Is your Company a Frankenstein?

When a company is managed properly, a sense of humanity prevails; after all, companies are human creations, run by humans. But far too many firms operate like some terrifying Frankenstein-style mashup of a human being. The result scares customers, as it should. If you spot a company like this – whether you are a customer or employee – running away may be your best move.

The head doesn't know what the body is doing. 
In department after department, day-to-day activities are grossly out of touch with the supposed strategy of the firm. The result is a flailing creature, wobbling down the road, wasting time and energy, and scaring the heck out of the "local townspeople."
Management says one thing, but rewards far different behaviors. They say: we're all about customers. They reward: sell, sell, sell.
As I write these words, there are four days left in the month. Any company that tells its sales force to "go all out" to deliver sales before the end of the month is making a conscious decision to ignore customer needs in favor of company profits. That's scary, because if you hurt customers, they tend to – you guessed it – run away.

The voice isn't genuine. 
An organization focused on the needs of other people speaks with a genuine human voice. But a company obsessed with sales quotas and pushing products sounds like a creature without a brain. Its attempts to sound human are jarring and off-putting.
"If 250,000 people like our Facebook page, then one lucky customer will win $1,250," roars the ugly creature. What's in it for the other 249,999?

The creature has no heart. 
Companies are people serving people. Each of us have needs and emotions. Many of us have other human beings who depend upon us. But too many business decisions ignore – or minimize – human needs, and reduce situations down to nothing more than numbers.
The best organizations both foster loyalty among their employees and offer loyalty in return. When times get tough, they band together instead of attacking each other (yes, laying off a loyal and capable employee is like attacking your own self.)
Heart is what drives people forward. A company without a heart will never compete as successfully as one whose heart is beating strongly.

Feedback gets ignored. 
A Frankenstein company fears feedback; it just sounds like angry people chasing the creature down the road. Such a firm thinks feedback equals complaints, and "complaints waste time."
Wrong, ugly monster.
The reality is that feedback tells a company how to get stronger and more competitive. It's like free advice. The faster and better a company gets at acting on feedback, the more human it will seem. The simplest definition of corporate intelligence is having something of value to say, and knowing what will be of value to different people.
In previous decades, Frankenstein companies could lumber through the world, because many firms were just too large to overcome these challenges. We accepted such subhuman behavior from companies.
Today, technology makes it possible to aim much higher, and social media creates a compelling reason to do so, because individuals are so quick to spread the word about companies that frighten them.
This Halloween, ditch the corporate monsters.

If you want to hear more from me, just click the Follow button below. You can also download my free guides at Kasanoff.com, or read my book with Michael Hinshaw Smart Customers, Stupid Companies. On Twitter, I'm @NowPossible.

5 Compelling Reasons Why Marriage Wasn't Meant to Be Monogamous

By now, you've probably heard about Jada Pinkett Smith's recent interview that many people took to mean that she might be cool with the famous Fresh Prince of Bel-Air getting some extra fresh on the side.

And although Ms. Smith clarified her comments, the online world is still buzzing about the topic of monogamy and open marriage.

Related: 15 ways women are ruining their sex lives

While personally I can barely summon the energy to have sex with my own husband (three kids in four years has that effect on some of us, ok?) and the thought of the work it would require to not only embark on, but carry out, an actual affair just makes me tired, clearly not all marriages are monogamous.

In The Little Book of Heartbreak: Love Gone Wrong Through the Ages (Pengiun Press, 2013), author Meghan Laslocky gives a little background on the history of marriage and provides some compelling evidence in support of "debunking monogamy."

1. Marriage as we know it is a fairly recent invention.

In the history of marriage, the concept of marrying for love is a relatively new one; traditionally marriage was constructed as more of a business proposition of sorts, with each partner benefiting, usually socially, politically, or financially from the union. It wasn't until the 18th century Enlightenment that the idea of marrying for love became popular.

2. Doing it like they do on the discovery channel = not monogamous.

 In her book, Laslocky points out that in the animal kingdom, species that are thought to be monogamous are actually, usually not. In fact, of the 4,000 mammals in the animal kingdom, she states that less than 3% are monogamous to start out-and that monogamy is often in appearance only. For instance, a pair of "lovebirds?" Well, usually one of `em is indulging another lovebird on the side.

3. Couples that reproduce together, stay together.

She goes on to explain that many "monogamous" mammals in the animal world, especially the lovebirds, practice "social monogamy"-that is, raising a family with one mate while enjoying a romantic rendezvous every now and then. Scientists conclude such behavior is helpful to ensuring survival of the species, as the males spread their seed around for all to enjoy while the females get the help they need to raise all those hatchlings. Which, as she points out, puts another whole meaning to that "Are You My Mother" book we all know and love, right?

4. Society rules?

Laslocky's book also cited a study that showed that fewer than half of all modern societies forbid extramarital relationships within a marriage; in fact, many cultures don't see affairs or flings as deal-breakers to a successful marriage.

5. To each his or her own.

A 20-year long study of 164 couples, half of whom were not monogamous found that the spouses reported no difference in their perceived happiness nor was the rate of divorce any higher in the "open" marriages.

However, in the end, I'm just not buying it..

While this all makes for an interesting conversation (especially if you drop these little tidbits to your husband while eating B.L.T. pizza with him, although a word of warning-he probably will choke on that piece of bacon), I have to say that I'm just not buying it. Sure, it may be "natural" in the animal world for mates to fool around on each other, but it's also "natural" for some animals to eat their own offspring. Obviously, we have all evolved a bit to overcome some of our primitive urges and instincts.

So, sorry Mother Nature, but I'm just going to have to disagree with you on this one.

- By Chaunie Brusie 

Is Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships really a Cultural and or a Traditional Practice among Basotho?

One fact that we cannot deny is that Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships is one of the biggest drivers of HIV spread in Lesotho.  What I have a problem with is when it is called a traditional or a cultural practice.  Those of you who have been with me in fora where this kind of topics are discussed will bare me witness that I oppose it in the strongest terms.

Traditionally, there were contexts where a man could have sexual relations with a woman or women other than his wife, but this were sanctioned or regulated.  Look at the following contexts.

Traditional Contexts:

Ho nyalloa lebota –  This is where a family which does not have a boy marry a girl so that the children she fathers will be children of that family.  Lobola is paid, a girl is married, and a man (married or unmarried where the unmarried has been initiated) has relations with that girl for the purpose of fathering a child or children.  I am not sure in the case of the married man if his wife knew, but I want to believe it was made with the utmost discretion for her not to know.

Ho nyalloa lebitla – The same context as above but the difference here is that the family did have a boy and the boy dies before he could marry.  The girls who is married is called the wife of the deceased man and the children fathered are that of a deceased man.

Ho senya ngoana –  Basotho believed in proper spacing of children and if a woman was still breastfeeding, her husband was not allowed to have relations with her or even sleep in the same room with her.  Such a man would be allowed to have relation with a woman in the village or nearby village under strict sanctions of the elders (remember that he was not sleeping around with whomever he pleased but a woman sanctioned by those who had authority to do so).  Also remember that a child could be breastfed up to 3 or 4 years.

Ho ephola monna ea hlokang bana – If a man was impotent and could not give his wife children, a man of good standing and good genes, was selected by those who had authority to do so and he would biologically father a child or children for that family.  He did not have any ties to the child or woman and could never claim it as his own.  (Remember when there are no children in a household, it is still solely blamed on to a woman?  It is because a man could traditionally be covered in this manner if it was him with the challenge of fathering babies.)

Ho kenela – When an elder brother died before he could have children or if the wife was vulnerable and needed to be taken care of, the younger brother was expected to father children for his late brother.  If the younger brother was married, the same discreet methods to sneak him in to his brother’s household were used but if he was not married, he was expected to marry his late brother’s wife.   

Ho nyala sethepu – Though this is not traditionally a Basotho practice if you look at the literature far back, it became a norm among Basotho (have you noticed that Bathepu are Nguni and not Sotho and this kind of polygamous marriage is called Sethepu?)

Well even so, a man could not just go propose to a woman and marry her as his second wife.  Sethepu was sanctioned by the elder wife and she is the one who used to choose the second wife for her husband.  The first wife gained matriarchal powers by controlling the chores of the household, raising the babies from the second wife if she chose and drawing a time table about when the man of the house could be with which wife.  Sometimes it happened because the matriarch needed more children for the household and was not in a position to provide them herself.  It could be that she is barren or is too old to have children herself.  (do you remember Sarah and Hagar in the Old Testament?)

Ringing similarities about all the contexts above are:

·         Such relations were sanctioned by the elders or people who were authorised to do so and not the man engaging in them.

·         The man who is involved in these relations did not have his own discretion about who, to have those relations with.

·         It was always for a purpose other than the personal pleasures of such a man.

·         “Mosali ke oa likhomo” which means that all children born to a married woman are the children of the husband and of the family no matter if he biologically fathered them or not.

I must acknowledge that there has always been a practice (that has always and still is frowned upon) of Ho boka.  Since it was and still is frowned upon, can we honestly call it a culture or traditional practice? I think not.  Ho boka is a practice where a man acts on the affectionate feelings he has for a woman that he has not married.  You can simply call it adultery because the English meaning that is closest is just that.

Ho boka is not sanctioned by elders, it is at the discretion of the people doing it alone and the purpose is always for enriching one individual and pleasure of another (or both people).

In essence what is happening now that we have a tendency to wrongly defend as culture or tradition is Ho boka and that is wrong?

When the missionaries came to Lesotho with their new traditions, cultures and religion, a lot of the traditional norms highlighted above were gotten rid of and this created a socio-cultural vacuum.

Ho boka then became more prominent as the authorities that used to regulated social norms were gotten rid of.  Ho boka became even worse when men went to work for long periods in the mines in South Africa in order to pay hut tax and to provide the new western creature comforts that they never had or knew in the past.

By: Teboho C MOHLABI

Does Lesotho and Basotho Stands to Benefit from Dual Citizenship?

There is an old age debate in both Lesotho and South Africa about relations of the two countries.  We look at them differently and for different reasons, patriotism, opportunity, pride, policy and many others.  I just need us to weight our options and and see what would be the maximal benefit for the highest possible number of people looking at the scenarios below.

·         
      There are those who say that South Africa should return our Free State: The OAU Conventions which were signed just before most African Countries became independent from British and French Colonial Masters, resolved to leave the demarcations that were designed by Europeans.  The noble reason being that if they start meddling with the borders, Africa will be in civil wars over border disputes because some of them were really dubious and that Africa would be in deeper chaos than the Europeans left it.  This therefore means that Lesotho, being part of the OAU is part of this resolve and borders will NOT be re-negotiated.  If this was at all possible, it would have happened during Apartheid when RSA was an illegitimate state and if the world did not help us get Free State then, it definitely won’t help us now even those who continue this argument know this.   Chapter closed…

·         Lesotho should Join South Africa and Become A Tenth Province:  We may need a referendum for this one because I have a feeling that those who look at maximising the benefit for majority may look favourably at this option, but those with National Pride, Patriotism and Tradition, may not agree with the aforementioned statement.   Do recall that this will be two ways process where NOT only Basotho will move freely and get jobs in SA, but South Africans white, Coloured Indian and Black will also come into Lesotho, buy land properties and invest.  If you are already so paranoid about such a small group of Chinese, how Xenophobic  are you going to be with an influx of the whole Rainbow nation into Lesotho with the Madamara shoes, gold teeth and heavy accents?  How about the OuBasses with their Senqu shirts, Cowboy hats and Country Music? Some say  Lesotho will lose it sovereignty as a State.  My personal impression is: so? What if we lose our sovereignty as a State?  Do you need a hungry sovereignty or do we need Basotho who prosper under a different dispensation? I have made my decision and please also decide for yourself.
T
      There are also those who say  Our King will lose his powers and be like Good Will Swelithini well isn’t he already?  Isn’t he just a ceremonial figure head right now? What is so bad then when he moves from under a Prime Minister (to be then called Provincial Premier)  to under a President of a rich developing country?   It may be good for him as a person because his budget to run the royal house will also increase if Lesotho becomes part of South Africa.   The King’s subjects will increase (Remember some say he is not a Lesotho King but a Basotho King) and he will probably have another palace in the Free State somewhere.

·         A third argument is Lesotho should remain as a Sovereign State but Basotho who have birth links or job links with South Africa should be allowed to sort both a Lesotho and a South African Citizenship.  That’s it… Get the best of both worlds…  There is a lot of Basotho who work in South Africa now who are Professionals and Executives of big companies in South Africa.  When South Africans were busy toy-toying, Basotho, Zimbabweans and other South African black were busy going to school.  You will be amazed at how BEE and other Workplace Reforms in South Africa have benefited all black Southeners from the diaspora.  This black elite with Basotho among them have the muscle to make a difference here in Lesotho.     They can invest: Business, houses, bring skills etc.  They can stay longer in Lesotho, use their money thus promote Lesotho Tourism as well... It seems like Lesotho stands more to gain from this arrangement than loose.  I do not forsee lots of birthright South Africans wanting to come to Lesotho, but Birthright Basotho who have citizenship rights in South African will more likely come back.


L    Lets us continue this debate beyond the politics and share this ideas with other people.  Mohlomong re ka fumana namane e nonneng le litba tsena tsa re tsoela mosola.  Morokhotla ha u okoloe mafura...  

Does Gender Really Count In Leadership

Non-hierarchical style and relational skills make women better bets than men in the modern era of knowledge-based organisations

Would the world be more peaceful if women were in charge?  A challenging new book by the Harvard University Psychologist Steven Pinker says that the answer is YES.

Pinker presents data showing that human violence, while still very much with us today, has been gradually declining.  Moreover, he says, “over the long sweep of history, women have been and will be a pacifying force. Traditional war is a man’s game: those who study history and social anthropology vouch that tribal women never band together to raid neighbouring village and claim territory for gathering roots, wood and vegetables.

As a mother, women have evolutionary incentives to maintain peaceful conditions in which to nurture their offspring and ensure that their genes survive in to the next generation.

Sceptics immediately reply that women have not made war simply because they have rarely been in power.  If they were empowered as leaders, the conditions of an anarchic world would force them to make the same bellicose decisions that men do.  Cleaopatra, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, ‘Manthatisi oa Batlokoa, and Indira Gandhi were powerful women and all of them lead their people and countries to war. Haebo!!!

What would Social Psychology say about this?  

But it is also true that these women rose to leadership by playing according to the political rules of ‘a man’s world order.’  It was their success in conforming to male values that enabled their rise to power in the first place.  In a world in which women held a proportionate share (one-half) of leadership positions, they might behave differently in power.  They might seek to make decisions that keep corporation and not competition.  It would be a nice feeling to see the UN General Assembly housing half men and half women.

So we are left with a broader question: does gender really matter in leadership?  In terms of stereo-types, various psychological studies show that the men gravitate towards the ‘hard power of command’ while women are ‘collaborative and intuitively understand ‘the soft power of attraction and persuasion’.  This is not rocket science of difficult psychological phenomenon; just think of raising children. The mother will even if harshly at times try to convince the child to do the right things while the father just concludes and gives the scary final rules about the order that should prevail in the house.  

In information-based societies, networks are replacing hierarchies and knowledge workers are less deferential.  Management in a wide range of organisations is changing in the direction of ‘shared leadership,’ and ‘distributed leadership’, with leaders in the centre of a cycle rather than atop a pyramid.  This is usually an acknowledgement that to be a leader does not mean you know everything; in fact there might be people under you who know something better than you do as a leader or manager.  A good manager manages the people and not the processes of work.

Even the military which was once very chauvinist faces changes.  The drill master of today will do better with ‘less shouting at everyone,’ because today’s generation responds better to instructors who play ‘a more counselling-type role’. Military success against terrorists and counter-insurgents requires soldiers to win hearts and minds and not just break buildings and bodies. 

Masculine Style

Women’s non-hierarchical style and relational skills fit a leadership need in the new world of knowledge-based organisations and groups that men, on average, are less well prepared to meet.

In the past, when women fought their way to the top of organisations, they often had to adopt a ‘masculine style’, violating the broader social norm of female ‘niceness’ in order to gain the majority vote – which is men.  Now, however, with the information revolution and democratisation demanding more participatory leadership, the ‘feminine style’ is becoming a path to more effective leadership.

In order to lead successful, men will not only tend to value this style in their women colleagues, but will also have to master the same skills.  That is a trend, not (yet) a fact.  Women still lag in leadership positions, holding only 5% of top corporate positions and a minority of around 25% in elected positions. (here Sweden is a trend setter with 45%  of the elected leadership).

One study of 1,941 rulers on independent countries during the 20^th Century found only 27 women, roughly half of whom came to power as widows or daughters of a male ruler.  Does this ring any bells?  How many women because leaders/chiefs because their husbands died or were removed from leadership for one reason or another? Did they perform any less in their leadership positions?  Do we still have kingdoms or constitutional monarchies with constitutions where a female cannot be an heir solely based on their gender?

Less than 1% of 20^th Century rulers were women who gained power on their own.

So given the new conventional wisdom in leadership studies that entering the information age means entering a woman’s world, why are women not doing any better?  Is ther purposeful barring of women? Is it culture or religion at play?

Lack of experience, primary caregiver responsibilities, bargaining style, and plain old discrimination all help to explain the gender gap.  Joalo ka ha Moruti eo ke mo ratang a tloaetse ho cho, BoMme kea le Zamela e reng “Ee.”  Traditional career paths, and cultural norms that constructed and reinforced them, simply have not enabled women to gain the skills required for top leadership positions and many organisational contexts.  Le sekolong se nang le Matichere a 13 moo BoNtate ba leng 2, one of them is the school principal.

Research shows that even in democratic societies, women face a higher social risk than men when attempting to negotiate for career-related resources such as compensation.  Women are generally not well integrated into male networks that dominate organisations, and gender stereotypes still hamper women who try to overcome such barriers.  U tla makala ha u utloa ba bang ba BoMme ba re, “Ache rone re ke ke  ra etelloa pele ke mosali, hobane BoMme baa seba”. What does gossip have to do with leadership?  Grapevine exists everywhere and it just has to be handles properly.  It does not by its nature make somebody a bad manager.  It is just like perceptions: it thrives where there is a lack of good communication and we simply have to improve on our communication.

This bias is beginning to break down in information-based societies, but it is a mistake to identify the new type of leadership we need in an information age simply as ‘a woman’s world’.  Even positive stereotypes are bad for women and men, and effective leadership: in essence ALL STEREOTYPES ARE BAD.

Leaders should be viewed less in terms of heroic command than as encouraging participation throughout an organisation, group, country, or network.  Questions of appropriate style – when to use hard and soft skills – are equally relevant for both men and women, and should not be clouded by traditional gender stereotypes.

In some circumstances, men will need to act more ‘like women’; and in others, women will need to act more ‘like men’.

The key choices about war and peace in our future will and should depend not on gender, but more on how leaders combine hard and soft skills to produce smart strategies.  Both men and women can and should make those decisions based on prevailing circumstances and not gender stereotypes.    

This article was inspired by a Book Called; The Future Power written by Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Article by; Teboho C MOHLABI 

When Failure Leads to Innovation, and When It Doesn’t (Part One)

Successful innovation requires successful experimentation, and successful experimentation requires eagerness to learn from failure. This has become a cliché because it holds true, time and time again.

The great experimenter Thomas Edison is famous for comments such as, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The design firm IDEO keeps up that spirit with their now-famous phrase, “Fail often in order to succeed earlier.”

Successful Failures

But let’s distinguish between two different kinds of failure: instructive failure and terminal failure. Apple’s Newton (PDA) and Lisa computer were of the instructive variety: they were failures to grow on, not failures to stop on. Circuit City was a electronics store chain that failed terminally because they didn’t have enough instructive failures. Failure is inevitable, but you can choose whether it’s instructive or terminal.

Early on, Hewlett Packard exploited the power of instructive failure. According to Peter Sims, “Hewlett Packard cofounder Bill Hewlett said HP needed to make 100 small bets on products to identify six that could be breakthroughs. So, little bets are for learning about problems and opportunities while big bets are for capitalizing upon them once they’ve been identified.” Sims’ “small bets” are what we’d call experiments: exposure to non-fatal failure that can teach you something.

The entrepreneur’s challenge can almost entirely be summed up as ensuring that the learn rate exceeds the burn rate: those who don’t learn fast enough go under.

Deliberate, inquisitive exposure to failure is an experiment. And a clever experiment is like a clever investment: your downside (risk) is manageable, and your upside (lesson) is spectacular. Of course, there is a time to bet the farm, but that’s after you’ve learned which farm to bet on.

Failing at Failure

Some people fail at failing: they fail without gaining anything. What’s the difference between failure that’s experimentation and failure that just failure? Maybe this: if you make a non-fatal mistake and learn from it, then it was “experimentation.” But if you make a mistake and deflect any lessons, then it was simply a failure. Lessons learned lead to innovation; lessons flunked, as in school, tend to be repeated.

Here are some ways to flunk at failing:

• Finger pointing. When the question is, “Who screwed up?” instead of “What did we learn?” then the only thing that’s learned is how to keep your head down.
• Reasons, stories, and excuses. When an organization’s lousy results allegedly stem from “the poor economy,” or “difficulty finding talent,” or “tough competition,” then nothing is learned or even speculated about what the organization can do better. Part of Warren Buffet’s initial fame stemmed from his annual reports in which he gave blunt assessments of what he and Berkshire Hathaway could have done better. It showed shareholders that lessons were not wasted on him.
• Unclear success. Like a scientist with an untestable hypothesis, a leader with an unclear goal can spend a lot of time and money without learning much. For example, when any given organization consolidates two departments to “capture synergies,” what does “synergies” mean? Lower costs? Faster product development? Quicker response? What? Without some sense of the measurable goal, it will be impossible to get the Edison advantage of learning ways that won’t work. (And we’ve nixed the trick of defining success after the fact in an earlier post.)
• Activity-based success. Of course, you can be clear about your success, but define it as an activity rather than as a result. In which case, failure and learning are equally unlikely. Again, no hypothesis is tested. For example, government officials often declare success after they’ve added programs or increased spending. That’s it! Nothing about goals set, goals met, or lessons learned. Costs go up, but learning stays flat.

All these problems function as organizational learning disabilities: dysfunctions that block learning and therefore block innovation. In the next post we’ll suggest some cures.

Meanwhile, what have you done that works? How have you overcome your own organization’s learning disabilities? How can you create a failure friendly environment, where team members feel comfortable with experimenting and learning from their failures? 

Bad habit buddies

I see them through a haze of smoke. The smoking buddies, clustered in the car park. The same faces every day at the same time, topping up their nicotine levels and - just as importantly - updating each other on the boss's latest madness.

There's nothing more firmly bonding than a dodgy habit shared. At university I had a friend called Leanne who loved wine gums. Every day we would sit in lectures eating wine gums by the handful under the desk. We were the wine gum girls, and we saw ourselves as a special club.

Our clandestine snacking fits with research that shows that teens and preteens will eat more when eating with overweight friends than with slimmer ones. They also tend to snack more with people they know than with unknown kids.

It's what my grandmother used to call a "bad influence", even though I am sure I was just as much of a bad influence on Leanne as she was on me.

The social bond created by our habits is one of the reasons they are so hard to give up. If you and your drinking buddy Kevin aren't knocking back tequila while shouting "Olé" and balancing lemon slices on your foreheads, then what keeps you together?

The good news is that good habits are also easier to keep up when they're done in a group or with a buddy. According to research done at Harvard a couple of years ago, family members, friends, colleagues and even more distant acquaintances are influenced when someone in the circle gives up smoking. 

Rather than losing friends when our lifestyle improves, we could take them with us. So maybe booze buddy Kevin can become Pilates pal Kevin? It's worth a try