Borderlines

Borderlines

          This is not the pro-immigration rant you have all come to expect from me in this blog.  By the way, I am very pro-immigration and I do seem to be ranting more lately (mostly at work and at the moon over Mr. Trump), but this piece is about different borderlines.  I am haunted by great movies and there are very few that are greater than Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.  I think I have seen it twice in the past month and I can’t get enough of it as I get so much out of some of the greatest scenes and themes. One of the dominant themes is stated by John Malkovich as Basie, who is teaching young Jim about surviving during WWII China (in the Soochow Detention Camp for British and American nationals).  He explains to Jim that the dangerous times are the times of transition, when the Japanese are taking over Shanghai and when the Japanese are getting pushed out of Shanghai at the end of the war.  This is a very insightful reality that applies to many aspects of life.  The human spirit is indomitable and can survive many hardships, but during times of transition, borderlines one might say, things are in disarray and therefore at their most dangerous.

          I think the conversation of borderlines is much broader than that, but that’s a great starting point.  I would more boldly state that the most interesting times and things in life are at the borderlines.  I am a believer that the old Chinese proverb (or curse, some would say), “May you live in interesting times”, is most prophetic.  The most interesting times are either transition times or moments when there is a high level and perhaps equal levels of good and bad things at play.  In Soochow, the war ending is merged with deserting and upset Japanese, who are somewhat released from their obligation of care for their prisoners, and the oncoming saviors from America.  These are the P-51 pilots strafing the adjacent Japanese airfield (and everything within spitting distance of that).  There are the falling “Frigidaires” with relief supplies that prisoners and local scavengers fight over.  There is freedom and there is negligence and randomness.

          I generally find that I am best at working transitions.  Over my career, I have been most often called to service in situations that require things to get started, revived or salvaged.  I once heard it said that managers were over-takers, caretakers or undertakers.  That lifecycle set of definitions makes some sense to me.  Things in business can easily be separated into those three phases of getting started and gaining traction, steady-state (with or without some modicum of growth) and the decline or closure of the enterprise.  I know that I am not the logical person to be the undertaker.  That requires an imbalanced amount of reality and pragmatism that do not comport with my natural instincts.  If given one of those situations, I would be more likely to seek a revival, which is often not the best or truly desired path.  Caretaking or managing a steady-state is equally not my highest and best use.  This requires a quiet and calm manager that can keep a steady hand on the tiller.  I have been required to do that and I can do that, but generally only for a while.  For that you want someone who can do that for a long time.

          So, that leaves over-taking.  Over-taking is a borderline activity.  Charles Dickens captured this notion in A Tale of Two Cities with his opening line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”  The story is set during the start of the French Revolution.  That alone connects well with this concept of borderlines and moments of change.  I would argue that it is that very feeling of best of times and worst of times that I find most interesting and makes me a change agent that enjoys managing through change.  But boy-oh-boy, interesting times can be…interesting.

          I find myself vacillating between moments of great optimism and stark reality.  I find the juices flowing through me that make me great and make me miserable to be around.  I yell and scream at situations and people more (not meaning any harm but wanting them to be as agitated as me).  Just this week I have had two altercations (one in person and one by phone) that were the functional equivalent to hang-ups.  One I did the hanging-up and one I got hung-up on.  Hanging-up or creating a hang-up is never productive in the grand scheme, but the nature of borderlines is that passion runs high and extremes seem more right than normal.  The nature of passion is that it is not always fully rational.  What is important is to try as best as possible not to let it get too personal or disrespectful.  In some ways, hang-ups are circuit breakers so that the flames or explosion DON’T occur.  Maybe they are necessary things in moments of passion, or maybe they are unnecessary drama (I’m not sure I am qualified and disconnected enough to judge that properly.)

          I am doing the best thing I can probably do (less a choice and more a convenient bit of timing), I am going on vacation.  In today’s world, vacations are not necessarily times of disconnection.  Maybe they should be, but not so for me.  I will not yell at anyone while on vacation (other than at a son or nephew who thinks its funny to drop a water balloon on my head).  I will be more detached and thus less passionate.  This is a time for reflection by both me and those with whom I work.  Everyone will agree that it’s a good cooling-off that might help rather than hurt our progress.

          Generally, I choose situations that lead to moments of great passion.  I have that picture of the roller coaster on my office wall for a reason.  I also have a picture of an over-worked cowboy that says, “Some men never compromise, they cope.”  But perhaps most telling, the last picture I have on my wall is the Soup Nazi, saying, “No soup for you.”  Combining them all tells everyone who works with me what they are dealing with in me.  I live on the edge.  Sometimes I wonder why I do that, but at least I know it is who I am.  I live on the borderline and I love it there, right up until I hate it.  Such is life on the borderline.