Cultural IEDs

We faced a bit of a dilemma a few months ago. The Kid had undertaken a comparison of the corporate lifelines of Samsung and Apple for a school project. He, no techno-geek, was fascinated by the organizational and leadership styles involved.

So, when Steve Jobs, the film, was released, he wanted - beyond mere wishing - to see it. The R rating was an obvious immediate challenge.

But, research disclosed that the issue was solely language - no starlets were violated in the making of the movie, and AK-47s played no role in the plot and its outcome.

Off we trouped to the nearest mega-plex, and entered the auditorium fortified with dead popcorn and super-annuated Twizzlers. Language did, in fact abound, but it was authentic Jobs. And the story was mesmerizing, quintessentially limning the protagonist, powerful in his dismissal of all disagreement and opposition, and littered with gratuitous, now banal, crudity.

Look, I ain't no Dana Carvey playing the Church Lady. It was genuine, real, and representative; I've no problem with that. The Kid later observed, "I don't know if Grandma heard them, but there were seventeen f-bombs in that movie."  Grandma has since invested in hearing assistance.

Personally, I think there were more than seventeen. The point is that we, and The Kid, have become inured to a pervasive societal crudity. We accept it as a matter of course; it becomes part of the background noise.

At work, as the challenges of supply chain execution wear us down, we might succumb to an inelegant noun or adverb. We'll all live through that. But, we cannot allow genuine problems, shortcomings, unmet requirements, or sub-standard practices and processes to become part of the background noise.

We've got to be better than that.