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Category: POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, WELLBEING & POETRY

Mr Kiasu

Published May 9, 2008 by Jo Jordan

The Coxford Singlish Dictionary, a light-hearted lexicon of Singlish published in 2002.Image via Wikipedia

 

I learned a new word today: kiasu.

We are showing ‘kiasu‘ when we load up up our plate with food “just in case” the food gets finished. Over-competitiveness.

It is a Mandarin word, and Singaporean cartoonist, Johnny Lau, has a cartoon character, Mr Kiasu, who in Singlish, “everything also I want”, “everything also sure win”, “everything also I grab”.

Apparently, the closest English expression is ‘dog in the manger’. I cannot eat the hay, but I will not let you have it either!

Apart from the fun of learning a little about Singapore culture and humor, this reminded me of Steve Roesler‘s post on over-managing our children. I thought you might appreciate it.

I wonder what the opposite is? Certainly the word ‘savor’ comes to mind. It being the weekend, it is nice to think of judging the shopping so finely that we have a few really delectable meals . . . and a bare fridge by next Thursday.

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Guess who’s coming to dinner?

Published May 8, 2008 by Jo Jordan

When do we have cross-generational conversations?  And how do they go?

Steve Roesler blogged a few days ago about prevailing concerns about developing generational differences.  Steve was asked “what do we have in common?”

This led me to ponder when we have cross-generational conversations?   And whether they are conversations at all?

  • When was the last time you spoke in depth about something of mutual concern with someone in another generation?
  • Was the younger person able to access the older person’s experience and compare how things were done at different times?
  • Was the older person able to listen to the younger person’s experience and acquire insight into their existence?

And what, if anything, did we do to promote and support the conversation?

Is there anyone out there writing on cross-generational conversations?

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So if I am not going to reify my organization, what should I do?

Published May 7, 2008 by Jo Jordan

I was following up the new field of “performance studies“.   I have lost the link unfortunately.   Here are five statements and questions I re-phrased in “plain-language”.

1.  We make the company every day by what we do.

2.  Together we act out a story.

3.  Remember there is more that one story we could tell.

4.  Why do I have to speak for you?  What can’t people speak for themselves?

5.  What does the story we are acting out say about our relationships with each other and are we willing to talk about this question?

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Are you reifying your organization properly?

Published May 7, 2008 by Jo Jordan

I hope my title caught your eye and made you panic a little – ooooooh, there is something I should be doing . . .!

Well, I hope to persuade you to do it less. Or, to run a mile from any organization where you hear it a lot.

Reify : To regard or treat an abstraction as if it had concrete or material existence

It really bothers me when we talk of an organization as if it has an existence beyond the people who are in it.

It is true sometimes the organization has a legal persona. We will eventually talk about the Democratic Party nominee, for example. But that is simply a decision that members of the Democratic Party will make following a procedure they devised and adopted.

Real thinking, breathing, living people who are quite entitled to change those procedures as and when they deem it fit. Indeed, they have anticipated doing so and have already laid down procedures on how to initiate change – as do all good organizations.

The rules that we lay down do not live and breathe without us. Every organization has rules that are still written down and have been ignored for years. Every organization also has rules that are extremely powerful and are not written down anywhere.

What the rules tell us, written or unwritten, are the relationships we have with each other.

This is why I think it is dangerous to reify an organization: this is why it is dangerous to present an organization as a mind beyond the minds of the people in it.

Compare the minutes of a meeting which say “it was decided” to “Mary proposed” “Peter seconded” and the votes was carried “10-5” with no abstentions. Compare these minutes with minutes which include the voting record of each person.

When we say “it was decided”, we are deliberately concealing who said what and who decided. Why are we concealing that information?

Because we don’t want to write down how we made the decision. Whatever we did that day would not, we believe, reflect well on us.

Most likely, we have made a decision we are not entitled to make. Most likely we have usurped authority that is not ours.

Can we get away with saying “it was decided”?

Yes. Often. Rensis Likert has written on this problem.

1. We may not talk about a problem.

2. We may not talk about not talking about a problem.

This is a mark of a festering trouble-spot in an organization. When the double-bind is widespread, the organization is likely to run into deep trouble.

I remember a colleague who used to send out memos headed “from the desk of . .”. Mmmm, she received a lot of replies addressed “To the desk”.

Survival guide to contemporary corporate life

1. Be wary of the passive voice. Ask ‘who dunnit?’

2. Be double wary when inanimate objects and abstract concepts are used to resume the active voice. Ask ‘who substituted a thing or an idea for a person’ , and then,  ‘what have they done that they don’t want me to know’!

3. And if you can, cut your losses. As Clay Shirky said, a four year old knows that any activity not designed for her participation is not worth sitting still for.

Don’t allow people to obscure who gains from an action and who has been cheated.   If you cannot restore a better atmosphere, then look for a better place to be.  It is important to be in a place which is honest in its essence. Where people intend to do well by each other even if they get it wrong sometimes.  Look for that essential honor and head there.

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Who moved my mouse?

Published May 6, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Who Moved My Cheese?Image via Wikipedia

I am looking for my mouse

Clay Shirky at Web2.0 Expo tells the story of a 4 year old who gets bored looking at a DVD and crawls around the back of the screen: “I am looking for my mouse”. This is the story of child brought into a technological age where we expect to participate in whatever we do. “Looking for the mouse” is the mark of a generation who expects to take initiative.

Who moved my cheese?

Just ten years’ ago, we were delighted by another story, an allegory, Who moved my cheese? This story is about a generation who does not expect to take initiative.  Indeed, it resists taking the initiative.  It wants to ‘put the clock back’.

We spend a lot of time crying, “we want the cheese to come back.”  Or, words to that effect.  We celebrate the past rather than the emerging future.

The positive message of this allegory is that once we can move beyond fear, we are free to move on, and find fresher, more interesting, more enjoyable cheese.

My advice is “follow that mouse!”

I live a double life as I have said before. In my one life, I work with Zimbabweans who are frozen in terror about the changes going on in their country. Their fears are real, and justified. So too, is their desire to go back to a time when cheese was there for the taking. Their liberation will ultimately come when they stop protesting the unfairness of it all and start to explore their future.

In my other life, I work with HR professionals who are also frozen in terror.  In the case of HR, there is a little cheese left, but not much. The world has moved on to work patterns where there are new demands and new generation who says “I am looking for the mouse”?

For Zimbabweans and HR professionals, I am looking for my mouse has a sadder meaning The mice have already detected the dwindling cheese supply and have left.

My advice is “follow that mouse”!

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Is 2.0 a passing fancy?

Published May 4, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Both Scott McCarthur and Jon Ingham have been blogging on 2.0 recently. The big question in discussions about 2.0 is always whether or not 2.0 marks a fundamental shift in the structure of society.

Here is a video of Clay Shirky speaking at the Web 2.0 expo recently with a compelling story about why 2.0 is here to stay: “I am looking for the mouse”!

[blip.tv ?posts_id=862384&dest=29134]

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by Web2Expo with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.

 

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The deep challenge to positive psychology: war

Published May 1, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Can and does positive psychology help us with the tragic and terrible events in life?

Positive psychologists focus on the positive and they raise two issues in mind:

  • How much use is positive psychology when life if really dreadful?
  • And aren’t we being rather patronizing to people in the midst of tragedy and despair?

I wonder what other positive psychologists would say.

Look at tragedy & despair squarely but not necessarily in the eye

I would say that we need to look at tragedy and despair squarely but not necessarily in the eye.

Be worldly

To use the analogy of wild animals, some animals become more aggressive if we stare them in the eye, but most will attack if we lose eye contact!  Worldliness is important and we need to understand the menace that faces us.

Have compassion for yourself and your journey

But there is a season for everything, and to continue the analogy, whatever drew us to the bush in the first place, has brought us to this predicament. We need to understand our predicament, and even appreciate it, within the context of our wider lives, within the journey that brought us to this place and will take us on to other places.

Poetry in dark times

It is so much more easily said than done.

In dark times, we value our poets as much if not more than we do in bright times. They mirror what we are feeling – our despair and fear – against a backdrop of our hopes and dreams.

Poetry from Zimbabwe in the dark days after the 2008 election

This poem is from Zimbabwe which you may know is in deep peril as they wait for long delayed election results to be announced. April has been a long month of waiting for them.

The poet is Comrade Fatso, a local musician, who has his own website and blog. I don’t have his permission to use his poem here. I hope he doesn’t mind. I hope, too, you visit his blog and leave a kind word. Or go to his website and listen to his music (it is for sale!)

Street fillers

The streets are empty.

The state has retreated.

So has the opposition.

All we are left with

are their torn posters,

pasted over each other

in a confusing collage of symbols and slogans.

We also have their space-fillers.

Riot police

aimlessly

walk the streets,

batons in belts

like forgotten cellphones.

Or sometimes

unconsciously

swung in the air

like a stick-picked-up-on-a-path.

They walk the streets

like the thousands

of unemployed H-town youths.

Space-fillers.

Like the pothole-filling youths

who have taken over the suburban streets.

Stopping traffic,

asking for donations,

filling potholes.

Unhindered.


The state has gone back to the drawing board.

The opposition has stayed away from its stay-away.

Its re-count and re-plan time.

And all we have are their space-fillers.

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3 steps of leadership

Published April 30, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Ben & Ros Zander on leadership

“The job of a leader isn’t to make decisions. It’s to make “distinctions.” “The discipline of making distinctions,” she says, “is based on two questions:

  • What assumptions am I making that I don’t know I’m making?
  • And what can I create that will give me something new?

Making distinctions is about performing small, inventive acts — acts that are totally different from normal strategizing or scheming. Leaders of the future will create categories that give people information on how to do their jobs and on how to live their lives.”

For the full article: here.

A leader’s role

A leader’s role is not to tell us what to do.   A leader’s role is to see the assumptions that we make that we don’t see that we make.    A leader’s role is to have all opinions heard.  A leader’s role is to see connections between our opinions that we don’t see.

When a leaders sketches a positive framework for us, we feel free to act and to act in coordination with each other.

Step-by-step

It can be a tough job making sense of the whole picture.  Here are three questions that psychologists find useful?

  1. What surprises me?  What has brought me to bone-shuddering halt?  What would I like to know more about?
  2. Who else is interested in this surprise but is not saying anything?
  3. Who would be so happy if I asked them what they felt?

That’s a good start.

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A video of Ben Zander speaking on contribution

Published April 30, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Here we are.

UPDATE: If you’ve never heard Ben Zander, the orchestra conductor, speak on leadership, I recommend it strongly.  Half an hour that will truly change your life.

Ben Zander,  comfortable of course, in front of a large audience speaks on his work as teacher, university professor and professional conductor.

He has learned to look for the spirit of musicians and talks about “one buttock playing”, “bringing the light to people’s eyes” and  “apologizing and inviting”.  With these three rules of thumb, you’ll transform the way you work with others.

Welcome to the world of ease and merriment of Ben Zander!

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The management of poverty or the poverty of management?

Published April 29, 2008 by Jo Jordan

If you have never read The Spectator magazine, you should give yourself a treat. It is extraordinarily well written and often has news long before the mainstream British newspapers.

It is also very Conservative. Though timely, erudite and often very funny, it serves more to tell you what you don’t believe, than what you do. It is bit like exploring the inside of a hat, to work out what the outside looks like, and you do it, because the inside is more fun than the outside. Perverse?

Today, in an article intended, I presume, to support the Conservative leader, David Cameron, they wrote about poverty in the UK and two topical issues: the use of metrics, which Brits love to hate; and problem of immigrants who work for less than locals – an odd complaint for a Conservative party I would have thought, but nonetheless! Both these issues point to two themes that are current in contemporary Management Theory.

METRICS

The article suggests what is wrong with so many metrics. A metric is a signpost. It tells you which way to go. A metric is not the destination.

There is only one destination that is acceptable in management and politics – that is the agreement and happiness of our constituents that we have arrived in the right place.

If we arrive in a place and they decide they don’t like it, we can’t make the argument that we followed the metrics. It just doesn’t wash!

Pick some metrics that guide your leadership. Don’t make metrics the substitute of leadership !

To the issue of poverty and politics in the UK: don’t ask Gordon Brown the numbers about poverty.  Ask him, are you happy about poverty? He blusters and says yes. Ask him, are you interested in my views on poverty – are you going to ask why I asked? He asks! You tell him.

Give him the problem you wanted solvand come back next week and tell him how well it has been solved!

Where do metrics fit in? When it is your job to supervise ‘leaders’ like teachers, nurses and police officers, ask them what metrics or signals will help them achieve satisfaction with their leadership. Don’t impose the metric though. When you do, you do not improve leadership, you do the opposite. You relieve them of the responsibility of their actions beyond that metric!

Just hold the conversation about what we want to achieve and how we are going to achieve it! That’s all!

OVERPAID BRITS & OTHERS

The second story was about a Scottish joiner whose job is now done by a Pole at 6 pounds an hour. Apparently the joiner’s wife stood up and asked Cameron what he was going to do about it! Exactly what I recommend. He took the job as leader, give him the problem. His answer – ban Poles!

Bizarre.

Couldn’t he have said: Here is my aide. Call him/her and make an appointment – we will work this out.

To the aide, he says: find me the smartest MBA student on our books.  Ask him/her to give me a briefing in a week.  I want to know about all and every industry that uses joining as a skill.   Could s/he also social-network other students to brainstorm any and every industry who can possibly use joining to advantage?  And give me a list of the top ten business people in the UK who might use joiners.

And then meet the joiner, find out what he really wants, with the MBA student on hand, and work out who should be meeting with each other to use this skill, and joining is a skill, that is obviously not being used.

Get the right people together and ask them to produce a business plan for how the joiner is going to use his skill to make lots of money (and lots of taxes).

And ask them to report back to him in a week.

Who is betting the answer would include “more Poles please” and a air ticket for the Scottish joiner to nip over to Poland to do the recruiting with his wife in tow to explain the Scottish school system (she is a school teacher by all accounts).

People don’t ask politicians questions (or managers for that matter) as a prompt to blame someone else. They want a solution.

They want positive ideas based on our skills, passions, interests, wants, hopes and dreams. This is leadership.

BUSINESS MODELS OF THE FUTURE

Managers are struggling with contemporary ideas about human capital.

In addition to money being capital, in addition to land being capital, we are capital.

Our hopes and dreams, our sense of entitlement (!): this is our capital.

Businesses of the 21st century will be built around who we are and what we want to be.  That is the challenge of management and leadership.

Building our lives around us.  Positively.  Cheerfully.  Collectively.

Cheers to The Spectator.

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