Blurring the Lines

I noticed a few of my old work colleagues had become friends with their employer on facebook.

It immediately raised questions in my mind. Who exactly from the company is that profile belonging to? I would guess HR, and I would guess it is coming off the back of some article written on the importance of using social networking sites as a resource for HR decisions.

HR decisions are hiring and firing decisions as well as myriad other important functions like training and development services, maintaining and recording job descriptions and keeping tabs on all relevant personal transactions such as promotions, departmental shifts and organisational reshuffles.

But hiring and firing are the only ones I would raise my eyebrow to, because really HR involvement should be restricted to supporting managers in due process and legal compliance. It ultimately should be the managers decision as to whether to hire or fire somebody.

But I can see no advantage at all to adding a faceless corporation to your friends on facebook. My suspicious nature would conclude that they would immediately scan for pictures you might post of yourself being drunk. Or exhibitionist soft core porn photo's you may take of yourself.

Of which I have both, but at manager tools they say 'feel free to draw conclusions about that person' because they feel it is fair game when people publicly post pictures of their own stupidity. Furthermore you can question the judgement of anyone who refuses you friendship, because they must be hiding something right?

But what if, they are simply drawing a clear clean line between public and private life? Which I think is absolutely fair enough.

There isn't a day that I log onto facebook without being annoyed by Bryce's twitter account. Bryce is one of the most effective marketers and promoters I have ever met. Unfortunately for me, we met way back before he was a professional (although he had pretty outstanding talent from day 1) when we were just friends.

For me, Bryce's facebook profile is one of the big nonevent's amongst all the profiles I rarely visit, for the simple reason that it is professional first and personal second. Which isn't to say that Bryce is doing something wrong, it is merely to say that I am a fan of Bryce, not the various things that Bryce works on.

I believe in the luxury described by Ann Rand:

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

Even though she couldn't have been further from the mark in terms of what actually went down.

But this is the issue of economics and perhaps the central issue of our world. Our obsession with growth demands 'more' and not 'better'. Keyne's also incorrectly predicted that we could maintain (then) luxurious lifestyles and channel economic growth into more leisure time, eventually working 4 hour days.

Humanity would be at the very top of its game if we only worked 4 hour days. Think of all the extra time devoted to thinking.

Instead all economic growth has lead to a smaller concentration of wealth and longer working hours. A reduction in wages in real terms against the cost of living has been the other great fruit.

And having taken time off to travel (which flirted with being a waste of time and money) and now to just work out who I am and what I want to be (the best time I have spent in my life) I start to suspect that most people work cradle to grave more or less being productive and never live at all.

Some people may remember that as late as 2003 I didn't have a mobile phone. I picked up my dislike for them early on. My dad got a car phone installed back in the brick days, and was probably one of the first people in Ballarat to get a mobile. And instantly I knew that his work hours increased.

I disliked it from the get go because I knew it was a device that allowed people to work overtime without having to work overtime.

Now I maintain everything I know about business I learnt from basketball. Today I watched Kobe's Lakers take down Lebron James at home ending their 23-0 home record. Lebron's Cavs are Lebron's Cavs and for me they represent the mindless way business is done today.

Kobe's Lakers are Phil Jackson's Lakers. Phil builds great teams. Kobe is unquestionably the most talented career player since Jordan left. Very different, Kobe is just Kobe but he isn't the key to the Lakers win today/yesterday (timezone difficulties). In the 3rd quarter the Lakers came out and turned a 12 point deficit into a 5 point lead.

Coach Mike Brown of the Cavs typically sits Lebron out in the second and fourth quarters to try and teach him to build trust in his team.

Today he didn't. But Kobe was benched, not just Kobe but all bar Pau Gasol of the starting line up were benched and the reserve team continued to build the lead confounding Lebron James who remained unable to score in the fourth.

Lebron James is the popular genius with 1000 helpers model. His team is weak, his bench are allright against so-so teams, but when it comes to the crunch he can't rely on them. Lebron must rely on Lebron.

Today's match was infact lack lustre from Kobe and Lebron. Kobe deferred or delegated the responsibility of winning to the team from the more common balanced effort and the rare superstar performance.

The team is networked in a way that makes them versatile. They still have a big gun to real out in times of trouble, but they are also a team who's regular season efforts have been entirely in the interests of championship winning.

Lebron's Cavs are a team hardwired through the central node of Lebron James. Without Lebron, the team will collapse. Lebron is unquestionably mighty he is the 'more' champion. He is bigger, taller, stronger than any other Forward in the league. He can play Center and he can play point.

Kobe is talented as well. But it is a Lakers story, the lakers represent 'better'. Kobe can sit on the bench out of the game and count on the second team wiping out defecits while he rests.

Just so, in business you might have a leader, a top manager. Technology advances allow them to be available 24-7. You could run every play through them if you like now. They can verbally approve or deny every single decision there is to be made. This is a terrible way to do business.

A great leader should be able to walk out the door into the desert, lay down and die and the company will still perform. Hopefully it is better if they are on board. But not categorically so.

The way to do this, is to build your team, your organisation, your company this way from the beginning. It is said to take about a year for a Phil Jackson team to know their way around the triangle offense, meaning they will take a lot of hits learning to rely on their play and not their stars.

But once they learn they become league leader offensive threats, and entertaining too. Same as Musashi says 'if you have the strength to hold two swords you should train this way from the beginning' or thereabouts in Go Rin No Sho.

The lines have to be drawn, not blurred. You have to teach your organisation not that you are reliable, but that they can't rely on you.

The only thing reliable about me at my old workplace was that I was out the door at 5. If people wanted me to do the work, that work had to take place in the time I had actually sold to work.

People don't seem to understand this statement much. It means if you and I are paid the same salary, and you work 8-6 and I work 9-5, I am paid considerably more than you.

Even if work recognises your extra efforts down the track, pay rises of 4% are very good in very good years. You can knock at least 2% off that in inflation (a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow) and furthermore, the pay rise won't come with the expectation that you drop back you're hours now.

You are literally running a line of credit to your employer on that mentality and they have no legal obligation to recognise your effort.

You are giving them more, in the hope that some of that will trickle back to you, where I focus on getting better.

Thus far, it's worked for me.

I go home and read books like Jim Collins 'Good to Great' in time other people spent going through their emails, one of the biggest wastes of time in the modern era.

But alas, the world we live in is the 'more' world. Where we can live in awe of China's Economic 'Miracle' because they achieve 10 percent growth for a couple of years while neglecting the fact that China was 50 years behind, a shit heap and most of that growth is to no meaningful end.

Instead of the 'better' approach of Scandanavian states that whilst not having global hegemony like the US, or big mineral exports like Australia, or Rapid economic growth like China, have great education systems, health care, beautiful Alpine scenery and very efficient business practices.

That's macro, let's cut back to micro. Micro is workaholia. And workaholia is 'more'. I dedicate most of my private life to 'work' I never got home at a friday to shower desperately and get down the pub, I got home on friday to read, blog or sit on NGO committees. Even playing basketball I think about business. It's just something I love. I enjoy it.

A lot of people don't though. Bryce I think definitely loves his work, he is a passionate businessman. Very different style to me. He is a mighty champion of more. I may be like a bench player on the Lakers. Both systems work, and work well. Bryce's style is I feel more celebrated in our society, brilliant networking, flawless promotion, charismatic speaker.

But does he have to watch what he says because the line is so blurred between his friends and his employers? Can he post a status update on facebook that says 'cunt, fuck, pussy, dick, shit, motherfucker, arsehole'? or does he have to worry about 12 year old kids from a theatre troop who's parent's might monitor their web activity?

I for one favor bringing more privacy into work (although I also support the Johari window model of leadership) and less public life into the private. Because I believe it can work.

For those confused, that would look like - less professional attire more casual clothes, freer speech, more personalised office environments, more social interactions. The opposite is having managers and faceless companies listed as your friends on facebook, removing personal photos from your profile because of work ramifications, answering work related emails in your leisure time, sunday golf games with clients, earlier work starts, business travel... pretty much the modern business world.