Announced and rapidly withdrawn, Admiral's proposed collaboration
with Facebook was supposed to give drivers a discount on their car
insurance premiums if their Facebook posts indicated the right kind of
personality. According to some reports, the idea was that people who
were reckless with punctuation (too many exclamation marks, not enough
full stops) might also be reckless in their driving habits.
The
punctuation example is probably a red herring. The analysis of
personality will undoubtedly be based on much richer aspects than mere punctuation: Facebook
is capable of much more sophisticated analysis, as well as selling data to other organizations for the same
purpose.
For example, a Korean study in 2013 found that Facebook
activities had predictive power in distinguishing depressed and
nondepressed individuals. However, Facebook may not wish to draw too
much public attention to such capabilities. (There are some important ethical issues in the use of algorithms to predict mental health issues, for example in recruitment screening, discussed at length by Cathy O'Neil.)
Meanwhile, insurance companies will wish to use any information and insight they can get their hands on, to try and calculate risk more accurately. People may consent to sharing their data if they feel they will benefit personally, or if they are unaware of the possible data uses and implications, but that could just result in discrimination against the people who refuse to share their data. So privacy campaigners may not be reassured by the fact that this particular collaboration has been withdrawn.
Cathy O'Neil, How algorithms rule our working lives (Guardian, 1 Sept 2016)
Sungkyu Park et al, Activities on Facebook Reveal the Depressive State of Users (J Med Internet Res. 2013 Oct; 15(10): e217)
Graham Ruddick, Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts (Guardian, 2 November 2016, 00.01 GMT)
Graham Ruddick, Facebook forces Admiral to pull plan to price car insurance based on posts (Guardian, 2 November 2016, 18.41 GMT)
Related posts
Pay as you drive (Oct 2006, June 2008, June 2009)
Weapons of Math Destruction (Oct 2016)
Insurance and the Veil of Ignorance (Feb 2019)
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Intervention as System
In this post, I want to talk about a couple of consultancy projects I worked on several years ago.
My strongest memory of these projects is not the actual content of what we were trying to do in the client organization, but the almost unbearable conflicts that arose between the members of the consultancy team, and especially between the two principals. We were each talking to different stakeholders within the enterprise, and as a consequence of this we took aggressively different positions on what was important, leading to some extremely uncomfortable meetings. Reflecting on this afterwards, I realized that the two principals were (probably unconsciously) acting out some of the conflicts in the client organization - in other words, the team had become as it were a microcosm of the organization. In such a situation, if the team can manage to resolve its own internal conflicts, this may be a valid step towards dealing with the conflicts in the enterprise as a whole.
This means that I now pay a lot of attention to the intervention process, and to the people engaged in these interventions, and ask how these affect the course of the intervention itself.
I greatly admire Jerry Weinberg and have enjoyed his writings on consultancy, but I would rank Peter Block's book on Flawless Consulting even higher. For Block, one of the most important things for the consultant is to be authentic. An authentic consultant is one who doesn't just think "I'm finding this narrative really boring, why is the client putting so much effort into not saying anything?" but actually says something rather than suffer in silence.
By the way, I think this is also what good therapists do.
Originally posted in the Enterprises *as* Systems - Enterprise Systems Theory group on Linked-In. Following a discussion on Methodological Syncretism, Tom Graves had challenged me to put up some of my own experiences rather than merely question those of other people.
In the subsequent comments, Sally Bean interpreted this example in terms of Checkland's distinction between Hard Systems Thinking and Soft Systems Thinking, prompting Geoff Elliot to challenge Checkland's account of this distinction. Tom Graves quoted Dave Snowden's maxim "every diagnostic is an intervention, every intervention is a diagnostic", mentioned the use of the unconscious in Jerry Weinberg's work, and invoked spiritual and magical thinking.
My strongest memory of these projects is not the actual content of what we were trying to do in the client organization, but the almost unbearable conflicts that arose between the members of the consultancy team, and especially between the two principals. We were each talking to different stakeholders within the enterprise, and as a consequence of this we took aggressively different positions on what was important, leading to some extremely uncomfortable meetings. Reflecting on this afterwards, I realized that the two principals were (probably unconsciously) acting out some of the conflicts in the client organization - in other words, the team had become as it were a microcosm of the organization. In such a situation, if the team can manage to resolve its own internal conflicts, this may be a valid step towards dealing with the conflicts in the enterprise as a whole.
This means that I now pay a lot of attention to the intervention process, and to the people engaged in these interventions, and ask how these affect the course of the intervention itself.
I greatly admire Jerry Weinberg and have enjoyed his writings on consultancy, but I would rank Peter Block's book on Flawless Consulting even higher. For Block, one of the most important things for the consultant is to be authentic. An authentic consultant is one who doesn't just think "I'm finding this narrative really boring, why is the client putting so much effort into not saying anything?" but actually says something rather than suffer in silence.
By the way, I think this is also what good therapists do.
Originally posted in the Enterprises *as* Systems - Enterprise Systems Theory group on Linked-In. Following a discussion on Methodological Syncretism, Tom Graves had challenged me to put up some of my own experiences rather than merely question those of other people.
In the subsequent comments, Sally Bean interpreted this example in terms of Checkland's distinction between Hard Systems Thinking and Soft Systems Thinking, prompting Geoff Elliot to challenge Checkland's account of this distinction. Tom Graves quoted Dave Snowden's maxim "every diagnostic is an intervention, every intervention is a diagnostic", mentioned the use of the unconscious in Jerry Weinberg's work, and invoked spiritual and magical thinking.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Emotional Intelligence
Some of my thoughts here were originally posted in a discussion in the Linked-In Rightshifting group.
In my work on organizational intelligence, I have always tried to make it clear that intelligence of the whole is not equal to the aggregate intelligence of its parts. An organization such as a university can be packed with brainy people, but if they don't talk to each other, the collective intelligence of the whole can be pretty poor.
Something similar applies to emotional intelligence. A large religious organization can be packed with sincere and caring people, mostly with very high personal levels of emotional intelligence, but if they don't trust each other (or conversely trust each other too much), then the collective EQ of the organization could leave much to be desired.
It is also worth noting that intelligence is not always correlated with ethics. Thus some individuals with high personal levels of cognitive and/or emotional intelligence may use their powers for selfish, deceptive or manipulative ends, and this may well have a negative impact on the collective intelligence of the organization.
My primary goal in working with organizations is to increase the collective intelligence of the organization, but I'm very happy if individuals get some personal benefits from this as well. This would apply to emotional intelligence as well as other kinds of intelligence.
In complex systems, the whole is never equal to the sum of its parts. If the whole is greater than the parts, then we have a kind of surplus intelligence. If the whole is less than the parts, then we have a deficit. (I suspect the latter is pretty common.) We may be able to tackle the communication mechanisms and "information systems" (in the broadest possible sense of this phrase) to increase the surplus or reduce the deficit, but because the whole organization is a complex adaptive system then this will change the parts as well, hopefully in positive and productive ways, so the net surplus or deficit might not change, but that's okay as long as both the whole and the parts are better off.
As I see it, organizational intelligence depends on a number of capabilities: information gathering (awareness of relevant events and trends), sense-making, and decision-making, as well as collective memory and communication. I guess emotional intelligence has some of the same elements: emotional awareness (situation awareness, people awareness, self-awareness), a degree of self-discipline, and a high degree of personal and group authenticity. Along with the ability to detect and interpret emotional signals from other people, emotional intelligence brings an awareness of the emotional state of the group, which is not simply an aggregation of the emotional state of individuals. We all know that a group or organization can have an emotional state or mood, which affects all those in and around it. It is a common error to identify the person who expresses this mood most strongly, and to blame this person for causing or amplifying the mood ("scapegoat"), but removing the scapegoat merely shifts the task of expressing the collective mood onto someone else.
Here's where I think emotional intelligence is particularly important. If you want to work with a group or organization in a low emotional state, or with poor morale (and let's face it, that's where a lot of organizations are when we start working with them) you have to be able to engage authentically with the negative emotions of the group without being overwhelmed by the same emotions yourself.
In my work on organizational intelligence, I have always tried to make it clear that intelligence of the whole is not equal to the aggregate intelligence of its parts. An organization such as a university can be packed with brainy people, but if they don't talk to each other, the collective intelligence of the whole can be pretty poor.
Something similar applies to emotional intelligence. A large religious organization can be packed with sincere and caring people, mostly with very high personal levels of emotional intelligence, but if they don't trust each other (or conversely trust each other too much), then the collective EQ of the organization could leave much to be desired.
It is also worth noting that intelligence is not always correlated with ethics. Thus some individuals with high personal levels of cognitive and/or emotional intelligence may use their powers for selfish, deceptive or manipulative ends, and this may well have a negative impact on the collective intelligence of the organization.
My primary goal in working with organizations is to increase the collective intelligence of the organization, but I'm very happy if individuals get some personal benefits from this as well. This would apply to emotional intelligence as well as other kinds of intelligence.
In complex systems, the whole is never equal to the sum of its parts. If the whole is greater than the parts, then we have a kind of surplus intelligence. If the whole is less than the parts, then we have a deficit. (I suspect the latter is pretty common.) We may be able to tackle the communication mechanisms and "information systems" (in the broadest possible sense of this phrase) to increase the surplus or reduce the deficit, but because the whole organization is a complex adaptive system then this will change the parts as well, hopefully in positive and productive ways, so the net surplus or deficit might not change, but that's okay as long as both the whole and the parts are better off.
As I see it, organizational intelligence depends on a number of capabilities: information gathering (awareness of relevant events and trends), sense-making, and decision-making, as well as collective memory and communication. I guess emotional intelligence has some of the same elements: emotional awareness (situation awareness, people awareness, self-awareness), a degree of self-discipline, and a high degree of personal and group authenticity. Along with the ability to detect and interpret emotional signals from other people, emotional intelligence brings an awareness of the emotional state of the group, which is not simply an aggregation of the emotional state of individuals. We all know that a group or organization can have an emotional state or mood, which affects all those in and around it. It is a common error to identify the person who expresses this mood most strongly, and to blame this person for causing or amplifying the mood ("scapegoat"), but removing the scapegoat merely shifts the task of expressing the collective mood onto someone else.
Here's where I think emotional intelligence is particularly important. If you want to work with a group or organization in a low emotional state, or with poor morale (and let's face it, that's where a lot of organizations are when we start working with them) you have to be able to engage authentically with the negative emotions of the group without being overwhelmed by the same emotions yourself.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Psychology of Organizational Intelligence
A few writers have started to make some interesting connections between business intelligence and cognitive psychology, including references to a CIA paper called The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis written in 1999 by Richards J Heuer jr.
The flaws in military intelligence have been widely discussed in the media. I have already discussed the writings of Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker; and Wayne references an article in the Boston Globe by Robert Jervis, Think Different CIA.
Heuer offers some detailed procedures (we might call them "best practices") for avoiding some known cognitive errors of intelligence and decision-making, and there may be some opportunities for building some of these practices into management training and team-building exercises as well as into the tools and platforms supporting organizational intelligence.
In a well-functioning team, healthy debate should reduce the incidence of cognitive error. However, many organizations display various forms of dysfunctional behaviours (such as bullying or groupthink), which tend to amplify cognitive error. This takes us from cognitive psychology into other aspects of organizational psychology.
There is also the question whether the intelligence failures are primarily cognitive or something else. Perhaps Treverton's distinction between puzzles and mysteries (which I picked up via Malcolm Gladwell) is relevant here. (See my post on Puzzles and Mysteries.)
Heuer's paper predates a couple of embarrassing failures for the US intelligence community - the failure to anticipate the September 11th attacks, and the false assessment of WMD in Iraq. So either Heuer's recommendations were not implemented or they were not sufficient. A more recent CIA paper suggests the latter: "The dysfunctional practices and processes that have evolved within the culture of intelligence analysis go well beyond the classic impediments highlighted by Richards Heuer in The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" [Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis].
I like the concept of "analytic pathologies" because that provides a good starting point for assessing and addressing the various blocks to organizational intelligence we can observe in most commercial and government organizations. Clearly the cognitive errors identified by Heuer are important, but they are often going to be symptoms of some deeper pathology. Even if "best practice" fully addresses the cognitive errors, we are going to need "next practice" to address the deeper stuff.
- Ted Cuzzillo, CIA’s insights on the psychology of analysis (July 2009)
- Wayne Eckerson, The Next Wave in BI: Decision Analysis (Jan 2010)
- Ted Cuzzillo, Call in the shrinks for the next phase of business intelligence (Jan 2010)
The flaws in military intelligence have been widely discussed in the media. I have already discussed the writings of Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker; and Wayne references an article in the Boston Globe by Robert Jervis, Think Different CIA.
Heuer offers some detailed procedures (we might call them "best practices") for avoiding some known cognitive errors of intelligence and decision-making, and there may be some opportunities for building some of these practices into management training and team-building exercises as well as into the tools and platforms supporting organizational intelligence.
In a well-functioning team, healthy debate should reduce the incidence of cognitive error. However, many organizations display various forms of dysfunctional behaviours (such as bullying or groupthink), which tend to amplify cognitive error. This takes us from cognitive psychology into other aspects of organizational psychology.
There is also the question whether the intelligence failures are primarily cognitive or something else. Perhaps Treverton's distinction between puzzles and mysteries (which I picked up via Malcolm Gladwell) is relevant here. (See my post on Puzzles and Mysteries.)
Heuer's paper predates a couple of embarrassing failures for the US intelligence community - the failure to anticipate the September 11th attacks, and the false assessment of WMD in Iraq. So either Heuer's recommendations were not implemented or they were not sufficient. A more recent CIA paper suggests the latter: "The dysfunctional practices and processes that have evolved within the culture of intelligence analysis go well beyond the classic impediments highlighted by Richards Heuer in The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" [Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis].
I like the concept of "analytic pathologies" because that provides a good starting point for assessing and addressing the various blocks to organizational intelligence we can observe in most commercial and government organizations. Clearly the cognitive errors identified by Heuer are important, but they are often going to be symptoms of some deeper pathology. Even if "best practice" fully addresses the cognitive errors, we are going to need "next practice" to address the deeper stuff.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Transference and Counter-Transference
Transference
Within psychoanalytic theory, there has been a great deal written about the phenomenon of transference, where the client uses the relationship with the therapist to replace something else, and becomes as it were addicted to the therapy/therapist.A related phenomenon also occurs with management consultancy.
Counter-Transference
Counter-Transference refers to the phenomenon where the analyst or consultant picks up feelings that are relevant to the interaction with the client.An inexperienced analyst or consultant may allow these feelings to interfere with the consultation.
An experienced analyst or consultant may be able to use these feelings as useful pointers towards What Is Going On.
Transitional Objects
"Interestingly, consultants and other change agents often become transitional objects for their client firms: The client refuses to ‘let go’, and becomes crucially dependent on the change agent’s advice in relation to every move." [Morgan p229]
"In helping to facilitate any kind of social change it may thus be necessary for the change agent to create transitional phenomena when they do not exist naturally. Just as father or mother may have to help their child find a substitute for Teddy, a change agent - whether a social revolutionary or a paid consultant - must usually help his or her target group to relinquish what is held dear before they can move on. Significantly, this can rarely be done effectively by ‘selling’ or imposing a ‘change package’, an ideology or a set of techniques. The theory of transitional phenomena suggests that in situations of voluntary change, the person doing the changing must be in control of the process. … If the change agent tries to bypass or suppress what is valued, it is almost sure to resurface at a later date." [Morgan p 229]
Notes
Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization
John Suler, The Psychology of Cyberspace (1996)
Wikipedia: TransferenceRelated posts: Trust and Transference (January 2004)
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