Our Business World lacks Trickster Energy
Our connection to the trickster in business is ambivalent.
We immediately confuse it with the notion of the gangster, the cheater, the imposter. But the trickster energy with her capacity of inducing disarray and turbulence is precious: it waits for its deciphering as a liberating force of modern life.
We are called to apply the unsettling powers of the trickster energy at existential crossroads such as threats of hunger, war, severe illness, and social uprooting.
In times of great confusion, the trickster energy has some unexpected saving power.
We have learned to make lists of problems, learned to rank different types of threats. We try to make sense of what causes what and what to do first to solve a knot. But confusion is what we anticipate or already experience in these days if we dare to acknowledge the signs. Confusion is a state of the mind in which we do not understand what is happening and what we should do. We feel bewilderment, distraction, perplexity.
Trickster´s saving power for mitigating confusion is about stepping over models, recipes, or plans. It flirts with the merrymaking of the non (sense) and the un (shaped). This unique way of encountering with the world weakens belief tyranny and thereby creates hideaways for the mind and the body. That´s fascinating to me — the trickster energy feels like exciting devotion laced with a dash of friendly madness. Trickster energy gets us off the hook of being shallow and spoiled. And, how consequently, it gives us the pain of more confusion if we refuse to stop forced bigheaded action.
The temptations of charlatanry in business
Our daily business reality shows that we are used to be charlatans, not tricksters. We are all soft criminals and unwanted hypocrites when we jump into the shark tank of global economy. Here a little bit of manipulating customers´ feedback, there a little bit of outperforming the competition by headhunting their talents or stretching the truth about the quality of product materials — as businesspersons we are every day under the spell of dealing with trash and lies.
The international business community brings in constant supplies of obvious business cheaters. Theranos` founder Elisabeth Holmes is in jail now. She pretended to have a blood test available that can diagnose very different diseases. That was a big lie. Wirecard´s former CEO Jan Marsalek, is still on the run. The company, an international supplier of electronic payment and risk management services, fell over tempering with the books. The business public has carried in the moral books that personalities like Elisabeth and Jan are a faux pas, an exemption, among business leaders.
The play rule we accept in silence is “do something rude, but don´t get caught!”. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, the Renaissance Italian politician and diplomat, is still a hero for teaching business recklessness today. https://www.amazon.com/Machiavelli-Business-Strategies-Advice-Wisdom/dp/1628737980
Change of scene: Listen with me to a song right now while I explore the impact of trickster energy in business. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGD9dT12C0 “tell me sweet, little lies…”
May be the hatred and the disfavor that surround the trickster by naming him/her a charlatan etc. persists because we humans need lies and empty gestures to smarten reality, but we don’t want to be confronted with a persona that is a master of an “in between existence” by nature.
In ancient Myths the Trickster Energy is invigorating controversial.
The Trickster plays with disorientation in our lives. As archetype it is represented in ancient cultures in all stories of creation. These fictional characters are masters of supernatural powers that do not fit in a frame.
To name a few from all over the world: the monkey king Sun Wukong in Chinese mythology, the god Krishna in Indian mythology, the god Loki in Northern mythology, the god Hermes and the goddesses Circe and Eris in Greek Mythology, or the power animal coyote and the goddess Wisakedjak in Native American Mythology.
These mmmythical characters all are not messed up criminals or stupid troublemakers. Trickster´s energy means for these wise fools:
- to trick the intellect and to let the intuition come out and play;
- to stand outside the current chaos;
- to see nothing as a ‘problem’;
- to build crossings where different worlds collide.
What is charming and disturbing about the trickster energy?
Here my checklist, collected in a tried and tested trickster way, which means no order, no ranking. The trickster energy charms and upsets? I identified 14 different “talents”!
You can touch Trickster Energy by playing with your Bliss Identity Personas.
Already a few of us are willing to integrate trickster energy into their business behavior repertoire. My interviews and assessments with startup founders, CEO´s and investors show that trickster energy is an avant-gardist superpower. Businesspersons with trickster energy enjoy playing with this capacity by slipping into Bliss Identity Personas ( a term I created to make the masks we can take playful and contradictory). It is my pleasure to have developed a tool and method shelter for refreshing and refining trickster energy in its contradictory expressions.
Evidently, trickster energy is a behavior capacity that does not work well if you command it as a constant power. Its strength is about activating the feeling of butterflies in our tummies when outworn roads have led us to a blind end.
We still are endangered to assume the trickster only to be a grinning lord or lady of disorder. The position is in traditional business thinking not cut out for being a ruler. But imagine trickster energy would rule the business world.
Is this why Elon Musk tricks us? He is in power but does not seem to care.
Trickster and Charlatan — how to distinguish their energies in business?
The charlatan in us is fond of pretentious behavior, of fame and glory and success. Emotions in play are triumph paired with greed, and boredom.
The trickster energy outplays the compulsion of the charlatan. It brings to the emotional table: contempt paired with curiosity, ecstasy, and serenity.
Wow! While I put this observation to paper, I experience again how different the emotional drivers of trickster and charlatan are.
The Product World today — mostly Charlatans, but a few Tricksters
Products and services are business cards of a business leader´s consciousness.
You know it´s a product trickster if the product:
- aligns contradictory wants;
- keeps you alert, not lazy or sceptic;
- pushes you out of your social bubbles and mind frames.
I met trickster energy in clothing that shapeshifts due to weather conditions, housing that erects and folds up due to the altitude of the sun or medicine that is based on spatial sound. That´s miles away from the doctrine of disruption at all means, the attitude of just destroying traditions to establish playgrounds for one´s own megalomania.
You know it´s a product charlatan if the product:
- tells that a quick fix will do;
- forces you to see it as the one and only solution;
- promises “no constraints, no risks”.
Products that cheat customers have for instance misleading product labels (think of food stuff that cheats about product ingredients and degree of pollution). Another characteristic: On-line presentation lies (think of products that get photoshopped, looking much better than in reality). Two further proofs that a product is loaded with charlatan energy: bluff packages (think of products that are lying about large volume or exclusivity) or faked rating (think of product recommendations distributed by bots or paid influencers).
There is a fine line between the fenced-in area of lies and manipulation and the runway of prudent derangement of order. Trickster outperforms Charlatan!
In which producst do I already decipher the sprout of trickster energy? Here three wonderful “deputies”:
- There is this virtual dating game that invites to guess and explore the strengths of another person and yourself without scores and victory benchmarks.
- There is this hospital that combines ancient ayurvedic healing practices with high-tech minimal invasive surgery.
- There is this platform for metaverse avatars that proudly takes appearances from people with Down Syndrome from the real world one to one to the virtual space.
My halls of trickster fame and charlatan shame in business is constantly renewed. If you want to know what your products tell about trickster or charlatan energy, apply for a date with me.
In which product do I already decipher the sprout of trickster energy?
Here three wonderful “deputies”:
- There is this virtual dating game that invites to guess and explore the strengths of another person and yourself without scores and victory benchmarks.
- There is this hospital that combines ancient ayurvedic healing practices with high-tech minimal invasive surgery.
- There is this platform for metaverse avatars that proudly takes appearances from people with Down Syndrome from the real world one to one to the virtual space.
My halls of trickster fame and charlatan shame products is constantly renewed. If you want to know what your products tell about trickster or charlatan energy, apply for a date with me.
Trickster energy is chasing business empires
The trickster energy is a provocative force in business because it has no obsession/addiction to heal, to rescue, to improve, or to dominate the world. Thereby it is underwhelmed and immune against seeking social status and celebrating repression.
Trickster energy represents the power of putting “the cruel” out of balance with no urge of recouping “the weak”. That contradictory capacity seems to be one reason why it is difficult to classify its manifestation in the long-term evolution of business.
Why is trickster energy so dangerous?
Trickster energy makes the technology salvation doctrine of „the algorithm is our next mojo!” vanish in thin air.
Imagine how business would look stupid if “the digital” is not the golden calf to worship.
Trickster energy lets cliques and networks fall apart.
Imagine global and regional marketplaces without gatekeepers for money and resources.
Trickster energy lures the sustainable business “tribe” into a lustful play with contradictions, away from the delusion of “we know the way out of the mess!”.
Imagine regenerative and resilient businesses that add to their environmental and social impact models a chance for cultural and emotional paradoxes.
If the trickster energy becomes adorable current business empires will face a severe downfall.
How does the trickster energy speak to you?
Patricia von Papstein, Winter 2022
Read the thoughtful comments written by a few of my business confidants below!
Thank you to Suza Schlecht (Germany), Pedro Favuzzi, Adriano Fernandes (Portugal), James Edward Marks (UK), and Matthew Bellringer (UK).
Feedback 1
Hallo Patricia, zugebenerweise verstehe ich, warum auf Deine Wortwahl zunächst irritiert reagiert wird. Trickster and accidents, Trickster and apocalypse etc
Sobald du den Trickster dem Charlatan gegenüberstellst und v.A. aufzählst, was den Trickster mythologisch ausmacht, öffnet sich ein riesiger space an spielerisch lustvoller kreativer kreierender Energie, der jedem verkrusteten Business gut stehen würde.
Es entsteht in der Tat das Verständnis für: JA die Trickster Energie mit seiner „in between existence“ IST eine Super-Power und lässt die Birne endlich in das „sowohl als auch“ explorieren — ohne Rezepte, Strategien, Pläne oder Modelle.
Eine wahrlich befreiende Kraft. MERCI. Klasse Artikel — compliments.
Suza Schlecht
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Feedback 2
I love the positivity of this article, and I have known of Patricia’s work for a long time and her attempt to break over the barriers of normalcy with her intriguing yet sometimes cryptic messages which allow us to search for meaning beyond the words, rather than providing us false solutions on a silver platter. I do however feel that she has an overly romantic vision of what it means to be a trickster. In a world built for charlatans by charlatans, playing the trickster game puts us at an inherent disadvantage. I actually don’t think that tricksters are that rare, but I think that most of them don’t do business. While tricksters are about discovery and playfulness, business is about selling, about changing someone’s perspective (for best or worst), not quite the same, thus business is simply not the activity that most tricksters gravitate towards.
Finally, I’ll pull a trickster thought of you, what if the trickster is not the one turning things upside down, but it’s the only one to see things straight, that dears to accept the utterly empty meaning of everything and chooses to “ridere per non piangere”, laugh as the only alternative to desperation. As a diagnosed trickster I always loved turning things upside down, but the more I progress the more I realize this is simply a search for clarity. A mind that does not accept/knows reality is a contrived vine that can but grow on itself. Tricksters simply accept the lack of deeper meaning and find simplicity in the unexpected, but, in a twisted space, any straight line will look like a twisted mess instead.
Thanks for the wonderful read :)
Pedro Favuzzi
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Feedback 3
Absorbing your Trickster vision wordage, definitely feels on the zeitgeist in your own unique voice & ways “A word trip invitation to explore your inner & outer Trickster wriggle vibrations, while directly eyeballing the charlatan technobabble massage trance hypnotising us all!
James Edward Marks
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Feedback 4
Olá intriging one,
I have this response to your article. I was not sure where to post it, so here it is for you comments. Hope it is not a waste of your time or set the expectation too high my comeback. Anyhow, here it is:
Looking at my “I” persona of a being, considering it as a long endeavor, krafted with tiny immediate and incrementals goals, to form a self I see a typical con man, not a trickster. It tipples in the notion of linearity. That there is a start and end and not a continuous circle that spirals with no clear ascending or descending paths. Assumes to be walking in perpetual mode into an M. C. Escher surreal staircases. Oblivious that by untying a knot, it can be the solution or the trigger to bring time, as known, to a stand still. That persona urges to solve problems and move to the next one.
Every problem needs a definition that will be based on a context boundary. A context will vary from the chosen lenses. Lenses that, per example, can be a time frame since the problem arose or to which you can coexist with the issue, or its magnification mechanism to be used to define which stakeholders do we want to consider as part of the problem or to be considered as success criteria with the solution outcome.
A trickster knows that “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.”(1) but it doesn’t care if his actions produce order. The pure act of disruption is what drives a validation to the problem statement. That “disturbance in the force” to validate if the stated problem is still valid and worth wide entices them. A trickster can bluff and go all in because it is not defined by this solo game. It acknowledges that tomorrow’s game is a new problem. Of course it will be contaminated by today´s bluff outcome but that will be seen as a different problem. A different context. Seen with different lenses. And the correlation is not linear to yesterday nor for tomorrow. It is a clean slate to be worked on. You don’t have to be bound to it for eternity. The one you are today is only part formed by what your linear past has shown to you. You have native instintes that the trickster trusts and the Charlatan doesn´t since it is not part of it´s detailed self growth plan. The self growth plan that will ultimately lead them to prove Albert Camus right: “I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn’t mine anymore, but one in which I’d found the simplest and most lasting joys.”(2)
How you blend your trickster urges to the dominate Charlatan persona you carry defines what you bring to the table when get out of bed every single day. Define how appealing you are presenting yourself.
As we frame ourselves in social personas, we tend to overlap snapshots of our transient selves as we interact in different backgrounds. Lets use a trickster/Charlatan ratio as a metric to assess our approaches according to scenarios. The contented being while with his family will mostly certainly show a higher value in the metric than in a broader social environment, at which it is expected you to master the ability to “produce order”. The being when wearing the corporate or neighbor role will score less on the metric in both settings, with the work one being the lowest.
That is because we grant the business place to be the paramount social place to exercise the creation of order. That is grounded in the notion that it serves as the locomotive to mount the future. Businesses are built upon a clear goal: Create the future but metrified by the bottom line conundrum. This is the Charlatan kingdom. There is no space here for the Trickster. That is why they are so needed! Those few that can show a higher Trickster/Charlatan ration in this environment are the disruptors. The dreamers. The ones that makes the Charlatan realize if the incremental plans are still under their paw, as controllers of the present. A successful trickster needs to be able to balance the metric. Needs to leave in the cutting edge. That is an impossible place to reside. You do quantum leaps to the razor blade and move back. Still too long and you are sliced in two.
A few companies that can afford to challenge the bottom line, strive to meet true main shareholders’ needs over shareholders’ needs or innovate just for the sake of doing it carry the Trickster in heart and use the Trickster pennant proudly. But their heart is not to create order, they lack focus and it is gradative engulfed by the Charlatan energy. The opposite is also true. A mature business, a Charlatan offspring, can still be sparked back to life by the trickiest energy in their teams. The balance of electroshocks surged by trickiest energy, questioning the status quo, is fuel to make them move forward.
A company or a persona is always composed by the binary combination of Charlatan & Tricksters. Like Yan & yung, they are part of the same. They complement each other.
How does the trickster energy speak to me?
It speaks to my primal need to rebel to conform later. Conform with the notion I can control all outcomes. To be a lonely being that has renegated my evolution heritage and don’t trust the trickster in me. Not accepting it as part of what makes me and that it can teach me to value the moment for a future that no one can vow will come true. So, I allow the trickster energy to flow at home. At work. Always trying to control it as little as I can. Sometimes it pays out and sometimes it drags me down. That energy leads me to be daring when I ought to play safer. To poke a beast just to see if bites me. To be naive and challenge the clear meet the button line approach just to conform.
I also conform that there is Charlatan in me. The Charlatan that expects that the well received actions from the trickster are revered to evolve my life long plan to be a better being. To tick one more successful step in the plan. To play the corporate game to the letter. I conform that the trickster/Charlatan metric fluctuates. It is non linear. As is our self assessment. As are our aspirations until we find the end of a thread to guide us to the next maze and start to pretend we plan the way out. That we can retire the trickster that resides in me.
(1) Phrase quoted to be from M. C. Escher (2) Albert Camus, The stranger
Adriano Fernandes
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Feedback 5
“To err is human, but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.” Mrs. Oliver in Hallowe’en Party, by Agatha Christie
We live in a world where the decisions made by artificial intelligence have life-and-death consequences. Where between self-driving cars, medical diagnostics and facial recognition, or lives are deeply entangled with
the way computers think and act. To sit outside of, or between, the categories and classifications established by AI is to be overlooked, ignored, and yet to be an object of suspicion.
Despite this entanglement, and the headlong rush to grow and further entangle our lives with it, artificial intelligence is a slippery concept. Even the most basic digital services are now sold on the basis that they
include AI. The common thread is that AI services involve a computer modelling a situation, and then acting upon that model. They are automated decision-making.
Find the king
Like any decisions, those made by computer are dependent on assumptions. They are deeply embedded in context, and it is the context where the danger lies. Computers cannot establish their own context, their own understanding of the world without humans. The role of a programmer is, essentially, to explain the world of
people to a machine. In doing so, they outsource their decision-making process.
A cry goes up from the marketing department; “but AI is different, it can learn!”. And, on some level, this is true. Decision-making processes backed by feedback from Machine Learning can indeed refine their ability to
make decisions, and more reliably categorise those messy edge-cases. But the parameters of learning, and the corpus used for training, are still chosen by humans. We can further distance ourselves from the decision, but not absolve ourselves.
The roots of this technology run deep. Before the world “computer” meant a physical device, it meant someone who performed calculations by hand. And we’ve used tools to do some of this work outside of our heads since at least the second century BC, as the Antikythera mechanism aptly demonstrates. Well before the idea of Greece even existed, Sumerian scribes were developing and processing information through a model
of the world for the kings of Uruk.
Introducing Enki
The Sumerian god Enki was responsible for creation, intelligence, crafts, water, fertility, magic and mischief. It is Enki who creates mankind, clay and blood to do so. Later, he enables king to speak to king through a
common language. And yet, Enki is misunderstood and distrusted. He repeatedly acts in the best interests of the gods, and of man, and yet his actions are unappreciated by both. He diverts and thwarts plans, yet leads
to better outcomes for all. His actions only make sense within a broader context.
If our technology is a descendent of Sumerian cuneiform, then where is the descendent of Enki to keep watch over our use of power? We can follow the trickster through antiquity, and across the globe. They — for
tricksters are frequently of indeterminant or dual gender — have accompanied and guided humanity for as long at least as long as we have recorded such things, perhaps much longer. yet, without temples to Enki,
eddas to Loki, or dances to Kokopelli, how do we continue our worship?
Hacker or hack?
In the world of digital business, there is one deity worshiped above all others; the disruptor. This being emerged from the union of the industrialist and the hacker; not only capable of subverting the design of
computer systems, financial and social systems too. This ability to subvert, though, is not only a trait of the trickster, it is also a trait of the demon.
What separates the two is not the output, but the outcome. The demon degrades simply for the sake of it; the trickster because doing so is the only way to a deeper understanding, a more profound way of engaging with
the world. Both are capable of destruction, but it is only the trickster who is capable of creative destruction.
And it is this creative destruction which establishes fruitful new fields for all to enjoy.
Despite this, trickster and demon are treated the same. The person who reports a vulnerability in a globally used platform is tried as a criminal. The voice of dissent is treated as a whinging annoyance at best, and a
seditious influence at worst. To point out that the emperor is indeed naked as the day he was born is to be brigaded, tweet-bombed and burnt in effigy. Or, in some cases, to be physically attacked.
Finding your edge (cases)
The hidden-in-plain-sight-secret (itself a mark of the trickster) is that all our categories, assumptions and plans have fuzzy edges. These are where the trickster plays. Computers need nice, clean calculations, and cope very poorly with ambiguity. We need to abstract, simplify and tidy to make use of what they do. This simplification can be extremely useful; it allows us repeatability, efficiency. But can only ever be an approximation of the
underlying reality.
It is in the paradoxical and the contrary where we find signs of misalignment. And it is the trickster who points this out to us, offers us a generous exchange. That which we know, for that which we don’t. And the trickster becomes us, in both senses of that phrase. The messenger of the gods lets life speak to us and through us.
If we cannot make this trade — if we are too fearful, too proud, too greedy — and continue as we were, our once-helpful direction becomes less so. Until eventually we fight against the messiness of life, against the universe, and become a demon, forcing our preferred order onto the world. Even with the strongest AI on our side in a fight against the universe, I’ll be betting on the universe. For one, it’s a lot bigger.
Matthew Bellringer