Category Archives: communication

Dangerous information

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Land Restitution is an emotional issue.

It’s not really a practical issue since recent history has shown that not all beneficiaries of land restitution ultimately want to work the land. This is also entirely reasonable given the change of our economy from a primary economy to a secondary and tertiary economy over the last 50 years.

So when I read that the SA Institute of Race Relations states that more land could have been returned to black beneficiaries if money was not offered instead, I just wonder what the point is.

If people are accepting cash rather than land, it may well be because they want the cash rather than the land. Given land, I’m not aware that there is a prohibition on selling that land (which would be a poorer form of property right than they originally had so surely can’t be allowed) so we could end up in the same situation.

The danger for me is that the measures of land restitution could so easily, accurately and misleadingly, refer to the amount of land that has been restituted, or the amount of land currently in the hands of black South Africans, when this is clearly not an accurate measure of what progress has been achieved.

 

Narratives vs facts

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I don’t usually write about The Final Frontier, but this article has a great parallel to what I do write about.

It’s worth reading the entire article, but the main message is that we cannot use the dream or story or fairy tale of imminent migration into space and other planets as an excuse not to deal with the very real problems we have on Earth right now. The misconceptions, Hollywood induced and otherwise, about the ease of space travel or even the extent of our current capabilities, are massive.

As with so many things, the stories that fill our society can be very different from the harsh reality.

Communicating harsh truths

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Communication is critically important for any business. Communication with clients and employees defines those relationships and the value they can create for everyone.

Managing poor performance is tough because it’s so easy and so attractive to shy away from communicating the truth. Avoiding conflict and not addressing problems is far worse for all concerned.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” outlines a similar viewpoint in response to research that shows “nice guys earn less than mean guys”. His take is that it’s not actually “nice” to hide the truth and dance around issues. There’s never a need to make attacks personal, but sometimes the news is not good and it needs corrective action.

As Kiyosaki says, “cowards finish last”.

Compounding wisdom from a surprising source

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I really struggled when Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced (many sources, but here is one) that private healthcare costs have increased by 121% over the last decade.

He continued: “Over the past decade, private hospital costs have increased by 121%, while over the same period, specialist costs have increased by 120%.”

Anyone who measures growth over long periods without using compound annual rates can’t be taken seriously. Abusing numbers for shock value is a sure sign of a weak argument or a lack of appreciation for long-term issues.

121% over nine years (2001 to 2009) equates to an average cumulative annual growth rate of 9.2%. Now medical price inflation of 9.2% is high given inflation over the period and modest real growth in GDP and salaries. But 9.2% tells a very different story to a layperson than 121%. The 9.2% is more useful, more comparable to inflation, more easily able to be understood. 121% is more shocking.

I was really encouraged to read this in a story, quoting Matlala from HASA:

He pointed out that while the green paper said private healthcare costs had increased 121% between 2001 and 2009, this should be contextualised against the backdrop of contributions to public healthcare increasing by more than 100% over the same period.

“Even the price of bread has increased 111% over the decade… We have to face up to the fact that the cost of living has gone up, including healthcare,” Matlala said.

Finally, someone quoted acknowledging that the 121% figure is utterly misleading.

Incidentally, 111% over 9 years is equivalent to an 8.7% annually compounded growth rate, just 0.6% per annum below healthcare cost increases. 

 

Teamwork from HBR

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Found these views on teamwork interesting, and largely in line with my own experiences. In particular, I’ve gone from thinking videoconferencing is all we need to the realisation that in-person interaction is important. I’d add to the point about stable, long-standing teams performing better by suggesting this is at least partly through better understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Who do you trust more than your bank?

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Turns out Australian banks are concerned that their customers have greater confidence and trust in Google and PayPal than in their own institutions.

It wasn’t that long ago that financial institutions needed marble-clad offices and multi-decade histories to show that they were serious and were financially stable and could be trusted. Now the organisations that generate trust are barely a decade old and interact with customers in a purely virtual form.

“If Google got up and said we are going to offer a savings account, for me, that would be very difficult and confronting,”

I already use and love Google Checkout, which allows me to purchase items quickly from a variety of sites without having to enter (or share!) my credit card information with the new merchant. I honestly wish all merchants supported it.

PayPal has had a difficult history in South Africa, given that only very recently have we been able to withdraw funds from PayPal (and only via FNB even now). Still, I trust them more than most merchants.

One reason I might be concerned about Google as a bank is that since it would be so internationally successful, it would be an insanely attractive target for hackers. The number of attack vectors that would be pointed its way would be particularly concerning. (Yes, I’m writing this from a virtually virus-immune Mac for similar reasons.)

All companies must focus on trust and genuine relationships with clients, but no more so than financial services companies.

The Power of Misconceptions

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In broad terms, we are all mostly ignorant. Worse than ignorant, we have notions and views, firmly held, that are entirely incorrect.

We only complain about what we don’t like

Nobody complains to their boss that they are overpaid. Nobody complains that their pension or social security increases were above inflation last year.

We don’t understand the size of countries and continents

Africa is huge. More of an issue for Europeans and Americans, but the problematic views of the size of Africa due to mapping “projections” used to represent an almost-sphere onto a flat map are almost universally held.

A map showing the real size of Africa as measured in square meters of surface area compared to other countries

The Real Size of Africa

We don’t understand our economy (or at least US students surveyed don’t understand their economy)

Bill Goffe surveyed his students [pdf] with worrying results:

  1. Students assumed 35% of workers earn minimum wage compared to the 2007 actual statistic of 2.7%
  2. Students thought recent US inflation was around 11%, when the real answer is basically 0. (and google is apparently planning some sort of price index of their own)

Plenty more where those came from.

Then a few previous posts of mine highlighting these problems

Estimating the ERP is hard, but the range of common flaws is astounding.

We like to complain about electricity prices, when we haven’t figured out that we pay for it all anyway.