Reflections 6th April
Recreating
The world around us rarely changes politely, and I suspect I'm in the same place as many of us looking at what is happening right now. It feels as though my emotions and my intellect are all being assaulted at the same time. I have watched with incredulity the logic behind calculating tariffs, the language used to justify them and the vilification of those who may see things differently.
It can sometimes take a moment to remember that we are just being played and that we have a choice.
I have been anticipating this moment without knowing what it would look like. Now I think I do.
We have moved past a point where "oops, sorry" will fix things; we have gone too far; too much has been revealed about the motives and character of key players. Humpty will not be put back together again. It's omelette time.
As we have been approaching this moment, unsure when or how it might occur, I have been writing about five key principles that matter to those who think like artisans when they find themselves in unfamiliar places. Outside the walls that have defined their lives, been familiar to them, and having to create what we need from the wreckage of what has broken:
Choose a domain to Master . Something that involves creation rather than the smoke and mirrors of exploitative business models. Something that matters, that makes a contribution to others, and that you would be happy to explain to your grandchildren.
Choose the company we keep, the people and information that will shape your practice in the years to come, those you can trust and support and who will return that with generosity.
Don’t rush. Craft takes time. It is clear that bringing the human into working with AI and, eventually, AGI will be a craft for the next era.
Seek and provide Curation. Be a source of wisdom and authority for those you serve, and find those who you can trust to curate for you.
Choose who to Serve. They will amplify the work you do.
Now that this has happened, it's context has given these ideas form. It starts with choosing who to serve.
Old labels no longer serve.
I know many Americans, and none of them, including those with very different views to mine, can be defined by what I am witnessing. I am used to an America typified by energy, ideas and grace. I see none of that in the current leadership.
Neither is it peculiar to America - I have spent time in many other places around the world and found the same - people whose qualities are not represented by those who notionally lead them. The single-minded pursuit of wealth has concentrated power in a tiny majority, and we now see them for who they are. It changes everything. The President of the most powerful nation on earth berates those who have provided the cheap labour that allowed the outsourcing of American jobs in pursuit of greater profit whilst ignoring the reach and damage done by American-based services, particularly social media technology,
The cheap labour they used took what they were supposed to do subserviently, mastered it and then improved it. It has now reached a point where it cannot be restored. Furthermore, bringing back low and mid-level manufacturing jobs is a trifle when two-thirds of tech workers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, and it emphasises the mobility (and vulnerability) of the human supply chain. The unintended consequences of populism will be interesting to watch.
Neither is it a uniquely American problem. Fifty years ago, Margaret Thatcher sacrificed most of the United Kingdom outside the M25 to create highly mobile wealth inside it. Europe had a greater sense of society, though even they have been affected, as have many of those who have chosen to treat economics as a science.
This is not an American problem; it is a business culture problem.
And here we are. Hoping those who broke what matters in return for a very narrow definition of wealth can somehow repair what they do not understand - what turns money into wealth. Trust, Generosity, Purpose, Connection, Wonder and all the other ingredients go into the joys and responsibilities of being human on a planet defined by life's energy rather than money's sterility.
How do we even start to think about mending what we have broken?
I don't think it is about trying to put it back together. This is beyond the idea of Kintsugi I wrote about during the week. I'm not sure even the most elaborate lacquer would work or that putting something so ugly back together is worthwhile.
Perhaps it’s more of an idea of Yobitsugi - using parts from different pieces, like the Vase, at the heading of this post.
'Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. (...) the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.'
Milton Friedman
I began to think perhaps we have a "legacy" problem with America, in a similar way that we end up with legacy technology - the technology nobody uses any more, there only because later technology is built on top of it, and it's been thought too difficult to go back and redesign it.
When it comes to how we run our economies, perhaps we have reached a point where we do - rethink and redesign.
Edward de Bono wrote a beautifully simple book on Simplicity, in which he identifies methods to simplify the complex. These are my top five methods:
#1 Historical Review - Many things are there simply because they were there yesterday – and the day before. There may have been a good reason for them at one time but that reason may long since have disappeared.
#2. Shedding, Trimming, cutting, Slimming etc. This is a matter of getting rid of and throwing out everything which cannot justify its presence.
#5. Extracting Concepts. Here we seek to extract the operating concept behind some action or process and then we seek to find another, simpler, way of delivering that concept.
#8 Start Afresh. Go back to the beginning and design from scratch. Ignore the present situation. Design around key values and priorities. Then compare that design to the existing situation.
#12. Shift Energies. Seek to shift the work or the energy from one part of the system to another. For example, shift functions to machines or to other parties.
("Simplicity", Edward de Bono.)
The ideas resonated, so I stayed with them for a while and considered the "legacy" relationships I mentioned above. Given that many, if not most, American consumer brands involve outsourced manufacturing, what value does the brand actually add?
Could we just avoid the middleman and go straight to the source?
I asked ChatGPT to give me the top 20 American Brands on sale in the UK (confident that, if it can put together a tariffs policy, It could manage that). With the exception of #6 (Apple) and #19 (Amazon) there isn't one I would miss, (and I'm working on how to rid myself of Amazon). If American Brands are going to be about the emerging reality of America, rather than a nostalgic idea of a past America, do I want to be associated with them?
If the place we exist in the American commercial lexicon is as cheap labour or passive consumers, we need a rethink. Perhaps we need to undo the MAGA-light nonsense that was Brexit and rebuild our relationships with Europe and further East.
When someone we thought was a friend turns their back, the world changes.
The same argument applies to corporates that reflect the values that have brought America to where it finds itself, and I think the same approach applies. It may take a while to replace some, but that doesn't stop us from examining the options, particularly when what they supply feeds expensively marketed and acquired habits.
I long ago got rid of Meta, Twitter and LinkedIn. Netflix, Amazon Media and others (notwithstanding some good programmes) have followed. They are all legacy technologies that have brought unnecessary complexity in their wake.
The challenge is that sometimes, we adjust so well to the current way of doing things that any change seems unthinkable. When, however, the current way of doing things is just increasing the many problems we already face, from our economic models and the inequality they foster to the threats they pose on the planet, we have no choice other than to think and act differently.
It starts with deciding who we are here to serve, doing something that matters and choosing who we work with to do it.
If we can be clear on that, the rest will follow.
I don’t think this crisis is a tariff problem; it’s a matter of choice.
We now hold weekly conversations for those on the Outside the Walls Mighty Network. If you’d like to be part of them, let me know.