What will you be in 2010?

2009: The Year of the Cynic

If there’s one thing I really don’t like, it’s a complainer. Even worse, a complainer who doesn’t offer alternative solutions or ideas, and doesn’t contribute to the conversation. They just like to complain, to find the flaws, to doubt, and to tell you you’re wrong. If the economy wasn’t sucking the spirit out of you in 2009, the consummate cynic would finish you off, leaving your soul crushed and drained on the floor. I saw it most everywhere. Bleh. So to all you cynics, 2009 was your year. But you’re not bringing that weak attitude to my 2010.

2010: The Year of the Enabler

I saw a great quote from orgtheory.net via Noah Brier’s blog that reads, “In the early years, critique is about identifying holes and mistakes that make ideas less plausible. In the later years, critique is about identifying the germs of ideas worth development despite the current holes and mistakes.” This pretty well sums it up. 2009 was the year of critique to make ideas less plausible. 2010 is the Year of the Enabler, critiquing not to find fault, but to find the nugget of everything that is good and right about an idea and enabling the opportunity to make it better. Instead of tearing down, it’s building up. It’s a lot harder to do, but no one said it was going to be easy.

2009: The Year of Reactionary Response

With services like Twitter becoming even more popular in 2009, it seemed everyone wanted to be the first to scoop a story, and the first to lump on criticism (see the Year of the Cynic above) to any rumor that might arise. While timely news releases via these one-to-many channels can be incredibly important (the Iran election, a jetliner going down in the Hudson, um, Michael Jackson’s death, and don’t forget Balloon Boy), these immediate channels have created impulsively reactive channels where people feel the need to respond to EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY, even if they don’t have all the information. Particularly if they don’t have all the info. But hey, it’s first so that counts, right?

2010: The Year of Considered Response

Let’s take a deep breath. Let’s make sure we have all the facts. Let’s actually consider our response before blurting it out. Maybe we even wait a few minutes before responding to a tweet, a comment, or an email. Our society has created this “assumption of immediacy” where we feel a response is necessary as soon as possible. How about we create an “assumption of intelligent response” where the most intelligent response might not be created in 30 seconds, but 30 minutes. Or, heaven forbid, a day later. But wouldn’t a considered response, one that took in as much information as possible, weighed the responses, and then had this response delivered as if someone actually thought about it for more than five minutes, wouldn’t that be better for everyone? I’m hoping 2010 can change from a culture where we have an assumption of immediacy to a culture where we expect people to have intelligent, considered responses, even if it takes a bit longer. (Hmm… is that why I’m finally publishing this post in February? Maybe.)

2009: The Year of Accountability

Accountability is what happens when someone finds out what you’ve done, and holds you accountable for your actions. Rewards and punishment are doled out based on this accountability, but accountability is ultimately decided not by the person committing the action, but by someone reviewing the action. And accountability was big in 2009… financial meltdowns, mortgage crises… holding people accountable for their actions (I’m not getting into any political debate about TARP or anything like that here, just using this as an example of accountability). Accountability didn’t dissuade people from their actions, only punished them when their wrongdoings were discovered. And accountability always seems to have that negative connotation, people seem to be more often held accountable for doing something wrong than doing something right.

2010: The Year of Responsibility

What if instead of waiting for people to hold us accountable, we were proactive and responsible? Responsibility is making decisions not because we think people will find out about them, but because we think they are the right thing to do. What is the “right thing?” That’s a more difficult question, but by being responsible, we hold ourselves to our own highest standards. Can we hope everyone will be responsible? Probably not. But for the rest of us, those who want to do good and to change the world, responsibility is our compass to guide us on our journey.

The other thing about responsibility is admitting to your most challenging critic when you’re wrong: yourself. No one is perfect and no one gets it right all the time. Admitting failure means you’re aware of what responsibility means to you and that you can do better.