About blogging in the 19th century

The following is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard - 'the great Dane'.  It written in 1846.   It's wise and strangely prescient about the problem of too much hasty opinion when the means of communication are swift:

'Such a thoughtful one does not willingly pass judgment on many things, and just this helps him to will only one thing.  He thinks it is not altogether an advantage to live in a populous city where because of the swiftness of the means of communication almost everyone can easily have a hasty and superficial judgment about everything possible.  On the contrary, he looks upon this easiness as a temptation and a snare and he learns earnestness in order as an individual to be concerned about his eternal responsibility.

'"Even a fool might be a wise man if he could keep silent, " says the proverb, And this is so, not merely because then he would not betray his foolishness, but also because this self-control would hep him to become conscious of himself as an individual, and would prevent him from adopting the crowd's opinion.  Or if he had an opinion of his own, it would prevent him from hastening to get the crowd to adopt it. '

From: Soren Kierkegaard "Purity of Heart is to will one thing" (1846) translated by Douglas V. Steere;  Harper 1938.

Thank you to my friend Tim Clark for having this excellent book on the kitchen table and finding this quote.

Public broadcasting

today repeated a program by and about John Wooden:

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html

How the mightly fall

is the latest book by Jim Collins:  http://www.jimcollins.com/books.html

The book is a study of successful companies that had some significant failure, often resulting in terminal collapse.  The five stages he identifies are:

• Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success 
• Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
• Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
• Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
• Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

In some ways the second stage seemed most characteristic.  It seemed that the companies lost focus on doing a good job, and began to measure themselves by external markers of success that were not relevant to the job they were doing - such as growth, or stock-market price.

This reminded me of the feature of the successful companies that Collins calls 'the hedgehog concept' : "having a simple, extremely clear concept of what their business is".  

Good to great

is the title of a book by Jim Collins: http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html

It's based on Collins' team review of 11 companies that fit the criteria of performing at stock market average for 15 years, then performing at least 3 times above stock market average for 15 years.  Collins and his team compared these companies (Phillip Morris, Kimberley Clark, Walgrees, Wells-Fargo etc) with matched companies in the same area that continued to perform near the stock market average.   Their interest was to find the things that characterized the 'great' companies compared to the 'good' (or rather average) companies.

There's a summary here: http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/16/good-to-great-why-some-companies-make-the-leap-and-others-dont

The most striking finding was that the company leaders were of a very characteristic, and in some ways surprising type - summarized in the page above as showing 'great humility' and 'professional will'.  I take the last to mean, that the CEOs had an urgent personal investment in the company doing a good job, whatever that job was. 

Another summary point was to emphasize the importance that the incoming (later successful) CEOs gave to hiring the right people, and the atmosphere that they created - one of robust open discussion.  The teams seemed to allow for strong disagreement, full airing of all points of view, followed by consensus and disciplined action.

Other distinctive features of the successful companies were: brutal honesty and a strong desire for objective information; and patience.   The last is what Collins calls 'the flywheel concept' - that is, slow, patient and disciplined improvement of process.

Guido van Rossum talks about Python 3

Yesterday Guido van Rossum came to Berkeley to talk about Python and science.

Listening to him, I understood for the first time the importance of porting to Python 3K.

Open-source is not the same as commercial software. If Microsoft puts out Vista, and we don't see the need to change, we just don't buy it. It's not the same for Python 3K.

For Python, we benefit from the enthusiasm and - yes - enjoyment - of the Python core team. We want them to enjoy what they do, we want to share their enjoyment of something well-done, well thought out. That's how good work gets done, and it's the energy of a project.

Python 3K is important, because it's important to the Python core team. It may not yet be obvious that we need it, but we should port, because it's important for Python.

The five dysfunctions of a team

The five dysfunctions of a team is a book by Patrick Lencioni. There are no data to justify its conclusions - but it's a convincing and enjoyable read. The five dysfunctions are:

1. Absence of trust
2. Fear of Conflict
3. Lack of Commitment
4. Avoidance of Accountability
5. Inattention to Results

See the five dysfunctions summary. The numbering goes in the order these problems must be solved (trust first).

The solutions for the team leader to try are:

1. Absence of trust -> Go first!
   
2. Fear of Conflict -> Mine for conflict
   
3. Lack of Commitment -> Force clarity and closure
   
4. Avoidance of Accountability -> Confront difficult issues
   
5. Inattention to Results -> Focus on collective outcomes

See the five dysfunctions model.

An explicit society needs a constitution

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

There is something mysterious about a healthy society, in open source as elsewhere. From outside, it looks as if it just happened that way, particularly in open-source. It may be that some projects and societies are lucky with their people and the cultures they make. Maybe NIPY is such a project. But, our job is to defend our society, and our project, from decaying.

To do this, we need to understand the sources of decay, and that is what my previous posts were trying to describe. Without this understanding, we can make no sensible defense.

In the case of NIPY, we started with a naive model (one person in charge). For many reasons, that model has not worked well. We then need to make another model that will work better. To do this, we summarize the state we want to avoid, and then we regulate.

Law plays a fundamental role in making the rules of the society clear, and making agreement to those rules explicit. It provides a defense against arbitrary decisions, bullying and abuses of power; it reduces anxiety, and with it the motivation to seek power. It draws people together who have a shared vision of how society works, and what it looks like when it works well.

We need a constitution. What should go in the constitution? It should be set of principles that we consider important as a society, and the rules and decision making process that will hold us to these principles.