ZEN TODAY

No more waiting for the man who finds himself here.

TURKEYS MIGHT FLY

My son is studying psychology. (Note to self: I'd better watch out or he'll be able to find out what a shit I really am).
He has just come across the famous Milgram experiment. It's a (dare I say it) shocking insight into human responses to authority.
Here's the original video

 

I remember being shown this film when I first became a young brand manager at Unilever, a position demanding influence without authority. It made a real mark on my consciousness. The experiment has, I understand, been repeated a number of times since the original. Somewhere around two thirds of people comply with the authority figure, even into the dangerous range of electrical shocks. What would you do? What would I do?

I remember also repeating for myself the experiment in my own fashion. I had gone to Coventry, and was in a supermarket with a friend of mine. I can't really say why, but I found a relatively innocuous item we needed, say a bag of pasta, and said "here, catch this..." and threw it to her. She caught it. I moved on to butter. The same. Then something like, say, a pot of yoghurt. Also, with growing concern, caught. Finally, I threw a frozen turkey. A big one. Wide eyed with horror, she caught that too. The idea, I guess, of a frozen turkey going slithering down the supermarket aisle was too much to handle.

Sometime later, my friend thought she'd get her own back. "Here," she called, in another town, another supermarket. A frozen chicken arced gracefully towards me. I did not disappoint. I jinxed slightly to one side, and the chicken flew past my ear, landed on the shiny floor, and slithered beneath the wheels of an elderly lady's shopping trolley.

These days, you'd have to do that experiment in a high viz bib.

But I still maintain that the turkey test is as good as any other as a test of character.

Before you run away with the idea, though, that I'd be immune from authority figure compliance, I also recall going to Dachau concentration camp a few years ago. Strangely, although I had great sympathy for the people who had suffered there, the people I found I could most identify with were the fresh faced young German soldiers and their Officers. I had the clear realization, that, given a different time, a different regime, a different media, a different sense of what was supposed to be right and wrong, that could have been me.



A TIME TO LEARN

If you were designing schools for twenty first century Britain you wouldn't start here.

With working parents trying to juggle child care with a working week, you wouldn't design schools to start at nine, the very time for which parents are struggling to get to work. And you wouldn't design them to finish at three thirty or four - a time which also impinges on the working day. Additionally, you wouldn't then compound the error of a shortened school day by setting homework and initiating for many a lifelong blurring of work and leisure time.

And you wouldn't design them with seven or so weeks holiday in the summer. Nor with set time holidays at other times in the year which create scheduling and cost problems for everyone.

No, you'd design them to fit with the needs of modern Britain. Everyone knows that other educational systems, especially in the developing world, have this timekeeping aspect much more right than we do, and that their kids are working longer, learning more, ready to claim their competitive place in the new world economy.

Whilst we are complacently bungling along in a nineteenth century model, simply because we daren't face the challenging labour relations issues of changing it.

TOPICAL

It's strange that blunt and sharp are often the same thing.

BRAND MANAGERS IN NAPPIES

Families are marketplaces. The commodities being traded are love, and attention. I hear parents say, "I can't understand it. I've brought my Jimmy and my Johnny up exactly the same and yet they've turned out the exact opposites of each other." But Jimmy and Johnny have not been brought up exactly the same. Jimmy was there first. His infant world was him and parents. Johnny on the other hand entered a world of him, parents, and Jimmy. Where was the place for him?
I believe infants are prematurely clever at spotting the ways of gaining what they need most - love affection, attention, nurture. Like any marketeer, they realise that differentiation in a market is key. Jimmy is busy establishing his market positioning as good, so I'll be.........bad. Jimmy is noisy, so I'll be...... quiet. Jimmy is boisterous and physical, so I'll be...... sensitive and intellectual. I believe kids manage their brands in this way, with many interesting consequences.
The most obvious is difference between siblings, often mirror images in the same family. A second is the inevitability of sibling rivalry, even if this can be managed in such a way that all out war is not a regular feature of family life. Less obvious, but still pronounced, is the tendency for oldest or single children to have qualities which coalesce around "good", "dutiful", "achieving", "hard working", "agreeable". One can understand this as a likely consequence of the market conditions. Free of competition, the only people to please are the parents, whereas later siblings face internal competition in the nest. I encounter a lot of second children who have formed personas around "difficult", "rebellious", "naughty", "bad".
Awareness of these ideas generally comes as a surprise. But awareness of such patterns, and their formation seems critical to me in establishing choice as an adult. We are all concoctions of our conditioning, but not inevitably. If a panel of family psychologists were to read what I've just written, I have little doubt that it would be seen as an over simplification. But thinking out my familial marketing strategies, their relevance to my family life, and their possible relevance and efficacy (or not) in my adult life has been a treasure trove of awareness for me, and for many others whom I have had the privilege of accompanying on their particular journey.

ADVICE TO A GOLFER.

Ignore the score.

Go deaf.

"But one can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.

NOT ATTACHED ANYMORE

My friends were talking about spirituality. They had a book of spiritual exercises and tests and were congratulating themselves on how well they scored. Especially on attachment. They had learnt not to be attached.
When I reached over and tore a page out of their book, what do you think happened?

PRIMACY

Silence............

Question?

Opinion!

A PRIMITIVE COUNTRY

We have family connections in Sudan. A visit there is imminent. Out of interest I was looking at some statistics about the country.
Their infant mortality rate is 68 per thousand births. That is, approaching 7% in old money.
The UK Caesarian section rate is 23% nationally and as high as 30% in some hospitals.
Does not compute.

WE HAVE BEEN WORTHY OF THE OLYMPICS, BUT HAVE THE OLYMPICS BEEN WORTHY OF US?

The Olympics have been a remarkable achievement on many fronts. Team GB has had a gold fest, resulting in a world sporting standing for Britain which is astonishing. The organization and vision of the games has been, quite frankly, amazing. Its ceremonies have been splendid, uplifting, and a superb advertisement for Britain worldwide. It has lit our interest and excitement and provided many iconic, moving and wonderful sporting moments. More than that, it must surely have a lasting effect in kindling sports enthusiasm and funding up and down the land. And then there are less measurable but nonetheless tangible effects. It has communicated to everyone in Britain a fantastically positive message in support of our diverse racial and cultural community, bringing us together with pride and excitement in the achievements of athletes from widely differing backgrounds. Grand dreams have been played out in grand spectacle, and we have communally overcome our traditional British reserve to show how we feel about it, both on the podium, and up and down the country when yelling at the telly from the sofa. We have cheered home our boys and girls, sometimes lifting them to even further greatness. And our British love of a tryer meant we cheered as loudly for the last man in the marathon, as for the first. And not only is there the implied message that we can achieve grand dreams on the field of play, but the sheer enormity of the Olympics vision and  organization has underlined that we are a country that can pull off with enormous panache even the grandest of organizational challenges. All of that ought, and can, be inspiring to any of us who desires to achieve anything.
It would be mealy mouthed to dwell on small failures - the ticketing failures and the failures of G4S, when so much else has gone so spectacularly well. Indeed, in the latter case, that failure has furnished us with yet another reason to be thankful for our great armed services, and has added some millions back into good causes from a chagrined commercial organization.
We have been worthy of the Olympics.
But have the Olympics been worthy of us?
The Olympic movement has a long way to go to modernize. It is incomprehensible to me why the paralympics are separated from the main games and not fully integrated. The logic underlying which games are selected for inclusion and which are not seems an arcane mystery. I have nothing against syncrhronised swimming. But its inclusion, when golf, cricket, baseball, snooker, karate, cross country, the half marathon, motor sport, darts, aerial sports of all kinds, not to mention a host of others, are excluded, baffles me. Likewise, the Olympic stance on amateur versus professional, which seems to be completely different for different sports (football a good example), leaves me puzzled. Also, the IOC and its rituals could do with an image overhaul. Why are men in grey who we've never heard of presenting the medals? Why are they old? Why are they men? And why the flowers? Why are the ceremonies announced in French? Why are Olympic officials literally treated as royalty? These things are unaccountable gaps between the Olympic movement and current world perceptions and realities as spectacularly displayed by London 2012.
When the London 2012 logo was first released, I must admit I thought it was a mishmash saying nothing. Now, in the fullness of a games that have been diverse, inclusive, exciting, vibrant and absolutely contemporary, and have said the same about London and Britain, I must admit, I was wrong.
Its been wonderful. Now lets hope the Olympic movement catches up.