Justify yourself

Fortunately for my churning mind, unfortunately for my tormented soul and heart, Musk and Trump continued to “do” things over the weekend while normal people were enjoying hobbies, time with their families, communing with nature, and otherwise not working. How these two billionaires define “work” is an interesting concept to me, highlighted by Musk’s demand that everyone working in the federal government send him an email listing 5 things they did last week.

As I surveyed the various definitions available on the internet, a reasonable amalgam would be something like “physical or mental effort designed to accomplish something of value”. That seems appropriate and fits with what I think is probably a pretty soli shared understanding of what many of us to in order to earn money to buy food, clothing, shelter, and whatever else we might need/want.

When I was a wee consultant, I often experienced no small amount of jealousy when I thought about what I did for work vs. folks like the steelworkers that manned the line for one of my clients. On a day of knowledge work, I would complete analysis, create some models in spreadsheets, do some research, maybe generate some slides for a presentation. I’d like to think it all ultimately served a business purpose and my salary/status indicated I was more or less successful.

But the people actually pouring molten steel into molds, running it through multiple presses, and fabricating giant rolls of milled steel were creating visible products every day that they could point at. It made me feel jealous and inadequate at times, but if I can accept “mental or physical effort designed to accomplish something of value”, then we were each doing our parts.

So let’s talk about insecure billionaires. As I write this, I believe that Trump has golfed 16 of his 32 days in office and spent far more time at his trash properties than he has in an office at the White House. He signs Executive Orders that people put in front of him, he approves things that flunkies send out on his janky social media platform, he jabbers nonsense whenever cameras show up in front of him, and he presumably talks on the phone with admirers who flatter him. And he engages in “deals” whenever he can find a way to make money for himself. Maybe that last part is work?

Musk does, well, I’m not really sure. Other folks are tracking his Twitter usage and he spends a remarkable amount of time writing things that I’m sure he believes to be funny or impressive, masculine demonstrations of power. In theory, he leads a few enormous companies with impressive work happening, but it’s impossible to believe that’s really happening since he seems to spend most of his time floating around various governmental and Trumpy places, making pronouncements, seeking attention, and generally embarrassing himself. Said antics are demonstrably losing wealth for him and various shareholders so it’s hard to say anything he’s doing is accomplishing something of value. Valuable to him because it’s part of an ongoing attempt to fill the gaping hole at the core of his being? Same with Trump, I suppose?

So this drug addled billionaire believes he has been given carte Blanche by a president too uninformed, ignorant, and lazy to do any kind of real work, to tackle the mission of MAGA by doing things to the federal bureaucracy. Things that will take years to replace and create no value whatsoever. Things that traumatize workers and cause real damage to humans and communities, with no explainable rationale other than the typical Silicon Valley “move fast and break things” psychopathy. While he’s doing things, he is displaying all of the worst of autocratic leadership insanity. He’s asking people who do actually do work, every day, producing a wide variety of time and generally making the country work, to justify to his ketamine curdled noggin why they deserve to continue receiving the inadequate salaries they accept out of duty and patriotism (certainly not all, but most).

I’ve had the misfortune to work under authoritarian types whose fundamental assumption is that no one else works as hard as they do, no one else is as smart as they are, and other people are not to be trusted. If you can’t see them working or receive regular reports justifying their time, you should assume that they’re not doing any work and/or not worth retaining.

One symptom of that is the altogether too common, and mostly worthless, practice of demanding your employees justify their existence with regular reporting of bullet points. In my most recent gig I had the opportunity to work under two different leaders. The first, who hired me, is super talented and has a great intuitive knack for balancing transformational/inspirtational leadership techniques with high standards and accountability. He did it in a way that created high productivity, healthy creative tension, but also a happy, celebratory culture.

The second, who followed him, is fundamentally insecure in the way that describes most authoritarians. He’s prone to ineffective peacocking displays of power, regularly demeans his predecessor, puts everyone around him down in an effort to raise himself up, and does not trust anyone who does not profess sycophantic loyalty to him. As with Musk, he demands regular reporting of a list of bullet points describing what everyone has done. He could just as easily engage in conversation, be physically present where the work is being done, and take comfort in the skills of the people under him.

The insecure authoritarian mindset, however, is always asking other people to justify themselves, while it is often the authoritarian themself who does little more than posture or peacock. What makes the Trump/Musk combo particularly dangerous (apart from the obvious things like armies and nuclear weapons), is that Trump doesn’t know anything or care to know anything, and Musk believes that he knows everything. And his worship of technology means they’re now doing the ridiculous efficiency cosplay of taking those dumb bullet points and running them through AI to figure out which jobs are essential. Possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in regard to efficiency and work.

In a right functioning world, we are given the grace and trust by our leaders to do what we have committed to do. There is plenty of evidence to show that the majority of people want to work, want to do a good job, and want to be successful. We know that intrinsic motivation comes from having autonomy and a sense of purpose, not from being micromanaged and distrusted. In the upside down world, authoritarian insecurity and distrust destroy intrinsic motivation and create fear that debilitates. The “work” is apparently frightening and destroying, not creating.

The right side up doesn’t mean we all shouldn’t have accountability, but it does mean the world works better when we operate from a place of trust and belief in our fellow workers. I long for the day when the most powerful and visible leaders in the country flip us back right side up and we can operate again from hope, and trust, and belief in each other.