The Artisan and the Wraith
When technology hollows us out...
In my OTW post on Sunday, I touched on the tension between things that change slowly and those that change quickly. This thought is staying with me as we find ever more ways to manage the things that change quickly, which is accelerating the change.
Those of us who work with those caught between the fast and the slow, between science and soul, have little choice other than to experience the fast, even if we don’t like it much. We can only work with others in the spaces we have occupied ourselves, otherwise we are in danger of pontificating rather than practising.
As individuals and organisations, if we spend too much time getting ever better at what is obsolescent, we will get caught out. Our quest for efficiency, rather than efficacy, becomes our undoing. Unless we are wary, we get hollowed out by technology until very little of ourselves remains in our work.
We become the equivalent of the Ring Wraiths in Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”
Also known as the Nazgûl or Black Riders, they were once nine mortal kings of men whom Sauron gave Rings of Power. These granted them great power and longevity, but at a terrible cost. Over time, the rings corrupted them, eroding their wills and identities until they became wraiths—neither living nor dead—bound entirely to Sauron’s will. They faded from the physical world and became invisible to all but those who could perceive the unseen.
The metaphor arose when I was working with a client to find ways of compressing their work routines to create space for them to do more of what they are really good at—being creative, joining dots, and spotting gaps.
That journey took us to Notion.com, one of the more recent collaboration tools that integrates everything work-related with AI. With one caveat, which I will come to, it is very good. Once you understand that you can build it pretty much how you want, it is easy to use, has many options, countless templates, and makes all the usual reporting tools we were looking at a breeze.
And, so, to the caveat. Its remarkable capabilities in dealing with day-to-day collaboration and operational tasks, it takes on the character of Ash Nazg:
“Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.”
“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”The other Rings here are just about any other apps we have been using, from Slack to Dropbox to Github. While impressive, it is all too easy to see how we might never escape once in. The range of tools means that it is possible to find yet another tool or widget to provide another angle on processes that have already been as overcooked as school meals cabbage.
Difficulty is what wakes up the genius
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
In seeking to make things easy, frictionless and smooth, we can remove all the energy needed to creatively resolve essential difficulties, where the seeds of insight live.
Simplifying something is a question of removing what is not essential so that we can see the issue's heart and engage with it. Simplifying something is not about making it easier or more efficient; it is about seeing and feeling it for what it really is.
Tools like Notion are really powerful, but the thought of it being used at scale with big teams, when efficiency and control are part of the culture, leaves me cold.
I think Dunbar’s number applies—coping with the few hundred independent relationships in a small team is a very different proposition from dealing with the thousands in even a medium-sized team. Size almost guarantees uniformity of thinking, and the quality of leadership needed to prevent that is very rare indeed.
No matter how well-intentioned, technology often complexifies. It creates webs of other people’s biases, heuristics, and opinions, requiring levels of control that offer a result as highly processed and bland as a supermarket ready meal.
We find ourselves working with outcomes we have had little part in determining, in which we cannot see our part.
The Nazgûl were bound to the One Ring—their power and very existence were tied to it. and protect Tolkien describes their final destruction as a great scream and their forms being swept away in fire and wind, never to return.
If Artisans are to avoid something similar, our individuality and non-conformity in the face of increasingly capable technology, respect for the power of the technology we use, is where the path to our survival starts.
“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible”
― William S. Burroughs
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