Barry's SuperBlog » Models

Have Big Banks heard about this “Bonuses” study sponsored by Fed Res Bank?

Barry Mapp — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:04:16 +0000

I have blogged many times about the “iatrogenic” effects from paying big bonuses. Like when “Bonus Culture” inhibits creativity in the organisation and the observation that rewards sabotage people’s intrinsic motivation and sabotage good customer service. The idea of using rewards to drive/modify behaviour comes from the Old Psychology models. To get to understand the nature of intrinsic human motivation we need to look to New Psychology models.Well the RSA have just produced this video summary in their Animate series from Dan Pink which summarises some of the other problems about paying bonuses, including a study at M.I.T. sponsored apparently by the USA Federal Reserve Bank.

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Three New Words for the 21st Century

Barry Mapp — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:03:57 +0000

Taking Politics out of the Political – Three New Words for the 21st CenturyIf we are ever to take succeed in taking the Politics out of the Political (Party) System need to ‘invent’ some new words. Two exisiting words that do not help us to move away from the present system are Government and PoliticalGovernment – has within it the term ‘govern’ which contains elements of to rule, to control, to determine etc (eg to exercise continuous sovereign authority over ; especially to control and direct). Government was something that replaced the single ‘ruler’ (person who rules over). There is very little difference though in the meaning of “to rule” and to “govern” ( both have a sense of control, dominion, or direction over; to dominate by powerful influence; to decide or declare authoritatively or judicially; to decree)If we wanted to apply a different set of conditions by which we run a Country, where the emphasis is not on controlling people but something more enabling we need a new word. So I am going to use the word Enablement as an alternative (model) to Government. An Enablement would have the brief of doing everything possible to allow people and communities to become the best that they can be. The role of any Enablement would be to help remove the things that disable the people from being the best they can be and to become a facilitator for improvement by advocating useful models and discarding the useless models (Political Parties can become so attached to their useless models that this becomes a big part of the problem – I have already mentioned elsewhere that “Target Setting” is a useless model for facilitating real long-term improvement here). An Enablement moves away from the emphasis of the ‘rule of law’ (you should feel bad about yourself if you break the rules) to the ‘rule of helpful behaviours’ (you should feel good about yourself when you behave in ways that are helpful to others). The idea of Goverment is based on “Old Psychology”; Enablement is based on the principles espoused in all the New Psychologies”.The second unhelpful word is ‘political‘. There is no academic agreed meaning of this term but most definitions contain the words ‘power’ and it does seem that it is the lure of power in one form or another that motivates people to use ‘political means’ to achieve things. It is often assumed in the literature that whenever groups interact ‘politics’ is a natural consequence. However I have participated in group interactions similar to what the Physicist Bohm described as ‘dialogue’ and when engaged in such Bohmian Dialogue ‘politics’ is not a natural consequence (and as there is some confusion about the meaning of ‘dialogue’ I am going to introduce what will be a third new word and rename Bohmian dialogue as “multilogue”).So if it is possible to do things (non-politically) in groups that lead to more effective (indeed better) decisions, then we need a new word and I am going to use “Qualitics”. In a future blog I will attempt to define Qualitics in detail but for now let’s just see it as a way groups can work together co-operatively to allow new ideas to emerge that can lead to mutual quality outcomes.So here are three new words for the 21st Century. Enablements as an alternative to Goverments, Qualitics as an alternative to Politics with , and multilogue (a la Bohm) as an alternative to debate.

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Americans value science, but not all of it

Barry Mapp — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:52:28 +0000

On Science and Scientists, Climate change and the Public – who is thinking clearly?Just seen the results of this survey from Reuters. Of course we always need to take surveys with a pinch of salt, but I find the results of this particular survey (http://unhub.com/9Vmx) very interesting, particular about current opinions on Climate Change. The problems with surveys is they only leave us with more questions than provide any answers because they never seem to follow up and ask the really interesting things.First a summary of the survey results with respect to the ‘science’ of climate change:The survey says that “while 84 percent of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that”.There are two things of interest to tease out from this. Firstly the ‘public’ view.Is it that the ‘public’ are in denial of the ‘science’ or is it that actually they don’t believe in the models that the scientists are using? Now it would be good to survey that. My money is on the fact that most of the public simply don’t believe the models. If so that would be very interesting as well to know why.The second thing of interest is the viewpoint of the scientists. This survey showed that 16% of the scientists surveyed did not believe the ‘science’. From what you read in the media I would have thought that it was fewer than 5% of scientists who did not agree with the interpretation of the ‘science’. Again it would be most interesting to know more about the scientists who are the ‘non-believers’So this survey would have been far more useful if we could have found out something about those ‘public’ that don’t believe the ‘science’ of climate change (or rather the way most scientists are interpreting the data). Are they all people who just want to go on decimating rain forests etc? Are they actually people (like myself) who want to stop burning fossil fuels and decimating the planet, but have no confidence in the models that scientists are using to predict the global effects?And the 16% of scientists that don’t believe the (interpretation of the) ‘science’? Are they all in the pocket of the energy companies? Or are they merely scientists who are concerned that the data is contradictory or selectively taken and the models are inadequate to make predictions?

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Thinking in Different Ways

Barry Mapp — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:03:11 +0000

Thinking in Different Ways

In the last Blog I looked at how our models, theories, beliefs and assumptions can be either helpful or harmful. Also I looked at how our assumptions influence our thinking and vice-versa.

In this blog, I am going to focus on thinking.

There are many different ways to look at thinking (because there are many different ways we can model thinking). The first model I am going to share in the next three blogs is one I put together just a few days ago (so one of my own creations – thought I accept there is little new under the sun). I am going to call this model the “Logical Levels” of thinking (not to be confused with NLP Logical Levels) and I use this term because I see the ways of thinking I am about to describe as being on a continuum from quite illogical (though sometimes understandable) through to very sensible, and very logical.

I have given these logical levels of thinking my own names but if anyone can come up with any ones please let me know. My logical levels of thinking are: (1) Crowing Cockerel (2) Flat World (3) Earth around the Sun (4) Out from my Existing World (5) Multiple Perspectives and (6) Meta-Thinking and I will briefly describe the first two here.

Crowing Cockerel Thinking

This is the level of thinking that is followed when people believe that the sun rises every morning because the cock crows. The proponents of this way of thinking will defend it as absolutely correct. There can be no argument with this way of thinking because the sun rises after the cock crows. In the 21^st Century, you would think that we are far too clever to believe or to use this way of thinking, but you will regularly discover in this column (and the sister column – the Non-Political Party) that “Crowing Cockerel Theories” are all around us and they have the effect of protecting the status quo. This thinking stops us from looking at things in new ways, is superstitious, and it stops us from improving. Even intellectuals and academics are not immune from this type of thinking. Scientists also have their fair share of this thinking.

Why does such an illogical form of thinking persist?

One reason may be that we rarely give time to think about our thinking. So we do Crowing Cockerel Thinking thoughtlessly and without any constructive engagement with it. Another reason is that we believe for every effect we see there is a cause. So we seek causes but often have no way of knowing (insufficient data?) what is a cause and what is a co-incident. Indeed in this specific example it is the sun that ’causes’ the cockerel to crow not the other way around (even this of course is far too simplistic).

And before you say that you never think in this way, I intends to have great fun showing otherwise. Maybe you do think-about-your-thinking and so you are partially immunised from this false idol. But I will bet that you probably (without realising it) take advice occasionally from an expert who (unknowingly) practises this form of thinking.

So let’s try to identify this perverse thinking mode whenever and wherever it appears in the media. And do please send me any examples you find.

Flat World Thinking

This form of thinking has some definite logic to it. It is represented by a theory that is true (useful) but only under very limited conditions. Imagine living thousands of years ago in the middle of a vast plain. This thinking was adequate. The theory says “my world is a flat place”. The model will always be true (useful) within certain confined limits. However to extrapolate from this (specific place) model into a general model of thinking would be dangerous (particularly if you were gambling with your life or your worldly possessions, or gambling with the lives of future generations on the assumption that the model was true). As I intend to show time and time again, Flat-World thinking is (unfortunately) alive and well. If you have your personal examples of this Flat-World Thinking please send them to me so I can add them to my collection.

Coming Next:

Earth around the Sun Thinking

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Beliefs and Thinking

Barry Mapp — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:45:05 +0000

Knowing the What and Knowing the WhyTo know the ‘what’ or ‘why’ about anything, we have to understand something about our current beliefs and how beliefs interact with how we think and what we think about. If you see yourself as a ‘Thought Leader” this is definitely the blog to be.This first post takes an initial look therefore at beliefs and thinking.Virtuous or Vicious Cycle in your Thinking?What we believe (our models, theories, assumptions) influences how we think and what we think about. Equally how we think and what we think about influences our beliefs. This process can either represent a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle depending on whether the process is opening up or closing down the limits of our thinking (And believe it or not this interaction between thoughts and beliefs is so powerful it influences ‘how we see things’ so that what we actually see through our own eyes has less direct and immediate impact on our beliefs than we think – the idea that ‘seeing is believing’ is in fact rarely true for us)It is our models, beliefs, theories that we ‘hold’ in our head that help to make sense of the world around us. However we often fail to recognise that ‘that sense’ is not representative of a true reality but is a ‘best fit’ of reality as it has appeared to us so far in personal everyday experience.Every model can be true (useful) at some level (within its own often limited context).Harmful Models - Some models prove (demonstrate) to be harmful in that they generate actions, behaviours, systems, viewpoints that in the long term make matters worse rather than better. Theories about what is right or wrong, good or evil have led to destructive wars against people who are little different from ourselves except for the beliefs they hold.Helpful Models – Other models prove to be useful in the long term in that when the principles of the model are followed things consistently improve. In this blog we will be particularly interested in models and beliefs that have led to sustained improvement rather than holding a status quo or making matters worse. And of course we will need to keep an eye on what we mean (operational definition) by improvement as this is not always clear and can therefore can muddy our thinking.Models that broaden our reality - We should be aware that some models and beliefs will broaden our view of reality (like a wide-angle lens for photography). Such models will be particularly useful when we need to see the bigger picture or to see how things interact and connect together. Such models are also likely to be useful in times of rapid change when a broader model has more inherent flexibility in the thoughts that it allowsModels that constrict our reality – Other models may narrow or constrict our view of reality. These models may be useful when we need to be focused on the “where-we-are” and the “here-and-now”. However the danger with these models is that we can’t see further than the end of our nose, we can’t see the forest from the trees and we can’t see why and how mankind in general is making things on planet Earth worse not better. Also such models are likely to be a liability in times of rapid change where the here-and-now almost instantly becomes part of the back ‘there-and-then’.Next: Different ways of thinking.

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