The Sparrow and the Lion
Sometimes, it’s a fool’s role to be a fool.
Overview:
The topic: Psychometric surveys based on Factor Analysis are ubiquitous. Such esoteric such tests may even mandate your medical options with some MDs.
The cause: Unnecessary anguish expressed in online comments for a course on personality bother me. That course titled Discovering Personality relies on the Big Five Personality Traits survey by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson et al.
The stages:
First, we’ll start with a behind-the-scenes view of surveys in words you can use with a grade-school child.
Then, we’ll look at the use and misuse of such tests, including actual online comments.
I’ll end by offering a few reflections and suggestions about the online resource by Peterson, Higgins, and Pihl.
Astronomy, astrology, what difference does it make?
Our ancestors crossed seas and deserts by reading the stars in the night sky. Stable night sky constellations with a predictable course were paramount. The latter are artifacts due to our inability to see depth in the night sky with our naked eyes. They are the Chinese shadow puppets that the Cosmos play upon the Earth.
And, like the night sky has too many stars, so do psychometric surveys have too many questions to discuss with a client. So those questions are “reframed” as a manageable number of “virtual” questions, mind constellations. The test scores are the “imaginary” answers to those virtual questions. The configurations are, more often than not, score ranges from high to low. But I worked with ratios of scores also.
Ultimately, a correlation is not a digested thought; it’s an open question.
Indeed, a psychometric survey’s value is less in its answers than in the questions it raises.
For example, imagine a School Counselor telling little Johnny he is a Good Hearted ™ little boy. Perhaps that’s not true, but Johnny accepts the praise at face value and keeps being the usual school bully. Johnny might also ask himself what his days would be like if he were genuinely good-hearted. That choice might lead to a positive change in his education. Who would worry when Johnny gets different scores from the same test years later? Has he not traveled from one seacoast to another?
It’s a red flag when a survey author warns against repeating a test.
No one cares when a sparrow poops on the sidewalk; but beware when a lion does the same.
And that leads us to the flip side of little Johnny’s story. The school counselor informs him that he is morally inferior and an unlovable dreg of society. What, then, are Johnny’s choices?
Unfortunately, that version isn’t all fictional.
Who on Earth would want a mandated Woke Big Five Personality Traits survey?
Some comments on the Discovering Personality course’s lesson on Conscientiousness concern me. For example, one student asked what advantage a low conscientiousness score might confer. Here are two antipodal replies that I leave for you to decide.
“Yes. As a hiring manager, it’s easier to narrow down the list of people to interview by removing all those low enough in consciousness to be unemployable, as Fran eluded to.”
“I feel this so deeply. Just took the test and scored moderately low on conscientiousness/industriousness and it’s hit me. I’ve been a high achiever all my life, am a premed at Harvard currently applying to MD/PhD programs, and I’ve wanted to be a physician for over a decade for how much I care about people and want to spend my life serving. I’m so confused.”
The confusion stems from a conflation of personality with character in the written explanation for low scorers. The authors assert that low conscientiousness scores come from people:
“whose friends can’t trust to help them move,”
“who are completely unconcerned with cleaning, moral purity and achievement,”
“who tend to be almost completely free of guilt, shame, self-disgust and self-contempt,”
“who do not consider duty as a virtue or an obligation,”
“who will not even work hard if directly and continually pushed by outside forces (supervisors, spouses, friends, parents),”
“who can be exceptionally skilled at wasting time and slacking off and justifying it.”
Hitler had a few choice names for such people; Roms and Jews come to mind.
On the other hand, high scorers are efficient, ambitious, value-driven, and good employees.
Now, the word factory comes to mind.
It’s a craftsman’s mark to track the value of his work.
Twenty times on the loom, put back your work.
When I was born the World was still round, and human bonds kept us from falling. So, from that perspective, I respectfully propose to Dr. Peterson & colleagues two possible corrections.
First, let a panel of writers to review the survey’s synopses for any personality biases as well as any conflation of personality with character.
Second, reach out to students who have expressed anguish in their comments. Those who paid money wanted to improve their lives, not be dragged in the mud. That is just good customer service.
My third recommendation is a wish that Dr. Peterson would consider the potential cultural damage caused by magical thinking in psychometric testing.
Sincerely,
Joel Malard, Ph.D. McGill Univesity
Juido LLC, CA
What is Success?
Photo by Sofia Báthory @ Pexels
This story most people will miss, but it is true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Two street musicians were battling for their grounds at the Fremont Hub Shopping Mall — one at each end of a parking lane.
The first musician in his forties seemingly played virtuoso violin, though it was a recording. He was part of a Roma group.
The other musician was a young man, perhaps 17, playing chords on electric guitar. He would play a chord, lose focus, and stop in frustration.
It happened several times while I locked up my bicycle.
An older guy walked to the guitarist and offered him $5 if he could jam with the violinist.
"-Do you mean talk to him?"
"-No. Compete. Respond to his music, adapt."
Well, for $5, the youngster started to listen as he played; he added melody to his chords, then forgot his chords and just played nonstop. By the time I returned to my bicycle, the competition was gone.
The women begging along their children owned the territory. The violonist owned the method.
The guitarist received neither land nor system. What did he get instead?
And how does this lesson trasnfer to business?
Exploring the Shifting Sands of Language and Logic
In a world where words continually evolve, our understanding of language, logic, and truth is undergoing a profound transformation. As Mayim Bialik recently highlighted on Instagram, media-driven redefinitions of words are shaping our debates and dialogues in unprecedented ways.
This poses a fundamental question: what implications does the fluidity of language have on our communication and collective reasoning?
The video we're about to share explores this complex issue through the lens of Wilfred Bion's perspective of words as containers and transfer learning, the uniquely human ability to apply knowledge from one domain to another to solve problems in a new domain.
The video begins by reviewing old processes of distorting truth, such as brute force argument, mob instinct, repetition, paradoxes, and fallacies. It then goes on to examine the unique role of time in influencing our chances of making logical errors in social engineering narratives that may unfold over decades.
Drawing parallels to debugging algorithms, the video identifies two new sources of hallucinations: type errors and dangling pointers. It then explores the surprising real-life implications of these concepts, such as how they can be exploited to manipulate public opinion and spread misinformation.
Ultimately, the video highlights the importance of critical thinking and effective communication in a world where words are constantly changing. It encourages us to be mindful of the ways in which language can be used to distort reality and to develop new strategies for reasoning and communicating in a complex and ever-evolving world.
Mayim Bialik's Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy6n9WkSsIB/
Words as containers: “Wild Thoughts Searching for a Thinker - A Clinical Application of W.R. Bion's Theories,” by Rafael E. Lopez-Corvo, 2006.
Do smartphones dumb us down beyond the evil dopamine trope?
Old rotary phose on a wall. Source: www.mylusciouslife.com
Can excessive smartphone use deprive us of willful thinking by disrupting the equilibrium between breathing and focus?
The idea is reasonable as it reflects how we read aloud, first by glancing at the sentence, then reading its content, and finally pausing over its meaning.
Without the two complementary functions to intuit and comprehend, the mind becomes like a weather vane seeking the most likely word to produce next. Thinking becomes a mechanical prayer wheel.
Let me explain how the situation presented itself to me. All Roman, Eastern, and Orthodox Catholics share a prayer bead practice known as the Rosary, which also doubles as a road map for healing trauma. True, other religions have traditions and protocols to deal with the contrarian violence of nature, but I can only speak of what I know.
The Rosary is a conversation; it demands sincerity and self-awareness. On every one of 50 beads, one says a prayer consisting of about three to six sentences, not in a mechanical way but preempting each thought, letting it blossom into words, and holding it in one’s mind. The first and last are crucial to self-awareness and the so-called discernment of spirits. My practice became immensely more strenuous during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Perhaps I caught the disease unknowingly, knowingly got older, or hastily ate too many unbalanced meals. Yet, two things stood out during that period: far too few face-to-face interactions and my uncritical binging on online videos too often.
Taking back the practice felt like the first day at the gym after years without doing push-ups, and it took time for my mind's core to react positively.
What if excessive use of smartphones, irrespective of content, could turn us into walking Chat-GPTs where a string of thoughts or words generate the next most likely thought, making us lose our willful contrarian thinking? And what would happen to public discussions?
What if dopamine was merely the cheese on the mouse trap?
I am no neuroscientist, so take this video with a grain of salt, and please post a comment, especially if you come from another tradition.
Cheers!
Joel Malard, Ph.D. McGill University
Software as Art
Computer Science is a trade; its aim is mundane.
Yet its means are of the essence of man.
It has rhythm, space, economy, and a sense of beauty.
Great code is the shadow of a piece of art in the developer's mind.
The architect is the conductor of a silent opera.
An Early Xmas Message
Hello,
Deadlines are piling up over me like snow during a Canadian blizzard, and I hope you won’t mind my sharing some thoughts early.
The last 11 years of my life followed a bet to put my heart and mind ahead of my finances, and this year is my year of accountability.
Here are my 2 cents take away.
Absolute Truth is too big to sit in the Universe (thanks to Godell)
Irrefutable Justice is too big to sit in the Universe (it rests on all past, present, and future truths)
Unconditional Love unites those two, and is too big to sit in the Universe.
Unconditional Love, whose existance one man proved, cannot be recognized as we get fooled time and again.
True love isn’t as much a state as a promise kept to keep search together, no matter how hard the road might be.
Whether you are Christian, Atheist, Bahai, Buddhist, Daoist, Muslim, Jew, Shinto, or otherwise, my wish is for you and your loved ones to be 100% present to one another, if only for one evening this month.
And may your embraces chase away the clouds gathered on the horizon.
Love to all,
Joel Malard, PhD
Juido LLC
Would you bring food to your starving grand-mother if it only took 15 minutes?
Last winter, a 90-year-old neighbor of my Canadian brother passed away from hunger in her home in one of Montreal’s posh neighborhoods. Winter temperatures in Montreal can drop below -40 degrees Fahrenheit, and the ice may lock seniors inside their homes for weeks.
Life wasn’t as cruel when my parents moved their small family into the neighborhood. Instead, we were invited to a party at a neighbor’s home, where my parents got to know everyone by name.
Then, this Summer, my kitty-corner 70-year-old neighbor, Jesse, passed away in his home alone. Jesse was a pleasant man, looking ten years younger, who always had a thoughtful word for his neighbors. Unfortunately, Jesse had no known relatives, and the home’s owner also passed away, leaving no known relatives.
If you aspire for more from life, and if you desire to be the one person to bring back joy, laughter, and connections in your neighborhood, then...
This least pleasant post of mine may also be your most hopeful post today.
Here’s why!
A 15 minutes global event takes place on November 13 in every neighborhood where someone like you takes a stand against such heartache and spreads kindness instead.
It’s the Global Dance for Kindness, founded by Orly Wahba, a Brooklyn, NY, teacher, to advocate for kindness worldwide. It quickly became a leadership opportunity for many of its team leaders.
This short viral video, Kindness Boomerangs, is based on real-life stories from Brooklyn, NY, and will show you the joy and enthusiasm that permeates all of Orly’s projects through her non-profit LifeVestInside.
Dance for Kindness is seeking group leaders to bring kindness to their neighborhood during its worldwide freeze mob flash dance this November 13.
Meet Gail, Samantha, Leta and Miriam from Canada and the US!
Meet Fred from Ayer, MA!
Meet Mihaela from Switzerland, and Khanim from Azerbaijan!
Meet Rosemary from Peru!
Meet H'ava from the West Indies!
Meet Vee Jay and Roshan from Mauritius!
After two years of only digital events - Dance for Kindness is back and kicking into high gear! With 15 countries already on board, join songs and dances all under the banner of kindness this coming November!
What is even wilder is that it's been ten years! LifeVestInside is celebrating a #DecadeofKindness, and we'd love to get as many people involved as possible:) Check it out, or shoot Orly a message. I can't think of a better time than NOW to inspire the world to join together and recognize that even though we may not agree about everything, we can agree that kindness is crucial to a pathway forward.
After all, it's kindness that keeps the world afloat!
On November 13th you will either be doing the same thing as usual, or you will be breaking new grounds by advocating for a better world, more joyful, more just, more equitable.
Which one will it be?
You get to chose!
Kindness in Business
Mr. Vincent, and stories that successful entrepreneurs cherish but won’t tell you.
You gave your all at your dream job. You've sacrificed personal time and passion. You endured seven years of daily 3-hour train commute from Tracy to Santa Clara (CA). Yet, this morning, a security officer escorts you to your office. HR shows you papers to sign that you are too confused to take in.
How do you feel yourself a member of the team?
How will you explain your day to your loved ones?
Does Calculus help you understand your new life as a number?
We express kindness whenever we recognize a person in a human we encounter. Older generations called it a virtue as it goes beyond politeness and policy. It is not mere payback but pay-forward. Kindness, like all virtues, plays a part in relationships, war, and in his series, in business.
I aim for a hundred audio clips over the next three months and at my usual irregular pace.
A favorite story from my dad.
My dad immigrated to Canada in the 40s. At 15 years of age, he joined a forge and then Renault Automobile in Paris at 16. He sustained himself for his first years in Canada by welding in Northern Ontario and Quebec. Yet, dad wanted a better and steadier income as his family grew. So, he got his hairdressing license and learned the ropes of a hairdresser salon.
The news of dad's departure from his last job caused a stir. The owner, Mr. Vincent, accused dad of stealing his customer.
Dad assured him: No, no, no, I'm going on the south shore of Montreal. I don't want your clients; I will find new clients.
Two years later, Mr. Vincent enters dad's shop to ask him to partner on a new location on the South Shore. Dad declined. At that moment, dad had no appointments, and his former boss coaxed him to take a quick drive. Once there, Mr. Vincent presented his former employee to the shopping mall owner as the man to close the deal.
That location was the backbone of my dad's business for 30 years. The two men remained good friends to the end.
Inundant Bliss
As two brothers walked home from school in the pouring rain, the older one complained,
"It's terrible. We're going to get sick!
The younger one asked, "Why?"
"Because our feet are wet, idiot," the older one replied.
"Then why don't we get sick when our hands are cold?"
"I don't know. I hate having my feet wet," the older brother said.
"But isn't it fun to feel the water squishing through your toes?" the younger brother asked.
"Well, I guess, maybe..." the older brother reluctantly admitted.
And so, they continued on their way, laughing and splashing through every puddle until they arrived home.
King Solomon & Conspiracy Theory
King Solomon's most known judgment was to decide which of two women was the birth mother of a live baby. The past was unverifiable, and the present was deceptive.
Instead, Solomon asked for his sword with the intent to cut the live baby in two. Solomon realized that the true mother would care the most about the child's life with an eye on the future.
In today's political arena, should the US split in two? It's not for me to tell; would Solomon find someone snoring at the wheel, like a mother falling asleep over her baby?
Back to business, most of us prefer living in the past, present, or future. My dad was stuck in the future and he did regret not being able to savor moments. I've been stuck in the present for ten years, and I wouldn't wish this to an enemy.
What's the solution? Perhaps it's a little hope, gratitude, and flow each day, seasoned with a healthy mix of six basic emotions and served fresh.
Is Self-Envy Your Nemesis?
Photo by pure julia on Unsplash
Self-love has a shadow, and it's called self-envy.
The idea is so absurd, so outrageous, that it may hold some truth, it might even be the most common cause of failure and self-sabotage.
But what is it?
Aristotle defined envy as the "pain at the good fortune of others." So how can one feel pain at our own good fortune?
It's a great joy of parenting to suddenly remember songs and games from our parents when we could not yet speak fluently. And, it's the saddest thing to find oneself mindlessly replay the less happy things done to us as infants. I've been there, and the pain is still raw twenty-plus years later.
It's sad, yet it's an occasion to grow in humility and strengthen the bonds that unite us to our loved ones.
Humility here isn't self-doubt but the ability to find happiness in any moment and any circumstances.
These negative behaviors that tax our ability to forgive and grow are, according to Rafael E. López-Corvo, remnants of maladapted behaviors imprinted in a young life in the same way that bequeath self-love.
The most beautiful thing in all of this is that when one steps up as parent and guardian of one's confused inner child, it so happens that other people come along to teach us what that inner child needs to hear.
At the bottom of the pandora box called self-envy lays the humility of gratefulness.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this emerging concept.
Joel
What’s in your user manual?
Do you struggle with morning routines?
I certainly do.
How can mindless habits make me a better person? Of course, it could be pride on my part, but I can’t sit quietly on that thought.
Is it the habit that makes the day, or is it the thought behind the habit?
Is there something of a morning routine that my sleepy self won’t resist with all the imagination that it can muster?
Jeff Bezos alluded to one such routine of routines at the Economic Club Of Washington in 2018 when he said that his goal is to make three good decisions each day; the link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv_vkA0jsyo
The trick is to make those daily decisions as early as possible before distractions diffuse my good intentions. That is at wake-up time, and they ought to give you three things, a sense of achievement, of security, and purpose.
For me, that means …
Do one material thing that improves my environment immediately.
Acknowledge the child behind my eyes in the mirror.
Commit to making today better for someone else.
The overall principle, it seems, is to be on the outlook for good recyclable ideas.
I hope this helps!
Please, let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Cheers,
Joel
Self-love is Badass.
For years, I tried to understand people's advice to love my neighbor like myself, although they often meant it the other way around.
I found it baffling that some unfathomable notion called self-love might be the key to my fame, fortune, and happiness.
The other day, I finally pieced it together.
Here's the story.
We all face procrastination, failure to execute, discouragement, not saying no when we should.
If self-love is indeed the answer, shall I love myself or my next-door neighbor like I love my children, siblings, parents, or spouse? Now, that might get me in real trouble real soon.
Love seems impossible to track, quantify, or even order, and what about the people who might have no self-love? Can they be doomed to misery?
What was the memo, that I didn’t get?
The command to love our neighbors like ourselves is not an equality of outcome or opportunity; it is an equality of intent.
I've learned since while studying trauma that self-love is an introject; it is the behavior of loving and nurturing parents that a baby imitates and that eventually becomes part of the child's personality.
So, to love one's neighbor as we love ourselves is not an invitation to share our marbles equally; it's an invitation to love one's neighbor as our mother loved us. That is …, well, I already said it.
I’d love to know your perspective.
Cheers,
Joel
The Dirty Secret of Trends!
Or, how I missed teaching some maths on a sidewalk.
Here’s the story.
It was at the corner of Stevens Boulevard and Santana Row in San Jose, along with a group of petitioners asking why we should refuse salty Cubans from the Sea and accept crispy Cuban from Mexico?
Because they are soggy wasn’t the answer.
At about that time, a college student challenged the petitioners.
Do you know what Communism is; he asked?
Can you even say what’s wrong with Socialism, he piled up?
That was as unlucky as throwing a soccer ball at bored kids and trying to get it back. So, it ended predictably with
You guys never listen anyways!!!
There is a reason why Socialism doesn’t work despite its actual merits, and it is probably the exact reason why that same scenario plays over and again in the corporate world, in our families, sometimes even in our own self-talk.
The reason has to do with Professor Karl Pearson and 19th-century statistics; it is mind-bending, and I think you’ll love it.
Hurried proponents of Socialism today still rely on correlation, as defined by Pearson, to identify marginalized, oppressed identities, despite the last twenty years of research done by Professor Judea Pearl and his students to compute causality from correlations and lack thereof.
Statistical graphs like the one below illustrate correlation. Here, you see the trend (0.9999) between the number of aggravated assaults versus the number of police officers (all per 10,000 habitants) in 108 major US Cities. The complete data is available from the US Census Website.
The bottom axis of a statistical graph is not a scale; it’s a process, the process by which you select US cities.
If you remember one thing from this blog post, let it be this:
Change the process, change the trend.
How bad is that?
If you pick from any of the cities from the US Census data, the number of aggravated assaults trends at 0.9999 of the number of police officers (per 10,000 habitants). Roughly one new crime for each new police officer.
If you limit your search to cities with fewer than 40 police officers per 10,000 inhabitants, the trend that you contend with is now 50% higher.
But there is more, the trend for cities with 40 or more police officers per 10,000 habitants is about 0.4, or half the global trend.
The 2009 US Census data suggest that a police force reduction to below 40 per 10,000 inhabitants may increase the number of aggravated assaults by 20% to 30% in large cities.
Learning to read statistical graphs is no longer optional.
And, what’s more…
it applies to your business life too.
Joel
Play-to-Win or Play-to-Play?
This is so cool I had to share it.
I was looking for videos on games related to teamwork, not the kumbaya type with beach balls and sorts when I came across this Simon Sinek video about the games we play to win and the games we play to keep playing.
Watch it for yourself, and then give it a try!
I did, and it changed the way I approach partnership.
I am always on the outlook for practical applications of abstract concepts. Let me give you an example of infinite games.
A business coach sent me a significant invoice, and it was payable either by credit card or by bank transfer. Fortunately, credit card interest was not an issue for me on that day, and the choice was between:
1. a $750 credit card processing fee on my coach, or
2. a $40 bank transfer fee on me.
I plan to do business with this coach for the foreseeable future, and here is my question.
Would you negotiate a third option?
I'd love to read your comments.
Joel
Five elements of a great team.
Hello!
What qualities does a great team possess, one that can land a box of eggs safely on Mars?
Courage, Integrity, and Empathy these I need to watch for daily.
A fourth quality, Scott Peck, calls it "balance" in his book "The road less travel." However, today we speak of managing complexity as one of three sources of confusion.
The second form of balance is necessary for teams that span multiple disciplines, physics, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and data science. No one has a full understanding of the vision, and the same words can refer to entirely different things.
The challenge for me is to keep this blog full of actionable ideas and the discussion fun yet neither fuzzy nor dull. Please keep me to it with your comments.
See you soon!
Joel