Moderation by perspicacity: Editorial duty

I was browsing through the weekly employee newsletter of an engineering giant. Among other relevant news, I saw a piece on a student (an top employee's daughter) winning a singing competition at Malhar 2008(St Xavier's College festival). It stuck out like a thorn. My first reaction : "What a pathetic display of parental pride in a company newsletter!".

Arguing over this issue with a friend, a new perspective was revealed to me. What if the poor employee had nothing to do with this article? What if it was the handiwork of an overzealous employee, eager to win brownie points? Or maybe the editor was in the mood to hand out toffees?
Also, can an employee be blamed for being proud and pushing his agenda, even if the forum is not right? It now strikes me as natural.It is the editor's prerogative to ensure that content is congratulatory but not oleaginous.

So, whats your take, huh?

Soft Times Cover Story (9th Jan 2009)

Corporate Governance

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ……………………………………….… BANG!!!

This appears to be the story of recent history of the world around us. From needless land rows to political absurdity, from terrorist attacks to corporate fraud, the skeletons continue tumbling out of the closet.

The recent confession by the promoter of an IT bellwether has brought to light the glaring deficiencies in the corporate setup in India. The world is looking to India as the principal competition to Chinese corporate prowess. The one thing that set up apart from our Chinese counterparts is the fact that transparency, professional management and corporate governance standards in India are light years ahead.

Or so we thought. Now we must wonder how “Independent” are the Independent directors. What purpose does cross-directorship between corporate and educational institutions play? What balances personal interest with fiduciary duty? When will creative accounting and auditing loopholes stop ballooning into corporate blackholes?
Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, Satyam….whose next?

The most important question is: Can we do something about it, and if yes what? We request readers to contribute their take on the issue. The best suggestions will be the announced in the next issue and will win prizes. Rush your entries in!!

The Psychology of Competition

I found this interesting article on competition at http://findarticles.com/

"Psychologists have long been in disagreement as to whether competition is a learned or a genetic component of human behavior. Perhaps what first comes to mind when thinking of competition is athletics. It would be a mistake, however, not to recognize the effect competition has in the areas of academics, work, and many other areas of contemporary life.

This is especially true in the United States, where individual rigor and competition appear to be nationalistic qualities Americans cherish and praise. It has often been suggested that the American capitalist-driven society thrives because of the spirited competition for a limited amount of resources available.
Psychologically speaking, competition has been seen as an inevitable consequence of the psychoanalytic view of human drives and is a natural state of being. According to Sigmund Freud, humans are born screaming for attention and full of organic drives for fulfillment in various areas. Initially, according to this view, we compete for the attention of our parents-seeking to attract it either from siblings or from the other parent. Thereafter, we are at the mercy of a battle between our base impulses for self-fulfillment and social and cultural mores which prohibit pure indulgence.
Current work in anthropology has suggested, however, that this view of the role of competition in human behavior may be incorrect. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), one of the great philosophers of the seventeenth century, is perhaps best remembered for his characterization of the "natural world," that is, the world before the imposition of the will of humanity, as being "nasty, brutish, and short." This image of the pre-rational world is still widely held, reinforced by Charles Darwin's seminal work, The Origin of Species, which established the doctrine of natural selection. This doctrine, which posits that those species best able to adapt to and master the natural environment in which they live will survive, has suggested to many that the struggle for survival is an inherent human trait which determines a person's success. Darwin's theory has even been summarized as "survival of the fittest"-a phrase Darwin himself never used-further highlighting competition's role in success. As it has often been pointed out, however, there is nothing in the concept of natural selection that suggests that competition is the most successful strategy for "survival of the fittest." Darwin asserted in The Origin of Species that the struggles he was describing should be viewed as metaphors and could easily include dependence and cooperation.
Many studies have been conducted to test the importance placed on competition as opposed to other values, such as cooperation-by various cultures, and generally conclude that Americans uniquely praise competition as natural, inevitable, and desirable. In 1937, the world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead published Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, based on her studies of several societies that did not prize competition, and, in fact, seemed at times to place a negative value on it. One such society was the Zuni Indians of Arizona, and they, Mead found, valued cooperation far more than competition. For example, the Zuni held a ritual footrace that anyone could participate in, the winner of which was never publicly acknowledged and, in fact, if one person made a habit of winning the race, that person was prevented from participating in the future. After studying dozens of such cultures, Mead's final conclusion was that competitiveness is a culturally created aspect of human behavior, and that its prevalence in a particular society is relative to how that society values it."

The basic assertion made here is that compeition is considered by many to be a learned trait.Perhaps I can suggest a small experiment.

Let me illustrate. Put two infants (less than 6 months of age) together in a play pen and give a bright colored chew toy to one of them. After the initial exchange of "baabaa-booh" pleasantries, inevitably we see that the deprived child will try to snatch the toy from the other one.

Now, either ambition or jealosy or both may be responsible for the deprived child's actions. Perhaps the child wanted the toy for himself: Ambition. Maybe the child merely was trying to ensure that the other child does not enjoy a privilege not accorded to it: Jealousy. Perhaps it was a interplay of both situations.

Whatever the diagnosis, the symptom is that the child knocks down the toy and that indicates Competition. Two 6 months old can hardly be expected to have been conditioned for competition especially when parents are extra protective and discourage any active competion in their presence.

So what's your take, huh?