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Friday, March 31, 2017

The Peripatetic Philosopher answers:

What is Fisher about, anyway?

JAMES R. FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© March 29, 2017

Reference:

Entrepreneur, publisher, essayist and quintessential Renaissance Man, Ken Shelton, recently published a mini-essay in which he mentions my book Work Without Managers in his communique to me, but failed to mention the book in his discussion of his principles of leadership.  I simply wrote to Ken, whom I’ve never met, but have had an intellectual relationship with for more than twenty years: “It would have been nice if you mentioned WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS.” This generated the following response.  I share my work and reflections with some 300 people on my e-mail list.  I am not however on Face Book or any other social media.  Like Ken, I’ve never met this person but value his comments because I sense they are genuine.

A READER WRITES:

Dr. Fisher,

I’m wondering what you’re about.  I read your stuff; ponder it; occasionally send you a comment.  I’ve not read your book, don’t think I need to.  I do sometimes marvel at your simple but powerful declarative sentences: It would have been nice if you had mentioned WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS.  Tell me I am wrong, but that sounded angry.  Am I right?  Please comment.

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Dear Reader:

Thank you for your observation and candor.  I am trying to complete a book and so I’ll try to be brief, but hopefully equally candid.

In my own case as a witness to history, since I was born when Hitler came to power; experienced the Great Depression; the surprise attack of Japan on Pearl Harbor; followed by WWII concluding with the atomic bombing of Japan; then the Korean War which was not a war but a police action because it was not declared a war; followed by the Cold War with the USSR; then the election and assassination of President John F. Kennedy; then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “guns and butter” Great Society with nearly a half million fighting troops in the Viet Nam War; only to lose that war in full humiliating retreat; meanwhile the Civil Rights Movement led to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; with the Boomer Generation spawning the Hippie Counterculture; in that midst the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of the assassinated president; then in this same time warp there was Watergate and President Nixon resigning in disgrace; only to have things continue to unravel with the Islam terrorist attack on the Twin Towers; followed by President George W. Bush's preemptive invasion of Iraq, then the War in Afghanistan, and now the Civil War in Syria, and the collapse of the Middle East around that conflagration.  Tens of thousands into the millions have lost their lives during my life span, mainly as collateral damage to war, while tens of trillions of dollars have been spent in a mainly hysterical reaction to events showing what was construed as leadership was not leadership at all but something else entirely, the panic of fear.

I have made no secret of my low birth in the scheme of things; nor have I apologized for claiming I have worked at every level of the complex organization from being a laborer in a chemical plant to a top executive in two Fortune 500 companies.  In that span of more than fifty years I’ve never joined the corporate club.  You might say I have been a perspicacious observer.

Corporate society is not new.  It was conceived in Europe in the 18th century, but only found its legs in the 20th century.  Since the 20th century, it has discovered the best way to stay in power is not to lead, but to exploit fear.  Leaderless leadership has followed.

We toss around the terms “social security” and “national security” when this is only the content and context of “corporate security.”  

Corpocracy has discovered that Americans are vulnerable to the “politics of terror” and are most pliable to that psychology because it leaves them off the hook to find their own way in life.

We have reentered the “Age of Fear.”  

Gone is the sense that the skills with which we entered a profession or job would be the relevant skills for our working lifetime.  

Gone is the certainty that you can reasonably expect a comfortable retirement to follow from a successful working career.  

Gone is the sense that you marry for love and have a family and that family will not look outside itself for more excitement and adventure and forget the original commitment made for life.  

Gone is the belief in God and the need for the safe haven provided by a church, temple, synagogue or mosque. 

Gone is the pride in regional community that is out of the main stream and a little hokey and doesn’t apologize for its hokiness.  

Gone is the family and its members that looks for answers within the family from the wisdom of family history and family’s values.  

Gone is the person who believes marriage is between a man and a woman and is not afraid to face the ridicule and derision it might generate.  

Gone is the pride in work whatever the work may be thinking that some work is more important than other work because people doing that work make more money.  

Gone are happy campers with a moral compass governing their actions now believing instead they must look to experts and specialists to find their way.  

Gone is self-respect as well as self-awareness and self-acceptance as everyone seems to want to be somebody else doing something else some other place then where they are.

People consumed with fear flock to gated communities to be in the comfort of their own kind believing within this cage there is security and peace and comfort. They send their children to prep schools to ensure they are with their own kind. Everyone in this xenophobic nutshell stays away from places where most people of limited means shop such as Walmart and K-Mart, fearing a stranger might accost them with a bomb.  

There is fear that the government can no longer control the circumstances of their lives.  Consequently, they fear people of color and different ethnicity and language and custom believing it might impinge on their space as if that space belongs to them, alone.

This “Analysis of Fear” is new to most Americans but familiar to the rest of the world for an eternity.  The United States of America has lived in a gated community for its entire existence separated as it has been – before the current digital age – by two gigantic oceans and by neighbors from the North (Canada) and the South (Mexico) whom they considered no threat to them in any way.  They now fear and wonder if they can remain a gated community against the world. 

That one security, that belief that Americans are exceptional and can be protected from the chaos and calamity of the rest of the world has ushered in President Donald J. Trump, who clearly understands this subtext of fear better than any politician in the realm, and carried it against incredible odds to the presidency. 

Fear is not leadership; the threat of global warming is not leadership; the mobilization of fear around trapped emotions between the unknown and unknowable is however grist for the dystopian novelist.  

Fear is the mask politicians and corporate leaders wear, keeping politicians in power and corporate leaders still able to vote themselves huge incomes in the tens of millions of dollars while workers’ wages remain stagnant.   

Fear ultimately leads to revolution.  It always has and it always well.  And if we could just get past the blarney of economists, we would realize that capitalism has been on life support for decades.  It, too, will run its course.  It starts with fear and separation; then mounts to divisive polarity; and then explodes into bitter irrational mind numbing hatred.  

Once common needs and shared interests unravel, then you have what social psychologist Gustave Le Bon warned: crowd psychology rules!


This is written hastily and for that I apologize as I am completing a book on SELF-CONFIDENCE which is the bane to fear.  Confidence like fear exists in the subtext, not in the content and context of our lives.  I live in subtext.          

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The Peripatetic Philosopher confesses:

THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHETIC ADVISERS

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 22,2017


My brother-in-law has been quite helpful with advising me on my latest book SELF-CONFIDENCE which is yet to be published. He reminds me that I write about self-confidence not as a clinical psychologist in the manner of that discipline but more from the perspective of OD psychologist, a discipline to which most readers he expects are not familiar.  He was however disappointed that I had expunged any reference to my FISHER PARADIGM as he thought it was quite intriguing.  I told him I had removed reference to it as I thought for the general reader it might get in the way.  


We then had a discussion -- he lives in the desert city of California and I in Florida -- which went on for nearly an hour.  In it I explained I was something of an OD purist in that I often got into trouble with management which somehow felt, since they hired me as consultant, that it was immune to criticism or culpability.  He asked me to explain.


I told him of two cases, one in which I spent a nine-month intervention and the other a five-month intervention, when in both cases the malady clearly rested at the feet of management.  In the one instance, a riot in which a young unarmed black man was killed in a 7-11 convenient store, and the other where 350 officers of a major city in a particular state literally mutinied.  I never got work again in either state.  


Here is what appears at the beginning of chapter one:

My training is as an organizational development (OD) psychologist.  Just as a physician diagnoses the malady an individual is suffering and prescribes a treatment protocol, an OD psychologist assumes a similar role with the complex organization as an unobtrusive observer diagnosing the chronic disturbance in the workplace culture negatively impacting performance of its operation and recommending a suitable intervention to ameliorate the situation.  

Whereas the physician doesn’t tell his patient necessarily what the patient may prefer to hear but needs to know to rectify the personal health issue, the OD psychologist does the same for the complex organization.  A false notion is often perceived that because the OD psychologist is likely to be hired as consultant by management that he absolves management of its possible role in the chronic disturbance or disruption.  

Like the physician with the individual, the OD psychologist identifies the cultural perturbations and prescribes what needs to be done to address the problem, not necessarily what management would prefer to hear, and so the roles of physician to the individual and OD psychologist to the complex organization as clinician are similar.

The title of the first chapter:  


IT’S HARD TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT WHEN OUR CULTURE MAKES US FEEL OTHERWISE!


ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (OD)
Intellectual Capital & the Power of People! 


Monday, March 20, 2017

The Peripatetic Philosopher shares:

From the pages of my new book,

 SELF-CONFIDENCE:  
SOMETHING EVERYONE DESERVES!


NOTE:

This will be out soon in paperback on www.amazon.com’s Kindle Library


IF IDENTITY DOESN’T START EARLY, CHANCES ARE IDENTITY WILL BE LIKE RIDING A ROLLER COASTER!


 “Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.”

B. R. Ambedkar (1891 - 1956), Buddhist and Indian economist

IDENTITY AND THE WINE OF AGE


As I was shopping for school clothes with my two nine-year-old twin grandsons and their mother they were full of questions as we stopped at MacDonald’s. Out of the blue, Keaton asked, “Why do baseball players have so many tattoos?” 


“Some even have tattoos on their faces,” chimed in Killian. 


“My favorite player on the Tampa Bay Rays, Evan Longoria, colors his hair in streaks, wears it in a Mohawk, or sometimes shaves his head completely,” observed Keaton.  "It's weird."
 

“Yes, he’s always changing his hair,” agreed Killian.  "I think it's funny."


I told the twins I didn’t know why athletes do such things.  Athletes tend to be superstitious, I know, and play their hunches.  Should they be hitting for average or hitting home runs, they often attribute the success to the bat they are currently using, or what they were doing when the streak started, repeating that routine to the letter.


Likewise, when they are in a slump, they work on the problem by watching film, listening to coaches and teammates, hitting off a tee to check out their swing, or engage in some idiosyncratic behavior designed to lift them out of the nosedive. 


As for the tattoos, sixty years ago, players such as Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Stan Musial, if they had tattoos, they didn’t flash them with authority as athletes do today.  Tattoos have become close to mainstream for the American culture in general.  Critics see them as self-destructive, while advocates see them as art, still others see them as America’s collective personality in something of an identity crisis.  In any case, those who have them will justify them while those who abhor them will look on them with disgust.


Not so long ago, the so-called “steroid era” found baseball players attempting to bulk up by using banned substances to maximize their leverage with increased bat speed and power.  These athletes were willing to sacrifice long term health for short term advantage.  Many such athletes have indeed paid the price by dying early.


The consuming problem of identity occurs about the age of my grandsons, which is nine.


“When you are my age,” I said, “and your grandsons are about your age now, they will be feeling the same pressures and have the same curiosities about how other people act, dress, treat their bodies and minds, and what they feel is important.  It will be different, I’m sure, but just as compelling as those who feel a need today to paint their bodies with tattoos.  These things are formed at about your age, but then once formed it is pretty hard to get past them.”


They looked at me curiously.  “I don’t know what you mean, grandpa,” said Keaton. 


“That is because these things have yet to touch you.  What I share with you now will likely reside in the back of your minds to be brought up one day when you are older, remembering this conversation with your grandfather.
  

They were now paying attention, their ice cream cones dripping seemingly of no concern.     


“Your grandfather has had a very easy life because, unknown to him when he was your age, his behavior as a nine-year-old would prove significant.  It is what has made for a happy life.”


“You work all the time, grandpa,” Keaton declared, “I’m interested in fun, not work.”


“I suppose you could call doing research, writing books and articles, work, but for me it is fun, the most fun I have had in my life.”


“It is like school, papa.  I like school,” Killian added in support, “but Keaton doesn’t.”


Again, I felt we could wander off on a tangent, so I asked, “Can I tell you what it was like when I was nine-years-old, and going into fourth grade like you are?”


“Yes!” they said but with questioning eyes.


“When I was your age, America was at war.  They called it World War Two as there had been a World War One a generation before your grandfather was born. 


“I grew up in what was called the Great Depression, meaning a lot of fathers were out of work, and families had to do with little.  We got used to getting along with little, and then the war came, and the little we had was now rationed, which meant that even if you had money there was only so much sugar and meat and other foods you could buy.


“There was no MacDonald’s, and even if there had been, few could afford to eat there.  It was a different time, just as this is a different time for you two.  


"What the future will be like when you are eighty-years-old is not known, but it will be different.  There will, however, be the same problems of identity.  Identity is always the same problem but it differs generation to generation.”


“Identity?” Keaton asked, “I don’t know what that word means.”


“It means knowing who you are.”


“I know who I am.”


“Are you sure?”


“Yes.”


“How do you know?”


I just know.  I am Keaton Fisher.  That is who I am.”


“No, Keaton.  That is your name.  That is not who you are.  You don’t know who you are until you are challenged with life lessons that tell you who you are.  


"Once they occur, and they will occur, if they haven’t already, situations that don’t at the time seem too important.  But in due course, they will prove important as you move into your teens, twenties, thirties, and all the way to your eighties.


“When I was a boy of nine going on ten, several things happened that I can look back on now and realize their significance.  I'd like to share a couple.”


They nodded, Keaton with his hands under his chin.


“When I was going into the fourth grade, my da took me by the hand and marched me downtown to the Martin Morris Sporting Goods & Clothing Store to buy school clothes for me, like I have been doing for you two today.


“The clerk in the store had been a school chum of my da’s and they talked and talked about the old days, and about classmates, while my da had me pick out pants and shirts, underwear and socks, sweaters and jackets, shoes and galoshes.  When I was done, my da told the clerk to wrap it up, and charge him.


“The clerk looked at my da hesitantly, and said he’d have to check my da’s credit.   He did, and came back and said he was sorry, that only cash would do.


“My da’s confident smile shriveled to a look of terror, an expression I had never seen before.  It was as if he collapsed to my size, and was no longer in charge.  I found myself saying, 'We don’t want this stuff,' taking my da’s hand and marching him out of the store.  


"Once outside, his hands shaking so bad he could hardly light his cigarette.  He was crushed, but I was defiant.  I didn’t know why but I hated that clerk, hated that store, and hated everything that it represented.”


“You did that?” Killian asked in disbelief.


“Yes, Killian, I did that, and it became a pattern.”


“Pattern?  Why do you use all these big words, grandpa?” asked Keaton, “I don’t know what you mean.”


“I mean it wasn’t an isolated incident.  For example, when the Courthouse Tigers, the guys I played baseball with over at the courthouse grounds, all went to the movies, I guess everyone planned on going to the Capitol Theatre where the comedians Bud Abbot and Lou Costello were playing.  Next door, the Rialto Theatre, had a historical drama of the Northwest Passage.  I wanted to see it, and said I’d meet them all after the movie ended.  


"They called me a spoil sport, but I felt nothing of the sort.  I wasn’t going to a movie I didn't want to see because everyone else was, or doing so because they insisted I do."


“I would have preferred the funny show,” said Keaton.  “I'd probably like the other movie,” said Killian, “but I'd want to be with everyone else.  Would that be wrong?”


“No, it wouldn’t be, Killian.  At that early age, it wasn’t likely someone would want to go his own way, but in my case, it was.  I was simply showing Keaton that a pattern, a way of looking at things, was already active in my personality, in my personal identity.  That didn’t make it right or wrong, just unusual in a boy of nine.  


“My reason for sharing this with you is that others, people you like, people who may fail to make wise choices, may persuade you to do what they plan on doing, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, cheating in school, misusing other people’s things, all sorts of behaviors, only because they don’t want to do these things alone.  Many young people have a problem when faced with this possibility.  I never did.


"By having you do these things with them they justify in their minds that it is all right to do them, when it clearly is not.  People don't like to do unwise things alone.”


“Daddy talks about making wise choices.  Is that what you mean?” asked Keaton.


“It goes beyond wise or right choices.  I’m talking about identity.  You mention Evan Longoria and his peculiar behavior.  Kids see what he does and they copy that behavior because he is a famous baseball player, not realizing they are copying him at the expense of discovering their own identity.”


“Daddy says you’re different, grandpa,” stated Keaton, “Is that what he means?”


“You’d have to ask him.  My reason for telling you this goes back to what I said in the beginning.  Your grandfather has had a very easy life and a happy one because of those lessons learned when he was your age.”


The beauty of being a writer is that should they forget this conversation it will still be there in print somewhere long after their grandfather is gone.  I suspect then it will bring a smile to their faces.  


















Thursday, March 09, 2017

The Peripatetic Philosopher shares:

 Self-Confidence: Something Everyone Deserves!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 10, 2017


NOTICE:

Shortly, this will be a paperback on Kindle.  This is advanced notice to regular readers of this blog (The Peripatetic Philosopher) and website (www.fisherofideas.com).  The “Table of Contents” gives a sense of what this 300 page book is about.  Over 1,000 missives have been published on the blog of which this book is composed of a specific genre.  What I have commenced to do (of late) is look at these missives and glean common themes to share in a different context with readers.    

Table of Contents


INTRODUCTION – YOU DESERVE TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT/THE FISHER PARADIGM™© AND CONFIDENCE

ONE -- SELF-CONFIDENCE & THE MOST IMPORTANT SALE YOU’LL EVER MAKE!

TWO – WHO IS IN CHARGE?

THREE – THE SUBTEXT OF LIFE & ITS MEANING

FOUR – SELF-REALIZATION & SELF-DEFEAT

FIVE – THE CAGE OF HUMAN INATTENTION AS A CLOSED SYSTEM

SIX – BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND

SEVEN – LOVE WHAT YOU DO!

EIGHT – CHOOSING A PROFESSION & TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE!

NINE – TEACHING SMART PEOPLE HOW TO LEARN!

TEN – THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF RELATIONSHIPS

ELEVEN – A COUNTER CULTURAL IDEA: “PLEASE-SELF” IN A CULTURE OF SELF-DEPRECATION

TWELVE – THE DISSEMBLING NATURE OF IDENTITY & ITS COSTS

THIRTEEN – THE PALLIATIVE TO ANXIETY

FOURTEEN – HOW LOSERS BECOME WINNERS!  THEY NEVER QUIT!

FIFTEEN – LIFE IS WHAT WE MAKE IT, NOT WHAT OTHERS MAKE OF US!

SIXTEEN – ARE YOU TRYING TOO HARD?

SEVENTEEN – THE IMPORTANCE OF EVERYONE! PLUMBER, ELECTRICIAN & DR. STEINMETZ

EIGHTEEN – GENIUS REALIZED!  GETTING FIRST PUBLISHED AT AGE 96!

NINETEEN – UNDERSTANDING OTHERS

TWENTY – IS IT MORE IMPORTANT TO BE LOVED OR RESPECTED?

TWENTY ONE – THE CONFLUENCE OF ESSENCE & PERSONALITY

TWENTY TWO – JUST SAY “NO!” THE HARDEST WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO SAY!

TWENTY THREE – WHEN MEN WON’T WORK & WOMEN WHO CARRY THEM!

TWENTY FOUR – MEN LIKE TO SOAR, WOMEN LIKE TO STAY ROOTED!

TWENTY FIVE – THE SOUL OF THE ENABLER VERSUS THE CHAMELEON

TWENTY SIX – ENABLERS & THE FISHER PARADIGM™©

TWENTY SEVEN – AN EXCHANGE – WHEN MEN WON’T WORK…

TWENTY EIGHT – SELF-CONFIDENCE, COPING & CULPABILITY

TWENTY NINE – WHO ARE YOU, WHERE ARE YOU, RIGHT NOW?

THIRTY – TAKING CHARGE! THE BEST EXPERT IS ONE’S OWN EXPERIENCE!

THIRTY ONE – PRISONER OF THE MIND

THIRTY TWO – WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF NOBODY FOUND OUT?

THIRTY THREE – AN EXCHANGE – THE WORLD IN DISORDER?

THIRTY FOUR – THIS BUSINESS OF IDENTITY!  IF IT DOESN’T START EARLY, CHANCES ARE ONE’S IDENTITY WILL BE LIKE RIDING A ROLLER COASTER!

THIRTY FIVE – SELF-ESTEEM – AN EXCHANGE

THIRTY SIX – REACTION TO THE SUMMATION: WHEN MEN WON’T WORK….

THIRTY SEVEN – SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, REALLY?

THIRTY EIGHT – “ANIMAL FARM,” THE AMERICAN STYLE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

THIRTY NINE – HARD TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT WHEN OUR CULTURE MAKES US FEEL OTHERWISE

FORTY – WHEN THE INCIDENTAL BECOMES THE ACCIDENTAL BECOMES THE NORM, THEN THERE IS NO PLACE FOR SELF-CONFIDENCE!

FORTY ONE – SELF-ESTEEM NOTWITHSTANDING, IT IS WHAT YOU ARE THAT COUNTS!

FORTY TWO – THANK GOD FOR DIFFERENCES!

FINAL WORD



Wednesday, March 08, 2017

The Peripatetic Philosopher introduces A WAY OF THINKING ABOUT THINGS!

Dr. Fisher writes, “Work has been my laboratory. I would keep notes as to my reaction to situations as a way of coping. These scraps of paper came to define me and my way of thinking, giving me insight into my behavior and that of others.” We all have jobs during the different phases of our lives: as a student in school, athlete on a school team, student at university, and then various jobs in life. Dr. Fisher says, “I’ve enjoyed my various jobs finding them valuable learning experiences. There were some rough spots. Trained as a chemist, only to find I was not a good chemist in the laboratory, preferring chemical theory to its application. Taking a job as a chemical sales engineer proved terrifying. The scraps of paper proved my salvation as I would write down after each call what was upsetting, finding upon examining these bits of paper later that patterns were apparent, patterns that led to success.” The ideas in this book come from that source.




$10.95 Kindle paperback

 READARA OFFERS: A WAY OF THINKING ABOUT THINGS!: Essays Of Dr. Fisher In Social Psychology

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