Friday, December 31, 2010
Water Conflicts and spirituality - Aaron Wolf
Interview with Mr.Aaron Wolf. Geology, water resources and conflict management specialist. Trying to bring the element of spirituality into conflict resolution practices.
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"I realized that science only got you so far with water resource management and you had to understand human systems, I felt that understanding human systems from a rational perspective was very limiting. And I think most mediators feel that way: When it comes to dealing with real values or core issues, most people refer to the energy in the room, the transformation or being present."
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Knowledge@Wharton: Did you have a transformative moment yourself?
Wolf: In our training, we show a map of a watershed with the political boundaries. Then we take the boundaries off the map. For a lot of people, it's the first time they see their world in a different light. You can feel a jolt in the room when they see their watershed in a way they never have before. The idea came from someone who worked for a major development bank. He had a deep spiritual side and he said that the maps worked like an analog for spiritual transformation. That was my "Aha!" moment
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2 questions. First, how do spiritual traditions construct concepts or emotions such as conflict or anger? Second, what tools do they use to create settings that are conducive to transformative processes.
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Knowledge@Wharton: What do you think about claims that the next world war will be fought over water?
Wolf: I don't think that will be the case. The assumption is very simplistic that because we're running out of a critical resource, people will fight across international borders. It doesn't take into account any aspects of human creativity, ingenuity, markets or history. There's only been one war over water and it was 4,500 years ago.
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Knowledge@Wharton: Do you meet skeptics, people who don't buy into the spiritual discourse?
Wolf: You have to distinguish between religion and spirituality. As soon as you start talking about religion, half the room gets tense. You can see it in the body language. People will also comment on the irony that religion is at the root of most conflicts.
If you really want to focus on processes, such as transformation or transcendence, you have to find a common ground, such as recovering from an accident or having a baby. Your world is profoundly rocked when you become a parent; you can't explain it in rational terms. People also find spirituality in fly-fishing, rock climbing or whatever else, and as long as we're talking on those terms, most people get it.
There are a lot of situations where I don't use the words religion or spirituality. If we're talking about the four needs, for instance, I can draw just as easily from Maslow as I can from the Bible. I try not to push people past their comfort levels.
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Businesspeople will recognize that. When you're sitting down for discussions or negotiations, even in a regular meeting, how many times have you asked someone a question to understand more about how they feel? We need to learn to set aside the things we want to put on the table and profoundly and deeply listen to others until we really understand what their issues are. That process is transformative. People who feel they have been listened to are generally willing to listen in turn. That's the moment in the room when the whole dynamic changes.
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Knowledge@Wharton: So using your BlackBerry in a meeting and checking e-mails is not going to be conducive to great outcomes?
Wolf: I don't think so. Presence is something that most spiritual traditions emphasize. The power of presence, of silence, of reflection, of really being there -- it is something that we need to learn to do better. If you're multi-tasking, you're not doing anything brilliantly.
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Knowledge@Wharton: If you had one piece of advice for a businessman, what would it be?
Wolf: I would learn to listen. It is the most underrated yet transformative quality there is. It's like meditation. It sounds simple, until you try it.
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"I realized that science only got you so far with water resource management and you had to understand human systems, I felt that understanding human systems from a rational perspective was very limiting. And I think most mediators feel that way: When it comes to dealing with real values or core issues, most people refer to the energy in the room, the transformation or being present."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge@Wharton: Did you have a transformative moment yourself?
Wolf: In our training, we show a map of a watershed with the political boundaries. Then we take the boundaries off the map. For a lot of people, it's the first time they see their world in a different light. You can feel a jolt in the room when they see their watershed in a way they never have before. The idea came from someone who worked for a major development bank. He had a deep spiritual side and he said that the maps worked like an analog for spiritual transformation. That was my "Aha!" moment
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 questions. First, how do spiritual traditions construct concepts or emotions such as conflict or anger? Second, what tools do they use to create settings that are conducive to transformative processes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge@Wharton: What do you think about claims that the next world war will be fought over water?
Wolf: I don't think that will be the case. The assumption is very simplistic that because we're running out of a critical resource, people will fight across international borders. It doesn't take into account any aspects of human creativity, ingenuity, markets or history. There's only been one war over water and it was 4,500 years ago.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge@Wharton: Do you meet skeptics, people who don't buy into the spiritual discourse?
Wolf: You have to distinguish between religion and spirituality. As soon as you start talking about religion, half the room gets tense. You can see it in the body language. People will also comment on the irony that religion is at the root of most conflicts.
If you really want to focus on processes, such as transformation or transcendence, you have to find a common ground, such as recovering from an accident or having a baby. Your world is profoundly rocked when you become a parent; you can't explain it in rational terms. People also find spirituality in fly-fishing, rock climbing or whatever else, and as long as we're talking on those terms, most people get it.
There are a lot of situations where I don't use the words religion or spirituality. If we're talking about the four needs, for instance, I can draw just as easily from Maslow as I can from the Bible. I try not to push people past their comfort levels.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Businesspeople will recognize that. When you're sitting down for discussions or negotiations, even in a regular meeting, how many times have you asked someone a question to understand more about how they feel? We need to learn to set aside the things we want to put on the table and profoundly and deeply listen to others until we really understand what their issues are. That process is transformative. People who feel they have been listened to are generally willing to listen in turn. That's the moment in the room when the whole dynamic changes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge@Wharton: So using your BlackBerry in a meeting and checking e-mails is not going to be conducive to great outcomes?
Wolf: I don't think so. Presence is something that most spiritual traditions emphasize. The power of presence, of silence, of reflection, of really being there -- it is something that we need to learn to do better. If you're multi-tasking, you're not doing anything brilliantly.
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Knowledge@Wharton: If you had one piece of advice for a businessman, what would it be?
Wolf: I would learn to listen. It is the most underrated yet transformative quality there is. It's like meditation. It sounds simple, until you try it.
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Labels: Knowledge at Wharton
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
"Extremeness Seeking " by Dilip Soman
Extremeness seeking
| Author: Dilip Soman |
Decision researchers have long been interested in behaviours that deviate from rational choice.
Of these, the compromise effect has received considerable attention, with it repeatedly shown that the probability of choosing an item increases when that item is a middling, as opposed to extreme, alternative in a choice set. The term extremeness avoidance has been used to describe the reason underlying this phenomenon.
In this research, we argue that extremeness avoidance behaviour depends on assortment type, with consumers displaying extremeness avoidance for alignable assortments, but systematically and predictably displaying extremeness seeking for non-alignable assortments. Across three studies, we show the extremeness seeking effect, contrast it with extremeness avoidance, and explore its underlying cause. As the variety of choices available to consumers grows in size and those choices vary in their distinct features, consumers often prefer the options at either extreme — either the basic model or the fully loaded model.
While getting some consumers to trade up to the ‘fully loaded’ model may seem desirable for a seller, it is not clear that the overall effect of such polarisation will be positive.
Rather than encourage consumers to choose a basic or fully loaded product, product providers may wish to turn an uncertain customer into a certain customer by offering an alternative that best meets the customer's needs.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Ethics of Wiki Leaks
http://mytoday.com/u/1532 : wiki leaks & ethics
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WikiLeaks is a fascinating microcosm of a larger trend -- that the Internet allows freer flow of information, including things we want to be available and things we don't," says Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics Kevin Werbach.
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For many, the WikiLeaks case has opened up a fundamental debate over privacy of information versus public access on the open web. In a column on The Guardian's website on December 6, John Naughton wrote: "The most obvious lesson [of the WikiLeaks case] is that it represents the first really sustained confrontation between the established order and the culture of the internet. There have been skirmishes before, but this is the real thing."
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Bruce Schneier, an author of books on cyber-security and founder of BT Counterpane, a security firm, argues that WikiLeaks rose up because of an excessive amount of classification of information and a weak press that "acts like a stenographer" for the government. He adds that the U.S. government is now experiencing what the music and entertainment industries have endured during the past several years -- digital distribution networks that sprang up as alternatives to the systems that recording labels and producers tried to control.
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It is also "reasonable for companies to be thinking about whether WikiLeaks crossed the line in its most recent disclosures."
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WikiLeaks is a fascinating microcosm of a larger trend -- that the Internet allows freer flow of information, including things we want to be available and things we don't," says Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics Kevin Werbach.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For many, the WikiLeaks case has opened up a fundamental debate over privacy of information versus public access on the open web. In a column on The Guardian's website on December 6, John Naughton wrote: "The most obvious lesson [of the WikiLeaks case] is that it represents the first really sustained confrontation between the established order and the culture of the internet. There have been skirmishes before, but this is the real thing."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Schneier, an author of books on cyber-security and founder of BT Counterpane, a security firm, argues that WikiLeaks rose up because of an excessive amount of classification of information and a weak press that "acts like a stenographer" for the government. He adds that the U.S. government is now experiencing what the music and entertainment industries have endured during the past several years -- digital distribution networks that sprang up as alternatives to the systems that recording labels and producers tried to control.
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It is also "reasonable for companies to be thinking about whether WikiLeaks crossed the line in its most recent disclosures."
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Merits of employing Older workers
http://mytoday.com/u/1561 dated 24.December.2010
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Ageing people coming bak to work is called ' Silver Tsunami'.
Olders workers cost less on Medi care bills since, they no longer have dependent children on them.
When it comes to job performance, older workers frequently outdo their younger colleagues, says Cappelli. Older workers have less absenteeism, less turnover, superior interpersonal skills and deal better with customers. "The evidence is unbelievably huge," he notes. "Basically, older workers perform better on just about everything.
And contrary to the belief that older workers resist learning new things, older workers ranked "job challenge and learning" as a top source of satisfaction with their work, says center director Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes.
Many myths about older workers reflect 20th century views of retirement that have proved to be short-lived. "Historically, the idea of people working full-time and stopping completely is an anomaly of world history," says Cappelli. The notion of retiring at age 65 came in with the Social Security system and employer-based pensions, he says. But full retirement was never what most employees wanted, he notes, adding that "what they want is to keep working in some fashion. They want to change the way they work, but not stop altogether."
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When the Society for Human Resource Management conducted its most recent survey of attitudes toward older workers in 2006, 60% of the 308 personnel managers surveyed said that older workers are more reliable and 59% said older workers have a stronger work ethic than younger ones. On the flip side, 49% said that older workers do not keep up with technology and 38% said such workers cause health care costs to rise.
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Ads targeting such workers often mention the benefit that the age group values most: flexibility. One former ad invited recruits to "Use our employee discount to shop for your grandkids."
Retirement doesn't end ties between employees and the Freeport, Maine-based company, which encourages retirees to return to work on a seasonal basis. "We find that many retirees bring a high level of maturity," says a company spokesperson. "They understand the importance of a good work ethic" and have no problem with flexible schedules. "More than half of our seasonal workforce comes back year after year."
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A study sponsored by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a think tank that helps people find "encore careers," predicts as many as five million job vacancies by 2018 if the baby boomers retire at the same rate and age as current older workers. Many of these vacancies will be in social service fields such as health care, education and non-profit positions. Not only will there be jobs for older workers to fill, says the study, "but the nation will absolutely need older workers to step up and take them."
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Gardner envisions partnerships and mentoring relationships between older workers who seek meaning in phased retirements and younger individuals who are looking to build their careers. Gardner himself has no plans to step down from his job researching the college labor market and recruiting trends. "At 64, people are asking me to stay until I'm 70," he says. "I'm having fun with what I do, so why quit? Why give up a job I love?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ageing people coming bak to work is called ' Silver Tsunami'.
Olders workers cost less on Medi care bills since, they no longer have dependent children on them.
When it comes to job performance, older workers frequently outdo their younger colleagues, says Cappelli. Older workers have less absenteeism, less turnover, superior interpersonal skills and deal better with customers. "The evidence is unbelievably huge," he notes. "Basically, older workers perform better on just about everything.
And contrary to the belief that older workers resist learning new things, older workers ranked "job challenge and learning" as a top source of satisfaction with their work, says center director Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes.
Many myths about older workers reflect 20th century views of retirement that have proved to be short-lived. "Historically, the idea of people working full-time and stopping completely is an anomaly of world history," says Cappelli. The notion of retiring at age 65 came in with the Social Security system and employer-based pensions, he says. But full retirement was never what most employees wanted, he notes, adding that "what they want is to keep working in some fashion. They want to change the way they work, but not stop altogether."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the Society for Human Resource Management conducted its most recent survey of attitudes toward older workers in 2006, 60% of the 308 personnel managers surveyed said that older workers are more reliable and 59% said older workers have a stronger work ethic than younger ones. On the flip side, 49% said that older workers do not keep up with technology and 38% said such workers cause health care costs to rise.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ads targeting such workers often mention the benefit that the age group values most: flexibility. One former ad invited recruits to "Use our employee discount to shop for your grandkids."
Retirement doesn't end ties between employees and the Freeport, Maine-based company, which encourages retirees to return to work on a seasonal basis. "We find that many retirees bring a high level of maturity," says a company spokesperson. "They understand the importance of a good work ethic" and have no problem with flexible schedules. "More than half of our seasonal workforce comes back year after year."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A study sponsored by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a think tank that helps people find "encore careers," predicts as many as five million job vacancies by 2018 if the baby boomers retire at the same rate and age as current older workers. Many of these vacancies will be in social service fields such as health care, education and non-profit positions. Not only will there be jobs for older workers to fill, says the study, "but the nation will absolutely need older workers to step up and take them."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gardner envisions partnerships and mentoring relationships between older workers who seek meaning in phased retirements and younger individuals who are looking to build their careers. Gardner himself has no plans to step down from his job researching the college labor market and recruiting trends. "At 64, people are asking me to stay until I'm 70," he says. "I'm having fun with what I do, so why quit? Why give up a job I love?"
Labels: Knowledge at Wharton
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Auctions , Governance & Transparancy : The devil is in the detail
http://mytoday.com/u/1518
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'Governance and transparancy : the devil in the details : auctions are by no means a panacea for achieving efficiency.
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For a nation that has no tradition of auctioning scarce public resources to private-sector organizations, the recent outcry over the 2G spectrum scandal is both intriguing and encouraging.
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If the slivers of airwaves providing 3G mobile services -- to a young and mobile population in an economy that's growing at close to double-digit rates -- can ring up more than US$22 billion for the country's exchequer, one wonders about the fair economic value for all other air, water and land resources that belonged to you-the-nation, but was allocated to you-name-it company for a you-name-it purpose using -- to put it kindly -- less than transparent and economically efficient mechanisms!
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In the case of mobile spectrum, the resource allocation mechanism needs to be efficient in two ways. First, it should be able to identify the operators that are the most likely to roll out mobile services successfully to as a much of the population as possible in the shortest possible time, with great enough profitability to ensure the service's sustainability -- after all, there's little value in bankrupting operators while maximizing spectrum prices.
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If mobile spectrum licenses on a first-come, first-served basis are allocated to, say, construction companies that have no prior expertise in rolling out such services and they then hoard spectrum, the nation fails to roll out its critical information infrastructure to large sections of the population. This is a huge social loss !
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For example, a farmer might not be able to get a critical weather forecast before fertilizing a field, which might subsequently be washed away by unseasonal rain, or taxi drivers might not be able to pick up a few extra fares if their dispatchers are operating inefficiently.
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one step forward to enforce the welfare-enhancing rollout could be by mandating a use-it-or-lose-it rule -- that is, insist that all allocated spectrum is used and monitor usage based on a simple, observable measure. Meanwhile, a secondary market could be facilitated for reallocation, giving operators with capital access to spectrum, and perhaps recovering some of the money the government left on the table.
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The potential for efficient mechanisms in India seems immense, even if they seem complicated from afar.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
'Governance and transparancy : the devil in the details : auctions are by no means a panacea for achieving efficiency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For a nation that has no tradition of auctioning scarce public resources to private-sector organizations, the recent outcry over the 2G spectrum scandal is both intriguing and encouraging.
--------------------------------------------
If the slivers of airwaves providing 3G mobile services -- to a young and mobile population in an economy that's growing at close to double-digit rates -- can ring up more than US$22 billion for the country's exchequer, one wonders about the fair economic value for all other air, water and land resources that belonged to you-the-nation, but was allocated to you-name-it company for a you-name-it purpose using -- to put it kindly -- less than transparent and economically efficient mechanisms!
----------------------------------------
In the case of mobile spectrum, the resource allocation mechanism needs to be efficient in two ways. First, it should be able to identify the operators that are the most likely to roll out mobile services successfully to as a much of the population as possible in the shortest possible time, with great enough profitability to ensure the service's sustainability -- after all, there's little value in bankrupting operators while maximizing spectrum prices.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If mobile spectrum licenses on a first-come, first-served basis are allocated to, say, construction companies that have no prior expertise in rolling out such services and they then hoard spectrum, the nation fails to roll out its critical information infrastructure to large sections of the population. This is a huge social loss !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, a farmer might not be able to get a critical weather forecast before fertilizing a field, which might subsequently be washed away by unseasonal rain, or taxi drivers might not be able to pick up a few extra fares if their dispatchers are operating inefficiently.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
one step forward to enforce the welfare-enhancing rollout could be by mandating a use-it-or-lose-it rule -- that is, insist that all allocated spectrum is used and monitor usage based on a simple, observable measure. Meanwhile, a secondary market could be facilitated for reallocation, giving operators with capital access to spectrum, and perhaps recovering some of the money the government left on the table.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The potential for efficient mechanisms in India seems immense, even if they seem complicated from afar.
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U.S. unemployment rate and repercussions
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2619
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"With a national unemployment rate of 9.6%, many of them cannot
find jobs. Some have had to move back home with their parents;
others are scraping by with low-level work that is barely enough to
pay back the four and five figure loans they took out for college. "It's
not looking particularly good for Gen Y," says Matthew Bidwell, a
Wharton management professor. "And I don't think it's going to go
away by the next graduation season in May. A lot of forecasts are for
a slow and hesitant recovery. We're not going back to 2007 any time
soon."
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"It takes them longer to get into the workforce so they are not
acquiring the skills they need. In addition, they are more apt to take
a lower level job or an unpaid internship. And once the economy
improves and they land a better job, it takes these workers longer to
climb the ladder because they have to learn skills they should have
been developing immediately out of college. In the meantime, they
are at risk of being leapfrogged by new graduates."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you don't get a decent job in your first five years in the workforce,
do you ever? You don't develop the stable work habits or the self-
esteem to move up the corporate ladder," he says. "It's a horrendous
waste of human capital."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With a national unemployment rate of 9.6%, many of them cannot
find jobs. Some have had to move back home with their parents;
others are scraping by with low-level work that is barely enough to
pay back the four and five figure loans they took out for college. "It's
not looking particularly good for Gen Y," says Matthew Bidwell, a
Wharton management professor. "And I don't think it's going to go
away by the next graduation season in May. A lot of forecasts are for
a slow and hesitant recovery. We're not going back to 2007 any time
soon."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It takes them longer to get into the workforce so they are not
acquiring the skills they need. In addition, they are more apt to take
a lower level job or an unpaid internship. And once the economy
improves and they land a better job, it takes these workers longer to
climb the ladder because they have to learn skills they should have
been developing immediately out of college. In the meantime, they
are at risk of being leapfrogged by new graduates."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you don't get a decent job in your first five years in the workforce,
do you ever? You don't develop the stable work habits or the self-
esteem to move up the corporate ladder," he says. "It's a horrendous
waste of human capital."
Labels: Knowledge at Wharton
