The Balance of Power and the Power of Balance

I get frustrated with the lack of balance in what I watch and read. A good example is the death of Hugo Chavez, which led to a number of obituaries. Time gave very few statistics, but talked about his effective populism and belittled his background. The Economist acknowledged his populism, but tried to play down is regional influence, while using selective graphs to try to demonstrate the negative effect of his policies. The Guardian weekly gave the piece to Tariq Ali, who lauded his regional influence and beneficial effects on the poor of Venezuela, paying almost no heed to the legacy of currency crisis and democratic deficit. Meanwhile US so-called TV news said hardly anything, and what it did say could have been written by the CIA or some rich Cuban-American lobby group.

 

What should I believe? The best I can do is critically analyse the various sources and create as balanced a view as I can. Usually the Economist does a reasonable job of at least providing some figures and some depth of argument, but even the Economist has its blind spots. One example is the Tobin tax, which it consistently rubbishes with very lazy arguments (hard to collect –rubbish; a good idea but only if everyone does it – so champion then!).

 

What would really help are better common indicators. GDP, inflation and currency value strike me as poor indicators, since they don’t effect ordinary people all that much, yet for many years these have been the standard metrics most often quoted. Unemployment rate is better but even that can be manipulated by make-work schemes: nonetheless it was good to see jobs used as the main target for both parties in the recent US election, over something only financiers care about.

 

I am sure there must be better metrics out there. The Economist has done well this year with its campaign for equality of opportunity, and its constant reference to ease of doing business. It also frequently quotes education levels and health indicators such as child deaths. The regular survey on child wellbeing is excellent, but seems to need a lot of research.  Happiness levels so far are hard to pin down, since they require surveys and will be so affected by culture.

 

But surely we can come up with a balanced set of metrics? Last week I visited the UN with a visitor and went on their tour. At the end I felt an odd mixture of hope and despair. One good sign was the millennium goals, which appear to have targeted good universal benefits and to have had an impact, even if it did require Bill Gates. But these goals feel a bit dated by now – a good organisation renews long-term goals regularly. Where is the next set, with exciting targets for 2025? Surely that is an opportunity to use the latest thinking on good progress metrics.

 

This sort of thinking would also help to understand whether Chavez and his ilk really have a positive side. This matters, for the conventional capitalist view is really creaking. We have to learn from everywhere and challenge our assumptions. Which is why it is so sad that most mainstream publications almost seem defined by their assumptions.

 

In the US, it is very hard to get any balance at all. I watched BBC World News for half an hour last night, and saw more interesting global perspective in that half hour than anything on TV for six months. I also saw Fox news. This is set up as a sort of chat format, rather like breakfast TV, with the newscasters offering inane comments. The content of the first twenty minutes was:

-          A non-story about a parent of the Sandy Hill massacre talking to the perpetrator’s father

-          The weather (on probably the most boring weather day for a month)

-          Obama in Israel, reasonably balanced but short and dominated by sound bites provided by the administration

-          A suspicious little story about a rocket attack in Israel with no injuries (“thank goodness”). Why placed here, I asked myself?

-          An abused pet in New Jersey is getting better (I promise I am not kidding)

-          A minor star may or not enter rehab in New York

-          The Kardashians haven’t decided on a baby name yet, but might choose something starting with K

-          Local travel, more weather and some sport

 

At least this wasn’t a party political broadcast, but as news it was woeful. It is no wonder that most Americans have no perception of the world around them. Last week on Fox, some executive interrupted his own newscast to offer a broadside against Bloomberg’s proposed ban on super-sized drinks. It is amazing how much bile so harmless a proposal has generated. His arguments were:

-          New Yorkers don’t like being told what to do

-          The proposal is not a complete solution (two cups were shown, one of which would remain legal but appeared more harmful than the other)

-          It would be hard to enforce

-          Large-size soda is only a small part of the obesity problem

 

Notice the overlap with the Economist arguments against Tobin? And notice the speciousness of the arguments – even if all are true, the ban is still a small step in a good direction. Then think why a head of Fox would bother to interrupt his main news programme with such guff, unless there is some sponsor or lobby money behind it.

 

And here is the rub. Money. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the agenda is set by money. Fox fills its news with celebrity gossip because that improves ratings. Its stance on issues is set by those that pay to keep the station going. There is a blurring between content and advertising that suits the money men.

 

Fox may be the bad, but everyone is at it. The Guardian is not immune, nor the Economist. Meanwhile, statistics are consistently debased. An ad by the association of US realtors (estate agents) quoted a survey stating that people owning their own home were on average happier, as an argument to get more people to buy a home. What tosh! Of course richer people in stable family environments are the ones in owned homes, and of course they are on average happier. But someone renting does not become happier by buying, indeed probably the opposite. Somehow they get away with this, since watchdogs here seem to be non-existent.

 

Sorry for the rant. Back to the theme of the blog. Is this lack of balance getting worse or better? And is power more concentrated now or less?

 

Schumepeter as usual set me thinking. In our frustration at blatant unfairness and vested interests dominating we rush to bemoan the one per cent. But actually power is becoming more ephemeral. Even major corporations can collapse overnight now, such is the speed of news and extent of media. Just ask Mubarak. Power may have more scope for abuse now, but it is fragile. Indeed, the fragility of power may lead to its abuse, as those in power attempt ever-more-wildly to shore up their positions. This trend carries risk, but is ultimately very good for humanity.

 

I could say the same about balance. True, money talks, and people sometimes become populist or fail to notice the con. But at least now we generally have a choice of media, including blogs, to read. Balance is certainly elusive, but at least theoretically possible nowadays. It is frustrating to have to go shopping for balance, but at least there are some shops out there.

 

I also hope that the next generation will be better equipped to shop and discern wheat from chaff. Youngsters know how to use computers and to research nowadays, and to use all the media they have available. There is even progress in education. In English, my kids (grade 8) are doing a module about debate, forming arguments and researching alternatives. This is so much more useful than the English I was taught, based just on grammar and literature. The next generation might be able to watch the Fox executive and be able to see straight through his arguments.

 

As individuals, all we can do is shop as widely as we can for balance and accept the cacophony out there. We can challenge our own assumptions and always be suspicious of the money bias. We can campaign for better metrics, and less lazy journalism, cheer wikileaks, and abhor anything covert, including the secret services from our own countries.

 

And we can stay cheerful. When we are frustrated, we can cheer the fact that things are probably better than they were, and will probably soon become better still, for more and more people. If the cost is some chaos to live through (a Beppe Grillo led government?), and some personal frustration in the search for balance, we can still celebrate that the steps forward outnumber the ones backward.

Sheryl Sandberg's Sisters

The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, has just published a book called Lean In. In the last couple of weeks, this has led to a feature in Time and a review in The Economist.

 

Promoting gender diversity in the workplace has been a live issue ever since I joined the workforce, and I have witnessed a series of progress steps and frustrations at first hand.

 

It is obvious that the battle is not yet won. Women now outperform men at all levels of education and qualification, and are represented in the workforce quite fully, at least in the developed countries. Yet women are still hopelessly under-represented at senior levels. This is a human disgrace, and an economic waste, since plainly the many of the most talented are not being used in positions where they fulfil their potential.

 

Most studies on this tend to focus on the highest levels, such as CEO or member of parliament. But in my experience, the imbalance starts at lower levels. As soon as there is a management team of people with their own teams or areas of responsibilities, women tend to be in the minority.

 

Sandberg encourages women to take more control over their careers, and to push a little bit harder. She notices that women are more modest in how they present themselves and seek opportunity.

 

She has some sensible, practical advice. Plainly, one of the obstacles to career progression is the need to balance child bearing. She accepts that women have to find their own balance, but claims that often women make a problem of this before they need to. So instead of making one big decision to leave the workforce for a while, in practice they make a series of smaller decisions, like not applying for positions, which cumulatively do more damage than is necessary.

 

Sandberg also advises early, honest and frequent conversations with life partners about priorities. I agree with this completely, and have seen couple after couple struggling with these dilemmas. There is often little help available, and it is so frightening in a young relationship to initiate difficult conversations about whose career may take precedence, possibilities of changing location or even of living apart for a while, and the timing for kids.

 

This is so tough. I never had to face up to this really. And even if I had, the cultural expectations at the time would have been hanging over us – as the man, my career would probably have been the lead one. This expectation is unfair, but at least it would have offered a guideline. Nowadays, there are only uncertainties in this sort of thing.

 

But that change in expectation is also the best news. In the past, my belief is that it was such cultural expectations that were the biggest inhibitors to female careers. Women of my generation had the benefit of education, a fairer legal system and some sort of diversity awareness in their firms. Yet they still had their parents and their partners’ parents to deal with. It does not surprise me that it takes several generations to bring about real change.

 

So things will sort out in time. Women will demand it. Shareholders will demand it. Younger men will support it. And former cultural constraints will no longer block it.

 

But that is no comfort for my generation of women who fought on the margins, or even for the current generation getting so close but still being stymied. So the challenge is, what can and should be done to accelerate matters?

 

I approve of legal nudges and awareness nudges. So quotas can do good. D&I training should be essential. Bosses should be called to account for their behaviour.

 

There are also structural steps that remain to be taken. Even now, only Scandinavia has acceptable standards of childcare support and paternity leave. And more could be done within companies to facilitate careers that have breaks: there was an excellent Harvard article about this some years back referring to such transitions as onramps and off ramps.

 

The hardest part is what women should do themselves. This is territory that Sandberg is not the first to address, and it has its pitfalls. The risk is always in pushing women to act against their instincts. Sandberg does not quite advocate it, but In the worst examples, I have been on courses where women were advised to be more like men.

 

While it is tempting to accelerate things with such tactics, I believe they should be avoided for several reasons. First, a consequence is that the “wrong” women would then tend to break through, perpetuating negative stereotypes and prejudices. The women who will do the best job of behaving like men are not generally the women with the most to offer as women.

 

Next, the diversity that the business is trying to benefit from is actually diminished. Surely, we are trying to benefit from our differences, not try to mask them?

 

But most important, I think this sort of advice has actually held back more women than it has helped. The best coaching I ever received was to “be yourself”. Anything which works against instinct has a tendency to backfire.

 

As an example to demonstrate this, I had a dancing lesson last week. I am not a good dancer, though I want to improve. One piece of feedback was very revealing. I was informed that if I repeat the same step several times, my frame collapses. So my focusing on one thing, something even more basic fails. The instructors instinct was that this was due to my breathing becoming unnatural.

 

This diagnosis struck a chord (unfortunately, like many good diagnoses, it did not create a solution apart from to be patient and work hard). I have seen the same withy singing. It is only by internalising step one that step two becomes possible, and only when step two is entirely natural can step three be attempted. Breathing is the most basic of all actions, and how we breathe gives away how relaxed we are and the extent to which we have conquered the steps.

 

There is a nice model for this. The progression for any skill should move from unconscious incompetence through conscious incompetence and conscious competence before reaching the stable goal of unconscious competence. In singing, I am finally starting to master the last step. In dancing, I am still on the first one. Breathing gives this away.

 

What has this got to do with work? Well, many of the things recommended for women are tough and go against instinct. As such, they need constant effort and reinforcement, and can become a programme to achieve conscious competence. And conscious competence is not enough. Only a state of peaceful relaxation, epitomised by good breathing and many other things, leads to success.

 

I believe I have seen this in practice. Throughout my career, women always seemed to be the ones trying harder. They went on courses, sought lots of feedback, tried to do the right thing. Sometimes they saw obstacles when they were not there, or became abrasive or suspicious, or lost their natural spirit and obscured their talents. They were more often tired and on edge. In short, the effort to follow the advice offered to women became a constant search for conscious competence, but rarely progressed further.

 

A good example is in networking. True, it is important to chat up the boss, or be seen by the bosses boss, to be visible in a good way. I did it, not very well but I did it. But I did it using my natural strengths, and in a way that allowed some balance. I don’t accept that it is structurally harder for women to network (actually, I think it is a bit easier, as they tend to be physically more noticeable). But many women try to network almost as an obsession, because someone has told them to. A consequence can be a loss of balance, and actually making a less good impression than a natural approach could have done.

 

So, what is my recommendation? First, do follow the steps of Sandberg that come naturally, and do initiate the tough discussions with life partners (who by now should be ready to listen and compromise). Do campaign for structural improvements such as on ramps and off ramps. Other structural improvements can come in company HR policies – as an example placing more emphasis on people’s attributes as a line manager (it does not surprise me to hear Sandberg described as an excellent line manager). The one part of firms that women have fully conquered is the HR department, so surely it is time to use this to improve recruitment and performance management, helping women at the same time?

 

But then don’t listen to all the advice you receive, especially if it seems unnatural. It is better to focus on natural strengths than to become consciously competent at unnatural things. For many women, I believe Sandberg’s advice would do some good and some harm, and the trick will be to choose the recipe that works for you. Lean in, but not into places where you lose balance and the leaning becomes all you can achieve.

 

I hope and believe the current generation of women entering the workforce can be first to achieve its potential. Enough generations have passed now for the unfair blockers to have been removed, at least in most sectors developed countries. So this generation of women can enjoy the luxury of being themselves, and breathe naturally all the way up.

Time on health

I have started reading Time magazine, and I rather like it. Famous for its front pages, it is a slim and readable weekly digest with some very interesting stories.

 

Of course the perspective is American, but I can learn from that too. There are subtle messages about American society in here.

 

First is a comparison with TV news in the US. Maybe I am watching the wrong broadcasts, but I am stunned at how parochial and dumb-down TV news is here. A typical thirty minute broadcast has seven or eight minutes in the middle about local weather. I don’t think I have heard Syria mentioned so far. The fact that Rubio needed a glass of water when delivering a long speech made big news, yet the content of his speech did not.

 

Next is something about lazy journalism, or censorship, or a very fixed view of what is acceptable to Americans. Whichever of the above applies, there is always a sub-text of the US being the greatest nation on earth, and with every right to behave how it wishes. Even Time, at the intelligent end of the spectrum, shows this up. One nice article about a veteran from Iraq and Afghanistan mentioned that he had made about five hundred enemy kills, without even noticing the shocking juxtaposition that this feat by just one man is nearly 20% of the death toll from 9/11, the event cited as justifying the war on terror. Another article looked at possible war with Iran, and mentioned the risk of US casualties without seeming to consider any other casualties. Whether a cock-up or a conspiracy, this sort of thing goes a long way to explain the shallowness of US public opinion.

 

Finally is a message about Washington politics. Time usually has an article about this, and I wade through it even though it is usually quite tedious to me. What shines through is a lack of any apparent desire for good outcomes for the country. Politicians seem to have fallen into an insular game of tit of tat and small party or personal advantage.

 

Perhaps all these messages apply equally to other nations. I have seen censorship in action at the BBC, and the weather and celebrity gossip does not always escape the news there either. Perhaps it is only as an outsider looking in that enables one to see the shortcomings.

 

Time devoted virtually its entire 4^th March magazine to one article, by Steven Brill, about failings in US healthcare. It was excellent, and I recommend it, wherever you live, as an example of great journalism and what happens when markets fail.

 

I blogged about medicine here a few months ago, and the article helps to put my experience into a wider perspective. It is a staggering story of greed and failure, with politicians, hospitals, drug companies and equipment manufacturers all cast as villains. It did not surprise me to learn that half of the biggest companies in New York are healthcare companies – I see the evidence with my eyes every day, when I notice how many practices there are locally and what share of media advertising the sector generates. The outcome is a disaster for the economy, and will get a lot worse as demographics change, while Obamacare will also add pressure on premiums and costs. Healthcare costs about twice as much per head here than in Europe, yet life expectancy is generally lower.

 

At heart the story is one of market failure. Patients are ignorant, not in a mood to bargain and often weak or even unconscious. Doctors and hospitals have a financial incentive to perform as many treatments as they can. There is little consideration anywhere in the chain about trading off benefit for cost, especially given the fear of lawsuits (another heavily advertised segment). So more gets done than should, and at a higher price.

 

In theory, various actors should counter-balance these forces. Medicare, the government-paid service for the elderly, does the best job of trying, by negotiating fixed prices for treatments. Insurance companies are supposed to do the same for most of the rest of us, on behalf of us and our employers, but somehow they seem to get bamboozled. Or do they have an interest in higher revenue as well? Then, government sets the rules. But the medical industry (and lawyers) are great lobbyists, and the industry has become the largest employer, so somehow it does not happen. It is an ugly story, researched and told in a compelling way by Brill.

 

One surprise to me was the behaviour of non-profit enterprises. Many hospitals have non-profit status, and show off about it to build reputation and beg for support. Yet non-profit does not mean non-commercial. The leaders of these non-profits, usually not medically trained, pay themselves enormous salaries, and of course will drive for growth. The only limit seems to be that surplus income has to be invested. This is what drives hospitals and clinics and labs buying each other up to reduce competition further, and also a cycle of investment in new facilities and (over-priced) devices. I will look very sceptically at non-profits from now on.

 

One aspect Brill overlooks is the appalling customer service in the sector, a sure indicator of a failing market. My wife and I are both becoming used to sitting for hours in dingy waiting rooms and waiting on help-lines. Don’t you love a company with a marketing department that provides a beautiful answerphone message about how important I am, but then makes me listen to it for twenty minutes!

 

Brill suggests a range of remedies, most of which seem eminently sensible, and the necessity of which utterly condemn lawmakers for doing a horrible job with Obamacare (see point above about petty point scoring trumping national interest). Medicare currently cannot negotiate drug prices, and there is also law stopping what are known as comparative effectiveness drugs (using something just as good for less money). Both these seem utterly disgraceful.

 

But his other remedies somehow seek to regulate the excesses of the market, and might not work. Special taxes for hospitals and device makers seem odd. And reducing lab fees and over-ordering of tests are good goals without clear implementation ideas.

 

What I don’t understand is why the market is not working where it easily could. Hospitals can buy each other up, but why are not new ones being built to compete and drive down prices? And what on earth are the insurance companies doing? Surely the medicare price should be everyone’s price, give or take a few percent? If the current ones can’t achieve that, there must be space in the market for new ones who can. Getting a better performance out of the insurance companies feels a stronger remedy to me than extending medicare.

 

The whole story reminded me of my time at Shell Global Solutions. We were set up as an internal service provider for technical service and technology, with the opportunity to sell outside. But this so-called market had many of the same failings as the US medical industry.

 

First, (internal) customers had little knowledge, no propensity to negotiate, and were weak at the point of purchase. Their prices were often negotiated by internal middle-men with mixed motives. As providers, our goal was to increase revenue, so we over-provided gold-plated services and regularly increased prices. We claimed that our external success justified these, but those customers often had mixed motivation as well. The senior managers who were supposed to set the rules had their own personal agendas. We worked hard to limit competition, by pressuring Shell buyers to use us and by the use of standards and vertical integration.

 

Sound familiar? The similarities are eerie when you come to think of it. In the end we were closed down, and perhaps it was just as well. The story was not all negative, indeed we could reasonably claim a better outcome for Shell than what came before, but in the end we pushed things too far.

 

I wonder how long until the greedy healthcare industry in the US pushes too far, and where the backlash will come. The supine media have a lot to answer for. Well done Brill for going against the complacent grain.

 

The wider story is about the use of market forces. Markets are wonderful things, and generally work better than planned economies. But the market has to be pure enough to work, or it is the worst of all solutions. We should bear this in mind whenever people advocate privatisation. Is the market pure enough to work effectively? The disaster of US healthcare can be a wonderful case study of what happens when the answer is no.