Let's begin, shall we?
There are many troubling matters in the world. But today, the two things on my mind that are troubling me are the lack of reading and the lack of writing. Obviously, these are related.
The lack of reading has long been my perennial complaint. Particularly in workplace settings, when someone says they want the "rundown" on a subject, I often find them stubbornly resistant to actually reading something beforehand and arriving prepared with questions or discussion points. Typically, they show up with a pre-formed and often previously unshared opinion that they're meeting with me solely to confirm based on what I'm saying. This puts me in the position of having to debate a point of view that I don't actually know, so by the time we get to the real issue, we've often lost most of the time allotted for the conversation. The inefficiency compounds when my colleague is looking at their phone, or another computer screen during our time. This kind of lossy communication further slows us from understanding one another, and this lack of connection is dispiriting and further hampers progress.
It's easy to empathize. There's a lot of information whizzing by every day, who can be troubled to read it all, or even some part of it? But the problem becomes one of prioritization. If we can't be bothered to truly understand and familiarize ourselves with complex thoughts, how can we be expected to focus on solutions in any real fashion for the few minutes we can spare in a busy day? How can we show up present for the people whose time we're taking?
In regards to the lack of writing, this is a similar problem, and one that is getting worse even faster than the lack of reading because of AI. What is often overlooked is the power of writing to clarify and sharpen thinking. This should be intuitive, but the act of writing is extremely useful to the writer in encouraging organization, craft, and care in thought. If I prompt ChatGPT to "give me a well-reasoned and heartfelt 500 words on the value of writing," I will get something along those lines, and maybe if I edit it so it doesn't sound like bad marketing SEO copy, it might be OK, but it will never have authenticity, it will sound like something I have read before, and the average reader will see little or no value in it, and probably decide to skim it. So the lack of good writing further reinforces the lack of thoughtful reading.
While no one will ever mistake me for a fan of Jeff Bezos, one thing (maybe the the only thing) I like about Amazon culture is what has been described in the business press as a "no Powerpoint culture." I have no visibility as to whether this is actually true, but I want to believe this part of the lore. Executives are expected to prepare proposals for consideration in the form of press releases that describe the proposal, its rationale, and its expected outcome. And very importantly, the first part of the meeting to discuss the proposal is set aside to actually READ the proposal before discussions begin.
Again, I don't know for a fact that this really happens, but I sure hope it does. I turned down a job offer (for other reasons, clearly) last year from a company that said this was how their culture was organized. The company is considered quite successful in the market. I'm certain that if nothing else, this could be a powerful cultural differentiator. And I agree with that old saw that culture eats strategy for lunch.
Thanks for reading this. Let me know what you think!