Solid Thinking

Tripartite Skills

The success of a consultancy depends on three skills:

1. Smart = identify opportunity, recommendations; The dream
2. Passion/Aggression = push through, suggest, seek approval; The Drive
3. Discipline = action; The Reality

(continue reading…)

How do we apply ethics to business, especially in making sure the staff can function as best as they can?

Let’s start with three different outlooks:

• Consequentialism: derives the rightness or wrongness of an act from the consequences. “The ends justify the means”. How you do things is not as important as why you do it.
• Deontology: derives the rightness or wrongness of an act from the character of the act itself rather than the outcomes of the action. You are right or wrong based on how you do things.
• Virtue Ethics: focuses on the character of the agent/person rather than on the nature or consequences of the individual actions themselves.

What do these all mean? Consider the act of telling a lie. Each of the concepts above would have a different interpretation on the rightness or wrongness of telling a lie:

• Consequentialism: telling a lie is wrong, but sometimes it is required for a greater good. For example, to protect a person from torture by saying “No, I have not seen him”.
• Deontology: telling a lie is wrong and is a sin from a religious point of view, regardless of the reason.
• Virtue Ethics: emphasises less on the rightness or wrongness of the lie, but looks more into the character of the person. The outcome may be different between a priest and a murderer.

How would these affect your business leadership?

Take for example your staff selection. Different types of people may suit different staff position. Let’s imagine a decision maker (CEO; or judge, marketing strategists, etc):

• Consequentialist: Would emphasis on results. A frivolous person may simply set long term goals and hope they are achieved. A wise person may break the goals down to milestones and monitor the milestones. Staff will most likely be relatively free to do their jobs. If there are no parametric rules (e.g., boundaries), system abuses may happen. Staff of creative/strong-leadership/effective-slacker background may highlight themselves with achievements. Industrious/highly-technical/heads-down type of staff may be slightly lost in directions at times due to the relaxed control. Key to success: milestones and periodic evaluations.
   
• Deontologist: Would emphasis on how things are done based on his value of right/wrong. The person may choose to closely monitor activity progress, and insist on things done in his/her way. At times, focusing too much on how things are supposed to be done may result in forgeting why things are done. Also, rigid framework may limit creativity and becomes a barrier to business evolution/growth. Staff of creative/strong-leadership/effective-slacker background may struggle with this type of leadership and relationship may be marred with conflicts. Industrious/highly-technical/heads-down type of staff will be very productive according to the leader’s master plan. Key to success: never forget the purpose of every action, have an external team to recommend creativity and evolution, careful staff selection.
   
• Virtue Ethicist: Would emphasis on staff characters. The person would spend a large effort in making sure the staff are as trustworthy as possible. Usually very trusting nature to the staff, and some which may become an ‘inner-circle’. In the extremes, a “my guy can’t be wrong” view may develop and become a fertile breeding ground for cliques and favouritisms, something that is very counterproductive to teamwork. Key to success: advisory roles filled with honest/trustworthy and impartial people to balance the very-subjective nature of virtue ethicist, continuous introspection to ensure the virtues are upheld uncorrupted.
   

Found this image explaining theory about Dark Energy and Dark Matter today.

Hubble Website talks about how the balance between Dark Energy and Dark Matter changes as time flows, but it does not mention about the why’s and what will happen

Want to know what I was thinking?
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I am thinking it may have things to do with Einstein’s E=MC² theory, where dark matter (through some process) becomes Dark Energy and thus the balance is upset.
However, bearing in mind the entrophy death where the universe may end in a Big Crunch, I dare to concept the fate of Universe and the origin of Big Bang.

Assuming that there is a finite point in time where Universe stops expanding and starts contracting, leading to Big Crunch, all matter would end up moving towards a point presumably at the centre of the Universe. Deduction dictates that this may be the point where Big Bang actually happened, and where Big Crunch will happen.

Now, when every matter in the Universe arrives at this point, certainly they will be carrying enormous amount of kinetic energy. As we know, when matters with kinetic energy collide, there will be fusion and also scattering of fractions, be it in original shape or new shape.

I reckon this will be the point of another big bang and the creation of a new and quite possibly different universe due to the changed composition of the building blocks (i.e., caused by the collision during the crunch). In short, universes may well be a form of iteration.

The question is, could it be that each iteration is meant to be an improvement from the previous one?

Another question is, taking the 3 dimensional expansion and contraction of the universe, there must then be a certain space where universe is contained? For instance, a 1-dimensional object (e.g., a dot) can only exist in a 2 or 3 (or 4 etc) dimensional container (paper / 2-dimensional, cube / 3-dimensional); a 2-dimensional object (e.g., a rectangle) can only exist in a 2 or 3-dimensional (or 4, etc) container; 3-dimensional object (e.g., a box) can only be contained within….etc…..In short, there must be a container in which the universe exist. Now…..what, how, err….where? I am not even sure of how to ask about this container thingy.

I guess there are things mere science just can’t explain, huh?