From Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic radicals (1971):
"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default."
The Summer '09 health care debate in the USA has the blue collar and hard hats prevailing over the liberal elites. Had the Democratic senators studied Saul Alinsky as their leader B. Hussein Obama has, they would accept that their defeat is because they failed to communicate with the middle class. The party-of-the-jackass's tendency to talk down to, rather than seek buy-in from, the middle class ensures the movement to the right that pollsters are noticing in the States. This same rightward shift was predicted from the quote above.
In the world of salesmanship, prospects are buttered up. Their fears are validated, not necessarily agreed to, and empathy is shown. Then the salesman demonstrates how his goods or services match the needs of the potential customer. Saul Alinsky thought like a salesman. Congress didn't. That's why the ignorant middle class is moving to the right.
Health care reform is being killed by the condescension of liberalism, not by the ignorance of the mainstream. It is a sublime case of bad salesmanship.
When will those on the left stop letting liberals run the show?
2009-08-20
2009-03-09
Disrupting the Hierarchy
From Peter and Hull's The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (1969):
"Employees in the two extreme classes--the super-competent and the super-incompetent--are alike subject to dismissal. They are usually fired soon after being hired, for the same reason: that they tend to disrupt the hierarchy. This sloughing off of extremes is called Hierarchal Exfoliation."
When I first started working, in my teens, my father explained the Peter Principle to me during many informal chats. Now that he's long gone, I realize the importance of his message: Don't ever let your boss know you're smarter than them.
In practice, the way the best of us are exfoliated is to creatively conflate our super-competence into a super-incompetence, for the HR department's legal files. So, if you really like your job, feign stupidity and stay under the radar.
Otherwise, you too will be exfoliated.
"Employees in the two extreme classes--the super-competent and the super-incompetent--are alike subject to dismissal. They are usually fired soon after being hired, for the same reason: that they tend to disrupt the hierarchy. This sloughing off of extremes is called Hierarchal Exfoliation."
When I first started working, in my teens, my father explained the Peter Principle to me during many informal chats. Now that he's long gone, I realize the importance of his message: Don't ever let your boss know you're smarter than them.
In practice, the way the best of us are exfoliated is to creatively conflate our super-competence into a super-incompetence, for the HR department's legal files. So, if you really like your job, feign stupidity and stay under the radar.
Otherwise, you too will be exfoliated.
Hacking the MBTI Inventory
From Isabel Briggs Myers's Introduction to Type, Sixth Edition: A Guide to Understanding Your Results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1998):
"Taking the MBTI inventory and receiving feedback will help you identify your unique gifts. . .understanding your MBTI type is self-affirming and encourages cooperation with others."
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a psychometric test used by corporate astrologers to categorize their employees. Despite its pretext of validating all personality types in an organization, in the actual workplace you will be invalidated frequently by performance reviews, scorecards, metrics, and other corporate tools of conformity.
If you must take this intrusive anal probe called the MBTI, make sure all your answers make you an IFSJ; you will stay under the radar and outlast the rest of us, including the ISTP that brought you this advice.
"Taking the MBTI inventory and receiving feedback will help you identify your unique gifts. . .understanding your MBTI type is self-affirming and encourages cooperation with others."
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a psychometric test used by corporate astrologers to categorize their employees. Despite its pretext of validating all personality types in an organization, in the actual workplace you will be invalidated frequently by performance reviews, scorecards, metrics, and other corporate tools of conformity.
If you must take this intrusive anal probe called the MBTI, make sure all your answers make you an IFSJ; you will stay under the radar and outlast the rest of us, including the ISTP that brought you this advice.
2009-03-08
2x2 Matrices
From Chetan Bhagat's One Night @ the Call Center (2005):
"'Maybe I can explain this to you with the help of a 2x2 matrix,' Bakshi said and bent down to write 'High' and 'Low' along the boxes. I had to stop him."
The dirty little secret for all you potential intermulticultural hucksters out there is to simply articulate your scheme into a 2x2 matrix that is easily penetrable into the managerial brain. It's that easy.
"'Maybe I can explain this to you with the help of a 2x2 matrix,' Bakshi said and bent down to write 'High' and 'Low' along the boxes. I had to stop him."
The dirty little secret for all you potential intermulticultural hucksters out there is to simply articulate your scheme into a 2x2 matrix that is easily penetrable into the managerial brain. It's that easy.
The Cultural Perversity Agenda
From M.R. Hammer's The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI): An Approach for Assessing and Building Intercultural Competence, in M.A. Moodian (Ed.), Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Understanding and Utilizing Cultural Diversity to Build Successful Organizations (in press) :
"Individuals at the Acceptance level are typically curious and interested in cultural differences and committed to the cultural diversity agenda."
An infamous charlatan on the intercultural scene, who uncannily bears a resemblance to Dr. Monroe on The Simpsons, makes much talk about aligning the global workforce to the "cultural diversity agenda". The presence of a definite article directly implies that we should all understand what this agenda is, and indirectly implies that we should accept it as a good thing. He's even got 2x2 matrices to hammer these implications in, no pun intended.
Now, before we take the sage's regimen of psychometric tests and debriefing sessions, and weaken our resolve until we no longer question, let's take time to ask:
What exactly is this cultural diversity agenda, anyway?
"Individuals at the Acceptance level are typically curious and interested in cultural differences and committed to the cultural diversity agenda."
An infamous charlatan on the intercultural scene, who uncannily bears a resemblance to Dr. Monroe on The Simpsons, makes much talk about aligning the global workforce to the "cultural diversity agenda". The presence of a definite article directly implies that we should all understand what this agenda is, and indirectly implies that we should accept it as a good thing. He's even got 2x2 matrices to hammer these implications in, no pun intended.
Now, before we take the sage's regimen of psychometric tests and debriefing sessions, and weaken our resolve until we no longer question, let's take time to ask:
What exactly is this cultural diversity agenda, anyway?
English is Everywhere
My published response to "English Will Fragment Into 'Global Dialects'", by Laura Clout,The Telegraph, March 7, 2008:
English has never been standardized, even though a quasi-attempt has been made with Received Pronunciation. However, RP is simply an aural standard practice by an elite segment of the population and doesn't apply to grammar or spelling.
Clout's article makes a jump-cut of sorts, from British English to it's implications for American English as a global standard:
"In future, users of global Standard English might replace the British English: 'I think it's going to rain', with the Indian English: 'I am thinking it's going to rain', Prof Crystal argues.
This could spell the end of the dominance of American English as the prevailing language of international affairs."
How does she or Dr. Crystal make this projection? This is irresponsible journalism.
As a TESOL educator with extensive travel experience, I can attest that most curricula in EFL classrooms is published in the UK, and foreign administrators still ignorantly associate the word "English" with "England".
American English, while more traditional, is frowned upon. Eyebrows raise when I teach articulation of final r's, aspiration in wh- words, and retention of the flat a sound in words like "can't".
American English was brought to the states a few hundred years ago. Our distinct dialect is a reflection of the old language. British English has modernized. Both have simplified over the years, note the changes above and the Great Vowel Shift in the United States. Both are valid and understandable, yet neither are the global standard.
It's important to recognize the existence of differing World Englishes, however the examples provided are not exactly that. True, the Indian proclivity for present continuous tense with state verbs is a marked dialect of English. Singlish, Taglish, Chinglish,Spanglish, and so forth are not varieties of English, but evidence of linguistic code-switching and code-mixing among diverse cultures. I'm sure Dr. Crystal knows this, but the interviewer didn't ask for clarification. That's the irresponsible part.
Laura Clout has written about an interesting topic, but has failed to do her homework. The diversity of English dialects is old news, and the notion of a "Standard English" is an imperial myth.
English is everywhere, and noone owns it. That should be the main point.
My yankee two cents.
English has never been standardized, even though a quasi-attempt has been made with Received Pronunciation. However, RP is simply an aural standard practice by an elite segment of the population and doesn't apply to grammar or spelling.
Clout's article makes a jump-cut of sorts, from British English to it's implications for American English as a global standard:
"In future, users of global Standard English might replace the British English: 'I think it's going to rain', with the Indian English: 'I am thinking it's going to rain', Prof Crystal argues.
This could spell the end of the dominance of American English as the prevailing language of international affairs."
How does she or Dr. Crystal make this projection? This is irresponsible journalism.
As a TESOL educator with extensive travel experience, I can attest that most curricula in EFL classrooms is published in the UK, and foreign administrators still ignorantly associate the word "English" with "England".
American English, while more traditional, is frowned upon. Eyebrows raise when I teach articulation of final r's, aspiration in wh- words, and retention of the flat a sound in words like "can't".
American English was brought to the states a few hundred years ago. Our distinct dialect is a reflection of the old language. British English has modernized. Both have simplified over the years, note the changes above and the Great Vowel Shift in the United States. Both are valid and understandable, yet neither are the global standard.
It's important to recognize the existence of differing World Englishes, however the examples provided are not exactly that. True, the Indian proclivity for present continuous tense with state verbs is a marked dialect of English. Singlish, Taglish, Chinglish,Spanglish, and so forth are not varieties of English, but evidence of linguistic code-switching and code-mixing among diverse cultures. I'm sure Dr. Crystal knows this, but the interviewer didn't ask for clarification. That's the irresponsible part.
Laura Clout has written about an interesting topic, but has failed to do her homework. The diversity of English dialects is old news, and the notion of a "Standard English" is an imperial myth.
English is everywhere, and noone owns it. That should be the main point.
My yankee two cents.
Intercultural Weasel Advice
From Scott Adams's Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (2002):
"Weasels are always eager to give unsolicited advice on topics as diverse as romance, work, and advanced satellite telemetry. But it's not because weasels like to help. It's because when you give advice, it makes you feel wise even if you have no idea what you're talking about."
An upstart intercultural consultant at one of the world's largest software companies recently told me that when we say to someone:
"You're lying!"
the judgment is too personalized because it interprets the action of the addressee. So, if we truly want to resolve conflict, it is a better practice to focus on our own actions, perhaps by saying:
"I think that you're lying."
I tried that with my wife, who's from a much different culture than mine, that same night. Wrong move!
After three nights sleeping on the couch, I learned a valuable lesson: Beware of intercultural weasel advice.
"Weasels are always eager to give unsolicited advice on topics as diverse as romance, work, and advanced satellite telemetry. But it's not because weasels like to help. It's because when you give advice, it makes you feel wise even if you have no idea what you're talking about."
An upstart intercultural consultant at one of the world's largest software companies recently told me that when we say to someone:
"You're lying!"
the judgment is too personalized because it interprets the action of the addressee. So, if we truly want to resolve conflict, it is a better practice to focus on our own actions, perhaps by saying:
"I think that you're lying."
I tried that with my wife, who's from a much different culture than mine, that same night. Wrong move!
After three nights sleeping on the couch, I learned a valuable lesson: Beware of intercultural weasel advice.
D.I.E., D.I.E, D.I.E!!!
From M.R. Hammer's Solving Problems and Resolving Conflicts Across the Cultural Divide: The Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) Inventory Workshop (2007):
"Reframing is initiated through conscious application of the D.I.E. . . .move parties down the D.I.E. ladder from evaluation to description."
One of the intercultural conflict resolution methodologies passed down to communication coaches at one of the world's largest software companies is memorized by a spooky acronym, D.I.E.:
Now, read the quote above and think about the framer of this acronym; his recommendation is actually to evaluate, then interpret, then describe the actions of those who you are in conflict with. In other words, the actual sequence is E.I.D., yet the catchy acronym D.I.E. is used to market this particular intercultural conflict resolution strategy.
Personally, I think we'd be a lot better off if our opponents would DIE; it would save us thousands of dollars in fees to intercultural charlatans like Dr. Hammer.
"Reframing is initiated through conscious application of the D.I.E. . . .move parties down the D.I.E. ladder from evaluation to description."
One of the intercultural conflict resolution methodologies passed down to communication coaches at one of the world's largest software companies is memorized by a spooky acronym, D.I.E.:
- Describe
- Interpret
- Evaluate
Now, read the quote above and think about the framer of this acronym; his recommendation is actually to evaluate, then interpret, then describe the actions of those who you are in conflict with. In other words, the actual sequence is E.I.D., yet the catchy acronym D.I.E. is used to market this particular intercultural conflict resolution strategy.
Personally, I think we'd be a lot better off if our opponents would DIE; it would save us thousands of dollars in fees to intercultural charlatans like Dr. Hammer.
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