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Are you presentologist or a futurologist?

Published November 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Presentology or futurology?  Which is your pick?

I think most of us think that it is good to defer gratification. Well we know it is.  We all know by now the story of the kids given a marshmallow and told they will get another if they leave it untouched until the experimenter gets back. The 30% of kids who resist the urge to wolf down the marshmallow do better in life.

So it is better to be a futurologist?  Not so?

But what is the future?

Our fascination with the future rests in a great part on a fallacy of prediction.

Since mankind has kept records we have been pretty keen on consulting oracles, reading the tea leaves, listening to the weather reports ~ anything to allow us to know what will happen and to be on the right side of history.

We desperately want to know and we desperately want the world to be as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning.

Some predictability is good

I see nothing wrong with that.  Personally, I like my keys to be where I left them.  And I quite like it if my black dog doesn’t lie in a dark passage way for me to trip over him.

Here in lies the important point.  It is not forecasting the future that is important.  It is understanding how the world works that is important.

If there is no one else in the house it would be jolly strange if my keys moved from where I put them.  If there is anyone else in the house, even a black dog who likes keys, some dogs do, then my keys might not be where I left them.  It is the mechanism not the prediction that is important.

When we know the mechanism, then we can do something about it.  We must know the mechanism and all the mechanisms that are relevant. Keys rarely move by themselves but other people might move them without telling me.  Mechanisms introduce randomness and it is better to allow for randomness than get fixated on certainty.

Let’s take my dear black dog as a second example.  He might lie in the dark passageway quite often, but I can’t predict when he will.  I can only allow for the possibility that he might and either walk more slowly or whistle and hope he moves and makes a noise so I can hear him.  Knowing how the world works and the range of possibilities we might encounter is what matters.

So what is better: presentology or futurology?

Now I have explained this like this, it seems quite obvious but what does this affect the choice of presentology or futurology?  How does this relate to the kids and the marshmallows?

I need to know the mechanisms to know what I  can do now, RIGHT NOW.  Because the future follows from now, I want to know how I can change now.

  • I want to change now so that now is better.
  • And I want to act now because now is the only time we can act.
  • I want to act because I like action. Action makes us feel good.
  • And I want to change now because it makes the future more interesting!

Instead of worrying whether or not I will trip over my black dog, I ask myself what mechanisms I can manage to walk safely to my destination.  Calling to my dog is one of them.  If I want to get to the end of the passage safely, I must manage all of the mechanisms, on their own terms, as they come up.

Knowing that I want to get to the end of the passage safely or knowing that I get to the end of the passage safely 90% of the time simply doesn’t help me.

But knowing that a black dog tends to lie there quietly, and knowing that dogs do respond when you call, knowing these mechanisms helps me manage possibilities and helps me rearrange NOW, in this case what is going on in my head.   By understanding now and rearranging it, I allow possibilities to evolve that I might enjoy.

Presentology : the art of now

What needs to be done now?

We are all talking about now. Personal kanbans, productivity, mindfulness, solidarity, happiness. It is all about being master of the present ~ master of what is happening this minute!

 

 

Note:  The late Russ Ackhoff used the term presentology to describe his philosophy of management

 

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This is how succession planning will change in the next 5 years

Published November 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Succession planning ensures we have someone ready to do a job tomorrow

In business, we use succession planning to ease short term supply problems ~ or in plain terms ~ to make sure that we have people available quickly, to do a job and to do it our way.

We have 3 basic methods of succession planning

#1  Do nothing or leave everything to chance

This is obviously the cheapest to do.   It also sets the base line.  Whatever else we do should work better than this, or we will stop doing it!

#2  Job cover for every position 5 years ahead

We make a database listing every job in the organization and every person in the organization. This massive  ‘spreadsheet’ is repeated 6 times: now, next year, 2 years from now, etc.  Every year, the plan is reworked to make sure that there is someone to cover every job 5 years ahead.  That way someone’s training and work exposure is started well before they are likely to take on the whole role.  And if someone resigns, there is already somebody in-house, trained and ready to take over.

This is the most expensive system and it works best when an organization is very stable.

#3  Evaluate the depth and potential of every team

This method looks at the potential of “critical” teams.

The depth of each team is assessed by rating each member on a 3×3 grid.  On the vertical is their current performance (better than adequate, adequate, not adequate).  On the horizontal is their potential (unlikely to go higher, will go up another level, will go up 2 or more levels).

This is a relatively cheap method because most of the data is already available from performance appraisals or it can be gathered intuitively from a panel of managers.

Succession planning in the information age

The key to #3 is an assessment of how much higher a person will go in the organization.  The Economist today makes a good point.  The level that a person will reach is no longer very relevant.

What is relevant is a person’s ability to

  • gather information
  • analyze information
  • make sense of it
  • present it so other people can make sense of it and know what to do with it

I can imagine some people thinking these skills mean research skills.  That’s not quite what we mean.  We mean skills linked to the internet.

  • Make a website in minutes to make data available
  • Use Google Alerts, Twitter and Search to keep abreast of events and to rapidly deduce what is relevant
  • Mashup data so that other people can see what is happening
  • Ask questions that are relevant to people around them
  • Present data so that people understand the underlying processes and quickly understand what decisions they should make
  • Track the effects of action

This sounds geeky.  It is a little.  To do any of this well, though, we need to understand people and their context.

What do they need to know and what will they do once they know?

Succession planning will ask then

  • Is the person aware of what is going on around them?  Do they gather and analyze the right information?  Do they ask the right questions?  Do they lay out information well?  Do people understand them and people find it easier to act quickly and effectively?
  • Is the person developing his or her information talents?
  • Are they able to take on larger leadership roles with more complex & dynamic information environments than they currently enjoy?

It would be good to write up the types of information contexts that people work in currently and the demands on their attention.

 

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Crossing the Rubicon – when vague wish becomes determined intent

Published November 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Some days we wake up determined

Today, I woke up with things to do – all the things that somehow never made it on to today’s to do list.  Do you ever have one of those days?

Crossing the Rubicon

In psychology, we call it “crossing the Rubicon”.  The Rubicon is a river in north Italy.  Ceasar sat the wrong side of it with his troops and knew that the day he crossed over, he would be declaring war on Rome and that there would be no going back.

Rubicons in our lives

We have many Rubicons in our lives.  Going to university, getting married, buying a house.  We have many “once only actions” through which we are changed forever.

The public and the personal

Some of these are obvious and we often mark them with a public celebration. Some are personal.  We know that we personally have crossed a Rubicon.

The everyday

And some are just everyday ~ we go from wish to intent and get on with action.

Crossing the Rubicon is not all good

We can be a little bit of a menace in the “crossing the Rubicon” mood ~ because we are so determined to get something done.  We might also be short-tempered and impatient with others.

But get things done, we do!

Crossing the Rubicon – that moment when vague wish becomes determined intent.

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Yikes, don’t be drama queen! That’s all this positive psychology is about

Published November 17, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Positive psychologists are too polite!

No one is telling you to be cheerful all the time.  People are just mildly suggesting that you might like to

  • Be positive when the circumstances call for you to be positive
  • Be negative when the circumstances call for you to be negative

and conserve energy when the circumstances don’t call for a response from you at all.

Defending our right to negativity is such a good example of energy wasting!

Much of the time we are not required to make a response, and we respond negatively!  Stop wasting energy!  No one asked you what you think!  Just do nothing.  I assure you, if they care what you think, that will bother them a lot more.

If you are going to burn energy, why not have fun?

As they don’t care what you think, and as you aren’t required to respond, why not do something that’s enjoyable?  Like smile?

You are so politely being told to stop being a drama queen!  That’s all.

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If hard work doesn’t work, play harder!

Published November 17, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Feeling the pressure

I taught a really really big class in New Zealand.  We had 800 to 900 students each year.

We took all comers.  We had people coming back into education after a long break.  We had A+ engineering students in their final year.  We had nervous 17 year olds in their first year at uni.  We always had 33 nationalities ~ though different ones every year.  And we failed 25% ~ as a matter of policy.

Students felt the pressure.  The course wasn’t hard. It wasn’t intended to be.  You can teach intelligent university students almost anything without making it hard.

But their marks yo-yo’d around.  A few more questions right or wrong in the quarterly quiz and their class rank could change by 100.

Dealing with disappointment

Some students worked like mad. They even worked hard when they were averaging 80+.  I explained that 80+ translated into A+ and 9 points on their GPA and there was no point in working harder.  But they felt a compulsion to work more even though there was no reward.

Others could see no reward for themselves.  They beavered away and got mediocre or even ‘failing’ grades.

They came to me in anger or distress.

“I work so hard”, they wailed.

My friendly but brief reply was “Don’t!  Be logical. If working hard doesn’t bring results, don’t. Go out and have a good time.  Be logical!”

Many did. Most did.  They could see no other way forward.

Playfulness often brings better results

They would visit me the next quarter with a big smile on their faces.  “It worked,” they’d beam.  “It worked!”  “I partied all term and my marks shot up!”

Of course, there could be many reasons why their marks shot up. No matter!  What they had learned was an invaluable life lesson.

  • We don’t control everything, particularly in a competitive system where our results depend as much on what we  do and on what other people do.
  • Rewards are not linearly dependent on effort.  Working harder does not necessarily bring a reward.
  • People don’t reward us because we want to be rewarded.  “The world does not owe us a living.”

Business does not reward you for working hard

So they learned the first lessons of business. And I hope they will be better managers for it.

  • Do the basics, do them professionally, do them at the right time, and STOP.
  • Do what the customers want, not what you want.
  • Go out and play. Other people will like you for it. You will like yourself for it. Business may even boom!

The simple lesson is that if hard work doesn’t work, try something else!

Smile.  Take a deep breath and just do something differently.  Mix it up!

And stop being such a control freak!

There!  Gave myself away.

Ah, well, if you must, then turn it into an AB experiment.

  • Record your results now.
  • Every day, write a short journal of how the day went.
    • Ask yourself what went wrong and how you could do better.  Then ask yourself why did you do so well.
    • Jot down the misunderstandings and confusions that you were able to explore to the benefit of you and the other person.
    • Ask yourself what questions you pursued with no guarantee of an answer.
    • Ask who you treated kindly, as if their lives were going to end at midnight.
  • After a month, ask how you life is going!  Will you carry this on for another month?

Or will you do an ABA experiment and go back to the way things were?

For the poets among us: this short poem gives the same message lyrically.

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Live the questions now. Live your way into the answer.

Published November 17, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Last night, I stumbled on a wonderful collection of poems. Do bookmark this link and keep it for a moment when you want to relax.

For this morning, at a time when the economies of the UK and the US are about to become very turbulent, it is good to read a poem from German poet, Rainer Rilke.

…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

in Letters to a Young Poet

It is so hard to think about living without a clear goal.  We’ve been taught to be wilful rather than curious.

Maybe the first question is what it would feel like to turn all my goals today into questions?

What would it be like to get up?  What will it like to have a shower?

Just to ask a series of questions?

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. . . sway in wicked grace . . . I dare you to

Published November 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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I’ve just found this snippet courtesy of a search for the first line that arrived at this blog.

“The time cracks into furious flower
Lifts its face all unashamed
And sways in wicked grace…”
“This is the urgency: Live!
and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.”
– Gwendolyn Brooks, The Second Sermon on the Warpland

I previously had the expression

“Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind”

This was written for all of us in the 21st century, don’t you think?

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Bill people who rip off your blog? Fair or not?

Published November 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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What irony!  My previous post on Flying Pigs on the way new media reveals the pitfalls in old media showed up, via  Zemanta, a word-for-word rip off of the entire original post.  Checking it out, I found that the copy being used to sell viagra and other such commodities.

I left this message on the post.

“To whom it may concern.

My work is published on a Creative Commons licence on By and Share Alike.

I am flattered by your use of my work but you will understand that by using my work without citing the source or even linking to it, that you owe me some money.

Please send a payment within 24 hours of USD100.00 to my Amazon account that you find on my blog.

I look forward to this completion with no delay. Should you wish to use more of my work, I am happy to discuss terms of an ongoing agreement.

Regards
Jo Jordan”

Setting up the Amazon link proved puzzlingly difficult to do.  Amazon persists in thinking I live in the States and wants a US zipcode. So I sent an invoice by Paypal instead.

Fair or not?

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Flying pigs: social media is really showing up old media

Published November 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Epworth
Image via Wikipedia

Following the flying pigs

I had a follow-up to my post on Managing in Africa.

My curiosity about the fate of warthogs that got in the way of a jet taking-off at Harare International Airport received some dry feedback.  Apparently, there were no pigs.  The plane ‘just’ lost its landing gear.

The pilot should obviously be congratulated for bringing the aircraft to a safe stop with no injuries.  The media should be following up the safety of that make of aircraft!

But pigs at airports that turned out to be flying pigs  . . .

A funny story that teaches us something about judging the accuracy of media reports

I was slow to detect BS.  That got me thinking.

  • I did notice that story was unfinished.  No one told us what happened to the pigs ~ or congratulated the pilot.
  • This is another example of how old media are only too willing to report the accounts of powers-that-be, even when they are in Zimbabwe.
  • This is another example of how old media are only too willing to regurgitate each others “news” without checking for themselves.

And I have lost my instincts for the truth of stories coming out of Zimbabwe.  I have been away too long.

We all judge stories by their narrative form and an essential player in every narrative is ourselves  When we are not part of the story, we will have difficult spotting inaccuracies.

Third parties are not necessarily good observers

Good accounts always have many perspectives.  Perhaps the first checks on any story is

  • Who said it?
  • Who repeated it?
  • Who was left out?

And above all, follow the money!

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What do you do about local businesses who Twitter but don’t follow back?

Published November 16, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Internet reciprocity and local business

Tell me, what is my obligation to help a local business who won’t help anyone else? Or if I am at work, what is my obligation to help a colleague who won’t help anyone else.

Reciprocity norms under scarcity and abundance

My instincts are all wrong.  I come from a country where just about everything is in short supply.

  • We don’t throw away food. Minimally, it will be boiled up in the dog’s food or made into compost.
  • We don’t throw way packaging. It is reused for something else.
  • We don’t even send spam because people pay for incoming mail. They’ll block us in an instant.

Our instincts are never to waste and always to help. Help first. Ask questions later.

In a land of abundance, what is the right response?

Let’s take a local shop who is new to Twitter

  • We can help them out by following.
  • We can help them out by RT.
  • We can help them out by replying and starting a conversation.
  • We can help them out by DM’s useful information.

But of course we cannot DM them if they don’t follow us. And I have to ask, why do I follow them, if they don’t follow me?

What should be my response?

Should we follow everyone who follows us?

I don’t follow everyone who follows me on Twitter.

Lots of people follow me on Twitter. I quickly learned most of them are bots.

When they speak to me, if they speak to me, I check them out.

If they behave “botishly”, I call them out.

If they reply, I check them out, and I help them. I put some time into helping them. I go out of my way to help them.

The instincts of living with scarcity. Always help a stranger.

Maybe I should be following other people more diligently?

I should probably make an effort to follow people who follow me.

The thing is I didn’t get on to Twitter to sell anything. I got on to Twitter to keep in touch with people. I quickly connect with anyone that I meetup with or who might have some common interest with me ~ like local shops.

Well, I suppose I should check my followers to see who is who. Or they could reply to me about something. After all I chatter a lot.

I think I am confused here. I am certainly annoyed that local shops broadcast and don’t listen back.

Have I answered my own question? What is my obligation to local businesses?

In a land of abundance, should I look after the people around me? I am not sure I should. There is another shop down the road.

Get real folks. We aren’t going to carry your baggage for you ~ not on this road ~ lands of abundance require economic reciprocity ~ you help me, I help you, you help me ~

If I am not sufficiently important to you for you to be sociable ~ then you will have to pay me for my time ~ that’s how it works.

But my instincts from the land of scarcity is that I might have to put up with your bad behaviour and to cajole you out of it? Do I? Do I hurt myself by not troubling myself to hurt you?

What if I just sit and watch you struggle? What if I just behave like one of those characters in sitcoms that sits on the sidelines and makes useless comments in the manner of a court jester?

So follow me back and talk to me!

And maybe I should check my follower list more carefully!  Or perhaps it is that those who set out to sell don’t listen. Maybe selling leads to an instinct not to reciprocate.

Someone straighten me out please!

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