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Making
things happen - with integrity. A Weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday, February 14, 2000 Volume II Number 7
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FOCUS - The Cave
There are breezes blowing out there. Winds of change. Signaling something profound. The outcome remains a mystery. It’s triggering a heightened sense of anticipation. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying.
Remember Y2K? It’s come and gone. We’ve been ushered into a new era. The hunch that maybe, just maybe twelve midnight on the thirty-first of December nineteen ninety nine would bring calamity has now vanished. Poof. Gone.
It’s been shelved like the other predictions of apocalypse, and shrugged off as a colossal might-have-been – full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Consider the investment markets.
In 1993, two brothers, Tom and Dave
Gardner, began to advise the world on how to invest.
They say you don’t need an advisor.
You don’t need a high priced mutual fund.
You don’t need a money manager. All
you need is the S&P 500. Follow
that index and you’ll beat the street. They call
themselves The Motley Fool. Their newsletter, chatty radio talk show and Internet
saturation made them a household name among do-it-yourself investors.
They are rag tag heroes in a world of out-moded brokerage houses and
self-serving dial-for-dollars-at-6:15-PM stockbrokers.
Last year, the markets hit extraordinary highs. As Y2K fears subsided, money poured in. Motley Fool missed the mark. The Fool (as he likes to be called) was quite right in 1998. The S&P finished the year at 29% above the prior year close - a remarkable return for investors – ahead of the Dow Jones 30 which finished off the year at 18%. But in 1999, the Dow beat the S&P – 27% for the Dow, a mere 21% for the S&P. Sorry, Motley.
But the big market story in 1999 was not the S&P or the Dow. It was the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ is commonly known as the home of the Internet stocks. The world of dot.com. New emerging growth companies. IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). It was up not twenty or even thirty percent. It was up nearly ninety percent.
Large cap value stocks were down ten percent. It goes both ways.
Just this week, I’ve spoken at length with investors who have won. I’ve spoken to investors who have lost.
There have never been more investment options. Never more potential for gains, or risk of loss. It’s an all-you-can-eat banquet table. But as you stroll along that table, hungry, empty plate in one hand, serving spoon in the other, you just don’t know which of the appetizing entrées might be contaminated.
The only thing you really know is that all the rules have changed. The old formulas for measuring a company’s value are out the window. Name loyalty is gone. Mergers and restructurings and reinventions make the old familiar and reliable Blue Chips unrecognizable.
A door’s been opened. The possibilities are nonstop. It’s the same world - but it’s a world caught up in a new revolution. Where is it taking us? Maybe Buzz Lightyear’s little oxymoron is more prophetic than the creators of Toy Story even dared thought.
“To infinity… and BEYOND!”
* * * * * *
Nearly four centuries before Christ, 387 BC to be exact, the great philosopher Plato founded the first European University. He called it simply, the Academy.
Plato’s new school offered courses in
astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory and philosophy.
The Academy’s founder was also lecturer and author of the textbook.
His treatise on political philosophy, The Republic, is read by
collegians in many languages around the world to this day.
It contains an intriguing dialogue in Book VII.
It’s a conversation between Plato’s mentor Socrates and his student Glaucon. Socrates tells Glaucon the story of The Cave.
Imagine all of society living in a cave below the surface of the earth, Socrates began. Imagine every person bound in chains, unable to move much less escape. Imagine further that the binding prevents all of them from turning their heads from side to side. All are locked into position, facing forward.
Imagine that you, Glaucon, are bound in that cave along with all the others.
You are looking, said Socrates, in the direction of a stone wall. Behind you is a flame, a source of light. And moving in front of the flame but behind you and the others shackled in chains are men walking back and forth, carrying large pots and wooden animals and other objects. Their motion casts moving shadows on the wall.
But because you people of the cave cannot turn away, you only see the shadows and hear the sound and commotion from behind.
(When I first read about this story,
it reminded me of a crowded cinema – all of us in a darkened room, facing the
same direction, eyes fixed on a white screen.
The screen fills with moving and colorful images, surrounded by rich
synchronized sound, creating a sense of being there… but of course, we’re
not. Plato, twenty-four hundred
years ago, knew nothing of movie theaters. But
he goes on.)
Socrates asks Glaucon – If you were bound in those shackles, would you believe the shadows to be your reality?
Of course, Glaucon replied.
And do you think the shackled masses might give names to the shadows? Would you create elaborate descriptions of the shapes? Would you make predictions about which might appear when and in what order?
Certainly we would try, answered Glaucon.
And do you think the more intelligent might emerge as leaders? Would they be quick witted and creative in their conversation?
Indeed.
Now, my dear Glaucon. Imagine that someone, unknown to you, offers to release you from your chains? Would you resist?
I suppose I might. The shadows and the voices of those around me are all I know.
Imagine, Socrates went on, that you agreed to be loosed from your place and led by the hand away from the shackled masses and to the back of the cave where you saw the flame and the people creating the shadows. Would you have difficulty seeing?
Yes I would. At first the light would be blinding. I would be confused.
Yes indeed. Imagine then, that you are led further – outside the cave. And for several days and nights you are free to explore. For the first time in your life, you see the sun and the clouds and the blue sky and the landscape and the trees and the running brook and the blossoms of springtime and at night you see the stars and the moon. What would you think?
I would be staggered by all I had missed while living in the cave, answered Glaucon.
Would you want to go back to the others and tell them what you had seen?
I would indeed. I would be anxious to tell them everything.
Would they listen?
Glaucon paused. He realizes that his shackled friends would never believe him. They have no frame of reference. He would be a threat to the well-established social order in the cave. Just as he resisted the offer of freedom, he knew the others would not only resist, they would make him an enemy. Glaucon knew that his experience outside the cave inevitably separate him from the others. For good.
Socrates asked “must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner?”
Plato’s immortal story of the Cave is the story of conversion. As long as we remain shackled to our place, eyes fixed on shadows, our perspective will never change.
But when we shed the chains, release our grip on the old way of thinking and hearing and seeing, then we will begin to see our world in a whole new way.
* * * * * *
Conversion happens in many ways. It’s a turning around. It’s acquiring a new perspective. It sometimes means that everything changes.
We convert our currencies when we travel abroad. We convert voters when they switch parties. We convert investments when we design a new portfolio allocation. People get spiritually converted when they embrace Jesus.
A leader is converted when he/she lets go of the old and welcomes the new.
* * * * * *
Our world is in the crossfire of revolution. Thankfully, it is not a bloody revolution. Some have compared it to the industrial revolution. Or the urban revolution. It’s on the level of the discovery of the New World. The invention of the printing press. Or the light bulb. Or the flight of the Kitty Hawk. Or mass production.
It’s the world of the Internet. The globe is shrinking. Boundaries and language are not the barriers they were. International communication and trade have become routine.
Perhaps, like me, you are wondering where it’s going to take us. The one thing that’s certain is you must be ready to adapt to change. You cannot rely on the way you’ve always done it.
You need to step outside the cave. Take a look. Don’t expect the folks back inside to understand. Be prepared to be converted to a new way of thinking. Learn the new rules. Play at a new level.
Plato taught that leadership is taking the first step. It’s understanding the realities outside the cave. It’s looking around with a sense of wonder and awe. Let the new view energize you. Take a deep breath.
Here we go.
“To infinity… and BEYOND!”
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Don't forget - Today is Valentine's Day
This retelling of Plato's story of The Cave is a paraphrase. The only direct quote is the statement of Socrates and is set aside with quotation marks.
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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