I got a lot of my moral education from Star Trek. I often thought that they give a good example on how people in the real world should treat each other. - And I wondered why it is so hard to implement and evolve similar constructions in the real world. In (at least) one episode it was mentioned that people like to work for self esteem and other higher interests than "just" money or only because they are forced to work.
While being on the way to implement some core ideas there is an important thing that the whole trilogy and series are leaving out: The resource problem.
I thought of the resource problem several times and always it came down to be a population problem. If there would only be 100 humans on this earth environmental pollution would not be a problem. 100 humans could hardly produce a critical amount of pollution even if they do take a hot bath for 5 hours each day and drop metal cans wherever they stand. They could move on to another place and not return for the next thousand years and then everything of the waste will be gone anyway.
But this is a non-realistic situation from current point of view. The resource problem is getting more and more critical as we are not only exhausting our planet - no, we are destroying at the same time to make sure that while consuming one resource others are ruined too.
While the resource problem is a major problem that causes war and litigation it also can help avoiding wars or bring them to a faster or "better" end. This, because global playing companies are interested in making money from the resources which usually means that the country where the resources are need to have a government and population that is stable and in peace. That said, the war is then not fighted out with weapons but with money.
Economic (money) war is still war somehow and poverty is the slow death of those who got shot out of the game.
The fear of personal or economic death let people focus on their personal revenue to ensure their survival. There must be a really big change in a lot of realms to get an overall common peaceful and cooperative attitude! - Solving the resource problem is one of them!
That also implies, that if you want to have long term peace and people really working together (in the way that they really help out each other), you have to ensure that all the members (of the world, your team, your company, ...) have the chance to get enough resources to make their living.
What applies to the world also applies in the small - for your family, your team, employees etc! So think big, start small and be humble!
Related posts: Finding the proper priorities, Ethic economy, An eye for an eye, The power of intention, Scotty - beam me up..., Inequity, Hunger and poverty, Television.
Showing posts with label Money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Money. Show all posts
2010-06-18
2010-05-13
Guarantees and responsibility
Yesterday evening I watched a TV discussion about the crisis in Greece and regarding the Euro currency.
I was really wondering how they can talk about guarantees given on financial dept with amounts like billions of Euros when in reality the countries do not have that money. It is impossible that the whole European Union has that amount of money. If the EU or single countries would have such amounts of money, it would mean that they robbed the people living there or that they robbed other countries.
Or could it be, that they have a guilty conscience because they robbed the poorer countries in the past?
However, it seems that nearly every european country has big depts. While being in big dept, giving guarantees in huge amounts of money to me seems extremely weird.
When I remember the last company affairs that were in the news, appropriate responsibility often was just that the just managers stepped back. Or look at the oil leak at Gulf of Mexico. I can hardly believe that anybody really can take the responsibility (if somebody really would). People try to attach amounts of money to such damage, but I think that nobody in the world can really repair what happens there.
In the same way I have problems with the imagination that years and years of misgovernment and maladministration can be repaired by giving guarantees of fantastic amounts of money.
That would prevent from huge damage in the future but still does not repair the pile of broken glass we already sit on.
What I learned from the TV show yesterday is that I have to analyze carefully, if somebody gives me a guarantee on anything.
Nowadays guarantees are given so fast and easy, sometimes it looks like bare fraud.
Related posts: Inequity, Hot air, Root of responsibility.
I was really wondering how they can talk about guarantees given on financial dept with amounts like billions of Euros when in reality the countries do not have that money. It is impossible that the whole European Union has that amount of money. If the EU or single countries would have such amounts of money, it would mean that they robbed the people living there or that they robbed other countries.
Or could it be, that they have a guilty conscience because they robbed the poorer countries in the past?
However, it seems that nearly every european country has big depts. While being in big dept, giving guarantees in huge amounts of money to me seems extremely weird.
When I remember the last company affairs that were in the news, appropriate responsibility often was just that the just managers stepped back. Or look at the oil leak at Gulf of Mexico. I can hardly believe that anybody really can take the responsibility (if somebody really would). People try to attach amounts of money to such damage, but I think that nobody in the world can really repair what happens there.
In the same way I have problems with the imagination that years and years of misgovernment and maladministration can be repaired by giving guarantees of fantastic amounts of money.
The irresponsible behavior of people must be stopped and prevented in its roots! The huge collateral damage can't be healed years after.
That would prevent from huge damage in the future but still does not repair the pile of broken glass we already sit on.
What I learned from the TV show yesterday is that I have to analyze carefully, if somebody gives me a guarantee on anything.
Nowadays guarantees are given so fast and easy, sometimes it looks like bare fraud.
Related posts: Inequity, Hot air, Root of responsibility.
2009-11-04
Knowledge is Freedom
You might have noticed that I currently do less posts on this blog lately. This is not due to less interest or that I don't have opportunities to learn general lessons of life. - The reason is: I am in a heavy upgrade of my knowledge in the branch of my main profession - the IT.
In relation to that I want to point out some general important considerations:
There are some side effects of knowing much that you may like, such as:
Some of the challenges are:
In relation to that I want to point out some general important considerations:
- Knowledge is creating/increasing job security!
In a downturn many people fear to get laid off. People with a high level of knowledge simply have a higher value for a company (if the knowledge is not just focused in a very limited area - although even this can make sense). - Knowledge is creating more options!
Expanding your knowledge is opening your mind to other - new - things in general. Especially when gathering knowledge in other (completely) new areas you get a more complete view of the world. You begin to see more and more options: More options to solve a single problem, more job opportunities, more benefits and even risks - that all helps you to find your way in life that fits best for you. - Knowledge is boosting creativity and efficiency!
Especially when you get more knowledge in very different areas of life you are increasing your creativity because of the linking of different approaches taken in different branches or areas. For instance physicians often look at biology to find more efficient solutions in their realm. By getting more creative you also find better options for using your time efficiently.
There are some side effects of knowing much that you may like, such as:
- When learning you have the opportunity to get in touch with other people.
- Your opinion is appreciated when people begin to notice that you know much.
- You get more self-esteem and feel more inner security.
Some of the challenges are:
- Work-Life-Balance
To get more knowledge often implies that you have to gather that outside of your daily job - in the evenings, nights or early mornings. While the family can often understand that for a while, you most likely get into trouble, if it gets usual that you spend your spare time more working than dedicating to your family. - Overwhelming amount of knowledge
The more you know the more you get aware how tiny your knowledge is. There is not enough time to gather and learn all available knowledge (not talking about the not-yet-available knowledge). So: You have to choose wisely what to learn to not waste your time! - Efficiency in learning
There are several different approaches to learn something new: Read books, ask experts (coaching), take courses, play around and try (experiment), ...
Attending a course is not always the wisest choice, especially if you want to offer a unique service or product as a follow-up. In many cases, if you want to be at the frontline of some new technology or movement there is either not much offer in courses or books.
2008-12-18
Information and experience
Today I read two different newspapers in the morning. One mentioned that prices rise and the other said that they fall. I am already used to hear one day that economy gets better and the other day that it gets worse but reading two opposite news at the same day is an extreme that let me think of the quality of messages and articles in the news in general.
Thinking of the last months or especially yet before christmas I would say that (here in Austria)
And here is the difference between information and experience. Especially general statements, predictions, conclusions and assumptions have a good chance to be wrong.
So always have a higher trust in your personal opinion than in outside information when it comes to act.
Related posts: Hot air, Decision planning, Crappy guesswork, The value of experience.
Thinking of the last months or especially yet before christmas I would say that (here in Austria)
- some things (especially food) got more expensive in the last months,
- electric devices got cheaper,
- mobile phones got again cheaper, also the charges but they tend to urge you to make contracts for the next two years instead of one as in the past (maybe they expect prices to fall within the next two years),
- Services got more expensive,
And here is the difference between information and experience. Especially general statements, predictions, conclusions and assumptions have a good chance to be wrong.
So always have a higher trust in your personal opinion than in outside information when it comes to act.
Related posts: Hot air, Decision planning, Crappy guesswork, The value of experience.
2008-10-22
Inequity
Again a video about the "credit crunch". It shows again an issue that is not found only in the financial markets: Moral Hazard and Inequity.
The problem: Inequity
In many cases it looks like people can deliver a lot of bad quality without any negative consequences. To give an example: In politics and financial markets bosses receive huge amounts of money even if they withdraw from their jobs after they failed or even after being involved into illegal operations. I also have seen such people invited to TV talks as a sample of successful people after some years it seems nobody is remembering any more what they did.
The reason: Negative consequences often take effect late or never.
If illegal operations are involved and hence the matter is taken to court, it often takes many years until a definite judgement is spoken. Then often the punishments seem not adequate from the moral intuition. In other cases where no court and judge is involved negative effects also often show their impact very late so the people often aren't either able to associate the effects with their earlier actions. And the worst thing is that people enriched themselves (more or less legally) they manage to get out of a lot of trouble with the help of their money.
The solution: Courage, increased efficiency of the court and Empathy.
Increasing the efficiency of the court and general state administrative tasks related to it is just one thing. A lot of litigation is never escalated to the court (not only because everybody knows about the poor efficiency), so civil courage - of you and me - as well as education is needed to reduce inequity around us. Respecting the others and considering their needs is an important social skill. Courage and empathy must be within you and spread out by giving a good model/example. Live those properties you would like to find in other people.
Related posts: The big difference of the how, Little respect, Economy performance and empathy, Guarantees and responsibility, The resource problem.
The problem: Inequity
In many cases it looks like people can deliver a lot of bad quality without any negative consequences. To give an example: In politics and financial markets bosses receive huge amounts of money even if they withdraw from their jobs after they failed or even after being involved into illegal operations. I also have seen such people invited to TV talks as a sample of successful people after some years it seems nobody is remembering any more what they did.
The reason: Negative consequences often take effect late or never.
If illegal operations are involved and hence the matter is taken to court, it often takes many years until a definite judgement is spoken. Then often the punishments seem not adequate from the moral intuition. In other cases where no court and judge is involved negative effects also often show their impact very late so the people often aren't either able to associate the effects with their earlier actions. And the worst thing is that people enriched themselves (more or less legally) they manage to get out of a lot of trouble with the help of their money.
The solution: Courage, increased efficiency of the court and Empathy.
Increasing the efficiency of the court and general state administrative tasks related to it is just one thing. A lot of litigation is never escalated to the court (not only because everybody knows about the poor efficiency), so civil courage - of you and me - as well as education is needed to reduce inequity around us. Respecting the others and considering their needs is an important social skill. Courage and empathy must be within you and spread out by giving a good model/example. Live those properties you would like to find in other people.
Related posts: The big difference of the how, Little respect, Economy performance and empathy, Guarantees and responsibility, The resource problem.
2008-10-21
Hot air
I got a link to a video discussion about the financial crises with the title "Bird and Fortune - Subprime crisis". It is a funny video but anyway shows perfectly the style how business often is done in these days:
On the other hand there can be relationships where no content can be found and whenever you meet these people you think that there is no development and no value extracted from talking to these persons.
It is just talking hot air! In so many cases there is nothing behind, no real value to be added, no real information, no real productivity gain.
How to identify such environments and establishments?
Don't waste your time dealing with such companies or people that never (or only very slowly)
- Acting irresponsible
- Playing at high risk
- Absence of any essential value
- In meetings
- In advertisements
- During chats
- Whole companies selling nothing but stuff
- Certain relationships
- News Articles
- ...
On the other hand there can be relationships where no content can be found and whenever you meet these people you think that there is no development and no value extracted from talking to these persons.
It is just talking hot air! In so many cases there is nothing behind, no real value to be added, no real information, no real productivity gain.
How to identify such environments and establishments?
- Try to identify the concrete purpose or benefit (how is productivity increased, can you get closer to your goals, can you be happier) - in many cases just ask (yourself).
- Ask for concrete next steps.
- Search for concrete information (dates, values, material things, steps to reproduce, causes and effects, empirical studies, ...) in the information provided.
Don't waste your time dealing with such companies or people that never (or only very slowly)
- get to the point and
- get into action.
2008-10-05
Highly happy people
While trying to increase productivity to get more done we should not forget that at the end it counts less how much we achieved in our life than it counts how we felt.
I do read a lot about the key skills and key habits of highly productive and successful people. I would like to read more about highly happy people.
It is one of the lessons of the story "David in Diamondonia" at SuccessMakingMachine (see also follow up post "Rich Lessons From David in Diamondonia"), that it is easy to forget about the main goal. We need money to feed us, to keep the house warm in the winter and so on. Often people forget after a while WHY and FOR WHAT the money is really needed and they focus on earning money. Earning money often substitutes the original goals. Earning money should not be your main goal in your life plan - and neither it should be to achieve a lot. Such goals are neither concrete nor the source of happiness.
So when you are trying to improve your productivity and going to get more done don't forget that you might want to be happy in the first place.
Marc Lesser gave a talk "Accomplishing more by doing less" at Google - I ask me now why he didn't rather entitle his talk "Being happier by doing less".
There is nothing wrong with improving productivity, achieving more, being successful. But the main goal to aim for should be to be happy with that.
If you are setting goals and you are convinced that they make you happy then it is important that you feel happy also while on the way! - Living a life full of suffering for having a relaxing death is a bad deal!
So let's watch out to find higly happy people - and get highly happy!
Related posts: In the present moment, The big difference of the How, The tension habit, Reduce the stress factors, Expectation dropping, Being positive, Finding the proper priorities, There is suffering, Between GTD and GHE, How to be happy, The power of intention, Being like a child.
I do read a lot about the key skills and key habits of highly productive and successful people. I would like to read more about highly happy people.
It is one of the lessons of the story "David in Diamondonia" at SuccessMakingMachine (see also follow up post "Rich Lessons From David in Diamondonia"), that it is easy to forget about the main goal. We need money to feed us, to keep the house warm in the winter and so on. Often people forget after a while WHY and FOR WHAT the money is really needed and they focus on earning money. Earning money often substitutes the original goals. Earning money should not be your main goal in your life plan - and neither it should be to achieve a lot. Such goals are neither concrete nor the source of happiness.
So when you are trying to improve your productivity and going to get more done don't forget that you might want to be happy in the first place.
Marc Lesser gave a talk "Accomplishing more by doing less" at Google - I ask me now why he didn't rather entitle his talk "Being happier by doing less".
There is nothing wrong with improving productivity, achieving more, being successful. But the main goal to aim for should be to be happy with that.
If you are setting goals and you are convinced that they make you happy then it is important that you feel happy also while on the way! - Living a life full of suffering for having a relaxing death is a bad deal!
So let's watch out to find higly happy people - and get highly happy!
Related posts: In the present moment, The big difference of the How, The tension habit, Reduce the stress factors, Expectation dropping, Being positive, Finding the proper priorities, There is suffering, Between GTD and GHE, How to be happy, The power of intention, Being like a child.
2008-07-11
Why investing enough time rules
The Parkinson's Law (basically) states:
Introduction: When I got notice of the Parkinson's Law the first time I already had a feeling in the belly that usage of this rule is counter productive and I will not adopt it. However, I found out in the meantime: I am already using Parkinson's Law! - Why? - We have a baby! So, since about 9 months my time for new private projects is from zero to one hour a day maximum. Although he is sleeping sometimes longer in the afternoon or plays alone there are other things like housekeeping to do in this time. And further my wife is not working yet and hence has more time she wants to spend with me. So time for other projects or hobbies is reduced to an absolute minimum. The hobbies I can do most is photography because I can take pictures from our son while looking after him. Many people strongly recommend to shoot in raw and postprocess images on the computer. And for this I simply do not have time. I can be happy if I have time to sort them out and put some on the internet.
The minimal use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by a nonessential amount can indeed increase productivity because people then are cutting off the unnecessary things. So this helps avoiding bloated projects. People may also find smarter solutions for an existing problem. But important here is: Continuously reducing time/budget a little is the same as extreme usage of Parkinson's law!
The extreme use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by an essential amount will freeze the project! Reducing available time in general or increasing open projects or to-dos by an essential number leads to giving up on all (bigger) projects. In the extreme - what can't be done in an hour or in one (business) day must be dropped. When looking at time and budget separately you can reduce time significantly by investing more money sometimes - sometimes. With a minimum of available time/budget people usually tend to start doing something immediately to solve the problem but usually do not do (any) planning. This increases the probability of total escalation.
Not use Parkinson's law and doing the opposite: On the other hand when increasing available time and/or budget for a project then people can be more creative.
Simple sample: If you have only very little time to furnish your apartment then you will have no time to look at different shops and take the first and/or cheapest things you see. If you have enough time then you can develop ideas for smart solutions how to use the available space in your home. You will feel better and your home will be more functional and prettier.
Enough time means that people use enough time to plan and find smart solutions. And if people find smarter solutions during work (because of their experiences in a new realm of work) they have time and money buffers to implement changes to get the smarter solution. Enough time means improved quality and improved creativity. And if there is really no more time needed to improve quality any more then people may be so creative to invent new products for similar problems. Imagine what type of car you would have if companies wouldn't invest enough time into research and development...
But there is a prerequisite that is needed to make it work increasing quality by increasing time: You need your workers to be motivated! Otherwise they will use the more time doing other things than improving the quality.
Related post: Parkinson's Law and quality, Urging to forge at full speed.
work expands to fill the time availableI already wrote about it earlier here.
Introduction: When I got notice of the Parkinson's Law the first time I already had a feeling in the belly that usage of this rule is counter productive and I will not adopt it. However, I found out in the meantime: I am already using Parkinson's Law! - Why? - We have a baby! So, since about 9 months my time for new private projects is from zero to one hour a day maximum. Although he is sleeping sometimes longer in the afternoon or plays alone there are other things like housekeeping to do in this time. And further my wife is not working yet and hence has more time she wants to spend with me. So time for other projects or hobbies is reduced to an absolute minimum. The hobbies I can do most is photography because I can take pictures from our son while looking after him. Many people strongly recommend to shoot in raw and postprocess images on the computer. And for this I simply do not have time. I can be happy if I have time to sort them out and put some on the internet.
The minimal use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by a nonessential amount can indeed increase productivity because people then are cutting off the unnecessary things. So this helps avoiding bloated projects. People may also find smarter solutions for an existing problem. But important here is: Continuously reducing time/budget a little is the same as extreme usage of Parkinson's law!
The extreme use of Parkinson's law: Reducing the available time and/or budget by an essential amount will freeze the project! Reducing available time in general or increasing open projects or to-dos by an essential number leads to giving up on all (bigger) projects. In the extreme - what can't be done in an hour or in one (business) day must be dropped. When looking at time and budget separately you can reduce time significantly by investing more money sometimes - sometimes. With a minimum of available time/budget people usually tend to start doing something immediately to solve the problem but usually do not do (any) planning. This increases the probability of total escalation.
Not use Parkinson's law and doing the opposite: On the other hand when increasing available time and/or budget for a project then people can be more creative.
Simple sample: If you have only very little time to furnish your apartment then you will have no time to look at different shops and take the first and/or cheapest things you see. If you have enough time then you can develop ideas for smart solutions how to use the available space in your home. You will feel better and your home will be more functional and prettier.
Enough time means that people use enough time to plan and find smart solutions. And if people find smarter solutions during work (because of their experiences in a new realm of work) they have time and money buffers to implement changes to get the smarter solution. Enough time means improved quality and improved creativity. And if there is really no more time needed to improve quality any more then people may be so creative to invent new products for similar problems. Imagine what type of car you would have if companies wouldn't invest enough time into research and development...
But there is a prerequisite that is needed to make it work increasing quality by increasing time: You need your workers to be motivated! Otherwise they will use the more time doing other things than improving the quality.
Related post: Parkinson's Law and quality, Urging to forge at full speed.
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