Will You Try My Tongue Twister & Will I Make You Think?

by Patricia Feager

With all the seriousness in the news, I thought it would be fun to compose a tongue twister. As you know, a tongue twister is "a sequence of words or sounds, typically of an alliteration kind, that are difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly, as, for example, tie twine to three tree twigs." 

Just for fun, I hope you try out my tongue twisters and let me know if your tongue gets twisted. 

BETTY AND BOBBY

Betty and Bobby began a blog but Bobby was better than Betty but then Betty bent-over-backwards to become the best blogger and Bobby became bitter but then Betty and Bobby bonded and built a Team but Betty baked biscuits while Bobby blogged because Betty's baked biscuits and butter was better than Bobby but Bobby's business was to blog and blog he blogged becoming the best blogger ever. 

"When you look at people who are successful, you will find

that they aren't the people who aren't motivated

but have consistency in their motivation."

--- Arsene Wenger

I read and reread the quote by Arsene Wenger more than once and wondered, is consistency in motivation a good thing or a bad thing? My guess is, it depends. In my example I wrote about Betty and Bobby, clearly Betty was in competition with Bobby and even though she bent-over-backwards to become the best blogger, even though Bobby was better, Bobby became bitter. So, my question to you is can consistency in motivation become more of a competition stemmed from jealousy? 

If you read the September 8-14 2018 "The Economist," Has finance been fixed? Ten Years After Lehman, you might find some articles of interest. For example: Page 53, "Bartleby - When teamwork works." The article touches on a number of thoughts to ponder:

1. Collaboration at work is generally seen as a good thing.
2. Businesses value collaboration.
3. Managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working toward the same goal.
4. When people are aware of the views of others, there is a tendency for them to herd...
5. Close teamwork may be vital in the lower reaches of a hierarchy, but at the top someone has to make a decision.

There is an interesting article on page 11, "Has finance been fixed," which deals with questioning whether or not "The system is safer. But the right lessons have not all been learned." Which leads me back to my question: is consistency in motivation a good thing or a bad thing? In my opinion, the "collapse of Lehman Brothers," was motivated by consistency in greed. 

The article points out what I perceive is good news: 

1. Banks must now fund themselves with more equity and less debt.
2. They depend less on trading to make money and on short-term wholesale borrowing to finance their activities.
3. Regulators have beefed up their oversight, especially of the largest institutions that are too big to fail.
   
   

Still in all, 10 years ago mistakes were made and approximately "9 million Americans lost their homes in the recession," and "unemployment rose." But that was then and this is now. My question is, Are we in the safe zone? Or are we being herded for something else? 

DECISIONS

Deciding to decide and when to decide is always a decision one must make. Timing is everything. Something that stuck with me while working on my MBA in 2002 at the University of Dallas is that decisions are based on our behaviors. Consistency and motivation are important but one should also be aware there are three reactions to be wary of:

• Perceptual distortions - decisions can be influence and distorted by a group.
  
  
• Judgmental distortion - decisions & doubt can be distorted by assuming others are right
  
  
• Distortion of action - decisions were made by conforming to a group rather than believe what you thought was correct, which proved to be right after-all. 

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.