“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men”

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men”

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Living

This post will send in the wee hours o’ New Year’s Eve 2024.  Here, in the good ole US of A, New Year’s Eve is amateur alcoholics night, when teetotalers, and even those with a serious drinking problem, know to leave the roads to those idiots who binge drink once a year, loud-singing the Robert Burns anthem, “Should auld acquaintance be fergot an’ nev’r braught ta maieend, . . .” followed by sloppy kisses and hugs.

The still slightly sober may ask, “What the hell does “Auld Lang Syne” mean anyway?” To which a more pedantic tippler-friend may answer, “Old long seen, or days and friends long gone, in short, the ‘good-ole-days.’”

Early in the flow of whiskey-wine-and-beer, some may ask, “Got any ‘New Year’s Resolutions?’” In these settings, the answers range from the “Nah, don’t believe in ’em,” to “Oh, the usual, exercise more, spend more time with friends and family.” When I was in with this crowd, I did not encounter any who were truly serious about the annual self-improvement ritual.

In my experience, most New Year’s resolutions spring from the New Year’s Day hangover and timid step upon the bathroom scale, ignored “over the holidays.” It is why the single biggest sale days for gym memberships are January 2nd and 3rd.

The earliest recorded New Year’s resolutions were made around four thousand years ago, in the Babylonian festival of Akitu. This was held around the spring equinox, the beginning of planting season. Babylonians reflected on any of their behaviors, which might have offended their gods, and resolved to change those behaviors so the right amounts of sunshine and rainfall might bless this year’s crops. New Year’s resolutions were serious business, and while I imagine there was some partying in the 12-day long festival of Akitu, the resolutions that were recorded were reaffirmation of loyalty to the king, return of items borrowed, and repayment of debts. These were promises to the gods and probably not made lightly.

For much of history, the New Year, whenever it was celebrated, was a time of religious reflection and rededication. Julius Caesar, in 46 BCE created the Julian calendar, with the first month, January, named for Janus, the two faced god of thresholds and gateways. It was a time to reflect upon the events of the past and to look forward across the threshold into the future.

John Wesley, English founder of the Christian Methodist Church, created the Covenant Renewal Service for New Year’s Day in 1740. Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a fall celebration of the creation of the world, the beginning of the Days of Awe, ten days of reflection culminating in Yom Kippur, days of atonement. The Hijiri, the Islamic New Year, is observed in June to commemorate the new beginning when the Prophet and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. The Hiriji is a time of prayer, and reflection, and time with family. Some Muslims make resolutions for the new year.

World New Years throughout the year

 New Year’s celebrations that are part of religions are celebrated at a time that makes sense for that religion and culture.

These celebrations are reflective and may or may not include a tradition of resolutions.

If there is a resolution tradition, however, it is conscientious. The faithful who make a public declaration of a future action tend to keep their commitment.

In the ole US of A, such faithful achievement of New Year’s resolutions is more the exception than the rule. Gyms and health clubs are full in January, but empty out by March. Every year in December pollsters ask a sample of us if we kept our resolutions from January 1; on average, seventy percent of us did not.

 

This year I read an analysis that categorized the areas of most American’s resolutions:

  • Spend time with family and friends
  • Find ways to stay active
  • Learn something new
  • Help others
  • Renovate, or clean up our living space
  • Read more
  • Eat better

I have no idea about the survey methodology, but I truly believe if Americans did these things we’d be happier and healthier. Not to be negative, but survey says, we do not, or at least seventy percent of us admit that we do not.

Change isn’t easy. Self-improvement is hard. You have to realize that the current state is unacceptable and reject it. Then you have to have a clear vision of the end state and goals.

The human resource, learning and development mafia have drilled into my head that goals must be S.M.A.R.T.

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time Bound

I don’t disagree, even though I rebelled against such goal-setting dogma when someone was trying to manage my personal performance to meet corporate goals. These are good criteria for self-improvement goals. They’re just insufficient.

If I haven’t rejected my Dad-bod, then I’m unlikely to say no to the Häagen Dazs that creates it. If I only have one measure, 165 pounds, then I have no way to track a trend. If my time frame is four months to lose twenty pounds and I don’t break that down to a pound and a half a week and have a maintenance program for month five to forever, it may not happen.

Control and correction: If I want to spend more time with my sister, or my grandchildren or my wife, what does that look like? If I find I didn’t do that in January, what am I going to do in February and March?

I’m not saying, don’t set New Year’s Resolutions; I’m saying set them judiciously, religiously, with an eye toward being in the thirty percent who actually achieve them. Cuz as Robert Burns intoned “To a Mouse On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.” The best laid plans o’ Mice and Men, gang aft agley.”

And I hope you know, I am not preaching at you; I’m preaching to myself.

I am the only person who I have any right to expect might listen to my sermon.

Have a healthy, engaged, connected New Year, where you learn what interests you, do what you’ve been putting off, and help others. Or whatever kind of New Year makes you happy.

Just please don’t drink and drive.

A Community of Light

A Community of Light

by | Dec 21, 2024 | Living

It is the Winter Solstice. In the cold we huddle around the fire, joined in our communities. At the dark time of year, when the days are short, we celebrate the light. During this time I often imagine ancient peoples in their shelters, with a roof smoke hole above the fire, bringing evergreen boughs inside, so the green reminds them that spring will come again. I even wrote a song about this fantasy called Deep Winter’s Night.

I was encouraged in this fantasy first by the Megalithic monument Stonehenge oriented towards the Summer Solstice. I felt that these people in 2500 BCE were quite attuned to the interaction between the light of the heavens, and the earth on which we still walk. I was amazed at how, what I thought of as a primitive people could orient such a large monument to the sun on one day per year.

When I saw the older Megalithic Passage tomb at Newgrange north of Dublin Ireland, built in 3200 BCE I was further gobsmacked. There is a transom window over the entrance and on the Winter Solstice at sunrise a beam of sunlight comes through the transom and illuminates the altar on which cremated remains were placed. The sunbeam, archeologists speculate, was believed to enable the passage of the spirit from one plane to another.

This fit with my fantasy of the hope of light at the darkest time of the year.

Then I had a “flat forehead moment,” so-called because I have repeatedly struck my forehead with the heal of my hand over the years exclaiming, “Duh!” or “Doh” (like Homer Simson). What prompted this epiphany of blindingly obvious perspective dissonance?

In Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa, Peru and Antarctica it is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. So my annual fantasy is a completely Northern-Hemisphere-centric viewpoint.

Apologies to those who live south of the equator, who may say –“Wha?” And people who come from around the equator where the days are the same length year round, and in most places around the equator one will not be huddling around a fire and bringing conifers inside.

Moreover, this ancient Winter Solstice fantasy is probably a Euro-paleo-centric perspective representing a narrow slice of all the ancient ancestors on the planet.  I have trouble imagining this behavior among Aleuts and Innuits at the Arctic circle or the Navaho, Kiowa, Osage, Chickasaw, Choctaw, or Calusa in what became the United States.

Duh!” Or I think I’m gonna go with “Doh,” because I feel as clueless as Homer.

Here is the story of the triggering of this realization.

As I started my annual rumination on our Winter Solstice and the many festivals of light at this our dark time of year, I observed that Hanukkah, the eight night Jewish celebration, starts on Christmas night this year. It moves dates on the Gregorian calendar as result of the six thousand year old lunar calendar used to fix dates of religious celebrations.

I wondered about lunar calendars. Did hunter gatherers use the phases of the moon to track the movements of animals and know which plants yielded edible food? I dunno. My parents would have sent me to the Encyclopedia Britannica in our living room. “Look in up.” And I still do, though on the Internet version. It turns out that lunar calendars are very old. Archeologists have found some evidence of lunar calendars in caves in Southern France that may be as old as 32,000 BCE.

In the third millennium BCE the lunisolar calendar emerged, lunar months and solar years. In addition to Hebrews, the Sumerians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians had a lunisolar calendar.

“Ah,” I said. “the growth of agriculture?” The moon in her phases pulled upon the waters of the Mediterranean, the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile nourishing the plants that the Mother brought forth. Perhaps with the growth of astronomy in Egypt and Greece solar calendars came to the fore. The distant Sky Father, seeming larger than the Earth, was entrusted with man’s invention, Time.

Lunar calendars now are really lunisolar calendars because there is always an addition of a month every two to three years to maintain accuracy with the ubiquitous 1582 Pope Gregory XIII sponsored DayRunner. China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Banks Islands, part of the nation of Vanuatu in Melanesia in the South Pacific, are all on a lunisolar calendar for cultural celebrations.

It is also true that many religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism  schedule religious festivals according to lunisolar calendars

This brought me back to a puzzle I have always wrestled with. Christianity adopted the pagan Winter Solstice celebration, light at the dark time. It appeared that Judaism did too, Chanukah (traditional spelling). But Diwali, Hindu festival of lights is in the fall. And Islam celebrates light  at Eid at the end of Ramadan in the spring.

Here comes the flat forehead moment.

In the home of these religions, what I thought of as the Winter Solstice, cold, snow, seemingly dead deciduous trees, sprinkled with some evergreens, short days, dark time of year, needing to see the light and be hopeful, wasn’t really like that.

“Doh!”

It is however more than a little interesting that these religions have their own festival of lights. So the timing matters less than my Northern Hemisphere, Euro-paleo-pagan genes would indicate.

There is a cycle of dark and light, of fear and hope, of individual independence, joining hands in community and peace.

We may celebrate that cycle at different times of the year in different seasons, but we all celebrate. We all long for community to wrap us in love. We all hope and feel peace in our hearts.

So whether you celebrate at this time of year or not, whether there is a tree in your living room or a shrine, whether there is a fire or candle you gather at, reach for those you love and those you barely know, and share your hope for the light, and your love.

Peace be upon you, and all of us.

Humbling and Gratifying

Humbling and Gratifying

by | Dec 15, 2024 | Consulting

It has been almost one year since I published Traveling the Consulting Road: Career Wisdom for New Consultants, Candidates, and Their Mentors. This year has been gratifying and humbling.

It has been gratifying because a significant number of people have bought the book. Amazon data shows that my book sold more copies than 90% of self-published books. It also sold slightly more than the average number of copies for all self-published books.

This is humbling. Clearly this distribution is very skewed with a very long tail. Many books do not break double digits; a significant number are under 100 copies. When you look at non-fiction self-published books I do even better, but that just means the distribution is even more skewed.

So I am very grateful for all the people who purchased my book this year and for those who left a rating and/or a review. Some have written that the book was helpful. Gratifying.

I always knew this was a niche book. One of my beta readers described the niche character of the book this way:

“Traveling the Consulting Road is full of fun stories and useful tools. I can’t imagine it will sell much. It is a book for young consultants, who won’t listen, and old consultants who don’t read.”

Ouch. As I said, humbling.

Remembering this near the one year anniversary of the book’s publication, I got to thinking. I found that statement funny because there is some truth there. As a young consultant, heck as a young person, I didn’t listen well. If you ask some people who love me, they will tell you that affliction hasn’t abated.

There are many jokes about consultant arrogance:

“Sure he’s smart. Just ask him, he will tell you how smart he is.”

“A consultant is a person with an opinion on absolutely everything, without the benefit of experience in anything.”

“Consider if you will, a person educated to the point of unbearable ego, such that they think that people should pay them for their advice. Now imagine trying to tell that person anything, an exercise in utter futility.”

But, I wrote this book to share what I learned, over thirty-seven years. I wrote what I learned about getting a job and being successful inside a firm, about solving different kinds of problems that clients call consultants for, about how I learned to become an independent consultant, start a firm, etc. I wrote down all the mistakes I made as a young consultant with the hope that other consultants might learn from my mistakes.

Yeah, right. Would I have bought this book at thirty? Maybe, but probably not. Do I expect undergraduate juniors or first year MBAs looking for an internship to go on Amazon looking for this book? Maybe, but probably not.

But wait, I also wrote this book for mid-career consultants and senior consultants, mentoring their younger colleagues. When I was in those roles inside a firm, I was a trifle busy. I did make time to keep up with the business press. I subscribed to The Harvard Business Review, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, but truthfully, I mostly scanned the Table of Contents to see if there was an article about my current clients, their competitors, or a particular issue that they were facing. I did read some business books, but mostly best sellers by academicians or CEOs. So while I might deny membership in the “older consultants who don’t read,” maybe I was more so than I’d care to admit.

When I worked for myself, I was better about reading because I had more control of my schedule, and the autonomy I had, allowed me to follow my interests. Also, the life of an independent consultant is often dominated by meetings with prospective clients, and reading makes for more interesting conversation. Did that make me “well-read and au courant?” I wouldn’t exactly say that.

Many independent consultants write a book to give themselves credibility. I didn’t do that, probably should have, but if I had it wouldn’t have been this book. It would have been a book describing a particular methodology, in which I wanted more work, the “one pound business card.” No, I wrote a book of consulting career advice, hoping the audience would be less arrogant or overly busy than I was.

So I wrote Traveling the Consulting Road for the young or old consultant I wish I was. That realization is humbling.

It is, however very gratifying that there are quite a few of those people out there. Thank you young consultants who listen and old consultants who read. You restore an ancient consultant’s faith in humanity.

Recently, another market emerged, which had not occurred to me before, retired consultants buying for their children and grandchildren.

I received a note from one retired colleague, who bought the book for his grandson who had just become president of his university consulting club, and another consulting partner considering retirement, who bought the book for her daughter who was in her first year at another firm.

Whooda thunk it? I have mailed to university and business school consulting clubs and that did produce some sales, but the grandparent market never occurred to me. And the retiring partner?  She said, “I hate to admit that my daughter does not seek me out for career advice. Perhaps she will listen to you.”

So parents and grandparents, if you’re still looking for gift ideas . . . (I’m not too humble to ask).

And thank you to all who have bought, read, and/or reviewed Traveling the Consulting Road: Career Wisdom for New Consultants, Candidates, and Their Mentors.

I am very grateful.

Come to think about it. I have written before about humility and gratitude being tickets for admission to becoming a good consultant.

May 2025 be as humbling and gratifying for us all.

 

For those interested in the book

Leadership Dysfunction 2.0

Leadership Dysfunction 2.0

by | Dec 7, 2024 | Leading

“People say I should have known. Maybe. There was that thing at the holiday party, but he was really drunk. The girl was drunk too, by the way. And anyway everybody agreed to drop it and she got another job soon after, so everything worked out.

“He was such a sick programmer, I mean, really elegant code, everybody said so. And the dude was a machine. He totally saved the Techniche voice chat bot project, – made the delivery in three days. People said he was mainlining Red Bull, ‘n’ the client said the bot was like talking to a real person. That Indian accent thing was complete magic, ‘Please to hold the line, while I trensfer you to the You – knighted States. – Halo sar, May I please introduce you to Todd in Topeka who will halp you now. . . . – Haie, Ahm Todd, How kin ah hep you today, sir?’ Still cracks me up.

“I mean, I didn’t know him, really. In the break room once I asked him, ‘Dwayne, dude, why does everybody call you ‘BH,’ and he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the biohazard tattoo and said ‘Afghanistan Recon.’ I thought he was too young to be a vet. Then Howie told me, ‘No dude, that’s his Call of Duty handle.’ Maybe that should have been a clue, but we all play. Dint think anything of it.

“I don’t really get the ‘why,’ if you know what I mean. I mean, sure, HR Karen’s all hands email was really targeted to him  ‘. . . so as you RTW you should dress appropriately and leave the camo and tac gear at home.’  And yeah, –  his clothes did leave a little to be desired and he didn’t really need to bring a fourteen inch survival Bowie to work. Maybe she should have just spoken to him or, at least, realized that ‘all hands’ goes to the board, including his dad.

“His dad was so helpful with the Sand Hill guys for the mezz and IPO. I wish Karen had thought about that, . . . wait, . . . ‘waddya mean that’s not her name? What? HR Karen is Denise? No.  And . . . – oh yeah, was,- – a single Mom with two kids. . .who’ll take. . .? Her mother? Jeezus! I mean, she did send that email the week before complaining about Dwayne. I mean, I had to think who she meant, I mean, everybody called him BH, . . . so he broke some stuff, . . . and what does ‘going postal’ even mean?

“This is just awful. It’s gonna mess people up for months. Maybe we should relax the RTW, ‘cept we take such a hit on productivity with work from home. You’d think the game room and snacks would make people want to come back. We got a big deadline on Goomee2 in ten days. I dunno is it better to be with other people if they’re as shocked as you or better to bury yourself in, . . . right, poor choice of words, . . . better to lose yourself in work at home?

“Y’know what I don’t get is the CSRs and marketing girls, I mean, sure, most of ‘em don‘t get tech, but they’re nice enough and sweet lookin’ -Jeezus what a mess. So much blood. Glass everywhere. Hadda replace all the carpet, and the glass, and half of the cubicles. Insurance paid for most, – thanks for filing those claims. We lost five days cleaning up the center – thank God we had Bangladesh as back up. Stock took a hit, but Charlie was right, – it’s coming back.

“Y’know what burns my ass? It’s a tragedy, I get that. It’s awful, but the media just won’t let it go. I mean, it’s been a month, ‘n’ it coulda been a lot worse if ole Juan hadn’ tackled him, . . . did his wife get the flowers? . . .  yeah, just wish that last spray hadn’ gotten ‘em both, I mean I’d just like to ask him, . . . “Why? – I mean BH, . . . – not Juan.

“That’s the thing about mental health. I mean, it’s ‘mental,’ right? Like inside your head, – invisible. But the press will not let it go ‘n’ now it’s the politicians. . . State. . .’n’ Feds. . .

Guns, sure, it’s always the guns. Too bad we have that big ‘No Firearms’ sign on the front door, if HR Karen, . . . ah right, . . . Denise, If Denise had been packin’ this whole thing woulda been a lot less traumatic.

People say I should have known. How’re ya gonna know what goes on inside someone’s head. Somebody has a bad day and yells at one of the girls, or someone has a fight with his wife and throws a stapler, breaks some coffee mugs, and dents a partition, is that such a big deal?  Yeah, maybe, . . . well there’s risk in everything, . . . life is a risk, . . . I could walk out the door today ‘n’ get run over by a beer truck, wouldn’t that be a cryin’ shame, . . . risk.

“Still I wish I knew. . . Why?. . .

“He was such a great coder. . .

“So No, Carol, I don’t want to talk to the Senator. ‘N’ no more reporters, OK? Say ‘we’re cooperating fully with the investigation, ‘n’  I’m unavailable for comment.’

“Oh, ‘n’ Carol, wouldya be a love ‘n’ run to Star, ‘n’ get me another Venti Carmel Macchiato with triple shot Red Eye, yeah with whipped ‘n’ four packets of the natural sugar, y’know the ones in the brown packets.

“That’s great, Babycakes. I’ll be in the game room. Gotta Foosball rematch with Howie.”

 

Avoiding Leadership Dysfunction