Letters Remain

  • Deconstructing Managers

    Today and tomorrow I’ll be posting a few links I’ve saved on managing: on being a manager, dealing with managers, and how to be a better one.

    To begin, a six-part series from Rands in Repose—Deconstructing Managers.

    There Is Evil, Your Manager’s Job

    I trust that, like me, you’re an optimist and you believe that everyone in your company is busily working on whatever they do. I also believe the fact that you don’t understand what they do automatically biases you. You believe that because you understand your job intimately, it is more important than anyone else’s.

    In your head, you are king. It’s clear what you do; it’s clear what is expected of you. There is no person who rules you better than yourself because you know exactly what you’re about. Anyone outside of your head is a mystery because they are not you.

    Give Him Something to Say, Where Does Your Manager Come From?

    Your manager is your face to the rest of the organization. Right this second, someone you don’t know is saying something great about you because you took five minutes to pitch your boss on your work. Your manager did that. You gave him something to say.

    Transforming Glaring Deficiencies, How Are They Compensating For Their Blind Spots?

    Each manager, good or bad, is going to have a glaring deficiency. […] The question is, does he recognize they have a blind spot? […]

    A manager’s job is to take what skills they have, the ones that got them promoted, and figure out how to make them scale. They do this by building a team that accentuates their strengths and, more importantly, reinforces where they are weak.

    How Much Action Per Decision?, How Does Your Manager Talk To You?

    Yes, you want to figure out how not be a bottleneck in your organization and, yes, you want to figure out how to scale, but you also want to continue to get your hands dirty. […]

    Pure delegators are slowly becoming irrelevant to their organization. The folks who work for pure delegators don’t rely on him for their work because they know they can’t depend on him for action.

    Incessantly Demonstrating Your Hunger

    The organization’s view of your manager is their view of you.

    They Might Be Evil, What Happens When They Lose Their Shit?

    Your manager is not a manager until they’ve participated in a layoff. […] He hasn’t truly represented the company until he actively participates in the constructive deconstruction of an organization. There is no more pure a panic than a layoff and you want to see who your manager will become because it’s often the first time he sees the organization is bigger than the people.

    The above quotes are relevant to many more areas of life than managers and managing a workplace.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Preventing and Rethinking Black Swans

    On my recent travels to eastern Australia I was lucky enough to see a black swan. This got me thinking of the other type of black swan—specifically, two items I’ve read in the recent past:

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world (via Kottke, pdf):

    1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small.
    2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
    3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
    4. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
    5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
    6. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
    7. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
    8. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is [denial]. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
    9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised.
    10. This crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs. […] We need to rebuild […] with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the “Nobel” in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.

    and Dr. Doug McGruff stating that (previously) “many Black Swans only appear unpredictable because of a blindness that can be removed when viewed from a different perspective”.

    I believe that this quote epitomises the crux of the Black Swan theory. Of the three criteria for identifying a Black Swan event, the parenthisised part of the first is surely the most important:

    1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
    2. The event has a major impact.
    3. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected.
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    Lloyd Morgan

  • CCTV Prevalence in Britain

    For many years the British public has often been told that the United Kingdom has 4.2 million CCTV cameras—that’s one for every fourteen residents—as widely quoted by politicians, various media, and even the police.

    This statistic is rarely questioned, but thanks to a recent episode of the excellent More or Less (UK-only?) suggesting that this statistic was, at best, dubious, I decided to do some reading.

    I didn’t have to read much.

    The statistic comes from a 2002 report from the URBANEYE project, looking at the prevalence of video surveillance in London (pdf). From the Conclusion:

    In our Putney sample, 41% of premises had CCTV systems in operation. These institutions had an average of 4.1 surveillance cameras. If we use these figures to extrapolate the extent of CCTV coverage in London and the country as a whole we come up with the following results. If we begin by assuming that the extent of CCTV coverage in Putney is broadly representative of CCTV coverage across the whole of London, we could estimate that 41% (102,910) of the 251,000 business registered for VAT in London would have a CCTV system. Between them these businesses will have 421,931 surveillance cameras. If we add to these the number of surveillance cameras operating in other public institutions (open-street systems, transport, hospital, schools etc.) it would not be unreasonable to ‘guesstimate’ that Londoners are monitored by at least 500,000 CCTV cameras. This means that in London (with a population of 7.2 million residents) there is approximately one camera for every fourteen people. From these figures we would suggest that in the UK (with a population of almost 60 million) there are at least 4,285,000 cameras in the UK.

    The Putney sample was a paltry 211 premises. And Putney, as one of the 35 major areas in Greater London, is hardly representative of the UK as a whole. Even the CCTV User Group says the results are “extremely questionable”.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Twleve Tips for Staying Alive

    Dr. Doug McGuff is an emergency physician in South Carolina. From this perspective, he has compiled a list of twelve tips on avoiding what he calls ‘negative Black Swan events’—an early death from things we consider unlikely (but are all-too-common to emergency physicians).

    1. Drive the biggest vehicle you can afford to drive.
    2. Never get on a 4-wheeler ATV [quad bike].
    3. Do not road cycle or jog on public roads/roadsides.
    4. Do not fly a plane or helicopter unless you are a full-time professional pilot.
    5. If you are walking down a sidewalk and are approaching a group of loud and apparently intoxicated males, cross to the other side of the street immediately. If confronted, run.
    6. If your gas grill won’t start… walk away.
    7. Never dive into a pool or body of water (except in a pool diving area marked 9 feet or deeper after you have checked it out feet-first).
    8. Never get on a ladder to clean your gutters, or on your roof to hang Christmas lights. Do not cut down trees with a chainsaw.
    9. If you are retirement age and plan on moving to a new home… think twice.
    10. If anyone tries to force you into your car or car trunk at gun point, don’t cooperate.
    11. If you are in any personal or professional relationship that exhausts you or otherwise causes you recurrent distress, then end the relationship immediately.
    12. Don’t play the lottery… you might win.

    From tip number 8:

    In general, any house or lawn work that you can hire for an amount equal to or less than your own hourly wage is money well spent.

    I use this advice for everything. For most of us money is more abundant than time—if a job will take an hour for me to complete but the hiring of a professional to do this (in 10 minutes) will cost me less than or equal to my hourly wage, outsource.

    On playing the lottery (number 12): it’s not just winning that you have to worry about—it’s the taking part, too. From Leonard Mlodinow’s The Drunkard’s Walk (an excellent read and a deserved finalist for this year’s Royal Society Prize for Science Books):

    Suppose the state of California made its citizens the following offer: Of all those who pay the dollar or two to enter, most people will receive nothing, one person will receive a fortune, and one person will be put to death in a violent manner. Would anyone enrol in that game? People do, with enthusiasm. It is called the state lottery. And although the state does not advertise it in the manner in which I have described it, that is the way it works in practice. For while one lucky person wins the grand prize in each game, many millions of other contestants drive to and from their local ticket vendors to purchase their tickets, and some die in accidents along the way. Applying statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and depending on such assumptions as how far each individual drives, how many tickets he or she buys, and how many people are involved in a typical accident, you find that a reasonable estimate of those fatalities is about one death per game.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Deadweight Loss of Gift Vouchers

    Of the $92 billion spent on gift vouchers in the U.S. last year, $6 billion was lost to fees and unused cards. In response to this, the U.S. Credit Card Act now bans fees on vouchers that have been dormant for less than 12 months and expiration dates of less than five years from the date of purchase.

    The problem is, according to research on how we use vouchers, this is the opposite of what’s needed to prevent an increase in the deadweight loss of gift vouchers.

    Ryan Sager explains:

    While these are intended as pro-consumer reforms, they’re based on a misunderstanding of the real problem with gift cards: You lose money on them not primarily because of fees or expiration dates, but because you throw them in a drawer and forget about them. Or, you lose them, or you hold on to them indefinitely — always thinking you’ll redeem them tomorrow.

    It’s counterintuitive, but the way to make people more likely to redeem their gift cards would be to shorten the time before they expired.

    Sager points to two studies that corroborate this assumption: one indirectly, showing that city residents are less likely to see ‘the sights’ of that city than tourists with limited time; and another directly, conducted on students with obviously twisted priorities:

    64 undergraduates [were given] coupons for a slice of cake and a beverage at a local French pastry shop. Half got a certificate that expired in three weeks, half got one that expired in two months. While students were sure they were more likely to use the certificate with the more generous timeframe, the results were clear: The shorter timeframe made the students much more likely to redeem their certificates; 10 of the 32 students (31%) redeemed the three-week certificates, only two of the 32 students (6%) redeemed the two-month certificates.

    Long-time readers may recall Joel Waldfogel’s research on the inefficiencies of Christmas gift-giving: a deadweight loss of 10%, resulting in a $4 billion loss to the US economy every year.

    In that article, Tim Harford suggested small and sentimental gifts as ideal, warning against gift vouchers as “they have no sentimental value but still create deadweight loss, since many expire without being used, or are sold at a loss”.

    You have been warned.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Purchasing Green a Licence to Steal, Cheat

    Just as a salad option on a menu increases the incidence of unhealthy orders, and national park visitors are less likely to support conservation charities later in life (as compared to hikers or backpackers), now buying green has been shown to increase bad behaviour.

    It’s not all bad, though: merely being exposed to green products increases altruistic behaviour—it’s purchasing said products that is shown to increase bad behaviour such as cheating and stealing.

    From the paper‘s Abstract:

    Consumer choices not only reflect price and quality preferences but also social and moral values as witnessed in the remarkable growth of the global market for organic and environmentally friendly products. Building on recent research on behavioral priming and moral regulation, we find that mere exposure to green products and the purchase of them lead to markedly different behavioral consequences. In line with the halo associated with green consumerism, people act more altruistically after mere exposure to green than conventional products. However, people act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products as opposed to conventional products. Together, the studies show that consumption is more tightly connected to our social and ethical behaviors in directions and domains other than previously thought.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Rewards Corrupt Altruistic Tendencies

    It has been known for decades that infants up to 14 months old will act on altruistic impulses without reward.

    Recent research, following on from a similar 1973 study, is starting to show that rewards could be responsible for the inhibition of this natural desire to help others—an innate altruism.

    48 German toddlers averaging 20 months of age [were placed] in a room (one at a time) with a parent and an experimenter who sat at a table in the corner, apparently doing an unrelated task like placing balls in a basket or clipping napkins together. The experimenter pretended to accidentally drop one of the objects on the floor, and reached for it while looking at the toddler, waiting up to 30 seconds for the toddler to help her by picking it up. Eight of the children refused to leave their parent, and ten didn’t complete the task, but 36 became reliable helpers, returning the object to the experimenter 5 times.

    The second phase of the experiment—conducted on these 36 children, each split into various reward/non-reward groups—discovered that those receiving rewards “helped the experimenter significantly less often than either the group that received only praise or the group that received no praise” if the reward was withdrawn.

    As Dave Munger asks, Was it the reward, or the betrayal that caused the child’s behavior to change?

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Quiting Google

    As someone who works in IT (or on the fringes of it, at least), a job at Google is seen as the Holy Grail of positions: if it’s not going to be a job for life, it’ll at least set you up for it—after all, who wouldn’t want to hire Google alumni, right? And the benefits? Let’s not even start.

    But is the reality a bit more, well, real?

    According to this Google Group thread set up by the company’s HR department to discover why ex-employees left, the answer is a resounding Yes: their gripes are the same as those of any other employee in a sizeable organisation.

    Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. […] Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Health Care Debate To Date

    For the health care debate that has been raging in America of late, I have subscribed to the same philosophy as Ben Casnocha:

    I’ve decided I’m just going to read it about once it’s resolved.

    You can’t keep up with everything. Rather than lightly follow along and skim articles and pretend to be informed, I’m consciously opting out. I rarely do this when it comes to current affairs — I’m kind of a junkie — but I must say, this time around, it feels liberating.

    The debate was also covered widely here in the UK and coverage has, at last, died down. As such I decided it was time to start reading about the progress to date, and came across David Goldhill’s extensive and penetrating piece in The Atlantic that, as Alex J Mann rightly says, contains “everything you need to or should know [about the health care debate]”.

    The piece begins with this admission;

    I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic, and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed.

    and continues with the following statement that really won me over:

    So before exploring alternative policies, let’s reexamine our basic assumptions about health care—what it actually is, how it’s financed, its accountability to patients, and finally its relationship to the eternal laws of supply and demand.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Over-Estimation of Sampling Errors

    Fairly obvious, but something I haven’t previously given much consideration to:

    Sampling errors mean that initial figures are equally as likely to be under-estimates as over-estimates but [in media stories where figures for a disease or condition are quoted] we only ever seem to be told that the condition is under-detected.

    That’s from a short post from Mind Hacks looking at the proliferation of the phrase, “the true number may be higher”.

    For any individual study you can validly say that you think the estimate is too low, or indeed, too high, and give reasons for that. For instance, you might say that your sample was mainly young people who tend to be healthier than the general public, or maybe that the diagnostic tools are known to miss some true cases.

    But when we look at reporting as a whole, it almost always says the condition is likely to be much more common than the estimate.

    For example, have a look at the results of this Google search:

    “the true number may be higher” 20,300 hits
    “the true number may be lower” 3 hits

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    Lloyd Morgan