- Why am I blogging?
- A Framework
The goal of this blog post is to lay out my current thinking on a basic framework for decision making in the context of interacting with others. Aspirationally, if I follow these principles or even better participate in a community of others who also support these ideas I believe that many of my / the communities interactions will be improved. In reality there is no community master plan in this post nor is there a defined path to economic benefit. I think monetary or even societal benefit derives from a set of common rules that would exist above this framework. The core intent of this framework is to provide value to myself and each practitioner independent of the society within which it is practiced. I don't even feel this could rightly be labeled a flavor of morality since this framework is not predicated on the greater good by any definition. The elements are intentionally designed to not have external return on investment. A proposed societal framework is an opportunity for another post when I circle in on something I feel passionate about.
My context for decision making also requires that the elements are ordered in a hierarchy. Each incremental level is only valuable in the context of proper support from the levels underneath. The roof belongs on a house and the house sets on a foundation etc... I have theorized four levels of interaction that I have assigned to words in English. I say it in that way because I also have mentally assigned very specific definitions to these words. As I introduce the various levels I will attempt to also clarify the definition that I have assigned to the words. The levels in ascending order are respect, trust, teamwork, and love.
My version of the definition for respect is valuing life. This includes plants and animals but our greatest social interaction with other entities falls in the human category. Many people will define respect in a way that requires it to be earned. In my definition respect is never earned it is only given. When I require that the framework only applies to the actions of the individual performing them then it is impossible for others to influence these actions. I agree that remembering the actions of others and the impact that it has on us and the world around us has value but I just don't think those actions line up with the concept I am representing here. I believe that the discussion of relative merit of one action over another is better assigned to the concept of honor (or dishonor). In this framework externally driven choices fail the requirements by definition. I leave the comparison of the relative merits of this framework to other frameworks for the commentary or another post.
The initial response to this definition of respect may be that if I cannot withhold respect from other living beings based on their behavior without failing step one then at points in my life I may be required to respect murders and thieves. Or worse members of an opposing political party or Man U. supporters. (Insert wry facial expression here) I respond to this concern in two ways. First, The minimum value of a murderers life to me is that I did not have to participate even collectively by taxation in murder myself. I would even propose that that valuing that life which in the present is wrapped up in unacceptable actions could lead at some future point to great good perpetrated by that same being from within prison. All potential future good is thrown away when I reject the objectionable present. Second, this definition for respect does not require that I allow that person to skip out on the punishment agreed to by society. I am not even required by this respect to be in the presence of people making negative decisions that I cannot support.
In reality the vast majority of beings that we interact with are far higher in the spectrum of quality than thieves and murderers and yet we often insist that they justify their very existence before we acknowledge any value that they may have. By doing this we have placed a burden on our interactions that is completely unsupportable procedurally. To make matters worse, humans are intrinsically fallible and when rigorously extending a "proof of deserving respect" requirement I could logically conclude that we should all be hermits. In practice we (correctly) do interact with others regularly but place on them an expectation of perfection that is not supportable. The true damage of these "failures" is to ourselves as we live in continual anger and disappointment when (not if) others fail to conform to our mental requirements of them. In practice even our own ability to respect others will not be consistent or universal. It is a worthy lifetime goal to begin to show others we value their existence but we should begin where we are and grow from there. The crazy thing is it can be as easy as saying hello to a stranger or just making eye contact and smiling. By these small acts we can express the 'respect' that we have for their very existence. When we implement this respect we place ourselves in a world where we have access to a near infinite supply of interesting and valuable people!
When defining trust I used the same framework restrictions I used to define respect. Specifically I find it useful to define trust as placing ourselves in the physical or effective range of others actions and trust that we can remain sufficiently effective at achieving our own goals that we can allow the trustee to behave as they wish. This requirement for freedom of action includes allowing others philosophical and procedural differences from us as well as the freedom to be fallible in executing their goals. Like respect, trust must also be given without being earned and we cannot mandate some arbitrary philosophical framework or excellence in execution in order to deliver this trust. For most of today's society we have already placed ourselves in the effective trust range of hundreds of people. You will immediately see that the difference between trust and respect is we often begin our self improvement journey under-respecting our associates and we may find that by this definition of trust we feel we have over-trusted our associates. For people living in highly populated areas we are in the middle of the trust range of hundreds of thousands of people. For example, when I get on the freeway each day to drive to work I find that I have chosen to trust around 50 random people driving close to me. I trust that all of them will behave in such a way that we can all drive to our destinations in our respective vehicles without endangering each others lives or property. The consequence of poor behavior in this situation can be catastrophic. By this measure my trust in each of these strangers is extremely high. Often on these drives I will be trusting people I have never interacted with before and might not ever interact with again.
It may be that upon reading this trust definition the conclusion would be to immediately begin our departure from our current society in order to seek a society of 'trust-able' associates. This feeling may be exacerbated when I remind you that to implement this framework you must not only trust beings without restrictions on them but you must also respect anyone in whom you have placed your trust. The balancing reward for the risk associated with trust is a worthy prize and must be considered when selecting when and where to place our trust. The reward for trust is the ability and resources to focus on our own goals. When we fail to trust in the people close enough for their actions to affect us, we are pulled from our own goals and find ourselves expending our efforts fighting to thwart or attempting to control others actions. At this point I have given up self control to another without and in some cases specifically because I don't agree with them. Without trust we loose our own freedom to act! This is a precious resource that we should not give up so easily. The nuance here is at this level of the framework we can select in whom and to what extent we place our trust. Perfect implementation of this framework demands that everyone should receive respect, not everyone can our should receive our trust or all of our trust. In the example of the murderer or thief we would respect but not trust them. Our lack of trust is demonstrated by their incarceration. (Which we had to expend effort to implement) Returning to the example of commuting, when I trust the other drivers in traffic and I respect their choice of traffic habits and imperfections in execution I am far more likely to arrive at my destination unharmed and calm than if I attempt to enforce my own driving style and emotional state on others around me. I have just gained resources by that act and still achieved my overall goal of arriving at work. I may have given up driving at my preferred speed or in my preferred lane but these do not even measure up to the risk of the injury and anger i could incur by enforcing the details of my preferred process on others.
As you may have surmised trust in the context of a society in true anarchy is likely unsustainable and the societal contexts for placing trust are relevant. At the trust point and farther in the framework there is a bit of a chicken or egg problem that exists regarding the opportunity to implement these ideas and the enablers provided by our societal context. On the other hand I strongly believe that implementation of the framework can enable society as well. For the purposes of describing this framework I will not talk about any potentially optimized society to enable the framework, just emphasize that expanding our trust to the greatest extent that we can possibly sustain will bring to us the largest possible reward. As highlighted in the highway example trust requires some compromise where it doesn't affect the overall goal. Our ability to give trust can be strengthened with our capacity for compromise. Additionally trust is the gateway to the next levels. While each level of the framework is applied to smaller and smaller groups, if we fail to implement one level at all our ability to gain the rewards for the succeeding level(s) will be blocked completely.
Within the population of people that we have chosen to trust we can then select a group of people to cooperate with. In this case I am referring to teamwork. To take a different tack I will say that teamwork is not generally two people performing the same task. Teamwork is not necessarily even two people agreeing on techniques to obtain an objective. Teamwork at its simplest is two people finding a shared goal and agreeing to contribute individually in a way that exceeds the sum of the parts. In most cases this represents a division of labor allowing each person to fulfill their section in the best way they are able. The path to objectives is not always straight and continued communication is required to align with obstacles encountered along the way. The freedom to implement each section should only be limited by the trust boundaries pre-existing in that relationship and any societal restrictions. If the cooperation of two individuals does not produce superior results than one individual investing equivalent man hours it is not team work. Among other desirable outcomes superior results can include finishing a task in a time based way where the earlier result has value over an equivalent later result. Superior results can also include the output plus the increased ability of two people to work together after the project as compared to before. Teamwork is where we supercharge our output.
Within our business and personal lives we have many examples of traditional styles of teamwork. Many of these individual implementations do not strictly meet this frameworks definition of teamwork. It should be noted though that often the failures are in the details of our own implementation not in the general team structure. Additionally you might read this framework and say I have already engaged in a teamwork agreement where I may lack respect for my teammates, lack trust in my teammates, lack shared shared goals with my teammates, or even lack the freedom to implement my responsibilities to the team as I see fit. First, especially in the USA where we desperately hold on to individualism at the expense of many other things, we should not forget that our responsibility to the team is for optimized output. If the method we choose for contribution is a way that is less efficient than another method we are also capable of implementing, then the team (the other member at least) may correctly find someone else willing and capable of that more efficient implementation without violating the principles of teamwork. If on the other hand we are producing in a way that meets our personal optimal output for our agreed-to contribution then our responsibility to the team is fulfilled. This can be a soul baring introspective exercise to determine where and how we can improve our contribution. In an environment of trust and respect, feedback from teammates can be invaluable as we make these decisions for ourselves. This can be tricky, have patience with yourself.
Often we are asked to measure ourselves and our performance against opportunities. One possible way of perceiving our success is a measure of the teamwork opportunities enabled by the number and qualities of our skills that we use when engaging in teamwork. A 'rich' person by this measure has more opportunity to engage with teams than they have time to invest to contribute to teams. A 'poor' person will have fewer opportunities to engage in teamwork than they have time to contribute. A truly 'poor' person in this context will often not have sufficient enabling skills to sustain themselves in a non-team based effort. As a note; it is a paradox for the discussion on society that some narrowly but deeply skilled people are 'rich' by this context but do not have the depth to self sustain in a non-team environment. It may even be said that this is true for a majority of the first world population.
Finally we come to love. I want to be clear in this context I do not refer to romantic love. For this framework love that I implement is the contribution in a teamwork style effort towards somebody else's objectives. For teamwork to be successful there must be a shared purpose. For love to be real the purpose should be entirely held by the recipient of the love. Any self interest in the outcome of the effort turns my actions into teamwork. For a truly optimized contribution to someone else's goal we must value their existence, trust their use of our contribution, sufficiently engage with them so that there is a common understanding of how to divide the labor necessary to achieve their goal and have no self interest in the outcome. You cannot choose the outcome for a person to whom you wish to give love. It must be their own choice. You cannot give them the output of their goal without them contributing as well because it is now just charity. We must also contribute to love an output capacity greater than our personal consumption or love is unsustainable. I suppose that the real question is why would I do this? Up to teamwork I could be said to be driven by pure self interest. I suppose that is why I chose the word love to represent this concept as it has some very fuzzy definitions. In the end I have posited that to achieve truly valuable personal improvement where we exceed our intrinsic capacity as represented by a society of one we require objectives greater than those contributed by one person as well.
My version of the definition for respect is valuing life. This includes plants and animals but our greatest social interaction with other entities falls in the human category. Many people will define respect in a way that requires it to be earned. In my definition respect is never earned it is only given. When I require that the framework only applies to the actions of the individual performing them then it is impossible for others to influence these actions. I agree that remembering the actions of others and the impact that it has on us and the world around us has value but I just don't think those actions line up with the concept I am representing here. I believe that the discussion of relative merit of one action over another is better assigned to the concept of honor (or dishonor). In this framework externally driven choices fail the requirements by definition. I leave the comparison of the relative merits of this framework to other frameworks for the commentary or another post.
The initial response to this definition of respect may be that if I cannot withhold respect from other living beings based on their behavior without failing step one then at points in my life I may be required to respect murders and thieves. Or worse members of an opposing political party or Man U. supporters. (Insert wry facial expression here) I respond to this concern in two ways. First, The minimum value of a murderers life to me is that I did not have to participate even collectively by taxation in murder myself. I would even propose that that valuing that life which in the present is wrapped up in unacceptable actions could lead at some future point to great good perpetrated by that same being from within prison. All potential future good is thrown away when I reject the objectionable present. Second, this definition for respect does not require that I allow that person to skip out on the punishment agreed to by society. I am not even required by this respect to be in the presence of people making negative decisions that I cannot support.
In reality the vast majority of beings that we interact with are far higher in the spectrum of quality than thieves and murderers and yet we often insist that they justify their very existence before we acknowledge any value that they may have. By doing this we have placed a burden on our interactions that is completely unsupportable procedurally. To make matters worse, humans are intrinsically fallible and when rigorously extending a "proof of deserving respect" requirement I could logically conclude that we should all be hermits. In practice we (correctly) do interact with others regularly but place on them an expectation of perfection that is not supportable. The true damage of these "failures" is to ourselves as we live in continual anger and disappointment when (not if) others fail to conform to our mental requirements of them. In practice even our own ability to respect others will not be consistent or universal. It is a worthy lifetime goal to begin to show others we value their existence but we should begin where we are and grow from there. The crazy thing is it can be as easy as saying hello to a stranger or just making eye contact and smiling. By these small acts we can express the 'respect' that we have for their very existence. When we implement this respect we place ourselves in a world where we have access to a near infinite supply of interesting and valuable people!
When defining trust I used the same framework restrictions I used to define respect. Specifically I find it useful to define trust as placing ourselves in the physical or effective range of others actions and trust that we can remain sufficiently effective at achieving our own goals that we can allow the trustee to behave as they wish. This requirement for freedom of action includes allowing others philosophical and procedural differences from us as well as the freedom to be fallible in executing their goals. Like respect, trust must also be given without being earned and we cannot mandate some arbitrary philosophical framework or excellence in execution in order to deliver this trust. For most of today's society we have already placed ourselves in the effective trust range of hundreds of people. You will immediately see that the difference between trust and respect is we often begin our self improvement journey under-respecting our associates and we may find that by this definition of trust we feel we have over-trusted our associates. For people living in highly populated areas we are in the middle of the trust range of hundreds of thousands of people. For example, when I get on the freeway each day to drive to work I find that I have chosen to trust around 50 random people driving close to me. I trust that all of them will behave in such a way that we can all drive to our destinations in our respective vehicles without endangering each others lives or property. The consequence of poor behavior in this situation can be catastrophic. By this measure my trust in each of these strangers is extremely high. Often on these drives I will be trusting people I have never interacted with before and might not ever interact with again.
It may be that upon reading this trust definition the conclusion would be to immediately begin our departure from our current society in order to seek a society of 'trust-able' associates. This feeling may be exacerbated when I remind you that to implement this framework you must not only trust beings without restrictions on them but you must also respect anyone in whom you have placed your trust. The balancing reward for the risk associated with trust is a worthy prize and must be considered when selecting when and where to place our trust. The reward for trust is the ability and resources to focus on our own goals. When we fail to trust in the people close enough for their actions to affect us, we are pulled from our own goals and find ourselves expending our efforts fighting to thwart or attempting to control others actions. At this point I have given up self control to another without and in some cases specifically because I don't agree with them. Without trust we loose our own freedom to act! This is a precious resource that we should not give up so easily. The nuance here is at this level of the framework we can select in whom and to what extent we place our trust. Perfect implementation of this framework demands that everyone should receive respect, not everyone can our should receive our trust or all of our trust. In the example of the murderer or thief we would respect but not trust them. Our lack of trust is demonstrated by their incarceration. (Which we had to expend effort to implement) Returning to the example of commuting, when I trust the other drivers in traffic and I respect their choice of traffic habits and imperfections in execution I am far more likely to arrive at my destination unharmed and calm than if I attempt to enforce my own driving style and emotional state on others around me. I have just gained resources by that act and still achieved my overall goal of arriving at work. I may have given up driving at my preferred speed or in my preferred lane but these do not even measure up to the risk of the injury and anger i could incur by enforcing the details of my preferred process on others.
As you may have surmised trust in the context of a society in true anarchy is likely unsustainable and the societal contexts for placing trust are relevant. At the trust point and farther in the framework there is a bit of a chicken or egg problem that exists regarding the opportunity to implement these ideas and the enablers provided by our societal context. On the other hand I strongly believe that implementation of the framework can enable society as well. For the purposes of describing this framework I will not talk about any potentially optimized society to enable the framework, just emphasize that expanding our trust to the greatest extent that we can possibly sustain will bring to us the largest possible reward. As highlighted in the highway example trust requires some compromise where it doesn't affect the overall goal. Our ability to give trust can be strengthened with our capacity for compromise. Additionally trust is the gateway to the next levels. While each level of the framework is applied to smaller and smaller groups, if we fail to implement one level at all our ability to gain the rewards for the succeeding level(s) will be blocked completely.
Within the population of people that we have chosen to trust we can then select a group of people to cooperate with. In this case I am referring to teamwork. To take a different tack I will say that teamwork is not generally two people performing the same task. Teamwork is not necessarily even two people agreeing on techniques to obtain an objective. Teamwork at its simplest is two people finding a shared goal and agreeing to contribute individually in a way that exceeds the sum of the parts. In most cases this represents a division of labor allowing each person to fulfill their section in the best way they are able. The path to objectives is not always straight and continued communication is required to align with obstacles encountered along the way. The freedom to implement each section should only be limited by the trust boundaries pre-existing in that relationship and any societal restrictions. If the cooperation of two individuals does not produce superior results than one individual investing equivalent man hours it is not team work. Among other desirable outcomes superior results can include finishing a task in a time based way where the earlier result has value over an equivalent later result. Superior results can also include the output plus the increased ability of two people to work together after the project as compared to before. Teamwork is where we supercharge our output.
Within our business and personal lives we have many examples of traditional styles of teamwork. Many of these individual implementations do not strictly meet this frameworks definition of teamwork. It should be noted though that often the failures are in the details of our own implementation not in the general team structure. Additionally you might read this framework and say I have already engaged in a teamwork agreement where I may lack respect for my teammates, lack trust in my teammates, lack shared shared goals with my teammates, or even lack the freedom to implement my responsibilities to the team as I see fit. First, especially in the USA where we desperately hold on to individualism at the expense of many other things, we should not forget that our responsibility to the team is for optimized output. If the method we choose for contribution is a way that is less efficient than another method we are also capable of implementing, then the team (the other member at least) may correctly find someone else willing and capable of that more efficient implementation without violating the principles of teamwork. If on the other hand we are producing in a way that meets our personal optimal output for our agreed-to contribution then our responsibility to the team is fulfilled. This can be a soul baring introspective exercise to determine where and how we can improve our contribution. In an environment of trust and respect, feedback from teammates can be invaluable as we make these decisions for ourselves. This can be tricky, have patience with yourself.
Often we are asked to measure ourselves and our performance against opportunities. One possible way of perceiving our success is a measure of the teamwork opportunities enabled by the number and qualities of our skills that we use when engaging in teamwork. A 'rich' person by this measure has more opportunity to engage with teams than they have time to invest to contribute to teams. A 'poor' person will have fewer opportunities to engage in teamwork than they have time to contribute. A truly 'poor' person in this context will often not have sufficient enabling skills to sustain themselves in a non-team based effort. As a note; it is a paradox for the discussion on society that some narrowly but deeply skilled people are 'rich' by this context but do not have the depth to self sustain in a non-team environment. It may even be said that this is true for a majority of the first world population.
Finally we come to love. I want to be clear in this context I do not refer to romantic love. For this framework love that I implement is the contribution in a teamwork style effort towards somebody else's objectives. For teamwork to be successful there must be a shared purpose. For love to be real the purpose should be entirely held by the recipient of the love. Any self interest in the outcome of the effort turns my actions into teamwork. For a truly optimized contribution to someone else's goal we must value their existence, trust their use of our contribution, sufficiently engage with them so that there is a common understanding of how to divide the labor necessary to achieve their goal and have no self interest in the outcome. You cannot choose the outcome for a person to whom you wish to give love. It must be their own choice. You cannot give them the output of their goal without them contributing as well because it is now just charity. We must also contribute to love an output capacity greater than our personal consumption or love is unsustainable. I suppose that the real question is why would I do this? Up to teamwork I could be said to be driven by pure self interest. I suppose that is why I chose the word love to represent this concept as it has some very fuzzy definitions. In the end I have posited that to achieve truly valuable personal improvement where we exceed our intrinsic capacity as represented by a society of one we require objectives greater than those contributed by one person as well.
