Category: General Thoughts

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Dilettantes dilemma

I will probably have to retire next year & I am looking for things to do. Among other things, I am considering part-time teaching. This would be a way to share some of my education and experience with the next generation. They call this a generative aspiration because it is meant to be helpful and useful. But it is also a bit of a problem in today’s labor market.
If you look at the plight of adjunct faculty, it is not a good place to be. Adjunct faculty is paid not very much and they often have to cobble together several jobs to make ends meet. Enter former diplomats or former executives or former anything. We are looking for something interesting and useful to do, but we are not very much concerned with earning money or improving working conditions. For us it is just fun. We provide competition for people who want to make a career in the field and it is tough competition because we are willing to work for peanuts. So the generative, generous and selfless endeavor starts looking less benign.
I was talking to a taxi driver a few days ago about Uber, that service that lets individuals become part time taxi drivers when they got nothing else to do. It is part of the sharing economy, where people share things that they aren’t using to full extent. Like my adjunct professor idea, this looks good. You are expanding the universe of providers, improving the use of resources and lowering prices. But we have the dilettante problem again.
My taxi driving informant complained that the Uber folks skim off the best customers. This is more than grumbling. He has a point. It is easy and profitable to be a taxi driver if you only have to take the best customers at the best times. The professionals have also to pick up the bad cases and take them to the bad places. It is like the sales manager who steps in at busy times and books so many more sales per-hour than his subordinates who have to work through thick and thin.
It pains me to say this, but there are times when you want to build in some market inefficiencies, when you really want to make people pay more for products and services than that market would naturally demand. Of course, this can easily get out of hand too. Taxi services are a good example. In some places, the numbers are kept so artificially low that prices are way too high and service too slow. It is something in perpetual dynamic tension, but maybe the end goal is not what would appear most efficient.
I ride my bike to work and have been riding the same way since 1997. I know the road and the traffic lights. You would think that I would be most happy when all the lights go my way, but you would be mistaken. Sometimes when I turn onto a familiar street and see the green light in the distance, I am happy because I know that I cannot possible reach it in time. By the time I get there, even at Lance Armstrong steroid pace, it will be red. I can relax and time it at a leisurely pace to cross when it again turns green. Not only that, I can complain about the injustice of having to stop so often and use it as an excuse for being slow. It takes me around an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work. I can make it in less than an hour and have done, but it is hard and probably a little dangerous. Maybe a few stops built into the system are good.
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Food trucks

Food trucks were just starting to show up when I left Washington only a little more than three years ago and most of those were the cheap hot dog stand variety.  They are thick as flies these days, with sophisticated presentations and complicated menus.  They definitely fill a need.  But they present a kind of urban ecological challenge.

The food trucks are like vines.  They don’t build or maintain their own support, but rather depend on what has been built by others and eventually can smother the creators.  They can grow fast and prosper since need not maintain seating, bathrooms or other amenities.  They can pull up or out when conditions warrants.  In other words, they can skim off the best and make a hasty exit when get out when the going gets tough. It is very advantageous.  That is why they can offer lower prices and/or make higher profits.
It is a little counter intuitive.  We want to root for the little guy and certainly we respect their initiative.  But some of these are not really little guys or particularly innovative.
Generally speaking, I am in favor of free enterprise.  But any system of free enterprise has the free rider challenge, with people hopping on the wagon instead of helping pull it.

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My favorite Secretaries of State

My favorite was Lawrence Eagleburger and not only because he was born in Milwaukee and went to UWSP, like me. He was just smart and I admire that. I recall when he came to Norway. He had only a very small staff with him, not the big retinues we see today. We prepared the usual talking points. He told me something like, “I don’t need these things: I am the one who makes them up.” And he did. He handled all the questions as effortlessly as most of us would talk about our favorite colors.

They say the world is more complicated now and that this kind of lean simplicity is no longer possible. I disagree. The world was plenty complicated back then too. Complex, really, which is even harder. But guys like Eagleburger could absorb that complexity and come up with simple explanations. You don’t meet many people like that. My former Ambassador Tom Shannon had that skill, which is why it was so good to work with him. Something to strive for, I suppose, but not achieve. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
I am reading a good book about FDR called, “the Mantle of Command.” I have read several FDR bios. He had a fascinating leadership style. He was not a great intellect, they said, but he had a great temperament and the talent to work through and with others, even working well with those who opposed him passionately. And he was comfortable with ambiguity. I am not sure why I went on this tangent, but I will leave it on anyway.

If I rank order the Secretaries of State I worked for, Eagleberger, Schultz and Powell are in a first class of their own.  I will not be undiplomatic enough to continue to the low performers, suffice it to say that if I talked to a group of colleagues, I think we could come to a consensus about those top three I mentioned above and the bottom three, which I will not put into print.

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Let’s not meet about it

I have failed in my admittedly quixotic quest to limit meetings and protect time. My goal was to limit time spent in meetings, eliminate many meetings altogether and just say no to just being there.

I have learned (confirmed) to my sadness that in government, maybe any large organization, many people define their “work” by the number and duration of the meetings they attend.

We talk about saving time and say time is our most valuable resource. I listened to a podcast re (see link,) which actually provoked this post.

In truth, I have not been completely unsuccessful. I have learned to say “no” to lots of meetings. I think I have paid some cost, but what do I care at this stage of my career.
I ridicule most suggestions of “brainstorming” for example, especially when “brainstorm” is used as a verb, i.e. “let’s brainstorm it.” Brainstorming is a colossal waste of time. People substitute brainstorming for thinking things through. I can think of a few cases where brainstorming sessions produced some value, but I cannot think of very many. And I am sorry but there are some stupid ideas and it is not much use to “get them out there” except maybe to get them out into the open where they can be eliminated more easily.
But my ridiculing of brainstorming upsets brainstorm advocates. Some don’t tell me, but they are.

Returning to the main meeting topic, I had a very interesting case with one of my staff members, who was holding too many meetings. When I asked him to stop, he told me that “his bosses” expected of him. I pointed out that I was his boss and I didn’t want it. He stopped – I thought. I later learned that he had not stopped at all; he just stopped reporting back to me. What for, if the ostensible recipient of the results doesn’t want them? My belief is that it was just a way to seem to be busy, like doing a rain dance.

But I have learned a simple technique. I noticed that when somebody closes a meeting, it is customary to ask if anybody else has anything else to say. This question is often followed by a “are you sure?” and/or by additional comments. I have noticed that when the last person speaks, the best thing to say is “okay, let’s get back to work.” If someone really has something important to add, they will say so. Otherwise, head for the door while the opportunity is there. I have a variation if I am not leading the meeting. When the leader says “okay, let’s” I get up and make to leave. This often finishes the meeting w/o the request for additional comments.

In the link I included, the author talks about making it harder to set up meetings. Outlook makes it too easy. All you need do is send out those notices. I used to think it was rude not to respond at all, but now I just ignore most of them, since few of them really need me. They have no business asking me and I figure if they really care they will follow up.
IMO, many if not most meetings result from inability to make decisions. How often are you talking with a few people and somebody says, “let’s have a meeting to resolve this.” The correct answer is almost always “no”.

If you need more information, ask whoever is likely to have it. If a decision is within your portfolio, just make it. The cost of coming to the “right” decision with meetings and research often exceeds the cost of making the wrong decision and some things just don’t matter very much.

Anyway, I lost that long war against meetings, although I did manage to clear an areas that was, if not meeting free, was at least meeting scarce. This gave everybody more time to do real work and I think it was effective. I would discuss this with anyone who asks, but let’s not meet about it.

PS – I am not really against wasting time. Some wasted time is unavoidable. But I can waste time all by myself. I don’t need to call a meeting of a lot of other people to help.

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From Facebook: Hagia Sophia

This is especially for John Jasik, given his interest in Turkey. It was a church for nearly 1000 years and then became a mosque. I don’t really care who controls it, but they should take better care of it. I visited twice. Istanbul is one of my favorite places. Re Hagia Sophia – I am sure those giant round things hanging from the ceiling have some significance, but they detract from the beauty. It is always a challenge for “restoration.” What period do you restore? IMO, the idea that it can alternate between being a mosque and being a church makes good sense. Christianity is the “indigenous” religion, but Islam conquered the place 1452 so they have some claim too.
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20140510_EUP002_0.jpg
Church to mosque…and back?
www.economist.com
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Air travel

We like to complain about travel, but we also want to travel very cheaply and not pay for many of the things we demand. IMO, we have the system most of us deserve. I am not that unhappy with travel. It is not fun and I don’t fit in most seats, but I am getting what I (or my employer) pays for. Well, maybe not. The USG, in its wisdom, pays about twice as much for a flight as I could get on the ordinary website and they get a lower class ticket in the bargain. I am told there are reasons for this beyond my immediate understanding and I have to accept my cognitive limitations. Evidently, they sometimes get good deals on flights I never take and so the overall system is okay. It is like judging the symphony when you just sit next to the drum. I am missing the sublime beauty of the total system harmony. They even have special webpages that manage to give you less convenient service at a higher price, something that private businesses just cannot match. USG webpages require special training.

That aside, I am have generally happy with Delta, which has the flight to DC via Atlanta. They cancelled my flight in January because of air storms, but got me quickly on a replacement and gave me lots of free miles. Travel has also improved with electronic tickets and internet. Some people recall a golden age of travel. I do not. Travel sucked more thirty years ago than it does today and it cost a lot more in inflation adjusted dollars.

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Being too busy

One of my most valuable tasks as a leader, of my own life and of my organization, is setting priorities. Priorities mean NOT doing most things in order to concentrate on those of highest value added. I spend a lot of time and energy thinking of ways to skip steps, simplify procedures and get other people to do what I need to get done. As a result, things that used to take me days to do, I can now knock out in hours or sometimes I don’t have to do them at all. This is as it should be. Much of this happy outcome is the result of thinking about the process, i.e. not being busy.

There is an old story about a guy who is locked out of his house. He needed to get in quick and calls a locksmith, who tells him that he can solve the problem for $50. The guy agrees. The locksmith shows up, takes a look, thumps the lock with a little hammer. It opens and he asks for his $50. The guy doesn’t want to pay. “$50 bucks,” he stammers, “for thumping the lock? I want an itemized bill.” He gets it – $0.05 for thumping the lock; $49.95 for knowing how. We should strive to know more and do less.

All successful people are busy sometimes, but if you are busy all the time, you are either not in control of your life and should spend more time trying to figure it out, sort of like glancing at a map before setting out on a cross country journey instead of wandering Neanderthal like until you stumble over a route. I suspect most people are not as busy as they say. As the article says, many of us derive status from appearing busy all the time. Not me. I am a man of leisure and proud of that. If I can get more done than in less time, that is how I want to derive status. I am content if people think my success is the result of dumb luck because working hard for meager results is just kind of dumb.
Competing to be the busiest
www.washingtonpost.com
We don’t feel important, experts say, unless we have too much to do.
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Private-public-partnership saves Central Park.

It was a cold and gray day, but still worth it to walk around in Central Park.  Central Park is a monument to lots of things.  From the original smart idea devote a big area of the middle of the city to a park, the wonderful “planned spontaneity” of the design by Frederick Law Olmsted, to the extraordinary voluntary management by the Central Park Conservancy, Central Park has been an example.

It really was not that cold, but I was unprepared for the cold there was.  I just didn’t have warm clothes to bring from Brazil, so I faced the 25 degrees and bitter wind with a running windbreaker and a sweatshirt underneath.  I joke that it was the same temperature in Brasília as New York, both 25 degrees, but one Celsius and one Fahrenheit.  I bought a hat for $5, which at least kept my bald head warm.

Central Park is familiar, like going home to a place you never lived because of the frequent use of the place as a setting for movies and TV.   It is also familiar because of the design.   Lots of places copied Olmstead’s designs and the man himself actually designed some Milwaukee parks.  It was the default design of urban parks for generations.

The thing that interested me most today was the role of the Central Park Conservancy.   Central Park was not always as pleasant as it is today.   The NYC was unwilling or unable to maintain it to a high enough standard.  NYC contracts with the Conservancy, which is a non-profit private group, to run  maintain the park, but most of the money to do the needed operations is raised privately by the conservancy.   It is a successful example of public-private-partnership and a good lesson that collective action need not be organized by a government authority.  People working in voluntary association can do wonders given the chance.  

Public need not mean run by government.  The public includes more than that.  The word has developed a somewhat pejorative connotation.  Think “public” restroom and what do you think?  It need not be this way. Central Park is a public park in every important sense.  It is run by “the public” but by the public that cares the most.

My pictures show Central Park this morning.  The lower picture is a newly planted Princeton elm.  They are resistant to the Dutch elm disease and yet have the nice shape.

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Fear tactics

Interesting misuse of statistics.  Cancer is a serious issue. The report on which this is based headlines “Effective prevention measures urgently needed to prevent cancer crisis.”  But there is no crisis. Why is cancer rising? Because people are living longer.  If you live long enough, cancer will kill you.  Our ancestors were “spared” cancer because most died of something else first.  The black plague was a great way to avoid cancer or heart disease. It seems less a crisis to know that increased cancer is caused by longer lives.

It reminds me of the headline from the Onion “World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent.”  It went on to call all medicine a failure, since it clearly had not prevented even one death in the long run of history.

The good news is that cancer rates have been dropping for two decades, that is when you compare the comparable.  Naturally, an 80-year-old has a greater risk of dying of anything than a 20-year-old.  If you have more old guys, more people die. It doesn’t mean life is more dangerous.

BTW homicides using guns has also dropped a lot.  They are down 49% in the last twenty years.  Rape rates have dropped to one-sixth of what they were 20 years ago.
The fact is that almost everything is getting better, but we don’t know that because the reports are much worse.  Some of this just has to do with the news.  But much of it is the active measures by activists to create fear to gain more funding or political power.  Life is not perfect today, but it really is better than ever.

But if you want to be afraid, let me help.  I can guarantee that sometime in the future something will kill you.  Nobody gets out of here alive.  And if you live long enough, you will get cancer.  Believe it.

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Learning languages

Freakonomics radio asks whether it is worth it to study a foreign language and answers yes for people learning English but no for Americans learning other languages. At the risk of being called an apostate, except in specific situations like my own I have to agree, but with different reasons.

My experience with foreign languages is mixed. When asked what languages I speak, I always say “only one, Portuguese.” I also SPOKE Polish, Norwegian & German and I read Latin & Greek, but those things are gone like the snows of last winter. I can bring them back, as I did Portuguese, but not easily.

It is sad. I love to speak Portuguese. It is a beautiful language, especially the Brazilian variety. It truly is a joy to speak. But I know that by this time next year, my once fluent Portuguese will be ragged and then end up like my 3+ Polish … gone for all practical purposes. I can promise myself, as I always do, that this time it will be different, but it won’t. Some people are multilingual; most are not and a significant number cannot really even learn one second language well. And almost nobody can maintain a language w/o more time and effort than most of us can afford.

Freakonomics figured the economic value of a second language and found a low marginal value. It varies by language. Something like Spanish, which is common among Americans, gives little economic value. Others do better. I bet Portuguese is a more valuable language for Americans, since it is not too hard or too common. But there are opportunity costs. Language learning takes time that you might use for other things.

I studied classical Greek and I am still glad I did (don’t ask me why). But the way I learned Greek is exactly the same way I learned math. Study, repeat, study, repeat … it takes time. If I spent that Greek study time and mental energy on math or engineering, might it not be better for me? I could have passed through differential equations in that time. Language is a kind of luxury. I indulged my habit because I could. You can well argue for the humanities and languages. I do. But I got TOO good at Greek. One year would have given me enough insights. And I forgot it all now anyway.

English is the exception (Of course, that doesn’t apply to us) because it is so useful. In all human history, no language has so dominated the globe as English does today. We Americans are lucky that we speak English, but it presents us with a dilemma in that we have less incentive to learn other languages. And if we do choose to learn another language, it is hard to choose which one. After English, there is no slam-dunk choice.

As a diplomat, I demand of myself and my colleagues that we used the language of the country, but that is not always so easy. I used to speak Norwegian reasonably well. But after a while, I couldn’t get better. Norwegians would indulge me and speak to me in Norwegian for a few minutes. Then they would just get sick of it and go to English. A good thing about Brazil is that this happens less frequently, but give it a few years. I recall when I first went to Poland. People did not speak English very much and I had to use Polish all the time. A few years later, that had changed. I ended up having my most intense conversations with my driver, Bogdan. The Poles “enjoyed” my “fluent” Polish, but sometimes told me that I used words like a peasant. Thanks, Bogdan.

If we are learning language as an academic exercise, which most Americans really are if we admit the truth, the language to learn, IMO, is Latin. Latin has the world’s richest and most diverse literature (although English is catching up) because – like English – it was a world language, albeit a smaller world. People from lots of different cultures and background wrote in Latin and they did so for more than 2000 years, so we have a real time perspective. It also makes Latin descended languages easier, if you need to learn one of them.

I think it is a good thing to learn languages for spiritual or humanities reasons (this coming from a guy who studied very relevant Latin & Greek) but as for it being necessary or even very useful … the world is learning our language faster than we can learn theirs.
PS – When I was studying Greek & Latin, the things I wanted most were books called Loeb Classics that featured the classical language on one page and English on the opposite. Now that I am better off and can afford them, I bought a couple from Amazon. I tried Greek – Polybius – that I used to know well. It was all Greek to me. I couldn’t make out two words. I gave up. I bought Latin – Lucretius. I could kind of guess at Latin, but mostly because of Portuguese. I gave up on that too. I still have the books and revere them as a kind of fetish. But they would be more useful w/o the Greek or Latin.