The Frustrated Chef

I am touched by an entry on my friend Fredric Laurentine's blog. He describes the situation of a highly trained chef who, stuck in a diner, is unable to express his talents. To his customers, he is just another short-order cook; he feels trapped, unfulfilled, depressed, maybe hopeless,maybe angry at a world that has failed to recognize and provide a platform for his gifts. It's a tale I can understand, having been that "chef" not that many years ago. This is an experience many of us know, people who were once connected to an organization and, through that connection, were able to draw some sense of stability, meaning,and self-worth. But now they are unconnected; maybe they're the victims of down-sizing; or maybe they have relied on that reflected sense of self-worth and counted on it to support them as they ventured out alone into the world.

This strikes me as another aspect of our (or is just my?) ongoing amebocyte/slug saga. (See "Amebocytes and Slugs: The Key to Almost Everything.") When we are a part of the slug -- a component of the organization or university -- so much of our identity derives from our connection to the whole; we have a position, a title, a role to play, functions to serve; we can have good days and bad days, but our fate does not directly hinge on day-to-day performance; the slug continues independent of our moment-to-moment contributions. In that sense, we are relatively secure in it. When we are part of the slug, some measure of the response of others to us -- the value they attach to us -- comes by virtue of our role; when we fail to recognize that, it is easy for us to overestimate our value since a good bit of it derives from simply being there.

This all comes clear once we venture away from the slug and make our way as solitary amebocytes. Now there is no being carried along in the slug, no reflected value by virtue of our role in the slug. Now it all rests on us. And what may be most painful is how the world now treats us. The borrowed power and respect of membership is gone; gone also are the calls,the meetings, the requests for our services. Where once we were into contribution, now we are into sales and self-promotion and not feeling particularly well-suited for the job.

What can the amebocyte do? Three possibilities come to mind.
1. Elaborate uniqueness. It takes considerably more effort to be valued as an amebocyte than it did when we were components of the slug. This means we need to become lasered in on our uniqueness, the special contribution we can make,and develop it to its full power. And we need to broadcast our contribution widely and persistently. We didn't intend to be salespeople, but, as amebocytes, we're stuck with the job.

2. Connect. Connecting is always a complex process. The temptation is to try to connect with  already successful operations, but, given their superior position, such operations are prone to dismiss us as mendicants. My most successful and satisfying connections have been need-to-need partnerships, that is, relationships in which each party wants or needs but cannot do what the other party has to offer. The prize-winning Power Lab documentary and the staging of What a Way to Make a Living are two examples of such need-to-need successful partnerships.

3. Find a new slug, and join up.

My hope is that that chef in the diner hooks up with an up-and-coming restaurant badly in need of a great chef.

Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Explored in the Play "Peace"

I've just learned that The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom will be presenting my 10-minute play "Peace" this summer at various locations on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  "Peace" examines the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as played out in the relationship between father and daughter. The play has been performed as part of theatre festivals in Boston, New York, and Minneapolis. Dates and locations for the Cape Cod performances are June 3, Wellfleet, June 4, Barnstable, and June 5, Chatham. I'll post specific sites and times as we get closer to the event. I plan to be at the performances on the 4th and 5th. To examine the play for your own theatrical/educational purposes, email me and I'll send you the script. There are no royalties attached to the play.

I Heard Bob Schindler's Voice

Yesterday, the day before Terry Schiavo's death, I had a moment of clarity -- free from ranting talk show commentators, self-serving fanatics and hypocrites, the demands of pro-lifers and pro-choicers, judicial decisions, cynical politicians manipulating events for their own ends, bizarre legislative proposals, even free from the notion that there is such a thing as the "case" of Terri Schiavo. In that moment all I heard was Bob Schindler's plea to his son-in-law: "Michael, give me back my daughter." Amid the din, that was the only voice that came through. A father who loves his daughter and just can't let her go. I'm a father who loves my daughters, and that voice went straight to my heart.

Amebocytes & Slugs: The Key to Almost Everything

"Amebocytes and slugs" is a metaphor I will be using regularly in this blog. The metaphor will shed light on an amazing range of phenomena including: the Cold War, gender issues, social security, and entrepreneurism.  The metaphor is based on the following excerpt from Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell:

"Slime mold cells do it all the time...in each life cycle. At first they are single amebocytes swimming around, eating bacteria, aloof from each other, voting straight Republican. Then a bell sounds. and acrasin is released by special cells toward which the others converge in stellate ranks, touch, fuse together and construct the slug, solid as a trout. A splendid stalk is raised, with a fruiting body on top, and out of it comes the next generation of amebocytes, ready to swim across the same moist ground, solitary and ambitious."

                                         Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell, Viking, 1974

Thomas is describing what I Believe to be universal system processes: individuation (amebocyte) in which system parts function relatively independent of one another, and integration (slug) in which these parts function as components of integrated wholes.

Although system survival depends on some balance of these two processes, systems base their survival bets on one pole or the other; that is, they develop patterns that are either more amebocytes-like or more slug-like.
We have amebocyte social systems (free market) and slug social systems (socialism).
We have amebocyte personalities (loners) and slug personalities (connectors.)
We have amebocyte organizations (minimal hierarchy, entrepreneurial, meritocracies) and slug organizations (more hierarchical, integrated).
We have amebocyte stereotypes/archetypes (male) and slug stereotypes/archetypes (female).

Two essential points:

1. There are gains and costs to whatever survival pattern a system (person, organization, nation) chooses.
2. Because we humans tend not to see these processes systemically, we politicize the patterns, exaggerating the benefits of our pattern, minimizing its costs, and  demonizing adherents of the other pole. 

I'll be recommending that you refer to this entry as background to subsequent entries.

 

Leading From Passion To Passion

My friend Adam Kahane and his organization are undertaking projects too ambitious for most of us to even consider. Eliminating child malnutrition in India and transforming a global food chain from poisonous to healthy are two projects currently underway, with eight more in the offing. Adam is in awe of the growing enthusiasm the work is drawing from leaders from all sectors from across the globe. He self-deprecatingly describes his as "accidental leadership," in the sense that all of this energy just seems to be happening with very little push from him -- new leaders simply showing up wanting to be part the effort, people he has never met taking on leadership responsibility. But Adam and I know that his leadership is far from accidental; what he has done is given people an opportunity: to serve, to contribute,to enlarge themselves through this effort, to work on issues they are passionate about but have felt frustrated in their efforts to deal with. Passion to passion.

Passion-to-passion leadership allows rather than directs, provides opportunities rather than orders,  is in the service of the followers, and supports people in bringing out their nobler selves.

Passion-to-passion leadership can be for good or or for evil; just as it is used for noble causes, so has it been worked by despots and cynical politicians throughout the ages who further their own agendas  by mobilizing the religious and chauvinistic passions of their followers.

Let's compare this passion-to-passion leadership with a leadership story my friend Will tells. A new dean has arrived at Will's school. In earlier years, the faculty of the school was small enough for there to be a one-to-one relationship with the dean with no intervening department heads.  But now the faculty has grown so large that that arrangement feels unwieldly to the new dean. He announces his desire to organize the school into departments. One can understand the dean's position; like all Tops, he lives in a world of complexity and responsibility (see Seeing Systems); having departments would simplify his world. The problem is: none of the faculty have asked for this change; in fact, over the years, they have organized themselves in a fashion that works for them. So although the dean wouldn't position it this way, it is as if he is saying "Do this for me." What the dean is getting is what one would expect: resistance, debating, faculty drama, headaches, and more complications.

Advice to the dean: Start with the faculty. What are they passionate about? And how can you support their passions? Then, maybe they'll be more responsive to your needs. And, even if they weren't, you might find great satisfaction in moving their worlds ahead.

Can We Handle The Truth?

American foreign policy from the end of World War II to the present confronts us with a conundrum. On the one hand, we Americans see ourselves and are told by our government that we are a generous people, liberators of the oppressed, and supporters of human rights, freedom and democracy throughout the world. On the other hand, we have a consistent record of supporting brutal dictators and undermining genuine democratic reform movements in such places as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iran, Vietnam, Chile, and Argentina. (Read any one of Noam Chomsky's books for a painful view of the dark side of US policy.)

The conflict evaporates as we come to understand what the real business of this country is and always has been, and to put this in a systemic context. The fundamental business of all systems -- from sports teams to organizations to nations --  is survival and development. Systems exist in environments of danger and opportunity; their survival and development depend on their success  in coping with the dangers and prospecting among the opportunities. U.S. foreign policy has consistently been about surviving and developing, coping and prospecting.

One gets a clue as to what the core business of the U.S. has been from the top secret document -- PPS 23 -- George Kennan wrote in 1948. Kennan who died this past week, was head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff in the late 1940s and was influential in shaping post WWW II government policy.

"We have fifty per cent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population...In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the upcoming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity...We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction...We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." (emphasis mine)

This is not to say that US has not be generous in its aid and in the kind-heartedness of its people; but it is to say that none of that has been the core business of the nation, which has been to maintain or enhance this position of disparity. From that latter perspective, there have been no inconsistencies.

I would guess that most Americans, as they compare their standard of living with those in other nations, are delighted that their government has succeeded in this effort. Still, there is a lingering question. Although the maintenance of disparity through power has been a central theme of this country's existence, that mission of the whole has never been the subject of national debate.It is not what we discuss in town meetings or across the dinner table. How we use our power. What have been the benefits to us. What have been the costs to others. And one wonders how engaging with the truth rather than feel-good propaganda would shape this country's agenda.

 

A Commitment to Life...Some Lives Only

Here is the story that might have been, but wasn't.

New York Times, March 22, 2003. In referring to the the possibility of war with Iraq, the President issued the following statement:

"This is a complex case with serious issues, but in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wisest to always err on the side of life."

With these words President George W. Bush, in his heartfelt commitment to "always err on the side of life," decided not to launch a war against Iraq, a war which would likely have cost  over 1500 American lives and as many as 100,000 innocent Iraqis none of whom had been in a vegetative state for fifteen years. In this moral crusade, the President received the enthusiastic support of the National Right to Life Committee, the Family Research Council, and religious conservatives across the country. In a remarkable display of bipartisanship, members of Congress rushed back from vacation to quickly pass legislation outlawing what members described as the barbarous disrespect for life such a war - described by some as "a mortal sin" - would have demonstrated.

I breathe easier knowing we live in such a pro-life moral country.

 

To youngsters seeking a Life of Crime

Advice to young people considering a life in crime: Stay in school, get an MBA, and work your way up to the  executive suite; that's where the real possibilities lie. Every day. the business section of the newspaper looks more and more like the police blotter. Big bucks ripoffs. Take a random Business Day,  New York Times, March 5.

1. The CEO of Choice Point is alleged to have cashed in about $13 million in stocks in advance of announcing bad news that eventually led the stock to lose more than 30 per cent of value.

2. Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, contends that Aon "routinely steered customers to the highest-bidding insurers, even though it had been paid by those customers to provide unbiased advice in arranging the best coverage at the lowest prices."

The Choice Point deal is under investigation; Aon is coughing up $190 million to settle."
So crime is crime, whether it's selling dope on the street or swindling consumers from the executive suite. You can get got.

My real advice: Go straight. Get your eyes off yourself. Focus on a contributions you can make- in the arts, science, medicine, law, and even business -  toward creating a better world.  However, if you insist on the criminal life, then head for the executive suite; that's where the big money is. If you're caught, you may have to pay a huge fine or even spend some time in one of our comfier penal institutions, but you are less likely to get killed. That's another big perk.

All of this is intended to shed further light on amebocytes and slugs (See my entry, "Amebocytes and Slugs: The Key to Almost Everything.") Amebocyte ideologues rail against Slug regulation. "Just turn us loose to freely compete; unrestrained amebocyte systems will produce better products and services at lower prices." Unrestrained amebocyte systems can do all of that, and they can also lead to greed and corruption. The culture of amebocyte systems stresses responsibility for self; it's about me. The culture of slug systems emphasizes mutual responsibility; it's about us.

John Kenneth Galbraith has said,

"Under capitalism (unrestrained amebocyte systems) man exploits man. Under communism (unrestrained slug systems), it's just the opposite."

He has also said,

"The modern conservative (champion of unrestrained amebocyte systems) is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Despite what the ideologues of either stripe maintain, healthy systems are those that balance amebocyte and slug, individuation and integration.

 

Born Into Brothels, Born On Third Base

"Born Into Brothels" is the academy award winning documentary written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. It chronicles their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta, and deals with the relationships they developed with the children of prostitutes who work the city's most notorious red light district. The film deserves its high honors and it left me depressed and thoughtful.

In the film, you are struck with the beauty of these children, how fully alive they are and eager to learn as Zana Briski (to them Tant Zana) teaches them photography. And you are impressed by the energy and perseverance of Zana Briski, fighting against bureaucracy and superstition, as she works to free these children from the streets and their otherwise inevitable fates. Yet, in the end, you witness how crushing their circumstances are, how limited their options, and how dismal their prospects.

"Born on third base thinking he has hit a triple" is a phrase that has been attached to George W. Bush. (From Mollie Ivins?)  Born into wealth and privilege,surrounded by wealthy and politically-connected people, Bush has been rescued from business failures and provided with opportunities others can only dream of. Yet,in his unrelenting smugness, he projects the aura of a self-made man.

I, on the other hand, am a self-made man; I picked myself up by my own bootstraps, overcame all obstacles, and made myself everything I am today. Or so I'd love to believe. Yet when I came away from "Born Into Brothels," it became crystal clear to me that, in light of the circumstances of these beautiful children, I too was born on third base thinking I hit a triple.

How Right You Are About Terri Schiavo

Whether you believe that the correct action is to leave Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in and support life or to remove the tube and end it, rest assured: you are right. After all, the woman did say three times that she did not want to live under these artificial life support conditions, so you are right about that. And it is true that life is precious, only God should end it, and to remove support is to murder a living being, so you are right about that. These are fairly solid positions, the righteousness attached to each keeps it firmly entrenched. Just try "talking sense" to someone with an opposing position.

I, on the other hand, have a position equally noxious to both sides, which is: There is no clear and obviously correct answer to the question of whether to continue her life or end it.

The struggle over Terri Schiavo's fate is part of a more general dilemma of existence, possibly the dilemma of existence.  Life is full of challenges for which there are no obvious solutions: how to raise children, punish murderers, handle unwanted pregnancies, respond to terrorism, express spirituality, deal with oppression, lead an organization,end life...on and on. (Even as I list these, your mind may rebel: I do have answers. I am pro life or pro choice, for capital punishment or against it, pro war or against it, democrat or republican. and on and on.) The question is: Where do these firm opinions come from?

Is it:  God produces certainty?

Or is it: Uncertainty produces God?

The human mind abhors uncertainty; in its presence, the mind feels weak, confused, anxious, unanchored. The mind finds relief as it reflexively leaps from uncertainty to certainty, settling gratefully on firm positions anchored in religion or philosophy or science.

However, here is the rub: lurking beneath all these firmly held opinions is the uncertainty which they guard against. Any open discussion -- the key word is open -- threatens to invalidate the entire position. Therefore, no open discussion is possible. We are left with unassailable certainty versus unassailable certainty. We saw that in the recent presidential campaigns, and we see it now with Terri Schiavo. Try having an open discussion with someone holding an opposing position.

To accept the reality of uncertainty can immobilize us, but it need not. We still have choice. Terri Schiavo's fate is before us. I do not have to hate the others or denigrate them or cloak myself in a banner of righteousness; I might even allow myself to see some merit in their positions while recognizing some limitation in mine, but none of this openness need stop me from being a powerful force for one side or the other.

"...even as we understand the perspectives of others and even as they understand ours, we may still need to do battle with one another,...we may need to do what we need to do and they may  need to do what they need to do, and...if we all take ourselves seriously,  but not too seriously, our systems should be the better for such struggles." Power and Position (Not yet on the web site), page 87.