Turning Work Into Art

The artistic experience is one of immersion. Getting lost in the act of creation. Not a painless or effortless activity but one that requires great focus and stamina. It is an intrinsically human experience and no two artistic expressions are the same. It is the opposite of a commodity. As we move towards a future where everything that can be automated will be, what will be left for humans to do? I believe it is to make art. Something very unique to humanity. 

So how can we turn work into art? 

It starts with a shift in thinking. Away from thinking about work as the thing I do against my will to get money. That is the current paradigm of work. I do it against my will and that is why I get paid. But what if the thing that creates value is also what I am most skilled at, most uniquely talented to do, what I love, the thing I would be doing if I wasn't getting paid? But instead of doing it for free I'm doing it within the structure of a business that allows me to be compensated for doing something I love.

Why art? Because making and viewing art has uniformly positive impacts on humans. It reduces stress and increases well being. It also makes us more empathetic, a critical need in the modern workplace. 

Turning work into art would be transformative. If we can experience work as we experience creating art – getting lost in the creation of something indelibly personal and profound – there would be far reaching impacts. Businesses would benefit from increased engagement, employees would be more engaged and fulfilled, even families and communities would benefit from workers that come home energized and not drained by the drudgery of their jobs. 

To begin we must rethink and broaden our definition of art. Beyond painting, drawing, playing an instrument, etc. How can you drive a bus artistically? Bag groceries artistically? Create an artistic customer experience? I believe every profession and task can be infused with art. Maybe even add a dash of gaming to really make it engaging.

This change would require businesses to fully shake the factory/industrial mindset that still haunts the workplace. A hierarchical model based on command and control, very militaristic and often inhumane. Instead of treating human beings as useful but frustrating meat machines that do your bidding, treat them as unique individuals with specific abilities that can be harmonized with the needs of the business. Sure, this is more complicated and requires really getting to know your employees and giving them a high degree of autonomy.

The upside is huge. With employee engagement hovering at 31% moving that number north may be the biggest opportunity for improved productivity and profit. The evidence is clear, engaged employees lead to higher profits.  There's your ROI. 

If we transform work into art we would create work experiences that are truly human. What a better world that would be! 

Excerpts from my interview with Joe Dudeck

I recently did a lengthy interview with Joe Dudeck for his Keyhole Marketing blog. The conversation stretched to almost 2 hours and was posted in two segments. Here's the links and some relevant excerpts from each part. 

Part One
"I was curious to see what boredom might look like and what it might produce. It’s been so long. I wanted to see what my natural state was. My natural state of being, you know? I kind of went into it thinking I was lazy. I know that sounds weird because, if you look at my life objectively, it probably doesn’t look like I’m lazy. But, in my mind, I still work from this default of “I’m a lazy person” and that I kind of drag myself into things with the initial excitement. Then I have to force myself to finish. I’m not a good finisher and so, I kind of think to myself, “Oh, I must just be a lazy person who gets ideas and then has no choice but to keep going.” I drag myself to the finish line a lot of times. I have to surround myself with finishers, or nothing gets done."

Part Two
"I’m a drug dealer. Seriously, I think about it sometimes. I’m a drug dealer in the sense of, if screens are our national addiction, I am creating screen experiences. At least, that’s a big part of what we do. How do we balance that and make screen experiences as humane as possible? How do you make them as close to feeling organic as possible? How do you let the people shine through the screen? Then how to get to this outcome, through the creative process, in a way that is as organic and analog as possible? So increasingly, a lot of the work we do with clients is very analog and organic. It’s face to face. It’s sticky notes, butcher block, white boards and human beings talking to human beings. To me, my goal is to bring as much humanity to this completely flat, inhumane thing called a screen. We’ve swapped very rich experiences for very thin ones."

Framing vs Finishing

I’m not a great finisher. This is something I’ve struggled with since I can remember. I don’t think of it as the same thing as procrastination. If something is interesting I jump right in, no delays. But finishing is hard. Getting that great idea to cruising altitude is less interesting than starting something new.

Maybe it has to do with my personality type. I’m an abstract thinker- at least according to Myer Briggs and everyone that knows me pretty well. I think and speak in analogies as much as realities. My thinking often moves very quickly between idea and realization. The actual execution seems like an afterthought. But it’s not, making that idea happen is super critical. But, honestly, it often bores me. The logistical nature of execution is fatiguing.

Someone once said to me “well maybe you're more of a framer than a finisher?” It was an aha moment. I finally understood why I got bogged down or distracted.

I’m definitely a framer. I can see the potential of an idea, sketch the outlines and see it come to life. In many ways, at that point, I’m done. It has already happened and I’ve experienced the joy of seeing it happen in my imagination. The actual execution, with all of its realities and human messiness, now feels almost like an afterthought. But out of curiosity to see what works I often dive in, feeding off the momentum of the initial ideation energy. I crave new experiences. Starting things is always exciting. 

But every new “thing” needs structure and support. Businesses and projects can’t live off of analogies and ideas. They need people, resources and money. Lots of money. Ugh. 

All of this has lead me to somewhat resent money. I get its purpose and I’ve worked hard to accept its role in my life, but man, it is such an blecky thing- quantifying everything through the lens of the dollar. I’m not sure what the alternative is but I would love to get to a place where I never think about it. The only way I'll be able to do that is to have enough money to not think about it. At least in theory.

Which is why I need to become a better finisher. There is money in finishing. And there is freedom in money. All my wishing for it to be otherwise won’t make it so. If I want more freedom, which I do, I will need more money. I want to do great things. To help create truly meaningful work for great people. Lots of people.

So to get things done, and learn new habits, I’ve tried to surround myself with finishers. Folks who actually thrive on taking frameworks and making them real. Turning sketches into full color drawings. I marvel at their ability to stay focused on one thing for hours. I can do that in spells but only when creating something new. Once it is birthed, I move on. 

Take this blog for instance. This post particularly. My temptation is to lock it away in Evernote, with so many other 3/4 written posts, and not publish it. Although I’m not a great finisher I am something of a perfectionist. In the sense that I hate putting out half-baked stuff. I want everything I produce to be clean, crisp and have consistent logic. But that can be paralyzing. So I’m going to try and loosen my grip a little. Move the goal posts and accept the truth in the maxim “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. I would rather be good than perfect. Wouldn’t you? 

The Ego Tree

What to do with the ego? We all have one. The ego is always at play, driving our behavior. Making sure others know how awesome we are. Often the ego shows up as the “I”, the “self". “I did this great thing!”, “I don’t like you anymore” or “I need to take care of myself”.  

At its best the ego protects us and gives us the confidence to keep moving forward. The ego keeps up alive, sometimes literally. On the negative side, the ego doesn’t really care about others. It’s job is to serve and protect. Anything that threatens the ego is subject to some kind of attack- passive or aggressive. 

Raised in a Christian home I was taught to think of others first. To be a servant. Thinking of yourself before others was, basically, sinful. Although aspects of that teaching still resonate with me post-Christianity I have also come to see the ego in a different light. My recent exploration of Buddhism has revealed a new way to consider the ego- as something that deserves respect if not domination. 

When I feel my “ego” rising up to make sure “Jeb” is getting the needed acknowledge my initial reaction is to feel a low level of disgust. Not dissimilar to the feeling you get after scratching poison ivy. The initial endorphin surge is replaced by the knowledge that the poison is only spreading. Same with the ego, it never seems to be satisfied, always wanting more. 

So what is one to do? It’s not like we can just get cut the ego out of our lives. It's there for a reason. Also, the Christian ideal of “dying to oneself” seems increasingly foreign to me as I further explore what it means to be a “self”. Now I am seeking the acceptance of the self- and all its dimensions. Instead of trying to kill off the ego, what if we got to know it better? See what it needs to be healthy? After all, the ego isn't really poison ivy, it's just feels like that sometimes. 

I've come to think of the ego as a tree. It needs to be fed- water, light, air, etc- but it also needs to be trimmed and pruned. A healthy ego is not weak nor on steroids. It has its place and its space. It leaves room for others. It plays a role but isn’t the only tree in the forest, if you will. Instead of trying to cut it down maybe we should care for it as a living thing that has its own needs?

But who is it, exactly, that can feed and trim the ego tree? Perhaps it's the universal “Self”. The Self that runs through all of existence, playing hide and seek between conflict and peace, light and dark, on and off. I don’t know. But I’m ok with that for now.  

How Much Should I Share?

Earlier this year I did a pretty narcissistic thing. I ordered one of those Facebook “books” that compiles all of your activity from a set period of time, I chose 2014, and then prints it as a book. Turns out I generated over 300 pages of content in 2014 just from my Facebook and Instagram activity. Yikes! Well, ok, a good chunk of the “content” was actually comments from my friends on different things I had posted. Hey friends, guess what, you’re published authors now! Congrats! 

It was pretty fascinating to look at my life/self/world through that window. Print has its place. There is a “realness” to physical objects that digital just can’t compete with — at least not quite yet. But it also made me a gag a little. “Does the world really need this much 'Jeb'?” I thought. My conclusion — probably not. 

Recently I took off the month of July — from work, email, calendars and, yes, Facebook and its ilk. I deleted all the apps on my phone and began to separate from the “grid”. At the end of this month I found myself more relaxed, calmer and happier. I started to lose that habit of checking my phone all the time — email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, back to email, text, etc. My phone and all its tagalongs slowly became less and less a part of my being. It was awesome. I felt more alive.

When I returned to work I re-entered the world of email out of necessity but have kept social media at an arms length. I’m at something of a crossroads right now. What and how much should I share? Why am I sharing? Which conversations are best had in-person, which ones online?

I have struggled with how exactly to put my toe back in the social media waters. I don't want to come across as "judgey" or stingy to people in my life that I truly care about but I also don't want to accept an inferior experience as the experience. This is one of the problems with digital experiences. You don't have a lot to work with. Just imagine me here, right now, moving my hands around and leaning forward as you read this. Hard to do, right? Digital communication fundamental sucks. At least at this point. It strips out 90% (made up stat) of what is actually being communicated. Body language, energy, tone, pheromones, etc. Calling it "communication" is being generous. It's more like a black and white print of a Van Gogh. Nothing you would want to frame. 

Ever have that experience where you see a friend after a while and you start catching up but pretty soon you realize there isn’t much to catch up on? You have both been following each other online and already know the stories. For me, this has been a common experience over the last few years. It deflates the moment we are sharing. I love hearing a friend tell me a story. I love hearing it straight from them for the first time. It’s a core human thing — to sit with someone and tell stories. But we are all telling our stories to everyone, all the time. This isn't what sharing should be. It should be person to person, everyone fully present.

So for now, I’m being very selective about what I share. I have increasingly come to see online/digital/social sharing as diluting. Beauty, happiness, fun, sadness, pain. They are all basic human experiences. Sharing them doesn’t make them more real. In my experience sharing often makes things feel less real, turns moments into performances. Sharing is certainly part of being human, but a part does not make one whole.  If we rewire ourselves to have sharing as a default what will we be sacrificing in the process? Will our own voice grow more faint as the outside voices crowd in? 

Who knows where this will all go — the massive experiment we are engaged in, sharing our lives at a depth and rate like never before. There are good things about this – increased visibility and understanding into how people live – but there must be balance. We must honor our humanity above all else.