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S2 E109 — Rebuilding Trust Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Tomorrow they drop a bomb on the organization — the closing of 6 regional offices and the recombination of the key personnel into one location in Phoenix (over a two year period). They spent a lot of energy on crafting the announcement, but none on what they would do as follow-on actions to manage the shock.

“5”  Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Sometimes, it’s as though you can read minds and tell the future. But right now, it’s better just to ask people what they are thinking and to respect the future as a question mark.” Leo

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s Episode 109 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 5th day of September in the fall of 2020.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E108 — Why Our Reinvention Efforts Failed (and Yours Will Too); S2 E107 — Leaving Us Adrift in a Sea of Change;  S2 E106 — How We Brainwashed Curmudgeons

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E109 — Do All Introverts Take the Long Acetylcholine Pathway?; S1 E108 — After So Many Defeats is it Time to Catch a New Trajectory?; S1 E107 — How Do You Rate Your Sense of Curiosity?; S1 E106 — Attempts to Upset 9 of My Life Stages Apple Cart

Context

This is a continuation of “Volume Two Manuscript — WorkFit” a work-in-progress.

In previous episodes we described Start Up, Emerging Growth, Rapid Growth, Sustained Growth, Maturity, Decline and now Reinvention stages.  

Reinvention without Decline

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard  Copyright 2020

We described a mini-case of a major decline,  Part One, Part Two and Part Three. And, before that we profiled two mini case studies about what it was like working behind the scenes at a mature company in a financial, in a consumer industry and two more in another century-old university system — Part One and Two. 

Now turn from our 3-part Reinvention mini-case operating from within a technology company,  Part One,  Part Two and Part Three to a different industry with similar needs, but from a consulting assignment.

Reinvention

27. Knowledge Management — Brand Company — 

A Strategy and Brand Consultancy. 

Part One

At Think!City a boutique consulting firm we crashed our models together — learning and development, knowledge creation, media production, internet communities, strategy, advertising and marketing. 

We worked together in a highly creative environment within a corrugated metal building designed by a local architecture firm in Laguna Beach, on a curve in Laguna Canyon Road. 

I fell headlong into sharing new knowledge that springs out of new innovations.

We pioneered a way of capturing the essence of a brand on digital video, searched through audio tracks for the touch points and reused portions of the interviews for orienting new coders hired at accelerated rates. 

From our studio we continued internal and external branding with clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100.

This is about our work with a Fortune 100 Mature Real Estate and Relocation Services, similar to the financial case already described.

After conducting knowledge labs for two disruptively innovative fast companies, the opportunity presented itself to apply what we learned to a mature, bureaucratic company responding to the internet threat.

Their greatest challenge was to convince survivors and potential survivors to stick around as the East Coast headquarters called the restructuring shots.  Their situational challenges mirrored those of the Engineering and Construction company in decline — history of miscommunications, changes in top management, merger of two different operating units, a move to Phoenix and the closing of regional offices. 

I received an update from Gasper about our potential engagement. 

Steve,  I was unable to connect with Bob in New York (about our Start Up consulting project there). He was shuttling around two candidates who were being interviewed: a potential VP of Product Marketing and the new VP of Marketing. I will connect with him tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I have a meeting with Steve of Prudential at noon tomorrow to further explore the relationship — get enough information to propose something. 

He has gaps in his organizational development plans. He is running an “agenda for change” and wonders why it is scaring the shit out of everyone. Tomorrow they drop a bomb on the organization — the closing of 6 regional offices and the recombination of the key personnel into one location in Phoenix (over at two year period)

They spent a lot of energy on crafting the announcement, but none on what they would do as follow-on actions to manage the shock. 

Gasper

From the outside it was obvious that in the real world, in their industry, no one was framing their actions by asking:

How would a great company handle this major transition, so in before, during, and after the move it is easy to attract, retain, and develop key talent?  

    • Requires talent transition team of key influencers from day one with this charter, and an open invitation for employees at large to contact, question rigorously, and contribute ideas.  
    • Self-selection out and in.  
    • Manage unintended consequences.

PRERS divisions never really formed a common identity – their cultures so different.  One culture lost their beloved leader as a result of the restructuring.  

The surviving CEO attempted to reengineer a solution, but it never took.  He had a vision of what a wired future would look like and attempted to lay the foundation for closing the gap between their current dysfunctional culture and the desired state by launching an agenda for change. 

However, without any real leadership, 5 teams set out to identify core competencies and to make recommendations about how to close the gaps.  

    • All five teams eventually reported their findings, but nothing substantial happened as a result.  
    • Except, the top 2 executives left the company.  
    • The chairman and vice chairman inherited the baggage. 

Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

It began with what was supposed to be a 2 year advance announcement to give everyone affected plenty of time to consider their options — move, retire or stay and look for another job in Orange County.

That was the intended message. 

    • But we found out “the suits” got a hold of it (lawyers) on the East Coast, and rewrote the bulk of the announcement to protect the corporation from any liability. 
    • What was communicated was loaded with buzzwords and phrases like consolidation, without any details.  So the only real message received triggered negative implications. And watercolor estimates about when will the other shoe drop?  
    • After several of their false starts, we proposed a campaign of communications releases in a variety of formats to help reshape the culture, to support the transition to a new desired state, and to support thinking and acting more innovatively. 

We Started Immediately 

Crazy creative Dave with his digital video gear and I drove to San Diego to meet with volunteers from the other division who were attending their regional meeting — which included, by the way, an afternoon check in session in which employees could talk about any and all issues they’re challenged with by working remotely.

Since one half of the organization had already successfully navigated the transformation from working out of an office to working out of a home office, cut off from former social ties, we interviewed a dozen “experts” who had been there and done that.  

And they were eager to advise those about to confront what they had to years earlier:

    • One woman remembered how she felt others working in the office would assume she was loafing at home.  So she put in longer and longer hours in her home office at her computer, until she burned herself out.  No one felt she was slacking off.
    • One analyst told us that he wanted to make the FedEx guy his new best friend.  Everyday he’d deliver packages and pick up packages for work, but declined a cup of coffee and a danish each time.
    • One vice president told us on camera how he was in shock when word came out that he wouldn’t have a luxurious office with all the other senior executives.  “I mean here I pushed and pushed and climbed up each rung of the ladder, and then what?  They want me to work at my new townhome’s kitchen table?”
    • Others told us how they had to mimic their office routines.  In the morning after coffee and a light breakfast, for example, some would walk, or jog, or work out at the gym before returning home.  Then they’d shower, change clothes, and commute from their second floor to their first floor office and close the door.
    • Mothers told us they established the same routine basically, but still had to monitor what was going on with their kids in another room, even when grandma helped babysit.
    • Some said they carried the office routine to extremes by locking their office door in the evening.  As a reminder to them, that work was over and even if the computer pinged or the office phone rang they weren’t falling for it.  That took extreme effort to avoid the temptation to return.  But, they learned how to manage customers and bosses about their hours.

Those digital video interviews spawned two newsletters full of tips and tricks, video tapes for review in meetings of those eventually moving to Phoenix, and set in motion a series of on-camera appearances by the chairman and vice-chairman which helped them formulate their new leadership messages.  

We (they) had a long way to go, building trust doesn’t happen overnight. 

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“3”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Today, you’ll learn how badly you want something. Either you won’t get it and you’ll use that loss as a gauge, or you will get it, and your subsequent satisfaction will teach all.”  Taurus

One can only hope, right?

“5” Steve Howey, 42: “Bad moods are caused not by what happens, but by two culprits: negative thoughts and distorted thoughts. Everything that occurs is an opportunity to practice your interpretive skills.”Cancer

Not necessarily for today, but Part One, boiled down to countering how poorly the East Coast description of what was about to occur over the next 24 months triggered.

“5”  Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Sometimes, it’s as though you can read minds and tell the future. But right now, it’s better just to ask people what they are thinking and to respect the future as a question mark.” Leo

Not necessarily for today, but when Crazy creative Dave and videoed the San Diego survivors of forced remote work we learned more tips and tricks and advice than what we could have created to share with the other division.  Plus, real people, sincere people shared secrets that worked for them.

“3”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “As you relate to family, help friends, get after work projects and do more, you’ll notice that everything you take on is a little easier than it was only a month ago. You’re just better.” Virgo

As far as the Pandemic goes, sure we’ve figured out our routines so we don’t catch the virus.  As far as this passion project goes, yeah, but, Duh!

“3”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Though you feel emotionally bound to the people and projects you care about, it will benefit you to ask this thought exercise: What if your only real duty is to your own sense of adventure?” Libra

Probably sound advice, but today I’ve got more than enough things to think about!

“5”  Steve Aoki, 41: “There’s a new goal to strive for, but you’ll accomplish it with the same approach that’s worked for you in the past. You’ll start with a sketch — an outline of a general vision — and then fill in the blanks.” Sagittarius

So, I have this pandemic to thank?  It’s given me time to sketch out and fill in this work-in-progress at least.

“4”  Steve Nash, 45: “There are many situations that are helped by black-or-white thinking, for instance, when you have to assess quickly, act decisively, commit deeply. But for most things, allow for as full a range of color as you can.”  Aquarius

Am I wrong or as a nation don’t we have this inverted?  The black and white thinking which should be objective, is really what passes for red and blue polarized extremes.

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “You might not like the information that comes your way initially, but it will be good to know, as it will deepen your understanding of the scene you’re in, thus giving you more power in it.” Pisces

Information is one thing, misinformation — not mistaken, but politically motivated is another entirely.  Why do we as a country have to politicize everything?  Dealing with this pandemic is more than enough, right?

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 4906 to 4990.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S2 E106 — How We Brainwashed Curmudgeons

We called them curmudgeons.  They couldn’t see how that could work.  They had no experience in their 20 years, except what they were used to doing.  We had to brainwash them.  And we came to find out they were the most valuable champions for the new way we could find.

“5”  Steve Smith, 30: “When change is in the air, you sense it before anyone else. You notice that something feels different before you know exactly what it is. On high alert, you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Gemini

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s Episode 106 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 30th day of August in the summer of 2020.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E105 — When Cosmic Leads to Decline, Pair Extremes Intentionally; S2 E104 — Worst Monday Ever. Very, Very Grim …; S2 E103 — Confronting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Resistance and Unrelenting Stress

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E106 — Attempts to Upset 9 of My Life Stages Apple Cart; S1 E105 — Will Fortune Smile on Us Later in the Evening?; S1 E104 — How Yesterday’s Success Triggers Tomorrow’s Failure; S1 E103 — Innies and Outies and Other Potential Catastrophes

Context

This is a continuation of “Volume Two Manuscript — WorkFit” a work-in-progress.

In previous episodes we described Start Up, Emerging Growth, Rapid Growth, Sustained Growth, Maturity, Decline and now Reinvention stages.

Consequences for Not Mastering Growth Crises

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard  Copyright 2020

We described a mini-case of a major decline,  Part One, Part Two and Part Three. And, before that we profiled two mini case studies about what it was like working behind the scenes at a mature company in a financial, in a consumer industry and two more in another century-old university system — Part One and Two. Now we turn to a behind the scenes Reinvention mini-case. 

Reinvention Without Decline

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard  Copyright 2020

Reinvention Part One

23.  Organizational Development – Technology —

Needs Assessment

My Plan A dreamed I’d be working for a high-tech company with very bright engineers that worked on bringing products to market in record time.  

When I was recruited to my first large technology company I followed my own advice and negotiated for a preplanned Maui Vacation first, in a timeshare which sat just on some sort of magical weather curtain.  On one side it rained and rained.  On the other it stayed tropically bright and sunny. “Here I am sitting in the living room of our Maui condominium on vacation, after my first 60-days of coming on board,” I wrote.  

Part of my orientation was to gather hard and soft information to cast a long range vision for “Training and Development” for the position I was hired into from Fluor. 

I saw my role as anticipating how the HR function would change to accommodate our plans, and pitch a communications plan for a branding campaign as an attracting highly sought after engineering and software talent. 

Partnership

Ray acting as 102 Thought Leader needed an 113 Idea Packager.

He introduced me to my HR boss, Dick, told me how Ed, the General Manager and his management team had been working on a strategy that would take the division to the forefront —a model for what the large corporation could become. 

But, I couldn’t cut Ray out of his gig and in return Ray would grease the wheels for the “internal team” to “operationalize and execute”.  Basically, he had the ear of my boss’s boss and could provide “cover” when needed.

So between the lines, my boss represented the old school, a 116 Institutional Traditionalist and a conspiracy was afoot.

Ed represented manufacturing which accounted for 90% of the physical building.  The other 20% was split between engineering and product assurance.  Software engineering worked out of another two-story office in another location about 4 or 5 miles away.

Going in I wanted to focus on strategic issues …

    • How this organization can be fluid and proactive enough to anticipate computer industry changes,
    • the shifting business cycles, and specific changes in broad areas of the US and international economies,
    • to shifting demographics of both customers and employees,
    • social and technological forces (that the Orange County division should respond to driving the state of art) and in a sense become the tail that wags the East Coast dog.

What I wanted to do was to have our division management examine those issues with my facilitation so we’d have a guide for development efforts that Ray and Ed’s team already endorsed.  

Staffing Came Next.  

The year prior to my arrival “training” functioned with a half-time person who would be transitioning to a full-time role with my help.

    • So my immediate goals included maintaining and upgrading the current training offerings for consistency while assessing what else needed to be developed to address unmet “internal operational” issues.  
    • In concert with that I wanted to develop other internal talent for delivering generic classroom and “lower” management level classes. 
    • And then have a successor fill in while Sue, the full time HR representative, develops her own instructional design capabilities.  

Anyway it was a start.  And I was on vacation.  

List of Hard and Soft Needs

I’d fill in more details after returning to the main land.  But, I kept in mind the randomly generated list of hard and soft needs I already collected:

    1. Corporate (in Detroit, Michigan) has no idea how training breaks down today.  SPG-OC (the formal name for our division) doesn’t have a training system in operation.
    2. All the divisions are isolated—not only in the human resources and training functions.
    3. Very little corporate training direction exists aside from printing a catalog of classes and coordinating them.
    4. SDG hasn’t had a professional trainer full time-only model.  The other divisions (Pasadena, BMG, Orange County and Ranch Bernardo) have or will soon have new human resources development folks in position.
    5. The regional meeting showed most of the other divisions are grappling with how to handle career development needs.
    6. Our division doesn’t operate as a high-tech company internally.
    7. PA&S (software developers) specifically believe they need more technology training. Also the group in the City of Industry hasn’t received any in over a year, even though they are customer facing and therefore a priority.
    8. Managers in SDG feel uncomfortable with only a career facilitation class — too much time away from work — no systemic place for them to rely on.
    9. Other divisions in the area (Santa Ana, City of Industry especially, and maybe Lake Forest) feel slighted or not part of “Mission” — in division memos.
    10. 10. Ed and John — manufacturing GM and Software and Engineering VP — have two distinctly different leadership styles.  Ed is ore people supportive.  John is task and time/ results oriented.
    11. SMG (manufacturing) is budget squeezed.  SDG (software and engineering)  has to use up all of their past year’s budget or they won’t get more allocated in the next year.
    12. Not  much hiring is expected as occurred last year — not as much “expansion”.  Many feel a tightening is about to happen.
    13. Software has a technical training coordinator, but engineering hasn’t recognized a need for hardware training.
    14. B-20 operating system doesn’t run PC software, which means off the shelf applications can’t be used for managing human resource, training and development operations. issues and strategy for 1st 90 days and beyond

Those were heady days as we checked off priorities.  

Knew It When He Saw It

Working for a 101 PMBI Breakpoint Inventor was right up my alley.  Ed, the General Manager had a vision for advanced manufacturing in the future.  He subscribed to the “lets-use-our-own-technology” to see what it makes us become.  

So our role was to help Ed communicate in more tangible ways what his vision was so people could begin to participate. This was my first lesson learned from Dave, my communications co-conspirator.  

Ed knew what he wanted if he saw it, but he couldn’t describe it.  The demands on him in the work setting gave the part of his brain no time to bubble up his vision for the division.

Into Nature to Discover the Factory of the Future

So, Dave and I drove him into Trabuco Canyon with the “old California” vibe. 

We drove a few more miles from the winding roads leading to Saddleback Mountain to let nature work its miracle.

    • With a video camera on his shoulder, Dave directed Ed to sit down on a boulder next to a meandering creek and gaze out onto the valley below where our division sat off in the distance.  
    • While he picked up some pebbles to toss into the creek at first I prompted him off camera with open ended questions.
    • I told him not to worry about any kind of logic or succinct description, but just to start painting a picture of what he saw. 
    • After a couple hours, Dave softly said cut.  We had enough to take back to the division’s studio to edit hours into minutes.

He wanted to chunk out unneeded steps in the process, break down manufacturing lines into small groups and cross train everyone.  And he wanted to “pull expertise” from engineers who supported the operations to “up skill” the teams.

This wasn’t a startup and it wasn’t met with open arms by the engineers or the factory supervisors or even the manufacturing teams.

Our Loss is Our Gain

Really at the core the biggest obstacle was how the “rank and file” who were used to being told what, when, and how to “do it” couldn’t grasp his unproven vision of doing things in a new way. 

All they knew was they were losing proven processes for scary new ones.

Instead of keeping the line moving faster and faster, even working overtime and on the weekends, Ed borrowed Japanese techniques by introducing just-in-time focused product lines.

We got called in because the old line manufacturing supervisors resisted as hard as they could.  They never allowed the line to shut down even if a newer solution worked, or if a part wasn’t available.  No Peter. No Paul.

We called them curmudgeons. 

    • They couldn’t see how that could work. 
    • They had no experience in their 20 years, except what they were used to doing. 
    • We had to brainwash them. 

And we came to find out they were the most valuable champions for the new way we could find.

Sorta like AA evangelists.

Dave came up with the idea of blocking off the factory floor section, like the construction tarps you can’t see over on a street undergoing a new building construction.  You could hear stuff going on, you couldn’t see it though.

Dave figured out how to get everyone’s attention.  

We Set Up Contests 

We set up Minimum Viable Product demonstrations on the factory floor and challenged the old timers to compete.  When they couldn’t, they knew it was time to trust where he wanted to take us to the future.

One manufacturing line from the old school way competed with the new way. Seeing is believing.  Or experiencing is believing.  And once they converted, we made them Product Line Managers.

A New Home 4 Miles Away

Our marketing people always wanted a mole in manufacturing. As far as I know they never were successful, but as word got out about our “Factory of the Future” advanced manufacturing facility in Rancho Santa Margarita, Ed and his team insisted on a reservations system.

As a good corporate citizen, Ed knew for every potential enterprise-sized customer who accompanied their sales executive, 90% ordered almost immediately. 

    • We couldn’t keep up the pace, if hordes of sales people popped in with a customer’s representative at the beginning of a sales cycle.
    • We, Dave and our communications team, helped in the design of a walk way balcony on the second level with kiosks at different stations which told the story of what each was about.
    • But, you had to reserve a time, which became more scarce as demand picked up.

Up next:  A wild card merger thrown into the mix.

Evidence

“4”  Steve Zahn, 51: “Even though you are not, strictly speaking, a newcomer to a situation, going in with a beginner’s mind will increase your luck exponentially. Innocent and unbiased reception allows you to see and absorb more.” Scorpio

Boy, is this ever true when you have just landed a new position which feels like a new beginning and a clean slate.  Only you are actually entering a fully functioning culture with its own norms and rituals.  The sooner you realize it the better off you will be.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“4” Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “The novice is proud of and wants full recognition for talents and skills. The wise would rather go unlauded, realizing the strategic advantage in being underestimated.” Taurus 

Oh how zen this TauBit is.  I used to be a novice, but agree there’s a strategic advantage to being underestimated.

“5”  Steve Smith, 30: “When change is in the air, you sense it before anyone else. You notice that something feels different before you know exactly what it is. On high alert, you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Gemini

Once you live though a major restructuring while a corporation experiences a series decline, you adopt a healthy paranoia which signals here we go again and here’s what needs to be done.  

“3”  Steve Howey, 42: “There is a beautiful new influence coming into your world, one that seems like it would need to be organized for and around, but that is not the case. It doesn’t need to be arranged, only allowed.” Cancer

At this time in the morning, I can’t for the life of me figure out when that will occur, but I can say maybe this is off by one day, because last night was wonderful.

“5”  Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Learning takes place in several modalities. You move your body to learn. You talk your subject out, listen on it, write about it. Trying to learn using only one modality is like trying to walk on only one leg.” Leo

Wow, I’ll say.  This pandemic year and the adjustments required strain learning modalities almost on a daily basis.

“5”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “What were the underlying issues that started your journey to change? It may be hard to remember this, but try because it’s worth noting the differences and similarities between then and now.” Virgo

It was a change from a declining organization to what looked like a high technology company from the outside, establishing solutions to a list of problem areas, and then from out of nowhere the call of the unknown was triggered by a surprise merger.

“5”  Steve Aoki, 41: “Rituals are, essentially, habits with a heightened sense of meaning. You have a fantasy about incorporating certain rituals into your life. Start small, by attaching a small action to an already established habit.” Sagittarius

For today, yes.  But more so for what we called peeling away the layers of an onion.  During the merger right after the regulatory quiet period, we were stuck with two onions with very few rituals in common.  Our goal, though was to find where the two cultures began, identify their separate foundational stories and then build a common one for translating elements into a new enterprise.

“5”  Steve Nash, 45: “You’re looking out for others. You’ll focus on risk. You’ll dig with excellent questions. What are the unknown unknowns? Which solutions fare better than the alternatives?” Aquarius 

Maybe not for today, but definitely during the task force initiatives for defining and communicating how the merger would play out.

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “You know your values, and you think often about what you really want. But these things change. The shifts are palpable today. Reassess. You will surprise yourself.” Pisces

Is there ever a bad time not to reassess yourself?  Especially during a merger?

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 4906 to 4990.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S3 E48 — Is That an Ace Up Your Sleeve or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

We’d been meeting like this twice a week.  She told me to flip over while she began massaging the back of my knee.    

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Here comes the reshuffling of your deck of priorities, a process outside of your control, followed by the giddy anticipation as the cards are being dealt. What will you get? It matters but not as much as how you play what you get.” Aries

Hi and welcome to Thursday’s Episode 48 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 20th day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E47 — Why’s and How’s of the Genius Art of Procrastination; S3 E46 — Twisting Meaning to Fit Is Still a Misdemeanor in My Book; S3 E45 — Tacit Heuristics Blinding Fast-Track Teams

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E48 — Tracking Millennials from One Resort to Another; S2 E47 — 27 Adventure Regions for Your Remote-Working Bucket List; S2 E46 — Whimsy Passion Project or Epic Novel of Adventure?; S2 E45 — Wildcard What Ifs and Doobie Bros Bias

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E48 — Holiday TauBit Trumps Funk; S1 E47 — Day 47 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E46 — Day 46 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E45 — Day 45 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

In the end my physical therapist agreed. I’m guessing one of the missing cards, in addition to curiosity I wrote about last time for the “Conclusions” section, is the critical thinking card.

But first she asked, “So what are you going to do the rest of the day?”  

I told her work on my blog.  “Oh, what is it about?” 

I told her I steal people’s horoscopes mostly and am writing up a report covering one year.  “Why?” she wanted to know.  

She knew her sign, Sagittarius. I told her Steve Aoki (using celebrity Steves) always was better than mine, Scorpio.  She helped me pronounce his name, so obviously she knew who he was.

What I’m working on now, I told her,  is critical thinking, how in the ‘70s when I was in my first career there was a whole movement starting with the uncertainty principle that upended psychology at the time of Esalen in Big Sur by psychedelic pioneers.

It was a scene I left for another career, but I told her this passion project allows me to revisit it.

“Right there,” I said.  

It would be one more day before I’d get the results from the MRI and we guessed there might be some damage to my ligaments.  I felt not being able to keep up the strengthening and balance exercises set me back.

I asked her how she ended up working in this sports rehab office.  She told me it was the second of her rotations.  When she completed it they asked her to join them.

“How did you start your first career?” she asked, probably only half listening.  

“Let’s see when I moved here after my masters in clinical and experimental psychology I did the typical.  I sent out 100 resumes to places between Ocean Beach in San Diego to the northern part of Orange County.”

“Oh?”

The only real offer I told her came from Dr. Lichter who was starting up a clinic in Newport Center called the Behavior Modification Institute. “We offered biofeedback sessions as a way of reducing stress and making it easier for clients to find a meditative state.”

“BMI?” she said.

“Yeah, but in the mornings I’d work at a State Hospital and in the afternoons in Newport Beach trying to sell time in a white, egg-shaped biofeedback chair for producing those alpha waves.”

“Uh-Huh.” 

“Do you know who Sam Harris is?”  I asked after she focused more on my knee therapy.

She heard of the name.  I said he’d been interviewing neuroscientists on his podcast which allowed me to update my understanding of the brain … even psychedelics were now being used to treat addictions and help cancer patients.  

“Critical thinking,” she nodded. 

We agreed as I flipped over to my back on the black cushioned table was in short supply these days.  She never checked her horoscope except sometimes in magazines when she came across it. 

Though what I was doing was interesting and she said should check it out.

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Here comes the reshuffling of your deck of priorities, a process outside of your control, followed by the giddy anticipation as the cards are being dealt. What will you get? It matters but not as much as how you play what you get.” Aries

She never checked her horoscope except sometimes in magazines when she came across it.  Though what I was doing was interesting and she said should check it out.

“4”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Allowing yourself to get distracted will drain your precious energy unless those distractions are so quality they inspire you. You’ll know immediately. Unless you get hit by a “wow” factor, keep moving along.”  Taurus

I’m not sure if our brief conversation with my physical therapist worked on my knee after my accident, but I didn’t feel drained at all.  And, after my hour-long exercises topped off with icing my knee down I felt no pain — not even the dull ache or sharp jab under my knee cap.

“4”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “You’re carrying more than you know. It’s like your mind has pockets you haven’t checked in a while. Go through, gather up the useless and dated ideas, and then release them to the trash.” Virgo

Seriously, G&G I struggled with your Holiday Tau until I realized I’ve been finding out what no longer holds up against the latest brain research about consciousness and what I used to believe about functions housed in the right- and left-brain 

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8203 to 8218 organically grown followers.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life  

Long-Form

    • “Why?: What Makes Us Curious,” by Mario Livio. “… socially shared myths, rituals, and symbolism were most likely the first sophisticated responses to nagging why and how questions and were therefore the fruits of curiosity. The chain reaction that resulted from the positive feedback between curiosity and language turned Homo sapiens into a powerful intellect, with self-awareness and an inner life.”

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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S4 E38 — Billy and Buckey Blow My Brain in Whiskey Row’s Palace

He was a sheriff, newspaper editor, miner, politician,Georgist, gambler and lawyer, mainly in Arizona. His nickname came from his tendency to “buck the tiger” (play contrary to the odds) at faro or other card games. He later became a captain in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and died in battle.

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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Knowledge ATMs 

A peak behind the scenes of self-publishing, crowdfunding, and working for yourself

Table of Contents

Hi and welcome to Thursday’s 38th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 12th day of May in the spring of 2022.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12880 this week to 12943 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 220 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Context

As we strolled around, waiting for the cycling race to slow down so we could safely cross Whiskey Row without altering the race results, I wondered who that statue represented — somebody like Wyatt Earp? 

Image Credit: https://www.visitarizona.com/

It would makes sense, because Prescott tourism definitely played up the Old West Themes.

“No,” Jay said as we entered the dark wood old west bordello and saloon-themed restaurant “he’s a Rough Rider named Buckey somebody who was a mayor.“ 

Turns out a little later on Wikipedia I discovered  Bucky O’Neill was a man of his time like Wyatt Earp — a Permanently Temporary.

He was a sheriff, newspaper editor, miner, politician, Geologist, gambler and lawyer, mainly in Arizona. His nickname came from his tendency to “buck the tiger” (play contrary to the odds) at faro or other card games. He later became a captain in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and died in battle.

But, a Georgist, WTF? Not a typo? I never heard of that and it can’t be a version of his name like Esquire, right? 

Single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society.

He believed in what today’s Representative to Congress from his district, Paul Gosar, would openly consider as socialism.

But, I couldn’t contain myself once my eyes grew accustomed to the dark interior having passed the famous western bar — brown wood walls with dark wood trim — and pictures and paintings and drawing on every wall. I browsed one wall after another.

After we ordered some appetizers to share and I took pull on a long neck bottle of Corona I excused myself to visit more history on both sides of the hallway to the lavatory.  Once in the head standing at the urinal I couldn’t help but laugh.  

Image Credit: WikiCommons

Not everyone remembers William Boyd aka Hopalong Cassidy a stable of cowboy westerns filmed around WWII and later shown on television in the ‘50s, but there he was with his white hair in black hat and black shirt and pants looking down at me in what seemed like a 4-foot poster astride his trademark white horse.

“Anybody remember the name of Hopalong Cassidy’s horse,” I teased Jay, Elle and Emma.  Jay had it on the tip of his tongue.  I then said, “Champion and I’m pretty sure I peed on his feet.”  They laughed and Jay announced he wanted to see for himself. 

Anyone driving towards Mammoth Mountain for a ski holiday slows down to 35 mph while passing through three small towns before accelerating back to 70 on Hwy 395.  

Is it Independence?  Or Lone Pine? I should look it up, right?

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard Copyright 2022

Each time we pass we tell ourselves we should stop one time and explore the museum dedicated to all those western movies filmed in the Alabama Hills, including those staring William Boyd.

As Betsy, our dyed blonde server sauntered over in her corseted costume with a knife in a sheath fastened over the small of her back, you know like you’d expect for sex workers here at the faux brothel upstairs, I noticed a little history on the menu.

The Palace is the oldest frontier saloon in Arizona, and the most well-known and historic restaurant and bar in the state.  Past patrons include Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate. Virgil was Prescott’s Town Constable.  Originally built in 1877, The Palace was destroyed in the Whiskey Row fire in 1900.  Patrons moved the bar and lower back bar across the street and drank and watched Whiskey Row burn to the ground.  It was rebuilt in 1901.  Today, The Palace maintains its history, grandeur and old west atmosphere, is a favorite for locals, and attracts visitors from all over the world.

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard Copyright 2022

Sitting at our round wood table I glanced at the wall almost directly behind Jay’s shoulder.  A glass display of mining tools used back in the day caught my eye. 

But immediately to the left of the display I saw a small brown framed black and white picture with a brass black below the photo, 

 

“Yavapai County, Burro Man Circa 1890s.”

Two seemingly unrelated factoids tumbled in my mind and came together like a conspiracy theory.  

Could it be?

In the photo a gold seeker in a broad-brimmed hat kneels next to a small makeshift wooden sifting structure.  To his right you can see two pails and a home made scooper — a short wooden handle attached somehow to a metal can.

I vaguely recall pieces of a family story about someone my father’s aunts wrote about in a newsletter which told the story of our extended family ancestors.

Image Credit: WikiCommons

And something I discovered about O’Neill.

O’Neill arrived in Prescott in the spring of 1882. There he rapidly progressed in his journalistic career. Starting as a court reporter, he soon founded his own newspaper, Hoof and Horn, a paper for the livestock industry. He became the editor of the Arizona Miner weekly newspaper in 1884 to February 1885.

That’s it.  Uncle Billy ended up in two Prescott articles and with a little research I discovered one story appeared in the Arizona Miner.  Is it possible Bucky interviewed Billy?

Roughly five years apart Uncle Billy made both the Arizona Miner and the Prescott Enterprise.  Seems as though my great, great uncle’s letter got published in the Prescott Enterprise in 1871.

In the summer of 2005 here’s what I wrote about him in, Uncle Billy, the Earl of Dunraven, Pearl Street & Emaciated Mountain Goats” 

He wrote it to the Honorable S.C. Miller telling him he is living in Castle Rock in Douglas County, Colorado. Uncle Billy wandered from Osage County, Missouri sometime after the 1850 census listed him – as it had Confederate War casualty Nathan – my great, great grandfather.

That got me thinking about Samuel Clemons who began his writing career by sending letters to newspapers signing them “Mark Twain”.  Like Mark Twain, he was drawn to the West to find his fortune working mining claims. 

Twain roamed California and Nevada, while Billy mined his 400 feet lode on Lynx Creek in what is today a quaint vacation spot near Prescott, Arizona – north of Phoenix and south of Flagstaff.

Did he strike it rich? 

Like almost everybody else, he made and lost a fortune in the Gilpin County gold leads. 

In an 1871 report on mining, he’s described as “… a fine specimen of a Western Pioneer, one of the men who have always kept in advance of railroads, and who doesn’t feel well unless separated from civilization by hundreds of miles of Indian country.”

Indian country before trains, huh?

Continuing in the 1871 Arizona Miner interview he describes an incident while going from Prescott to Walker’s Camp, at the head of Lynx Creek. 

Near Yellow Jacket Gulch, he sees a huge fire and rising smoke. He says parties recently from Skull and Kirkland valleys “report Indians aplenty down that way. They are around, sure, and there is no telling when or where they will strike the first blow.”

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard Copyright 2022

So, I’m not saying that photo on the wall next to the glass display is Uncle Billy, but I do know we passed through Skull and Kirkland valleys on the way to Jay and Elle’s Prescott home.

And, the timing is off by a decade or more for Bucky O’Neill to have interviewed Billy, like it sometimes is when you do any ancestry research.  

In letters he wrote back home to Missouri he describes the struggle between guarding against Indian attacks, robbers and the long distance he has to travel for supplies. 

Before Bucky sauntered into Prescott, I’m fairly certain Billy had pulled up stakes already.

Forced to move on due to bad luck, he tries his hand mining in the Black Hills and tries settling for a short time in Castle Rock, before finally returning to his family farm in Missouri.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

“5”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Everyone is not on the same page. Some around you are not even in the same book. For this story to go right you must establish common ground and build from there.” Taurus

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E37 — Racing a Little Wobbly on Whiskey Row; S4 E36 — Big Rigs, Skull Valley and Yarnell Hotshots ; S4 E35 — Prescott Pitstop Knocks Me Off Balance

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E38 — Sliding on a Super Slippery Slope to 2nd or 3rd Cousins; S3 E37 — Tell Me More Lies I Can Believe In; S3 E36 — Placebo, Meaningful Coincidence or Just Feeling Lucky; S3 E35 — This Ain’t No Zemblanity

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E38 — What Should You Do If You Stumble Across Loaded Information?; S2 E37 — How Deep is the Chasm? What Do We Do?; S2 E36 — Turning Lemons into Margaritas; S2 E35 — Was this Pandemic Year a 1-Off or New Way of Life?

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E38 — Day 38 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E37 — Day 37 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E36 — Day 36 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E35 — Day 35 of My 1-Year Experiment;

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Today’s Holiday Birthday: 

Your victories will be satisfying and numerous. Through the next 10 weeks you work unwaveringly, with unshakeable focus and resilient intelligence. A complicated relationship irons out. As a result of your efforts to broaden your intellectual horizons, your earning potential will increase.

Ten weeks you say?  That’s ending sometime after the middle or the end of July, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up because this is probably your birthday and not mine.

“5”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Everyone is not on the same page. Some around you are not even in the same book. For this story to go right you must establish common ground and build from there.” Taurus

Well, so far so good.  Elle and Jay have been long-time friends even having traveled to Italy for our anniversary vacation.  But, in terms of politics I don’t hold out any hope that we’d be in the same chapter.  Common ground, yeah that’s the ticket.  Fingers crossed. 

“3”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “You may decide to do things differently from how your predecessors did because new tools are available. Experimentation takes time and the risk doesn’t always pay off, but you’d be remiss not to try. The future is for the brave!” Virgo

So my predecessors wrote long-hand letters, but my mother typed all of hers and posted them by mail.  She included clipped articles from her newspapers or magazine subscriptions.  Me?  I didn’t want all the clutter from paper and files, so I always looked for digital alternatives.  But, even now I feel I can’t keep up.

“4”  Steve Kerr, 54: “As for the one who doesn’t understand what you’re doing… it could be a perceptual limitation of theirs, but it could also be that you’ve yet to effectively impart the vision. How can you explain it differently?” Libra

So true, I’m in the weeds on most of my passion projects.  And, because I’m one of those endangered introverts, at least by percentage of similar temperaments, I get how most (95 to 97%) won’t understand what I’m doing until I can simplify and simplify some more.  Am I getting closer?

“5”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “Here’s an argument for keeping it simple: If the issue at hand grows more complex, and the stakes are raised too, the analysis of choices will consume more energy, which may lead to decision fatigue and delays.” Pisces

WTF have you been eavesdropping?  I couldn’t put it any better than that.  Nailed it!

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

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S3 E46 — Twisting Meaning to Fit Is Still a Misdemeanor in My Book

I started down this path a week ago on Friday when I felt lost. What I did next didn’t fill me with pride. 

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Take a step back and remember why you wanted to do a thing in the first place. Much has happened since; your purpose has evolved to fit the circumstances. But that initial kernel of intention is still the heart of this venture.

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s Episode 46 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 15th day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E44 — Make It Rhyme To Work Each Time; S3 E43 — Add a Little Foresight to My Misdemeanor Tab; S3 E42 — Greta, Juliette and the Partridge Family at Trestles

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E45 — Wildcard What Ifs and Doobie Bros Bias; S2 E44 — Celebrating Emma the Baroness Tribal Quarantine Style; S2 E43 — See What You’ve Been Missing …; S2 E42 — It Was Short and Sweet, but Heart-Felt

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E45 — Day 45 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E44 — Google Me Some Chopped Liver; S1 E43 — Desperation on Such a Summer’s Day; S1 E42 — Love on the Run

Context

I stole Steve Kerr’s TauBit of Wisdom:

“Projects have a beginning, middle and an end, though that is not the best order of approach. Begin with the end in mind. If you don’t have an end in mind yet, assist someone who does and you’ll learn a lot.” 

Thanks to Coach Kerr and the Los Angeles Lakers living legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar I’ve been reworking the 1-Year Natural Experiment Report.

Intelligent imagination is vital to this sort of deduction! However improbable a hypothesis, it cannot be discarded. 

“Mycroft and Sherlock” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Introduction

  • Definitions
  • What Does Tau Mean?
  • Life as an Art Form
  • Life as a Natural Experiment

Chain of Events Leading to the 1-year Experiment

  • Two Fortune Cookies and Dove Dark Chocolates
  • Here’s the Pitch for Bringing More Steves into the World
  • Steve is on an Endangered List
  • Top 10 Steves Organized by Horoscope = 120!

Three Phases

  • Finding Aphorisms Worth Handing Down
  • Priming the Pump for Input from Real Steves
  • Soliciting Wisdom from Steves with Identical Names

Methodology for Phase One

  • Changes along the Way
  • Extension to total 1-Year
  • Day 196 of 1-Year (Pre-Pandemic) overlaps with Day 20 of Pandemic Year

Findings for Phase One

  • Total Possible Horoscopes, Originally 4536 vs. Extension 4548
  • From Representative Sample of Famous Steves
  • Break Down: Practical Projects, Work, Legacy, Dreams and Relationships

Results Relevant to Me

  • Specific to Scorpios
  • From Any of the Remaining 11 Signs

Conclusion

  • Horoscopes
  • Biases
  • Intuition
  • Synchronicity
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Serendipity
  • Do I Feel Lucky?
  • Superstitions
  • Rituals
  • Super Simplification
  • True Believers
  • Filters
  • Selves
  • Heuristics
  • Associative and Lateral Thinking

Appendix:

Holiday TauBits of Wisdom From Representative Sample

  • Steve McQueen
  • Steve Carell, Steve Martin and Steve Wozniak
  • Steve Jobs

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

I guess if I had known I would have added our Patron Saint, Steve McQueen to Kerr and Kareem’s inspirations. 

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Take a step back and remember why you wanted to do a thing in the first place. Much has happened since; your purpose has evolved to fit the circumstances. But that initial kernel of intention is still the heart of this venture.” Aries

If I twist the meaning of your Holiday Tau slightly Howey, I interpreting your message as confirmation of this whimsey passion project which led to more tangible and practical insights I’m working through in the “Conclusions” section of the report, right?

“4”  Steve Howey, 42: “Whether consciously or unconsciously, you keep placing yourself on the path of self-discovery. The respect and love you gather up is a natural byproduct you’ve earned along the way.” Cancer

Don’t get me wrong Coach Nash, but I’m not feeling the relevance for today.  But thanks anyway.

“2” Steve Nash, 45: “When loved ones want your assistance, your response is automatic. Today’s situation warrants a contemplative pause. Consider that, sometimes, the very best way to help is by not helping.”  Aquarius

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8138 to 8193 organically grown followers

Foresight

Quality-of-Life 

Long-Form

    • “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, a classic I feel which still holds up. As the pace of change quickens we experience self-doubt, anxiety and fear.  We become tense and tire easily, until we are overwhelmed, face-to-face with a crisis situation. Without a clear grasp of relevant reality or beginning with clearly defined values and priorities, we feel a deepening sense of confusion and uncertainty. Our intellectual bewilderment leads to disorientation at the level of personal values. Decision stress results from acceleration, novelty and diversity conflicts. Acceleration pressures us to make quick decisions. Novelty increases the difficulty and length of time while diversity intensifies the anxiety with an increase in the number of options and the amount of information needed to process.  The result is a slower reaction time.
    • Daniel Kahneman’s, “Thinking Fast and Slow”describes two different ways the brain forms thoughts: “System 1” which is meant as a fictional shorthand — not as a brain system or structure: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, unconscious. “System 2”: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious. I’m learning a lot about my energy levels first described from within an introversion frame now, from within differences between System 1 and the harder working, energy depletion System 2.  Self-control, for instance is hard and takes a lot of energy to accomplish.  When I write the concentration requires effort until I can find the “flow.” Implications for True Belief — it’s easy to stay in System 1 vs. critical thinking — System 2.  Set some marketing and working on the business goals — System 2 and then ignore them by following the lateral thinking and associative thinking  which Leo da V invites me to do — System 1.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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S2 E103 — Confronting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Resistance and Unrelenting Stress

Attempting so much, so fast to meet the more drastic measures in a shorter time frame while in steep decline, created larger than expected stress levels in a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt.  Large scale, mature organizations, I learned resist change like an immune system does.

“5” Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “When you can’t be knowledgeable (no one can know all things, and if they could, they’d be insufferable) then be versatile. The ability to adapt and respond is more important than the ability to know and stand correct.” Pisces

Hi and welcome to Thursday’s Episode 103 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 27th day of August in the summer of 2020.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E102 — Caught by Surprise in a Major Gut-Wrenching Decline; S2 E101 — The Story of Strange Bedfellows Saving the Day; S2 E100 — Live, Love, Work, Play, Invest and Leave a Legacy

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E103 — Innies and Outies and Other Potential Catastrophes; S1 E102 — Why Is It Always Hidden in the Fine Print?; S1 E101 — From Saint to Soul Mate and Trusted Friend; S1 E100 — Running out of Determination and Grit by the 100th Day

Context

This is a continuation of “Volume Two Manuscript — WorkFit” a work-in-progress.

In previous episodes we described Start Up, Emerging Growth, Rapid Growth, Sustained Growth, Maturity and Decline stages.  But, each with the emphasis on how a specific stage provides another better fit opportunity for one or more of 16 Talent Profiles.

We described two mini case studies of what it was like working behind the scenes at a mature companies in a financial, in a consumer industries and in another century-old university system — Part One and Two. 

Consequences of Not Mastering Growth Crises

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard  Copyright 2020

We now shift to a fourth example of a century-old mature organization, a multinational engineering and construction company, but this time caught by surprise which led to a major decline. We continue with Part Two describing restructuring initiatives.

22. Internal Consultant MD&T 

Part Two

Matrix Management

This was a matrix organization of large scale construction projects staffed by engineering disciplines which for performance and salary reviews made management administration difficult and complex.  As oil refinery and energy construction orders disappeared in the “income pipeline” minor initial adjustments  turned more drastic as the industry downturn lasted much longer than expected.  

Then Came The Restructuring 

And, then the industry-wide turn down blew into town.  During the downturn doing things the way they had always been done gave way to cutting back — introduction of new project efficiencies, quality improvements, new technologies, expansion of sales and marketing tools and orientation, and outplacement for hundreds of employees receiving their Friday pink slips.

So Much Change = FUD

Attempting so much, so fast to meet the more drastic measures in a shorter time frame while declining created larger than expected stress levels in a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt.  Large scale organizations, I learned resist change like an immune system does.  

My Colleagues

A crisis threw me and all my colleagues in our internal consulting unit into high alert.   For us trainers the announcement that the entire Supervisors Certificate program had been cancelled caused a group panic.  

But, as it turned out we huddled with our new leader who filled the 30-day leader vacuum and launched a conspiracy.  

We focused on applying lessons learned in consulting engagements.  We partnered with another internal consultant in our group for coaching and advising reluctant formerly high potential leaders into entrepreneurial or cost-cutting projects that would test their meddle.

Sales Training, Situational Leadership, Quality Improvement, OD team building

before the new boss, Dr. Paul assumed the position.  Luckily, his vision for the department was pretty much a reinvention of what it had been years earlier — internal consultants 

New Technology Introduction

From a trial demonstration and research into technology introductions I helped shape the initial drafts of new plant design and 3-D graphics proposal, 

Key components:

    • Management Strategy and Role, 
    • Employee Involvement, 
    • Formal Education Considerations, 
    • Organizational Design, and 
    • Rewards and Incentives, 

Each section generated a different set of problems and challenges to be worked through.  

If the new technology was to have a positive rather than a costly non-productive impact, those issues needed to be addressed.

Distilled from USC and UCI 102 Thought Leaders one major conclusion was it didn’t matter what the specific technology was, the reception of it by the employees could lead to a sabotaging disaster or a career advancing success.  

Sabotage Followed from Shock and Surprise.  

No advanced warnings.  Just execution.  Career advancing ended with execution, but began with widespread organizational planning.  

Out of that naturally flowed the development of requirements.  Not everyone had to be involved, but they needed to receive communications about progress, especially during the planning about implementation and integration strategies.  

Why, who, what, when, where, and how it would impacted those affected.  If you laid the ground work, then and only then do you entertain bids and select the best fit technology solutions.  

And finally, you execute.

Upskilling Sales and Marketing 

Sheila, a Ph.D and 102 Thought Leaders, like our new leader Paul brought a more academic, yet faster paced urgency to new initiatives. 

I partnered with Sheila and Irv in the complex Sales Training Program 

Sales and marketing presentation case studies of wins and losses replaced boom time deals done over country club handshakes We addressed pressures on sales and marketing when the backlog of new major projects dwindled and new proposals met with demand by the huge clients to interview not just the executives, but the technical staff and project administrators as well.  

If each person in group panels contradicted another person’s expert assessment, that multi-million project would be awarded to a competitor. In one actual deal gone south two engineers argued over the company’s “bottom of the barrel” extraction capabilities in front of the client team charged with choosing among competitors.

It didn’t go well!

First came the classroom training emphasizing presentation skills and sales techniques that most engineers cringed at, being Systematic-Professionals, 116 Institutional Traditionalists and 114 Brand-as-Experts as they participated.  But, during the competing teams challenge they appreciated the additional skills required once a real case study had been analyzed, compared to competitor strengths and weaknesses and a sales theme emphasizing our strengths and their weaknesses against the stated and unstated client requirements.

Then each team member presented a portion of the proposal to a team of judges taped for debrief and prizes. One-on-one individual feedback sessions followed.

Quality Improvement Program

As more managers got the cost-cutting imperative message I began facilitating meetings using agendas from one of our canceled classes, which emphasized collaborative problem solving including inviting cross-department participation, brainstorming potential solutions, assessing the best ones, getting buy-in for implementation and scheduling action steps.

In my partnered quality consultant role, I enjoyed working “in the snake pit” with the maverick process engineering department.  One of the major issues to emerge was activating our “unsatisfactory counseling procedures” to help resolve an older opinionated employee who hated working for a newly assigned rookie supervisor.

I advised the quality improvement steering committee set up in the process engineering department.  Sometimes it boiled down to just “giving permission” for them to be creative in their own coordination of their approach to QIP implementation.  Initially the process engineers were the biggest skeptics of the “make certain” and “do it right the first time” slogans injected from a popular canned program bought in from the outside.

They are the Prima Dona department.  On any project they are the ones who design the processes and technology to be engineered.  Many times it is trial and error in the beginning and is by its nature creative

But, they are isolated.  Having only one department meeting someone remembered happening 20 years ago.  Therefore, they didn’t act as a team or have a core identity.  We began low key with setting up informal get togethers to help boost their morale, define themselves and to one to grips with their unique quality issues and dilemmas.

Eventually, they figured out the benefits accruing to them as they participated, especially when after they took off their “training wheels” the tackled the problems and challenges they all wanted fixed “by someone” else.  And they enjoyed it.

Evidence

“4”  Steve Zahn, 51: “Part of you has been making plans without the other part. Get all sides together for a sit-down talk aimed at naming a few common goals. You’re as powerful as you are unified.”Scorpio

During declining restructuring from a position of leadership, you can be a good corporate citizen, but know your best interests may not be what the executives have in mind.  Therefore, plot out a plan A for surviving, but a plan B for when you don’t.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“3”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Nice isn’t always good, and not nice isn’t always bad. There are many reasons people have for doing what they do and for being in the mood they are in. Stay aware of the bigger picture.”  Aries 

During conditions of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) sometimes a more directive leadership style is required due to the urgency.  

“5” Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “When you can’t be knowledgeable (no one can know all things, and if they could, they’d be insufferable) then be versatile. The ability to adapt and respond is more important than the ability to know and stand correct.” Pisces

Engineers often require a fail-safe perspective because what they design can endanger workers in the field, in the plants and in their offices.  A strength taken too far — deployed over and over again no matter the situation — becomes a weakness.  Analysis-paralysis leads to overthinking at a time when action is required.  And resistance turns to indirect sabotage.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 4733 to 4807.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S2 E102 — Caught by Surprise in a Major Gut-Wrenching Decline

My head began to swim and I felt sick to my stomach when the caller told me the guy who hired me was just fired by him. Now what am I going to do? His words increased the panic and anxiety in my mind.

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “You are unique. To whatever extent you can, set up your environment to flow in a way that supports your particular needs, preferences and thinking style.” Libra

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s Episode 102 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 23rd day of August in the summer of 2020.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E101 — The Story of Strange Bedfellows Saving the Day; S2 E100 — Live, Love, Work, Play, Invest and Leave a Legacy; S2 E99 — Why Pay Over $100,000 When You Don’t Have To?

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E102 — Why Is It Always Hidden in the Fine Print?; S1 E101 — From Saint to Soul Mate and Trusted Friend; S1 E100 — Running out of Determination and Grit by the 100th Day ; S1 E99 — What’s in a Name? Baby Boy Names?

Context

This is a continuation of “Volume Two Manuscript — WorkFit” a work-in-progress.

In previous episodes we described Start Up, Emerging Growth, Rapid Growth, Sustained Growth, Maturity and Decline stages.  But, each with the emphasis on how a specific stage provides another better fit opportunity for one or more of 16 Talent Profiles.

Consequences of Not Mastering Growth Crises

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard  Copyright 2020

We described two mini case studies of what it was like working behind the scenes at a mature companies in a financial, in a consumer industries and in another century-old university system — Part One and Two.

We now shift to a fourth example of a century-old mature organization, a multinational engineering and construction company, but this time caught by surprise which led to a major decline and gut-wrenching restructuring.

22. Internal Consultant MD&T 

Part One

What became a multinational engineering and construction firm began in 1890 by three brothers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin as a saw and paper mill. Thirteen years later the  company was renamed Fluor Bros. Construction Co.. It didn’t set up shop in California until 1912 when John split from his brothers, moved to Santa Ana for health reasons and in a classic story began Fluor Corporation out of his garage.

To to be closer to its oil and gas clients, Fluor’s headquarters were moved to Alhambra, in 1940 before moving again to Orange County, California in the 1960s due to concerns about the cost of living and traffic.

New Profession, New Career

I just wanted to trade working with developmentally delayed clients sporting a range of IQs from 10 to 16 to working with very bright employees in an industry with a bright shiny future of high technology.

From the Outside

Can looks be deceiving? A couple of big shiny glass boxes with “turrets” on each corner and another seven or eight stories tall glass tower represented the future to me — working in them would make a year-long career transition well worth it. 

You couldn’t miss them in the corner of partially developed commercial property at the corner of the San Diego Freeway (405) and Michelson Drive.

Getting the position

My ASTD board role was strategic.  Although I worked 75 miles away from Fluor’s new headquarters I created the association’s position referral function.  I reviewed every new training and development position about to be advertised in our newsletter as a service to corporate education and human resources departments.

The president of our volunteer training organization phoned  me with news he  became the Director of the Management Development and Training group at Fluor and needed to hire some professionals.  He asked if I knew anybody who might be interested.

John Brunstetter fell for my transitional skills, knowledgeable pitch and grew to trust me. 

I met with him taking a sick day in the same office where  I had first introduced myself to Mike Blackmore a few years earlier.

Rotations to Higher Positions

Brunstetter had replaced Mike Blackmore, who took on a more senior level position in Human Resources in the Corporate Tower before leaving for another opportunity. 

Managing Change

Looking back now, as a then undiagnosed 113 Idea Packager, I continued to research and develop “my body of knowledge” accumulated in two prior careers, but needed to find a better paying and more challenging new career.  Several times I became disappointed when the reality didn’t match the potential opportunity.

All my research and information interviews pointed me to training and development.  An awful lot of teachers from my generation had already made the transformation out of the classroom full of kids to classrooms full of adults in corporations.

Finally, my luck changed!

First Change

Then the phone rang.  

Some guy named Dutch was on the other end.  I’m pretty sure most if not all of my personal property had been boxed and a little farewell lunch had been scheduled.

My head began to swim and I felt sick to my stomach when the caller told me the guy who hired me was just fired by him.

Now what am I going to do increased the panic and anxiety in my mind.

I had already accepted his offer, gave my two weeks notice and counted down how many days  until I didn’t have to drive 1 hour and 30 minutes down and back each day.

My blood drained out of me as I sunk into a deep depression.

In Shock

His voice sounded like it echoed through some distant tunnel through my phone at work.  Then, I heard him repeat, “Your job is not effected by this.” 

Actually, he must have picked up on the long speechless pause on my end.  He must have said it two or more times to reassure me and confirm he looked forward to meeting me personally on my first day.

Between a rock and hard place

I wasn’t sure.  And, I didn’t know what to expect after the first day.  Fluor like the University of California in Irvine commanded a prestigious reputation in Orange County. And I’d save on gas and wear and tear on our Volvo.  But, who knows what happens after the first few weeks or months?  I desperately wanted to know why he was fired.  And, if that act meant something bad was happening in the not too distant future

Misjudged the Opportunity

Did I misjudge the situation I found myself in at the end of my career transition?  Yes and no.  Tantamount on my mind was a shift from providing services to client populations suffering from brain injury caused low IQs and vocational services to less educated with back and stress issues to employees with advanced education — in this case engineers, mostly civil and structural — generally a mix of 112 Loyal Survivalists, 110 Analytical Specialists, 114 Brand-as-Experts and 116 Institutional Traditionalists.  

But, the shiny glass buildings and corporate tower might have tipped me off if I had known any better.  Was it a high tech company on the inside? 

Imposter Waiting to Be Uncovered

But, Fluor was a big change for me compared to what I had been doing.  It was scary.  I didn’t have the confidence coming into the company since I felt I was impersonating a professional but was really only faking it until I made it.

I had no feel for what was going on.  I just knew we had no leader for 30 days.  But we were a group of internal consultants and classroom trainers.

I absorbed everything I could from the rest of the Management Development & Training staff.

Just a Number

Right off the bat I didn’t like what the HR rep said during the on boarding process about essentially keeping your nose to the grindstone and you’ll do well.

It kind of echoed what Blackmore told me,  “We don’t air our dirty laundry on the clothesline.”

What’s that old saying?  Why are employees like mushrooms?  Employers feed them shit and keep them in the dark.

Internal Consultant 40,000 Employees

For five years I “faked it until I made it” as an internal consultant in the management development and training.

Other than my college and university experience, this was my first taste of working in a large organization — 40,000 employees at its peak with 6,000 in the corporate office.  

Building

The company the old-timers told me everything changed when they had moved from a military-looking, defense contractor set of building from all over Los Angeles into Irvine’s high-tech looking glass-mirroring compound. 

As soon as they did everyone began dressing up into ties and three-piece suits and had to wear photo id badges.  Kinda like when the raw recruits emerged from the barbershop in basic training and couldn’t recognize everyone.

Everything was new.  Every floor looked the same when you exited the elevator, until you noticed subtle color variations in the carpet and wall decorations.

Confidentiality Location

Our office entrance was on the first floor just before everyone took the escalator down a level to the open cafeteria and enclosed, but open aired patio.

Our group’s location may have been intentionally planned so managers and employees could seek confidential meetings for advice in sticky situations without calling too much undue attention.  Like a sign of weakness. Or a signal that someone was waving dirty laundry.

Strong Command and Control Under Glass

They still kept their strong control and command management style while they were able to fit everyone into the glass compound, except one division — the Advanced Technology Division.  Everyone in the high potential poll of future executives, no matter the location, congregated monthly for high level leadership presentations in our building.

One year a helicopter had flown in some well-known, well-healed politicos who made their entrance from the stairwell in the middle of the open aired patio into the normal eating area, except it was late afternoon and this was the supervisors club meeting — and the Secretary of State on this one occasion was addressing us in a barely distinguishable heavy accent as a favor since he had been on retainer to the CEO.  

He pontificated on the world’s global events and by extrapolation which business opportunities Fluor should strategically capitalize on. 

Here’s What I Didn’t Know

In short order big changes were  coming my way after accepting an offer to work for a growing, mature company in the engineering and construction industry with 45,000 employees worldwide and 6,000 in Irvine, mostly in the Southern California Division.

The executive team misread the length of an industry-wide recession which plunged the mature engineering and construction into a prolonged decline. 

In three years Fluor’s backlog went from $16 billion to $4 billion and reported $633 million in losses which triggered years of difficult restructuring.

I felt my new career slip away. Except another consultant and I saw an intrepreneural opportunity to advance what he had been piloting already and to provide services for hundreds and maybe thousands about to get their pink slips. 

Internal Outplacement 

That might have been a coincidence, or an omen, but one of the first major projects we urgently began developing was outplacement.  Luckily, I knew enough from my Univance work to be dangerous and Tom had already been introducing Career Development Planning as a pilot project.  But, the shit was hitting the fan.

It was a hard sell to executives who knew nothing about outplacement.

They wanted to know how many people took advantage?  They were laid off, right?  Wouldn’t they feel like they had the scarlet letter — “L” on their forehead? And wouldn’t people walking the halls notice them with job-finding binders which would negatively effect morale?

Surfaced Their Resistance, Dumbed Down Our Aspirations

So, we convinced top management to allow us to offer a three hour seminar and a binder covering the best overlooked ways to find a new job.  And then follow that up with more in-depth workshops and counseling — all on site.  

That bite sized chunk turned out to be much easier for them to swallow.  And, working everything out comprehensively gave us the advantage of anticipating almost all of the failure points to avoid.

CEO Blunder

The Orange County Register published an interview with Fluor’s CEO who said, primarily for stock market investors, they were getting rid of the deadwood.  

Word got around fast.  Out of 20 or so attendees in the first seminar only one or two didn’t bring a copy of that article with them.  

It felt like the villagers armed with pitch forks storming the Frankenstein laboratory.  I had to throw out the seminar agenda and improvise on the spot.

Our party line was to focus on finding a job now, because the job market wasn’t booming and they’d need every tip, trick and luck they could muster. 

“Then if you still feel the same, sue later.”  I said that last part in a whisper.

After the first 45 minutes of them venting how unfair it was and recommending lawyers who would take their cases, as engineers they pointed out that they didn’t fall asleep at the helm of the ship and didn’t underestimate the duration of the industry downturn.  

All my partner and I could do was to nod, tell them we feel their pain (knowing they would look at us while thinking we were less valuable to the company then they were), and steer them back to “Here’s what you need to know, how to sign up for workshops and one-on-one coaching.”

Which woke me up to life in the fast lane as I processed hundreds through our internally run outplacement programs adding a staff and scheduling one-on-one advisory sessions, while reaching out to human resources recruiters in southern California companies needing talented people.

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“4”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Routines are like train tracks; once established, you can chug along to your destination without too much drama. Routines will help you do things that would be very hard otherwise.”  Aries 

And that works both ways, right?  When routines and habits become too entrenched they become so hardened that it’s nearly impossible to choose another track. The insidious thing, is we don’t know what we don’t know.  Good stuff gets screened out as the world flies past our window.

“4”  Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “If you can’t say a thing succinctly, that only means you’re still trying to work out which part of it is important. The principle holds true in any pursuit. Economy will come with experience.” Leo

Is that why as an introvert  (INTP) I need to let things cool down and spend an ungodly amount of time processing what just happened?

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “You are unique. To whatever extent you can, set up your environment to flow in a way that supports your particular needs, preferences and thinking style.” Libra

Hmm.  So you’re saying holed away in my office, away from everyday distractions helps my thinking style?  That would be 113 Idea Packager aka INTP?

“3”  Steve Aoki, 41: “Today, you’ll be doing the typical you thing but on an atypical scale. Working much bigger or much smaller than usual will highlight your talent in such a way as to teach you where your strengths and weaknesses lie.” Sagittarius

Wow, if you say so.  Either this is so profound and I’m so dense, or I’ll have to get back with you at the end of the day.

Holiday Forecast for the Week Ahead:  

An argument can be made that humans, like ants, bees and termites, are eusocial creatures. It follows that, like ants, bees and termites, most individuals do not do well on their own. 

They need the support of the swarm in order to thrive. For this reason, most humans have a visceral reaction to things like noninclusion, shunning and other forms of rejection. 

While rejection may not be physically harmful, it hits at a primal level. For humans, to be ostracized from the group has historically been a fate akin to death and, indeed, would often lead there. 

Without the protection of the tribe, one person in the wild is vulnerable and constantly challenged, so it follows that a fear of rejection is a normal and useful part of socialization. 

Since most people fear and avoid rejection, those who go the opposite way are regarded with admiration. And those who risk rejection often become somewhat immune to the otherwise crippling effects of rejection-fear. More and greater options are open to those who are unafraid to try for them.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 4733 to 4807.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S4 E37 — Racing a Little Wobbly on Whiskey Row

Over the loud speaker we heard, “And, here comes #32 Alan Lars.” The cyclists ended their race at the intersection to our right.  Jay told us across the street were Prescott’s historic buildings, including The Palace, Arizona’s oldest restaurant and bar.

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trips

Knowledge ATMs 

A peak behind the scenes of self-publishing, crowdfunding, and working for yourself

Table of Contents

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s 37th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 8th day of May in the spring of 2022.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12880 this week to 12943 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 220 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Context

By the time Jay and I returned from inspecting their property in a cookie-cutter suburb that might have been a stereotypical community in California, except instead of anything green for this spring time of year, all you could see was Palm Springs-like decor but without the palm trees.  

Like at Jay and Elle’s house smaller and larger rocks filled in their landscape.  At least in their front dry-rock gulch instead of a lawn, trees shaded their entryway.  Not so much at their house they had intended to flip or rent to other California investors.

There, the sun reflected off the street, the dry rock landscape and brownish block walls adding to the morning temperature without a breeze.

Image Credit: https://www.visitarizona.com/

As Jay navigated through The Dells (Granite Dells), on each side of the road made up of large boulder granite outcroppings that have eroded into a spectacular appearance of bumpy rock features, we talked a bit about his former career in firefighting, but more specifically about the Yarnell Hill Fire years before he moved to Prescott.

The wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona ignited by dry lightning on June 28, 2013. By June 30, it overran and killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Just one of the hotshots on the crew survived—he was posted as a lookout on the fire and was not with the others when the fire overtook them. The Yarnell Hill Fire was one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires.

Jay vaguely remembered how the widows survivor benefits weren’t paid, getting tangled up in some sort of finger-pointing and counter lawsuits.  I thought the hotshots were independent contractors so they weren’t entitled to benefits.

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard copyright 2022

We pull into his driveway.  Apparently the two wives had run out of stories to share about us, so they’re ready jump into Jay’s dark blue SUV for a drive into historic downtown Prescott.

As a footnote, Elle points out Jays rearview air conditioner doesn’t work properly and  suggests we switch to her SUV for our next sight seeing adventure.

Jay and Elle point out a few restaurants and shops on the way down the hill towards the main town.  They discuss parking tactics.  Jay swings left and crosses a few intersections until he spies public parking lots near the destination he has in mind.

Image Credit: https://www.visitarizona.com/

The old courthouse.  The one where they have public rest rooms.

Negotiating the space, he tells us he’ll let us out on the passenger side, so he can squeeze in as close as he can to the cement wall.  Elle winces a little as he moves back and forth inching closer and closer to the wall.  She’s now glad he’s not driving her car.

From a distance, the town seems to be laid out like other western towns.  In fact, I’m reminded of a combination of Durango and Telluride in Colorado. Everything old time western radiates out from core frontier square.

My new, left knee replacement holds up well as we walk downhill two blocks and hear cheering, an announcer and gazed over to our left and notice where it looks like a bandstand had been set up and picnickers sat on blankets in front of it.

Wait, I remember the headline of an article that made its way into my Apple News feed before we hit the road in California.  

This must be that race known as the Cocodona 250.  More specifically, Here’s Who To Watch For At The Cocodona 250 – And How.  

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard copyright 2022

Over the loud speaker we heard, “And, here comes #32 Alan Lars.” And over there too must be where you can watch, right?

Jay picked up the pace heading towards a statue.  I joined him as instead of climbing the stairs to the courthouse straight ahead, he veered off to our right and trotted around the side to the back entrance and bolted for the door which said, “Men”.  

I joined him.

Having done our business, we mingled in among a crowd of cyclists and made our was to where the race was under way.

Between occasional cyclists the announcer chattered about how long he’d been calling the race, how you can listen to him and where you could catch his webcast I think.  Honestly it was hard to tell above the general din of supporters, spectators and tourists like us.

Image Credit: Stephen G. Howard copyright 2022

I hung back a little scanning the row of cycling gear marketing tents and began to read a vertical banner hung on a light pole, like at a bus stop listing all the stops and transfers you should know before boarding.

I could only make out that this race, it was a race at all, included tiers of participants based upon I knew not what.  But, it burst my assumption about it being the Cocodona 250.

“What?”  I only faintly recognized Jay’s voice.

Jay had to yell out what he told Emma the Baroness and Elle for me.  “This is Whiskey Row.”

The cyclists ended their race at the intersection to our right.  Jay told us across the street were Prescott’s historic buildings, including The Palace, Arizona’s oldest restaurant and bar.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

“5”  Steve Zahn, 51: “Maybe you feel your pattern is very predictable, but people around you still don’t seem to know what you’ll do next. There are advantages to keeping mystery alive as long as possible.” Scorpio

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E36 — Big Rigs, Skull Valley and Yarnell Hotshots; S4 E35 — Prescott Pitstop Knocks Me Off Balance; S4 E34 — Preconceived Notions Hit the Road for Prescott

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E37 — Tell Me More Lies I Can Believe In; S3 E36 — Placebo, Meaningful Coincidence or Just Feeling Lucky; S3 E35 — This Ain’t No Zemblanity; S3 E34 — Why You’re Susceptible to Subliminal Suggestions Like …

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E37 — How Deep is the Chasm? What Do We Do?; S2 E36 — Turning Lemons into Margaritas; S2 E35 — Was this Pandemic Year a 1-Off or New Way of Life?; S2 E34 — Why Is This Kicking Off the 4th Industrial Revolution? 

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E37 — Day 37 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E36 — Day 36 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E35 — Day 35 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E34 — Day 34 of My 1-Year Experiment;

Evidence

Today’s Holiday Theme: 

Mother’s Day, a celebration of a commonality that goes beyond the human species. This tribute to the person who is, at best, a first friend in life, and at least the double-X chromosome contributing to our physical existence … children, playfulness and theatrics.

“5”  Steve Zahn, 51: “Maybe you feel your pattern is very predictable, but people around you still don’t seem to know what you’ll do next. There are advantages to keeping mystery alive as long as possible.” Scorpio

Haha I remember Jay asking if I was an influencer yet.  He had no idea what I described as phase two of my natural experiment which will lead to “The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Today’s Holiday Birthday: 

Your magic formula for success starts with curiosity — a most alluring quality that will keep you in the best and brightest company this year. Ask questions, even if you think you know the answers. Thinking you know the answers is disadvantageous, but the rewards you find as you continue to clarify the world will make you positively rich.

Curiosity killed the cat. I’m glad I’m not a cat.  I’m sad. I so wanted to claim this birthday, but it’s not for me.  I hope it is yours.

“4” Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “You’re friendly and inclusive, and yet still careful about who gets into your inner circle. It’s not that you’re afraid, more like practical. It’s cleaner and smarter to keep some things on a need-to-know basis.” Taurus

We’re friends with Jay and Elle.  But, not to the extreme fear of an impending argument about politics, I know something may erupt to harsh our vacation mellow along divisive party lines.   

“3”  Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53;  Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “‘Talk is cheap,’ they say… But if that were true, public speakers and spokespeople wouldn’t be paid nearly so well. Words paint mental pictures that inspire action. Yours are definitely worth something today.” Capricorn

That’s so flattering.  I’m not sure if I hit the 14,000 hours necessary to claim the ability to paint mental images to inspire you, but I’d lie if I weren’t aspiring towards the goal.

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “The secret to your success is that you don’t show up once or twice, rather you do so consistently over long periods of time. Good things are coming to you, hard-earned and well-deserved.” Pisces

I prided myself as a Executive MBA career advisor to be there for the students over the two years they attended, and to stay in touch with them after graduation to see how or if they actually applied what they learned, especially if I had matched them to a mentor.

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

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S3 E45 — Tacit Heuristics Blinding Fast-Track Teams

I’ve learned that I am really susceptible to the downsides.  But, I’m a sucker for that aha! experience, so naturally I’d latch on to a word (heuristic) that comes from the same root as eureka.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “You’ll discover that a belief you held was wrong or incomplete — oh, sweet liberation! This levels the mental ground where you’ll be building something sturdier and more beautiful to dwell inside.”  Aries

Hi and welcome to Friday’s Episode 45 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 14th day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E44 — Make It Rhyme To Work Each Time; S3 E43 — Add a Little Foresight to My Misdemeanor Tab; S3 E42 — Greta, Juliette and the Partridge Family at Trestles

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E45 — Wildcard What Ifs and Doobie Bros Bias; S2 E44 — Celebrating Emma the Baroness Tribal Quarantine Style; S2 E43 — See What You’ve Been Missing …; S2 E42 — It Was Short and Sweet, but Heart-Felt

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E45 — Day 45 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E44 — Google Me Some Chopped Liver; S1 E43 — Desperation on Such a Summer’s Day; S1 E42 — Love on the Run

Context

When knowledge management gained purchase as an emerging profession I attended a week-long online conference with early practitioners and discussed “distinctions” of what it was all about.  

It was too soon to define it with hard boundaries.  

One of the pioneers advocated heuristics as a practice for sharing and refining knowledge that wasn’t already explicitly in use. 

 I’d never heard of heuristics before, but I caught a flavor of his meaning for what he called tacit knowledge — what people on a team knew and shared intuitively with each other.

Team members learn something by bringing products to market like the one they’re up against the looming release date.  

The team is stumped.  

Someone pitches a solution based on a similar product she engineered in the recent past and it works. Crisis averted.  That solution is passed on again and again. 

More formally a heuristic is like a rule of thumb — a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind.

I’ve learned that I am really susceptible to the downsides.  I’m a sucker for that aha! experience, so naturally I’d latch on to a word (heuristic) that comes from the same root as eureka.

If you knew me you’d know I always look for a simple procedure that helps me find answers to difficult questions —  adequate, but often imperfect as they may be to move forward. 

But,  now I’ve come to learn what I’m most likely guilty of is some kind of mental trick, a kind of a bait and switch without noticing.  

I  sometimes automatically substitute an easier question for a difficult one, answer it and congratulate myself on my brilliance.

As Daniel Kahneman says, “(A) lazy System 2 often follows the path of least effort and endorses a heuristic answer without much scrutiny of whether it is truly appropriate.”

How does it work? 

While l’m engaged in searching for an answer to one question, my “System 1” simultaneously generates the answers to related questions. 

Often it may substitute a response that more easily comes to my mind for the one that was requested and more complicated.  

“The heuristic answer is not necessarily simpler or more frugal than the original question, but it is accessible, computed more quickly and easily.” 

The answers are not random.  They are often approximately correct and frequently that’s all you need. 

As in technology heuristic of inserting a good enough product into the customers hands and get them to tell you about all the flaws so you can iterate and release new versions.

But, sometimes they are quite wrong. Which can come back and bite you in your own life if you’ve got a lot on the line.  

Evidence

But, Zahnny, am I wrong in assuming focus and concentration won’t short circuit my intuitive self no matter how flawed?

“3”  Steve Zahn, 51: “The work worth doing centers around your energy, perception and ability. Focus there, and so much else will naturally come together. Focusing elsewhere will be ineffective.” Scorpio

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

You know, Steve sometimes your Holiday Tau hits the nail on the head.  It wasn’t until these last weeks while working on the Conclusions section of my Report that I discovered heuristics, good as they may be in general, weren’t the end all and be all of knowledge management.  In fact they may have accounted for blinding fast-track teams under pressure to deliver tech products at a faster and faster pace.  Mea culpa.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “You’ll discover that a belief you held was wrong or incomplete — oh, sweet liberation! This levels the mental ground where you’ll be building something sturdier and more beautiful to dwell inside.”  Aries

Eureka G&G.  Here’s my take on this passion project at 5:45 am this morning. Looking back through the report I grow tired and weary because of the disconnects and disjointed sections.  My plan was to write the end and then go back to the beginning and clean up portions as I made progress towards the conclusion.

“5”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “The interaction of opposing forces in your mind creates friction, hot moods and frustrating mental traffic jams. Alignment changes everything. Thoughts flowing in the same direction create momentous forward movement.”  Virgo

Did someone say, aha! or eureka?  Count me in. Anything to distract me, like a squirrel does for a dog, from this ongoing national political disgrace.

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “Heavy topics and serious matters just don’t have appeal to you now, though you’re quite excited by novelty and the lighter side of life. This mood is perfect for building rapport with others.” Pisces

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8138 to 8193 organically grown followers

Foresight

Quality-of-Life 

Long-Form

    • “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, a classic I feel which still holds up. As the pace of change quickens we experience self-doubt, anxiety and fear.  We become tense and tire easily, until we are overwhelmed, face-to-face with a crisis situation. Without a clear grasp of relevant reality or beginning with clearly defined values and priorities, we feel a deepening sense of confusion and uncertainty. Our intellectual bewilderment leads to disorientation at the level of personal values. Decision stress results from acceleration, novelty and diversity conflicts. Acceleration pressures us to make quick decisions. Novelty increases the difficulty and length of time while diversity intensifies the anxiety with an increase in the number of options and the amount of information needed to process.  The result is a slower reaction time.
    • Daniel Kahneman’s, “Thinking Fast and Slow”describes two different ways the brain forms thoughts: “System 1” which is meant as a fictional shorthand — not as a brain system or structure: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, unconscious. “System 2”: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious. I’m learning a lot about my energy levels first described from within an introversion frame now, from within differences between System 1 and the harder working, energy depletion System 2.  Self-control, for instance is hard and takes a lot of energy to accomplish.  When I write the concentration requires effort until I can find the “flow.” Implications for True Belief — it’s easy to stay in System 1 vs. critical thinking — System 2.  Set some marketing and working on the business goals — System 2 and then ignore them by following the lateral thinking and associative thinking  which Leo da V invites me to do — System 1.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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S4 E35 — Prescott Pitstop Knocks Me Off Balance

I recalled how Jay and Elle took us down the shared dirt and gravel driveway to Shelly Junior’s “compound” where his divorced wife and son lived at one end of the property.  Junior was in the midst of building out a massive wooden deck on the second or third story home — underneath a gigantic Confederate flag waving in the occasional breeze beneath the trees.

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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Knowledge ATMs 

A peak behind the scenes of self-publishing, crowdfunding, and working for yourself

Table of Contents

Hi and welcome to Friday’s 35th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 6th day of May in the spring of 2022.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12817 this week to 12880 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 220 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Context

“How was your trip?” Jay had been looking for us to pull into his driveway after we texted Siri’s estimated arrival time.  

His house like many of the other neighbors we noticed as we drove uphill to his shared driveway proudly displayed the Stars and Stripes as a signal each housed Patriots.

“Park here” he directed us to a pad in the front near the front door for easy unloading.

He had been expecting us an hour earlier, based on how long he and Elle usually took to make the reverse trip to visit their kids in Ladera Ranch.  “Yeah, well we stopped to eat at Chipotle near the Outlet stores and the Morongo Resort Casino just outside of Palm Desert.”

Image Credit: Google Maps

Later, on Mother’s Day as when we recounted the entire vacation, Delta Girl said she too felt disappointed when she drove out of her way for an advertised bowl that the restaurant no longer offered.

Emma the Baroness and I both ordered substitute bowls and chips and overstuffed ourselves.  Returning to the CR-V the wind blasted us.  Not like the hot oven wind we’d grown accustomed to when enjoying long desert weekends at Shadow Mountain, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, or La Quinta.

In Prescott with Jay and Elle, we sat around in their large dark wood dining room table after being shown to our first floor guest room and laying out our suitcases.

Image Credit: Apple Maps

Dinner was ready. 

Later we retired to the back yard porch for more wine and desert, while former fireman Jay, turned on his natural gas flame momentarily which in turn ignited the wood he piled meticulously on top of the outdoor fireplace grate.

I stuffed myself again overeating, but couldn’t help it. The approaching nighttime darkness found us catching up with stories about our Italy vacation and what it’s like for them living now in Prescott instead of in California.

I wanted to know about how Jay’s longtime fireman friend was.  “How long has he been confined to a wheelchair and when did he suffer his accident?”

Jay thoughtfully paused for a moment and told us his first back problem occurred when they were both new recruits training together.  And, then a dozen back surgeries later he remains in pain.  We briefly stopped by their house when we had visited Durango, Colorado the second time and stayed at Jay and Elle’s home there.

Image Credit: Apple Maps

“Didn’t he and his son own some property together in Durango?”

“Yeah,” Jay ran some calculations in his head.  “Originally 40 acres and Shelby gave his son a couple of acres while selling off most of the other acres.”

I recalled how Jay and Elle took us down the shared dirt and gravel driveway to Shelby junior’s “compound” where his divorced wife and son lived at one end of the property and Junior was in the midst of building out a massive wooden deck on the second or third story home — underneath a gigantic Confederate flag waving in the occasional breeze beneath the trees.

Back then I didn’t realize the significance until driving from Durango to Dillon with stop in Telluride.

If you’re like me your mind wanders as you drive between destinations on long trips. I was day dreaming about our  last vacation trip to this region

We simply ran out of time and skipped Telluride.

This year we skipped a stop in Silverton, because as empty nesters both of us felt the community was just too small and remote for us. We passed ranches and old mines dotted with buildings in various states of disrepair.

And then a strange incident popped into my head.

One that just seemed odd at the time and remained just that until much later after Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. Only then did it connect two things political.

Our Durango friends reintroduced us to their life long friends. And, took us to visit their friends divorced son. Junior greeted us at his home which was undergoing a major remodel.

Two things.

We hadn’t seen such gigantic log beams supporting his new roof. And, we hadn’t seen someone proudly displaying a huge Confederate flag on the top of the roof. This in contrast to the flowing American flag at the entrance of our friends best friends.

We just hadn’t encountered that before.

On our short vacation it just seemed odd. We didn’t attach any importance to it We were totally clueless. Naively we asked our friends about it.

They glossed it over with a back story that Gen-X Junior had always been rebellious growing up and in school. Now, I wonder if they guessed we knew the significance of it.

But at the time we didn’t.

It just seemed odd flowing so magnificently there, clearly thousands and thousands of miles from the deep South.

We might have figured it out.

Especially when Junior’s mother told him to take it down, in that scolding tone all young boys feel in their bones. But he didn’t, although now it reminds me of the headline about the previous election.

“Swastika On Campaign Sign Sparks Outrage”

On Tuesday, Jeff Widen, a volunteer with the La Plata County Democrats, looks at a Barack Obama campaign sign he put up the previous day near U.S. Highway 160 and County Road 222 east of Durango.

Sure, I can fess up to drinking too much, but not enough to where I lost my balance more than usual or fell victim to my eyes crossing.  But I threw up twice in the night — elevation sickness?

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “The mind gets stronger in the same way muscles do — through lifting. In today’s case the work includes words and concepts, feelings, puzzles and a few logistical problems too.” Aries

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E34 — Preconceived Notions Hit the Road for Prescott; S4 E33 — When Was The Last Time Honesty and Character Counted?; S4 E32 — A Rudy By Any Other Name Still Smells …  

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E35 — This Ain’t No Zemblanity; S3 E34 — Why You’re Susceptible to Subliminal Suggestions Like …; S3 E33 — Do Meaningful Coincidences Really Exist?; S3 E32 — But, Why Should You Care?  

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E35 — Was this Pandemic Year a 1-Off or New Way of Life?; S2 E34 — Why Is This Kicking Off the 4th Industrial Revolution?; S2 E33 — What Happens When Your Business Collapses?; S2 E32 — Trapped and Bored? Or Unleashing a Reinvention Wave? 

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E35 — Day 35 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E34 — Day 34 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E33 — Day 33 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E32 — Day 32 of My 1-Year Experiment

Evidence 

Holiday Theme: 

… it’s a fine weekend for hosting. And while a main joy will be the company of others, a side perk is the way you see yourself and your home through the eyes of your guests. Other people are better mirrors than actual mirrors. We are all too familiar with our own visage to properly see ourselves.

We didn’t leave much room in our schedule for a getaway vacation on a roadtrip to Arizona.  First stop, Prescott.  And then a driving tour of Jerome, Cottonwood and Montezuma’s Castle.  Second stop, Sedona.  Then back to southern California in time for  the long delayed remodel or our master bathroom — due to pandemic supply chain disruptions. And finally, hosting the family in honor of Emma the Baroness on Mother’s Day.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “The mind gets stronger in the same way muscles do — through lifting. In today’s case the work includes words and concepts, feelings, puzzles and a few logistical problems too.” Aries

Wait, did you include memories and connections? And conversations and topics that spark associations that ignite other “spark-able” links to shared moments?

“4”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “People are drawn to the comfort of your warmth. You don’t need to fix anyone or provide structure or direction. To offer your acceptance and love will do more than you know.” Taurus

I’m accepting this compliment on behalf of Emma the Baroness, the true recipient, even though I add offbeat dad’s humor good for a laugh or two.

“4”  Steve Howey, 42: “What you’re doing is inherently important. That means whether you make sure everyone knows this, or hide out and act in secret, it’s just as essential. Right now, the work is what matters, not how popular it is.” Cancer

So operating in stealth mode counts?  Mostly with Emma the Baroness’ friends we find we have to avoid conservative’s topics like religious beliefs and political persuasions — although many who voted for him the first time, could stand to do so the second time.

“4”  Steve Aoki, 41; Steven Spielberg, 74: “People concerned with proving their superiority are typically overcompensating for a deep sense of inadequacy. Align with the successful and laid-back types who live like we are all in this together.” Sagittarius

So just how do you accomplish this TauBit of Wisdom graciously.  It seems like at any given moment 45% of us are against them and visa versa.  

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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