s workplace. I will stay with the topic a little longer, because it hasn’t finished with me, before turning the page to consider the power of connection.
There is something both delicious and frustrating about a fragment of an idea that you can’t quite get hold of, something that you need but which does not appear on command. It waits until it’s ready, often when you’re thinking about something else entirely, and then turns up and demands that you stop everything else and pay attention to it.
As my thinking moved from “mastery of a domain” to “vocation,” I thought it was because mastery and domain felt too assertive. In contrast, vocation had a gentler, more fluid, and generative quality. While I believe that holds, there was a sense of something more fundamental than linguistic aesthetics at work, so I did what I often do in these circumstances and retreated to my books. Not to read them but just to move them about, rearrange them, refamiliarise myself with them and put different ones next to each other until something clicked.
Eventually, it did.
John Boyd often referred back to Sun Tzu, and the idea that we can usefully harness different energies in different situations. He talked of “Cheng” (正) energy, the orthodox or direct approach. Cheng represents conventional, straightforward actions. It is what is expected or easily recognisable in a situation - in military situations, it might be the main force in an attack or an obvious move in strategy. It is the stuff of business books and consultancy, laden with evidence and stories of best practices. It is reliable, and safe, and easy to explain. In today’s world of business strategy, it is the stuff of efficiency, productivity, and data. It is predictable, foundational, power-focused, and aligns with displays of strength or dominance, just the stuff shareholders want to hear.
Like Mastery of a domain perhaps?
Then, there is Chi (奇) energy, the unorthodox or indirect approach. Chi is innovative, surprising, or unconventional action. It represents the unexpected move that catches the opponent off-guard and creates an advantage. Dynamic and adaptive, Chi is fluid, leveraging creativity and deception to disrupt and redirect the momentum that Cheng holds so precious. Chi uses minimum energy and seeks to exploit weaknesses rather than rely on brute force.
Like Vocation, perhaps?
That thinking was amplified and expanded by something
pointed out at the end of the week:The Cheng energy of many organisations, directed at achieving scale and dominance, requires process, standardisation, and compliance. Herds of people who, like those staff preparing initial registration prospectuses for Goldman, may suddenly find themselves with more time than they expected on their hands. And, of course, what is good for Goldman is good and available for just about every other bank doing the same.
This brings the focus to “the remaining 5% - human judgement and nuance - where the value resides”. I’ve never seen banking as a vocation, but that is not to say it can’t be - it takes all sorts. And if it can be, what might be the difference between those competing 5%’s as they battle for clients?
My idea of vocation is grounded in a love of the work as a means of personal expression, and I’d rather have my IPO done by someone who loves doing it rather than someone worrying about their productivity metrics.
I wonder what might happen elsewhere. AI will become ubiquitous, not least because the mind-boggling money being invested in it requires it, regardless of the effect it may have on society (in this respect, it’s not hard to draw a parallel with drug dealing), and every organisation will have its version of a Goldman moment.
As I wandered along my books, I wondered what the impact might be on David Graeber’s notion of “Bullshit Jobs”, and asked my new friend Claude what it thought:
“AI may simultaneously expose truly "bullshit" jobs by easily automating them while paradoxically creating new ones focused on unnecessary AI oversight, though it could also transform seemingly pointless roles into meaningful ones by eliminating their most bureaucratic elements.”
So, New Bullshit, just like the Old Bullshit, maybe?
I think, though, the real question lies in the creation of value. When the skills we have relied on and trained in, grounded in the generation and measurement of data, can be substantially done by technology, what’s left?
Imagine that technology enabled us to take the finest cuisine and reduce it to a pill. Same nutrition, same taste, same kudos. What is the difference between a pill and a seat at a Michelin-starred restaurant, talking with the Chef? The answer does not lie in the data; it lies in the multiplicity of relationships, the engagement of the senses, and a unique moment in time and space.
What, I wonder, will that 5% of Goldman’s work now look like? (although I’m sure Michelin Stars are likely to be involved)
More to the point what about everywhere else?
Because we cannot choose a vocation, it chooses us and will wait to be invited into our lives. Education cannot confer it (though it may illuminate it in the care of great teachers).
We face a huge emerging challenge because, very quickly, turning up will not do. As Marshall Goldsmith told us, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There," and vocations cannot be faked. Routine labour is moving from commodity to technology.
The value lies in who we are more than what we have been trained to do, whatever our job. There’s a fragment of May Sarton’s “Now I Become Myself” that I like and which reflects my own journey:
Now I beome myself. It's taken time, many years and places. I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces...
Vocation brings us home to ourselves.
While wandering around my books, my hand fell on Alan Moore’s “Do Build”. I’ve written about Alan’s work before, its importance for me, and the resonance of his thirteen questions, copied here below from a previous blog.
The difference between when I wrote the blog and today is that Alan’s questions have moved from a plea for beauty in our work to a survival strategy. If we cannot answer them about our own work, then we are in the 95%, not the 5%, and I’m not sure that’s where any of us want to be.
Vocation is Chi energy that feeds off and fuels Alan’s questions. Compared to many business cultures, it is heretic, insurgent, and disruptive. When so much of what businesses do can be converted to algorithms, the qualities of the artisan are where value and loyalty are found.
I think it is both essential and joyful.
We touched on that energy on Wednesday, and I suspect we will do so again, often.
Have a wonderful Sunday.
R