Faster and shallower

DR. ICHAK ADIZES explores how the speed and depth of our activities impact the quality of the work we do and the lives we lead. What message do you take from his thoughts, and what do you feel?

Have you recently watched an old movie, say of the 1950s? Did you notice how it moves so slowly that sometimes you get restless? Compare it to recently released movies. The story moves faster, and people speak faster.

Compare a news broadcast from the 1960s to a broadcast now. Messages are shorter and anchor people speak faster today.

These increases in speed are reflected in many aspects of our life. The proliferation of fast-food outlets is one. How do people want their maladies to be fixed? Not with long-term treatment, but with a drug that will provide instant relief rather than healing. That explains to me why the drug and marijuana culture is dominating young people’s choices. Drugs and marijuana provide fast pleasure. You do not have to work hard to achieve goals and provide services to feel good. Just have a smoke or take a sniff.

Sex is also faster. Courting is short and the sexual engagement follows instantly.

The increase in speed has an impact on the quality of what we deal with. Take education: I want to deliver a theoretical message, and I’m told to make a tape no longer than five minutes. Try to explain the concept of truth in five minutes.

People are asking for the bottom line. I asked an author how he gets to be a bestseller. He told me he writes a book with just one message and lots of stories about that message. Then he prints a thousand copies himself, and at his next lecture gives the participants a copy. Before he starts his workshop, he tells the audience members they have twenty minutes to read the book, tell him what the book is about, and what is the message. If they do not have it, he rewrites the book till people give him the right answer. Then he publishes his book. In other words, for a bestseller, write a book a reader can finish while waiting for the bus.

To me, it makes the book superficial and shallow. You cannot develop a concept in depth.

I believe that none of the earth-shaking philosophers of the past would have survived in today’s environment.

This shallowness impacts the quality of the message and, in the case of news, I would not be surprised if it borders on fake news because the information provided is incomplete.

With speed and lack of depth, it is not strange that many decisions are bad, and in the field of leading a country they can lead to disaster.

With speed and lack of depth, it is
not strange that many decisions are bad,
and in the field of leading a country they
can lead to disaster.

Just thinking and feeling,

ichak@adizes.com 
https://www.ichakadizes.com/post/faster-and-shallower