Rectifications (8) – ‘Cutting edge…’ ….‘World class…’
Torrey Orton
May 12, 2009
Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my Dances with Difference (4) post.
‘Cutting edge…’ is what we say when we mean that whatever we’re doing is just far enough behind the leading edge to actually do something reliably enough to be marketed to early adopters. Those in the know know that the failure rate of pure research is 98% , of applied technical research like drugs, invented materials (plastics, etc.) and so on, a good chunk fail and of start-ups around the survivors of the previous culling even smaller but startling amounts fail with appropriate variations between activity domains.
The earlier you are in the innovation cycle the more likely it is that your product /service will not last the course. Early adopters are the consumer side of this process. We often end up with memorials to failed beginnings - Betamax video, Atari’s, Commodores, Mac Lisas, Visicalcs (don’t remember this one? – Quicken, MYOB and siblings’ grandfather). How many internet start-ups came and went in 5 years of the bubble at what aggregate loss?
On these figures we may be wise to stay away from leading edges and doubt the likelihood that the cutting edge could slice a spud. I prefer takeoffs like The Bleeding Edge by Charles Wright, weekly in THEAGE Green Guide . He hopes to straighten us out about fallacious, falsified and fraudulent offerings in the ITC arena (a domain of notoriously cutting edges). His rendition of a Telstra customer service event is a classic example of modernised customer services where we are scored by the cutting edge of their leading edge business practices, for our good they’d say.
In a world where any can opener and financial product and face cream, not to say health “solution” and car is cutting edge, just how much junk are we being sold and how compelling is the argument for our purchasing NOW? The compulsion these days, I guess, arises from the great emptiness of repetitive acquisition syndrome. I find it surfacing in my therapy practice among the 35-50’s as a surrounding aura which soundlessly and sightlessly sucks meaning out of people with no replacement or alternative on offer. They are barely aware apart from a slight sense, as one said, of a low level anxiety underlying everyday life.
As for ‘world class’, it may be possible that there are world class performances in all domains of human activity (and those of nature for that matter). How we could say with much assurance that they are world class is a matter of interest. But that doesn’t prevent people pretending almost daily to have or be doing or making world class things themselves as a core come-on in a sales or marketing strategy. They usually cite some evidence base for the claim, but most (all?) are subject to doubt from a big enough perspective, if not for the accuracy of the framework and processes they have used.
This has never stopped any one from making such claims. Freedom of expression plus necessity of competition ensure the economic viability of discretionary misrepresentation. So they are able to proceed to the next step unimpeded, if not without guilt. This step is the implicit or explicit proposition that everyone should be attempting to become world class themselves, preferably by buying whatever the claimants have on offer. More evidence is given for the transferability of the class in point, with lots of numbers, a few instruments or tools, and a large existing client base as influencers for the prospective sales. Celebrity endorsement by using does all the preceding at half the expense, apart from the aesthetic expense to the rest of us of acquisitive presence syndrome.
This practice is systematised in, for example quality systems (which succeed at less than 50% of implementations), leadership development ( a new one each 6-12 months) and training programs (which themselves hang off the apparatus of quality and leadership). About this time in the product development life cycle the relevant driver of sales is identity polishing for prospective purchasers through membership of the group who buys / uses world class products. Advanced product /services can amplify the drivers by, again implicit or explicit, compliance mechanisms guarding the entry way to markets, right to advertise services, etc.
However, it has been discovered over the last ten years that many of this type of products / services cannot be transferred from one context to another with any assurance. Yet, they sale on in the marvellously self-sealing cycle which characterises, e.g., weight-loss programs, though perhaps with better performance ratios. The weight-loss mob manage an approximately 95% failure rate, which doesn’t stop anyone from signing up for more. Probably all you need to do to be ‘successful’ in weight works is change your product name occasionally to meet the needs for fashion statements in health care. I imagine they follow the latest research on contributing factors. Maybe weight loss is really about how you look – trying to lose is the look for oneself for many of us?
So what is the role of leading edge world class products? They are fashions to some extent. Also they express our inclination to improve and the importance of a vision or standard of excellence as a motivator for many. Whether they are any good or not, they are ‘cutting it’ by stretching or slicing the fabric of current practice(s) - a necessary stage in change of any sort.
Thanks to Brassie and Hamid’s complaints about my lack of channels for anger, and Brassie’s personal support for my making a difference suggestions a few weeks back, I’m going to provide some channels for cutting edges and world class actions to sustain them:
1- Remember cutting edges are mostly local now.
2- Leading at your own scale and pace will provide plenty of edge at a controllable level (see anger).
3- Engage others with you in these small scale high personal return edgeworks.
4- Discourage yourself and others from consuming the blandishments of large scale cutting edges of the sort that amass easily into large group obsessions; any fundamentalist engagement has this kind of potential at its core.
5- Ask others to sharpen the cutting edge you are walking.
That’s for starters. You may notice that this is a recommendation for little insurrections, non-violent of course. You’ll discover how leading your edge is by others’ efforts to dull it. By the time I get finished with this linguistic cleansing I may have the foundations for a movement…of something(s) for someone(s) to somewhere(s).
Finally, some cutting edges which led to world class losers: Edsels, New Orleans flood controls, CDO’s built from sub-primes plus 0% down-payment loans = GFC, non-renewable energy sources plus unlimited consumption plus excess uses = climate change; the extreme management practices of Enron and World Comm; the unsurpassable returns of Storm Financials, the bonuses of financial wizards. What are your favourites?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Appreciations (1) …why appreciate?
Appreciations (1) …why appreciate?
Torrey Orton
May 6, 2009
While this is a new theme for me, it is not new for humanity. Various people have recommended gratitude to us. While approving, I’m not moved by gratitude because of its links to quasi-religious formulas like ‘blessings’. I discovered that there are wonderful things to acknowledge, celebrate, reward by remarking…things which I notice but leave in the innards of my awareness. Often, reporting them makes others feel new interest, insight, desire, awareness, and sustains mine along the way. Building the latter resources is my primary aim here. If I try to write what I appreciate I am forced to get it together in some affecting way which meets my own experience and has a hope of offering that to others. For me, the process is always illuminating in unexpectable ways.
I also undertake this venture because my sceptical side is tuned to the problematic, the doubtful,…which leaves me tending to underestimate the certain, the sure, the light and light-hearted. Conscious countering of this tendency is possible, but I never get much better at automatically reaching for a star rather than the scar. Hopefully, like wearing seatbelts because it’s the law, I’ll get naturalised into appreciation with never a thought of deviating from it as normal.
In another frame, I am a late life convert to story as a way of making and finding meaning. I find myself telling stories to therapy and coaching clients, and using them to structure activities for leadership events. These are usually real stories, not ones I’ve picked up somewhere in the training ether. I don’t do storytelling well unless it arises spontaneously in the work with clients.
I have friends who are really good at this – the kind of good you can get by trying a lot and watching others who’ve been doing something longer and better than oneself. So, this is an emulating initiative for me, too. I’m slow to allow the possibility that someone else has thought of something useful to do and developed it before me (though I know perfectly well that they do so).
Further, this is not an anger driven event (not to preclude the possibility that I’ll also find myself appreciating some matters arising from angers). It came to me in a moment of appreciation, from the perspective of which I noticed I had been appreciating more over recent years. At the moment I can’t remember the original appreciation. Maybe it was a search of Appreciative Inquiry which I was trying to appreciate against the grain of an original exposure some years ago where AI became a cover for being ‘nice’ and not looking at hard things except appreciatively (or so it seemed at the time). Hard things can be appreciated, but they have to be acknowledged first. There goes that problem seeker again.
A recent example of something I appreciated was revisiting sites we have walked and skied for decades after the Victorian Black Saturday fires of early February ‘09. This was a reality shifting event. There’s nothing like seeing the remnants of natural and human landscapes soon after a fire. We’ve done it before at various stages of recovery, but never so close to home and so much of those landscapes ones which we treasured by repeated visits. See next Appreciations for my impressions.
Torrey Orton
May 6, 2009
While this is a new theme for me, it is not new for humanity. Various people have recommended gratitude to us. While approving, I’m not moved by gratitude because of its links to quasi-religious formulas like ‘blessings’. I discovered that there are wonderful things to acknowledge, celebrate, reward by remarking…things which I notice but leave in the innards of my awareness. Often, reporting them makes others feel new interest, insight, desire, awareness, and sustains mine along the way. Building the latter resources is my primary aim here. If I try to write what I appreciate I am forced to get it together in some affecting way which meets my own experience and has a hope of offering that to others. For me, the process is always illuminating in unexpectable ways.
I also undertake this venture because my sceptical side is tuned to the problematic, the doubtful,…which leaves me tending to underestimate the certain, the sure, the light and light-hearted. Conscious countering of this tendency is possible, but I never get much better at automatically reaching for a star rather than the scar. Hopefully, like wearing seatbelts because it’s the law, I’ll get naturalised into appreciation with never a thought of deviating from it as normal.
In another frame, I am a late life convert to story as a way of making and finding meaning. I find myself telling stories to therapy and coaching clients, and using them to structure activities for leadership events. These are usually real stories, not ones I’ve picked up somewhere in the training ether. I don’t do storytelling well unless it arises spontaneously in the work with clients.
I have friends who are really good at this – the kind of good you can get by trying a lot and watching others who’ve been doing something longer and better than oneself. So, this is an emulating initiative for me, too. I’m slow to allow the possibility that someone else has thought of something useful to do and developed it before me (though I know perfectly well that they do so).
Further, this is not an anger driven event (not to preclude the possibility that I’ll also find myself appreciating some matters arising from angers). It came to me in a moment of appreciation, from the perspective of which I noticed I had been appreciating more over recent years. At the moment I can’t remember the original appreciation. Maybe it was a search of Appreciative Inquiry which I was trying to appreciate against the grain of an original exposure some years ago where AI became a cover for being ‘nice’ and not looking at hard things except appreciatively (or so it seemed at the time). Hard things can be appreciated, but they have to be acknowledged first. There goes that problem seeker again.
A recent example of something I appreciated was revisiting sites we have walked and skied for decades after the Victorian Black Saturday fires of early February ‘09. This was a reality shifting event. There’s nothing like seeing the remnants of natural and human landscapes soon after a fire. We’ve done it before at various stages of recovery, but never so close to home and so much of those landscapes ones which we treasured by repeated visits. See next Appreciations for my impressions.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Common Ground and Royal Commission Outcomes Compromised
Common Ground and Royal Commission Outcomes Compromised
Torrey Orton, with assistance from Peter Campbell http://petercampbell.blogspot.com
May 4, 2009
Our times are ones for conviction. They encourage us to be clear, often at the cost of real complexity. We are so loaded with information, and claims on our attention, that it is highly unlikely we will make personal choices rationally. Rather, we will be increasingly likely to rely on our habitual assessment and solution systems. They are what we have easily to hand.
The Victorian Government announcement today that they will commit $200 million to fire prevention, including increased fuel burn-offs, exemplifies this irrationality. It is, in fact, an explicit commitment to irrationality in public processes. The budget is the excuse but pandering to electorate slivers is the reason. These slivers contain pre-digested Commission outcomes, announced in the public campaigns to indict others (Greens in particular) for fuel reduction failures. The science on fuel contribution to fire intensity and speed is at worst conflicted.
All this somewhat knackers my enterprise here. The Government is already implicitly accepting an interested argument over the deliberations of a cast of thousands. It proves the prescience of some of what follows (written before the $200 million deluge) and does not disprove the truth of the attached propositions; just renders them prematurely enfeebled. So it is with the non-political. I should have listened to Doug Cameron’s (then a union official on the rise) warning 20 years ago at an IR event I lectured in: “Everything is political” or words to that effect. I continue because this natural characteristic of human systems is long-term dysfunctional for our times.
Thinking habits
The forces which sustain this system apply most clearly to choices about life and death matters like personal safety from bushfires. We all come to any adult experience with a wealth of existing judgments and supporting evidence(s) for them. These make up our foundational intellectual infrastructure contents. They have the character of change-resistant physical habits. They constitute a predisposed blame architecture. They also have some truth status, usually sustained by like-minded believers. In this they are a predisposed solution system (though not always to the problems of the present).
Stress and simple-mindedness
The flexibility and adaptability of our intellectual infrastructures (at personal and group levels) are severely strained by the ‘reach’ they are forced to make to grasp the world(s) we are addressing or engaging. The greater our distance from tangible and testable facts the more simplistic our grasp of reality. This is by brain system default not by personal defect of aspiration or engagement technique.
Distance makes the mind grow fainter which, under stress, strengthens it slight grasp with intensity – that is a move towards the fundamentalist attitude in a deep sense. This is not a religious matter but it produces socio-psychological climates for religious-like thinking and behaviour across all domains of human activity.
I say this not to disparage or discourage but to acknowledge the realities of the influence challenges which confront the Commission. And, similar will continue to confront us whatever they manage to salvage from their betrayal by the Government. Damage to the credibility of public discourse / debate is the greatest loss, not personal affront.
Change resistance
Another force cutting against development of common ground(s) may be the deep commitment of existing power holders of all sorts to any opening which could facilitate others getting a piece of their action. Cultures have disappeared behind the smoke of such conflagrations. When common ground is lost conflagration or freezing is the result; fire or ice, both are nice for endings.
We know that judgment depends on fundamental values and perspectives (theories) which are very change resistant. We can see the struggle among competing ‘theories’ occurring daily between, climate changers and deniers (sceptics are a related bunch which I belong to temperamentally), between free marketers and state interventionists (neolibs and Keynesians?), between one culture and another. These struggles are conducted by adversarial means whose aim is winning, not the truth. ‘Facts’ become the ammunition of argument. The objective is a consummate union of souls around shared god(s). Therefore, finding common facts is doubtful.
Yet, this is a time when some truth, some reliability of perception and judgment, is necessary.
So, it is a critical task for the Commission to find or create common ground in facts and constructs and values from which may arise shared beliefs and opinions out of which may emerge shareable judgments.
Common ground
There are some compelling examples of common ground shared on some of the topics under consideration by the Royal Commissions.
One example is the protection of native forests in our reserve system – especially old growth forests and water catchments. Broadly, there is consensus across the logging industry, government, and conservation organisations on the general principle of protecting biodiversity, our natural heritage and the aesthetic appeal / value of such forests. However, there are significant differences about the quantity and locations of forests that require protection. The logging and woodchip industries argue that enough forest is already protected in reserves; the Victorian Government is still in the progress of adding some small areas to the reserve system; and conservation groups are asking for several more forests to be protected. There are also some significant differences on the appropriate management regimes for native forests.
Another example of common ground is the necessity and desirability of volunteer contributions to bushfire prevention and response measures. Tensions between professional and volunteer service provision do not stand on disregard for the latter but discussable boundaries of competence and capability distributed across the broad face of fire prone Victoria.
The Commission, and others doing similar work, could benefit from identifying the expected, or more powerfully, the achieved common grounds when reporting their work outcomes. It would give them credibility and us hope.
Torrey Orton, with assistance from Peter Campbell http://petercampbell.blogspot.com
May 4, 2009
Our times are ones for conviction. They encourage us to be clear, often at the cost of real complexity. We are so loaded with information, and claims on our attention, that it is highly unlikely we will make personal choices rationally. Rather, we will be increasingly likely to rely on our habitual assessment and solution systems. They are what we have easily to hand.
The Victorian Government announcement today that they will commit $200 million to fire prevention, including increased fuel burn-offs, exemplifies this irrationality. It is, in fact, an explicit commitment to irrationality in public processes. The budget is the excuse but pandering to electorate slivers is the reason. These slivers contain pre-digested Commission outcomes, announced in the public campaigns to indict others (Greens in particular) for fuel reduction failures. The science on fuel contribution to fire intensity and speed is at worst conflicted.
All this somewhat knackers my enterprise here. The Government is already implicitly accepting an interested argument over the deliberations of a cast of thousands. It proves the prescience of some of what follows (written before the $200 million deluge) and does not disprove the truth of the attached propositions; just renders them prematurely enfeebled. So it is with the non-political. I should have listened to Doug Cameron’s (then a union official on the rise) warning 20 years ago at an IR event I lectured in: “Everything is political” or words to that effect. I continue because this natural characteristic of human systems is long-term dysfunctional for our times.
Thinking habits
The forces which sustain this system apply most clearly to choices about life and death matters like personal safety from bushfires. We all come to any adult experience with a wealth of existing judgments and supporting evidence(s) for them. These make up our foundational intellectual infrastructure contents. They have the character of change-resistant physical habits. They constitute a predisposed blame architecture. They also have some truth status, usually sustained by like-minded believers. In this they are a predisposed solution system (though not always to the problems of the present).
Stress and simple-mindedness
The flexibility and adaptability of our intellectual infrastructures (at personal and group levels) are severely strained by the ‘reach’ they are forced to make to grasp the world(s) we are addressing or engaging. The greater our distance from tangible and testable facts the more simplistic our grasp of reality. This is by brain system default not by personal defect of aspiration or engagement technique.
Distance makes the mind grow fainter which, under stress, strengthens it slight grasp with intensity – that is a move towards the fundamentalist attitude in a deep sense. This is not a religious matter but it produces socio-psychological climates for religious-like thinking and behaviour across all domains of human activity.
I say this not to disparage or discourage but to acknowledge the realities of the influence challenges which confront the Commission. And, similar will continue to confront us whatever they manage to salvage from their betrayal by the Government. Damage to the credibility of public discourse / debate is the greatest loss, not personal affront.
Change resistance
Another force cutting against development of common ground(s) may be the deep commitment of existing power holders of all sorts to any opening which could facilitate others getting a piece of their action. Cultures have disappeared behind the smoke of such conflagrations. When common ground is lost conflagration or freezing is the result; fire or ice, both are nice for endings.
We know that judgment depends on fundamental values and perspectives (theories) which are very change resistant. We can see the struggle among competing ‘theories’ occurring daily between, climate changers and deniers (sceptics are a related bunch which I belong to temperamentally), between free marketers and state interventionists (neolibs and Keynesians?), between one culture and another. These struggles are conducted by adversarial means whose aim is winning, not the truth. ‘Facts’ become the ammunition of argument. The objective is a consummate union of souls around shared god(s). Therefore, finding common facts is doubtful.
Yet, this is a time when some truth, some reliability of perception and judgment, is necessary.
So, it is a critical task for the Commission to find or create common ground in facts and constructs and values from which may arise shared beliefs and opinions out of which may emerge shareable judgments.
Common ground
There are some compelling examples of common ground shared on some of the topics under consideration by the Royal Commissions.
One example is the protection of native forests in our reserve system – especially old growth forests and water catchments. Broadly, there is consensus across the logging industry, government, and conservation organisations on the general principle of protecting biodiversity, our natural heritage and the aesthetic appeal / value of such forests. However, there are significant differences about the quantity and locations of forests that require protection. The logging and woodchip industries argue that enough forest is already protected in reserves; the Victorian Government is still in the progress of adding some small areas to the reserve system; and conservation groups are asking for several more forests to be protected. There are also some significant differences on the appropriate management regimes for native forests.
Another example of common ground is the necessity and desirability of volunteer contributions to bushfire prevention and response measures. Tensions between professional and volunteer service provision do not stand on disregard for the latter but discussable boundaries of competence and capability distributed across the broad face of fire prone Victoria.
The Commission, and others doing similar work, could benefit from identifying the expected, or more powerfully, the achieved common grounds when reporting their work outcomes. It would give them credibility and us hope.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wellbeing and Royal Commission Outcomes
Wellbeing and Royal Commission Outcomes
Torrey Orton
April 30, 2009
What’s it all about, this Commission? It’s all about human well-being in Victorian bushfire prone areas. We are concerned with our areas but extend this concern to the experience of others in similar ones (across Australia, and in California and Greece for instance). The underlying question of the Commission’s inquiries is, ‘What is a viable context for human well-being in such areas?’ For many this will include the well-being of indigenous plants and animals, too.
The Black Saturday Royal Commission has the responsibility to recommend on:
1) The preparation and planning for future bushfire threats and risks, particularly the prevention of loss of life.
2) Land use planning and management, including urban and regional planning
3) Fireproofing of housing and other buildings, including materials used in construction
4) The emergency response to the fires
5) Public communication and community advice systems and strategies
6) Training, infrastructure, and overall resourcing needs.
The last is the outcome delivery system, the means through which the first 5 are implemented. So, how it is shaped matters more than the others, since without good implementation the Commission will have been just another Government ‘talkfest’. At least three pre-conditions are important to success. One, that the implementation of new ways of doing anything is understood to be iterative, not a one-shot stamping of a new impression on old materials. Two, that the processes are open and transparent (including no places to hide like ‘commercial in confidence’). And, three, that implementation is well-rounded: its parts and processes are interconnected and interdependent. The last is the focus of the following discussion.
All of these recommendations will touch directly or indirectly on aspects of human well-being. There are models of well-being around. One I like is used by Australian criminologists to drive a new approach to sex offender rehabilitation – where re-offending is an all too usual result. Their model looks like this:
1) Life (including healthy living and functioning) 2) Knowledge 3) Excellence in play and work (including mastery experiences) 4) Excellence in agency (i.e., autonomy and self-directedness) 5) Inner peace (i.e., freedom from emotional turmoil and stress) 6) Friendship (including intimate, romantic and family relationships) 7) Community 8) Spirituality (in the broad sense of finding meaning & purpose in life) 9) Happiness 10) Creativity
*From: The Treatment of Sex Offenders: Risk Management and Good Lives.
Tony Ward, Claire A Stewart,
I am not too excited about happiness and inner peace as core human needs (I think ‘interest’ does better because it isn’t turned in one direction – a ‘positive’ one - about outcomes). While we can dispute the specifics of models, we have a sense of what it means to be human. That is, we won’t dispute well-being as a human need, just its components and configurations. All societies have well-being assumptions. Our models are also implicit most of the time, until decision demand times arrive with high life/death outcomes.
Let’s apply part of our model to the sixth outcome - Training, infrastructure, and overall resourcing needs. The relevant parts may be life (1), knowledge (2), excellence in play and work (3) and community (7). For example’s sake I’ll take the resourcing element as one focus for application of well-being criteria. What would it mean to do this? A series of questions which can be used to establish the parameters of resource decisions and for tracking their implementation:
Life
Will these resources in this configuration best provide for added safety within the technical constraints and not detract from other life sustaining matters?
Knowledge
Will these resources provide the best chance(s) of increasing our understanding (knowledge) of fire related factors as they change across their total spectrum? Eg – is it clear where across various provisions, systematic data gathering and interpretation is necessary and how will it occur? This understanding must be increased at three levels at least: state, locality and family / individual.
Excellence in play and work
Are the programs associated with fire danger amelioration providing best opportunities for local stakeholders (business, residents, etc.) to improve / increase their work and play?
Community
What affects on the whole populations of various localities will the total set of programs have, how will this be monitored, what feedback systems are built in…?
A similar application of selected well-being parameters should be made to the other two parts of item 6 (training and infrastructure) , and each of the other 5 outcome areas, and then across the set as a whole. Attention should be paid to which well-being parameters must apply to assessment of all outcomes.
Underlying all efforts may be this mantra: “It’s just not affordable”.
Access Economics CEO Chris Richardson on ABC 7:30 Report, 280409, talking about the coming financial constraints of the GFC.
This will be at play in the Commission’s decision-making, too. A rounded, well-being based approach will enhance the value achieved from their work. Lack of it will lead to an assumption ruling the proceedings – the neolib assumption about public debt and private provision before which all still kowtow since there is no other accessible language for public discourse!! This one is employable almost with impunity because we cannot know what the future will bring to the ‘economy’. This fact, and its attendant diversely reported feelings of fear, anxiety and anger, will tend to drive everyone and every public process (where those feelings are constantly intentionally exaggerated) to lowest common denominator thinking.
Torrey Orton
April 30, 2009
What’s it all about, this Commission? It’s all about human well-being in Victorian bushfire prone areas. We are concerned with our areas but extend this concern to the experience of others in similar ones (across Australia, and in California and Greece for instance). The underlying question of the Commission’s inquiries is, ‘What is a viable context for human well-being in such areas?’ For many this will include the well-being of indigenous plants and animals, too.
The Black Saturday Royal Commission has the responsibility to recommend on:
1) The preparation and planning for future bushfire threats and risks, particularly the prevention of loss of life.
2) Land use planning and management, including urban and regional planning
3) Fireproofing of housing and other buildings, including materials used in construction
4) The emergency response to the fires
5) Public communication and community advice systems and strategies
6) Training, infrastructure, and overall resourcing needs.
The last is the outcome delivery system, the means through which the first 5 are implemented. So, how it is shaped matters more than the others, since without good implementation the Commission will have been just another Government ‘talkfest’. At least three pre-conditions are important to success. One, that the implementation of new ways of doing anything is understood to be iterative, not a one-shot stamping of a new impression on old materials. Two, that the processes are open and transparent (including no places to hide like ‘commercial in confidence’). And, three, that implementation is well-rounded: its parts and processes are interconnected and interdependent. The last is the focus of the following discussion.
All of these recommendations will touch directly or indirectly on aspects of human well-being. There are models of well-being around. One I like is used by Australian criminologists to drive a new approach to sex offender rehabilitation – where re-offending is an all too usual result. Their model looks like this:
1) Life (including healthy living and functioning) 2) Knowledge 3) Excellence in play and work (including mastery experiences) 4) Excellence in agency (i.e., autonomy and self-directedness) 5) Inner peace (i.e., freedom from emotional turmoil and stress) 6) Friendship (including intimate, romantic and family relationships) 7) Community 8) Spirituality (in the broad sense of finding meaning & purpose in life) 9) Happiness 10) Creativity
*From: The Treatment of Sex Offenders: Risk Management and Good Lives.
Tony Ward, Claire A Stewart,
I am not too excited about happiness and inner peace as core human needs (I think ‘interest’ does better because it isn’t turned in one direction – a ‘positive’ one - about outcomes). While we can dispute the specifics of models, we have a sense of what it means to be human. That is, we won’t dispute well-being as a human need, just its components and configurations. All societies have well-being assumptions. Our models are also implicit most of the time, until decision demand times arrive with high life/death outcomes.
Let’s apply part of our model to the sixth outcome - Training, infrastructure, and overall resourcing needs. The relevant parts may be life (1), knowledge (2), excellence in play and work (3) and community (7). For example’s sake I’ll take the resourcing element as one focus for application of well-being criteria. What would it mean to do this? A series of questions which can be used to establish the parameters of resource decisions and for tracking their implementation:
Life
Will these resources in this configuration best provide for added safety within the technical constraints and not detract from other life sustaining matters?
Knowledge
Will these resources provide the best chance(s) of increasing our understanding (knowledge) of fire related factors as they change across their total spectrum? Eg – is it clear where across various provisions, systematic data gathering and interpretation is necessary and how will it occur? This understanding must be increased at three levels at least: state, locality and family / individual.
Excellence in play and work
Are the programs associated with fire danger amelioration providing best opportunities for local stakeholders (business, residents, etc.) to improve / increase their work and play?
Community
What affects on the whole populations of various localities will the total set of programs have, how will this be monitored, what feedback systems are built in…?
A similar application of selected well-being parameters should be made to the other two parts of item 6 (training and infrastructure) , and each of the other 5 outcome areas, and then across the set as a whole. Attention should be paid to which well-being parameters must apply to assessment of all outcomes.
Underlying all efforts may be this mantra: “It’s just not affordable”.
Access Economics CEO Chris Richardson on ABC 7:30 Report, 280409, talking about the coming financial constraints of the GFC.
This will be at play in the Commission’s decision-making, too. A rounded, well-being based approach will enhance the value achieved from their work. Lack of it will lead to an assumption ruling the proceedings – the neolib assumption about public debt and private provision before which all still kowtow since there is no other accessible language for public discourse!! This one is employable almost with impunity because we cannot know what the future will bring to the ‘economy’. This fact, and its attendant diversely reported feelings of fear, anxiety and anger, will tend to drive everyone and every public process (where those feelings are constantly intentionally exaggerated) to lowest common denominator thinking.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Rectifications (7) – ‘Make a difference…’ ….‘Give back…’
Rectifications (7) – ‘Make a difference…’ ….‘Give back…’
Torrey Orton
April 22, 2009
Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my most recent Dances with Difference (4) post.
‘Make a difference…’ is what we say when we mean that whatever we’ve been doing until the moment of speaking has not been making a difference; that we’ve been contributing negatively to the human condition? Is this what all the job adverts mean if they don’t involve ’making a difference..’, if they don’t promise that you can ‘make a difference..’ by working with us, our clients / customers??
I got about 75, 000,000 Google hits for the expression, with involvements in every domain of human life and specialties like the Make a Difference movie. I just can’t help thinking about all the lives which, presumably, are not making a difference. They’re just getting on with living in various forms, which makes humanity continue. I guess they are not making progress or making things better or something. Being one who has always struggled to find what difference was worth making, I find it hard to join this parade. And I can’t also help thinking of the gratuitous exclusion from virtue of those who have no access to such opportunities!!
In fact, I’m inclined to sneer a bit about making a difference. This inclination is strengthened when I remember that ‘Make a difference..’ reminds me of its cousin ‘Give back…’ (146 million hits, amongst which some organisations I support like Environment Victoria with Gifts that Give Back). From its viewpoint I’ve been robbing you quietly all these years. Am I now going to make amends for damages which you never noticed I was doing, either directly or indirectly, by being associated with destructive products, process and payments???
Does the return of unprincipled and unearned bonuses constitute an example of giving back? How would we know when a claimed example of giving back actually amounted to enough of whatever it is that was withheld or stolen in the first place to recompense the victims? For example, Bill Gates is lionised for giving back immensely – his whole fortune, more or less – by doing which he gets to play god with the lives of masses he chooses to help on topics he decides are most important. And have the consumers gotten back the outsized results of his de facto monopoly?
Similarly, but from the product side of the make a difference equation, there are products which make or sustain their appeals to buyers on the back of making differences of highly ambiguous sorts. The alcohols which support sports events / organisations come to mind. I suspect there’s a pile of cultural studies books on variations of this theme among certain clothing manufacturers and styles, cars, and on and on. Probably someone’s done the work. Let me know if you know who and where.
These may be also more or less making a difference by giving back?? Two-faced contributors to NGO’s now come to mind. ,,, and how about the energy companies spruiking new energy orientations while sustaining old energy profits (an unavoidable conflict of interest for an existing industry seeking to respond to market or other changes??).
I think all this (my anger / irritation) has to do with the stripping of the moral fibre of late capitalism to its thinnest. What’s left are pretensions to it – a moral fibre – which keep us aware of our awareness that there’s little left to aspire to in our world but things. Other reminders include CSR, the new one – ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues, pleas for greedless leading, disparaging of excesses and denials that there’s any role for anyone in anyone else’s use of their choices as long as they do no harm to others (harm calculated as something like shooting rather than spiritual dismemberment). I rave on without making a difference.…
Thanks to Brassie and Hamid’s complaints about my lack of channels for anger a few weeks back, I’m going to provide some channels for making a difference here. What you can do to make a difference wherever you are now is:
1- Do your job right and well – whatever you have to do to live
2- Do the right job well – something you care about and make a living
3- See to it your organisation does its job well and right
4- Discourage yourself and others from consuming the results of wrong and badly done jobs – scams, frauds, discretionary misrepresentations ( the most widely spread chicanery in human worlds) in ‘normal’ commercial endeavours – that is, omission of important consumer information which is not required by law. Complain where you find these hidden, preferably by naming and shaming.
5- Encourage others to join the difference you are making.
That’s for starters. You may notice that this is merely a recommendation to bring basic virtues back into the everyday.
Torrey Orton
April 22, 2009
Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my most recent Dances with Difference (4) post.
‘Make a difference…’ is what we say when we mean that whatever we’ve been doing until the moment of speaking has not been making a difference; that we’ve been contributing negatively to the human condition? Is this what all the job adverts mean if they don’t involve ’making a difference..’, if they don’t promise that you can ‘make a difference..’ by working with us, our clients / customers??
I got about 75, 000,000 Google hits for the expression, with involvements in every domain of human life and specialties like the Make a Difference movie. I just can’t help thinking about all the lives which, presumably, are not making a difference. They’re just getting on with living in various forms, which makes humanity continue. I guess they are not making progress or making things better or something. Being one who has always struggled to find what difference was worth making, I find it hard to join this parade. And I can’t also help thinking of the gratuitous exclusion from virtue of those who have no access to such opportunities!!
In fact, I’m inclined to sneer a bit about making a difference. This inclination is strengthened when I remember that ‘Make a difference..’ reminds me of its cousin ‘Give back…’ (146 million hits, amongst which some organisations I support like Environment Victoria with Gifts that Give Back). From its viewpoint I’ve been robbing you quietly all these years. Am I now going to make amends for damages which you never noticed I was doing, either directly or indirectly, by being associated with destructive products, process and payments???
Does the return of unprincipled and unearned bonuses constitute an example of giving back? How would we know when a claimed example of giving back actually amounted to enough of whatever it is that was withheld or stolen in the first place to recompense the victims? For example, Bill Gates is lionised for giving back immensely – his whole fortune, more or less – by doing which he gets to play god with the lives of masses he chooses to help on topics he decides are most important. And have the consumers gotten back the outsized results of his de facto monopoly?
Similarly, but from the product side of the make a difference equation, there are products which make or sustain their appeals to buyers on the back of making differences of highly ambiguous sorts. The alcohols which support sports events / organisations come to mind. I suspect there’s a pile of cultural studies books on variations of this theme among certain clothing manufacturers and styles, cars, and on and on. Probably someone’s done the work. Let me know if you know who and where.
These may be also more or less making a difference by giving back?? Two-faced contributors to NGO’s now come to mind. ,,, and how about the energy companies spruiking new energy orientations while sustaining old energy profits (an unavoidable conflict of interest for an existing industry seeking to respond to market or other changes??).
I think all this (my anger / irritation) has to do with the stripping of the moral fibre of late capitalism to its thinnest. What’s left are pretensions to it – a moral fibre – which keep us aware of our awareness that there’s little left to aspire to in our world but things. Other reminders include CSR, the new one – ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues, pleas for greedless leading, disparaging of excesses and denials that there’s any role for anyone in anyone else’s use of their choices as long as they do no harm to others (harm calculated as something like shooting rather than spiritual dismemberment). I rave on without making a difference.…
Thanks to Brassie and Hamid’s complaints about my lack of channels for anger a few weeks back, I’m going to provide some channels for making a difference here. What you can do to make a difference wherever you are now is:
1- Do your job right and well – whatever you have to do to live
2- Do the right job well – something you care about and make a living
3- See to it your organisation does its job well and right
4- Discourage yourself and others from consuming the results of wrong and badly done jobs – scams, frauds, discretionary misrepresentations ( the most widely spread chicanery in human worlds) in ‘normal’ commercial endeavours – that is, omission of important consumer information which is not required by law. Complain where you find these hidden, preferably by naming and shaming.
5- Encourage others to join the difference you are making.
That’s for starters. You may notice that this is merely a recommendation to bring basic virtues back into the everyday.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Who’s to blame?
Who’s to blame?
The role of blame and victimhood in responsibility and accountability assessment by the Black Saturday Royal Commission
Torrey Orton April 13, 2009
Here I want to look at one facet of the Fire Commission which should become a lens through which the review is conducted and received by its publics. This is blame. The use of blame (hand in glove with guilt and shame) is essential to effective accountability and responsibility. It reminds us there are others depending on us, and we on others. Like most things human, blame can be politicised. It already is in the direct and indirect processes of the Commission; parties and interests are at work stigmatising their notional competitors or contestants for various outcomes, or building on existing stigmata in our local discourse – greenies, foresters, etc. The Commission also stands between the Government of the day and its citizens.
Unfortunately, this normal process of interest group struggle distributes resources to social projects, but seldom the truths needed for more resilient responses to the unpredictable. In our very uncertain times, truths are the more needed and the less likely. Maybe a new approach to blame would be useful in sustaining truths.
“We are responsible, in the end, for what is done in our name.” – Viggo Mortenson (THEAGE A2 040409; pg. 18-19). The cries for exemplary blood around the economic miniverse (CEO remuneration rage, AIG et al. bonus envy, Wagoner’s head at GM, Sir Fred’s departure dough at RBS… ) express popular blame of these elites and their support teams for their greed and grandiosity without restraint or regret. These are the cries of the victims of their excesses. Others have long pointed out that some of the victims contributed to their own losses in various ways – mostly through avoidable ignorance. This is most reasonable when the victims are also the greedy with flavours of the grandiose like Bernard Madoff’s “clients”. It is a less reasonable accusation to make of the subprime mortgagees reaching for the American dream which their commercial leaders told them was their right (to dream, that is) and the subprime offer a viable commitment to make.
What powers blame, and the sense of being a victim, is when people feel they have been intentionally harmed by others. Spontaneous acts of natural destruction – tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, droughts – attract great sorrow, depression and despair. But not enduring anger. Anger doesn’t do much to nature because it is largely beyond our powers. What does generate anger is when agreed defences against the possibility or effects of such events fail to protect. Katrina comes to mind. Our Black Saturday fires are another such event. Apparent failures of these defences are the objects of blame attacks.
But, these defences include actions by the eventual victims*. They took a chance in the face of a probable but unpredictable risk – a 1 in a 100 bushfire – to live in a fire prone place, deciding to comply or not with local clearing regulations, etc. These are blameable as much as excesses or shortages of various public provisions for fire safety in fire prone places. The claim that they had and have a right to live where they like amplifies the right to being blamed along with the public safety providers. Children and invalids are excused from this status.
So let’s start with the assumption that everyone involved in the fires is to blame in some degrees and dimensions as appropriate to their roles, situations and capabilities. This would then lead to a Commission focused on who holds what responsibility for what over the course of the fires. The time frame for responsibility extends backwards to include the precursor or preparation periods. From this might come recommendations which relate more appropriately to future responsibilities and their supporting accountabilities. The gray regions between individuals / families and local governments, and those between local governments and state or national ones will be the major focus of blame strategy and dispute.
The accountabilities are another thing. But with responsibilities more thoroughly established (or at least explored), some more balanced appreciations might extend to the main accountable organisations. For example, they might accept less of the responsibility and direct more attention to helping those actually responsible to fulfil them. Most important among these may be individual land and business owners / occupiers, and local government entities. It is they who can most immediately respond to changing conditions (long term drought, land clearing, increased housing intensity…). What higher level entities and agencies could contribute to building such capabilities will be useful to identify.
* NB - the status of ‘victim’ is confused in our times. We have people who knowingly swim into the jaws of death in the Daly River, NT (April 10, 2009) to be retrieved in segments days later; we have a conventional litigiousness which makes every accident an opportunity for a no win/ no fee legal firm (where market growth comes from extending the range of items deemed rewardable – that is blameable on some public entity); we have parents so anxious about the safety and self-esteem of their children that no challenge not previously vetted for insipidity should cross their tiny paths; we have councils which post inane notices like “limbs may fall” (or rocks) along country roads (undoubtedly in fear of those voracious defenders of personal loss, the litigation mavens of Australian legaldom now reaching for the pecuniary heights of their pathetic American counterparts. Look where that got those folks! I’m waiting for Albrechtson to write about the well-in-train depradations of legal cupidity which works to turn every relationship in the country into items for dispute – note: they don’t make the big money from mediation!).
Declaration of interest: I’m a bi-national of American origin who’s been pleased to be here rather than there for 35+ years partly because some that culture’s least attractive features have long been visible to my eyes.
The role of blame and victimhood in responsibility and accountability assessment by the Black Saturday Royal Commission
Torrey Orton April 13, 2009
Here I want to look at one facet of the Fire Commission which should become a lens through which the review is conducted and received by its publics. This is blame. The use of blame (hand in glove with guilt and shame) is essential to effective accountability and responsibility. It reminds us there are others depending on us, and we on others. Like most things human, blame can be politicised. It already is in the direct and indirect processes of the Commission; parties and interests are at work stigmatising their notional competitors or contestants for various outcomes, or building on existing stigmata in our local discourse – greenies, foresters, etc. The Commission also stands between the Government of the day and its citizens.
Unfortunately, this normal process of interest group struggle distributes resources to social projects, but seldom the truths needed for more resilient responses to the unpredictable. In our very uncertain times, truths are the more needed and the less likely. Maybe a new approach to blame would be useful in sustaining truths.
“We are responsible, in the end, for what is done in our name.” – Viggo Mortenson (THEAGE A2 040409; pg. 18-19). The cries for exemplary blood around the economic miniverse (CEO remuneration rage, AIG et al. bonus envy, Wagoner’s head at GM, Sir Fred’s departure dough at RBS… ) express popular blame of these elites and their support teams for their greed and grandiosity without restraint or regret. These are the cries of the victims of their excesses. Others have long pointed out that some of the victims contributed to their own losses in various ways – mostly through avoidable ignorance. This is most reasonable when the victims are also the greedy with flavours of the grandiose like Bernard Madoff’s “clients”. It is a less reasonable accusation to make of the subprime mortgagees reaching for the American dream which their commercial leaders told them was their right (to dream, that is) and the subprime offer a viable commitment to make.
What powers blame, and the sense of being a victim, is when people feel they have been intentionally harmed by others. Spontaneous acts of natural destruction – tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, droughts – attract great sorrow, depression and despair. But not enduring anger. Anger doesn’t do much to nature because it is largely beyond our powers. What does generate anger is when agreed defences against the possibility or effects of such events fail to protect. Katrina comes to mind. Our Black Saturday fires are another such event. Apparent failures of these defences are the objects of blame attacks.
But, these defences include actions by the eventual victims*. They took a chance in the face of a probable but unpredictable risk – a 1 in a 100 bushfire – to live in a fire prone place, deciding to comply or not with local clearing regulations, etc. These are blameable as much as excesses or shortages of various public provisions for fire safety in fire prone places. The claim that they had and have a right to live where they like amplifies the right to being blamed along with the public safety providers. Children and invalids are excused from this status.
So let’s start with the assumption that everyone involved in the fires is to blame in some degrees and dimensions as appropriate to their roles, situations and capabilities. This would then lead to a Commission focused on who holds what responsibility for what over the course of the fires. The time frame for responsibility extends backwards to include the precursor or preparation periods. From this might come recommendations which relate more appropriately to future responsibilities and their supporting accountabilities. The gray regions between individuals / families and local governments, and those between local governments and state or national ones will be the major focus of blame strategy and dispute.
The accountabilities are another thing. But with responsibilities more thoroughly established (or at least explored), some more balanced appreciations might extend to the main accountable organisations. For example, they might accept less of the responsibility and direct more attention to helping those actually responsible to fulfil them. Most important among these may be individual land and business owners / occupiers, and local government entities. It is they who can most immediately respond to changing conditions (long term drought, land clearing, increased housing intensity…). What higher level entities and agencies could contribute to building such capabilities will be useful to identify.
* NB - the status of ‘victim’ is confused in our times. We have people who knowingly swim into the jaws of death in the Daly River, NT (April 10, 2009) to be retrieved in segments days later; we have a conventional litigiousness which makes every accident an opportunity for a no win/ no fee legal firm (where market growth comes from extending the range of items deemed rewardable – that is blameable on some public entity); we have parents so anxious about the safety and self-esteem of their children that no challenge not previously vetted for insipidity should cross their tiny paths; we have councils which post inane notices like “limbs may fall” (or rocks) along country roads (undoubtedly in fear of those voracious defenders of personal loss, the litigation mavens of Australian legaldom now reaching for the pecuniary heights of their pathetic American counterparts. Look where that got those folks! I’m waiting for Albrechtson to write about the well-in-train depradations of legal cupidity which works to turn every relationship in the country into items for dispute – note: they don’t make the big money from mediation!).
Declaration of interest: I’m a bi-national of American origin who’s been pleased to be here rather than there for 35+ years partly because some that culture’s least attractive features have long been visible to my eyes.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Rectifications (6) – ‘Don’t take this personally, but…’
Rectifications (6) – ‘Don’t take this personally, but…’
Torrey Orton
April 8, 2009
Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my most recent Dances with Difference (4) post.
‘Don’t take this personally, but…’ is what we say when we mean the opposite. Anyway, how could I not take personally anything except if it really had nothing to do with me nor with any world that I recognize, embrace, inhabit?? Of course, I might be preoccupied with something which took my whole attention. But even then I could recognise something as affecting me which I postponed to a moment of internal space. ‘Don’t take this personally, but…’ is often avoiding perceived violences. It is a member of the ‘easing in’ family of expressions for giving no offence when an offence is required, felt or expected to be perceived by another.
It’s mirror image is ‘I won’t apologize for..’ - an apology for something we do not apologize for. Typically this is from a politician (no colour, shape or size seems to matter) when such is clearly what is called for ... except if there is someone you can get away with not apologising to, in which case the explicit denial of just treatment is unattributably in their face. These are usually stigmatised groups or individuals.
A common experience in therapy is the rather quiet, introverted client who says their noisy extraverted partner doesn’t listen to them. It turns out that they are often unheard because their own voice is small and their needs veiled. Between cultures similar things happen. Noisy, informal explicit cultures don’t hear quiet, formal, implicit ones, and vice-versa. The personal and inter-cultural development task is the same: to become more varied in assertion styles. For some this will feel like doing violence to the other, or being violated by the other. A nice case of the latter appears in my latest Dances with Difference (4) post above.
The workplace version of this is performance management problems. I have often dealt with either a boss or a report who says something to the effect: ‘He/she just doesn’t do it right.’ And there follows a litany of perceived avoidances, derelections and disrespects, with months of history piled onto them. Almost irremediably split. These are often reparable by one of two moves (depending in position) – (1) give clear statements of expectations, checking that they are understood and within the person’s capacities and perceived responsibilities; or, (2) confirm clarity of directions and limits of personal capability to perform, especially where cooperation from other organisational units is required to do the tasks successfully. The desire to avoid being personal blocks these simple moves.
The three examples – therapeutic, intercultural and workplace - share the feature of a shock likely being necessary to create or sustain a clear understanding of something previously veiled or invisible. We know that our work and relationship habits are resistant to change, and selectively interpret the world to sustain their utility for us. When the world has changed so that our habits are no longer adequately functional, a shock may be necessary to loosen them. That’s personal.
So ‘don’t take this personally’ is an invitation to a separation or a snooze in the conversational gap between personally interesting stuff. However, I can think of one situation where I might say this: when I’m about to tell a story or share a fact which I believe could be interpreted as a veiled ‘take this personally’ and it is really important to the relationship at that moment that such does not occur. Good judgment on such fine points saves recurrent recriminations be preventing unnecessary shocks. Since we inhabit shocking times, care about creating gratuitous shocks is highly desirable.
Torrey Orton
April 8, 2009
Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my most recent Dances with Difference (4) post.
‘Don’t take this personally, but…’ is what we say when we mean the opposite. Anyway, how could I not take personally anything except if it really had nothing to do with me nor with any world that I recognize, embrace, inhabit?? Of course, I might be preoccupied with something which took my whole attention. But even then I could recognise something as affecting me which I postponed to a moment of internal space. ‘Don’t take this personally, but…’ is often avoiding perceived violences. It is a member of the ‘easing in’ family of expressions for giving no offence when an offence is required, felt or expected to be perceived by another.
It’s mirror image is ‘I won’t apologize for..’ - an apology for something we do not apologize for. Typically this is from a politician (no colour, shape or size seems to matter) when such is clearly what is called for ... except if there is someone you can get away with not apologising to, in which case the explicit denial of just treatment is unattributably in their face. These are usually stigmatised groups or individuals.
A common experience in therapy is the rather quiet, introverted client who says their noisy extraverted partner doesn’t listen to them. It turns out that they are often unheard because their own voice is small and their needs veiled. Between cultures similar things happen. Noisy, informal explicit cultures don’t hear quiet, formal, implicit ones, and vice-versa. The personal and inter-cultural development task is the same: to become more varied in assertion styles. For some this will feel like doing violence to the other, or being violated by the other. A nice case of the latter appears in my latest Dances with Difference (4) post above.
The workplace version of this is performance management problems. I have often dealt with either a boss or a report who says something to the effect: ‘He/she just doesn’t do it right.’ And there follows a litany of perceived avoidances, derelections and disrespects, with months of history piled onto them. Almost irremediably split. These are often reparable by one of two moves (depending in position) – (1) give clear statements of expectations, checking that they are understood and within the person’s capacities and perceived responsibilities; or, (2) confirm clarity of directions and limits of personal capability to perform, especially where cooperation from other organisational units is required to do the tasks successfully. The desire to avoid being personal blocks these simple moves.
The three examples – therapeutic, intercultural and workplace - share the feature of a shock likely being necessary to create or sustain a clear understanding of something previously veiled or invisible. We know that our work and relationship habits are resistant to change, and selectively interpret the world to sustain their utility for us. When the world has changed so that our habits are no longer adequately functional, a shock may be necessary to loosen them. That’s personal.
So ‘don’t take this personally’ is an invitation to a separation or a snooze in the conversational gap between personally interesting stuff. However, I can think of one situation where I might say this: when I’m about to tell a story or share a fact which I believe could be interpreted as a veiled ‘take this personally’ and it is really important to the relationship at that moment that such does not occur. Good judgment on such fine points saves recurrent recriminations be preventing unnecessary shocks. Since we inhabit shocking times, care about creating gratuitous shocks is highly desirable.
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