Sometimes I don't see the big picture...

Aw, Jeez!

In case I don't say it, thanks for a GREAT post!

I was also a soldier.

No, I had no chance to go to war and defend my country. But I DID work for a large corporation that has grown even larger since I left. I was a corporate soldier.

My job was long range planning for information systems.

Now, that company promoted from within, and it kind of didn't matter whether you knew what you were about or not. They had "training" programs that would equip you to be whatever they needed.

(accept that automation was new, computers were these esoteric "thingys" that somebody surely knew about - your report showed up magically every month - and somebody realized that things were changing faster than the company was keeping up with them, ok?)

So here comes me. Long Range Planning. Find out what "they" are going to need, in time to give "us" a chance to be ready to provide it.

[Comes now, the major flaw in the premise that nobody cared about.]

"We (latter half of the sentence) didn't really give a rat's behind about what they (former part) needed. But more than that, we all knew what "they" needed, and "they'd" know it too, if they weren't so dumb!

Five years. I learned a lot. I'm dumb enough to understand that no matter what I know, there's more to BE known. So I checked out books, bought books, talked with people on the internet (actually, in newsgroups) and anybody else I could find to try to grasp what was required in my position.

[Revelation: I was paid an obscene amount of money to do what amounted to idiot work. I'd been a teacher. The most important thing anybody can teach (facilitate, actually) is thinking and learning. Learning how to learn. Contrast that to what seemed to thrill people who got paid a lot more than I . . . Apologies all 'round if that seems arrogant, but there's a back story that hasn't been told.]

Anyway, my study led me to understand that strategy had to do with an ULTIMATE OUTCOME that was desired to be achieved. The GOAL, if you will.

Objectives, on the other hand, were the steps you could check off when accomplished, and thereby gain some measure of how well you were progressing toward the goal. A measure of whether or not your strategy was viable.

In the corporate world, they signaled when and what should be changed to continue implementation of the strategy.

Stupid me.

"Of COURSE this is a RIGHT action! We, in the center of the USA (Missouri) are going to New York (east)! It makes perfect sense to go to California (wa-a-a-ay west) and get a plane to Honolulu (even way-er west). From there we can . . ."

It was hard. Then one day, in utter frustration, I decided to change my frame of reference.

Suppose, for a minute, that I might be right. Just for a minute . . . let's pretend, I imagined, that I'm not just a couple of "boxes to be checked off in compliance" on an "equal opportunity" form, I'm not "culturally deprived," and that somebody actually gave an ounce of credence to my demonstrated capabilities. Let's stretch it a bit: Maybe I ain't stupid!

[Sidebar: My division manager once asked me to write a letter to another division. He told me all I needed to know, but then he proceeded to write the letter to show me how! [I have a Master's degree, and a teaching certificate that is good for life in my state - english is one of the areas . . . ] Dude got kinda P.O.ed when I asked him why he didn't just do it himself, given that he was writing it all down anyway. . .]

Let's just suppose I got it right.

What would I think about the people above me? Next to me? Below me, even?

I came up with a lot of stuff, and I'm going to move to pencil and tape recorder to get it all down.

And the relationship of the stuff I've written so far to the topic at hand is that I learned that people - untrained corporate people - generally believe that "putting out fires" more slowly constitutes the strategy. And when that doesn't work, REORGANIZE!

Further, I think that people believe that when they're doing something, ANYTHING! it is good activity. Thinking long term might lead them into thinking about an end - to themselves.

Can't have that, now can we?

It's as if they're all "up to their ears in alligators"

I'll quit writing now. Or, I will right after I tell you that I had one boss who was so "mentally deprived" that I actually said to him "God didn't really see fit to give you a brain, and I ain't gon' let you use mine no mo'.
(gimme my ghetto. cultural deprivation, collard greens
n cornbread, anyday!)

I thought (hoped and prayed) he'd fire me.

I was in the company another 12 years.

[When "birds of a feather" wanted to get rid of birds that didn't "flock together" too 'pretty good,' and they (the flockers) couldn't find a good reason to fire them, said non-flocking birds got promoted, as did I.]

Sigh.

Marye

> Aw, Jeez!

> In case I don't say it, thanks for a GREAT
> post!

> I was also a soldier.

> No, I had no chance to go to war and defend
> my country. But I DID work for a large
> corporation that has grown even larger since
> I left. I was a corporate soldier.

> My job was long range planning for
> information systems.

> Now, that company promoted from within, and
> it kind of didn't matter whether you knew
> what you were about or not. They had
> "training" programs that would
> equip you to be whatever they needed.

> (accept that automation was new, computers
> were these esoteric "thingys" that
> somebody surely knew about - your report
> showed up magically every month - and
> somebody realized that things were changing
> faster than the company was keeping up with
> them, ok?)

> So here comes me. Long Range Planning. Find
> out what "they" are going to need,
> in time to give "us" a chance to
> be ready to provide it.

> [Comes now, the major flaw in the premise
> that nobody cared about.]

> "We (latter half of the sentence)
> didn't really give a rat's behind about what
> they (former part) needed. But more than
> that, we all knew what "they"
> needed, and "they'd" know it too,
> if they weren't so dumb!

> Five years. I learned a lot. I'm dumb enough
> to understand that no matter what I know,
> there's more to BE known. So I checked out
> books, bought books, talked with people on
> the internet (actually, in newsgroups) and
> anybody else I could find to try to grasp
> what was required in my position.

Marye,

Interesting info there and thanks for the kind words.

Pretty important point about "no matter what you know there is always more to know". That type of thinking is very-much honored in the corporate but as I get older and spend more time as a self-employed person I've grown weary of learning. Why? I (like many visiting this board) seem to spend nearly every waking hour accumulating information. We accumulate more information in a week than what people in 1900 did over a course of many months...yet we are far less satisfied with our lives...we are far more prone to unhappiness. We seem to accomplish much less than we think we should. The reason for all this is because we spend most of our time accumulating information and very little of it putting that information to work. We 'do' so much (or so we tell our family...our friends...and even ourselves (pure b.s.)) yet we accomplish so little. There are exceptions to this rule as there are every rule but for the most part I feel it is true. And to make it worse most of the information we accumulate is useless...it is useless now, it will be useless five years from now and it will be useless 50 years from now. The 80/20 principle works quite nicely here but it is more like 90-something percent of the info we collect will not benefit us or our friends or family or anyone else for that matter. Sure we may be able to answer some questions that show up on Jeopardy once in a while but how is that really benefitting us?

I feel a more important skill is the ability to 'see' patterns. Especially from an entrepreneurial slant. If I can spot repeating patterns of opportunity that will benefit me far more than accumulating knowledge...especially if I know where and whom to ask to get information if by chance I need it.

Think of it as a child's teeter-totter, with the accumulation of knowledge on one end and the actual application of that knowledge on the other. Guess what happens? The 'knowledge' end becomes so heavy that no amount of application in the world will balance things out. Not that we spend much time applying our knowledge anyway. It is far easier and less painful to accumlate knowledge than it is to apply it.

Peole do not fail in business because of a 'lack of knowledge'...they fail (again there are exceptions) because they fail to implement what they have learned or have failed to spot 'patterns' relevent to their business. Remember, accumulating knowledge and 'thinking' are not the same thing. You can spend all day learning but not one second of that day really thinking about what you have learned. "Learning" is an action...and action drives out thought. We can much more readiliy spot trends and patterns if we spend time thinking about previous trends and patterns. And yes I'll admit it right here:

I'm Mike Winicki and I'm a...

Infoholic.

Hopefully I can find the strength to quit learning so much and apply more of what I have learned.

Take care,

Mike Winicki

Mike, You said:

******
Pretty important point about "no matter what you know there is always more to know". That type of thinking is very-much honored in the corporate
******

No it's not (honored, that is). It just gets you labeled as a trouble maker. Those folks are very satisfied with themselves. In fact, if they catch on that you think that way, you scare the hell out of them. Especially if they've got a pigeonhole that you refuse to fit . . .

*********
(learn more) than what people in 1900 did over a course of many months...yet we are far less satisfied with our lives...
*********

I don't think you can really know that. I agree that we are less satisfied. We're bombarded with information(?) everyday, promulgated by people whose intent it is to get our attention. Nothing works like tragedy.

No tragedy today? Well, just look at how you've failed compared to [fill in the blank with anything from money to weight loss.]

They're in the discontent business.

Change the channel.

********
And to make it worse most of the information we accumulate is useless...it is useless now, it will be useless five years from now and it will be useless 50 years from now.
********

Hmmm. Who'da thunk my Mama, who never even had an attic, much less insulation in it, would be able to tell me exactly what to do to get the stuff off my skin (and soothe the crazy-making itch, instantly) when I fell into it . . .

Sigh.

You need to pour a nice, tall glass of something definitely mind altering, and declare to God "Yaaaassss Lawd! It's me, and Ah'm thinkin' and learnin' again!"

You can then either drink the stuff or pour it out. Validation is the immediate goal of that exercise.

Self-validation.

Ok. Here comes the rant.

You DID know I'd write, didn't you?

Of COURSE you did!

I think that the "useless knowledge" feeling comes from the fact that we simply haven't found the vehicle through which we can express that knowledge, in a manner that benefits both us and humankind. And please know that when knowledge is expressed (not facts, necessarily) it may be in a form that is something different than the thing (or things) originally learned.

I believe that the dichotomy is not in "constantly learning" versus "applying what we learn."

Rather, it is that we have not yet discovered what our spirits *want* us to be doing with what we've learned to contribute to ourselves and to humanity, to justify "our takin' up space and wastin' good air."

Put differently, we haven't realized (or maybe haven't accepted) that we each contribute something remarkable! That we each, in fact, have the power to change the entire %$##$@ universe TODAY!

Think about that.

You're a part of the universe. If you disappear from the face of the earth, the ENTIRE PICTURE IS CHANGED!

Talk about a mind-blowing thought! And it matters very little how far the ripples you make go.

Whether or not Joe Blow in east Hell-is-burg knows about you is of no consequence.

You did ripple.

You ARE rippling.

(One result of yo' ripplin' behind is that I'm sittin' here writin' this stuff, when I need to be . . . )

And when you quit ripplin,' the universe - MY universe is changed.

Now then.

Satisfaction will come when we know ourselves enough, trust ourselves enough, and believe in ourselves enough to express who and what we are. (It doesn't hurt anything to want to make money in the process, BTW. But that is but one measure . . .)

[A Story about the value of learning]
I took a leave of absence to take care of my mother while she was about the business of dying. Her brother, Uncle Waverly, loved her dearly, and came to be with her (at my house, complete with ailing wife, prescriptions that were written in another state) until we buried Mama.

Mama was 72. Uncle Waverly had to be at least 85 at the time.

One day I came downstairs and found him sitting motionless at the dining room table, pencil poised in mid-air, and a pensive-vacant-gone! expression on his face. (With old folks, you always think they mighta died on you, and I sho' nuff didn't need a dead one at the dining room table while a dying one was upstairs!)

"Whatcha doin' Unk?" I asked. (Please God! Let him answer!)

He "came back in the world" and said "Oh, Ah'm jes workin' out a problem or two here."

'Bout that time I noticed the mathematics textbook open on the table in front of him, and a notebook full of math symbols, in which he'd been writing.

"You takin' a class, Unk?"

"Naw, Chile" he said. Ah jes' works dese out when Ah gits too sad. It kinda relaxes mah mind."

He had absolutely no interest in "applying" his learning, and even less chance of getting a job based on what he was teaching himself. Dude got to 6th grade, as far as I can tell.

Yet he was solving first year college mathematics problems while his favorite sister was on the floor above dying, because, as he said "It kinda relaxes mah mind."

There is no useless knowledge.

NONE!

That we haven't discovered a way to apply what we know to achieve what we want, or that nobody celebrates the fact that we know stuff is entirely irrelevant.

Eternal learning is not a futile pursuit, and there is no useless knowledge.

'Sides, nobody c'n really stop learning. (I ain't sure 'bout dead people, having not had the experience, yet.)

Pick something that satisfies your soul. Five will get you ten that all the "useless" stuff you know will infuse that something with an appeal so special, that you'll smile everytime you remember that you created it.

And you just might make some money.

Marye

>I agree that we are less satisfied.

Why would we be less satisfied? And if we are -- why is that?

Who can change this?

Best Regards,
Steve MacLellan


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