The Leaning Tower of Education

I love reports of international comparisons. UNESCO does one every few years ranking countries for how good an environment they offer to bring up children. The best reports don’t just give league tables but offer clues on how to improve. Backed by real data, these are often compelling.

Sadly, political debate in many countries tosses away the opportunities that such reports offer. This is especially true in Britain, where anything foreign is viewed with some distaste and distrust. The print media doesn’t even notice some excellent reports, and pays scant regard to others.

I accept that politicians are sometimes in a bit of a bind. It is their job to promote their own party, and if league tables give embarrassing results they are hardly likely to trumpet them. Even politicians in opposition seem to stray quiet, which is rather sad, perhaps because it is all too rare that they have policies to deal with deep-seated issues. In many countries, there almost seems to be a conspiracy of politicians from all establishment parties to avoid some topics for real debate. In those circumstances, the media has a job to do to force this into the open, a job they often fail to do.

A glorious exception, of course, is The Economist, which has the advantage of taking an international viewpoint rather than a parochial one. After finishing this blog, I’ll start indulging myself in my favourite reading of the whole year, the Economist Christmas double issue.

This month, a report was issued comparing educational attainment among fifteen year-olds in different countries. This has been produced each three years since 2000 by PISA, a body with nothing to do with leaning towers but is affiliated to the OECD.

True to form, I was first alerted to the report by an excellent article in The Economist. On this occasion there was also some passing mention in the British press, for the refreshing reason that the coalition government appear to be taking its findings seriously, and shaping its policies on the generally accepted good practices emerging. Let us hope they are just as open when the next report comes out in three years time, as it is braver to highlight an inevitable mixed bag of results having been in power for a while than it is to use poor results to blame the recently ousted government.

I went online to find the PISA output. While there were some executive summaries, overall I found it rather hard going. Overall, I found a sense of caution, both in a statistical sense with a lot of caveats about significance and a lot of tables of definition, and also in a political sense with care about drawing conclusions. But what were excellent were a series of case studies of individual countries who had found some success.

It is sort of obvious the education matters, and also that it is a good leading indicator of success. Leading indicators are always gold dust, whatever the field. Most striking in the rankings is the strong performance of participating Asian nations. South Korea is at or the near the top consistently, but the Shanghai region of China, taking part in the survey for the first time in 2009, was highest in all categories. It is no surprise that well governed Asian counties march ahead relentless economically, and this suggests no let up in that trend.

Some European countries, notably Finland, are perennial strong performers, while rich nations such as the USA, Germany, France and the UK do average or worse, something of a scandal given the financial resources available. Poland and Portugal have progressed since the last report. Gratifying in this report is the march of progress in many Latin American nations, led by Chile. PISA will be thrilled that policy makers in many places have been noting good practice, applying it and benefitting rather quickly. That is true international progress.

The UK, true to form, did not have much comparable data, since their participation before 2006 was somehow not compliant (I could not find an explanation of why not). Typical UK – joining late and not following the rules. However, what data there was is very interesting. The UK does quite well in Science, and moderately in reading and mathematics. Over the last three years there was a small decline, though this was similar to many European rankings and could just be explained by developing nations catching up.

There were some statistics ranking the constituent parts of the UK. When I was growing up, I remember Scotland and Northern Ireland always scoring ahead of England and Wales. Well, Scotland seems to have lost that lead before 2006, though not to have got any worse relatively since. What has happened since 2006 is a relative decline in Wales, which now ranks well below the other three nations.

Which leads to the question, why? To their credit, Welsh assembly politicians showed some shame and urgency about the results, yet their remedies didn’t seem to amount to much more than chucking money at the problem. What is clear from PISA is a relatively poor correlation between money spent and results achieved.

The Economist had a theory. The Welsh assembly voted sometime in the mid noughties to remove league tables for schools in Wales. I vaguely recall the Scots doing that too, rather earlier. League tables have flaws, most notably that you can game them by focusing on the narrow definitions of success within their rules. There is evidence to me in some of the PISA success case studies that some countries have simply gone after the PISA defined metrics, and therefore it is possible that the progress is not so sustainable or general as made out. Nonetheless, perhaps the Economist is on to something. Competition works, and league tables certainly create some pressure and competition. Teaching unions hate them, but for reasons which I always find teacher centric rather than child centric.

PISA refrain from general advice about league tables, perhaps because of the political caution mentioned above. Their general advice seems to be to focus policy – on core curriculum areas, or on failing schools, social classes or regions. They also recommend well qualified and carefully recruited teachers. That makes sense, though I sense there is a lot more in all their pages of tables than that. What about parenting? As parents, and national citizens, we should care about this.

What I care about now is Christmas celebration, and some quiet time with the Economist. I hope you find what you care for over the holidays and in 2011.

The Great English Sulk

Last week FIFA chose host cities for the World Cups of 2018 and 2022. Russia was chosen for 2018, and Qatar for 2022. Russia looks a good choice to me, a nation with a decent soccer heritage, the scale to host the event and a chance of a good legacy in the form of stronger infrastructure and growth of the game there. Qatar seems a bit stranger, having none of the above advantages, and the further problem of forty degree temperatures to contend with.

It has been embarrassing to witness the outcry in England over the Russia award. Russia beat off bids by Spain/Portugal, Holland/Belgium and by England. England suffered the ignominy of being eliminated in the first round of voting, with only two votes out of twenty two, including its own vote. This despite a national expectation, and the presence in Zurich of David Cameron and Prince William.

England has retreated into an ugly sulk. The Russians have been accused throughout of dodgy practices, with the electorate fore the award branded opaque and buyable. Various parties supposedly promised England their vote only to change their mind at the last minute.

The English media had done a typically good job of journalism in the months leading up to the vote, exposing the whole ethos of FIFA and some allegedly corrupt officials within the process. While many deny that this had any negative impact on the result for the English bid, it can hardly have helped, and one official this week came out and admitted it had influenced his vote. I hope that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that the journalists should have kept quiet, as such exposes play an important role in life, and these ones might in the end have lasting positive effects.

By the way, what do you think of the Wikileaks story? I find it fascinating, and indicative of a changing world that a tiny organisation can bring to heel the mightiest establishment on earth. This will lead to major changes to how diplomacy is conducted. On the whole, I love it, but then I do wonder a little at the choice of cable to leak. For example, the list of critical sites is hardly exposing anything untoward, yet could be argued as Google Maps for terrorists. This story might be the biggest news of the whole year, and it will be fascinating to see it play out.

Back to FIFA and England. As the exposes showed, FIFA and its processes could do with reform. Sepp Blatter is not an appealing character, with his little homilies and blatant love of power, resembling an unaccountable African dictator in some ways.

But I find the reaction in England says a lot about that country. Firstly, the English invented underhand tactics, and use them liberally when it suits them. A number of other sports (snooker? Cricket, at least until recently?) have been run by English versions of Sepp Blatter. The IOC is hardly a paragon, yet not a word of protest was uttered when Britain won the 2012 Olympic games. Even last week, it was suggested that Prince William was handing out wedding invitations as inducements. There are clearly degrees of corruption, and it is quite possible that England were relatively clean. My point is that England only complain when they lose, and that is a childish time to do it.

Bill Bellichick, coach of the New England Patriots NFL team, has it right. “When you win, say little. When you lose, say less”.

Amid all the complaining, and theories about why England lost, there was also something completely absent. No one asked “maybe they didn’t like us. I wonder why?” At least, if the question was asked, the journalists were the knee jerk answer, am answer well within the national comfort zone.

Here are some less comfortable answers. First, they don’t like us because we are arrogant. England never tired of pointing out that we invented the game (wrong), and nurtured its international growth (even more wrong, actually England arrogantly refused to recognise FIFA between the two world wars). Other nations went in with joint bids, building goodwill as a consequence, but the English did not even embrace Scotland (but expected Scottish representatives to back our bid). The sneering at the opposition never helps – indeed one official had to resign for a blatant and unsupported attack on Russia. Maybe Prince William, wedding invitations or not, might just remind some voters of past colonial misdemeanours? All the interviews I saw suggested an attitude of entitlement for the England bid, which for sure will have put the backs up many voters. We are quick to observe and condemn arrogance from the USA, but we fail to see it in ourselves.

Second, they might not like us because we are insular. Few English bother with anyone else’s language or culture. (I confess I am as bad as most, living abroad for many years with precious little attempt to integrate). And we should not be surprised if the nasty little attacks on foreigners day in day out in the British press (and, sadly, on the British street) do not endear us to other nations. The EU is a dark, evil force, currency and border union is a threat to our superior way of life, and immigrants have criminal and scrounging tendencies…yet these nations should love us nonetheless, and wish us to stage their football tournaments. Sorry guys, things don’t work like that. And this small humiliation (and the Eurovision song contest year after year) gives us a chance to learn that lesson. Will we learn it? Don’t hold your breath.

So, FIFA, please reform, soccer deserves a more modern and accountable leadership than you currently provide. British journalists, please continue to make that reform more likely with your great exposures. And English people, including different, lazier journalists, please look more critically at our own nation, and see the downsides of imperial arrogance and popular insularity.

Travel Chaos

We have an unusual cold snap in Europe just now. I was in cold, cold Oslo on Tuesday, and saw a headline saying this had been the coldest November there for 90 years. It certainly felt it on the last day of November, as a foreign visitor without the right footwear. Nonetheless, it was sunny, and the pure air and light were a total joy to experience. It reminded me of the good part of living in Scandinavia.

Transport policy and effectiveness does seem very different in different countries. I wonder if places learn from each other. Of course the population densities and climates vary a lot, but it is strange how progress appears so variable.

One topical area is handling winter weather. Poor old Gatwick seems to be the loser time after time, and again this week is closed for two days or more. Yet even Heathrow seems to be OK, not to mention Amsterdam or Oslo. There has to be a balance between investment and frequency of problem, so of course Oslo has all the best technology for runway clearance and everything else. I’m not suggesting Gatwick copies Oslo completely, but my guess is there is a middle path which short sighted cost considerations are blocking there. As usual, the holistic picture is probably lost amid departmental budgets and targets.

We like to have a good moan, and of course it is no fun at all being delayed for hours, but on balance some places achieve great things. Airports such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen have always impressed me in how they keep things flowing, even in adverse conditions. Last winter I got caught, and ended up sleeping overnight in Heathrow, having deliberately chosen the very first plane out the next morning, judging that it had the best chance. At 5.30am things started coming together. I was impressed at many small heroes who made things possible – for example the gate staff who had walked to work in the snow. In the end, just as we were about to taxi off, the snow came back and it was all in vain, and I had to resort to the Eurostar train. But it reminded me just how many people are involved in these operations.

De-icing may be one opportunity area, as technology and practices seem to have barely developed over the last twenty years. There always seems to be a long queue for a de-icer, and that queue leads to slots being missed, as the de-icers don’t seem well integrated with the rest of the airport.

But remember fifteen years ago, when we had to wait in the sky circling airports all the time, and when take off slots seemed to be routinely delayed by an hour? The integration of European air traffic control has surely paid dividends. That is just one small example of where taking a European or even global approach benefits everyone, yet many national politicians seem to find this anathema, and no one seems keen on trumpeting the benefits. And remember that traffic has probably increased 50% in the interim. The old procedures and the new traffic would likely have led to gridlock by now, not to mention more plane crashes.

Still, it is more fun to have a moan, and the security people must be top of the list of targets. Since 9/11, I have witnessed many ridiculous things in the name of security. For months, it seemed to be OK to carry liquids on planes into the UK, but deadly dangerous to carry them out. Not enough holistic thinking there within an airport, and between countries.

Security people seem to have carte blanche, but then their solutions don’t seem smart. When I lived in Northern Ireland during the troubles in the 1980’s, it was always funny to me how tough the security seemed at the airport, yet if you went on the Larne-Stranraer ferry they didn’t even check your ticket, let alone your bag! And even the airport security seemed mainly for show. I worked out that if I had been in certain places the day before I would always be pulled in, yet if I hadn’t I was never pulled in. If even I could do that, imagine what true terrorists could work out.

If you see some differences between countries in airports, in roads it is even more marked. I love the traffic management in The Netherlands. Firstly, bicycles, public transport and even pedestrians have been given priority for years, which has led to adequately funded and fair priced trains and trams, and road designs where bikes are safe. If you are driving, you do encounter queues during peak hours, but not as many as in the UK. In such a densely populous country, and with some many natural barriers in the form of canals, that is no mean feat.

Apart from smart, holistic goals and brilliant long term planning, another key is the use of technology. In Holland, the majority of traffic lights have sensors, so that their phasing can be influenced by traffic needs. Generally, what happens is that a light stays green as long as a steady flow of traffic is approaching it. The result is that the overall sequence takes longer to play through, but queues tend to clear during each phase. Outside peak hours, the sequence goes through quicker, so at a quiet time you often find a light turning green as you approach it. During the night, many lights are automatically switched off.

This technology is available, and is much less expensive than the alternative cost of disruption. So why is it almost unheard of in the UK? The same old reasons I fear. It was not invented in the UK and the Brits don’t learn well. One department has a budget and so integrated thinking is missing. And the road lobby (and its votes) seem to me to be particularly short sighted and powerful in the UK. They block smart innovation like road pricing, and somehow even manage to hold back speed cameras, which all logic and data support overwhelmingly. Jeremy Clarkson has plenty to answer for, I fear.

But then it works the other way too. It seems to me the UK is much better at major road improvements, since they are more ready than Holland to work at night. On this one, it seems the holistic picture is better managed in England. And why is it that in Holland they still don’t have the yellow box junctions, in which you shouldn’t enter until you can see your way to exit? They are, simple, effective, and almost free. Yet absent from Dutch roads.

At least driving in Western Europe is relatively safe these days, and most countries have managed to change the drink driving culture. Experiences in India, Russia and elsewhere remind us that in Europe we have some blessings to count. Let us do that as we try to navigate our way through this cold snap.

Time and Money

Have you noticed how the situation you are in effects your attitude to spending money, to your assessment of how much should be spent and when to bargain?

It is strange how different times and places create different behaviour in us. When haggling abroad we can get very excited about fifty cents. Most of the time, we’ll have a default amount to be worried about, maybe 20-50 Euros. Of course, we put an extra zero on if we are spending money of someone else, such as our employer. Then there are other times, for example during moving house, when we are making so many purchases at such speed that we lose our discipline. How many of us have casually bargained away a couple of thousand Euros when buying or selling a house? Think how much haggling in Greek markets that equates to! And then there is the fitting and furnishing. There is a period when we just value progress more than value, where we are prepared to make major decisions and fritter away cash at a rate we are not used to.

Maybe it is a good thing, as otherwise our stress levels might escalate out of control and our capacity to damage relationships with it. There is obviously a trade off with time and stress involved. Yet I’m sure many of us look back at a moving time months later and ask ourselves how we managed to spend so much so quickly and with so little discipline. I’m not sure there is a solution, beyond being aware of the risks.

Though I do know it is worth stepping back a bit and doing some currency conversion when on holiday. Fancy rejecting that beautiful top just because the trader wouldn’t come down from three Euros to two Euros! Enjoy a good haggle, then spend anyway, as long as you have space in your luggage. If not, nowadays you might find the top costing you forty Euros, courtesy of Ryan Air.

These thoughts are prompted by my recent house moves. It is said that moving house trails only death and divorce in the degree of stress it gives us. I think I’ve moved up to 20 times in my life – in contrast to one divorce and not many deaths of loved ones – and I’ve always thought this was a bit exaggerated. It is tough, but not that tough really. Anyway, here are another couple of thoughts from the house move.

First, moving always reminds me of the respect I should give manual workers. A couple of Fridays ago I endured a day of heavy lifting of furniture and I hated it. My body is still complaining at me two weeks later and the bruises on the insides of my wrists are still there. This was after a small shift compared with what the professionals put in day after day. Admittedly they have some tools and some techniques to make their burden lighter, but even so fair play to them for what they achieve. With the influx of Asians and East Europeans, it is hard to make much of a living doing this sort of thing, yet manual workers work hard, hard, hard.

Next, my love for IKEA was only made stronger by moving. What a marvellous concept, and what flawless execution. Everything about IKEA just oozes quality of operation and customer service. The selection is fantastic. The design is superb, balancing creativity with cost and practicalities such as parcel size and ease of assembly. The workers in the store are well trained. And every aspect of the experience has been tested again and again. My main visit was during the day on a Friday, and the experience was a pleasure, at least until the heavy lifting started. Even paying the bill was fun, as we tried to push five trolleys through the checkout, and the total was small for what we bought. Then I had to go back on Sunday afternoon for a return and a couple of extra purchases, which allowed me to observe IKEA and full stress level. Despite the crowds of people everywhere, their relentless operational focus meant that the bottlenecks were ironed out. The visit was hardly fun but still impressive. What a great place. And how on earth do they deliver that quality at that price in their restaurant?

Finally, I’m sure it is available if I look on the internet, but I’d love to have had access to a simple checklist of items to keep handy during the chaos of the move. Some are obvious, such as keeping a kettle handy at both ends for workers and yourself, and keeping a close watch on true valuables like jewellery and passport. But we made many mistakes with less obvious items. Would you believe we sent over a kettle and coffee but forgot to send any mugs? You can never have enough black bags or kitchen towels. I kept a close eye on my mobile but managed to bury the charger, thereby rendering the mobile useless after a short period just when it was most needed.

So roll on move twenty one, I’ll try not to make any mistakes. And welcome back to normal times, with spending returning quickly to a more comfortable level.

Multiple Brands

The Economist business section was on good form last week. A great article about partnerships was built with humour around the autobiography of Keith Richards. But I was also interested in another article, about hotel chains.

The article focused on the Accor group of France, owners of many brands from the high end Sofitel, through Mercure and Ibis down to the no frills Formule 1. Most of the writing was about a change of CEO, and the wisdom of owning versus franchising of hotels. This was a debate we often had at Shell and has become common among owners of brands built around locations – it is interesting that the new CEO of Accor came from McDonalds. It is always tempting to shift outlets from the balance sheet, since this immediately creates cash and return on investment. However, these are mainly one-off effects and the downside is loss of control of the brand. I prefer companies who hold on to at least a share of core assets, such as Accor.

Not discussed in the article was a second issue, that of having a stable of brands with different customer offers. In fast moving consumer goods, this is common practice – witness Proctor and Gamble or Unilever, but also players like Diageo. These own many excellent brands and focus their marketing on these rather than the parent. Indeed not many people know which detergents are Proctor and which ones Unilever. Occasionally, these giants even pit brands with very similar propositions against each other.

For retailers built around outlets, however, the practice is much rarer. My theory as to why this is starts from the history of the companies and their resulting culture. In Tesco, or McDonalds, or even Shell, strong internal functions include property management and operational control, whereas brand management (of the offer rather than the store) comes later in evolution. By this time, the owners brand is so strong, and so supported by senior management, that the arriving consumer marketers are forced to use the umbrella for everything. The disadvantages are that the outlets tend to be so diverse that creating a distinctive image becomes difficult, and it also potentially hampers diversification (as opportunities must fit the dominant brand identity). For poor players, this can be argued as a good thing of course, making costly errors less likely.

Tesco and others have a neat partial solution of using sub brands. So we have Tesco extra, Tesco metro, Tesco express and so on. This allows the strong core brand to spread to new markets, but they have to be careful not to stretch too far – so for example pricing in convenience stores has to walk a tightrope – high enough to make a margin with the higher operating costs and rents, yet not so high as to damage the reputation of the core brand.

I tried to start this debate in Shell a couple of times. We had reached a situation where Shell retained a consistent good reputation as a fuel, but not always as an outlet. Furthermore, the need started to arise for very different types of outlet to compete, ranging from highway sites to outlets with fancy stores to local low cost operations. Then, in some markets, came the unmanned station. In these, more or less the entire staff cost and a substantial part of the land and maintenance could be eliminated altogether, at the cost of sacrificing part of the offer and the income from the shop. Where shop potential is low, land tight, IT well established, and staff costs high, this is an attractive proposition.

I had seen unmanned station work (for the competition) in Scandinavia and saw massive potential in other European markets (for us). But I ran into several internal blockers. The shop function at the time believed they could do good business anywhere. Dealers wanted to stop unmanned growth, since it threatened their livelihood. The branding department could not see beyond the Shell brand, with its large budget for them! Unmanned had started to gain a toehold, but was often seen in Shell as a low cost solution only to keep poorly located outlets open. As an aggressive, low price high volume proposition, Shell was not ready.

Part of this became a branding question. Aggressive unmanned sites have to offer a discount to grow scale. Yet how could we do this under the Shell brand, which had at best a neutral reputation for price? I argued the radical solution of using Shell as the fuel brand only, while using a range of different brands for the sites. So you could have “highway”, “complete”, “local”, and “unmanned”, all selling clearly branded Shell fuel. The Shell brand would be on the pole sign and the pumps, a bit like an oil brand would be normally.

We would then take the next logical step of having distinct organisations for the different outlet brands, in principle competing with each other, but with some rules to prevent value destruction. That way an organisation could develop with the right aggressive Easyjet type) culture for the unmanned, and so on. As well as sharing Shell fuel, the organisations could also share services like pump maintenance to leverage scale.

This was one of the most radical ideas I had in Shell, and it still rankles with me that I didn’t manage to make progress with it, for I’m convinced it would have been a winner. Who knows, perhaps it still could be? I remember one night trying to think of parallels in other industries, as a way of supporting my argument. The best I could do were people using sub-brands, which for me would not be radical enough for us.

Then some months later, and too late really, I had a brainwave and found my case study. Accor. Stupid really, I must have slept 20 nights in Accor hotels while trying and failing to come up with me example, and it was right in front of me all the time. As a result, since then I’ve always followed and admired Accor. The growth of Formule 1 is an excellent case study, and now has many imitators. It seems to me that this company creates exactly the business model to utilise multiple brands to appeal to many consumer segments.

Just like we could have done in Shell.

On Deafness

I am slightly hard of hearing. I think many people have this problem and quite a few are not aware of it. Further, I believe that not enough has been done to make our lives easier. Compare with poor eyesight. The high street is full of opticians, diagnosis is nearly universal, correction products are effective and readily available, and there is even a maturing market for structural correction. For poor hearing we can make none of these claims, yet I believe the adverse effect on daily life is as great. Why the difference?

Although my separated wife often accused me of not hearing her, I didn’t take that as decisive evidence and I never had any other tests, so for years I lived in ignorance of a hearing problem. Then I had a sinus issue which led to various tests including one for hearing, and it was there I was told that both ears were weak but especially my left one. Most likely I have had the problem for years and years without being aware.

We all know that old people go deaf. My mum has been going deafer and deafer for twenty years or so. Her relationship with hearing aids mirrors that with much other technology. She went through a long phase of denial, then rejection. Then she quietly got herself an inferior (ie cheap) product yet refused to apply it, and then would not train herself to use it. Now, finally, she has a decent product, but she still refuses to use it often (for fear of the cost of new batteries). Hence she so far has not got used to the new way of hearing, and still struggles to put the things on correctly. Most of the time she still asserts that she is not deaf but others mumble.

Rather like the woman in Fawlty Towers, Mum is not the easiest customer, but I do think her experience offers some lessons. Although they have got smaller, hearing aids seem far too difficult to put on. It took her ages to find a shop to help her, and their products were poorly explained, poorly marketed and came with terrible customer service. And the product has all sorts of negative elements beyond size and awkwardness to fit. They are hard to get used to, need many batteries, are very fiddly, and still leave problems with extraneous noise.

What is it like to be a bit hard of hearing? The funniest and best explanation came in a novel by David Lodge called “Deaf Sentence”. I recommend this to anyone, but especially if you are a bit deaf yourself. A good analogy is taking part in a conversation in a language you know reasonably but not perfectly. You pick up the general drift but seem to miss the punch lines of jokes and nuances. You can ask people to speak more slowly and repeat things, but, out of social politeness and embarrassment, you tend to limit the times you do this. Instead you make assumptions, sometimes wrong, about what is said, and you pretend (even to yourself) that you understand more than you do.

Hearing difficulties are also very situational. A one on one conversation in a quiet room is usually OK. Many people at a dinner table is much more difficult, especially if the furniture is metallic and there is background music or noise from nearby tables. You also hear a lot worse with a cold or having recently been on a plane.

Now I know that I am a bit deaf and have moved beyond denial, there are things I can do. I can favour my better ear, whether in choosing my seat at a table or even a side of the bed. I can avoid some situations, or just ask people to compensate. But often there is little choice but to accept the problem. I do wonder how much damage I did to my career or even my social life while wandering around blissfully unaware yet plainly handicapped. Might this apply to you too? Maybe it is time to get a hearing test.

I have recently learned of a surprising number of other non-geriatrics who are partially deaf, and my guess is that there are many more out there who don’t know it. Think of all the people you know who talk unnecessarily loudly. The majority of these will be a bit deaf. They don’t hear, so talk a bit louder in the hope that others will talk louder too, a bit like when we shout down our mobile phones in public places.

Now I finally get my ears tested, the experience hardly fills me confidence. The test involves listening for a series of noises and pressing a button when you hear one. The noises tend to come at fixed intervals so you can score well with guessing. One time, it was half way through the test before I realised that I could see when the nurse was activating a noise and that I was responding visually rather than orally. I once took a test with a cold, hardly a representative time. And once I was asked to repeat words, only they were in a foreign language (Dutch, as I was living there) and I plainly had a disadvantage compared with natives. So there seems much room for inaccuracy.

Perhaps the test is not well developed because the basic line from the doctors seems to be that essentially nothing can be done to improve hearing. If it was bad enough, I could get a hearing aid, otherwise it was just a matter of putting up with it until it got even worse with age. And it should be bad before getting a hearing aid because of all the downsides to the products listed above.

So let us sum up what we have here. We have a complaint that is very common and seriously debilitating. There appears to be no structural solution, and development of solutions generally seems to have been very slow and poor. Society does nothing to make life easier for sufferers, for example by encouraging testing or promoting hearing-friendly environments.

All in all, this feels like a lost opportunity. Again, compare with eyesight. The way things are going with laser surgery, in twenty years time everyone in developed countries will have perfect sight.

If I am right, I wonder why. Perhaps one reason is the social stigma of accepting you are deaf – it is so linked to extreme age. If we could create acceptance, that might set off a snowball of open dissatisfaction leading to better efforts at solution. So who will join me in calling for government, entrepreneurs and society to do more for the hard of hearing?

Oh sorry, should I say that louder? Perhaps you didn’t hear me.

Women at Work

This week I helped facilitate an event for the Shell Professional Women’s Network. I did bits of pieces for this network while working, and collected plenty of insights and blog readers as a result. So I was happy to do this as a favour for a friend, especially since I knew it would be fun.

It also gave me a chance to develop and trial a workshop idea that I’ve been mulling over for a while, on the subject of Managing your Boss. I always noted that any blogs on this subject were very popular and brought out lots of passion and a cry for help from many people. Indeed, it seems almost the majority of employees have serious problems with their relationship with their boss. The workshop seemed to go very well for a first outing. Anyone want to be the customer for the next ones?

It is rare for me (and I imagine for most people) to be one man in the company of fifty of so women. There was a second guy, a senior manager who pitched up for part of the day and gave an excellent interview, but for some of the time I was in a gender minority of one. In former times, that used to be the lot of women themselves in business, always a tiny minority, though the balance has improved in many areas in the last ten years ore so.

I didn’t have any feelings of being intimidated or ignored or tokenised. My role on the day made that unlikely anyway, together with the fact that I volunteered and knew what was coming. One thing I was able to do was to observe how women operate when among just other women. That yielded some insights.

First was the focus on physical appearance. Even though it was a casual occasion, everyone had made some effort, and there was a sense that what was worn got noticed, and commented on as well. One presenter included the advice to get a style consultant among her ten top tips. Lo, and behold, when it came to question and answer, the first two questions from the floor were about style consultants. I even received some feedback myself about my appearance, something I hardly recall happening before.

(It is fair. I am a mess. Metrosexuality came in long after I joined the workforce. I couldn’t be bothered and am also too mean to buy many clothes. I’m sure this has held me back, yet it never meant enough to me to do anything about it, and of course I hardly ever received any feedback to spur me on)

This focus on appearance I had previously thought a bit of a cliché, but it was clearly there. I wonder why women don’t bring the subject up in mixed company? It seems valuable, but doesn’t happen. This could be one of the areas where women have hidden their true personalities in the desire to confirm (thereby robbing the company of diversity). In an all female gathering, this latent desire comes out in spades. I was told that if I had not been there it would have been even more prevalent, perhaps unhealthily so.

So it’s down the shops for me then.

The next thing I noticed was openness in the conversation. Fewer people seemed to be showing off than usual, and there seemed to be less political correctness and more readiness to be personal and a bit vulnerable. This was wholly positive. Again, do the women do this when in mixed company? If they do, do we drown them out? And if they don’t, are they once again subordinating their character? Probably it is a combination of both.

Finally, I picked up an obsession with networking as a required skill. The day had a networking theme, but I sensed that the women would have focused there anyway. I found it rather forced and even misguided. We all network all the time, it is just part of our everyday behaviour. Actually, I sense women do more natural networking than men. True, to succeed, sometimes you have to put in a bit more effort than usual, provide a bit of focus to your networking. But the consensus among the women seemed to be that networking was a major activity, and mainly took place outside working hours. Of course, this then ran into the work life debate. I don’t really accept this as regards networking is concerned. The great majority can happen within working hours without sacrificing very much. Sometimes nowadays I’m a bit jealous of the smokers – they network among themselves very effectively.

Overall, the day had a positive feel and left me with a positive impression. In the past, women were encouraged to behave like men, thereby throwing away their main advantage, both for them and their companies. Occasionally as a tactic it can make sense to comply a little with male expectations, but please, not as a strategy or guiding principle. I sense that women are finally numerous enough and confident enough to be themselves, at least in office based situations in big, Western, companies. Hooray for that.

Innovation by Fusion

Yesterday I went to see Cirque du Soleil in Amsterdam. It was the first time I had seen it, and I was blown away. Clearly, I am not alone, for the show was expensive yet fully booked and seemingly able to generate massive income for the organisers.

What Cirque du Soleil seems to have done is create a fusion of different established forms of entertainment, to create something stronger than its constituent elements. Apart from the skills of the human aspects of circuses – trapeze, acrobatics, strength acts as so on, Cirque borrows from elsewhere. Musical theatre is the main source of borrowing. From there comes top quality choreography, lighting, sound and music, continuity and storytelling.

The result is something that has all the breathtaking skill levels of a top circus, packaged into something with beauty and pace. A powerful and novel combination – as has been demonstrated by the massive success and lack of any strong emulators. This is supported also by a good business model, with strong brand and marketing and efficient operations. I was particularly impressed with how the different performers were ready to shift from leading their own act to supporting other acts, and had been trained to be complete performers, with grace and audience connection. Some performers may have resented this at first (“I am the world’s strongest man, not some cabaret dancer”) they have clearly all bought into the concept in its entirety, and why not as they see the rewards.

This brilliant fusion led me to wonder about success stories with similar traits, and also about so-far unfulfilled opportunities.

One example was IKEA, my favourite retailer. They managed to combine the efficiency of the mega-supermarket with the product appeal of the design innovator, also with a very coherent brand. It had not been done beforehand; they changed the game and reaped rewards, and have managed to keep ahead of imitators. What do Cirque du Soleil and IKEA have in common? More than you might see at first glance.

A slightly bigger stretch could be what Strictly Come Dancing has done to revive ballroom dancing. Here the elements fused were quality professional performance, a pastime with potential mass appeal, and reality TV.

In all these examples, the level of innovation was outstanding, yet it was achieved not with anything wholly new but with a fusion. That is a good general rule with innovation. Very few powerful ideas are completely new, yet much scope exists in putting existing things together.

So what about those opportunities? Building on Cirque du Soleil, I wonder what could be done with the animal side of a circus. Admittedly, that part of the circus traditional circus tends to be even more tawdry than the rest, and tainted somewhat by animal welfare concerns. But a quality outfit could break through that with the right business model. Combine the strengths of zoos, circuses, dolphin type shows they have at resorts, interactive museums and the education and wonder that comes from David Attenborough programmes and there might be something there. Some modern technology might help too.
Could other sports reinvent themselves in the way that cricket has with twenty-20? Any other pastimes ripe for the Strictly treatment? How about bridge for example?

In any case, I recommend Cirque du Soleil. See it if you can.

Demograhics Rule

Economists, social scientists and business people espouse all sorts of theories for why some countries grow faster than others or have different social characteristics. As is the nature of such theories, some are right and some are wrong, and every so often new theories come along to replace the former ones. The new ideas have a bit more credibility, fit some extra data points, and can build on past theories, but, lo and behold, some time later, are shown to suffer yet more flaws.

That is what I love about those disciplines. You can rarely be sure, you always have to use a combination of axiom, empirical evidence and outright guesswork, yet there is something valuable about the effort and a realisation that progress is possible.

Yet it is amazing how often such theories ignore the most obvious factors. The most obvious factor of all is demographics, and this alone typically explains a large proportion of variation. Perhaps it is not exciting enough. More likely, experts can’t really claim much based on demographics. It is far more gratifying (and even financially rewarding) to explain the success of a company based on some revolutionary management practice than the basic fact that more people of the right age are around to buy the product or staff the firm. Yet, more often than not, it is as simple as that.

Once again, The Economist bucks the trend and finds the simple yet compelling analysis. Most recently, it has argued that India will outpace China over the next thirty years, and demographics are a large part of the reason. Whereas over the last thirty years China has benefited from rapid growth in the working age population, this trend will reverse from now on, due to the one child policy. Combine this with the rapid increase in longevity in China, and the working age population as a share of the total will soon start to decrease quickly. This always presages slower growth.

India, on the other hand, has so far a lower life expectancy, yet looks forward to an expansion in working age population. Add in the factor that this group is increasingly better educated and English-speaking, and you can see how the growth engine is primed. If India can do something to further reduce illiteracy, as seems likely, the engine can move into turbo charge.

The Economist argues that many developing economies have this potential of a golden generation. Life expectancy has increased enough so that the working population can grow quickly, yet not so much that these workers have to support too many retirees. Technology and education advances simply multiply the benefits, as can the participation of women in the workforce. Many South-East Asian nations benefited in the 80’s and 90’s, with Japan and South Korea ahead of the curve and China behind (so benefiting now). Brazil has some of the same features, and there is at last cause for optimism over Africa, especially if Aids deaths can be kept in check. At the other end of the scale, Europe and Japan are stuck with ever-declining ratios of workers to non workers, and consequently limited in their growth potential.

So while we are arguing about big or small states, or democracy versus dictatorship, or even waffle like Latin or Chinese work ethics, something much more basic is driving the speed of development. That is not to say these other factors are irrelevant. Not all African countries will see a golden generation benefit to the same extent, with the political climate, notably corruption and education, being important in sorting the winners from the losers, as well as Aids prevalence and the extent (if exploited wisely) of natural resources.

Something similar applies in the USA, long lauded as the innovative engine of the world. While some of this is cultural and stems from policy, the biggest factor behind the US growth rate may well have been the stream of immigrants, most of them from Latin America.

This last example does call into question what are good and less good measures for development and growth. Total GDP I find a misleading metric for many things, though of course politicians like to use it as a relative indicator of their power. If USA GDP grows at 10% while the population also grows 10%, the average American is no richer. GDP per head may be more meaningful, and it is interesting how league tables change when you use that – even Europe is still doing OK by that metric. You could even use GDP per working age population, not as an indicator or prosperity but as one to assess good governance.

Such basics have a far wider application than league tables of prosperity or predictors of national growth rates. We should use them also when deciding where to work, or who to invest in. Companies targeting older consumers have a lot going for them in Europe or Japan. Companies able to tap into a growing educated Indian workforce will enjoy a following wind in the next decades. Of course, they still need good managers and good products. In the case of India, it would help even more if the government could fix the roads.

Even the second order demographic effects are probably more significant than any other factor. Regional differences in age profiles will drive rates of development. In India now, the explosion of educated, hungry entrepreneurs under thirty five has reputedly acted as a force to break down some cultural norms, for example respect for hierarchy in business. This has led to accelerated innovation, but also some breakdown in systems, for example management practices and pay structures. An exciting experiment indeed.

And one under-explored question relates to gender imbalances. For different reasons, the generations of people currently under thirty have an overabundance of males in both India and China. Historically, this has been a precursor for war, as young men need things to amuse themselves, and fighting is second only to young women in the popularity stakes. Even if war can be averted, there will be other results of the disparities, and some thought and research could help guess what they might be.

If you want to win, start with the basics. And things don’t come more basic than demographics.

Fear of Immigration

Much of Europe has immigration near the centre of its politics. Whether it is in Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland or now Sweden, parties with a main policy of curbing immigration are in power or hold the balance of power. Everywhere else fear of immigration regularly scores high among key issues raised by voters in opinion polls. To be elected, almost all politicians strive to avoid being too liberal on the issue, finding choices of words not to feed newspapers portraying them as pro-immigrant.

For me, this is sad and worrying. It is sad because I appreciate myself the benefits of open borders in my own life and that of my offspring, and I feel frustrated that no-one seems to make a positive case for such liberalism. It is worrying, of course, because intolerance of difference has been the excuse for most persecution and even war over the course of human history.

I was twenty before I enjoyed an Indian meal, and I remember my first visit to a Thai restaurant aged 25. In those days travel between nations was complicated and frustrating, everyone having their own currency and various controls over movement of people and money. The idea that TV programmes would explore the prospect of retirement in the sun was fanciful. I was almost brainwashed at school to hate the people in the countries behind the iron curtain,.and gaining real experience to counter this was difficult. Supermarkets didn't have much in the spice department. Finding a plumber in London prepared to actually do any work was next to impossible and very expensive. Alternative medicine was hardly known, nor yoga or meditation. Making a phone call, even from Europe, involved queuing at some imposing municipal building. My daughter has just returned from a self-organised two month two to three countries and many more places in Asia, an impossible prospect for me at the same age. And her social circle maximises the benefits of diversity with no hint of prejudice.

I express this from a first world viewpoint. The benefits to people from other countries are much more positive and life changing, in general at least. Here we are not just looking at convenience but about life opportunity.

Some of this has been enabled by technology, but mainly it has come from liberal policies of governments, led by the EU. In Bulgaria last week I could marvel at the change since my previous visits 15 years before.

Yet most people see a mainly negative case for open borders (not least in Bulgaria, by the way). Many of my arguments in favour are benefits for all, so the counter arguments must be powerful. What are they?

The main one is about social disintegration, especially locally. Who wants their child to go to a school where standards are affected by many cultures and poor host language skills? Who wants to live in a street where the dominant culture seems alien? This is a valid argument, supported by history. Integration by newcomers is hard to achieve. Often there is a vicious circle of fear, distrust and alienation leading to attempts to integrate being shunned and counter-cultures emerging in response. It is true that a local society of great diversity carries its burdens.

Other arguments are less convincing. There is something about protection, whether of jobs or other perceived entitlements. This seems pretty invalid to me. Folk who make this case wouldn't want to be denied their chance to retire in Spain, and certainly enjoy the benefits of Indian-run corner shops and Polish builders. Competition is a good thing, almost always, though I agree it may not seem that way if someone's factory is replacing its workers with temps or if the queue for an upgraded council house never seems to shorten.

Then there is a general fear of change, often accompanied by cries for traditional values and concepts. Often this appears little better than bigotry. It is not the wave of immigrants that has led to the decline of the British pub (it is supermarkets and lifestyle choices), and street parties never amounted to much anyway. True, we used to know our neighbours better, but that again is a lifestyle thing, especially as more of us work further away from home and move houses more often.

So we have one real argument, bolstered by some emotive and lazy ones. Yet this motley collection of points wins out. Why? I believe the main reason is that somehow no-one makes the positive arguments. Maybe they are more long-term, less visible or tangible, and a bit selective, but they are so substantial that it ought to be possible to create a majority in their favour. That no one argues positively leaves the field clear for the fear merchants and populists. Politicians see it and retreat further into timidity. Newspapers, some with an agenda (perhaps the Daily Mail was over-vilified last week?) spread more fear with stories of jobs being stolen or communities violated.

The Economist made a point last week (in Bagehot I think) which surprised me. A link was made between the relative lack of power obtained by the far right in the UK and the existence of a virulent popular press. Elsewhere in Europe, the press is quite close to the establishment, and the establishment favours silence over immigration. According to Bagehot, this leaves fearful people in need of an outlet to vent, and they choose the far right.

Interesting, but I'm not convinced. The press is hardly the only factor involved – the electoral system is one other, not that I am a fan of the British one. Mind you, I haven't any better solutions, and a free press must be better than a timid, lazy one. So long as we can avoid too many explosions of unrest, the passage of time should help. As more of the next generation are able to live truly colour-blind lives like my daughter, fear can be beaten back to the margins. I just wish more of us had the courage to sing out the positive arguments, as surely that would accelerate the trend. Much depends on this, possibly even peace and certainly the pace of global development, and a watery silence is not really good enough from entities that see this. Apart from being brave and promoting the advantages, and continuing to support policies which work to minimise the real disadvantages (for example with investment in good schooling for all) what else we can do?

What to believe

The internet and other modern media certainly give us a lot of information. Google and Wikipedia are wonderful. We now have a massively enhanced choice of outlet for our news and knowledge churning out material at phenomenal speed.

When all this started we could be forgiven for thinking that confusion could be a thing of the past. But the reality has been the opposite. More hasn’t just meant better, it has also meant ambiguity, bias, misinformation, contradiction.

What can we do?

First, look for bias, and understand that it comes in all shapes and sizes. Don’t believe a word you read in the Daily Mail (though why you would want to read a word in the Daily Mail anyway rather escapes me). Even a quality newspaper usually has an axe to grind, even if it as small as wanting a story to be interesting. The same goes for TV news, though every time I visit the USA I see how blessed relatively we are with the BBC. An interview will always express what the interviewee wants us to conclude. A history book is written by an author, with a viewpoint. Companies always have a point of view. A good starting point is always to ask yourself a sceptical question: what bias might this source bring?

Less obvious, remember that bias begins at home, with ourselves. We tend to believe what we want to believe and to disregard what doesn’t fit our world view. We trust some sources implicitly. We always have assumptions in our heads, and we look for data to support those assumptions and tend to miss data which would challenge them. Challenge those assumptions, again and again. Actively look out for surprises, for data which does not fit or comes from a new angle.

Next, wherever you have interest, see for yourself, dig more deeply, ask some others. Maybe the Dom Joly approach of visiting North Korea is a bit extreme, but one clear advantage of the age of communication is that finding out more has never been easier. Google comes into its own here. How wonderful to be able to read up to date reviews of restaurants or films, for example, each one biased but made more reliable by their quantity. I gave up trusting book or movie reviews in newspapers long ago. In digging, it is important to seek out contrary views, otherwise there is a risk of simply multiplying your own bias. As with so many things in life, diversity is a wonderful thing.

Next, value numbers and charts over sound bites and value trends over individual data points. In this regard, The Economist has no peer, at least in my (biased?) opinion. The charts in there are generally imaginative, clear and objective. There may still be some bias in there, but the chart itself usually helps. Other strengths of The Economist are its willingness to go back and admit where it was wrong and its tendencies to express pros and cons of an argument. Of course, it has its overriding philosophy and may be a little blind to things which don’t fit that.

Finally, chill. We could go mad with this, and many of us get stridently upset about misinformation. It is a fact of the modern world, and we just need to understand it and take the plusses of the communication age rather than get more and more angry. We don’t need to read the Daily Mail ourselves, and presumably those that choose to read it get something from it. If they care to express arguments from The Daily Mail to me, I can choose to ignore them, at least after giving them some consideration.

An example which illustrates many of these points is the continuing debate about the congestion charge in London. There is bias everywhere in the debate, with most contributors plugging an agenda. Personally I find the motorist lobby one of the worst persistent sinners in the dark art of misinformation, but others are biased the other way. I accept my own bias in favour of road pricing, based on logic over emotion and some anti-car feelings. I may even like the policy because I like Ken Livingstone (and others may have the opposite bias). That is a common and dangerous bias, to judge the source rather than their argument.

I can dig further by asking people who have lived in London before and after the charge, not just taxi drivers or shop keepers. I can be more imaginative, for example using my own experience as a driver in Oslo some years back, and less happy recent driving experiences in provincial Britain or Rome. But best of all I can look for statistics. Some years back I read the headline “Congestion charge fails to reverse traffic chaos” or similar. Deep in the article you could see that traffic had grown by say 10% per year in the years before the charge, then had been stable or declining slightly for a couple of years before resuming growth. It is entirely reasonable to conclude that congestion would be worse without the charge, even if the headline was factually correct. That is another common bias – a correct but incomplete or misleading conclusion.

We are blessed to live in the age of communication. It comes at a cost that we can be confused, overwhelmed or bamboozled, deliberately or otherwise. If we are smart and keep our brains active, we can take the plus and minimise the minus.

What can we believe?

One of the best lessons I received from my English private school in the 1970’s was one they never meant to teach me.

They organised occasional lectures for us. I can’t remember many of them at all. But one sticks in the memory even now, from a posh, arrogant bloke in a military uniform.

He had very fancy slides and maps, at least for the time. And his subject was the threat of the then Soviet Union. Seemingly, things were bad. His maps and charts all had menacing looking Russian tanks and missiles all over them, pointing mainly at Eastbourne (where I happened to be). And the defence force seemed to have deteriorated markedly from the halcyon days of Dad’s Army.

By the end of the talk, I was half expecting the Russians to just march in through the back door of the building and take over. Nothing seemed to be stopping them.

One of the themes of the talk was that Russians were evil. I didn’t really understand what sort of evil, that involved long words. But they were certainly evil. All of them. Every single Russian was sitting at that moment in their kitchen or living room, or on their tank more likely, filled with thoughts of hate for us, well for me actually.

But I was a child with a subversive streak even then, and I was smart enough to think a bit more deeply. Of course Russians weren’t all evil. They were people. According to the BBC, they had enough trouble putting foods in their mouths. And no doubt they were more concerned with who was chatting up their daughters, or where to get a lottery ticket or how to avoid the boss. Thoughts of invading Eastbourne probably didn’t get much of a look in, despite what this posh bloke would have us believe. His talk merely made me suspicious. Later in life I met some real Russians, and my suspicions were confirmed and my sceptic nature became more engrained.

Another key moment of truth for me came in my twenties. I’d started working for Shell and each day walked twice past the Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. Ken Livingstone was in charge at the old GLC at the time and had cheekily installed a statue of a black man along the walkway. I had never heard of him, but read that he was something to do with the anti apartheid struggle in South Africa.

The media and establishment gave little attention to the statue nor indeed to the wider South African issues. The official line seemed to be that the regime there might not be all that savoury but it was a hard place to govern, the locals weren’t really up to it, the black leaders were aggressive terrorist types and anyway we had some interests there via companies and expats. All too difficult, and the best we could do would be make occasional diplomatic noises to try to change the regime slowly.

I didn’t give this much thought, until I later walked past the same statue in the 1990’s and read that his name was Nelson Mandela, by then a hero even in the UK. While Ken Livingstone is hardly everyone’s cup of tea, especially later on his career, he had been ahead of the curve on that one. By the way, he also drove through lower tube and bus fares and later the congestion charge, visionary, courageous and correct policies, so he can argue that he has created a pretty strong legacy.
Anyway, I was able by luck to connect back to my own apathy from the 1980’s and reflect on different versions of truth and also the potential untrustworthiness of establishment sources we tend to take on trust without challenge.

It is a struggle all the time to know what to believe. Truth is elusive and usually nuanced. Just think of your own family or even your recent relationship history, and consider how even nearby things can be distorted or subject to different viewpoints. Multiply in the dimensions of complexity, scale and time, and especially context and bias, and we should all become very sceptical indeed.

Venezuela is a current case in point. In the last month I have read articles about Venezuela and Chavez in both The Economist and The Guardian Weekly. The former was utterly damning, the latter lauding. Each quoted statistics, the former of inflation and growth, the latter of poverty reduction. It is clear that there is some establishment bias at work – the failed CIA supported coup in the early days of Chavez was the clearest example of media censorship I can ever recall – yet The Economist is generally pretty sound. No doubt, as usual, the truth, such as it is, lies somewhere in the middle.

I like the approach of British comedian Dom Joly, who has just published a book, The Dark Tourist, describing his journeys to unlikely destinations such as North Korea or Iran’s ski slopes. Maybe he can go to Venezuela for us. Even then, of course he has his own bias and what he will see can only ever be a tiny fraction of what is going on.

As an example of how complexity, time and bias can overtake a story, take Christ’s Passion. I was lucky enough to be in Oberammergau last weekend for the famous ten-yearly play there. The play had some modern takes, for example on the role of Mary Magdalene and the Jews. It also did a good job of leaving room for doubt in interpretation. The roles and attitudes of Caiaphas, Pilate or Judas can all be interpreted in many ways. I usually go with a messy reading that most people are just trying to do a job but are often misinformed and fairly incompetent. History has seen far more cock up than conspiracy. Then there is interpreting Jesus himself. Wow.

After creating a case to make us all paralysed by scepticism, next week I’ll try to find a way forward. In the information age, this problem is only getting worse. Sure, Wiki and the internet give us so much information, but that only adds to the potential for mistakes. How can we live sane, informed lives in this environment?

Starting a Day

A combination of two circumstances led me to some learning points in recent days.

First, I had a cold. Most of us get them, and I’m lucky that for me it only comes once or twice per year. It is not so horrible, but while it lasts it is not much fun either. This one followed my normal pattern. Just a sore throat on Wednesday preceded system meltdown on Thursday and Friday. No more headache or nausea after that, but several more days of coughing and sneezing.

Then, I had a singing weekend, in Dordrecht. What a wonderful great Church, with a superb organ and outstanding acoustic. I do this sort of course quite often, where over two days or a week a group pay for a top conductor to guide us to prepare and perform some music. In this case thirty five of us performed choral evensong in Dordrecht on Sunday night, and a splendidly English affair it was too. Well, not thirty five of us, but thirty four and a half, with me as the half. For of course colds and singing do not mix.

So, this combination led to me working hard on Saturday while not fit to do so, and then having to get up early on Sunday morning. At that waking is what led to the insights.

The first sensations on Sunday morning were all positive. I awoke to a warm satisfaction of having slept deeply, a serene feeling after a few days of seriously disrupted sleep on account of my screwed up respiration. This warm feeling became sweeter still from the sensation of Faure on the alarm system and the realisation that I had once again woken up beside the woman I love.

But that is the end of the good news, as my body then followed the brain in regaining consciousness. My big toes reminded me that my shoes are a little too small. Both my calves informed me that the slightest movement of either leg would be punished by cramp. The feather cruelly tickling my nether regions was still there, yet it would take a whole army of feathers to arouse anything in the genitals. Last night’s rushed supper reminded me that it was still sitting in my intestine and would rather not be. Shoulders and neck screamed for unforthcoming massages. My head throbbed in retribution for the alcohol poured generously into last night’s hot lemon cocktail. And someone seemed to have been applying superglue to my eyes overnight.

Then the cylinders and pistons of the damaged breathing system had their say. They demanded I cough, and cough again, yet it would be another day before coughing produced any result other than a counter productive one. Little singing pains persisted in both ears and dryness in the mouth demanding immediate application of several packets of Strepsils. A nose fit for a war zone. And pure pain in the throat, making we wonder if I might ever sing again.

Somehow, with eternal thanks to chemists everywhere and the precious but threatened resource of honeybees, I made it to the Dordrecht train. Forty minutes sitting in a seat facing a bright sun worked further on everything, eventually even the superglue. By the time the singing started, I was fit for anything…except singing.

So what is the point of all this self pity? I’m not looking for sympathy – I am blessed indeed. I’m also not trying to gloat, for example by pointing out that I was able to sleep until eleven this morning to complete a recovery. Not gloating, I promise.

No, my insight is that this is how I used to wake up most of the days of my life. The disaster of the breathing system was admittedly not usually so bad. But the symptoms of excessive tiredness and wear were, day after day. It took a special set of circumstances to recreate once what used to be normal. And when it was normal, it was not remarkable, so I didn’t focus on it or consider it or do anything about it.

How many of us start most days with such an extended groan from under our bonnet? My hypothesis is that it is most of us, to some degree or other. Younger people less of course and congratulations to all you diet and fitness fanatics, take your bow now. But then I suspect many people work longer hours than I ever used to, and also have further disadvantages, for example young kids, chronic illnesses or some dependency on drugs, nicotine or alcohol.

What are we feeding by subjecting ourselves to this, what are we achieving in the plus column to counteract this glaring minus? I can only think of three answers. Our bank accounts, our egos and the denial of our fears.

Bank accounts need to be fed, I acknowledge. That is how the world works, at least for now. But do they need to be fed quite so greedily, or quite so relentlessly?

Egos only need to be fed if we make it that way. Feeding an ego is just like feeding an addiction. It starts with a somewhat pleasurable kick, but it has a cost, and over time the benefits only diminish while the costs escalate.

Feeding denial is ultimately destructive, yet we all do it, all the time. But staying on the same treadmills, we manage to avoid really considering what the alternatives might be, thereby avoiding facing up to what would need to be done in order to reach those alternatives. Thinking about our own needs and beliefs and choices can be the scariest thing we ever face, so most of us will do all we can to defer and avoid such thoughts. What strange creatures we are indeed.

So we feed one necessary but overrated thing and two positively destructive ones, at the cost of allowing ourselves physical discomfort and deterioration, day after day after day. I did this for years. It is only by escaping it and then having the good fortune to experience it again for a day that I can start to appreciate the folly involved. I have never been so grateful for a cold.

Do you want to escape? I suggest starting with challenging denial and ego.

Sorting out Sports

(This blog is somewhat UK centric – sorry).
I love watching sports. Yet my loyalty gets really tested at times. In the last week we have had to endure the Pakistani cricket scandal and the ramifications of Rugby Union’s bloodgate. And the premiership has returned – with its usual vicious circle of terrible decisions and cacophony of disrespect for referees.

Sometimes I really wonder about how deep the cheating and chucking of games goes. Allegedly Harlequins were far from the only blood cheats. Cricket has for years had a series of allegations and eye-poppingly unlikely results. The Italian soccer scandal, not long ago, was shocking – and the money sloshing around the premiership these days combined with the blatant lack of integrity of key actors makes me think a similar thing in the UK will only be a matter of time. Oh, and recall two or three current managers have been accused of accepting backhanders. Cycling has been totally shot for years. In athletics, we are supposed to credit that all the world’s best sprinters come from one club on a small island. A top snooker star was recently arrested. Rumours abound over chucked tennis matches. Did I mention darts? Boxing is rife with rumour as well. Formula One is pure business, barely sport at all.

And consider what might lie beneath the iceberg. In two major sports the UK suddenly spurted in multiple gold medal winners in the last Olympics from a poor legacy. The string of scores thrown up by one premiership team so far this season at home and in Europe could raise an eyebrow. And these are just the bigger things. What about small fry like county cricket, league two soccer, and the micro stuff of spot bets?

Exactly what are we watching here? Are we seeing fair contests, rigged entertainment or simply televised criminality? When I tune in to watch a sport, does it matter if it feels as staged as the X factor? What are the consequences? And what can be done?

Some things in life matter more of course (the cricket crisis is hardly the worst challenge for Pakistan just now, though the media coverage might lead us to think differently). The worst human consequences come from the after effects of drug use or sports with rules that are plain dumb – remember Mohammed Ali? Apart from that, I suppose there are more exploitative greedy options traders out there than corrupt sports officials, and they cost us more money. Yet the shambles that goes on in many sports is still a wasted opportunity, and we should stay aware that sports influence morals and behaviours, most strongly of our next generation of potential criminals, boys in their teens.

And, serious or not, sports are sorts of brands and in the end there is only so much the customers will take. Some of the above mentioned sports I simply don’t watch any more. Viewing figures, for example for athletics and cycling, show I am not alone. I’ll still watch cricket after this week, but it won’t take many more screw ups to change my mind. At least they’ve innovated smartly, with twenty-20.

I must offer a word in praise of Golf. It would be one of the easiest sports to manipulate. Imagine a player betting on his own score for a round. Assuming the score was a modest one, it would be possible to hit the jackpot pretty well each time. Perhaps this happens, but somehow I doubt it. The locker room controls its own players. And this is a sport where just this year a player self-declared a penalty which cost him a title, in a situation with zero risk of detection. Impressive.

So what can be done? Start by ignoring most of what is written in the media. This tends to be either short term over-reaction, or wishing us back to days which cannot return, or reactionary snobbery (whether against lower class oiks that play soccer or foreigners playing cricket), or plain unachievable (we are supposed to try to ban spot betting in India…while actually ALL betting in most of India is illegal already!).

The first focus for any sport is to gain control of its brand, globally if at all possible. This has to be pretty ruthless. US Football (as so often) sets the blueprint. There is tough central control, with franchises and buyers forced into a set of rules with no opt outs or tolerance for deviation. The rules are set down with the long term interest of the sport in mind, especially its customers (that’s us, the fans). FIFA has the control, but not the management quality. The IOC has the control in theory, but is a club of self serving folk rather than a meritocracy. The ICC has next to no control. I recognise this is not easy in international political environments, but it must be non negotiable.

Second focus is to embrace technology to stay ahead. Too often sports resist technology in the lazy cause of tradition. Hawkeye for instant replays. Many referees with communication for rapid decisions. Retroactive punishment for offences caught on camera. Wire taps of premises and phones. Investment in technology to beat drugs cheats and betting cheats. And be ready to change the rules and the practice of the sport to take advantage, if that is what it takes.

Third, apply the rules with zero tolerance. Now we are using technology we can trust our own rules more, and now we have strong governance and control we can apply them. So employ more sin bins. Emphasise well-trained, well-paid, protected, referees. Apply financial and other penalties for infractions commensurate with the ability to pay (please, please do this before the worst-offending premiership manager finally retires). Ban the cheats, but ban their masters too (an 18-year-old Pakistani lad is hardly a ringleader). Stay the course amid the early ill-effects and whining from vested interests. Finally, try to use the locker room, just like golf does, to impose good norms on all players.

A caveat is to respect the law. I seem to be advocating a series of self-governed police states here, but this has to take place within the boundaries agreed in society. Think of the Catholic Church…and do the opposite.

I hope I can still enjoy sport in twenty years time as much as I do today. I believe it is most likely to happen if sports are able to follow my three point plan. Sadly, I have my doubts that many sports can pull this off.

In Praise of Great Journalistic Writing

I subscribe to The Guardian Weekly. It is a weekly digest, 48 pages long, of articles from The Guardian from the previous week, printed on ultra-thin paper to save costs and delivered to your door. Some articles are taken from the sister publication of The Observer, while there are also pieces from Le Monde and The Washington Post.

I recommend it, and I read at least 80% of its articles each week. I have some quibbles. There is not enough sport for my taste. The editorial line is left of centre and that makes it a great balancer for The Economist, but I do wish it shared its ruthless logic, as too often articles bemoan the state of our capitalist world without offering coherent alternatives. Perhaps that will prove to be the modern curse of all liberal dreams, though I’m not ready to accept that it is yet. One consequence is that the paper often overall makes me feel gloomy, whereas The Economist always seems to succeed in being optimistic. In that sense, reading The Guardian Weekly can remind me of listening to an ageing priest’s homily finding fault with all modernity some way of other. My last whinge is the supply chain. Why does it take until Saturday to receive 48 pages of material with a last copy day of the previous Monday, while The Economist can produce 140 pages with a copy day of Thursday to my door, more reliably, on the same day?

The great strengths of The Guardian Weekly, in my opinion, are its truly global focus, the surprising stories in its Review section, and the general quality of writing. The Economist is sharp, precise and accurate, but rarely beautiful (though nerds like me sometimes find their charts beautiful). The Guardian Weekly always produces some articles to make me purr with their use of language alone.

The week before last included a contribution from octogenarian Katherine Whitehorn. She was a regular contributor in the 1980’s to the women’s pages (cruelly dubbed wimmin’s pages by Private Eye and others), alongside the cartoons of Posy Simmons. While I never fully understood some of the more strident women’s themes, The Guardian certainly challenged society in necessary directions in those days.

Whitehorn is always imaginative, human, lucid, but above all she is funny. Judging by this recent article, arguing that we now live so long that the three ages of man ought to be replaced with four, she has lost none of her skill. I liked the idea – that sometime between 45 and 55 we can enter a slower phase of second career, less fuelled by ambition and need for money and more attuned to our true passions, before succumbing to true decline in our 70’s or 80’s. Of course I liked the idea, I am a pioneer for it! But, as always with Whitehorn, it is less about the idea itself than the language she uses to espouse it. Timeless class at work.

You may have to subscribe to find her article, but here are some famous quotes from Whitehorn. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/katherine_whitehorn.html
I especially like the observations about taxis, teaching children about money, born again people and recycling laundry.

While I am praising great journalism, here are some other names. Nancy Banks Smith is from the same generation as Whitehorn and has similar brilliant observations of life through her TV review, still going strong in The Guardian (and its Weekly). This year saw the passing of political writer Alan Watkins. One of his mentees was Robert Harris, who moved from commentator to novelist. And when I first used to read the Guardian it was a venerable James Cameron who set the standard.

Recalling these journalists evokes sharp memories in me. Just like a place has a smell, an era in ones life has certain themes, and what one habitually read can be one of them. Events can do the same (where were you when the wall came down or Diana died?), but not too much else can make such an instant connection. With novels and films, I find the exact time blurs in the memory.

And with the many transitions in journalism taking place now, what will be the equivalent for the next generation? I sense there are viewer iconic newspaper writers now, and certainly fewer readers. TV programmes and events will still play a role for sure (The Morecambe and Wise Christmas shows define my early teens as sharply as anything). But what else?

Goals and Plans - Help or Hindrance?

Last week I was enjoying a coffee with my landlady when she asked me a question that set me thinking. My landlady doesn’t fit the role stereotype, being almost twenty years my junior and great fun, without a hair curler in sight. She was sharing how she is trying to plot her future career and life goals, especially a dream she has of spending some years in Latin America. Knowing I’d lived in many places, she asked me what my strategy had been in such matters.

I couldn’t find a good answer. When I thought it through, I’ve never really had much of a strategy. Up to age 22 my dreams were really those of my parents. I just drifted into Shell, and more or less let things happen on instinct. Arguably that included marriage, and even separation. A big part of my plan for the next few years is to have no plan, but to live very much in the present. Anchored only by a solid commitment to a relationship, I’m ready to see where that leads and what might come along as far as activities are concerned.

Does that make me weak? Would I have achieved more or been happier if I’d had solid goals all the way through? My inclination is to say no. I’ve always had a decent compass, some self knowledge, a degree of openness, quite clear values, a fuzzy idea of what options would fit and what would not and a means of evaluating them as they arose, some concept of good outcomes, and a willingness to be surprised. The more I thought about Pamela’s question, the more I thought I might have stumbled on a winning formula.

We’ve all met examples of the opposite type of strategy, and conventional wisdom leads us to admire these characters. The precocious child of six who announces their future profession. The fellow undergraduate signalling their date of marriage and birth of all offspring. The subordinate who presents a plan for their whole life at an appraisal. The retiree who gives the impression that everything was pretty much pre-planned.

Goals and plans clearly have a role. All the above individuals have a clear sense of direction and can make clear decisions. They also can attract followers, and offer them clear signals. A business will struggle to survive long without goals and plans, as investors demand signals, and staff need mechanisms to allocate resources and to keep score. Armies need this even more, though sometimes we don’t seem remember that when we commit to military adventures.

Even in complex businesses, I sense an obsession with goals and plans going so far as to be counter-productive. Plans always have to make an assumption about context – be it markets, regulations, competitors. And such assumptions are always wrong. The best companies are those who can react intelligently to opportunities as they arise, and that is not usually those with rigid goals and plans. Agility and humility are great attributes. I am surprised that rolling planning has not been adopted more quickly across industry, and suggest it could be a source of strength for those willing to cast aside years of finance department attitudes and give it a try.

In politics at election time, journalists focus on policies. These have a role, yet how often has the world changed so much by the time the election is over that those policies get overtaken by events? It probably makes much more sense to judge based on values and on competence – and happily in most countries the public do just that.

Many sports and games illustrate the same point. Counter-attacking and flexible teams win soccer championships more often than conventional analysis would suggest. Martial arts are all about using the energy and commitment of an opponent to one’s own advantage. As a child I remember a wonderful game called L’Attaque. The title was a brilliant trick, as I learned that the way to win was to let the other side attack you. This usually works in Chess too.

Going back to the individual, I believe the arguments for a responsive strategy are even stronger, since the main advantage of a plan based approach, that of marshalling a team, are less relevant (though life partners always need to plan together). The second advantage of a clear plan is as a hedge against apathy, with plans acting as a spur, a personal sergeant major in one’s ear.

But it is easy to list many disadvantages to running your life by rigid goals and plans. Context changes so fast. We have no idea what opportunities lie ahead of us, not just when we are six but when we are sixty as well. While we are focussed in one direction, we easily miss what is going on at the periphery. Psychologically, a goal can become an expectation, and that sets it up as a preordained disappointment. The most bitter people often had the clearest goals.

I’m certainly not advocating fatalism. We are not without influence on what happens to us, and we should use that influence. Values and attitude matter, as do criteria to judge and take opportunities. And we can take many actions to bring more opportunities towards us. That is not fatalism, but a strategy of active readiness, which I believe is supported by most interpretations of beliefs about Higher Powers.

I suppose just now I’m testing out the limits of my own theory, deliberately minimising goals and plans. Perhaps I’ll slide into apathy, or fall into some other pitfall I haven’t foreseen, or simply not be able to resist slipping into some former corporate habits. On the other hand, perhaps I’ve stumbled upon an attitude that can be part of a key to serenity.

More on Challenging Assumptions

Last week I asked us all to challenge all our assumptions as often as possible. While we can’t live without assumptions, letting them go unchallenged is the route to staleness.

I offered some assumptions worthy of challenge at a macro level, and then some for individuals. Of course we are all different, and our assumptions differ too. I chose questions that I have found useful for myself, and where I’ve seen friends and colleagues falter in the past.

There is a third level where I’d like to suggest some questions, in between the other two. That is the level of the company or at least of the teams or operating units that make up companies. There is a great deal of dogma flying around in companies, and it is understandable why. CEO’s and brand departments have to seek ways to simplify their environments and find messages to motivate staff wherever they are. Smart team leaders and employees should learn to quietly challenge these assertions, to avoid the risk that they might actually believe they all apply universally as axioms and come unstuck as a result.

Here are some questions for you as corporate citizen, team leader or boss.
We have very good people.
The only way is up – once our strategies have time to work things will improve
The competition is less ethical than we are
If we could only communicate better, customers would see the superiority of our products
Lower cost competitors are fighting in a different market to us
More budget, more investment, acquisitions can do only good if they can be funded
If we were larger we would be stronger
The bosses three levels up can see things we can’t and have more power
The finance department are just bean counters, a necessary evil
HR are clueless
Our costs are under control but there is waste everywhere else
Customers either buy on price or quality
Many of our customers are loyal

Each of these can do with a healthy challenge inside many companies. Some statements may survive the challenge – I’m not saying all assumptions are wrong.

So, we are supposed to challenge all of these assumptions. How, exactly?

This is difficult, as we are somehow self-programmed to avoid too much challenge. Challenge is destabilising. We are in denial about our false assumptions a lot of the time, as a coping strategy to avoid our lives collapsing into ambiguity and confusion.

That is the first lesson for how to challenge. Be very suspicious of yourself. You think you are challenging when you are not really, you are more likely just reinforcing or making some excuse.


Next lesson is to be on the lookout for unusual data points. Sometimes these will arise in crises or unusual situations. Someone you don’t know all that well might say something that takes you aback. These opportunities are golden, since they shake off the denial and reinforcement. The trick is really to use them. When such an event happens, consider it deeply for what it might mean.

An example is the wisdom shown by the woman I would normally have disregarded. Luckily the situation allowed me not just to take in what she had to say, but also to avoid the easy conclusion that she was some sort of outlier, an unusual woman of her background with wisdom. That way the assumption would have been reinforced and an opportunity for real growth lost.

Next, go deep as a project on one or two assumptions at a time. For these assumptions, try for a period to assume its exact opposite. Then look for evidence and consequence of that opposite. Some statements have multiple opposites, so play with the permutations. Stick at this for a few days or weeks.

Finally, ask for help. Perhaps “I ask for help readily” is itself an assumption ripe for challenge. That would not be unusual. Assumptions are great places to seek deep, honest feedback. As with all tougher feedback, it is important to create a good atmosphere and choose the right people, then to keep persisting until the true message emerges. This is sometimes embarrassing or painful (for both parties) and we all tend to give up too quickly.

History is full of examples where false assumptions held sway far longer than they should have. Think of Gallileo debunking the flat world. Think of the recent financial crisis. I was brought up to believe that all Russians were somehow evil. One of my favourites is about the British sense of fair play. Come again? There is a lot of this type of assumption about, and much value in challenging.

Challenge your assumptions - then challenge them again

We can’t achieve much without making assumptions. We do it all the time, without realising it. Examples are assuming that someone coming at us along the street won’t shoot us, that the traffic light will turn green sometime, or that it will grow dark this evening. Good assumptions, based on practical experience, make live simple enough to live.

Progress also starts with assumption. A scientist will make a hypothesis, and run a series of experiments to try to prove or disprove it. A hypothesis is basically a fancy word for a working assumption.

So assumptions are necessary good. But fixed ideas are, I contend, the opposite, the things that stifle growth, individually or at any grander scale.

We all do it. Our assumptions go far wider than traffic lights. Over the years we slip into lazy thinking, disguised as coping strategies. Often it is extreme – think of all the games people play while dating, built around their own assumptions about expectations or fear or superstition. We do it at work too. It simplifies our life and makes us feel better in the same way as a comfort blanket does for a child. But how it blocks our growth.

Society is also built on lazy assumption. And whereas in science it is possible to construct experiments, in economics and social matters that is much harder, because human behaviours are complicated and good controls hard to find. Often, people can “prove” pretty well any assumption they care to make, whether motivated by political belief or selfishness or just misguided goodwill. The assumption becomes the problem.

I very much enjoyed “Super Freakonomics”, a book I read on holiday by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. You can read their blog on http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/steven-d-levitt/. The style and viewpoint can be annoyingly American, but you can’t argue that the content isn’t excellent. The approach is to try to turn popular orthodoxy on its head by applying rigorous science, and it works. Of course the limitation is which particular popular orthodoxy comes under challenge.

Back to us as individuals, and I suspect many of us feel we are already quite good about challenging our assumptions. We grew out of comfort blankets ages ago! My plea is that you challenge that very assumption!

I won’t claim to be especially good at this myself, but I do know I have improved, and I also can quote some examples where I’ve learned the hard way how assumptions have got in my way.

A good example is my approach to diversity at work. I always believed in its power, and strove to get a diverse team. But without realising it, I did it from my own limited context. I was using the diversity to validate or repudiate or fine tune my assumptions and my ways of working. Then I had some luck, probably supported by my own laziness in letting my team self-manage more. I came to realise that the biggest value of diverse backgrounds came not at the stage of validating hypotheses but in creating them. Almost by accident, the value multiplied. I’m sure I still have a long way to go, but I know that I was deluding myself before, and suspect many of you will be suffering the same delusive assumption now.

Other examples are in openness and judging. I always believed I was quite open, but a life crisis two years ago led me to greatly expand the group of people I chose to be open with and the subject matter permitted. The result was a step change in my own self awareness and (I believe) effectiveness and happiness too. Can you make that change without a crisis?

On judging, I’ve always been aware of being a bit of an intellectual snob, but found ways to justify it. Again a crisis intervened, and I found myself sitting in the same room as a rotund, modestly dressed, seemingly under-educated, middle aged woman under conditions where I was forced to listen to what she was saying, really listen. And wow, what she said was powerful. And why not? Wisdom is not wholly correlated with education. How much useful wisdom I have wilfully discarded over 50 years of that misguided belief! What about you? And the business you work in?

So my advice is to work on the assumption that you are inhibited by many assumptions, and challenge them with courage and humility. Here are some statements you might make to yourself occasionally.
I am a good listener.
I am an accessible leader.
I value diversity and don’t judge or exercise snobbery.
I hate politics, and am not good at it. Others succeed because they are politicians.
I welcome change.
I take safety in work seriously.
My company has a debt to me for my years of service.
I value peace and humanity above ego and ambition.

In a more social context, you can try some more.
I am not good in large parties (believe me, nor is anyone else!).
The “right” men (or women) don’t find me attractive.
He (she) will leave me unless I keep an eye on him (her).
I am a good lover and considerate partner.
Religion is plainly flawed so cannot offer me anything useful.

At a societal level, progress comes when we finally challenge our assumptions, or dogmas. It is an argument against conservative politics, though so called liberals are usually just as guilty of dogma, just different dogma. It is wonderful how in the last 100 years we have made such progress on female emancipation, sexual acceptance, health, and other areas. In each case, progress has been slowed by dogmatic assumption.

What assumptions might come under scrutiny in coming years? Here are some modest ideas.
Our pay should continue to rise through our career.
We need countries, and countries need armies, and some wars can’t be avoided.
GDP per capita is the least bad measure of progress.
Alcohol is not like smoking or drugs.
Western medical methods are the only way to improve health.
Greedy bosses are an inevitable by product of capitalism.
Democracy as practiced in the West is the least bad system of government. (Or an alternative: what happens in the West is accurately described as Democracy)

All of these will come under challenge as a natural process of responding to crisis (for example I believe the first statement is the key to unlocking the global pensions dilemma). Yet I’m sure we can progress faster and further by challenging earlier and more bravely. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.

But at a personal level, nothing stops us but ourselves. So start challenging. And challenge me too, please.