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.
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.
