'Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
George Bernard Shaw wrote this over one hundred years ago, and yet he could have written it today. What evidence do we have to today to say it is not true?
Television viewing figures?
Newspaper circulation?
Radio listening figures?
Blockbuster Hollywood movies?
Need I go on?
Worse than this is the general, all pervading skepticism of thought, as if to think deeply about something is unnecessary and somehow threatening to people. People as Shaw said, don’t like to think and worse don’t like to be confronted with thought.
Instead, they want to outsource their thought about the state of our world and country to policy makers and government. Not only that, people seem to be continually content to do so and when invited to think or make a contribution they react with effrontery, as if it a job of someone else to do that for them.
Without thinking, how can there be personal responsibility? It can always be someone else’s fault. Reference the endless stream of regulation and law designed to protect people. We certainly need laws in a civilized society to protect the weak from exploitation from the strong, but do we need laws to protect the lazy of mind? Not only are such laws unnecessary, they have damaging consequences for all. They encourage a cultural that leads to the optionality of personal responsibility
This refusal to think does not only afflict those unfortunate enough to not have had a decent education or who have disadvantaged in some way. It is evident everywhere, and most offensively in the ranks of the educated middle class (if one is allowed to use that term these days, and even if one isn’t, I will)
The temptation to remain at the most superficial of levels when talking about difficult issues is endemic, and any effort to delve further and tease out further issues is met with distain and disapproval. And as for disagreeing with what someone else has said, that is the highest of social faux pas,
Unless it involves preferring Britain’s got talent to X factor.
So often it seems to me that conversations are more about finding points of agreement and avoiding points of disagreement, A useful approach if we are engaged in brokering peace in the middle east, but not I would suggest if we are seeking to learn more about ourselves and the world we live in. This happens constantly in work meetings. Two people start with opposing views, both credible and plausible, and yet instead of making their cases powerfully and eloquently, seeking to persuade the others of the merit of their view over the other, they each seek out areas, however small, where they can find common ground so as to give themselves the illusion of agreement. Giving everyone a nice warm feeling but getting nowhere. Only to subsequently discover that another decision has been taken outside the governance of that group. Most Chairs see their role as maintaining agreement rather than creating an environment in which positive decisions can be reached through rich, respectful challenge and debate.
It seems that conflict must be avoided at all costs, consequently we sacrifice interesting robust stimulating conversation on the alter of keeping the peace. And so we satisfy ourselves with anodyne trivial conversation.
Of course people can and should be free to choose how to live their lives and who am I to tell them otherwise? I may well think that their lives could be richer if they lifted their head a bit higher and examined things more deeply. I may be right (I may not be) but that still does not give me the right to tell people what they ought to do.
I can however; I think point out the consequences of obviating their responsibilities. An unthinking, uncritical population is a delight to governments and major global corporations.
A population that can be swayed by the most superficial of arguments enables those in power to achieve their aims when they have the resources and connections to influence and manipulate. History is overrun with examples of how easy it is for those in power to extend that power, (For a great example see Naomi Wolf’s End of America: letters of warning to a young patriot)
If we are unable to, or more precisely choose not to engage in deeper thinking about what touches our immediate lives, then we will lose the desire and possibly, even the capacity to think critical about wider issues.
We will then become the lawful prey of unscrupulous politicians and ambitious global corporations.
Wednesday 4 August 2010
Sunday 1 August 2010
Children
Children are great. No, that’s not a big enough word, we need a bigger one; boundless. There is more to be learnt about life and love, from the eyes of a child than from all the philosophy, poetry and scholarly wisdom combined, Even Shakespeare cannot compare.
All we need to do is look and feel and just stay with it. It is simple.
All we need to do is look and feel and just stay with it. It is simple.
Tuesday 27 July 2010
talent-A thought
It is the ability to listen, assimilate and be relevant that distinguishes talent from the rest.
Sunday 18 July 2010
Recommendation
Sunday 11 July 2010
Saturday 10 July 2010
Now is all there is.
How often do we really live in the moment, in the here and now? We know when it happens:
When we see a sunset, and feel its impact, as it reaches out and touches us,
When a piece of music transports us to a place and transcends our understanding,
When a smile from our children banishes in an instant our pre- occupations,
And the touch of a hand from the one you love, causes your heart to leap,
These are moments of real clarity that we experience in the present. They are pure, nurturing and real. And yet these experiences are in the minority when compared to the rest of our lives, why is that?
What is that we are doing so that these moments of clarity are crowded out, and are reserved for times when events “break through”?
Most of these moments happen as a result of something external to us. They arise as a result of an external stimulus. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be like this all the time, without the need of something or someone else to take us there?
Could it be that we spend so much time dreaming of a future that never arrives, that binds us into a state of suspended happiness, and the now becomes a place we are passing through, rather the only real true place to be.
“I can’t wait for my holiday”
“All will be fine when I have that new………….”
“I will rest at the weekend”
If the now is reduced to a place on the way to somewhere better, we will never arrive there.
Our evolutionary past puts us in a state of constant want. A want for water, food shelter, all of which in their day carried significant positive or negative survival payoffs, but this is now largely a redundant requirement and yet the want still exists. It gets channeled elsewhere. This constant wanting traps us into a confusion of where happiness lies. It sets up a dynamic of constantly looking for a better tomorrow, at the expense of living today. (That may well have been appropriate when if we didn’t plan for tomorrow we may have run out of food or been eaten by a sabre toothed tiger).
We end up being sad in the pleasures of today, because we are unable to stop thinking about all the good things we do not yet have.
We have also developed an addiction to the pleasure of the senses at the expense of a deeper pleasure of sustainable satisfaction.
So how about we find 30 minutes everyday to do nothing other than look at the sky, hear the rustling of the trees, listen to that piece of music, close our eyes and breath, and smile because NOW is all there is.
How often do we really live in the moment, in the here and now? We know when it happens:
When we see a sunset, and feel its impact, as it reaches out and touches us,
When a piece of music transports us to a place and transcends our understanding,
When a smile from our children banishes in an instant our pre- occupations,
And the touch of a hand from the one you love, causes your heart to leap,
These are moments of real clarity that we experience in the present. They are pure, nurturing and real. And yet these experiences are in the minority when compared to the rest of our lives, why is that?
What is that we are doing so that these moments of clarity are crowded out, and are reserved for times when events “break through”?
Most of these moments happen as a result of something external to us. They arise as a result of an external stimulus. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be like this all the time, without the need of something or someone else to take us there?
Could it be that we spend so much time dreaming of a future that never arrives, that binds us into a state of suspended happiness, and the now becomes a place we are passing through, rather the only real true place to be.
“I can’t wait for my holiday”
“All will be fine when I have that new………….”
“I will rest at the weekend”
If the now is reduced to a place on the way to somewhere better, we will never arrive there.
Our evolutionary past puts us in a state of constant want. A want for water, food shelter, all of which in their day carried significant positive or negative survival payoffs, but this is now largely a redundant requirement and yet the want still exists. It gets channeled elsewhere. This constant wanting traps us into a confusion of where happiness lies. It sets up a dynamic of constantly looking for a better tomorrow, at the expense of living today. (That may well have been appropriate when if we didn’t plan for tomorrow we may have run out of food or been eaten by a sabre toothed tiger).
We end up being sad in the pleasures of today, because we are unable to stop thinking about all the good things we do not yet have.
We have also developed an addiction to the pleasure of the senses at the expense of a deeper pleasure of sustainable satisfaction.
So how about we find 30 minutes everyday to do nothing other than look at the sky, hear the rustling of the trees, listen to that piece of music, close our eyes and breath, and smile because NOW is all there is.
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Horrifying but sadly not surprising-A sequel
Horrifying but sadly not surprising-A sequel
My recent note, chronicling my friend John’s experience at the hands of Comet precipitated an unprecedented level of response. Mostly from John naturally, who would be consulting a lawyer, if he could find one he could bear to be in the company of for the time it would take to instruct them, to sue me for breach of privacy.
And so at the risk of further upsetting him, but in the certain knowledge that no legal action will follow, I thought I would share with you my experience at John Lewis today. Which in case I didn’t mention it in my earlier note was one of the establishments I suggested, nay implored John to buy his camera from.
In advance of a trip to Worcester and then on to Cheltenham tomorrow I was in need of a satellite navigation system, having totally lost the ability to drive and read a map at the same time due to over reliance on them. It strikes me as I write this, that this is just the sort of thing I ought, with my grumpy old man signature, rile against. Lost art of map reading, idiots driving their cars into the sea because they slavishly follow, children not knowing whether Scotland is North or South (although not knowing where Scotland is may not be a great loss), etc…. you know the sort of thing, I can even hear myself saying all this. So am I going to return it to John Lewis tomorrow, on account of this belated self-discovery? Of course not! Where’s the fun in that? One should never let the facts get in the way of a good story, nor should one strive for personal internal consistency that road most assuredly leads to madness.
Anyway back to my experience at the shop John should have gone to.
I arrived, parked the car, I should perhaps at this stage explain why I needed a new satellite navigation system (I am sorry I cannot bring myself to say or type the usual abbreviation), or more specifically why I own a car that doesn’t have one in it already.
As some of you will know I do have a tendency to oscillate between the opposite ends of the automobile spectrum; an Aston Martin followed by a 6 year old diesel Audi and a Porsche 911 followed by a Toyota Prius (before they became fashionable in Hollywood I should say) So the disposal of my 6.3 litre Mercedes in exchange for a Mini is following a familiar well worn pattern. As to the underlying motivation and psychological fragility this demonstrates, that is between my therapist and me!
So back to where John should have been last week. I entered the store, walked past, well to be honest I am not sure what I walked past, shops do not hold a great attraction for me, primarily because they usually contain a lot of people. Down the escalator, turned right and right again, towards the computers and televisions and arrived at the desk. I had barely stopped when I smart polite man said, “Can I help you sir?” I confess a joyous feeling came over me at that moment, not because I was about to receive excellent service, but because later today I knew I would be writing this, schadenfreude I believe it is know as in Germany. Unbecoming as it maybe, but the instinctive pleasure we feel when misfortune befalls someone else, All in the shop John should have gone to. How very delicious!
“I would like a satellite Navigation System please” stressing the full use of the name rather than the usual abbreviation. “Certainly sir on the wall over there, let me show you” I turned to see an array of 12or so systems. This will be interesting I thought to myself.
We arrived, I paused, He sensed my hesitation, “Will you be needing European maps?”
“No”
“That rules these 4 out, would you like traffic updates?”
“No”
“That rules these out, so you are left with these four, big screen or small screen?”
“Big”
“That leaves a choice of two, they both do the same thing, this one has an extra feature, it is programmed to “know” when certain roads are likely to be busy”
“I’ll take that one”
He disappeared to retrieve one, returned and before I could enquire, he said it was all ready to go, no need for batteries or anything else. I thanked him and walked over to the check out. Hardly able to contain my pleasure at the thought of sitting here writing this.
He was smart, bright courteous, knew his product, not once did he try to sell me anything, he helped me buy.
So I was in and out in about 7 minutes.
I have been agonising for the last 10 minutes, as to whether I should include this next episode. I should I have concluded.
I walked over to the check out area. I was met by a tall man wearing what was a Spivey suit, not in-keeping with the John Lewis brand I thought. I then looked up and he had one of those hairstyles that isn’t a style at all, in which the hair has been groomed to go in different directions at the same time. Ah no matter I thought, or in the modern vernacular “whatever”
“Is this for you sir?” Oh please is it really necessary to try to engage me in mindless conversation, I thought. And then realised that the previous assistant had not done that at all,
He provide me with the information, no more no less, I had thanked him for his help, he had said it was a pleasure and I was gone.
And now this goon wants to spoil it all by talking to me.
“Planning to do a lot of driving?” was his next attempt.
Do you recall that moment in the first Terminator film, when he is asked a question and we see the various possible responses he could use on the computer screen in his eye? Fortunately for all, I chose the last option my mind presented me with-“say nothing”
So it appears they are in fact everywhere!
My recent note, chronicling my friend John’s experience at the hands of Comet precipitated an unprecedented level of response. Mostly from John naturally, who would be consulting a lawyer, if he could find one he could bear to be in the company of for the time it would take to instruct them, to sue me for breach of privacy.
And so at the risk of further upsetting him, but in the certain knowledge that no legal action will follow, I thought I would share with you my experience at John Lewis today. Which in case I didn’t mention it in my earlier note was one of the establishments I suggested, nay implored John to buy his camera from.
In advance of a trip to Worcester and then on to Cheltenham tomorrow I was in need of a satellite navigation system, having totally lost the ability to drive and read a map at the same time due to over reliance on them. It strikes me as I write this, that this is just the sort of thing I ought, with my grumpy old man signature, rile against. Lost art of map reading, idiots driving their cars into the sea because they slavishly follow, children not knowing whether Scotland is North or South (although not knowing where Scotland is may not be a great loss), etc…. you know the sort of thing, I can even hear myself saying all this. So am I going to return it to John Lewis tomorrow, on account of this belated self-discovery? Of course not! Where’s the fun in that? One should never let the facts get in the way of a good story, nor should one strive for personal internal consistency that road most assuredly leads to madness.
Anyway back to my experience at the shop John should have gone to.
I arrived, parked the car, I should perhaps at this stage explain why I needed a new satellite navigation system (I am sorry I cannot bring myself to say or type the usual abbreviation), or more specifically why I own a car that doesn’t have one in it already.
As some of you will know I do have a tendency to oscillate between the opposite ends of the automobile spectrum; an Aston Martin followed by a 6 year old diesel Audi and a Porsche 911 followed by a Toyota Prius (before they became fashionable in Hollywood I should say) So the disposal of my 6.3 litre Mercedes in exchange for a Mini is following a familiar well worn pattern. As to the underlying motivation and psychological fragility this demonstrates, that is between my therapist and me!
So back to where John should have been last week. I entered the store, walked past, well to be honest I am not sure what I walked past, shops do not hold a great attraction for me, primarily because they usually contain a lot of people. Down the escalator, turned right and right again, towards the computers and televisions and arrived at the desk. I had barely stopped when I smart polite man said, “Can I help you sir?” I confess a joyous feeling came over me at that moment, not because I was about to receive excellent service, but because later today I knew I would be writing this, schadenfreude I believe it is know as in Germany. Unbecoming as it maybe, but the instinctive pleasure we feel when misfortune befalls someone else, All in the shop John should have gone to. How very delicious!
“I would like a satellite Navigation System please” stressing the full use of the name rather than the usual abbreviation. “Certainly sir on the wall over there, let me show you” I turned to see an array of 12or so systems. This will be interesting I thought to myself.
We arrived, I paused, He sensed my hesitation, “Will you be needing European maps?”
“No”
“That rules these 4 out, would you like traffic updates?”
“No”
“That rules these out, so you are left with these four, big screen or small screen?”
“Big”
“That leaves a choice of two, they both do the same thing, this one has an extra feature, it is programmed to “know” when certain roads are likely to be busy”
“I’ll take that one”
He disappeared to retrieve one, returned and before I could enquire, he said it was all ready to go, no need for batteries or anything else. I thanked him and walked over to the check out. Hardly able to contain my pleasure at the thought of sitting here writing this.
He was smart, bright courteous, knew his product, not once did he try to sell me anything, he helped me buy.
So I was in and out in about 7 minutes.
I have been agonising for the last 10 minutes, as to whether I should include this next episode. I should I have concluded.
I walked over to the check out area. I was met by a tall man wearing what was a Spivey suit, not in-keeping with the John Lewis brand I thought. I then looked up and he had one of those hairstyles that isn’t a style at all, in which the hair has been groomed to go in different directions at the same time. Ah no matter I thought, or in the modern vernacular “whatever”
“Is this for you sir?” Oh please is it really necessary to try to engage me in mindless conversation, I thought. And then realised that the previous assistant had not done that at all,
He provide me with the information, no more no less, I had thanked him for his help, he had said it was a pleasure and I was gone.
And now this goon wants to spoil it all by talking to me.
“Planning to do a lot of driving?” was his next attempt.
Do you recall that moment in the first Terminator film, when he is asked a question and we see the various possible responses he could use on the computer screen in his eye? Fortunately for all, I chose the last option my mind presented me with-“say nothing”
So it appears they are in fact everywhere!
More?
While we all are running faster to fit more into our lives, so we can shop more, have more, buy more, play more, eat more and then diet more, talk more, holiday more and generally just do more; reflect on this:
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. – Albert Einstein.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. – Albert Einstein.
Sunday 4 July 2010
An Authentic Life
An Authentic Life
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not be false to any man.
—Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Much is made of the word “Authentic”; it peppers our discussions and journals. Much like the word “love”, it is thrown around and tossed into conversations so that its purer, perfect meaning is diminished by its overuse. Here we will look at what it might mean to live an authentic life.
An Authentic life is one where we live according to the needs of our inner being, rather than the demands of society or our early conditioning. That is not to say that if we are leading a life that accords to societal norms we cannot be leading an authentic life. The critical distinguishing feature is having an understanding and awareness of what is driving our behaviour, rather simply conforming to the received wisdom of society.
Such behaviour may therefore accord with cultural norms, but for the reason that those norms appear on consideration to be appropriate, rather than blindly, simply because they happen to be the current norms. Such authenticity is a positive outcome of examined and informed motivation rather than a negative outcome of rejection of the expectations of others.
Living true to one’s self does not therefore mean we do not consider or take account of others and their expectations. If we accept as human beings we are innately built with a moral compass and an ethical barometer, being true to ourselves will necessarily require being considerate to the interests and feelings of others. There are challenges and difficulties associated with this; it is problematic to really understand what is driving our behaviour; cultural norms or core beliefs.
How do we reconcile being true to our core beliefs when to do so would be upsetting and/or offensive to others?
Andre Gide the 20th century French novelist wrote:
“It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not”
“Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable”.
Much is written about the need to be authentic in a working environment, legions of books are written on “Authentic Leadership” A quick search on Google will reveal hundreds upon hundreds of such books as well as consultants offering transformational experiential courses and interventions on Authenticity
If we stop for a moment, and start from a different place. Authentic leadership? What do these gurus mean by that? Presumably there is something we should indentify as inauthentic leadership, and authentic leadership would be the opposite of that. Well what would that look like?
If the opposite of a statement is so clearly absurd, the statement itself can hardly be considered to be insightful, or set us on a path of learning or discovery.
So where does that take us, we have a circular definition; the definition of leadership must mean in part to be authentic. Can you be a leader without being authentic? I will seek to demonstrate-No. Well at least you cannot be a leader of people without being authentic.
You can manage, direct, mandate, persuade but you will not lead.
What do leaders do that managers do not? How do we capture that essence? Leaders have the ability to consistently move themselves and others to action because they deeply understand the invisible forces that shape us all. They have an ability to connect with people, in all dimensions of the human existence, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually they are capable of balancing each of these as the situation dictates, but they are always sensitive to each of these.
Why is this so important? Fundamentally each of us need to be value and appreciated for who we are, and not what we do. We have a basic need to be recognized and appreciated. Psychologists have recognized that for a complete human existence we each need; Recognition, Stimulation and Structure. (There are of course other crucially important things, such as love) Effective leaders have an intuitive understanding of these three needs.
Recognition
To be valued for who we are. So many mangers and organizations make the mistake of valuing people by reference to what they do solely, what their output is. We are not what we produce, what we deliver, that is not the essence of our being, it is part of us and certainly needs to be measured evaluated and recognized. Regrettably too many organizations stop there.
The longer this goes on the more people will define their perceived worth to the organization solely by reference to their output. This is a problem because we all have a deep fundamental need to be appreciated for who we are. If we are spending upwards of 8 hours a day in an environment, which does not pay attention to this deep, need, we cannot make a real connection with the organization, there no sense of affiliation. Our personal characteristics that distinguish us from others are not being seen and appreciated. We become indistinguishable from anyone else who delivers the same output, and so we are not being recognized.
Put another way we have a real need to be seen as and treated as individuals- Leaders have the capability to do this.
This is particularly important when leaders are setting about the business of building a team. Will Schutz observed “ the way I make a group is not to try to make them into a group but to help everyone become more like they want to be”
That requires huge bravery and courage, in a demanding world of short-term targets and performance metrics, where there remains a huge amount of management and decision making to be done. But without this Bravery a group will not be created. There is countless research on high performing teams which all point in the same direction; the whole will only become more than the sum of the parts, if each part is nurtured appropriately so that eventually the parts nurture and develop each other.
A leaders role here is to create the environment for that to happen, She will have chosen the people with the talent and capability, whether they recognize yet themselves.
Stimulation
We all need stimulation, Intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Can a leader provide a work environment, which can deliver on all three dimensions? Is it really the role of employers to deliver this depth? Well let’s ask the question in a different way. All employers want motivated, dedicated and committed employees. They all want to retain their talent. You only need to pick up a business magazine to see how big a deal it is to major corporations. They all spend millions of pounds a year on external consultants a year seeking to address this. So if that is their aim, the question is not “Can a leader deliver on all three dimensions?” The question is “why would she think she can deliver on what she and the company want without doing so?”
Structure
Structure and stability are similarly a basic human need. The need for security, safety and consistency run deep in us all.
This does require subjective judgment. Too much stifles creativity and recognition as mentioned above. Too little will create uncertainly and anxiety for all, irrespective of the level of personal confidence. Without a structure people find it difficult to develop a sense of affiliation.
A leader will need to be hugely flexible in her approach to this. This is not a painting by numbers exercise. It requires subtlety, tact and a massive amount of sensitivity to the situation, the people involved and the issue at hand. All people will need differing levels structure, and all people will require different levels of structure as their personal circumstances change. Individual’s structural requirements change constantly and a leader will need to be sensitive to this, not indulgent of it, but aware of it so as to maximize the contribution of each individual.
A leader therefore needs to understand these three basic individual needs and pay constant attention to them.
So we return to the opening question, why do this require a leader to be authentic? And consequently why is authentic leadership a tautology?
Each of the component parts of RSS will fail if the leader is not telling the truth, or more precisely being true to herself.
Or to put it another way, why is it not possible to fake these things or spin them in a way that makes them seem sincere and genuine? Perhaps it is in the short term, but not in the long term. All of us have the unconscious ability to sense these things; an antenna for inconsistency, genuineness and openness makes us feel comfortable.
“I find you likeable if I like myself in your presence, if you create an atmosphere within which I like myself”-Will Shutz.
Certain people are trained to read body language in real detail and interpret that language. We all have this ability, it is innate in us. We may not have the full language or be able to fully articulate it. But we feel inconsistencies between voice and body, language and tone, facial expressions and spoken word.
We are often shown this on television when politicians are presenting. An expert in the studio interprets the unspoken messages. This rarely surprises us, it is confirmatory of what we already sensed.
So people will feel our lack of authenticity even if they don’t know they do (for more on this see Blink-Malcolm Gladwell and various by Paul Ekman)
And also according to Schutz people will feel our openness and authenticity as we create an environment in which they like themselves.
So, in conclusion people will notice whether we are authentic or not. If we are not it is impossible for them to feel recognized by us for who they are, only for what they do.
We may be able to stimulate them intellectually, but not emotionally or spiritually. I think it is a basic truth that we cannot make meaningful emotional connections with others without being true.
Although a lot of structure may be seen as supportive scaffolding to the overall aim, the fundamentals of knowing how each of us fit in to the aims of the organization is crucial to the capacity to generate affiliation. Similar to recognition, people’s inconsistency antenna will feel this if it is not true
So we now come to what I think is the hard bit. How do we do it?
If we assume that most people in a leadership position don’t deliberately knowingly lie to their people (a reasonable if not totally true assumption)
Why is that we have such a paucity of good leaders?
I think there are a number of interesting factors at play here:
1 Too often leaders tell people what they think they want to hear
2 More interestingly Leaders don’t really deeply know what they believe or what their own values are.
3 There is often a lack of personal values which even if people don’t have the same values, they can at least recognize that the individual is personally consistent.
All of these will undermine authenticity. In summary a great leader will need to have
1 A very high degree of self awareness
2 A clearly understood set of personal values
3 The courage to live by those and the humility to accept that on occasion she will fall below that standard.
4 An ability to create an atmosphere in which people can be who they want to be.
5 Critically and not yet discussed see themselves as serving the people they are leading and not the other way around.
A rarely appreciated part of developing self-awareness is to understand that it involves hearing messages from your body. (Schutz) That is something that very few people have developed to ability to do. Our body is sending these messages all the time, we need to quieten our mind and listen to these messages.
A slight digression: we seem to separate sensory/physical pleasures from cerebral/intellectual pleasures. Treating these as distinct and different, responding to and understood by different parts of us. This separation is artificial and does not properly represent how we truly function. Joy, happiness, sadness and anger are all full human emotions to be felt and understood by our whole being. Who has not on reading a poem (a non physical activity)
been moved to tears or to feel sadness or joy in the pit of their stomach?
There is a whole subject here, which I may write about separately.
Attempting to be someone you are not will eventually lead to misery and possibly worse, it may make you rich financially along the way but it will not bring fulfilment.
This is why a lot of books on Leadership are useless. It is not a skill or competence that can be learnt from a book anymore than you can learn how to love from a book.
We know that love is an emotional state (I shall resist the temptation to write on this subject for fear disappearing down a rabbit hole never to return!); we also understand that it has an intellectual and spiritual element to it to. It is the same with Leadership we know it has an intellectual element but recognize less the emotional and spiritual aspects.
People around you will know, even if you don’t, whether you are being authentic. You may believe what you are saying is a true reflection of what you really believe. But it may not be and so often is not. Our core beliefs are so often obscured from ourselves. Confused by societal norms and expectations, our learned behaviour from our surroundings our peers and mentors. Clichéd definitions abound of great leaders, which we then believe we need to imitate.
So until we have a deep understanding of who we are and what we believe, we are in no position to lead others. So destroy all your leadership books and cancel all your courses on leadership and instead, look inward and discover who you are.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy.
He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves. The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death. But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his “examined life” there was no point in living. So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death.
Luckily, we don’t have to choose between an examined life and death. But the sad thing is, most people avoid leading an examined life. It’s not that they don’t have time or make time. They actively avoid examining their lives.
Those aspiring to be leaders will need to examine their lives if they are to be successful.
I would suggest that we would all benefit from examining our lives more deeply but that is for another day.
When we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behaviour to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness. People are more likely to align their behaviour with their standards when made self-aware. People will be negatively affected if they don’t live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations can induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded.
It is the inconsistency between behaviour and internal values that causes confusion to other people and also, but not as readily seen, sets up an internal level of stress understood by the body but not always the mind.
So if you are a leader of people, know thy self. If you are being lead, and you don’t believe what you are being told, trust your instincts, you will be right.
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not be false to any man.
—Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Much is made of the word “Authentic”; it peppers our discussions and journals. Much like the word “love”, it is thrown around and tossed into conversations so that its purer, perfect meaning is diminished by its overuse. Here we will look at what it might mean to live an authentic life.
An Authentic life is one where we live according to the needs of our inner being, rather than the demands of society or our early conditioning. That is not to say that if we are leading a life that accords to societal norms we cannot be leading an authentic life. The critical distinguishing feature is having an understanding and awareness of what is driving our behaviour, rather simply conforming to the received wisdom of society.
Such behaviour may therefore accord with cultural norms, but for the reason that those norms appear on consideration to be appropriate, rather than blindly, simply because they happen to be the current norms. Such authenticity is a positive outcome of examined and informed motivation rather than a negative outcome of rejection of the expectations of others.
Living true to one’s self does not therefore mean we do not consider or take account of others and their expectations. If we accept as human beings we are innately built with a moral compass and an ethical barometer, being true to ourselves will necessarily require being considerate to the interests and feelings of others. There are challenges and difficulties associated with this; it is problematic to really understand what is driving our behaviour; cultural norms or core beliefs.
How do we reconcile being true to our core beliefs when to do so would be upsetting and/or offensive to others?
Andre Gide the 20th century French novelist wrote:
“It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not”
“Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable”.
Much is written about the need to be authentic in a working environment, legions of books are written on “Authentic Leadership” A quick search on Google will reveal hundreds upon hundreds of such books as well as consultants offering transformational experiential courses and interventions on Authenticity
If we stop for a moment, and start from a different place. Authentic leadership? What do these gurus mean by that? Presumably there is something we should indentify as inauthentic leadership, and authentic leadership would be the opposite of that. Well what would that look like?
If the opposite of a statement is so clearly absurd, the statement itself can hardly be considered to be insightful, or set us on a path of learning or discovery.
So where does that take us, we have a circular definition; the definition of leadership must mean in part to be authentic. Can you be a leader without being authentic? I will seek to demonstrate-No. Well at least you cannot be a leader of people without being authentic.
You can manage, direct, mandate, persuade but you will not lead.
What do leaders do that managers do not? How do we capture that essence? Leaders have the ability to consistently move themselves and others to action because they deeply understand the invisible forces that shape us all. They have an ability to connect with people, in all dimensions of the human existence, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually they are capable of balancing each of these as the situation dictates, but they are always sensitive to each of these.
Why is this so important? Fundamentally each of us need to be value and appreciated for who we are, and not what we do. We have a basic need to be recognized and appreciated. Psychologists have recognized that for a complete human existence we each need; Recognition, Stimulation and Structure. (There are of course other crucially important things, such as love) Effective leaders have an intuitive understanding of these three needs.
Recognition
To be valued for who we are. So many mangers and organizations make the mistake of valuing people by reference to what they do solely, what their output is. We are not what we produce, what we deliver, that is not the essence of our being, it is part of us and certainly needs to be measured evaluated and recognized. Regrettably too many organizations stop there.
The longer this goes on the more people will define their perceived worth to the organization solely by reference to their output. This is a problem because we all have a deep fundamental need to be appreciated for who we are. If we are spending upwards of 8 hours a day in an environment, which does not pay attention to this deep, need, we cannot make a real connection with the organization, there no sense of affiliation. Our personal characteristics that distinguish us from others are not being seen and appreciated. We become indistinguishable from anyone else who delivers the same output, and so we are not being recognized.
Put another way we have a real need to be seen as and treated as individuals- Leaders have the capability to do this.
This is particularly important when leaders are setting about the business of building a team. Will Schutz observed “ the way I make a group is not to try to make them into a group but to help everyone become more like they want to be”
That requires huge bravery and courage, in a demanding world of short-term targets and performance metrics, where there remains a huge amount of management and decision making to be done. But without this Bravery a group will not be created. There is countless research on high performing teams which all point in the same direction; the whole will only become more than the sum of the parts, if each part is nurtured appropriately so that eventually the parts nurture and develop each other.
A leaders role here is to create the environment for that to happen, She will have chosen the people with the talent and capability, whether they recognize yet themselves.
Stimulation
We all need stimulation, Intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Can a leader provide a work environment, which can deliver on all three dimensions? Is it really the role of employers to deliver this depth? Well let’s ask the question in a different way. All employers want motivated, dedicated and committed employees. They all want to retain their talent. You only need to pick up a business magazine to see how big a deal it is to major corporations. They all spend millions of pounds a year on external consultants a year seeking to address this. So if that is their aim, the question is not “Can a leader deliver on all three dimensions?” The question is “why would she think she can deliver on what she and the company want without doing so?”
Structure
Structure and stability are similarly a basic human need. The need for security, safety and consistency run deep in us all.
This does require subjective judgment. Too much stifles creativity and recognition as mentioned above. Too little will create uncertainly and anxiety for all, irrespective of the level of personal confidence. Without a structure people find it difficult to develop a sense of affiliation.
A leader will need to be hugely flexible in her approach to this. This is not a painting by numbers exercise. It requires subtlety, tact and a massive amount of sensitivity to the situation, the people involved and the issue at hand. All people will need differing levels structure, and all people will require different levels of structure as their personal circumstances change. Individual’s structural requirements change constantly and a leader will need to be sensitive to this, not indulgent of it, but aware of it so as to maximize the contribution of each individual.
A leader therefore needs to understand these three basic individual needs and pay constant attention to them.
So we return to the opening question, why do this require a leader to be authentic? And consequently why is authentic leadership a tautology?
Each of the component parts of RSS will fail if the leader is not telling the truth, or more precisely being true to herself.
Or to put it another way, why is it not possible to fake these things or spin them in a way that makes them seem sincere and genuine? Perhaps it is in the short term, but not in the long term. All of us have the unconscious ability to sense these things; an antenna for inconsistency, genuineness and openness makes us feel comfortable.
“I find you likeable if I like myself in your presence, if you create an atmosphere within which I like myself”-Will Shutz.
Certain people are trained to read body language in real detail and interpret that language. We all have this ability, it is innate in us. We may not have the full language or be able to fully articulate it. But we feel inconsistencies between voice and body, language and tone, facial expressions and spoken word.
We are often shown this on television when politicians are presenting. An expert in the studio interprets the unspoken messages. This rarely surprises us, it is confirmatory of what we already sensed.
So people will feel our lack of authenticity even if they don’t know they do (for more on this see Blink-Malcolm Gladwell and various by Paul Ekman)
And also according to Schutz people will feel our openness and authenticity as we create an environment in which they like themselves.
So, in conclusion people will notice whether we are authentic or not. If we are not it is impossible for them to feel recognized by us for who they are, only for what they do.
We may be able to stimulate them intellectually, but not emotionally or spiritually. I think it is a basic truth that we cannot make meaningful emotional connections with others without being true.
Although a lot of structure may be seen as supportive scaffolding to the overall aim, the fundamentals of knowing how each of us fit in to the aims of the organization is crucial to the capacity to generate affiliation. Similar to recognition, people’s inconsistency antenna will feel this if it is not true
So we now come to what I think is the hard bit. How do we do it?
If we assume that most people in a leadership position don’t deliberately knowingly lie to their people (a reasonable if not totally true assumption)
Why is that we have such a paucity of good leaders?
I think there are a number of interesting factors at play here:
1 Too often leaders tell people what they think they want to hear
2 More interestingly Leaders don’t really deeply know what they believe or what their own values are.
3 There is often a lack of personal values which even if people don’t have the same values, they can at least recognize that the individual is personally consistent.
All of these will undermine authenticity. In summary a great leader will need to have
1 A very high degree of self awareness
2 A clearly understood set of personal values
3 The courage to live by those and the humility to accept that on occasion she will fall below that standard.
4 An ability to create an atmosphere in which people can be who they want to be.
5 Critically and not yet discussed see themselves as serving the people they are leading and not the other way around.
A rarely appreciated part of developing self-awareness is to understand that it involves hearing messages from your body. (Schutz) That is something that very few people have developed to ability to do. Our body is sending these messages all the time, we need to quieten our mind and listen to these messages.
A slight digression: we seem to separate sensory/physical pleasures from cerebral/intellectual pleasures. Treating these as distinct and different, responding to and understood by different parts of us. This separation is artificial and does not properly represent how we truly function. Joy, happiness, sadness and anger are all full human emotions to be felt and understood by our whole being. Who has not on reading a poem (a non physical activity)
been moved to tears or to feel sadness or joy in the pit of their stomach?
There is a whole subject here, which I may write about separately.
Attempting to be someone you are not will eventually lead to misery and possibly worse, it may make you rich financially along the way but it will not bring fulfilment.
This is why a lot of books on Leadership are useless. It is not a skill or competence that can be learnt from a book anymore than you can learn how to love from a book.
We know that love is an emotional state (I shall resist the temptation to write on this subject for fear disappearing down a rabbit hole never to return!); we also understand that it has an intellectual and spiritual element to it to. It is the same with Leadership we know it has an intellectual element but recognize less the emotional and spiritual aspects.
People around you will know, even if you don’t, whether you are being authentic. You may believe what you are saying is a true reflection of what you really believe. But it may not be and so often is not. Our core beliefs are so often obscured from ourselves. Confused by societal norms and expectations, our learned behaviour from our surroundings our peers and mentors. Clichéd definitions abound of great leaders, which we then believe we need to imitate.
So until we have a deep understanding of who we are and what we believe, we are in no position to lead others. So destroy all your leadership books and cancel all your courses on leadership and instead, look inward and discover who you are.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy.
He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves. The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death. But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his “examined life” there was no point in living. So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death.
Luckily, we don’t have to choose between an examined life and death. But the sad thing is, most people avoid leading an examined life. It’s not that they don’t have time or make time. They actively avoid examining their lives.
Those aspiring to be leaders will need to examine their lives if they are to be successful.
I would suggest that we would all benefit from examining our lives more deeply but that is for another day.
When we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behaviour to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness. People are more likely to align their behaviour with their standards when made self-aware. People will be negatively affected if they don’t live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations can induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded.
It is the inconsistency between behaviour and internal values that causes confusion to other people and also, but not as readily seen, sets up an internal level of stress understood by the body but not always the mind.
So if you are a leader of people, know thy self. If you are being lead, and you don’t believe what you are being told, trust your instincts, you will be right.
Saturday 26 June 2010
Blog7-Horrifying but sadly not surprising
Horrifying, but sadly not surprising
Well, we are in the teeth of the most severe recession most of us can recall, the country’s public finances are mess and are to remain so for some considerable time, we have an impending rise in VAT, and the expected feel good factor from England’s sporting feats in South Africa is yet to materialise. Against this background you would have thought that our retailers would be working as hard as possible for their share of our ever decreasing spendable income. You would have thought, but you would be wrong…
Let me share with you a chilling, yet all too familiar story.
Yesterday a friend of mine set off to Manchester to purchase a digital camera in advance of his son’s graduation. Like most of us, in advance of such a significant purchase he had carried out some research on his state of the art Mac. He had arrived at a shortlist of 3 cameras. He set of for the retail metropolis full of excitement and anticipation, a rare experience for a man in advance of a shopping trip! Nevertheless the satisfaction of concluding his research, the pride in his son’s achievement and the glorious weather all combined to banish his usual cynicism of the British retail experience.
He arrived in Manchester unusually quickly, parked his car and headed purposefully to a national electrical retail store. He walked in, not wasting time looking around the shop as he had already decided on his shortlist. He could see two out of the 3 cameras he had chosen on display, he smiled. He would ask an assistant to get the both down go through them, ask the questions he had decided on from his research, make the purchase and reward himself with a coffee in the sunshine.
A shall pause here; regrettably I am sure you all know what happened next, why? Because we have all been on the receiving end of it time and time again. As you complete the story yourself within your imagination, ask yourself why you are able to do that. I was driving as my friend was regaling me with his experience, I had to pull over for fear of crashing the car, such was the anger, disappointment and most of all the predictability of it.
So, find a comfortable chair, pour yourself a glass of wine and keep the bottle close, making sure the cat is in another room for you will surely kick it, and finally I strongly recommend the children are out of ear-shot as the stream of expletives that are about the pour forth from your own mouth shock even them.
He strides purposefully to the counter, he had woken early and so is in the shop before the lunchtime crowds, there are only a couple of other customers. In fact there are more staff than customers. He stands at the counter, two members of staff are chatting, he can tell that one of them has noticed him and yet continues to talk to his colleague. He can feel the frustration rising within him but refuses to give into it, he is determined to enjoy the purchase and after all the two camera are now only 3 feet ahead of him.
Finally he is acknowledged, “ can I help you?” at least that is what he thinks he hears, the assistant mumbles it through a thick mancunian accent, fails to make any eye contact at all, and demonstrates the level of enthusiasm usually reserved for a dentist’s waiting room. Nevertheless John perseveres. He asks to look at the two cameras. The assistant turns to the shelf and reaches for them only to present John with two completely different ones. “No the Nikon and the Sony” John says trying so hard to maintain his composure. “Sorry mate” comes the response. Mate! John thinks you are not my mate! You are supposed to be helping me. His mind wanders…what is it these days where everyone is your mate, why are people so deliberately lazy when they talk as if the don’t really want to be understood….
So he know has the two cameras in front of him. He picks up the Sony, it feels good in his hand, bursting with technology, the excitement of the impending purchase returns to him. He presses the small button on the top-nothing, he presses it again, nothing. He hands it to assistant, “can you turn it on for me please? “ oh sure mate, sometime the batteries run down on the display ones, yeah that’s it I will see if we have any batteries in the back” Not a hint of an apology, or recognition that this might be his fault.
As the irritating youth disappears to get the batteries John, examines the other camera, Yes you guessed it……. that doesn’t work either.In that moment every fibre in him wants to just walk out of the shop, the day is spoilt; the pride in his son and his research is now tarnished. He resents the fact that he can’t leave, he needs a camera and he would only have to return to another shop later and doubtless endure a similarly painful experience.
Eventually the assistant returns, with a colleague in tow, “I found these in the back hopefully they are the right ones”
Hopefully? what do you mean hopefully? Why don’t you KNOW? What the hell is this place, a shop or a drop in centre for delinquent 19year olds with nothing better to do? Of course he doesn’t say this.
The youth has now been examining the camera for 5 minutes trying to find the where the batteries go. “Hey Paul, come here a minute mate” he shouts across the shop to a colleague. “Where do the batteries go?” Eventually the camera fires up and it is handed to John. “There you go mate” In that moment John feels angrier than he did a week ago watching the second half of England against Algeria.
After a similar saga with batteries for the Nikon John now has both cameras working and in front of him. He play with them both but doesn’t really know what he is doing, he wants advice, and help, he wants to make an informed decision. As soon as he opens his mouth he knows he is going to regret asking… “Can you explain the differences what features does the Nikon have above the Sony? “
“Not sure mate” comes the reply, “ well it says on the box………………”
That’s it John can endure it no more, “Ok I’ll take the Sony”
The assistant then tries to successively sell John a case for it despite the fact that it comes with one, a memory card for £25 despite there being ones for £12 on the counter in front of him, and then, yes you guessed it, our favourite-warranty insurance. John refusal is met with disapproval and the youth begins to adopt a superior tone of condescension, in seeking to persuade, John is aghast, this spotty youth, who has shown no enthusiasm, provided no service or advice in the last 45 minutes, is now as good as saying John is making a mistake. The rage and tension are now at such a level, that even losing to Germany on Sunday would not provoke a similar reaction.
He can now leave the shop, or so he thought, but he now has to pay. For some unfathomable reason, the youth does not take payment, he instead takes the camera across the shop to the only till point that is open, but as yet unmanned, “wait here mate, I’ll just get Sharon for you” I do not need to describe John’s reaction to this as I have no doubt that you have already said it in your head.
Sharon breezes across the shop, “ Hiya, sorry to keep you waiting, I have just been on the phone to me best mate, her boyfriend left her and she’s in bits” she continues to talk but it now it is just noise to John, very irritating noise.
She then asks him for his address, why do you need that? John responds, “dunno luv that’s just the system”
After providing as much information as required for his recent passport renewal, he pays and leaves the shop with his shiny new camera. He walks across the square collapses in a chair outside the coffee shop. He peers in through the window contemplating buying a cup of tea and a cake, only to see a queue of 8 people waiting and only one person serving…………………… “Oh for fuck’s sake” he says to himself, except he doesn’t say it to himself, it comes out of his mouth, delivered in tone of hopeless resignation. Two young mothers with toddlers in tow shoot him a disapproving look, as do an old couple sharing the telegraph crossword. But next to the couple is a man on his own with two bags, which tell the story of his morning, he looks up, catches John’s eye, nods and smiles. He knows.
So, that’s the story. You can let the cat back in now and go make sure your children haven’t heard your screams of anger and incredulity. Horrifying, but sadly not surprising.
How an earth did we get here?
I am reminded of a quote from John Ruskin:
“There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.”
I regret to say we have got ourselves into a position where we have got what we deserve.
We have slavishly followed the mantra of: price is all. Supermarkets, from 24 hour mega stores to small urban mini markets dominate not only the high streets of our towns and cities, but also our villages. My local village has two opposite each other.
We are familiar with the often-remarked observation that the high streets of our towns are indistinguishable from each other. We could all name 10 stores we would be sure of finding in any town. It is of course so easy to blame big business for driving out local artisans. But I fear that is far too simplistic. We need to look closer to home far the real culprits. It is us.
We insist that prices are as low as they possibly can be, so we can have yet more stuff we don’t need in pursuit of happiness and contentment which is actually to be found in the opposite direction.
We insist in a life of convenience and want everything in one easy place so that we don’t waste time shopping for food in four different shops, the butcher, greengrocer, baker and fishmonger. What exactly do we do with the time we save? Spend it in other shops buying stuff we want but don’t need, sit in front of that poisonous box in the corner of our living room watching soporific rubbish which slowly turns our brains to mush, and then jolts us with intermissions (the volume of which are always two or 3 notches higher than the programme) persuading us to buy yet more stuff, and subtly suggesting that our life cannot possibly be complete without another thingingmajig. And we buy it.
We return from our holidays in continental Europe marveling at the pace of life in Italy the café culture in Paris, the individuality of the towns and villages we visit. We are jarred when we find a MacDonald’s on the high street of Tuscan town, and find ourselves thinking, “How on earth did they get permission for that?” “It ruins the atmosphere of the street” “Why would anyone want to eat that here, when you can get real fresh Italian food round the corner?” We are totally oblivious to the simple truth that our towns and villages were like that less than a generation ago. We may not have the weather out Italian cousins are blessed with, but we had the villages the local produce, and the individuality of our towns. We chose to give all that away on the alter of cheap is best. Our local councils acceded to more and more planning requests from supermarkets to open yet more and more stores.
So we sit in a coffee shop, itself a global chain bemoaning the demise of our local village, just before driving our shiny new Range Rover, (for safety and seeing over the country hedges, you understand!) 5 miles down the road to Waitrose to do our weekly shop. “I would love to shop locally, but there aren’t any shops any more. Waitrose is the only place you can get fresh raspberries and mango in November and Tallulah just insists on having them with her organic muesli in the morning, When you do find a local shop the prices are just not competitive, its so much nicer in San Gimignano, all the shops are local selling local produce ” You stupid, shortsighted, narrow minded selfish fuck, have you no idea?
Returning to John’s camera, which you will be pleased to learn he was able to get to work when he got it home, and connect it to his computer. I was of course pleased for my friend but slightly disappointed that I am prevented from penning a couple of paragraphs on the sheer anguish of getting home to find a piece missing, the instruction manual is in Russian or some other such event designed to shorted our lives.
However at the time of writing, John has yet to take a picture and transfer it to his computer! I will naturally up date you all when I have more information.
There are independent camera shops, as there are bookshops, music shops, local restaurants etc…. Less and less I grant you but they do exist. They cannot compete which the national chains because they cannot deliver the volume and so cannot secure the supplier discounts. We then confuse ourselves by convincing ourselves that it is a commodity purchase, A Sony camera is a Sony camera, wherever I buy it from. Why would I pay even £1 more from the independent? I would be delighted to provide you with John’s phone number, he can tell you better than I!
An altogether better experience on the day, one that would have enhanced the pride he was feeling. One that would have provided him with confidence in his choice. That marvelous feeling that we rarely get these days’ of being served by someone who is genuinely enthusiastic about the product, cares about helping you. The purchase moves from being a just a transaction to being experience to build on the preparation we but into it.
I can remember 15 or so years ago there was a marvelous independent record shop in Manchester. I wandered in one day, music was playing which I liked so I asked what it was, they guy in the shop told me, and then went on to say, if you like that you may like this and this and proceeded to play them for me. His passion and enthusiasm was palpable. I became a regular, so much so that often when I returned he would say great to see you Dave I have a few cds that I think you might like. Take them home and have a listen, and pay me next time if you want to keep them! Shopping there was not a transaction it was an experience. To this date my music collection is richer and more varied than it would ever have been had I never gone there. It continues to be a great source of pleasure for me. I am sure I could have got the cds for less in hmv, but why would I? You might say it’s all right for you, you make enough money not to have to worry about £1 or so on a cd. That may be true, but that is not the point, the point is we make choices, and if those choices are governed solely by price, as Ruskin says we get what we deserve.
Well, we are in the teeth of the most severe recession most of us can recall, the country’s public finances are mess and are to remain so for some considerable time, we have an impending rise in VAT, and the expected feel good factor from England’s sporting feats in South Africa is yet to materialise. Against this background you would have thought that our retailers would be working as hard as possible for their share of our ever decreasing spendable income. You would have thought, but you would be wrong…
Let me share with you a chilling, yet all too familiar story.
Yesterday a friend of mine set off to Manchester to purchase a digital camera in advance of his son’s graduation. Like most of us, in advance of such a significant purchase he had carried out some research on his state of the art Mac. He had arrived at a shortlist of 3 cameras. He set of for the retail metropolis full of excitement and anticipation, a rare experience for a man in advance of a shopping trip! Nevertheless the satisfaction of concluding his research, the pride in his son’s achievement and the glorious weather all combined to banish his usual cynicism of the British retail experience.
He arrived in Manchester unusually quickly, parked his car and headed purposefully to a national electrical retail store. He walked in, not wasting time looking around the shop as he had already decided on his shortlist. He could see two out of the 3 cameras he had chosen on display, he smiled. He would ask an assistant to get the both down go through them, ask the questions he had decided on from his research, make the purchase and reward himself with a coffee in the sunshine.
A shall pause here; regrettably I am sure you all know what happened next, why? Because we have all been on the receiving end of it time and time again. As you complete the story yourself within your imagination, ask yourself why you are able to do that. I was driving as my friend was regaling me with his experience, I had to pull over for fear of crashing the car, such was the anger, disappointment and most of all the predictability of it.
So, find a comfortable chair, pour yourself a glass of wine and keep the bottle close, making sure the cat is in another room for you will surely kick it, and finally I strongly recommend the children are out of ear-shot as the stream of expletives that are about the pour forth from your own mouth shock even them.
He strides purposefully to the counter, he had woken early and so is in the shop before the lunchtime crowds, there are only a couple of other customers. In fact there are more staff than customers. He stands at the counter, two members of staff are chatting, he can tell that one of them has noticed him and yet continues to talk to his colleague. He can feel the frustration rising within him but refuses to give into it, he is determined to enjoy the purchase and after all the two camera are now only 3 feet ahead of him.
Finally he is acknowledged, “ can I help you?” at least that is what he thinks he hears, the assistant mumbles it through a thick mancunian accent, fails to make any eye contact at all, and demonstrates the level of enthusiasm usually reserved for a dentist’s waiting room. Nevertheless John perseveres. He asks to look at the two cameras. The assistant turns to the shelf and reaches for them only to present John with two completely different ones. “No the Nikon and the Sony” John says trying so hard to maintain his composure. “Sorry mate” comes the response. Mate! John thinks you are not my mate! You are supposed to be helping me. His mind wanders…what is it these days where everyone is your mate, why are people so deliberately lazy when they talk as if the don’t really want to be understood….
So he know has the two cameras in front of him. He picks up the Sony, it feels good in his hand, bursting with technology, the excitement of the impending purchase returns to him. He presses the small button on the top-nothing, he presses it again, nothing. He hands it to assistant, “can you turn it on for me please? “ oh sure mate, sometime the batteries run down on the display ones, yeah that’s it I will see if we have any batteries in the back” Not a hint of an apology, or recognition that this might be his fault.
As the irritating youth disappears to get the batteries John, examines the other camera, Yes you guessed it……. that doesn’t work either.In that moment every fibre in him wants to just walk out of the shop, the day is spoilt; the pride in his son and his research is now tarnished. He resents the fact that he can’t leave, he needs a camera and he would only have to return to another shop later and doubtless endure a similarly painful experience.
Eventually the assistant returns, with a colleague in tow, “I found these in the back hopefully they are the right ones”
Hopefully? what do you mean hopefully? Why don’t you KNOW? What the hell is this place, a shop or a drop in centre for delinquent 19year olds with nothing better to do? Of course he doesn’t say this.
The youth has now been examining the camera for 5 minutes trying to find the where the batteries go. “Hey Paul, come here a minute mate” he shouts across the shop to a colleague. “Where do the batteries go?” Eventually the camera fires up and it is handed to John. “There you go mate” In that moment John feels angrier than he did a week ago watching the second half of England against Algeria.
After a similar saga with batteries for the Nikon John now has both cameras working and in front of him. He play with them both but doesn’t really know what he is doing, he wants advice, and help, he wants to make an informed decision. As soon as he opens his mouth he knows he is going to regret asking… “Can you explain the differences what features does the Nikon have above the Sony? “
“Not sure mate” comes the reply, “ well it says on the box………………”
That’s it John can endure it no more, “Ok I’ll take the Sony”
The assistant then tries to successively sell John a case for it despite the fact that it comes with one, a memory card for £25 despite there being ones for £12 on the counter in front of him, and then, yes you guessed it, our favourite-warranty insurance. John refusal is met with disapproval and the youth begins to adopt a superior tone of condescension, in seeking to persuade, John is aghast, this spotty youth, who has shown no enthusiasm, provided no service or advice in the last 45 minutes, is now as good as saying John is making a mistake. The rage and tension are now at such a level, that even losing to Germany on Sunday would not provoke a similar reaction.
He can now leave the shop, or so he thought, but he now has to pay. For some unfathomable reason, the youth does not take payment, he instead takes the camera across the shop to the only till point that is open, but as yet unmanned, “wait here mate, I’ll just get Sharon for you” I do not need to describe John’s reaction to this as I have no doubt that you have already said it in your head.
Sharon breezes across the shop, “ Hiya, sorry to keep you waiting, I have just been on the phone to me best mate, her boyfriend left her and she’s in bits” she continues to talk but it now it is just noise to John, very irritating noise.
She then asks him for his address, why do you need that? John responds, “dunno luv that’s just the system”
After providing as much information as required for his recent passport renewal, he pays and leaves the shop with his shiny new camera. He walks across the square collapses in a chair outside the coffee shop. He peers in through the window contemplating buying a cup of tea and a cake, only to see a queue of 8 people waiting and only one person serving…………………… “Oh for fuck’s sake” he says to himself, except he doesn’t say it to himself, it comes out of his mouth, delivered in tone of hopeless resignation. Two young mothers with toddlers in tow shoot him a disapproving look, as do an old couple sharing the telegraph crossword. But next to the couple is a man on his own with two bags, which tell the story of his morning, he looks up, catches John’s eye, nods and smiles. He knows.
So, that’s the story. You can let the cat back in now and go make sure your children haven’t heard your screams of anger and incredulity. Horrifying, but sadly not surprising.
How an earth did we get here?
I am reminded of a quote from John Ruskin:
“There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.”
I regret to say we have got ourselves into a position where we have got what we deserve.
We have slavishly followed the mantra of: price is all. Supermarkets, from 24 hour mega stores to small urban mini markets dominate not only the high streets of our towns and cities, but also our villages. My local village has two opposite each other.
We are familiar with the often-remarked observation that the high streets of our towns are indistinguishable from each other. We could all name 10 stores we would be sure of finding in any town. It is of course so easy to blame big business for driving out local artisans. But I fear that is far too simplistic. We need to look closer to home far the real culprits. It is us.
We insist that prices are as low as they possibly can be, so we can have yet more stuff we don’t need in pursuit of happiness and contentment which is actually to be found in the opposite direction.
We insist in a life of convenience and want everything in one easy place so that we don’t waste time shopping for food in four different shops, the butcher, greengrocer, baker and fishmonger. What exactly do we do with the time we save? Spend it in other shops buying stuff we want but don’t need, sit in front of that poisonous box in the corner of our living room watching soporific rubbish which slowly turns our brains to mush, and then jolts us with intermissions (the volume of which are always two or 3 notches higher than the programme) persuading us to buy yet more stuff, and subtly suggesting that our life cannot possibly be complete without another thingingmajig. And we buy it.
We return from our holidays in continental Europe marveling at the pace of life in Italy the café culture in Paris, the individuality of the towns and villages we visit. We are jarred when we find a MacDonald’s on the high street of Tuscan town, and find ourselves thinking, “How on earth did they get permission for that?” “It ruins the atmosphere of the street” “Why would anyone want to eat that here, when you can get real fresh Italian food round the corner?” We are totally oblivious to the simple truth that our towns and villages were like that less than a generation ago. We may not have the weather out Italian cousins are blessed with, but we had the villages the local produce, and the individuality of our towns. We chose to give all that away on the alter of cheap is best. Our local councils acceded to more and more planning requests from supermarkets to open yet more and more stores.
So we sit in a coffee shop, itself a global chain bemoaning the demise of our local village, just before driving our shiny new Range Rover, (for safety and seeing over the country hedges, you understand!) 5 miles down the road to Waitrose to do our weekly shop. “I would love to shop locally, but there aren’t any shops any more. Waitrose is the only place you can get fresh raspberries and mango in November and Tallulah just insists on having them with her organic muesli in the morning, When you do find a local shop the prices are just not competitive, its so much nicer in San Gimignano, all the shops are local selling local produce ” You stupid, shortsighted, narrow minded selfish fuck, have you no idea?
Returning to John’s camera, which you will be pleased to learn he was able to get to work when he got it home, and connect it to his computer. I was of course pleased for my friend but slightly disappointed that I am prevented from penning a couple of paragraphs on the sheer anguish of getting home to find a piece missing, the instruction manual is in Russian or some other such event designed to shorted our lives.
However at the time of writing, John has yet to take a picture and transfer it to his computer! I will naturally up date you all when I have more information.
There are independent camera shops, as there are bookshops, music shops, local restaurants etc…. Less and less I grant you but they do exist. They cannot compete which the national chains because they cannot deliver the volume and so cannot secure the supplier discounts. We then confuse ourselves by convincing ourselves that it is a commodity purchase, A Sony camera is a Sony camera, wherever I buy it from. Why would I pay even £1 more from the independent? I would be delighted to provide you with John’s phone number, he can tell you better than I!
An altogether better experience on the day, one that would have enhanced the pride he was feeling. One that would have provided him with confidence in his choice. That marvelous feeling that we rarely get these days’ of being served by someone who is genuinely enthusiastic about the product, cares about helping you. The purchase moves from being a just a transaction to being experience to build on the preparation we but into it.
I can remember 15 or so years ago there was a marvelous independent record shop in Manchester. I wandered in one day, music was playing which I liked so I asked what it was, they guy in the shop told me, and then went on to say, if you like that you may like this and this and proceeded to play them for me. His passion and enthusiasm was palpable. I became a regular, so much so that often when I returned he would say great to see you Dave I have a few cds that I think you might like. Take them home and have a listen, and pay me next time if you want to keep them! Shopping there was not a transaction it was an experience. To this date my music collection is richer and more varied than it would ever have been had I never gone there. It continues to be a great source of pleasure for me. I am sure I could have got the cds for less in hmv, but why would I? You might say it’s all right for you, you make enough money not to have to worry about £1 or so on a cd. That may be true, but that is not the point, the point is we make choices, and if those choices are governed solely by price, as Ruskin says we get what we deserve.
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Blog 6-Exams, Inputs or Outputs
My children are currently enduring a week of exams. Nothing particularly new in children taking exams, even though it is a new experience for me, and more particularly my children. It has caused me to think about their purpose and our general approach to them.
Does our preoccupation with exams prepare our children for life?
Exams by their very nature measure outputs, there is no measurement or assessment of inputs, effort, attitude and commitment. There is nothing particularly wrong with this. Exams are not designed to measure this, anymore than a ruler is designed to tell the temperature. Exams do of course have a vital role to play in the education and development of our children, I do not dispute that. What does concern me however is the received wisdom that the passing of exams is in fact the purpose of the schooling of our children. And even more concerning is that we as parents and society in general communicate this explicitly or implicitly to our children.
In doing so we place a huge premium on outputs with very little attention placed on inputs. In doing so what are we telling our children?
Where in our priorities is the space for learning for its own sake? Seeing that as a valuable educative pursuit.
Are we exploring in enough detail between knowledge and understanding?
How many of us have interviewed potential recruits with a string of qualifications that make our own look as if we were asleep during our school years, only to faced with someone who appears to never have had an original thought in their entire life!
We tell out children to assimilate knowledge, but do we encourage and challenge them to understand? True, understanding without a bedrock of knowledge is impossible, but it seems to me that we value and test knowledge only, with understanding being an optional extra.
I think the educational consequences of this are all quite obvious. What is perhaps less so is the wider consequences of teaching our children to be so fixated on measurable outputs. “what we do, without discussion of how we do it”
There was a time not many years ago, that if a cricketer knew he had edged the ball he would walk, declaring himself out without waiting for confirmation from the umpire. That is unheard of now. In fact when in a recent match a player did that he was roundly criticised by team management. This is accepted because the stakes are higher these days; there is more money in the game more pressure and so on. The stakes are higher? Winning becomes more important than personal integrity? This is advanced as an acceptable argument, with “gentlemanly” behaviour banished to the history books as a quaint custom irrelevant in our modern world.
This preoccupation with outputs only leads us in only one direction, integrity, honesty, development of personal values are subordinated to measurable achievements. If achievement is in conflict with integrity, how often do we hear of integrity prevailing and be championed as the right thing to do?
I am sure we do not explicitly encourage our children to cheat or bend the system, as our bankers appear to have done. But our children are smart they work out instinctively what we as parent want for them and what their friends and society define as success.
The relentless focus on outputs, achievements and measurable attainment without the balancing discussion and praise for trying hard, doing one’s best and seeing that as a real success in itself will I fear lead our children in the wrong direction.
As parents what is the first question we ask when our children get their exam results?
1. How did you do? What marks did you get? Were you in the top quartile?
Yes? Well done.
No? Oh well at least you did your best and that’s what counts.
OR
2. Did you do your best? Did you prepare well? Yes? Well that’s great I am really proud of your effort and your achievement
Our children are not stupid and we are not capable of disguising our body language. It is quite clear to our children what the “No?” response in paragraph 1 above, really means.
We are telling our children that we care more about the output than the input?
The output is that the consequence of three things:
The quality of the teaching
The innate ability of the child
The effort put in by the child
Only the last of these is within the control of the child!
In our calmer moments way from the competition of the school gates most parents will say: “All I want is for little Jonny to reach his potential” But in the heat of battle at exam time we lose this perspective. Our children sense this; they have watched their parents lie to each other for years! They know what we really value!
As Larkin said… They fuck you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean to, but they do……
Does our preoccupation with exams prepare our children for life?
Exams by their very nature measure outputs, there is no measurement or assessment of inputs, effort, attitude and commitment. There is nothing particularly wrong with this. Exams are not designed to measure this, anymore than a ruler is designed to tell the temperature. Exams do of course have a vital role to play in the education and development of our children, I do not dispute that. What does concern me however is the received wisdom that the passing of exams is in fact the purpose of the schooling of our children. And even more concerning is that we as parents and society in general communicate this explicitly or implicitly to our children.
In doing so we place a huge premium on outputs with very little attention placed on inputs. In doing so what are we telling our children?
Where in our priorities is the space for learning for its own sake? Seeing that as a valuable educative pursuit.
Are we exploring in enough detail between knowledge and understanding?
How many of us have interviewed potential recruits with a string of qualifications that make our own look as if we were asleep during our school years, only to faced with someone who appears to never have had an original thought in their entire life!
We tell out children to assimilate knowledge, but do we encourage and challenge them to understand? True, understanding without a bedrock of knowledge is impossible, but it seems to me that we value and test knowledge only, with understanding being an optional extra.
I think the educational consequences of this are all quite obvious. What is perhaps less so is the wider consequences of teaching our children to be so fixated on measurable outputs. “what we do, without discussion of how we do it”
There was a time not many years ago, that if a cricketer knew he had edged the ball he would walk, declaring himself out without waiting for confirmation from the umpire. That is unheard of now. In fact when in a recent match a player did that he was roundly criticised by team management. This is accepted because the stakes are higher these days; there is more money in the game more pressure and so on. The stakes are higher? Winning becomes more important than personal integrity? This is advanced as an acceptable argument, with “gentlemanly” behaviour banished to the history books as a quaint custom irrelevant in our modern world.
This preoccupation with outputs only leads us in only one direction, integrity, honesty, development of personal values are subordinated to measurable achievements. If achievement is in conflict with integrity, how often do we hear of integrity prevailing and be championed as the right thing to do?
I am sure we do not explicitly encourage our children to cheat or bend the system, as our bankers appear to have done. But our children are smart they work out instinctively what we as parent want for them and what their friends and society define as success.
The relentless focus on outputs, achievements and measurable attainment without the balancing discussion and praise for trying hard, doing one’s best and seeing that as a real success in itself will I fear lead our children in the wrong direction.
As parents what is the first question we ask when our children get their exam results?
1. How did you do? What marks did you get? Were you in the top quartile?
Yes? Well done.
No? Oh well at least you did your best and that’s what counts.
OR
2. Did you do your best? Did you prepare well? Yes? Well that’s great I am really proud of your effort and your achievement
Our children are not stupid and we are not capable of disguising our body language. It is quite clear to our children what the “No?” response in paragraph 1 above, really means.
We are telling our children that we care more about the output than the input?
The output is that the consequence of three things:
The quality of the teaching
The innate ability of the child
The effort put in by the child
Only the last of these is within the control of the child!
In our calmer moments way from the competition of the school gates most parents will say: “All I want is for little Jonny to reach his potential” But in the heat of battle at exam time we lose this perspective. Our children sense this; they have watched their parents lie to each other for years! They know what we really value!
As Larkin said… They fuck you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean to, but they do……
Saturday 29 May 2010
Blog 5 Sunday Reclaimed
Sunday Reclaimed
Today I drove the short distance to a beautiful English countryside pub, popular but in no way succumbing to the need to appeal to the demands of the 21st century. I had a simple but wonderful meal, freshly cooked with pride and no pretention
I wandered around the graveyard of the church opposite the pub feeling the history and the lives that had shaped this wonderful village
I walked through the marvelous arboretum adjacent to the grounds of the pub. Stunning and peaceful, the most profitable £2-50 entrance fee I have paid for a very long time. The care, pride and attention paid to creating something so beautiful that it instantly calmed my chattering mind
We are designed to be close to nature, to connect with it to be connected to it. It feeds us in ways we can’t explain; I imagine Evolutionary Psychologists could explain it.
It wasn’t silent but it was quiet, as if the noise I could hear was in rhythm with my own body and mind, these are the noises we are supposed to hear.
I sat on the wooden bench at the viewpoint and didn’t so much look at the view but absorbed it, time passes. It did.
Thirty minutes later I walked back towards the entrance. I met a family, with a wonderful dog. He looked at me, as if to say “when are you humans going to understand what you really need” He then ran on chasing the stick his master had thrown for him. Following behind him, a beautiful little girl running to her mother with a handful of bluebells and tomato sauce all around her mouth from her lunch. She knew what the dog meant in a way that adults don’t.
The weather was wonderful the best Sunday of the year so far. Where were all the other people? Twenty miles south of the great metropolis, and yet I only met three families.
Not disappointed for myself but disappointed and concerned for Us. Is it really the case that our collective wit and imagination cannot see beyond visiting the Trafford Centre, Meadowall or one of the tens of American style shopping malls on our Sundays? To buy stuff we are told we need, following the slavish doctrine of the consumer religion; only by shopping for stuff will you be truly fulfilled, when did we swallow this nonsense?
Perhaps when we banished an equally dangerous doctrine of traditional religious observance. Only to find that we have replaced one religion with another; a vacuous pursuit of perfection, never to be attained, the new opium of the people. More dangerous, addictive and pervasive than drugs our policy makers are so keen to outlaw without allowing the scientists to even conclude their initial studies.
Give the people what the want- “tough on crime tough on the causes of crime, freedom to shop whenever they want-a free open entrepreneurial society”
Irrefutable? Of course, but it asks the wrong question it mis-directs us. We look forward while a gigantic fraud is perpetrated behind our back.
Where is our aspiration? Our desire to better ourselves. To understand ourselves, to apply ourselves to the very real problems our society faces.
Who is sponsoring the debate on these crucial areas, who is inspiring our children to think, challenge and provoke?
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." – Einstein
Where do we hear this truth? Amongst the din of X Factor, TV adverts, lose weight in 21 days plans, and endless mind numbing reality television-No. We don’t hear it anywhere.
This debate is labeled highbrow elitist, the preserve of Radio 4 and obscure website and blogs. But is it?
There is surely a yearning in us all to understand more, to have a deeper sense of fulfillment achievement and peace. How long will it take for us to realize that in the same way a sugary satiated diet of fast food will not nourish our bodies? Nor will a diet of the Trafford Centre followed by “I’m a celebrity………” satisfy our soul.
Sunday 18 April
Today I drove the short distance to a beautiful English countryside pub, popular but in no way succumbing to the need to appeal to the demands of the 21st century. I had a simple but wonderful meal, freshly cooked with pride and no pretention
I wandered around the graveyard of the church opposite the pub feeling the history and the lives that had shaped this wonderful village
I walked through the marvelous arboretum adjacent to the grounds of the pub. Stunning and peaceful, the most profitable £2-50 entrance fee I have paid for a very long time. The care, pride and attention paid to creating something so beautiful that it instantly calmed my chattering mind
We are designed to be close to nature, to connect with it to be connected to it. It feeds us in ways we can’t explain; I imagine Evolutionary Psychologists could explain it.
It wasn’t silent but it was quiet, as if the noise I could hear was in rhythm with my own body and mind, these are the noises we are supposed to hear.
I sat on the wooden bench at the viewpoint and didn’t so much look at the view but absorbed it, time passes. It did.
Thirty minutes later I walked back towards the entrance. I met a family, with a wonderful dog. He looked at me, as if to say “when are you humans going to understand what you really need” He then ran on chasing the stick his master had thrown for him. Following behind him, a beautiful little girl running to her mother with a handful of bluebells and tomato sauce all around her mouth from her lunch. She knew what the dog meant in a way that adults don’t.
The weather was wonderful the best Sunday of the year so far. Where were all the other people? Twenty miles south of the great metropolis, and yet I only met three families.
Not disappointed for myself but disappointed and concerned for Us. Is it really the case that our collective wit and imagination cannot see beyond visiting the Trafford Centre, Meadowall or one of the tens of American style shopping malls on our Sundays? To buy stuff we are told we need, following the slavish doctrine of the consumer religion; only by shopping for stuff will you be truly fulfilled, when did we swallow this nonsense?
Perhaps when we banished an equally dangerous doctrine of traditional religious observance. Only to find that we have replaced one religion with another; a vacuous pursuit of perfection, never to be attained, the new opium of the people. More dangerous, addictive and pervasive than drugs our policy makers are so keen to outlaw without allowing the scientists to even conclude their initial studies.
Give the people what the want- “tough on crime tough on the causes of crime, freedom to shop whenever they want-a free open entrepreneurial society”
Irrefutable? Of course, but it asks the wrong question it mis-directs us. We look forward while a gigantic fraud is perpetrated behind our back.
Where is our aspiration? Our desire to better ourselves. To understand ourselves, to apply ourselves to the very real problems our society faces.
Who is sponsoring the debate on these crucial areas, who is inspiring our children to think, challenge and provoke?
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." – Einstein
Where do we hear this truth? Amongst the din of X Factor, TV adverts, lose weight in 21 days plans, and endless mind numbing reality television-No. We don’t hear it anywhere.
This debate is labeled highbrow elitist, the preserve of Radio 4 and obscure website and blogs. But is it?
There is surely a yearning in us all to understand more, to have a deeper sense of fulfillment achievement and peace. How long will it take for us to realize that in the same way a sugary satiated diet of fast food will not nourish our bodies? Nor will a diet of the Trafford Centre followed by “I’m a celebrity………” satisfy our soul.
Sunday 18 April
Blog 4 Do we like the truth?
Do we like the truth?
I imagine that for most of us it has been difficult to avoid the pantomime of the recent election followed by the farcical comedy of the coalition negotiations.
We all know that politicians have a very loose definition of the truth. The late Alan Clark summed it up perfectly with his phrase “I admit I was economical with the actualité“ in relation to the Matrix Churchill case.
Politicians clearly refrain from telling the truth, and have on occasion admitted as much. They assess that the public don’t want to hear it.
That has caused me to ponder of late, whether we do really want to hear the truth, not from politicians, but from each other. Similarly do we tell the truth all the time?
I am talking about truth and lies in the context of not wanting to deliberately take advantage or exploit someone. I am suggesting we lie or avoid telling the truth to navigate our way through the complexity of relationships and organisations. Whilst at first blush this is “normal” and acceptable I want to suggest that, actually it is harmful to everyone involved, ourselves, the people we are in relationships with, and organisations we interact with.
We tell our children to tell the truth, we tell them they should not lie. At a surprisingly early stage of their development they work out that it is not such a good idea to tell the truth all the time. The payoff for lying is simply better than for telling the truth. All of us who have siblings will have legions of memories of getting away with something by blaming it on our brother or sister and similarly getting blamed for something they had done. Whist writing I can instantly recall a couple, I have no doubt my brother can too!
So as children we learn that lying is expedient we have less interest in longer-term future consequences, because at that age consequences are only foreseen in minutes and hours.
As we progress through childhood towards adulthood, we learn this complicated dance of truth and lies, interwoven with cultural expectation, societal norms and relationship conventions. The outcome being that we, just like politicians, treat telling the truth as something with relativistic qualities, to be weighted against the consequences. As we evaluate these consequences we are making all sorts of calculations and assumptions. Based on past experience, guesswork, the appropriateness to the situation, who we are talking with and so on.
I want to explore the consequences and see if we can determine whether there may be some unhelpful outcomes as a result of our desire/need to subordinate truth to other things that we are valuable to us.
To take a couple of crass examples, they may appear too trivial on first examination but I think they illustrate where this flexible approach to telling the truth can lead us.
For the male readers, we will all have reacted with horror when asked the question “Does my bum look big in this?”
For the female readers, I assume you may on occasion have had a similar reaction to the question “how was that for you?”
Our minds immediately go into overdrive carrying out millions of calculations by the millisecond knowing that if we delay too long, that will be indicative of our real view. We calculate consequences, feedback, energy levels, available time, tiredness….and so on.
I presume only to speak for the men in the following; “You look great!” is our usual response. Remembering to actually look before saying it! I will, of course leave it to the female readers to draft their own version of the answer to their question.
Although these may seem clichéd examples, if we follow through some of the possible consequences they may serve as good examples of unhelpful results.
So if we assume for a moment that her bum does look big. She wants to look good, we know that. We do not need to assume that because we know she takes pride in her appearance. Now suppose she visits the ladies as soon as she arrives she sees herself in a full-length mirror and is horrified. What now…..frustration hurt disappointment on both sides.
Similarly, “How was it for you?” cannot go on for ever, when eventually it is brought up (pardon the pun) it may be met with “why didn’t you say before” and the conversation goes all over the place, as hurt feelings, frustrations, shame, pain and anger all confuse and obscure the source issue.
In so many ways we are acting just like we did when we were children our “consequence horizon” is too short, we can see the immediate consequences, or be more precise we think we can, within the next few minutes, but ignore the longer-term consequences, or perhaps don’t even see them in the moment. In carrying out our rapid calculations we apply a discount factor by reference to time. We are blinded by the immediacy of the issue. Our evolutionary past kicks in. We wouldn’t worry about not having any firewood to cook a meal if we came face to face with a sabre-toothed tiger, we would do whatever it takes to avoid it.
So we lie or fail to tell the whole truth for expediency’s sake, to avoid immediate conflict or in deference to other people’s feelings. All seemingly laudable reasons. They seem laudable because we only evaluate them against a short consequence horizon. What is to be gained by replying with the truth when your mother-in-law asks if you liked her specially prepared cauliflower cheese? Or when a colleague asks you how you are?
I suggest there is a huge amount to be gained by doing so and equally importantly a huge amount is lost every time we fail to do so.
To avoid getting sidetracked on this point, I am going to assume that we each have the skill and vocabulary to share our true feelings and thoughts in a caring and sensitive fashion and that we are not gratuitously offensive. This will ensure that we do not confuse the content of the message with its delivery. I accept that this may not always be the case, but unless we assume that I think it will obscure what we are trying to uncover.
As with most things in human behaviour, Shakespeare has got it covered!
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not be false to any man.
—Hamlet.
Each time we fail to truly say what we feel or believe we chip away at our own sense of self we lessen our presence in the world, and undermine our sense of self worth. I appreciate that this may sound all a bit too grand and touchy-feely new age nonsense but… indulge me for a moment.
As we get into the habit of consequence prediction we also begin to try to manage other people’s reactions and feelings. We do this under the pretence that we are managing our own feelings and taking care of ourselves. Eg “I don’t like conflict so I will say this rather than the truth” Yes we may well avoid the conflict with the other person, but we have not avoided the conflict, we have simply moved it to ourselves. We have said one thing, presented one thing as a truth about us to the world and yet have another opposing truth within us. A cognitive dissonance of sorts. We have chosen to keep the conflict within ourselves rather than share it with someone else.
It is this conflict that is bad for us, not only is it stress inducing, it also chips away at our sense of self. We have all had those moments when we have failed to say how we feel or what we think at work to come home feeling stressed and angry, precisely because we have the conflict within us. We endeavour to dissolve by post rationalisation, but we know it doesn’t work, we can feel the conflict within us. The intensity may diminish over the next few days. But it remains ready to be re-awoken at the hint of a similar situation.
Now, I do of course appreciate that I may be stretching it to say this sort of stress and conflict could arise as a result of willingly eating your third helping of your mother-in-law’s cauliflower cheese! I agree, what possible harm can it do to smile and say “oh yes please”? Other than the knowledge that you will have to do eat it on every visit for the rest of her life, or yours, which may well be shorter as a result of the diet.
The problem arises because it is habit forming, it is a slippery slop, which once we are on it is very hard to prevent ourselves from sliding to the bottom.
When does the failure to tell the truth move from potentially being harmless, to potentially being harmful? Impossible to determine I think.
We can best illustrate the corrosive effect of not telling the truth by looking at what happens in the work place. Telling the truth has been sacrificed on the alter of avoiding conflict.
How many of us have gone through a whole year being told we are doing a great job, only to arrive at a year-end assessment to be told we are average? The consequences of this are obviously no good for anyone and yet it is done year after year after year.
The rollout of a new strategy or operational structure is fraught with difficulty if people fail to tell the truth. The proposed impact is nuanced here, adjusted there, spun somewhere else so as to avoid conflict, As if avoiding conflict was the corporation’s mission statement! Are we really saying we are only prepared to make these radically important changes if we can do it without conflict?
The cumulative impact of Chinese whispers on an organisation can be devastating. By the time the message reaches only the third person the minor compromise proposed to accommodate a specific circumstance has become an opt out clause for all.
Leaders simply have to tell the truth. Again it is the “consequence horizon” problem. Avoiding conflict and putting a positive spin on things can seem entirely appropriate. However the longer-term consequences of this are potentially horrific, involving a quite phenomenal waste of time, energy and effort. Leaving aside the hidden costs of stress, absence and health.
By promoting truth telling as an option, leaders promote and sub consciously encourage their managers to do the same. The cascaded impact of this breeds confusion and fear and a culture that can easily move to one where people begin to believe that being truthful is detrimental to their careers. The organisation then becomes a toxic place to be. Every day people will be in internal conflict, permanent cognitive dissonance, creating underperformance, stress and ill heath. So the leaders get precisely what they were seeking to avoid in the first place. If you cannot tell the truth, you cannot be who you are, and if you cannot be who you are, you will not perform to your best.
A leader’s responsibility is simply to create an environment where people can be the best they can be. She will not achieve that unless she is married to the truth and committed to telling it all of the time.
Will Schulz suggested that over 80% of organisations problems are rooted in not telling the truth.
Think I am exaggerating? What is office politics if it is not playing around with the truth? Some of it may be deliberately vindictive which is outside the scope of our discussion here, but a lot of it is considered the norm, gossip and just human nature.
It’s human nature; you can’t do anything about that! I hear people cry. Is that really true? Is human nature the same as it was in the middle ages? Do we drown people we believe to be witches? Do we execute people for stealing bread for their hungry children? No we don’t. So why should we accept the human nature defence for this or for that matter anything.
So to re-cap we have shown that a failure to tell the truth will
1. Create a harmful internal conflict
2. Lead to a deterioration of a sense of self
3. Be corrosive to an organisation and the people who work within it.
Two areas I will explore in a further note. Firstly to examine the deterioration of the sense of self in more detail. Secondly to examine the impact on our personal relationships.
Finally, I invite you to choose a day next week during which you note down the times you don’t tell the truth. Try to keep a piece of paper with you all day and jot them down. Maybe expanding on them later if you have the time, and reflecting on why
The next thought, is the obvious one, a whole day of telling the truth. I propose to choose a day next week to do just that, and will share how it felt with you afterwards. Naturally if any of you would like to do the same it would be great to hear about your experiences.
I imagine that for most of us it has been difficult to avoid the pantomime of the recent election followed by the farcical comedy of the coalition negotiations.
We all know that politicians have a very loose definition of the truth. The late Alan Clark summed it up perfectly with his phrase “I admit I was economical with the actualité“ in relation to the Matrix Churchill case.
Politicians clearly refrain from telling the truth, and have on occasion admitted as much. They assess that the public don’t want to hear it.
That has caused me to ponder of late, whether we do really want to hear the truth, not from politicians, but from each other. Similarly do we tell the truth all the time?
I am talking about truth and lies in the context of not wanting to deliberately take advantage or exploit someone. I am suggesting we lie or avoid telling the truth to navigate our way through the complexity of relationships and organisations. Whilst at first blush this is “normal” and acceptable I want to suggest that, actually it is harmful to everyone involved, ourselves, the people we are in relationships with, and organisations we interact with.
We tell our children to tell the truth, we tell them they should not lie. At a surprisingly early stage of their development they work out that it is not such a good idea to tell the truth all the time. The payoff for lying is simply better than for telling the truth. All of us who have siblings will have legions of memories of getting away with something by blaming it on our brother or sister and similarly getting blamed for something they had done. Whist writing I can instantly recall a couple, I have no doubt my brother can too!
So as children we learn that lying is expedient we have less interest in longer-term future consequences, because at that age consequences are only foreseen in minutes and hours.
As we progress through childhood towards adulthood, we learn this complicated dance of truth and lies, interwoven with cultural expectation, societal norms and relationship conventions. The outcome being that we, just like politicians, treat telling the truth as something with relativistic qualities, to be weighted against the consequences. As we evaluate these consequences we are making all sorts of calculations and assumptions. Based on past experience, guesswork, the appropriateness to the situation, who we are talking with and so on.
I want to explore the consequences and see if we can determine whether there may be some unhelpful outcomes as a result of our desire/need to subordinate truth to other things that we are valuable to us.
To take a couple of crass examples, they may appear too trivial on first examination but I think they illustrate where this flexible approach to telling the truth can lead us.
For the male readers, we will all have reacted with horror when asked the question “Does my bum look big in this?”
For the female readers, I assume you may on occasion have had a similar reaction to the question “how was that for you?”
Our minds immediately go into overdrive carrying out millions of calculations by the millisecond knowing that if we delay too long, that will be indicative of our real view. We calculate consequences, feedback, energy levels, available time, tiredness….and so on.
I presume only to speak for the men in the following; “You look great!” is our usual response. Remembering to actually look before saying it! I will, of course leave it to the female readers to draft their own version of the answer to their question.
Although these may seem clichéd examples, if we follow through some of the possible consequences they may serve as good examples of unhelpful results.
So if we assume for a moment that her bum does look big. She wants to look good, we know that. We do not need to assume that because we know she takes pride in her appearance. Now suppose she visits the ladies as soon as she arrives she sees herself in a full-length mirror and is horrified. What now…..frustration hurt disappointment on both sides.
Similarly, “How was it for you?” cannot go on for ever, when eventually it is brought up (pardon the pun) it may be met with “why didn’t you say before” and the conversation goes all over the place, as hurt feelings, frustrations, shame, pain and anger all confuse and obscure the source issue.
In so many ways we are acting just like we did when we were children our “consequence horizon” is too short, we can see the immediate consequences, or be more precise we think we can, within the next few minutes, but ignore the longer-term consequences, or perhaps don’t even see them in the moment. In carrying out our rapid calculations we apply a discount factor by reference to time. We are blinded by the immediacy of the issue. Our evolutionary past kicks in. We wouldn’t worry about not having any firewood to cook a meal if we came face to face with a sabre-toothed tiger, we would do whatever it takes to avoid it.
So we lie or fail to tell the whole truth for expediency’s sake, to avoid immediate conflict or in deference to other people’s feelings. All seemingly laudable reasons. They seem laudable because we only evaluate them against a short consequence horizon. What is to be gained by replying with the truth when your mother-in-law asks if you liked her specially prepared cauliflower cheese? Or when a colleague asks you how you are?
I suggest there is a huge amount to be gained by doing so and equally importantly a huge amount is lost every time we fail to do so.
To avoid getting sidetracked on this point, I am going to assume that we each have the skill and vocabulary to share our true feelings and thoughts in a caring and sensitive fashion and that we are not gratuitously offensive. This will ensure that we do not confuse the content of the message with its delivery. I accept that this may not always be the case, but unless we assume that I think it will obscure what we are trying to uncover.
As with most things in human behaviour, Shakespeare has got it covered!
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not be false to any man.
—Hamlet.
Each time we fail to truly say what we feel or believe we chip away at our own sense of self we lessen our presence in the world, and undermine our sense of self worth. I appreciate that this may sound all a bit too grand and touchy-feely new age nonsense but… indulge me for a moment.
As we get into the habit of consequence prediction we also begin to try to manage other people’s reactions and feelings. We do this under the pretence that we are managing our own feelings and taking care of ourselves. Eg “I don’t like conflict so I will say this rather than the truth” Yes we may well avoid the conflict with the other person, but we have not avoided the conflict, we have simply moved it to ourselves. We have said one thing, presented one thing as a truth about us to the world and yet have another opposing truth within us. A cognitive dissonance of sorts. We have chosen to keep the conflict within ourselves rather than share it with someone else.
It is this conflict that is bad for us, not only is it stress inducing, it also chips away at our sense of self. We have all had those moments when we have failed to say how we feel or what we think at work to come home feeling stressed and angry, precisely because we have the conflict within us. We endeavour to dissolve by post rationalisation, but we know it doesn’t work, we can feel the conflict within us. The intensity may diminish over the next few days. But it remains ready to be re-awoken at the hint of a similar situation.
Now, I do of course appreciate that I may be stretching it to say this sort of stress and conflict could arise as a result of willingly eating your third helping of your mother-in-law’s cauliflower cheese! I agree, what possible harm can it do to smile and say “oh yes please”? Other than the knowledge that you will have to do eat it on every visit for the rest of her life, or yours, which may well be shorter as a result of the diet.
The problem arises because it is habit forming, it is a slippery slop, which once we are on it is very hard to prevent ourselves from sliding to the bottom.
When does the failure to tell the truth move from potentially being harmless, to potentially being harmful? Impossible to determine I think.
We can best illustrate the corrosive effect of not telling the truth by looking at what happens in the work place. Telling the truth has been sacrificed on the alter of avoiding conflict.
How many of us have gone through a whole year being told we are doing a great job, only to arrive at a year-end assessment to be told we are average? The consequences of this are obviously no good for anyone and yet it is done year after year after year.
The rollout of a new strategy or operational structure is fraught with difficulty if people fail to tell the truth. The proposed impact is nuanced here, adjusted there, spun somewhere else so as to avoid conflict, As if avoiding conflict was the corporation’s mission statement! Are we really saying we are only prepared to make these radically important changes if we can do it without conflict?
The cumulative impact of Chinese whispers on an organisation can be devastating. By the time the message reaches only the third person the minor compromise proposed to accommodate a specific circumstance has become an opt out clause for all.
Leaders simply have to tell the truth. Again it is the “consequence horizon” problem. Avoiding conflict and putting a positive spin on things can seem entirely appropriate. However the longer-term consequences of this are potentially horrific, involving a quite phenomenal waste of time, energy and effort. Leaving aside the hidden costs of stress, absence and health.
By promoting truth telling as an option, leaders promote and sub consciously encourage their managers to do the same. The cascaded impact of this breeds confusion and fear and a culture that can easily move to one where people begin to believe that being truthful is detrimental to their careers. The organisation then becomes a toxic place to be. Every day people will be in internal conflict, permanent cognitive dissonance, creating underperformance, stress and ill heath. So the leaders get precisely what they were seeking to avoid in the first place. If you cannot tell the truth, you cannot be who you are, and if you cannot be who you are, you will not perform to your best.
A leader’s responsibility is simply to create an environment where people can be the best they can be. She will not achieve that unless she is married to the truth and committed to telling it all of the time.
Will Schulz suggested that over 80% of organisations problems are rooted in not telling the truth.
Think I am exaggerating? What is office politics if it is not playing around with the truth? Some of it may be deliberately vindictive which is outside the scope of our discussion here, but a lot of it is considered the norm, gossip and just human nature.
It’s human nature; you can’t do anything about that! I hear people cry. Is that really true? Is human nature the same as it was in the middle ages? Do we drown people we believe to be witches? Do we execute people for stealing bread for their hungry children? No we don’t. So why should we accept the human nature defence for this or for that matter anything.
So to re-cap we have shown that a failure to tell the truth will
1. Create a harmful internal conflict
2. Lead to a deterioration of a sense of self
3. Be corrosive to an organisation and the people who work within it.
Two areas I will explore in a further note. Firstly to examine the deterioration of the sense of self in more detail. Secondly to examine the impact on our personal relationships.
Finally, I invite you to choose a day next week during which you note down the times you don’t tell the truth. Try to keep a piece of paper with you all day and jot them down. Maybe expanding on them later if you have the time, and reflecting on why
The next thought, is the obvious one, a whole day of telling the truth. I propose to choose a day next week to do just that, and will share how it felt with you afterwards. Naturally if any of you would like to do the same it would be great to hear about your experiences.
Blog 3 if
IF
Here is a thought to transform the education of our children. As a country we continue fall behind in the attainment of international educational standards. We slavishly follow the mantra of test after test after test. Our children emerge from school as the most tested young adults in the whole of Europe and yet still languish in the bottom quartile of educational attainment.
So a thought… How about we give children on their 8th birthday, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s IF. And we dedicate one hour per week out of the timetable to explore it, play with it. Ask them to think about what it means to them in their life, review how they have applied it, how it felt, is relevant to them?
Worth an hour I think, don’t you?
"If”
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! (Woman my daughter!)
By Rudyard Kipling
Here is a thought to transform the education of our children. As a country we continue fall behind in the attainment of international educational standards. We slavishly follow the mantra of test after test after test. Our children emerge from school as the most tested young adults in the whole of Europe and yet still languish in the bottom quartile of educational attainment.
So a thought… How about we give children on their 8th birthday, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s IF. And we dedicate one hour per week out of the timetable to explore it, play with it. Ask them to think about what it means to them in their life, review how they have applied it, how it felt, is relevant to them?
Worth an hour I think, don’t you?
"If”
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! (Woman my daughter!)
By Rudyard Kipling
Blog 2-Fun
How much fun do we have in our lives these days? How does it compare to the fun we had as children or the fun that we see children have?
Less? A lot less? I imagine so for all of us. Why is that? Here are a few of the reason we might initially come up with.
Not enough time
Too busy with work
Too busy with stuff
Too tired
Too stressed
I don’t think any of these are true at all. The real reason is we don’t know how to, as naturally as we used to when we were children. We have learnt and been taught that after a certain age, fun is some thing in the past to be revisited occasionally, something childish, a phase we have passed through and now our lives are for something else. Where did this come from? Lots of places I imagine, the legacy of Victorian Britain, religious interference and doctrine, education, and our culture of aspirational progression perhaps.
A dear and wonderful friend of mine said in relation to work: “Work is what we do in between having fun.”
How many of us have fallen into the trap of getting this precisely the other way around? And knowingly accepting this as part of our life.
We are born as pleasure seeking creatures, Babies seek it out at every opportunity, they play, they learn; they learn they play. We are designed as pleasure seeking and playful and yet we choose to somehow unlearn this.
So much so that innocent play is now difficult for a lot of us. We seek to access it with the assistance of alcohol or other substitutes.
Occasionally and spontaneously we may access real fun, the type or fun that exists not just in the moment but resonates in our body long after. It can cause us to laugh so much it hurts but is really a delicious pleasure.
Ask yourself when was the last time you laughed like that?
That sort of fun and ecstasy is nourishing for us, it releases all sorts of positive chemicals into our system, it also balms our soul, puts us back in touch with our playful self; a part of us that we have accidentally abandoned somewhere along the way.
I think the problem or draw back with alcohol-fuelled fun is that it does exist in the moment but doesn’t deliver the lasting impact nor does it touch our soul. I wouldn’t want to come across a puritan I have had my fair share of alcohol fuelled fun nights and I am sure I will have more. But alcohol is after all a depressive and will counteract the positive chemicals naturally generated from real fun.
Whilst writing this, I wonder whether a better word for us to explore is play or playfulness rather than fun. These words seem to be to have a better quality to them; they bring to mind innocent enjoyment, a lightness of spirit, less about striving but more about being in the moment.
I don’t think young children set out to have fun to achieve anything they simply play, for its own sake.
I am reminded of a weekend I spent in Cambridge visiting with some friends. There were six of us, 3 couples, it was a glorious day, we walked out across the common, which prompted a severe hay fever attack for me. We arrived at the park and played rounders. Girls against boys naturally, I shall omit to mention who won for fear of recriminations if any one of the other 5 people should ever read this. I can remember now, over 4 years later the feeling, the expressions on other peoples faces, the playful shouting and arguing, the playful accusations of cheating. The lying on the grass afterwards exhausted hot, but totally satisfied and content, smiling and enjoying as much the smile on others faces too. A powerful sense that all was well with the world and this simple pleasure of 15 minutes of play had created that. And my hayfever had magically disappeared despite lying in the grass
I have had many fun drunken evenings, as I am sure most of us have, but they are incomparable to that day in Cambridge, or other moments of real play.
So how about conducting a playfulness audit of your life?
When was the last time you played?
Could you get some friends together and go to the park and play rounders?
Make a picnic?
Avoid alcohol?
Try it and let me know what happens.
Let’s Play!!
Less? A lot less? I imagine so for all of us. Why is that? Here are a few of the reason we might initially come up with.
Not enough time
Too busy with work
Too busy with stuff
Too tired
Too stressed
I don’t think any of these are true at all. The real reason is we don’t know how to, as naturally as we used to when we were children. We have learnt and been taught that after a certain age, fun is some thing in the past to be revisited occasionally, something childish, a phase we have passed through and now our lives are for something else. Where did this come from? Lots of places I imagine, the legacy of Victorian Britain, religious interference and doctrine, education, and our culture of aspirational progression perhaps.
A dear and wonderful friend of mine said in relation to work: “Work is what we do in between having fun.”
How many of us have fallen into the trap of getting this precisely the other way around? And knowingly accepting this as part of our life.
We are born as pleasure seeking creatures, Babies seek it out at every opportunity, they play, they learn; they learn they play. We are designed as pleasure seeking and playful and yet we choose to somehow unlearn this.
So much so that innocent play is now difficult for a lot of us. We seek to access it with the assistance of alcohol or other substitutes.
Occasionally and spontaneously we may access real fun, the type or fun that exists not just in the moment but resonates in our body long after. It can cause us to laugh so much it hurts but is really a delicious pleasure.
Ask yourself when was the last time you laughed like that?
That sort of fun and ecstasy is nourishing for us, it releases all sorts of positive chemicals into our system, it also balms our soul, puts us back in touch with our playful self; a part of us that we have accidentally abandoned somewhere along the way.
I think the problem or draw back with alcohol-fuelled fun is that it does exist in the moment but doesn’t deliver the lasting impact nor does it touch our soul. I wouldn’t want to come across a puritan I have had my fair share of alcohol fuelled fun nights and I am sure I will have more. But alcohol is after all a depressive and will counteract the positive chemicals naturally generated from real fun.
Whilst writing this, I wonder whether a better word for us to explore is play or playfulness rather than fun. These words seem to be to have a better quality to them; they bring to mind innocent enjoyment, a lightness of spirit, less about striving but more about being in the moment.
I don’t think young children set out to have fun to achieve anything they simply play, for its own sake.
I am reminded of a weekend I spent in Cambridge visiting with some friends. There were six of us, 3 couples, it was a glorious day, we walked out across the common, which prompted a severe hay fever attack for me. We arrived at the park and played rounders. Girls against boys naturally, I shall omit to mention who won for fear of recriminations if any one of the other 5 people should ever read this. I can remember now, over 4 years later the feeling, the expressions on other peoples faces, the playful shouting and arguing, the playful accusations of cheating. The lying on the grass afterwards exhausted hot, but totally satisfied and content, smiling and enjoying as much the smile on others faces too. A powerful sense that all was well with the world and this simple pleasure of 15 minutes of play had created that. And my hayfever had magically disappeared despite lying in the grass
I have had many fun drunken evenings, as I am sure most of us have, but they are incomparable to that day in Cambridge, or other moments of real play.
So how about conducting a playfulness audit of your life?
When was the last time you played?
Could you get some friends together and go to the park and play rounders?
Make a picnic?
Avoid alcohol?
Try it and let me know what happens.
Let’s Play!!
Blog1 Airports
Well here I am, just arrived in Italy for a week, A surprisingly hassle free journey, Ryanair two-hour flight. Standsted was busy but efficient, no queues at passport control or security. And straight through security in Ancona, with no delay and the bags off in less than 10 minutes!! In Italy!! Not Germany.
So why can’t the larger airports work with the same level of efficiency?
“Ah but you see they have a lot more planes and a multiple of flights and passengers per day, so it is bound to be slower”
Well I just don’t buy that. It is lazy monopolistic management that is the route of the problem; there is no commercial incentive for them to increase their efficiency. They hide behind the volume of passengers argument, and the extra security measures required in these post 911 days.
They treat these as problems that cannot be solved, that are out of their control rather than business challenges that require their attention to find creative solutions. All global businesses have had to adapt the increased global security, expanding into emerging markets where new business models may be required as well as different market strategies. They find solutions to these problems otherwise they lose their customers. With such a stark consequence they apply their attention to the issue. It is clear that the major UK airports simply do not.
We are continually patronized with the “ you can’t compromise on safety”. “ What’s an hour in a queue when lives are at risk” These insult our intelligence, and frankly betray the simpleminded and lazy thinking of management.
How many times have you queued through security to find half a dozen of the x-ray machines not in use? Manned by frustrated prison officers who take a palpable delight in the discomfort of the customers who pay their wages, shouting repetitive instructions that each of us will have heard 25 times by the time we pass through their security.
Client service is a non-existent concept to them; again they are protected by the safety mantra trumping everything else. I imagine (I hope never to find out) that prisoners actually have more rights to complain that us poor users of airports.
And then when you get through there is no where to sit (absent those of you fortunate to gain entry to a lounge, where you move from being treated as a passenger to be processed and extorted with the ludicrous prices to, a human being. These lounges are of course managed and maintained by the airlines, where competition exists for the benefit of the consumer and not the airports)
So there is no seating and yet there is enough free real estate for every fast food franchise on the planet to be present, doubtless defended on the proposition of customer choice being paramount! Well my choice would be a have a seat thank you very much!
I have to grudgingly admire their wonderful PR propaganda. The footfall of the two major UK airports not to mention the generally appalling regional ones must rival that of the combined figure for our major high street retailers. Yet they are allowed to jettison any notion whatsoever of client service and get away with it, without a murmur of compliant from us. Security is sacrosanct, anyone suggesting anything that challenges this is a heretic and quite likely to be put on a no fly list. Certainly voicing any criticism to our “prison warders” will result in you being late and possibly missing your flight.
Our beloved government seeks to apply market forces to the teaching profession, with endless and pointless testing. To the caring profession with waiting times, and out of hour coverage and doubtless numerous other pointless self serving ideas, which actually achieve nothing, but they seek to do it because they believe service levels are important (they are misguided as to how to do it!) but they do at least recognize the importance. Well that is probably being too generous to them, they do it because they know we the people care out these things, and they need to be able to pretend they are doing something about it.
Private companies bidding for rail franchises risk losing their franchise if they don’t run their trains on time. There we go- a perfect example of good state intervention in the private sector where near monopoly conditions apply. With a bit of thought this can easily be made to apply to the Airports.
But no, there is no government appetite, “the public are quite content to be treated worse than farm animals, to be ripped off with usurious prices” Because we have been told and have bought the lie that this is a necessary part of the war on terror.
Commercial businesses exploiting, and being allowed to, the oldest technique in marketing- fear. Outrageous.
So why can’t the larger airports work with the same level of efficiency?
“Ah but you see they have a lot more planes and a multiple of flights and passengers per day, so it is bound to be slower”
Well I just don’t buy that. It is lazy monopolistic management that is the route of the problem; there is no commercial incentive for them to increase their efficiency. They hide behind the volume of passengers argument, and the extra security measures required in these post 911 days.
They treat these as problems that cannot be solved, that are out of their control rather than business challenges that require their attention to find creative solutions. All global businesses have had to adapt the increased global security, expanding into emerging markets where new business models may be required as well as different market strategies. They find solutions to these problems otherwise they lose their customers. With such a stark consequence they apply their attention to the issue. It is clear that the major UK airports simply do not.
We are continually patronized with the “ you can’t compromise on safety”. “ What’s an hour in a queue when lives are at risk” These insult our intelligence, and frankly betray the simpleminded and lazy thinking of management.
How many times have you queued through security to find half a dozen of the x-ray machines not in use? Manned by frustrated prison officers who take a palpable delight in the discomfort of the customers who pay their wages, shouting repetitive instructions that each of us will have heard 25 times by the time we pass through their security.
Client service is a non-existent concept to them; again they are protected by the safety mantra trumping everything else. I imagine (I hope never to find out) that prisoners actually have more rights to complain that us poor users of airports.
And then when you get through there is no where to sit (absent those of you fortunate to gain entry to a lounge, where you move from being treated as a passenger to be processed and extorted with the ludicrous prices to, a human being. These lounges are of course managed and maintained by the airlines, where competition exists for the benefit of the consumer and not the airports)
So there is no seating and yet there is enough free real estate for every fast food franchise on the planet to be present, doubtless defended on the proposition of customer choice being paramount! Well my choice would be a have a seat thank you very much!
I have to grudgingly admire their wonderful PR propaganda. The footfall of the two major UK airports not to mention the generally appalling regional ones must rival that of the combined figure for our major high street retailers. Yet they are allowed to jettison any notion whatsoever of client service and get away with it, without a murmur of compliant from us. Security is sacrosanct, anyone suggesting anything that challenges this is a heretic and quite likely to be put on a no fly list. Certainly voicing any criticism to our “prison warders” will result in you being late and possibly missing your flight.
Our beloved government seeks to apply market forces to the teaching profession, with endless and pointless testing. To the caring profession with waiting times, and out of hour coverage and doubtless numerous other pointless self serving ideas, which actually achieve nothing, but they seek to do it because they believe service levels are important (they are misguided as to how to do it!) but they do at least recognize the importance. Well that is probably being too generous to them, they do it because they know we the people care out these things, and they need to be able to pretend they are doing something about it.
Private companies bidding for rail franchises risk losing their franchise if they don’t run their trains on time. There we go- a perfect example of good state intervention in the private sector where near monopoly conditions apply. With a bit of thought this can easily be made to apply to the Airports.
But no, there is no government appetite, “the public are quite content to be treated worse than farm animals, to be ripped off with usurious prices” Because we have been told and have bought the lie that this is a necessary part of the war on terror.
Commercial businesses exploiting, and being allowed to, the oldest technique in marketing- fear. Outrageous.
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