APRES MOI PLUS CA CHANGE

Wherever I go people tell me that times are terrible, unprecedented and that le deluge is on the horizon. And they tell about a whole load of extraordinary conspiracy theories.

That The Duke of Edinburgh had Diana killed, that the Malaysian Airline was brought down by the CIA, that the Ebola epidemic is the result of a Chinese biological warfare experiment gone wrong, that Nigel Farage is being funded by Qatar, that President Bush arranged the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, that there was corruption in the Scottish Independence Referendum and the result should have been a “yes” win and that yes indeed the moon is made of cheese.

Nothing is normal in many people’s minds because normal is a bit boring. The human brain is ingenious and complex and loves making up stories. There’s a theory known as Occam’s Razor which states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. In other words the least convoluted simple story is probably right; accident, hard luck or human error - that kind of thing.

The reason we are such a melodramatic bunch is that it feeds our fascination with the macabre. Our brain’s default mode is in fact wandering about not being a forensic Sherlock Holmes’ organ of investigation, problem solving and decision making. We are hardwired to like storytelling and surprises.

Yet the prosaic truth is we have despite the shocks along the way managed to create a well-ordered world where most systems work pretty well with occasional misfiring like an unnecessary war or a deposition of a dictator (hurray!) but with unforeseen consequence (ahh!)

What we find it harder to do is learn from experience and  accept that ordinary can be OK .

How to solve problems and make brilliant decisions. (Business Thinking Skills that really work) published by Pearson is coming out on November 7th 2014

YA BOO SUCKS

I came back from what turned out to be a slightly longer summer break than I’d intended feeling genial. Genial is an old fashioned sort of pork pie, pint and pickles word – genial is not about being pleased with oneself but it’s having that feeling  of viewing  life in a calm, tolerant and good-natured way.

Even the news about the economy was better and the long term forecasters, genially in praise of population growth, suggest that going as things are we’ll be the no. 2 economy in Europe soon and even possibly overtake Germany by the middle of the century.

So what’s not to smile about?

Quite a lot apparently if you are a member of the far right anti-Europe Tory brigade, the Tea Party in America or the Golden Dawn in Greece (notice how I’ve willy-nilly thrown together these unhappy bed fellows into the grumpy sleeping bag.)

This right wing crowd are characterised by extreme bad manners, a refusal to play by the rules and a strong sense of self-righteousness. Most of all they won’t take no or even yes for an answer – they all have to have the last word. So you might say they are behaving in quite a childish way.

This makes me speculate that Mr Cool - Barack Obama – who is calmly saying “no” at present, probably wishes he lived in Greece because what he’d do then is lock the Tea Party up, ban them and pretend they didn’t exist.

Is he lacking in leadership? Well he isn’t a Thatcher or a Churchill or a George Bush for sure. But all of them were actually pretty unpopular from time to time in their day.

It’s been argued that the absence of leadership – so widely lamented – is partly due to a failure of “followship”. We, the electorate, have become unherdable cats or horses (if you prefer) who, when it comes the crunch, won’t drink.

And modern media adds to the trouble because wrong and right both demand and get equal billing, so it’s really difficult to keep focused on principle and stay calmly on the track you promised.

Especially as Armageddon beckons.

And finally Luke Johnson – who created Pizza Express and writes insightfully on management has lambasted the far from genial Lord Sugar and the crowd on Dragon’s Den. Their behaviour is inhibiting a new generation of entrepreneurs because witnessing the witless and greedy being torn to shreds by the cruel and rude is not what they want from their lives.

It seems to me a bit of geniality all round might not go amiss. I’m not going to align with the band War’s song “why can’t we be friends?” but it really seems endless playground confrontation is becoming  tiresome and unproductive.

So there.

www.colourfulthinkers.com

NEW AMERICA

2009 is the Barack story. For the first time for ages we have a world leader. And what would be interesting would be if he, Putin, Wen Jiabao, Luiz da Silva, Pratibha Patil and Ban Ki-Moon get it together.

He seems to have that crisis smile and a “don’t worry – we can sort it” attitude.

If America is happy then so are we all (remember the USA is where this started) –place hope in Obama and keep on encouraging the Americans otherwise we get Mrs. Palin next time.

Tomorrow - 'The Arts Have it"

http://www.richardhall.biz/

BARAK OBAMA SWEEPS TO POWER

A few observations. To have lost, given the unpopularity of George W, would have been really pretty extraordinary but the Democrats have hisrorically been noted for screwing up so I suppose anything was possible.

They won because they ran a truly brilliant marketing campaign.

1. They got a little money from a lot of people creating a huge donor base.
2. They did this through a brilliant digital campaign.
3. They outspent their competitor very heavily
4. They mobilised a huge army of active supporters – swamping McCain’s efforts
5. And they got the vote out
6. They had strategic certainty that their strategy was “change” and they didn’t change that
7. They didn’t panic when the Palin effect happened – the waited for it to backfire
8. They kept their man orating in his inimitable way and were true to the brand
9. They converted some key opponents like Republican Colin Powell
10. They were a remorseless machine very well led.

Admire classic marketing – you seldom see it as good as this.

http://www.richardhall.biz