Lorne Mitchell's Thursday Thoughts
Random Thoughts on Thursdays about Quirky & Interesting Things (Now in HexaStanzas)
Anthony kindly sent me this brilliant short video from Hans Rosling on why economies are made in bedrooms, not markets!
So, whatever you do, if you are European or American and want to grow your business, go seek out new markets in China or India….or start serving the over 60s!
Makes you think anyway!
Following on from the popular RSAnimate video of Dan Pink’s great lecture describing the three attributes that really motivate people: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, I came across an equally impressive piece of work by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in this month’s McKinsey Quarterly. If you don’t already subscribe, it is well worth doing so.
In their recent book, The Progress Principle, Amabile and Kramer uncover the events that allow people to gain deep engagement in their jobs and make progress towards meaningful, purposeful work. The McKinsey article (How leaders kill meaning at work) highlights four really interesting traps that leaders fall into that prevent the progression towards meaningful work.
These four traps outlined are:
We all need a higher purpose – and if we cannot find it in our work we do, then we don’t work nearly as well than if we do have one. The article ends with a simple set of ideas:
“As an executive, you are in a better position than anyone to identify and articulate the higher purpose of what people do within your organization. Make that purpose real, support its achievement through consistent everyday actions, and you will create the meaning that motivates people toward greatness. Along the way, you may find greater meaning in your own work as a leader.”
A bit cheesy, perhaps, but there are some useful case studies in the article.
My parents founded The HALO Trust – a mine clearance charity that has grown very successfully, over the years. The purpose of the organisation has remained the same since its inception: “GETTING MINES OUT OF THE GROUND, NOW”. Very present. Very simple. Very effective. And the motto has really stood the test of time and allows everyone in HALO to focus on a very clear and important purpose.
I am sure that every reader has other interesting stories of their own – both positive and negative – which I would love you to share below!
One of the great treats of Thursday (in addition, of course, to Thursday Thoughts) is Melvyn Bragg’s “In Our Time” broadcast twice each Thursday on Radio 4.
Last week’s programme (HERE) was about Heraclytus – one of the greatest pre-Socratic philosophers which is well worth listening to if you missed it last Thursday.
One of Heraclytus’ greatest observations was that everything flows, that everything is in flux, that everything changes. How right he was! It is interesting that there is not much new – for this is one of the foundations of lean thinking that underpins so much of modern management thinking.
Another famous quote of his was:
“No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
So as the speed of change has accelerated over the past three years, one begins to wonder whether anything is a constant.
The Ancient Greek Philosophers knew it all! Makes you think!
The “In Our Time” archive (going back to 1998) is well worth browsing – a rich variety of thoughts previously broadcasted on Thursdays long forgotten. I’m sure you will find something of interest – even if Ancient Greek Philosophy is not your passion!
Go on, step into the river! It is always different from the last time you stepped in. And you yourself will have changed since the last time too!
Picture from: (HERE)
I had a meeting early yesterday morning at the Frontline Club in Paddington. As I was leaving, some NHS folk were outside the entrance to St Mary’s Hospital demonstrating and making a noise. I did not go up to them and chat – I just took a picture. The window in the top left corner is where Sir Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin. As I walked away, I wondered what Fleming would have thought of all the noise?
I headed off to have lunch with an old friend at a restaurant in Paternoster Square – just by St Paul’s. It was a good lunch – and surprisingly crowded (when I had been told that all the traders in Paternoster Square had nearly gone out of business). After lunch, I had a bit of time before my next appointment, so I decided to walk from St Paul’s down to Victoria.
I could only leave Paternoster Square by one exit – which was the one I came in on. Normally crowded with tourists and city folk, the square has been blockaded in by a squad of policemen and other less official-looking people who seem to be from the tented camp of the Occupy Movement.
I was surprised to see the tented camp still pitched around St Pauls. I wondered how long they will hang on out there (particularly now the weather is turning)? Still, give the Occupy St Paul’s encampment some credit, they were pretty well organised and all seemed quite peaceful.
As I walked down towards The Aldwich, the whole of Fleet Street had been blocked by police cars, police vans and trucks with large sandbags. It was a very strange atmosphere which I later realised was the end of the TUC march down the embankment.
A bit further on some folk were clearing barriers and a strange tent-like contraption came around the corner that posed for some TV cameras. The banner said “Occupy Everywhere” obscuring the sign for the Royal Courts of Justice. And it got me thinking.
With the world’s population recently increasing to over 7,000,000,000 people (or 7bn for short), in a strange way, we DO occupy everywhere already! That’s the problem! And we aren’t doing too well at organising ourselves to reduce the population size. And there are now so many people getting heated up about all the problems that the planet itself is heating up more than we anticipated a few years ago.
So what’s to be done? The politicians can’t seem to fix it. The international banks and muti-national companies can’t seem to fix it. The Occupy Movement doesn’t seem to be fixing it. Yet we continue with the old patterns of marching, demonstrating (for pensions that will never appear) – and thinking that someone else will fix it.
So whilst we surely do Occupy Everywhere already, we need better ways to occupy ourselves so we all feel a sense of purpose and usefulness – without having to rely on the consumer-centric values that have held the Western world together for the past 50 years.
Interesting times. Not sure anyone has the answer. But I am sure we will work it out somehow! After all, Fleming discovered Penicillin by going on holiday. The story goes that some tropical medicine folk were researching on the floor below and penicillin floated up to his labs whilst he was away. Strange things happen when you bring diverse ideas together and go on holiday. Can’t wait for the Christmas break!
An extract from Idries Shah’s “Learning How to Learn” p142 called “The Vehicle and the Objective”:
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Q: What is your attitude on the structure of human studies and the materials within the structure?
A: A characteristic disease of human thought is to mistake the vehicle and the objective, or the instrument and the aim. This tendency is seen in all human communities, whether they are what we call ‘advanced’ or otherwise. It is as strongly present in civilised as in barbaric societies, only its manifestations are different.
The rule is that: Something which was functional becomes prized for itself: whether it is an exercise becoming a ritual, or an individual worker becoming idolised, or a tool becoming a totem.
Whoever encourages this tendency will always find supporters, because this warp is already in the human environment, and its derivatives will seem ‘right’.
On the other hand, the concept of vehicle and instrument, of not seeing the wood for the trees, and other manifestations of this possible confusion, are so well established that there will always be people who will understand the importance of thinking straight on the container and that which is contained, and on other manifestations, including the grub-chrysalis-butterfly one.
The means and the end are not the same. Studies, courses and processes exist for determining, perceiving and profiting from the knowledge of ‘means’ and ‘end’.
Do you remember Omar Khayyam saying:
‘Temples and the Kaaba of Mecca are the houses of devotion/striking the bell is the sound of worship/the girdle and church and rosary and cross/every one is the sign of devotion.’
The tool becoming a totem is especially marked as a tendency when people want to generalise theories, laws and rules out of situations which require a greater flexibility than just one or two alternatives.
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For this week’s Thursday Thought I was wondering whether we are in the current mess because the tool became a totem. I attended a fascinating talk today by David Birch at the RSA on the future of money – who proposed a revolution in the way money is exchanged by using new technologies such as mobile phones, peer-to-peer banking and cashless systems. I took no notes, but remember him saying that it that 70% of the cash in Norway is at some time in its life used by organised crime.
Interested to know what other readers think about this …..please do leave a comment below….
Slightly more than three years ago I was part of a worldwide team of volunteers within IBM researching the implications of climate change across every major industry sector on the planet. I led the Telecoms stream and discovered that although the Telecoms sector accounts for about 2% of man’s carbon footprint, this negative aspect was balanced by the associated benefits of reducing the impact of other more carbon-gulping industries such as Travel and Transport.
Yet through the whole study, IBM framed the study not in terms of carbon reduction – but in terms of sustainability. The pursuit of sustainability has confused me somewhat since then for a number of reasons. Firstly, nothing is sustainable for ever. Everything changes. Secondly, the whole carbon reduction movement has been (and continues to be) over-ridden by the world’s financial crisis. And thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – I had never taken the time to look into the principles behind sustainability so that I could explain it to someone else with clarity and simplicity.
All that changed last week. From my research into the future of money, I came across an excellent TED Talk – and website by Bernard Lietaer – a German Professor who specialises in another of my interests – Community Currencies. Lietaer’s pursuit for different models for money in the TED talk took him to ecology and a rather splendid discipline of “Ecological Economics”. Made sense to me (and the bees) – so I researched further.
Lietaer’s ideas originated from some earlier research from Robert. E. Ulanowicz – a Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He defined sustainability as a state between efficiency and diversity – elegantly shown by a green ball in balance at the top of a convex curve:
Lietaer further shows in his joint paper with Ulanowicz and their co-author Sally Goerner that this model is as equally valid in organic, biospheres as it is in economics. Lietaer proposes that the reason for the financial crisis is that the system became more and more efficient at the expense of diversity. Makes sense.
So the challenge is to move from the (left-brained) obsession with efficiency and cost-cutting and move to the right by encouraging diversity and communication (right brained stuff). Also makes sense.
So to get out of the current economic crisis we need – complementary (or local) currencies that build diversity back into the system. And quickly.
You can read more on Bernar Lietaer’s ideas on his website. And below is an abstract of the paper:
I’m off to see another lecture on the future of money at the RSA next Thursday. So next week’s Thursday Thought might be a hat-trick on this subject. Even if the authorities have removed the tents from StPauls by then!
Keep thinking!
A couple of weeks ago, I took one of my sons to London. He wanted to go and see the Occupy London site near St Paul’s – during time that the Church of England were digging deep into their consciences to work out how they should react. A few days later, I was in Edinburgh with my daughter and went to the equivalent tented camp. In both cases, I took the time to try to understand what was in the minds of those protesting. There was a peaceful atmosphere in both camps – but a surprising lack of practical things for people like me to do. However, the two experiences got me convinced that the system is broken and that things need to change.
A chance Tweet on Twitter this morning gave me the opportunity to explore the issues further. The Tweet alerted me to a new sort of Peer2Peer investment site called CrowdCube and a new sort of bank – called Civilised Money – who were looking for investors. The idea took my interest and I read to find out more.
I was particularly struck by the coincidence that the project is the brainchild of Neil Crofts. I have been a keen reader of Neil Croft’s weekly blog – and applaud his ideas on Authentic Leadership. On reading more about the Civilised Money idea, is struck me that this kind of Peer2Peer banking is just like Skype was in 2002 – only transposed onto the banking system. It made a heck of a lot of sense, so I took the plunge and invested!
By the way, I am definitely NOT an investment advisor. I am not even sure that by the time you read this, the investment opportunity will still be open. But I am so encouraged that there are those protesting (making the issues clear) as well as those who are trying to find new ways to design banks.
I hope it makes you think a bit more about what you opt in to – and out of.
As a keen watcher of the RSAnimate series, I was surprised I had not posted on the most popular animation yet – Dank Pink’s brilliant exposure of what really motivates us. With nearly 7 million views, it is an insightful analysis of what really motivates – and the answer is not obvious. The story takes us on a journey to uncover what really does give us the motivation to do more than just get us out of bed every day and go to work.
Before you watch it (even if you have seen it before), write down what you think really motivates you – and then compare it with Dan’s three motivators at the end of the video. Even it if you get all three correct, the exercise will certainly make you think!
I have always been fascinated by what makes up a good story and the effect that is has on the way we think about the world and our place within it. I have only recently came across the work of Joseph Campbell and his seminal work “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. In the book he explores the underlying pattern of the heroic struggle from each of the great myths from around the world. He then goes on to uncover an underlying sequence of typical “hero-actions” which are embedded in each of these stories.
George Lucas (the creator of StarWars) was so impressed by Cambpell’s work that he wrote the StarWars epic using his ideas. We are very fortunate that a series of six programmes summarising Campbell’s work and his ideas were recorded just before he died. You can see the first (and subsequent) videos on the (rather whacky) internet site below – though it is obviously much better to buy “The Power of Myth” DVD on Amazon or elsewhere and watch it legally:
Campbell neatly summarises one of the heoric struggles with phrase early-on in the six-part documentary:
“where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world”
The orphan archetype is possibly the most common storyline that Campbell uncovered. Moses, Romulus and Remus, Cinderella, Oliver Twist, Mowgli, Tarzan, Superman, Annie, King Arthur, Frodo Baggins, and yes, Harry Potter – as well as Luke Skywalker.
As Terry Windling so succinctly puts it:
“The orphaned hero is not, however, a mere fantasy cliché; it’s a mythic archetype, springing from some of the oldest stories of the world. This archetype includes not only those characters who are literally orphaned by the death of their parents, but also children who are lost, abandoned, cast out, disinherited by evil step–parents, raised in supernatural captivity, or reared by wild animals.”
Christopher Volger (in his book The Writer’s Journey) created twelve distinct stages to a good story:
1. Ordinary World
2. Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Meeting the Mentor
5. Crossing the Frist Threshold
6. Tests, Allies and Enemies
7. Approach
8. Ordeal
9. Reward
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection of the Hero
12. Return with the Elixir
So there you have it. The twelve stages to telling a good story based on Campbell’s “Monomyth” – or common pattern for all good stories. Try it. It really works. Whether you are narrating an important case study that is being used as an example to help you sell a product or service at work, or giving a bed-time story to children, the underlying drama always touches a chord. And it is fun to hold the attention when only you know where you are going to end up! Ah, yes. That is the other trick. It is important to know where you are going to end up (roughly) – though I find some of the fun of story-telling is that the story itself can unfold in unexpected ways. The Hero always finds his or her way through, though!
Oh, and by the way. Steve Jobs was an orphan. Which is probably why his real-life story has touched us in so many ways in the past week.
Makes you think, anyway!
Other References:
Joseph Campbell Foundation – for a lot more resources
Joseph Campbell Foundation on YouTube – for some other great videos from Campbell
Windling, Terry.
I cannot mark today’s Thursday Thoughts without a tribute to Steve Jobs. He became a legend in his own lifetime and he has surely changed the way that we work, play and think. He will be sadly missed having made a unique contribution to those who live beyond his untimely death.
Before he died, he expressed his philosophy on death with simplicity and elegance:
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs, Rest in Peace.