culture – Old School Millennial

October 27, 2022November 2, 2022

PARDON YE

This is a passion piece. No links. No sources. No pics. Just you, me, and what I believe.

I believe in speaking truth to power. I believe in freedom of expression. I believe in the innate goodness of the universe and human beings. I believe that everyone alive is pro-life for that very fact and that life itself is sacred. I believe that whatever the question, more freedom is the answer.

I believe that the greatest men and women in history have bled and died in service to these principles and that rescuing our future from its dark trajectory now rests on our ability to follow suit.

I believe that Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) is both a mirror and a looking glass, reflecting and projecting our darkest tendencies and greatest potential as a single race of living beings.

Historically, such visionaries have been crucified by the masses at the behest of the ruling classes in service to the status quo – Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. And, although 3000 years of recorded tradition is yet to teach us this lesson, beauty, truth, and love cannot be killed by murdering the messenger.

But enough abstractions, let’s get specific.

Despite what you choose to believe, Ye is not a racist. He is not trying to start a second Holocaust. He is not crazy, off his meds, or dumb.

Ye is a 45-year-old black man born in Atlanta, raised by a single mom on the south side of Chicago who rose to the top of the creative world in several industries. Under Ye’s belt lies 22 Grammys, 10 consecutive #1 albums, a presidential run, Yeezy brand apparel which has rescued two companies from financial and cultural obscurity, the accomplishments of becoming the wealthiest black man-wealthiest recording artist-wealthiest designer-in history, his own academy with sports teams, and on and on. All this without selling out or compromising his vision. Not once.

No one in the music industry believed in his vision to be the best-dressed rapper in the game, that his beats and lyrical ability could wrestle the culture from the death grip of gangsta rap. Ye did that.

No one believed that he could survive putting on the red hat, that his vision of freeing African Americans from the democratic plantation of block-voting which has delivered decade after decade of diminishing returns would alienate him from his base. It didn’t. Rather he gained a new one, empowering the likes of Candace Owens and others to elevate their voices in the fight for family. Ye did that.

No one believed that a prominent rapper could sell a gospel album. Jesus is King hit #1 on the Billboard top 200, and in over 100 countries worldwide, creating an entire Sunday Service church choir in the process. Ye did that.

No one believes that his current commentary on the evil embedded within the entertainment industry will lift a finger in the direction of freedom. We would rather nitpick his language, his approach, his tone, and his timing in order to cheer on the ruling class as they collude to crucify him and everyone he loves. We say he deserves it. He says he can take it. Ye does that.

We are witnessing a Dark Knight moment in history where we get the hero we need, not the one we deserve. The hero we need, of course, is the one willing to address the pain of the present, rather than hide behind the pain of the past.

Even if we choose to believe that Ye is an anti-semite, that his comments were inspired by hate and not love, and that he should be punished for saying them in order to protect the collective from another Holocaust, even from this perspective, we still have to ask ourselves, what cultural conditions caused the Holocaust? Slavery?

For if, in order to preserve the present, we have to employ the worst tactics of the past, what future do we deserve?

February 23, 2020February 23, 2020

Teams at Work

http://mysportsmentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MSM-815x380-sprintStart.jpg — image credit: http://mysportsmentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MSM-815×380-sprintStart.jpg

2020 bolted out of the starting block and has not looked back. At the office, after nearly two months of productivity-killing but life-enriching vacation leave at 2019 year-end; the first six weeks of 2020 have included heavy ramp up for two separate multi-million dollar project launches, a site visit from senior leadership and a customer audit. 75% of our team has less than 12 months’ experience, not to mention our day to day workload is up 5% y.o.y. and getting more complex all the time.

The setting is a rurally located 24/7/365 Distribution Center for a Fortune 500 CPG company – blue-collar America at it’s finest. The operation is kept alive by 200 employees who work shoulder to shoulder, day in and day out to ensure high-quality paper products are delivered on time and in full to your favorite retailer’s rain, snow or shine. The work is demanding and the market highly competitive requiring continuous cost-saving, value-adding innovation to stay afloat.

I entered the scene at this location roughly a year ago taking a lateral move as a team leader in order to gain new experience and prove to myself prior success was something more than dumb luck. My philosophy was simple: business results are a bi-product of human relations. High functioning human relations are measured in units of trust, which act as a lubricant, reducing relational friction as it increases.

My approach was even simpler:

increase trust wherever and whenever possible
leadership 101

But it’s more personal for me than business. Rather, this business is personal for at least two reasons: my team lost a good man, friend, and grandfather, to a fatal workplace injury in late 2018 and I lost my younger sister in 2013. The lesson in both tragedies being that life is both too precious and short to be taken for granted. Plus, life is better enjoyed and more fun with others, even at work, and fun is only possible where trust lives.

Thankfully Daniel Coyle had, by that time, published a landmark study on workplace culture, what works, what doesn’t and why. In Culture Code, Mr. Coyle outlines the blueprint for successful groups in terms I could understand. Over the last 12 months I’ve worked to employ the principles in the book, measuring success according to the following characteristics outlined therein:

Everyone in the group talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short
Members maintain high levels of eye contact, and their conversations and gestures are energetic
Members communicate directly with one another, not just with the team leader
Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team
Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back to share with the others

The healthier the group, the more its members exude the traits above and the more individuals in the group feel safe to take risks, safe to make mistakes and safe to not get hurt. It is then we relax around one another enough to have fun, the paradox being that is the exact moment we are most productive.

image credit: https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6447328.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/MAIN-children-playing-outside.jpg

I call it focused fun, think children on the playground improvising a new game, simultaneously and spontaneously negotiating the terms, enforcing equality, competing fiercely, creating relentlessly. If you never had this experience in youth, it’s not too late to start.

Take one last nugget from Mr. Coyle before I wrap this up:

‘Individuals aren’t really individuals. They’re more like musicians in a jazz quartet, forming a web of unconscious actions and reactions to complement the others in the group. You don’t look at the informational content of the messages; you look at patterns that show how the message is being sent. Those patterns contain many signals that tell us about the relationship and what’s really going on beneath the surface.’
Daniel Coyle, Culture Code

It is with this perspective I embrace the many challenges that 2020 has in store. I look at them as opportunities to have fun with people I trust and respect. I look forward to celebrating both the successes and failures along the way, knowing that we are building greatness as measured in friendships and memories that will, doubtless, last a lifetime, if not longer.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in the comments below.

August 19, 2018September 15, 2019

Consequences Create Culture

Stefan Molyneux, in a recent international speaking tour with Lauren Southern in Australia and New Zealand, was de-platformed in NZ and has since decided to offer the content free of charge at the link below:

“The Banned New Zealand Speech They Didn’t Want You to Hear!” Stefan Molyneux, http://www.freedomainradio.com, 8/10/2018

In the talk, Stefan makes a case as for why the speech was banned as well as why the ideas are so threatening to the current ruling class.

He argues that freedom requires equality under the law – no matter the race/identity/class – and is synonymous with consequences (ie: to be free to win means to be free to loose). Consequences are the incentives which reinforce common morality. A common morality forms the building blocks for a healthy culture. Healthy culture delivers peace, prosperity and increased freedom.

In contrast, he claims, the US and other western societies have created policies which remove consequences for certain groups based on race/gender/class, thereby inverting incentives/morality, destroying culture and limiting freedom for all. The end game of this dangerous government experiment is national decay and ruin.

An example of government removing consequences would be that every man/woman/child on earth is financed to the tune of $30,000 – meaning I haven’t had to face the consequences of at least $30,000 worth of mistakes. Think no-fault divorce, health care policies which don’t screen for pre-existing conditions, quantitative easing, etc.

I’ll leave the rest for you to ponder, worth a listen or two – almost guarantee a perspective you’ve yet to hear.