Setting up animal unions

This time Art Burshy prayed to animals and compared humans to lemmings...let me tell you the story...

In the morning we left early, heading for a 'modern' animal farm.
Art Burshy wanted to see how animals are really being treated in modern farms.
Art had tried to understand different sorts of supermarket animal products...about environmental and animal-friendly certificates...
But all these certifications seemed really vague and left loads of room for interpretation.
What does 'free range' really mean or 'biological' which seems the best thing around.
And 'free access to outside air' or 'only chemicals that are available in nature'...

We arrived at the farm that Art had looked up...it did not really look like a farm...
I asked Art: "so how did you plan to get in?"
A woman approached us...in a hurried pace and clearly suspicious, but before she could speak I heard Art say:
"Hellooooo, what a wonderful farm you have, amazing so green, so neat and such a beautiful house..."
The woman's expression changed, the frown disappeared.
Art: "We were just out for a drive, and I told my friend...look at that wonderful farm...I so much empathise with farmers
- poor farmers are squeezed by the large supermarket chains
- hardworking farmers are the closest thing we have to nature
- clever farmers have gone through so much innovation and change adjusting to many challenges, it is just amazing...
Would you allow us to admire your farm, seems very advanced and futuristic..."

The woman finally allowed us into the barn, where we witnessed thousands of chickens...walking around on a small piece of surface...the smell was terrible...but Art did not seem to care.
At some point I saw him engaging with one chicken, talking to her...and it seemed he was sort of praying, or rather apologising...
I keep getting surprised by this crazy artist...now he is praying to a chicken...

On the way back I asked him quite some questions and he explained:
"Of course the woman let us in...
When people are suspicious or under pressure you have to make them feel at ease:
- throwing compliments at them
- avoiding the sensitive subjects
- showing understanding their point of view
- show an interest in their challenges
This will kill the barrier between you and them and help get to share real information.
Sure it requires some acting, but it often just takes a few minutes and in a way these people are in a struggle and often do not see themselves why what they do is not good.
Often these people see themselves as victims..."I need to keep up with the competition" and "everyone does it like this" and "there are places where situation is worse".
Basically humans are great in cognitive dissonance - hiding away from undesired insights...
And this is why we hide these farms far way from the city, from where we buy our steaks and chicken fillet...
We are too afraid to harm or kill an animal ourselves, yet we have them massively killed by others and by machines.
And these chickens have no life, their life is a few months of suffering....
Imagine yourself in such a situation... like in The Matrix-movie, but then it is reality and even worse...
And for any religion; would any God now agree that we adequately 'care' for the animals...
And does society have enough ways to correct these undesired situations?
Will companies find an incentive to change the way they 'produce meat'?
Do methods like LEAN and Six Sigma in business solve such sort of problems?
Not necessarily, as these methods look to satisfy client demand... don't they?
If the client does not see the issues, the owners of the company want revenue and nobody represents animals and nature...who will have an incentive to make a change ?
And if customers ask for biological food, the producer will meet the requirements set by himself, his industry or in best case of a certification institution.
But in the end when the intention is not there, it will be a race to the bottom...produce lowest price products by respecting the minimum of requirements..."

This is why Art asked forgiveness from the chicken..." because mankind is just like lemmings; the population of that animal grows and grows until a moment where they blindly follow each other... jumping of the cliffs."

"And probably the time is right to set up animal unions...sure many animals are clever enough to go on strike and hold demonstrations"

Confidence versus intelligence

I was sitting outside enjoying my lunch sandwich in the sunny spring weather, listening to the fresh green leaves being tickled by the wind. Art Burshy sat down next to me, he opened something that looked like a lunchbox and indeed took out his sandwich. We sat for some time when Art started his story of the day, and although I felt I needed to get back to work I decided to stay and enjoy his story. And enjoying the sun warming my face.

Art explained what happened that morning.
Art had been in a meeting and a new senior management hire had entered the room to discuss some issues that needed to be solved.
Now, it is not a problem that someone new does not exactly know what he is talking about...he or she is new to the job and content, so that is logical.
Art does observe however some human behaviour that doesn't stop surprising him:
- people throwing out management bullshit; general slogans that have no meaning without understanding the detailed impacts
- them not resisting giving an opinion within 2 minutes for a subject that could not be solved by anyone in the last 2 years
- not respecting the experience, skills and knowledge of the others
- demanding people to follow without even taking a moment to listen and understand the views of other people.

Art has developed over time a few strategies to deal with such situations. He explained a few; and he told me that the solution chosen depends on the amount of shock that needs to be effectuated to eliminate the bullshit-blurt-manager.
1. test intelligence
Basically this is about stepping up and confronting the person with a sentence that is of a somewhat higher complexity. This can be achieved using terminology that people with a modest experience and lack of depth would have difficulty to understand. Examples? Correlation, Cognitive dissonance, dilemma, preventive-detective-repressive measures, conceptual challenge, etc.
Important is that the sentence actually make sense; you would not want to beat a bullshit person by adding to the bullshit...
2. ask until they confess they don' t know (or care) enough
Whenever someone prematurely comes up with an oversimplified solution, you just call their bluff.
Important is to be polite, ask open questions to force them into explaining, and then in the end force them into a closed question where they need to confess they do not know...
3. sarcasm
This one is less subtle but in cases where you see multiple people thinking "why can't the guy shut up and let us discuss the real issue" (unfortunately these blurt-cases seem to be more frequent for managers of the male species). In that situation a good sarcastic remark can eliminate the person from speaking. Be careful though, you must be sure the person is not able to get you fired within 5 minutes...
4. detect their weaknesses (opportunities for future manipulation)
This one is similar to option 1, but this time you stop before making them look stupid you stop; the purpose is to know heir weakness, and to have it ready for:
a. another time when the issue is more pressing, and requires you to make a fool out of the person
b. influencing the person on a more structural basis; which is even more effective when it is your boss.

After hearing these simple suggestions from Art Burshy I thought back of some moments in my career when these tactics would have come in handy; well, too late now for those moments in history. But I will look out for future occasions where they might be needed.

In the situation today that Art described, he ended up using tactic 1: testing intelligence.
And so he mentioned...
"unfortunately there is no linear correlation for confidence displayed and intelligence".