In People Make the World I have defined the art of politics as having two components: expectation engineering and commitment engineering. Politicians try to convince people that bringing them to power will have desirable consequences, while bringing other people to power will have undesirable consequences. Candidates for functions try to create or reinforce the expectation that hiring them will be a good thing.
Expectation engineering plays a role when asking someone to marry you. I will make you happy. With me you will stay happy. If you marry Albert instead, I will kill myself. The last one is also an unhappy attempt at commitment engineering. Wedding itself, with its rituals and many witnesses is commitment engineering.
Communicating our expectations is often a go at commitment engineering. I see you as a brilliant speaker later in life, meaning: Don’t flunk your next speaking assignment at school.
We may be swayed by expectations much more than by facts. The End is Near, has been so often prophesied, that the message becomes stale. But it doesn’t. There are always again people believing. Why? Because expectation is a high-energy state of mind, while facing facts is a low-energy state of mind.
In intimate relationships three states of mind may play: love, sex and romance. And romance is the strongest of the three, as confirmed by brain scans. Romance is an intense state of expectation. You may feel romance when you are together with the person you love, but the depth of the feeling is related to the future: staying together, walking together into a blissful future.
Expectations play a key role in religion. Expectations of what will befall us after death, expectations of what will befall us before death, expectations about apocalypses in which terrible things will happen to the majority of disbelievers and wonderful things to the minority of true believers. Expectations about the return of heroes and saviors are many: David coming back as the Messiah, Jesus coming back on the clouds of heaven, Arthur coming back from Avalon to lead the British again, Frederick Barbarossa coming back from Kyffhäuser to lead the Germans once again, Djengiz Khan coming back from his secret resting place to lead the Mongols once again.
Maybe the oldest and one of the most ambivalent - if not pernicious - expectations is the promise by the writers of the Old Testament that Palestine has been promised to the Jews by none less than the Lord himself. Now that is a promise that is hard to beat, going strong for about 3500 years. Promises of politicians usually go stale within the common four-year period. This promise, around a thousand times older, is still not really fulfilled, and still not stale. That’s what religion can do. Religion involves the highest-energy states of mind imaginable. The higher the energy, the higher the risk. The risk of folly.
Since December 21, we live for the umpteenth time in a post-apocalyptic era in which no one can tell the difference.
So what should we do with expectations, with promises? As the saying goes, forecasting is difficult, especially about the future. Should we stop expecting?
That would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Any future-orientation should be balanced by a present-orientation: to face the facts, to sense the present conditions. We should be rational, and especially not be swayed too much by hopes and fears. Usually things turn out worse than we hoped, but better than we feared. We hope for the best, but we don’t bet on it. And we avoid the worst whenever we can.
Optimists live more agreeable, but pessimists live longer. I hope this blog is useful, I fear it is not. But I still write it. The upside is that some people like it and that it’s useful to them. The downside is that no one likes or read it. So the upside is plus and the downside is zero. Whenever these are the odds, go for it! That is no expectation engineering, but rational decision-making.
Although … people could think this foolish and I better not write it.
Life remains difficult, with or without blogs.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Good government
In a workshop on creative thinking we speculated: If magic somehow would exist, what would be the highest form of magic? Surprisingly, but clearly, good government was the winner. Or, as it is called in business: good governance.
This reminds me of Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly, analyzing historical examples of foolish government. She distinguishes four kinds of misgovernment: tyranny or oppression; excessive ambition; incompetence or decadence; and folly or perversity. She adds that these kinds are unfortunately not mutually exclusive. Tuchman is eminently quotable:
Outside government, man has accomplished marvels: voyaged to the moon; harnessed wind and electricity, raised stones into cathedrals, wove silk brocades out of the spinnings of a worm, constructed the instruments of music, derived power from steam, controlled or eliminated diseases, pushed back the North Sea and created land in its place, classified the forms of nature, penetrated the mysteries of the cosmos. While all other sciences have advanced, confessed John Adams, government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
Tuchman concludes that most follies are unnecessarily activist. And once the action misfires, compounding the error by continuing and enlarging it. Her champion of wooden‑headedness is Philip II of Spain: No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.
She sees folly not as the child of limited mental powers, but as the child of power hunger, especially clinging to a position of power once gained: The chief force behind political folly is addiction to power, for fear of losing it. … Power breeds folly; the power to command triggers failure to think; responsibility often fades in exercising it. … Lure of office stultifies government performance. The bureaucrat dreams of promotion, higher officials want to extend their reach, legislators and the chief of state want re‑election; the guiding principle is to please as many and offend as few as possible.
As Winston Churchill quipped: Democracy is the worst system of government - except for all the others.
Henry Kissinger: Leaders in government do not learn beyond the convictions they bring with them. Learning from experience is absent.
Mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries governing a political problem. When dissonances and failures of a policy appear, the advocates rigidify. Their rigidity increases investment and the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error multiplies, never retreats.
Already Machiavelli wrote that a prince ought always to be a great asker and a patient hearer of truth about those things of which he has inquired, and he should be angry if he finds that anyone who shrinks from telling him the truth. Government needs great askers. In the search for wiser government we should look for character, for moral courage.
One of the few who outright admitted error was Harry Truman. Famous was his smiling retort when a journalist asked him if he hadn’t made an error in a decision during the Korea War: A schoolboy’s hindsight is better than a president’s foresight. A lonely example of reversing a policy, was when Sadat visited Israel and offered peace.
Tuchman: We cannot expect much improvement. We can only muddle on like we have done in those three or four thousand years, through patches of brilliance and decline, great endeavor and shadow. There you have it.
This reminds me of Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly, analyzing historical examples of foolish government. She distinguishes four kinds of misgovernment: tyranny or oppression; excessive ambition; incompetence or decadence; and folly or perversity. She adds that these kinds are unfortunately not mutually exclusive. Tuchman is eminently quotable:
Outside government, man has accomplished marvels: voyaged to the moon; harnessed wind and electricity, raised stones into cathedrals, wove silk brocades out of the spinnings of a worm, constructed the instruments of music, derived power from steam, controlled or eliminated diseases, pushed back the North Sea and created land in its place, classified the forms of nature, penetrated the mysteries of the cosmos. While all other sciences have advanced, confessed John Adams, government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
Tuchman concludes that most follies are unnecessarily activist. And once the action misfires, compounding the error by continuing and enlarging it. Her champion of wooden‑headedness is Philip II of Spain: No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.
She sees folly not as the child of limited mental powers, but as the child of power hunger, especially clinging to a position of power once gained: The chief force behind political folly is addiction to power, for fear of losing it. … Power breeds folly; the power to command triggers failure to think; responsibility often fades in exercising it. … Lure of office stultifies government performance. The bureaucrat dreams of promotion, higher officials want to extend their reach, legislators and the chief of state want re‑election; the guiding principle is to please as many and offend as few as possible.
As Winston Churchill quipped: Democracy is the worst system of government - except for all the others.
Henry Kissinger: Leaders in government do not learn beyond the convictions they bring with them. Learning from experience is absent.
Mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries governing a political problem. When dissonances and failures of a policy appear, the advocates rigidify. Their rigidity increases investment and the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error multiplies, never retreats.
Already Machiavelli wrote that a prince ought always to be a great asker and a patient hearer of truth about those things of which he has inquired, and he should be angry if he finds that anyone who shrinks from telling him the truth. Government needs great askers. In the search for wiser government we should look for character, for moral courage.
One of the few who outright admitted error was Harry Truman. Famous was his smiling retort when a journalist asked him if he hadn’t made an error in a decision during the Korea War: A schoolboy’s hindsight is better than a president’s foresight. A lonely example of reversing a policy, was when Sadat visited Israel and offered peace.
Tuchman: We cannot expect much improvement. We can only muddle on like we have done in those three or four thousand years, through patches of brilliance and decline, great endeavor and shadow. There you have it.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Solving unsolvable problems
Most news is about problems. Managers are dealing mostly with problems. Work is tiring. The world is tiring.
I found three viewpoints enriching. The first is to look at recurrent problems. The solution usually can be found in a system dynamics framework, Identifying the delays and the overreactions in the system.
The second is to look for persistent problems that continue whatever money, time and effort is spent. The Romans already knew what to look for: cui bono? Who benefits from the problem not been resolved?
The third is to look for historic success stories when whole societies took off and stayed successful for quite some time. The Roman republic is itself an interesting case, especially the time between 220 and 167 BC. The period to look for with the Netherlands is the decade 1588-1598. The creations of the early consulate in France, 1799-1803, survived the end of the Napoleonic era; many are still in place.
Here I want to discuss the issue of persistent, apparently unsolvable problems. So, who benefits? The most easy explanation, that pretty often hits the nail on the head, is that an unsolvable problem draws attention away from an other undesirable condition that has a whole group profiting. When attention and emotions are diverted, other muddy waters remain unexposed. It is the essence of stage magic: directing the attention of the audience away from what is really happening.
The obsessive attention of the McCarthy-area in the United States directed a lot of FBI-attention to suspected communists. The Maffia had a field day.
The obsessive - but quite natural - attention of the public with kidnappings and murders takes attention away from white-collar crime.
Government departments may knowingly include one very controversial item in their annual budgets, absorbing a lot of parliamentary attention, to have the rest of the budget more easily accepted.
We can also look into the internal dynamics of persistent problems. The first who benefit from such problems, are the groups whose raison d’être is that problem. Groups who point out environmental problems have a vested interest in not really solving the problems - or to find ever new ones.
Many individuals are married to their personal problems: they are getting a steady stream of attention and they have an excuse not to face their life and do something about it.
And think of the international problems of drug-use and drug related crime. Of course the producers of drugs have their vested interests. The War on Drugs ensures very large profits and many crime fighters earn a living from it. It makes drugs use risky and so interesting. Most people lead dull lives. Most of them do not actively engage in mayhem, but movies and games depicting sex and violence and horror have a captive market. So drug use may have the lure of the dangerous and the forbidden. Drugs are sexy.
So always ask when a problem remains in the spotlight: what remains in the (relative) shadow? The Greeks need to learn to behave more responsibly with public money. They sure do need that. But the banks also need that. And they, like the Greeks, learn only when it hurts long enough and bad enough. The financial problems are unsolvable because many people are doing whatever they can to avoid the solution. Shifting the burden: a well-known systems disease.
I found three viewpoints enriching. The first is to look at recurrent problems. The solution usually can be found in a system dynamics framework, Identifying the delays and the overreactions in the system.
The second is to look for persistent problems that continue whatever money, time and effort is spent. The Romans already knew what to look for: cui bono? Who benefits from the problem not been resolved?
The third is to look for historic success stories when whole societies took off and stayed successful for quite some time. The Roman republic is itself an interesting case, especially the time between 220 and 167 BC. The period to look for with the Netherlands is the decade 1588-1598. The creations of the early consulate in France, 1799-1803, survived the end of the Napoleonic era; many are still in place.
Here I want to discuss the issue of persistent, apparently unsolvable problems. So, who benefits? The most easy explanation, that pretty often hits the nail on the head, is that an unsolvable problem draws attention away from an other undesirable condition that has a whole group profiting. When attention and emotions are diverted, other muddy waters remain unexposed. It is the essence of stage magic: directing the attention of the audience away from what is really happening.
The obsessive attention of the McCarthy-area in the United States directed a lot of FBI-attention to suspected communists. The Maffia had a field day.
The obsessive - but quite natural - attention of the public with kidnappings and murders takes attention away from white-collar crime.
Government departments may knowingly include one very controversial item in their annual budgets, absorbing a lot of parliamentary attention, to have the rest of the budget more easily accepted.
We can also look into the internal dynamics of persistent problems. The first who benefit from such problems, are the groups whose raison d’être is that problem. Groups who point out environmental problems have a vested interest in not really solving the problems - or to find ever new ones.
Many individuals are married to their personal problems: they are getting a steady stream of attention and they have an excuse not to face their life and do something about it.
And think of the international problems of drug-use and drug related crime. Of course the producers of drugs have their vested interests. The War on Drugs ensures very large profits and many crime fighters earn a living from it. It makes drugs use risky and so interesting. Most people lead dull lives. Most of them do not actively engage in mayhem, but movies and games depicting sex and violence and horror have a captive market. So drug use may have the lure of the dangerous and the forbidden. Drugs are sexy.
So always ask when a problem remains in the spotlight: what remains in the (relative) shadow? The Greeks need to learn to behave more responsibly with public money. They sure do need that. But the banks also need that. And they, like the Greeks, learn only when it hurts long enough and bad enough. The financial problems are unsolvable because many people are doing whatever they can to avoid the solution. Shifting the burden: a well-known systems disease.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Politics and negotiation
What are the essential skills politicians need? I think there are three:
Commitment engineering means to build alliances, to build support, to build a reputation for honesty, fairness and reliability, to stand your ground to the extent it is practically possible.
Negotiation depends on the personal qualities and personal reputation of the negotiators and of the knowledge that they truly represent the views and the interests of their constituencies. And on their ability to judge the position of their opponents, their views, their interests, the pressures they are under. The best negotiators are reasonable and humane, but skeptical and perceptive, with sound judgment. The worst negotiators are missionaries, fanatics and advocates, especially if they are unsure of their own constituencies. This makes new, inexperienced amateurs unreliable. They want to score too badly. The most common vice of negotiators, both experienced and inexperienced is vanity. Vanity breeds indiscretion and tactlessness.
The ideal negotiator is truthful, precise, composed, patient, modest and loyal.
In the Netherlands, we just had an election that forces the two big winners, centre-right and centre-left, to form a coalition government. From day one, the press is lamenting back-room politics, meaning they don’t know exactly what’s going on. But negotiation is essentially a back-room activity. All publicity during the negotiation phase is to influence what is happening in the back-room. Usually, it’s more to satisfy their own constituencies, then to influence the other party, even if it seems that the public utterances are directed to the other party.
The best possible outcome of a negotiation is when each party get gains that don’t cost too much to the other party. And where that is impossible, that compromises are fair - and workable. A lot of expectation engineering is necessary to make the commitment engineering work, both inside and outside the negotiation ‘back-room.’
The essential difficulty is that expectations are necessarily shaky in fields like economics as the dynamics are so complex and turbulent that the relationship between causes and effects is never clear-cut. Political decisions are a boulevard of broken dreams.
This seems one of the major reasons that politics becomes personalized. The more the destination is controversial, the more all routes to all destinations are insecure, the more trust in the captain is what counts. The media enlarge this, they don’t create this.
Politicians are no supermen and supergirls. Those that present themselves as such, should not be trusted. We should not imagine them to be that. I remember the lead caption of a Brazilian newspaper, right after the end of the military rule, when the country was suffering all the turmoils of a return to democracy: A COUNTRY THAT NEEDS A MESSIAH, DOESN’T DESERVE ONE. Amen to that.
- Expectation engineering
- Commitment engineering
- Negotiation
Commitment engineering means to build alliances, to build support, to build a reputation for honesty, fairness and reliability, to stand your ground to the extent it is practically possible.
Negotiation depends on the personal qualities and personal reputation of the negotiators and of the knowledge that they truly represent the views and the interests of their constituencies. And on their ability to judge the position of their opponents, their views, their interests, the pressures they are under. The best negotiators are reasonable and humane, but skeptical and perceptive, with sound judgment. The worst negotiators are missionaries, fanatics and advocates, especially if they are unsure of their own constituencies. This makes new, inexperienced amateurs unreliable. They want to score too badly. The most common vice of negotiators, both experienced and inexperienced is vanity. Vanity breeds indiscretion and tactlessness.
The ideal negotiator is truthful, precise, composed, patient, modest and loyal.
In the Netherlands, we just had an election that forces the two big winners, centre-right and centre-left, to form a coalition government. From day one, the press is lamenting back-room politics, meaning they don’t know exactly what’s going on. But negotiation is essentially a back-room activity. All publicity during the negotiation phase is to influence what is happening in the back-room. Usually, it’s more to satisfy their own constituencies, then to influence the other party, even if it seems that the public utterances are directed to the other party.
The best possible outcome of a negotiation is when each party get gains that don’t cost too much to the other party. And where that is impossible, that compromises are fair - and workable. A lot of expectation engineering is necessary to make the commitment engineering work, both inside and outside the negotiation ‘back-room.’
The essential difficulty is that expectations are necessarily shaky in fields like economics as the dynamics are so complex and turbulent that the relationship between causes and effects is never clear-cut. Political decisions are a boulevard of broken dreams.
This seems one of the major reasons that politics becomes personalized. The more the destination is controversial, the more all routes to all destinations are insecure, the more trust in the captain is what counts. The media enlarge this, they don’t create this.
Politicians are no supermen and supergirls. Those that present themselves as such, should not be trusted. We should not imagine them to be that. I remember the lead caption of a Brazilian newspaper, right after the end of the military rule, when the country was suffering all the turmoils of a return to democracy: A COUNTRY THAT NEEDS A MESSIAH, DOESN’T DESERVE ONE. Amen to that.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Europe and the loss of national sovereignty
In reading about this subject, we have to wade through pools of crocodile tears.
What is the issue? The Netherlands may lose its unbounded right to overspend and build up deficits. Nice right!
It is simple: overspending delays and increases payback. So, if you are old, vote against ‘more Europe.’ If you are young, vote in favor of it.
I am in favor of individual freedom, that is, my personal freedom. I am quite willing to grant others their individual freedom - as long as they don’t impinge on mine. I don’t want people to have the freedom to steal my purse, to enter my house, to trample my garden, to take my books home. In the end, I have more freedom if the larger community restrains some freedoms.
My freedoms are even more restricted. I can’t do with my house what I want. I may grow as many trees in my garden as I want, but I can’t chop them down when I want. So many restrictions. Still, I live pretty free.
I don’t think national sovereignty is at stake by a 3% ceiling on overspending. The European Union consists of what Daniel Boorstin called ‘modern democratic societies where each people asserts its divine right to go to hell in its own particular way.’ (The Image, 1962, preface to the Pelican edition) The right to freely overspend is an aspect of that divine right.
What happens if we don’t accept such restrictions by Brussels? We will become dependent on the vagaries of the financial markets, where money slushes through the system in search of short-term advantages for small participants. That may not be evil, but it certainly is incredibly more volatile and threatening than any ceiling from Brussels.
I see quite an other problem. In the future, any political wish that a government doesn’t want to grant, can be blamed on Brussels. Like parents who can’t satisfy the wishes of their children, blaming it all the time on their bank who limits overspending. The point is, of course, that if you don’t overspend, the bank remains completely uninvolved with how you spend your money.
Of course, there are several other aspects of the trend to further federalization within Europe, like common banking laws and common bonds. We should not fear the loss of national freedoms, but the loss of individual freedoms and individual prosperity.
We also should maintain a free market as far as possible. But people and companies that have benefited from the free market attain positions in which the freedom of their enterprise is used to curtail that of others as much as possible. Free enterprise means freedom for new enterprises, not for established ones. You need a strong state to keep the markets free. An indebted state is not a strong state.
So, please, please, somewhat less national sovereignty please. Financial sovereignty doesn’t mean to lend as you please, but solvability and liquidity. The reigns should only be loosened in case of war, calamity or promising new infrastructures for energy and transport.
What is the issue? The Netherlands may lose its unbounded right to overspend and build up deficits. Nice right!
It is simple: overspending delays and increases payback. So, if you are old, vote against ‘more Europe.’ If you are young, vote in favor of it.
I am in favor of individual freedom, that is, my personal freedom. I am quite willing to grant others their individual freedom - as long as they don’t impinge on mine. I don’t want people to have the freedom to steal my purse, to enter my house, to trample my garden, to take my books home. In the end, I have more freedom if the larger community restrains some freedoms.
My freedoms are even more restricted. I can’t do with my house what I want. I may grow as many trees in my garden as I want, but I can’t chop them down when I want. So many restrictions. Still, I live pretty free.
I don’t think national sovereignty is at stake by a 3% ceiling on overspending. The European Union consists of what Daniel Boorstin called ‘modern democratic societies where each people asserts its divine right to go to hell in its own particular way.’ (The Image, 1962, preface to the Pelican edition) The right to freely overspend is an aspect of that divine right.
What happens if we don’t accept such restrictions by Brussels? We will become dependent on the vagaries of the financial markets, where money slushes through the system in search of short-term advantages for small participants. That may not be evil, but it certainly is incredibly more volatile and threatening than any ceiling from Brussels.
I see quite an other problem. In the future, any political wish that a government doesn’t want to grant, can be blamed on Brussels. Like parents who can’t satisfy the wishes of their children, blaming it all the time on their bank who limits overspending. The point is, of course, that if you don’t overspend, the bank remains completely uninvolved with how you spend your money.
Of course, there are several other aspects of the trend to further federalization within Europe, like common banking laws and common bonds. We should not fear the loss of national freedoms, but the loss of individual freedoms and individual prosperity.
We also should maintain a free market as far as possible. But people and companies that have benefited from the free market attain positions in which the freedom of their enterprise is used to curtail that of others as much as possible. Free enterprise means freedom for new enterprises, not for established ones. You need a strong state to keep the markets free. An indebted state is not a strong state.
So, please, please, somewhat less national sovereignty please. Financial sovereignty doesn’t mean to lend as you please, but solvability and liquidity. The reigns should only be loosened in case of war, calamity or promising new infrastructures for energy and transport.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Alignment
Alignment is about fine-tuning between efforts, factual circumstances, and personal skills and characteristics. Usually it is an intuitive quality, related to sensitivity. But it may be strengthened and fostered. What can be done about it?
The first thing is to be perceptive. In any situation that requires your own judgement, go to the spot, whenever possible. See the real situation and the real people working there. Look and hear and listen and feel. Get the smell. Hold things in your hand. Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time.
The second thing is to combine concentration with ease. Accomplish any task with undivided attention and a minimum of distraction and interruption. Avoid over-involvement if you can. Retain always some slack and ease. Pay attention to your bodily reactions - and those of others.
The third thing is to get rid of obsolete procedures and practices. Seek always the course of minimal resistance which brings you to your goal. Piggyback on available facilities and opportunities.
There is a simple recipe that covers all this, although it may be difficult to attain that simplicity: be in flow. Alignment brings flow. Flow brings alignment. How do you know that you are in flow? Because you forget the time.
Remove everything that hinders you to be in flow. If you can. If you can’t, at least minimize the frictions. Minimize your inner frictions: irritation, disappointment, deception, worry. If you can’t, consider to remove yourself. No use staying somewhere where alignment is made impossible. They say that wherever we go, we are always taking ourselves with us. That is true, but only a half-truth. Because wherever we stay, we absorb a lot of the conditions around us. The main thing is the irritation, disappointment, deception, worry of other people.
What are handicaps for alignment? The worst are also handicaps for all other aspect of Personal Mastery that I discussed before: clear-mindedness, decisiveness, equanimity and energy. This is my shortlist of common horrors:
1. Dominating, condemning, manipulative bosses.
2. Overly rigid systems. Too many rules and regulations.
3. Sad dogs spreading gloom
4. Your own over-qualification or under-qualification for the job.
5. Bad health.
Get moving. get back into flow.
The first thing is to be perceptive. In any situation that requires your own judgement, go to the spot, whenever possible. See the real situation and the real people working there. Look and hear and listen and feel. Get the smell. Hold things in your hand. Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time.
The second thing is to combine concentration with ease. Accomplish any task with undivided attention and a minimum of distraction and interruption. Avoid over-involvement if you can. Retain always some slack and ease. Pay attention to your bodily reactions - and those of others.
The third thing is to get rid of obsolete procedures and practices. Seek always the course of minimal resistance which brings you to your goal. Piggyback on available facilities and opportunities.
There is a simple recipe that covers all this, although it may be difficult to attain that simplicity: be in flow. Alignment brings flow. Flow brings alignment. How do you know that you are in flow? Because you forget the time.
Remove everything that hinders you to be in flow. If you can. If you can’t, at least minimize the frictions. Minimize your inner frictions: irritation, disappointment, deception, worry. If you can’t, consider to remove yourself. No use staying somewhere where alignment is made impossible. They say that wherever we go, we are always taking ourselves with us. That is true, but only a half-truth. Because wherever we stay, we absorb a lot of the conditions around us. The main thing is the irritation, disappointment, deception, worry of other people.
What are handicaps for alignment? The worst are also handicaps for all other aspect of Personal Mastery that I discussed before: clear-mindedness, decisiveness, equanimity and energy. This is my shortlist of common horrors:
1. Dominating, condemning, manipulative bosses.
2. Overly rigid systems. Too many rules and regulations.
3. Sad dogs spreading gloom
4. Your own over-qualification or under-qualification for the job.
5. Bad health.
Get moving. get back into flow.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Personal energy
For people who want to be more productive, there is nothing so effective as increasing their energy level. How do you do that, apart form taking drugs? First, become aware of what feeds your energy, what stimulates you, what makes you feel good and strong and happy. Avoid too much planning and rigidity, but go for these things. It may be music, it may be dance, it may be engaging stories, in talks, in books or movies. It is usually also good comapny. And it may be being alone in nature. "Into the wild." What inspires you? Go for that. It may be simply sunlight. Or the starry sky. Or Elliot's Four Quartets.
The next level is to find out what blocks your energy. We store suppressed energy in our body. How do you suppress and what do you suppress? Things we don't want to see, but we see them anyway. Things we want to say or to do, but we didn't. Everything we think and feel and sense and don't express, we suppress. An active body helps to digest that stress, but we can't release all pent-up energy by being active in things that have nothing to do with our frustrations.
The third level is to find out where we lose energy. Where are the leaks? Often we lose energy beacuse of other people: negative people, critical people, sad people, crazy people. We have to learn to stop our leaks.
The fourth level is to stop spending energy ineffectively or inefficently or both. Stop wasting your energy. What do you do that doesn't contribute to results or to happiness or both? Stop useless activities, at least diminish them. And if that even is impossible: spend as little energy on them as possible.
Spending energy wisely and effectively means results, success, recognition, satisfaction. Which feeds nicely back into increasing your energy level.
First of all, find your black holes: where your energy disappears inside yourself or outside yourself. What are infamous black holes? In ourselves: depression and confusion, impotent rage, pent-up frustration. Outside ourselves: dominating, condemning, manipulative people, especially bosses, partners and close family members. In the work place: overly rigid systems with too many rules and regulations. Or look at the interface between you and the outside world. If you are overqualified or underqualified for the job, you waste tons of energy.
And be particular about your health. But probably you are already aware of that.
In a program of improving Personal Mastery, improving your energy level is usually a good first step.
If you are energetic, and you are human and sane, you are inspiring. To inspire other people, does that increase or decrease your energy?
One last tip: you can't be always on the top of your energy. Use the low stretches for easy stuff and small stuff. Don't waste your good hours or your good days on the many trivia of everyday work and everyday life.
Accept that in growing older, your physical stamina may lessen, but that your mind may stay strong to the last.
The next level is to find out what blocks your energy. We store suppressed energy in our body. How do you suppress and what do you suppress? Things we don't want to see, but we see them anyway. Things we want to say or to do, but we didn't. Everything we think and feel and sense and don't express, we suppress. An active body helps to digest that stress, but we can't release all pent-up energy by being active in things that have nothing to do with our frustrations.
The third level is to find out where we lose energy. Where are the leaks? Often we lose energy beacuse of other people: negative people, critical people, sad people, crazy people. We have to learn to stop our leaks.
The fourth level is to stop spending energy ineffectively or inefficently or both. Stop wasting your energy. What do you do that doesn't contribute to results or to happiness or both? Stop useless activities, at least diminish them. And if that even is impossible: spend as little energy on them as possible.
Spending energy wisely and effectively means results, success, recognition, satisfaction. Which feeds nicely back into increasing your energy level.
First of all, find your black holes: where your energy disappears inside yourself or outside yourself. What are infamous black holes? In ourselves: depression and confusion, impotent rage, pent-up frustration. Outside ourselves: dominating, condemning, manipulative people, especially bosses, partners and close family members. In the work place: overly rigid systems with too many rules and regulations. Or look at the interface between you and the outside world. If you are overqualified or underqualified for the job, you waste tons of energy.
And be particular about your health. But probably you are already aware of that.
In a program of improving Personal Mastery, improving your energy level is usually a good first step.
If you are energetic, and you are human and sane, you are inspiring. To inspire other people, does that increase or decrease your energy?
One last tip: you can't be always on the top of your energy. Use the low stretches for easy stuff and small stuff. Don't waste your good hours or your good days on the many trivia of everyday work and everyday life.
Accept that in growing older, your physical stamina may lessen, but that your mind may stay strong to the last.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Decisiveness
Decisiveness is the third aspect of Personal Mastery. I consider it also a key aspect of leadership, the others being Presence and Vision. John Kennedy wrote already in Profiles of Courage that will is a most elusive power.
I remember many meetings in which explicitly and formally common decisions were reached - that were never executed. And, of course, some things are simply done, even when no decision has officially been taken. We know that also from our personal lives. Many plans, many decisions are never put into practice, while we do all kinds of things on impulse, both bad and good. We have truly systematically analyzed which car is the best for us or what house would be the ideal choice. and then we buy an other car, rent an other house. Decisions are the product of ratio, of emotion and of will. Decisiveness is the quality to end thinking and feeling and to go for something.
Why is decisiveness more rare than indecisiveness? Because decision commits us to the outcome of the decisions. Decisions are fateful. They will be seen and felt as our decisions. We ourselves are on the line, our reputation, our money, our future. We may succeed - and we may fail. Decisiveness separates the men from the boys - and the women from the girls. Strong men tremble before straightforward commitments like marriage and kids. I am not ready for a steady relationship yet. Those people never will.
There are several methodologies to avoid decisions. The first is smothering everything in vague wordings in which actions are hidden and actors even more. Political bureaucracies are full of avoidance behavior. To fail, especially conspicuously, is the fate worse than death. If a company is ailing, find out which managers didn't make mistakes in the last 3-5 years. Then fire them all.
The second methodology is to hide behind authorities, like the quotes of famous people or the reports of overpaid consultants.
The third methodology is to go to astrologers, psychics or consult other forms of divination.
Whatever the merits and demerits of these methods, there is no escape from responsibility. Even the decision-maker who delays, vacillates, hangs his ears to others, has to decide to delay and vacillate. Even when decisions are taken in a group, someone decided or allowed that the decision should be taken by a group.
I have met several directors who were intellectually or constitutionally unable to make decisions. They simply ended the meeting. Not once, but several times. Till they drove their people crazy. The only people who don't go crazy because of an indecisive boss are the ones who were crazy already.
Indecisiveness is the worst form of impotence. Worse still, it is highly contagious, which the other kind of impotence isn't.
There is this side of the universe no method to educate and change those who have made dodging responsibility and accountability into an art form. Someone has to kick ass, the most primitive form of decisiveness known to man.
There must be in hell a special corner for members of supervisory boards who maintain an indecisive executive. Now I think of it, there must be many corners.
Courage without wisdom becomes recklessness. Wisdom without courage becomes cowardice. Of course, sometimes we should not decide, that is, we should decide to wait and see. For the moment. Our first two aspects of Personal Mastery are necessary to prevent decisiveness degenerating in blind and feverish chaotic actions. Clear-mindedness and Equanimity, remember!
What helps to be decisive? A clear mission. A clear role. Mental and physical health. A good energy level. Spirit.
Don't try to make people more decisive. Give them clear roles in an organization with a clear mission. And look for drive and energy when hiring them - unless they lack common sense and some calm. And for God's sake, give them a decisive boss.
I remember many meetings in which explicitly and formally common decisions were reached - that were never executed. And, of course, some things are simply done, even when no decision has officially been taken. We know that also from our personal lives. Many plans, many decisions are never put into practice, while we do all kinds of things on impulse, both bad and good. We have truly systematically analyzed which car is the best for us or what house would be the ideal choice. and then we buy an other car, rent an other house. Decisions are the product of ratio, of emotion and of will. Decisiveness is the quality to end thinking and feeling and to go for something.
Why is decisiveness more rare than indecisiveness? Because decision commits us to the outcome of the decisions. Decisions are fateful. They will be seen and felt as our decisions. We ourselves are on the line, our reputation, our money, our future. We may succeed - and we may fail. Decisiveness separates the men from the boys - and the women from the girls. Strong men tremble before straightforward commitments like marriage and kids. I am not ready for a steady relationship yet. Those people never will.
There are several methodologies to avoid decisions. The first is smothering everything in vague wordings in which actions are hidden and actors even more. Political bureaucracies are full of avoidance behavior. To fail, especially conspicuously, is the fate worse than death. If a company is ailing, find out which managers didn't make mistakes in the last 3-5 years. Then fire them all.
The second methodology is to hide behind authorities, like the quotes of famous people or the reports of overpaid consultants.
The third methodology is to go to astrologers, psychics or consult other forms of divination.
Whatever the merits and demerits of these methods, there is no escape from responsibility. Even the decision-maker who delays, vacillates, hangs his ears to others, has to decide to delay and vacillate. Even when decisions are taken in a group, someone decided or allowed that the decision should be taken by a group.
I have met several directors who were intellectually or constitutionally unable to make decisions. They simply ended the meeting. Not once, but several times. Till they drove their people crazy. The only people who don't go crazy because of an indecisive boss are the ones who were crazy already.
Indecisiveness is the worst form of impotence. Worse still, it is highly contagious, which the other kind of impotence isn't.
There is this side of the universe no method to educate and change those who have made dodging responsibility and accountability into an art form. Someone has to kick ass, the most primitive form of decisiveness known to man.
There must be in hell a special corner for members of supervisory boards who maintain an indecisive executive. Now I think of it, there must be many corners.
Courage without wisdom becomes recklessness. Wisdom without courage becomes cowardice. Of course, sometimes we should not decide, that is, we should decide to wait and see. For the moment. Our first two aspects of Personal Mastery are necessary to prevent decisiveness degenerating in blind and feverish chaotic actions. Clear-mindedness and Equanimity, remember!
What helps to be decisive? A clear mission. A clear role. Mental and physical health. A good energy level. Spirit.
Don't try to make people more decisive. Give them clear roles in an organization with a clear mission. And look for drive and energy when hiring them - unless they lack common sense and some calm. And for God's sake, give them a decisive boss.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Equanimity
Equanimity is the second aspect of Personal Mastery. Equanimity is calm when conditions are stormy. Keeping afloat when the waves grow higher. Having all the time in the world when an urgent reaction is essential for survival. Now zombies are always calm. They are half-dead. I don't mean that kind of calm. That is the kind of calm that kills when we need to respond to survive. I mean the kind of calm that ensures a proper response.
It reminds me of a story about Von Moltke, the architect of the Prussian Generalstab during the war against Austria in 1866. When the High Command, filled with the king and many princes of the blood got word of a lost battle, they clamored for immediate action. Von Moltke agreed that certainly something needed to be done and that he would do that right away: smoke one of his best cigars. He lighted that cigar with the utmost care and precision. They ran over Austria anyway. Why? While they had an excellent strategy that could easily absorb a tactical setback. Von Moltke knew this. He retained peace of mind.
The opposite of equanimity is uncontrolled, blinding excitement: bursts of emotional words and impulsive deeds. I guy called Adolf Hitler did that, drove his generals crazy and wasted his armies. Two cardinal sins, especially the first.
A lively mind under calm conditions that is calm under lively conditions, that is personal mastery, an aspect of personal mastery.
Clear-mindedness, what I discussed before, certainly helps to retain equanimity, as it puts things in their proper perspective.
So equanimity is a quality that almost sleeps under normal conditions and shines brighter when the conditions darken. It has survival value in crises. Equanimity is important in meeting enemies, but also in working with allies who are impulsive, petty-minded or weak.
Managers who are meeting one crisis after an other, usually try to dampen fires that they let burn for too long or - even worse - they have lighted themselves are well-known. In Brazil they are called bombeiros, fire-fighters, running from one fire to another. Often, they wait for fires to flare up, as they are incapable to deal with threats that are foreseen, but not yet actual. Of course, the best way to deal with crises is to nip them in the bud, not to wait for the full-grown variety. Those people are addicted to conflict and crisis, like some fire-fighters are actually arsonists.
Also in private life, we know people that are running from one problem to the other, always running after the facts, huffing and puffing, complaining, blaming everybody, sometimes even themselves. How do you recognize such a person even when meeting him or her for the first time? They make a lot of unnecessary movements, they talk a lot of unnecessary words and they drain your energy. People without equanimity often hate people with it.
What kind of people need equanimity the most? Judges, mediators, marriage counselors. Police. And real fire-fighters.
Equanimity ensures effective, even graceful response. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
It reminds me of a story about Von Moltke, the architect of the Prussian Generalstab during the war against Austria in 1866. When the High Command, filled with the king and many princes of the blood got word of a lost battle, they clamored for immediate action. Von Moltke agreed that certainly something needed to be done and that he would do that right away: smoke one of his best cigars. He lighted that cigar with the utmost care and precision. They ran over Austria anyway. Why? While they had an excellent strategy that could easily absorb a tactical setback. Von Moltke knew this. He retained peace of mind.
The opposite of equanimity is uncontrolled, blinding excitement: bursts of emotional words and impulsive deeds. I guy called Adolf Hitler did that, drove his generals crazy and wasted his armies. Two cardinal sins, especially the first.
A lively mind under calm conditions that is calm under lively conditions, that is personal mastery, an aspect of personal mastery.
Clear-mindedness, what I discussed before, certainly helps to retain equanimity, as it puts things in their proper perspective.
So equanimity is a quality that almost sleeps under normal conditions and shines brighter when the conditions darken. It has survival value in crises. Equanimity is important in meeting enemies, but also in working with allies who are impulsive, petty-minded or weak.
Managers who are meeting one crisis after an other, usually try to dampen fires that they let burn for too long or - even worse - they have lighted themselves are well-known. In Brazil they are called bombeiros, fire-fighters, running from one fire to another. Often, they wait for fires to flare up, as they are incapable to deal with threats that are foreseen, but not yet actual. Of course, the best way to deal with crises is to nip them in the bud, not to wait for the full-grown variety. Those people are addicted to conflict and crisis, like some fire-fighters are actually arsonists.
Also in private life, we know people that are running from one problem to the other, always running after the facts, huffing and puffing, complaining, blaming everybody, sometimes even themselves. How do you recognize such a person even when meeting him or her for the first time? They make a lot of unnecessary movements, they talk a lot of unnecessary words and they drain your energy. People without equanimity often hate people with it.
What kind of people need equanimity the most? Judges, mediators, marriage counselors. Police. And real fire-fighters.
Equanimity ensures effective, even graceful response. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Clear-mindedness
My program about Personal Mastery starts with clear-mindedness. I can't think of any human endeavor in which a clear mind is not an asset. To use our intellect, but also to use our intuition, calm and clear-mindedness help. And if we are very emotional? When we are depressed, very much irritated, deeply worried, radiantly happy or simply in love? Even then clear-mindedness helps. Not to get out of this emotional state, but to experience it fully. When we are clear-minded about our anger, the anger is not less, but different. The difference is between being on an only half-tamed horse as a sack of potatoes that curses the horse or as an accomplished rider who values the horse. Facts are as they are. Our emotions are as they are. And we face them.
So why would we prefer to be 'vague-minded' or drowsy? To dull our awareness, to lessen responsibility, to lessen pain. Clear-mindedness is experiencing things without anesthetics - and without stimulants. Clear-mindedness is to be without drugs, physical or psychological.
Clear-mindedness may be painful: when the facts are painful, when our emotions are painful. But to stay clear-minded is the fastest way out of the pain. Clear-mindedness is the best catalyst of transformation. The enemies of clear-mindedness are irritation, worry, disappointment and self-pity. And raw fear.
In workshops we have the participants find out when they need clear-mindedness the most in their work or in their life, which external factors and which personal factors foster clear-mindedness and which external and internal factors lessen clear-mindedness. A clear-minded view on these factors brings the mind to rest. Our mental representation of the world comes to rest and the fog dissolves. Facing the facts, facing the different personalities with their different backgrounds and views and interests. Facing our own personality, our own background, our own views, our own interests. When our mind is clear, we find our way better, we see the wood from the trees, we realize what we are doing in this wood. Maybe just getting lost.
Without clear-mindedness visions and goals remain blurred and limited and shifting. Clear-mindedness lifts us out of the mire, creates the firm ground we seek. From clear-mindedness we may pursue the other aspects of personal mastery: equanimity, decisiveness, energy and alignment.
So why would we prefer to be 'vague-minded' or drowsy? To dull our awareness, to lessen responsibility, to lessen pain. Clear-mindedness is experiencing things without anesthetics - and without stimulants. Clear-mindedness is to be without drugs, physical or psychological.
Clear-mindedness may be painful: when the facts are painful, when our emotions are painful. But to stay clear-minded is the fastest way out of the pain. Clear-mindedness is the best catalyst of transformation. The enemies of clear-mindedness are irritation, worry, disappointment and self-pity. And raw fear.
In workshops we have the participants find out when they need clear-mindedness the most in their work or in their life, which external factors and which personal factors foster clear-mindedness and which external and internal factors lessen clear-mindedness. A clear-minded view on these factors brings the mind to rest. Our mental representation of the world comes to rest and the fog dissolves. Facing the facts, facing the different personalities with their different backgrounds and views and interests. Facing our own personality, our own background, our own views, our own interests. When our mind is clear, we find our way better, we see the wood from the trees, we realize what we are doing in this wood. Maybe just getting lost.
Without clear-mindedness visions and goals remain blurred and limited and shifting. Clear-mindedness lifts us out of the mire, creates the firm ground we seek. From clear-mindedness we may pursue the other aspects of personal mastery: equanimity, decisiveness, energy and alignment.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
OVERPAID MANAGERS?
By a quirk of evolution, managers earn more than the people they manage. There is usually a good reason for that: more responsibility. But as the results of managers are more intangible than of cooks or archtitects or surgeons, people who prefer to avoid clear-cut and concrete activities tend to flee into staff positions and into general management. If the results of managers are measured at all, they are usually measured in numbers. That's what's nice in finance: all numbers - whatever they mean. Numbers can be manipulated and interpreted and there is a broad repertory to hide behind numbers. Positive business results are explained by good management, negative results by external circumstances. Read a few annual reports and you'll know what I mean. Balance sheets and annual statements are riddled by assumptions, estimates and conventions. How are stocks valued? What is overhead? Reserves are increased or decreased at the stroke of a pen. Goodwill is also a favorite fantasy number.
When the product of an organization is produced by professionals, it has become more and more common that "general managers" take over. Schools are led by people who never have taught, department stores are led by people who never have been selling. Marketing is more intangible than selling, market development is even more intangible and strategy even more. And what about people who pride themselves to be responsible for visioning? Whatever we may think of this, one consequence is that professionals resent to be managed by people who don't understand their work and manage by numbers - and earn much more than they ever will do. Departments are downsized, while the top is upsized, in numbers and in remuneration.
In board rooms we might find people that are so removed form the real work and real performance that the only thing they can do is buying and selling companies.
More and more publicity is about managers being overpaid. There is, at least for professional organizations, a solution that is as simple as it is elegant: managers of professional groups may never earn more than the best paid professional under them. The director of an architectural firm may not earn more than the best-paid architect. Hospital directors may not earn more than the best-paid medical doctor. School directors not more than the best-paid teacher. Marketing managers not more than the best-paid salesperson.
Professionals will like that. It also means that they have a real choice to go into management or to make a career within their profession. Most managers will not like this solution. The argument will be that an organization will lose it best managers, because they can earn more elsewhere. That doubles the benefit: what you lose, your competitor has to put up with.
Management, by the way, is an essential function. It deserves to be paid well. But people who do the real work also have an essential function. And they deserve to be paid well also.
As a management consultant I have seen many managers. Rarely the best, because they didn't need me. Rarely the worst, because they kept me out. Unless I was hired by a desperate outside board. By the way, managers should earn more than management consultants.
When the product of an organization is produced by professionals, it has become more and more common that "general managers" take over. Schools are led by people who never have taught, department stores are led by people who never have been selling. Marketing is more intangible than selling, market development is even more intangible and strategy even more. And what about people who pride themselves to be responsible for visioning? Whatever we may think of this, one consequence is that professionals resent to be managed by people who don't understand their work and manage by numbers - and earn much more than they ever will do. Departments are downsized, while the top is upsized, in numbers and in remuneration.
In board rooms we might find people that are so removed form the real work and real performance that the only thing they can do is buying and selling companies.
More and more publicity is about managers being overpaid. There is, at least for professional organizations, a solution that is as simple as it is elegant: managers of professional groups may never earn more than the best paid professional under them. The director of an architectural firm may not earn more than the best-paid architect. Hospital directors may not earn more than the best-paid medical doctor. School directors not more than the best-paid teacher. Marketing managers not more than the best-paid salesperson.
Professionals will like that. It also means that they have a real choice to go into management or to make a career within their profession. Most managers will not like this solution. The argument will be that an organization will lose it best managers, because they can earn more elsewhere. That doubles the benefit: what you lose, your competitor has to put up with.
Management, by the way, is an essential function. It deserves to be paid well. But people who do the real work also have an essential function. And they deserve to be paid well also.
As a management consultant I have seen many managers. Rarely the best, because they didn't need me. Rarely the worst, because they kept me out. Unless I was hired by a desperate outside board. By the way, managers should earn more than management consultants.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The rational use of intuition
In the near future I will indulge in an old habit: giving seminars on Management and Intuition. I remember the first time I did that with a colleague. We were curious about the evaluations afterwards. After all, intuition is a slippery subject for managers who usually pride themselves on being rational. We relaxed when we saw the scores, but I was really surprised when I realized that the highest score was on an item I didn't expect at all: practical applicability.
Yes, intuition is immensely practical, though we can misapply it. Enthusiasts think it is a highway to infallible judgement. Well, it isn't.
Intuition is the general label for getting thoughts without knowing how we get them. Rational thinking or, better, intellectual thinking is transparent: we deal with information and with argumentation. We can check that, we can evaluate that. Intuition is immediate. I have often compared our intellect to a plodding, pretty reliable housewife an intuition to a femme fatale: highly attractive, but not too trustworthy. Yet, intellectual analysis also leads often astray and intuition may be spot on - as many men discovered after not listening to their wives.
A blog is no place to expand on how to use intuition, but pointers may be derived from understanding what it is. Intuitive flashes have five sources:
Intuition may precede rational analysis (this is something we should look into), it may end rational analysis (we are ready to take a decision). Making intuition more explicit and more hygienic (less associations, less quasi-intellectual arguments) helps us to become more rational, not less.
Yes, intuition is immensely practical, though we can misapply it. Enthusiasts think it is a highway to infallible judgement. Well, it isn't.
Intuition is the general label for getting thoughts without knowing how we get them. Rational thinking or, better, intellectual thinking is transparent: we deal with information and with argumentation. We can check that, we can evaluate that. Intuition is immediate. I have often compared our intellect to a plodding, pretty reliable housewife an intuition to a femme fatale: highly attractive, but not too trustworthy. Yet, intellectual analysis also leads often astray and intuition may be spot on - as many men discovered after not listening to their wives.
A blog is no place to expand on how to use intuition, but pointers may be derived from understanding what it is. Intuitive flashes have five sources:
- Experience: we often react immediately because we have encountered very many similar situations; also without analysis we may appraise fast and pretty sure what we meet.
- Subconscious perception: this is the kind of intuition in which women on the average score higher than men; besides the focus of our attention we register many other weaker signals. Concentration is a virtue, but not overdoing that also is virtue. This is about picking up the non-verbal signals of speakers, grasping the atmosphere of a meeting, etc.
- Incubated insight: after fruitlessly pondering and analyzing deeply, we sleep on it, and suddenly the answer pops up. This is the in psychology well-known Aha-Erlebnis.
- Subconscious association: this is where intuition usually goes wrong. A man gives us the creeps and we don't know why. He resembles uncle Albert, who was a creep, but we don't realize the resemblance, we just get a bad feeling.
- Psychic impressions: whatever they are, they are related to a part of our brain going into the very slow delta-rhythm. Telepathy seems to be in this zone.
Intuition may precede rational analysis (this is something we should look into), it may end rational analysis (we are ready to take a decision). Making intuition more explicit and more hygienic (less associations, less quasi-intellectual arguments) helps us to become more rational, not less.
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