Assumptions and bad science

1. The Independent recently reported that Australia had been rocked by revelations about lesbian koalas. What intrigued me was that the researchers – who had discovered that their female subjects regularly indulged in lesbian, group sex sessions – said the following:

"Our aim was to determine the extent of differences in the homosexual and heterosexual behaviour of female koalas and thereby to determine the purpose of female homosexual behaviour in the koala."

Now bite me if I’m wrong, but isn’t "determining the purpose of homosexual behaviour" a slightly dodgy aim? I mean, they could start by interviewing subjects with a greater capacity for self-analysis and expression: say, for example, 150 Australian lesbians. I imagine that their answers to the question "What is the purpose of your female homosexual behaviour?" would make interesting reading.

2. "Better-educated suicide bombers are given harder targets and succeed in killing more victims, according to research by American economists," said this weekend’s Observer.

The article continues, saying that the researchers "suggest that, since more educated bombers could earn more in the labour market, they may demand higher-profile targets, with greater potential rewards."

Somehow I doubt that the calculation goes quite like that. It seems to me that our American researchers have applied capitalist market economics to an issue that may not be entirely susceptible to that kind of analysis.
(I also now have an image of the suicide bombers union campaigning for equal rights for putative bombers educated in inner city schools and with poor GCSE results).

All that by way of preamble to the latest from Project Red Stripe. Here my word of the week is ‘gut-rounding’. Google gives me no results for gut-rounding as a term, so I’m pretty confident that Joanna Slykerman coined it yesterday. Unsure about how scientific she need be in allocating the number of people from each of six databases to be invited to submit ideas for the project, she proposed ‘gut-rounding’ the numbers rather than doing a precise, statistical calculation.

Stewart was clear that there was "plenty of room for gut-rounding", though he was on the way home (which is always a good time to ask anyone for a snappy, favourable decision).

For me, gut-rounding has been the habit of a lifetime. I never had any time for the algebraic refinements of sampling and segmenting and testing lists in the heyday of direct mail. But it would never have occurred to me to ask colleagues whether they minded my gut-rounding. Perhaps I’m not the team player I thought I was.

Gut-rounding inevitably has connotations of ground nuts and gut barging, and there’s a sense that the term is just wrong somehow (like signs advertising ‘boarding catteries’, which always distress the ear because it’s expecting ‘batteries’, I think).

But gut-rounding could be an interesting word for this team. They’re now devising necessarily elaborate ways of assessing how good and how innovative a new idea is – so that they can filter out unproductive ideas, sort and rate good ones, and not waste too long on the process of evaluation. (In a similar vein, we’re currently trying to come up with guidelines at Triarchy for when we should give away free copies of our books. My suggestion: "No guidelines; use your judgement.")

RedStripe are looking at benchmarks for innovation and at processes for presenting key ideas/themes to the team, getting feedback, brainstorming, etc. There’s an inevitable tension between the desire to systematise at the outset and the likelihood of some gut-rounding taking place in the heat of the fray as hundreds of ideas arrive (inshallah).

Maybe the eventual book on Project Red Stripe should be about how scientific to be. Or the need to start off scientific in order to break the rules later. I’m thinking of an article for Harvard Business Review, followed by a lucrative, franchise for management consultants. Anyway, I’ve registered gutrounding.com.

Web 2.0

On my way to visit RedStripe earlier this month, I’m struck by the fact that my observations so far have been a mixture of navel-gazing and soap opera. It still feels far too soon to know what I’m going to be writing about.

To assuage my conscience I read a long piece by Tim O’Reilly on Web 2.0 (a term that’s been bandied about a lot at Project Red Stripe but which I only vaguely understood). In the same vein, they talk about Economist 2.0 as the beast they are going to design and implement (perhaps).

O’Reilly - who wrote his piece in September 2005, so it’s already out of date, but still seems sensible to me – identifies a number of key differentiators between first- and second-generation Internet successes (Web 1.0 and 2.0). Since RedStripe is developing a second-generation Internet presence for The Economist, let’s look at some of these differentiators now:

Web 1.0 - Publishing

Web 2.0 - Participation

This looks, on the face of it, to be the key differentiator for a publisher like The Economist, whose business has been built on the quality of the proprietary information that it gathers and publishes. In Web 2.0 models, user participation is the key – Wikipedia vs. Britannica Online, for example. This might look alarming, except that Economist readers are highly-intelligent, well-informed people [Q. What might Wikipedia look like if its contributors were exclusively Economist readers? A. Well, better in parts. Its coverage of the OECD or trading in carbon emissions might be more extensive, informative and hotly debated, while its coverage of hip-hop or ramming speed computer games would probably be thin.]

The key phrase in all this is probably ‘hotly debated’. The conversation that would take place between all Economist readers would be potentially riveting (for other Economist readers). But, as the article also identifies, user-participation is a rather too simplistic model: “only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application.” Therefore, set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side effect of their use of the application.

In other words, knowing what other Economist readers think is useful. But limited. Knowing what other websites they use would be potentially more useful.

Other attributes:

Web 1.0 - All rights reserved

Web 2.0 - Some rights reserved

What can RedStripe achieve by syndicating, disseminating, letting go of copyright control of its content with a view to getting more people to visit its site?

Web 1.0 - Serving the head

Web 2.0 Serving the long tail

Where The Economist’s print products have to deliver as many articles as possible of maximum interest to its core readership, Economist 2.0 has to find ways also to serve exceptional readers with outlandish or niche interests.

Web 1.0 - Static sites

Web 2.0 - Dynamic sites

How can Economist 2.0 deliver a database-backed site with dynamically generated content that matches the individual user’s needs?

Web 1.0 - Control

Web 2.0 - Co-operate

Web 2.0 services (and they’re services, not platforms or products) are built of a network of co-operating services. Therefore: offer web services interfaces and content syndication, and re-use the data services of others. Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely-coupled systems.

So, how might RedStripe bring all this together? Not my job fortunately. But we can match their ideas against this list. That’s if they decide for go for a Web 2.0 idea. Currently, their idea evaluation process has two levels (out of 5) that are more advanced than Web 2.0.

Justice in Organizations

Earlier in February Triarchy Press held a seminar under the rubric of ‘Justice and Organizations’ at Tooks, the well-known human rights law chambers in London. In retrospect, I think it might have been better to call it ‘social justice in organizations’ or ‘social injustices’ as it considered social pathologies in relation to bullying and scapegoating in our organized lives. Bullying is found in our families and schools, in the organizations in which we spend much of our life and in the public realm – in this latter case, infecting our attitudes and policies to the most obvious alien other, the migrant worker and the asylum seeker. We wanted to raise awareness of social pathologies in order to search out ways to change our behaviour for the better, and felt that the best way to approach the topic would be through predominantly social scientific methods.

Is there a social pathology of bullying in our culture?

The mix of lawyers and asylum and migration experts as well as organizational leaders and artists considered the idea of a social pathology of bullying. Some of the statistics presented were shocking. For example, that 15% of employees leave their organizations because of bullying without choosing to go to a tribunal. It’s generally believed to be easier to find another job than fight your corner, leaving, of course, the problem in tact and behind. And this view is confirmed by those cases that do go to tribunal, for, here, 25% of witnesses (not even the victim or the bully) leave their employment because they find the process to be traumatic and destructive.

Yet, if bullying is such a serious, underlying problem in our organizations, why is it that the ‘Dignity at Work’ bill failed in parliament and that the laws protecting ‘whistleblowers’ is under constant threat of dilution from the government? You would think that we would want to get to grips with it. And in all fairness, eliminate it. Instead, many of the problems are pushed under the carpet. Why is that? The most obvious answer is that we are unaware of how we behave.

But what happens if we look beyond the boundaries of a specific organization to the broader cultural landscape? Bullying attitudes seem to be reinforced in our daily cultural experiences too. For don’t many cultural role models teach us how to bully better? For example, look at the recent proliferation of reality tv programmes. These depend on their audiences’ enjoyment of schadenfreude- as volunteers in Big Brother, or I am what I eat – are submitted to tirades of insulting and bullying behaviour by other participants or the presenter-experts. We watch transfixed, at the same time as we count our blessings. After all, it is someone else who is being bullied and, realistically, that is both a relief and a sort of pleasure. Or look at the behaviour of some footballers and fans. There is plenty of evidence of name-calling on the pitch and in the stands. Again, what about presenters like John Humphreys on BBC Radio 4, or Jeremy Paxman on BBC 2 TV? Their combative and provocative interrogations seem to have more to do with public humiliation and bullying than any objective desire to get at the truth: they punish those in power by brow-beating techniques of questioning.

From this perspective, we are being encouraged to ‘other’ our fellow beings. At the same time, however, we also told that this behaviour is unjust and wrong: we must learn how to play fair. This mixed message leads to confusion, fear or indifference – an effective way of disabling resistance and change. We learn to bully at the same time as we learn to fear being bullied. So, does the ‘acculturation’ of bullying reflect an intentional, cultural prejudice and a drive to gain power over people at the same time as it helps to overcome our own fear?

This last thought led me into another perspective on the problem of bullying: that of our biological make-up. For, could it be that we can’t help ourselves? That bullying is part of our selfish DNA? In The Three Ways of Getting Things Done, Gerard Fairtlough writes about the ‘pecking order’ that, he argues, underlies our addiction to hierarchies. Perhaps then, bullying is simply another manifestation of Darwin’s survival of the fittest? In which case, we will be unaware of it, and even if aware, incapable of change.

If bullying is natural and inherent, social exclusion may simply reflect our drive to get ‘on top’. It follows that negative and bullying attitudes towards those who choose to come to our shores (whether for sanctuary or for economic reasons), are little more than part of that struggle – made all the easier due to obvious identity differences, such as language, skin type, religion or culture.

On the evening itself, it was agreed that it is important to make connections between what may be a social pathology and issues of justice. But, whilst there was a general consensus that bullying attitudes are endemic in our society, it was unclear how best to move to change. Because there is a double difficulty: the devil of the detail is set against the enormous complexity of the issues. The professionals recognised the danger of falling into an immersion trap of the detail of their respective areas (law and human rights support, especially) making it difficult for them to see the broader causal picture. Alternatively, on a personal basis, many felt subsumed by the enormity of the complex connections between social behaviour and multiple issues of injustice.

Bullying and the rhetoric of justice:
If we experience bullying in almost every aspect of our lives, it may be because we have a pretty natural leaning towards bullying or to being bullied. In the most general terms, being portrayed as vulnerable and disenfranchised makes it easy to label individuals or groups either as victims or, alternatively, as opportunists or spongers.

Extremist language, interestingly enough, represents our understanding of the issue in terms of a rhetoric of justice. I have yet to come across a biological reading of justice. However, in social scientific terms, justice might be thought of as a social construct that binds a society together. Yet the language of bullying could be described as performative because speaking of people as victims or interlopers makes them so. When a child is labelled a ‘snitch’, he is inevitably alienated from the group. When a group of employees ‘gang up’ on another member of staff, they will justify their behaviour through accusations of difference which, when negatively applied, is a term that describes alienation. Thus being described as alien (in whatever way and in whichever organization) inevitably leads to social alienation and to injustice. In this sense, the adversarial language of justice plays into the violence of discourse that, ironically as such, plays into the language of bullying.

Arguably, the portrayal of the extremes of any spectrum plays through an apocalyptic scenario of fear and mistrust. Metaphors of extremes are further reinforced by our already disturbed pathologies of flawed identity and general anxiety. Seeing things clearly becomes extremely difficult. In the apocalyptic scenario, justice is a rhetorical weapon. On the one hand, it allows political opportunism (in projections of fear involving the immigrant intruder). On the other, it permits a narrative of victimisation: those who fear ‘immigrant overload’ are locked in a war against their opponents, who try to ensure equal rights for those ‘victims’ seeking refuge and economic stability. Both appeal to justice. Both are committee to a conflict of power. But in terms of overcoming the negative outcomes of bullying and social othering, the process is self-perpetuating and thus unhelpful.
Social scientific methods are useful in that they interpret social behaviours but are not always very successful at either analysing or solving problems.

The Darwinian model describes all our actions as driven by the aggressive move to get on top. The model of nature bred in tooth and claw ‘fixes’ our behaviours and can justify ones that seem unjust. Even the more subtle variants, such as the notion, described by Richard Dawkins, of the parasite/host relationship, tend only to reinforce the idea of the intruder parasite operating on its own, not its host’s terms – even if it may have a neutral or synergetic, and not aggressive, intention.

The language of justice plays into the apocalyptic narrative of extremes. It can often lead to a further reinforcement of the violent rhetoric of adversaries.

How, then, can we break free from this destructive discourse to analyse and ameliorate our social behavioural patterns? What we need is another way of seeing our social interactions and their resultant bullying actions. One that describes behaviour in less violent and more nuanced terms. In my next blog, I will look at Varela’s concept of living systems and his views of immunology to see whether this model offers an alternative to the apocalyptic narrative of the either/or of adversarial discourse.

Corporate Anthropology II

It's such a rare position to be in: observing a team at work, in a real business situation, under potentially extreme pressure, without having to do anything. Yes, I'm aware that I have to write about it at the end. But I'm not here in the role of facilitator or consultant or adviser or psychologist. I don't have to look for anything in particular, report back or make recommendations. I don't have to do anything that is intended to change or impact upon the group. Not rare for anthropologists, of course. But rare in business. Most corporate anthropologists are paid to research customer behaviour and help, directly or indirectly, with marketing or innovation.

Because I'm not paid by the team or the team's employers, I'm also not beholden to anyone for anything. Except that, if I behave bedly, they won't ask me back.

So, the anticipated question arises. Should I go to lunch with the team members? And, if so, should I go as observer or active participant? I notice that this mirrors the different roles of the psychotherapist. I could go as a blank sheet and work 'psychodynamically' through the transference, or I could go in the 'humanistic tradition' and engage thoroughly in the relationship. After a moment's thought, I go. And go as a fellow human. Anythging else would be absurd. But I notice that I raise the question and ask them how they would feel if I blogged about Project Red Stripe and how they would feel if I wrote weekly about them in, say, The Guardian...

Some of the first things I'm noticing are about work in the 21st Century office. Partly it's because I have been so long away from that environment (though I work in an office now, it's hardly the rat race upstairs at Axminster station). My main insight after week 1 (having reviewed their Myers-Briggs profiles and their project schedule) was that the team was in need of a mother. Probably all such work teams are likewise in need of a mother. I made them tea in a teapot and served it to them in cups with saucers (I'd already given up all hope of being an unnoticed observer). I don't know what they thought - though it struck me that it was a funny luxury for me to have the time to do this - I would never allow myself the luxury in my own office, where I still have trouble locating the hoover.

Anyway, I think those five men and one woman need a mother. They need someone to look after them, make the place comfortable, bring them lunch, remind them to send birthday cards, give them hugs, tell them to go home. It's not just at work. How do kids in schools manage without matrons? Of course, work was always like this - the emotionally-arid public school as a necessary preparation for governing in far-flung parts of the Empire. I just notice it more having been away for so long. No wonder there's bullying and victimisation and burn-out and the infernal cauldron of shadowy, unacknowledged stuff.

Red Stripe - Mapping the Process

Talking of The Economist's Project Red Stripe I was really struck by the maps that the team produced of their first week on the job.

As they noted at the time, three of them were 'geographic', in that they plotted where the team had been physically (one used Google Earth, one used Google Maps and one used tracing paper and conventional maps - stressing the benefits of old technology).

The other three were different. Ludwig used some 'dynamic mind-mapping' software called Brain to represent the areas that the project team had been working on. Joanna (the only Feeler in a team with five other Thinkers according to their recent Myers-Briggs initiation: 15:0 to Myers-Briggs) mapped, amongst other things, her feelings - which included hesitation, trepidation and excitement.

Tom had also sorts of stuff going on including - and here's my point - Inferno under the desks. You had to crawl under the desks and lie on the trailing sockets to read the contents of Inferno. Here were to be found :

• Failure
• No fun
• Hell
• Judging
• No hope
• Jealousy
• Blame
• Undeliverables
• Bitterness
• Disloyalty

Gerard Egan and Bill Tate (every organization should be using Tate's audit) have both written about managing and auditing the shadow side of the organisation - but no-one else has paid it much attention. (Although, of course, it lurks under every stone in conversations about corporate governance, business ethics and the like.) And here it was, being manifested before my eyes.

I think that every work group, project or process team, department or small business should have its own version of Inferno posted somewhere significant - just to remind themselves of the things they don't get to talk about. The contents should be as specific as possible - not just greed or ambition of lust, but clear examples of these shadowy 'behaviours' in action.

So there's my first recommendation from observing Red Stripe. Should I have kept it for the book? I don't think so - there are going to be many, many more.

Ram Charan’s ‘Know How’ (Random House 2007)

I was attracted to this book by a review by Stefan Stern in the FT in November 2006. He wrote:
"if Charan declares that something matters, the chances are that it really does.”

Since Charan's identification of the really important things for business coincides well with my own practice at Celltech and elsewhere, I agree. Particularly, I agree with his emphasis that people are the most important factor in organisations. The sub-title of the book is: ‘The Eight Skills that separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t’. It is these eight skills that the term know-how refers to. Of the eight skills, four are people skills:

• leading the social system
• judging people
• moulding a team
• and setting goals.

For Charan the social system is a pattern of regular meetings and task groups together with the information flow that supports these. The other four skills or know-hows relate to planning:

• positioning the business
• detecting patterns in the complex external world
• setting priorities
• and dealing with forces beyond the market.

Forces beyond the market are mainly social and political forces.

Although I admire Charan’s selection of key skills, I think his analysis can be improved in various ways.

Positioning the business could benefit from Kees van der Heijden’s concept of the business idea, while the techniques of scenario planning would greatly help in building the skills of detecting patterns and understanding forces beyond the market. My own work could enhance leadership of the social system, particularly an understanding of the Three Ways of Getting Things Done and of the innovation management techniques in ‘Creative Compartments’.

Organization homunculus

Google hasn't got many references to the idea of the organization homunculus. No wonder really.

'What is it?', you may ask.

I was thinking about this because Tim sent me a picture of the sensory homunculus. You've probably seen it. There's a picture of one here.

It shows what a man would look like if his appearance were proportional to the area allotted by the somatosensory cortex to his various body parts.

I was thinking that a similar representation of an organization could be interesting if it showed, for example, the amount of contact each part of the organization had with external customers; or the proportion of new product ideas generated by each department or division. But, of course,, the idea doesn't work well because we don't have a way of representing the organization that is anything like as interesting as the human body. There's the organogram, which is interesting in terms of the underlying assumptions and prejudices that affect the way we draw it. But an organogram is not sexy in any sense. Not in the way the human body is. How could we respresent the organizations that we work in, so that the resulting image was intrinsically interesting?

Anyway, then I was reading about the homunculus as ouroboros (the snake that eats its own tail), which, of course, organizations often do. And the spermists, about whom Wikipedia says:

"The term homunculus was later used in the discussion of conception and birth. In 1694, Nicolas Hartsoeker discovered "animalcules" in the sperm of humans and other animals. Some claimed that the sperm was in fact a "little man" (homunculus) that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child; these later became known as the spermists. This seemed to neatly explain many of the mysteries of conception (for instance, why it takes two). However it was later pointed out that if the sperm was a homunculus, identical in all but size to an adult, then the homunculus may have sperm of its own. This led to a reductio ad absurdum, with a chain of homunculi "all the way down." This was not necessarily considered a fatal objection however, as it neatly explained how it was that "in Adam" all had sinned: the whole of humanity was already contained in his loins."

This is connected closely to the idea of preformation, which posits that all living beings existed preformed inside their forebears in the manner of a Russian doll.

I'm sure there's some application of all this to organization thinking and design. I'm just not sure what it is yet.