This is a dilemma which appears in many aspects of life. Most of us have a natural inclination towards one side or the other, but the truth, as so often, is that each has its place depending on the situation to be addressed.
Over recent months I have come to get to understand a company working in one of countries in Central Europe that used to be under Russian control. The natural way of working in this economy before 1989 was all about control. Decisions were made centrally, people were not trusted, and extra effort did not yield extra reward.
What is less well known is the positive side. Everyone received a decent education, everyone could afford to live, albeit modestly, professionals had respect, and the lights never went out.
However, the model proved unsustainable, as a lack of any innovation destroyed productivity and competitiveness.
After the wall came down, all hell broke loose. Suddenly people were free to express their views, travel, and pursue their own choices. But a lack of sound institutions and safeguards meant that the result was very unfair, with lots of scope for criminality and hardship for many. However, slowly things have swung back, like a pendulum slowly finding its best spot.
I see this in the company I have been studying. The company only started during the wild days of few rules, and the founder was autocratic and worked on the edge , yet somehow charismatic and inspired.
Yet the company grew too quickly, the context changed even quicker, and the staff, recruited in the image of the founder, took too many short cuts and built a business with poor foundations. The founder had one last trick up his sleeve, to sell the company for more than it was worth and get out of the way.
Under the new owners the pendulum swung back to control, an understandable move with chaos all around. The upshot was a period of confusion and stagnation, with some fear returning among staff.
Only now might it be possible to swing more gently back towards freedom, with some trust, but backed up by well-defined rules and grounded by adequate systems.
The company could be a microcosm for the economies of the whole region, and it is salutary. In the cold war, we were brought up to believe that freedom is always right, and of course in some areas of life it is. But there is a balance to be struck, and the negative consequences of lurches between control and freedom have not been widely publicised or understood.
The worst example was Russia itself, where the West rather stupidly imposed an ungrounded freedom regime after 1989, under Yeltsin. A few got rich, many suffered, and the net result for the economy was at best not as beneficial as had been predicted. Then Putin came in there and swung the pendulum back hard in the other direction. Again, the net result appears not to have been good, at least not for the majority or competitiveness.
Similar dilemmas occur in smaller scale everywhere. Consider parenting. We start with a bias to freedom or control. Extremes on either side are usually wrong. The best choice depends a lot on the characteristics of the child, and to a lesser extent the parents. Wild lurches from one extreme to the other will often have negative consequences, but moving within the spectrum over time as needs change is a good idea. Often, these moves should be marginal, but in some situations a more radical shake up may be necessary, taking care not that the medicine does not do more harm than the ailment.
It is the same in any company. Consider outsourcing, which is equivalent to a move in the direction of freedom – the people actually performing the activity are not taking daily instruction, but rather operating with freedom to choose how they achieve defined goals. Similar choices occur when a chain can choose to operate stores directly or to use some sort of franchise model.
It is useful to think of some criteria to help guide these choices.
It seems a paradox, but the less well you understand your business or market, the more control you must keep. If the market is new or you are a new entrant, it is better to learn the skills yourself and adjust as you go. If you outsource or franchise too early then your partners will keep too much power and maybe it will be difficult to recover. By the same token, the other time to move towards control is when there is a major shift in conditions, in how money can be made in the market. Finally, if the legal or regulation framework makes things risky contractually, it may be necessary to keep control longer. Many companies franchise in mature markets, but run their own stores in China.
But in a stable environment when you know your business well, that is the time to swing to freedom. Partners will often innovate, especially in parts of your business where they can specialise and focus. You can retain enough knowledge to avoid a loss of power, and use your contracts to protect your brand and standards, while simplifying what you retain in house.
So this is about context as much as it is about ideology. It is reasonable to have a bias, but not to apply it blindly. Freedom will often win out, but only if the market does not take an unexpected lurch, or if you get lazy about retaining core skills or some levers over your partners. It can also make sense to move some elements of a business towards freedom at the same time as taking back control in others. What always works is continuously analysing market trends and partners, to avoid being caught out more often than necessary.
It can also be right to swing gently from one side to the other. Cynical staff often complain that their managers make a decision and then an opposite decision five years later, yet both decisions might be strategically justified. The company I am working with is being recommended to swing towards freedom just now. It could well be in five to ten years that it could be recommended to move back to more control. And both recommendations could be right.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Is George Monbiot a Vicar in Disguise?
It is a disgrace and a tragedy how the attention of most of us has moved away from climate change in the last couple of years.
There was a period in the late nougthies when some momentum for action was building up. Climate change became an acceptable subject for a politician or non-geek to bring up, and to bring up seriously.
Then somehow the plot was lost. The Copenhagen summit was clearly a disastrous piece of mismanagement. Shorter term hardships took over the news agenda. The lobbyists for the status quo won some ground when they caught some scientists displaying bias. Some politicians caught a cold, notably Kevin Rudd, and that affected the courage of others. And it snowed.
It is pathetic really. The human race is playing a Russian roulette game with its own future, and we seem to think that is OK. Now those few politicians daring to act bravely, such as Chris Huhne in the UK (glossing over his apparent failings in his personal life) can be accused by some dinosaur of “destroying British industry” without mainstream media even bothering to balance the story.
I am an optimist for the longer term. Mercifully, liberal types seem to be able to control the agenda of schools to some extent, and within ten years a generation which has had climate dangers instilled in them throughout their education will start to become opinion formers.
I also believe that events often shape public attitude more than a steady diet of evidence and trends. Look at what Fukushima has done for the nuclear debate (erroneously, in my opinion). My guess is that sometime in the next five years a similar moment will change the climate debate for ever. Of course I would not want to see a US city washed away, or world scale food riots, or some other undeniable visible piece of doom-mongering evidence. But perhaps that is what we need to wake us up.
In the meantime, I have some advice for those trying to influence public opinion in favour of action. You are losing your argument (our argument) partly because you are so boring.
Look at the front page article in the Guardian Weekly on 3-9 June. Some watchdog has measured emissions and they have gone up. That leads to some obscure, caveated conclusions about global temperature rise far into the future. Everyone is admonished for ignoring this. We are not yet doomed, but will be unless we pull our socks up, and fast.
If I have read this sort of thing once, I have read it 100 times. And it strikes me that it reminds me of the sort of sermon that I had the misfortune to hear from old fashioned vicars through my childhood, and, sadly, still now in many Churches. The vicar sees all sorts of poor behaviour around him. He concludes things were better in the good old days, and we all admonished for this. We are not yet doomed, but we will be unless we pull our socks up, and fast.
How tedious. No wonder such vicars lose their audience, and the whole Church seems in interminable decline. Where is the balance? Where is the sign of being able to be credible with any sort of target audience? Where is the new message? Where is the practical idea of action? Where is the motivation of hope?
Sorry, climate awareness lobbyists, you fall into the same trap. You are not “one of us”. You harry and preach. You forget the positive side, the hope, and the action. Seriously, do you really think we will all sign up to living in villages and growing our own little crops again? Forget it! The climate solution will come from innovations not deprivations, and such solutions are possible. We need to support their urgent development, not just gripe and quote private Fraser “We are doomed”! I do still read George Monbiot, but honestly I can’t say I enjoy it.
So, just as some of us have discovered Church communities and Priests who can tell their story in an engaging way, I hope that one day such people will emerge to help wake us all up from our Russian roulette game. A new narrative from a new generation of preachers is required urgently. Can you help?
While on the subject of religious metaphors for modern day challenges, I saw another one this week. I see a parallel between divorce and debt default.
A marriage is a serious commitment. When we make our vows we should mean them. If we hit difficulties we should try very hard to overcome them. Divorce has to be a last resort, or at least not a first resort. We also know that once we are divorced we are somehow diminished, and further vows will not carry so much weight. Then there are establishment figures, notably Priests, conservatives, and the self-righteous, who can hold the protection of the institution above the interests of individuals. Divorce is sometimes right, and the establishment can be slow to accept this (it is still illegal in the Philippines, and in Malta, though the latter country held a recent referendum promising change).
It is the same way with taking out loans. They are serious. You shouldn’t just default when things start to turn troublesome. A defaulting party becomes diminished, and credit rating should reflect that. Yet, despite all that, default can be right, when the alternative simply provides unending hardship and misery. And establishment figures, here represented by banks, and the last to accept that.
Maybe our banks and some of our politicians need to read up about the history of divorce laws and practices, and their consequences to individuals. Even the history of defaults could help them – in Argentina, things didn’t turn out so bad, after all. That way, a lot of Greeks, Irish, and Portuguese could sleep easier in their beds and face a brighter future.
There was a period in the late nougthies when some momentum for action was building up. Climate change became an acceptable subject for a politician or non-geek to bring up, and to bring up seriously.
Then somehow the plot was lost. The Copenhagen summit was clearly a disastrous piece of mismanagement. Shorter term hardships took over the news agenda. The lobbyists for the status quo won some ground when they caught some scientists displaying bias. Some politicians caught a cold, notably Kevin Rudd, and that affected the courage of others. And it snowed.
It is pathetic really. The human race is playing a Russian roulette game with its own future, and we seem to think that is OK. Now those few politicians daring to act bravely, such as Chris Huhne in the UK (glossing over his apparent failings in his personal life) can be accused by some dinosaur of “destroying British industry” without mainstream media even bothering to balance the story.
I am an optimist for the longer term. Mercifully, liberal types seem to be able to control the agenda of schools to some extent, and within ten years a generation which has had climate dangers instilled in them throughout their education will start to become opinion formers.
I also believe that events often shape public attitude more than a steady diet of evidence and trends. Look at what Fukushima has done for the nuclear debate (erroneously, in my opinion). My guess is that sometime in the next five years a similar moment will change the climate debate for ever. Of course I would not want to see a US city washed away, or world scale food riots, or some other undeniable visible piece of doom-mongering evidence. But perhaps that is what we need to wake us up.
In the meantime, I have some advice for those trying to influence public opinion in favour of action. You are losing your argument (our argument) partly because you are so boring.
Look at the front page article in the Guardian Weekly on 3-9 June. Some watchdog has measured emissions and they have gone up. That leads to some obscure, caveated conclusions about global temperature rise far into the future. Everyone is admonished for ignoring this. We are not yet doomed, but will be unless we pull our socks up, and fast.
If I have read this sort of thing once, I have read it 100 times. And it strikes me that it reminds me of the sort of sermon that I had the misfortune to hear from old fashioned vicars through my childhood, and, sadly, still now in many Churches. The vicar sees all sorts of poor behaviour around him. He concludes things were better in the good old days, and we all admonished for this. We are not yet doomed, but we will be unless we pull our socks up, and fast.
How tedious. No wonder such vicars lose their audience, and the whole Church seems in interminable decline. Where is the balance? Where is the sign of being able to be credible with any sort of target audience? Where is the new message? Where is the practical idea of action? Where is the motivation of hope?
Sorry, climate awareness lobbyists, you fall into the same trap. You are not “one of us”. You harry and preach. You forget the positive side, the hope, and the action. Seriously, do you really think we will all sign up to living in villages and growing our own little crops again? Forget it! The climate solution will come from innovations not deprivations, and such solutions are possible. We need to support their urgent development, not just gripe and quote private Fraser “We are doomed”! I do still read George Monbiot, but honestly I can’t say I enjoy it.
So, just as some of us have discovered Church communities and Priests who can tell their story in an engaging way, I hope that one day such people will emerge to help wake us all up from our Russian roulette game. A new narrative from a new generation of preachers is required urgently. Can you help?
While on the subject of religious metaphors for modern day challenges, I saw another one this week. I see a parallel between divorce and debt default.
A marriage is a serious commitment. When we make our vows we should mean them. If we hit difficulties we should try very hard to overcome them. Divorce has to be a last resort, or at least not a first resort. We also know that once we are divorced we are somehow diminished, and further vows will not carry so much weight. Then there are establishment figures, notably Priests, conservatives, and the self-righteous, who can hold the protection of the institution above the interests of individuals. Divorce is sometimes right, and the establishment can be slow to accept this (it is still illegal in the Philippines, and in Malta, though the latter country held a recent referendum promising change).
It is the same way with taking out loans. They are serious. You shouldn’t just default when things start to turn troublesome. A defaulting party becomes diminished, and credit rating should reflect that. Yet, despite all that, default can be right, when the alternative simply provides unending hardship and misery. And establishment figures, here represented by banks, and the last to accept that.
Maybe our banks and some of our politicians need to read up about the history of divorce laws and practices, and their consequences to individuals. Even the history of defaults could help them – in Argentina, things didn’t turn out so bad, after all. That way, a lot of Greeks, Irish, and Portuguese could sleep easier in their beds and face a brighter future.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
What's in a word?
The other day I was sitting in a group trying to interpret Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, or the part of it known as the Beatitudes. They start with something like “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Why I was doing this is not all that relevant, and the way my mind wandered from there into this blog relied little on Christianity. Nonetheless, even if you are not Christian the Beatitudes are worth reading, as they are both beautiful and thought provoking.
But what about the words themselves? What do they really mean? We got as far as the first word, blessed, before arguments started, but at least we were all within close boundaries in our interpretation of that word. When we got to the concept of poor in spirit, we found many wildly different interpretations, ranging from depressed to downtrodden or uncertain.
Later we got to meek, which could be humble, timid, unassuming, powerless. Quite different things really. And this happened time and again. Even people who had been familiar with the text for years and listened to countless sermons on the subject found themselves in very different places.
In an earlier discussion the same thing occurred with the word grace. I was clear what graceful was, and could even describe graceful behaviour, but the noun was more difficult.
Moot is a lovely one. The word has two distinct meanings, almost opposite to each other. It either signals a sort of red herring or the crux of the matter. No wonder we get confused when we try to communicate with each other!
The Beatitudes were very likely a real homily from Jesus to his disciples, spoken in Hebrew. Almost a hundred years later, word has passed from mouth to mouth before Matthew wrote down what he thought was said, or at least meant. Over centuries, the language passed from Hebrew to Greek, then Latin and many other tongues, each language subtly developing over this time and each translation owing much to the interpretation, and even bias, of the translator.
One of those translations celebrates its 400th anniversary this year, the King James Bible, and I recommend an article on this in the Spring edition of Intelligent Life. That brings to life the dilemmas of translators looking to produce something compact and beautiful but also authentic in meaning, as much as is possible.
One conclusion I reached was that translators have had a lot of power over the years. Imagine the different homilies if meek had been replaced by humble or one of the other close synonyms? The course of human history could have been quite different. Even today, those people sitting at the back in EU or UN meetings trying to simultaneously translate speeches must have quite an impact on how those speeches are interpreted and hence the consequences.
For language is not an exact science. It does reflect culture to an extent, whether or not the Innuit really have a hundred different words for snow. A Dutchman once tried to tell me that one reason the Dutch were so direct was due to the nature of the imperative form in the Dutch language. I beg to differ: it feels more likely that the reason the imperative form is as it is reflects the Dutch nature to be direct.
At least the Dutch and British are relatively closely connected, separated by just a small sea and linked by much history. Yet we interpret language very differently, and manage to confuse each other time and again. Someone once gave me a sheet of paper with the table below, which I have treasured ever since.
What the British say What the British mean What the Dutch understand
I hear what you say I disagree and do not want to discuss it further He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect… I think you are wrong (or a fool) He is listening to me
That is not bad That’s good or very good That’s poor or mediocre
Quite good A bit disappointing Quite good
Perhaps you would like to think about... / I would suggest This is an order. Do it or be prepared to justify yourself Think about the idea, but do what you like
When appropriate locally, Do what you like Do it if you can
Oh by the way… / Incidentally The primary purpose of our discussion is… This is not very important
I was a bit disappointed that…/ It is a pity you… I am most upset and cross It doesn’t really matter
Very interesting I don’t agree/ I don’t believe you They are impressed
Could we consider some other options? I don’t like your idea They haven’t decided yet
I’ll bear that in mind I will do nothing about it They will probably do it
Please think about that some more It’s a bad idea: don’t do it It’s a good idea: keep developing it
I’m sure it’s my fault It’s your fault! It was their fault
That’s an original point of view You must be crazy They like my ideas!
You must come for dinner sometime Not an invitation – just being polite I will get an invitation soon
You’ll get there eventually You don’t stand a chance in hell Keep on trying for they agree I am heading in the right way
I almost agree I don’t agree at all He’s not far from agreement
And this is between two nations who think the similarly, trying to communicate honestly without agenda. Imagine the scope for misunderstanding when we try to communicate with Russians. Or Japanese. Or Aboriginals. No wonder colonial pasts are so fraught with bad memories, and regional rivalries linger.
So my second reflections are about how we speak, listen and interpret. Simple language wins out, if possible supplemented by body language or example. And we have to avoid jumping to conclusions about what the other party may mean.
Leaving aside differences in time or place, this advice still holds for those close to us. Especially when there is tension in the air, for example a dating situation or a subordinate situation, it is very easy to be misunderstood. Add in the other dimensions, and our confusion can be complete, unless we take very active steps to prevent it.
No doubt I break my own advice each week in my blog. But perhaps that is a moot point?
But what about the words themselves? What do they really mean? We got as far as the first word, blessed, before arguments started, but at least we were all within close boundaries in our interpretation of that word. When we got to the concept of poor in spirit, we found many wildly different interpretations, ranging from depressed to downtrodden or uncertain.
Later we got to meek, which could be humble, timid, unassuming, powerless. Quite different things really. And this happened time and again. Even people who had been familiar with the text for years and listened to countless sermons on the subject found themselves in very different places.
In an earlier discussion the same thing occurred with the word grace. I was clear what graceful was, and could even describe graceful behaviour, but the noun was more difficult.
Moot is a lovely one. The word has two distinct meanings, almost opposite to each other. It either signals a sort of red herring or the crux of the matter. No wonder we get confused when we try to communicate with each other!
The Beatitudes were very likely a real homily from Jesus to his disciples, spoken in Hebrew. Almost a hundred years later, word has passed from mouth to mouth before Matthew wrote down what he thought was said, or at least meant. Over centuries, the language passed from Hebrew to Greek, then Latin and many other tongues, each language subtly developing over this time and each translation owing much to the interpretation, and even bias, of the translator.
One of those translations celebrates its 400th anniversary this year, the King James Bible, and I recommend an article on this in the Spring edition of Intelligent Life. That brings to life the dilemmas of translators looking to produce something compact and beautiful but also authentic in meaning, as much as is possible.
One conclusion I reached was that translators have had a lot of power over the years. Imagine the different homilies if meek had been replaced by humble or one of the other close synonyms? The course of human history could have been quite different. Even today, those people sitting at the back in EU or UN meetings trying to simultaneously translate speeches must have quite an impact on how those speeches are interpreted and hence the consequences.
For language is not an exact science. It does reflect culture to an extent, whether or not the Innuit really have a hundred different words for snow. A Dutchman once tried to tell me that one reason the Dutch were so direct was due to the nature of the imperative form in the Dutch language. I beg to differ: it feels more likely that the reason the imperative form is as it is reflects the Dutch nature to be direct.
At least the Dutch and British are relatively closely connected, separated by just a small sea and linked by much history. Yet we interpret language very differently, and manage to confuse each other time and again. Someone once gave me a sheet of paper with the table below, which I have treasured ever since.
What the British say What the British mean What the Dutch understand
I hear what you say I disagree and do not want to discuss it further He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect… I think you are wrong (or a fool) He is listening to me
That is not bad That’s good or very good That’s poor or mediocre
Quite good A bit disappointing Quite good
Perhaps you would like to think about... / I would suggest This is an order. Do it or be prepared to justify yourself Think about the idea, but do what you like
When appropriate locally, Do what you like Do it if you can
Oh by the way… / Incidentally The primary purpose of our discussion is… This is not very important
I was a bit disappointed that…/ It is a pity you… I am most upset and cross It doesn’t really matter
Very interesting I don’t agree/ I don’t believe you They are impressed
Could we consider some other options? I don’t like your idea They haven’t decided yet
I’ll bear that in mind I will do nothing about it They will probably do it
Please think about that some more It’s a bad idea: don’t do it It’s a good idea: keep developing it
I’m sure it’s my fault It’s your fault! It was their fault
That’s an original point of view You must be crazy They like my ideas!
You must come for dinner sometime Not an invitation – just being polite I will get an invitation soon
You’ll get there eventually You don’t stand a chance in hell Keep on trying for they agree I am heading in the right way
I almost agree I don’t agree at all He’s not far from agreement
And this is between two nations who think the similarly, trying to communicate honestly without agenda. Imagine the scope for misunderstanding when we try to communicate with Russians. Or Japanese. Or Aboriginals. No wonder colonial pasts are so fraught with bad memories, and regional rivalries linger.
So my second reflections are about how we speak, listen and interpret. Simple language wins out, if possible supplemented by body language or example. And we have to avoid jumping to conclusions about what the other party may mean.
Leaving aside differences in time or place, this advice still holds for those close to us. Especially when there is tension in the air, for example a dating situation or a subordinate situation, it is very easy to be misunderstood. Add in the other dimensions, and our confusion can be complete, unless we take very active steps to prevent it.
No doubt I break my own advice each week in my blog. But perhaps that is a moot point?
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