The Trouble of Mitigated Speech & Hofstede’s Power Distance Index
December 30, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I can’t help but draw from Gladwell’s Outliers again as source material since it is so rich with ideas that have profoundly shaped my thinking. He talked about why Korean Airlines had one of the worst crash records from the late 80s to the late 90s. Interestingly, what he also found is that when the most experienced pilot flew, there was the highest chance for a crash, whereas when the least experienced pilot flew, it tended to be the safest flight.
What was observed at KAL was that the subordinate or lesser pilot would pay deference to the senior captain so he could almost never overtly challenge the senior captain’s stewardship of the plane. He would then speak in what is termed “mitigated speech”, i.e., very elliptically made speech that never directly attacked the captain. For example, if the plane had too much ice to make flying the plane a safe venture, the co-pilot would say something like, “Boy, it’s cold out there.” Of course, the pilot would have no idea what he was talking about. He could up the ante a bit and say, “Boy, the wings look a bit icy tonight, what do you think?” He might even go so far as to say, “Maybe we should take another look to see if there is too much ice on the wings to fly?” In almost every case, the Korean pilot would be too oblique in his commentary and deferential to change the captain’s mind about something that should have been very obvious.
The Korean language carries many honorifics and many layers of deferential speak that separate societal ranks. Customs further reinforce this behavior. For example, no one can start eating at the table until the most senior person starts. However, the most senior person can start eating way before anyone else is sitting at the table. Gladwell looked at Hofstede’s power distance index of various countries (click here to see Hofstede’s global PDI map). He found that Americans have a very low PDI, i.e., subordinates are very comfortable telling off a senior member whom they found to be wrong. However, even in the U.S., lower-ranked pilots would still at times have trouble telling the captain that there was a problem so that new training required that a lower-ranked U.S. pilot would try 3 times to convince a senior pilot that what he was doing was dangerous and if he could not that he would simply take over the cockpit.
Korean Airlines has become one of the safest airlines today because of a radical overhaul to the culture. All KAL pilots must be fluent in English, which helps them communicate better with international air-traffic control and also minimize the PDI issues. They also trained with U.S. pilots to start breaking down long-held PDI structures.
I have told this story to all of my staff so that they do not engage in a PDI issue with me. I need to know honestly what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong. I have asked them to run my ship with frank candor. I do not hire “Yes Men” and I do not want a “Yes Men” mentality to hold sway over my ship. I have asked the same candor from my patients. Open dialogue is the key to any relationship by breaking down the PDI at a fundamental level.
Outliers Part 3 of 3: The Hatfield-McCoy Feud & Cultural Legacy
December 11, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
To conclude our evaluation of Macolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, we evaluate the effects of what he calls “The Culture of Honor.” He discusses why the famous American feuds like Howard-Turner and Hatfield-McCoy standoffs were steeped in a culture that traced back several centuries on a different soil. Gladwell argues that these intense clan battles that centered around familial honor originated in the idea of the herdsman living on the hinterland. The farmer, by contrast, who must work in a team to cultivate arable land, would not risk alienating those around him. The herdsman, on the other hand, living on the rocky highlands must defend his sheep and cattle from the encroachment of strangers and thereby defines a certain code of honor that makes his battles per force openly querulous and staunchly virile. Gladwell discovered that these individuals acted in such a fashion from a legacy that predated their arrival in the heartland of America. Coming from the lawless borderlands of the United Kingdom, these “Scotch-Irish” engaged in feuds and fights because they were classic herdsmen as found in the Basque region of Spain, Sicily, and parts of Greece. Their behavior had been imprinted through generations of predecessors before them.
In a famous psychological experiment in Michigan, Nisbett and Cohen measured the testosterone and cortisol levels before and after an insult was levied. A student would be asked to complete a questionnaire and then walk down a long, narrow hallway where a proctor would accept their folded submission and then utter the word “asshole” under his breath. This provocative utterance was used as the catalyst for measuring any heightened responses. What was extremely interesting was that there was no difference between jocks and nerds nor wealthy and poor but there was a remarkable difference between those students who hailed from the South and those who resided already in the North. The gentlemen who came from the South, irrespective of background, were almost uniformly enraged by the comment as measured by the aforementioned physiologic markers; whereas the Northerners actually lowered their levels almost in a way to suggest that they were trying to counter any trace of their ire. The thought in short was that the legacy of the “Culture of Honor” was passed down through generations of Southerners irrespective of almost any other environmental or genetic factor.
When I look at some of my accomplishments, I can’t just measure my own successes from within but respect where I came from. Although my parents did not express the opprobrious and overt pressure that most Asian parents do on their children, they exerted a level of covert pressure to succeed that definitely affected my behavior. I remember when I was very young sitting around all afternoon watching television when my mother came in and with rancorous disdain told me to get up and do something constructive with my time. I was so upset at her behavior (or perhaps mine) that I got up and “ran away from home” shoeless for at least several hours to upset them. Of course, my parents were very upset at me for my needlessly stupid behavior. I would love to believe that my desire for success has been all internally derived but there is an honesty about the lingering effects of the cultural legacy that Asian parents and in this case mine imposed on me during my formative years. I remember my father beating me silly when I did not respect my elders at parties. These strict tones must have influenced me more than subtly. Now all that being said, my parents were and are the gentlest spirits that I know, especially compared to many of the fascist behavior of other observed Asian parents. But the cultural legacy that it has imparted for me is unmistakable and undeniable. Why else would I remember these isolated incidences? In many positive ways, I owe who I am to where I am from.
Outliers Part 2 of 3: 10,000 Hours & The Beatles in Hamburg
December 10, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
When the Beatles hit the U.S. shores in 1964, they were hailed as the vanguard of the British Invasion. However, did the Beatles simply succeed out of sheer talent? In Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he traces the Beatles’ growth, maturity, and success to a critical time that they spent in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles began playing already since 1957 but it was not until 1960 when they were brought over to Hamburg to play 8 hours a day, 7 days a week in a strip joint that they were able to get the right experience they needed to be successful. Lennon recalls when they were in Liverpool, they played one-hour gigs once a week or so meaning they played the same songs over and over again, their hits. When forced to play continuously all the time, they were compelled to improvise, learn new material quickly, play all types of music, etc., just to keep their foreign audience engaged. Their raw talent was placed into a boiling crucible where, after 5 trips to Hamburg, they transformed into the Beatles that arrived in the U.S. in 1964. Gladwell speculates that it takes 10,000 hours to arrive at a definable success in many fields. Bill Gates, the subject of yesterday’s blog, arrived at his 10,000 hours through luck of circumstance that put him well ahead of everyone else by a sizable time differential.
I look at how YouTube and the entire Internet medium have become my voice, so to speak, to reach the masses across many shores. We have on this website regularly people from Asia, Europe, South America and from every part of the North American continent. Similarly, I now attract patients every single day from across the United States and the world, all by virtue of a singular message beamed out over the net. Back in December 2006, I had this crazy idea to start loading videos onto a nascent site, YouTube, because I had a message to deliver but had no platform for doing so. I remember that my sister and mother were laughing uproariously about my activity, thinking what a colossal waste of time. Now the attention that I have garnered through my Internet exposure accounts for 60 to 70% of my business.
I don’t know if I have logged my 10,000 hours in, but I am on track to do so and exceed that number. I work tirelessly every day between my busy patient practice, at night, and on weekends thinking about and working on the Internet. I learned Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and work somewhat religiously on my site, as I am doing right now on a Saturday. In a way, this is not work for me; it is my love and passion. I love communicating my vision. I love thinking of new strategies to communicate that vision, and I love my ever expanding audience, which is now 1.5 million viewers on YouTube, almost every country in the world has seen this site (178 out of 195 countries according to my webmaster) with over 1,200 unique visitors to this site every day. I now come up with creative ideas that my webmaster implements for me at a furious pace because the execution of these creative thoughts come to me almost naturally by this point. I had a PR individual ask me last week, “Don’t you worry that someone will steal your ideas if you put them out there?” I frankly said, “No, they can’t keep up with me so I don’t even worry about it. By the time they copy what I have done, I have already thought of something else and far better.”
Although fruitless hard work backed up without talent and passion is not going to move you forward, hard work to the point of almost insanity is a requisite for success according to Gladwell’s thesis. Obviously, I subscribe to that philosophy. Cheers to hard work driven by inestimable passion!
Outliers Part 1 of 3: Background Forces & Bill Gates
December 9, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I was greatly looking forward to Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, having read his two other brilliant treatises, Blink and The Tipping Point. I so thoroughly enjoyed Outliers that it has inspired several blog ideas. I would go so far as to say that Outliers is the best book that I have read in the past decade or, at very least, in the pantheon of one of the very best.
The thesis for Outliers is that the classic “rags to riches” story of the self-made man is bunk. He focuses on from whence do these so-called successful outliers truly come. In his estimation, they are a product of their environment among other factors. However much I would like to attribute my own successes to my DNA, I have to humbly admit that I am a product of circumstances, legacy, and luck. That is not humility but the very core of truth. My blogs will feature a story from Mr. Gladwell’s book that I find fascinating and then relate how I see myself within the context of that story. Of course, in deference to Gladwell’s genius (or should I say environmental good fortune), I will only reveal a select handful of stories to encourage you to read the entire book, which is a worthy read.
Let’s begin with a boy genius, Bill Gates…or is that the case? Everyone is familiar with his story, nerdy braniac drops out of Harvard to start a fledgling business called Microsoft that turns into a global multi-billion dollar empire. Did Bill Gates rise from nowhere? Not really. He was a product of a very special time and place that fostered his success in an unequivocally tangible way.
Gates grew up in Seattle to well-to-do parents and was enrolled in an elite, private high school, Lakeside. Lakeside just happened to have a Mother’s Club that raised $3000 dollars to start a computer club in 1968, which didn’t even exist at major universities at that time. Most computer programming used an unfathomably laborious technique known as a computer-card system. Gates’ high school relied instead on an advanced time-sharing system that greatly facilitated his ability to program efficiently and effortlessly. When the money ran out for his computer club, a mother of one of the Lakeside boys just happened to need a programmer at a computer company called C-Cubed, which turned into another opportunity to work at ISI then TRW. He happened to be within walking distance of the University of Washington, which allowed him to work on computers between 3 and 6 am. Now none of all that would be that remarkable today. But that was 1968 when computers really did not exist and computer programming opportunities were nil. Gladwell argues that the software billionaires of today all came of age at a very narrow window in time with a narrow timeframe of 1953-55 birthdates: Bill Gates 1955, Paul Allen 1953, Steve Ballmer 1956, Steve Jobs 1955, Eric Schmidt 1955, Bill Joy 1954 (btw a great story of Bill Joy, the founder of the Internet and UNIX code in the book), etc.
I look back at my circumstances that has catapulted me to write 5 books in 5 years, have published hundreds of scientific papers and book chapters, to write a blog every day without too much difficulty, to respond to thousands of forum posts within minutes, to speak on live TV in front of millions of people without a blink, to lecture without notes, to create a video log almost every day with no prepared or studied notes, and to love every minute of it.
It began I believe in high school when I was an over-achieving Asian kid who did not fit in entirely. I was particularly sensitive about my ethnicity and for me without natural athletic abilities I strived to differentiate myself from being a stereotypical Asian kid good at math and science. I became the editor-in-chief of the yearbook and the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Reflections, etc. To be honest, I was a terrible writer who struggled with putting down a sentence let alone a paragraph. I think I had some animadversion to science in college partly to fight the stereotype of the Asian math whiz. However, I was drawn incredibly to the study of history. My years at Princeton and the need to write a several hundred page thesis before graduating forced me to write, write, and write. It put me in an environment to write and to cultivate my craft. History is perhaps the most recognized major at Princeton due to the quality of the professors and that pulled me to major in a field that was my worse subject and most hated in high school. Also, the small preceptorial system compelled me to begin to be comfortable with spoken argument and presenting my ideas out loud. However, I was still dreadfully afraid of public speaking.
I remember that I have always been enamored by my uncle, Sir David Lam (yes, he has been knighted by the Queen of England), who was the Lieutenant Governor (that would be Governor here Stateside since the Governor of Canada is the Queen of England) and who had the uncanny ability to speak extemporaneously without notes at public gatherings. He was always an idol to me and continues to be now in his mid 80s. I remember being so frightened of public speaking that the idea of it made me physically ill. I gave my speeches always with prepared notes that I had to read because a small blink would make me forget what I was saying or at least that is what I thought. I remember it was not until my fellowship with Ed Williams that I was called by Susan, his administrator, “Sam, Dr. Williams is sick tonight. You will have to give his seminar for him.” I was at the gym at the time, got off the treadmill, and basically panicked. I had no time to prepare and even if I did, it would not be my lecture but someone else’s. I gave the speech that night with tremendous trepidation without notes and resorted to my usual humorous asides when nervous. I had an overwhelming reception and it paved my way to be a much more comfortable public speaker.
Without these life circumstances and a catalog that would take a thousand blogs to fill, I would not be where I am today. I will discuss more in-depth other forces that have clearly shaped me external to any magical DNA that I may possess.