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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
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?
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?
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, August 23, 2010
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?
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?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
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.
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.
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