THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 15

Subject: Pareto Principle -  The 20/80 Rule

Event:  Birthday of Vilfred Pareto, 1848

If you're Noah, and your ark is about to sink, look for the elephants first, because you can throw over a bunch of cats, dogs, squirrels, and everything else that is just a small animal and your ark will keep sinking. But if you can find one elephant to get overboard, you're in much better shape. -Vilfred Pareto

What are examples of small things you can do each day at work or in your personal life that get the biggest results?

To answer this question, it’s good to get to know a man who was born on this day in 1848, an economist and sociologist named Vilfred Pareto.  Pareto’s insights began when he was crunching numbers related to his home country’s economy.  He calculated that 80% of Italy’s income was earned by 20% of its population.  Fascinated by the disparity of this statistic, Pareto began applying it to other areas of cause and effect or input and output.  Based on his thinking, he developed what has come to be known as the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 Rule), which states:  20% of input results in 80% of output.

In The Decision Book, authors Mikael Korgerus and Roman Tschappeler give some examples of how the Pareto Principle might be interpreted beyond just national economics:  “20% of criminals commit 80% of the crimes; 20% of car drivers cause 80% of the accidents . . . . We wear 20% of the clothes we have in our wardrobes and spend 80% of our time with 20% of our friends”(1). 

                                                           Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Of course, the percentages are not exact in all cases, but they are useful as a general rule of thumb when you’re brainstorming how to maximize your time and your results.  If it is true that small actions generate the bulk of your results, it makes sense to spend some time analyzing critical tasks and efforts from less critical ones.

In his book The Babinski Reflex, Philip Goldberg tells a story about how Charles Schwab, president of Bethlehem Steel, benefited by putting the Pareto Principle into practice in the 1940s.  Based on the advice of a consultant named Ivy Lee, Schwab made a list of his daily tasks and then ranked each based on its importance.  The next day, Schwab began work on his list of tasks, beginning with the top ranked one.  Based on Lee’s advice, Schwab worked on that task until it was completed, resisting the urge to move on to other tasks on the list.  Schwab was so pleased with the new strategy that he awarded Lee $25,000, saying “that it was the single most important investment that Bethlehem Steel made that year.” (2).

The Pareto Principle gives us insight into how goal setting can help us be more productive.  Often people fill their day with minor, low value tasks, which typically take little time and are easy to accomplish.  The problem here is that these tasks allow us to procrastinate, avoiding the higher value tasks that require a bit more effort.  The solution is to sit down and identify and prioritize your goals and tasks like Charles Schwab did.  Doing this will allow you to identify the difference between being productive and being busy.  Even if you don’t complete one of your priority tasks, at least you will know that the time you are spent on it will yield greater results in the long run than the time you spent on three menial, low value tasks.  

Challenge - Practice the Pareto Principle:  Identify a goal you would like to achieve.  Then, brainstorm a list of specific tasks that you must accomplish in order to achieve it.  Next, rank the tasks from most to least important.  Looking at the highest value tasks, think about what you might do each day to contribute to completing that task; furthermore, assess, using the Pareto Principle, how much that task realistically relates to your results.

Sources:

1-Krogerus, Mikael and Roman Tschappeler. The Decision Book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012: 106.

2-Goldberg, Philip.  The Babinski Reflex.  Tarcher, 1990: 166.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 14

 July 14:  Bastille Day

Subject:  Enlightenment - The French Revolution

Event:  The storming of the Bastille, 1789

Under the right circumstances myths can change rapidly.  In 1789 the French population switched almost overnight from believing in the myth of the divine right of kings to believing in the myth of the sovereignty of the people. -Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens:  A Brief History of Humankind

Today is the anniversary of the event that sparked the French Revolution, the storming of the Bastille -- the Paris prison fortress of King Louis XVI. In 1789, 13 years after the American colonists had rebelled against the British monarchy, the citizens of France rose up against the despotism of King Louis, releasing prisoners from the Bastille and raiding its arms and ammunition.

 

Louis and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were arrested at their residence in Versailles, the entire royal family was eventually executed by guillotine, and the Bastille was razed.

 

In a climate of chaos and anarchy, the National Convention established the French Republic. Although true democracy did not result from the French Revolution, the absolute monarchy in France was permanently abolished (1).

                                                           Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

 

Something that may never be abolished is the relationship between the French and English languages.

 

This relationship began in 1066 with the Norman Invasion. With a Norman king of England, French became the language of the government. Though the Anglo-Saxon tongue became a second-class language in England, it still remained alive and well as the language of the common people. In fact, there were fewer French words absorbed into English during the Norman reign (approximately 1,000 words) than after an English king regained the throne. Between 1250 and 1500, more than 9,000 French words were absorbed into English.

 

English is a Germanic language. Its most frequently used words are Anglo-Saxon -- grammar words, such as pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions. However, a higher percentage of English vocabulary words comes from other languages, principally the Romance languages -- the descendants of Latin, such as French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

 

Next to Latin, more of these vocabulary words were absorbed from French than any other language. The following words are a small sample of common English words that have French origins:

 

liberty, revenue, crime, justice, ticket, essay, religion, connoisseur, ridicule, dentist (2)

 

Challenge:  A Tour of Your ‘Tour de Force’ Structure

What are examples of man-made structures (such as buildings, bridges, statues, etc.) you would put on your list of most iconic structures ever constructed by human hands?  Which one would you argue is the most iconic of them all?  

 

Although the Bastille no longer stands, it remains in our memory as a historic and iconic man-made structure.  It is the rare structure whose name alone evokes both images and feelings, whether good or bad.  One test of such a structure’s iconic status is whether or not its geographic location is common knowledge.  Peruse the list of iconic structures below to see if you can identify where in the world each is located.  Also consider what pictures and feelings, if any, you associate with each one:

 

The Colosseum, The Great Wall, Stonehenge, The Statue of Liberty, Fallingwater, The Twin Towers, The Panama Canal, The Space Needle, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Grand Coulee Dam, Saint Peter’s Basilica, The White House, The Taj Mahal

 

Select the single man-made structure from your list that you think is most iconic.  Make your case by stating your reasons, and do a bit of research to give your audience some impressive details and evidence that go beyond the obvious.

 

Sources:

1 - Yenne, Bill. 100 Events that Shaped World History. San Francisco: Bluewood Books, 1993.

2 - Reader's Digest Success with Words: A Guide to the American Language. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1983.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 13

Subject:  Ben Franklin Effect - Franklin’s Book Deal 

Event: The $100 bill becomes the largest denomination of U.S. currency, 1969

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.  - Benjamin Franklin

In addition to the sage financial advice above, Benjamin Franklin also famously said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”  It seems appropriate, therefore, that we celebrate him today, for it was on this day in 1969 that the $100 bill, featuring Franklin’s portrait, became the largest denomination of U.S. Currency.  Also, on this day the $500, $1000, 5,000 and $10,000 bills were retired.

                                                      Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

In addition to financial advice, we might also look to Franklin for relationship advice, for psychologists today look to him as the father of an important psychological phenomenon called the Ben Franklin effect.

In his autobiography published in 1791, Franklin talks about an unnamed nemesis who he desired to turn from hater to friend.  A conventional approach would be to attempt to change the man’s attitude by doing him a favor.  Franklin approached it differently, however.  His unconventional, but successful strategy, was to ask his enemy to do HIM a favor.

Franklin wrote to the man asking to borrow a book from his personal library, a specific rare title that Franklin had no access to.  Flattered by the request, Franklin’s rival responded, sending the book.  A few days later, when Franklin saw his enemy in public, the man approached him and the two talked cordially.  Franklin had done it:  he had transformed his one-time enemy into a lifelong friend.

The psychology behind the Franklin effect comes down to self-esteem - the desire each of us has to see ourselves as reasonable, consistent people.  In the case of Franklin’s enemy, lending a book to a person he didn’t like was perceived as an action inconsistent with a reasonable person.  This cognitive dissonance was easily overcome by changing his attitude toward Franklin. No longer an enemy, Franklin’s nemesis now viewed Franklin as “a fellow book lover, who appreciated the rare holdings of my exclusive library.”

Putting the Ben Franklin Effect to the test in the laboratory more than 175 years later, Jim Jeckler and David Landy conducted an experiment in 1969.

The study began by recruiting an actor to pose as a scientist.  Participants were told that they would be given psychological tests, and based on their performance they would be awarded money.  In the process of the tests, the actor, posing as a researcher, behaved rudely and was intentionally obnoxious, in an effort to make the subjects in the experiment dislike him.  All subject were allowed to succeed at the tests and all were awarded the same amount of money for their efforts.  

After the test, the subjects were asked to walk to another room where a secretary waited with a questionnaire.  For one-third of the subjects, the actor stopped them just before leaving the room to ask a favor:  his request was that they return the money they earned because funding for the experiment was running low.   All the subjects fulfilled his request for a favor, giving the money back.  A second-third of the subjects were asked by the secretary to return the money as they filled out the questionnaire.  As with the first third, all agreed.  The final third of the subjects simply filled out the questionnaire and were allowed to leave with all of their money.

The key question asked on the questionnaire was to rate the likability of the researcher/actor on a scale of 1 to 12.  Those who were allowed to keep their money gave a rating on average of 5.8.  Those who gave their money to the secretary rated him on average 4.4.  Finally, those who gave their money back to the researcher as a favor rated him on average 7.2.  Thus, 178 years after Franklin published his relationship hack, it was confirmed by psychologists.

Long before the term “psychology” was coined, Benjamin Franklin was a keen student of both his own mind and the mind of others.  In the following anecdote from his Autobiography,  he recounted how he persuaded himself to change his mind:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I considered, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs. Then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. (3)

Challenge:  “Ben” There, Done That

Franklin’s fish anecdote relates a psychological concept called cognitive dissonance.  What is cognitive dissonance?  How is it revealed in Franklin’s anecdote?

Sources:  

1-Scherzer, Lisa. “What You Might Not Know About the $100 Bill.” Yahoo Finance 8 Oct. 2013.

2-McRaney, David.  You Are Now Less Dumb. New York:  Gotham Books, 2013: 57-70.

3. Franklin, Benjamin.  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin  (1791). 

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 12

Subject:  Rhetoric - Tricolon

Event:  Birthday of Julius Caesar, 100 BC

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. -Benjamin Franklin

 

Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, today is the traditional day that people mark as the birthday, in 100 BC, of Julius Caesar -- Roman general, statesman, and dictator.  

 

In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch tells a story that reveals the unique character of Caesar. It relates to an incident where the young Julius was kidnapped by pirates:

 

To begin with, then, when the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty . . . . For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth (1).

                                                                 Image by Efry E from Pixabay

Caesar made good on his threat.  After being released, he pursued the pirates with his fleet, captured, and executed them.

 

Julius’ place in history is probably best attributed to his combined powers as a tactician, a statesman, and an orator.  After leading his Roman army to one particularly decisive victory in 46 BC, he famously wrote the Roman Senate to report:  

 

Veni, vidi, vici

or

I came, I saw, I conquered.

 

A student of rhetoric and oratory, Caesar knew the power of the tricolon, the use of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses to generate sentences with rhythm, clarity, and panache.

 

There is something special, perhaps even magical, about the number three, and when combined with the power of rhythm and repetition, what results is an unforgettable recipe for rhetorical resonance.

 

We see it in the Declaration of Independence:  “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  We see it in religion:  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  We see it in films and television: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” and “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!”  And we see it advertising:  “The few, the proud, the Marines” (2).

 

Balance and rhythm with two elements is good.  This is called bicolon, as in

“Roses are red, violets are blue.”  And four works too.  It’s called tetracolon, as when Winston Churchill told the British people that he had nothing to offer but “blood, toil, tears and sweat.”  But you just can’t beat the rule of three; it’s the most ubiquitous, the most memorable, and the most magical of them all.  No wonder newly reelected President Barack Obama used 21 tricolons in his 2008 victory speech (3).

 

Challenge:  Tricolon Trailers

What are examples of things that come in threes -- familiar phrases, titles, or trios?  Write the text of a voice-over for a movie trailer of your favorite film or book.  Use at least one tricolon to add some rhythm and resonance.  Here’s an example for Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:

 

Mourning his dead father, berating his clueless mother, and continually contemplating the murder of his remorseless, treacherous, and lecherous uncle, Hamlet is not having a good day!  Something, indeed, is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it’s not just the fish from last week’s dinner that’s been festering in the corner of the Castle Elsinore’s Kitchen.

 

Sources:

1-http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html

2- Backman, Brian.  Thinking in Threes:  The Power of Three in Writing. Austin, Texas:  Prufrock Press, 2005.

3- Forsyth, Mark.  The Elements of Eloquence:  How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase.  London:  Icon Books, 2013: 84-88.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 11

 Subject:  Scarcity and Loss Aversion - New Coke

Event:  The Coca-Cola Company discontinues New Coke, 1985

Imagine you are a part of a cookie taste test.  Before you are two jars of cookies.  One of the jars has ten cookies in it, while the other had just two.  Do you think you would be capable of judging the two cookies objectively?  Do you think that the number of cookies in each jar might somehow influence your preference for one over the other?  

An actual psychological experiment was conducted as described above.  What the researchers did not tell the subjects, however, was that all the cookies in the experiment were exactly the same.  The results of the study revealed that subjects consistently preferred the cookies that were in short supply over the cookies that were more plentiful.  This fact illustrates a powerful idea from social psychology called the scarcity principle -- the tendency that humans have to perceive the value of things that are less abundant or rare over things that are viewed as common or abundant (1).

On April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that it would be introducing “New Coke,” a sweeter tasting version of its long-successful traditional formula.  Almost immediately there was a backlash from Coke drinkers across America demanding that old Coke be restored to the store shelves.  One Seattle man even organized a group called Old Coke Drinkers of America to lobby and even sue the Coca-Cola Company. 

                                                        Image by Harry Stilianou from Pixabay

Coke executives thought they had done their research, for they had developed the new formula over a four-year period and conducted blind taste tests with thousands of consumers in twenty-five cities.  The results of these taste tests were clear:  55% to 45% of Coke drinkers preferred the new formula over the old.  In addition, in tests where consumers were told they were drinking old and new formulas, 6% preferred New Coke.

What the Coke executives failed to account for was an important phenomena from psychology called the scarcity principle.  In short, it means that when we are told we can’t have something or that something is in short supply, we want that thing even more.  Furthermore, we truly dislike it when we have something and it's taken away from us.

When New Coke was released, Americans had been drinking Coke for nearly 100 years, ever since Dr. John Pemberton sold his first glass of the bubbly beverage on May 8, 1886, in a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.  More than just soda pop, traditional Coke was a part of Americana.  With old Coke no longer available, the scarcity principle kicked in.  In addition, a related notion came into play, loss aversion, which causes people to weigh losses more heavily than gains (2).

If Coke executives would have understood scarcity and loss aversion better, they might have, for example, kept old Coke on the shelves awhile before fully replacing it with New Coke.  Similarly, they might have framed their advertising to account for loss aversion by emphasizing losses over gains.  For example, they might have advertised New Coke, saying, “Don’t miss the opportunity to be the first on your block to taste New Coke.  For a limited time you can buy it at a 20% discount over old Coke.”

Because of their failure to understand the consumer’s psychology, the Coca-Cola Company finally had to admit defeat.  It was on this day in 1985 that New Coke was discontinued and “Classic Coke” was reintroduced.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the difference between loss aversion and the scarcity principle?

Challenge:  Failed Products - Busts

What are some classic failed products from the past? Do some research into the product, and try to answer the question of why it failed?

Sources:

1-Cialdini, Robert B.  Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion. New York:  Harper Business, 2021:  268.

2-Goldstein, Noah J., Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Free Press, 2009.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 10

Subject:  Confused Language - History and Heritage

Event:  History professor Steven Conn writes about the Confederate flag controversy, 2015

Perhaps the writer has used an important word incorrectly by not taking the trouble to look it up. He may think that "sanguine" and "sanguinary" mean the same thing, but the difference is a bloody big one.  -William Zinnser

On this day in 2015, an editorial appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer weighing in on the controversial issue of whether or not the Confederate flag should be a part of the flag of the state of Mississippi.  In explaining his case, historian Steven Conn of Miami University in Ohio began by emphasizing the distinction between two words:  history and heritage.  Conn argued that these two conflicting views of the past should not be used synonymously; instead, they should be treated as opposites:

History follows rules of evidence an interpretation.  Most important, it is debated and revised constantly as new evidence and new ways of  evidence come to light . . . . Heritage, by contrast, is a mythologized version of the past, stripped of all the unpleasant parts.

                                                             Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Conn continued by explaining the key distinctions between the two words, explaining how they are anything but synonymous:

History, [unlike heritage], doesn’t care about your feelings.  It isn’t therapeutic and its job isn’t to make you feel good about yourself, your relatives or the ethnic tribe with which you identify.  History forces you to think, to question the assumptions you hold about the past in order to analyze the present more deeply. -Steven Conn

As it relates to the Confederate flag controversy, Conn argued that “Those who cling to the Confederate flag want their personal, rose-tinted mythologies of Confederate heritage to be taken seriously as history.”  The error here is that this attitude conflates heritage with history.  Unlike heritage, which is the subjective “past-as-we-wish-it-were,” point of view,  history takes a broader, more objective view of the past, looking at “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

  

To illustrate his point beyond just the issue of the Mississippi flag, Conn presents the example of attitudes about Christopher Columbus.  Italian Americans have a long tradition of celebrating Columbus’ achievements as an explorer; however, to go beyond just heritage, they should also recognize the historical facts relating to Columbus’ enslavement of native people, which began the unfortunate history of slavery in the New World.

Conn’s argument is an important reminder of how important it is to establish clear definitions when addressing an argument.  This is so important, in fact, that whenever looking at a controversial issue, debaters should begin by identifying and defining specific terms that are essential to understanding the issue.

Clarifying precise definitions and making fine distinctions between words is important in order to avoid misinterpretations or misunderstandings that can derail a debate.  Imagine, for example, that you’re debating the issue of capital punishment while your interlocutor thinks you're discussing corporeal punishment.  Obviously, both issues involve punishment, but the adjectives “capital” and “corporeal” involve two totally different kinds of punishment.

Furthermore, clarifying definitions will help you establish common ground based on agreed-upon definitions and also open the door to identifying assumptions that should be brought out into the open.  For example, in Steven Conn’s argument about the past, he clearly defines the terms history and heritage, revealing the distinctions between the two terms and showing that they are not synonymous.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What are the key distinctions between the definitions of the words “history” and “heritage”?

Challenge:  Words with a World of Difference

Research the precise definitions of a word pair that some people might think are synonymous.  What is the definition of each word, and what is the difference?

The following are some possible examples of word pairs:

Norm/Average

Joy/Exhuberane

Judgement/Prejudice

Happiness/Pleasure

Prosperity/Wealth

Reason/Logic

Right/Want

Slander/Libel

Jargon/Slang

Freedom/License

Frankness/Rudeness

Sanguine/ Sanguinary

Also on this Day:

July 10, 1871:  Today is the birthday of Marcel Proust, the French writer, who gave us the following insight about reading:  “Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”

Sources:

1-Conn, Steven.  “Heritage and History Aren’t the Same Thing.” The Philadelphia Inquirer 10 July 2015.