#129: Spocks and Kirks
Sept 20, 2023; 15 min read
Going back to the high level partnership theme, each (binary) partnership has some degree of variance — whether it’s differentials of age, experience, equity participation, etc. I doubt whether many famous partnerships consisted of identical twins. Within the dimensions of partnership hierarchy, one of the most common differentials is probably external / internal — the one who faces the outside world, and the one who is seen more through the output than the persona.
Although I characterize this as the Captain James T Kirk / Mr. Spock dynamic, from the seminal 1960s Star Trek sci-fi series, that might be a little dated for some readers, for whom the duos of C-3PO / R2-D2 and Han Solo / Chewbacca are more current (but with less meaty interaction) — interestingly in both Star Wars examples the internal partner (who is responsible for getting out of the trouble the external partner usually created) can understand everyone else, but he is primarily understood by only the external partner. It’s a caricature of the highly competent internal partner: nearly faceless (which definitely applies to both R2D2 and Chewie!), relatively unknown, largely communicating with the outside world via the external partner. I find it both funny and sad that Spock and R2-D2 are essentially non-emotional robots (even if R2’s ‘emotions’ make him cuter); George Lucas patterned Chewbacca after his faithful dog — therefore the archetype of an enabling #2 is a character which demonstrates complete loyalty to the #1 — Han Solo definitely isn’t worried about Chewie angling for his job.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have the Spock / Kirk roles somewhat intertwined. Watson is the #2, unwittingly stimulating Holmes’ insights, largely by his bumbling or very ordinary viewpoints — he likes being part of a crime-solving team, he has no aspirations to be Holmes, and gets very little of the credit (even if Holmes needs him). He is portrayed as a slightly comic persona, a low-brow foil to the galactic intellect of his brilliant partner. But one could argue that although Holmes is the external facing hero, his fanatic devotion to logic and deduction make him more of the Spock-like robot – Watson actually humanizes him – in the original series, Dr. Watson is introduced as his biographer, because he feels Scotland Yard gets too much credit for solutions which are largely Sherlock’s.
This Holmes/Watson relationship was caricatured in the cartoon world, where Chumley the Walrus is the sidekick to Tennessee Tuxedo (a lazy problem solving penguin) — even down to Watson’s mustache. So as to make no mistake as to his intellectual level, Chumley starts every sentence with “Duh…” and yet often it is Tennessee who takes them down blind alleys, and Chumley who gets them out.
Although they are brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues (the Blues Brothers) could also be said to fit the pattern; Jake is the charming adventurer whose normal meal is four fried chickens who decides to save an orphanage by putting his band back together, and Elwood the quirky enabler (who prefers plain white toast) who trades their iconic Cadillac for a much needed amplifier.
Film or TV has a natural bias to lionize the Kirk characters, so I struggled to find other laudable Spocks (I’m definitely open to pointers to examples I’ve overlooked).
Characterizing a Spock/Kirk partnership
Note that I’ve led with Spock rather than Kirk, even though Spock is the “minor” internal character, because it seems obvious that the world is full of would-be Kirks, but would-be Spocks are few and far between, so the Spock character is the focus of my inquiry.
Although my memory might be a little fuzzy, whereas Kirk is a prototypical “leader” — alpha, bold, charismatic, daring, emotional, fragile, gutsy, human, irrational… — the half-Vulcan half-human Spock is governed by his Vulcan side (having been bullied by Vulcans for being part human), with dispassionate logic forming the foundation of his outlook on life. The partnership works because Spock is able to keep Kirk’s passions from leading them into terrible places, by offering solutions that hotter heads might have missed – together they are better than on their own. Kirk is one getting the crew into wild adventures (and an occasional romantic lead); Spock is the enabler and quiet fixer — he has no burning desire to command (or win the girl).
They share the same end goals (their five year mission…) but have complementary talents and a cooperative mindset, with little real competitive tension. Practically speaking, Spock is outnumbered because the other senior officers (Bones, Scottie), who are also white males like Kirk, are passionate (and slightly irrational / emotional). The peripheral roles (navigation, helm, communications) are all minorities (a Russian, an Asian, and an African — progressive for that era), but these subservient characters don’t venture as far from their specific domain (though Chekov does let his inner Russian flare up from time to time).
It’s almost like Spock is acting in line with the outdated idea of an “ideal wife” to be — an enabling force, confident and competent, but non-competitive… but without the whole mating and parenting thing, of course.
In a candid article detailing their on-screen and off-screen relationship, William Shatner revealed he was somewhat miffed, as the alpha actor, to see that his pointy-eared sidekick Spock/Leonard Nimoy received far more fan mail than he did. The obvious explanation is that Spock is the true alpha in the geek universe, likely to be the dominant viewer category for a 1960s science fiction series; another perspective suggests that the dearth of likable Spock characters on television led to a concentration of interest in Star Trek, whereas Kirk would have to compete with a wide variety of traditional leading figures (Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke, et al).
Real life Spock-Kirks
In the real world, inside/outside partners like Elton John and Bernie Taupin (highlighted in the film Rocketman), and Mylene Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat probably underline the idea that the talent for making music and performing music are often not found in the same individual.
In the corporate world, the external role is usually the CEO, and the internal role is (generally) the COO. When I looked up “famous COOs” — itself a little of an oxymoron — I found an article where I didn’t know a single name on the list (of relatively famous companies), though many of the CEOs are household names. A true enabling COO or internal partner usually has little desire to usurp the role of the other partner — the ‘pretend’ or temporary COOs view the role just as a stepping stone, are less likely to be good COOs, because it’s not their end goal — they will always devote some of their energy to succession strategy / schemes, and what they’ll do (and which scores they’ll settle) when/if they get bumped up.
Two related questions:
Do the names Jeff Williams, or Javier Olivan ring a bell? They took over the COO roles from two famous predecessors — Williams became COO of Apple after Tim Cook moved to CEO, and Olivan succeeded Sheryl Sandberg as COO of Meta; yet I would argue their names are both nearly completely unknown (to the outside world).
What do these companies have in common (filling out the top 10 US companies by market capitalization): Microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, NVidia, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, Eli Lilly, Visa? None of them have a COO (though a few have Presidents, which is kind of like an informal successor title). One can certainly argue the COO position is not directly analogous to the Mr. Spock role, and that in the modern corporation, the COO role might be split up into many “Chief” roles (Commercial, Marketing, Risk, Sustainability, Strategy, Happiness, etc). For legal reasons, I think every one of those companies has a designated CFO, however.
The takeaway here is that, in the cutthroat world of American business, a truly cooperative CEO/COO combination is far more the exception than the rule, either because true enablers find it hard to climb that far up the corporate ladder, the COOs who achieve the position are actually CEOs in COO clothing, or the relative anonymity of the COO job is unappealing relative to its heavy responsibility.
In politics, the Vice Presidency of the United States isn’t really an internal partner to the President, it’s a nearly powerless role which is really both a silly vote gathering tactic during the election, and a post-election insurance policy triggered by the untimely death of the President. The VP is willing to accept a useless ceremonial position pretending to do real work while they wait for something to happen — because they really do aspire to be POTUS, so much so that they’re willing to take a demeaning position to show how much they want it.
The exposure problem of the silent partner
The relatively self-effacing nature of the Spock position is one of its unfortunate dichotomies — that in order for a Spock to perform well, it is important to understate (or omit entirely) his real contribution, so that the Kirk persona may bask in the warm glow of adulation (and often garnering commensurate rewards). Because Spock channels his energy internally rather than externally, this means the balance of power heavily favors Kirk, who is responsible for allocating credit and rewards. Therein lies the seeds of conflict, because each side may view the appropriate balance of credit and contribution very differently. I have no doubt that similar discussions / debates / arguments are quite common between working and non-working spouses, especially as roles and responsibilities change over time.
There is little glorification of the Spock role (which is one reason why I find it so interesting), which is probably a clue for why it is so little pursued — Hollywood hasn’t puffed it up into a heroic role with appropriate theme music, which is reserved for the tall lead with the chiseled cheekbones and impossibly awesome hair.
Agreeably disagreeable
Spock’s value is that of cooperative diversity: his read of any given situation should be complementary to the “gut feeling” Kirk view; Spock must be able to disagree with Kirk and tell him why he disagrees (and not just to be negative). Kirk must be open-minded enough to give this opinion real weight, even if it runs counter to his own intuition and other less valuable opinions. Many real world Kirks tend to be surrounded by yes-men, who assume that Kirk will favor the like-minded, at the expense of better decision-making and outcomes; but a true Kirk would understand the need for a Spock to protect his blind side(s), and thus is willing to entertain logical disagreement from certain trusted quarters.
Spock internals
Although stereotypically the Spock character is more of an introvert, happy to play a game of three dimensional chess in their head rather than doing tequila shots with the boys in the engine room — they need to have a wide range of skills and interfaces in order to be useful. Spock shares some characteristics with long range snipers and ninja (both stealthy disciplines) — while the main action is somewhere else, Spock is free to gain an advantage on the enemy, operating silently from the shadows with their camouflage, padded shoes, and night scopes.
It occurs to me that Spock characters are almost always from a different origin (robot, dog, minority) than the Kirks because the assumption is all normal / mainstream people would want to naturally aspire to the Kirk role, and some implied reason must be proffered to explain why Spock is content to be a “mere” enabler of the heroic figure.
Internal partner dynamics
The fundamental imbalance of the Spock-Kirk relationship suggests difficulty keeping the dynamic moving forward — the partnership must be held together by some higher order function, which keeps the partners in check and focused on the end goals.
Theoretically, either of the partners should be able to replace the other, in practice, I would assume it’s the Spock who gets replaced simply because there is more visible demand for Kirk, whereas only a select group of insiders knows the real value of a Spock.
In a modern day version of this, I would put forth Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, the winningest quarterback (Kirk) and head coach (Spock) in NFL history. After over a decade of domination with Belichick and the Patriots, Brady decides to break up the partnership, and makes an audacious move to the chronically mediocre Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 (while convincing his semi-Spock tight end Rob Gronkowski to join him out of retirement). He goes on to win the Super Bowl, thereby convincingly demonstrating that the Brady/Kirk secret sauce is spicier than the Belichick/Spock secret sauce (the Patriots didn’t even make the playoffs that year, after winning their division for the previous 11 consecutive years with Brady). I imagine some owners and general managers of major sports teams feel like unappreciated Spocks (Bob Myers of the recent Golden State Warriors? Jerry Krause of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s?) — hence their willingness to change up their stars.
Pearls before swine
The opposite power skew (favoring Spock) might have the enabling partner wanting to switch out the alpha figure, either because Spock is the true power behind the throne, the King Kirk figure doesn’t fully appreciate the balance of power, or even the extreme situation where the emperor has absolutely no clothes at all. Rather than wasting time with a clueless or ungrateful partner, a search for a worthy counterpart is a logical move, if the enabler has confidence in their abilities to make most partnerships work.
Swapping out a star player in sports can be an example of this – that the coach / team is more important to success than any star player. Fortunately it doesn’t always work — sometimes the star isn’t that important (Kyrie Irving, James Harden), and sometimes they are (LeBron James). I’d argue the small team size of basketball makes Kirk / Spock combinations more prevalent than in other sports; Scottie Pippen / Michael Jordan of the Bulls is probably a good example; as is Steph Curry and Draymond Green of the Warriors.
Once the switch is made, this precipitates a mad competition between the new and old Kirks, like a biker emerging from the peloton; certainly Kevin Durant has tried (unsuccessfully so far) to show that he can be a dominant force on his own, since his departure from the Golden State Warriors.
Eminence grise
The Spock idea is adjacent to, but separate from the idea of the eminence grise; the power behind the throne which is less of a cooperative partnership and more the projection of influence by someone who, for whatever reason, cannot ascend to the primary position. EGs are often vilified because they turn the principal into a puppet-like character, having a disproportionate influence on policy and decisions. Notwithstanding my earlier remarks about the impotency of the US Vice Presidency, Dick Cheney (along with Donald Rumsfeld) had far greater influence over the policies of the George W. Bush administration than a traditional VP. In the extreme, peripheral figures like Rasputin (who had influence over the family of Tsar Nicolas II of Russia) or more recently, Choi Soon-sil (influence over President Park Geun-hye of South Korea) inflamed popular opinion, with dire consequences in both cases.
There is a difference between being shady and being an introvert — an eminence grise often has their own very personal agenda rather than the greater good at heart, settling personal scores through the chosen puppet, instead of acting as a complement. Spock is an enabler, eminences grises are more like fanatic hijackers in ninja costumes.
Personal agenda: Spock seeks Kirk
By this time, it should be clear that I have an affinity for partnerships, and for complementary Spock/Kirk combinations in particular. My working hypothesis is that they are probably both undervalued and rare because of the stealth nature of the Spock position, and the gravitational pull of Kirk on the spotlight — these phenomena will have the effect of reducing the frequency and viability of these partnerships, because potential Spocks might despair of it being rewarding, and potential Kirks might have unrealistic confidence that they can go it alone.
In a previous life, I once suggested that I perform a Spock-like role for one of my senior colleagues, because I thought it could be a win-win — I could do the kind of work that I enjoy, and he could expand his reach, coverage depth, and vision. The senior colleague rejected the idea, saying that those were his responsibilities that couldn’t be delegated; I pointed out that he wasn’t actually fulfilling them because he was too busy, but his view was “structure over content”, which seemed odd to me, but I let it drop. I remember him mentioning that I wouldn’t get the credit for the work, as if he was letting me in on an organizational reality — but he quietly admitted that in a perfect world he could use the help.
I’ve been in Spock roles a number of times over my career, at varying levels of equality / inequality with the Kirk figure. I’ve also spent some time in Kirk roles, where my performance was average when replacing someone in a defined role, and better when I was exploring new areas (blue skies). I like to think my performance as a Spock was mostly above average, with a few disappointments; I was grateful for the air cover and the opportunity to do stealth reconnaissance and analytics.
In my last full time position, my promotion implicitly required that I become more of a Kirk figure (with a management component), and now that I think about it, probably reduced my longevity because that put me into a necessary competition with other management Kirks.
My Chinese family name is somewhat unusual because it has two characters (most have just one); the second character is the “yang” of the Taoist yin/yang concept, which can be interpreted in a variety of ways (sun / male / positive etc.) which is more Kirk-like; the “yin” complement has more associations with the Spock side (moon / female / covert). But I think of it as more of a coincidence rather than a destiny I’m meant to follow – I’d argue that we all have capabilities along the Spock Kirk continuum, and although we probably lean more towards one direction, that we’re not stuck at either pole (unless we’re extremely stubborn).
Now that I’m in a stage of my life where I’m looking around for new and fun missions to tackle, there is a latent desire to perform a Spock role for an understanding Kirk — especially in a situation where my experience and global reach might be valuable in a partnership with a presumably younger high energy Kirk with many worlds to explore. But the role models are so rare that it will surely require a broader search to find a properly receptive situation.
Any and all related thoughts are most welcome.