节目资讯
刊物:职场秘诀
日期:2010-01-06
难易度:Low
关键字:counterweight
Advanced Studio Classroom is on the air.
Today on Advanced, we learn how sometimes using your head can get you into
trouble.
Hi, friends. Welcome back to Advanced Studio Classroom.
Today is January 6th, and I’m Naomi.
We’re on our second day of the BUSINESS article for this month, called ”In
Defense of Feelings.”.
With me today, again, are Bill and Brandon.
And first of all, let’s talk about the title. We didn’t really discuss that
yesterday.
”In Defense of Feelings,” what do we mean by that?
Well, if you’re defending something, you are taking up for it.
So here today we are defending the idea of using your feelings, or your gut, to
make decisions.
We’re defending that idea.
Yeah, I might be explaining or protecting something.
And when I come to the defense of something, I’m guarding it... saying, ”No,
there’s a good reason for this.”.
OK.
So if I have an argument, I often need to defend my argument by giving different
reasons why it could be correct.
Right.
And... we’re talking about here is the decision making process between feelings
and rationality, or logic, because we have to be in defense of feelings,
because when it comes to making decisions, people always think that logic and
rational thinking are much better than feelings,
and so that’s why we’re in defense of feelings.
OK, right.
Yesterday we asked the question:
If you had to make a decision between two business partners, and one of them
trusts their brain, their logic,
one of them trusts their guts, or their feelings, which one would you choose?
Well, we had both agreed that we would choose the logical, rational person.
And, you know, it’s funny. I would think... I interviewed people before in the
corporate world.
And, sure, if somebody came in to be a business partner, talked about logic
numbers, rationality, I would be very impressed.
Mmhm.
Whereas if you came in, Naomi, and talked about right and wrong and doing the
good thing, I would think, ”Well, that’s nice, but...”.
”Yeah, I just feel like maybe this is the right place for me, I don’t know.” It
sounds really flaky.
Yes.
Right? Like... people aren’t very smart.
I would think, ”Well, you’re a nice person. But I’m looking for a business
partner, this numbers guy over here, blah, blah, blah”.
And I think there’s a difference between talking about: I like to do the right
thing, I want to make moral decisions,
and as Naomi was talking about being flaky and just being all... like kind of
touchy-feely.
I think there is somewhat of a difference there. You can have that inner moral
connection with things. I think that is good and very useful.
OK.
But this article isn’t talking about that.
This article is talking about using your head versus using your guts.
And what did the study show that we talked about yesterday?
Well, the study showed they used these human subjects, test subjects we learned
about yesterday to conduct this study, to observe people to see what decisions
they made.
Those that thought rationally overwhelmingly chose to cheat their partners,
while those that trusted their gut feelings,
only 27 percent of them decided to cheat their partners.
Mmhm. So this is... this contradicts are ideas about who we should be doing
business with.
Well, it does.
And we examined this study yesterday, Naomi, and in today’s reading we learn
about some real-life examples,
and we apply that to some things that are going on today.
Mmhm, OK.
Now, of course, we’re not saying that you should ignore logic and reason
completely.
OK, this is not...
This is not the idea here.
We’re not saying, ”Forget your brain, stop using your thoughts.”.
The question is when you have to make a decision that has some ethical
consequences, then what are you going to trust?
How are you going to make sure that you make the right decision?
So today, we’re looking at some examples of how this plays out in the workplace,
and the first example has to do with banking.
So let’s begin by reading that.
We’re about half way down the second column on page 14.
It say, ”Dishonest banking.”.
Dishonest banking.
Mike Francis worked at Morgan Stanley before the economic collapse.
He bought up scads of questionable mortgages,
meaning that the bank giving the loan would not verify the customer’s income or
assets.
Francis said that, with the loans, the banks were ”setting you up to lie.
Something about that feels very wrong...
I wish we had never done it.”.
If you need a rationalization, your mind will provide one.
For instance, many bankers clung to their analytical models, which ”proved” that
their investments would be okay.
Unfortunately, the historical models weren’t all that accurate.
OK, Naomi, this is a great example of the banking subprime mortgage mess.
In the last year and a half, we had a problem with banks and their mortgages.
Mortgages are what they lend to people to buy homes, and that’s what Mike
Francis is talking about here.
OK, so this is... he worked at this one institution called Morgan Stanley before
the economic collapse.
Now, this is a term that we can use to describe specifically what happened with
money in the US when it comes to banking and so on.
But this has to do with the bigger, what we sometimes call an economic downturn,
sort of recession that’s been going on recently.
Right, and this is talking about how that fell.
But then it goes on, it says that Mike bought up scads of questionable
mortgages.
Scads is a good word, just meaning a large number of something.
So he bought up, he purchased a lot of these mortgages.
Scads, I just think of like piles and piles of them.
But what are these questionable mortgages? What does that mean?
Well, these questionable mortgages were loans that were given to people that
they didn’t have enough income.
And it was... a lot of people lying about income, the loan officers, and they...
you know, these were loans that the bank was giving out to people. They would
not verify, they would not check the person’s income or assets.
OK. So, usually when a bank is considering giving you a loan, you have to submit
a lot of information about yourself,
and two of the most important things are your income and your assets.
Well, in a simple way, when you get a loan, you have to fill out a loan
application, and a lot of lying was going on with these loan applications.
OK.
So income means how much you’re making, how much money you receive from your
salary.
And assets, what are assets?
Assets are the valuable items that you... that you own rather... maybe your
house or car, those kind of things that are worth a lot of money.
OK.
So this... the people applying for these loans gave their information,
but they knew that the... or the banker knew that the bank wouldn’t be checking,
they wouldn’t be verifying.
They wouldn’t see whether people were really telling the truth on this
application.
Well, that’s what this next little paragraph is about, Naomi,
because Francis said that with the loans, the banks were setting you up to lie.
Now first off, when we set you up, or set something up, we’re creating a
situation to where we’re making you do something.
And saying if you do this, then you’ll get an outcome.
Right.
Sometimes we even talk about something and say, ”It was a setup. They created a
situation where I had to do something,
and it was the wrong decision, it embarrassed me, it got me fired,” whatever.
But you could say, ”Someone else forced me to do this. It was a setup.”.
Mmhm.
And so the banks were creating the situation for the customers to lie,
and the reason the banks did it was because they were also benefiting from this.
But then Francis realized something about that feels very wrong, and he regrets
it, he wishes he never had done it.
Right. So in a way, he’s kind of blaming the bank.
He says, ”Well, the bank kind of set me up here,” so the bank was maybe at
fault.
But he still had a decision to make; he did not have to allow people to lie.
He didn’t have to approve these applications, and he did anyway.
Right.
But we often find ourselves in these tricky situations where...
Well, because of what someone else said, we felt we had to do something bad or
negative - in this case, lie.
And we felt like we’re under all of this pressure.
But the decision, like Naomi said, is still up to us. We had to do our part to
make the right decision.
Right, and I think it sometimes has to do with this idea of rationalization.
I think a lot of people are... ”I’m great at this.
I can give myself a good reason to do just about anything because my mind can
come up with a logical reason - why it makes sense.”.
Well, I probably shouldn’t do this. But on the other hand, you know, if I do,
then this will happen and this will happen, and that’s good.
Right? So we rationalize, we try to find good reasons to do something even if we
know it’s not right.
Right.
And in this situation, the rationalization was money.
They could make more money by doing this, and what they did is they rationalized
it.
And what they did, in line 29 and 30 we see, they... many bankers clung to their
analytical models to justify or to rationalize this.
OK.
So if you cling to something, you’re holding onto it, you’re using it even if
maybe you shouldn’t anymore.
Think of... like a lifesaver, you know, one of those rings that if you’re
drowning, you can hold on to it.
You can cling to it to keep you from drowning.
So the bankers are clinging to these models of how banking has worked in the
past.
So their motivation is money, but their justification is these analytical
models.
Right. That’s right.
They’re justifying it using this information.
Even though they may know that this information is not accurate, or maybe it’s
outdated,
but they still can say, ”Well, I was just using the models that were here in
front of me.”.
Right. So these models proved that their investments would be okay.
”Proved” is in quotes.
Right. And ”proved” means it looks good, and the history looks good, so we say,
”Oh, that proves this will work.”.
But the reason it’s in quotes is because that also is kind of a lie. It’s not
really truthful.
Right.
To prove something is to provide strong evidence to help you believe it.
But here, it’s in quotes, which makes the word kind of lose its meaning.
It says they were saying that it proved, that it would be okay, but it was a bit
of a Iie.
Right, it was a lie.
They were just using it as a justification to do what they wanted, which we do a
lot of times in our lives maybe in the small ways.
But in this way, a very big way that had a very bad result for everyone.
Because, unfortunately, the historical models weren’t all that accurate.
So the things that these analytical models were based on weren’t quite right.
They had all these statistics about how the loans should work,
but all of those statistics weren’t quite true.
It might have been true in the past, but in this present situation, did not
apply.
OK.
So this was a great example of how someone allowed logic to take over, and
create a situation where he made the wrong decision.
And in the end, it was a big problem that economic collapse happened,
and everyone... ended up without any money, right?
Well, we’re talking about Mike Francis, but we’re... this.... he’s only one of a
thousand bankers.
Morgan Stanley is only one of hundreds of banks that were involved in this.
That’s why it all collapsed.
OK.
Moving on, we’ll see a more positive example of how you’re... listening to your
guts can work in your favor.
So let’s continue by reading page15.