Marginality

The last appearance of Halley’s Comet was in 1986. It will be back again sometime around 2062. It is always interesting to me how so many things run in cycles and how history really does repeat itself. Back in the late 80’s, GM started suffering significant losses, in part because of Chairman Roger Smith’s restructuring efforts. North Korea didn’t want to play ball with the world community so it boycotted the Summer Olympics in Seoul. During the later part of the 80’s, I worked for the University of South Florida. As a public university, we relied on the state for a significant amount of our annual funding. I remember one particular year when the State of Florida was experiencing a massive budget crunch. Sound familiar? As part of a cost savings effort, the administrative head of our unit sent out a directive stating the specific ways we were going to reduce our utilization of office supplies. I don’t recall all of the measures that were stipulated but one of them is permanently seared into my memory. We were instructed, in unambiguous terms, to use both sides of our note paper and to begin writing inside the ruled margins so that we could extend the life of our 8.5” by 11” pads. (In those days, we did a lot of writing by hand. Our technology was relatively primitive and we had not yet progressed to the point of using our thumbs for texting and other higher mammal tasks.)

While I understood the seriousness of the budget crisis, I had a hard time understanding how writing in the margins was going to help alleviate it. It seemed slightly comical to me. I did the math and my sarcasm got the best of me. Using the one inch margin on both sides of the paper would probably allow me to write about 60 more words on each piece of paper. I thought to myself, “This will definitely save some trees.” Okay, so I didn’t have much appreciation for sustainability back then. I told you it was a primitive time. But, to ruthlessly take away one’s margins, that was unconscionable.

It seems like ever since my days at the University of South Florida, there has been a relentless assault on our margins. It’s as though there’s a conspiracy to keep putting more on our page. Our calendars and to-do lists are packed full and the various roles we play in life are merging into a strange mosaic with blurry lines. Our margins are shrinking. Margins are supposed to act as natural buffers, much like sand dunes on a beach. They mark beginnings and endings by serving as borders. They provide a level of protection by acting as boundaries. Today, our borders and boundaries are being pounded away by the surf. It’s well documented that continually expanding technology, information, complexity, and globalization have combined to create a hyper-vigilant, always-on society. Business survival is predicated on speed, agility and innovation. It’s no longer survival of the fittest, but rather survival of the fleetest. Mind you, these are not bad developments in and of themselves; in fact, many of them hold the promise to greatly improve the human condition. The challenge lies in making sure our advancements do not become encroachments. We need to boldly embrace the realities of change while at the same time working hard to rebuild and preserve our margins. Our margins will not look exactly like they have in the past. For example, I may evolve to the point where I can have a productive video conference with you at home while walking my dog on a treadmill and sculpting. Regardless of how margins may look in the future, we need to make sure that we guard them, because creativity, grace, renewal and relationships all thrive in this space.

My premise is not necessarily that we all need to slow down. There seems to be a lot of truth in that but each of us has our own speed zones and comfort levels. Most of us have also become very skilled at adapting. In some cases we have changed our routines. In other instances we have modified our expectations. Many of us have also worked diligently to train our minds and our bodies to mitigate stress and to function at an optimum level through the practice of good nutrition, diet and health habits. All of these adaptations are prudent because they enable us to move in step with the speed of change around us; however, they are not necessarily strategies that will sustain our margins. At best, they are barriers.

Unlike a margin, a barrier is designed to keep something harmful out. A margin, on the other hand, functions to preserve something precious. This distinction may be subtle but it is important. An illustration might help. When human beings decided that they wanted to fly at the speed of sound and eventually into space, it required that significant adaptations be made. Aircraft structures were redesigned, cockpit environments were reengineered, new flight suits were developed, and aviators and astronauts received specialized physical and mental training. All of these changes enabled supersonic flight and space travel because they provided effective barriers against the realities of gravity and atmosphere. The adaptive barriers we develop will help us survive in the furious pace of life; they will not, however, enable us to thrive. Plus, adaptation has its limits. Barriers may keep harmful things out, allowing us to cope, but erecting them requires the expenditure of our personal resources, namely time and energy.

Arguably, the major complaint that people have these days is that they lack time – time for themselves, time for others, time to do the things they consider to be most worthwhile and important. We all live in the grasp of the tyranny of the urgent. I also hear a lot of people complaining that they don’t have the energy that they had in the past. These are indicators that our attempts to adapt and cope may be starting to flag. When our adaptive strategies fail, the next thing to go will be our margins. We will begin hearing an internal or external directive to start using our margins. The message will be that we need to give something up; however, it will be something much more precious than the ruled margins on a piece of paper.

While maintaining margins is critical to everyone, it is especially important for leaders. The primary role of a leader is to leverage his/her internal and external resources to maximize results over the long term. Leaders develop and activate the full capabilities and capacities of people and organizations. Leaders who are worn down, used up, or on running for their lives cannot do this effectively. You simply cannot give what you do not possess. The best leaders will maintain the margin necessary to renew, reflect, learn, plan, innovate, and invest in relationships. They will also encourage others to do the same. Those who do this will find that something miraculous will happen – instead of shrinking, their margins will begin to expand.