Our Actions Will Tell [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 18, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Throughout my sordid past I was witness to the development of several mission statements. Serious and well-meaning teams of people wrestled with the questions of Who Are We and What Do We Do. The task was to generate lofty yet succinct statements of purpose and values. The statements were aspirational and mostly forgotten the day after the exercise of producing them. If actions were identified, they were rarely executed because a basic reality was ignored: the mission and purpose of a business is to make profit. Strip away the good intention and the bottom line remains the king. The moment the bottom line is threatened: all statements of value, all well articulated purposes are suspended.

If the purpose of a business is profit then the purpose of a not-for-profit is service. Clarity hits the not-for-profit when the cost of the service rises or the income streams run dry: will the service get lost in the immediate imperative to fund raise? Not-for-profit boards are famous for smothering their service organizations by attempting to make them “run like a business” which, essentially makes them lose sight of their purpose.

Study the difference between the rhetoric and the actions. To see the truth, look beyond the rhetoric. Study the actions. To be useful, rhetoric must acknowledge and align with actions.

Governments are service organizations. Democracies serve the needs of the people. Autocracies, on the other hand, are businesses that attend to the bottom line of the few. Currently we call our nation a democracy but one need only look to the actions of our leaders to suss out the truth. In this moment we are an autocracy. We are a service organization (a democracy) attempting to run like a business (an autocracy).

Our nation has some beautiful rhetoric. Our history has been a tug-of-war between those who believe in the service of Democracy and those who exploit the rhetoric for personal gain (autocrats). We either live “liberty and justice for all” or we do not. We are either a nation of laws or we are not. The question before us right now is, “What do we actually believe?”

Study the actions of the current administration and the ruling of the Supremes and the answer is clear: we are a white nationalist business that exploits the many for the profit of the few. To them, the Constitution is pleasant rhetoric but threatens the bottom line.

Study the actions of the people taking to the streets to protest the assault on our rights and the elimination of services and the answer is clear: we are a democracy. We are what we believe. We are what we espouse. To the people, the Constitution is a living roadmap of actions, a blueprint of service.

The disjoint between the people and the current leadership brings us around to a question that’s plagued us since our inception: Is “We-the-people” all inclusive or an exclusive club for the few? Will the voters choose their politicians (democracy) or will the politicians choose their voters (autocracy)?

The tug-of-war has rarely been this apparent.

Our actions in the next few months – and be very clear that a vote is an action – just as a gerrymander is an action – the gutting of voter’s rights is an action – protests are actions…our actions will tell all.*

*If we actually manage to have a free and fair election given the gutting of the Voter’s Rights Act, the aggressive gerrymander, the sycophantic republican congress, the rampant dark money, the corruption of the Supremes…If for some reason you remain confused about what’s happening in this nation, take a moment, look beyond the rhetoric and study the actions.

read Kerri’s blog about WE ARE WHAT WE BELIEVE

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Make Sense [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I told Kerri she was going to be fired two years before the ax fell. I needed no crystal ball and was not reading tea leaves. In my consulting life I’d seen it happen a few dozen times. When a not-for-profit organization promotes to leadership those who believe everything needs to run like a business, the people holding fast to the actual purpose and mission of the organization have to go.

It makes sense if you think about it. Profit is the purpose of a business. When profit is the purpose, the organizational structures and levers-of-power evolve according to the purpose: profit. People are expendable.

There’s a reason arts organizations, churches, educational institutions,…are called not-for-profit. They serve a different purpose. The organizational structures and levers of power evolve according to the central purpose: service. The creation of art. Learning. Health. Feeding the hungry. Helping the victims of disaster. Worship. The people, usually not well-paid, are dedicated to the deeper organizational mission. Not profit. The people are not expendable. In fact, they are the keepers of the flame. They are very hard to come by.

The quickest way to kill a service organization is to apply the power-levers of business. The purpose dies. The good people – the keepers of the organizational heart – have to be fired, whipped into compliance, silenced, or forced to leave. It’s not rocket science. That process takes a few years.

It’s sometimes hard for us to make sense of what’s happening in our nation and world yet the same principles that apply to organizations also apply to countries. The purpose of healthcare is not profit. The purpose of education was never supposed to be profit. We currently have in our vernacular phrases like “predatory lending” – people making millions from students who believe the dream is only accessible through higher education. It’s the message embedded in our mythology. The levers of business have twisted our vision. Just as prisons should never be money makers, healthcare-as-a-business obliterates the purpose. It profits a few. It crushes the many.

Apples cannot be oranges. Make sense?

What’s happening in our nation makes perfect sense. Big business, regularly bailed out or given tax breaks to the tune of billions of dollars, is protected. No questions asked. Yet, try to correct a corrupt lending scheme, a successful (highly profitable) application of business levers to education, built on the backs of working people trying to go to school, and the “it-has-to-run-like-a-business” crowd will move heaven and earth to keep profit at the center of the mission. Our education system, once the best in the world, is spiraling. Ridiculous. It’s inevitable when protecting the interests of business supersedes serving the purpose.

We may find our way through, we might return to our senses, when we stop pretending that business is somehow sacred, that the making-of-money is moral and a proper north star for all things. It is not. It is great for some things. It is devastating, senseless, for the most important things.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SENSE

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Stand In Time [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 28, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Stephen Hawking asked why we remember the past but not the future. Yesterday, in the middle of a meeting, I received a slack message with a sentiment from Russ Ackoff: entrepreneurs stand in the future and look at the present. I was fascinated by an article by Wade Davis, writing about a culture that experiences time as movement backwards; we row our way into the future.

Declan Donnellan writes that it is impossible to try and be present because we already are present. We live in it. We have to try very hard not to be present. In fact, we have to split ourselves in two halves. One looking backward. The other looking forward. We are, each and every one, Janus.

It is the time of year that time changes. It’s an odd ritual to “fall back” in time. What was 5 o’clock will soon be 4 o’clock, not because of a strange universal movement between planets and stars, but because we say so. A few states in the union don’t participate in the ritual so their time stays the same.

Time on a line. So many different realities, even in the most basic experience. Constructs of time.

I’ve read that old age is a return to childhood. Many, many great thinkers and writers from many disparate cultures tell us that we will journey through life and arrive where we began. The destination is ourself. Have you ever tried to describe your self and found the task impossible? Words simply cannot reach that level of complexity. There is a notion popular in the self-help world to define your life mission, your single life purpose. It’s meant to give you focus-of-action and certain-location on your line of time. It is also nearly impossible to articulate and becomes an exercise in metaphor selection. I’ve smiled knowingly as people in my past have asked, “Is this my mission or am I making it up?” The answer to both is, of course, yes. In a more universal peek, the exercise is meant to take you one more step around the circle that will bring you back to your self.

When I was doubting myself, judgmental because I “didn’t know” what I was doing, Quinn pointed to the tallest building and said, “The person on the top floor is just making it up, too.” He was standing in my future, looking back.

It’s just a matter of time.

Just.

read Kerri’s post about TEA LIGHTS

Greet The World, 48X48, mixed media

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Ask “What If?”

Posted on January 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

691. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I was reminded today that “If” is a very powerful word. It is a magic word that is shorthand for “imagine the possibilities.” When you think that you can’t do something, when you’ve convinced yourself that you will never be able to do…(fill in the blank); ask yourself this magic question: “What if…?” It’s alright, continue to accept that you can’t or will never be able to…; you need not change your disbelief or assault your defenses. In the midst of your wasteland, ask “what if…?” Imagine what you would do if you could? What steps would you take? What is the first step you would take if…?

Take the step. Hold onto your disbelief, invest in your limitation, and take the step anyway. No need to fulfill your dream, accomplish your impossible mission, move your mountain, or realize your potential – those phrases are misleading anyway, new age rhetoric, self-help marketing mantras that imply that your dream, your impossible mission, your mountain and your potential are some other place, things you might achieve, arrival platforms. Hint: they are really verbs, actions, and choices; you are infinitely un-full-fill-able because you are not a container with a limited capacity. You are your dream, your mission, your mountain, and your potential – you are uncontainable. Use upon yourself any ruler you choose, any metrics you think valid and at the end of the day your measurement will be false. Like a photograph you might capture a moment, an aspect, but you will never capture the all of you.

“What if” you started taking small steps without belief? What if you acted “as if” you could? Where might you someday find yourself? Magic and miracles are not dependent upon your belief; they are dependent upon your action. They are dependent on your capacity to realize that you, yourself, are fluid, moving, changing, dynamic,…, a living vital being. “What if” you started stepping in the direction of your “I can’t?”

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