According to The Sydney Morning Herald on Feb18 (although I think they picked it up from the Guardian) we might wait a while for a hero to come along. Apparently they’ve just come to the conclusion that “heroes are born not made”. This is based on some groundbreaking research on soldiers (isn’t it great to have soldiers as subjects? They just have to do what they are told. Way more fun than the rats we had to work with who were just plain argumentative). Deane Aikins at Yale has found that some soldiers were able to cope with high stress situations much more easily than others. And he found it was linked to a number of good things happening in the brain. Specifically he found that they had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol than most. They also had more neuropeptide Y which is a neurotransmitter (remember neurotransmitters? They’re the fancy substances that move signals across the synapses. Remember synapses? No? Ok forget about it. Trust me on this?) and this is a good thing because neuropeptide Y dampens the effect of the cortisol. So if you are under stress this is good. OK now Deane’s work is pretty hard core. But essentially he says that in people who do suffer this PTSD and other types of stress reaction there is difference in the amount of a number of chemicals zipping around the brain. (Oh and by the way women suffer PTSD at about twice the rate for men.) So this is now published and reckoned to be kosher. And full marks to Deane and his colleagues. Brilliant stuff. But let’s go back to the way this has been reported.
The main theme of the reporting is that: “Hey! Some people are cooler than others under stress!” Wow. Ring the bells. Now say if it’s just me but isn’t this another wonderful bit of reporting from the school of the bleeding obvious? The fact that people differ in their reactions to stressful situations has been known for generations. Deane’s work is an advance because he started to see a neurological link but the fundamentals have been there for ages. Which is why people selecting for Air Traffic Controllers, Airline Pilots, Special services personnel and so on have actually looked for people with lower Emotionality. Now we haven’t had access to the sophisticated scanning devices used by Deane and his mates but we’ve certainly been able to make a guess at it using psychometric tools that measure Emotionality (Neuroticism).
So maybe we shouldn’t be hugely surprised when Chesley Sullenberger managed to glide a dead aircraft onto the Hudson River. He was obviously a wonderful pilot but I bet he was also very low on Emotionality. Have you listened to his discussion with the tower? Look up his interviews. He’s steady and dispassionate. He’s exactly what you would want flying your plane in those circumstances. He describes the situation totally objectively. According to CBS NEWs he radios Air Traffic Control to look at options and then says “We’re gonna be in the Hudson”. He is described as “Calm and matter of fact”. His voice “never wavered”. Not sure I’d be so cool. And I bet his cortisol had disappeared and his neuropeptide Y was in overdrive to keep him that cool.
So let’s get the message out. People are different. Some people are better at some things than others. Sometimes it’s because they’re taller or stronger or faster. Sometimes it’s because they are smarter. And sometimes its because their hormones and neurotransmitters work differently. And that is what psychology is about.
So whose fault is it then?
February 9th, 2009 Posted by: Norman BuckleySo who caused this GFC (Global Financial Crisis)? Most fingers point at the financial wizards and it’s hard to argue against that. Many years ago a global investment bank used Facet5 and we had consistent pictures of very low Affection and Control. Lots of Will and Energy. Classic Promoters so the term self-advancing risk-takers would not be inappropriate. And this was the London team. This was in 1987, the height of the greedy 1980’s and when the movie Wall Street came out. I remember watching the movie one night and not knowing whether to be appalled at the antics of Gordon Gekko (or is it Gecko – oh no wait. That’s a lizard but I can see where the confusion arises). But a good movie nevertheless even if you wouldn’t want those people to exist in real life..
The very next day my client announced that they had the Facet5 profiles for their New York office. Ye Gods! The London office were pussycats by comparison. They were the most extreme Promoters I’ve ever seen in one place. And with very low Emotionality so there’s no self doubt to dampen the utter conviction that they own the world and that the rest of us are only there to provide them with a feeding ground.
Now this company was pretty smart when it came to management so they knew that these people needed a management style and reward structure that befitted their hard charging style. It should reward individual performance (and slap down failure) and should require a minimum of management control. Their director said that he didn’t believe in planning. The world was in a state of flux and you couldn’t predict anything. He believed in management by cata strophe theory. After all these people are best when left to self manage aren’t they? Alan Greenspan was convinced. And we didn’t hear Ben Bernanke gainsaying it. So we had a bunch of self-advancing people, given the keys to the vault and encouraged to play around and to stretch the boundaries at all times. How could it go wrong? Even Bernanke said recently that he was amazed that it didn’t work. Why? It was entirely predictable.
So what happened? I’m reminded of someone who worked for Mars confectionary in the 1990’s. He was a strong Promoter. He might have done well on Wall Street. But he worked for Mars which had a reputation for being pretty controlling in the way they did business. I asked him what it was like for someone of his freewheeling style. Didn’t he feel constrained? He said it was like being a cow in the biggest field of lucerne (alfalfa) you’ve ever seen. You can eat as much as you want in any direction. But just out of sight there’s an electric fence. One step too far and you get zapped. Forest and John Mars were always there. Somewhere. And that was what kept people in check. Problem with Wall Street was there were no electric fences. Or if there were, you could just pick them up and move them around a bit if they weren’t convenient.
So it’s all gone belly up and were sad for the super rich who’ve been brought back to being only rich. Actually we’re not. They’ll be fine. If you drop back from a Lambo to an Audi you can still get by. But we are sad for the many who will suffer because of the actions of these people. So that’s got the blame firmly allocated. Clearly not our fault. Although maybe we could have been a bit more outspoken at the time. Or were we, too, seduced by the apparent easy money? How many of us have bought a house or car that we probably couldn’t afford at the time but thought it was ok. We’ll grow into it. And mostly we did. Until now.
So who do you back to come back first? Well if it was the low Control, High Energy, High Will people who got into this situation then perhaps it will be the others who get us out. I recently travelled to Singapore and Hong Kong to catch up. Singapore has huge rescue packages in place and government spending is through the roof. Same in Australia. China claims that they are on the way out of the crisis (to be confirmed) and reports that some raw materials prices are increasing rapidly which is good news if you are a commodities exporter. Those who were accused of being conservative in the past are being feted now. A North American financial services company with a reputation for conservatism is now expanding significantly in HK.
So on the basis of the Facet5 economic recovery indicator (the Snapshot of National Character) you’d be backing the Asians (Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Malaysia and India) along with Australia and Canada. You’d be a bit nervous about UK, Japan and Ireland and you’d drop Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Denmark like a hot cake. Japan and Korea? They’ve got the cautious style that might work but they are both highly Emotional. The concern is that they will turn inwards and become overly self-protective.
So there it is. Now we just wait and see what actually happens.
NLB
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