Why on earth am I reviewing a field manual on sabotage by the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA) from World War two?
Well, there are a couple of reasons other than the most obvious one that someone suggested it.
This very short reprinting, which would usually only be of interest to historians or those with underground bunkers and very full larders, is glimpse into the mind of a someone who wants to disrupt or destroy an organization both physically and psychologically.
There is not much that the average person could not have thought of themselves when it comes to physical sabotage, but it is interesting to note how just not doing simple things in the workplace can create serious problems and should therefore be taken seriously by managers. Most disgruntled employees are not quite so literal in showing their displeasure, but one does become aware, through the numerous examples, of just how vulnerable most workplaces and organizations are.
There is an illuminating passage early in the book.
“It should be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances are suitable, that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for acts of destruction.”
I, and most modern managers, do not think of employees, even problem employees, as the enemy. However, it is not a far stretch to think that there have been times when an individual employee on a disciplinary path may feel that they are in a battle of wills. This might not lead to outright sabotage, one hopes, but “quiet quitting”? Quiet quitting is the phenomenon of an employee doing just enough not to get fired – but no more. As the book says a couple of sentences on…
“The saboteur may have to reverse his thinking… Where he formerly though of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull…”
Where the book really becomes of interest for managers, however, is in the final seven pages where it discusses what steps managers and supervisors can take to disrupt an organization’s psychology. If you recognize your organization within these pages – it is time for change. It is also a great reminder of seemingly well-intentioned actions by leadership teams. Insisting on perfect work where it does not matter, for example. Or “see that three people have to approve everything when one will do.”
There is even guidance for meetings and committees to be found in this later section. Warnings to try and increase the size of meetings or committees to the point where they become unwieldy is reminiscent of the often-told Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, anecdote that he will not attend meetings that cannot be fed by a single pizza.
A thoughtful reading of this short book by managers should act as a warning and a reminder both to themselves and about others. I think is also a good training tool for new managers to show what not to do and to be aware of the traps of self-sabotage that managers can often fall into. It is also a good reminder of where the line exists between performance problems and being a disruptive influence in the workplace.
Eighty years old it may be, but this short book still has some things to teach us.
Why would we be offended if someone offered to pay us after we invited them to Thanksgiving dinner? What is the cost of zero, and why is it far more expensive than $0.01? Do we really need to tell our waiter our order in secret if we really want to feel that it is okay for us to have our first choice from the menu?
Subtitled; “The Hidden Forces that shape our Decisions,” Dr. Ariely’s superb book has the potential to change dramatically how we think about business and our personal lives.
With the use of subtle yet easily understood experimental data, Dr. Ariely exposes humans as often acting against our own interests due to societal or market norms and that we just do not understand our own personalities and the role that emotion plays in shaping decision making – spoiler its usually for the worse.
So why would we feel offended if someone offered to pay for Thanksgiving dinner? Dr. Ariely not only explains but also shows with examples and experiment data that we humans have social exchanges and market exchanges of behavior. Social exchanges we use with friends and family. They are the norms that govern daily life and allow us to bond with other humans. Market exchanges are, as they sound, the exchange of money for goods and services and also the money we receive in exchange for our labor in the form of our working lives. When one offers to pay for Thanksgiving dinner were mixing social norms with market norms. We are indicating that we are rejecting the social acceptance of those who may be friends or family in favor of an exchange that we could expect to have with a stranger. A commercial transaction. What becomes interesting in breaking these social norms is that we find it is difficult to go back. Trying to pay for Thanksgiving dinner may never get us invited back because a social exchange has been turned into a market exchange. Employers who do not have social exchanges with their employees may find that employees therefore treat the relationship as a purely market exchange and leave for an employer who offers a better market exchange – usually more money or better benefits. This also explains why employers who do embrace a social exchange in their workplace culture become frustrated and angry when an employee uses only market norms in their decision-making process to leave.
Likewise, when companies use a social exchange to bond with clients they may find when they resort to a market exchange when it suits them – policy over the relationship with the client – they have unleashed a Pandora’s box of problems with someone they once may have considered a friend of the business. Business can’t have it both ways, and if we try to, we are storing up trouble for ourselves.
Debunking of personality testing, without mentioning personality testing, is in this book with a discussion of priming and setting expectations. There are also volumes of data showing that making something free rather than reducing a price – even if the reductions are the same, can make a dramatic difference in the uptake of an offer. Buy one get one free really does work!
There is also a highly disturbing chapter on the affect of sexual arousal and decision making and morality. While I will spare you the details here it is difficult as a guy to read this chapter without recognizing oneself and feeling ashamed of the implications. This chapter does not give guys and excuse; however, it should make us pause and understand that we have the capability to be highly irrational in the right circumstances.
And that is really the crux of the book.
By recognizing that we can be irrational beings and what triggers that irrationality, we can know ourselves better and make better decisions. It also allows us to spot irrationality in others and how that has come about.
“You don’t have to go to every argument you are invited to.”
It is refreshing to read a book about communication that is so direct, and tool driven. Mr. Manney has created such a book and it is excellent.
Filled with examples of how to change conversations and thinking, as well as helpful nuggets such as the one above and “you only ever control 50% of the conversation,” this is a book that is meant to be slowly digested and read a chapter at a time. In fact, what makes this book so interesting and usable is its insistence that arguing is not an insurmountable problem, but that there are limits to what an individual can do and how to move forward with that information.
The book also interjects that arguments are really opportunities to try and find new solutions to existing problems. It is obvious from reading that Mr. Manney is a therapist due to the dispassionate voice that is so often missing from more business orientated communication books. That is not to say that “Why We Argue and How to Stop” is not a book that focuses on business communication – it is and even tackles social media issues – it is more to suggest that this is a perspective we don’t often hear in the business world. And that’s a shame.
Where this book really succeeds is on focusing on the person and their motivations for arguing. This is a book about healthy relationships and what it takes to not only start them but to maintain them. I am particularly enamored with the authors habit of showing what prior bad habits in communication look like and then what making efforts to more health communication look like about the same subject.
This is a book to refer back to – particularly when trying to self-diagnose issues with arguing and communication in general. The author’s advice to read one chapter and then digest it before moving on is sound. But I feel its real value is in using the book as a resource as circumstances arise. Knowledge of one’s own emotions are not often easily came by, but Mr. Manney provides some excellent tools for doing just that – including mnemonics.
The latter chapters of the book stray into more specific areas such as dealing with children and teens, as well as abusive relationships. Which this is, of course, great information to have, it does seem to be rather shoehorned in. This is a very minor quibble, however, for such a useful book, and I am sure that others will be glad that the latter chapters are there.
This is not a long book, but it is surprising dense. Do not let that put you off. Read in small chunks. Breathe in what is being said to you. This is a great book and worthy of a space on your shelf as long as you go back to it when needed, as we can all use its wisdom.
I loved Dominick Quartuccio’s other book, Design your Future which I reviewed here. When I was sent the second edition of On Purpose Leadership I had high hopes, and in general those hopes were met – sort of.
The problem, and I’m prepared to be wrong here, is that while Design Your Future felt like a new and fresh bundle of ideas, On Purpose Leadership feels like a second bite of the same apple. That it was written before Design Your Future is an irony not lost on me. The idea of bringing focus into your leadership world is not by any means unwelcome. As is being those lessons to your team. The issue is that it is not a different enough book for the reader to feel that they actually have read a different book.
The tools in On Purpose Leadership are great in themselves. The “drifting” and dissatisfaction of leaders, even those who have achieved significant success, is a well understood phenomenon. Most of us call this burnout. Anything that helps those in management circles is very welcome. Identifying the problems with burnout or drift is helpful as are identifying the solutions. The idea of putting oneself first, that others want to be led, and creating an environment for success are all excellent principles for addressing the problem.
This is a short and small book, with some interesting case studies, but for me the greater insights are to be gleaned from Mr. Quartuccio’s other book or reading both books in tandem.
Ever have books that hang around in your book pile for way longer than would seem rational?
The book’s premise was obviously interesting enough to find its way into the pile in the first place, but repeatably fails to be interesting enough to make it the next step and actually be read. I don’t know how long Measure What Matters has been in my possession, but it has been a while.
Of course, as is often the case when finally getting around to reading a long overdue book, one thinks the book is great. I suspect my reticence is to do with the books subject matter: goal setting. I have a complicated relationship with goal setting, or more precisely with goal setting as it is usually described to people in the business world. I’ve often found that systems of formulaic goal setting overly burdensome and lacking in coherent structure. However, how can one not be intrigued by a book that describes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as soulless numbers!
Measure What Matters touts a system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) which are used in multiple different formats by companies such as Google, The Gates Foundation, and Bono’s One Charity. What soon becomes clear, however, is that what Mr. Doer is proposing is a culture shift in how companies measure performance and direction. It also has the acceptance that with OKRs there will be failure. In fact, if there is not failure, team members are probably not setting ambitious enough goals. What also resonates is the duality of goals for leaders of teams, but with the teams themselves setting their own goals on how the team can get there. A mix of top down and bottom-up objectives.
The culture shift in Measure What Matters is pervasive, extending into employee reviews and relationships between teams, supervisors, and leaders. The book is also honest about implementation and change management – steps often overlooked in this kind of book. Filled with examples for what works and does not, Measure What Matters is almost a spiritual partner to that most revered of business books (well by me anyway) Traction by Gino Wickman. (I have never reviewed Traction for my site due to being just too intimidated by it.)
A great example of “honest” OKRs rather than the “soulless” KPIs is the example given of an objective of reducing office cleaning costs by 25%. At its most basic, the simple measure of whether the costs went down by 25% could mean that the goal was achieved. However, Mr. Doerr not only suggests ways of measuring the quality of cleaning, but also suggests that to be a true OKR the person responsible for this OKR should have their office in the area being cleaned – thereby being directly affected by the key results of the objective.
This is not a book of cold and soulless analytics. This is a book that reminds us that there is more to business objectives than math. That the way to achieve greatness is to have greatness as the objective. To be motivated by failure as much as by possibility.
For once, I am excited about a book about goal setting and goal setting in general. Having a road map helps, but understanding that emotion and intuition also have their place helps more. Measure what matters is a bible text for the modern manager.
I rarely write book reviews about books I don’t like.
I don’t believe I’ve ever written about a book I despise.
I have never read a more immoral and unethical book than Robert Greene’s “The 48 Laws of Power.” It does not have a luxury of the possible satirical nature of Machiavelli’s “The Prince;” a book that Mr. Greene quotes extensively. It also has no excuse of being from a different age given its original publication date of 1998.
The 48 Laws of Power is a book that argues that we all should lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want and hold on to what we have. It argues that customers and colleagues are marks to be taken advantage of. Friends are to be feared and loyalty is valueless; other than as something to exploit. The book seems to be saying that everyone is out for themselves, and so to do anything other than to be looking out for one’s self makes you a fool.
This outlook, of course, flies in the face of pretty much all current management theory and treats all interactions as a zero-sum game: there must be a winner and a loser in everything. It ignores the work of mathematician John Nash Jr. and the prisoner’s dilemma. In fact, it is interesting that the book does not mention the prisoner’s dilemma and the bias that groups have towards cooperation.
The book is filled with historical examples and examples from myth. However, these examples are cherry picked and contain little historical context and no moral framework. An advisor keeps quiet about their fears of following Napoleon into war, because they ultimately feel they will fail and therefore cause their own downfall – never mind all the people who died at the battle of Waterloo, so long as the advisor keeps their “power.” The book fundamentally misinterprets the failures of the Treaty of Versailles, and by way of repudiation, the success of the Marshall Plan. It claims Claudius pretended to be a fool to seize power, rather than someone who by happenstance became emperor and, by being highly educated, a highly effective administrator.
This book endorses the worst fears about politicians and managers that are held by those who elect them or follow them. A reading of this book, taking as fact that this is how all those in power do, or should, behave essentially makes the case for revolution and collectivism. If everyone is only out for themselves, and you can’t trust anything anyone says, then what use are leaders? People infected (and I use those words with great care) by the thought processes in this book have no place in the modern workplace.
This book also provides instructions on conning people, in creating a cult (not kidding), and scapegoating the innocent to protect one’s own position. The book endorses narcissistic behavior and manipulation to seduce people and is generally sociopathic.
And it’s a shame.
For this book does contain a lot of good information. Its problems lie in its total lack of a moral framework. The book also has merit for anyone who feels they may be being manipulated, to understand the mindset and tools of the manipulator. But these arguments are a stretch for a book of this length and depth. I think a good barometer for organizations, is upon seeing this book on a bookshelf, to ask those around you what they thought of it. Those that embrace it, rather than act with revulsion at its amorality, should be treated as this book itself would recommend treating them – with distrust and suspicion.
This is not a good book. It puts forward a dangerous point of view because there are people who will, and I’m sure do, use this as a manual to scheme and manipulate those around them – and think that it is okay to do so. This book is almost everything that is wrong with the world today, and everything that is wrong with business – ever.
There way are better explanations of how to view the world and the behaviors of others, and even on how to get ahead in the workplace. It is hard to find one that has such an ugly view of people, society, and history.
“A Friend of a Friend…” by David Burkus makes the case that we are doing networking all wrong, or not at all, and that there is a better way of thinking about personal networks. With a few caveats, I think there is a lot to learn from Mr. Burkus.
To most people, the purpose of networking is to be able to leverage your network for professional ends. That means reaching out to those people with whom you have “close ties” and seeing what they can do for you or who they can introduce you to. The author suggests, however, that “loose ties,” those that you have fallen out of touch with or never had a terribly close connection with in the first place, are a better way of leveraging your network connections. It is these loose ties that are more likely to bring a diversity of thought to your circle. With some intriguing data, the book put forward the idea that people who have similar thinking, and world view, tend to cluster together. As an example of this clustering of similar thinking patterns, Mr. Burkus uses the example of voting patterns, because voting districts tend to increase in their preference for a particular party over time – even when allowing for jerrymandering!
Trying to increase the diversity of thought to improve your exposure to ideas is not without risks. While most people would agree that they and others are subtly influenced by those around them, what is less well realized is that even the behavior and habits of friends of friends can influence our rates of obesity, smoking and stopping smoking to give just a few examples. Influence is contagious.
While for some it might seem that social media could be an ideal solution to these networking issues, the author urges us to use caution and to treat social media as a potential tool rather than as a panacea. Social Media can exacerbate the very issues highlighted above – a lack of diversity of thought, through the contagious nature of influence.
What has been known in some entrepreneurial circles and at some high-end retreats is that one of the best ways to get to know someone, without all the baggage of status and perceived worth, is to actually complete a task with a stranger – helping to prepare a meal is the most focused on example, but taking a class on almost any subject when collaboration is required works just as well.
In a refreshing change from most personal development and business books is to find the resources that accompany the book freely available from the authors website, with a commitment to keep them there. https://davidburkus.com/resources/
Where the book is lacking is in the assertion that personal friends and connections can also turn into good and productive business connections or partners and vise versa. While this is undoubtedly true, and the book serves up many examples of it working in the real world, it does not explore or even caution of the HR issues and general pitfalls of not having clear boundaries in the workplace for both those involved and those around them. While it is a relatively minor quibble, it does seem to be strange oversight given the book’s otherwise excellent attention to detail and research.
“A Friend of a Friend” is an excellent resource for those who find networking unnatural. It also explains why it looks so easy for some and borderline impossible for others. The success of its promise, and premise, still has a lot to do with personal motivation, but these tools are that are relatable and accessible for all. This book is for the introverted, extroverted, and the closet introverted alike.
Self-Help books, of which Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster, undoubtedly is; seem to fall into the two categories. The overly new age, “everything will be alright as long as you are positive” and the so grounded in psychology and psychiatry that you need a degree in medicine to even begin. Resilience is neither of these; yet bridges both worlds and in such a way as to take value in both approaches.
It is telling the Ms. Graham is a marriage and family therapist. Her ability to speak in plan language but also to explain the scientific underpinnings to what can sound, and I am sure does, sound like hogwash to a lot of people, if it were not for these explanations. This is a book for rational people, willing to embrace change – even of they are a little reluctant. It is worth noting that this book was given to me to read by a colleague who recognized how useful it could be for the workplace – particularly in a profession dogged by mental health issues and suicide; but was unwilling to embrace even the small leap of faith that the book asks.
Resilience is a book of exercises – 133 in all. Some will not be right for you, and undoubtedly, some will. Each chapter deals with a different type of intelligence and general resilience. Each chapter is broken down into different mode of how the brain processes; conditioning, new conditioning, reconditioning, and deconditioning. These modes are then in turn broken down into three levels of need; “barely a wobble,” “glitches and heartaches, sorrows and struggles,” and “too much.”
This is a book to refer to and reference as the reader grows and their needs change. One of the most exciting chapters for managers is on “Practices of Relational Intelligence with Others.” The tools and exercises which are explained in detail, have significant uses in getting third parties to communicate with each other, and for improving with interpersonal communication. I am often someone who talks to others about whatever I am currently reading. Resilience, however, has had me proselytizing to co-workers significantly more than normal.
Its use as a tool to help train our brains, something we often pay scant attention to, cannot be disputed. It is a little long and dense, but as mentioned earlier this is a book to refer back to – not to ingest over a few days like I did. That the book strays into areas more normally associated with meditation and yoga is not says a lot more about the positive nature of those practices, than it does as a criticism of the book. This is a book for cynics, and self-help believers alike. We all struggle from time to time and as this book’s title suggests, Resilience is about making us better and more adaptable. Being able to adjust and influence our thinking and emotions, rather than allowing them to influence and dominate our lives.
This should be required reading for the veterinary profession, and for anyone who wants to improve how the inside of their head works. I can’t recommend it enough, and it is not hyperbole to suggest that it could save your life.
I am keeping this copy of Resilience; it is on my nightstand.
How do we harness belonging to create buy-in for our teams and how do outside influences affect our own sense of belonging in the world? What can damage that sense of belonging? How do we avoid destroying what we seek to create?
In Daniel Coyle’s book , The Culture Code – which I reviewed here, he puts forth the idea that the things that create great culture in groups and teams do so by triggering a sense of belonging. These are things such as uniforms, special phrases or codes, and a shared vision of purpose. By triggering these ‘belonging cues’ we feel safe and part of a collective. We have shared values and a shared identity. This feeling of belonging is even more strongly triggered when there is an outside enemy or outside set of circumstances.
The fear of the outsider being used as a rallying cry for uniting a people has a dark reputation in history, but also has its more positive outcomes as well. The dramatic drop in crime in New York city in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks being an obvious example.
My own personal sense of belonging was also triggered in the shadow of tragedy.
When the 10/1/17 mass shooting happened at the Route 91 Festival in my adoptive hometown of Las Vegas, which killed 58 people (60 at the time of this writing), there was obviously shock and horror from not just people in Las Vegas, but also around the country. People who live in Las Vegas have an odd relationship with its tourist nature, in as much as there is great respect for the people who visit and for the things that draw them to our town, but that does not necessarily mean that we want much do with those people or those parts of the town. However, to attack those things, and those people is very much seen as an attack on the entire city. A city based on welcoming strangers to our town, and hoping that they have a good time during their visit.
The reaction of the city, with people lining up around the block to donate blood, the general feeling of outrage that this could happen, and that someone could abuse our hospitality in such a hideous manner, created a greater sense of ownership of this odd place in the desert where I live than at any other time in previous five years of my residency.
But something else happened at the same time in Las Vegas.
The city got its first professional sports team in the Vegas Golden Knights (VGK).
To the hockey world and the sports pundits, this was less than a joke. A city which had no history of support for major league sports, that has shown little interest in hockey, and where it was 115 degrees in the summer. It seemed like a terrible idea from just about every corner. However, at its darkest hour – or what certainly felt like its darkest hour at the time, the Vegas Golden Knights showed that they wanted to be part of the community, which let’s face it – they were not.
What happened next is the stuff of fairy tales. An unprecedented run for the Stanley Cup, and a city adopting a sport and a team as their own – making Las Vegas one of the best places to experience a hockey game in the country. For the whole story of that first year, I cannot recommend enough the documentary “Valiant” the trailer for which you will find below.
I should explain at this point explain that I have no time for sports. Apart from the odd summer evening watching baseball, more for the company and enjoying the summer evening in a crowd, than for anything happening on the field, sports was something that other people did. So, the question becomes, how did I become the owner of three hockey jerseys? What happened that first year of the Vegas Golden Knights, and in successive years, to make mee feel like they were my team, but also to become proud and emotional about my adoptive hometown? How did I come to believe that I belonged as a Vegas Golden Knights fan and that by extension that I felt ownership of a city that is, by definition, a place to be visited?
The Route 91 tragedy was obviously a horrible event for all concerned, but it was also a serious blow to the city and to its self-image. Las Vegas – America’s playground to quote the movie Ocean’s Eleven – a safe place for people to go a little wild. To shatter that image in the eyes of the wider world, also damaged that image in the eyes of the people who live and work here. The Vegas Golden Knights were also a team with an image problem. The players were all cast offs from other teams, and they were expected to be the worst team in the league that year – and possibly for years to come. That alignment of adversity created shared purpose.
And then against all odds the Golden Knights started, and kept, winning. A city which needed something to cheer and be happy about – got it in spades. The Vegas Golden Knights belonged to Las Vegas and Las Vegas belonged to the Vegas Golden Knights.
But there was more than fate at work in this bonding. The Vegas Golden Knights created their own medieval pantomime as a branding exercise; however, they also adopted the symbols and sounds that have come to epitomize Las Vegas. The sounds of coins, the roll of a dice, a mascot named “Chance,” “Viva Las Vegas”, and just the very golden coloring of anything and everything in sight made the Golden Knights feel like Las Vegas, but also to feel that it was okay to embrace the visitor tropes of Las Vegas.
People like to take pride in things, and it was easy to take pride in the Vegas Golden Knights. The fan experience was considered the best in the league, they continued to play well, cleanly, and get involved in the community. It also brought pride to the city because the Golden Knights did not exist for visitors – although all are welcome. They existed for the residents of Las Vegas.
The symbols of Golden Knights became synonymous with the city of Las Vegas, and with #VegasStrong. The uniforms, symbols, the shared experience of adversity, and the games created a whole new culture. A culture that the people of Las Vegas could belong to.
For that first Vegas Golden Knights season in 2017 / 2018 I was not a fan or even really bought into the culture. I was aware of it building all around me; but being aware of how the triggering of belonging cues can feel like manipulation I tried to stay aloof. It was not until the beginning of the 2018 / 2019 season, and going to my first game, that I finally succumbed, and ultimately embraced the sport and the team.
Fast forward to the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The first game of the second round. The Vegas Golden Knights vs. the Colorado Avalanche. Colorado were considered the favorites, of not just the series, but of the entire playoffs. Game one is a disaster for the Golden Knights. A 7-1 loss. Not only do they look out classed on the ice, but they show their frustration by getting into fights and giving up penalties. This culminates in Vegas enforcer Ryan Reeves kneeing on the head of Colorado Avalanche defenseman Ryan Graves in apparent retaliation for an earlier hit by Graves on Vegas player Janmark. Reeves was tossed from the game and received a two-game suspension. The VGK receive an extraordinary nine-minute penalty, and arguably play their best hocky of the game for the first seven minutes of that penalty, until two Vegas players decide they would rather hit a Colorado player rather than defend, and Colorado scores yet again.
This game caused a great crisis of faith for me. In the game and in the team I had come to love. Vegas is known as a team that plays “heavy, but clean.” Reeves actions, seemed dangerous, petty, and revengeful. In addition, the entire team seemed petulant at the resounding loss. To add to the disappointment, Reeves had been an outspoken advocate for police reform in the light of the George Floyd murder, and yet here he was kneeling on the head of another player. A professional, using excessive force because he could.
Chuck Klosterman in his book “But What If We Are Wrong?,” which I reviewed here, talks about the fall in popularity of boxing, and the potential for the fall of professional football, due to mainstream occasional fans, as opposed to dedicated “my team can do no wrong” kind of fans, being turned off by the serious life threatening injuries than can occur in those sports.
At the end of that game against Colorado, I was ashamed to be a Golden Knights fan. I believed that they had betrayed what they stood for. Other fans had a problem with them losing in such spectacular form – I didn’t. My problem was with them seeming to being petty and vengeful.
Game two of the series, while still a loss for Vegas, began to restore my faith in the team as they acquitted themselves as professionals.
However, just nine games later again my faith would be shaken. Testing my commitment to this sport and to being a fan. This time due to the behavior of the fans themselves.
Round Three, Game four, was not a good game for Vegas. Ultimately a 4-1 loss for the VGK at home. However, seeing your team booed off the ice at the end of the second period and at the end of a power play but their own fans was more than a little disquieting. As was the failure of the two people next to me and the eight people in front of me not returning to their seats for the 3rd period. I did not want to belong to a fan base that only supported a team when they were winning. Near the end of the game, Montreal scored an empty net gold making the score 4-1. There has always been fans who leave near the end of a game when it is obvious that their team is going to lose. This, however, was not a few fans.
This was an exodos.
I estimated 2/3s to 3/4s of the auditorium.
It was heartbreaking for the players I’m sure. Yes, they did not play well, or it would seem with much heart, but they did not deserve to be treated that way. Vegas has always seemed to have a hospitable fan base. Welcoming opposing fan bases into T-Mobile Arena, making sure they felt welcome in our barn and in our city. It has also forgiven its team for its losses and supported them as they once supported us. Its one of the things that I love about supporting the team – everyone was generally ways positive, friendly to all, and just wanting to have a good time. It the light of this game some fans expressed that the team deserved it as they had not shown up to play, and that far worse happened at other areas with other teams.
But that misses the point. Vegas was supposed to be different.
Cultures are made up of shared beliefs, shared values, and a shared sense of identity. This is reenforced by the sharing of uniforms, language, and customs. Damage to the sense of belonging by upending any of these threatens that fragile culture.
I myself have found myself feeling like an outsider in a culture I helped create in an online community, due to the shifting priorities of those in charge, a lack of inclusiveness, and a feeling that my sense of wanting to contribute was devalued and unappreciated. The feeling that I’m getting far less out than I’m putting in is often why people leave companies.
We mess with shared values and culture at our peril. These are fragile things. Belonging allows us to feel safe. It flips a switch in our cave-person brain and tells us “it’s ok,” “you are among friends,” “the saber tooth tigers are not going to get you today.”
But belonging goes further. Belonging allows us to feel. To connect. To bond. To Think.
All we do as humans is think, feel, and run around.
Cultures have to be fought for, to champion for, but they are not a bottomless well. When that sense of belonging is gone, it is gone for good.
I am still a Golden Knights fan, but there were some ugly moments for our team and the fan base during these playoffs.
Our teams that we lead and belong to, if we are lucky, have the same sense of belonging that fans feel for sports teams. But we can damage them just as easily as sports teams can by our actions and inactions.
Belonging is what we all want. But it can never be taken for granted.
This blog has now been running in its present form for 10 years. Its previous iteration ran for a couple of years and then there was a six-year gap. All of the old content, such as it was, is archived somewhere, but for now the past ten years is it.
What does ten years of writing a blog post every few weeks get you? Well, it is certainly not fame and riches. I’ve definitely grown as a writer. Grown to become a better writer – whether I’m a good writer is up for debate. My own self-copy-editing skills have most definitely improved.
Having a body of work, even one as unfocused as mine, I have found useful over the past 10 years. After finding myself answering the same questions online a lot, I wrote a number of posts to definitively answer those questions from my point of view. That’s has been a useful practice for me. It has also been a great way to harvest content ideas when I am in the mood to write, but don’t have a topic.
Blogging has also taught me a number of things:
1: Practice makes better, never perfect.
I certainly always feel I am growing as a writer. My punctuation gets better, for example, a bit like my vocabulary. I’m overly fond of complicated sentences; but I’m getting better at spotting them. For example, the last one very nearly turned into a monster in a fit of irony.
2: Consistency is great, but its either a job or a hobby.
There is nothing worse than the feeling of having to write creatively, but not being in the mood to do so. I found that out the hard way when I was a writer full time. To paraphrase the great Scott Stratten; Write when you have something to say. That’s a lesson I have really taken to heart and if you follow my blog, dear long-suffering reader, that is why I am so inconsistent.
3: Don’t be afraid to revisit topics.
Retreading over the same territory is boring if you have nothing new to say. However, I have found that I often have a lot more to say, and I sometimes contradict what I have said in the past about topics – particularly reviews and specifically Yelp.
4: What you think will be great is often ignored.
I think all writers think this way. You have your pet pieces. Perhaps the ones that stretch you with their subject matter or your approach. They may work out pretty well from your perspective, but not always for the reader. I also have a weakness for gimmicks, which readers, well my readers anyway, do not.
5: The great discoveries will surprise you.
For me its poetry. In the last 15 months or so I’ve found that while I enjoy writing, and get a lot of personal satisfaction from it, I love writing poetry. Whether I am any good at it is not for me to say. But while I find that Mikefalconer.net is a way for me to process my thoughts and ideas about work and books, I find that wordoutlet.net is a way for me to process emotions. I’ve never been a particularly emotional person, but they are still there. I also find the process on concentrating on a few lines, or even just a few words, unlike an article like this which is 548 words and counting, is much more satisfying to the creative side of me. This side of me loves the language of writing, but can get bored by facts, figures, and descriptions.
The bottom line (see, still not above using clichés!) for me is that writing a blog has been a voyage of self-discovery and improvement. It has become part of who I am. I’ve been writing on mikefalconer.net longer than I have ever held a job for. The site has become an extension of my personality; for good and bad. I’m proud of having the body of work. I think it says a lot about who I am by how diverse the topics I deal with on here have been.
I have no intention of stopping, and I don’t know if I could if I tried.
Mike Falconer 