Some take away thoughts following amazing presentation by Arthur C. Brooks at the 2024 Global Leadership Conference.
1. Generally speaking we don’t have an anger problem. The modern invention of print and increased literacy created a wonderful margin where anger can cool and diminish over time – an emotional and mental distance between our initial, passionate reaction and impulsive irrational actions to a given dilemma or conflict.
2. Additionally we don’t have a problem with disagreement or opposing views. Modern printed literacy and education over the past 400 years or so has provided us with margin to process thoughts and a vehicle to make thoughtful logical arguments needed to find realistic compromise.
There’s more to it. What we have in our current postmodern digital environment is a contempt problem. (Contempt is anger + disgust.) Contempt is what leads otherwise civil, gracious, people to be and act unkind and selfish.
Contempt is foundational to hate. There is no logical argument that can sway another out of contempt because it’s not really about right and wrong, good or bad, truth or fiction. Contempt is about imposing one’s will and convincing one’s self of the worthlessness of another. It’s more a personal or theological attack on another’s being or personhood. And there are those among us, from all walks, who masterfully and shamefully leverage this to their advantage be it for personal gain, a “just” cause, a passionate belief, theology or ideology, or evil mischief.
In the modern linear analog period, features like literacy, intellect, and empathy fueled the concept of hero, civility, logical thought, and democracy.
In our current postmodern non-linear digital culture however, characteristics such as hyper-literacy, real-time global communications, and almost immediate transfer of endless information (and misinformation) fuels the concept of celebrity, anxiety, lack of civil discourse, and violent tribal outbursts born of frustration, hate, entitlement, and impatience. We’ve become hopelessly reactionary to just about everything.
The democratic system was not designed to navigate and utilize postmodern tribal-style hate. The modern concept of democracy was born out of a written document, printed and distributed to the masses based on civil discourse and compromise. Democracy accommodates anger, invites and values disagreement, arguments, opinions, and was the very foundation of our rule of law.
As we now discovered, observe, and experience, one way to effectively divert democracy, civility, unity, and thoughtful logic (in a postmodern literate world) is to introduce contempt and hate. There’s no longer an argument to be won. Picking a president, for example has little to do with policy, performance, or character. If you are not hatefully outraged, your opinion doesn’t qualify. If you don’t hate the other side, you’re written off by some as not committed. If you can vilify and dehumanize your opponent then debating facts and ideas become pointless, unnecessary, and less effective than in a modern time. Exclusively human traits, such as compassion, sympathy, empathy, grace, and generosity, become extinguished and relegated to the butt of juvenile “woke” jokes.
It’s no longer about logic, reason, or candor. Why? I believe contempt is easier, more expedient and efficient, requires little investment of intellect or understanding, and no participation or compromise.
When we collectively insist on imposing our individual wills upon others, there is no room or desire for compromise. It’s often less about the need to be right as it is the obsession to win or to feel superior. It’s as if many find their personal identity, value, and worth in acting aggressively condescending.
Additionally some might even say there’s an element of subversive evil inherent in the overall way we treat each other in the current postmodern climate.
Stopping hate starts with you (and me), and among those who think like us – refusing to tolerate illogical vindictive language, arrogance of self, and the spirit of contempt. Call it out sooner than later.
“You” whoever you are, and me, simply don’t have the capacity to effectively impose our individual will on free people. It damages democracy and destroys trust. It erodes kindness and is counter productive to our goals (unless of course your primary goal is to seek and destroy your neighbor). It ruins any shred of credibility and believability the aggressor might actually have with a valid point.
It starts with you and those in your orbit. You can’t readily change or convince the “other side” when contempt is central to everyone’s thinking. Stand up and challenge the hate close to you.
Debate ideas but don’t lend credence to contempt. Don’t join in and perpetuate contempt. Don’t validate it with your silence, don’t be intimidated by it, don’t give it an ounce of oxygen.
Actively stifling the spirit of contempt (within our circles of affinity and influence) is a way back to civil discourse, mutual respect, and trust. It’s a way back to kindness.
#breakthehate
#mcluhan
#beyondself
#whatmattersmatters
#leadership
#postmodern
#getoveryourself
So why are some people so prone to cancel on a commitment or a role within your volunteer driven organization? If their primary motivator is community, recreation, belonging, free coffee, or some other transactional item, then the moment something enters their purview that takes priority they can quickly cancel their commitment or become inconsistent. However, when somebody is personally invested in the mission, with a purposeful vision, then it becomes important to help the team advance that mission. (Vision and values rule and preventing vision drift becomes critical.) When things arrive in their lives that pull their attention, their first response is not to simply cancel and say, “sorry, deal with it”. Their first response is to reach out to other teammates to ensure that the mission is taken care of. Maybe they will find a replacement or a substitute, or they will come up with an alternative solution to help ensure things are taken care of when they need to get away or maybe just need a break for a period or season. There’s a big difference in the attitude and sense of team between someone who’s primarily motivated by the transformational instead of just the transactional.
If you have worked in a non-profit organization like a civic club or church that operates primarily with volunteers, you have no doubt participated in discussions (and lost sleep) over how to better recruit, why willing people are scarce (the 20/80 rule?), or why volunteers easily leave or fail to show up consistently. And you may find yourself circling back around to some generic answers to the same question you think potential prospects must obviously have: “what’s in it for me?” You then assemble a variation of the same list of ideas your organization has probably developed each year for the past 30 years – typically with the same insufficient and frustrating results. You conclude the answer, of course, must be benefits, right?
I imagine most people already know that the benefits of volunteering include fun, community, meet and make friends, free coffee, self-gratification for doing something good, fun, relationships, free pizza, positive public exposure, networking and of course more fun. But often there is only a glimpse of the actual result and impact of the volunteering effort itself contained in the messaging. It’s almost as if the purpose of your organization is an afterthought or some coincidental outcome that hopefully happens if you can just keep people satisfied, happy, and entertained.
Next someone probably develops a one-off pitch with printed materials highlighting the need for help and featuring the many personal “rewards” of getting involved. It maybe gets featured in some brief public announcement or more often couched in a passionate plea of desperation. Maybe there’s even a little shame, guilt, and a challenge to duty sprinkled in just to make the offer compelling.
The campaign might get pitched once or twice – maybe in conjunction with a fair or showcase event once every couple of years. Then it’s rarely talked about again until the next frustration cycle or crisis hits. This strategy is just not effective recruiting, is not enough, and even misdirected.
The honest answer to the question “What’s in it for me?” is simple …nothing. Absolutely Nothing! Volunteering, by definition after all, is not a transactional relationship for reward. Don’t make it one.
Stop selling the benefits. Instead get serious and creative about developing meaningful opportunities for others to live beyond their selves when attracting and onboarding new participants. Instead, paint a compelling picture of how this role matters to someone else. Impress how the role can fit into a bigger plan and significantly change the lives or circumstances of others. This must be a team effort. Get your entire organization on board with the messaging. Ignite a passion for the mission or cause, especially if you’re trying to develop a high performance team of volunteers. Unless it’s a simple group project that doesn’t recur, don’t “recruit” volunteers. [Are you leading a team or a group?] Instead, identify and enroll people into the best roles for the right reasons based on compelling vision. Discuss how the organizational mission or cause may have profoundly impacted them or someone they love. The process and message must remain ongoing since volunteer teams are naturally organic and continuously changing. The strategy needs to get baked into your organization’s language and culture.
Benefits will still be there. It’s not that the benefits don’t exist or are unimportant. In fact, they’re absolutely critical to get right and execute well – just don’t lead with them as the primary value of the effort. Don’t cheapen a noble call to action with gimmicks. You see, benefits focus is still transactional. Mission focus, on the other hand, is transformational. People who fall in love with the purpose and mission will still experience the friendships, community, and all the signs of appreciation you can facilitate and lavish on them. The encouragement texts, thank you notes, care calls, free coffee, motivational and team building events, personal helps, fun, even public exposure are very important to encouraging and retaining people. Nurture a community culture. The difference is that their heart and mind will be aligned with others around advancing a purposeful mission and they will more likely be deeply invested for the long haul. People who are solely in it for the transactional will consistently fail to show up once something more important, convenient, (or fun) comes up. Or when they get challenged by an operational adjustment, disappointed by some natural change in leadership, community, or experience a shift in their relationships with others.
“Coincidentally, Gen Z is noticeably more self-actualizing and increasingly values purpose, experience, and mental health more than just a paycheck or reward. In our postmodern digital environment, many people, ranging from Boomers to Gen Z, are prioritizing experiences over material gratifications.”
– Gary L. Yonek
Never lose sight of the fact that volunteering is a sacrifice, a gift, an offering of people’s time, heart, mind, and resources. (They don’t owe you or your organization anything.) No matter what the role is, it costs them something. It costs their family something. Don’t ever minimize or trivialize that, pretend it’s irrelevant, or take it for granted. Acknowledge and honor their effort. Because it matters …a lot.
…benefits are still transactional. Mission on the other hand is transformational.
Gary L. Yonek
It takes intentional effort and resources to communicate and ignite a passion for a worthwhile mission/cause and shift your focus from the transactional to the transformational power of inspiring and empowering volunteers. Volunteers are not “free labor” and building high-functional teams is not always easy or cheap. The strategy must be intentional, organizationally integrated, and ongoing.
Develop the kind of organization, mission, and team that others would cheerfully and willfully give their time – even if the role is hard and there were no rewards whatsoever. Imagine having a purpose so compelling and opportunities so significant and meaningful that people would line up at the door, take a number to be next, and arrange their personal schedules for even the chance to be involved. Yeah, it’s really hard but let’s shoot for that!
For some time now I’ve been thinking about how the dominance and oversaturation of printed words gradually (almost imperceivably) diminished compassion, feelings, and empathy in exchange for elevated literacy and logic over the course of the modern age.
Back in a day when information was more manageable, print technology brought unity, understanding, and knowledge in addition to creating margin, that allowed time for more thoughtful consideration and civility. As literacy and education grew and spread, these traits replaced the impulsive and seemingly irrational, less civilized behaviors found in more oral traditions. (Pre 1500s)
During the late 1800s and thru the 1900s that valuable margin began to erode. And by the end of 20th century, the healthy time gap between learning, understanding, and response all but disappeared. A giant print industry along with the advent of various electronic technologies took our literal minds to a new unexplored level. The pace of life accelerated. Although the incremental increases in the speed of communications began to compress our world, information was, for the most part, still unified and dependable. Increased speed brought great advancements with increased efficiency and production, along with expectations of faster response and resolution to questions and concerns – swift logical conclusions to complex and often emotional challenges. In short, less patience and consequently less concern for others became the norm due to the efficiency and automated characteristics of developing media.
The beginnings of a technological induced anxiety that would soon reach a level extreme enough to influence sociological behaviors emerged.
Around 2005, something historically significant began to evolve. After about 400 years of the printed word being the dominant communication medium, suddenly it was not. (You may be old enough to recall owning 26 volume sets of family encyclopedias or seeing 3″ thick metropolitan Yellow-page phone directories in hotel rooms.)
Digital communications and digital information changed not just how we interact but how we collectively behave. It quickly took what I refer to as the hyper-literacy of the over-extended print medium to a staggering new level. One that further repressed feelings, emotion, and empathy exponentially. (We didn’t become illiterate, but our sociological behaviors began to appear more reflective of those seen in pre-modern oral and tribal cultures, as post modernism became reality.)
We lost nuance and context that was the revolutionary hallmark of early print technology and the foundation of more civil literate societies. The west was born and democracy flourished. The US became the first government in world history to designed and birthed from a written, printed document.
Two Conditions Collide:
2005. For the first time in human history, we were able to have bi-directional, synchronized audible and visual communication, around the globe, seemingly at instantaneous speeds. In other words, although we can continue to improve the quality of sound and visuals, there will be no more meaninful increase in speed or reach of communications. Unlike with early print, there is little mental and emotional margin left to contemplate and consider options, cool off, reduce anger, diffuse tensions, resolve conflict or seek advice with discourse when making critical decisions. The constant expectation of immediate response, action, and results is becoming progressively more oppressively life-sucking.
The second result of the digital medium is the ability to access information about most anything at anytime from anywhere. Information is basically limitless, and accuracy is sometimes questionable at best. There’s a loss of reliability in much of what we read, see and hear. Information is no longer linear and stable. It can be intercepted from several sources simultaneously, and in random sequences. Information is absolutely abundant but can also be untrustworthy or maliciously corrupted at times.
The Result:
The result of these two realities is that humanity has quickly reached a maximum limit to the speed at which it can communicate and is reaching a point of endless quantity of available data. Some information is useful and applicable but most is unneeded or irrelevant to us individually.
The human head and heart, as conditioned by several centuries of enlightened modernism, simply cannot consume and discern the onslaught of information and digital media stimulation that we now have access to. Combined with years of repressed emotional empathy thru the 20th century, it’s evident that people, in general, are now acting out more impulsively, with less civility, and sometimes even violently with little or no external prompting. Even otherwise thoughtful and considerate individuals seem to have reached their capacity to care and generally be kind to others beyond their immediate families. Many of us are now generally more critical, cynical, sarcastic, inward focused, and feel the freedom and need to immediately respond pointedly and oponionate carelessly without shame or filter.
Merely navigating daily life in this post modern time is inherently stressful and depletes us emotionally and mentally.
This technological state is now the societal norm. It is the reality and experience that the hearts and minds of those born after 1990 will be predominantly conditioned by moving forward. It is the technological environment that will influence the development of their identity and core personal value in their formative years. They never will have known or experienced another way with which to compare and contrast.
So how does our culture regain a more global sense of care and compassion in our post modern times?
I think one key is to somehow ignite a passion in others to live beyond self. To find their identity and a core value in diverse activities greater than just their role or skills. To instill a sense of gratitude and thankfulness that leads to a sense of selflessness.
That, along with a little healthy vulnerability, self awareness and a regained sense of thoughtfullnes, can go a long way to improving confidence and reducing anxiety and fear which can cripple compassion, empathy, and kindness.
I enjoy hearing all the buzz about generative AI along with the pros, cons, doubts, and fears being speculated over the past year. I’ve always been an early adopter to new technologies and have never avoided or felt threatened by a new medium or tool.
For some time now I’ve been thinking about how the dominance and oversaturation of printed words gradually (almost inperceivably) diminished compassion, feelings, and empathy in exchange for elevated literacy and logic over the course of the modern age.
Back in a day when information was more manageable, print technology brought unity, understanding, and knowledge in addition to creating margin, that allowed time for more thoughtful consideration and civility. As literacy and education grew and spread, these traits replaced the impulsive and seemingly irrational, less civilized behaviors found in more oral traditions. (Pre 1500s)
During the late 1800s and thru the 1900s that valuable margin had begun to close. And by the end of 20th century, the healthy time gap between learning, understanding, and response all but evaporated. A behemoth print industry along with the advent of various electronic technologies took our literal minds to a new unexplored level. Although the incremental increases in the speed of communications began to compress our world, information was, for the most part, still unified and dependable. Increased speed brought expectations of faster response and resolution to questions and concerns, along with swift logical conclusions to complex and often emotional challenges. In short, less patience and consequently less concern for others became the norm due to the efficiency and automated characteristics of the developing media. The beginnings of a technological induced anxiety that would soon reach a level extreme enough to influence sociological behaviors was born.
Around 2005, something historically significant began to evolve. After about 400 years of the printed word being the dominant communication medium, suddenly it was not. (You may be old enough to recall owning 26 volume sets of family encyclopedias or seeing 3″ thick metropolitan Yellow-page phone directories in hotel rooms.)
Digital communications and digital information changed not just how we interact but how we collectively behave. They quickly took what I call the hyper-literacy of the over-extended print medium to a staggering new level. One that further repressed feelings, emotion, and empathy exponentially. (We didn’t become illiterate, but our sociological behaviors began to appear more reflective of those seen in pre-modern oral and tribal cultures, as post modernism became reality.)
Two Conditions Collide:
2005. For the first time in human history, we were able to have bi-directional, synchronized audible and visual communication, around the globe, seemingly at instantaneous speeds. In other words, although we can continue to improve the quality of sound and visuals, there will be no more meaninful increase in speed or reach of communications. Unlike with early print, there is little mental and emotional margin left to contemplate and consider options, cool off, reduce anger, diffuse tensions, resolve conflict or seek advice with discourse when making critical decisions. The constant expectation of immediate response, action, and results is becoming progressively more oppressively life-sucking.
The second result of the digital medium is the ability to access information about most anything at anytime from anywhere. Information is basically limitless, and accuracy is sometimes questionable at best. There’s a loss of reliability in much of what we read, see and hear. Information is no longer linear and stable. It can be intercepted from several sources simultaneously, and in random sequences. Information is absolutely abundant but can also be untrustworthy or maliciously corrupted at times.
Although the incremental increases in the speed of communications began to shrink our world, information was still mostly unified and dependable.
The Result:
The result of these two realities is that humanity has quickly reached a maximum limit to the speed at which it can communicate and is reaching a point of endless quantity of available data. Some information is useful and applicable but most is unneeded or irrelevant to us individually.
The human head and heart, as conditioned by modern history, simply cannot consume and discern the onslaught of information and digital media stimulation that we now have access to. Combined with years of repressed emotional empathy thru the 20th century, it’s evident that people, in general, are now acting out more impulsively, with less civility, and sometimes even violently with little or no external prompting. Even otherwise thoughtful and considerate individuals seem to have reached their capacity to care and generally be kind to others beyond their immediate families. Many of us are now generally more critical, cynical, sarcastic, inward focused, and feel the freedom to immediately respond and oponionate carelessly without shame or filter.
Merely navigating daily life in this post modern time is inherently stressful and depletes us emotionally and mentally. This condition has become the cultural norm and is the only reality those born after 1990 will be predominantly shaped by.
What If:
What if this new era of Artificial Intelligence can create tools to help us get our collective life and humanity back? Is it possible that AI can be the neutralizer for the over saturation of information access that feels so out of control at the moment? Can AI help regain some of the healthy margin, knowledge and discourse that was so revolutionary with early print technology, before the advancements of electronic and subsequent digital technologies?
How can AI be developed and practically utilized by individuals as a quality of life tool to develop healthy boundaries with information and technology, and regain a general sense of compassion for others?
What Matters Matters 