Dan Erwin

#MeToo, After One Year

The latest issue of The Economist  (9/29/2018) devotes its lead article to the #MeToo movement. A positive and constructive editorial, the authors drop fascinating tidbits of sociological and historical insight along the way. They argue that women's testimony is being taken more seriously--at last.

But they point out a clear possibility: if #MeToo becomes a Democrats only movement, it will be set back. The polling reveals its partisanship: 39% of Republican women think it's a problem  that men get away with. That compares to 66% of Democratic women. The inevitable consequence of these figures, they argue, is that some men will excuse their behavior on the grounds that it's all a Democratic ploy.

The closing paragraph offers the best insight: 

What the Kids Are Finding Out About Guns

As a result, partially because of years of horrible shootings in our country, much research has been completed on who governs. Who actually governs? Although there are hundreds of studies on this subject, the latest work is by Princeton and Northwestern scholars, political scientists and long-term experts on the issues. They work from a huge body of evidence—some quantitative (the statistics), some historical (to make sense out of the statistics), and some actually observational. 

The authors of the study reveal that there are “four families” of research: elected politicians, the economic elites (Wall Street and major Hedge Fund directors), interest groups (tending to be millions of ordinary people with differing interests and personal drivers), and biased interest groups with differing targets.

What makes this study highly useful is the existence of a unique data set, compiled over many years, by one of the authors: Martin Gilens. The study is especially interesting to me because it is not focused on gun research, but on a related issue: who controls public policy? 

Well, take a guess. Is it average citizens, business interest group, mass-based interest groups (like AARP) or economic elites (Koch brothers)? First of all, average citizens and their elected politicians have zero impact upon policy. Organized interest groups, a substitute for voters, also have nearly zero impact on policy. That means that organized populists groups who want government to respond primarily or exclusively to the preferences of their citizens have no effect on public policy. . .

On the Super Bowl as Bread and Circus

The first time I stumbled across the phrase “bread and circus,” it was the name of an upscale Massachusetts grocery store owned by Whole Foods. But the phrase kept zinging around in my gray matter as a Latin metonymic (a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another). It’s like that reference to the “crown,” which most of us know refers to the English monarchy. Brits might say, for example, “Balmoral is owned by the crown.”

Occasionally you’ll find bread and circus used to describe the creation of public approval by distraction. You know, Trump’s Twitter zingers. He’s a master, par excellence, of one political strategy: distraction. Political scientists would know that you can offer some immediate shallow requirements as a sop to the populace and keep them from focusing on important matters. Nothing new over the centuries.

Trump is certainly not the only genius at distraction. Ronald Reagan had the Air Force’s $7,622 coffeepot and the Navy’s $435 claw hammer, as well as an ill-fated effort to save money by classifying ketchup as a school lunch vegetable. Bill Clinton had midnight basketball and a high-priced haircut from a Beverly Hills stylist aboard Air Force One.

Bread and Circus?
Now that we’ve gotten through that little game, what does “Bread and Circus” actually refer to? ...

Why You Need to Think and Talk on Two Tracks (Part Two)

In complex business conversations, metacomm can profoundly impact conversations and make them far more constructive and efficient—even timesaving. To a significant degree, metacomm functions to facilitate conversation and is highly useful for training participants in sequencing 101. In our studies and experience with metacomm, we have found a number of these forms especially useful.

Monitoring processes. Conversations that stick to your planned objectives to focus on problem solving, innovation or developing cross-disciplinary agreements, readily become mere discussions rather than action-oriented. However, the use of metacomm can serve to 

Peggy Noonan on "Democracy Is Not Your Plaything

Once in a while I read a summary that is so pointed and thorough that it needs neither explaining nor comment. Noonan is former speech-writer for President Reagan and long-time, Pulitzer winning writer for the Wall Street Journal. (This explanation was probably needed.)

Here’s an idea.

It would be good if top Hill Republicans went en masse to the president and said: “Stop it. Clean up your act. Shut your mouth. Do your job. Stop tweeting. Stop seething. Stop wasting time. You lost the thread and don’t even know what you were elected to do anymore. Get a grip. Grow up and look at the terrain, see it for what it is. We have limited time. Every day you undercut yourself, you undercut us. More important, you keep from happening the good policy things we could have done together. If you don’t grow up fast, you’ll wind up abandoned and alone. Act like a president or leave the presidency.”

Could it help? For a minute. But it would be constructive—not just carping, leaking, posing, cheering and tweeting but actually trying to lead.

The president needs to be told: Democracy is not your plaything.

5 Blog Posts That Add Up to 94,967 Views

On a regular basis I check google analytics to see what my viewers are paying the most attention to. Sometimes it helps me to plan further posts, but I find it difficult to clarify just why my readers are interested in certain posts. As a long-time executive coach, I have my own views on what are usually the most helpful for business success. Several of the following posts just wouldn't survive the first cut. So if you've got some ideas why these top five posts are really intriguing, I'd like to hear from you. To make it easier for you, I've linked each to the original posting on my blog site.

Here are the five posts, including a sentence or two of description on each of them. Note, I'm also including the exact numbers of views, as of Sunday, April 23. These have also been on three other sites, so the total figure for the five may well be in excess of 125,000 views. 

What patterns do you see in these postings?  

Can you really change your personality? (43,663 views.) Our personalities can grow and change over time. Though it's a slow process, the skills of deliberate practice are among a number of ways to change. (This is more than double the 2nd highest so it's obviously significant.)  

A New Definition of Political Insanity

I've read Vanity Fair, complements of my eldest daughter, for years. When I pick it up at the apartment PO box, I usually turn the cover against my body, fearful that someone might see I'm reading a girly magazine. But she continues to send it, and I continue to skim it, looking for the three or four brilliant ideas that make it worth the 15 minutes it takes for my quick-eyed research. Besides, Michael Lewis writes five or six fascinating, vibrant commentaries per year, making it well worth my time. Historically, some of the great writers used to pen articles, including Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis and E.E. Cummings. Great stuff!
How do you assess political insanity?
The latest issue of Vanity Fair had the most intriguing and hilarious notion of political insanity, quoted by the publisher, Graydon Carter, I've ever seen. And I've got at least two semesters of abnormal psychology behind me, as well as consulting and pastoral interactions with some psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists and paranoids. But first, a bit about the context...

A Better Understanding of the Trump Presidency

Inevitably, as we face the losses of Republicans and Democrats to Trump, we're trying to make sense of the situation. Making sense of Trump is relatively easy: very little in the toolkit which makes for a great deal of unpredictability. This presidency is unique in that it's the only successful response of American populism. Historically, populists have failed to elect a president.

For years, however, both Republicans and Democrats have failed or were unable to understand how to deal with the social and political discontent of many Americans. In spite of years of denial, it's...

A Year in Review: My Top Five Blog Posts of 2016

There's no doubt that history books will look at 2016 with. . . well, astonishment. Hoping to gain some marketing insight for 2017, here are the most read blog posts written last year. The most read posts are golden oldies from as far back as 2010.  But I was especially intrigued by what I could learn from last year's top posts.  

How to sabotage your own conversation.  A significant group of generally smart professionals periodically shoot themselves in the foot with its use. They can resolve a problem, break it down into bits and pieces for a solid resolution--and even explain their rationale. But along the way their input loses its credibility for a simple reason. . . . Action on this issue will help you build your credibility.

A stupidity-based theory of organizations. This is one of those studies which tell you more than you want to know about how organizations actually work. The researchers don’t screw around. They nail organizational BS to the wall. What’s unique about the research are...

What's the Political Noise Really All About?

And what can be done about it?

Although Trump is the most obvious noisemaker, today’s political arena is driven by populism. Populists believe in their own virtue—and that they are being mistreated by a small circle of elites. Added to that belief is the view that “if we work together, we can overthrow those elites.”

But not just the above, a large number of issues keep surfacing, making understanding the noise more difficult. For example, there’s no doubt that Hilary Clinton is the recipient of latent sexism and wounded male (the old white men) prerogatives. In a recent phone conversation, my brother (79 years old) commented that he didn’t know what to do about the election. He wouldn’t vote for Trump, but couldn’t vote for “a woman.” I decided, based on years of experience, not to go there. I just grunted. My brother is reflective of the toxic triad of populism: anti-pluralism (“a woman”?), denial of complexity (“all you need to do is. . . “), and a crooked version of representation (“all politicians are liars”).

So how can we understand all this?
Although there are a lot of confusing issues built into today’s political confusion, Andres Velasco, former finance minister of Chile and now at Columbia, summarizes the most informative insight this history/political science major has picked up on for some time.

Velasco believes that neither bad economics, nor taxation (or jobs or income inequality) drives populism. Instead, he argues that populism today—and historically—is about representation: who gets to speak for the people and how.

Abraham Lincoln’s comment...