Monthly Archives: October 2016

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Climate Change

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It snowed in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) today.  It was a wet snow.  Heavy to shovel, hard to drive in.  Most residents are used to dry snow conditions so the accident rate went up.

During the winter salt is generally not used on Edmontons roads (a gritty sand mixture instead) as salt is not that effective in ten dgrees below zero centigrade.  This is a quite common tempurature throughout our Northern winters.

The wet and slippery road conditions resulting from todays snowfall caused traffic havoc and many collisions resulted.  Edmontonians are not used to these type of road conditions at this time of year

In the past eight winters it did not snow until after halloween for five of them.   This year it snowed last week (wet snow) and again today.

Is this evidence of climate change?

For me, considering for example the first snowfall metric, the fact  first snowfall was before Oct 31st for five years and four years it was after Oct 31st shows a balance (This is random not sequential years either).

In general throughout my life experience, weather patterns (spring, summer,winter ,fall) are relatively constant and predictable.  Micro patterns within those seasons are not.

Are there more catastrophic weather events now as oppossed to thirty years ago.  Based on the things I have heard reported and lived through myself, not at all.

So do I observe climate change, subjectively speaking – no.  Does global warming exist and is climate change one of the results – objectively based on specific measures it appears to be the case.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Moral Behaviour Consequences

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If you work for NBC,  are in the public eye and represent the networks brand, and   if you make vulgar and misogynistic comments should you be fired?

You might recognize this question is about today talk show host Billy Bush who was filmed trading lewd and insulting comments with Donal Trump 11years ago.

The democrats got their hands on the tape and released it just before last weeks second presidential campaign debate.  The intent of course was to put “the Donald” in a bad light.

Unfortunately for Billy Bush,  the network of course feels the need to send a message that they have high moral standards.  Firing Billy Bush changes nothing, the obnoxious behavior is done and cannot be undone.

Fire Billy, elect Donald

For me ther is something seriously wrong with this picture.  A television personality is about to suffer serious consequences for bad behavior because it has gone public, BUT Donald Trump could still be elected preisident.

Just checking the logic here, it is not okay for a TV host to practice bad behavior, but the next person potentially to be elected to one of the most powerful positions in the world can with impunity.

Wow, scary thoughts.

Lets Nuke Em

To imitate some of the outrageous statements that have been part of this campaign to date, I will postulate the following as a scary but of course unlikely scenario – an exaggeration to show how important it is for the president to have a strong moral pulse.

Mr. President a group of school girls have been kidnapped by a terrorist organization.  What are your orders? Let me see the pictures.  Hmmm I wouldn’t ” do ” any of these girls and they are just women, no worries, just leave it. Why waste time on them?

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Having a discussion with yourself

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I just finished a detailed discussion (several conversations over a couple of days) that was both tiring and frustrating.  The good news is how well it was resolved.

The learning experience for me is the pitfalls of both holding back information while not validating asumptions or preconcieved notions.

I have long been a believer in openly sharing everything I know about a topic regardless of my objective.  In fact, openly sharing my goal is part of this.

Holding Back

So often, partcularly when you are negotiating or want to get something, people hold back information.  The theory is information can be leveraged to help achieve your goals .

Openly sharing can make you vulnerable and could be used against you.  Strangely (as it seems logical) this way of thinking is actually far from beneficial and causes more harm than good more often than not.

Additionally information holdback supports the number one communication pitfall, incorrect conclusions mainly based on invalid assumptions.

For Example

My recent discussion was based on incorrect assumptions by both conversants, neither took the time to validate.  Compounding this was the information holdback which would have may the erroneous assumptions obvious.

After a couple of aggrivating one hour conversations I shared everything I knew via e-mail.  The response, we have a huge misunderstanding going on.

The result a brief conversation, in light of the misunderstanding and all issues and concerns were resolved.  This was a direct result of fully sharing with no information holdbacks.

Don’t Hold Back

It might feel like keeping key information undisclosed might help you achieve your goals, I have observed time and again this is a false assumption.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Integrity

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The level at which we each practice personal integrity, that is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, can be subjective and hard to measure.

We each invision what ” a person of good character” means within the context of our personal filters. That being said, there are accepted commonalities that define moral behavior across your geographic culture or even the human race in general.

For example thou shalt not murder a fellow human is a mostly universal belief across regions, races and religions.

It is the interpretation, recognition and acceptance of exceptions to this moral principle that create the dilemmas (i.e., except when a war is going on or it is enforcing a law or singular belief, and so on)

Practicing Personal Integrity

From an integrity perspective, our personal behaviour should be able to consistently allow us to answer yes to these simple questions:

  • Is it right?
  • Is  it fair?
  • Would others (a majority) answer yes to those questions?

This is a simple self “litmus” test you can perform, before acting, to help you set and the follow  your own morale compass (don’t overlook question 3 as it is the zinger.)

Rules, Laws and other Constraints

Society creates boundaries, both tangible and intangible, often governed by consequences as a way of standardizing behaviour to meet the cultures minimum requirements.

While adherence to these more detailed and sometimes restrictive rules cannot be ignored, just following these standards does not equal high integrity.

My basic test of three questions can be a great assistance to your confidence levels as you try and choose behaviours that could be held to a high moral standard.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

US Election Thoughts

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The average of 15 US media outlet election polls since Oct 1st to date have Hilary Clinton ahead by 6 percentage points.  A slim margin indeed.  Most of the people I talk to ( all Canadian residents and mainly Canadian nationals) struggle understanding Trumps popularity.

Most are concerned about his racist, misogynistic, far right conservative values.  How can a presidential candidate who incites violence and expresses extreme intolerance recieve such strong support.

Rationalization

I participated in a vibrant disscussion yesterday about Mr. Trump.  Fortunately, rather than a group of like minded individuals wondering how anyone could support Trump, we had a devils advocate in our midst.

Our advocate noted things like how Trump has actually never publicly stated policy that is unreasonable.  For example he supports enforcement of the existing immigration laws (strict enforcement but nothing more)

Mr.Trump is oft quoted as calling Mexicans rapists and murderers.  More accurately he said Mexican rapist and murderers should not be allowed into the US (not that all Mexicans were rapists and murderers)

Our devils advocate asked if the male conversants had never spoken about women as the weaker sex.  Men do this just not usually with the women present.  So are Trumps remarks in this regard really so bad.  Is he just not voicing what the male majority think in private.

Balancing the arguments, point and counterpoint, went on for some time with each Trump aggregious comment counter balanced by a logical argument.

In Context

If there is no such thing as bad publicity, Trump is going to triumph.  He is controversial but heavily covered.  You might not like his exaggerated statements, largely meant to get your attention,  but it works.

I am not sure what our devils advocate really thinks or whom he supports in the next US Federal election, however, his thought provoking alternate views very much help put this election drama (that seems so silly and hard to believe) into the serious context it really repesents.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Listen to the Music #9

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On Oct 25th I started a post series that would be about the 37 live rock concerts I have attended in my life so far.

Over time, I am listing the next three best. Eight posts so far covered the top twenty four (listed below), today’s covers twenty-five to twenty-seven.

Just a reminder; 1) Paul McCartney, 2) Led Zeppelin, 3) Elton John 4)Alice Cooper 5) Al Stewart 6) Queen 7) Bee Gees 8) Deep Purple 9) James Taylor 10)Blue Oyster Cult, 11)Johnny Winter, 12) Uriah Heep 13) The Monkees. 14) 1910 Fruitgum Company 15) Allman Brothers Band 16) Kansas 17) Styx 18) Wishbone Ash 19) Trooper 20) Brave Belt 21) Nazareth 22)BTO 23)Peter Gabriel 24) Bad Company

And today’s list

25) Paul Rodgers – the former lead singer of Free and Bad Company is considered by many to be one of the best blues rock singers of the seventies.  This show wher he was billed as a solo artist covered a wide catalogue of including some tunes from the supergroup the Firm in which Paul hooked up with Jimmy Page.  A truly standout show which closed with Free’s biggest hit “All Right Now”

26) Jethro Tull – Ian Anderson was well known for  playing the flute while balancing on one leg.  This show he did not dissapoint.  Ian who was the creative force behind the band is a brilliant musician easily flipping from a standard blues beat to 3/16 time.  This concert was a splendid display of progressive rock rendered live but still sounding great.

27) Lady Ga Ga – although GaG is definitely not a classic rock artist ger music is great and the show was spectacular.  I was not sure if this would be my cup of tea, however I really enjoyed the concert.  Of course it was not just about the music, the spectacle and costumes making it a great experience.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Successful Outcomes

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As a very broad generalization, it could be stated the goal of expended effort is a successful outcome.  Or stated another way, we do stuff with the expectation of a positive result.

In order to determine if an outcome is successful we need to have a clear understanding of our expectation.  This starts with a statement of vision, overall objective and specific goal.

(Or some combination of these concepts depending on the level of detail and specificity needed to define a measurable outcome.)

An example of a high level vision statement could be “Do the right thing at the right time in an efficient way adhering to a high quality standard”

Defining the outcomes

From the vision, the first step is to define the expected outcome in a bit more detail.  The above vision example is too generic for this on it’s own so a more detailed objective and/or specific goal statement  is needed first.

We could define goal for a specific activity in more detail:

-the right thing is a service that conforms to our mission statement.

– the right time could be defined as “just in time” delivery, that is not in advance and not when it is no longer needed.

-efficiency could be defined as a time period associated with the service, for example completed in no more than a hour (this would be service specific).

-and finally the quality objective could be no defects noted by the service recipient within 24 hours of reciept.

Measuring the outcomes

In the above example, we can determine if the work performed was in our service catalogue, when it was delivered and how long it took and after 24 hours we can check if any defects were reported. It is very measurable.

Checking Your Performance

Define the outcomes associated with the vision, objectives and the goals making sure to include how you would determine if these outcomes were sucessful.

Measure the outcomes and determine how well you performed.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Predicting the Future

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” What is? is. What was? will be. What will be *was*, but will be again.”

Quoted from an episode of the TV show “Welcome back Kotter”

The basic logic of this quote is that events occur in cycles.  The only thing you can be sure of is the current cycle, (what is) but predictably the past will be back.

Past Behaviour Predicts Future Behaviour

Analysing past behaviour to determine the future is not an absolute and investment advisors ( to pick an example of a profession frequently trying to predict) regularly provide caution about using this approach to determine which funds or equities to purchase.

They advise, there is a real risk upcoming events will be unique and not influenced by historical at all.  For example, the government might introduce a new tax or policy that impacts behaviour.

Balanced Predictions

Past behaviour has been a proven predictor of future behavior in a number of psychology studies I have read.  That being said, the unexpected does occur and can significantly impact a future event.

Given  both these factors can have an influence on future predictions,  it is the balance you draw between behavioural predictability and the unexpected that will drive the accuracy of your predictions.

The future predictions you make will have a risk of inaccuracy, but careful consideration of past behaviour, event cycles and possible unexpected occurances should enable you to have some confidence in your forecast.

This is a bit contextual as some things are clearly more volitile than others, and so harder to predict.

Most pragmatically, what is: is ; what was: was and what will be: will be.  As the pseudo Spanish lyrics say, que sera sera (whatever will be, will be).  The future is not ours to see.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Judging

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Everyone’s behaviour is impacted in some ways by their personal,  organizational (e.g., home, non-profit, corporation, govt, corporate) and  societal (aka – cultural) bias.

Efforts can be made to override these bias which ultimately inform your behaviour but true impariality is impossible to achieve.

Some roles, for example a judge or a jury member, are founded on expectation of factual based analysis and associated recommendations or decisions.

Even in these cases though true neutrality is not possible.  Your environment, values and prejudices cannot be removed fully no matter how hard you try.

Attempting to put aside these personal filters and view with an open mind is admirable and a task well worth undertaking.   The closer we can come to achieving neutrality the fairer the assessment.

Two Sides

Consider a refugee or political escapee petitioning a government to grant them asylum.  The country they are from claims this person is a terrorist or political agitator.

Their target country seeks to make a fair assessment.  Is this individual being unfairly persecuted or are they an agitator or terrorist.

The assessment of course begs the question, by whose standards.  Which bias, if any, should be applied to the ultimate judgement.

If the refugee has made it safely to their new home, the judgement will be driven by that countries filters otherwise they will probably waste away in a prison.

In one country, this person may be viewed as a terroist and in another as an oppressed fugitive who is being unjustly persecuted. Who is right?  So often the answer is driven by our built in bias.

Is a Fair Assessment Possible

In North America we attempt to ensure fairness in judgement by designing and following practices which have a focus on removing bias and encouraging fairness.

While the North American judicial systems are not perfect and have been shown to occassionally arrive at erroneous judgement, I find it comforting they strive for fairness  as an ideal.