Dominant Alpha

[Lateralthinking1]

Going back to post 1, and that article about the corporate psychopath in particular........these things aren't particularly great for my health.......one part of it connects to some extent with a frequent theme in my current thinking:

Leaders are famously conscious of their strengths but often clueless about their vulnerabilities

One thing I have found quite difficult to comprehend is how I have never felt that the truly great in specific skills were a threat to me. Conversely, those who are merely fairly competent at what they do can make me feel totally useless. The most obvious reason is that one is less likely to encounter the former and hence will neither be expected to compete with them or meet their demands. Consequently one's own sense of worth in regard to them can remain intact. This though, I think, is unconvincing.

While I am sure all of that is a part of it, there is always with the sense of personal uselessness around the fairly competent the knowledge that one is more competent than them in many key respects. Often there is a sense too that they know it. So while they probably are relatively clueless about their vulnerabilities, my feeling is that they choose not to see them, and rather condemn the vulnerability in every identifiably vulnerable sector of life, of which usefully for them there are many. That habitual outlook does have elements of psychopathy. It is also understandable on the basis that anyone's weakness has in essence to go somewhere. To expect to banish it completely is unreal. They therefore settle for the next best thing which is to dump it.

What one notices is such people are very good at positive presentation. The appearance of positive attitudes and strong abilities rewards the appearance of positive attitudes and strong abilities in others. It is a positive attitude club. Meanwhile the truly great, rather like the terribly weak, tend to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses and at some point ask others to help them, rather than pretending they have all the answers. I have to say that I am not sure which of the two gets to that point first.

What concerns me is that the corporate psychopath is not a rarity as the article appears to suggest. I would say that the number of real strengths and weaknesses people in senior and even middling positions of responsibility is quite small. Systemically it has to be that way and that is a big part of all our problems. People like Dave may have learnt the usefulness of apologising for getting things wrong on very rare occasions. He doesn't necessarily feel it and to go too far in that direction is to choose the nearest exit.

But consider this too. An average person goes for a job interview. He is interviewed by another average person. The real conversation would involve the interviewer explaining how she finds the place tedious a lot of time and listing all the problems with the perks. She would say what she thinks is bad as well as good about the company and even confess on where she herself feels unsuitably qualified for a part of her role. It would also involve the interviewee explaining how it isn't his ideal job, how he has skills to apply to it but equally he will be found lacking in many respects and that mostly he like her is interested in paying the bills.

Instead, they have an hour together communicating in a total fantasy world, bigging themselves up, and knowing that they hardly believe a word of it. That is how he is then assessed. Astonishingly somewhere in that peculiar netherworld there is room for talking about honesty and trust. If that even on a very humdrum level is how people are supposed to be living their lives and proving that they can 'get real', it is hardly surprising that 'the system' cannot deliver in meeting the harsher demands of real life.

[Serial_Apologist]

Going back to post 1, and that article about the corporate psychopath in particular........these things aren't particularly great for my health.......one part of it connects to some extent with a frequent theme in my current thinking:

Leaders are famously conscious of their strengths but often clueless about their vulnerabilities.

One thing I have found quite difficult to comprehend is how I have never felt that the truly great in specific skills were a threat to me. Conversely, those who are merely fairly competent at what they do can make one feel totally useless. The most obvious reason is that one is less likely to encounter the former and hence will neither be expected to compete with them or meet their demands. Consequently one's own sense of worth in regard to them can remain intact. This though, I think, is unconvincing.

While I am sure all of that is a part of it, there is always with the sense of personal uselessness around the fairly competent the knowledge that one is more competent than them in many key respects. Often there is a sense too that they know it. So while they probably are relatively clueless about their vulnerabilities, my feeling is that they choose not to see them, and rather condemn the vulnerability in every identifiably vulnerable sector of life, of which usefully for them there are many. That habitual outlook does have elements of psychopathy. It is also understandable on the basis that anyone's weakness has in essence to go somewhere. To expect to banish it completely is unreal. They therefore settle for the next best thing which is to dump it.

What one notices is that they are particularly good at presentation. The appearance of positive attitudes and strong abilities rewards the appearance of positive attitudes and strong abilities in others. It is a positive attitude club. Meanwhile the truly great, rather like the terribly weak, tend to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses and at some point ask others to help them rather than pretending they have all the answers. I have to say that I am not sure which of the two get to that point first.

What concerns me is that the corporate psychopath is not a rarity as the article appears to suggest. I would say that the number of real people in senior and even middle positions of responsibility is quite small. Systemically it has to be that way.
People like Dave may have learnt the usefulness of apologising or getting things wrong on very rare occasions. He doesn't necessarily feel it and to go too far in that direction is to choose the nearest exit.

But consider this too. An average person goes for a job interview. He is interviewed by an average person. The real conversation would involve the interviewer explaining how she finds the place tedious a lot of time and listing all the problems with the perks. She would say what she thinks is bad as well as good about the company and even explain where she herself feels unsuitably qualified for a part of her role. It would also involve the interviewee explaining how it isn't his ideal job, how he has skills to apply to it but equally he will found lacking in many respects and that mostly he like her is interested in paying the bills.

Instead, they have an hour together communicating in a total fantasy, bigging themselves up, and knowing that they hardly believe a word for it. And that even on a very humdrum level is how people are supposed to be living their lives and proving that they can 'get real'.

I once went for a job at the garden centre of a large retail chain at Lakeside. OK then, B&Q. I had my Hort BSC with me. I was told that I would be expected not just to be selling plants, horticultural implements etc, but be prepared to go to work any part of the store. Every morning, she explained with no trace of irony, company staff would commence the day with a motivation ceremony, at which, aparently, slogans would be rapped out in unison about the purpose of life, I mean working at B+Q, and staff who had scored high in sales announced and applauded. Next door, builders were apparently in the process of tearing the room apart, and much of the interview had to be conducted by shouting. At the end of the interview I was handed a piece of A4 with an L shape roughly drawn on it. This was explained as being a plot for a suburban garden of gioven dimensions, on which I was given 4 minutes to draw a plan, including flower borders, trees, shrubs, clothes drying and kiddie play areas, naming the plants. Apart from dimensions I was not given any specifications as to soil, drainage, slope, aspect. The next morning it was announced that B&Q were taking on over 50s and had opened a shop in Sunderland, taking on redundant shipbuilders. One of the recruits described how, as part of the start of the day routine, they were each given blocks of wood and nails to hammer into them, as some kind of therapeutic recognition of their long-acquired skills. A week later someone phoned to say I had been unsuccessful in my application. Two weeks after that, out of interest, I visited the shop to see how the successful candidate was getting on. From the plants on offer it was obvious that any person couild have done the job without NVQ, let alone HND or degree. There was no one in the gardening department, and when I asked another staff member to seek someone out to serve me, he went off and never returned. At business studies we had been coached for interview passing techniques to say, when asked where we would like to be in the company in 2 years' time, to reply, "Doing your job mate". This was considered the type of person employers were on the lookout for in the late 90s - in the 60s one would have been thrown out on ones ear for such a reply, and rightly so. And now people wonder what has gone wrong in "corporate culture". That was the last time I went for a job. I pity youngsters trying for employment today. I never had kids of my own - I wouldn't know what to say to them if I had. Sorry?

[Lateralthinking1]

I once went for a job at the garden centre of a large retail chain at Lakeside. OK then, B&Q. I had my Hort BSC with me. I was told that I would be expected not just to be selling plants, horticultural implements etc, but be prepared to go to work any part of the store. Every morning, she explained with no trace of irony, company staff would commence the day with a motivation ceremony, at which, aparently, slogans would be rapped out in unison about the purpose of life, I mean working at B+Q, and staff who had scored high in sales announced and applauded. Next door, builders were apparently in the process of tearing the room apart, and much of the interview had to be conducted by shouting. At the end of the interview I was handed a piece of A4 with an L shape roughly drawn on it. This was explained as being a plot for a suburban garden of gioven dimensions, on which I was given 4 minutes to draw a plan, including flower borders, trees, shrubs, clothes drying and kiddie play areas, naming the plants. Apart from dimensions I was not given any specifications as to soil, drainage, slope, aspect. The next morning it was announced that B&Q were taking on over 50s and had opened a shop in Sunderland, taking on redundant shipbuilders. One of the recruits described how, as part of the start of the day routine, they were each given blocks of wood and nails to hammer into them, as some kind of therapeutic recognition of their long-acquired skills. A week later someone phoned to say I had been unsuccessful in my application. Two weeks after that, out of interest, I visited the shop to see how the successful candidate was getting on. From the plants on offer it was obvious that any person couild have done the job without NVQ, let alone HND or degree. There was no one in the gardening department, and when I asked another staff member to seek someone out to serve me, he went off and never returned. At business studies we had been coached for interview passing techniques to say, when asked where we would like to be in the company in 2 years' time, to reply, "Doing your job mate". This was considered the type of person employers were on the lookout for in the late 90s - in the 60s one would have been thrown out on ones ear for such a reply, and rightly so. And now people wonder what has gone wrong in "corporate culture". That was the last time I went for a job. I pity youngsters trying for employment today. I never had kids of my own - I wouldn't know what to say to them if I had. Sorry?

I agree 100% if not more.

There's an argument for saying that in a garden centre or basic office, the interviewer and interviewee only have to play serious charades for the duration of an interview. In contrast, the entire day to day role of managers of any standing, and politicians are in that category, is to scribble pretty looking charts and meaninglessly bang nails into wood. The six-figure salary plus bonus is paid to maintain a level of selection procedure style bizarreness that most of us without an Equity card just couldn't sustain.

I am not regularly with my GP now. When I was, and improving, I did say to her that things were still too raw and real for me to enter a fantasy version of reality that employers think is real. When you do meet real challenges in your life, a key barrier is that it feels unlikely that you will ever again be able to adjust to simple routines undertaken in a climate of mutual flights of fancy.

[Lateralthinking1]

.....360 degree feedback. There is a trend in the public sector, as well as in the private sector, for senior managers to seek comment on their performance from the 'ordinary workforce'. Mostly they remain reliant on assessment from their managers, if they have any, and on peer review - internal people on a similar grade, corporate stakeholders or so-called independents. If the feedback from the 'ordinary workforce' can be interpreted/dismissed only too easily as a small, additional, component, it also arrives with unhelpful issues such as the concerns of staff to retain their jobs and indeed prospects for promotion.

We see in the case of someone like Andy Murray, who seeks the advice of Ivan Lendl, a parallel with senior managers who place the most emphasis on feedback from those who know their game. At the same time, there is a distinct difference. The advice in the case of sport is on how to deal with powerful opponents. In contrast, senior managers should be engaging with the public more for they are supposedly on the same side. Of course, the private sector believes it does so. How did our 'ordinary workforce' deal with your question today? What do you think of our product? These are essentially means of removing public feedback on the managers themselves but then you can't be seen to introduce mechanisms that will upset the shareholders.

The public sector is not the same as either. Its managers are not principally involved in coping with opponents - that is the job of elected representatives - and nor do they have shareholders to please. There is no reason at all why there shouldn't be route one meaningful assessment of senior managers in the public sector by the general public. The taxpayers are their shareholders. And far from them being Murray needing the advice of Lendl to overcome Federer, the more accurate analogy in their case is the one of a parent's service to his or her children. They should be required to take on board responses to the kind of meal they are serving up and their effectiveness should be adjudged accordingly. If that ever happened, we would see radical change.

[rauschwerk]

I listened to that this evening on PM Lat and couldn't believe how that LibDem spokesperson wriggled & writhed - wretched man

That interview, and the news that the Commons chamber was nearly deserted for the announcement of the White Paper (having been crowded just beforehand for discussion of House of Lords reform) has completed my utter disillusionment with UK politicians.

[Lateralthinking1]

That interview

Some years ago, I was on the last train home from London. Near to our ultimate destination, there were just three of us in one long carriage. The only person in 2nd class was me.

I was close to the space between sections of the carriage where people stand to leave the train. The only person in that space was a middle aged man of dishevelled appearance. He was staggering around and was clearly high on drink or drugs.

Just beyond him was the 1st class part of the carriage. The only person in that part was a Member of Parliament who was working on a laptop. He was as close to the man as where I was sitting.

Suddenly the man in the space crashed heavily to the ground. He was clearly unable to get up unassisted. I stood up and looked across at the Member of Parliament. The Member of Parliament looked at me, let out a loud exasperated sigh, and looked back to his laptop.

I helped the man to his feet and then off the train when we got to the final destination. The final destination was Sutton.