Monthly Archives: May 2017

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Determining the best course

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Today a collegue and I had an interesting philisophical discussion about how things should be done.  Is there a right way and a wrong way?

If the outcomes are good does it matter how they were arrived at?  The challenge is, arguably there are  grey answers to these questions.

Consider Basic Behaviours

Most would agree to take another humans life is wrong, however; taking anothers life in defense of your own or accidentally contributing to a loss of life seem to logically mitigate the seriousness or even if it is wrong.

So, the basic statement “Taking anothers life is wrong” could have many qualifiers making the ultimate conclusion of wrong or right not so clear.

Group or Organizational Behaviour

It probably seems logical for groups to practise clear and open communication.  For there to be rules or at very least guidelines outlining accountabilities and responsibilities.

For multi layered structures (i.e., heirarchical) it seems obvious documented organizational structure is of great value. But, like the murder example, what seems obvious might not be.

Unstructed cultures, where anyone can do anything can exist and be intentional.  Clear guidelines, responsiblities, even unambigous communication might not fit with this culture.

And the answer is

What is the key to success is not declaring what is right or wrong, but rather as a group or team collaberatively determining the culture and then fitting the behaviour standards to conform with that culture, in a fully supportive manner.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Politically Correct

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Sirius XM satellite radio recently introduced The Beatles channel.  This iconic rock band created a huge catelogue of timeless pop rock songs and over the last couple of weeks I have been listening on and off.

I grew up with Beatles music, it was new and fresh.  Today it is still new and fresh, even though some songs I have heard numerous times over the years and never get tired of.

Mysoginy Incarnate

One of the hall marks of Beatles songs are the lyrics.  Typically they are clever and thought provoking.  The words can create pictures in and of themselves, often greatly enhanced by the tunes.

So you can imagine my surprise on listening to “Run for Your Life” from 1965’s Rubber Soul album and realizing how politically incorrect the lyrics were.

I have heard the song many times in the past, starting from 1966, but not recently and not in the car on a relaxing drive home. As I heard the line, “I’d rather see you dead little girl, than to be with another man” I thought wow, this is on the radio.

Back in the sixties such a line was okay.  In fact, that line captures the sentiment of the entire song and taken in the context of “You better run for your life, little girl” even I am appalled. In todays world, this kind of thinking is unacceptable.

I cannot image the level of social media outrage such a line would cause if this were a current issue.  The  Beatles reputation would have taken a hard hit, as it did back in the sixties on occassion.

In the sixties though the bad stuff in song or public behaviour related to sex, drugs and comparing themselves to Jesus Christ.  Nothing that bothered me.

Times have changed, thank goodness.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Leveraging Differences

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Leveraging different skills and strengths by integrating them to a cohesive whole, produces better results.  While this is a somewhat intuitive statement, there are large bodies of research supporting this conclusion.

The major challenge is to enable a group of people with diverse backgrounds, experience, skills and values  to achieve the maximum level of cohesion.

This one of the most powerful leadership skills, but also the most difficult to practice.   Differences can result in adversarial behaviour. This is natural.  Can the leader resolve this?

How to channel adversaries into comrades?

Motivating others to collaberate, while respecting and leveraging each others differences is best done with a deft hand.  That is, create an  environment which encourages the co-mingling of different perspectives,  without being obvious.

The core principal is not to direct, but to guide.  Create and communicate a clear vision and strategy to reinforce the power of group diversity  over that of individual effort.

Using Superman

An individual with super strength, x-ray and heat vision who can fly and is invulnerable seems to be an appealing approach.  With Superman as your prime resource, who needs a diverse group that struggle to work together?

Why not just rely on this all powerful super human. Seems like it might be easier.  Of course it’s a problem if someone shows up with kryptonite.

High performing teams leverage each others strengths and minimize the risks associated with their weakness.  They do not have a single point of failure and can adapt and effectively defend against kryptonite like attacks.

In this lies the key value of leveraging diverse strengths versus a single source.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Keeping your brain alive

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Intellectual stimulation, exercising your brain, is as important as physical exercise to maintaining your health.  Elongating your life span requires attention toward all body parts – muscles, vital organs and thinking processes.

Supporting thought

On and off my posts focus on leadership behaviours.  A critical tool in understanding and motivating others is to create an environment that allows for positive exercise of intellectual prowess.

Properly orchestrated this can enrich the performance of the team, group or organization, through a series of a productive set of behaviours, that addresses not just physical well being but possibly more importantly, mental health.

Like your muscles, without regular active use your thinking processes can become atrophied.   Leaders must not just motivate action and outcomes but enable others to do so in a mentally stimulating way.

Setting the Environment

One approach is to encourage respectful dialogue.  Exchanging information in a reasoned manner while encouraging dissent and opposing views can be a very powerful motivator.

More importantly, this behaviour results in higher levels of engagement which in turn raise motivation and ultimately outcomes are better.

These outcomes hopefully map to the groups goals and objectives.  Encouraging the team to mentally challenge themselves includes the use of scenarios specifically targeted to make everyone think.

In these cases, the goal or objective may be in and of itself, about the thinking process, no more no less.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Change is good

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In 1964 Bob Dylan issued his classic self penned folk song “The times they are a changin”. It was an anthem for the youth of the time echoing the popular desire for cultural change.

As appropriate as the lyrics were to the decade they were written in, the message is timeless.    Consider:

“If your time to you

Is worth savin

Then you better start swimmin

Or you’ll sink like a stone”

Basically, I interpret this to mean, if you can’t keep up with the change, you will drown.  A true statement any time, not just in the decade of the sixties.

Resistance is Futile

In Star Trek, Next Generation. one of the classic antagonists were the Borg.  An alien race that absorbed everything in their path.  Their motto was “Resistance is Futile”.

Although it does not fit exactly within the context of the TV drama, I have always appreciated the catch phrase as representing the epitome of my attitude toward change.

That is, embrace the change and get on with it.  There is little value to resisting.  Ultimately the effort, time and potentially the pain you elicit does not stop life’s progression.

Change is Good

Often I get feedback that not all change is good.  The clarification I provide is; this phrase does not imply all change should be accepted blindly without attempting to influence or impact the nature and outcomes of the change.

Simply put, the process of change in and of itself  is beneficial.  That does not mean it’s not necessarily a process potentially fraught with frustration but it is better to embrace and guide the change rather than to battle it.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

High on Life

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If you were asked, would you like to be born, that is given the opportunity to accept lifes journey or not, what would you do?  The response varies widely by person, but it can be very a very compelling indicator of your current emotional state.

This is a point in time question you can use to do a quick check of your own emotional well being.  An abrupt no probably means you are not having a good time, on the other hand an enthusiastic yes is the opposite.

Set the Context

For this technique, from a personal perspective,  the first thing I did was set the context.   I asked myself some clarifying questions.

What are the options, being born or ” ?” .  And secondly what does lifes journey mean, given I haven’t been born I would not understand the context of “life”.

For this hypothetical analysis, I classify the state before birth as non-existance.  Being born gives me an existance for which I am free to do whatever I am able, subject to unknown constraints .

That is , life will have constraints but these are not always predictable.  Some will be helpful, some will not.  It will continue until my existance ends, that duration is unpredictable.

And the answer is

For me the answer is always on the yes side of the equation, the level of enthusiasm I feel about it relates directly to my current state of mind.

The value in asking the question lies in the assistance it provides me in determining what I need to do to trend toward a widely enthusiastic yes, that being the state of mind I prefer.

Simply put,if I am trending toward wishing I was never born, I need to examine myself internally, take control and change my state of mind toward the positive.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

I exist, I will cease to exist

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The awareness of ones existence leads to the realization someday you will cease to exist.  Death.  This in turn often results in the belief in a higher power.

This existance, and it’s ultimate end becomes explained in a logical fashion,  through a strong belief in in something whose existance is unproven.  In fact, only exists because of belief.

What if there is no higher power

The search for the meaning of life, the purpose or goal is often explained as a subservience to god.  Not a god you can see or talk to but one that only exists in your mind, that is a product of your beliefs.

Without this explanation,  our existence is a short trip through a reality of our own making ending in a death, which is not (of our own making).  This results in a strong motivation to believe in a higher power.

Such beliefs can be used as a justification for action, who can prove they are untrue?  Without this kind of fundemental motivation our lives become little more than a beginning and an end.

Not for everyone

Belief in a higher power, a god if you will, is not for everyone.  Personal philosophies that focus on the self, “it’s all about me” represent examples of an alternate approach.

I am here.  Let me do all the good I can for myself and others while I travel this road.  When it is done, I will have no regrets.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Motivating High Performance

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Performance, in the context of the post refers to the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.  High performance should lead to better outcomes.

Applies to Everyone

In a group situation (e.g., family, corporate , charitable) the more the individual performances integrate (i.e., synchronize) the greater the outcome.

Motivating performance is most effective when balanced (a favorite concept of mine) between the group and the individual.  If my soccer team has a superstar I might win sometimes.

If every player on the roster is a superstar, and collaboration is their mantra, the chances we will consistently win are high.  That is both individual and team performance are key success factors.

Enabling Motivation

The most powerful form of motivation comes from within.  Achievement orientation is an extremely important emotional intelligence characteristic.

Selecting group members that identify with this value and display the associated behaviours is the first step toward building a motivated team.

Having a high level of individual motivation practiced by everyone in the organization sets the framework for leaders to provide the motivational direction.

In this case, the individual contributors naturally combine and leverage each other.  They recognize a true team effort is the route to great success.

The secret to successful motivation is to create an environment where self motivation will occur organically.  This is no so much about direct action on the part of the motivator.

The key is recognizing what each individual needs to fuel their inner motivation and then give it to them.  Observation and barrier removal is mainly what this entails.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Rethinking the Monetary System

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Yesterdays post ended with a question – Can this avoidance of economic collapse continue without a major resdesign of the monetary system?

Reworded, is there a major devaluation of money coming if we don’t change something?   Remember, in and of itself money has little value.  You could burn it to keep warm, use it as toilet paper or to make paper clothes but there are better materials for these things than money.

Money is an instrument or tool critical in the exchange of goods and services.  If money was not accepted in return for a good or service it is basically useless.

Demand for Money

Money is only in demand because it has a percieved value.  If money suddenly has no percieved value or is of greatly diminished value some hope it will be replaced, by say gold or diamonds or bitcoins.

Ultimately though all these things are artifical constructs with a requirement for a perceived value.  If the perception changes or dissappears so does the value.

Outside the box thinking

My thought is not to replace money, but rather to standardize it, one currency for the entire world, and fix how much is available and do not allow any manipulations like fractional reserve systems to exist (finally backto that, hope you were not holding your breath).

The currency then does not fluctuate in value and given it is world wide becomes the same everywhere.  Hoarding it or trying to manipulate supply and demand via regulated interest charges or other such machinations would not work.

Goods and services (e.g., housing and food prices – basic necessities ) would not vary in value because the amount of currency was fixed and there would be no more available.  That is, the money suplly would be an irrelevant economic factor.

Inflation, deflational, economic collapse, would all become all things of the past.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Is there a better way?

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Money is simple a tool to facilate the exchange of goods or services.  Direct exchange of goods and services is called bartering.  Using money (or diamonds or gold) has some key advantages over bartering.

Money or some equivalent placeholder like diamonds or gold display the following attributes:

  • serves no useful purpose on it’s own (e.g., you can’t eat it, read it, talk to it, and so on)
  • the supply is controlled (it’s production and issuance is largely through goverments or other central bodies)
  • how and when it can be used and by whom is regulated (e.g., anti-money laundering, financial institution regulation, fraud control)
  • Is portable, recognizable and believed to hold value

These are the key factors as to why money replaced barter as the main method of facilitating economic exchange.

The monetary system

Humans created money as the key resource underlying the monetary system ( replacing barter).  The rules for production, issuance and use of money can be manipulated for the good of all.

That is, to some extents we can control our economic destiny.

The use of fractional reserves is one of those regulatory practices employed by countries around the world to manage the way money is used.

The intent of these practices is promoting overall greater real economic activity – that is the creation of more goods with a real use for which humans have a need or derive benefit (e.g., food).

The rub of course, is the risk that instead of promoting economic posperity money becomes recognized for it’s real worth – nothing. This leads to economic depressions, the worst in recent memory occurring in the 1930’s, which culminated in world wide conflict.

In recent years governments have employed more rules and attempts at manipulation to avoid the events of the 1930’s.  To some extent these have worked and a major devaluation of money has been avoided.

Can this avoidance of economic collapse continue without a major resdesign of the monetory system?  More of my thoughts tommorow.