Change the Conversation

Delighting in the possible

By Zafer Achi and Jennifer Garvey Berger In an unpredictable world, executives should stretch beyond managing the probable. It is only natural to seek certainty, especially in the face of the unknown.Long ago, shamans performed intricate dances to summon rain. It did not matter that any success they enjoyed was random, as long as the tribe felt that its water supply was in capable hands. Nowadays, late nights of number crunching, feasts of modelling, and the familiar rituals of presentations have replaced the rain dances of old. But often, the odds of generating reliable insights are not much better. Perhaps that is because our approach to the hardest problems—and the anxiety those problems create—is fundamentally misdirected. When most of us face a challenge, we typically fall back on our standard operating procedures. Call this “managing the probable.” In much of our education, and in many of our formative experiences, we have learned that some simple problems have one right answer. For more complicated problems, accepted algorithms can help us work out the best answer from among available options. We respond to uncertainty with analysis or leave that analysis to the experienced hands of others. We look for leaders who know the way forward and offer some assurance of predictability. This way of approaching situations involves a whole suite of routines grounded in a mind-set of clarity if not outright certainty. To that end, they are characterized by sharp-edged questions intended to narrow our focus:What is the expected return on this investment? What is the three-year plan for this venture? At what cost are they willing to settle? But asking these kinds of questions, very often legitimate in business-as-usual settings, may constrain management teams in atypical, complex situations, such as responding to a quickly changing market or revitalizing a privatised utility’s culture. […]

The hidden agenda of royal experts circling The Crown series 4

Giselle Bastin, Associate Professor of English, Flinders University The recent outcry from royal biographers about the accuracy and fairness of series 4 of The Crown taps into narratives that have surrounded the field of royal life writing since it emerged in the early 20th century. There has been much hand-wringing by (royal) trainspotters, biographers, journalists and even Britain’s Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and the actor who plays Princess Margaret, Helena Bonham Carter, about the accuracy of the Netflix series written and produced by Peter Morgan. Criticisms of series 4 have ranged from historical inaccuracy (the Queen being wrongly dressed for the Trooping the Colour; Princess Anne’s horsemanship) to a propensity to flesh out the narrative with half-truths and downright falsities. (For example, the suggestion that Charles and Camilla remained an item all the way through his marriage to Diana, and the idea that Prince Philip gave Diana a veiled threat about what could await her if she didn’t play by the script.) One royal biographer, Hugo Vickers, has been so incensed by The Crown’s playing hard and fast with the facts he’s sprung to action and released his own book devoted to fact-checking it. In addition to criticising the biopic’s misrepresentation of royal lives, the show’s detractors express concerns long aired about popular history — that an admiring and gullible viewing public will assume the program is factual and treat it as real history. The public, it is implied, need protection from fake news turning into fake history. Critics of The Crown profess to have the royals’ best interests at heart because the royal family is not prone — at least it wasn’t before Harry and Meghan — to going to the courts or on the public record to defend itself. The Windsors, they imply, are being subject to unethical treatment and are also in need […]

Fighting corruption and restoring trust in leadership

As we identify the paths necessary to come out of this compounded COVID-19 crisis and prepare the conditions for a much-needed Great Reset, we must also keep the focus on long-standing challenges that will affect this recovery – most notably the fight against corruption and the search for greater trust and integrity in institutions across social, economic and political systems. We have a unique window of opportunity to get recovery right and create a sustainable society if we put good governance, transparency and accountability at the heart of all efforts and realize “stakeholder capitalism” – an economy that serves the interests of all. Technology has emerged as one of the greatest allies of transparency and a critical tool against corruption.—Børge Brende and Pedro Gabriel Gomez Pensado. Having an uneven playing field impedes economic growth, contributes to social inequality and obstructs innovation, among many other negative effects. It is estimated that the annual costs of corruption at a global level amount to $3.6 trillion. About $1 trillion of that is paid in bribes every year. These amounts can dilute the impact of the approximately $10 trillion that has been pledged and is starting to be deployed as part of the recovery and stimulus packages. But this is not only a story of money. In many cases, the loss of lives can be traced to corruption. Some estimates indicate that about $500 billion of healthcare expenditure is lost to corruption every year. This has an impact on the production and procurement of medicines and medical equipment, jeopardizing their timely delivery where they are most needed. As everyone around the world places their trust and hopes in the production and distribution of a vaccine to defeat the pandemic, we need an effective approach to make sure corruption does not get in the way of an equitable distribution of vaccines. […]

There’s no vaccine for the infodemic

Fake news about COVID, its origins, treatment and prevention, has gone viral. UN has launched counter-attack, wants you to help. Storyful founder says algorithms and human editors can help turn the tide. Subscribe to the World Vs Virus podcast. What is spreading across the globe, can be passed on unwittingly from one person to countless others, is potentially deadly, yet can be stopped if everyone takes the right steps? Heard of the miracle cure for COVID that the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know about? Or that the pandemic is in fact a ‘plandemic’ – deliberately created to make someone a fortune or to subjugate the masses? Then you’ve come up against the virus of misinformation that has spread around the world as fast as the coronavirus itself. In a world where social media is increasingly where most of us get so much of our information, and where we value freedom of speech as a cornerstone of democracy, what can be done to combat dangerous misinformation? Have you read? “When COVID-19 emerged, it was clear from the outset this was not just a public health emergency, but a communications crisis as well,” says Melissa Fleming, who leads global communications for the United Nations. With a huge public demand for information about the pandemic and the rapid spread of false information, the ‘infodemic’ is putting lives at risk, so Fleming is heading a campaign to help true information surface out of the deluge of rumours and lies. She has launched ‘Verified‘ – where people can sign up for daily emails on the latest COVID news that comes from reliable sources: “science-based information” that might otherwise be buried on “page 125 of a PDF” presented “in formats that are optimised for sharing on social media.” “It is front-and-centre in your social media feeds. So […]

Kylie Moore-Gilbert:Will a prisoner swap with Australia encourage more hostage-taking by Iran?

Ian Parmeter, Australian National University. View Post Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s release from an Iranian prison after more than two years’ detention is certainly a welcome development. However, the circumstances raise some uncomfortable questions for Australian and Western diplomats related to Iran’s penchant for using hostage-taking as a bargaining chip for the release of its own citizens detained abroad for suspected or proven crimes, including terrorism. There seems little doubt Moore-Gilbert was released as part of a prisoner exchange. Iranian state media has shown pictures of the academic with Australian embassy officials in Tehran, juxtaposed with film of three Iranian men being welcomed by Iranian officials, apparently at Tehran’s airport. The Iranian media says she was exchanged for an Iranian “economic activist” and two Iranian citizens, who had been detained “abroad on trumped-up charges”. The report does not name the men. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given a carefully worded statement in response to questions about a prisoner swap. If other people have been released in other places, they are the decisions of the sovereign governments. There are no people who have been held in Australia who have been released. That may be true as far as Australia is concerned. But a report by The New York Times, quoting Iranian social media channels associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), identifies the three Iranians as Saeed Moradi, Mohammad Khazaei and Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh. The three had been detained in Thailand since 2012 on charges of planning to plant bombs in Bangkok and assassinate Israeli diplomats there. One of those men had reportedly lost his legs when a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely. In a similar context, the release last year of two Australians being held in Iran, Jolie King and Mark Firkin, coincided with an Iranian research student at the University of Queensland, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, being permitted by […]

A unique Santa Fe tradition, the 88th burning of Zozobra or Old Man Gloom took place on September 6, 2012.

‘Zozobra,’ Mexican philosophers have some advice

Francisco Gallegos, Wake Forest University. Carlos Alberto Sánchez, San José State University. Ever had the feeling that you can’t make sense of what’s happening? One moment everything seems normal, then suddenly the frame shifts to reveal a world on fire, struggling with pandemic, recession, climate change and political upheaval. That’s “zozobra,” the peculiar form of anxiety that comes from being unable to settle into a single point of view, leaving you with questions like: Is it a lovely autumn day, or an alarming moment of converging historical catastrophes? As scholars of this phenomenon, we have noted how zozobra has spread in U.S. society in recent years, and we believe the insight of Mexican philosophers can be helpful to Americans during these tumultuous times. Ever since the conquest and colonization of the valley of Mexico by Hernán Cortés, Mexicans have had to cope with wave after wave of profound social and spiritual disruption – wars, rebellions, revolution, corruption, dictatorship and now the threat of becoming a narco-state. Mexican philosophers have had more than 500 years of uncertainty to reflect on, and they have important lessons to share. Zozobra and the wobbling of the world The word “zozobra” is an ordinary Spanish term for “anxiety” but with connotations that call to mind the wobbling of a ship about to capsize. The term emerged as a key concept among Mexican intellectuals in the early 20th century to describe the sense of having no stable ground and feeling out of place in the world. This feeling of zozobra is commonly experienced by people who visit or immigrate to a foreign country: the rhythms of life, the way people interact, everything just seems “off” – unfamiliar, disorienting and vaguely alienating. According to the philosopher Emilio Uranga (1921-1988), the telltale sign of zozobra is wobbling and toggling between perspectives, being unable to relax into a single framework to make sense of things. […]

Entitled:How Male Privilege Hurts Women

Kate Manne was dubbed “the philosopher of #MeToo” for her timely and widely read analysis of misogyny, 2017’s “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.” Now, Manne tackles male entitlement in her second book, “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.” The book was released Aug. 11. Manne, an associate professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences, defines misogyny as the hostility women and girls face – the “law enforcement” branch of patriarchy, as she calls it – which serves to enforce gendered norms, even in supposedly post-patriarchal societies. In “Entitled,” she addresses the gendered norms and expectations that misogyny polices and enforces: how the resulting social dynamics constrain possibilities for people, and how boys and men unfairly benefit from this system. “While ‘Down Girl’ was a ‘crossover’ book, intended for both an academic and wider readership, ‘Entitled’ is squarely a trade book, aimed at a general readership,” said Manne. “I hope that people can get a basic grip on my views about misogyny and male entitlement by reading ‘Entitled,’ as well as some of the thoughts I’ve had since ‘Down Girl’ was published.” Under a framework of male entitlement, Manne argues, women are expected to give feminine goods (sex, care, nurturing and reproductive labor) while not taking masculine goods (power, authority and claims to knowledge). Within this system, women are deprived of entitlement to both feminine-coded and masculine-coded goods. “This results in inequalities that range from a woman not receiving adequate care for her pain, to her not being able to take up traditionally male positions of power, to her not being granted her rightful authority to speak about subjects in which she is expert,” Manne writes. In nine chapters, Manne elaborates on the many spheres in which male entitlement hurts women and girls. The entitlement to admiration that […]

The Inventor

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley depicts Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes as a bewitching sociopath. Holmes wanted to revolutionise health care by providing a simple and cheap way to perform blood tests using only a finger prick. In 2003, she founded Theranos, with a vision of the company’s machines in every home in America. But, as the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou revealed in 2015, Holmes created an intricate web of deception. Even as machines found their way into chemists and were being used by medical insurance companies, they never actually worked. Holmes put patients’ lives at risk and cost investors millions of dollars. The documentary is compelling viewing, but as it enters a very slim field of movies about female entrepreneurs it is worth questioning the impact of the stories we choose to tell. Fall from grace The journey Holmes took from young idol to spectacular failure is a story about systemic issues and the sometimes toxic culture of the world of start-ups. Prior to the scandal breaking, Holmes was celebrated in the media. She was portrayed as a Stanford University dropout with a vision for changing the world. She raised hundreds of millions of dollars from powerful men in a start-up landscape known for its discriminating funding practices.https://www.youtube.com/embed/wtDaP18OGfw?wmode=transparent&start=0 She made the cover of Forbes magazine in 2014 as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Holmes represented a heady mix of tech, science and business. She was the golden girl of the start-up world. This made her fall from grace even more spectacular. But compare Holmes’ portrayal with another well known example of a deceitful male entrepreneur: Jordan Belfort, the “wolf of Wall Street”. Belfort ran an elaborate crime scheme linked to manipulating the stock market and was jailed for 22 months for securities fraud. Nonetheless, his autobiography and Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film adaptation depict Belfort’s story […]

Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting

by Marian L Tupy and Ronald Bailey Think the world is getting worse? You’re wrong: the world is, for the most part, not getting worse. But 58 percent of people in 17 countries that were surveyed in 2016 thought the world is either getting worse or staying the same rather than getting better. Americans were even more glum: 65 percent thought the world is getting worse and only 6 percent thought it was getting better. The uncontroversial data on major global trends in this book will persuade you that this dark view of the prospects for humanity and the natural world is, in large part, badly mistaken. World population will peak at 8 to 9 billion before the end of this century as the global fertility rate continues its fall from 6 children per woman in 1960 to the current rate of 2.4. The global absolute poverty rate has fallen from 42 percent in 1981 to 8.6 percent today. Satellite data show that forest area has been expanding since 1982. Natural resources are becoming ever cheaper and more abundant. Since 1900, the average life expectancy has more than doubled, reaching more than 72 years. Of course, major concerns such as climate change, marine plastic pollution, and declining wildlife populations are still with us, but many of these problems are already in the process of being ameliorated as a result of the favorable economic, social, and technological trends that are documented in this book. You can’t fix what is wrong in the world if you don’t know what’s actually happening. Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know is easily to understand providing entertaining access to surprising facts to know how the world is really faring.

Germany set to trial Universal Basic Income scheme

Starting this week, 120 Germans will receive a form of universal basic income every month for three years. The volunteers will get monthly payments of €1,200, or about $1,400, as part of a study testing a universal basic income. The study will compare the experiences of the 120 volunteers with 1,380 people who do not receive the payments. Supporters say it would reduce inequality and improve well-being, while opponents argue it would be too expensive and discourage work. Germany is about to become the latest country to trial a universal basic income, starting a three-year study of how it affects the economy and recipients’ well-being. As part of the study, 120 people will receive €1,200, or about $1,430, each month for three years — an amount just above Germany’s poverty line — and researchers will compare their experiences with another group of 1,380 people who will not receive the payments. The study, conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research, has been funded by 140,000 private donations. All participants will be asked to complete questionnaires about their lives, work, and emotional state to see whether a basic income has had a significant impact. Universal basic income is the idea that a government should pay a lump sum of money to each of its citizens, usually once a month, regardless of their income or employment status, effectively replacing means-tested benefits. Its proponents argue that it would reduce inequality and improve well-being by providing people more financial security. Its opponents say it would be too expensive and discourage people from going to work. The idea has gained traction in recent years amid financial crises and growing inequality in some Western countries. Jürgen Schupp, who is leading the study, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that it would improve the debate about universal basic income […]

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