miniMathemagenic

People have to understand and believe in what an organization is doing, why the organization is doing what it does, and how it’s doing it.

The messages from leaders have to be clear and believable, and the culture that carries out the organization’s mandate and mission has to be flexible, responsive and open.

Fear and cynicism, being driven to perform – as opposed to being invited to contribute your best – can’t carry the day.

By blocking other analysts from a similar pattern of up and out, Colony & Co are blocking a very obvious sort of brain drain.

But is it fair to the analysts, who are blocked from becoming stars? Or stated another way, are the ideas in your head owned by your employer? Are the skills and cognitive apparatus that structures your thinking — and which you developed over a lifetime of childhood, education, previous employment, and late night ruminating — an asset that is explicitly owned and under the control of your employer? Can you have an insight off the clock, and share it with others? Can you have a personal voice about the direction of technology, or how society and business are impacted by it, if you are employed by an analyst firm?

Now I have spoken on several occasions about the cyclical pattern of mess and order that is critical to human sense-making. I normally illustrate it with a story about the state of said study. When I am traveling or just generally busy the study tends to accumulate piles of books, papers and journals. Various bags, cables and the other bric-a-bac of travel accumulate on any spare surface. If I am at home for any sustained period of time then the mess gets to me and I engage in a flurry of cleaning, tidying and ordering until the place is pristine again. The new order lasts for a brief period before disintegration sets in again and the whole cycle repeats.

Not this pattern of mess and coherence is a part of life. Structures and taxonomies become out of date and if not changed then knowledge ossifies. Taxidermy and Taxonomy not only sound the same, they often mean the same. At its most ordered and its most disordered the study is probably little use. One is venerated (I don;t like to touch anything), the other has reached a state of randomness. In between it is in a state of messy coherence. I can find things, but often find things I didn’t know I needed to see. Serendipity and neatness are contra-indicated.