guilty until proven innocent

Art Burshy struggled today with comforting his daughter; she had had a bad experience with her boy friend and initially Art was patient, listening to her sorrow and sobbing, her repetition of sad lines and thoughts.
The boy had done something bad and she needed to talk about it.
It lasted for 5 minutes, 10 minutes and then went on and on...
And Art, really trying to be a good father, kept listening, asking different questions... but the answers resulted in the same repetition, including:
- did I push him too much
- he can't be that much of a monster
- why does this happen to me..
- maybe I am just not good enough for him
- I am sure he will discover what he misses and will come back...in the end...won't he?

After many repetitions it caused some sort of impatience to fill up Art's inside, a feeling of anger....
He felt like all the talking needed to be transformed into action; move forward, find solutions, have a life.
Art was aware that the basic reaction to issues between men and women differs:
- men always start looking for solutions, and feel that that is what they can contribute whenever someone has a problem
- women just need to talk about it...and talk about it...and...
But he just could not help it.
How could his daughter sit here sobbing over a piece of shit...

In the end he could not hold back his frustrations:
"darling, how can you mourn over losing this boy....
it was clear he did not deserve your love...
men are a bunch or retarded testosterone bombs, and only few succeed to rise to a higher level of sophistication... and your boy friend was not one of them..."
Ooops, this caused her to cry even more intensely...
Art realised he had just told his daughter she wasted a year with a fucked up son-of-a-... so he realised he had to take a step back.

He sat down next to his daughter and explained her:
- how much of a beautiful woman she is (Art had learnt that for a girl confirmation of her beauty by her father is essential in her development, and as a hobby-psychologist he tried to bring these sort of lessons in practise - not always with a good result though...
- how much he wished for her she would run into a man that would admire her, worship her, respect her...
- he told her his youth love-sorrow and frustrations such as:
- how he discovered girls would fall for guys with self confidence, but that would at the same time be completely disrespectful, and hurt them all the time
- how he was frustrated that the girl he worshipped did not choose for him; the artistic shy innocent boy that truly admired her and would never want to hurt her...

It seemed that this calmed her down, and after this even Art felt their exchange of stories helped push away the initial hefty emotional sadness.

I complimented Art with intervening in his own dysfunctional behaviour, and turning it the right way...
But Art did not seem impressed with the compliment, he told me:
'the difficulty as a father is that you are never ready raising your children....
every 'victory' is short term, and new temptations and challenges are around the corner...
and even when you feel for a moment you really made a positive difference in their lives...
years later the kids tell you these moments traumatised them...'
and...
"When you become  a father you basically accept making an art work that will never be ready, where outside factors keep ruining your art piece, and in the end you have no control at all...and you can only hope kids come to you for help in case they are in deep shit..."

A "Wow" escaped my mouth and Art looked at me, seeing my surprised and puzzled face.
He added:
"I am not really proud of being of the male race...
and I sometimes wonder whether there ever has been a purpose of creating male and female versions of mankind...
Although sometimes when for example in an organisation you have many women working together, it can become sort of a sick-mistrust-paranoia-atmosphere...but not sure we can only solve that by adding something like a 'man'...
men repeatedly show bad behaviour, as husbands, in groups and as leaders;
- strive for power and putting others at a lower level or even destruct opposition
- a continuous competitive nature
- abuse of their position in the pack
- disrespect to women, and keeping male-network intact
- suppression..."

I asked him whether he thought all men were like this... and he though for a moment...
Basically, man has many flaws in his nature, deep drives that maybe one day long ago had some sort of purpose...
Every man needs to conquer these deeper patterns in himself
This is a lifetime struggle only to be helped when a man finds his true muse...
So, I do not trust men...
for me men are guilty until proven innocent..."

shocking people to trigger their imagination

"I love shocking people" is what Art Burshy told me today.
Let me explain you what happened.

Art asked me to join a meeting with his team.
He wanted an objective observer to evaluate the meeting afterwards.
I asked why this was required, as Art must already have lots of experience in such meetings and presentations.
I asked him:
"is it because you do not know the people?"; but he denied.
"because it is a difficult topic?", and he shook his head...so why could that be
"maybe because you strive for continuous improvement, like Plan-Do-Check-Act...?" I tried a last time.

Then Art told me: "when I think it goes very smooth it often turns out to be dramatic... and when I think it is difficult it turns out people are quite enthusiastic..."
"It is like making an art work; when you start and think it is becoming the perfect art work, it ends as a dramatic pompous failure. But when you start out with a struggle, the end result is truly surprising."
I did not really understand but will ask Art to explain me in the future in more detail.

Well, here I was, joining a meeting with many people I do not know at all.
Art Burshy had put 2 paintings in front of the crowd...
Why was that?
- did he want them all to paint, like sort of 60's creative hug session?
- was he going to explain the paintings to a bunch of non-creative business people?
- was there a hidden message in the paintings?

Then Art pointed at a very dark painting saying: "This is where we are today..." and after pointing to a bright one and adding "...and this is where we need to go".
I observed the people looking around, making eye-contact with each other as if to say "WTF is he talking about..."
I was getting worried...did Art always work like this...did he intend to shock them...

Art started asking them questions, like what they saw in the paintings, what they liked in the coloured and bright one. Then moving to 'how-this-reflects-what-needs-to-be-improved'.
During the session more people started to participate and Art wrote down all their comments on the white board;
- the things they wanted to to change
- what it is they could bring to the group in achieving that
- behaviour that could no longer be tolerated

I spoke Art again after the session, when we were biking home sharing with him my observation of the session, he listened and nodded.
Then I asked him what the session really was about, and why he had used art work
Art Burshy explained;
- many people in large companies lose sight of what they are trying to achieve,
- many never speak to a client or do not make a tangible product
- they start blaming others for what is going wrong
As a consequence they live as zombies repeating every day the same actions in the same way; and we call that 'being reliable'.
"You need to shock people to trigger their imagination' he added.

So then I asked why he used this method; how it helps the people, how paintings add value...?
I expected him to explain much about special elements that art brings to the table, deeper insights in inspiration, methodology that has been researched and has demonstrated that art helps in break-through events with teams...
He just replied:
"I love having an excuse to shock people. And for me it's more fun to do that with art..."

the most useful App on the planet...

"The most useful APP on the planet would be the Let-them-all-shut-up APP" is what Art Burshy told me today.

I was travelling to work in the tram when all of a sudden I noticed Art Burshy was in the same tram. I first wanted to wave and yell his name so he could see me, but then I saw he was absorbed by watching his smartphone and having a colourful purple headphone carefully placed over his hat.

Art was not looking very amused and I wondered if his phone failed to work or maybe he couldn't find the right music or maybe he received a terrible message.

We exited at the same tram stop and then he saw me.
He directly started asking me questions, for which it was clear that he was not really waiting for me to answer. Actually, it was quite clear that a sincere attempt to answer would rather create an eruption than a gentle dismissive nod. So I decided to shut up and listen...

"Why do people have headphones?
Do they not realise why it was invented?
Don't they know that it was once a modest Japanese man inventing these devices for a specific purpose?
And...what would that purpose have been?
NOT TO DISTURB OTHERS WITH YOUR F**** MUSIC !!!!
So why do they put their headphones so loud that everyone can hear?
And then why do other people start speaking together loudly?
Why cant they shut up until they arrive at destination?
The worst is of course people listening to music, and then starting a conversation...
Anyway, I was looking for Apps on my smartphone.
Loads of apps for the weirdest and most useless topics.

Some ideas for Apps that would really be helpful would be:
- Let-them-all-shut-up APP > creating anti-sound or using bluetooth to connect to the other device and kill it, yessss
- Chase-them-away-APP > device issuing such a high pitch tone that everyone, except for me, is forced to take distance and move to another tram compartment
- Fake-Announcement-APP > one that issues an announcement as if it was the conductor: "this tram has a defect, please all leave at the next stop. Apologies for any inconvenience caused".
And that's only for having some peace of mind in public transport.

Other more revolutionary Apps could be:
- Avoid-stupid-people-APP > having a GPS that guides you away from any annoying people in your neighbourhood, or at the work place.
- Cold-talk-APP > that gives you subjects and useless backgrounds that can be used to survive brainless discussions at occasions where you do not know people but are supposed to entertain them, such as weddings, company parties and client sessions.
- Fake-urgent-call-APP > that fakes a call when you are speaking to a very uninteresting person and need to be saved
- Mega-fart-APP > One that makes sound of a fart and allows you to ask who did that terrible stinking fart and move to another side of the room or completely escape in the resulting chaos.
Ah well...I should really consider creating some of these apps...it could actually be worthwhile and generate some money...
- Repeat-boring-activities-APP > where you can demo an action once and it repeats it multiple times. For example at work, when doing repetitive work or having to explain the same message over and over.
- Avoid-energy-suckers-APP > that identifies that someone that is about to suck energy away is almost entering your office. There are these people that when they enter your office you already know they are just there to complain, ask questions to which they know the answers, are passive aggressive etc. At work it is more difficult as you are supposed to act as a colleague and are not supposed to offend or hurt them... So when these people arrive the app could automatically close the door or fake you are busy...

Unfortunately I have more important things to do than invading the App industry with my revolutionary ideas...; 
stare at a white piece of paper waiting for creative ideas, or 
get bored on the couch, 
check what the most stupid TV programs are, and of course 
chase my kids assuming I am in control of their lives..."

And then Art Burshy abruptly stopped walking, looked around, waved goodbye and walked away screaming: "YES, DEFINITELY, THE MOST USEFUL APP ON THIS PLANET WOULD BE THE LET-THEM-ALL-SHUT-UP APP..." leaving me standing on the pavement with a puzzled mind and wondering whether Art had been really serious or whether it all had been sarcastic...
 I guess with artists you never really know.

munching candy or eating an apple

At the end of our conversation Art Burshy told me 'people feel the difference between munching candy or eating an apple'.

It had started with Art Burshy clearly not happy with one of his very experienced colleagues leaving the company that day. And before I realised I caught Art in a bit depressed view of several related phenomenons.
He first mentioned them in one-liners but I had to ask Art to explain them, as for a simple soul like mine it was not directly clear what he meant.

Everybody-wants-to-be-a-manager, was his first blurted statement
Art Burshy feels that young 'professionals' focus on making the next step on the career ladder, if possible skipping a few steps on the way. Art calls these people seagulls; they fly into an organisation, drop shit everywhere and then fly away to do the same at another company.
In that context it is not sexy to be an expert. And when you are at a party people generally are more impressed when you say you are a manager. When you say you are an expert though they look at you as if you were having a 'geeky' disease close to autism.
This is not helped by youngsters and future workers being easily bored, because they get spoilt and playing video games all day, having many distractions and lacking long periods of focus and concentration.

I-never-did-this-but-have-a-strong-opinion
Nowadays talents are in a job they have high expectations, they show relatively high self confidence (compensating a lower self esteem) and have the impression they can do much better than others that are higher in the organisation. They feel their opinion is very relevant.
At the start when they are eager this behaviour does not get corrected, and as a consequence they continue developing this behaviour. Ending up in neurotic staff members that no longer accept to be corrected as they 'have been successful like this in the past'.

They do not understand that they are not hired to provide and repeat their opinion. They are hired and paid to highlight alternative ways to solve problems and explore the relevant aspects to allow their management to take a decision.

Staring-at-numbers-and-ignore-reality

Art rattled finally about the fake sense of understanding.

People tend to think that putting all numbers and charts on the table creates a-thing-called-understanding.

They do not understand the key element that is required:

transforming the diverse reality into a limited number of conceptual possibilities.

It is not difficult to find data nowadays, but it is more difficult to identify what is useful and relevant information.

In numbers we can rationalise everything to be interesting and successful; you will always be able to find numbers that prove your point. But are they really proving you are right, and would they truly justify an investment of 50 Million Euro?

Preparing such decisions requires: experience, the ability to conceptualise the real alternatives, and the strength to provide a balanced view of the pros and cons of each alternative. Experience and conceptualising skills often go together but there are no guarantees that experience brings you the actual ability to conceptualise. 

Some things help, such as switching your job and moving to a completely new working area; it forces you to assess how relevant your knowledge is in your new environment. You get forced to look at what is universal to your knowledge, and basically which concepts apply more broadly.

After this pretty incoherent set of statements and explanations Art and I had some more beers in complete silence. My mind was still trying to cope with all the elements and assumptions Art was combining in these views.

So I asked Art what the solution is to all this. It is easy to identify issues, but before getting too depressive it might be good to see if we could influence.

Art Burshy sighed and told me:

I gave up on changing the whole world.

I can not hire back all the experts we fired.

I can not change the way all children are raised.

I can not create useful entertainment for all the bored youngsters.

So what can I do...?

Like an artist I focus on improving myself and the way I interact with the people that surround me. I try walking a meaningful journey.

And I trust that, while walking that path and guiding my behaviour and actions in such way, it can inspire people to do the same.

In the end people feel deep down the difference between what is 'nice' and what is good for them.

They feel the difference between munching candy or eating an apple. Although the sugars in the candy might be very tempting, deep down people know that eating the apple is better for them and makes them feel better.

I got up, felt a bit of a headache coming up, paid the bill and left into the cold wind. It was nice to have my rosy skin cooled and my drunken brain calming down, but it did not yet reach my tired mind that was still struggling with all impressions. I must definitely bring some of these topics up with Art next time I see him.

when the passion is gone

"All managers should be artists" is what Art told me today when asking about his experience at his new employer.

Art Burshy is now busy for some time at his new job but still discovering the culture of his new employer; his internal mentor pointed again to someone and whispered not to trust that person as she would be 'acting political'...
This is not the first time and Art has observed this also in other companies, and when I spoke to him he gave me his uncompromising view.

Art overloaded me mechanisms that are in humans that influence politics.

1. We are so easily hurt because of our EGO.
Often based on vague interpretations of other peoples behaviours. It make us feel we  are entitled to feel hurt. In these cases we use disproportionate heavy words, such as respect, honour, hurt, etc to convince other people not even to start understanding what is the detailed explanation of our claim.
2. We love playing the victim;
sometimes it feels so nice to complain and blame others for our sorrow. As God is no longer there to justify all, we start looking for others to blame
3. It is so easy to find reasons to be hurt;
We are all different, thank-God, so we have all different ways to express ourselves. In difficult situations our communication deteriorates. And when dealing with different cultures...basically no communication can be trusted.
4. We deny of our insanity;
Popular in business is also to deny things like EGO, mental dysfunctions and dark thinking. We have to keep up the appearance of being sane and in control. Artists and rest of humanity has let go of that appearance, and even thrive on their dark side. That would be much more interesting.
5. Influencing = manipulation;
Many people try to 'influence' the outcome of decisions. Everyone thinks that their way is best and the right thing to do, always limited in how much they know and understand about the subject. All these nice 'intentions' cause loads of efforts to convince others, make others often feel like being manipulated.
6. My opinion is the best;
people focus on defending their opinion. Their role should be to explore alternatives and facilitate an objective decision. But somehow it always comes back to EGO, and we look for confirmation of our ideas, our contribution, proof of our added value.

After all this I started feeling dizzy and took a beer.
And after a few moments of reflection I asked Art why so many organisations struggle with this topic, having many people demotivated by it.
Art was clear: lots of organisations are so complex and have been split in little compartments. They have lost the passionate shared goal that initially justified their existence.
When the passion is gone it becomes a struggle for power.
They need a new muse, a new shared image of a beautiful purpose. It is not the individual leader and his ego that should drive the organisation; it should be a clear purpose and added value that inspires all people.
It is like the role of the muse for the artist; a beautiful vision of what-could-be that makes it worth to live the poor and crappy life of a true artist.
Managers should create a muse for their teams, that inspires and drives them collectively in the right direction.

All managers should be artists...were the last words of Art Burshy, and he finished his beer and walked out the door, leaving me a bit puzzled.