The Three Horses

I've recently been asked for my thoughts on the following relationship question, 'should I leave, if I know they're bad for me?'

I don't really want to be giving out relationship advice (although I do have quite an opinion on relationship culture among Asians), so I thought I'd address this topic in a way that is similar to the 'is workplace discrimination really discrimination series.' 

Obviously if your significant other is abusive or causing you bodily harm in anyway you should probably leave them. For the rest that stay in the hope it's real love, let's consider treating the relationship like a business. 

Just like a business, relationships require continual 'sales' to ensure their survival. As such, it would seem obvious that you need trust and therefore intimacy to continue a relationship. So what do you do if there's no trust?

I'm going to argue that you still need trust for any sale (relationship). However, how you get the trust (and more importantly keep it) is another consideration all together. Chances are if you are questioning why you keep wanting to 'make the sale,' your methods may be the reason it has come to this. As such, I encourage you to consider the idea of 'The Three Horses'.

I just like snow

There's a Chinese philosophy of war in business. This philosophy operates under the assumption that business is fought and won using particular strategies; even if you have to lose a few battles to win a war. 

Let's now consider the scenario of The Three Horses.

The Three Horses

Two people have three horses each and each horse has a different grade; bad, good and excellent.

The first person wants to win the war so he will ride his bad horse against the second person's excellent horse, thus losing the first round.

The same man then races his good horse against the others bad horse; making sure he is only winning by a small amount so that he does not raise suspicion, whilst still ensuring victory.

He then races his excellent horse against the others good horse; again only winning by a small amount and ensuring he keeps looking modest on the surface.

As such, this man has now won 2-1 overall whilst preserving his modesty.

Now let's look at the same scenario through the eyes of the second man.

Victory in the first race caused the second man's confidence to turn into arrogance due to the margin of victory. Arrogance can causes boastfulness, which then creates the inability to hold secrets. This can also make him vulnerable to spilling more details and/or secrets of his game plan. 

The second next race was only lost by a narrow margin, hence no face was lost by the second man and he continues as confident as he was before (quite possibly still thinking he is in control). Unknown to him, was that the odds were stacked against him. 

Once again, the third race was close; such that no face was lost and yet the second man still had no idea he was always going to lose.

This concludes the scenario.

Thinking over this scenario, one thing was clear. The first man wanted to win. However, because he needed the second man to keep competing (i.e. continue the relationship/friendship/business etc), he created the illusion of humility by giving the second man a large win in the first round and then kept his modesty by ensuring he didn't win by a lot in the subsequent rounds. By doing this he ensured that the trust and intimacy still remained between the two men.

If you want this, you might need to have a game plan

I guess the point I want to make here is, if you are going to force a relationship, you may need to show humility by initially conceding a few victories in order to captivate a significant other's attention. Once you have that, the 'confidence' displayed by the person will leave them open for you to take advantage of the situation. You must then only achieve modest victories in order to keep the illusion that the 'trust' is still alive, as you go about winning the 'war.' This is in no way a healthy relationship but if you're going to choose toxic over boring, you should have a winning game plan.

Good luck

#Hanbaobao

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Is Workplace Discrimination Really Discrimination (Part 3)

We now know that for a company to have sales, there must be trust between the seller and the buyer. We also know what constitutes trust and that intimacy is required (Part 1). We then got to the point where the person that will make us look the best, is the person we want to be the most intimate with and finally we worked out that, by and large, this person takes the form of the 'Ultimate Male Specimen (Part 2).'

With that in mind, lets now discuss whether there is a place for 'appropriate discrimination' in the workplace.

If profits are all dependent on intimacy, you have to put yourself in the decision makers position. Ask yourself this simple question, 'would you send a sheep to negotiate with a pack of wolves?' My guess is many different variations of NO. You would send the biggest bad ass you could find (i.e. The Ultimate Man). However, don't forget that every time you don't send a sheep to the negotiation you are discriminating against all sheep.

Now if we apply this internally to an organisation, many of us are stereotyped by management as a certain kind of worker based on our skills and personalities. As such, just like the sheep, many of us will be 'discriminated' against which is of course wrong.

However, if sales are a function of trust, trust is a function of intimacy, and intimacy is indeed a function of our skills and personality traits, then why shouldn't we be excluded from doing certain things if management does not think we can make the sale. After all, its their butt and not yours on the line if sales targets are not met. As such, in this case, I think there is definitely a place for 'appropriate discrimination.'

Fortunately, unlike the sheep, you can do something about this. Let's have a look at a scenario.

Your Company Has Many Foreign Clients

Communication is a large part of intimacy. As such, if your company has many foreign clients and you can't speak said 'foreign' language, you may feel yourself unfairly discriminated against. To this person, I say that you may be missing what is truly important to the 'sale.'

Yes, just because someone can speak Chinese, they might be able to speak directly to the client and therefore have a perceived advantage at gaining their trust. However, if they can't generate intimacy whilst discussing high risk fund investment, they're still just as useless to your manager as the person that can't speak Chinese.

Instead of worrying that your career progression is being blocked, try focusing your efforts to identify what is the key defining factor to the 'sale.' It could be the best returns on the clients assets. It could be the piece of mind that their funds will be safe with your bank. It could be the access to the lowest interest rates. Whatever it is, you should be looking to undercover it. If you manage this, it may not matter what language you speak as this was not the key factor to gaining someone's trust.

On the flip side, if it is something that is non negotiable (i.e. the monthly management meeting is conducted in a foreign language), then you may be forced to accept that your career pathway is probably quite limited. However, you should not let this stop you from succeeding. Companies are so big and diverse these days that there is more than likely an available career path for you that you will be attracted to.

This may not be immediately clear to you; which is why communication is once again, very important. You need to be having regular career discussions (note: every week may be too often - try every 3 or 6 months) with your manager or mentor to ensure you can map out a career path that both of you are happy with. As I alluded to in 'Getting the Most Out of a Career Discussion,' management can only act upon the information you give them. They are not mind readers and you will definitely get more out of it if you do your homework before going to a meeting.

Remember management respond best when you present them with a problem and also include a possible solution. This is where intimacy is developed and trust is gained. Do this often enough and hopefully you will find that you are no longer subjected to 'appropriate discrimination.'

#Hanbaobao

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Is Workplace Discrimination Really Discrimination (Part 2)

In the discussion of whether the idea of 'appropriate discrimination' is acceptable in the workplace, I wanted to introduce two concepts that would form the basis of my argument. I first presented the idea that every company or business is selling something. I then discussed the defining component of a sale, which i quantified as being dependent on trust. Part 2 of this series will introduce the second idea, I alluded to in Part 1.

Let's begin.

2. Who is the Most Trustworthy?

In Part 1 we learnt that intimacy was required in order to develop trust. By this rational, the person that is most intimate is the most trustworthy.

So then, maybe the question really is not 'who is the most trustworthy,' but instead is, 'who do we want to be the most intimate with?'

I would say that the person 'we want to be the most intimate with', is the person that is going to make us look the best in front of other people. 

So if we superficially look at society (yes, that's all society is), we can by and large agree that the ones who have, look better than the ones who have not. As such, we therefore desire to be more intimate with the one who have. 

When we look at this upper echelon of society (the haves), we also see that it is very male dominated. Now, if we equate that to a company, this means that management (upper echelons) in companies will invariable be male. So when we think about who males generally want to look better in front of, I would say it is other guys. This 'Wanting to be the King' mentality means that men only want to be intimate with someone that will make them look better in the eyes of other men. 

Keeping with the company analogy, the decision makers of a company (who are predominately men) will only want to be intimate with people (predominately coworkers) who in the decision makers' eyes, have the skills to help further the decision makers' careers. 

To summarise, by this rationale, the person that makes you look the best, is the person you want to be the most intimate with and therefore this is the most trustworthy person. So who is person? This person is a male who is the most desirable of all; i.e. the who has the best combination of brains, looks, height, charisma and power - 'The Ultimate Man.'

Society has obviously come a long way since these days where the aforementioned conclusion was accepted as fact. However, this old fashioned thinking still exists in the workplace; especially in the upper echelons of society and businesses. This doesn't mean you can't succeed if you don't fit the required stereotype. There are plenty of cases where it has happened. It does however, mean that you have to be smarter than the average competitor.

This concludes Part 2. I will use the ideas presented in Parts 1 and 2 to make my case for whether 'appropriate discrimination' should be allowed in the workplace and how you can overcome it. Stay tuned for Part 3 - The Conclusion.

#Hanbaobao

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Is Workplace Discrimination Really Discrimination (Part 1)

Today's topic has been inspired by a dedicated reader. Thanks for the great ideas people.

I've been tossing up how to present this and I think I've now worked out my opinion. It's going to take three parts so i apologise for the delay in getting to the conclusion. Parts 1 and 2 will present two ideas or thought processes that will allow me to make my final argument in Part 3. Hope that makes sense, let's begin.

Workplace discrimination is discrimination. There's no question about it and it should not be allowed. However, if we look at it another way, maybe there is a place for 'appropriate discrimination.'

I want to stop here and present the first idea.

1. The Beauty of Trust

No matter what working environment you are in, your company or business is in one way or another, supplying a service to a customer who then buys that service. There's no way around it. It's just simple business. Many sales equals a successful business. However, the key thing to remember is 'what is the key point to a sale?'

Would you trust this?

I say it's trust. Trust can mean many things. It could be the trust that you are getting the information you paid for. It could also be the trust that the seller has been completely honest with you. It could also be the trust that that you are getting the quality that you require. No matter what the sale is, if there is no trust there is no sale.

Now let's take this to the next level.

I say that trust is a function of intimacy, reputation and risk. By this I mean:

Trust = (Intimacy x Reputation)/Risk

The average person will have no control over reputation so let's assume that is constant. 

This means that the two variables that influence trust are intimacy and risk.

A. Intimacy

Intimacy is your personal connection to the customer or client. How intimate you are will decide how much trust you get. 

B. Risk

Risk is the opposite of intimacy. As such, the higher the risk the less trust you will get. 

The conundrum of all this is exactly how much trust someone needs for the sale to happen. By this, I mean a low risk transaction does not need a huge amount of intimacy to ensure the sale goes ahead (think cafes, supermarkets and mid priced clothing stores). Similarly, a high risk transaction, needs a huge amount of intimacy for the sale to go ahead (think large business acquisitions).

So now you should have an understanding of what constitutes trust and the requirement for a sales transaction. This concludes Part 1.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

#Hanbaobao

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