Practical intelligence a factor in entrepreneurial success

I have to say that this is no surprise, really, in that it confirms my naive preconceptions. Of course, it does all depend on what, precisely, we mean by "practical intelligence". My interest is in wondering how training people who are or need to be entrepreneurial to varying degrees is affected. So what does 'entrepreneurial intelligence' look like? Well, the report I've picked this up from holds its cards close to its chest, the clearest statement seems to be this:

"entrepreneurs typically have confidence in what they are undertaking and have the ability to make quick decisions and take action. They are also willing to use their knowledge or what they have learned to experiment and try new approaches to improve the process or product."

At first sight, this might seem to be inimical to the kinds of skills that theological colleges have traditionally been most into. Our training systems have tended to encourage people to be cautious (that's 'scholarly') and modest (that's humility) which tends to discourage quick decisions and precipitous action. I would also say that experiment and new approaches are not encouraged; rather (through the traditional attitudes and structures) somewhat discouraged.

In fact, in view of that I'm inclined to wonder whether it's not so much about 'practical intelligence' as character (a researcher said: "personal characteristics are important as well in venture creation and growth"). It seems to me that it is possible to be cautious and entrepreneurial: the point is to be cautious about the right things. Modesty is not necessarily something that rules out confidence; it's just a sense of proper perspective: confidence can be well founded. I'm suspecting that it is our cultural interpretations that are at fault. And isn't some of this what is said about Brits and business often? We have an education system that seems still to be set up to train people to be civil servants and our theological formation seems to have aped it in an ecclesiastical key.

This relates to an earlier post on failure (and also here): because the concomitant of some of this is also a willingness to fail, and this is helped or hindered by attitudes in our 'communities of formation'. I have to say that I do find the unwillingness sometimes in college to recognise that people will make mistakes or not do things perfectly, stultifying. We should value 'having a go and learning from it', but we seem to communicate "don't have a go unless you're pretty sure you've got everything tied down". Actually, the two shouldn't be opposites, and it should be a case of both having a go and also having taken due care. But in the latter case; sometimes you don't know until you try, and we need to both let people try and also let them know that we know that entrepreneurial success is borne on the back of a raft of failures. The issue is how well we encourage people to reflect on what happened -and for that to happen they have to 'feel free to fail'. When I was doing my PGCE the tutors were very keen to convey to us that we would learn the most from our failures; that we would fail and that the best thing was to accept it would happen and develop skills to make the best of it. That's good advice for developing practical intelligence.

I suspect that we all do have practical intelligence (whatever the definition). Probably some people excell in it and others really don't but most of us are somewhere in-between. However, we can hone it and make the best of it. And perhaps here too an ounce of perspective may be worth a pound of genius -and perspective comes from reflection.

Via: High level of practical intelligence a factor in entrepreneurial success.

Another article gives a quick overview of what brain research can or can't say about the 'self'. Some of it may be relevant here: ""Ego doesn't exist in the brain," says Kagan. What does exist, he explains, is a brain circuit that controls the intrusiveness of feelings of self-doubt and anxiety, which can modulate self-confidence."
And this is probably something that can be fine-tuned: I'm guessing that there's enough plasticity in our brains that (in normal conditions, all other things being equal) we can learn to adjust things. I'm also guessing that where CBT, for example, succeeds in helping people is going to turn out to be in this vicinity. It would mean that the issues I mentioned above about confidence and humility is something that we can genuinely, I think, expect to learn further.

Bradford diocese -or what?

The Mail is a paper which makes its money from purveying stories in the most reactionary ways possible. Reactionary inclused scare-mongering about Muslims in Britain and making dismissive comments about the church (except when 'church' can be used as a cipher of a handful of concerns about 'traditional' England). So it's worth noting this: Church Times - Reports of Bradford’s demise ‘premature’: "A report in The Mail on Sunday alleged that the diocese was “facing the axe” and was to be “scrapped”. It cited the rise in the Muslim population of the city as a factor behind declining congregations, which meant that the Church was “struggling to maintain a foothold”."
The CT article does a reasonable job of putting over the facts about the context and process. However, there are a few things that might be added, perhaps usefully. Note that I'm a former Bradford man and proud to have been so (even if I am open-eyed about the flaws of diocesan administration -but they are not uncommon and the kind of thing that other administrations show up). The facts are these: historically West Yorkshire has been less 'churched' in CofE terms than practically anywhere else in the country except for other northern (formerly) industrial cities.

So when the dioceses of Bradford, Ripon, Wakefield and Sheffield were carved out of York (I simplify the historical process somewhat) beginning in the late Victorian period, they were always the literally-poor relations. The continued financial pressures felt across practically the whole of the CofE have meant that the financially more marginal (with fewer historical resources) have felt the pinch soonest: this includes South and West Yorkshire whose dioceses desperately need economies of scale or far fewer diocesan expenses. This is the reason for the dioceses commission to meet. The situation they have to try to make sense of is that the configuring of diocesan boundaries in this area is not easy. Wakefield is probably a dioceses with little reason to exist and if it lost Barnsley to a south Yorkshire diocese and Halifax to a west Yorkshire set-up, well it'd hardly have reason to exist. Halifax and Calderdale would be better with Bradford, which would be well to 'lose' hunks at its northern end to dioceses like Carlisle and Blackburn because the parishes concerned are actually in Cumbria and Lancashire. I'm less sure about Ripon and Leeds, but the new title tells a story.

All in all there is a case for something like an archdiocese of West Yorkshire to be created from Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds which would create a sharing of most current diocesan functions. I would further suggest that these dioceses could then lose 'extraneous' parishes at their extremities to the more natural administrative placings of those parishes in Lancasire, Cumbria, North and South Yorkshire etc.

Even better would be a slide, push or nod towards Gareth Millar's plan. I guess an archdiocese of West Yorkshire or something similar might do that...

Untranslatable Words -not quite true, is it?

I love these words, and I love it that they can't be translated by a single English word or short phrase.
20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World:
But it's not quite true to say that they are "examples of instances where other languages have found the right word and English simply falls speechless." After all, they each have a short 'definition' in English. So English doesn't fall speechless (especially as 'tartle' is a word from an English dialect!). Merely has to be a bit more prolix. This is important because we don't want to fall into strong linguistic determinism, do we?

Prayer for Global food crisis

I suggest that we make this a matter of urgency in prayer.
Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs | Environment | The Guardian: "Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years, with scientists predicting further widespread droughts and floods."
It's not only a matter of immediate relief of want and suffering -though that is certainly part of the picture. It is also that there political ramifications are quite frightening: remember that historically hunger has driven the instability and even collapse of societies. It is also that we need, as an international community and global citizens to be addressing the means to deal with this as a long term strategy: this is the harbinger of the structural-political-economic problems that climate change brings. We are praying for the very survival of civilisation (and against the collapse of order, law, stability etc and for the saving of human welfare for billions) it's that important. Really. 'Global resiliance' is the shorthand way to sum up this prayer, I think.

Oh, and of course, the second thing is the question we should ask ourselves, what do I /we do to better co-operate with the answering of our prayers?

Burnout and how to deal with it

I came across this via Lifehacker which is a site worth keeping an eye on for the variety of info collected and a sense of just what useful or potentially useful stuff there is out there. Anyway, I looked this over; I've accompanied people professionally on a journey through (parts of) burnout and I have been in situations where, I now recognise, I've been on the edge. So it was great to see a lot of good advice which chimes with what I'd learnt myself over the years, all in one place and not so long a piece that it is disheartening even to contemplate reading it (the last thing you want if you are burning out, eh?). So check it out here: It's a funny old game: Burnout and how to deal with it:

Here's one of the gems:
"...a Burnout Inventory that uses three measurements to identify it
1. Exhaustion
2. Cynicism
3. Inefficacy"

Of course note that all of these need some careful thought about just what the symptoms mean in a wholistic way -the author notes the cultural dimensions of cynicism, for example. And I would add that it's worth checking out that exhaustion is longer-term and not just an unusual and intense time at work or home or in leisure (in which case, rest!), and that you have effective measures for inefficiency and not just a vague sense that you're not getting things done: one effect of depression (which kicks in with burn-out at least later on) is to decrease self-esteem.

There's a good question that we should all ask ourselves before we get to a point of burnout. It's this:
"When pushed to the limit and beyond how do you behave ?"
This is something to ask for help from those who know us well to answer it effectively. Then we can use the answer to keep an eye on ourselves. One of the typical onset difficulties is that incipient burnout is often interpreted by reference to others (often cynically) or mis-attributing blame/responsibility and so we need to be alert to that and to other typical signs in ourselves. I've found this quite helpful over the years, but still get tripped up by things in less-familiar situations or where there are significant dimensions of a job that are sufficiently new to me.
The other useful summary is this:
"A summary would be that you feel very alone, depressed, and judged. To compound it the more you try to get out of it (by doing more of the same) the more you experience it,"

The thing to remember is that in a properly functioning organisation, line managers are for making sure you have adequate (or better) support and for taking responsibility for your work in the sense of making sure that it can be done. If there are problems, they are there to help solve those problems and to help keep you effective and comfortable and secure in the workplace. If they will not do this your union may help or you should look to work elsewhere: it's a dysfunctional organisation and your health is not to be considered a means to address the dysfunction!

Of course, the real bummer is when you have a whole organisation where a significant number of people may be experiencing some of the onset (or worse) of burnout; just think about the potential for cross-transference of blame and guilt-feeling, the brittleness and vehemence of responses all being wound up into a nice tight coil!

If you spot the symptoms, I'd concur with the following list (all except the cat thing: in my case it's a dog and walks)

• Get some exercise to help with general wellness (always do this !), as well as being properly tired for sleep
  
• Take a break
• Hang out with friends
• Ensure you communicate with your partner about why you feel bad (so they don't think it's them)
• Give the cat extra treats
• Remove yourself from things that are associated with work (i.e. sitting in front of a PC all day)
• Get help/advice from unbiased sources (very important, people at work have their own agendas)

Please note that these are not luxuries: they are part of proper self-care which is part of being fit to be a good neighbour and colleague as well as a good employee or volunteer.

For Christians I'd also point out that the effects we're discussing here have an effect on ones prayer life. Burn-out and relating to God are not parallel tracks: they affect one another potentially in both directions. It can be that a good affirming relationship to God can help us to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous torment (to mangle the bard), but it is also the case that burn-out or its first-footings can make it hard for us to find the zest or energy to relate to God in accostomed ways. It's important at those times to give ourselves a break and remember that God first loved us, that God is all about grace and that our attempts to bully ourselves into 'working' at prayer in certain ways are likely to exacerbate the problem.

We need to be able to relate to God as a supportive presence not as another harsh taskmaster (like our work has become -or our organisation or our managers). As spiritual director in such times I'm more inclined to encourage people to spend time doing things they find restorative (sabbathing in a real sense) and to just sit with the recognition that God just loves 'em, is for them and supports them. I think I might want to be on the look-out for things that actively help them to connect with a restorative and affirming sense of God: walks on sunny days, painting, cleaning out the garage (yes, for some people that helps!), running, whatever ... and encouraging that to be part of the regular routine of life.

I could write more about the calling of human organisations to be agents of human welfare both 'internally' and 'externally', but I have done some of that elsewhere and am continuing to reflect on this in relation to the 'corporisations' stuff I'm collecting and (occasionally) writing up.

Secure Password Solution

I'm looking at using this: I have a number of passwords and sometimes I'm not sure which goes with what, and so it may be that this
The Easy, Any-Browser, Any-OS Password Solution has a good answer and here's why: "Of all the password management utilities out there, I consider LastPass the most elegant compromise between convenience and security, and if you're not using it already, I recommend you start. It's mostly free, plugs into nearly any browser or smartphone, is KeePass compatible, and just works."
So, I'm checking it out. If you do too, let me know what you think.

Cockroachescould be good news!

A few weeks back we discovered that we could be about to run out of effective antibiotics (I think it was on the BBC news). Well, how about this? Cockroaches Have Super Antibiotics in Their Brains; We Must Steal Them | 80beats | Discover Magazine: From the inheritors of the world after the fall of civilisation, to the possible saviours of medical treatment.

"The brains of these insects carry some serious antibiotics—strong enough to slaughter bacteria that have evolved resistance to the hospital antibiotics we use."

However, the development time may be a good while. It could be a race between resistance in bacteria and development of new a-b's.

Callibrating cow poo

Being as how I keep drawing your attention to reports of new research, it only seems fair to share this:

How to Set the Bullshit Filter When the Bullshit is Thick | Wired Science�| Wired.com

In fact, it seems that the things to keep in mind are the kind of thing that I and at least some of my readers actually do tend to use to weigh up what we read:

"... the corollaries or risk factors that Iaonnidis sets out in that 2005 paper. Useful in adjusting your BS filter and in identifying the sorts of disciplines and fields and findings that deserve more skepticism.

Those corollaries:

Corollary 1: The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Corollary 2: The smaller the effect sizes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Corollary 3: The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Corollary 4: The greater the flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Corollary 5: The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Corollary 6: The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true.

Worth bookmarking?
Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/how-to-set-the-bullshit-filter-when-the-bullshit-is-thick/#ixzz13DS0vlh0

Bishops should be selected by lottery

This research on peter_principle gives a mathematical demonstration that: "organizations would become more efficient if promotions were made at random" So assuming that being made Bishop is a promotion in some sense (and I have theological difficulties with the notion), we should consider saving the moneys spent on the Crown appointments process and the search procedures and simply enter all the clergy into a lottery for each position of bishop, archdeacon or even area dean. There is Biblical precedent, of course ...

Wall hanging at St Peter's Allerton

Meant to put this up last week. There's a set of CAFOD prints on cloth from two-thirds world Christian communities. The above is a Ressurection hanging with many features of an iconic nature. The others have not come out so well but hopefully you can get the idea.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

The natural selection of human language

I found this intriguing: On the Human: Rethinking the natural selection of human language � On the Human. It's basically looking at the evolution of language and symbolising in humans both in terms of its possible precursors ('relaxation of selection' freeing up capacities for diversified uses) and that the symbolic universe (a precursor to cyberspace, let's face it) became, itself, an environment which exerts selective pressure: "because of symbols and with the aid of symbols, Homo sapiens has been self-domesticated and adapted to a niche unlike any other that ever has existed. We have been made in the image of the word."

That last sentence is particularly intriguing. I don't think the author has a theological meaning in mind, however, it does seem to fit together the evolutionary and the theological...

As with so many of these kinds of theories, you can take it two ways.

it makes sense to think of ourselves as symbolic savants, unable to suppress the many predispositions evolved to aid in symbol acquisition, use, and transmission. In order to be so accomplished at this strange cognitive task, we almost certainly have evolved a predisposition to see things as symbols, whether they are or not. This is probably manifest in the make-believe of young children, the way we find meaning in coincidental events, see faces in clouds, are fascinated by art, charmed by music, and run our lives with respect to dictates presumed to originate from an invisible spirit world.

One reading of this would say 'therefore, all talk of god and of the metanatural is just an epiphenomenon and a misleading one at that'. Another would say, 'if God creates by the use of natural, material processes such as we can infer from geology and natural history, then how else would a capacity to relate to God personally arise?'

Chicken or egg with screen time and problems?

What I can't see in this article Screen time linked to psychological problems in children is a clear sign that the alternative hypothesis has been considered: "The results showed that more than two hours per day of both television viewing and recreational computer use were related to higher psychological difficulty scores,"

This led to the statement that restricting children's screen time might be good for them. But what if the relationship between screen-time and psychological disturbance is not cause and effect but effect and cause? Or even both signs of some other (unnoticed or unconsidered) factor that effects both of those things?

Admittedly, I'm being a bit skeptical of things that look like they could feed the 'woe woe and thrice woe' attitude to ICTs, so maybe the interpretation is right. But even if it is, then the cause needs to be known and possibly the question asked whether there are carry-overs or implications for people who have to work with ICTs for 8 or more hours a day ... ? So, my verdict: more research needed ...

PS just found a comment on this research here at Neuranthropology: A way down on the page under 'Digital'; "My guess is that screen time can be a proxy for other things going on in a home, such as parental neglect, and so the real cause of the later psychological problems is not elucidated by this study."

Banking reform bill, first reading

Cross-cultural reflections on science

Having noted results of research that seemed to indicate in a prima facie interpretation that children in some developing countries are less psychologically developed in some respects, the question is posed"Are children in these non-Western nations seriously delayed in their mirror self-recognition"
The interesting thing is that there may be, as the article points out, cultural reasons why the results might come out as they do. If science is blind to cultural hermeneutics in dealing with human 'subjects', then we could end up with some misleading interpretations of data and design of experiments.

'Our impression,' the researchers said, 'was that they [the children] understood that it was themselves in the mirror, that the mark was unexpected, but that they were unsure of an acceptable response and therefore dared not touch or remove it.

'BPS Research Digest: Cross-cultural reflections on the mirror self-recognition test:

Eeh, isn't research fun?

Any way, there's a bit more of this interpretive care needed in other cases too. Take this example;

"A well-established gene variant that is supposed to predict depression seems to predict just the opposite in East Asia." Dobbs argues that, in effect, a gene that seems like a predisposition to depression is really a predisposition to being sensitive to the social world. (http://www.iftf.org/node/3603)

 Context, context, context. There's no getting away from it. MY objectivity is your cultural misunderstanding, or something ...

Commonplaces of technology critique

This is a really nice round-up of what I've tended to call the 'moral panic' approach to new technology -specially the internet and all its works: Eurozine - Commonplaces of technology critique - Kathrin Passig It identifies with some examples lending plausibility, several predictable phases of reaction to new-fangled jeejaws and thingummibobs: it starts with downright dismissal, moves through "It'll never catch on" then it'll be dismissed as something that "people like us" wouldn't be seen dead with" and "It's just a fad", then once it becomes obvious that it's settling in we get onto the "end of civilisation" jeremiads (which is where we're at with the internet just now: using the internet rots minds)... And so on ...

I loved this (one of many examples of the persistence and antiquity of the cycle of responses) in this case in the early stages of 'negotiation' about the etiquettes of new technologies:

In the early days of the printing press it was seen as bad manners to give a printed book as a gift; until the 1980s there was a stigma of rudeness attached to typed private letters. The criticism of the use of mobile phones in public deems a conversation with an invisible partner – as opposed to one with a third party who is physically present – to be an unacceptable lack of respect for the people in one's vicinity. Sitting in cafés with one's laptop open is something that restaurateurs do not like to see – it gives an antisocial impression and reduces takings – yet sitting around in public with a book or an open newspaper has not caused any offence for quite some time. The unspoken thrust of these complaints is ultimately that opponents of an innovation do not want to be confronted with it without their consent.

Oh, and do have a look at this to get a further sense of perspective:

"For critics around 1870, the postcard sounded the death-knell for the culture of letter-writing, while in February 1897 the American Newspaper Publishers Association discussed whether "typewriters lower the literary grade of work done by reporters"."

This is a must-read article to put beside all those books that seem to be coming out to alarm us about the brain-rotting, civilisation-threatening effects of search-engines and blog-reading.

Chris Anderson’s prezi on Crowd Accelerated Innovation

This is a kind of BOGOF (buy one get one free): the video, like many of TED's offerings, is very interesting and stimulating. In this case the reflection on the coming together of some facets of human nature with the technology of internet-shared video. Anderson makes the comparison to Gutenburg and he may be right.

The other reason is the technology he uses to structure the visuals of his presentation, he does a nice job of showing what Prezi can do.
Watch TED head Chris Anderson’s prezi - Prezi.com Blog