Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 37: The Tapestry of Adriana Trigiani

Many of us grow up without role models or mentors. Others are luckier and able to observe the wisdom of others directly at a young age when their foundation is being laid, and are taught the importance of
• Relying on no one to take care of you;
• Having a moral code that elevates your thinking with your behavior following;
• Paying your bills;
• Defending your good reputation as you can’t get it back once it is gone; and
• Leaving your children your values, not your stuff.

When I was editor-in-chief at Practical Accountant, I would describe our articles as marble sculptures. They would start in the raw with an idea, and after contributions from experts, they would be shaped into the final form using the best that was given and letting the beauty and individuality of the article shine. We all are artists, not just in what we do day to day, but also, and more importantly, in how we conduct ourselves, and who we become.

Lucia Spades Bonicelli and Yolanda Perin Trigiani were two very talented artists both with the objects and the people that they touched. Yolanda was an owner of a garment factory who made sure every blouse that she shipped was of the highest quality. Lucia was a seamstress who believed that you should have the best whether she was making a worker’s overalls or an evening gown. They met only once at the wedding of Yolanda’s son to Lucia’s daughter, but these two artists contributed to a masterpiece, their granddaughter.

In the exquisitely and beautiful crafted (like the clothes her grandmothers made) Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers, Adriana Trigiani, shares the legacy of these two remarkable women. I fully understand what Adriana means when she says. “They showed me, in their own ways, how to get out of my own way and carve out a fulfilling life, a peaceful life, a gracious life, and a secure life.”

Adriana is so very lucky to have had Lucia and Yolanda teach her how to best sew together her life’s clothing.
© 2011
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Above may be reproduced in full if that fact is stated and Howard Wolosky at http://howardwolosky.blogspot.com is credited as the author.

Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 36: Pavlov’s Customers

Very few scientific experiments fascinate me. An exception was Milgram’s dealing with obedience to authority. Another is Pavlov’s regarding the creation of conditioned responses. They captivate me because of their detrimental implications in our lives.
Take the following ways merchants integrate Pavlov’s principles as a component in their customer relations management philosophies.
• Using so-called rewards-based loyalty programs to compel further sales to the same customer.
• Self checkouts that make the customer perform the duties of staff with no compensation.
• Lip service, form letters, and platitudes about providing superior customer satisfaction to complaints.
• Discouraging concrete and mortar store shopping by eliminating low-level supervisors and staffing store with inexperienced staff. Little attention to display and layout and standard response by staff if you can’t fine what you want, go online rather than accessing computer and offering to order it for you.
• Fast food restaurants where special orders aren’t listened to.
• Fish hooking with freebies that lock you into expensive long-term service contracts.
• New, must-have improved version of the same product unveiled every six months.
• Charging more for those who commit early or buy directly from provider, rather than via third-party Web site.
There are many other examples of customers being conditioned to buy on the merchant’s terms at the customer’s expense. But unlike the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments rather than salivating, customers are beginning to snarl, and bite those who ring the bell.
© 2011
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Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 35: How Developed is Your Self-Control Intelligence?

This has been an issue since the first human took a bite out of that apple. But now in We Have Met the Enemy—Self Control in an Age of Excess, Daniel Akst makes a strong case that social, economic, and technological changes have dramatically altered the self-control landscape.

He believes people are having greater difficulty sacrificing short-term pleasures for long-term gains. In part, Akst indicates it is because practical barriers to short-term pleasure are now a lot lower. He also points to a decline in the importance of certain types of communities, changes in attitudes to religion, lack of familial influence, and the appeal of individual self-actualization.

I always thought that lack of self-control was just a matter of not having enough willpower. But it is much more diabolical than that and can be attributed to many other reasons including biological, economic, and even visual ones. Do you know that there is a study that shows people eat dramatically more M&Ms simply by putting ten different colors into a bowl instead of seven (consumption increased 43 percent)?

All is not lost since Akst offers some ideas as to how you can improve your self-control. My favorite is utilizing the Web site StickK.com referred to as a “precommitment device.” That site lets you put up some money and make a binding agreement let say to lose a pound a week for 15 weeks. You can appoint a person to monitor the progress. If you fail, stickK.com gives some of the money to a charity you have chosen.

A number of years ago I discovered a book by Daniel Goleman that illustrates in extraordinary detail the importance of emotional intelligence. I believe self-control intelligence is no different, but maybe not as obvious.
© 2011
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Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 34: Grating Expectations

There is nothing wrong in having fantasies. Many dream of a multi-million lottery win. Fantasies don’t hurt the dreamer unless they become expectations.
Some might say the only danger is if the expectation is an unrealistic one. I disagree as expectations create a mindset which substitutes a foregone conclusion for wishful thinking. Consciously or subconsciously we develop tunnel vision which controls both our thoughts and actions. We do everything we can to obtain the desired and anticipated result, not considering or reflecting what else is happening. Often, unhappiness or others’ anger or resentment, brings us back to reality. Most importantly, expectations interfere with our ability to adapt, the key to survival.
© 2011
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Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 33: A Two-Question Rx for Doctors

“Every child has to eat at least a pound of dirt before they grow up” is the wisdom many family doctors imparted to parents years ago. A holistic and humanistic approach that is lacking in many of today’s medical practitioners.
It is understandable as there is more specialization, need for greater efficiencies lower reimbursements, many procedures being performed by third parties, greater use of specialized outpatient centers and labs, increased reliance on test results, and higher malpractice insurance premiums. The skilled and trained professional still exists but something is missing that patients find discomforting.
We can’t go back but let me suggest a simply way of making the patients experience better. It is a simple technique used by an accounting firm in Ohio. Just as work is completed it gives clients a prepaid postcard with two questions regarding the engagement. There is a high-response rate and always any needed follow-up is done.
Doctors could give their patients a similar postcard at the close of each visit asking: ‘What did we do well?” and “What could we do better?” Expected responses might be the doctor didn’t talk about the side effects of a medicine or a particular technician made the patient very comfortable by detailing exactly what the testing machinery would do. Of course, there must be any necessary follow-up and additional patient communication.
Adopting this approach might help in a number of ways including awareness of patients’ areas of discomfort, a testing of implementation of “best practices,” and efficiency without sacrificing effective treatment. In the age of the Internet, online reviews, social networking, e-mail, and text messaging, patients will be sharing their good and bad experiences, so obtaining customer (patient) feedback is an imperative. Doctors are not good at this. The medical establishment, including the AMA, should take notice. Perhaps that two-question prepaid postcard is a good starting point.
© 2011
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Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 32: Being Right—An Introspective Examination Is Desperately Needed

Practical Wisdom-The Right Way to Do the Right Thing by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe begins by citing Aristotle’s writing on ethics. They immediately state that practical wisdom “demands more than the skill to be perceptive about others. It also demands the capacity to perceive oneself—to assess what our motives are, to admit our failures, to figure out what works or not and why.”

Unfortunately, the authors conclude that many of society’s institutions and the practices by those in a number of professions discourage and penalize the exercise of practical wisdom except by “canny outlaws.” Schwartz and Sharpe believe telos, the purpose or aim of a practice is the key to these individuals’ requisite “moral skill and will.”

I really enjoyed the book, but the title doesn’t seem “right” to me. I would have preferred The Destruction of Practical Wisdom.

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Howard’s Inner Circle, No. 31: Bothered by Footnote Two of Chapter Seven

“Take a look as some of these seemingly petty disagreements that grew into full-blown war:
• A dispute between the cities of Modena and Bologna over a well bucket about nine hundred years ago began a war that devastated Europe.
• A Chinese emperor once went to war over the breaking of a teapot.
• Sweden and Poland flew at each other’s throats in 1654 because the king of Sweden discovered that his name in an official dispatch was followed by only two et ceteras, while the king of Poland had three.
• The spilling of a glass of wine on the Marquis de Torey led to war between France and England.
• By throwing a pebble at the Duc de Guise, a small boy caused the massacre of Yassy and the Thirty Years’ War”2

The above footnoted passage in the book I just finished reading fascinated me. Unfortunately, footnote two read “Source unknown.” I had expected to find specific support for these five emphatic statements. I wish the author would have instead said in the text that they reportedly grew to a full-blown war with his accompanying footnote “Source unknown.”
© 2011
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The above may be reproduced in full if that fact is stated and Howard Wolosky at http://howardwolosky.blogspot.com is credited as the author.