In the darkness
Art for Art’s Sake
We have a productivity crisis in work. It’s been flatlining since the Global Financial Crash in 2008 but that’s not the problem. The problem is that we don’t really know what we mean by productivity today.
Back in the day when we made the apocryphal widgets, it was easy to measure productivity. I mean, it was literally counting. But what do we measure today, in the knowledge work economy? But in a world where someone can sell a piece art that doesn’t actually exist in any conventional sense for $69 million, maybe we need to rethink some of our existing models.
What we have at the moment is a mismatch between the paradigm of evaluation and the things that are being evaluated. We are using a model based on linear, physical production to measure the intangible outcomes of complex and unknowable processes. We might as well use a ruler to measure to meaning of life.
We could try and measure value but then we have to work out where the value lies and how it was created. How do you measure the value of an idea or an insight? When it’s one of hundreds, or even thousands, that went into producing something, how do you evaluate them against each other? How do you know what mattered and what didn’t? And anyway, what is valuable? Is it just financial measures, or is it something, well, least tangible? Like impact on society, or making people feel good?
It’s complex, and productivity is a simple measure, so perhaps a more complex approach is needed.
The truth is, knowledge work is more art than science. (In fact, it is actually art in some cases!). This is something Seth Godin has been riffing on for some time, urging people to ‘do their art’ rather than worry about productivity. So perhaps we should look to the Arts for some ideas on how to evaluate what we do.
A film or a theatre production is judged in multiple ways. It is, of course, judged on commercial criteria, such as the box-office receipts and the profits. It is critically evaluated by an informed and select group, i.e. the critics in the media. It is judged by the audience, with some films (and shows) becoming firm favourites with certain audience segments, or becoming loved over time (leading to commercial success later on and even critical re-evaluation). And finally, it is judged by those who participated in its production, which have all got their own view of the worth of their involvement.
These multiple perspectives are not related, so a critically-acclaimed film can bomb at the box-office, become a cult hit later on, whilst cast and crew dine out out on the horror stories about the making of it.
Complex, multi-faceted, nuanced, contradictory. Just like knowledge work.
There’s No Business Like Show Business
I’ve long though we could learn a lot from looking at theatre and film production, one of the earliest models of a ‘gig’ economy. They are the epitome of project-focused work, where teams of diversely-talented people are drawn together with a singular focus on the production of a work, and then disband afterwards. As such, they presage where I believe ‘work’ is heading.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that, of course. Core teams are often found moving from production to production, sometimes the team is formed for a group of shows or films. In fact, it’s reminiscent of how pirate crews came together in the Golden Age, changing for each voyage but with a core of regulars, picking up people on the way for parts of the adventure.
In film and theatre, there’s also an explicit acknowledgement of the intangibles, of the importance of the chemistry between people, of the role than luck and circumstance play. You can assemble a stellar cast of actors but it must just fall flat, whereas an unlikely group of misfits and unknowns will just gel and produce a stellar performance.
There’s an acceptance, too, of imperfection and inconsistency, especially in theatre. ‘Right first time, every time’, a slogan beloved of the Total Quality Management devotees, would be laughed out of a theatre as simply unrealistic. That’s why they have a prompt. They know people will get it wrong sometimes because they are fallible, and they prepare for it.
They have a different sensibility about performance too. It’s always an unknown but there’s a belief that ‘it will be alright on the night’. They harness the uncertainty.
Then there is the situational awareness because every theatre and every audience is different. There’s an interplay between the actors and the audience, something undefinable but almost tangible. Some nights there’s just a magic in the air.
There’s always the chance for redemption, too, if someone has a bad performance. There’s always another night, another stage, another chance to do yourself justice.
Embrace the intangible, focus on the human chemistry, connect with the audience, create a magical experience. And remember, there’s always another performance.
Wouldn’t work be better if we applied these principles?
Imagine
If we are going to think about work as being more like art then we need to tap into our natural creativity. So how creative are we? Well there is good news and bad news.
The Torrance Test is a measure of creativity that has been used for decades, so a researcher analyzed 300,000 Torrance Test scores since the ‘50s. The bad news is that she found that our creativity scores began to nosedive in 1990. She concluded that we're now facing a 'creativity crisis. (see this article for more)
The reasons are that we are rushing around trying to do too much and when we’re not, we have our heads buried in our devices to distract ourselves. Basically, we’re too busy and entertained to be creative.
The good news is that scientist know what we can do to recover our creative mojos. The solutions are
actively schedule time to think, reflect and experiment
put boundaries around your use of passive tech (less doom scrolling and reading emails)
vary your routine, places you go and people you see
go for long walks
This is not exactly new advice (OK, maybe the passive tech, but that used to be TV, or reading comics and stuff like that), which is actually a good thing. If our ancient forebears could do this shit, then we should be able to. If you want some motivation, it’s do this or become increasing dull until you have the creative spark of a house brick, but less utility.
Being bored is, it seems, a gateway to imagination. Go and get bored.
Looking Through The Windows
Whilst you’re getting bored, or when you’ve made some time for reflection, you could ponder on this famous statement by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”
This somewhat gnomic reply caused much comment at the time and had the intended result of distraction people from the fact that he hadn’t answered the question. But it wasn’t just a bit of clever sophistry, it is actually a description of ‘Johari’s Window’, an analysis technique created by two psychologists to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others. It was subsequently used by the national security and intelligence community.
When we use it to look at ourselves, we see ways to grow our self-knowledge by seeking the perspectives of others. However, there will always parts of us that we can never be aware of - the unknown unknowns. This is true in life. Some things will always be a mystery to us, like what is the meaning of life and why do they sell Magnums in packs of three?
It could also be used to analyse organisations, but I don’t think it has been used much in this way (other than to discover blind spots - the unknown knowns). Perhaps because the idea of unknowns unknowns is not something that sits well with scientific management, solution-pedalling consultants, spreadsheet-obsessed MBA grads and the general illusion of control that senior executives like to wrap themselves in.
Well, right now, we are in the middle of the mother and father of an unknown unknown. When we’re done with this, we’ve got the climate crisis, mass extinctions, ecological degradation and a few others on the way.
So I think it’s about time that we acknowledged the unknown unknowns. Not just events like the pandemic, but also the inventions and innovations that we can’t foresee, the connections and creativity that we can’t explain, the randomness of existence in all its colour and complexity.
It’s OK not to know some things. In fact, it’s inevitable. Let’s embrace it and integrate it into organisations, how they are structured, operate and evolve.