There was a time a few years ago when my job forced me to start figuring out how to manage people, not something I had any experience with and not something to which my INTJ personality was well-suited. I bought and read a number of books on managing technical people. It turns out that one of the best publishers of books on this topic is Microsoft Press. One of their books, Dynamics of Software Development, by Jim McCarthy, is now out of print (though it looks like it might be coming out in a second edition this year). It had a number of suggestions, one of which stuck with me: "Don't flip the bozo bit".

Let me explain what this means. A bit is a single binary option, one or zero, true or false. In any computer except the experimental quantum computers bits are always set to one or the other option. Now, McCarthy suggested that we all have internal "bits" when thinking about people or things which are set according to what we know about those people: male/female, known/stranger, friend/not friend, smart/dumb, wise/foolish, etc. He suggested that in business circles one bit determines whether or not we pay attention to other people: bozo/not bozo. The default setting, "not bozo", means that we are prepared to listen to and react to the opinion of the other person. If they do or say something stupid we are tempted to "flip the bozo bit", to decide they are bozos. From that point onward, we will discount their opinions. This is deadly. Once you flip the bozo bit, you tend to want to ignore everything the bozo says, and be annoyed and irritated if forced to pay attention to them, even, or especially, if they're right.

Billions of people have flipped the bozo bit on George Bush. And let's face it, he deserved it. BUT. The consequence of that is that even if he comes up with, or more likely is encouraged by smart people to support, good ideas, even if any of his policies have merit, billions of people are discounting those policies, discarding the idea that any of them have value, and actively resolving the cognitive dissonance that results by grabbing hold of any evidence or arguments that counter those of Mr. Bush, however ludicrous those arguments may be.

Hence, the same very well-meaning human rights leaders who dispaired at Bush's isolationism when he was elected are now equally critical of any suggestion that the U.S. should interfere with the internal workings of very bad, messy places in the world. They're on the wrong side on this one, implicitly siding with an extremely evil man, and from the best of motives are drawing the worst of conclusions. Just goes to show you how dangerous it is to elect a bozo your leader.
posted by Tom at 12:43 PM | link |