Worthy of the gods

The other day, I noticed a long queue of young men outside the doctor’s chamber. I wondered what could make so many youths collectively sick. It turned out to be a recruitment drive and they awaited medical reviews. I imagined they were in the city chasing their dream job. They seemed to hail from rural areas, a little out of comfort zones in the urban surroundings. One by one they they were called into the room; some stayed there, but more returned outside. The ones returning were the ‘unfit’ group, and disappointment writ large on their faces. In their sheepish looks around, their continuity with tradition seemed imminent – that is, to abandon dreams in the face of failure. 

Indians invest huge effort in pursuing goals. The practice of rituals and identification with mythological characters is quite pronounced in this region, and so is the belief in fate. We presume to be descendants of the gods. Although lacking the requisite supernatural powers of the epic characters, we expect to be like Prince Arjuna, the archer extraordinaire of the epic Mahabharata who never missed a shot. Even through a reflection, he could pierce the eye of the fish revolving high above. Because Arjuna thus won the princess, we expect to be similarly blessed.  

We forget that as mundane humans, we have to contend with the interfering variables that mythology does not. Our talents also are not equivalent, and wins therefore, are dicey. But failure does not sit well with the heritage we claim. And when we do not succeed at the first try, we take it personal. We are shamed by failure, and do not invest in second chances. Should the one try we make hit target, we can continue to greater exploits. Should it not, we give up entirely. It is all or nothing, with no middle path. This is our morphogenetic learning, the song of culture, as it were. 

I remember being fascinated by rhymes in childhood. The cadence of similar sounding words allured me into ambitiously trying my hand at it. Like:

Donkeys can bray

Some houses are gray

Lions can roar

My pretty dress tore

Birds can fly

And I can cry.

Now, considering that English was then learned only in school, it may have been an achievement for a 5-year-old. But as ‘verse’ was probably little more than a few similar-sounding phrases strung together.  Perhaps with a few decades of honing, something impressive might have resulted. But while I quietly admired my handiwork, an English teacher of the school, noticed my childish scrawl. She was a tall, dark, severe-looking woman and we were all afraid of her. She took my little creativity and frowned at it. I awaited her response with trepidation, expecting punishment or at least a public dressing down for my temerity. Instead, she praised my penmanship as worthy of publishing in the school paper. Her intent, I am sure, was only to offer encouragement, and she probably put it out of her mind soon after. But I assumed she would make it soon happen. For days and weeks and months I waited for the word or sign of making the hit. When it never came to pass I my self-esteem so plummeted I never rhymed again.

We are not taught to handle defeat, hence the fear of public humiliation is consuming. In the school I went to as a child, getting exam results was like visiting the dentist. We could not just pick up our scores and leave – pain was inevitable! The entire class assembled, names were called one by one and performances announced. We learned early that being bottom of the class would earn sustained ridicule from peers. Chants of failure, failure would follow the unlucky everywhere, even amongst children that could hardly spell the word. I actually thought the term was ‘fail-year’, to signify unworthiness throughout the year. My anxiety was double because, at home, it was relative to the monies spent. The standard was set at first in class, and no result below that pleased the elders. So, each time, I died many deaths before I learned my fate!

Respect for elders is a strong thread of the Indian/Bengali cultural fabric. Authority figures are viewed too intimidating to question, and we tend to read divinity into their manner. Even half a century later, I recall the unwittingly effect of the Mss Broughton of the sixties that put paid to my poetic proclivity! Similarly, the group of ‘unfit’ young men would probably read one disappointing medical review as absolute rejection of worth. These Arjunas of the twenty-first century would soon pack up their dreams and fade into oblivion.  Do not give up, I exhorted forcefully in the vernacular. The bowed heads jerked up in surprise at my sudden interjection. ‘Unfit’ today does not make you unfit for life, I said. Ask to understand exactly why you fail the test today. Correct it, and make sure nobody finds you unfit the next time. I waggled a forefinger at them to emphasize the role of the social elder I was appropriating. The country wins if you win, I added, which brought reluctant smiles to their faces.

Engrossed in the mythological fantasy, the tendency with every bump on the road, is to quickly sideline opportunity as not fated for us. We need to respect our own efforts enough to change the dismissive social attitude that relegates to nothingness, genuine efforts on the learning path. To enable adaptability to a changing world, our stories must include personal experiences of failure to highlight the resilience we lack. As a people we now need to invest in new human stories from diversity to help us accept failure without shame. The historical tale of King Robert Bruce, for instance, who, inspired by the tenacity of the lowly spider, found the courage to fight again after six crushing defeats, to finally win his throne. The eye of the fish should be a guideline to focusing mind on task. We should not belittle ourselves by taking it as the only acceptable standard of achievement worthy of the gods.

Under the cover of lies

I heard the other day that a young man of my acquaintance fibs. He is now adult and working with a multinational concern in his campus-recruited first job. Educated at a reputed institution, he is the former frat boy who survived gruelling initiation rites to learn the ropes of organized living. The family is immigrant, which makes the achievements more impressive. Yet, He lies, says his father, matter-of-factly. I question a person's deceiving where he need not and even fabricating rationales to compound the lies - more from curiosity about the motivation behind the pastime, than from a moral high ground.

The saying is: You can fool all people some of the time, you can fool some people all the time, but you cannot fool all people all the time. But these old adages are hardly a deterrent! Lies have become an accepted form of social communication. Its practice is active across all of humanity, and knows no social barriers, age, education and gender. Although the purpose behind the action may vary in each case, do it enough times and lying becomes an end in itself.

For little children, their little untruths are a defence against a world where everybody towers over them. The motivation is fear, of being punished or deprived of rewards, mainly in physiological terms. They may give in easily to the joy of scribbling on walls or table tops, but the spirit is unwilling to take on adverse adult responses. Denial – even with the tell-tale crayon dust under the finger-nails, shows up their powerlessness. The same may be said for the poverty-stricken, the illiterate, the very elderly, and women that have no control over their lives. The lies are their survival technique before intimidating authority. The young man I mention is hardly in the same boat; he is of age, his destiny is in his own hands. Perhaps he has just not been weaned off the childish habit of fibbing.

It may also be that deception is the game he is now hooked on playing. In the age of information, new generations grow more accustomed to shades of grey than to the moralistic black and white of yesteryears. In the childhood of our time, the emphasis at home and in school is on honour, sacrifice and other virtues of righteous living – extensions of social collectivism in part, in part catechism. The story books we love to read transport us to the fantasy world of magical creatures, and each carries a lesson to learn. In school, to pass the class, we have to pass the moral science test. Right and wrong becomes clearly demarcated in the mind. Indeed, pithy proverbs pop out of long term memory at inopportune moments, to create doubt, dilemma, discomfort and the omnipresent burden of guilt. The moral science subject is now obsolete in schools, perhaps to reduce pressures on impressionable minds. The social learning at home too is in abeyance because families have shrunk, and both parents are employed. The books that fascinate the earlier generation have lost their allure. The young are left alone to role-play in the virtual reality that appears at the touch of a button. Fact is they know more about video game plots than they do about human values.

Furthermore, blatant lies have become the weapon of manipulation in today’s world. Lawyers, for instance are said to be liars by profession, scarcely concerned any more with justice. They weave webs of words to twist and turn perceptions of events, projecting as the absolute truth the perspectives of their own clients. In similar vein, the search for political power in any organization requires mastering the art of persuasion whereby a molehill may be made to assume the proportions of a mountain, and vice versa. The point is to bring down opponents wresting from them the reins of power. In corporate industry, the Madoffs, the Lehmans and the Lawsons of the world use their genius with numbers and technology with the same cynical disregard for human values to defraud their victims and even their own organizations of currency notes in the millions. They call it hustling, spinning elaborate cons to dupe the unsuspecting. There is no remorse in scamming the elderly and the financially weak out of their trust and their life savings.

Cynicism permeates the interactions of groups with other groups. There is take rather than give in this predatorial world that transposes going for the jugular from the wild into the organizational process. To use subterfuge to get close to the prey and to then move in swiftly for the kill is an act that plays out regularly in everyday life. People learn to be less disturbed by lies, which in fact interweave into their social masks. These hide their true natures or conceal their vulnerability. The motivation is again fear, but in psychological terms, because nobody wants to lose. To be the winner, the game must be played and played well. The humans tend to forget that their minds have evolved beyond that of the other animals; that they actually need to adapt to the world of other people, rather than to orders on the food chain.

The heroes the young emulate are in virtual reality, sometimes perceived as more real than real life may be. The ploy set up for immediate rewards can turn into the long term habit they wear like a second skin. They may begin to live the lie, believe in the illusion, and be caught up, unable to escape, in the traps they build for others. Like addicts, they seek the next score, the next adrenaline rush, and the next win in the games of their own making. Lies may become the compulsion that pushes people to deny their true self. Peel that cover of lies away and there might be a frightened child within, afraid to grow up, making believe his maturity. 

Risk: Relying on habit

Synopsis: Persistent ‘risk taking’ is now associated with conditions of stress and mental health problems.


Plagued by uncertainty and indecision, people tend to back risks, especially if they worked in the past.



Job stress

Many thus play ‘safe’ with risks on the job. To de-stress from its pressures, people in increasing numbers also play the odds. These facilitate their eventual preoccupation with winning, or attempting to recouping losses.

For example:

• A survey study of 43,000 Americans found that more than a quarter gambled five or more times a year – from playing cards for money, to buying lottery tickets, and betting on sports games.
• A research on the habits of office workers (Morse, January 2007) found that one in three workers gambles during work time, at least once a week and for at least 15 minutes.
  

The figures are on the rise in other parts of the world as well.

Goal change

The goal sought changes from effective decision-making action to anticipating the pleasures of a win. The attempt to call correct becomes the dependable strategy at work and in life. Failures or losses do not encourage rethinking the underlying premises, but the same strategy and its consequence repeats over and over again.

The habits of risk taking and gambling share the same neural networks in the brain. Hence one can soon lead to the other. A study reported in Forbes showed that continual risk taking could become like a narcotic, a way of coping with the pressure. The degree of anticipation grows with each successive strike, and so does the drive to win.

Rewards in the mind

Persistent ‘risk taking’ is now associated with conditions of stress and mental health problems. People afraid to lose, rely on this decisional process although it neither guarantees nor sustains success. Researchers implicate both individual attitudes and organizational culture in nurturing this type of decision-making.

The repetitive behaviour is a clear pattern of cumulative stress as the ‘rewards’ are only in the mind. Beating the odds to win is the consuming passion – the addiction. It pushes people further into stress and prolongs their fear of the unknown and future uncertainties. Even responsible managers can fall prey to the addiction to winning.

Using resources

The attempt is to control the environment with a reliance on odds. Despite prevailing circumstances, past assumptions about success with standard received wisdom, or best practices in ‘the way things have always been around here’, also remain the same. The preference for the ‘familiar’ stems from the individual and organizational desire to conserve resources.

In unknown situations, the resources needed, like critical thinking and reasoning, are far greater. New knowledge about changing environments helps develop our abilities to adapt to them. Improving adaptation facilitates our learning new ways to combat change and its challenges. We become more equipped and adept at dealing with uncertain times.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

References for ‘Risk’ blogposts:

Are You An Unhealthy Gambler?
Thinking twice [Article no: 84 on website twmacademy.com]

Work-related stress

Risk: Current to future

Synopsis: People prefer ‘risky’ situations to those they consider unknown.


Effective decision-making is hard, as clearly apparent in the global forum. Many of today’s problems result from decisional errors of the past.


Decision steps

The decision making process should logically follow certain steps:

• Defining the current problem
• Analysing the problem
• Developing alternative solutions
• Evaluating alternatives thinking future
• Selecting suitable action contextually
• Implementing the decision
• Following up on action
• Receiving feedback
  

Considering both current needs and future uncertainties helps gear decisions towards the future where their effects will be felt. But people under pressure to perform tend to focus on current outcomes, leaving the future to take care of itself. The variables overlooked generally interfere in time, with goals.

Uncertainty

The new millennium has forced environmental change that includes:

• World disasters
• The general economic climate
• Globalization
• Male/female dynamics

Uncertainty is a part of the new reality. Survey studies conducted even before the current recession showed that more than 50 percent of the companies surveyed were undergoing major changes most of the time, and two out of three people felt a constant uncertainty.

The push for twice the work in half the time, flatter organizations, downsizing and outsourcing, made lay-offs a regular happening through the 1990s. The economic recession begun in the West is now causing massive losses of investments, jobs and even homes in many parts of the world. Work related stress is on the rise – on employees who have to leave, but perhaps more, on those who remain.

Go-getting

People try to deal with the stress by taking more risks. Traditionally, risk taking has been the hallmark of the aggressive businessperson, the fearless buccaneering spirit that achieves the impossible against all odds. Americans, for example, have long been considered “a nation of risk takers” with natural go-getting talent to do anything.

But indiscriminate risk taking actually means “short-circuiting” the decisional process – gambling, in other words. Thus people become unaware of or ignore the uncertainties/challenges of the environment, and of time. The resulting over-stimulation of the reward centres of the brain leads to anticipating the pleasures of immediate success. Much of today’s economic meltdown has resulted from such aggressive overreach.

Two networks

In studies were conducted with experimental betting games, the players could choose bets on two different card decks. One, labelled ‘risky’, contained identified odds. In the other labelled ‘ambiguous’, risks were unidentified. Researchers observed that people prefer to bet on the ‘risky’ deck, and tend to avoid exploring the unknown represented by the ‘ambiguous’ .

Recordings of brain activity showed two distinctly different networks activate in the brain in situations perceived as ‘known’ and ‘unknown’. Player perceptions of the situation is important in determining which specific network is activated.

In situations perceived unknown, twenty-four brain centres are activated including intelligence and emotions. Obviously it takes time and effort to understand and identify challenges. Where risk is perceived already identified, only the reward centres in the brain comes alive with anticipation of a lucky strike.

Cont’d 2…relying on habit

Performance and personality: Reactivity - the monkey business!

Summary: [You might view earlier posts “Are we bound by type?”, “Motivated drives”, “The need to win”]. Reactivity can be dangerous if handled poorly, especially in diversity. What rules perhaps is ignorance of language and culture, a distorted need for achievement and mental ill-health.


How does personality relate to performance? In the Australia-India test cricket series 2007, inept handling of situations by match officials on the turf itself spun matters out of control. And with the charge of racism being lodged, game performance aside, the series itself was put to jeopardy.

Bias?

Do consistent winners make fewer mistakes, and are they more honest in actions than others? Not so, but because of the record status, it’s often presumed so. The manner in which they report, appeal, claim a catch or stand ground can bias rulings in their favour, and which they may well count on.

Did an Indian player racially abuse an Australian player during the 2nd cricket test match in Sydney, calling him a monkey?

The on-field umpires didn’t hear it; the Indians vehemently denied it; video footage from cameras around the ground didn’t have it on record.

But satisfied with the hearsay evidence from some of the Australian squad, the arbitrators opted to ban the Indian player for 3 matches - appeal pending, of course.

Or ignorance?

Many say both charge and ruling actually an exhibition of ignorance of language and culture.

Firstly, in Indian mythology, the monkey god is the very symbol of power and prowess. Sportsmen and soldiers invoke his name and blessings for success on any mission. Culturally, the word is hardly satisfying to vent with!

Secondly, the m-word has been used to refer to people of colour – Asians, as in the notable case of Republican George Allen. In the cricket match, what colour would the ethnic Indian be defending against the ethnic Australian?

Finally, the English language isn’t a strong point for many of team India, including the accused. Reports that say he voiced a Hindi/Punjabi expletive may well be right. “Maaki…” does sound phonetically similar!

[Update: Eventually the appeals commissioner found no evidence of racism and revoked the ban. However, since this followed an Indian threat to pullout, the Australians cried foul!]

Goes around, comes around

Many around the world suspect the ‘racism’ issue a strategic ploy to decimate the opponents’ bowling talents in ways other than with superior batting. A ban on the premier spin bowler would effectively remove that threat from the equation!

The point is what goes around, e.g. sledging, comes around. In the Australia-India cricket series as often in business competitiveness, we may have been looking at the same distorted need for achievement affecting both sides.

Sports need spectators/viewers just as businesses are concerned with customers. But if group energy is focused on other than best performances, the ‘product’ attraction and its market may soon be lost. The consumer, with choice and buying clout in hand, eventually wants value for money.

Let’s examine adaptation next…