Tag Archives: #perception

Better a Whistle Blower than the 80%

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Six Percenters now rule

A while ago I wrote about “6 Percenters” (click to read post here) which basically are the 6 percent of people who are difficult to deal with…. unfortunately they drag another 14% of weak people along with them, which creates the situation of the 20% of people who take up 80% of your time….

So, most of the time only 20% of the world are causing difficulties.

I’ve been thinking…. (Which is also another challenging situation as my mind is a very dangerous place and I never go there alone….!)

What I was thinking is surely,  if only 20% of people in any situation, or more importantly organisations, are ‘troublesome’ then any whistle blower who steps forward would surely be supported by the majority; that is the 80%.

I don’t think this is the case – perhaps it never really was…?

It’s all about me; and I’m having a guess

My particular observations have obviously been about the Police… and I must say they are my personal opinions and based on …. well what I just reckon from 38 years of experience and being right in the middle of it.  There is also a disclaimer that mostly this is not about individuals but more about a ‘culture” – plus it may also relate to a myriad of other organisations and groups where culture is everything, so although I base this on the Police, in looking around your office, or organisation, you may be thinking, hey, this is happening here too.

What am I talking about?  culture, whistle blowers, the percentages…..?

What I am talking about is that I don’t think in organisations that have a long history and intrenched culture that they themselves, and especially the individuals within the organisation, even know they are part of a different percentage; most think, most of the time, that they are part of the majority.  That is the majority of people who are NOT 6 percenters or their followers – which is about 80% of ‘us’.

In ‘culture orientated’ organisations and groups the ‘6 percenters’ have often ruled for years.  They have dragged the initial 14% and then progressively over the generations this percentage has grown to much, much, much more.

I think in some modern organisations, and from my experience, the Police, have allowed the ‘6 percenter mentality’ to become the culture.  The followers are not a group of weak people looking for a leader but are now the majority.  The 6 percenters, are now not 6 percenters, but the leaders, the influencers, the cultural caretakers, and have been for some generations.  They have progressively recruited in excess of the 14% of weak and easily led people and have been building this number over generations.   So, what was 14%, is now more like 74% – which is 80% of the organisation.

Bullshit, I hear you cry as one. Well, I actually hear 80% of you cry this, as you are now the majority.  The worse part of this sentence is, I think until I retired, I was well and truely in that group, if not one of its leaders – hence I think I speak from experience.

Bullshit, again I hear you cry.

Lies, more lies, and statistics

Well, lets do the only more confusing thing I can think of doing than writing the above algorithm of misaligned sentences – which is quote a few statistics.

I have a joke about statistics which my wife hates which goes like – “Three statisticians go hunting deer with bows and arrows;  they see a deer and the first fires his arrow and it goes a metre in front of the deer; the second fires his arrow and it goes a metre behind the deer; the third fires his arrow and it goes a metre over the deer; all three statisticians look at each other and chant in unison “We got him, we got him!”

So what are my stats?  They are taken from the independent review into “Sex Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Predatory Behaviour in South Australia  Police” report published November 2016 by the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commission (click here for a link to the entire report).

Lets start off with a few doosies:

  • 45% had personally experienced sex discrimination while employed by SAPOL
  • 61% agreed it was very difficult to work part time and have a career in SAPOL
  • only 21% who had experienced sexual discrimination had reported it
  • half of those who reported it said they experienced victimisation, including being ostracised, ignored, bullied, or denied training or promotion

So, about 1 in 5 are reporting – what a coincidence, about 20% by my maths…..

I am not saying the above ‘bush maths and anthropology’ has any scientific basis, but, usually if something doesn’t seem right it isn’t – if you dont believe me ask a few fraud victims!  Plus, intuition saved many a cop from opening the wrong door or walking around the wrong corner – sometimes the map doesn’t match the ground – therefore the map is wrong!

Again, so?  What does this all mean.  I think it mainly means that it doesn’t matter how many new policies, working groups, task forces, media campaigns or big glossy posters  around the office – if the culture stays the same, the 80% go on merrily thinking everything is alright – oblivious to the reality.

What does this mean if you are a whistleblower

It basically means you are in the new 20% and you are fucked.  I am constantly searching the internet for a ‘good news’ whistle blower story – let me know if you find one.

Just look above at the SAPOL report and the things you face as a whistle blower – victimisation, bullying, etc etc – and these are probably just the identifiable consequences. What about the individual consequences?

I recently asked a few serving members what was the general discussion going on about the place in relation to the land mark decision against SAPOL in relation to discrimination (read full article here) and it appears that the 80% rule supreme – read the article and then read the below paraphrased responses heard around the SAPOL workplace:

“She was always a bit weak.”

“She was a shit cop anyhow.” “What a whinger.”

“We’re better off without her.”

The above were relayed to me via various sources and when I asked if anybody spoke up the answer was no – the 80% rule – the culture remains the same irrespective of posters and task forces and the Commissioner, the CEO, the boss or even the 20% trying to lead the way.

Who protects the protectors from themselves?

Better at Beating Your Nemesis

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We all have a ‘nemesis’ in our life…. the thoughts of which usually stay with us over the years.

Often this is a school nemesis:

  • The popular kids who wouldn’t be our friend….
  • The kids that always just beat us at sport / academics / or whos
    painting was always just a little bit better…
  • The girl who we never quite got the guts up to ask out – or did and didn’t kiss (and never saw again)…
  • The teacher who for no apparent reason appeared to hate us….
  • The bully….

This ‘life nemesis’ was often friend and foe, despised and admired, feared and friended all at the same time.  As our nemesis was often from childhood or school days the memories of it are often vivid or somehow real although our memory of specifics may not be so clear – it may also be just one occasion…

I used to train staff and often they would talk to me years later and say the influence I had on their careers.  Often this was as the mentor and guide – but it was also as the nemesis or the person it took them a long time to ‘get over’.

Often, when speaking to them, my wife would ask after a chance meeting ended, who was that, and I would say “I’ve got nothing” – it is the first and last scene from “An Officer and a Gentleman” over and over again – (“Queers and steers and I don’t see no horns….” and all that stuff).

The life of our nemesis is often really only in existence in our head.

It is the so often lamented moment in our past where we think…. “If only I had…”  Well. here is the scoop on this, you / I, didn’t.

The nemesis exists, because we didn’t (or sometimes we did, and are still wishing we didn’t…) and that is the trap – of literally being trapped in the past in your head.

I have a group of mates who are all now, like me, in their 50’s and when I get together with them, it can be for 5 minutes, or 5 hours or 5 days – they will spend the entire time recounting their exploits from 15 – 19 years old – those four years are the discussion.  They recount sexual, physical, sporting and every other types of events that appears to still be happening and everything else in the last 30 plus years never comes close in comparison.

The nemesis is like that.  They were bigger, badder, smarter, better looking than is possible and they stay that way over the years, never to be defeated…..  until you meet them again….?

This happened to me recently.

I met my nemesis after 38 years.

He was smaller, older, sicker and sadder than I could ever have imagined possible.  Of course he didn’t remember me!!!!  I chatted with him, had a beer and then the ultimate, he bummed $20.00 off me.

My nemesis was dead – and sadly more recently, literally dead; dying as I was retiring.

I sort of miss him.

I dont have a reason to remember him badly now.  As a matter of fact I realised that I never really did – it was just kids being kids in the 70’s where my nemesis was created in my head.  I also didn’t get a chance to chat with him about our lives between then and now.  Why school yard battles made him my nemesis and probably helped to get me through the rest of my life to retirement – and why those same battles where he was so often the victor, appeared to have destroyed him and been his only ‘glory days.’

I think my greatest nemesis has always been me.

I have not doubt been and still am the nemesis, focus of hate, reason for failure, of a lot of people.

I’m not dead and it is now, not then.

A few I have met, even the ones I didn’t remember, I have made the platitudes of apology for past wrongs (?), for things I said (?), for the angst I may have caused (?), their lives I destroyed, their self confidence stolen, their marriages broken up, cancer, global warming and the demise of the whale… because that is what they needed to hear from me to defeat their nemesis – or a least blame them – it is the least I can do for a ‘chinese burn’ or a ‘dead leg’ 30 years ago…. plus, in many cases I needed to do this for myself – even if I couldn’t remember the thing they have been thinking about for years.

The other way to defeat your nemesis is to get a mirror and have a look – not a yourself, but to make sure they are not on your back – because if they aren’t (and mostly they aren’t unless it is some sort of spooky horror movie..) then you are actually standing there by yourself.

Some have one nemesis, some have many, some are the nemesis and some are dead.

I think unless it calls for a sword fight, or pistols at 20 paces, the nemesis of youth, perhaps even our recent lives are actually dead at the exact moment we stop thinking about them – or unless of course they are dead – then what is the point of continuing to fight them (bar the occasional self satisfying piss on their grave…).

I think I will one day visit my nemesis’s grave, not to piss on it, but to say thank you and sorry.  Thanks for adding the bit to my life that I only just got to understand – but a lesson worth learning – and sorry that your life didn’t turn out so well…. that sort of makes me sad…

As Friedrich Nietzsche said:

“Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy’s staying alive.”

 

Better at Knowing How You Feel

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“Oh, I know how you feel…”

Really?

Hearing this phrase from well meaning friends, relatives, acquaintances, the girl in the drive through at McDonalds is a way of saying “I heard what you said, but let me either, not really care, pretend to care or tell you about when it happened to me – which of course makes me superior to you and my experience much more meaningful…..”

This platitude of “I know how you feel” is only ever really felt by those who actually have experienced what you are going through and know saying “I know how you feel” is not necessary so they don’t say it – you may catch their eye in that moment of feeling and you know they know – they do’t need to tell you.

Lets take a step back from my rant and talk about why I know that I do not know how you feel…

Firstly I realised and acknowledged to myself that I am not a full functioning alien empath and therefore can not physically, emotionally or even intellectually know how you feel…

Secondly, I can not read minds….

Thirdly, I spent most of my life thinking I knew how everybody felt, and why, and how they could fix it, and I told them how, if they didn’t listen I insisted….

So, my first lesson in knowing how somebodies feels is in acknowledging that I don’t.  The second lesson I learned, albeit the hard way, was that whatever they are feeling, it is their feelings, their way…. and it is not mine to judge that.

It does matter the circumstances, it doesn’t matter the judgement….

“Oh he/she is so strong considering….”
“He/she is so emotional over……”
“What a whinger….”

“Why won’t they talk about it, I’ve offered so many times….”

etc etc etc

Probably said with all the best of intentions (sometimes…) but really just bullshit platitudes to indicate that you don’t know how they feel – and this is probably what confuses you.  And, so many people think they can ‘do something’….

In a hard moment often people will call, or say “If there is anything I can do let me know…”  to which I always reply, “Yes, as a matter of fact there is, can you come around and wash my car / mow my lawn / do my washing etc etc”  As you can imagine you get ‘crickets’ in the conversation or on the other end of the phone….  Mostly, you have to realise that unless you have a time machine, or can bring people back from the dead, there is nothing you can do except be there.  I don’t need new friends in moments of grief, but they will often be the most supportive;  I need my old friends, but they are often the most scarce…  success has a thousand fathers and failure/grief/sadness etc is an orphan…

Sometimes, I think the people that really know how I feel, don’t contact me with the immediacy of action and the ‘can I help syndrome’ – they are the ones that fill my heart with the one line text, the card in the mail (do people still do this other than me…), the quick email that is the true indicator that they may not know how I feel but they remember how they felt when it happened to them….

Look, I don’t know how you feel unless you tell me, and you are probably not going to do that for a while as you are processing it yourself, and maybe will be for the rest of your life.

Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can cry when I am around and not be ashamed or feel weak…
Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can come and hide at my place….
Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can be as illogical with me as you like and I won’t judge….
Look, I don’t know how you feel…. and I won’t mow your lawn or wash your car….

The best of intentions are usually just that; it is like having every intention of doing something… they are actually for you and not the other person – like most things in life when we look at them…. which is usually not because we don’t know how other people feel, but because we don’t think about it in our daily lives and it only becomes a concern in times of hardship, grief or failure….  then it is just a platitude for us, again.

I feel like this post has run it’s course – but you already knew that.

 

 

 

Better at Not Knowing Who I Am….

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The other day I heard this great explanation of figuring out who you are;  it starts off as a little bit of a test and the interesting use of the word percieve.

This is a bit of a follow on from a post I wrote the other day about possibly being in a computer simulation (which I suspect may still actually be true!) – the thing about this post was in part, identifying who I actually was.

The dictionary meaning being “become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand”

So here is the exercise about finding who you are…. I will use a car (an ordinary automobile, like the one you drive to work):

  • I am looking at a car (or even driving it, or touching it)
  • I can perceive that car.
  • Am I the car?
  • No.  I am not the car because I can perceive it.
  • I can not be something I can perceive.

You can repeat this exercise around the entire house with all the things you own.  You can even do it with your friends ….. “Am I my best friend, no, because I can perceive my best friend, so I can not be them….”

Now comes the really tricky part of this little exercise.  Stop worrying about all the ‘things’ and people around you and just take a seat and think about you.  Now we are going to repeat the exercise.

  • Am I my body? No.
    Because I can perceive my body.
  • Am I my thoughts?
    No.
    Because I can perceive my thoughts.
  • Am I my emotions?
    No.
    Because I can perceive my emotions.

What the…..!!!!!

What am I.
Who am I.
Who is this all perceiving me.

Good question?