It is what it is, but it's not. I woke up early the other morning thinking about this statement, "It is what it is." I think it was partially on my mind because I was planning to check my eBay bid status on an item later that evening around 9pm. Just as I was crawling into bed, I realized that I had forgotten to check whether or not I had won the bid. I was tired and it wasn't worth it to me to go downstairs and check to see whether or not I was the winning bidder. I resigned myself to the fact that I did or did not win, and proceeded to fall asleep. So that's an example of "it is what it is." And there are lots of other things that frankly, they are what they are. At least until for some reason someone says, but they're not.

I have a dear friend who was diagnosed nearly 6 months ago with a very rare form of cancer. I'm sure, because of the expansiveness of this disease in our population many of you have a friend or relative who has been in the same situation. In my mind there is no better example of "it is what it is, but it isn't," than dealing with a major fiscal or health problem. People a lot smarter than I, who deal with difficult situations on a frequent basis, will tell you that accepting "it is what it is" as a baseline, is a good thing. It's good because it sets a baseline for what happens next, because what it is, isn't what it necessarily will or should continue to be.

In business we see "it is what it is" all the time; we see people resigned to accept that there is nothing worth trying to change something. Many times they're right, many times the effort required to make a change doesn't make good sense. But many times it does. That's when I find that people get stuck. It's always more risky to change and do something different, than it is to keep the status quo. If you don't believe what I'm telling you, just ask anybody who works in a large corporation. But just as I believe there were two kinds of basic people in the world - functionaries and visionaries, each with their own degree of characteristics that define these traits, I believe that you can be a functionary and still have vision. So first, some definitions as I see them: A functionary is someone who is very pragmatic. This is someone who you might like in your accounting department, or if you are like many of our banking customers, you will find them in the credit department. Their baseline is as a functionary.  So you might say, "it is what it is, they are who they are." Visionary on the other hand, is a term you're probably more familiar with because it gets a lot of "press." A lot more press. A visionary's baseline is all about setting and achieving future objectives. You might again say, "it is what it is, they are who they are." But all of us have some functionary characteristics, as well as some visionary and all good teams absolutely need both. All good teams need to balance the two. So while recognizing that base traits are useful, they are just that, base traits. Traits meant to be explored and improved upon.