Ethics

LBN’s Three Rules for Corporate Success

| jaylazzo

These are good times. New proposals to write, new classes to prepare for. But it is when things get exciting that I recall Warren Buffet’s advice: “Be careful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are careful.”

Investment advice, to be sure. But, regardless, aren’t we always investing energies?

And so, the time for being “fearful” is a time to ask: Are we keeping our eyes on the road after having spent a lot of that time contemplating the sunset? Are we paying attention to the basic practices of our business?

And so I also recall a set of counsels that I call LBN’s 3 Rules for Corporate Success. These are:

  1. Whatever you say, if you don’t make money, you’re wrong.
  2. You work for your boss, not your company.
  3. Take care of your people.

LBN is the president of one of the biggest corporations in the Philippines. He also happens to be my uncle. More than 30 years ago, still a junior executive, he used to pick me up from school. Once he told me about the top things he learned as a protege being groomed for a top position at San Miguel Corporation.

Downloaded from: https://confidentchangemanagement.com/ccm/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/TheFourDisciplinesOfExecution.jpg
Keep a Compelling Scoreboard, Downloaded from https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*XpLiLwgeIs-jhiry.webp

He said, “I learned, first, whatever you say, if you don’t make money, you’re wrong.”

Badass words one picks up on the rat race through the corporate jungle? In fact, he was referring to a basic principle of EXECUTION.

Planning is just a little more difficult than daydreaming, and just as useless if not followed through with what McChesney, Juling and Covey in The Four Disciplines of Execution refer to as the most neglected of skills. They wrote “People want to win. They want to make a contribution that matters.” Hence, part of the skill of execution is to Keep a Compelling Scoreboard. Money, what more compelling score is there?

Now if that score is not moving, one HAS to question what one has been doing or NOT doing. Many of the arguments I hear thrown across a meeting table have to do with plans, values, goals. Outright, we could say that a goal that we can’t measure with a score is a bad one. People will also argue that plans and values are difficult to measure, especially values. But in the end, only the score proves — directly or indirectly — whose plans, values and goals were “right”.

“Right” here does not have to mean the opposite of moral evil, but doing the morally right thing usually means doing the “reasonable” thing, which means it is likely to work and to leave lasting results. You can resign from an evil corporation, and become poorer, but in the long run reason will hopefully be proved right: you won’t be named as defendant in an expensive lawsuit.

“Second,” he continued, “You work for your boss, not your company.” He told a story about how one of the executives got into an argument with the boss. The executive argued that what they were planning to do was not in line with company policy. The boss had him transferred.

The company will never be as much in contact with the ground as your boss. For this reason if you and your boss fail it is NOT the company that goes to jail. So why should I give more loyalty to my company than to my boss?

Furthermore, if you’re surrounded by a large number of goals, many of them from some corporate bureaucrat in HQ, how are you supposed to tell which are the “wildly” important ones? The company looks at the lag goals such as profits and market share over which you and your team have little direct control. Instead, you and your team look at the lead goals, the goals that are immediately under your control, such number of sales calls made per week, which lead to the lag goals.

Besides, who will get your a** if you don’t deliver?

Your boss.

But what if the boss tells you to do something unethical? Let me tell you a story.

A friend of mine, then a medical resident, was a victim of sexual harassment. When she was thinking about filing a case with the administration, her direct supervisor advised her to “let it go”. This not only meant “accept it”, but also meant “we in our team have more important problems than stupidities from some immature man-boys, and even if this were unethical the events that will unfold would not be worth the aggravation it would cause me as your boss and you as the filer of the case.” My friend filed the case. And won. Then she had to leave the hospital: working conditions for her had become unsupportive.

Dynamics and politics matter; face the effin fact. Except where substantial losses are foreseen to devastate many people (see Rule #1) it is best to keep your dirty laundry away from corporate.

“And third,” LBN continued, “Value your people.” This is the easiest to understand; after all “There is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM'”. Even if the boss receives an award, he should know it would not be possible without the team, without the janitor, the security guard, the lady who mans the xerox machine. A good boss makes work PERSONALLY fulfilling for everyone involved.

Personally fulfilling means, most of all, that people know how to make the right choices. They can set goals important to them, choose the actions that lead to those goals, and also make the team’s goals their own. If we should praise then we should also punish, for the right reasons. Reasons that they learn and that they will apply to police themselves. A cycle of accountability that involves both reward and punishment, goal setting and goal discarding, decision analysis, situation analysis should be in place with this one aim: to make people free, empowered, and responsible.

I gave the title LBN’s Three Rules for Corporate Success because that’s where the Rules came from. More than 30 years later I find myself in academe, yet the Rules still serve as a frank reminder to look away from the captivating landscape from time to time and to stay rooted on the road.

(Q.C., 230211)

Shift gears to survive

| jaylazzo

Richard A. Swenson, in A Minute of Margin, writes that toughness isn’t all about Rise and Grind: the idea that tough people never quit, no matter what. Rather, it is about being able to choose strategies, whether to focus or to broaden the mind, to notice the trees or the forest, to exert great effort or to go into flow.

He likens these strategies to the gear shift in an automatic. The strategies are:

  1. PARK. The state of rest and relaxation, of sleep and meditation.
  2. LOW. The state of enjoying time with family and friends.
  3. DRIVE. The state at which we work normally everyday.
  4. OVERDRIVE. The state of urgency and emergency.
From: https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1186909210/vector/car-shift-stick-vector-glyph-icon.jpg?s=612×612&w=0&k=20&c=-H4NKTA8BIqxe8eIqUsqJGa354c6IbZcqWHGgzHrvh8=

A truly tough person knows how to apply a GEAR that is optimal for the situation. In an athletic match for example, the runner might “relax”, that is, DRIVE for most of the race, just keeping pace with the guy in front, even go into LOW “flow”, and then shift to OVERDRIVE in the last few seconds before the finish line.

The problem with society is that it idolizes OVERDRIVE. Hence, the epidemic of stress and breakdown we see even in schools.

I would like, however, to add a fifth gear: REVERSE. Steve Magness, in Do Hard Things, refers to this as the strategy of changing goals.

To illustrate, of all climbers of Mt. Everest who had crossed the death zone of 8,000 meters and died, 10% died on the way up, but 73% died on the way down. It would seem that many of those who lost their lives had given all their resources to reach the top, and had none left to return home. This is foolishness. Instead, a tough person who realized he had no more resources would make the tough decision to change his goals.

That is REVERSE.

Quitting a boss’ job is not usually viewed favorably. One of my friends was appointed as head of his department for a term of 4 years. He was a capable person, a team player, very skilled, and knew how to handle people. But, he told me that he hated much of what he termed “administrivia”. He wasn’t complaining that his job was trivial; he was lamenting that he spent most of his days on matters in which he felt ill at ease: meetings, negotiations, fighting fires at human resources.

I recall the Peter Principle: “People tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence”. My friend, indeed, may be described as an incompetent boss where he found himself, but it may also be that the work was a bad fit for his values and character. Some bosses are simply good in this situation, some relish conflict, long meetings, and even enjoying death threats for breakfast. Had he in fact been one of those with this rare gift, then quitting would have been a waste of talent.

But his talent was not wasted. Those were miserable years. Now he seems happier, more relaxed, healthier, able to channel his talents more productively than ever before. He claims his hemorrhoids have disappeared.

If you were really tough, you would quit if this was the price of survival. Back at the foot of the mountain you WILL hear people talk; those people will not even try to whisper. Some will look at you with disdain for the rest of your life: “What a quitter”. “What an incompetent.” “It would have been better for him to be a martyr to all mountain climbers. A legend.”

A dead legend.

(Q.C. 230210)

Slow down you move to fast

| jaylazzo

For about 6 years between 2011 and 2017 I commuted to work on a motorcycle. I bought a Suzuki 125 cc Thunder. Tall and sporting a 12-L gas tank, it looked like a big bike. I loved that machine.

That’s NOT me on the Suzuki Thunder 125. Downloaded from: https://www.motorcyclephilippines.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/4.jpg

I loved the freedom, the fact that I could be punctual for appointments even across cities as I could weave through traffic or go up on sidewalks if necessary. I loved it accelerated than cars. It could not top the speed of a car, though, but in the city this was not a big issue.

The biggest issue was safety. I was discouraged by some of my friends, who only thought of the dangers. “Even if you’re careful,” they kept saying, “other drivers could still kill you.” I determined that the benefits outweighed the risks, while accepting the lethal possibilities. Next time they saw me, I had the Thing.

Then I had a close call soon after.

The near accident happened on my ride to Pasig City from Quezon City. I got a little annoyed with a car and I, stupidly, raced it. I made a move to overtake and cut right on the bend where Temple Drive turns left towards Greenmeadows Avenue. I was traveling at around 50 kph.

But it was too fast. If I braked too suddenly on a turn, that would be certain disaster. If I didn’t bank steeply enough I would crash into the side of that fast moving car. I risked it and banked while putting a soft touch on the brakes. I felt my tire making brief contact with the side of the car. He (probably) didn’t notice. I was terrified.

Since then, I mentally replaced the numbers on the speedometer with “Risk of Death”.

Laser focus from driving fast is no problem on a racetrack, but dangerous in city streets for their many “obstacles”, like drivers who don’t know how to drive, people, cats. Speed is exhilirating. Speed is addictive.

Traffic lights and traffic slow you down.

Steve Magness, in Do Hard Things, writes about the benefits of alternating between fast and slow. He also writes of alternating between seeing the trees and seeing the forest. Too much focus on the trees will keep you from seeing creative possibilities; too much focus on the forest will keep you from getting much done.

The Pomodoro, an egg timer shaped like a tomato, is a well known productivity tool built on rhythm. How does it work? Say you want to study. The book is in front of you, a notebook, a pen as well. You set the timer for 25 min. Then you work with absolute concentration. When the timer rings, stop. Do something else, like watch a Youtube video or look at the kids playing outside, for about 5 min. Then, set the timer for another 25 min, and so on. Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, writes that most people should be able to manage about 2 hours of concentrated work a day, and some can go higher than that with training.

Larger time rhythms include Sundays in a week, and holidays in a year.

One can have micro-rhythms. I read a book in this manner: after every page I stop to summarize the page. I take notes. I try to recall ideas I read elsewhere. I think of stories and people who illustrate the idea.

Thought also marked by rhythms.

Jean Guitton, author of The New Art of Thinking, writes about three kinds of thinking that we alternate. Synthesis is about seeing the point of a picture, the one sentence that summarizes a chapter, the essence of an object; this corresponds to “seeing the forest”. Analysis is about breaking, classifying, seeing the parts of a motorcycle or the steps in making a cake; this corresponds to “seeing the trees”. Contradiction or debate is about arguing against one’s belief to increase its strength; it requires looking at the essential conclusion, and at its many evidences, questioning and refuting at every stage until all strong objections are answered.

A parallel of Guitton’s tripartite that we apply in meetings would be to alternate talking about schedules (Tactics), resources (Logistics), and the big picture (Strategy).

We can also speak of rhythms in space, and rhythm in means (fast car now, slow bus tomorrow). I used to walk about 5 min to have lunch on certain days, and 20 min one-way on other days. Forty minutes away from any computer is a lot of time to come up with creative ideas. Same thing on a long trip.

In another article I will write about what is probably going to be the most mysterious rhythm, that of emotion: the cycle between comedy and horror that makes the movie M3GAN so popular, or the alternation between affection and indifference that pick-up artists use so well to make a catch.

I’m done with writing. It’s time to hit the sack.

(Q.C. 230208)

Build your networks

| jaylazzo

The idea of friendship as building pipelines speaks straight to the heart.

Some pipelines, like the one you built with your salesman, are only used occasionally and for one purpose: you give him the cash, he gives you the laptop. The pipeline between you and your best friend might be used every 25 years but deep and meaningful stories go both ways over one dinner. In both cases, trust holds up the pipeline.

Some pipelines involve a large investment by one party and a much smaller one by the other. So for example, a doctor invests only this much in a patient: he diagnoses and he prescribes. But the patient invests much more, he sees the doctor, he follows his advice (sometimes at great sacrifice), and pays him the professional fee. In a mentoring relationship, the mentor invests by giving advice, monitoring, finding contacts. The mentee? He listens to the mentor and then does his work and meets those contacts.

In true friendships both parties invest a lot of time and effort, sometimes continuously, sometimes with serious accidents. But you know two people are friends when the pipelines last and can transport a huge amount of goodwill. Friends, it is said, are one soul in two bodies.

In a relationship called “association”, the pipeline is used for purposes related only to work, to common interests, and to common schedules. Most of our colleagues are associates, NOT friends, even if you see them everyday, or have lunch with them everyday.

Do not treat your associates as friends, not yet. It’s like forcing bunker oil through a pipeline made for jet fuel; you could burst the line permanently. And do not expect them to treat you like more than an associate either, even a very good one.

I’ve lived in multicultural settings, and I have seen people in different cultures handle friendships and associations differently. Some associates can be so friendly-sounding, but you should not take that as an invitation to friendship. They may even talk to you about topics that in your culture are only shared among intimates: politics, family, and education. I made a mistake once of opening up a matter of religion with one of these, and I received an immediate “I do not want to talk about these things.” I appreciate that he made the boundary clear.

Some associates will become friends only after a long time.

However, sometimes it happens quickly. I met someone who I have interacted with less than 10 times in 6 years. On our second meeting I knew we would become friends, but that really happened on our 5th. I cannot say it will be the same for everyone, except in one thing: both must invest equally. I think one reason friendship develops fast in some cases is that there is clear proof of equal investment by both sides.

Pipelines operate on trust. A big investment is to open oneself to criticism or rejection — this is called displaying vulnerability. Fearing the response will manifest as a certain discomfort and one comes across as not being himself. This behavior betrays a lack of trust.

But the fact that you don’t have a lot of trust in another, nor that they don’t trust you as a friend, isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s not a character defect. Most of the time lack of trust is not even a deal breaker if we just adjust the expectations to fit the level of trust.

But two behavior are potentially deal breakers for most pipelines involving associates and friends: 1) revealing secrets, and 2) dissing others bigtime, talking trash behind peoples’ backs. My logic is this: if they can smear others, they will smear you. But even calumniating common acquaintances, the worst of behaviors, can be repaired if both parties want it.

I am not here speaking of a panelist on a hiring committee whose job is to evaluate defects. If he were a pro, he would not talk about the dossiers to people who do not need to know. I do not speak of voters discussing the strengths and weaknesses of candidates.

I have seen that, in some cultures, revealing secrets and talking about the defects of others in casual conversations is common. In the Philippines we call this chismis, or Maritess. In small matters, like this guy has a funny accent, I agree, that’s entertaining. But I draw the line where a secret of office is betrayed.

For example, I HEARD in a confidential chat with P.P. that he heard from a relative that A.Y. had cancer. I told J.L., A.Y.’s boss and one who may have a need to know. “I heard A.Y. is sick.”

“Well, he has been having a flu, something like that,” said J.L.

“I heard it to be more than that. But I think it should come from the horse’s mouth. I’m telling you, this is hearsay, so I can’t say what,” I told J.L.

Even though I know A.Y. would receive a lot of sympathy and support if others knew, it would also mean that I was party to the revealing of what I assume was told in confidence.

Pipelines — whether friendships, associations, or any other relationship — need us to get out of our way to make them. Like real pipelines, they are enormously profitable.

Six Degrees of Separation. Downloaded from: https://blog-c7ff.kxcdn.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog_image-01-2.jpg

Because we are all connected by them. All the lines connecting people form an enormously complex network, one that could put you in contact with any other person through as little as 5 to 6 intermediaries.

So keep building them.

(Q.C. 230207)

Rome and my office were not built in a day

| jaylazzo

I was impressed, then despondent when I saw this beautiful office. Why is mine not like it?

Don’t compare; it’s easy to feel discouraged when we only see the destination. The little steps people took everyday were ordinary for the day. What one does everyday is small, achievable, within budget for that day. It’s taking this step, or not taking that one, daily that leads to a destination.

Whatever work we might be involved in, we are in the business of marketing and of giving information. A very good sign that a workplace is productive and healthy is when it celebrates its achievements. These can come in the form of brochures and giving talks. Most of all, it comes in the form of collaborations. Collaboration in turn accelerate output and increase the quantity and the quality of the marketing and information.

What simple things can we do everyday?

  1. Talk to people. See what they are doing, what results they are getting, what ideas they have, what plans they have. Decide, brainstorm, assess. Ask for funding, support, and advice.
  2. Inspect the state of the facilities. Identify what needs replacement or repair, and thinks about additions.
  3. Write, plan to write, edit, send material out for comment or publication. Read. Analyze information.

Assistant do most of the work in an office or lab. They know what they want to do, what they have to do, and are able to do them consistently and well. They should also get the resources to do them. In most cases they will also want to build fulfilling relationships, get mentoring, and get connections and recommendations that move them along their own career plans. We get a glimpse of how healthy an office is by looking at how supplies are kept and the neatness of the workplace.

Signs that things are not going well include state of the equipment, the lack of marketing materials, absenteeism (perhaps even of the boss himself). White elephants are not only revealing; they take up space and serve as a constant reminder of a lack of productivity. And of bad decisions.

An important cause why offices degenerate is the lack of conscientiousness on the part of the boss who does not do the things I listed above. He may do them extremely well at times, but what matters more than excellent work is consistent work.

It’s not even about drive. I agree that we have to do what we love, or love what we do. No one has a problem with getting excited. It’s what happens after that which gives us problems. The mood will often go dark, frustration will eat into resolve, and discouragement will rear its ugly behind. Love is where the energy will come from to get through all that.

Love and smarts. I have many ideas. More recently I found two software that make work more fun. Scrivener makes writing fun (I’m using Scrivener to write this), and the Obsidian note taking app turns reading into a game. We have our favorites. Do share.

There is a place for hobbies and recreations even in an office. These, too, have to be done consistently — like weekly jogs or monthly excursions. Although they are not part of the external marketing of the unit they are part of the internal marketing essential to the healthy ambiance of the team.

(Cebu, 230125)

The power to negotiate happiness

| jaylazzo

Three habits that have been proved useful, not necessarily by me.

  1. The habit of not giving a f**k, or of not being concerned about how others react to one’s performance.
  2. The habit of counting 5-4-3-2-1, or decisiveness.
  3. The habit of asking: What If This Actually Works? Or the habit of taking the stance of one who will gain happiness by negotiating it, not by depending only on what others say.

Another set of tips from Jordan Peterson about how to succeed:

  1. Exercise. It will slow down the decay in IQ with time.
  2. Conscientiousness. You don’t even have to be awesome: getting one thing done today beats getting nothing done. You do need to ask the 2-sec question: what do I want the output to look like? This saves time, and it’s more fun because that is what makes an accomplishment an accomplishment instead of an accident. Although there is such a thing as a happy accident, one should not rely on accidents for survival. Besides, serendipity more likely takes place when one works a lot.
  3. Social networks. You don’t have to be an extrovert either. But be the guy who says, “Boss, we have a problem, and this is my proposed solution.” Bring the solution to everyone you meet. Avoid losers, and don’t be one yourself by always complaining. Friends? They celebrate with you when things go well, and they listen when to your bad news.
  4. Skills. Get as much as opportunity allows. My friend from Iloilo chose to do her postdoc in a field very different from her training. She knew it would take more time, but she was after the skills. Man, did the money flow in after that.
  5. Attitude: basically, have faith that work works.

Life is a rat’s nest of miseries; don’t make it worse. If the only thing you have managed to do is not to have done bad, you’ve done a lot. How do we make things worse? By thinking only about ourselves, which ups our social awkwardness, making it also hard for others to deal with us.

The solution to social awkwardness begins with observing people like miners observe ore. Pay attention to status relationships, and strive to be slightly higher OR lower status before the other person, but making the gap minimal. This is a powerful teaching, because it says that the most natural conversations are between “slight unequals”. Such interactions build on emotional goodwill that comes with affirming status. For example, a lower guy who is made to feel higher respects the higher guy. So, could I cultivate a high status persona, and then habitually do things that slightly lower my status? Seems.

The enemy is ego: ego always seeks the higher status, treats the lowering of status as an evil always, and makes observing people boring. The wise man thinks differently. He lowers his own status to gain respect, and this is what happens often in a group. The bad move is to defend a high status for it sets you up for attack and humiliation. But a wise man knows humiliation does not mean everyone will see you in a bad light. A large number will in fact respect you more when you show you chill with being vulnerable.

The big takeaway here is that nothing is embarrassing if you’re not embarrassed. One action that’s so revealing about embarrassment is making excuses. Never make them.

It’s more realistic for me to think I’m living in a rat’s nest, and so I agree with Schopenhauer that happiness is the absence of pain. St Teresa also said that life is like a bad night in a bad inn. This is not to devalue worldly achievements; I’m just recognizing that happiness is chosen. And when it comes to happiness from social interaction, the way to choose it is to negotiate. Hence, happiness in social setting is negotiating power. The alternative is to depend entirely on what others dish out to you.

Every social interaction is an opportunity, a toss up between getting what you want or resigning yourself to what you’re given. The happiest are neither optimists nor pessimists but realists.

Negotiators.

(Iloilo City, 230126)

Quiet Quitters

| jaylazzo

I learned about Quiet Quitters browsing Youtube today.

Quiet Quitters will not open emails after 3 pm. There may be good reasons for that, but in their case they do not read emails because they are afraid to confront what’s might be there.

Doctors, who usually don’t have a clue anyway, wish that the symptoms will disappear by themselves; we all wish our problems will just disappear on their own. It is right to postpone deciding if a decision is not needed right now (Falkland’s Law).

Quiet Quitters, however, procrastinate. They discover that an “urgent” task needs doing, or they find a reason to browse Youtube, as an excuse. Yet it’s just so much better to be over with the d**n thing, in whole or in part, delegate if needed.

Decisive action requires accepting the pain, not fighting it.

Steve Magness in Do Hard Things describes an experiment. Subjects (athletic coaches) were paired and pairs were seated facing each other, knees almost touching. The researchers instructed them to stare into each others’ eyes for a minute. To cope with the discomfort people looked at foreheads, giggled, fidgeted. As one minute turned to two, the unease became even more unbearable. However, as the minutes turned from two to three and three to four, subjects became more and more relaxed as they accepted their condition. The experiment ended in five minutes with a heightened sense of camaraderie.

Magness describes a similar experiment with male and female pairs. The researchers got the same results, and a bonus: some of the couples fell in love and married! Magness then described his personal attempt to replicate these results during a date but failed.

The experiments show that we can get enormous control over ourselves if we accept pain rather than fight it. Pain, in many ways an emotion like any other, is not compatible with action. If AFRAID, you SPEAK LOUDER. When in pain, act, don’t procrastinate. Open that email. Make that phone call. Say sorry.

Quiet Quitting can be unethical. You cheat others, you cheat yourself. And for what? A temporary reprieve from pain, which only returns for the issue that caused it remains unresolved.

Quiet Quitting makes you less useful to others. A mindset fixed on avoiding pain ends by avoiding service. A Quiet Quitter might look intense at work, but in reality may just be going through the motions. He will not have many ideas about how to improve the work place, though he might have detailed options about where to eat that night. Facebook, Instagram and cell phones make it possible to do a lot without doing anything.

Understand that many people have become Quiet Quitters during the pandemic and may be in a worse mental or emotional state than it appears. If you can help them now with firm, gentle reminders, just do it, now, don’t procrastinate.

(QC, 230122)

Dams and dikes

| jaylazzo

An explorer once left his country in search of land to colonize. With him came a small band of family and friends. One was a mason, another was an excavator, his wife was a baker, and so on.

The band came upon a beautiful valley that no one else had ever lived in. Good meat was plentiful. There was a wide stream and the water was delicious. They decided to settle.

A month after building their provisional log houses, dark clouds formed around the top of a mountain: a storm. Soon, their stream turned into a violent torrent that flooded the camp, killed a dozen animals and destroyed a third of the houses.

But it did not destroy the toolhouse. The explorer took stock, brought together his mason and excavator. Soon they had built a dike. At a strategic point they built a dam and a mill.

The following month another storm struck. This time the dikes and the dam held and channeled the raging waters. In addition, the colony had enough water dammed up to power the mill for months.

The colony had no control either over the timing of the rains nor of its quantity. They had little control of the nature of the soil, the diversity of the wildlife, the nature of the seasons, diseases. They had more control over where to settle, but once that decision was made, the rest was to channel the forces of nature. In this, their ingenuity and skill, the most important of their tools, stayed intact and became more sharp.

I told this to a friend who had recently been struggling with a deluge of concerns. These had to do with family properties, problems with clients, and work deliverables. Thinking about them kept him awake at night, especially the property issues. He got little sleep, which made it even harder for him to think and organize during the day, causing physical distress as well. I suggested that he put dikes and dams around his day.

I suggested that he first describe how he would like every concern end. A concern that could take years to resolve completely can always be cut into day-sized fragments. At the start of every day he should describe how an issue would end FOR THAT DAY. He might say, for instance, that he will have negotiated a contract for tenant, phone client B to reset an appointment, and submit a proposal to C with the modified line item budget.

Then work to get the day’s output, and only that. When done, it’s done for the day. When unfinished, set a new output for the following day. Then think no more about it. What’s the use of a leaking dam? Sometimes leaks may be tolerated and release of extra water allowed. But in general, no leaks, better sleep.

The colony thrived for another hundred and fifty years, until it folded up from falling birth rates.

(QC, 230119)

The Diderot Effect

| jaylazzo

Once upon a time in the kingdom of France there lived a man named Diderot. He was a philosopher. For most of his life he lived in poverty. Figures.

He was mostly carrying out well in spite of his lack of means. But when Diderot was 52 years old his daughter was about to be married, but he could not afford to provide a dowry. The Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, heard about it. Because of Diderot’s fame as a co-founder and editor of the French Encyclopédie, she offered to buy his library for $50,000 USD in 2015 dollars. Suddenly, Diderot had money to spare.

Shortly after this lucky sale, Diderot bought a new scarlet robe. The scarlet robe was very beautiful. It was so beautiful that Diderot immediately noticed how out of place it seemed when surrounded by the rest of his common possessions. There was no more coordination, no more unity, no more beauty between his robe and the rest of his items. Diderot soon bought new things to match the beauty of his robe.

He replaced his old rug with a new one from Damascus. He decorated his home with beautiful sculptures and a better kitchen table. He bought a new mirror to place above the mantle and his “straw chair was relegated to the antechamber by a leather chair.

But within three months, Diderot lost all his money. He said to himself: “I don’t cry, I don’t sigh, but every moment I say: Cursed be he who invented the art of putting a price on common material by tinting it scarlet. Cursed be the precious garment that I revere. Where is my old, my humble, my comfortable rag of common cloth?

“My friends, keep your old friends. My friends, fear the touch of wealth. Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles.”

Fortunately, the Empress of Russia Catherine the Great had also offered him the job of personal librarian, which came with an annual salary to last the rest of his life. Diderot was saved. In 1769 he wrote an essay entitled “Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, or A warning to those who have more taste than fortune”. Some years later, in 1773, he visited Russia to personally thank the Empress. After five months he returned to Paris and lived in relative simplicity, happiness, and productivity until he died in 1784 of a pulmonary embolism while having lunch.

The behavior he described has been called the Diderot Effect.

The Diderot Effect has nothing to do with dying while having lunch. Rather, it is primarily a social behavior related to consumer goods. It states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption which leads one to acquire more new things. As a result, we end up buying things that our previous selves never needed to feel happy or fulfilled.

For example, you buy a new car. You follow this up by purchasing all sorts of accessories to go inside it. You buy a tire pressure gauge, a charger for the cell phone, an extra umbrella, a first aid kit, a pocket knife, a flashlight, emergency blankets, and even a seatbelt cutting tool. At this point, you have already forgotten about your trusty old car of nearly 10 years during which you felt that none of those items were worth purchasing. Or you buy a CrossFit membership and soon you’re paying for foam rollers, knee sleeves, wrist wraps, and paleo meal plans. You buy a lazy boy and suddenly you’re questioning the layout of your entire living room. Those chairs? That coffee table? That rug? They all gotta go man.

The Diderot Effect is based on two ideas. First, goods purchased by consumers will align with one’s sense of identity and as a result goods and identity will complement one another. And second, the introduction of a new possession that deviates from the consumer’s current complementary goods can result in a process of spiraling consumption. The emotional driver is a sense that a purchase or gift creates dissatisfaction with existing possessions and environment, provoking a potentially spiraling pattern of consumption with negative environmental, psychological, and social impacts.

Another way of putting it is that we become what we buy and buy what we want to become. Consumerism, simply. Consumerism is a style of life directed towards “having” rather than “being” — because in fact having and being become one. Consumerism creates a “web of false and superficial gratifications”, wrote St. John Paul II. It leads to “attitudes and life styles… which are objectively improper and often damaging to [our] physical and spiritual health”, said the same Pope. It weakens the development and stability of personal relationships, said Pope Francis, prevents man’s growth as a human being (St Paul VI); prevents us from cherishing each thing and each moment and distorts family bonds (Pope Francis); leads us to shut others out (St Paul VI); and we become not the lords and masters but the slaves of material wealth (Pope Pius XII).

Consumerism brings many social ills as well.

Catholic social teaching is clear: “It is not wrong to want to live better, what is wrong is a style of life… which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 36). For a person who is concerned solely or primarily with possessing and enjoying – who can no longer subordinate his instincts, cannot be free.

Here are a number of suggestions for overcoming the Diderot Effect.

Reduce exposure. Nearly every habit is initiated by a trigger. A quick way to reduce the power of the Diderot Effect is to avoid the habit triggers that cause it in the first place. Unsubscribe from commercial emails. Meet friends at the park rather than the mall. Be productive at work.

Buy items that fit your current system. You don’t have to start from scratch each time you buy something new. When you purchase new clothes, look for items that work well with your current wardrobe. When you upgrade to new electronics, get things that play nicely with your current pieces so you can avoid buying new chargers, adapters, or cables.

Set self-imposed limits. Put limits for you to operate within. For example, put a cap on your ordinary expenses, and consult extraordinary expenses. Set a limit to social media time, which also limits your exposure to ads.

Buy One, Give One. Each time you make a new purchase, give something away. The idea is to prevent your number of items from growing. Said Maria Kondo, always be curating your life to include only the things that bring you joy.

Go one month without buying something new. Don’t allow yourself to buy any new items for one month. Instead of buying, rent. If you need a new shirt at this time, get it from ukay ukay. Constraint is the mother of resourcefulness.

Let go of wanting things. There is always something to upgrade to. Do you really need the specs of that new cellphone?

Cultivate good taste. Notice how the nouveau riche acquire so many things AND have little taste? A person with good taste tends to have a good handle on limits; exceeding those limits causes disgust, a powerful emotion. Good taste also brings intellectual conviction such that one doesn’t need to feel disgust — one just won’t buy, period. Good taste does not correlate with degrees or diplomas, is hard to acquire, and will require more treatment than is allowed in this piece.

And just because an acquisition will not involve any out-of-pocket money does not mean you can ignore these suggestions. We can still go astray by downloading hundreds of free ebooks and saving thousands of art photos, most of which we will never study or read. And it’s not just about downloading: some people love to UPLOAD photos of their food and vacations in order to acquire LIKES. I think likes are a novel form of wealth, which some can monetize even. But for most, LIKES are worthless. Again, it’s not wrong to have SOME of these.

The goal, I think, is not to reduce life to the fewest amount of things, but to fill it with the optimal amount of things. In Diderot’s words, “Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles.”

Trivia: Diderot was funny. The entry he wrote for the Aguaxima plant goes: “Aguaxima, a plant growing in Brazil and on the islands of South America. This is all that we are told about it; and I would like to know for whom such descriptions are made. It cannot be for the natives of the countries concerned, who are likely to know more about the aguaxima than is contained in this description, and who do not need to learn that the aguaxima grows in their country. It is as if you said to a Frenchman that the pear tree is a tree that grows in France, in Germany, etc . It is not meant for us either, for what do we care that there is a tree in Brazil named aguaxima, if all we know about it is its name? What is the point of giving the name? It leaves the ignorant just as they were and teaches the rest of us nothing. If all the same I mention this plant here, along with several others that are described just as poorly, then it is out of consideration for certain readers who prefer to find nothing in a dictionary article or even to find something stupid than to find no article at all.”