Tracy Chia, Senior Financial Services Manager, talks to Terrific Mentors about how mentoring has helped her identify great salespeople

Eddie Chau, Founder & CEO of Brandtology, talks to Terrific Mentors about building a successful business.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

The line between knee-jerk reaction and “too little, too late” is a fine one. All of us want others to respond when issues that affect our lives come to light. None of us wants imprudent haste with its risk of wrong decisions and subsequent U-turns. Deciding ‘when’ is as important as deciding ‘what’.

Accusations of over-reaction or too hasty decision cannot be laid at the door of the Vatican in the issue of child abuse. The Catholic Church has announced that it is to hold a conference on the issues next February. It is establishing an e-learning centre to help victims and clergy. It admits that some bishops do not want to deal with the issue.

This is at least twenty years too late, possibly fifty. Abuse was privately widely acknowledged more than half a century ago. Children who reported it were often soundly thrashed. It was not, as is still often said from the pulpit, “one rotten apple” but a culture of abuse. “Do what I say, not what I do” is often regarded, even today, as acceptable between adult and child. Dickens’s pen is still needed to champion good example.

There is another side to the abuse of children by adults. Sexual urge is a very strong drive. Self-discipline is extremely hard. A more relaxed view of non-promiscuous pre-marital sex is, for many parents, both acceptable and sensible. If sex is so important in life surely some idea that your intended life partner has roughly the same sexual drive as you is sensible before you make commitments that are painful to untangle?

Celibacy was confirmed at the Council of Trent in 1563. It was a man-made rule – the first Pope, St Peter, was married. The reason for celibacy was said to be the appropriation of church property by the priests’ widows. They could not be turned out of their homes because their husbands had died and they did tend to live significantly longer. While they occupied the presbytery no replacement priest could be installed.

Whether or not that was the reason, the existence of celibate clergy has affected the church’s view of women and their role in it to the point where it now risks being accused of not only of abuse but of sexism. Many who wish to express their spirituality through this religion are, like me, torn between remaining in the church in the hope of having some small reforming influence or quitting in protest at the absurdity of some of the doctrines so dogmatically clung to.

Resignation has never been a powerful moderator whereas persistent and loyal support can often change dogmatic views over time. As Robert Bruce put it “Whether doing, suffering or forbearing, you may do miracles by persevering”.

The issue that affects us all is whether there is something beyond us that we are not able to understand and that accounts for our innate spirituality. Attempts discover it involve much trial and error. We would like those claiming to help us to shine a torch on the pathway, not light a candle in the woodshed.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

The shift in diplomatic power from West to East is nowhere more dramatically demonstrated than in the attempts of the UN Security Council to censure Syria. The Russian and Chinese opposition, and Indian coolness, to any resolution already makes the Libyan incursion look amateurish and partisan. Where once Europe and the USA called the shots, increasingly today the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China, with South Africa snapping at their heels) are doing so.

New power is always mishandled. From the recently-appointed Foreman to the newly elected President the temptation to flex muscles, to demonstrate promotion seems irresistible. Any new toy must be aired and admired and power is the best toy of all. In the international power game each new step up the ladder of influence is a call for support from a leader’s constituents and he must use the weapon as fully as possible.

When that influence is not merely political but economic and social, too, the rest of the world must watch carefully how it is being used. Leaders obviously want to boost their own regimes and the ideologies they advocate at present. Up until recently the American Dream drove the aspirations and motivations of the world.

Competition, growth, freedom of expression, independent judiciary, basic principles of behaviour, all differed slightly between the two sides of the Atlantic pond but they were substantially in agreement. Now different ideologies and practices are part of the rules and behaviour previously designated as Eastern is rapidly becoming universal.

The western religions lost their power because of their inability, or unwillingness, to adapt to the technologically and ideologically changing world. Nobody asked them to surrender the basics of their beliefs; they were merely expected to understand that man’s progress was not simply mechanical but moral and intellectual, too.

Their failure to do this saw their supporters quit without anywhere to go. Absence of a new support system and attempts to make social welfare a substitute failed because they left out of account the innate spirituality of human beings.

Adaptability is not always identified with the established. The latter are by definition older, more set in their ways and inclined to attribute to experience a value it does not have. As the newly emerged nations grow in influence let us hope that the rest of the world will learn to adopt the best they have and to offer to share the things that
they are lacking.

We do not want to end up with the Atlantic Rim being identified as The Far West.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

China wants to promote a Pan-Asian currency and in principle efforts to make the transmission of money round the world easier should be applauded. A global society predicates a global economy with a global currency as a logical, if still impractical, consequence of that. Whatever the motives, the idea is good and the day will come when it is a reality.

Experience from the EU suggests that one currency across several disparate societies is not as simple as was originally thought. There are several reasons for this. Europe started the financial Euro zone with a political ambition and hoped the economic endorsement would follow. The politics were driven by the consequences of two world wars and the huge economic and social fallout from them.

However, there is plenty of experience to tell us that any move towards a global village must be driven first by economic realities with the political and social benefits more a consequence than a cause. Political change too far ahead of economic possibilities leads to trouble. The League of Nations and the limited influence of the United Nations are two examples of the shackles of the dollar.

Now the Greek economy is threatening the stability of the Euro. Standards of welfare in Europe are far ahead those of Asia and advanced social welfare raises expectations that sometimes cannot be met. When rights get too far ahead of responsibilities a tragedy is already being fashioned.

In practice the Euro has done well when you consider the dire predictions made at its launch. The price for that success is now becoming apparent. Richer countries like Germany need the Euro to succeed if their own economies are to continue to flourish. A failure of the Euro is unthinkable for them in the short term and potentially extremely damaging for the rest of Europe in the longer term.

So there really is no option but to bail out Greece, again, and the Germans will pay for it. That will precipitate unrest in their own country where the citizens are already quite angry at the prospect of their hard work supporting the – as they see it – less diligent. Destabilizing one of the world’s major currencies has serious implications for all the other currencies and for our daily lives.

China has dealt with the political differences and the economic necessities of Taiwan very sensibly by letting the economic realities lead and having the social and political consequences follow in good time. The same is true of Hong Kong.

“One Asia” is a good dream; no doubt it will one day be a reality.

But let economic harmony precede any attempt at political togetherness. That way there will be realistic expectations and lasting stability.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

Even with controlled environments we can be subject to dangerous outbreaks of disease such as e-coli. When an environment is even less ordered the risks to health are that much greater. So it is no surprise that with 40% of the world having no access to proper sanitation there is massive unnecessary sickness and death. In a world that seems to be reasonably wealthy this is something we should be able to put right.

Nor is it just a matter of access to lavatories. The basic requirements for life should be within reach of everyone in the world within the next twenty years – but will they? I doubt it. The signs are not encouraging.

Water shortage is exacerbated by droughts, food shortage by floods, breathable air by volcanic ash, housing by not applying accepted building principles, medical aid by lack of money, education by a misunderstanding of its purpose, peace by failure to recognize the stupidity of war, construction by the glorification of destruction.

We hear that life is too complicated, that nothing is as simple as it used to be. Specialisation, for all that it has given us many benefits, has brought uncertainty to those who think that they cannot cope with life’s ordeals without the help of an expert.

Ralph Waldo Emerson recognized the problem a long time ago when he said “There are more than a million methods but few principles. Grasp principles and you can choose your own methods. Try methods, ignoring principles, and you will have trouble.”

Since what we teach the young profoundly influences the future shape of the world we should use the social networks to put every child from a financially comfortable home in touch with a deprived child in a less prosperous part of the world and ask each to tell the other about their hopes and dreams. They should be encouraged to develop projects and ideas together and to remain friends for the whole of their lives.

Deprivation is not something to be grasped as a concept; we need to see it in the eyes and hear it in the words of a person who we get to know and who can become a friend for life. A friend’s problems are real enough to enable you to help them.

Facebook has given us easy access to those we know. HopeBook should give us access to someone from a different background and with expectations we do not understand.

We cannot yet bring the children of the world face to face even with all our sophisticated communications. But we are already able to connect them on the internet.

It may not be face to face but it certainly can be feeling to feeling.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

The original idea was that we did not have to live in the jungle, fighting for every inch of territory and every mouthful of food. Man, we deduced, can be more civilized than that, to the benefit of everyone. If I look after you when you are in need or sick, you will do the same for me when our situations are reversed. The concept is admirable but the practice depends on a level of social sophistication that mankind is still struggling to achieve. We lack a widely accepted definition of society.

When it comes to overseas aid this presents problems. The financially rigorous Conservative regime in Britain –thank heavens someone is trying to straighten out the budget – is in the unenviable position of reducing spending on defense by roughly the same amount that it is increasing overseas aid. Admirable, if a little confusing. A government’s first duty is to protect its people.

This really becomes a problem when you ask how the additional aid money will be used. All the evidence is that much of it will be wasted, some by finding its way into the pockets of the corrupt, some by being ‘forced spent’, a system demanding that you spend your budget within a certain time or lose it. The amount that reaches those who
need it most is, I am told, often relatively small.

The consequence of this is that the enthusiasm of the givers, whether voluntary or compulsory, is understandably dampened. When the next disaster happens the fate of the funds donated to relieve the last one will be remembered, people will not dip so deeply into their pockets and the amount available for distribution will decline. Already donor fatigue is affecting the amount given to charities.

There are no simple solutions to the problem. Wealthy countries must give to poorer ones, especially to meet crises caused by natural disasters. How to balance giving between people near us and those thousands of miles away? Leaving it all to governments cannot be the answer.

Giving is a personal act. Money extracted by taxation and handed on to those who need it is not giving, inevitable though this process must be. We all see need close at hand. The person out of work, the widow left with small children, the disabled, all these people need our aid and we can help them directly and without the often heavy administration costs that reduce the amount finally available for relief.

Education about and encouragement to practice giving has lagged behind most other aspects of society in the last ten years. In some cases it has become so formalized that we feel absolved from participating directly – someone else is in charge of that. Dispelling this idea and teaching what is a suitable cause is needed more than ever.

The Man on the Corner is still there all these years after I first met him. He needs a dollar. If you would like to hear his story, please ask me and I’ll email it to you.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

Solving differences between shareholders and management in a medium sized business is not that difficult, as I demonstrated in last Friday’s Daily Paradox but what about more weighty conflicts, for example between unions and management. Where groups are involved there may be too many people to use the approach I suggested.

There is, however, another way of dealing with problems that I have found effective. As with all judgment, it somewhat depends on the skill of the person making the decision as well as the cooperation of the protagonists. Where there are apparently irreconcilable differences, however, the following is usually successful.

First, both sides have to agree the terms. These include the appointment of an intelligent, respected person, preferably non-legal, who is not known personally to either side and has no connection with them. The person -we’ll call him or her NJP – will not be an arbitrator and will have only one decision to make.

Second, both sides must agree that NJP’s decision is final and binding and this must be enshrined in a simple legal agreement. They must also agree that the submissions be made in writing but can be accompanied by presentation material of any visual sort. However, the amount paid by each side to NJP will be decided by the length of time it takes to read the materials – for example, five pages might cost $N, ten pages 3 x $N, twenty pages 9 x $N and so on. The disproportionate increases in the amount paid as they become longer deters the protagonists from becoming too verbose.

Third, the submissions by the two sides in the dispute are not attempts to prove their case, as in a court of law, but offers of settlement of the dispute. The decision that NJP has to make is which of the two submissions is the more reasonable. He cannot alter the submissions or suggest variations to them – indeed, he may not comment on them at all. He job is solely to choose one side’s submission for settlement, the one he thinks is more reasonable.

In practice what happens is that the two sides are in touch with each other before the submissions are made. They will certainly be using lawyers pre-submission and the lawyers will talk to each other. By the time the submissions are made they are so close together that NJP has very little to do because it does not make much difference which settlement he chooses.

The consequence of this approach is that both sides will, even if grudgingly, accept the final settlement and the sting of ‘winner / loser’ created by an adversarial trial will, if not eliminated, be significantly reduced.

I call it the More Reasonable approach because that is exactly what it is.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

From opposing sides in Middle East conflicts to those divorcing to individuals on trial for their lives our established justice and parliamentary systems are adversarial. I make my point, you make yours and may the best person win. It produces a form of justice but is antagonistic, expensive and life-threatening. In other words, quite stupid.

Is a punch for a punch really today’s way to sort out problems?

The outcome of what ends up as no more than shouting matches or fisticuffs is inevitably compromise. Even for the murderer battling to save his life, plea-bargain is no more than a negotiated settlement. All arguments always end in compromise or death. It seems unnecessary to kill someone of a different persuasion simply to make a point.

In business, disputes are routinely solved much more simply and cheaply. I know because I deal with them all the time. Whether quarrels between shareholders, disputes between suppliers and customers, arguments between opposing management factions or just two people unable to agree a course of action there is a simple way to sort out what could become a self-destructive and disastrous antagonism.

Disputes arise because two or more sides have different objectives. The way to deal with this is for an intelligent but preferably non-legal party (NLP) to act not as arbiter but as listener. NLP is an individual, not an institution, because the system only works if it involves people and not representatives.

NLP talks to each party in the dispute separately, assuring them that s/he will not repeat a word of what the party says at any time. S/he asks what the desired outcome is for the party he is speaking to. His skills are to draw out all the wishes, needs and aspirations of the disgruntled party. He does this with each party separately, in turn.

When NLP has spoken with all the parties he gets them together round a table and tells them that he is not going to reveal anything of the individual discussions he has had but that he would like each of them to say as much of what they have told him as they are comfortable with in front of the other party or parties.

This produces two important effects. First, the parties behave politely. They are not arguing for a point of view in order to dominate, they are simply explaining their own objectives. It is self-evident that reasonableness is more likely to be effective than unreasonableness. Second, they will reveal all the objectives they have told NLP, without any rancor that may have emerged in the individual discussions.

The objectives are now on the table. All that is required is to find a compromise that as nearly fits all the parties as possible. In practice, this does not present much difficulty. When the parties tap the table to show their agreement to the compromise objective, the dispute is resolved.

It really is as simple as that. Provided you have a good NLP, of course.

Click to listen to the audio version of this Daily Paradox.

During the debates in the UK Parliament about the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) a Press Baron said in the House of Lords that since daily consumed manufactured goods like food were to be exempt, newspapers should be as well. They were, he maintained, like bread, manufactured for daily consumption.

Both Houses of Parliament agreed with him, newspapers were exempt from VAT and the principle of manufactured news was enshrined in the official record of debates.

Manufactured news took a new turn yesterday.

It is, of course, just as much the BBC’s job to manufacture news as it is any newspaper’s, but the concept of Breaking News was developed to a new pitch when it was announced that there were NO bodies in a house in Texas. Now Texas is, as we all know, a Hillbilly sort of State and the discovery of no bodies may be unusual. But as a bit of breaking news should it really take the BBC four minutes of its precious time to – well - break this item to us?

Our gratitude must, however, extend to the producer for opening up a new, exciting channel of Titter – the NO NEWS channel. What scope there will be for the creative urge in all of us! We shall see much rejoicing at the Capitol in Washington and other political centers. Candidates for the Presidency will vie with each other to announce what has NOT happened – and, with any luck, what WILL NOT happen in the future.

New industries of non-news will spring up, bringing gainful employment to thousands. The whole face of media will change. We shall discover the beauty of non- events. Conventional advertising will see a renaissance as promotion of occasions that will not take place is swiftly followed by reports of how they really didn’t.

Our gratitude that no bodies were found in the suspected Texas grave must not obscure our even greater thanks for the fact that our lives are, in future, to be enlightened by a hitherto unexplored form of nihilism.

It is certainly a time to rejoice, if for no other reason than that, as we frequently remind ourselves, NO NEWS is GOOD NEWS.