Category: K.E.E.N. skills

Why We Should be Particularly Wary of Unanimous Situations

Unanimous opinions and decisions should be looked upon suspiciously, because they might reveal common cause of mistake. “Unanimity is often assumed to be reliable. However, it turns out that the probability of a large number of people all agreeing is small, so our confidence in unanimity is ill-founded. This ‘paradox of unanimity’ shows that often we are far less certain than we think.” The idea is developed in this excellent post on phys.org ‘Why too much evidence can be a bad thing‘.

unanimous“Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counterintuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. They intuitively reasoned that when something seems too good to be true, most likely a mistake was made.”

In any case the paper shows that when results of a process or experiment are too consistent to be true we should search for a common cause that might explain this consistency. An example in the paper is particularly vivid: “Police in Europe found the same female DNA in about 15 crime scenes across France, Germany, and Austria. This mysterious killer was dubbed the Phantom of Heilbronn and the police never found her. The DNA evidence was consistent and overwhelming, yet it was wrong. It turned out to be a systemic error. The cotton swabs used to collect the DNA samples were accidentally contaminated, by the same lady, in the factory that made the swabs.”

So the next time that you are faced with an overwhelming unanimity, look further for a possible cause that have nothing to do with what is being decided or sought. It might save the day!

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Why Increased Accessibility to Ideas Correlates with Overprotection trends

Broadening on our post on the recent trend in US colleges to overprotect from potentially offensive ideas, there is much more happening in the world with a growing contradiction with the much easier accessibility to all sorts of offensive ideas, pictures on internet and the increasingly defensive behavior of society.

caution-internetFor example, in some respect the development of head covering and niqab in the Muslim world (where in the 1960’s uncovered hair and face was the most common) is also some sort of reaction to this wider accessibility of non politically or socially correct sources.

It may well be that the development of these overprotective trends is the consequence of the wider access to disturbing ideas. The world would then be increasingly split between those that can deal with these disturbing ideas (without necessarily condoning them of course), and those that can’t or won’t.

Over time, this might become a bigger split in the world’s population than the issue of internet access, with pockets of overprotective societies in both developed and less developed countries.

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How Overprotecting from Different Points of View is a Moral Hazard

There is a bit of a controversy in the US at the moment about excessive coddling (protection) of college students. Basically in some colleges, many issues can’t be discussed any more or taught because of the potential to offend some students. This created astonishing concepts such as ‘micro-agressions’ (move or words people feel aggressive) or ‘trigger warnings’ (the need to announce in advance that the subject or the words that will be used might offend, giving the opportunity to retreat in a safe space).

trigger-warningThis has come to a point where President Obama had to comment: “I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, “You can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” That’s not the way we learn either.”

And more: “The purpose of college is not just … to transmit skills,” he said. “It’s also to widen your horizons, to make you a better citizen, to help you to evaluate information, to help you make your way through the world, to help you be more creative.”

What is the future of these students that can’t face certain issues and want to protect themselves from anything they might feel offensive? How are they going to manage being in the world? We can be sure they won’t move out from their cozy american environment and fear the world around them. This is the root of future US conservatism and protectionism, and dysfunctioning adults.

We all need to learn to face the world however uncomfortable it can be to us to forge character. Let’s not shrink from the nasty stuff surrounding us; let us face them and deal with them. Overprotection from offensive ideas is a moral hazard that needs to be addressed.

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How to Have Sufficient Control on our Life to be Happy

“The circumstances of our lives may actually matter less to our happiness than the sense of control we feel over our lives” says Rory Sutherland. As we know, feeling in control of our lives is both a need and in some respect an illusion – in particular in the ever more complex world.

life controlWe are thus constantly struggling to adjust between this feeling of control and the reality of the events and constraints that shape what we do and what we decide to do.

I believe that what is important is to have a number of areas almost fully under our control, even if the rest is not. We can be fully in control of our garden or some part of our house and at the same time acknowledge that we can’t do anything about the condition of the economy. It is great also to be in a position to see that efforts that we are making towards some goal bear fruits.

Therefore, I believe that what is really important is to have a few areas where this feeling of control is sufficiently high to give us happiness, and acknowledge at the same time that other areas will never be – and not be sour for this.

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How to Control our Posture When Using New Technology

Our posture when using portable devices is an issue. Not just regarding joint pain, but also when it comes to creativity and mood. In this excellent paper the NYT explains why ‘Your iPhone Is Ruining Your Posture — and Your Mood‘.

cellphone-posture“Technology is transforming how we hold ourselves, contorting our bodies into what the New Zealand physiotherapist Steve August calls the iHunch”. And posture influences our mood like we explained in our posts ‘How simple is it to get positive emotions?‘ and ‘How we actually think with our bodies‘. So, as a result, because we tend to slouch when using portable devices, we are fostering negative emotions, such as “lower self-esteem and mood, and much greater fear”.

Stand up people of the Collaborative Age! And let’s hope that maintaining posture will be one of the key learning points of the schooling of the netizens of the future!

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What the Biggest Act of Love is

I loved Manal Ghosain’s post on The Biggest Act of Love. As she writes,

“The biggest act of love is to allow others to be who they are—fully and unconditionally“.

WOW – how true this is!

It is amazing when I searched the internet for an illustration for this post, how many quotes I found about being oneself and defending oneself against others’ influence – and how few quotes I found about allowing others to be themselves.

be-who-you-areStill it is really what is the reflect of true love. It is true romantic love and it is true love to your children.

Allow them, encourage them to be themselves. Love them.

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How Our Attitude to a Problem Might be the Problem

“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude with the problem” – quote from Pirates of the Caribbean, which we all know is a famous Hollywood philosopher (at times).

problem_attitudeStill I like this quote because it summarizes very well the issues we all face sometimes. And it is also directly linked to the issue of what to do when we have to face truth (and we don’t want to hear it).

We all face problems, some large and some smaller. And at the end it boils down to our attitude with regard to these problems. Depending on our attitude they can destroy our lives and make us miserable; or build on our problems to find opportunities to transform our lives.

Next time we face a nagging problem, let’s ask ourselves whether it is not our attitude that is the problem.

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How to Communicate on the Truth When People Don’t Want to Hear It

I love this quote: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” – somehow apparently wrongly attributed to James A. Garfield (former president of the US). Yet I find it ever to true in particular because part of my job as consultant is sometime to tell the truth everybody sees in the organization but no-one dares tell top management.

bury_headOne issue with telling the truth is that it needs to be done the right way: it needs to be done in a way that avoids outright rejection. If rejection happens, then it was no use.

In these tough situations, there are several ways to avoid rejection, which are best combined:

  • establish a trust relationship with the person you need to tell the truth (the longer relationship the better; good references also help),
  • tell the truth in a manner that passes the message while still being (borderline) acceptable by the recipient; the best is to interact at that occasion to calibrate the message,
  • exploit time to make the revelation gradually accepted, through repetition and letting time and nights do their work in the subconscious.

I am convinced that Truth will hurt on the short term, still it is a much better remedy on the longer term. Tell it, and tell it the right way.

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How to Overcome Your Limits

Imagination is the real limit of what you can or what you can become. And we are all somehow locked into the limits of our imagination.

imagination_limitHence one way to overcome our limits is to give free flow to our imagination.

It is an interesting approach because it does not call for action or overcoming our fears. It just suggests as a first step to dream ourselves into what we want to be, beyond the limits we impose to our imagination right now.

Do you put any limits to your imagination? What if you would remove them and dream about what you really want to be? Imagine… and make it happen!

 

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How Entrepreneurship Highlights Strengths and Weaknesses

Based on my modest experience as entrepreneur since 4 years+, I increasingly find that entrepreneurship is extraordinarily revealing one’s strengths and weaknesses. In particular of course when business is tough.

a different image in the mirror!Of course, that might be the case for any activity in which you need to commit fully, where success is based on your efforts in a varied range of activities and where your livelihood depends on it immediately (that makes some difference with executive positions in large companies where there is more reaction time and livelihood is less directly dependent on one’s actions). But I haven’t found so many activities responding to these criteria apart from entrepreneurship!

I know for a long time that my weakness is getting along well in social environments and all business development activities. I’m rather shy and introvert, and not at ease in large social activities or cold-calling. Still I have to make the effort as my company’s future depends on it.

Entrepreneurship can thus be recommended as a great self-development activity, in that you are faced with your weaknesses with acute pain, and you need to make the effort to overcome them, going out of your comfort zone. You have to, there is no other choice (apart from going back to salaried employment).

It’s tough, and it feels some days like I’d like to throw the towel. It’s probably good, because I have to work on myself to compensate my weaknesses. It’s exhilarating, because the possibilities are endless.

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How Room Temperature Can Change Dramatically Meeting Outcomes

Marshall Goldsmith describes an astonishing experience in his new book ‘Triggers‘: “Many years ago I was speaking at an off-site gathering of partners from a consulting firm. Although my previous work with this firm had gone well, this time something wasn’t working. No give-and-take, no lively laughter, just a group of very smart people sitting on their hands. I finally realized that the room was too hot. Amazingly, by merely turning down the temperature in the room, the session got back on track”

room_temperatureI think Marshall makes an excellent observation and it’s a key learning point for me in my facilitation activities for the future! Marshall Goldmith has now decided that room temperature was a key parameter to set: “Like a rock star demanding red M& Ms in the dressing room, I’m now a bit of a diva about insisting on a cool environment for my presentations.”

Up to now, while I knew that it is important to care about the comfort of the participants, I had not identified how temperature plays such an important role. Maybe we should also review that parameter in our offices and where we do important presentations!

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Why Learning Comes from Giving

For a long time I have found that the best way of learning is teaching. It is a bit of a double-edge sword of course (you need to know a minimum to be able to teach) but the preparation and the performance of the course really nail the knowledge down. And the questions and challenges from the students do help light up some obscure corners as well.

teachingRoland Barth, a specialist of school learning, is quoted to say: “The most powerful form of learning, the most sophisticated form of staff development, comes not from listening to the good words of others but from sharing what we know with others. Learning comes more from giving than from receiving. By reflecting on what we do, by giving it coherence, and by sharing and articulating our craft, knowledge, we make meaning, we learn.”

I love that sentence: Learning comes more from giving than from receiving.

This statement is actually potentially much more far-reaching than just the issue of teaching. It applies throughout our life: we can’t learn without some exchange. We can’t learn without giving. And it is those lessons that matter.

Quote extracted from the book ‘Optimizing the Power of Action Learning‘ by Michael Marquardt

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