Everything Looks Worse in Black and White!

(With apolgies to Paul Simon's "Kodachrome")


As the days run on and I start getting and feeling older, the sharp black and white boundaries of human conduct become fuzzier and grayer – especially on the part of the people you care about. One tends to be more tolerant, more accepting of variances from the straight and narrow – as much an acknowledgement of the depth of a relationship as the relative significance of the infarction and mostly, the inability to deal with it all, anyway.

• As a parent these are golden years because of that more tolerant view to your children’s doings. The children are old enough not to get into really bad trouble and the rules of yesterday seem both anachronistic and unreasonable.
  
• As a spouse, these are golden years too because you know that behavior molded over decades will not change in your lifetime and the asset you have is the asset you hold, dearest to your heart, and a lifeline in the declining years.
  
• As a friend these are golden years, because in keeping with the proverb, you literally, “know all about them and love them still.”
  
  Black and white boundaries of any sort without some level of give and take make for rigid organizations, cults, groups, families, friendships that are at risk every time a line is crossed. We start to police our behaviors and everyone knows that a police state is not a great place to live in. Determining how much flex will not wreck the organization, cult, group, family or friendship is a tightrope juggling act whose sureness and skill can only improve with time and many good and bad judgment calls.
  
  The Taliban, rigid Islamic societies, regimented Hindu institutions and “strict” and "orthodox" Christian and Jewish denominations, and large numbers of families with strict regimented expectations have yet to discover the power of tolerance and flexibility.
  
  Silicon Valley firms that tossed out the suit and tie introduced flexible hours and provided free refreshments in the refrigerator for employees working late at night have unleashed tremendous innovation from their staff. Instead of unquestioning obedience, they get lots of awkward questions but unquestioning loyalty and unswerving diligence.
  
  As enterprise architects, we are usually called up to act as the police for the enterprise. We are usually the designated cats-paw for enterprise governance. In fact, in an earlier thought piece, before my Eureka moment on flexibility, I had written of enterprise architecture as an excellent blueprint for providing a checklist for the Inspector General and the auditors and the omnipresent Government Accountability Office
  
  It is important to keep in mind that governance comes second to creativity, innovation and productivity. Governance does not produce any products or services. Governance does not create wealth. Governance often constrains (sometimes rightfully) the efforts of people who are trying to create new ways, new techniques and methods and new paradigms for improving the status quo. And in that stiving for improvement lies the hope for a society.
  
  We in America have the largest prison population in the civilized world.
  
  My belief is that our society today, as never before, is dominated by “black and white” professions: Lawyers, engineers, scientists, technologists, doctors. And we are all busy enacting, defining, and enforcing black and white boundaries with a single mided black and white zeal. Our obsessions with the "sins" of moral turpitude, abortion, sex, and drugs have become the red light that everyone is watching inside the cockpit. And the plane is going down but no one appears to be watching the altimeter.
  
  My daughter is interested in pursuing a course of studies in the Liberal Arts. And I am firmly behind her efforts and aspirations. The grayness that comes from liberal arts is the leavening that raises the bread of innovation, creativity and provides the air vents through which the hate and intolerance can escape. We need more liberal arts majors strengthening the power of society and weakening the ropes of black and white thinking.
  
  Long term leadership success depends on that grayness of boundary and the skill of exercising behavioral judgment calls! And yes, some of them will be bad judgemental calls - but a flexible society has the internal fortitude to survive those and celebrate and take advantage of the many more good ones.